Chapter 27: The Pen and the Gun

Page (1/3)

Li Ru watched impassively as the court’s high ministers displayed every manner of expression and bearing. At that moment, he seemed to feel as though he had grown countless times larger, floating among the clouds, while Wenming Garden had become a tiny chessboard. The court officials were wooden chess pieces, and he himself could control them entirely at will.

Li Ru saw Yuan Wei and Wang Yun exchanging glances. Both pretended that nothing was amiss. He merely smiled inwardly and made no comment.

Suddenly, waves of roaring cheers surged in from outside the garden like a rising tide. Everyone hurriedly turned to look, only to see that Dong Zhuo had arrived with his own troops.

Amid the guards’ repeated cries of “Mighty General!”, Dong Zhuo appeared in military attire, draped in a bright-red cloak, a treasured sword hanging at his waist. He swung down from his horse and strode forward with great steps. Bathed in the slanting rays of the setting sun, he seemed to shine with incomparable splendor.

From the moment Dong Zhuo dismounted, many military officers, along with a smaller number of civil officials, rose one after another to salute and greet him.

Dong Zhuo came laughing heartily, exchanging a few words with one man before patting another on the shoulder. For a time, the entire garden grew extraordinarily lively.

Yuan Wei had sensed that something was vaguely wrong when he first took his seat. His plan had clearly been proceeding smoothly, with every step taken correctly, yet he could not shake the feeling that some detail had gone awry.

Only when Dong Zhuo made his grand entrance did Yuan Wei, seeing the bustling scene before him, suddenly realize that his own plan contained a tremendous flaw. The color drained from his face.

With a dark expression, Yuan Wei turned to look at Wang Yun, only to find Wang Yun watching him as well. The ease and composure they had displayed earlier had vanished completely, replaced by sudden, helpless panic.

When had this Xiliang warrior won over so many military officers?

Yuan Wei’s heart sank. No wonder he and Wang Yun had encountered not the slightest resistance while carrying out their plan against Dong Zhuo. The opponent had never placed his hopes in the civil officials at all. Only now did Yuan Wei understand that he and his enemy had been moving in entirely different directions.

What a grave miscalculation!

More than one hundred and seventy years had passed from the reign of Emperor Guangwu, Liu Xiu, to that of the young Emperor of Han, Liu Bian. Peace had endured for far too long. Though wars had occurred during those centuries, most had been confined to relatively small regions. Even during the recent Yellow Turban Rebellion, the high officials and great clans within Luoyang, far from the battlefields, had instinctively regarded it as no more than a minor ailment—painful perhaps, but hardly life-threatening.

Now that Zhang Jiao and his followers had been executed, many civil officials, including Yuan Wei and Wang Yun, believed that the empire could return once more to an age of peace. As a result, they had begun to look down on military officers and the armies once again.

Page (1/3)

Page (2/3)

Thus, when Yuan Wei and Wang Yun joined forces against Dong Zhuo, they followed the old pattern of internal court struggles: tarnish the opponent’s reputation, collect evidence of his misdeeds, win over his subordinates, and, once the time was ripe, find a spark to ignite the whole affair and crush the enemy so completely that he would never rise again.

This method had always been both effective and practical. Yuan Wei had seen more than one person brought down by it. Even during the Calamity of the Partisan Prohibitions, the eunuchs had used the same approach against Yuan Wei and the other upright officials.

Yet this time, Yuan Wei felt as though he had thrown a vicious punch only to strike empty air. He had assumed that, no matter how crude a man Dong Zhuo might be, he would still care about his reputation. Surely, once Dong Zhuo learned that Yuan Wei and the others were provoking the Xiliang soldiers into wanton excesses, he would intervene and put a stop to them.

But once the lower-ranking soldiers had tasted the sweetness of lawlessness, how could they possibly stop for the sake of something as abstract as reputation? What was more, Dong Zhuo’s forces included not only Xiliang troops but also Qiang and Hu tribesmen who knew nothing of ritual or propriety. They would be even easier to entice.

