The Du Clan (1)
The year 178 arrived, and I turned six.
Six years remained until the Yellow Turban Rebellion.
The Xiongnu army that had joined the campaign as mere mercenaries had, unlike the original history, preserved its strength intact. We held no position of official responsibility, and so we had come through relatively unscathed. But—
"His Majesty will never forgive us! Aaaaah…!"
Just as Zhang Yang of Yunzhong had said, the eunuch Wang Fu was drunk—so spectacularly, disgracefully drunk that not only the people inside Mayi County but the peasants beyond the walls all knew of his antics.
The mere thought of Emperor Ling, Liu Hong, seemed enough to drive the eunuch out of his mind with terror.
And yet, even if his role in this war had been to inspect the various armies, wasn't this the sort of affair that should have ended with punishments for Tian Yan, Ha Yu, and Zhang Min, and gone no further?
Even without Wang Fu's hysterics, the mood among the Han army's high command was already grim enough.
Word arrived that Tian Yan, who had crossed the desert from Yunzhong Commandery on his own authority to strike at Mobei and suffered a crushing defeat, had barely escaped with his life. Not long after, Tian Yan himself came crawling all the way to Yanmen Commandery.
After the campaign of 177 to suppress Tanshihuai ended in spectacular failure, we waited in Yanmen Commandery for orders from the court at Luoyang. But the year ran itself out, and Luoyang issued no particular directive.
Wang Fu quieted down somewhat, yet Tian Yan, Ha Yu, and Zhang Min seemed to grow more anxious by the day. When my granduncle Hozheng, who had been holding Juyong Pass alongside Sun Jian, arrived in Mayi County at the head of his troops, the three men who received him looked terribly haggard.
Whether Hozheng had brought news of Sun Jian or not, I heard about him from Lü Bu not long after.
"Sun Wentai was recognized for holding Juyong Pass and went off to serve as Vice Magistrate of Xuyi County in Xiapi Commandery. That Han Dang fellow apparently resigned his post over in Youzhou and followed Sun Wentai south."
So the first general who would one day found the kingdom of Wu had joined Sun Jian.
Come to think of it, Xuyi County in Xiapi Commandery… that place had a fairly deep history. When Qin Shi Huang died and rebellions erupted across the land to restore the old Six States, it was Xuyi County that Emperor Yi of Chu, elevated as the Chu sovereign, made his capital.
Whether Sun Jian was satisfied with becoming Vice Magistrate of Xuyi County, or whether he nursed a grievance, I had no idea. But I was relieved. I didn't know what manner of cooperation my granduncle, Left Wise King Hozheng, and Sun Jian might have been planning—but for a while, at least, they would be far apart.
In the meantime I would have to run myself ragged for my grandfather, Right Wise King Qiangqu, and my father, Right Guli King Yufuluo. It wasn't exactly to my liking.
Well, my efforts so far hadn't been entirely without result. Thanks to saving so many Xiongnu and Han cavalry, praise followed me wherever I went.
Tengri's power entered Lord Lü's two arms, and his halberd turned aside every last arrow.
Whose sorcery was it? The leopard child's sorcery.
And there was praise I had not expected at all.
"It was Tengri's aid that brought us home alive, wasn't it?"
Han soldiers—cavalry and infantry alike. I had assumed they would thank Lü Bu and Lü Bu alone.
"Lord Lü said, 'I did nothing,' and insisted it was solely because the Heavenly God of the Xiongnu had helped us."
Was this the grace of a master that only grew higher the more one looked up—like the sky itself…?
"We knew nothing of Tengri. You are truly great, O prince of the Xiongnu!"
Thank you, thank you, my kinsmen. Whoever believes in Tengri is my kinsman. All who are weary from this war's defeat, come to me.
As I was roughly dressing words like these up to sound impressive, what actually left my mouth was this:
Now that I'd said it, I felt rather like the founder of a religion.
Still, the faith of Tengri spreading not only among the Xiongnu but among the Han of Bingzhou who had tasted its power—that had to be a good thing, didn't it?
