Han Ji

Liu Bei said, "There are no soldiers in Xingyang."

Jian Yong said, "No."

Liu Bei turned to look at Jia Xu. "Who should I send to fetch them?"

Jia Xu said, "Send Zhao Yun. He will lead cavalry and return quickly. It will take two days from Xingyang to Guandu. After receiving the supplies, he can return via the back road in Yu County, avoiding Yuan Shao's scouts."

Liu Bei said, "Zhao Yun is patrolling Yanjin."

Jia Xu said, "Send an order for him to rush to Xingyang tonight."

The guards clasped their hands in a fist salute and left.

Jian Yong added, "Brother, there's one more thing. The soldiers' rations have been reduced. Each person gets two meals of thin porridge a day, and a spoonful is barely enough. The dried meat is long gone, and the pickled vegetables are all gone too. Some people go to the back of the camp to dig up wild vegetables—dandelions, purslane, shepherd's purse—to make soup. The soup is green and so bitter it's unpalatable. The situation is even worse in the wounded and sick camp. The old soldier with the broken leg lies on a straw mat, his face burning red, talking incoherently. The medic has boiled the last few medicinal herbs over and over again until it's all water."

Liu Bei stood up and walked to the tent entrance. Inside the camp, the cart drivers were queuing for porridge. The line was long, each person holding a bowl, the rims of which were chipped, their hands red from the cold wind. The cook serving the porridge dipped a wooden ladle into the pot and stirred it, the bottom of the ladle scraping against the pot's bottom with a hissing sound. The porridge was ladled into the bowl, so thin it seemed it could spill if shaken.

A gust of wind blew, causing Liu Bei's robe to flutter. He turned and sat back down at his desk.

Has Xun Yu sent any letter?

Jian Yong said, "A letter arrived yesterday. Wenruo said he was levying grain from various counties, with Mei County, Huaili, Liyang, and Gaoling each contributing 10,000 shi (a unit of dry measure). However, the summer harvest in Guanzhong this year was mediocre, and some counties are not well-off themselves. He said he has already levied all the grain he can."

Liu Bei asked, "What about Yizhou?"

Jian Yong said, "Li Hui was in charge of transport in Chengdu. Grain from Yizhou was transported along the Mian River to Hanzhong, and then through the Baoxie Road into Guanzhong. A section of the plank road was rotten, and it creaked when people stepped on it. Heavy grain carts couldn't pass at all, so they had to unload it into small packages and have people carry it across. One shi of grain departed from Chengdu and was transported to Guandu, but only two or three dou were actually received."

Liu Bei didn't speak. He tapped his fingers twice on the table.

Jia Xu asked, "My lord, how much longer can we hold out?"

Liu Bei said, "Ten days."

Jia Xu asked, "And what about ten days later?"

Liu Bei said, "Zhao Yun's provisions will arrive in ten days."

Jia Xu said, "What if something goes wrong on the way?"

Liu Bei looked at him. "Then there won't be ten days later."

Jia Xu placed the chess piece on the table. The piece rolled twice and stopped. He looked up.

"My lord, for the past six months we've been at a standstill with Yuan Shao. He attacks, we defend, and we outlast him. But he has more supplies than we do. Now we're truly running out of food."

Liu Bei asked, "What method do you have?"

Jia Xu said, "There's no other way. We can only wait for the grain. We'll talk about it when the grain arrives."

Liu Bei remained silent for a moment. The candlelight flickered inside the tent, casting his shadow on the tent wall.

Yuan Shao's camp. The granaries were overflowing. Grain-carrying boats from Liyang Ferry docked daily, and oxcarts hauled grain into the camp. Shen Pei checked the accounts daily, and the figures remained stable. But problems were emerging.

Qian Zhao's special operations battalion continued to harass Yuan Shao's supply lines. In early September, he led his men to sneak into the grain shed at Yanjin Ferry under cover of darkness, cut open sixty bags of grain, and set a fire in the corner of the shed.

The fire was discovered and extinguished by the guards in time, but the grain that had been soaked in water began to mold the next day. The auxiliary soldiers loading the carts noticed and reported it. By the time Shen Pei arrived, the moldy grain had already piled up in heaps.

