“Intention”: War for the Han Frontier sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne

Petitions went back and forth, but armed conflict was inevitable: once every bandit army, rebel group, tribal alliance and rogue warlord had been pacified or eliminated, Yuan Shao finally released his own open letter denouncing Cao Cao. Dong Cheng had, meanwhile, claimed ownership of a secret imperial edict calling for Cao Cao’s destruction; Cao and his allies acted quickly upon learning of it, arresting and executing Dong Cheng and his followers and removing Dong Cheng’s daughter, Consort Dong, from Emperor Xian’s harem for immediate disposal. It was that last act that had even left some of Cao Cao’s followers rattled, since Consort Dong was a known favourite and, most importantly, pregnant with child.

“...There must have been another way,” Kong Rong retorted.
“If there had been another way, then one of the many wise men around His Excellency would have found it,” Wang Lang insisted. “Our mutual friend Xun Wenruo is as devout a royalist as you will ever find, but even he could see no other way.”
“...And I was one of the men that called for the heads of the ‘Ten Attendants’ at the heights of their villainy,” Kong Rong recalled. “This was... ... ...well, it was not ‘the same’, no, but it had to be... ... ...yes, I suppose that there was no other way.”
Wang Lang smiled encouragingly and asked, “So is your conscience eased...?”
“...Perhaps,” Kong Rong replied. “Now, perhaps, we should alter the mood.”
“Yes!” Wang Lang chuckled. “Why not enlighten me with some of your famous poetry... oh, and some wine would be nice.”
Kong Rong summoned a servant and requested wine; the two continued to eat, drink and talk about everything but the state of the nation for the rest of the afternoon.

*************

2

“I sense hesitation, Lord Cao.”
The prematurely-greyed, hard-faced ‘Excellency of Works’, Cao Cao, smiled and turned to his frail adviser Guo Jia and replied by saying, “That’s to be expected, surely, Guo Fengxiao?”
Cao Cao’s court was comprised entirely of clan loyalists that nodded silently. Cao Cao looked down the rows of advisers and officials that sat to his left, and then to the rows of military representatives that sat in rows to his right; there were no signs that anyone intended to address him beyond Guo Jia and two other advisers.
“This is not the moment for hesitation, Lord Cao, not after so much action,” Guo Jia countered. “Yuan Shao is down but not decisively defeated; Liu Bei edges closer and closer to Jing Province, where we suspect that he will be received warmly by an increasingly desperate Liu Biao. Sun Quan’s loyalty to the Han is questionable, no matter what his man here at court says; the various tribes to the north and northwest are the threat that they have always been, and ‘when’, rather than ‘if’, the Qiang tribes in Liang Province put their petty differences aside and unite as they once did against the regents in Chang’an...”
Cao Cao patted the black headpiece that held his long hair in place and said, “This head has many things in it, Guo Fengxiao. Yes, I am hesitant, but not with regard to the matters that you refer to. I am not even hesitant because of the loss of Tian Chou from my service. I am hesitant about addressing the court, nothing more.”

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