The Turbulent Xiongnu (1)
With the backing of my father Yufuluo and my grandfather Qiangqu, I rode to intervene in the election of the next Chanyu. To be precise, one of my father's warrior retainers carried me as he drove our horse hard toward Lishi County in Xihe Commandery.
"Prince!"
The scout I had sent ahead to take the measure of Lishi County came pounding back.
"What's happened?"
"Lord Lü is holding Zhang Xiu, the Zhonglangjiang Protecting the Xiongnu — but the Xubu Gudu Marquess is on the move!"
Xubu Chang...!
In the original history, Zhang Xiu's feud with Hozheng ended with Zhang Xiu murdering him.
"And the other houses?"
"They don't seem to have answered the Xubu call, but every one of them has summoned their armies."
The Lan, the Han, the Dangyu, the Lüzhi. And far more fearsome than any of those four was the Huyan clan — the house that had, for generation after generation, produced the Yanzhi.
Yanzhi was the Xiongnu word for a queen, an empress. In other words, the Huyan were the clan of royal consorts. Assuming no outside power forced its way in, if the Huyan chose Xubu Chang, the Xubu would become Chanyu. If they chose Luanti Hozheng, the Luanti would keep the throne.
Levirate marriage. The custom by which a younger brother took his dead elder brother's wife as his own. The Han dismissed it as a barbaric practice, but in truth it was a custom that mirrored the tangled politics of the Xiongnu. Most accounts explain levirate marriage as a way to protect a widowed sister-in-law, or as a measure to keep from losing a woman — that most valuable of assets. Yet Xiongnu history also records the widow who, refused the levirate, flew into a rage at the insult of her brother-in-law's rejection.
In other words, it was not the younger brother who claimed the widow. It was the widow who, by taking him, recognized the younger brother as the next Chanyu. That was the true nature of levirate marriage.
The principal wife of the original Liu Bao — the Xiongnu prince whose body I now wore — was said to have been a Huyan as well. Both Left Wise King Hozheng and Right Wise King Qiangqu had been born of Huyan Yanzhi. That the Huyan, and not merely Xubu Chang, had stirred the instant Tute Ruoshi Gongzhu Chanyu died could mean only one thing. The Huyan wanted to choose the winner themselves.
The head of the Huyan house, the Huyan Gudu Marquess, had raised his yurt on a hill overlooking Lishi County. The man's name was Huyan Gu.
From one edge of his view he could see the walled town where the Han lived. For reasons Huyan Gu could not fathom, Zhang Xiu, the Zhonglangjiang Protecting the Xiongnu, had not stirred from inside those walls. A faint sneer brushed Huyan Gu's lips.
"Xubu Chang made such a racket about becoming Dargwa — Chanyu — and yet the one man he was counting on won't lift a finger."
Huyan Gu knew perfectly well that Xubu Chang had spread word through the political circles of Luoyang, claiming the Xiongnu people wanted Zhang Xiu to return. He had left the man to it, curious to see how far he would go. Would Zhang Xiu even bother to thank Xubu Chang for the help, now that he was back? To Huyan Gu's eye, the Zhonglangjiang had used Xubu Chang and thrown him aside. It never occurred to him that Lü Bu and a company of elite cavalry had blocked Zhang Xiu's every move.
"Then again, what would Zhang Xiu stand to gain by inserting himself into a quarrel among the Southern Xiongnu? He can hardly have any obligation to fight every enemy the Xubu make."
Of course, had Zhang Xiu declared his support, Huyan Gu would have taken a very different tone. He would gladly have offered the man one of his daughters — on the condition that she be made principal wife, the Yanzhi. It would not have been a poor bargain for the girl. Xubu Chang, a descendant of Wang Zhaojun, was a handsome man.
"The legitimate line is still the Luanti."
Huyan Gu glanced left and right and gave a short, dry laugh. Because a great house like the Huyan had stirred, the armies of the Lan, the Han, the Dangyu, and the Lüzhi had stirred with them.
"Those people have no intention of stepping forward to do anything themselves. They'll simply follow wherever we Huyans lead."
The Lan and the Lüzhi were, without question, a grade beneath the Huyan. The Han clan had originally been Han Chinese — the stubbornly surviving descendants of Han Xin, King of Han, who had climbed as high as Gudu Marquess, and so watched the other Gudu Marquesses with a nervous, practiced eye. As for the Dangyu, they regarded the Xubu as rivals, and that too ran back to Wang Zhaojun.
