A Merchant Knows Every Little Thing
I finished the day's work and left the office.
"Brother-in-law."
"What — you waited out here for me?"
Zhuge Liang had been waiting beyond the palace gates. Since we were already out, we decided to look over the shops on the way home.
Walking the streets of Xudu, I could see the marketplace had come alive to a fair degree. I had overhauled the shops along the market street, made a proper commercial district of it, and set a good many jobs turning; people had risen with the place as naturally as water finding its level.
"A taste so fine that if two of you were eating and one dropped dead, the other wouldn't notice! Skewers — come and buy!"
"Rare wood, five coins! A world apart from ordinary firewood!"
"Gift this to the wife at home and you'll buy ten days of peace! Jewelry, here!"
Merchants gathering to sell in such variety was a good thing. In truth, though, something else outnumbered them.
"Brother-in-law. Cao Cao's troops."
"Mm."
Squads of Cao Cao's soldiers swept the shopping street in flawless order, and the common people drew in on themselves. Watch an army patrol and keep surveillance at all hours, and Xudu, capital though it was, had far more soldiers in its streets than ordinary folk. If I had to compare it to anything, it carried the air of a garrison town — Cheorwon, say, or Gyeryong, places that exist for the troops.
"Well now! How is everyone keeping?"
"The Zhechong Colonel, isn't it?"
The commander of the troops ranging the market district was Xiahou Dun, and the men under him were the Qingzhou Troops — regulars risen from the leavings of the Yellow Turbans, the very army that had butchered Xuzhou.
Zhuge Liang saw them, went stiff, and broke into a cold sweat. Xiahou Dun paid it no mind at all and laughed, broad and easy, right in front of us.
"Hahaha! Why is the lad shrinking like that? Surely you're used to the peacekeeping troops making their rounds?"
"He's from Xuzhou. That's why."
"Hrm? Can't say I follow. Anyway, Imperial Censor — these days I hear no end of praise for you around the marketplace."
"Do you? Kind words getting around is a good thing."
"Until our Grand General Aman returns, I'm holding this capital shut as an iron gate. If anything comes up, send word whenever you like. Well, then!"
Stitching his lord's childhood name to the man's office was a liberty only Xiahou Dun could take.
He laughed in that hearty way of his and led the troops back out on patrol. Zhuge Liang, his face tight with discomfort, gnawed at his thumbnail.
"Does he truly not know? Or is he pretending ignorance while he closes in?"
"He may have wiped it from memory altogether. For men like them, wars of that sort are familiar."
Unbidden, I remembered the first time I came to Xuzhou. Corpses stacked like mountains, the river dyed with blood — a catastrophe so vast I couldn't get a sentence out. That was when Zhang He came up and said it. Hang whatever fine phrases you like on the thing: countless people dead and strewn out like that — that is war.
The man holding the Commandant's post in Yuzhou. I wanted him summoned to the capital and given a real weight of responsibility.
"Haa..."
"If it's truly weighing on you, buy something. Fill the hollow however you can."
I pressed a few coins into Zhuge Liang's hand and told him to shop the market and work it off.
He hesitated, then lingered before a peddler's stall, turning over mirrors and women's face powder. A breath of incense caught him, and he bought several sticks. I'd heard the boy had been purchasing women's goods more and more of late, but this was practically impulse buying — snatching up whatever came to hand.
He shopped his fill, and still it didn't seem to ease him. I walked on, soothing Zhuge Liang as he heaved one heavy sigh after another.
"He led seventy thousand on the Nanyang campaign, and still the capital is thick with Cao Cao's troops. The faction itself is simply too strong."
If Cao Cao vanished and these soldiers ran wild, merely staying alive might truly become impossible. Had we even half of Yuan Shao's strength — no, a third — it wouldn't matter whether Cao Cao dropped dead of some sudden end or got himself assassinated over a cup of wine. As things stood, Cao Cao was the only check on them. To stop a rampage that would make Dong Zhuo, or the likes of Li Jue and Guo Si, look laughable, he had to make it back to Xudu in one piece first.