In mid-September, Qian Zhao burned down another hay storage yard behind Yuan Shao's camp. The fire burned all night, and the thick smoke rose high, visible even from Liu Bei's camp on the opposite bank.

Yuan Shao's cavalry horses had gone without fodder for three days and could only be fed grain. The cavalry deputy general came and argued with Shen Pei, who then issued an additional conscription order from Ye City.

But Qian Zhao paid a price. His deputy, Zhao Guang, was shot in the neck by a stray arrow during a night raid on the grain depot and died instantly. Qian Zhao dragged him back, leaving a trail of blood.

By the time they reached the camp gate, Zhao Guang's legs were already stiff. Qian Zhao squatted beside him for a long time. Then she stood up and wiped the blood off her hands onto her trousers.

"Bury it. Put up a sign."

A few days later, he led the team on another trip.

Xun Yu was in the governor's mansion in Chang'an. The bamboo slips on his desk were piled higher than a person. The accounts of taxes, land rents, and household levies for each prefecture and county were all laid out before him. His fingers traced the numbers line by line, his lips moving but no sound was uttered.

He reviewed official documents during the day and wrote letters at night. In his letters to the prefects of various counties, he used very direct language: the front lines were short of food, and every grain of food saved from the rear was worth one more day of survival for the front lines.

He wrote until late at night. The candlelight flickered, making his cheekbones appear even more prominent and his eye sockets sunken. The food his personal guards brought was placed beside him, getting cold and then reheated, then cold again.

He put the letter into a bamboo tube, sealed it with wax, and handed it to his personal guard.

"Send it out. To all the prefectures. Have them transfer their grain and send it to Guandu."

The guard took the bamboo tube and ran off. Xun Yu then picked up another bamboo slip, sent by Li Hui from Chengdu. The letter described the grain reserves in Yizhou, the water level of the Mian River, and the progress of the plank road repairs.

His handwriting was very neat, and every stroke was written clearly. Xun Yu looked at it once, put it down, rubbed his eyes, and then picked it up again to look at it.

Zhao Yun received the grain in Xingyang. 120,000 shi (a unit of dry measure), loaded onto several hundred oxcarts.

The laborers had rags padding their shoulders, their backs marked with bloody welts, and their feet were covered in blisters. Some of their blisters had burst and chafed, their socks sticking to their skin, and when they were taken off, the skin was still attached.

Zhao Yun ordered the convoy to avoid the official roads and instead take the narrow mountain paths through Yu County. The paths were narrow, lined with bushes on both sides, and the wheels got stuck in the gravel, moving forward step by step. It was slow, but safe. Yuan Shao's cavalry wouldn't venture into the mountains.

The convoy traveled for three days. On the fourth day, they arrived at the Guandu camp. That night, no one slept in the camp. The pale-faced taxi drivers unloaded bags of new grain from the grain carts, some of them weeping as they held them in their arms. Jian Yong recalculated the grain reserves; they were enough to last until the end of October.

The next day, Yuan Shao sent another batch of grain, 300,000 shi.

Shen Pei recounted the granaries and recorded the figures in the ledger. He increased the number of patrolmen and added checkpoints on both sides of the passageway.

Qian Zhao did not launch another attack. He sat in his tent, placed Zhao Guang's sword on his lap, and slowly polished it with an oilcloth. The sword gleamed, and he awaited the order for the next operation.

The autumn wind is getting colder. The reeds along the Yellow River have all turned white.

Grain reserves from Hebei and Guanzhong continued to converge towards Guandu. The wheels of carts on both sides of the Yellow River never stopped, but every grain convoy pulled out bore the marks of blood. Although Yuan Shao had abundant grain, it was not limitless.

He preemptively transferred the next batch of land taxes from Yecheng and other places, and sent people to Qingzhou to collect additional taxes, which caused public resentment in several counties along the way. Some laborers who ran away on the grain transport route were caught, beheaded, and their heads were hung on the edge of the woods as a warning to the public.

The corpses, displayed for public viewing, hung from the trees for several days, and crows filled the branches along both sides of the official road. The grain transport soldiers couldn't drive them away.