Chapter 6. In which Yuan Shao continues to be a terrible boss, and Dong Zhuo gets his Caligula on.

The brothers’ attack on Dong Zhuo was foiled by his soldiers throwing rocks at them, but they managed to force his army back to the pass, so they high-fived and returned to camp.

“Finally, some good news,” said Yuan Shao. “Sun Jian, take some soldiers and attack!”

Sun Jian started doodling angrily. “Why would I? Last time you abandoned me there and my guys all got killed.”

“Fine, I’ll kill the guy who told me to do it. Happy?” said Yuan Shao.

“No, not really,” said Sun Jian, and stormed out. Picking his moment, Dong Zhuo’s man Li Jue crossed No Man’s Land to approach him.

“Psst,” he said. “Dong Zhuo thinks you’re a worthy opponent. He sent me to offer you his daughter as a wife for your son. You could totally come join his side.”

“Fuck off!” said Sun Jian, and Li Jue fucked off.

“Okay, that didn’t work,” said Dong Zhuo. “What next?”

“Well,” said Li Ru, “These rebels are a pretty big problem, but they’re over here. Why not set up shop in Changan, the old capital?”

“Great idea!” said Dong Zhuo.

“Um, there are some pretty big problems with that,” said some of his advisors. “First of all, you’re talking about moving a whole city of people. Second, Changan is a wasteland.”

“You’re fired,” said Dong Zhuo.

“No really, that’s a terrible idea.”

Dong Zhuo turned to the guards and made a throat-slitting gesture.

“You know what else we could do,” said Li Ru. “While we’re at it, we can just steal everybody’s stuff and kill them.”

“Wow, that’s really evil,” said Dong Zhuo admiringly. He ordered his soldiers to kill anyone with money and send the civilians on a forced march to Changan. “Plunder, rape, the usual,” he told them, and turned to Li Ru. “Any other evil ideas?”

“Er, desecrating tombs?”

“That too!” said Dong Zhuo gleefully. His soldiers destroyed or stole everything of value in Luoyang, set it on fire, and left.

The rebels peeked out through the passes, and when they saw that Dong Zhuo and his gang were all gone, they headed to Luoyang posthaste. Sun Jian got there first and started organizing firefighters.

“Dong Zhuo’s running away,” said Cao Cao. “If we go after him now, we can kill him!”

“We’re too tired,” said Yuan Shao.

“You’re joking,” said Cao Cao, but he wasn’t.

“Fine,” said Cao Cao. “I’ll go.”

He set off with his army, but Li Ru knew they might be pursued. Dong Zhuo put Lu Bu at the back and set up an ambush.

Cao Cao soon caught up. “Rebels! Traitors!” he shouted at Lu Bu.

“No U!” answered Lu Bu. They started fighting, but just then the ambush charged in and Cao Cao initiated Plan B.

“Okay, are we clear?” he asked later that night. There were no enemies in sight, so they stopped running and started cooking dinner.

Thirty seconds later, the baddies showed up again and Cao Cao got hit in the shoulder with an arrow. He jumped on his horse and fled to the tune of Yakety Sax.

The horse got stabbed and Cao Cao fell off, but Cao Hong entered stage right and rescued him. The Caos swam for it and hid under the riverbank, when out popped the bad guys again! This time Xiahou Dun showed up to save the day, and they all ran to Luoyang with their tails firmly between their legs.

Meanwhile, Sun Jian had managed to put out all the fires and was camping in the temple. He said his prayers, and, looking at the destruction, started to cry.

“Hey, boss,” said one of his soldiers. “Boss? That well over there is glowing.”

“Glowing?” said Sun Jian, cheering up. “Must be plot related.”

He headed down the well with his soldiers and found the dead body of a beautiful woman. Around her neck was a bag with a jade seal in it. The seal was carved with five dragons, and one corner had been repaired with gold.

“This looks important,” said Sun Jian. “Somebody find a nerd.”

“You asked for a nerd?” said his advisor Cheng Pu. “Oooh, I recognize that artefact. It’s the Imperial Hereditary Seal! It has a cool backstory and everything.”

“Oh, is this an exposition part?” Sun Jian yawned. “Can I press skip? No? Okay, get on with it.”

“Once upon a time,” Cheng Pu explained, “A commoner saw a phoenix land on a stone. He figured it was important and offered it to the king, but alas! Two kings didn’t recognize its worth, and punished him for mocking them. Eventually, the third king realized that there was a precious jade inside the humble-looking stone, and had a seal carved out of it. Two years later, though, he was forced to throw it into the lake to calm a storm, but lo! Ten years after that, a mysterious old man returned it to him. Since then, there has been much trouble and strife over this precious treasure, but it has remained with the Imperial family ever since. Alas, it was lost during the massacre of the eunuchs.”

“Are you done?” said Sun Jian impatiently. Cheng Pu turned it over. “See, this gold corner? It got broken when Empress Yuan beaned some rebels over the head with it.”

“That story actually sounds pretty interesting. Are you going to tell it?”

“Nope.”

“Well, what should I do now then?”

“Clearly, this is a sign that you will become emperor one day,” said Cheng Pu. “Let’s ditch these guys and head home to build up our power.”

“Great idea,” said Sun Jian, and swore his soldiers to secrecy. One of them promptly went to Yuan Shao and blabbed.

The next day, Sun Jian went to Yuan Shao. “We’re pretty much done here,” he said. “Well, we basically accomplished nothing, but whatever. I’m feeling sick, and I want to go home.”

“You’ve caught seal disease, haven’t you?” said Yuan Shao.

Sun Jian turned white. “How did you – uh, what are you talking about?”

“That seal belongs to the government,” said Yuan Shao. “And since I’m in charge here, you should have given it to me!”

“I ain’t got no seal.”

“Don’t play dumb,” said Yuan Shao. “I have a witness.”

“How about I swear an oath?” asked Sun Jian. “If I am hiding the seal, may I die an unhappy and violent death!”

“Wow,” said everyone. “That’s some serious foreshadowing there.”

“Hang on,” said Yuan Shao, and brought out the snitch. “This guy told me all about it!”

“I’ll kill you!” roared Sun Jian, and pulled out his sword. “Oh yeah?” said Yuan Shao, and pulled his sword out as well. All their underlings got their weapons out, and a standoff began. Luckily, the other generals calmed everyone down. Sun Jian headed home to Changsha that night.

“I know he has it,” said Yuan Shao, and wrote to Imperial Protector Liu Biao of Jingzhou.

Sun Jian stole the Imperial Hereditary Seal. He’ll pass by you on the way home, so mind killing him and taking it away? Thanks.

Cao Cao finally got back to camp just then. “Hey, I just lost there,” he said, “But I was trying to get something done. You guys are totally useless. If you’d gotten off your asses, we could have won, but nope.”

That was completely accurate, so everyone slunk away.

“This sucks,” said Gongsun Zan to Liu Bei. “We’ll all be fighting each other in a minute. Let’s get out of here.” And they took off, just in time because that’s exactly what happened. The rebel troops who hadn’t killed each other soon broke up and went home.

On his way back, Sun Jian ran into Liu Biao, who was blocking the way with an army.

“Yuan Shao put you up to this, didn’t he?” said Sun Jian.

“Give back the seal!” said Liu Biao sternly.

“Says you and what army?” said Sun Jian. “Oh, that army. Crap, I’m surrounded.”

 

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