The Difference Between Hu and Rong (2)
"Lord Sun."
Hozheng neither affirmed nor denied what Sun Jian had said.
"Even if this Gongsun Zan is flying into a particular rage over the Wuhuan betrayal, I doubt the way Han people look at anyone who isn't Han would be all that different."
Sun Jian put the question to him plainly.
"You're right, Lord Sun."
"I don't know the history of the north well enough to speak with any real authority, but… it seems a great many Han people don't even distinguish between the Hu and the Donghu."
If Lü Bu had not told him, Sun Jian would have gone his whole life without knowing. Just as Gongsun Zan had pointed at Hozheng and called him a Northern Di, the people who lived beyond Han's borders were, to Han eyes, not worth sorting out or understanding.
Unless, of course, a Han man meant to make use of them.
Sun Jian's eyes lit.
"I still don't understand why the Chanyu has taken an interest in me."
"For a start, you have martial strength."
"Bing Province has no shortage of men who've reached a high level in either martial arts or the art of war."
"Stand too close and a man's field of vision shrinks, Lord Sun."
"Xiongnu and Han, Wuhuan and Han, Qiang and Han… they spend so much time snarling at one another they never seem to find a gap in which to understand."
"But you are a man of Yang Province."
"So you think I'll look at the Xiongnu with a 'wider field of view'?"
"That is what the Chanyu thinks."
"…And the Left Wise King? What does he think?"
There was a man who lived in Bing Province, understood the Xiongnu, and possessed outstanding ability besides.
Lü Bu.
But for reasons of his own, Lü Bu had leaned toward the Right Guli King. In other words, he had become a man of the Right Wise King's line.
The brothers Left Wise King and Right Wise King… brotherly affection was the ideal, of course. The trouble with the word ideal was that it only existed because reality so often fell short.
What Hozheng, the Left Wise King, needed was a man who was not Lü Bu, yet met similar conditions.
Sun Jian.
"…I think as my father does."
Sun Jian stepped closer to the Left Wise King, who was trying to hedge.
"I don't want the Chanyu's thoughts. I want the Left Wise King's. What is it you want from me?"
Hozheng's eyes wavered. He swallowed, then answered.
"I want a man like you to become the Zhonglangjiang Protecting the Xiongnu."
"Ah."
Sun Jian nodded as if he finally understood.
"The Zhonglangjiang Protecting the Xiongnu works in concert with the Chanyu."
"That's right."
"Then the Left Wise King wants to become Chanyu himself."
"No, what are you— I—"
"The Left Wise King is to the Xiongnu what a Crown Prince is to the Han, so the next Chanyu's seat will naturally pass to you…? I've done a little studying of Xiongnu history, you know."
An emperor named a Crown Prince to make the succession clear—and paradoxically, that very act illuminated a history in which succession never went as a dead emperor intended.
In Xiongnu history, too, the passage from Chanyu to Left Wise King had often been anything but smooth. And as for the Luanti princes who never became Left Wise King at all—what more needed to be said?
Those men had touched off two great schisms.
Eastern Xiongnu and Western Xiongnu.
Southern Xiongnu and Northern Xiongnu.
And in the end… here was the Left Wise King, suffering humiliation at the hands of Gongsun Zan, a man who was not even a colonel.
"You want to inherit the Xiongnu kingship intact. That's why you need the help of a Han warrior like me. You can just say so plainly."
"…Lord Sun."
"But setting my ability aside, I haven't built a record that would justify making me a Zhonglangjiang. So the Left Wise King and I… a relationship of mutual aid. How does that sound?"
Until Sun Jian became the Zhonglangjiang Protecting the Xiongnu.
Hozheng was silent for a long time, looking at him the way one looks at a strange animal. At last, he nodded.
If I went back to Yang Province now, merit of this size would only get me labeled a fellow who can handle himself in a fight. Nothing more.
That was how Sun Jian saw it. And he was right.
Yang Province had always produced formidable warriors. Xiang Yu, the Hegemon-King of Western Chu, had risen from Kuaiji Commandery in Yang Province, and the soldiers who followed him had been men of Jiangdong—Yang Province men. Troops from Danyang Commandery were set apart and called Danyang soldiers, their valor recognized throughout the empire.
The north is littered with chances to earn merit.
