Meet Respect with Respect, a Blade with a Greater Blade
Liu Bei led his men away. Guan Yu and I stayed behind.
"Governor Liu. A word, if I may."
"What is it?"
"Once Xiaopei is settled, leave the strategists behind to hold Xuzhou."
"Hm? And the negotiations?"
"The man we need, in a moment like this, is..."
I leaned to Liu Bei's ear and whispered the name.
His eyes widened, then drew slowly narrow.
"Can you be sure?"
"Trust me. Only me."
"Then I must."
He nodded at that and turned to Guan Yu.
"Yunchang! I leave His Majesty's protection to you!"
"Have no fear, elder brother. I will guard the court with my life!"
And so Liu Bei set out for Xiaopei with Cao Cao's army.
The great host had gone, and the place felt hollow in its wake. Into that unsettled quiet I spoke to Guan Yu.
"Shall we have a look at His Majesty's temporary palace?"
"Hm."
Palace was a generous word for it. Among the houses burned in years past, the emperor had been packed, palace ladies and eunuchs and all, into the one mansion still halfway fit to stand. They had scraped the soot from the pillars, thrown a new roof over the beams, and laid rough planks and tent-leather across the floor so a man could walk without sinking into ash. That cramped little warren was the imperial palace.
Even so, a palace was a palace.
With a heavy thud Guan Yu drove the Green Dragon Crescent Blade deep into the earth, bowed toward the emperor's quarters, and then walked the grounds empty-handed.
Word of it reached the other ministers at once. Several hurried over, took in the blade planted in the ground, and found it very interesting indeed.
"With no proper office to receive swords, he makes quite a spectacle of disarming. What if someone simply pulls it out and walks off?"
"Let them try."
Try they did. Several men rushed the blade together, and all they won for it was a great deal of straining and groaning.
Just then two figures came toward us.
"Well, well. If it isn't Lord Baijin and Lord Yunchang."
"Ah. Lord Xun."
Xun Yu and Cao Ren approached side by side and greeted us as if they were glad of the meeting.
"A regrettable business. To think so many insolent men, come supposedly to rescue His Majesty, are already eyeing our lands."
Xun Yu's smile never left him, and the face that wore it was remarkably fine. Set against that softness, his words were never anything but sharp.
"Those of us who remain are the ones who must guard the imperial house."
"Ah, quite so. But have you heard the news?"
"News?"
"The White Wave bands have fallen to fighting among themselves and show every sign of flying apart. Their main strength, in particular, looks ready to gather again in Hedong and make a show of force."
He was saying it outright? With both Liu Bei and Cao Cao gone?
"The White Wave of Hedong were never to be trusted in the first place."
Guan Yu was a son of Hedong Commandery, and the mere mention of those bandits always struck fire in him. Xun Yu smiled and pressed the point.
"Might Lord Yunchang be willing to set Hedong in order?"
"You would lay that charge on me while my lord is absent?"
"Not at all. A question, nothing more. How could we settle anything among ourselves with our lords away? Hahaha—"
He had tossed the stone on purpose. Then he bowed and passed on.
I called after him.
"Lord Xun."
"Yes?"
"Give us a mess-box full of campaign rations, and we can march anywhere."
"Oh? Is that so?"
"Rations matter."
"If all it takes is a box packed full of them... hahaha. Very well. When our lords return, let us speak of what comes next."
As Xun Yu and Cao Ren withdrew, I turned his words over again.
The White Mountain bandits splitting among themselves, and gathering strength in Hedong?
After Cao Cao and Liu Bei departed, real trouble did break out among the White Wave chieftains.
"Brothers! We'll get nowhere tearing at one another like this! Have you forgotten the bond we swore in Baibo Valley?"
"Chieftain Han! Has the Grand General's seat gone to your head? Since when do you wave a court official's authority in our faces?"
The White Wave were a vast power that had risen out of Baibo Valley in Bingzhou. Some were remnants of the Yellow Turbans. Some had split from the Black Mountain bandits. Some were discharged soldiers who had banded together as warlords in a collapsing age. Gathered in one place, those men had built the host the world now called the White Wave.
