From the spring when Liu Bei (劉備) first heard in the Xinye (新野) market the sentence "there is a man in the south," we turn our gaze back north. And turning, we find a quarrel that had already been unfinished there for several years.

In the autumn of Jian'an 7 (202 CE), at the city of Ye (鄴城) in Jizhou (冀州).

One full season had passed since Yuan Shao (袁紹) departed this world. The great yard of Ye, where his coffin had stood, had been cleared. And yet, in one corner of the yard, the paulownia tree Yuan Shao had loved most last summer still stood. Since this morning, its early autumn leaves had been falling quietly.

Yuan Shao had three sons. The eldest, Yuan Tan (袁譚). The second, Yuan Xi (袁熙). The youngest, Yuan Shang (袁尙).

The son Yuan Shao loved most in life was the youngest, Yuan Shang. His face was clear, his speech soft. The eldest, Yuan Tan, was rough, and had long been serving as Inspector at Qingzhou (靑州), away from his father's side. At Yuan Shao's last breath, only Yuan Shang's mother, Lady Liu (劉氏), and two trusted counselors, Shen Pei (審配) and Feng Ji (逢紀), stood by him.

Before the three could settle on a common will, Shen Pei was already grinding his ink. A single document came down, declared as Yuan Shao's last testament. At its end, a line was written neatly: the youngest, Yuan Shang, was to inherit the title of Grand Commandant General (大司馬將軍).

Yuan Tan, in Qingzhou, returned to Ye three days later. Before the south gate of Ye, standing there, he learned that the title left to him was General of Chariots and Cavalry (車騎將軍) — one grade lower.

That evening, in the inner hall of Ye, Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang sat for the first time across a single table.

Yuan Tan was twenty-nine. His jaw was square, his eyes red. Yuan Shang was twenty-four. His face was pale, his hands thin. Between the two brothers sat Shen Pei; behind Yuan Tan sat Feng Ji. Feng Ji was Yuan Tan's man, Shen Pei was Yuan Shang's. From outside, it was a family table. Within, it was already a council of two factions.

Yuan Tan asked first, low.

"In our late father's testament, I hear, there was a seat of Grand Commandant General. Will you not pass that seat to me?"

Yuan Shang lifted his cup and quietly set it down. His voice was soft.

"Brother. A testament is only a stroke of ink upon paper. The work our father had me do, while still alive, was precisely this seat. Ought not the long intention of the living take precedence over a stroke upon paper?"

Tension rose in Yuan Tan's jaw. Behind him, Feng Ji shook his head very slightly. Not now. Feng Ji's gaze said that.

That night, Yuan Tan did not sleep.

When he opened the window of his room, a line of wind came in over the wall of Ye. Within that wind, a thread of rumor — risen from the direction of Jingzhou (荊州) in the south — was mingled. A merchant from Qingzhou had quietly passed it to Yuan Tan three days ago, as he left.

"If one obtains a recluse (隱士) from south of Jingzhou, the man's door opens on the third visit. On the day that door opens, a certain man bearing the surname Liu (劉) shall pull the realm toward his own side."

Yuan Tan did not believe the rumor. His enemy tonight was inside this house — his brother Yuan Shang — not some nameless recluse in the south. And yet, through that sleepless night, the rumor sat quietly inside his ear. His own surname was not Liu but Yuan. That one-character difference felt, tonight, unusually large.

On the same night, Yuan Shang also did not sleep.

He had climbed alone to the northern tower of Ye. Under the moonlight, hundreds of roof-tiles spread out in silver-gray. Yuan Shang, at twenty-four, laid a fingertip above those tiles. The tip of his finger trembled, thin.

Shen Pei came up and stood beside him.

"My lord. From tomorrow, how shall you proceed?"

"From tomorrow, there is nothing to do but peel my brother's people away, one at a time."

"Meanwhile, how do you hear the rumors out of Jingzhou?"

Yuan Shang was silent for a while. Then he answered quietly.

"A recluse in the south, whose name has not yet come out — if such a recluse is obtained by some man, that man is no enemy of our house. Tonight, the enemy of our house is only the single man inside this house."

Shen Pei said nothing. Moonlight had settled a little upon the end of his beard.

As a young man's fingertip pointed across the tiles upon Ye's north tower, and as an elder brother's jaw tightened inside the south hall of the same city, the last leaf of the paulownia fell into the inner court tonight. Where the leaf settled, a sentence risen from the south paused for a moment, then flowed on again.

"There is a man in the south."

That sentence had already been sitting, first, inside the strife of the brothers at Ye. The brothers, each absorbed in looking at the other, had simply failed to recognize it. A quarrel is the work of two people; but outside the shadow of the quarrel, a third person has often already begun to walk.

The third person, even tonight, was quietly walking a round of the back yard at Xinye.

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