Wang Zhaojun had borne the Xiongnu Chanyu two daughters. In the Xiongnu tongue those princesses were called gecha. One married into the Xubu and became known as the Xubu Gecha; the other married into the Dangyu and was called the Dangyu Gecha. That bloodline meant the Dangyu, too, tended to be handsome. The quiet rivalry the two sisters had carried on as they moved between the Xiongnu royal house and the Xin dynasty had lasted to this day. It was even said that if anyone praised a Xubu's looks, a Dangyu would bristle.
Which meant that of the five Gudu Marquesses, not a single house was inclined to cooperate with the Xubu. Huyan Gu turned his gaze back to the plain beyond the walls of Lishi County, where the dead Grand Chanyu's palace-yurt still stood.
"Now we need only wait for the Luanti house to elevate Left Wise King Hozheng as Dargwa from within. Once the Four Horns and Six Horns decide on a new Dargwa, we put forward a new Yanzhi. That is all."
"Who do you think you are, pardoning the Nie clan on your own authority?!"
The instant our eyes met, that was the roar Hozheng flung at me.
"...Granduncle."
"The Dargwa has scarcely left this world! And already you carry yourself as if you were Dargwa yourself! How dare you forgive the Nie in the name of the Luanti?!"
So the story of the Nie clan and Zhang Liao had already run this far. Was I meant to admire Hozheng's intelligence network, or marvel at a Later Han society so raw-nerved that reputation itself had become a form of capital?
I refused to shrink. I locked eyes with Hozheng and walked toward him. Lü Bu was not at my side. I could not borrow his prestige for this. I would have to settle it myself. Hozheng stared back down at me, just as hard.
"What is it you want? If it is true that you hear the voice of Tengri, then what does Tengri want of us through you?"
"Tengri wishes for you to become Dargwa, Granduncle."
Hozheng checked, just for a breath. He would have counted me, my father Yufuluo, and my grandfather Qiangqu among his rivals. The last thing he would have expected was that I might support his own accession as Chanyu.
"Tengri wishes for you to become Grand Chanyu, Granduncle."
I said it again.
"The Xiongnu cannot endure another civil war."
That was why I was backing Hozheng's accession. I could not allow the Left Wise King and the Right Wise King — Hozheng and Qiangqu — to split the Southern Xiongnu down the middle and fight over the pieces. I could not allow the Luanti to grow so weak that the Xubu and the other Gudu Marquesses stepped forward to contend for the throne. In an age when both the Han and the Xianbei were weakening, we Xiongnu had to grow strong alone.
"Tengri wishes for me to become Grand Chanyu... Dargwa?"
"Great-grandfather sought to strengthen the Chanyu's authority through me. You may do the same, Granduncle."
"...What is it you want? You mean to set me up as Grand Chanyu — to what end?"
Even if he became Chanyu, would he end up dancing to the tune of his younger brother's house, the line of the Right Wise King? Was that what gnawed at him?
"What I want is a Chanyu of absolute authority. One the six Gudu Marquesses cannot toy with."
"The Gudu Marquesses?"
"A true Chanyu. One who binds together everyone who belongs to the Xiongnu — Lushuihu, Xiuzhigehu, Jie, all of them — and rules them as one."
"Suppose I take you at your word. How am I supposed to become that kind of Chanyu?"
"Xubu Chang has already abandoned his ambition to take the throne."
"What did you say...?"
A shock, no doubt. From before Tute Ruoshi Gongzhu Chanyu had even collapsed, Xubu Chang had been openly contemptuous of the Luanti house. Of course Hozheng would have assumed the man meant to drag the other clans — and even the Zhonglangjiang Protecting the Xiongnu — into a bid for the throne.
"My master, Lord Lü, has already arrested Zhang Xiu. He will be sent under guard to Luoyang."
I did not miss the flicker of pleasure that crossed Hozheng's face, fine as a hair. He and Zhang Xiu had despised each other. Even now, in the middle of a conversation in which he was still taking my measure, he could not hide his delight that Zhang Xiu was being driven out.
"With Zhang Xiu taken, Xubu Chang has lost the backer who was going to raise him as Chanyu. So he will try to seize power by another road."
"Another road?"