The Xianbei were one. The Wuhuan, who had just caused this latest disaster, were another. And if Lü Bu was right, when the Qiang rose again there would be another opening to distinguish himself there as well.
But his own strength, and the strength of the infantry he led, would not be enough.
I need the power of northern cavalry.
That was why he had answered the summons of Grand Chanyu Tute Ruoshi and Left Wise King Hozheng.
Gongsun Zan has a point, too.
Relying entirely on Xiongnu cavalry was dangerous. He needed Han horsemen.
And Han Dang, as it happens, seems to have taken a rather good impression of me.
Lü Bu, though…
The thought of Lü Bu made Sun Jian's brow furrow. The words Lü Bu had left behind about Duan Jiong.
A man who does business out of war.
Was that not exactly what he himself was doing? Turning war into martial fame, into military merit, and from there into advancement. Into a house.
I may be fundamentally incompatible with Lü Bu.
To put it more precisely, Sun Jian judged that he might well fall into the very category of man Lü Bu despised. Better to stand on the other side from Lü Bu than to court the risk of trying to win him over.
So Sun Jian had given Hozheng a push.
If anxiety and ambition had not already been sharing space in Hozheng's heart, the attempt would have failed. But Hozheng, like the eldest sons of high houses everywhere, already regarded his brothers as rivals.
Sun Jian thought of his brothers' faces—Sun Qiang and Sun Jing. Brothers only fought when there was something in the house worth dividing. The Sun clan was not there yet.
Then he would raise one. A house that left behind so much inheritance the brothers would tear at each other in greed.
"…As Zhonglangjiang Zhang Min said before, I should take a turn at county administration next."
To climb higher, he would need a broader range of experience.
"Father."
"Mm. Ziyuan, is it?"
Zhang Min had been sunk deep in thought alone in his command tent. At his son Zhang Hong's voice he surfaced as if waking from a dream.
"You look as though you have a great deal on your mind."
"I do. I can't hide it from you, of all people. Honestly, the situation is not good."
"But Tanshihuai still can't push any farther."
"It looks like a taut balance. In truth, it's precarious. If Tanshihuai produces some clever stroke, the whole thing will give way at once."
"Then what should we do?"
"I keep hoping the Zhonglangjiang Defeating the Xianbei will get himself over here. I heard Tian Yan marched out of Yunzhong Commandery, but the courier I sent after that has not come back."
"Could the Xianbei have taken the courier…?"
"They might have. Even so, it's strange that not a single messenger from Zhonglangjiang Tian himself has arrived either."
That was what he said to his son. Inwardly, Zhang Min was already turning over the worst of the possibilities.
"Ziyuan."
"Yes, Father."
"The truth is, I hoped this war would never happen."
"What?"
In his years as Zhonglangjiang Protecting the Xiongnu, Zhang Min had watched the Xiongnu's circumstances with some care, and he had studied the history. If the Xianbei had taken the Xiongnu's old place as masters of the north, he had reasoned, there might be something to learn from the long war between the Xiongnu and the Han.
"The quarrel between Han and Xiongnu began over the Western Regions. The Han cannot properly administer the Western Regions now, and the Xianbei have only just expanded their Right Division westward, so they have no attention to spare that far… but I believed a quarrel between Han and Xianbei would not be so different."
"When you say the Western Regions… you mean a matter of trade?"
His son's quickness drew a smile from Zhang Min, the first in a long while.
"Yes. In secret, I proposed to several Xianbei chiefs near the border that I would open a market if they brought horses to sell."
"A market?"
"Every one of them refused. It was not that they had no wish to trade. They were afraid to. They said the horse trade is Tanshihuai's monopoly alone."
"Then…"
"If I had negotiated with Tanshihuai himself and opened that market, things would never have come to this pass. When I heard Lord Cai had been exiled to Bing Province I sent him a letter, but it seems even Cai Yong could not persuade His Majesty in Luoyang."
Zhang Min let out a long breath.
"This country has far too many men who want war. Men who enjoy war itself, never mind what becomes of the nation or its people."
He had felt it as far back as the suppression of the Xu father and son's rebellion in Yang Province. There were always men looking to pile up merit in the field and carry it to Luoyang to be fed. And Luoyang stripped the provinces to have something to feed them with. People in the provinces then chose one of two paths: go to Luoyang and fight their way onto the road of advancement, or draw a blade and try to pry their province free of Luoyang altogether.
