To Cai Yan
From the beginning, Cai Yong had predicted that Regular Attendant Wang Fu's scheme would fail.
Here in Bingzhou, that conviction had hardened into certainty.
Even a warrior like Lü Bu took a grim view of the matter.
"Fengxian."
"Yes."
"You too believe we should defend rather than attack, then?"
"If we could win by attacking, that is what we ought to do. But you've seen it yourself."
The plight of Bingzhou's poor.
The people of Bingzhou. Yes. Han and Xiongnu alike, bound together by nothing but their shared poverty, they had been gathered under a single name: the people of Bingzhou.
"But as you and Wentai have both said, there are limits to raising an army only after the enemy has already crossed the border."
However brilliant Lü Bu and Sun Jian might be as warriors—however famous they might one day become as great generals—they could not stand in every place along the frontier at once.
"We need a defensive system that can hold until warriors like you arrive to save us."
"But as you know, Bingzhou hasn't even the funds to raise a single fortress wall."
"......Fengxian. You called Grand Commandant Duan Jiong 'a man who does business through war.'"
"If that struck you as insolent, I apologize."
"It did not. I think much the same."
The agricultural people's loathing of the pastoral Rong. But even that, if one traced it to its source, was a problem of Luoyang's greed.
What he had seen in Bingzhou, and what, from Sili, he had known of the conflict that had erupted in Liangzhou between Han and Qiang, were of a piece. The strained relationship between Han and Qiang had been born of Luoyang's plunder. If people had any margin left in their lives, conflict of that degree would never arise. No—even if conflict did arise, it could be contained so long as the officials took an interest in mediation.
But Duan Jiong had not done so. Just as he had bowed to the eunuchs and taken part in the purge of Dou Wu in his hunger to rise, he had left the Qiang people's resentment to fester so that he might win wealth and fame through war. He may well have fanned the flames.
And Duan Jiong was hardly alone. Men like him were far too numerous in the Han—in Luoyang.
"I shall submit a memorial to His Majesty. Not only Bingzhou, but Liangzhou and Youzhou as well need rest. I will make known the reality that they have nothing to offer Luoyang—that they haven't even the funds to raise city walls. We must reduce the taxes and first stabilize the people's lives. If we do that......"
Cai Yong bit his lip. Watching him, Lü Bu clasped his hands and bowed from the waist.
The chances of success were slim, and the possibility of dying for offering such counsel could not be dismissed. Luoyang was a place that sometimes devoured even those who lived within its walls.
The hour of parting was drawing near. There was one more thing Lü Bu wished Cai Yong to understand about Bingzhou. He gave his disciple a light shove on the back.
"Come to think of it......"
Only then did Cai Yong's earnest gaze turn toward Luanti Bao.
Lü Bu had said he was cultivating a friendship with the Right Luli King, grandson of the Xiongnu Chanyu, and that he had taken that king's son as a disciple to teach him martial arts. And yet...... the clothes the child was wearing......?
"Fengxian, I know little of the Xiongnu, but this attire is clearly—"
"Yes. This child is a Hu shaman among the Xiongnu. The stability of Bingzhou—and of Liangzhou and Youzhou as well—means living alongside people like him among the Qiang and the Wuhuan. On that point, this child can tell you far more than I can."
What should I say.
While I was gathering my thoughts, Cai Yong spoke first.
"'Tengli.' That is what we call it in the Han tongue. Your Xiongnu sky god. In the Xiongnu language......"
"It is Tengri."
"I see. ......I regret to say I do not believe your god is the same being as the Heaven we conceive of. Above all, I do not trust Hu shamans."
"Because of what happened in the time of Emperor Wu."
"You are rather bright for a five-year-old Xiongnu."
He hadn't expected a five-year-old to know of the tragedy that had unfolded in Emperor Wu's reign.
