The Yuan Clan's Friends (3)

Cao Cao was a man who could bury a sneer inside a look of proud satisfaction.

He wore the face of someone moved by Yuan Shao's impassioned speech — and, more than that, the face of a man proud that the speech had stirred every soul in the room.

Even Yuan Shu looked as though he were thinking it through: if Benchu would not refuse to bow his head to a butcher for the sake of a greater cause, how could this Gonglu do any less?

Those were the looks they turned on him. When their eyes met Yuan Shao's, he only smiled back and gave a small nod.

Benchu will take this Cao Cao for a man who understands him. But there is still something I have not said.

The man who had taken Regular Attendant Wang Fu's head was He Jin.

He Jin had simply carried his old trade forward — the slaughter of livestock, applied now to the slaughter of men. And Emperor Ling, Liu Hong, had summoned him to Luoyang and made him Governor of Henan.

Even when he was Administrator of Yingchuan, they say he never particularly did anything an administrator is supposed to do.

In Cao Cao's judgment, every post He Jin had held until now had been nothing more than preparation — a sequence of steps designed to call him into Luoyang. Or perhaps even Governor of Henan was only another stage, another process by which Liu Hong meant to send He Jin somewhere else entirely.

The problem is that a butcher like He Jin has tasted human blood.

An emperor stroking the head of a hunting dog that had already been let inside the walls of Luoyang, intending to train the beast with his own hands.

How many people will He Jin kill in the shadows of Luoyang?

A butcher who, with the same knife he once used on sheep and cattle, could cut down anyone who crossed the Emperor's will — easily, almost casually. Would a man like that beam with delight just because Yuan Shao came and bowed his head?

Even Cao Cao could not take the measure of that question.

Brother Benchu said he would become Colonel of Sili, and that Gonglu should take Commander of the Rapid Tigers.

The place Yuan Shao had spoken of — somewhere that was neither Qingliu nor Zhuoliu, neither the Pure Stream of the scholar-gentry nor the Turbid Stream of the eunuchs — had been sitting inside his words all along.

The army.

Yuan Shao meant to force his way into the gap between Qingliu and Zhuoliu on the strength of soldiers, on the power of arms.

And he means to use He Jin as the foothold. Without even knowing what kind of man He Jin is.

So Cao Cao decided to watch. He would see how Yuan Shao handled it — whether he could use He Jin to pass safely into the heart of Luoyang, or whether He Jin's knife would take his head.

Zhang Hong, who had sat quietly through his seniors' talk, finally opened his mouth.

"Disorder inside the realm is a grave matter in its own right. But if disorder beyond the borders is piled on top of it — is that not graver still?"

Every gaze in the room gathered on him.

"My father said that Tanshihuai would become the greatest threat the Great Han has faced since Modu."

The same thought drifted, unspoken, through every head in the room: that Zhang Min had lost to Tanshihuai himself, and was perhaps inflating the man out of that defeat. Even Yuan Shu kept the thought behind his teeth.

Only Zhang Miao gave it voice as agreement.

"Calling the Xianbei Northern Di or Northern Barbarians may be a way of scorning their savagery — but that scorn must never become contempt for their strength. The Han has beaten them more than once, it is true. But have the men who ride and shoot from the north ever actually disappeared?"

Zhang Chao, his younger brother, took the same side.

"If someone in Luoyang nurses treason while the city is already in chaos, and if the armies are all drawn off to put the rebels down, and Tanshihuai comes south in that opening… something terrible will happen. Haojing of the Western Zhou was trampled by the Rong because the feudal lords never brought their armies to save it."

"Ah. As for that."

Cao Cao cut in on the Zhang brothers.

"I've already put a few pieces in place."

"Mengde? How?"

"I had reason to go up to Bing Province over Ziyuan's father's affair, and there was the matter of his successor as well — Zhang Xiu, the new Zhonglangjiang Protecting the Xiongnu. Coming and going, I struck up a certain friendship with the Xiongnu."

"Well now."

Yuan Shao let out a short breath of admiration. Cao Cao went on.

"As it happens, the Xiongnu have a clever prince. Even in this last defeat, they say he at least kept the cavalry intact."

Zhang Hong nodded in support.

"That is so. If not for the Xiongnu horse — and especially if not for that warrior Fengxian — my father and I would not be alive in this world."

Cao Cao looked at Zhang Hong and smiled as if in agreement.

