At the threshold of the winter of 207 CE, the northern sky above Xudu (許都) was uncommonly clear. Seen from the south of Xudu, the seven stars of the Northern Dipper (北斗) hung this evening undimmed to the tip of the handle. A winter clarity, one that thinned the breath even as the eye looked up.

It was the evening marking one month since Cao Cao (曹操) had returned from the campaign against the Wuhuan (烏桓). He sat alone in the inner study of the Chancellor’s residence (丞相府). Two maps lay upon the desk. To the left, a map of the north — Youzhou (幽州), Bingzhou (幷州), Jizhou (冀州), Qingzhou (靑州) — every land he had gained at the rate of one province a year over the past eight years, drawn together upon a single sheet. Upon those four provinces his name had quietly come to sit.

The map to the right was different. It was the full map of Jingzhou (荊州). Upon it, not one stroke of his name had yet been set. The land that bore no mark of his name shone, this evening, more brightly than the land that did.

Cao Cao was fifty-three. The young man who had first lifted his eyes to the dust of Luoyang at twenty had gained a seat at Yanzhou (兗州) at thirty-three, and had crossed the long night at Guandu (官渡) at forty-three. Tonight he was already fifty-three.

Fifty-three was an age at which a man had to accept, quietly, that his remaining years were not many. The stride of the one called Mengde (孟德) in youth had lately grown shorter more often. Even when he rose in the morning and stretched his knees, there was a small catch that had not been in last year’s motion. He showed that catch to no one. Only on a night like this, alone, could he not deny it sat there before him.

“Had Fengxiao (奉孝) been here, he would have looked at these two maps with me tonight.”

Cao Cao murmured it low. The words soaked into the dark of the room.

Footsteps came to the door. It was Xun Yu (荀彧).

“My lord. Are you not yet asleep?”

“Wenruo (文若). Come in.”

Xun Yu entered and sat before the desk. His eyes ran across the two maps. Then his gaze rested long upon the map of Jingzhou on the right.

“My lord. Next spring?”

“Next spring — is it not too early?”

“Next autumn, my lord, may be a year too late. Liu Biao (劉表) of Jingzhou has been gravely ill this year. Before he falls of his own accord, my lord, you must already be beneath the walls of Xiangyang (襄陽).”

Cao Cao was long silent. Then he nodded, lightly.

“So, let it be.”

Xun Yu drew a small slip from his breast and set it down. Upon it were some ten names — generals and counselors to be drawn upon for the southern campaign. Cao Cao looked down at the slip and pressed the topmost name with a finger.

Xiahou Dun (夏侯惇).

“A one-eyed general must take the lead.”

Xun Yu nodded. Cao Cao ran his eyes down the names beneath. Zhang Liao (張遼), Xu Huang (徐晃), Yu Jin (于禁), Yue Jin (樂進) — all names that had survived the northern wars. To have survived was also to have earned the right to appear on this list tonight.

“Fengxiao’s name is not on this list.”

His voice lowered. Xun Yu did not answer. The absence of words was the loudest answer in the room.

Past midnight, Cao Cao sat in the study again, alone. Xun Yu had gone.

He took the brush in his right hand. Upon the map of Jingzhou, at the northern edge, above the two characters Xinye (新野), he set down a very small dot. Before the ink dried he added a small character beside it.

憂 (Unease).

It was a seat worthy of unease. At Xinye sat the forty-seven-year-old Liu Bei (劉備). Six years younger than Cao Cao himself, and since his escape from Guandu he had not raised his voice. Yet a man who does not raise his voice outlives the man who does. That truth Cao Cao had confirmed many times across his fifty-three years.

“Xuande (玄德)… what are you doing tonight, in Xinye?”

The lamp in the room answered the murmur. It flickered large and then found its place again. Cao Cao did not smile. He only rolled the two maps up, slowly.

At the far northern edge of the sky over Xudu, a star with a long tail streamed down toward the southwest.

Cao Cao did not see that star. But it was, above a small walled town in the south, quietly finding its own seat tonight. In the direction it traveled lay Liu Bei’s small town of Xinye. Liu Bei, in his turn, was quietly counting his own forty-seven years.

Cao Cao’s night was closing. The dawn at Xinye, behind it, was quietly opening.

—

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