The Pure-Love Interloper (3)
A marriage is never only a marriage. It is an alliance. It is also a hostage.
In other words, Dong Zhuo meant to place his own granddaughter in my hands as a hostage, buy the trust of the Xiongnu and the Bing Province cavalry in a single stroke, and bind me with every duty a man owes his wife's family...!
But in this life I intended to take only Cai Yan as my wife. Pure love. Love unto death. That was the policy.
This man Dong Zhuo had already stepped between Guan Yu and Du Ying. And now he was coming for Cai Yan and me as well...!
Then again — the idea that I would marry Cai Yan and Cai Yan alone was nothing but my own one-sided notion. Even in the original history, what passed between us had been plunder, not a proper wedding. Her place had not been that of a principal wife, but of a concubine.
In that case... perhaps I ought simply to protect her, enough that she might live happily, and look elsewhere for a match of my own.
A household of Cai Yong's standing would never give their daughter to a Xiongnu in the first place. No matter how high my rank among my own people, they would still think: a Xiongnu is a Xiongnu.
Even at the dawn of the Sixteen Kingdoms, Han men would still tell the foreign peoples of northern China, "Never in all of history has a Hu been Son of Heaven. Therefore, surrender to the Great Jin." This, after the Xiongnu, the Jie, and the Xianbei had already styled themselves Emperor or Heavenly King and become the hegemons of the north — after the Han people's own Jin dynasty had been driven south to Jianye.
Yuan Shao's marriage alliance with Tadun, King of the Wuhuan, and Gongsun Du's with the King of Buyeo — those were the exceptions, not the rule. And even then, they had found women inside the Yuan clan and the Gongsun clan, adopted them as daughters, and married them off. They never offered their own flesh and blood.
...Wait. Then what on earth was Dong Zhuo thinking, offering his own granddaughter?
"I've been having my Qiang take Han women as wives."
Dong Zhuo let out a low, rumbling chuckle.
"Some folks go around saying my Qiang retainers are dishonoring Han women. But in a world like this, what could be safer for a woman than becoming the wife of one of Dong Zhuo's men?"
He stroked his granddaughter's hair with surprising gentleness and looked at me.
"I can hardly be the exception, can I."
"What do you mean?"
"Those Confucian types figure that if Han blood and Qiang blood mix, the civilization of Huaxia will be stained. Funny thing is, there are Qiang who think the same in reverse — that marrying into the Han will bring their own traditions down. But this 'living together' Fengxian talks about? That's what it is. Why should the Han be the only ones doing the civilizing?"
"...So the Han would be 'civilized' by the Qiang in turn?"
Dong Zhuo had coveted the Qiang and taken them into his own following. He did not merely mean to use them. He wanted the Han man that he was and the Qiang people under him to become one and the same.
In the same way, he coveted me. He coveted Lü Bu. And that did not mean the two of us alone. It meant the Xiongnu. It meant Bing Province.
He did not merely mean to use us. He wanted us to become a little more like Dong Zhuo — and he wanted to become a little more like us.
This was a step beyond Lü Bu's idea of simply living as neighbors. No. Two steps beyond.
In later ages, the sovereigns of the Northern Dynasties and the Han ministers who served them would fixate on the Sinicization of the Hu. They would spare little thought for the Hu-ification of the Han.
And so, accepting the match Dong Zhuo had laid on the table would mean something more than alliance, more than a hostage. If I said yes, I would become part of a new vision of All Under Heaven — one in which the Han mixed with the foreign peoples of the west and the north.
The only sounds in the room were Dong Bai's chirping giggles and Dong Zhuo's doting murmurs as he fussed over her. He tended his granddaughter as if nothing in the world were the matter. The tension between Lü Bu and me swelled taut as a drawn bow.
As if to let the air out of it, Dong Zhuo laughed.
"Anyway. If you take the proceeds from what you sold the Xianbei and put them into camels, a good many of the Xiongnu Khagan's worries will sort themselves out."
