One More Grain for the Man I Hate
I had taken two brides, and in Xiaopei I was savoring newlywed life for all it was worth.
"Oh my — you're awake?"
The first thing to meet my eyes each morning was Xue and Yeong standing in the sunlight, goddesses both. Radiant to look at, and wives beyond all praise by day and by night alike.
Yeong, especially, would come pattering over to throw herself into my arms, lavishing affection on me until her cheeks flushed pink.
"I prepared meat for breakfast."
"Husband, the wash water is ready as well."
"Ah, lovely. Just lovely!"
I washed until I felt fresh, ate a fine breakfast, and stepped outside well fortified.
In the government office, Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin were sorting through documents.
"So the new bridegroom arrives. Your face has brightened of late."
"Every day is a joy."
"Ha ha ha. Then that is well."
Taking Guan Yu's morning greeting, I picked up one of the papers Zhuge Jin was arranging and read it through. It concerned the restoration works across Xiaopei, and the making of palisades and caltrops.
"So you're building a defense as tight as an iron barrel."
"No telling when the enemy may come again. I mean to prepare thoroughly."
I agreed with Zhuge Jin — Xue's elder brother. Looking over the documents, I said what had come to mind.
"The fighting in Yanzhou must still be fierce. They say seven-tenths of the province already belongs to the alliance of Lu Bu with Zhang Miao and Chen Gong."
"Even so, Cao Cao's chances of winning are the higher."
I had already spoken of it with Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, and inside the city of Xuzhou, Liu Bei and the men under him would be thinking the same.
"If I had my way, Cao Cao would die in some 'unfortunate accident' in the middle of this fight. Sooner or later that man must take heaven's punishment for what he did in Xuzhou."
"He bears the hatred of every soul in Xiaopei and Xuzhou upon his own body. He is fated to live long, choking on curses."
When I handed over the papers I had reviewed, Zhuge Jin said it with a face full of discontent.
"In all sincerity, I want the two of them to destroy each other. Chen Gong and Zhang Miao, the native magnates of Yanzhou, I could set aside — but Lu Bu? Was he not the man who, under the traitor Dong Zhuo, trampled the government of the realm, and then stabbed that same Dong Zhuo in the back?"
"Heh. Whoever wins, there is nothing to fear. Should any cur come crawling in here, I will cut him down in a single stroke of my Green Dragon Crescent Blade!"
Guan Yu, who had been listening in silence, came forward and clenched both fists, utterly sure of himself.
He was, without question, a man to rely on. And into that atmosphere I tossed a small stone.
"If we were to secretly support one side in Yanzhou's civil war, what do you suppose people would say?"
Zhuge Jin's eyes narrowed by degrees.
"Whichever side it is, we put them once, and deeply, in Xuzhou's debt. A justification that might, later, carry us through one truly desperate pass."
"You mean it. And yet why does it sound to me as though you intend to spare the mortal enemy who butchered Xuzhou to the bone?"
Trust Zhuge Jin. He caught it on the spot.
"Would the people of Xuzhou accept such a thing? Would our lord, only just raised to Governor of Xuzhou, permit it?"
"We'll have to make him permit it. I truly want to make Lord Xuande a hero whose name is left upon the realm, with Xuzhou at the center."
"And how, exactly, do you mean to persuade him?"
"Well, as to that..."
A heat ran up my spine. Guan Yu's enormous frame had drawn in beside me. Seated cross-legged with his arms folded, he looked down at me, his face full of suspicion.
"Had another man said such a thing, I would have struck his skull once with my fist."
"Ha — haha. That's a bit..."
"But it is our Zhang Qian who speaks. So this will not remain a matter known only to the two of you. I will hear it as well. Go on."
If I had ever needed a clear demonstration of killing intent that could not be seen, this was it. Even so, I meant to tell Zhuge Jin and Guan Yu exactly what I was thinking, here and now. A strategy I could not persuade the people closest to me to accept was a strategy I could never carry to those above.
A few days later, I set out for Xiapi to see Liu Bei.
Zhuge Jin had accepted it only with reluctance, and Guan Yu's face had curdled — but at the words this is all for Liu Bei's future, he sent me off at once to make the case myself.
"You don't have to come along, you know."
"I mean to follow my brother-in-law and be of help, as one of the household now."
The one accompanying me was Zhuge Liang. Of course he was the rarest genius of the Three Kingdoms age, a talent among talents, a man Liu Bei could not do without — and now one of our family besides, but still.
"Ordinarily this is the sort of thing you'd leave to your brother, or to me, and keep to your studies. You're at that age."
"I consider this a study of the world as well. There is no finer teacher than experience, is there?"
He was no older than a middle-school boy, and I half wondered whether this was really all right. And yet...