That tragedy had originated with a single Hu shaman in the palaces of Chang'an during Emperor Wu's time—a Xiongnu priestess. It was discovered that she had performed a cursing ritual within the palace, and the Crown Prince of the day was slandered as the one behind it. Emperor Wu Liu Che, who had conquered Joseon, Nanyue, the Western Regions, and every quarter of the compass, flaunting his might to the world, was, regrettably, nothing more than a coward. He swallowed the slander whole and drove his own son the Crown Prince, his grandson, his daughter-in-law, and even the wife who had borne him that Crown Prince to execution or suicide.
"However, Lord Cai."
I hardened my expression and thrust before him a reality beyond anything he had observed since coming to Bingzhou.
"For Bingzhou to be stable, for the Yi living within the Han realm to submit—that means living alongside people like me."
"I am a Confucian scholar. I will strip away the mask of shamanism and civilize you with the teachings of the sages."
"And if I—if the Xiongnu—refuse that civilization at all costs?"
Cai Yong's mouth opened and closed soundlessly.
"We will never abandon Tengri to follow the teachings of Confucius and Mencius. Nor will we follow the Way of Laozi. We have our own benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness—our own Five Constants."
"The Five Constants of the Xiongnu!"
A cry as if he had never dared imagine such a thing—as if he were hearing something blasphemous. I ignored Cai Yong's astonishment and pressed on.
"The Xiongnu never turn away a stranger, even one whose name and face they do not know, if he comes once as a guest. We do not drive him out into the cold and the beasts of the steppe. This is the Xiongnu's benevolence."
The Xiongnu richly reward anyone who recovers the body of a fallen comrade and brings it home, however they can. With that reward, the bereaved are provided for. That is the Xiongnu's righteousness.
The Xiongnu regard even the slightest drawing of a blade as intent to kill. Thus they do not draw their swords carelessly. They wear humble clothes instead of silk. That is the Xiongnu's propriety.
"A Xiongnu elder yields his own food to the young man who will become a soldier to protect the family. This is the Xiongnu's wisdom."
The Xiongnu, even without making any special pact, gather every season to discuss matters of importance, though they live scattered across grazing lands that stretch for thousands of miles. That is the Xiongnu's trustworthiness.
"Our ways differ, but we keep our Five Constants. These were not taught by Confucius or Mencius or Laozi. They are things the Xiongnu themselves learned in an age far older than even what Sima Qian left in his records. Who would dare paint the words of Confucius and Mencius over that?"
However furious Cai Yong might be at the reality of the Han, however critical of the Emperor and the Luoyang court, however he might pity the people of Bingzhou—the words I had spoken shook the very roots of Cai Yong the Confucian scholar. Anger began to color his voice.
"If you will not submit to the words of the sages, then I shall teach you by force!"
"If we must abandon Tengri by force, then we Xiongnu will simply draw our bows taut and raise our banners high."
"How dare you speak of rebellion—"
Cai Yong stopped short.
Ah. So this was how it was. This was how rebellions began. The realization spread across his face. He was no different at all from Duan Jiong, whom he had been criticizing alongside Lü Bu only moments ago. Cai Yong's thoughts seemed to have arrived there.
"'Living together' means that, then."
To abandon civilizing through Confucianism, and allow the Yi and the Man to live in their own ways. But there remained a part Cai Yong could not bring himself to surrender, and he posed another question.
"Is your Tengli—your Tengri—so important? What...... what makes you unable to abandon that god?"
I would need a bit of shock therapy here. I searched the memories of Xiongnu Liu Bao and counted Cai Yan's age.
"Lord Cai has no daughter...... does he?"
"I do not."
"And yet, before you came to Bingzhou, your lady wife must have conceived a daughter. Confirm it when you return to Luoyang."
"Is that why you would stake your life on believing in Tengri? Guessing whether an unborn child is a son or a daughter?"
I should season the words a little.
Cai Yong looked at me with a face that could not believe it. But I had given him everything he needed to wrestle with.
The Han—this vast ancient empire's multi-ethnic problem. Now that he knew the Xiongnu perspective, he would be able to think more deeply than before.
