When Lu Bu, pushed back at Hulao Pass, returns to the top of the pass, the eight lords call in the three brothers and congratulate them. Yuan Shao sends Sun Jian a dispatch telling him to advance again.
Sun Jian goes to Yuan Shu’s camp with Cheng Pu and Huang Gai. Drawing on the ground with his staff, he accuses him. Dong Zhuo and I had no quarrel to begin with. I risked arrows and stones without a thought for myself, above to fight the rebels for the state, and below to avenge your own family. Yet you listened to slander and sent no grain, so that I was defeated. Can you rest easy? Yuan Shu has nothing to say and beheads the slanderer to make amends.
When Sun Jian returns to his camp, Dong Zhuo’s general Li Jue comes to him. Dong Zhuo has a daughter, he says, and would like her to marry Sun Jian’s son. Sun Jian is furious, says the only thing he wants is to wipe out Dong Zhuo’s clan to the ninth degree, and drives him away.
Burning Luoyang
When Li Jue reports back, Li Ru says to Dong Zhuo, the Marquis has just been beaten, and the troops have no stomach for fighting. It would be better to go back to Luoyang and move the emperor to Chang’an.
He cites a song the children have been singing in the streets lately. A Han in the west, a Han in the east, only when the deer runs into Chang’an will trouble cease. The Han in the west, Li Ru explains, is the earlier Han of twelve emperors at Chang’an. The Han in the east is the present Han, which has again had twelve emperors at Luoyang. Now heaven’s turn has come round, and only by going to Chang’an will they be safe. Dong Zhuo is delighted.
When Dong Zhuo gathers the officials at court and announces that he will move the capital, the minister Yang Biao, the defender-in-chief Huang Wan and the minister of works Xun Shuang object one after another. The Guanzhong region is already ruined and desolate, they say, and abandoning the ancestral temple and the imperial tombs for no reason will frighten the people. Dong Zhuo strips all three of their offices on the spot.
As Dong Zhuo is about to step into his carriage, the secretary Zhou Bi and the city gate commandant Wu Qiong come and bow to him. They too have come to argue against moving the capital. Dong Zhuo reminds them that they once urged him to go easy on Yuan Shao, calls them Yuan Shao’s partisans, and has them beheaded outside the city gate.
Moving the capital took money. On Li Ru’s advice, Dong Zhuo branded several thousand rich households of Luoyang as rebels and seized their wealth. Li Jue and Guo Si drove the millions of people of Luoyang toward Chang’an. Those who fell by the road and were left in the ditches were past counting.
Before leaving, Dong Zhuo has fires set at every gate. The people’s houses, the ancestral temple and the government offices burn, and the flames of the southern and northern palaces join into one. Lu Bu digs up the tombs of emperors and empresses and takes out their treasures. With thousands of carts laden with gold, pearls and silk, Dong Zhuo leaves for Chang’an, dragging the emperor and the palace women with him.
No Plans With Boys
Dong Zhuo’s general at Sishui Pass hands it over, and the lords enter Luoyang one after another. For two or three hundred li there was not the crow of a cock or the bark of a dog.
Cao Cao says to Yuan Shao, Dong Zhuo has burned the palace and dragged off the Son of Heaven, and the whole realm is shaken. This is the moment heaven is destroying him, and a single battle will settle the world. Why do you not move?
Yuan Shao says the troops are exhausted, and the lords too say they cannot move rashly. Cao Cao is furious. There is no making plans with boys like these. He takes only his own ten thousand men and goes after Dong Zhuo by night.
When he reaches Xingyang, Lu Bu is waiting to guard the rear, just as Li Ru had planned. Li Jue and Guo Si strike from both sides, and Cao Cao’s army is badly beaten and flees toward Xingyang. Late at night, just as he is gathering what is left of his men, the hidden troops of the governor Xu Rong rise on every side.
Cao Cao is struck in the shoulder by an arrow as he flees, and his horse falls to the spears of two soldiers lying in the grass, and he is caught. Just then a general gallops up, cuts down the two soldiers, and lifts Cao Cao up. It is his cousin Cao Hong.
Cao Cao says, I am going to die here. Go, quickly. Cao Hong says, get on the horse, brother. I will go on foot. When Cao Cao asks what he will do if the enemy catches up, Cao Hong answers. The world can do without Hong, but it cannot do without you.
