The Grand Tutor (2)
"It's been a long time since I sat anywhere but the seat of honor."
The man who had been emperor since the age of twelve said this as he took his place across from Zhang Jue. The wooden table between them bore not a single ornament, and Zhang Jue, for his part, made no particular show of a subject's deference.
Had the ministers who once jabbed accusing fingers at me for insolence—men like Yang Ci or Zhang Jun—been present at this table, one could only imagine what they would have said. But they were not here. The only people in this room were those who understood what it meant for the emperor himself to have walked into the heart of Taiping Dao: those who knew what was realistically necessary, and what simply had to be done.
"From the look of things, Taiping Dao believers from all across Jizhou are gathering here. Were you preparing an uprising?"
"If your intent is to join forces with the four kings now attacking us and wipe Taiping Dao from the earth."
Zhang Jue did not treat Liu Hong as an emperor. As the seats they occupied made plain, he considered this a negotiation between equals. Liu Hong did not bother to point this out.
The emperor's actions had been unprecedented, and he had already conceded a great deal—but there was no guarantee the other party would recognize that sincerity. If effort were rewarded in proportion to the care spent, why would the common people, after laboring with all their strength, still have everything stripped from them? Why would they have to endure the outrageous sneer that they were poor because they were lazy?
This meeting was, in one respect, truly equal: Liu Hong's head could be struck from his shoulders here just as meaninglessly as anyone else's.
"We shall take your side. We shall brand the four kings as traitors and put them down. And it would please Us if you who have gathered here in Guangzong would serve as Our army of suppression."
"That matter on which your eunuchs and my disciples could never quite close the gap... you're demanding to become the hierarch of Taiping Dao. Is that it?"
"What if we did this instead?"
Liu Hong's eyes locked onto Zhang Jue's. Zhang Jue held his composure, watching the emperor coiled before him like a snake about to strike.
"Taiping Dao calls you the Great Worthy Teacher, does it not?"
The great master, virtuous and wise.
While we were riding toward Guangzong County in Julu Commandery, the emperor had asked me this:
"Biao. This 'Khagan' of yours—where does that sit among the Xiongnu?"
"It is the Great Hu Shaman, who transmits the voice of the Heavenly God whom the Xiongnu revere."
"And what is its relationship to the Chanyu?"
I hesitated a moment, then told him about the coronation rite.
"When the Chanyu receives the Heavenly God's approval, the Great Hu Shaman, standing in the Heavenly God's place, sets the golden crown upon the Chanyu's head. Only after that ceremony is complete does he become Chanyu."
"...Interesting."
Liu Hong said nothing more for a long while. Then, suddenly, he asked again.
"Biao. This relationship you described between the Chanyu and the Khagan—could it be applied to Us as well?"
I had not expected that at all. I could only stare blankly at Liu Hong's face, unable to answer.
"We intend to appoint the Great Worthy Teacher as Grand Tutor. Both titles contain the meaning of 'teacher,' do they not? And a Grand Tutor is both a teacher and Our subject—would that not make a suitable compromise between Taiping Dao and Ourselves?"
"B-but this is an entirely different case. Your Majesty is the Son of Heaven..."
Though the practice is often omitted now, the emperor's accession rites were originally performed in two stages. One was the imperial enthronement. The other was the Fengshan, offered in his capacity as Son of Heaven. In other words, the emperor himself served as high priest and announced his accession to Heaven—there was no place for a figure like the Great Hu Shaman to intervene.
But Liu Hong thought otherwise.
"What are you talking about? The Fengshan hasn't been performed in ages, and there's no need to be so bound by the name 'Son of Heaven.' Your Chanyu's formal title is Tengri-Qutog Chanyu, is it not? I hear 'Tengri-Qutog' means 'Son of Heaven.'"
How did he know that?
As I stared at him in silence, Liu Hong looked back as if to say, Why are you looking at me like that?
"We've read the 'Account of the Xiongnu' in the Book of Han, at least."
"Even so, Your Majesty—even if you appoint Zhang Jue as Grand Tutor, will he accept it?"
Those who covet the office of Grand Tutor are, after all, men who are already subjects of Han. To a man with no intention of becoming the emperor's subject, the offer of Grand Tutor is nothing but a contemptible attempt at a bribe.
Liu Hong stared ahead again as he answered.
"The relationship between Ourselves and the Grand Tutor, the balance of power... that we shall have to go and settle in person."
He fell silent a moment, then spoke again, as if steeling himself.
"We shall also need to confirm how each of us understands the situation this country is in."
In the game Three Kingdoms, when the year 184 is typically depicted, there are only two warlords in the entire realm: He Jin and Zhang Jue. Of course it varies by title—some games have Emperor Ling, Liu Hong, appear in person—but generally, He Jin and Zhang Jue divide the world between them. In those games, Liu Hong is treated as little more than an item in He Jin's inventory, or an NPC.
At any rate, in the political landscape of 184 as the games portray it, the two factions seek only to destroy each other, with no compromise of any kind. If the Yellow Turbans take Luoyang, they depose Liu Hong and found a new dynasty. Where Liu Hong "goes missing" is never explained. Conversely, if the court's armies under He Jin win a few victories and Zhang Jue dies of illness, the Yellow Turbans vanish of their own accord in a destruction event.
In this world, too, history would have unfolded much the same way had I not intervened. But now it was not He Jin but Liu Hong himself who sat face to face with Zhang Jue.