They had risked their lives to bring the emperor out of Guanzhong, and not one proper reward had followed. What rewards there were differed wildly from man to man. Discontent had reached the boil.
"Fine, we take a general's office. Fine, we become proper imperial troops. But the emperor turns up with two scraps of paper and a lot of noise — where's the salary he promised?"
"The old fossils want to move the capital to Xu County, and not one of them says he'll take us along!"
"If they haven't got gold and jewels to hand out, they could at least divide up those palace women they drag around. One apiece!"
"Chieftain Li! Mind your tongue, at least..."
Han Xian, Yang Feng, Li Le, and Hu Cai, each heading a different faction within the White Wave, gave voice to their fury that rescuing the emperor had not brought the rewards they had pictured. A regular army still had to keep its discipline, so they gathered the grievances boiling up from below and raised them here, in one place.
What good was it that a Grand General, a Colonel-Director of Retainers, and a General of Chariots and Cavalry sat in this very hall? Set aside the rice they could eat today, and there was no salary to speak of. Not even a single cash reward.
"Chieftain Han! If you've got the Grand General's seat, go and tell the emperor! We need wartime supplies — demand the authority to take them!"
"All of you, calm yourselves!"
"We're about to be thrown out on our backsides, and you want us calm? To hell with that!"
"Ugh... very well! Then I will petition His Majesty, and we will discuss an emergency levy upon Henei and Hedong in the north of Sili, and upon the Huainan region. A levy — not plunder. Nothing beyond that. Will it satisfy you?"
Han Xian could not hold them. That was the hour the White Wave's tragedy began.
The shouting rose, and when Han Xian granted each chieftain the authority to levy, Yang Feng got to his feet.
"Chieftain Yang. Where do you think you're going?"
"Once Chieftain Han has his permission, I mean to go down into that Yuzhou Cao Cao and Liu Bei keep talking about. A temporary capital in those parts, is it? Then we, who earned the merit of bringing the Son of Heaven out, ought to get there first and claim the best supplies as our reward!"
"You'll find nothing worth eating down there. Why not come north with me?"
"Who knows? There might be a pearl in the mud."
Yang Feng withdrew quickly. Once his faction was gone, Li Le, Hu Cai, and Han Xian turned their eyes on whatever scraps remained of Sili. A Colonel-Director of Retainers sat among them. They meant to take a fat share.
Outside, the aide who doubled as Yang Feng's retained commander was waiting. He asked quietly.
"How did it go?"
"A damned mess. They can't break the old habit. Off they go, to conduct an 'emergency levy.'"
"Wang Kuang, Administrator of Henei, won't sit still for that."
"Xu Huang. That matter of yours. Can it truly be trusted?"
Xu Huang, cavalry colonel under Yang Feng, drew a bamboo slip from his robe.
"Succeed, and seven parts in ten are ours. Fail, and they'll still take us in. That the shape of it?"
"It's a backer who means to strike at Cao Cao. The judgment is yours, Brother Yang... but we should keep our distance from the others for now. Put official caps on those men and their nature doesn't change."
"Tsk."
That was the truth inside the White Wave. Just as Xun Yu had told Zhang Qian, they bullied the emperor where he stood, declared an emergency levy for the sake of the realm, and dragged their forces north. That a storm of blood would sweep Hedong, Huainan, and Henan was plain to anyone.
"Xu Huang. That fellow over there. They say he gathered up every one of the emperor's treasures and brought them in. Wouldn't the fastest way be to open his belly?"
Yang Feng said it lightly, watching Zhang Qian pass in the distance. Xu Huang checked him at once.
"Entertain that thought for even a moment, and it will be a true disaster."
Beside Zhang Qian stood a giant of nine chi, long-bearded, his face dark with anger. A dreadful killing intent reached even this far.
"That bearded one looks familiar. Wasn't the man who slaughtered those salt merchants our brothers were close with a red-faced fellow, nine chi tall?"
"Brother Yang, let us make for Yingchuan first. We need to seize the center of that region before Cao Cao or Liu Bei comes down."
All of this was before Liu Bei and Cao Cao returned.