And Cai Yan. The beautiful woman who remained in the memories of Xiongnu Liu Bao. But a woman who had almost never smiled, who had always seemed sad. She became a widow at sixteen, then lost her father to Wang Yun's hands, was abducted by Xiongnu Liu Bao, was separated from the sons she bore in Xiongnu lands, and married again a man arranged by Cao Cao.
A life hard to call happy. An unhappy life.
I...... wanted to believe I had begun, however thinly, to open a path to save her.
After arriving in Luoyang, Cai Yong learned that a daughter had indeed been born while he was in Bingzhou.
Rather than astonishment, he sank into a different kind of worry. Even as he named his daughter Yan, he wondered what sort of trick had been played. No—whether an unborn child would be a son or a daughter was a fifty-fifty gamble, was it not? But that his wife had been with child...... and that this child would grow into a woman of rare gifts—those two prophecies, how on earth......?
If the Xiongnu—no, if all the Man and Yi believe in their own gods this way, and cling to their own ways.
Could a Han in which such alien elements coexisted even exist?
Suddenly, Cai Yong thought of the Taiping Dao spreading through his home region of Yanzhou. It had begun in Jizhou, but he had heard it had already reached Yanzhou and Qingzhou. It had not yet revealed any clear crime, so the leading Daoist Zhang Jue had not been arrested. But Cai Yong considered the Taiping Dao a sufficiently threatening heretical cult.
If a teaching seeks salvation not in the glory of serving the Emperor, nor in the joy of filial piety toward one's parents, but elsewhere—can that be called righteous?
Come to think of it, the faith of that Xiongnu child Luanti Bao could also be called a heretical cult of the Xiongnu.
Steadying his wavering heart, Cai Yong made his way to the imperial palace. Before thinking of Taiping Dao or Tengri, he first had to stop the Xianbei campaign that Wang Fu and Duan Jiong were planning.
"The taxes and tribute of the three provinces—Bing, Liang, and You—must be reduced. Only then will the people of those three provinces have the means to repair the Great Wall. We should defend thoroughly, induce the Xianbei to exhaust themselves, and only when our supplies are sufficiently stockpiled would it not be too late to campaign against Tanshihuai."
So Cai Yong reported to Emperor Liu Hong.
There was no reaction from Liu Hong. Slightly puzzled, Cai Yong added:
"There are Han men who have dared to cross the border and become advisors to Tanshihuai. I cannot say specifically who they are, but given that their names are unknown, they appear to be men who harbor grievances against the Han. If they stand at Tanshihuai's side and instruct him in the tactics of our Han armies, victory will be difficult to guarantee."
Still Liu Hong gave no answer.
"Henceforth, so that no more men with grievances go over to the Xianbei, I beg Your Majesty to seek out talent widely. If you employ them and confer offices according to their abilities, the strength of the Xianbei will weaken......"
"Cai Yong."
At last the Emperor's voice was heard, and Cai Yong closed his mouth and prostrated himself.
"Do you know the story of Zhonghang Yue?"
Zhonghang Yue. A eunuch of the distant past. In an age when the Han was still weak and had to offer a princess to the Xiongnu Chanyu, he was the eunuch who accompanied the princess to the Xiongnu. Resentful at being banished there, he presented the Xiongnu Chanyu with many schemes for organizing a state. While Zhonghang Yue lived, the Xiongnu grew powerful, conquered the Western Regions, and the Han, as the "younger brother," dared not even think of opposing their "elder brother, the Xiongnu."
"To my ear, those so-called Han advisors sound an awful lot like Zhonghang Yue."
"Your Majesty."
"Leave them be, and Tanshihuai will only grow stronger."
"Your Majesty. The age when Zhonghang Yue lived and the present......"
"And Duan Jiong will keep playing his games, I expect."
Cai Yong's body went rigid. The Emperor was not trying to solve the Tanshihuai problem alone. Through the Xianbei expedition, he meant to settle the problems within the realm all at once.
Cai Yong squeezed his eyes shut. He had hoped against hope, but his wish had not been granted. Liu Hong's command came down upon his head.