The Eve of Upheaval (2)
"Senior Brother!"
Zhang Liao drew up beside the carriage, leading a second horse besides his own. It was mine. I rose from my seat. A little risky, perhaps — but after everything I had learned living as a Xiongnu, I figured I could manage it.
"Khagan of the Xiongnu?"
Jian Shuo's clear voice clouded with a flicker of alarm, but I shook my head to say I was fine.
I jumped.
My seat dropped into the saddle as if the two had been made for each other. Hah. The horse was already watching me from the corner of its eye, adjusting its gait so I could mount cleanly. I stroked its mane and slipped my foot into the stirrup.
I couldn't leave all the prototype work to Lü Bu, so I had been testing the new stirrups and saddle myself. If I could vault on like that and still land clean, the technology was coming along better than I had expected. I would save the field report for Lü Bu later. For now I ran my hands along either side of the saddle, a little toward the rear.
My fingers found the bow case and the quiver. Thank the heavens Yuan Shu had been willing to lend me a bow and arrows. From now on, no matter what, I was keeping my own with me.
I had figured Cao Cao and Xiahou Dun as escorts, plus a dagger on my belt, would be enough — but I had left even the dagger behind from all the coming and going at the palace. Then again, who could have guessed He Jin and Yuan Shao would pick a fight in the middle of a Luoyang street? After today, I was beginning to think Yuan Shao was the real arch-schemer of the age.
"Liao! Uncle! Let's go!"
I spurred toward where Yuan Shu was fighting, and Huchuquan and Zhang Liao fell in on either side. I drew the familiar string of a Xiongnu bow. Zhang Liao and Huchuquan drew with me. The three of us loosed almost as one. Thunk-thunk-thunk — arrows punched into the soldiers charging Yuan Shu.
Yuan Shu glanced at us in surprise, then burst out laughing.
"Hahaha!"
Xiahou Yuan thundered past us. He flicked a glance our way, then drew on the enemy. The string was taut, the bow bent as if it might snap — I half expected someone to shout Cry out! Burn! — but Xiahou Yuan loosed in silence.
We wheeled our horses aside after the volley. Xiahou Yuan kept charging. He switched weapons in a flash; his blade took the nearest man. Without breaking stride he plunged into the heart of the melee, cutting left and right in a blur.
A fierce general worthy of the man who would one day hold up Cao Cao's banner... and yet I had a sinking feeling he still would not escape that ending at Mount Dingjun.
The enemy had not expected us to fight this hard, and with Xiahou Yuan and the rest of the reinforcements joining in, they finally broke and fled.
"Oh — wait, that's Miaocai, isn't it? Boys! Don't chase them! Just let them go! Miaocai, did Mengde send you?"
"I saw the Cao household troops stirring and figured I'd better come myself."
Xiahou Yuan lifted a hand toward Zhang Liao and Huchuquan.
"These two said they could fight, so I brought them along."
From the way they spoke, Yuan Shu and Xiahou Yuan knew each other, but they were not exactly close.
"Well, that works out. Miaocai, mind showing us the way to Mengde's villa?"
"Benchu's caught the scent. If He Jin's moving too, we're short on time."
Cao Cao and Xiahou Dun came into the villa with the household troops at their backs.
"Thanks to Gonglu we got the Daoists out. Things turned against them, so they're falling back for now, but..."
"A bastard like him never quits. He's already planning his counterstroke, I guarantee it."
Cao Cao looked at Yuan Shu as if mildly scolding him. Yuan Shu met the look with an expression that said, What did I do?
"If he were the type to give up easy, would he have observed mourning for six years for people who weren't even his real father and mother — and done it so cleanly the Qingliu worthies couldn't find a single thing to pick at?"
The tone was flippant, but Yuan Shu was right.
Cao Cao looked away from him and swept his gaze over everyone seated.
"...Which means we need a plan, and we need it now. You there — Daoist Ma."
At Cao Cao's summons, Ma Yuanyi offered a calm, composed bow.
