A Dying Instruction for the Age of Rival Warlords

Before I opened the lacquered case, I turned to Su Shuang.

"Brother-in-law. I want to open this with you, and talk it through together."

"Hmm. Together with me, you mean?"

Su Shuang studied me a moment, then nodded.

And so, beginning with the very first slip, we read out one by one the long writings he had left behind.

"Let the man who buys and sells set himself against no one. Remember that there is no one to whom he may not sell his goods."

"That is what the great man used to say, over and over, until it wore a groove in his tongue."

"A trading house may shift its base whenever judgment requires. I began my commerce in Zhongshan of Jizhou; when the age turned troubled I went to Pingyuan; when the disorder deepened I fled it for Beihai in Qingzhou, and I even climbed as far as Zhuo Commandery in Youzhou. To take up one's chests and move is to know, in the very moment, how people and money are flowing."

"Yes. You moved often. That is how you came to compete with me, who was trading in Youzhou at the time."

Su Shuang went on, telling how he, a merchant of Youzhou, had first met his father-in-law, a merchant of Jizhou, and picking up the thread of the explanation.

"When you plant a base and trade, prize above all else the hearts of the local people who will buy from you, and the hearts of the great clans set over them. Hold cheapest of all grain and food. The moment famine, plague, or war breaks upon a chaotic age, you must be ready to open those stores to the people around you."

"In an age like this, no one can look to the state for relief. A man either sits down and dies, or somehow receives food and lives, and which it is depends wholly on the hearts of that region's great clans and local officials. The old master always held this sacred. Whenever he did business, he tended first to the hearts of the people of that place."

No ordinary man. That much was plain. As a host of further counsels followed, Su Shuang took them up one by one and laid their meaning bare.

I had thought every word of it concerned the road ahead. The last bamboo slip was something else entirely.

I felt at once how heavy the thing was, and opened it. Unlike the counsel that had come before, this writing named the men we were to avoid.

"Youzhou is a place for trade and nothing more. Cut off all dealings with the men who dwell there. Above all, avoid the Gongsun clan, and Gongsun Zan, without fail."

"Ah—ah! That is..."

"Brother-in-law, if you mean Gongsun Zan, isn't he General of the Front in Youzhou now?"

"This must have been written comparatively recently. It comes of the tale in which Gongsun Zan, General of the Front, while contending with Grand Marshal Liu Yu, Governor of Youzhou, seized him, paraded him through the streets, and put him to a cruel death."

This was a story I knew.

Grand Marshal Liu Yu—true to the surname Liu, a kinsman of the imperial house of Han, a man of rare learning and character. Yuan Shao had meant to raise him to the throne and make an open rival emperor of him, rather than accept Emperor Xian, whom Dong Zhuo had forcibly enthroned after deposing the Young Emperor.

Yet through that chaotic age he labored to preserve Youzhou's strength and hold it steady between Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shao, only to be slaughtered by Gongsun Zan with appalling cruelty.

After that, Gongsun Zan's name fell into the abyss, and a great many of those around him abandoned him. Liu Bei, most famously of all.

"It is not Gongsun Zan alone. Around him are Li Yi, Akhadang, and others—wretches who once learned trade under me. They betrayed me and the great man, became Gongsun Zan's purse, bled the people of Youzhou, fattened their own bellies, and now strut about in splendor."

"Then the proxies who came from Youzhou to offer condolences earlier—those men sent them?"

"Insolent curs! ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The old master is dead, and they bring a handful of coins, bob their heads, and leave? I will not let them be!"

"I understand why we are to keep clear of Youzhou itself."

In the present age Gongsun Zan was treated as a villain no one would so much as glance at—after murdering a prince of the blood, Grand Marshal Liu Yu, after his tyranny in Youzhou, and after his defeat in the struggle with Yuan Shao of Jizhou. And the merchants beneath him had been retainers of our own house, who betrayed us and built that pack of theirs.

Gongsun Zan I understood well enough. The next name was a worse problem.

"...Brother-in-law."

"What is it? Whose name comes next, that you're breaking into a cold sweat?"

"Is Yuan Shao, the present Governor of Jizhou, also a man we must never associate with?"

"Wh—what did you say?!"

"This is what it says."

"Urgh... mm! So after that affair, the great man concluded he could never share a great purpose with Yuan Shao, not for the rest of his life?"

?!

As for Yuan Shao—in the age of the Three Kingdoms he was the great warlord of his day, the man the Qingliu literati of the scholar-gentry threw their weight behind. I myself bore him no particular ill will. He was a figure of such weight that men would say the history of the realm might have turned, had he won at Guandu.

