First she lost her husband. Then she lost her father.
At twenty-one she was taken by Hu cavalry, held captive twelve long years before returning to Han lands.
Seven years had passed since her return, yet the Han court still lacked power, and Heaven's order had still not righted itself.
The prosperous days of the Xiping era appeared only in childhood dreams. In Ye City she woke with tears soaking her pillow, unable to stop.
With disheveled hair and on foot, she had knelt before the Chancellor, begging mercy for Dong Si.
Reciting from memory the works of her late father, she offered four hundred compositions to Cao, repaying his kindness in full.
Alone in the world, with only poetry and the qin for company, she had not yet reached fifty, yet already lived as one awaiting death.
What Cai Yan had not expected was this.
When she first came to Shangdang to stay with her sister, her only thought had been simple. If she must die, she would at least die near family.
Instead, in the books Xin Xianying brought with her, she found a world she had never imagined.
No sentimental laments of spring and autumn.
No arbitrary pronouncements.
No judging Heaven and Earth by feeling alone.
These writings discussed things through observable facts, examined traces through what was seen, combined observation and evidence into principles, and followed those principles step by step.
The ordinary soil beneath one's feet was divided into several distinct types. The golden sun overhead, passing through crystal, revealed endless variations of light.
Most striking were the speculations about Heaven and Earth themselves.
The higher one climbed a mountain, the farther the eye could see. Yet the higher one climbed, the more limited the visible horizon became.
Using mathematics to argue this point, the author calculated the height of mountains, the reach of sight, and concluded that the earth itself must be curved.
Cai Yan did not know what method the writer had used to push vision so far. The mathematical reasoning was difficult to follow and exhausting to read. Yet the method itself felt far more convincing than the old habit of deducing truths purely from ancient texts and inward intuition.
As for the tools the writer might have used, Cai Yan already had a faint suspicion.
The treatise on light mentioned that transparent glass could gather or scatter sunlight. But Cai Yan remembered her time in the northern steppes, when even in winter she had been forced to cut ice for labor.
She had seen how sunlight through ice could concentrate or disperse. She had also noticed how looking through clear surfaces changed the appearance of objects.
Perhaps that far-seeing from mountaintops relied on transparent glass.
Only one regret remained. She did not know how such glass was made.
Glass itself was not rare in Ye City. As a girl she had owned glass beads for play.
But those were valued for resembling jade. The paler and clearer they were, the more expensive they became. Truly colorless transparency was almost unheard of.
Now that Xin Xianying's supply of these "new books" had been exhausted, Cai Yan felt a stirring she had not known in many years.
Which extraordinary figure under Liu Bei could have written them?
Because of this, when her sister Cai Zhenji returned and informed them that enemy forces were advancing toward Shangdang in great numbers, Cai Yan felt surprisingly little panic.
Xin Xianying, however, scrunched her face up again.
"I heard Pingyang had three forts guarding one city. How did it fall so fast?"
"The enemy had many cavalry. They cut the links between city and forts, which caused the fall… though Pingyang did fall rather quickly. Yet reports from Qishi County say no horses were seen among the attackers…"
Cai Zhenji explained everything she knew as best she could, then revealed her husband's decision.
"The governor plans to move the population of Lu County to Huguan. Elder Sister, Xianying…"
"You are going to Huguan as well?"
"Of course I must follow my husband there. After all, General Gao and General Bao… sigh."
Cai Yan understood the sigh. The situation was no secret. She had already heard of it back in Ye.
After the Battle of Guandu, many of Yuan Shao's former officers entered Cao's service. Some were eventually put to good use in various regions, like Zhang He. Many others, however, were granted rank and salary only to be left idle. Gao Lan was one of them.
Gao Lan was the principal military commander defending Shangdang. In theory, with Gao Lan and Yang Tao as commander and governor, stationed respectively at Huguan and Lu County, the region should have been secure.
But there was another figure here, Bao Shao, whose rank matched Gao Lan's.
Bao Shao's father Bao Xin had been one of Cao's old allies, having joined the campaign against Dong Zhuo and helped install Cao as governor of Yan Province, even dying to save him.