"What's your plan. Precisely — what arrangement did you make with His Majesty. We need to know that if we're going to help you."
Ma Yuanyi's eyes went to Jian Shuo. Jian Shuo nodded.
"In the third month of next year we will rise as one across Guandong, seize every commandery and county, and then the Great Commanders will replace the Grand Administrators, and the Lesser Commanders will replace the county magistrates and chiefs."
I had not expected it to be this specific, but I had known something was coming, so neither Cao Cao nor I so much as flinched.
Yuan Shu, on the other hand, nearly came out of his chair.
"Hey! Daoist! What the hell did you just say?"
Cao Cao set a hand on Yuan Shu's shoulder.
"Mengde? You knew?"
"I suspected. I didn't know it would be this. Daoist Ma — so it ends once you've taken the commanderies and counties?"
Ma Yuanyi hesitated, then let out a breath.
"The next step is confiscating the property of the Qingliu notables under the Party Proscription — and of anyone who associated with them, even if they were never formally banned."
"Confiscate it — and then divide it among the common people?"
"Something like that, and something else entirely. Taiping Dao will compare the people and land the great clans actually hold against the official registers, and first establish how many people and how much farmland there really are."
I remembered Liu Hong guessing the population might have reached sixty million by now. The last census had put it somewhere in the mid-fifty millions. What was the real number today? How much dormant national strength did the Han actually have to draw on? Only then could you truly begin to govern.
I had heard that around the time the Later Han was founded, the first emperor of the Roman Empire far to the west had ended his civil wars and taken a census of his own. East or west, knowing your people and your land is the foundation of rule.
But as Liu Hong himself had said, a census like this...
"So you mean to uncover the land and people the great clans deliberately underreported or hid."
...could look like tyranny, depending on whose side you were standing on.
Cao Cao pressed on.
"And if a clan has hidden far too much land and too many people — what happens to them?"
"They will be executed."
The answer came without a flicker of hesitation. Cao Cao closed his eyes. Then, under his breath:
"Or maybe the census is just the pretext, and execution was the point all along..."
Yuan Shu surged to his feet.
"Mengde! What are you waiting for? Cut these Daoist bastards down right now!"
"Sit down, Gonglu."
"Sit down? If they mean what they say, your family's holdings in Pei State in Yu Province and ours in Runan Commandery are all forfeit!"
"I don't care what happens to the property."
The man in the finest clothes in the room clearly did not share that view.
"Don't care? The Cao and Yuan clans received that wealth as proof of generations of service to the state — and we're supposed to hand it over overnight?"
I glanced at Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan. They were watching Cao Cao, but they looked as if they agreed with Yuan Shu. The Xiahou were classed among the Turbid Stream for their closeness to the Cao, but they were still a great clan.
Greed for wealth was part of it, no doubt — but Yuan Shu was right that the property was also proof of merit, of having founded the Former Han and restored the Later. In that sense, wealth was honor. Stripping it away might feel like stripping a man of his name.
As Yuan Shu's voice climbed, Cao Cao let out a long breath and said something he clearly would rather have kept to himself.
"That's how Benchu thinks. We're going to stop Yuan Benchu. So if you don't want to end up working under him, keep your mouth shut."
Yuan Shu shut up.
Cao Cao turned back to Ma Yuanyi.
"This is the part that matters. Once you've done all that — do you hand everything over to His Majesty? And what does your Great Worthy Teacher do then?"
"Wait."
I cut in before Ma Yuanyi could answer.
"I'll ask this part. His Majesty granted me the Liu surname. I'm a member of the imperial clan. I believe that entitles me."
Cao Cao glanced at Jian Shuo, who nodded, and conceded the point.
"As the Khagan wishes..."
Ah. So I was going to have to tell this story after all.
"Four years ago, in Changshan in Ji Province, I met the Great Worthy Teacher. More precisely... I fell ill on the road to Youzhou, and he came to my aid."
