The Thousand-Gold Merchant Leaves Xudu in One Piece

In a side chamber, Cao Cao turned the name Zhang Baijin over on his tongue and roared through bloodshot eyes.

"Imperial Censor Zhang Baijin—that man! That man!!"

He stood trembling, the sword still locked in his fist, and one man stepped forward before the rest. It was Xun Yu.

"This would seem to be the will of Heaven. Act according to your reason, Minister."

"!"

In the end, the decision Cao Cao could not bring himself to make, Xun Yu spoke for him.

"In the Warring States, when Qin made war on Zhao and more than four hundred thousand Zhao soldiers died, it was Lü Buwei who spirited the Qin prince Ying Zichu out of Xianyang, the Zhao capital where he was held hostage."

Cao Cao forever measured the men under him against the worthies of old—my Zhang Zifang, my Fan Kuai, my Elai, my Chen Ping. Xun Yu had just given that habit a slight twist.

"He got Ying Zichu free, and then, in the capital of an enemy still burning with rage, he bargained to the last with King Xiaowen of Zhao and with Lord Pingyuan, one of the Four Lords of the Warring States, and kept Zichu's wife, Lady Zhao, and their son Zheng—the boy who would become Qin Shi Huang—alive, and hidden. It seems that history is repeating itself today."

The tale only fed Cao Cao's fury. On Xun Yu's heels, Guo Jia stepped in.

"Minister. At a time like this, do the thing you do best."

"..."

"Your guts are a thousand fires. You want to draw that sword this instant, cut down everything in reach, and vomit out every feeling you've got. But haven't you always, even at the worst of times, shown that none of it touched you? Played the great-hearted man, refused to lay the blame on your own people, and laughed it off?"

"...!?"

"For the sake of opinion under heaven, show Zhang Baijin that same face today."

Xun Yu had laid a hand on his reason, Guo Jia on his heart, and at last Cao Cao set the sword down. He spread his arms. Maids rushed in, changed his clothes, and wrapped him in a fresh outer robe and the crimson cloak he loved.

Cao Cao returned at last, dressed anew. Whatever they had said to him, I decided not to think about it.

"Baijin. I'm back."

"So this isn't a last cup before the headsman's block."

"Heh. Heheheh! Heheheheh!"

In the end, he laughed at the sight of me.

"Heh heh—hahahahaha!"

It was a vast, open-throated laugh. When it had finally run its course, he lifted his cup and spoke low.

"The food was good. A shame to kill the cook. A shame to kill the master of this house, too."

"Fortunate. So from now on you'll be free to enjoy every delicacy of land and sea?"

I was alive.

If I had done as I felt, I would have stormed outside with both fists clenched and roared three cheers to heaven. But it was not over. Not yet.

"I accept all three edicts His Majesty issued. Consort Dong is a special exception. From the look of her... who can say whether she'll even give birth safely."

"Even so, in the end the Minister shows mercy."

"Is it about the hour of hai? I'll let you live until midnight. I'll notify the whole army at once and permit night passage. Leave Xudu."

"!"

"This is the last mercy I extend. If you are still in that seat after midnight, I may hear an 'unfortunate report'—of 'subordinates' excessive loyalty.' Even though I never gave the order."

The countdown had started. Get out, and get out fast. But I was still savoring the delicacies on the table, and I poured the wine slowly.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm grateful for the chance to live. But there's still time until midnight."

"Hmm?"

"I'm not the sort who, pressed for time, sprints home to bundle up whatever fortune he has left. Two horses and a single carriage will do me."

"Hah. Truly a talent too fine to waste."

For this one moment, even Cao Cao meant it.

"Minister. Even if our roads diverge, you too are one of the great men of this chaotic age—whatever infamy today's business may earn you in later generations."

"Heh heh heh. The same goes for you. And Xuande, who finally gathered you into his arms, is a hero second to none."

"In time the Minister will strike Yuan Shao in Hebei, and we will stamp out what remains of Yuan Shu. Once you and Imperial Uncle Liu have each swallowed one of the two Yuan houses—those clans that bred Three Excellencies generation after generation—the two of you will meet again, sooner or later."

"The lesser Yuan house to Xuande. The greater Yuan house to me."