To me, it looked like a meeting of two giants that should never have been possible. Liu Hong was the emperor who had bent Han to his will until the day he died, and Zhang Jue was a man who left an enormous mark on Chinese history even after his death.
Zhang Jue, leader of the Yellow Turbans; his younger brothers Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang. Bo Cai, who commanded the Yellow Turbans of Yuzhou. Zhang Mancheng, who commanded the Yellow Turbans of Jingzhou. All of them were suppressed, but their remnants endured long after.
The most famous case is the Qingzhou Yellow Turban remnants who attacked Yanzhou and were absorbed into Cao Cao's forces—but that is far from the only one. The Yellow Turbans of Hebei fled to Bingzhou and became the Black Mountain Bandits or the White Wave Bandits. At times they joined Gongsun Zan against Yuan Shao; at times they allied with Yuan Shu to help Emperor Xian, Liu Xie, escape Chang'an; at times they united with the Yuzhou Yellow Turban remnants to obstruct Cao Cao's holding of the emperor. When Cao Cao defeated Yuan Shao and advanced into Hebei, some of them even joined him.
The Yellow Turbans remaining in Qingzhou attacked Kong Rong and fought Liu Bei and Taishi Ci. And the Yuzhou Yellow Turbans fought alongside Liu Bei when he operated in Runan under Yuan Shao's orders. Those who appear from time to time in the historical records of Wei as pirates who rejected official rule and fled to the seacoast or the islands—they, too, were likely connected to Yellow Turban remnants.
In this way, even after Zhang Jue's death, the Yellow Turbans and Taiping Dao remained involved in the great currents of the realm for more than a decade. How Liu Hong presented himself today, and how Zhang Jue received him, would shake those great currents to their very foundations.
Was this not, then, a summit of giants?
"Grand Tutor."
Zhang Jue murmured the words as if tasting them.
"By appointing me Grand Tutor and bringing me into the court, you mean to seize control of Taiping Dao and use them as your army?"
"If having Us do as We please does not sit well with you, We are prepared to negotiate from this moment. What do you say? Just as the Qingliu condemn Us for 'prizing vulgar commerce,' We have no qualms about haggling like a merchant."
"Qingliu, you say."
Once more Zhang Jue turned the word over.
"Does the emperor believe all of this is the Qingliu's doing?"
"At the very least, those lending military funds and soldiers to the four kings are Qingliu."
"In the eyes of the people, the Qingliu are no different from the Zhuoliu. But that does not mean the Zhuoliu are superior, or better."
Zhang Jue's hand rose slowly. The tip of his finger pointed at Jian Shuo.
"The renowned men of the Qingliu call the eunuchs the heads of the Zhuoliu—but that is not seeing truly. Or rather, even if they have seen truly, the voice of criticism should go no further than the eunuchs. The eunuchs are merely..."
"...the ones who take the curses in Our place."
A fierce smile touched Liu Hong's lips. Zhang Jue's gaze seemed, somehow, to soften.
"You say the Qingliu gentry exploit the people harshly—but your own exploitation as emperor is no less harsh. Do you think the gentry were able to 'forcibly buy up' the people's land 'from the beginning'? Did they have that kind of power from the start? Think about how it began."
At first, the people would have voluntarily sought the gentry's protection. Why? Because becoming a gentry household's slave and vanishing from the government's sight was easier than enduring the state's brutal extraction and conscription. Zhang Jue was pointing to that.
A ferocious condemnation that no one had ever dared to utter. Jian Shuo's face had gone paper-white, his fingers trembling. For all his imposing bulk, he had lived his entire life with the emperor's authority pressed against his skin—this was an outburst he could barely endure. Cao Cao, too, flinched with every word that left Zhang Jue's mouth.
"You said you would appoint me Grand Tutor? Let us suppose I become Grand Tutor. Does that settle everything? Who, exactly, would accept that kind of ending?"
Liu Hong listened in silence. Whether he was suppressing his rage or had resolved to endure any condemnation, it was impossible to tell.
"I am grateful for the medicinal herbs you sent through the eunuchs. But it is not thanks to those herbs that Taiping Dao has won the hearts of the people across the entire realm."
Zhang Jue's finger pointed at his own face.
"It is not because my virtue is high, nor because my words have civilized the people, nor because I possess some talent for gathering popular support."
This time, without the slightest hesitation, Zhang Jue's finger pointed at Liu Hong's face.
"In a sense, one could say you gathered those people for us. They came to Taiping Dao because your tyranny left them nowhere else to turn."
I thought of the man whose shoulders had shaken as if he meant to run Liu Hong through. He had certainly spoken in a tone of How dare the emperor come here, of all places.
Liu Hong closed his eyes, as if Zhang Jue's finger had driven into him and drawn blood.
"We know We are a hated emperor."
For the first time, in Zhang Jue's presence, Liu Hong admitted to his own tyranny.
"We sent more than a hundred thousand of Our people to the frontier to die like dogs. The taxes levied to arm those hundred thousand, the grain collected to supply them, the further taxes to rebuild the lost army, the materials requisitioned to repair the fortresses, the corvée labor imposed... the people who suffered from all of it must number in the millions."
Suddenly a cold smile touched the corner of Liu Hong's mouth.
"How shabby, to be forced to say even this..."
He opened his eyes and locked them on Zhang Jue once more.