"So long as he doesn't go making eyes at a widow."
"Brother-in-law, you've been saying that ever since before the Nanyang campaign. What does a widow have to do with any of it?"
"Ah, there's a reason. They say the wife of Zhang Ji, the man who died in Nanyang, is a beauty worthy of being called the finest in the realm."
Zhuge Liang's eyes went wide.
"Cao Cao's appetite for women is considerable, so I figured that once the place fell there'd be some useless scandal. I warned Brother Zhang Fei ahead of time."
"How did you even know a thing like that...?"
"I'm a merchant. Range the whole realm and you come to know every little trifle there is. That, and the fact that the demand for women's cosmetics and musical instruments runs high all through Jingzhou."
Even with foreknowledge of what was coming, you still had to build a reason that would hold if you wanted the claim to stand. Say you'd heard it at one remove, through the trade in ornaments and cosmetics across Jingzhou, and everyone nodded along.
We walked on that way until we reached the laundry I had set up.
Inside, a great many women were bent to the work. They stitched torn clothes, patched what had frayed, washed with lye, and once the garments were dry they heaped flowers over them or dashed them with perfume until a faint fragrance rose.
"Ah — my lord!"
Diaochan, who had been in the main hall of the laundry, came running to greet me. That face, bright with a smile for whoever came through the door, was enough to shake the heart of every man who saw it. Zhuge Liang flushed scarlet and bowed his head, and when Diaochan came, took my arm, and we stepped outside, we gathered the envy of every passerby at a glance.
"It isn't too hard on you?"
"It's comfortable, if anything. And it's fun, listening to the market women's talk."
Diaochan picked up an old silk robe she had just finished mending.
"My lord, just as you said, I've been setting aside the clothes made from good material."
Worn and frayed though they were, when that cloth was first woven it had been silk fit for a gentleman of standing or a great clan. Things like this were usually picked up on some battlefield and worn after — or else they belonged to a man of the gentry who had the standing to wear them.
"She's brought it in several times. A woman of few words. Once the mending was done she snatched it back in a hurry, and she was extremely wary besides."
"I'd better go see."
I went looking for the house that had entrusted the clothes to Diaochan. It was an old mud-brick house some distance off. The moment the door opened and they saw me in official robes, they startled so hard they nearly jumped.
"May I come in?"
"We... we're only..."
"Ah — I've brought a set of clothes as a gift. Even granting that this was silk from the hills of Ba-Shu, it was far too worn. I've had a set prepared from good cloth."
I found clothes of the same size on the spot and offered them. There was some murmuring inside, and then they let me through.
There was a man whose bearing in his prime must have been fine, though now the flesh had fallen from his face and his beard had grown out rough.
"I am Zhang Qian. A man who holds a small office at court."
"...I am Wang Zhong."
There are quite a few men named Wang Zhong. Which Wang Zhong was this?
"I meant to gift you new clothes. From the look of what you used to wear, you seem of a good gentry house. May I ask your circumstances?"
"I nearly committed an act no human being ought to commit, and the self-loathing drove me into seclusion."
"You nearly committed it? Or did you truly commit it?"
He said nothing.
The silence told me enough. Was this the Wang Zhong of Chang'an — the Wang Zhong who, in the days of Wei still to come, would rise as far as Marquis of Duting and Senior General?
"You sit in the high office of Imperial Censor, so I will speak. This man was originally precinct head of Fufeng, and when the Son of Heaven's carriage was received into Chang'an, he went there in the post of Cavalry Commandant."
"Oh?"
"Dong Zhuo's tyranny there was so severe that, together with Xun You, Hua Xin, and Zheng Tai, with whom he was on good terms, he tried to kill the man. He failed, and ought to have died for it — except that, by a bitter twist, that was the very hour Dong Zhuo was truly killed by Lu Bu."
"A loyal man of principle, then?"
"A loyal man of principle? Heh... and what of it? Hunger has made me a body that abandoned human decency."