Bao Shao's elder brother Bao Xun now served in the Chancellor's office and was one of Cao's trusted men.
Under such circumstances, what should have been a straightforward defensive arrangement became much more complicated.
To ensure stability and prevent friction between Gao Lan and Bao Shao, Yang Tao moving personally to Huguan to command both men became the only viable choice.
And now Yang Tao was also relocating the people of Lu County to Huguan. That likely meant elite troops would be concentrated there.
In that case, Cai Yan herself could not remain behind. Her options were simple. Either go forward with them to Huguan… or retreat to Ye.
Ye was comfortable. But her strongest memories there were kneeling barefoot and disheveled before the Chancellor to beg for Dong Si's life, and the increasingly ominous atmosphere now that Cao was bogged down in the Jing-Yu campaigns.
Huguan was dangerous. But her sister would be there.
And besides… had Liu Bei's army not long been praised for benevolence?
She had not fully believed it before. Yet the books she had read these past two months made her half willing to believe.
If such clear-minded people devoted to understanding Heaven and Earth served Liu Bei, then Liu Bei himself could hardly be too poor a man.
After finishing her thoughts, Cai Yan made her decision.
"Then I will go to Huguan with you."
"If both elder sisters are going, then I suppose I can only…"
Xin Xianying sighed, but before she could finish, Cai Zhenji was already pushing her along.
"Then hurry and pack. Huguan is not far. We leave after noon."
"Hey, wait, I wasn't finished…"
After being pushed past the moon gate and seeing Cai Zhenji walk ahead, Xin Xianying lowered her voice and asked Cai Yan beside her,
"Elder Sister, do you know about Huguan…?"
"Huguan will most likely not hold."
Cai Yan's expression did not change, though she let out a soft sigh.
"Between Huguan and Pingyang lie layers of mountains. Cavalry cannot pass there. That missing cavalry force must have gone north through Wu County and Jinyang, then circled through Yuci and Zhan County, taking the Liao'a route to strike directly into Shangdang's heartland."
Xin Xianying started at this explanation, then suddenly remembered Cai Yan's years in captivity on the frontier. This region was not far from those borderlands. No wonder she knew it so well.
But if she understood the situation so clearly, Xin Xianying became even more confused.
"Then Elder Sister…?"
"Would staying in Ye guarantee survival?"
Xin Xianying fell silent.
A trace of bitterness appeared on her face.
"If only we were men, would we be forced to drift like this, never knowing where we will end?"
Within Shangdang, only Huguan could truly be called a formidable fortress. Lu County could not compare.
But once Yang Tao moved the population there, the city inevitably became crowded. Fortunately, as members of the governor's household, the three women were still given a quiet place to read.
Over the next month, they occasionally discussed the renewed warfare in Shangdang.
Qishi County had fallen. The rebel commander named Huang Quan was now locked in several days of hard fighting with Cao's forces at Changzi County. It was said his infantry were elite soldiers from Yi Province, including many Cong tribesmen. These so-called barbarians seemed even more suited to the terrain than Cao's local troops.
Cai Yan's prediction had been relayed to Yang Tao through Cai Zhenji. Now reports from Xiangyuan said Qiang cavalry scouts had appeared. The missing cavalry really had taken a thousand-li detour to enter Shangdang.
But…
"Chancellor Cao has fought wars year after year. Shangdang's troops have been repeatedly drawn away. We now have fewer than six thousand men fit for battle."
In this past month, Cai Zhenji's brow had grown steadily more troubled. Even if her sister had correctly judged Liu Bei's army's movements, there was little that could be done with so few soldiers.
The western force attacking from Pingyang alone numbered nearly five thousand. And a cavalry force capable of riding through Xihe and Taiyuan for a thousand li must number at least three to five thousand as well. By numbers alone, Shangdang was already at a disadvantage.
"My husband has written repeatedly to Ye, hoping that…"
But remembering her sister's warning that Ye itself might soon fall into chaos, Cai Zhenji could not even say what she hoped for anymore.