"I borrowed some money from my father and sent it along as military funds. Their mounts and arms shouldn't be any worse than they were before the war."

And yet, when he thought of Luanti Bao, the regret was sharp.

Through Xiahou Dun he had learned that this Fengxian — the warrior called Lü Bu — was Luanti Bao's teacher.

Is there no way to keep both of them at my side?

The important work he discussed with Xiahou Dun; of late he had begun bringing Xiahou Yuan into those talks as well. Among the kinsmen he had his eye on Cao Ren and Cao Hong, but they were still only children.

All four of them were better made to carry out Cao Cao's schemes than to invent schemes of their own. And above all, none of them had any real experience of war.

Lü Bu, who had come back alive from Tanshihuai. Luanti Bao, the strategist who could see through even to Heaven.

If he could only get those two into his hands…

He had drifted into that thought when Zhang Miao pulled him back.

"Mengde. You built a friendship with the Xiongnu prince — and then what?"

Cao Cao turned his smile on his friends again.

"In Bing Province, the cavalry they managed to save should be enough to stand against the Xianbei for a while. In You Province, we can make use of Gongsun Zan, Xu Rong, and Gongsun Du — the men who distinguished themselves in the last war."

"Wasn't Liang Province plundered?"

"The raiding, and the cutting-off of the merchants out of the Western Regions — that is a genuine wound, no question. But Jiuquan Commandery did not fall. Liang Province's armies have already stopped Tanshihuai once, at Beidi Commandery. They will not go down easily."

"Mengde."

Yuan Shao called his name, and Cao Cao's explanation broke off.

"You built a friendship in order to turn the Xiongnu to the defense, and you even sent them military funds… Does that not also mean you could reverse the direction of that Xiongnu blade, and swing it another way?"

Cao Cao's mouth crooked into a grin.

"If Brother Benchu's affairs go poorly, we ought to have at least one means of saving our necks."

Mengde is already…

Leaving Zhang Min's house in the company of Yuan Feng — his birth father, who was now his uncle — Yuan Shao turned Cao Cao's words over in his mind.

He had believed his own design was the far-reaching one. And Cao Cao had already finished preparing to call even the Xiongnu into the field.

Is it not enough to keep my eyes on Luoyang alone?

Come to think of it, a saying had been traveling the world.

And where did Wei Commandery lie?

Ji Province.

The Taiping Dao was spreading with Ji Province as its center, and the Emperor seemed to have taken those people by the hand and set about some design of his own… Had Cao Cao not said as much?

Then I will use He Jin in Luoyang — but if the thing goes badly and I have to run for the provinces, I must also be ready to steal the foundation the Emperor and the Taiping Dao have already laid down.

He could not, in any case, lean on the support of his own house, the Yuan clan of Runan.

After six years spent observing mourning for his adoptive father and adoptive mother, the people of the clan praised his filial heart — but only so far as they meant to live off his reputation. If they ever stood at the fork between Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu, they would all pour toward Yuan Shu. No one knew that better than Yuan Shao himself.

He had not forgotten the looks people used to give him, before those six years of mourning.

If anyone feared Yuan Shao, they feared the Yuan clan of Runan. They did not fear Yuan Shao.

A slave woman's son. A bastard. No one would say the word to his face, but a faint contempt had always walked a step behind him.

Perhaps the thought of approaching He Jin had come to him because he felt, in some measure, that their situations were alike.

In the end I must possess a martial power that is mine alone. I will use the strength of the clan — but the day must come when I can stand without it. Yes. To ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠break away and become the founder of the Wei Commandery Yuans… that would not be so poor a thing.

Besides, Hebei — Ji Province — was the land where Emperor Guangwu had begun his rise to hegemony. There was no law that said Yuan Shao might not begin his own rise in the same place.

And if Cao Cao has already made contact with the Xiongnu…

The Wuhuan.

At the name of those northern horsemen he had never once seen, something in his chest seemed to tremble. Unbidden, Yuan Shao pictured himself riding with those barbarian cavalry all the way to Runan Commandery, and displaying his might before every kinsman he had.

Yuan Shu, too, sank into thought as his carriage rolled on.

Xiongnu. Xianbei…

Come to think of it, they said the Xianbei lands ran seven thousand li north to south, and fourteen thousand li east to west.

Territory of that size might be larger than the Central Plains.