I left the roaring, cheering crowd behind me and headed for Lü Bu's tent.
I set out in search of the man who would become a famed general under the name Nie Liao, or Zhang Liao… a boy, most likely, at this point in time.
"You're looking for a person of standing named Liao?"
"Yes."
That was all I told Lü Bu. If I let the name Nie slip and it reached Xiongnu ears, things would get inconvenient.
Luoyang still sent no word, so my master and I had left Yanmen Commandery for a time and were searching the northwest—through Dingxiang Commandery and on as far as Yunzhong Commandery.
Through the war against Tanshihuai I had aimed to fix myself in Lü Bu's mind as an efficacious Hu shaman, and I seemed to have succeeded, at least to a degree. Lü Bu trusted what I said, and as my protector he searched Dingxiang and Yunzhong with me.
Nie Liao—or Zhang Liao—was a native of Mayi County in Yanmen Commandery, but there was every chance he had not stayed in his hometown and had gone elsewhere. Deng Ai, the great general of Wei's final years, was a man of Yiyang Commandery in Jingzhou, yet he had moved as a child through Runan and Yingchuan in Yuzhou, and his recorded trail only begins from there. Pan Zhang, the Wu general famous for capturing Guan Yu, was unexpectedly a man of Dong Commandery in Yanzhou—by birth alone, it would not have been strange at all if he had begun his career on Wei's side.
And so Lü Bu and I had left Yanmen Commandery and were turning the surrounding commanderies inside out. Dingxiang, close at hand, yielded nothing of note, and we kept climbing north as far as Yunzhong.
The mood among the people was not good. No—it was ugly. Rumors circulated that the eastern counties had fallen and that people had been dragged away into Xianbei lands. Word carried, most likely, by those who had somehow managed to flee.
This was the frontier to begin with; no one expected commercial prosperity here. Relations between the Han and the Xianbei had frozen solid over the past several years, and trade had all but vanished with them. Merchants no longer came and went, and so the great roadside inns of the wuxia tales had never taken root. What passed for one was nothing more than a dining room tacked onto the corner of an ordinary house.
Which meant that any traveler who chose to linger in a place like this was bound to stand out. All the more so if the party was large.
"…the marriage talks with the Qin family…"
"…if we're to find a place of protection in Bingzhou…"
"…in our situation, having left Hedong…"
A place-name, a surname—something in it snagged at me. I cut a sidelong glance at the men who had arrived first and were already eating. Among them sat a girl who, no matter how one looked at her, could only be a girl.
While Lü Bu was tying Red Hare off well enough, I started toward the party at the back of the dining room.
"Bao! Where do you think you're going!"
I ignored my master's call and walked right up to the mixed group of men and the girl. They broke off what they were saying and looked at me.
"What's this? This little brat."
"Doesn't look Han."
"They did say Bingzhou was thick with Hu…"
"Hey, kid. Get lost."
"Our house has fallen so far that even a Xiongnu child comes sniffing around…"
I paid the men no mind and looked up at the girl, whose eyes were bright with curiosity.
She was a beauty. A fine-featured face, lips touched with a healthy flush, pale skin. It must once have been soft from a life that had never known hardship, but the cold winds of Bingzhou had begun, these past days, to chap it slightly.
Fourteen? Fifteen, perhaps?
"Hey, Xiongnu brat, if you don't listen to your elders you'll—"
A thud. My master had come up close behind me and set his foot down as if stamping the earth, and the men had no choice but to drop the backsides they had half-lifted from their seats.
Ah. Right. Introductions.
"I am a Hu shaman. In Bingzhou here, I have something of a reputation for being rather efficacious."
"A Hu shaman…?"
At last I heard the girl's voice. It suited her looks remarkably well.
"I'm Lü Bu."
Master offered his own introduction, after a fashion. I felt the whole room stir. Fair enough—where wouldn't the fame of a warrior travel, after he had broken a Xianbei encirclement by sheer martial prowess and pulled his own people out?
