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“What are your views about the state of things?” Kong Rong prompted as
he looked at each of the young men in turn.
“Chaos is all there is,” Cao Cao replied. “We stare into an abyss.”
Kong Rong hummed thoughtfully.
“Good men know low rank or persecution, bad ones rewards and high
office,” Zhang Miao suggested. “Principled men must be silent.”
“All that matters, in short,” Yuan Shao scoffed, “is whether you grovel
to those wretched eunuchs or not.”
“What you say is true, all of you; but why say anything, when nothing
can be done…?” Kong Rong sighed. “The latest affronts will be the demise of the
court, for certain. We may see the Xiongnu,
the Xianbei, the terrible Qiang, or even a foreign power, such as Da Qin, break our nation now… it pains
me to think of it.”
“All is not lost… it cannot be,” Yuan Shao said to his visitors. “Yes,
His Majesty is blinded by these eunuchs: their evil unrestrained, they plot
against good men openly, and yes, we are at a critical juncture. But Heaven
cannot damn our land to invasion, not if it hasn’t to this point; yes, this is
a dark moment, when the teachings of your esteemed ancestor are ignored, Mister
Kong, and His Majesty is swayed this way and that by the eunuchs and the
Dowager… but the Son of Heaven will see sense one day, and if the good men that
are this day slandered by the eunuchs have survived to be pardoned, then that
day will see the return of order. That, friends, is why we are here today.”
The three visitors nodded silently.
“When I see educated men of status and students destroyed by the eunuchs,
I want to cry out!” Yuan Shao said with sincerity. “I tell you, as a man of
words myself, that I cannot bear to see former classmates condemned as enemies
of the state, having their lives taken away from them, in some cases
literally…”
“As Benchu says, this cannot go on,” Cao Cao suggested. “What we do and
will go on to do, yes, it’s all of it risky, but… we do it because it is right,
and history will prove us right.”
“Well said, Mengde,” Yuan Shao said with gratitude. “This… disaster…
cannot endure forever, surely. Fate will proffer an opportunity to restore
order… until then, we must act according to what is right.”
Cao Cao smiled and said, “And we should not fear. Fate, as you said, is
with us.”
“Indeed it is,” Kong Rong agreed. “One day, the sun will shine again…
until then, we must endure the darkness. Something will happen that will change
things; it might not be something desirable, but that is the way of things.
When it happens, the way forward will become clear… so do not despair, any of
you.”
“My failing morale was obvious to you,” Yuan Shao supposed.
“I think I understand all of you well enough,” Kong Rong replied as he
looked at each man in turn once again; Cao Cao smiled slightly and lowered his
head.
“I shall remain positive,” Yuan Shao decided. “We shall endure.”
In another part of the country - Huaxian County in Qing Province - the extent of the corruption was having an effect on a local prison warden called Zang Jie. His strong and intelligent son, Zang Ba, was already a grown man and ready to find work, but opportunities for advancement were few due to the stranglehold that the ‘friends of the Ten’ had on everything. As a warden, Zang Jie got to meet the men that were branded as criminals in Huaxian, and he did not like what he saw.