And then, unbidden, another thought rose in him.

The Central Plains. Zhonghua. Are those really values of such importance?

The corner of Yuan Shu's mouth lifted. There was a peculiar pleasure in pushing a hypothesis as wicked as he could make it.

Is it truly a law that must be kept — that the Liu clan should rule All Under Heaven?

Yuan Shu had been educated in the history of the Han and in the Confucian school, and it was not as if such an insolent thought came free of guilt. But once it had surfaced, it was seductive.

Cao Cao spoke of warriors like Gongsun Zan, Gongsun Du, Xu Rong… but the warrior who truly distinguished himself was someone else.

Sun Jian.

Perhaps they had left the name unspoken because the man had gone down into Xu Province rather than remaining on the frontier. All the same, Yuan Shu was pleased that neither Cao Cao nor Yuan Shao had mentioned Sun Jian. It felt as if he alone had recognized the man's worth.

Sun Jian happens to be in Xu Province — the southern part of it, at that. And the fief of the Emperor's younger brother, the Marquis of Hefei, is Hefei in Jiujiang Commandery as well.

If Zhonghua was not absolute — if the rule of the Liu was not absolute — then the whole of the Central Civilization had no need to hang itself upon Chang'an or Luoyang.

One might, for instance, set the capital in Yu Province, or in Yan Province. Or south of the Huai River. Huainan.

From Runan Commandery through Jiujiang Commandery, as far as Xiapi Kingdom or Guangling Commandery in Xu Province. If the map were pushed wider still — west to Nanyang Commandery, south to Lujiang Commandery, Danyang Commandery, Wu Commandery.

If Chang'an and Luoyang refused them, could not the Yuan house of Runan raise its own dynasty on the Huainan and the Yangtze, and stand it against ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Yellow River?

On the one hand Yuan Shu chided himself — that's going too far — and on the other he pictured it anyway: setting the Emperor's younger brother, the Marquis of Hefei, on a throne in Huainan, and then receiving the abdication from his hands.

It was far too seductive a vision to put down.

The thing Cao Cao and Xiahou Dun had feared finally broke.

The sale of offices was, in truth, the Emperor's refusal of Qingliu entry into the bureaucracy. The state had spent heavily putting down rebellions and driving off foreign enemies, and so to offer money was itself a meritorious service to the realm — that was the pretext, at least.

But the Qingliu backlash was not a simple matter of refusing to buy a post, or of being unable to bend conviction.

The provinces against Sili. A wall of ill will higher than the ramparts that cut Luoyang off from everything outside it.

Seen as a structural fault in the Han itself, Liu Hong's personal tyranny was only that fault breaking the surface.

The conflict exploded.

Of course no one could lay the crime at the Emperor's own feet, so the blade turned toward the eunuchs. In the history of the Han, to criticize a eunuch was only to criticize the Emperor by another name, because the Emperor himself could not be touched.

In other words: they had not aimed at the sovereign directly. They had tried to cut off his hands and feet.

The Emperor, naturally, judged the attempt a crime on a level with regicide.

"Hah— hah…"

A Qingliu official slipped into an alley, fleeing the pursuit.

"Damn it…"

Had there been a traitor? Or had it been the Emperor's scheme, and the eunuchs', from the very beginning?

The plan — to turn on the eunuchs, kill them to the last man, and then go in to see the Emperor — had failed before it even started. He had to get out of Luoyang somehow. At the very least, he had to give his family a chance to go to ground and live…

Ssrrng.

At that crawling sound the official looked back.

A man stood there, grinding blade against blade, striking sparks.

The official drew his sword. The other man's weapons were a pair, but they were not a warrior's swords. They were the kind of knives a butcher would use.

"So you're that He Jin."

He Jin did not answer.

The official judged that the length ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of his own sword would let him put the point through the man's throat before those weapons could reach him —

— and his hand was gone.

The official's wrist had been cut clean through, bone parted from bone.

What?

Before the pain arrived, his vision wrenched sideways — then flipped entirely upside down.

His consciousness ended there.

He Jin picked the official's head up off the stones where it had rolled, and stuffed it roughly into the sack slung ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠across his back.

Then he spoke, without hurry, to the other man who had followed him — a man who had given him a great deal of help in the days when he was Administrator of Yingchuan.

"How much more loyalty do I have to show the Emperor and the eunuchs, Gongda?"