“Intention”: War for the Han Frontier sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne
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“...Look at us all, sitting here awaiting Heaven-knows-what,” Kong Rong
whispered to Wang Lang. “What will he say?”
“You ask me, but do I know the answer...?” Wang Lang retorted.
Kong Rong turned to his friend Zhi Xi - who was sat to his right - and
said, “It’ll be more treasonous bile that I must-”
“Don’t risk Cao’s wrath!” Zhi Xi hissed.
Xun Wenruo, in his capacity as ‘Acting Director of the Imperial
Secretariat’ and ‘Acting Excellency over the Masses’, addressed the assembled
court by saying, “Be silent! His Majesty
approaches the hall!”
The audience kowtowed, pressing their foreheads to the floor in a show
of united deference as the young Emperor Xian shuffled into the court by way of
a side entrance near his throne: he was, as always, accompanied by guards,
serving maidens and a small gaggle of meek, fawning eunuch attendants. Emperor
Xian paused briefly to inspect the audience that awaited him: his eyes found
his father-in-law Fu Wan, his appointed Excellency of Works and ‘Acting
Commander-in-Chief’ Cao Cao, and the humble Jia Xu.
“...Nothing changes, really,” Emperor Xian murmured.
The emperor’s gold-dragon-emblazoned black and red robes made him the
brightest thing in the room; the rows of beads that hung from the front and
back of his black mortar-board hat unavoidably made noise as he completed his
journey to the gilded throne and took his place upon it. Once Emperor Xian was
seated, Xun Wenruo turned to Cao Cao, who got to his feet and moved to address
the court.
“Your Majesty, and gentlemen of the court... I, Cao, am, as always,
humbled to be here in your presence, tasked as I am with bringing order to the
nation,” Cao Cao began. “We are here so that I might, to begin, update the
court on matters of state.”
“It is our understanding that the ‘Alliance of the Girdle Edict’, as
some have come to know it, is crushed,” Emperor Xian said unexpectedly - and
cuttingly.
“They are severely harmed, Your Majesty,” Cao Cao said with a fearless
smile. “Those that chose to follow that seditious and fraudulent document
penned by Dong Cheng and his allies have been routed soundly at Guandu and also
in Yu Province, after they dared to assault the palace from the west with their
unexpected bandit and Yellow Turban allies.”
Kong Rong scowled and motioned that he would like to speak; Zhi Xi tried
to remonstrate but he was wasting his time.
“Unexpected indeed, Excellency,” Kong Rong challenged. “Who would have
thought that followers of an edict to smite enemies of the Han and bring peace
to the land would then ally themselves with the very people that sought to
destroy the Han and plunge the world into darkness...?”
Cao Cao laughed and said, “Well put! Your ancestor smiles.”
Kong Rong eyed Cao Cao bitterly.
“For where there was an obvious lack of authenticity with regards to
that ‘edict’, there was no such doubt as to who those chanting lunatics were:
they were unmistakably Yellow Turbans,” Cao Cao continued. “Yuan Shao has truly
lost his way, just as his fool brother did. It is sad. A man that I once called
‘Benchu’ and sat at tables with as a brother is now the greatest enemy of the
Han. But... such is life. Now he hides in Yè City, plotting another attempt to
take the capital, and he must be definitively beaten before he can do that. I
intend to march northward as soon as weather, supplies and morale permit.”
“And... and what of our estranged relative, Liu Bei...?” Emperor Xian asked.