CHAPTER XXIII.
Yüan and Ts‘ao Both Take the Field:
The Two Brothers Capture Two Captains.
This was the plan proposed to Yüan-tê: “Yüan Shao is Ts‘ao Ts‘ao’s terror. He is strongly posted in an extensive district with a hundred legions of fighting men and many able officers. Write letters and pray him to rescue you.”
Liu Pei replied, “But we have never had any dealings with each other and he is unlikely to do such a thing for one who has just destroyed his brother.”
“There is some one here whose family have been on intimate terms with the Yüans for a hundred years. Shao would surely come if he wrote.”
“And who is this?”
“A man you know well and respect greatly; can you not guess?”
“You surely mean Chêng K‘ang-ch‘êng,” said Liu Pei suddenly.
“That is he,” said Ch‘ên Têng smiling.
Now Chêng K‘ang-ch‘êng's ming was Yüan. He was a student and a man of great talent, who had long studied under Ma Jung. Ma Jung was peculiar as a teacher. Whenever he lectured he let fall a curtain behind which were a circle of singing girls. The students were assembled in front of this curtain. Chêng Yüan attended these lectures for three years and never once let his eyes wander to the curtain.
Naturally the master admired his pupil. After Chêng Yüan had finished his studies and gone home Ma Jung praised him to the others, saying, “Only one man has penetrated the inner meaning of my instructions and that one is Chêng Yüan.”
In the Chêng household the waiting maids were familiar with Mao’s edition of the Odes. Once one of the maids opposed Yüan’s wishes, so as punishment she was made to kneel in front of the steps. Another girl made fun of her, quoting from an ode;—
“What are you doing there in the mire?”
The kneeling girl capped the verse from another ode; quoth she:—
“ ’Twas but a simple word I said,
Yet brought it wrath upon my head.”
Such was the family in which he had been born. In the reign of the Emperor Huan he rose to the rank of President of a