According to Yuan Wei’s calculations, if matters continued in this way, Dong Zhuo would eventually order the soldiers to stop while the rank-and-file troops, encouraged by the provocations, continued their rampage. Conflict would inevitably erupt between Dong Zhuo and his own lower-ranking soldiers. And the outbreak of that conflict would sound the death knell for Dong Zhuo.

But no one could have imagined that, throughout this period, Dong Zhuo would appear utterly unaware of what was happening, allowing his soldiers to plunder wherever they pleased. Every day, groups of Qiang tribesmen could be seen drinking themselves senseless and throwing the law and discipline into chaos. On several occasions, drunken Qiang and Hu tribesmen had nearly collided with Dong Zhuo’s carriage when he ventured outside.

At the time, Yuan Wei had congratulated himself on his clever scheme. Yet now it seemed that the one who had fallen into the pit was not Dong Zhuo, but himself.

Yuan Wei glanced sideways at Wang Yun’s expression. It was equally unpleasant. Apparently, Wang Yun had fallen into the pit as well, which offered Yuan Wei a small measure of comfort.

Yuan Wei sighed inwardly. He had never imagined that this Xiliang warrior could be so cunning.

Unlike Yuan Wei’s traditional, top-down approach to internal court conflict, Li Ru was employing a bottom-up strategy—one that struck at the very foundation.

Li Ru had built the Xiliang army amid blood and fire. Political maneuvering within the court was not beyond him, but compared with it, force was far more reliable. When a blade was pressed against someone’s throat, the power of the written word became negligible.

Therefore, when Li Ru discovered that Yuan Wei, Wang Yun, and the other eastern clans were making small moves against him, he chose a path entirely different from that of these men who had spent so long wielding their pens.

His first objective was to seize control of the sword.

While Yuan Wei and Wang Yun’s attention was drawn toward the chaos in the streets, Li Ru successfully absorbed the troops left behind after the Grand Commandant He Jin’s death. The defection of He Jin’s former commanders, Wu Kuang and Zhang Zhang among them, meant that Dong Zhuo’s army had officially become the largest military-centered faction in the capital, Luoyang.

Page (2/3)

Page (3/3)

While Yuan Wei, Wang Yun, and the others were still plotting how to wield their pens and condemn Dong Zhuo in public, Li Ru had already seized the sword in his hand. This banquet at Wenming Garden was a display of that power, as well as Li Ru’s reply to the moves Yuan Wei and Wang Yun had made against him.

It was not that Yuan Wei and Wang Yun lacked intelligence. They had simply remained in peaceful times for too long. Their thinking had become constrained. They still believed Dong Zhuo intended to compete with them within the established conventions of the court.

They had never expected that Dong Zhuo had already stepped outside the circle.

Instead, they were the ones trapped within it.

Yuan Wei remained silent, turning matters over in his mind. It was not too late to mend the fold after the sheep had gone astray. For the moment, he could only endure humiliation and compromise for a time.

How many troops within Luoyang could still be won over?

Perhaps Ding Yuan, Ding Jianyang, might be persuaded to join them?

And should he send his son Yuan Shu to Nanyang to raise an army?

It was becoming clear that without military power of his own, one would always remain at the mercy of others.

Yuan Wei surveyed the garden and noticed a military officer seated somewhat higher up who remained utterly unmoved and made no attempt to ingratiate himself with Dong Zhuo. Yuan Wei’s heart leaped with joy.

Could this be someone he might win over?

But when he looked more closely, his heart cooled by half.

It was Lu Zhi, formerly the General of the Northern Camp and now serving as a Secretary.

If only he had known, he would never have joined the eunuchs in attacking Lu Zhi!

Yuan Wei regretted it deeply. Back then, for the sake of a small advantage, he had joined the eunuchs in denouncing Lu Zhi and had helped send him to prison. Only now had Lu Zhi just regained his post as Secretary. His former military title was gone, and he no longer commanded even a single soldier.

No wonder Dong Zhuo had not tried to win him over.

Alas, this truly was...