“Intention”: War for the Han Frontier sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne
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11
The chaos in the northwest had barely subsided in 18 years; Liang
Province, which made up most of the northwest quarter of the empire, was now
all but ruled by the Qiang tribes and not a place that a Han official would
gladly administrate.
The current situation
had its roots in disaffection amongst the common people; many of the officials
were embezzling money and failing to provide famine relief or adequate public
order, and the Qiang, amongst other non-Han peoples, were taking advantage of
the latter to conduct uncontested raids on towns and villages. The people
eventually revolted, and the Han government in far-off Luoyang was forced to
intervene: the effectiveness of that government and its armies had been diluted
over recent years, however, so the army that did respond, though announcing
itself as the Han, was in fact a cobbled-together alliance of private militias,
just as the army that had quelled the Yellow Turban Rebellion had been a year
earlier. The consequences of the Liang Province Rebellion were many in number:
one campaign had elevated the future tyrant Dong Zhuo at the expense of the
career of the famous ‘Tiger of Jiangdong’, Sun Jian, and three former Han
officials - Ma Teng, Han Sui and Song Jian - joined the Qiang-rebel alliance
that had ironically formed during the uprising and somehow became three of the
most powerful Qiang chieftains. The Han almost had a final victory, but
protocol halted that last victorious campaign when Emperor Ling died and his
funeral forced the senior commander - the famous veteran Huangfu Song - to return
to the capital to pay his respects.
Now Ma Teng, Han Sui and Song Jian were the lords of separate independent warrior ‘kingdoms’ in Liang Province; their initial alliance was short-lived, and any subsequent pooling of resources was tenuous and entirely bound by circumstance or opportunity to expand their influence. Song Jian opted to be satisfied with his lot and guard his borders, but Ma Teng and Han Sui were both hungry for more: they had already made a failed bid to seize the then-capital Chang’an after the death of Dong Zhuo, and each laid claim to what the other had or took as the years went on. Ma Teng and Han Sui’s latest feud knew no limits, and that gave Cao Cao’s Xuchang government the opportunity to send a new provincial inspector - rather than a fully autonomous governor - to the region and attempt to rebuild order; their choice was a man named Wei Kang. Wei could do little more that prove his administration was an honest one, and he managed to cultivate a good relationship with some of the Han communities, but the warring Qiang chieftains were a different matter altogether; it was difficult to know whether the continuing feud, as violent and costly as it was, was preventing a worse disaster.
“…I tell you, Mister Zhao, that I am at my wit’s end already, and I have not been here that long,” Wei Kang said to the only guest at a private banquet at his governor’s mansion in the provincial capital, Ji City. “What kind of a man could possibly hope to control these maniacal barbarians…?”