And this house was a great trading company that had sunk its roots in Jizhou, Yuan Shao's own stronghold. For Father to say outright that the man might suck us dry of blood, and that we were to stay clear of him, was plainly Zhang Shiping's dying word: remain close to Yuan Shao, and the future would not be kind.

"Very well. It may weary you, but I mean to tell you what passed between our family and Lord Yuan. Will you hear it?"

"Gladly. I'll hear every word of—"

That was when it came.

"My lord, my lord—are you within?"

"What is it?"

"A mourner has arrived at this hour."

"Hah. Before dawn? Who in the world has come calling?"

"Th-that is—!"

I could not tell who had come, to leave the man outside so flustered, so I rose. Su Shuang, whoever it might be, thought of the devotion it took to come at such an hour, opened the door, and stepped out.

And there, in the late dark before morning, the man who had come to mourn stood revealed.

"Ah—ahk?!"

One look at the figure who had come to condole at dawn, and Su Shuang started as if struck, then froze where he stood.

The man was of ordinary height and an ordinary build, yet he had brought a host of retainers to the funeral hall and come in full formal dress, and an aura no one could lightly approach rolled off him.

His eyes flicked this way and that. He stole a glance over the traces of mourning in the hall, let a thin smirk cross his mouth, and came toward me, studying me closely.

"Well now. Are you the chief mourner?"

"I am."

"Then I ought to introduce myself. I am Yuan Benchu, who now governs Jizhou as its Governor, and who holds besides the posts of Colonel Director of Retainers and General of the Right. Hearing that Master Zhang, who patronized me in my younger days, had passed, I came in haste at this hour."

Yuan Shao.

He had come in person to Zhang Shiping's bier, and stood face to face with me. With the most leisurely face in the world he looked down at me and smiled a smile I could not read.

Yuan Shao had come himself.

Among the mourners this time, men such as Tian Feng and Ju Shou had come in one after another, and I had half wondered. But here, deep in the night, Yuan Shao had arrived with only the barest handful of retainers.

"I sincerely pray for the repose of the departed."

Every gesture of his was steeped in dignity. He offered incense at my father's bier and bowed with full propriety. Then, greeting me, the chief mourner, and Su Shuang, he seized my hand once more in a firm grip.

"Zhang Qian pays his respects to the Governor of Jizhou."

"I have long stood deeply in Master Zhang's debt. Taking to heart his teaching—that to pacify a chaotic age one must seek out the heroes of the realm and patronize them—I am carrying out benevolent rule in Jizhou."

"I too have heard much of the Governor's name. Are you not the man who kept the three years of mourning that proclaim a Confucian scholar's filial piety not once, but twice?"

"Hahaha. An old story. You embarrass me."

At first glance Yuan Shao was gentle in manner, and yet there was nothing hesitant in anything he did.

Perhaps it was only that I had lived by the rule ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that anyone who comes to a funeral or a celebration must be treated with real regard. Even so, he seemed, unexpectedly, a better man than the dying instruction had led me to expect.

"If only we might have gone on together to the very end..."

!?

Su Shuang came hurrying then to receive him.

"Lord Yuan, we are truly grateful that you have come. But why at so late an hour..."

"If I came by day, would not everyone around us flock to me and set up a murmur? That would be no courtesy to the chief mourner in a house of mourning."

He answered Su Shuang with perfect clarity, and ate the food that had been brought out in the late dawn.

"Master Su."

"Yes, my lord."

"Once the period of mourning is past, let us speak again of business."

"You are preparing that again?"

"It will take some three or four years. Until then, you can trust me and come along, can you not?"

"My lord, after the funeral, Zhang Qian will be head of the house."

"Hoh. Then he has only to come along as well, has he not? The late Master Zhang would have wished it too."

He had come as a mourner, and thanks were due. Even so, even here at a funeral, he seemed to keep asking for something.

Then he added one more word, turned toward me.

"You look of an age with my sons. You might make a good friend."

He set a hand on my shoulder, smiled, and nodded.

"See the funeral through well, and rest deeply. I myself kept mourning for six years, but after that, those who mean to go on living must take good care of their bodies."

And so Yuan Shao, having appeared unannounced at dawn to condole for my father Zhang Shiping, vanished again like the wind before the first cock crowed.

After a figure of that magnitude had come and gone, I rose at once, caught Su Shuang by the sleeve, and drew him into the room.

"Brother-in-law. The story you didn't finish—tell it to me now!"

"Now? About Yuan Shao?"

