Chapter 23: The Mess in Xuzhou

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It seems Liu Bei also wanted to establish agricultural colonies.

That was only reasonable. The Xuzhou Liu Bei inherited from Tao Qian was very different from the one depicted in popular romance.

In the novel, Liu Bei accepted an Xuzhou with overflowing granaries and well-stocked treasuries—a land whose officials were weak and soldiers decadent, where people knew how to farm but not how to fight.

In reality, however, Tao Qian’s Danyang soldiers were ferocious beyond belief.

In the official histories, they alone among the armies of the Three Kingdoms achieved the remarkable feat of hunting down all three founders of the realm.

When Cao Cao first campaigned against Dong Zhuo, Xu Rong crushed him so completely that his entire army was annihilated. Cao Cao himself escaped only because Cao Hong risked his life to save him. Having learned his lesson the hard way, Cao Cao went to Danyang to recruit troops.

After successfully raising four thousand men there, Cao Cao led them north. But when they reached Longkang, the Danyang soldiers rebelled and nearly hacked him to pieces.

Sun Ce’s beginnings followed much the same pattern. At the time, his maternal uncle Wu Jing had been appointed Administrator of Danyang by Yuan Shu, so Sun Ce eagerly went to Danyang to recruit soldiers, gathering several hundred men.

Before he had even learned the names of all those soldiers, Sun Ce was caught by the Danyang strongman Zu Lang and thoroughly beaten. His entire force was wiped out.

Sun Ce himself barely escaped with his life and fled back to Yuan Shu.

And then there was Big-Eared Brother—Liu Bei. After losing his foundation in Xuzhou because of the Danyang troops, he was eventually trapped in Guangling, where his starving followers resorted to cannibalism. He, too, narrowly escaped death.

One could only say that the Danyang soldiers lived up to their reputation as some of the finest troops under Heaven. They nearly strangled the Three Kingdoms before the era had even begun.

Many people have been misled by the novel into believing that Cao Cao was the one who launched an unprovoked attack on Xuzhou.

But in actual history, Tao Qian—the supposedly benevolent ruler who commanded tens of thousands of elite Danyang troops—was the one who attacked Cao Cao first, and he did so in alliance with a large coalition that descended upon Cao Cao from all sides.

For a time, they battered Cao Cao so badly that he could scarcely find room to maneuver. He not only lost Mount Tai Commandery, but nearly failed to hold Rencheng Commandery as well.

Rencheng was not a large place. As a commandery-principality, it contained only three counties.

Its geographical position, however, was extraordinarily important. It was practically a transportation choke point within Yan Province.

Rencheng bordered Langya to the east, Jiyin to the west, the principalities of Lu and Pei to the south, and Mount Tai Commandery to the north.

If that place fell, strategic initiative would pass entirely into Tao Qian’s hands, allowing him to defeat the commanderies of Yan Province one by one with ease.

Tao Qian’s strategy was entirely sound. Sadly, the man he was facing was Cao Cao.

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Cao Cao truly was a man of extraordinary talent. His instinct for learning the art of war was simply too strong; as the fighting continued, he managed to turn the tables and reverse the desperate situation.

What made matters even worse for Tao Qian was that his own side suffered a devastating betrayal at precisely that moment.

Tao Qian could never have imagined that, at such a critical juncture, he would be stabbed nearly fatally by his own trusted subordinate—Zuo Rong, a major figure in the Danyang faction, on the same level as Cao Hong and Cao Bao.

Zuo Rong was one of Tao Qian’s most trusted men, and Tao Qian favored him extravagantly. The repeated remonstrances of Zhao Yu, Chen Deng, Mi Zhu, and others made no difference whatsoever.

The reason was simple: Zuo Rong was a fellow native of Danyang, had brought several hundred men to join Tao Qian of his own accord, and, most importantly, knew how to raise money.

No military coalition could survive or expand without funding.

Among all Tao Qian’s subordinates, only Zuo Rong had the ability to secure vast sums of money for him.

He was not only a fellow Danyang man, but also one of the original major investors who had supported Tao Qian when his enterprise was first getting off the ground.

If Tao Qian did not promote someone like that, whom else could he promote?