Cao Hong takes off his armour and walks beside Cao Cao’s horse, dragging his blade. When a great river blocks their way, he carries Cao Cao across on his back. As day breaks and they are pursued again, Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan ride up and drive off Xu Rong. Cao Cao returns to Henei with five hundred or so men left.
The Night on the Ruins of the Jianzhang Hall
Sun Jian puts out the last of the fires in Luoyang and camps on the burned ruins of the Jianzhang Hall.
He has his men clear the broken tiles of the palace and cover again all the tombs Dong Zhuo dug up. On the site of the ancestral temple he builds a three-room hall, and together with the lords he sets up the spirit tablets of the past emperors and offers sacrifice.
That night the stars and the moon shine together. Sun Jian sits in the open, leaning on his sword, and looks up at the sky. A white vapour fills the Purple Enclosure, the stars of the emperor’s seat. Sun Jian sighs. The emperor’s star is dim, rebel ministers throw the realm into chaos, the people are in misery and the capital stands empty. When he finishes speaking, tears fall before he knows it.
The Five-Coloured Light in the Well
A soldier beside him points. A five-coloured light is rising from the well south of the hall.
Sun Jian has torches lit and the well searched. What they bring up is the body of a palace woman. Though she had been there a long time, the body had not decayed. She was dressed in palace clothes, and a silk pouch hung at her neck. Inside the pouch was a small red box locked with a golden lock.
In the box is a seal. It is four inches square, with five dragons coiled together to form the handle, and one corner is broken and filled in with gold. Eight characters in seal script are carved beneath it. Having received the mandate from heaven, may it prosper long.
Sun Jian asks Cheng Pu about it. Cheng Pu says, this is the seal that passes down the realm.
Cheng Pu tells its history. Long ago Bian He presented to King Wen of Chu a stone on which a phoenix had perched below Mount Jing, and jade came out of it. The First Emperor of Qin had a seal carved from it, and Li Si engraved the eight characters. After it passed to the founder of Han, the empress dowager threw it when Wang Mang seized the throne, and one corner broke. Emperor Guangwu recovered it, and it had been handed down to this day. It went missing when the young emperor was dragged off to Mount Beimang during the uprising of the Ten Attendants.
Cheng Pu adds, now heaven has given it to you, my lord, so it must be your lot to ascend the imperial throne. We cannot stay here long. You must go back east quickly and plan something greater.
Sun Jian says, your words match my own mind exactly. Tomorrow I will plead illness and take my leave. He secretly tells his men that no word of this must ever get out.
Your Illness Is the Seal
But among those men was one from the same home district as Yuan Shao. Hoping to rise by it, he slips out of the camp at night and tells Yuan Shao. Yuan Shao rewards him and quietly keeps him in his own camp.
The next day Sun Jian comes to take his leave of Yuan Shao. I have fallen a little ill and wish to go back to Changsha.
Yuan Shao laughs. I know your illness is the imperial seal.
Sun Jian’s face changes. What do you mean by that? Yuan Shao says, we raised our armies to fight the rebels and rid the state of harm. The seal is a treasure of the court. If you found it, you should leave it with the alliance leader in front of everyone, and return it to the court once Dong Zhuo is dead. You are hiding it and leaving. What do you mean to do?
Sun Jian says, how could the seal be with me? Yuan Shao asks, where is the thing that came out of the well at the Jianzhang Hall? Sun Jian says he never had any such thing, so why force it on him? Yuan Shao says he had better bring it out quickly, so as not to bring disaster on himself.
Sun Jian points to heaven and swears. If I truly found that treasure and hid it for myself,
異日不得善終 死於刀箭之下
yi ri bu de shan zhong, si yu dao jian zhi xia
may I come to no good end in days to come, and die beneath blade and arrow. (Chapter 6)
The lords say, if Wentai swears like that, he probably does not have it.
Yuan Shao calls out the soldier. Was this man not there when the well was searched? Sun Jian, furious, draws his sword to cut the soldier down. Yuan Shao draws his sword too. If you kill that soldier, you are deceiving me.
Behind Yuan Shao, Yan Liang and Wen Chou draw their swords, and behind Sun Jian, Cheng Pu, Huang Gai and Han Dang grip their blades. The lords all step in at once to stop them. Sun Jian mounts his horse at once, breaks camp, and leaves Luoyang.