"May I... hear more?"
Wang Zhong let out a long breath and told all of it.
"I thought it would end once Dong Zhuo was dead. The regime of those four dogs and swine — Li Jue, Guo Si, Zhang Ji, and Fan Chou — was worse still. In the end they fell to fighting among themselves, and when the Son of Heaven made his escape, Chang'an was nothing short of a living hell. Starve for five days and the face goes sallow; I couldn't see a thing in front of me. The men who followed me died. We had neither hoe nor spade, so I tried to dig the earth with my hands and with branches and bury them, and when even that failed, I resolved simply to cremate my men's bodies."
In that moment Wang Zhong's hands began to shake, and his face went the color of ash with the shame of it.
"I was burning the body of a comrade who had been with me... and there came the smell of meat I had not once eaten in all that time. I failed to keep a human being's duty as a human being. I looked at my comrade's body as it burned, and my mouth filled with spit."
"...Did you eat?"
"If I had, shame would have driven me to kill myself."
"So you didn't. When a man starves, he stops seeing straight. It was nothing but a moment's thought gone wrong."
"And yet I am like this out of shame for the heart that abandoned human decency then. If only a few more days had passed — if the army of the man who is now Commander of the Tiger-Brave Imperial Guards had not come — I truly would have roasted human flesh and eaten it."
A shame that crossed what is human, fleeting though the moment was, and the trauma of it that had shut him away: that was Wang Zhong. I heard him out, nodded, and rose.
"I'll have meat and rice sent to the house before long. Plenty of both."
"Imperial Censor!"
"Eat well, rest well, and steady your heart a little at a time. And once you've put yourself in some order, seek out General Liu of the Office of the Left General, which is soon to be established. Tell him you are a man who received help from Guan Yu and from Zhang Qian."
He said nothing.
By my reckoning, Wang Zhong would come looking for Liu Bei's army. If he was on good terms with the likes of Hua Xin and Xun You, there would be a use for him sooner or later.
I paid my respects to Wang Zhong's household and took my leave. Zhuge Liang had already gone home ahead of us. I took the hand of Diaochan, who was waiting.
"Ah!"
"Shall we walk home?"
Diaochan flushed and nodded, and she was lovely doing it.
Arm in arm, we strolled toward the house at an easy pace, and every gaze in Xudu seemed to fall on us at once. After Xiahou Dun earlier, now another officer was coming on at the head of the peacekeeping troops. Cao Cao's army really was holding Xudu like an iron cask, and the city showed itself plainly for what it was — a neighborhood with more soldiers than civilians.
A sharp clang rang out.
In the midst of the column, a few of the peacekeeping soldiers dropped the spears they were carrying and stared this way, souls gone clean out of them.
"Worthless wretches! The ones who dropped their weapons, out here this instant!"
The commander took up his baton and, having seen the soldiers struck dumb at the sight of Diaochan, beat them within an inch of their lives. He thrashed them until a bystander would have gone cold watching, then came toward me with the bloodied baton and bowed his head in apology without preamble.
"You are the Imperial Censor, are you not? I have committed a discourtesy."
"Ah, it's nothing. You do keep a savage grip on discipline."
"This humble one is Man Chong, magistrate of Xu County, charged with its peace."
"A friend of Xu Huang?"
"That man... after he surrendered, he went to Yanzhou."
I had mentioned Xu Huang, the Cavalry Commandant who had been mixed in among the White Wave bandits, and Man Chong answered at once.
"Rather than escorting her along the open street, it would be better to go by carriage. Walking about with a woman in this manner is..."
"Ah, there was a small matter, so we walked a little."
I deliberately drew Diaochan in and hid her face against my chest. Man Chong bowed in silence and departed.
Diaochan, mortified to the tips of her ears, whispered.
"Even so — my sister-in-law told me not to go about with my face bare."
"My sister said that?"
"Last time, at the gathering hosted by the Grand General's wife and her daughter, I happened to be passing and offered a greeting. They say the Grand General's lady went solemn, and looked that young lady's features over very carefully..."