Zuo Rong plundered Xuzhou so thoroughly that he seemed determined to scrape the heavens bare. Everyone in Xuzhou—from scholars and powerful families to commoners—wanted to tear him limb from limb. Yet Tao Qian firmly shielded him and even promoted him.

Zuo Rong was merely a Danyang strongman, an uncultured provincial who could not even enter the circle of educated elites. And yet Tao Qian suddenly elevated him to Administrator of Xiapi—a genuinely high-ranking office equivalent to a commandery governor receiving a salary of two thousand bushels of grain.

On top of that, Tao Qian handed Zuo Rong responsibility for transporting all tax revenue and grain from the three commanderies of Xiapi, Pengcheng, and Guangling.

Zuo Rong had now become a cat in a fishpond and a rat in a granary. He completely abandoned all restraint.

While Tao Qian was fighting Cao Cao, Zuo Rong busied himself enriching his own coffers.

When Tao Qian held the upper hand, he showed at least a little restraint.

But once Cao Cao turned the tide and transformed defeat into victory, Zuo Rong went completely mad. He swept up all the tax revenue and treasury stores of the three commanderies in one stroke, then fled south with tens of thousands of retainers and more than three thousand horses.

Afterward, he committed numerous atrocities in the south, until Sun Ce defeated him and he was killed by mountain tribesmen.

Yet such a monstrous criminal was later praised and whitewashed by Buddhists simply because he professed faith in Buddhism. History could hardly be more absurd.

Zuo Rong’s flight with the treasury was also one of the direct causes of the collapse of Tao Qian’s army and its subsequent destruction at Cao Cao’s hands.

Xuzhou had only five commanderies and principalities in total, and Langya belonged to Zang Ba.

Zuo Rong had carried off three-quarters of the region’s money and grain in a single stroke. With only Donghai Commandery left, how could Tao Qian possibly sustain the war on the front?

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With their supplies cut off and not even enough food to eat, the morale of the Danyang soldiers fell straight to zero. Cao Cao drove them all the way back into Xuzhou.

This shows just how empty Xuzhou’s treasuries really were. Without the vigorous support of Chen Deng and Mi Zhu, Liu Bei could not even have fed his own six thousand personal troops.

As the Chief Assistant, Mi Zhu did not manage many affairs and sometimes seemed little more than a ceremonial figure.

Yet his actual authority was considerable, and he understood the affairs of the province with remarkable clarity.

Many people mistakenly regard the Chief Assistant as a high-ranking official.

The reason is that when the provincial governor or inspector was absent, administrative matters were generally handled by the Chief Assistant in his stead.

In reality, that understanding is incorrect. The Chief Assistant was not a deputy. He was more like the first man beneath the provincial governor.

The origin of the title itself reveals much about the office’s importance.

It meant that, like the provincial governor or inspector, the holder possessed a personal carriage. When the officials traveled together, the Chief Assistant’s carriage ranked directly behind theirs, placing him second in precedence.

For that reason, the men chosen as Chief Assistants in various regions were usually individuals who possessed extensive lands and wealth, controlled abundant grain and money, and enjoyed great prestige among the local elite.

Once such a man became assertive, sidelining the provincial inspector could be accomplished in the blink of an eye.

By rights, Mi Zhu had no qualification to serve as Chief Assistant.

The Mi family was wealthy, but it did not belong to the aristocratic scholarly class. Its origins lay in commerce.

Even though the Mi family was generous with its wealth and maintained excellent relations with the great clans, that did not mean those clans were willing to tolerate Mi Zhu’s appointment as Chief Assistant.

But Tao Qian was not a man who cared much for rules.

Compared with his appointments of Cao Hong as Chief Clerk, Cao Bao and Xu Dan as Commandant of the Household, and Zuo Rong as Administrator of Xiapi—while also entrusting him with the transport of tax revenue and grain from Xiapi, Guangling, and Pengcheng—the appointment of Mi Zhu as Chief Assistant was hardly a major matter.

Even the local scholars of Xuzhou could not be bothered to oppose it.

After all, they were too busy denouncing Cao Hong and Zuo Rong. Mi Zhu, at least, could still be counted as one of their own.

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