“Turmoil”: Battle for the Han Empire sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne

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7

Cao Cao returned to his court in Yan Province, which had temporarily relocated from the capital Juancheng - based to the east in Dong Prefecture - to Xuchang City in the west.
“I hope that we do not leave Lü Bu with an easy route to return by consolidating here,” Cao Cao said as he looked at the mass of seated officials and officers. “I am sure that my cousin Hong will do a fine job of routing the troublemakers and building better relationships with the people, but that won’t be enough if Bu-”
“Bu hasn’t the men or the grain to attack us again, and I have left talented men to guard the key positions while your cousin plays ‘mediator’, as you should have expected of me,” a towering, thin, sour-faced middle-aged adviser retorted as he got to his feet and glared at his lord with irritated eyes.
“Ah! How are you, Mister Cheng…?” Cao Cao teased.
“Well enough for a man of over fifty that has to keep gallivanting back and forth from one place to another, ‘un-muddling the minds’ of important men - that are important for no good reason - by explaining the obvious,” Cheng Yu grumbled. “My main regret of living fifty years is the sheer number of idiots that I have been forced to meet and endure: had I died as a child, then I would only know my own village, and they were more than enough.”
“So you are old today, then,” Xun Wenruo chuckled.
“You were like a chicken with no head, Xun Yu, running around and panicking when Lü Bu came here at Chen Gong’s treacherous invitation!” Cheng Yu heckled. “Who pacified - and, where possible, replaced - the fools that were appointed to manage important places like Fan County and Cangting Ford?”
Xun Wenruo was not offended; he smiled and said, “You were a calming voice in a great storm, Mister Cheng. How does the supply acquisition plan go…?”

Many officials balked reflexively, as Cheng Yu had a reputation - deserved or otherwise - for introducing human meat to the supply chain when food was scarce or, sometimes, when such meat was simply easier to obtain.
“We do not need to know that, Wenruo,” Cao Cao pleaded. “If our eastern borders are guarded, then we can focus on Yufuluo.”
“That mantra is rumoured as being heard in village to the east of Runan,” another man said.
“…‘Mantra’, Gongda…?” Cao Cao prompted. “I hope that you do not mean the sixteen-word mantra of the Yellow Turbans.”
Xun Wenruo’s slightly older nephew, Xun Yòu - whose courtesy name was ‘Gongda’ - bowed slightly and said, “Sadly, my lord, I mean the very same. The locusts have evidently inflicted another infestation upon us.”
“If the vast majority of people weren’t as stupid as the livestock, this wouldn’t keep happening,” Cheng Yu complained. “They’ll rise up, waste countless barrels of dye making those ridiculous yellow scarves, and then they’ll smash and burn everything left that’s of value around them, all as a protest, they’ll say, against having nothing! They’ll make their farming tools into weapons and leave the fields untilled, while complaining that they starve! They’ll march against us, and-!”
“I… have done this before, Mister Cheng, many times, and if I must fight the Yellow Turbans again, then so be it,” Cao Cao interrupted. “Perhaps I will end up with another legion, like the Qing Corps.”

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