Now It's Time for My Own Affairs
I arrived with Liu Bei in the small hours before dawn.
"General Tao."
"Xuande... you've come?"
A great many of Xuzhou's gentry and officials had already gathered inside Tao Qian's residence. Among them Zhao Bao, posted at Tao Qian's side, fixed Liu Bei with a cold glare.
"What is the meaning of this?"
"Heh heh... didn't I tell you? I'm old and failing, and there's no knowing when I'll go... I meant to give you my niece, and entrust the succession to you."
"!!!"
Tao Qian had blurted it out in the open before he was even dead, and every Xuzhou notable in the room heard it. Their eyes were anything but easy. Save for Zhao Bao, their reckoning of Liu Bei seemed already finished.
A sorry turn for Tao Qian's retainers who led the Danyang troops—but in the end, the heir of Xuzhou would be Liu Bei.
"Xuande... this is an old man's last request. Marry Mei... join hands with our house... and lead Xuzhou well."
"General!"
"While I still draw breath... it all has to be settled...!"
Liu Bei kept vigil at Tao Qian's bedside until that morning. When he came out, the gentry of Xuzhou drew near one after another. Chen Gui, the man who had rallied them, led the way and offered Liu Bei the courtesies due a governor with solemn respect, and the rest followed.
Liu Bei's face was a subtle knot of feeling, and a faint sheen of tears stood at the corners of his eyes.
And so the affairs of Xuzhou were settled.
While Tao Qian lay ill, Liu Bei married the lady of the Gan clan, a woman named Gan Mei, and Tao Qian, held up on either side, stood as master of the rites. The wedding of Liu Bei and Lady Gan was held in Xiapi. Most of the gentry, the people of Xuzhou within the walls of Xiapi, and figures who had come from afar gathered thick as a bank of clouds to congratulate, with all their hearts, the hero who had saved them.
Exactly three days later, Tao Qian breathed his last.
His will left the words, "I entrust Xuzhou to the husband of my wife's niece," and Liu Bei was acclaimed Governor of Xuzhou.
Once Liu Bei had been raised as Governor of Xuzhou, I went straight to Xiaopei to see Guan Yu and Zhang Fei. Before I left the next morning, I sat down with my brother-in-law Su Shuang to put in order everything he had arranged in the meantime.
"Zhao Bao showed his face and simply left. How do you read what comes next?"
"I'm told Mi Zhu of Juxian refused Zhao Bao's proposal."
"I thought it would turn out that way."
"The trouble is that this Mi Zhu sent only a congratulatory envoy, and isn't coming himself."
So Mi Zhu isn't Zhao Bao's man—but he isn't Liu Bei's either? He would never compete for the leadership of Xuzhou, and yet he meant to keep his own power, entirely on his own.
"So in the end, the ones who still haven't given a firm answer are Colonel Zang Ba of Mount Tai Commandery, Commandant Zhao Bao, and Mi Zhu of Juxian..."
"Baijin, even so, there was one gain in meeting Zhao Bao as you asked."
"Ah—did Zhao Bao give an answer?"
"He hasn't bent the knee completely. But we ought to be able to cool that anger of his for a year, perhaps two."
While Liu Bei was tied up with the marriage into Tao Qian's house, I had asked Su Shuang, separately, to persuade Zhao Bao.
"From now on, when we sell goods out of Xuzhou into other regions, a detachment of the Danyang troops will stand as escort. In return, we bear twice their existing pay as a dispatch fee."
"Twice..."
"At first he named triple, scoffing that we'd use Xuzhou's elite Danyang troops as nothing but caravan guards, and we bargained him down to that. Of course, the Danyang men drawing wages from us will pass a share of it up to Zhao Bao."
The shape of it drew itself at once. Zhao Bao was brimming with discontent, but he had swallowed the terms. The talks with Mi Zhu might have fallen apart, yet we had become a honey jar for the Danyang troops' merchant work, so for the moment he would grit his teeth and bear it.
"Then that's enough. Let it run like that for just one year, and Zhao Bao aside, the Danyang troops will be extremely reluctant to turn their blades on us."
"A man remembers who treated him better. That thought stays with him."
So Xiapi was settled as well. What remained, if Liu Bei's hold was to be set in stone, was to deal with the three of them in turn—Zang Ba, Mi Zhu, and Zhao Bao.
"Baijin, let's wrap this talk away and speak of household matters."
"The first and second relief funds for Xuzhou, the cost of mobilizing wartime supplies at Xiaopei, the grease for the Tao clan and the Danyang troops. Now that I think of it, we spent a shocking sum, didn't we?"
"That is household talk, in its way... Ahem. Very well. Let's begin there. We've taken charge of the salt trade in Xuzhou again."
"Oh!"
"As a condition of Lord Xuande receiving the governorship of Xuzhou, the Tao clan inherited all of General Tao's legacy and the estates held under the governor's jurisdiction, and on top of that they received three salt fields and farmland in Xiapi."