Yuan Shao is furious and writes a letter, sending it overnight to Liu Biao, inspector of Jing Province. It asks him to stop Sun Jian on the road and take the seal from him.
The Lords Scatter
The next day Cao Cao comes back from his great defeat at Xingyang. Yuan Shao holds a feast to console him.
Over the wine Cao Cao sighs. He lays out, piece by piece, the plan he had drawn up at first. Yuan Shao would go to Mengjin and Suanzao, the lords would hold Chenggao and block the narrow roads, and Yuan Shu would enter the Wu Pass and shake the region around Chang’an. All would dig deep moats and build high walls and not give battle. If they had looked like a larger force and shown the realm how things stood, it would have been the right side striking the wrong, and it would soon have been settled. Now that we hesitate and do not advance, we have failed the hopes of the world, and I am ashamed.
Yuan Shao and the lords have no answer. When the feast ends, Cao Cao sees that each of them has his own designs, judges that nothing will come of it, and leaves for Yang Province with his own men.
Gongsun Zan too tells Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei that Yuan Shao is not the man to do it and they should go back. At Pingyuan he makes Liu Bei chancellor of Pingyuan and returns to his own territory. Liu Dai, governor of Yan Province, asks Qiao Mao, governor of Dong commandery, for grain and is refused. So he storms Qiao Mao’s camp, kills him, and takes all his troops. Seeing everyone scattering, Yuan Shao too breaks camp and leaves for the lands east of the passes.
The Same Oath Once More
Liu Biao, inspector of Jing Province, is a kinsman of the Han house. He loved making friends from youth and was one of the Eight Talents of Jiangxia, together with seven famous scholars. Kuai Liang, Kuai Yue and Cai Mao served him.
On receiving Yuan Shao’s letter, Liu Biao gives Kuai Yue and Cai Mao ten thousand men to block Sun Jian’s way.
When Sun Jian arrives, Kuai Yue spreads out his line and rides forward. You call yourself a servant of Han, so how can you secretly hide the treasure that passes down the realm? Hand it over now and we will let you go.
Sun Jian, furious, sends out Huang Gai. Cai Mao charges out swinging his blade, and the two fight for a few bouts. When Huang Gai swings his iron whip, it strikes squarely on the mirror plate guarding Cai Mao’s chest. Cai Mao turns his horse and flees, and Sun Jian seizes the chance to cross the border.
Then gongs and drums sound together from behind the hills. Liu Biao has come with an army himself.
Sun Jian greets him courteously from horseback. Jingsheng, why do you trust Yuan Shao’s letter and harass a neighbouring commandery? Liu Biao says, you have hidden the imperial seal. Do you mean to rebel?
Sun Jian says, if I have any such thing, may I die beneath blade and arrow.
Liu Biao says, if you want me to believe you, let me search the baggage of the troops with you. Sun Jian grows angry. What power do you have, to look down on me like this?
Just as they are about to clash, Liu Biao pulls back. When Sun Jian rides after him, soldiers hidden behind two hills rise all at once. From behind, Kuai Yue and Cai Mao give chase and trap Sun Jian in the middle.
Cheng Pu, Huang Gai and Han Dang fight to the death and get Sun Jian out. Sun Jian loses more than half his army and breaks through to go back east. From then on, Sun Jian and Liu Biao were enemies.
Later, on receiving a letter from Yuan Shu, Sun Jian crosses the river to attack Liu Biao and is killed on Mount Xian by flying stones and arrows. He was thirty-seven.
Today, What He Kept Close
In this chapter Sun Jian keeps two things close.
One is the seal he drew from the well. Cheng Pu said it was heaven’s gift, and Sun Jian said those words matched his own mind exactly. The other is the oath he spoke aloud. Once before Yuan Shao, pointing to heaven, and once before Liu Biao. The same words.
Those who heard the oath took it in different ways. The lords said that if he swore like that he could not have it. Yuan Shao called out the soldier who had informed, after he had heard the oath. It was Yuan Shao, too, who had rewarded that soldier and quietly kept him in his camp. Liu Biao, instead of words, asked to search the baggage.
The next day Cao Cao left, seeing that each of them had his own designs, and Gongsun Zan took Liu Bei home. The alliance that began with drinking blood and swearing an oath scattered at the very time the seal came to light.
On the day what you kept close was found out, which did you bring out first, the thing itself or words?