Chapter 30: Small Devils Are Hard to Deal With

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Lunu, Zhongshan.

The Chancellor of Zhongshan, Zhang Chun, was in a towering rage.

He felt that lately he must have offended the Grand Year. Everything that happened to him was worse than the last.

First, the horses sent from his ancestral home in Yuyang had been intercepted halfway. More than a hundred horses had been seized by Zhuo County, and the people there had not even bothered to inform him.

Then the bastard who had stolen his horses had actually paraded them openly as tribute, swaggering along the official road through Zhongshan!

What was that supposed to mean?

It was a slap in the face of Zhang Boren himself!

How could anyone endure such humiliation?

He could.

Though the more one endured for a moment, the angrier one became, and the more one yielded, the greater the sense of loss afterward... there was no choice but to endure it. Those horses were tribute. Robbing tribute was not merely punishable by execution; it amounted to treason.

Zhang Chun was enjoying his position as Chancellor of Zhongshan well enough. For the time being, he had no intention of rebelling.

Let that brat from the Gongsun family enjoy himself for a few days. Once he reached Luoyang, Zhang Chun would make him pay.

What he had not expected was that although he had endured the insult, his own retainers had not. They had gone and robbed the horses on their own initiative.

They had even claimed to possess definite intelligence and guaranteed that nothing could go wrong!

If they had robbed the horses, then so be it. As long as they killed everyone involved, there would be no plaintiff and therefore no crime. It was just like the work they had done earlier around Zishui and Wuji: so long as no living thing remained, no one could say anything. After all, it had all been the work of the bandits of the Taihang Mountains.

This time, naturally, it had also been the work of the Taihang bandits.

The problem was that those useless bastards under him had not only failed to kill everyone; they had even allowed several men to be captured!

Damn their mothers!

The men who had been captured were his own household soldiers, retainers of the Zhang family!

Was this not a complete disaster?

After turning the matter over in his mind, Zhang Chun decided that the best course was to strike first.

Rebellion was certainly out of the question. But before the people of Zhuo Commandery could reach Luoyang and lodge a complaint, he would report the magistrate of Zhuo County, Gongsun Zan, first.

If that fellow accused him of robbing Zhuo County's tribute horses, then he would accuse Gongsun Zan of robbing Zhongshan's tribute horses!

That was the truth!

And if Gongsun Zan dared claim that he had incited disorder, Zhang Chun would accuse him first of plotting rebellion. In any case, such disputes came down to who had more money, more men, and a stronger background.

And in terms of money, manpower, and connections, who in Youzhou could intimidate the Zhang clan of Yuyang?

After smashing several vases and, incidentally, cracking the heads of several servants, Zhang Chun sent men to build a pontoon bridge over the Zishui. He then made a great show of collecting tribute and prepared to travel to Luoyang to present it.

The tribute consisted of white horses—eighty of them in all.

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This was the standard regulation for tribute from the Kingdom of Zhongshan: one horse for every thousand households.

In truth, Zhongshan did not currently have eighty thousand households. It was difficult to say whether it even had half that number.

But it had to be eighty thousand households. It could only be eighty thousand households.

...

Meanwhile, in Luoyang.

Traveling light and with only a small retinue, Liu Bei made excellent time and reached the outskirts of Luoyang in little more than ten days.

At that moment, Liu Bei was in a familiar old place.

He had traveled south along the Imperial Road. Naturally, he had crossed the Yellow River at Mengjin and arrived at Luoyang's northern gate.

The northern gate was called Xia Gate, and the area fell under the jurisdiction of the Northern Commandant of Luoyang.

He and Zuo Yuan had to exchange their travel documents here.

This exchange required the gate office to inspect the travel pass, confirm the mission, and verify that everything was in order before allowing him into the city.

The officials responsible for Luoyang's gates were the six Commandants of the Left and Right, East, South, and North Divisions. The Left and Right Commandants were responsible for guarding the imperial city, while the East, South, West, and North Commandants oversaw the various city gates.

As the capital of the Han Empire, Luoyang's six Commandants bore extremely important responsibilities. Besides guarding the gates and maintaining public order, they also handled the transmission of official documents and military reports. Luoyang was, after all, no ordinary county town.

In name, Liu Bei had come to report a military achievement. This was a military matter, and the Northern Commandant was required to forward the military report to the Grand Commandant's Office.

At the same time, Liu Bei had to deliver intelligence for Zou Jing. To avoid disappearing without a trace like the messenger Zou Jing had sent previously, and to ensure that he could meet Yang Qiu, the Colonel Director of the Retainers, he needed the Northern Commandant to issue him a “victory pass”—an advanced travel permit for carrying news of victory.

After all, “routing the main body of Tanshihuai's army and personally killing seven centurions” truly constituted a great triumph.

With such a pass, Liu Bei could proceed directly to the office of the Colonel Director of the Retainers without meeting any obstruction.

