The General's Insubordination

The atmosphere inside General Yuan Shikai's command tent, once buzzing with the electric hum of ruthless efficiency, was now thick with his palpable fury. He stood over his command desk, a beast in his cage, staring down at the dispatch in his hand as if it were a personal insult. The report from the relief column sent to Blockhouse #73 was a litany of his own failure. Twelve soldiers dead, eighteen more critically ill, the post crippled, the well poisoned. A catastrophe orchestrated by a single, phantom-like enemy.

He slammed the paper down on the desk with a crack that made his aides jump. "Incompetence!" he roared, his voice echoing in the canvas confines. "Sheer, unforgivable incompetence! Lieutenant Chang allowed a single, unaccompanied civilian to approach a vital military asset! He was given my protocols, and he ignored them out of some misplaced sentimentality! He paid for it with his life, and the lives of his men. A single old woman has crippled a link in my chain!"

His chief of staff, the perpetually nervous Colonel Liang, hurried forward. "Sir, we have already issued a new decree to all posts. General Order 117. All wells are to be guarded by no fewer than two men at all times. All water is to be boiled and tested by designated tasters one hour before consumption by the main body of troops. All civilian contact, for any reason, is now forbidden on pain of summary execution."

"Measures! Protocols!" Yuan spat the words like poison. "This is reactive! This is defense! I did not come here to build a fortress and hide inside it! I need a response! A message so brutal, so final, that no Mongol will ever again dare to even look at a Qing well! Find me the nearest tribe to Blockhouse #73. I don't care if they are a hundred miles away. I want them erased. I want a pyramid of their skulls erected where their chieftain's yurt once stood. I want a lesson taught that will be remembered in their songs of lament for a thousand years!"

From the side of the tent, where he had been standing in stony silence since arriving, General Meng Tian spoke. His voice was dangerously calm, a low rumble that cut through Yuan's heated rage like a blade of cold iron.

"And who will you send to carry out this… lesson, General? Another artillery barrage on an encampment you can't even prove was involved? Or will you send a cavalry detachment to slaughter women and children who likely know nothing of this attack?"

Yuan Shikai wheeled on him, his face flushed with a dark, mottled anger. The presence of the Emperor's favored general was a constant irritant, a walking judgment on his methods. "I will send a force that can get the job done without complaint or hesitation! In fact," a malicious idea sparked in Yuan's eyes, "I will send your Imperial Guard, General Meng! They are sitting in the rear echelons, polishing their sabers and reciting classical poetry while my men are dying of poisoned water! You wanted a worthy enemy? Fine! I hereby order you to take a battalion of your precious Imperial Guard, march to the location of the Tergin clan, and carry out punitive extermination. They are the closest major clan to the incident. They will serve as the example."

The tent fell utterly silent. The low-level chatter of clerks and adjutants ceased. Even the carbide lamps seemed to hiss more softly. Yuan had thrown down the ultimate gauntlet. He had given a direct, battlefield-style order to Meng Tian, forcing him to either comply with his brutal tactics or commit an open act of insubordination.

Meng Tian did not move for a long moment. He simply stood there, an immovable mountain of principle. Then, he took a slow step forward, his eyes locked on Yuan's. His voice did not rise, but it carried a weight of absolute authority that made Yuan's shouted commands seem like the yapping of a terrier.

"I respectfully decline your order, General."

Yuan Shikai's eyes widened in disbelief, which quickly curdled into pure, unadulterated fury. "You decline?" he hissed, the words strangled in his throat. "That is insubordination! That is treason! I am the supreme commander of this theater!"

"No, General," Meng Tian corrected him, his tone glacial. "It is adherence to the Imperial command structure. The Imperial Guard answers to me, and I answer directly to the Son of Heaven. Our mandate, bestowed upon us by the Emperor himself, is to act as his divine sword, to engage and destroy the armed enemies of the Empire in battle. Our mandate is not to act as a death squad for the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians based on their geographical proximity to a crime scene. Such an action falls outside our established rules of engagement. Therefore, if you wish for me to deploy the Imperial Guard for such a task, you will need to provide me with a direct, written decree from the Emperor himself, bearing his personal seal, specifically authorizing it."

It was a masterful piece of bureaucratic warfare, a checkmate delivered on the chessboard of military law. He wasn't refusing to obey the Emperor; he was refusing to obey Yuan in a matter he had skillfully defined as being outside Yuan's legitimate authority over his specific, elite command.

Yuan stared at him, momentarily speechless, sputtering with rage. He knew, and he knew that Meng Tian knew, that he was correct on the letter of the law. He had been outmaneuvered. "You hide behind protocol!" Yuan finally spat, his voice shaking with anger. "You are a coward, afraid to do what is necessary to win this war!"

"And you are a butcher, Yuan," Meng Tian retorted, his composure unshakeable. "You are so enamored with the swing of your axe that you have forgotten the purpose of the war. You stood in the Emperor's study and you told me your methods would pacify this land. You promised that your terror would bring order. Instead, your unthinking brutality has created a new enemy. One who is smarter than Toghrul, more insidious, and who attacks the very weaknesses your own arrogant strategy has created. You did not account for this. You did not account for an enemy who uses intelligence instead of rage."

The spymaster Shen Ke, who had been a silent observer until now, chose this moment to intercede, his calm voice a splash of water on the fire. "General Meng is correct on one point," he stated analytically. "The nature of the threat has evolved. This attack was not a random act of violence. It was targeted, disciplined, and psychological. My initial profile of the survivor from the Borjigin clan, the woman Altan, dismissed her as unimportant. That was a severe intelligence error on my part. An enemy this clever, this precise, must be the one leading this new cell."

Yuan scoffed, desperately trying to regain control of the situation and his own dignity. "A woman? You truly believe a slip of a nomad girl is outthinking my entire command structure?"

"It appears so, General," Meng Tian said, his voice laced with icy contempt. "Perhaps if you spent less time drawing maps of 'Clear Zones' and more time trying to understand the people you are so determined to conquer, you would not be so surprised. My men will hunt warriors. They will not murder families to soothe your wounded pride."

The last vestige of Yuan's composure snapped. His voice dropped to a low, venomous hiss. "Then we will put it to the Emperor. We will put this entire situation to His Majesty. We will send him the full report. All of it. The details of the poisoning, the failure of the blockhouse commander, and your craven refusal to obey a direct order from the supreme commander of this theater. We will see whose methods His Majesty favors. The butcher's axe that gets results, or the honorable sword that stays in its scabbard while the empire is poisoned from within."

Meng Tian's expression did not change. "I look forward to his judgment."

He held Yuan's gaze for one final, charged moment, then turned on his heel and strode out of the tent, leaving behind a simmering, unresolved crisis that threatened to paralyze the entire northern campaign. The two arms of the Emperor's will, the sword and the ledger, were now locked in direct, irreconcilable opposition. The command structure had fractured, and only the Emperor could mend it.