The Heir, the Sponsor, and the Candidate
Draped in robes of crimson silk, Liu Bei and his party arrived before Tao Qian's residence beneath the gaze of every soul in Xuzhou.
What followed came swift as a flood.
Tao Qian, who had already foreseen the moment, received them in full formal dress, his wife and son beside him.
"Lord Xuande, my eyes have grown so dim I cannot see you properly."
"General, allow me to come a little closer."
Tao Qian looked frailer than at their last meeting. Liu Bei himself lifted the teacup and poured from the pot, and when the old man blew across the surface and drank, his hands trembled so badly he could scarcely bear the cup's weight.
"Xuande, I hear a match was proposed through my wife and my son."
"Yes, General. I have come to give you my answer."
Tao Qian extended a hand and waved, and from among the family a woman stepped quietly toward Liu Bei. Rare ornaments, a new gown of embroidery that looked as though it had been worn for the first time that day, radiant adornment from crown to toe, eyes darkened with paint and lips stained red — a beauty bowed before him.
"This child is my wife's niece. Her name is Mei."
"Gan Mei of Pei County in Yuzhou pays her respects to Lord Liu."
"Ah!"
Liu Bei faltered at the sight of her, then turned his head and cleared his throat. Smiles touched every mouth. Anyone could see the two were already as good as joined.
"A peerless beauty indeed. That the General should introduce so precious a niece to a man as unworthy as I — I hardly know where to put myself."
At that sign of acceptance, Tao Qian, Tao Shang, and Lady Gan all broke into wide smiles.
"Ha ha ha. No need to be modest. Before this old man dies, he wishes to set his family's affairs in order."
Tao Qian was already pushing the match with his wife's niece in the open, plainly intent on drawing Liu Bei into his own fold. Gan Mei, for her part, was seeing her prospective bridegroom for the first time that day, yet Liu Bei — ritually bathed and dressed to the nines — did not seem to displease her. Color rose in her face, and she grew shy.
My sister had seen to the refining of Gan Mei's looks. I had arranged everything up to the moment Liu Bei walked through that door. And now the two of them had met.
"Xuande, will you grant your consent?"
"So beautiful a young lady. If even a commonplace man such as I will do, I should very much like to hold the wedding."
"Oh my..."
In that instant Gan Mei's face burned redder still.
So this was how Liu Bei and Lady Gan came to be bound. Honestly, Lady Gan had only ever been Liu Shan's mother in my head. Yet this marriage had become the key to Liu Bei's succession as Governor of Xuzhou.
"It seems the two of you have weighty matters to discuss, so I shall wait outside a while."
"Baijin?"
"I believe it will suffice if Lord Xuande, the party concerned, remains."
When I made to slip away, Zhang He moved as well, and Jian Yong and Lu Su smiled and yielded the place. Only Zhao Yun, charged with Liu Bei's guard, sat in silence and watched the matter through to the end.
Liu Bei caught my hand as I turned to go, smiled, and nodded. The look in his eyes was trust — gratitude that I had helped him toward what he wished to achieve.
We all came out to wait, and inside the laughter never ceased. When Tao Qian ordered refreshments brought, it seemed the business would end very pleasantly indeed.
"We may as well wait in the courtyard of the main hall."
As Lu Su said, I thought we need only wait a reasonable while, and once the match was settled go back to share a fine celebratory feast of three cups — when steel rasped from a scabbard.
"Brother Junyi, why the sword?"
"What is it?"
Zhang He had seized his blade without warning and was glaring at the doors of the upper chamber with a terrible look.
"A tremendous killing intent. Elite troops are coming."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before the doors crashed open and a company of soldiers poured in. Warriors in long robes, swords at their waists, eyes sharp as drawn steel. And the man at their head wore a familiar face. Zhao Bao.
Then the army he led was Tao Qian's own elite — the Danyang troops.
"So this is where you were discussing something impious, is it?"
"Is that not Commandant Zhao?"
"It seems our lord and Liu Bei are inside together."
Zhao Bao's face seethed with killing intent, and behind him stood the Danyang elite. This was dangerous.
"My looord! Zhao Bao has come, leading the Danyang troops!"
He glared at us once, then shouted so that Tao Qian within the hall would hear.
"By my lord's command I have finished securing the Huai River region, and I have returned!"
At Zhao Bao's cry the interior fell briefly silent. Then the doors opened, and Liu Bei came out.