Cao Cao gave a bitter smile, rose with the wine jar in hand, filled my cup, and nodded for me to go.

"I won't forget the grace of a spared life. We'll meet again, Minister."

"I wish you fortune in war. Do well."

Two hours left, more or less?

On my way out of the restaurant I spoke to the proprietor who had charge of the place.

"Tell the laundry as well. From today, I leave Xudu. Ask the Minister how this shop is to be run."

"Y-yes?! My lord, what in the world—"

"The provisions stockpiled here are your severance. Cook them, sell them, and split the coin among yourselves."

"My lord!"

"?"

"Truly—thank you!"

I had brought in cooks with gifted hands, and women from every quarter, and built what was truly the finest restaurant in the Han, and its laundry besides. Now it was closing.

"Keep cooking well."

The moment I stepped outside, the troops of the Minister of Works—discipline wound tight as wire—had their eyes on me. I produced the transit token Cao Cao had given me. Killing intent rolled off them, but they let me pass all the same, and so I walked the night streets of Xudu alone, unhurried.

The Minister's soldiers were everywhere. They glared, and they could not touch a hair on me. If the gesture had meant anything in this age, I would have flipped a middle finger at every Cao soldier I passed and danced my way down the road. For now, I simply walked.

Guan Yu had already taken my brother-in-law Su Shuang, and Wang Zhong, and gone. I was moving light—truly alone. Light enough that I had to abandon every grain and every coin piled in the warehouse of a house that no longer held a single member of my family. My late father, Zhang Shiping, used to say it: in the worst crisis, the first thing you shake off is grain, and the next is ornament. I was alive. That was enough.

Cao Cao's last spit of spite had given me exactly two hours, so I could hardly leave loaded down. What was there to do but leave looking as fine as I could? And so I arrived at the Court of Judicial Review.

"Who goes there?!"

"You... you're—"

"I have a proper pass. I want to see the prisoners inside. Open up."

Inside, as expected, were the many loyal officials branded traitors for this rising. Dong Cheng, Wang Zifu, Wu Zilan, Chong Ji, Wu Shi. Ji Ben had failed to poison his man on the spot and taken his own life, so I passed him by.

"Is that not the Imperial Censor?"

"Ah, Dezu. You're on night duty at the Court?"

After Man Chong, the night watch rotated. Fortunately, the man on duty tonight was Yang Xiu, and I put my request to him at once.

"The men implicated in this affair are inside, aren't they? I'll see them briefly."

"Forgive me, but what exactly do you mean to say? Every word spoken here is recorded."

"A quarter of an hour. No—half that is plenty."

"Nnnngh."

While Yang Xiu hesitated, and the Court's officers stared at the two of us with no idea what to do, I leaned in and whispered at his ear.

"Her Ladyship Consort Dong leaves alive, into exile. To Hejian in Jizhou—Dong Cheng's own homeland."

"!"

"You want to earn merit, don't you? Your lady mother was close not only with Yuan Shu, but with Yuan Shao as well, wasn't she?"

"...I'll give you the full quarter-hour."

Yang Xiu nodded and spoke to the officers guarding the underground prison.

"Open it. And tell the fellows inside they're being given a short rest. Have them come out."

"Yes, Secretary, sir!"

When every soldier had come up, I went down into the cells beneath the Court, into a darkness thick with the smell of blood and death. The prisoners lay sprawled on the floor, already broken by savage torture, waiting only for the day they would die. I looked for Dong Cheng among them.

"Imperial Father-in-Law Dong."

"That voice... the Imperial Censor...?"

"I am sorry."

"Now... only you and the General of the Left... remain... We die, but... the traitor, I beg you..."

"I bargained with Cao Cao. An order of banishment has fallen on me."

"!"

All around me, sighs broke, and the sound of weeping.

"But hear me, all of you. Her Ladyship Consort Dong will not die on the Minister's blade. His Majesty has reduced her to commoner status and sent her into exile, and she will live. And as for your clans—they were all to be slaughtered, and yet—!"

I steadied the weight in my chest, drew a breath, and spoke again.

"This too I bargained, wagging a merchant's tongue. Among your children, the little boys and girls who have not yet learned their letters will be sold as slaves, and even if their surnames are changed, they will live. The grandchildren, and the young—I saved them, somehow."

