After the evening at Ye (鄴城) had passed, the next spring came.

In the third month of Jian’an 8 (203 CE), upon the plain of Pingyuan (平原) in the south of Jizhou (冀州), the spear-points of two camps pointed, for the first time, in two different directions. Yuan Tan’s (袁譚) spear pointed west. Yuan Shang’s (袁尙) spear pointed east. The distance between the two camps was not quite twenty li.

Yuan Tan’s force was built on the troops of Qingzhou (靑州), and half of it were fresh levies gathered through the past winter. The horses were swift, but the armor thin. Yuan Shang’s force was the seasoned core of Ye. It held many descendants of units that had often crossed swords with Zhang Liao’s (張遼) division. The armor was thick. Only, among the soldiers’ faces, a quiet question had taken its seat: why are we crossing spears with a man of the same surname?

Feng Ji (逢紀) stood behind Yuan Tan. He had written in advance a proclamation (檄文) for his lord. Its opening line ran:

“A house that slights the eldest does not last long.”

The line stood firm. Yuan Tan read it, and read it again. At the second reading his face flushed once more. Then he climbed onto his horse. This morning’s Yuan Tan was a twenty-nine-year-old angry eldest son.

Shen Pei (審配) stood behind Yuan Shang. He had prepared an edict (詔) for his lord. Its opening line was, rather, gentle.

“A quarrel between brothers is the realm’s grief.”

That line stood firm too. Only, the firmness faced in the other direction. Yuan Tan’s proclamation was firm outward; Yuan Shang’s edict was firm inward. The two men’s spear-points each resembled one of those firmnesses.

When battle began, Yuan Tan moved first.

Xin Ping (辛評), his deputy on the right, took the vanguard. Xin Ping was short in stature but became a beast upon horseback. Five hundred riders struck into the left wing of Yuan Shang’s camp first. Yuan Tan himself followed with two thousand.

From Yuan Shang’s camp, the brothers Lü Kuang (呂曠) and Lü Xiang (呂翔) rode out to meet them. These two had originally served under Yuan Shao (袁紹), and would one day — in what Book 4 Day 117 has recorded — fall before Liu Bei’s Shanfu (單福). But that fate, five years hence, was not yet written upon their faces this morning. Today, it was only a day on which they crossed spears with Yuan Shao’s other son, for the sake of Yuan Shao’s youngest.

Through a full shichen (時辰), the two vanguards collided and scattered several times over. The earth of the plain grew red and damp. Feng Ji turned his gaze in one direction, Shen Pei in the other.

On horseback, Yuan Tan clutched his right side. An arrow, deflected awkwardly by Xin Ping’s spear, had found a gap in his armor. The wound bled little. And yet the color of that little blood became, for Yuan Tan, a color that brought the whole afternoon to a halt.

After the order to withdraw, Yuan Tan’s camp pulled back twenty li north. Yuan Shang’s camp did not pursue farther that evening. Neither brother had the strength to finish the other entirely, nor the heart to let the other go entirely.

That night, within Yuan Tan’s tent, Feng Ji spoke quietly.

“My lord. Would it not be wise to send a letter to Cao Cao (曹操) in the south?”

The bandage at Yuan Tan’s side had dampened with sweat. He was silent for a long while. Then he lifted his face.

“Are you telling me to ask help of Cao Cao?”

“Less a request for aid than the opening, briefly, of a door from our house toward Cao Cao’s side.”

Yuan Tan looked long at Feng Ji’s face. Then he nodded. For on this evening, his nearest enemy was not the Cao Cao of the south but the younger brother twenty li south. To fight the nearest enemy, opening a door toward a more distant enemy was, on this evening at least, a possible calculation.

On the same night, inside Yuan Shang’s tent, Shen Pei also raised the matter quietly.

“My lord. Yuan Tan may extend a hand toward Cao Cao.”

“Shen Pei. If he does, what then?”

“It is, rather, to our advantage that he does. An eldest who takes Cao Cao’s hand stands a step farther from the side of Heaven’s rightness.”

Yuan Shang laughed — a cold laugh, ill-fitting to a twenty-four-year-old face. Moonlight fell, thin, across his beardless cheek. Inside the two tents of the two brothers, on the same night, one same name was rising quietly.

Cao Cao.

That name had been written, two years already, beside a small dot on a small map at Xinye (新野) in the south — the dot marked 慢起. That name, now, within the two tents of the two brothers in the north, was also being spoken quietly.

—

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