"That Lord Lü would honor my house with a visit—I am privileged indeed."
Even the proprietor came out to pay his respects. That said enough.
The outsiders—men who looked to be from Hedong Commandery in Sili—did not seem to know us. But they apparently possessed the common sense to bow before the giant that all of Bingzhou held in respect.
"W-we're just common folk from Hedong. L-Lord Lü, what business do you have with us…?"
"You'll hear it from this one here—my martial disciple, a prince of the Xiongnu, and the Great Hu Shaman, Luanti Bao."
The titles that came before were impressive enough, but the name Master had just coined—Great Hu Shaman—was rather to my liking.
I put on the gentlest smile I could manage and spoke to the men.
"Are you gentlemen of the Du clan, come from Hedong Commandery?"
"Th-that, how would you— I mean, how does a Xiongnu prince know that?"
If I had been wrong, I would have looked like a complete fool. Fortunately, I wasn't.
"Because I am the Great. Hu. Shaman. The Heavenly God of the Xiongnu whispers things to me, and I merely follow His command."
I flicked a glance at Lü Bu. His face said, And just how did you know these people were Dus?
This time I lowered my voice to a whisper.
"…The reason you came all the way from Hedong Commandery to Yunzhong Commandery here is that your entire household was swept up in a murder, isn't it? And one entangled with a family of considerable power, at that…"
The men's eyes went wide with fear. They glanced about as if checking whether some party that had pursued them all this way might be in the room.
The Guan-whatever of the Records of the Three Kingdoms… no. I needed to drop that habit.
Guan Yu.
Liu Bei's sworn brother, the man famous as a warrior of overwhelming strength—I had mocked him relentlessly in my previous life. Which was how I had ended up here.
And yet among the records concerning this Guan Yu there was a strange passage. Out of nowhere, a matter of a woman appeared. When Guan Yu followed Cao Cao to put down Lü Bu, he asked Cao Cao to give him a woman of the Du clan who was inside Xiapi. After taking the city, Cao Cao saw that she was beautiful and simply took her as his own concubine, and Guan Yu was said to have been deeply wounded.
I had made a joke of it—Guan Yu got his woman stolen by Cao Cao, sulked, and ran back to Liu Bei—but I had always felt that the record itself was very odd.
Even taking the annotations to the Records of the Three Kingdoms together with the rest of the sources, the incident had not been written down merely to ridicule Guan Yu. The passage connected to nothing before it and nothing after. To call it a hint at why Guan Yu and Cao Cao parted ways made no sense either. Above all, Cao Cao himself respected Guan Yu's sense of honor.
Which left only one conclusion. This woman of the Du clan had been someone special to Guan Yu, someone who had left a deep mark on his life. That was why the chroniclers of the Records of the Three Kingdoms had been compelled to put her in his biography.
From here on, one entered the realm of folklore. Guan Yu was a man of Haixian in Hedong Commandery, and he had killed a man and fled to Zhuo Commandery in Youzhou. Haixian was known for its salt, and one tale had it that Guan Yu had slain a powerful local who exploited the salt trade and threatened the people's livelihood, then fled. Another tale said that same magnate had coveted Guan Yu's woman, and that Guan Yu had killed him for it and run.
So then… if both the record in the Records of the Three Kingdoms and the folklore were true, wasn't it possible that the Du clan had been swept up in that killing and had left Hedong?
I had probed on that hunch. And I had been right.
Why was this actually true?
I looked the girl straight in the face and asked.
"Might you have a deep connection to someone surnamed Guan—or someone whose name is something like Changsheng?"
In that instant, the girl of the Du clan seized both my shoulders. Her household elders and Lü Bu had no time to stop her.
"You know him?!"
Why was this actually true?
Inwardly I was this close to shaking my hips and clapping my hands. I hadn't found Nie Liao or Zhang Liao, but I had at least found a thread that would lead me to Guan Yu.
I put on a stern face and called out to her household elders.