With that I raised a cupped-fist salute toward where Dong Cheng, Wang Zifu, and Wu Zilan lay, and bowed my head.

"Imperial Father-in-Law. This was all I could do. May the road you take at least be an easy one."

"Zhang... Baijin... your grace... even in the world below... I will not forget."

I had needed to tell them how it ended. I raised a hand in farewell and left the cells beneath the Court.

"It's done."

"Already? I thought a final farewell would run long."

"I said it. I've no time. I'm going."

"May you know peace and health, from this day on."

Yang Xiu offered me a bow. I left the Court behind. All that remained was the imperial palace.

"Your Majesty. It is all settled."

"Oh... oh...!"

"A great purge will run with blood through the markets of Xudu. But Her Ladyship the Consort will depart safely for Hejian Commandery in Jizhou."

As I figured it, the man who would take Consort Dong away was already as good as chosen.

"Cao Cao granted everything. Her Majesty the Empress lives, and so does the Consort."

"Baijin. I owe you a great debt. Not as the Son of Heaven—as a man!"

"Those are not words Your Majesty should speak."

"For the first time, I have been able to protect even my own family!"

His mother, Beauty Wang. His grandmother, Empress Dowager Dong. His half-brother, the Prince of Hongnong. And all the uncles, aunts, and grand-uncles who had died in the chaos of the Three Adjuncts. The palace must once have been full of them.

"Then this incompetent subject would now take his leave of Your Majesty."

"W-what are you saying? Leave-taking?"

"Imperial Censor! Surely not... Cao Cao?"

The Emperor, Empress Fu, and Consort Dong all stared in shock, tears rising again, and I spoke evenly.

"I am stripped of the seal of Imperial Censor. I abandon every asset my house holds in Xudu. On the condition that I leave this place by midnight, those who remained were spared."

"And to you... to a man like you... I can do nothing."

"If you hold that seat for ten years—for twenty—that will be enough."

The last farewell was done, and now there truly was little time left. Then something happened that ritual should never have allowed.

"Imperial Censor."

"Y-Your Majesty! Even Her Majesty the Empress?"

The Son of Heaven and the Empress came down themselves and seized my hands. Empress Fu's tears fell on the back of my hand, and with my head bowed the feeling was strange. Did this imperial house truly believe that saving them even this far, out of the worst of it, was an infinite debt owed to me?

Consort Dong bowed to me as well, and in that moment the Emperor spoke.

"Imperial Censor. May I make one last request of you as you go?"

"What is it?"

"In Cao Cao's army this time there were Feathered Forest guards—and many of them were of the Tang clan of Hongnong."

"Ah..."

"As it happens, there is a palace woman here now who comes of that same Tang clan of Hongnong."

A senior palace lady of the Tang surname came toward us, staggering like a doll, her face worn haggard in a single day. I have never been partial to the look of a beauty in ruin, but there it was—tear-tracks smeared at the corners of those black eyes, and a face already snow-white gone bloodless with terror and despair. Decent thoughts. Think decent thoughts.

"Can you take her with you?"

"Your Majesty, the meaning of that imperial command..."

"I don't think there is anyone but you who can take her in."

"As I understand the Tang clan of Hongnong..."

"Since you know, I will say it! I have protected her all this time, but it has grown too hard for me. I want her to form a new bond of husband and wife, even if it must be a remarriage. Not as the Son of Heaven. As a man—toward a Tang who has known nothing but suffering..."

She had entered the palace once in an empress's place. Her young husband had been poisoned to death along with the empress dowager. Li Jue and Guo Si had tried to take her, and the Emperor had hidden her in the palace disguised as a palace woman and guarded her with everything he had. And now he was telling me to take away a woman who still held the rank of queen?

I glanced at Lady Tang. She nodded quietly. A queen, offering a joined-hands courtesy to me—a mere marquis.

"Your Majesty. Then let the world be told this, from now on."

"Eh... hmm?"

"The palace was in uproar, and many palace women and eunuchs died. Amid all that, Zhang Baijin, on his way out of Xudu, had taken particular notice of one palace lady—and on the day Zhang Baijin left Xudu, no one could say where she had gone."

