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“Inspector Liu Fu is certainly more effective than ‘Inspector Yan Xiang’
was,” Cao Cao said. “It’s funny: that fool Yan ran back and forth, trying to
protect his heretic lord and his own neck, and actually doing everything from
feigning his death to trying to recruit mercenaries to finally seeing sense and
offering his allegiance to me... and in the end, after achieving a position of
relative safety and surviving being the counsel of a traitor, Yan Xiang’s as
dead as the rest. Ridiculous.”
The adviser Yuan Huan - who had once served the renegade warlord Yuan Shu
alongside Yan Xiang, but had defected immediately when Shu betrayed the Han
Empire - nodded agreeably but offered no words.
“Yan Xiang’s not only ridiculous, but irrelevant, so we shall forget him
and return to more pressing matters,” Guo Jia said. “My lord, I will tell you
when it is the right time to fight Liu Biao and Sun Quan, or others will.”
“...Fine, we’ll content ourselves with ignoring ‘Jing Governor Liu Biao’
and let Sun Quan keep his undeserved dominions for now,” Cao Cao grumbled. “Liu
Biao would do well not to shelter Liu Bei, but we all know that he almost
certainly will; Bei will doubtlessly urge him to renew his coalition pact with
Yuan Shao and gather support for a pincer attack on Xuchang, but while the
ambitious Sun Quan continues his harassment of southern Jing and diverts most
of Liu Biao’s limited resources to that southern front, we can ignore him as
well. We now control Yan Province, Central Province, Xu Province, parts of Yang
Province, most of Yu Province, and the southwest border regions of Qing
Province; and as for Yuan’s potential alliance with our other long-standing
problem, the Qiang chieftains Ma Teng and Han Sui in Liang Province... Wenruo...?”
“Ma Teng is suffering surprising defeats,” Xun Wenruo reported. “His
eldest son, Ma Chao, is truly a force to be reckoned with, but Han Sui commands
a generally more efficient army that is gaining ground in every place that Ma
Chao is not placed to take or defend.
That means one of two things in the short
term, I suggest: either Ma Teng will capitulate and seek peace in exchange for
loss of territory, or he will hand power to Ma Chao and retreat to some far-off
place while the tribal war continues.”
“...In the short term, we might want the latter, since it keeps them busy,
but in the long term, the former is preferable,” Jia Xu said. “A Ma Chao that
is reined in by Han Sui will not be as much of a threat as a Ma Chao that
forces Han Sui to sue for peace and present an opportunity to seize control in
the northwest.”
“A definitive set of options may exist, but that’s entirely up to
Heaven,” Guo Jia chuckled. “With any luck, it will be one of those options,
because either would keep them where we want them.”
Jia Xu smiled, rubbed his bearded chin and said, “I do not know the
order that your mind chooses for those further options, but I concur that they
are most desirable. An alliance against Yuan Shao... or a hostage to control Ma
Chao... are both very much desired both now and in the future, but either would
do.”
“Ayah... you advisers are not
human, I swear it!” a military official cried; all eyes turned to the one-eyed
face of Cao Cao’s trusted ‘cousin’ Xiahou Dun, who added, “All of a sudden,
we’re looking at the Qiang barbarians giving us hostages or helping us fight
Yuan Shao! Why would any of that happen???”
“I admit, Yuanrang, that I consider the possibility myself,” Cao Cao
replied. “I’m sure that Wenruo, Gongda, Chen Qun and Cheng Yu, at the very
least, hope for as much.”