"He will decide that a house which produces a Yanzhi can stand as the Chanyu's equal."
Hozheng's eyes began to jerk and swim.
"You are telling me... not to raise a Huyan as Yanzhi?"
"The Luanti must step out of the contest altogether. Competition should happen beneath the Luanti — among the other houses, against each other."
Let your subordinates tear at one another for your favor, and the man above them sits at his ease, playing the mediator, gathering authority as he does. It is a method that works in any age, under any system.
The tremor in Hozheng's eyes stilled. The calculation had run its course, and a conclusion he could live with had come out the other side.
"Then you... Bao. Are you telling me there is nothing you want for yourself?"
So you finally call me by my name, Granduncle.
"I would like my name entered among the Four Horns and Six Horns before much longer. Something on the order of Zhanjiang King — how would that be?"
There is an old joke. A braggart went to a wealthy merchant, a man we will call A, and demanded his daughter's hand on the spot. Naturally A was speechless.
"And who exactly are you, to make so shameless a demand?"
"I am the most trusted confidant of the powerful statesman B!"
The braggart then hurried to B and demanded to be taken on as his confidant.
"And who exactly are you, to be taken on as my confidant?"
"I am the son-in-law of the wealthy merchant A!"
Later, when the merchant and the statesman happened to discuss the braggart, they discovered that every word he had spoken was the unvarnished truth. And so the braggart walked away with both A's daughter and a place at B's side. A foolish little story.
It was about to stop being funny.
Everything I had told Hozheng — that Xubu Chang had given up the throne, that Lü Bu had already arrested Zhang Xiu — had been a lie. A lie that was about to become the truth.
I went to find Xubu Chang. He had mocked me for playacting at hearing Tengri's voice, and so he seemed not to have imagined I would come to him in person at a time like this.
"The prince of the Right Guli King... what brings the Grand Shaman...?"
"My master, Lord Lü, has already imprisoned Zhang Xiu. Someone will come from Luoyang shortly to drag him away."
Xubu Chang's eyes went wide. He would have lost contact with Zhang Xiu, the Zhonglangjiang Protecting the Xiongnu. He would have heard of the standoff inside the walls of Lishi County, and of the charges Lü Bu had bellowed for the whole camp to hear.
"The only way the Gudu Marquess keeps from being dragged into Zhang Xiu's crimes is to cooperate with the new Grand Chanyu."
"Is this a threat?"
"No. I will be frank. I consider the Huyan a far greater danger than the Xubu."
At the name of the Huyan, Xubu Chang's eyes began to tick rapidly from thought to thought.
"You mean to say..."
"That the Luanti and the Xubu should join hands. Let the Xubu put forward the Yanzhi."
Zhang Xiu had fallen politically — still a lie, for now. If the Xubu were pulled into Zhang Xiu's alleged treason, the affair would explode — a lie with a vein of truth running through it. Hozheng had proposed a marriage alliance with the Xubu — a lie. Stack lie upon lie without stopping, and at last the lies themselves would weave a truth. It was a desperately dangerous game, but I was in no position to be choosy about my methods.
Above all, without a surprise of this order, there was no way to take what I wanted from the upheaval of Tute Ruoshi Gongzhu Chanyu's death. Sideline the Xubu, bow my head to the other houses, and ask them for their cooperation — that would have been the orthodox, the safe road. But if I joined hands with the very Xubu who had mocked me and the Luanti to our faces? I would outrun everyone's expectations. And once I had done that, every piece on the board would move as I chose to stir it.
Suspicion gathered in Xubu Chang's eyes. To keep the telltale tightness of a liar off my face, I did not look away. I held that gaze and stared straight back.
That was when one of Xubu Chang's men pushed into the tent.
"Gudu Marquess! A man has come from Luoyang! He just entered the fortress of Lishi County!"
Xubu Chang's eyes left mine.
"What? Who did they say he was?"
"They say he was sent by the Yilang, Cao Cao..."
I really did have the devil's luck. Perhaps that was what came of making the right friends.
"Cao Cao...! I-is this the Emperor's will...? Wh-what did you say his name was?"
Not long ago, Cao Cao had taken the Emperor's order and dragged Zhang Min, Ha Yu, and Tian Yan away to Luoyang. A man sent by that same Cao Cao — wouldn't anyone assume he had come to drag Zhang Xiu off as well?
"He said his name was Xiahou Dun!"