"...Fair enough. Who's going to look at you and see a child?"
At that age he already stood well over five foot seven, and with the looks of a young noble he had only to dress with a little care to pour out the air of some lofty immortal.
"All right, then. You're family now, so I'll tell you."
On the road to Xiapi I told Zhuge Liang the whole of it. His expression shifted sharply more than once as he listened, but at the words your brother agreed as well he offered a subtle smile and nodded.
Arriving in Xiapi, we were received with open warmth by Liu Bei and Su Shuang. And there a place was made so that I might speak in earnest to Liu Bei, Governor of Xuzhou.
"Whatever Zhang Qian has to say, I am bound to hear it. Say what anyone will — that a lacking man such as I became Governor of Xuzhou is due, above all, to your merit."
"Hearing you say so, I can speak with all the more confidence."
"Indeed. And what might this be about?"
Lu Su, who had invested his entire fortune in Liu Bei and been recommended as Commandant when Liu Bei rose to Governor of Xuzhou, sat at Liu Bei's left with a kindly smile. Before Zhang Fei, Lu Su, Bu Zhi, Chen Gui, and the rest, I drew one deep breath and spoke to them all.
"Now. This may be a question every one of you will find terribly hard to answer. All of you may oppose it to the death. A few of you may even rush at me meaning to kill me."
"From the way you wind it up, Zhang Qian, a truly difficult matter is about to come out."
The eyes of Bu Zhi, Chen Deng, and Zhang Fei flew wide, and even Liu Bei's face stirred.
"Zhang Qian, what are you saying?"
"Brother — benefactor or not, mind if I land just one good hit on the brat?"
Zhang Fei said it like that, but he was smiling.
"Impossible!"
"The blood Cao Cao sowed across Xuzhou has not even dried, and you speak of aiding someone while that dog Lu Bu — who served the traitor Dong Zhuo, killed him, and then thrust his head into the Central Plains — still draws breath? Whom do you mean to help?"
"Zhang Qian, to the people of Xuzhou both of them are bandits we cannot so much as keep company with!"
Amid the voices rising on every side, Liu Bei lifted a hand high, and all of them stopped.
"Easy, easy. We have not yet heard the substance. There will be time enough to condemn him afterward."
"My lord!"
"I am merely curious. I can listen to anyone, and this time I wish to hear what Zhang Qian has to say."
Liu Bei soothed them in that soft, unhurried way, and I came to the point.
"The civil war that has broken out in Yanzhou is a fight over the provincial rice bowl — between the native magnates who were already there, and Cao Cao, a stone rolled in from outside and raised up in place of Inspector Liu Dai."
"Go on."
"Last year Cao Cao, claiming he would avenge the father who died in Xuzhou, slaughtered countless people of the province and scorched commanderies and counties alike. Even that did not satisfy him. He scraped together every resource Yanzhou possessed, struck again this time, and that is where it went wrong. So the fight now stands even. But in the end, Cao Cao will win."
"Hearing that, I can believe you even less! You saw the massacre in Xuzhou with your own eyes, Zhang Qian — how can the word 'support' for Cao Cao even leave your mouth?"
"Because that is the way the greater tide will run."
Lu Su's eyes flashed, and Zhang Fei's went wide as well.
"In an even fight, the winner of Yanzhou's civil war is whichever side receives the more support from outside. And the one who will aid Cao Cao's army from beyond the province is Governor Yuan Shao of Jizhou. It was Yuan Shao who pressed Cao Cao firmly into the governor's seat of Yanzhou as successor to the Inspector."
In the end, Yuan Shao would have no choice but to raise Cao Cao's hand at the last. Look to the future and he was rearing a tiger cub — but the Yuan Shao of the present thought of Cao Cao as little more than a swordsman laid across the Central Plains while he himself pacified Hebei.
"Of course, I have no intention of taking Xuzhou's supplies and carrying them myself to Cao Cao where he fights in Yanzhou. No one would volunteer to haul them, and I would count myself lucky not to be stoned by the people of Xuzhou all along the road."
That much was obvious. The men in this room were comrades forged together on the front, people who already knew everything worth knowing. Had some outsider blithely called the same notion a scheme, stones and blades would already have been in the air.
"Quite so. Then, with the two of them fighting, whom do you mean to support, and how?"
"I mean to go up to Jizhou. My brother-in-law must go there to draw the funds from our business rights in the province, and on that road he need only tell Yuan Shao to support Cao Cao."
"Support him?"
"Not a single grain of Xuzhou's need move, nor a single cart. He has only to say this: that for Xuzhou to bestir itself and aid a Yanzhou with fire already on its instep would be to Jizhou's profit."
"Hoh?"
