"That scholar's impulsiveness of yours-you were lucky it was me you ran into. Otherwise, you wouldn't even have kept your life!"
Liu Cheng was certainly using the incident as a pretext to make a scene, but the underlying emotion was genuine too.
This was precisely Yuan Hong's problem. He always confused literary talent with political ability, always thought himself important, and often inexplicably ignored the basic rules of politics in favor of some strange nominal rules... Of course, one could call him naive, a literary master and all that, but why wasn't Sun Chuo this naive?
The only explanation was that he was too young and had never taken a proper beating.
Then today, Liu Cheng could only give him one.
"I..." Yuan Hong was bewildered and at a loss, his face flushed scarlet.
"You say I have no specific duties? Then let me ask you: before I came, when I took my leave at court, why did the Empress Dowager, the emperor, and the Prince of Kuaiji all say quite clearly that I was to assist the General Who Pacifies the West properly?" Liu Cheng continued his tirade. "Let me ask you again: if the court gave me no specific duties, why, before coming here, did I 'petition' to have my former subordinate Gao Heng appointed Administrator of the émigré Jiyin Commandery and General Who Sweeps Away the Caitiffs, transferred to the Western Command, and stationed at Feikou; 'petition' to have Liu Jian appointed Administrator of the émigré Dongping Commandery; and 'petition' to have Liu Shi appointed General Who Sweeps Across the Wilderness, overseeing the transport of military supplies between Shouchun and Jiankang... all approved by the Department of State Affairs with a stroke of the brush? And another question: didn't I go to see the General Who Pacifies