[Three Kingdoms 365 · Day 17] A Single Horse to the West — Cao Cao flees Dong Zhuo and is captured by Chen Gong at Zhongmou

On the forenoon when Cao Cao left the great gate of the chancellor’s residence and mounted his horse, the southwestern gate of Luoyang opened wide. The hooves rang loud upon the stone floor of the gate; outside, dust rose quietly. As soon as Cao Cao stepped beyond the gate, he turned the rein eastward. A single horse was turned, in one stroke, from a western gate onto an eastern road.

Inside the hall, Dong Zhuo leaned against his couch, studying the seven stars of the Seven-Star Treasure Blade. Lü Bu came back into the hall. “Your Lordship. Cao Mengde’s manner was a little strange. A cold sweat ran long at the back of his neck, and after he mounted the horse, he turned southeastward.”

Li Ru (李儒) heard that line and laughed low. “Your Lordship. Cao Cao did not present the blade to you this morning. He drew a blade and slowed his hand for the gleam of a mirror. Send men quickly to check his house. If he has not gone home, but rode straight out of the eastern gate, that alone is proof.”

Dong Zhuo sent four soldiers to Cao Cao’s house. Soon a report came back. “Cao Mengde did not return home. He rode straight out of the eastern gate upon his horse.” Dong Zhuo’s eyes widened. “I treated him so well, and yet this fellow tried to kill me.” Dong Zhuo issued a warrant in all directions. A placard bearing Cao Cao’s face was posted upon every gate of Luoyang.

At a small pass of Zhongmou County (中牟縣), some one hundred and fifty li from Luoyang, the pass-warden had hung Cao Cao’s placard upon the wall. As the morning deepened, one horse reached the front of the pass. The face of the man upon the horse resembled the face in the placard. The warden brought his spear forward. The man who came down from the horse was bound.

The warden led him to the prefect’s office. The prefect of Zhongmou was Chen Gong (陳宮), style Gongtai (公臺), a young official in a low seat. His eyes looked long upon the face of the bound man. It was a face he had seen somewhere before. Within that face, an old breath rose.

“What is your name?”

“My name is Huangfu (皇甫). I am a merchant who saw to a relative’s business in Luoyang this morning and is returning.”

Chen Gong shook his head. His hand pointed to the placard on the wall. “The drawing on this placard resembles your face exactly. You are Cao Mengde, are you not?”

Cao Cao kept silent for a long while. Then he lifted his head and looked straight into Chen Gong’s eyes. “Gongtai. You may take one man’s life from this seat. Only, hear one thing. This Cao Cao did not seek to serve Dong Zhuo; I sought to strike him, and having failed I reached this place. I may betray the chancellor’s favor, but I shall not betray the righteousness of all under heaven. Whether you send this head to the court to claim Grand Preceptor Dong’s reward, or release this one man and open a road, the choice lies in Gongtai’s seat.”

Chen Gong looked long upon Cao Cao’s face. A breath stopped between the two. Within Chen Gong’s eyes a small light rose. He took the placard down from the wall. With one hand he quietly untied Cao Cao’s bound hands.

“Mengde. The seat of this small prefect looked small this morning before the righteousness of all under heaven. Let me fold this seat and tonight leave upon the same road as you. To have recognized your face within this jail-room is the greatest recognition of this Chen Gong’s life.”

Cao Cao bowed his head deeply. “This recognition of Gongtai’s, this Cao Cao shall not forget in a lifetime.”

That night, the two mounted two horses and crossed quietly the back gate of Zhongmou County. The road ran east, toward Cao Cao’s hometown of Qiao (譙). The morning in which a single horse, turning its back upon western Luoyang, ran east had opened this forenoon; by the time night deepened, two horses were running together eastward. The breath from one horse becoming two horses was the span of a single day.

The seventeenth night of Book 1 deepened quietly under the hooves of two horses upon the back road of Zhongmou County. The three characters Okjungsik (獄中識, the seat of recognition inside a jail-room) were planted as a seed: two men who recognized each other’s faces inside one small prefect’s jail. The reversed blade of Day 16’s Heondogye had, this night, joined into two horses’ reins in the same direction.

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