“Intention”: War for the Han Frontier sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne
JavaScript is off/unavailable on your browser. You will not be able to experience this website as it was intended without JavaScript enabled.
7
Jing Province Governor Liu Biao summoned his officials and allies to a
meeting in his northern capital Xiangyang; he viewed the gathering with tired,
haggard eyes and asked, “What am I to do about Liu Bei...?”
“Not again,” Admiral Cai Mao scoffed. “Lord and Governor... brother-in-law... you know that you must
not allow this man to take another step in our direction! Why do you keep
asking us and then dismissing our opinions?”
“There is no consensus,” Liu Biao retorted. “I must be sure, really
sure, that he is a hero or a menace; turning him away could be my worst mistake
to date.”
“But I believe - as do many others - that he is not to be trusted,” Cai
Mao said. “I know that you and he are related by blood to each other and the
royal clan, but he is disinherited, impoverished and a pariah by his own doing!
He stole Xu Province from Tao Qian, so why wouldn’t he try and steal Jing from
you...?”
“Aiee... Tao Qian gave him the province because he decided
that his sons were not best placed to fight a vengeful Cao Cao! I intend no
such generosity, for Cao would be fighting for greed, not grief!” Liu Biao
insisted. “My eldest son Qi will inherit this province, and if the worst befell
Qi, then it would go to my younger son, Cong!”
Some turned to look at the wasted face of Liu Qi and silently guessed
that he would not see Liu Biao’s age.
“If Cao Cao came here, then I would resist him as a loyal Han governor,”
Liu Biao declared, “and not crumble as a guilty murderer of innocent fathers!”
The official Huan Jie - whose previous master was Sun Jian, the father
of Biao’s nemesis Sun Quan - smiled at the statement, since Liu Biao’s
assassination of Sun Jian had long been the Sun clan’s main justification for
attacking Jing Province.
“I know that look, and why you wear it,” Liu Biao said as he glared at
Huan Jie. “I destroyed Sun Jian because he came here to steal my province for
his master Yuan Shu, and Heaven let me do it because he was a plunderer. Cao
Cao would also be coming here as a thief, and he would meet the same end!”
“I smile because we might be allowing Liu Bei in here to steal the
province without a fight,” Huan Jie replied. “He is sly, Lord Liu, and
possessed of a type of charisma that wins soft hearts and weak minds alike.
He’ll ingratiate himself with your populace and usurp you with words, the pen
and the smiles of naïve peasants, not the sword.”
“Too right, Mister Huan,” Cai Mao said. “A lot of the young
intelligentsia in Xiangyang and Xinye have developed a romantic vision of Bei
as some sort of ‘underdog hero’, the ‘only man to face Cao Cao when others
flee’.”
Liu Biao laughed and said, “Is that so, gentlemen…?”
“It is, Lord Liu,” the young scholar-official Wang Can replied. “I make
regular trips into town, and-”
“To listen to the donkeys, no doubt!” Liu Biao teased.
“…I make no denial that I find their brays comforting,” the frail Wang
Can said as he became overwhelmed by a feeling of embarrassment. “But if I
may…? Liu Bei is, like Sun Jian, misrepresented by some idealistic types. To
the ‘thinkers’, Bei is an untarnished gem, a man that has not earned a
reputation for mass murder, theft, fraud, rape, plunder or deception, but
rather for ‘heroic action’ and ‘defiance of evil’; his endurance, tenacity and
meek countenance serve as ‘evidence’ that he is a true hero and a Heaven-sent
foil to harry Cao Cao.”