"W-what are you saying? Speak so, and you won't remain in the realm as a hero, but as a scoundrel!"

"How could word get out that the Son of Heaven of Han—called the scion of Heaven's Red Emperor—sent his sister-in-law to a subject to be remarried? She who was an empress, though her husband was deposed, and who is a queen still. Your Majesty must keep your dignity and your standing to the very end."

"!!!"

"Though you have no army, no loyal ministers, and no power, Your Majesty must remain, upon the throne, the supreme one unsullied by gossip."

"Imperial Censor..."

"The imperial house's tragic past—I will carry all of it with me as I go. Do not trouble yourself."

Even so, the absurd tale that I had abducted Queen Tang would never truly spread. Why? Because the natural question would be what had happened in the palace, for Queen Tang to come ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to that—and who in the Minister of Works' office had made that something happen. If they really put it about on the battlefield to drag my name down, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I could answer in kind: and who was it that, in the very same sort of situation, took the wife of Empress Dowager He's nephew?

Hearing that, the Emperor looked at Queen Tang with a hollow face, then murmured.

"I was foolish... I have been discourteous to my family yet again... And this time I even laid an imperial command on Queen Tang, begging her to live out the new life that remains to her..."

"Your Majesty. That you protected me all this while is thanks enough."

Not the ever-calm senior palace lady, but in her true self the Queen of Hongnong, Lady Tang offered the Emperor a farewell bow. Then she lowered her head to me as well, asking to go with me.

"Your Majesty. I will guard this woman all my life."

"Soon Imperial Uncle Liu will send the Heirloom Seal of the Realm, to be exchanged for my life. Fortune in war! This unworthy subject now leaves Xudu."

To the last I had settled everything, and, not by my own intent, I would leave not as one, but as two.

At the house I made ready to go with nothing but the largest carriage the ladies rode in, and the two enormous, celebrated horses ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the Western Regions that Cao Cao had given me.

"From this moment, we leave Xudu. Hold fast, and keep yourself hidden."

"...Yes."

It was truly the hour when the drums would sound, just before midnight. I drove straight for the gates of Xudu and held out the transit token.

"Hmm. We've had our orders, so we'll let you through... but who else is in the carriage?"

The officers' eyes narrowed with suspicion. Several lifted their spears and moved to look inside—and I drew the silver from my breast.

"A pointless look inside a carriage, or the ten taels of silver in my hand. Which will you choose?"

"...!?"

Thud.

I tossed the officer the silver I kept for emergencies. He picked it up, turned it in the torchlight, and pocketed it quick.

"Leaving now, are you?"

"Ah—the Prefect of the Masters of Writing!"

"We pay our respects to the Prefect!"

Just as the gates of Xudu began to grind open, Xun Yu appeared behind me without warning. Smiling, he came quietly up and stole a look at my carriage. He reached as if to peer inside—then smiled, and shook his head. I could only hope Queen Tang's breathing, within, would not give her away.

"Have you come to say farewell?"

"Farewell... yes. I'll give you one. In all honesty, Zhang Baijin, you are the first to put my lord in difficulty like this."

"And in all my life, the only man I have acknowledged as truly possessed of formidable stratagem is you, Wenruo."

"Then one last word, for a man who is leaving."

In that instant the smile Xun Yu always wore hardened. He fixed me with a truly sharp gaze and spoke.

To the very end, it was Xun Yu's declaration. He had chosen to reform the imperial house of Han in Cao Cao's name. So I answered.

"Thank you for the counsel. Then I'll speak as well. The ideal you hold as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a scholar of the Qingliu—and the reform, and the great work, as you imagine them."

He was a man more than capable of carrying it through. Even so, I would say it plain.

"Wenruo. That reform you dream of, and that ideal—they'll come to something only after Cao Cao croaks. And even then, only a little."

"Ah—n-no, what is this?!"

"Fare well."

I cracked the whip and drove through the open gate. At last I was out of Xudu.

Under a full moon, I had escaped the tiger's den, and I could go back having kept them all alive. I squeezed my eyes shut, threw both arms out under the night sky, took the wind full on, and poured out every bit of the pleasure inside me in the simple act of drinking this freedom.

It was Jian'an.