Right. That was why I had come here in the first place. To hear his advice on trade.
That the conversation had wandered this far was, just as Liu Bei had warned me before he left, because Dong Zhuo had taken a good long look at me and liked what he saw.
"Even for a Hu like me, a marriage talk is not a thing to be tossed out lightly. Besides, I am only ten, and the Grand Administrator's granddaughter is still..."
"Bai'er, how old are you~?"
"Six~!"
"..."
"There you have it."
"I would rather we spoke of business first."
At that, Lü Bu called to me, low and sharp.
"Bao!"
He may well have wanted me to shove back my seat and walk out of the room altogether. Dong Zhuo's salt had been bought with the tears of people like Guan Yu and Du Ying — the ones with no power to refuse.
But I was desperate. And greedy. Greedy enough to want everything I could wring out of Dong Zhuo, and not get a ring through my nose in the bargain.
"You don't want to give me Fengxian. You want to put off the match with our Bai'er. And yet you still want my advice... Xiongnu Khagan — is that the arrogance of a child, or have you simply overestimated yourself?"
I did not answer.
I had stalled long enough.
A commotion rose outside. Someone was trying to force their way in through the entrance of the Grand Administrator's residence — voices bullying the gate guards, shoulders driving into theirs. To do that at the residence of a man who governed a commandery, you needed authority to match.
Dismay flickered across the faces of Dong Zhuo and Jia Xu alike.
"What is it?"
"Well..."
The servant who had been summoned glanced at Dong Zhuo's expression and fumbled for the words.
"An official has come from Luoyang."
"Who did he say he was?"
"A Gentleman Consultant named Cao Cao..."
Dong Zhuo's eyes and Jia Xu's rolled toward me at the same instant.
I dropped every trace of the frightened, tight-wound look I had been wearing, and smiled.
"Grand Administrator Zhang sent his son to assist me and my master, is that right?"
I asked it of Zhang Hong just before we left Taiyuan Commandery, more confirmation than question.
"That is so."
I knew Zhang Hong's future. He was younger than Yuan Shao or Cao Cao, but thanks to his father his connections ran wide — and in this age, wide connections meant a good name. That was why he would become one of the three leaders of the anti-Dong Zhuo coalition. Yuan Shao, lord of the lands north of the Yellow River and commander-in-chief. Yuan Shu, lord of the Jing Province region. And Zhang Hong, lord of Henan.
By 182 he would already know Cao Cao, Zhang Miao, Yuan Shao, and the rest, I thought. So I asked.
"You're already acquainted with Gentleman Consultant Cao Mengde of Luoyang, I take it?"
When Zhang Min had been stripped of his post as General of the Household Protecting the Xiongnu, held to account for the war with Tanshihuai, and sent to Luoyang under guard, the man who took him was Cao Cao.
"Yes. I am on friendly terms with Elder Brother Mengde."
Oho. So it was an "Elder Brother Mengde" kind of relationship.
"Then would you ride for Luoyang without rest, night and day, and carry these words of mine?"
The price of leopard skins has risen, so every man hunts the leopard. The leopard, not knowing which way to turn, wanders the mountains and valleys and cries out at the top of its lungs.
I had expected him to send someone on Xiahou Dun's level, with a handful of the Cao family's private soldiers in tow.
I had not expected Cao Cao to come himself.
Ah — Xiahou Dun had come, of course. He stood behind Cao Cao, commanding the Cao household troops.
"...I am Cao Cao, Gentleman Consultant."
"Dong Zhuo, Grand Administrator of Hedong."
And just like that, in the year 182, Dong Zhuo, Cao Cao, Lü Bu, and Jia Xu met for the first time.
"And what brings Consultant Cao all the way to Hedong? In such a hurry, no less."