"Ah. Are you not the Attendant Officer of Xuzhou's Bureau of War?"
Even facing Zhao Bao and the Danyang troops, Liu Bei offered his greeting without the slightest shrinking.
"Well then. We shall take our leave."
"My lord?"
"All has been discussed amicably, so our business seems done. Besides, it appears Attendant Zhao has matters to discuss with General Tao."
One spark from an explosion, Liu Bei greeted Zhao Bao first and made to withdraw. Zhang He, Zhao Yun, and the others seized their swords at once, but in that icy moment Zhao Bao held the Danyang troops down.
A great deal was going to be said today.
After Liu Bei's party had gone, Zhao Bao raised his voice to Tao Qian.
"My lord, what is the meaning of this? Do you truly mean to hand this Xuzhou of yours over to Liu Bei?"
"Hah. Wherever did you hear such talk, to speak so? I was merely discussing a match between my wife's niece and Liu Xuande."
"You mean to take Liu Bei into the family... through my lady's niece?"
"That is so."
"My lord, I speak beyond my station, but Liu Bei has settled in Xuzhou with designs of his own. If you are thinking of a successor, is it not a hundred times more proper that Young Master Tao inherit the seat?"
"That talk again? Shang has no such quality, and Ying is not even worth mentioning."
"I will assist Young Master Tao and hold Xuzhou! This has been my resolve since I raised troops in Danyang and first came to serve you."
Zhao Bao pressed the claim that the governorship of Xuzhou must pass down through the Tao clan, and that if Tao Shang's ability fell short, he himself would stand at the young master's side.
"Was it not the scheme of Liu Bei and that Zhang Qian that set us against Yuan Shu, our ally, and joined our hands to Yuan Shao? Thanks to them a blade hangs over us from the nearby powers of Yangzhou, while our alliance with distant Jizhou is nothing but an empty shell."
"Cough! Cough... enough!"
Zhao Bao argued that by making an enemy of nearby Yuan Shu and an ally of far-off Yuan Shao, Xuzhou had gained nothing and grown only more endangered. He had followed Tao Qian as a retainer-captain since the general's younger days, and now, at the head of the Danyang troops, he begged his lord to make everything certain.
"So... what would you have me do? Liu Bei has already saved Xuzhou twice."
"And so did you not recommend him upward as Inspector of Yuzhou? Then bid Liu Bei return to Xiaopei in Yuzhou, continue to govern Xuzhou yourself, and name Young Master Tao your heir! Should enemies invade hereafter, I will stake my life alongside the Danyang troops and hold them back."
"Enough. Such things cannot be argued over again now."
"My lord!"
"Withdraw. I will decide everything after I have married off my niece."
"General..."
"Go, quickly. I haven't the strength left to raise my voice any further."
"...I understand."
In the end Zhao Bao had no choice but to obey. He left Tao Qian's house with a hollow face.
"Damn it... damn it!"
Something inside him snapped clean through.
This was the man he had served as lord since leaving his homeland at twenty, through battle after battle. From county magistrate through the grand administrators of the provinces, general and inspector, all the way to Governor of Xuzhou, he had served Tao Qian with the devotion of a loyal hound. He had meant to extend that loyalty even to his aged lord's house, and in return he had wanted reward, and the rise of his own family.
And now he was to hand every foundation he had built to some stone that had rolled in from nowhere? He was the only man in Xuzhou who had gathered the troops within and fought Cao Cao.
If I had known it would come to this, I should have gone out to Tancheng myself from the start! If only that order not to leave Xiapi rashly had never been given!
Only now did he regret that he had been unable to step forward during Cao Cao's second invasion. Had the rebellion inside Yanzhou sent Cao Cao withdrawing so quickly, there would have been no need to use Liu Bei as a shield. He could have led the Danyang troops out himself, seized the moment, and turned all public opinion his way.
By the time Cao Cao's army reached Tancheng — by the time he had persuaded Tao Qian again and again and finally gone out to fight — every merit of the campaign already belonged to Liu Bei. Perhaps he had let the finest chance slip through his fingers. Worse, he had been outside Xiapi under orders to check Yuan Shu south of the Huai when the news reached him, and his rage boiled hotter still.