Zhang Min's unease ran close to Cai Yong's, and close to Lü Bu's thinking as well. But Zhang Min, like them, had found no clear road, and he brooded on.
"Then, Father… is Zhonglangjiang Tian one of those men who enjoy war?"
"Colonel Ha seems to have taken a lesson from this defeat, but Zhonglangjiang Tian has not. No—what worries your father is a larger problem than that. Under Grand Commandant Duan, Tian Yan piled up far too much merit."
"'Too much' merit?"
"Merit for putting down the Qiang rebellions. I only hope… that Zhonglangjiang Tian does not think the way Gongsun Zan does."
Zhang Hong rolled the words the way Gongsun Zan does around in his mouth, then spoke.
"You mean the habit of calling them all Northern Di without distinguishing Xiongnu from Xianbei from Wuhuan."
"Yes. I hope he does not deceive himself into thinking he can crush the Xianbei the way he did when he followed Grand Commandant Duan around, the way he so easily put down the Qiang rebellions."
Hu and Rong.
Nomads who drifted with their herds, and pastoralists who raised livestock in a fixed place. Neither people farmed much, and both kept horses and sheep, so to Han eyes they could look much the same.
They were not the same at all.
"The Qiang are cruel, but you can break them by destroying their settlements and scorching their pasturelands. The Hu, you cannot. Even if you set aside the difference between Hu and Donghu, the Qiang and the Xianbei are not the same."
If they ran, that was the end of it.
To chase men who had fled across the desert onto the steppe and run them down, you had to throw the strength of the entire nation into the pursuit. And even that had taken the national power of Emperor Wu's reign—the fruit of the desperate labors of two emperors, Wen and Jing.
Supplying an army across desert and grassland required strength of that order.
But could the Han of today do any such thing?
"So that's what happened."
I heard from Lü Bu about the council that had nearly come to drawn blades.
Gongsun Zan. A man famous for his hard line against the Wuhuan—and today I finally learned where that hostility came from.
"Too few troops, and the will among them won't gather in one place. It worries me."
Lü Bu's concern was not idle. Half the You Province army was gone, and the Wuhuan force had vanished to who knew where, which left a bad feeling in the gut. The Xianbei were said to have their feet pinned, but even that might be one of Tanshihuai's schemes. And of the three columns that had set out to take Tanshihuai, the army under Tian Yan had simply disappeared—not a word of news.
There was only so much advice I could give.
"You should visit Grandfather's tent, and my father's. Even the unit you lead, Master, will need to keep in step with the Xiongnu army."
"The Right Wise King and the Right Guli King, then."
Lü Bu murmured it, then nodded. He left the interval in Song Xian's, Wei Xu's, and Hou Cheng's hands and started walking.
I went with him.
"Fengxian. You've come."
"Right Guli King. Forgive me for not calling on you more often."
"No need. Come in. Is this your first time meeting Father?"
"From a distance, during the defense of Beidi Commandery…"
"Then pay your respects properly this time."
It had been a long while since I had seen Grandfather myself—Right Wise King Qiangqu. I saw my great-grandfather more often than I saw him.
We went into the royal yurt.
No matter how many times I looked at him, I could never quite get used to the man who was my grandfather. He had a face that clearly sat between Grand Chanyu Tute Ruoshi and Yufuluo, a blend of the two.
But the air around him was something else entirely.
A frailty that made you wonder if he was truly a descendant of Modu at all. And a face mottled with appetite, the look of a man who kept too many concubines. My youngest uncle was barely a few years older than I was.
That was Right Wise King Qiangqu.
"Ah. My grandson. Bao. …And you are?"
"Lü Bu, my lord. I command the Bing Province cavalry."
"Ah, Lü Fengxian. I've heard the name often enough."
Qiangqu was Qiangqu. I could live with that.
I locked eyes with the boy sitting on Qiangqu's lap, who was sending me a look of pure jealousy. It was the same look I had seen from Xubu Chang.
In short, he had his eye on my place. Or else he thought I was a threat to his.
My youngest uncle, four years my senior.
Huchuquan.