Zhang Hong, having ridden day and night exactly as I had asked, was nowhere to be seen — presumably collapsed somewhere in the Cao family mansion in Luoyang. Cao Cao looked as if he had leapt onto a horse the instant he heard Zhang Hong's message. His face was hollowed out, his clothes rumpled and askew.
His eyes moved from Dong Zhuo to Jia Xu, to Lü Bu, to me. He looked at me a little longer than the others, then turned back to Dong Zhuo.
"I came to deliver these words."
"Oho."
Dong Zhuo looked from me to Cao Cao and back again, and let out a long, appreciative breath. He tipped his head a fraction.
"So you had a card up your sleeve after all, Xiongnu Khagan."
"The world grows more chaotic by the day, and everyone is gathering blades. It seems a blade that looks as if it might cut well is rather popular."
"For now, I suppose I shall have to content myself with 'opening trade,' as the Khagan put it."
He gave a short laugh and turned to Cao Cao.
"I have not trespassed on the decisions of the General of the Household Protecting the Xiongnu, nor on those of the Xiongnu Chanyu. I have merely been sharing a cup and old memories with friends I came to know in the last campaign."
Cao Cao held his sharp, upturned gaze and nodded.
"Yes. That is precisely what you ought to be doing."
I went down the steps. Lü Bu came down after me. I folded my hands toward Dong Zhuo and took my leave.
"I hope we meet again."
Dong Zhuo did not answer me directly. He bent and took Dong Bai's hand.
"Now, say hello to your Xiongnu big brother—"
"Hello~"
"That's my girl."
Dong Zhuo and I closed the conversation with smiles of matching, shameless brass.
I had turned to follow Cao Cao out of the residence when Dong Zhuo called after me.
"Ah. Xiongnu Khagan."
"I once put a word in your great-grandfather's ear — suggested it might not be a bad idea to send you to Luoyang as a hostage."
He wasn't even bothering to dress it up as "study" anymore.
"Back then I said it to get you away from Fengxian. Looking at things now, I am not so sure going to Luoyang would be to your disadvantage."
His eyes narrowed.
"Meeting His Majesty the Emperor in person, just once, might do you some good."
Before I could answer, his gaze shifted to Lü Bu.
"What do you think you're doing."
The moment we were out of Dong Zhuo's residence, Cao Cao looked down at me with bloodshot eyes.
I turned my face aside and said something that had nothing to do with the question.
"I have one teacher in the martial arts, you see. And another in matters of wit and strategy."
"...What are you talking about."
"My teacher in strategy told me, Hide a little of your wisdom. So I tried it in front of Grand Administrator Dong. As you can see, it did not take."
Only then did Cao Cao seem to remember the conversation from our first meeting. He threw his head back and roared with laughter.
"If you've reached the point of saying 'the price of leopard skins has risen,' then you've learned to measure your own worth, haven't you, Xiongnu prince? No... it was Khagan, wasn't it. I don't know what that Xiongnu word means exactly, but I assume it means a person of rank."
"A new investor has arrived, you see, capital in hand, demanding a share. I thought Gentleman Consultant Cao might need to increase his own investment."
"Now look here, Xiongnu Khagan. I am twenty-eight this year, and the money comes from my father. There is a limit to how freely I can—"
"Uh, Mengde. You've never once given a damn what your old man thinks."
Xiahou Dun's spectacular lack of tact earned him a look from Cao Cao that could have stripped paint. Xiahou Dun shut his mouth at once.
"...In any case, I cannot keep making investments this dangerous."
"If it comes to it, whether the Xiongnu cavalry I can field fight under the banner of Dong or the banner of Cao — that rather depends on what you say today, doesn't it?"
"So you've learned threats now, too... Fine. If I am going to increase my investment, I will need some security of my own."
"And how may I provide that security?"
"I would like you to come to Luoyang, as Grand Administrator Dong suggested."
I nodded.
Dong Zhuo's words had played their part, I suppose. But more than that — it was time I started preparing for the year 184.
I needed to meet Liu Hong.