Tao Shang might lack ability, yet Zhao Bao had arranged for his own daughter to be taken as the young master's concubine, hoping thereby to stand as Tao Qian's retainer and Tao Shang's father-in-law and seize the real power of Xuzhou. The sense of loss at seeing that chance snatched away by the single existence of Liu Bei was beyond words.
On the way home he spoke to an officer who had risen from the Danyang troops.
"You! Go to Juxian this instant and seek out the Mi clan."
"You mean Mi Zhu?"
"Yes. Go, report everything that has happened, and tell him a hard man is about to become our lord's kinsman and carry it all away."
"Mi Zhu said from the start that he had no intention of coming here... Understood. I will go and inform him of the situation at once."
Sending his daughter as Tao Shang's concubine — failed. Raising Tao Shang and taking the military authority himself, to become the true power of Xuzhou — failed. What remained was to overturn it all through Mi Zhu, the magnate who dwelt outside Xiapi.
When Zhao Bao returned home still swallowing his fury, a party was waiting before the gate.
"Who goes there?"
"Ah. Would you be Colonel Zhao?"
At the sight of the suspicious carriage and its procession, the Danyang troops under Zhao Bao reached for their swords. But the man came forward with perfect composure and offered a courteous bow, and Zhao Bao knew him at once.
"Are you not that merchant who came from Hebei?"
"I am Su Shuang. I have come to pay my respects to those residing in Xuzhou."
For a moment Zhao Bao had no answer at all. He looked upon the man and saw Zhang Baijin, son of that Zhang Shiping who had planted Liu Bei fast in this soil, and his fury climbed higher still.
"Ah, and General Tao's elite, the so-called Danyang army, are here as well? Excellent. As it happens, I have brought gifts for those who guard Xiapi."
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Su Shuang struck his hands together three times, and servants brought a bolt of cloth each from the carriage and passed them to the Danyang troops, swords at their belts and murder in the air.
"What is this?"
"If it would not be an imposition, might I be invited inside?"
Su Shuang asked it with an easy face, but inwardly he was sick with worry after hearing his brother-in-law Baijin's charge.
He is a man whose discontent has reached its peak, and he is not one who will give Liu Bei his loyalty outright. Even so, soothe him enough that we can at least keep him in check.
So when Liu Bei's party went to call on Tao Qian, he had bought heaps of cloth along the way and prepared gifts for the Danyang troops and for Zhao Bao. What mattered first was to be invited inside Zhao Bao's house, so that the coaxing could go further.
I made my report to Liu Bei.
"Spreading this news inside Xuzhou will be handled by Zijing. He is a native of this place, and he will see to it."
"That is true enough."
Liu Bei had returned, and we talked the matter through until I found the answer. At a time like this, you move outside opinion on top of the support you already hold.
"Lord Xuande, write several letters. They will go to Xiaopei, to Qingzhou, and to Jizhou."
"Hah. And why is that?"
"They need only be letters of friendly courtesy, letting them know you are to take a new wife. Be sure to stress that the marriage is with the niece of the Governor of Xuzhou's wife."
Lu Su and Zhang He, who had been listening in silence, nodded.
"Indeed..."
"Support from the great clans and the people of Xuzhou within, and a clear announcement without."
It would be enough to inform Kong Rong, Chancellor of Beihai in Qingzhou; Yuan Shao in Jizhou; and Guan Yu and Zhang Fei in Xiaopei. Anyone who read those letters would understand at once.
Liu Bei went down to Xuzhou to save it from Cao Cao's invasion, and he is marrying the wife's niece of Tao Qian, Governor of Xuzhou.
Once that was known, the warlords round about would catch the scent at once and know who would be the next Governor of Xuzhou after Tao Qian. A few of them would even send congratulatory gifts.
"My lord, I think it best you adopt Baijin's counsel and write the letters at once."
"Hmm. Must it be so?"
Liu Bei thought a moment, then nodded.
Once the letters were written, the one bound for Jizhou would be carried by my brother-in-law, Su Shuang. It was the perfect chance, while he was about it, to meet Yuan Shao and negotiate, look around Bohai in Jizhou, and take the measure of the situation.
While we were laying these plans, a very great problem burst upon us.
"What are you saying? General Tao, who was perfectly hale only a short while ago, is at death's door?"
"This evening he was suddenly stricken with a pain in the chest, then collapsed under a severe fever."
"Heavens — of all things!"
They said Tao Qian had been eating well at supper, and then all at once had fallen ill. Within Xuzhou, the air was about to freeze solid.