Ah. I'd heard about that.
Our household had been sending gifts among Cao Cao's clan and keeping up the acquaintance, and one of Cao Cao's wives had brought her daughters and nieces along. The talk had gone pleasantly enough — until she saw Diaochan's face and flinched. Wasn't that what my sister had said? That even if she tried to broker a match, once they laid eyes on the concubine of our house, it was hopeless on the score of beauty alone...
Well. Looks matter even in a marriage of policy, and the rivalry inside the household matters more. That would be the gist of it.
After that, while I was buried in the business of court, of the two great lords who had left Xudu, Liu Bei returned first.
Together with a strategist of Cao Cao's army and the dispatched commander Cao Xiu, he had led the troops, crushed every last remnant of Yang Feng and Han Xian, and even taken both their heads, receiving the Emperor's commendation for it.
"We offer our congratulations on Imperial Uncle Liu's victory."
"As Inspector of Yuzhou, I have brought down one of the great pillars of banditry across Yuzhou. The suppression of traitors will have to go on."
"Cao Cao's troops were something to see as well. That cavalry officer — the one they say is of Cao Cao's own clan — his mounted martial skill was tremendous."
"Come. Now that it's just us gathered again, shouldn't we share a celebration?"
Liu Bei, drinking deep of the joy of victory. The other generals, too, each with his own merit behind him, were all in a festive mood.
"So now we only need Yide and Zizhong to come back safe?"
"They've subdued Nanyang as well, by the reports, so they ought to return soon."
According to those reports, no commander to speak of had been wounded or killed, and Zhang Fei had sent a personal letter saying he would be back before long. That was enough to rest easy.
Fortunately, there had been no affair of Lady Zou. One crisis passed, then — whether on Cao Cao's side, or here in Xudu.
"When our lord came back with the heads of Yang Feng and Han Xian, I remember Cao Cao's officers were so startled they couldn't get a word out."
"I was the strategist who drew up the plan, and even I don't know how he found the enemy commander in that situation."
If Zhao Yun and Lu Su were saying as much, then Liu Bei must have swung his twin swords and carved an unrivaled path through the White Wave bandits even without Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.
"In any case, you've returned safely and piled up a great deal of merit. That's well done."
"Zhang Qian. There's something I would say to you alone."
I went still.
Liu Bei called me aside and spoke quietly of what had happened on the campaign.
"Even weighing the service they once rendered, what Yang Feng and Han Xian did could not be forgiven. So I took both their heads."
"You did right."
"The problem is what those men said. It was so absurd I couldn't bring myself to report it before the throne."
"What — did someone somewhere declare independence from Han?"
For an instant, the look in Liu Bei's eyes was anything but ordinary.
"You know of it?"
"All I know is this. Through Yangzhou and Lujiang, mystics preaching the doctrines of prophetic omens have been multiplying to a strange degree, and an odd rumor is running that region — that an uncanny air is stirring."
I offered that, too, as a merchant's scrap of common knowledge, and Liu Bei nodded.
"From old times, lead mystics against the people and show them strange miracles, and rebellion and a separatist power are sure to rise behind it. Far back, the revolt of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang. Nearer to hand, the Yellow Turbans of the Way of Great Peace."
"Yang Feng and Han Xian said Yuan Shu means to usurp the imperial title. They said if I wanted the details, I should spare them."
But Liu Bei was, at bottom, a descendant of the Han imperial house, and a man with a knight-errant's cast of mind. He took it for nonsense that could not be, and cut the traitors down without troubling to hear them out.
"You'll need to make ready. I'll send word to Xuzhou to more than double the levy, and to produce weapons in bulk."
"When Brother Mengde returns... do we even raise this?"
"For now, once there's a clear proclamation, that is the time to submit a formal memorial calling for a punitive campaign. I'll keep looking into it as well."
End one war, and another is waiting. That is the way of an age of chaos.
And thanks to that, the coalition regime goes on — never a day when the wind is still.