I had been treated by Hua Tuo as well, but there was no need to mention that here.
Ma Yuanyi's eyes widened a fraction.
"Master...?"
He seemed to be fitting four years ago together with Changshan in his head. Unless Zhang Jue had been wandering around with nothing to do, there would have been Taiping Dao business in Changshan that brought him there.
I noted that Ma Yuanyi had said Master, not Great Worthy Teacher.
...Which meant he and Zhang Jue were that close.
Having apparently decided I was telling the truth, Ma Yuanyi nodded and waited for me to go on.
"At that time I swore that if Taiping Dao ever needed the Xiongnu's help, I would repay the debt. So, Daoist Ma — no. Great Commander Ma. Let me help the Great Worthy Teacher. If things go wrong with His Majesty and the wrong people get involved... there will be no taking it back."
In truth, I had already stopped Ma Yuanyi's arrest, so we probably would not slide all the way into the catastrophe that had been the Yellow Turban Rebellion in the original history. But still.
I looked Ma Yuanyi in the eye.
"What is the problem between His Majesty and Taiping Dao?"
Ma Yuanyi let out a much longer breath than before.
"We believe that if His Majesty would enter Taiping Dao himself, everything would be resolved. But His Majesty says... we should content ourselves with the next emperor being raised as a 'Taiping Dao emperor.'"
Cao Cao's eyes narrowed.
"That's why he entrusted Shihou — Liu Bian — to Daoist Shi. And why your people have been coming and going from Daoist Shi's house."
"Yes. His Majesty wished to stand as the sect leader of Taiping Dao himself, in the Great Worthy Teacher's place."
I asked again.
"And the Great Worthy Teacher refused?"
"In his heart, the Great Worthy Teacher would gladly give up the leadership of Taiping Dao if it served the people. But I and the other disciples stopped him. To be honest..."
Ma Yuanyi glanced carefully at Jian Shuo, Cao Cao, and Yuan Shu.
To my surprise, Cao Cao and Yuan Shu took that in stride. It was Jian Shuo who flared.
"Great Commander Ma!"
While Jian Shuo and Ma Yuanyi locked eyes, I looked at Cao Cao. It was a mess. Neither side could give any more ground. How were we supposed to solve this? And all the while, time was still running toward the catastrophe of 184.
Cai Yong had written as much in his letter — that Taiping Dao believers from Liang and Jing Provinces had been gathering in Wei Commandery. Wei Commandery... prophecies that Wei would replace the Han... and later Cao Cao, as King of Wei, would make it his capital... and after his son Cao Pi became emperor, he would take the era name Huangchu... the Yellow Heaven shall rise...
"Great Commander Ma."
"Yes?"
"A great host has poured into Wei Commandery in Ji Province from Jing and Liang — and I have not heard a single rumor of them looting anywhere along the way."
I glanced at Cao Cao. He confirmed it with a nod.
"How was that possible?"
"The organization of the Great Commanders and Lesser Commanders. Any Taiping Dao believer can eat their fill and rest wherever they go. If the numbers are too great, they send word to the neighboring Lesser or Great Command and receive support. Who is traveling where, whether someone is impersonating Taiping Dao, whether illness has disrupted a journey — it takes time, but we can know all of it. So if a certain number of people say they are going to Wei Commandery, the organizations along that route can prepare."
"A formidable organization. In that case..."
I turned back to Cao Cao.
"Counselor Cao. His Majesty is a descendant of the Prince of Hejian, is he not?"
"He is. So was the late Emperor — Emperor Huan."
In diplomacy, there are problems that even the most capable deputies cannot settle across a table. If the eunuchs speaking for the Emperor and the Daoists speaking for Zhang Jue cannot reach an agreement... then the principals themselves would have to meet.
"Let us have His Majesty make a progress to his ancestral home — Hejian in Ji Province. Under that pretext, we slip past Yuan Shao and He Jin's eyes... and the real meeting takes place in Wei Commandery."
"A meeting?"