Unfortunately, handling this simple piece of business at the Northern Office proved far from easy.

The documents reporting the achievements of Zou Jing and Liu Wei were perfectly valid. Liu Bei's travel pass also clearly stated that he was carrying a victory report concerning the campaign against the Xianbei in Zhuo Commandery.

Yet the current Northern Commandant dragged his feet and refused to act, claiming that proper procedures had to be followed.

This was probably because Liu Bei had brought no attendants, only a female musician.

In this era, officials invariably traveled with a crowd before and behind them. Even commandery clerks usually brought a considerable number of followers.

After all, every official came from the scholar-gentry, and the overwhelming majority were members of prominent, powerful families. Their households were filled with retainers and servants.

Especially over the past two years, many wealthy men had come to the capital to purchase official positions, and nearly all of them brought large groups of servants and pages.

Yet this young military clerk had come to Luoyang to report his achievement without a single personal attendant or household retainer...

The implication was obvious. Liu Bei was clearly a man without any backing who had merely happened to win a little merit through a twist of fate.

Since he had no influential connections...

Then he was not important. The officials might as well go through the motions first.

Liu Bei had actually anticipated that something like this might happen. He had originally brought subordinates with him, but they had been unable to come.

Then, as the officials went through the procedure, they discovered that Liu Bei had a criminal record.

He had previously been imprisoned in the Northern Commandant's Office of Luoyang.

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The criminal record itself should not have mattered. He had already served his sentence and been released. Moreover, he now possessed military achievements, and his past should not have been pursued any further.

But the current Northern Commandant used that record as an excuse to confiscate Liu Bei's travel pass, claiming that it required careful investigation.

Of course, he did not actually do anything more to Liu Bei. The memorials from Prefect Liu and Zou Jing were genuine, and Liu Bei's military achievements were clearly recorded.

He merely took Liu Bei's travel pass and told him to wait outside the city until they had “finished verifying everything.”

In other words, he simply dragged his feet and refused to do his job.

But how was Liu Bei supposed to wait outside?

Was he to sleep in the wilderness?

The official was deliberately delaying matters and making things difficult because he had noticed that Liu Bei was traveling with a woman.

In truth, Liu Bei knew that resolving this minor annoyance would be very simple.

He only needed to pay.

Doing business always cost money. That was true in every age. The officials of the capital did not care about offending some minor official from the borderlands. The Northern Commandant's attitude was nothing more than an attempt to extort money.

The so-called procedures and verification amounted to nothing more than the process of handing over money and counting it.

The problem was that Liu Bei had crossed the river by swimming. A man could not carry much money while swimming, and most of what he had brought had already been spent along the way.

It was easy to meet the King of Hell, but difficult to deal with his underlings. With his travel pass confiscated by the Northern Commandant, Liu Bei truly could not enter Luoyang.

Come to think of it, Liu Bei was the leader of a gang in Zhuo County, and all his subordinates were hardened bandits...

After serving as a gang boss for so long, he had inevitably acquired a certain bandit's temper.

Moreover, Gongsun Zan had just played a dirty trick on him, so Liu Bei was already in a foul mood. Seeing the Northern Commandant completely disregard his military report and stubbornly make trouble for him, his temper finally flared.

As the sun began to sink westward and curfew drew near, Liu Bei thought the matter over from every angle and decided that this could not be tolerated.

Before the officials ended their shift, Liu Bei stormed into the office, seized the Northern Commandant by the collar, and dragged him to the city gate. There he roared:

“I have military merit to my name! You shameless wretches dare obstruct me from delivering a victory report? You must be in league with the Xianbei bandits! Even if I have to throw away this hard-won honor, I will beat you until you learn your lesson!”

Having finished his tirade, he kicked the man to the ground, snatched back his travel pass, tucked it into his robe, and began striking him over the head and shoulders with his sword scabbard.

As he beat him, he shouted:

“These blows are on behalf of Cao Mengde! Shameless wretch! You are disgracing the splendid reputation for official conduct that Cao Mengde left behind!”

Several soldiers guarding the gate hurried over to intervene, but Liu Bei knocked the squad leader flat with a single punch. He then pointed at the other soldiers and continued cursing. Whenever one of them moved, he immediately resumed beating the Northern Commandant with all his strength, the scabbard cracking loudly against the man's body.

“Don't move! Otherwise this bastard will be beaten to death!”

Seeing how fierce Liu Bei was, the soldiers were indeed left at a loss, their hands tied.

The Northern Commandant lay on the ground, shielding himself and wailing. Liu Bei did not strike him any harder, but spat at him and continued berating him, occasionally adding a kick or two to keep him from getting back up.

Curfew was approaching, and there were many travelers leaving the city, along with other officials who had come to attend to business.

When they saw the quarrel at the gate, they all gathered around to watch. Before long, the scene had become extraordinarily lively.

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