"They yielded the seat, but they certainly clutched the wealth?"
"We've been given the management of it. Their household troops may do the producing, but taking the goods out and selling them is our work."
This is the reverse of Jizhou. There, Yuan Shao had handled the administration while we handled production and sales. By a twist of fate, Tao Qian's house in Xuzhou had handed the whole of it over to us. Well—exalted personages don't know the first thing about trade.
"Manage it well for just three years, and we can recover every coin spent in Xuzhou in that time. Also, we mean to sell the jewels and silk still left in Xuzhou to Shuchun and Yuzhou. Under Danyang escort."
"Brother-in-law, then while we sell the valuables, please buy mainly grain seed and livestock. I'm told that even if iron can be produced here, the farming truly has to be started over from nothing."
"Understood."
And so it was settled.
A merchant doesn't close a losing deal. It would take time, but we had already clawed back nearly every coin invested in Xuzhou. Three years is a long stretch to me, but to Su Shuang, a merchant to the marrow, it was time enough to take his fill. Sponsoring Liu Bei and saving Xuzhou had been a successful transaction.
"Baijin~ I'll handle the money-making, whatever it takes. The household matter I meant is..."
"Ah, I had word from my sister recently. She thinks she may be with child. Congratulations."
"Th-that's right! It came late, and I hope it's a son... No, not that—the real household matter! Your marriage. Your marriage!"
"Ah~ my marriage?"
Right. Now that everything else was finished, he meant to settle my personal affairs as well.
Zhuge Xue... and Huan Ying. Both of them breathtaking, peerless beauties, both of them saying they favored me, and everyone urging them forward.
"I'll settle it all once I reach Xiaopei."
"See that you do!"
I answered with a laugh.
"I've heard the tale, mind, but you're saying Elder Brother has truly risen to the governorship of Xuzhou?"
"That's right."
"How can this be! How can this be, I ask you!"
I had only answered Zhang Fei, and Guan Yu flared up, his face flushing a furious red.
"Lord Yunchang, what's the matter?"
"They call it a marriage of policy in Xuzhou, but he has become the husband of Governor Tao Qian's wife's niece? Kin by marriage?"
"That's how it went. It was arranged so that Lord Xuande could succeed as Governor of Xuzhou, and Lord Xuande himself agreed..."
"How! How could the two of us have no part in our elder brother's wedding?"
"?!?!"
...Ah. So that was the trouble.
Even so, it had been Liu Bei's wedding, and Guan Yu and Zhang Fei had been unable to attend because they were holding the front. More than anything else, Guan Yu was in a sulky rage that he himself had not gone.
"And so Lord Xuande sent me to comfort his two brothers, and sent gifts along with the word."
When Guan Yu in particular showed that wrathful disappointment, I had been told to soothe him with presents. But now that I thought of it... In the original history, didn't Guan Yu and Zhang Fei miss Liu Bei's weddings too? Lady Mi, Lady Sun of Yangzhou, Lady Wu of Yizhou—all of them...
Zhang Fei likewise rubbed at his face, ill at ease, and asked what came next.
"Given how things stand, if Elder Brother said so, it can't be helped. So what's this you've come to tell us?"
"The administration of Xiaopei from here on."
"Go on."
I laid out what I had already discussed with Liu Bei, and what had to be made plain to the others.
"First, regarding this marriage and Lord Xuande's rise as Governor of Xuzhou, we'll send word to the surrounding lords and receive their support. Most of them will congratulate us, and agree to march with us as firm allies."
"And after that?"
"Lord Xuande has become Governor of Xuzhou and enjoys wide support, but the Danyang troops—men of Yangzhou origin, the late Tao Qian's original retainers—and those who command them are full of discontent. Commandant Zhao Bao's discontent is the greatest of all."
"So we just have to kill the bastard?"
"Lord Guan, there's no need to go that far..."
"Is that not the very heart of it? Who dares object to our elder brother rising as Governor of Xuzhou?"
If it were Guan Yu, and Zhao Bao truly nursed a grievance, he could snick-snack the man just to cut that grievance off.
"At a time like this, holding the front matters all the more. For now we keep Xiaopei and restore the northern reaches of Xuzhou, laid waste by two wars. That means conscription and fortress works across the region, and winning over independent warlords and men of talent."
"Right enough. Isn't that Elder Brother Yunchang's specialty?"
Guan Yu, holding Xiaopei...
"Elder Brother Yunchang, you see—there's no one can match him in a fight, and he's got a real hand for raising walls and setting palisades besides. Put up an earthen fort and I'd wager it's solid as the Great Wall."
"If Lord Yunchang takes charge of Xiaopei, there's something else that matters even more."
"And what is that?"
What followed was the true heart of it.
"Right now, with the rebellion in Yanzhou, Lü Bu has thrown in with the forces of Zhang Miao and Chen Gong, and the two sides are fighting to the death."