"Your Majesty! The men out of Baibo Valley are plundering across Sili beyond all bounds. The outcry rises on every side!"
So it had burst, as it was bound to.
"Indeed! Wang Kuang, Administrator of Henei, could bear their atrocities no longer and has submitted a memorial. They already cloak themselves in Your Majesty's majesty and live by robbery. They must be punished."
The old ministers who had come all the way from Guanzhong rose at once against the White Wave's outrages, committed under the name of a levy. Cao Cao backed them.
"Your Majesty, these bandits wear the caps of Grand General, Colonel-Director of Retainers, General of Chariots and Cavalry, and generals of every miscellaneous title besides. Nothing remains in their sight, and so they play at being warlords. I deem this profoundly improper! I beg you to order their suppression!"
The emperor must have been beside himself. The offices they were abusing were the very ones he had granted — offices, because offices were all he had left to give — and this was what the men did with them.
Then Liu Bei stepped forward.
"Your Majesty, their merit in upholding you is great. Yet if this plundering goes on, it may bring grave shame upon Your Majesty's name."
"Send Liu Bei, Governor of Xuzhou, to suppress them!"
The moment Liu Bei had spoken, Cao Cao, Xun Yu, and their whole faction recommended him to a man for the suppression of the White Wave. Scattered as those bands were across their separate lands, the emperor rendered his decision.
Cao Cao would take the remnants under Yang Feng in the south. Liu Bei would take the remnants under Han Xian in the north of Sili.
"That bastard Cao Cao means to suck us dry to the marrow! Not even reinforcements this time?"
When Guan Yu exploded, Liu Bei raised a hand and checked him.
"I was the one who said so. We must not borrow Brother Mengde's troops any further. Once was enough."
They said Liu Bei had settled Lü Bu's invasion of Xiaopei with remarkable speed. There had hardly been a fight. The moment he came racing in, Lü Bu pulled back, and Xiaopei and Xuzhou were safe. He had rotated men and horses, raised a force of four thousand, and no sooner arrived in Luoyang than he was sent to suppress the White Wave.
He had also sent Lu Su, Chen Deng, Mi Zhu, and Sun Qian back to concentrate on defense. Aside from me, everyone here was a fighting man.
"Little brothers. Haven't I always said it? When have we ever fought by counting heads?"
"That's right, elder brother!"
"Still, Brother Mengde has given us grain enough. All we have to do is fight."
Liu Bei drew his twin swords. Resolve rang in his voice.
And so his army climbed straight from Luoyang to the banks of the Yellow River, to meet the White Wave host that had massed while plundering Henei Commandery. It was a pursuit that had beaten down, one by one, the smaller bands stirring up commanderies and counties in the rear, and climbed on. Their numbers, at a rough count, were more than ten thousand. If they came down on Luoyang in earnest, the emperor might be taken again.
"Grand General — hear me!"
Liu Bei shouted toward the White Wave army, and the answer came at once.
"I wondered who it was. Liu Xuande? Why have you come to strike us?"
"You used the Son of Heaven's authority and plundered in the Grand General's name! An order for your suppression has been issued!"
"Madness! Luoyang lies in ruins — this is an emergency levy we obtained from His Majesty. Aren't you the ones playing tricks so you can attack us?"
"However desperate the hour, is wealth and grain taken by killing the people a levy? By righteousness, this cannot be allowed!"
Liu Bei raised his twin swords and made ready. Han Xian drew his blade as well.
"Fine! You and Cao Cao both — late to a finished feast, setting down your spoons and nothing more. I never liked either of you! Brothers of the White Wave — attack!"
With the Yellow River and the walls of Henan at their backs, Liu Bei's army simply charged from the front.
So it had come to this. Far fewer in number, balanced on a razor's edge, they went out against more than twice their strength of White Wave bandits who had shown their true colors. Trusting only the valor of the three sworn brothers — Liu, Guan, and Zhang — and of Zhang He and Zhao Yun, they drove straight in. No thought of encirclement. They simply pushed.
Steel ripped the air.
"Gaaah!"
"Do not fall back! We are suppressing the bandits who plundered Sili!"