By the time I had said this much, Liu Bei understood at once, and Zhang Fei and Lu Su sank into thought without the killing look of a moment before.
"This may be the perfect chance for Cao Cao to destroy himself — and you would have us throw that perfect chance away?"
"Zijing, I say it precisely because it is not a perfect chance. Should the alliance of Lu Bu and Chen Gong win, they too will aim at Xiaopei in Yuzhou, and at Xuzhou. Drive out the tiger, and a bear comes to wallow before your gate."
"Does anyone still refute Zhang Qian? If not, I shall have to prepare to send men to Jizhou."
"Lord Xuande. There is one thing more."
"What is it?"
"Besides asking that Cao Cao be supported from Jizhou, I myself mean to tour the breadth of Xuzhou and gather the shattered lesser warlords into one place. Every one of them is a man Lord Xuande ought to rule."
Zang Ba of Mount Tai, Chang Xi, even Zhao Bao — men who still had not bowed their heads to Liu Bei. One after another, they would have to. Su Shuang would go to Jizhou and negotiate with Yuan Shao. I would make the circuit of Xuzhou.
Even so, the air was still thick with a fury that simply could not accept it. Let Liu Bei agree under these conditions, and I would make enemies of the rest.
"Let me say it once more. In helping Cao Cao, I will not use a single grain of Xuzhou's rice. Not a single cart."
"Then... with what do you mean to support him?"
To Lu Su's question I gave the answer I had already settled.
"We came from Jizhou in the first place, and there are still funds there we have not cleared — money owed to us that we have not received. It is tied-up coin we likely cannot bring to Xuzhou. If I cannot spend it myself, I will go to Yuan Shao and use it to have him put something toward helping Cao Cao."
A stifled sound of disbelief broke somewhere in the room.
"Of course, the story told to the outside world will be an entirely different one."
In the end the people of Xuzhou would lose nothing at all, and I would take this chance to spend the Jizhou share Yuan Shao meant to swallow as a debt hung around Cao Cao's neck.
"My lord, it is... deeply distasteful. And yet to support Cao Cao by way of Hebei, and to leave him with one great... debt... I do not think it a bad thing."
Lu Su understood. He looked as though he could never bring himself to approve. He was only barely saying it as senior counselor of Liu Bei's army; every man born of Xuzhou would answer the same way.
"Enough. If Zijing will go so far as to say that, this is truly a large matter."
"At the least, from Xuzhou we will be able to deal at our ease with Yuzhou and Qingzhou — and, by the Yellow River, with Yanzhou and the Central Plains."
Lu Su saw it. That was exactly the thing. If we could use the water road of the Yellow River, what would that mean? Passage through Yanzhou to the Central Plains, and to the living symbol of Han now residing in Guanzhong. The whole of that grand design, the one that could be realized within three years — I would draw it all. Right now, it was entirely possible.
"Let us end the council here. Matters have been spoken that none of you can accept with head or with heart, but let us strive, and draw them toward a rational end."
Liu Bei clapped three times to close the meeting, and one by one they rose.
"Zhang Qian, you wait a moment."
He had singled me out. Of course Zhang Fei was still beside him.
"You said you would move your house so that Yuan Shao saves Cao Cao."
"Yes."
"In the end, is that not saving Cao Cao — driven to the edge of a cliff — with your own house's money?"
"It... would come to that."
"Xuzhou takes no loss whatever, and I too, uneasy as I am, heard you out because the proposal was yours. The funds left in Jizhou must come to tens of thousands of taels. Can you truly throw them away like that?"
"From the moment I moved my base to Xuzhou, I spoke knowing that what remains in Jizhou is, in truth, money I will never recover."
Yuan Shao would invent one excuse after another and never distribute the whole of it. Even the portion I might have received, he would withhold on the pretext of spending it to crush Gongsun Zan and the Black Mountain bandits. Where was the honor among the warlords of Hebei? The trust between a financier and his former debtor was already smashed to pieces.
"Money I cannot collect anyway. I mean to leave it with Yuan Shao and Cao Cao as a debt that puts them once in my obligation."
"You had that in mind? You are a truly remarkable friend."
Liu Bei applauded him, and Zhang Fei nodded, the look in his eyes conceding it.
"Very well. I will persuade the others myself. And if you need anything at all, say so. You are taking the hard labor upon yourself — how could I sit idle?"
"As I tour Xuzhou and bring the warlords in, I ask that Brother Yide serve as my escort."
"Yide. Pack."
At Liu Bei's word Zhang Fei rose without the slightest reaction and began at once to prepare for the circuit of Xuzhou.
And so, with Zhang Fei for a guard, I would make a rather splendid progress through the lands of Xuzhou.