"Aye. Shame we can't go and smash them across the back of the head."
"Whichever side loses will certainly come crawling this way. We have to cut that off."
I would not tolerate a swarm of locusts coming in from outside to gnaw at Liu Bei while he built a great enterprise from the governorship of Xuzhou.
"By my reckoning they'll come either to Mount Tai or to Xiaopei, so we'll have to seal both places tight and drive them far off somewhere else."
"You're certain the losing side will come here?"
"Without question."
Zhang Fei heard that and turned to Guan Yu.
"Brother, I figure that Lü Bu bastard's coming our way."
"Yide, you think so?"
"Cao Cao's a nasty piece of work, sure, but that knack of his for working his sly little head is the genuine article. And even with the native gentry and that Lü Bu bastard against him, you think Cao Cao goes down that easy? We all saw the man's generalship back when we went to Hulao Pass to catch Dong Zhuo."
True enough. In the early days Cao Cao and Liu Bei had joined hands, entered the coalition of the eighteen lords, and fought in the army raised to punish the traitor Dong Zhuo, so the officers on both sides knew one another well.
"And they say new appointments are being settled within Xuzhou, so one of you will have to go to Xiapi and aid Lord Xuande."
"Then, Yide. You go."
Guan Yu would take the border, and Zhang Fei the interior.
With that said, and the orders passed to Guan Yu and Zhang Fei in rough outline, the broad arrangement was done. What was certain was this: even if Cao Cao and the allied army of Zhang Miao, Chen Gong, and Lü Bu, now fighting in Yanzhou, lost as they had in the original history, they would not even dream of crossing into Xuzhou. The moment they dared approach, Guan Yu would be there with the Green Dragon Crescent Blade to give them a truly magnificent welcome.
Better still, if we could make them flee all the way north, or drive them down into Yuzhou and wedge them neatly between Yuan Shu, Liu Bei, and Cao Cao as a common target. Governing Xuzhou would be all the easier for it.
"Well then—enough of that. Now I'd like to make a personal request."
"Hoh. And what's this personal request?"
"There was a splendid wedding in Xiapi, a fine man and a fine woman, and seeing it, I made up my mind as well."
"A wedding... Ah, right. You said you were getting married too, didn't you? Taking in that elder sister of your friend from the Zhuge clan."
"I've come to take a wife, and a concubine as well. There are two brides, so I mean to hold a wedding twice as grand, and I'd be glad if the two of you would attend and bestow a great blessing."
Guan Yu and Zhang Fei looked at each other, and grins split their faces ear to ear.
"That, we can't refuse. How could we fail to go to the wedding of Baijin, who's like our own youngest brother?"
"You've laid in heaps of wine and meat, haven't you? A Thousand-Gold Merchant's wedding ought to be such that every passerby in Xuzhou smells the meat."
"I mean to set a table so heavy the legs snap."
I announced the wedding, and there the three of us struck a fiery accord over the ceremony.
Sweet strains from the musicians, two brides in red silk, the families of both houses gathered—and blessing the occasion, two peerless heroes, giants of nine chi.
"In the name of this Guan Yunchang, I bestow my blessing upon this couple!"
"Zhang Yide'll say his piece too. Live happy, the lot of you!"
The two of them raised their cups side by side, and Zhuge Xue, Huan Ying, and I shared the nuptial wine among the three of us.
In their wedding robes, seen through the veils, the two of them seemed deeper and more beautiful than ever today. Xue'er wore makeup far more bewitching than usual, the outer corners of her eyes lifted just so, her lashes stark and lovely. Ying'er kept blinking those great eyes, and her smile never broke, bright with the triumph of having come this far at last.
From now on, she was Lady Huan, and she was Lady Zhuge.
At least in the fate of this world, the two of them were my brides. Having taken these peerless beauties as wife and concubine, I too would keep running—for the great enterprise under heaven, and to win free of this age of chaos!
The banquet went on late into the night, and I received the two of them in the bridal chamber.
"May I call you husband now?"
"Of course!"
"Now that I've actually come to this place, I'm so nervous I think I might die."
When I took Xue'er in my arms, blushing and shy, a sweet scent rose from her all at once.
"Today everyone in the household was in tears. Ziyou, of course, and Kongming too."
Zhuge Liang especially—what does a boy that young know?—wore a father's smile at my wedding to Xue, and showed a will to stay with me to the very end.
"I just came alone. None of that for me."
"Ah, Ying'er."
A wedding held at the same time, and she had no family to stand with her, so my sister and Su Shuang had taken her in hand. If a son were born between us, even if I didn't name him Chong, I would give him a good name.
"Husband. But listen."
"Mm?"
"Is the consummation in turn? Or at the same time?"
"Uh... well..."
Huan Ying asked it in perfect earnest. Zhuge Xue, in that instant, was so ashamed she didn't know where to look.
Afterward we saw the bridal chamber through in a perfectly reasonable fashion, and for several days I did not set foot outside the house.