Zhang He, Zhang Fei, and the others put personal command and brute strength to the fore and drove the enemy even with few men. I threw everything I had into supporting them, archers and long-spearmen to the front.
But the White Wave were stronger troops than I had imagined. Even before Guan Yu and Zhang Fei they came on in a rush, like fighting cocks that could not master their rage. Their spirit was different again from Yuan Shu's army, or from Lü Bu's, that we had fought before. It was a battle of raw collision, tactics and strategy cast aside, the line hardening more and more into a pure contest of strength.
Neither side gave ground. Blood and blades filled the field without pause, and I kept one eye on the sun as I raised our banner higher still. We had come this far, and here I was ready to play the last piece.
That's enough. The moment you see this banner — come. Better still, come right now.
We held through one more two-hour watch. And at last the answer came.
Dum. Dum. Dum. Dum.
"Hm? What's this?"
Liu Bei had just come to me to change horses and charge again. At the drumming from far off, his ears pricked.
"Baijin! You know, don't you? What is that sound?"
"Hah... my hidden card took its time."
I drew a cloth from my robe, wiped the blood from his armor, and spoke.
"Governor Liu, you trusted me, didn't you? Three thousand men through the tiger's den called Yanzhou — and if the numbers ran short, I would make them somehow. That was what I said."
"Y-yes! I did! Then you don't mean—?"
"Late, but they're here. Zhuge Liang, whom we sent north of the river the moment we made for Yanzhou — he has arrived at last!"
"Ah!"
"There will be quite a few welcome faces."
"You don't mean Governor Yuan of Jizhou's—?"
"Absolutely not! Just see for yourself who they are!"
In the next instant Liu Bei seized my arm, threw me onto another horse, and dragged me to the front of the field.
Ahead, four thousand of his men and ten thousand of the White Wave were locked together. Into that battlefield soldiers had suddenly come down — only one or two thousand, but elites striking the rear by surprise. Few as they were, the sun had set. That meant the enemy could not tell how many they were.
"Damn it! Ambush from behind!"
"Don't tell me it's that bastard Wang Kuang! Hit them in the back of the head!"
I could hear the White Wave chieftains shouting through the melee. But that wasn't it.
The fight went on. They still had the greater numbers, yet Liu Bei's men raked them front and rear, confusion piled on confusion, and at last the White Wave began to come apart from the flanks. To turn in earnest on the small force in the rear, the momentum of Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei was too fierce. To keep shoving our army at the front, the three brothers, together with Zhang He and Zhao Yun, were holding far too well.
And through it all, at last, a commander came charging, tearing the White Wave apart as he came.
"My lord! It has been so long!"
"T-Tian Yu!?"
"Tian Yu, whom you sent home for the sake of duty, has arrived this very moment to aid his lord!"
Tian Yu — the first reinforcing officer Su Shuang and Zhuge Liang had found. When he left, I had given him a hundred pieces of gold and sent him off in the hope that he would return with men of talent willing to follow Liu Bei.
Steel ripped the air again.
"Wang Ling, of the house of Wang Yun, Minister over the Masses, who destroyed the traitor Dong Zhuo! I have come to this place to suppress traitors!"
The man announcing himself as he swung his sword — Wang Ling, was it?
"Chen Yan, eldest son of a county magistrate of Zhongshan Commandery! I have come to repay the kindness shown me in Jizhou!"
Chen Yan of the Zhongshan Chen clan had come to this field.
"Hao Zhao, of the military colonies at Taiyuan in Bingzhou! I have come to this place to do a great work!"
Tian Yu, you madman. Where, and how, did you find Hao Zhao and bring him here?
Once Tian Yu and Chen Yan had opened a path, a carriage came racing up. In it were Zhuge Liang and Su Shuang.
"Brother-in-law!"
"You arrived at just the right moment!"
"We crossed the Yellow River and have been waiting with our necks about to snap!"
"Good thing I sent word before we marched, isn't it? At any rate, you're all safe. That's what matters!"
Tian Yu's return. He had left alone. He came back, in the chaos of the age, with comrades who would follow us — and we met again upon the battlefield.