"What I know is this. Yuan Benchu is the great filial son of the age, who twice kept the three years of mourning for his father and for his legal mother; the center of the Qingliu faction; the man who raised the coalition against Dong Zhuo and stood against the traitor; who afterward returned north of the Yellow River, drove out Han Fu, the original Governor of Jizhou, and took that seat for himself; and who meant to set up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Lord Liu Yu—the imperial kinsman and Grand Marshal whom Gongsun Zan killed—in place of the former sovereign Dong Zhuo had deposed."

I set out everything I knew of the Yuan Shao of the present, and left out the rest of it: that in later days that man would hold an overwhelming advantage over Cao Cao and still suffer a crushing defeat, then drop dead of sheer rage.

First I had to hear the judgment of my brother-in-law Su Shuang, steward of this house, who had watched Yuan Shao alongside Father for a long time.

"I had meant to speak of Jizhou in any case, so this is just as well. I'll tell you all of it."

With Yuan Shao scarcely gone, Su Shuang brought out the whole of the story behind him.

"Han Fu, who had been Governor of Jizhou, was a great figure of the court, risen to Imperial Censor, a standing comparable to the Three Excellencies. Generous by nature and sharp about profit, he invigorated commerce across Jizhou, our house included, and enjoyed a great season of prosperity."

I had thought of Han Fu as nothing more than the man who lost Jizhou to Yuan Shao. He had been a greater figure than I imagined.

"Against that Governor Han Fu, Yuan Shao—then merely Grand Administrator of Bohai Commandery, a single commandery of Jizhou—raised his banner. Governor Han Fu was driven out. Thereafter, those who said it was not right and remonstrated all, in ways seen and unseen, abandoned their offices, or withdrew into idle posts, or could not so much as keep a foothold north of the river."

"That Han Fu... he must be dead."

"He relied on Zhang Miao, an old friend of Yuan Shao's and a man on close terms with Cao Cao, who governs Yanzhou, and took refuge in Yanzhou. Before long, hearing that Yuan Shao was aiming at him again, he took his own life, they say."

"If so many great clans and scholar-gentry were reshuffled through Yuan Shao, what of our house?"

"When he gathered in the great clans around Yecheng, he gathered in our house as well. No... they called it gathering in. It was detention."

!

"Once Yuan Shao had made himself the new master of Jizhou, he said that every purse capable of producing the money and goods of that region must be worked through Yecheng, and he forcibly brought your late father's family there. All the trade that moved outside, I took upon myself."

Yuan Shao's particular way of gathering men was to seat them, without exception, where his own eyes could see them. He had used our house, quite literally, as the paymaster of a time of war.

"We turned a profit. But from then on we were drawn down into subordination inside the very network our trading house had built. We had even laid out great salt fields to develop salt across Bohai in Jizhou and the Qingzhou region, but Yuan Shao planted his own kinsmen there and asked us to teach them the work..."

"I think I see it. In a word, the balance between patron and operator broke, and we were reduced to a one-sided source of money."

Not only the purse, but the know-how itself, had been on the point of being swallowed whole. He had set his own kin into the merchants' rights of business? That was a parachuted overseer, a watcher planted at our side. Draw the secrets of the trade out from beside us, and the Yuan clan would take that role for its own as a matter of course.

"Now I understand why Father told us to keep our distance from Yuan Shao."

"And yet, with things as they stand, the truth is there is nothing we can do. We are a body of merchants, without titles or offices. In a chaotic age, where could we move carelessly? Even now, in Xuzhou, there was that tragedy—some calamity or other, when a hundred cartloads of wealth were being shifted to Yanzhou..."

Yes. They say Xuzhou is past speaking of as well. Even if things were bad in Jizhou, north of the river, the world outside Jizhou might be a worse hell. So I asked again.

"And if we simply stay loyal to the Yuan clan of the north? If we go against Father's dying instruction?"

"Mm... mm. Outwardly, the family's fortune would remain plentiful. But the rights to the northern horse markets in Youzhou are tangled up with the men who betrayed your father, and with Gongsun Zan. The quarries and the medicinal herbs of Bingzhou are in the hands of the Black Mountain bandits. And into the salt trade of Bohai, the Gao clan—Yuan Shao's own kin—have been slipping in one by one..."

Sit still and be slowly sucked dry—or else, following Father's last words, seek a new hero somewhere other than the north, on the understanding that Yuan Shao was never the hero who would end the chaos of the age, and become a patron of a thousand gold.

"I am grateful he came today. Even so, for now, the greater weight still rests on Father's dying words."

We had spoken only of Yuan Shao, but in truth Father's testament ran to several volumes of bamboo slips more. Tomorrow the remains in the mourning hall would have to be carried to the burial ground and laid in the earth, so I simply decided to stay awake through the night.