Cao Cao returned to his father's house in Chenliu (陳留). Before dismounting, he looked slowly upon the threshold. The morning air of a hometown house had settled above that threshold, different both from the air inside the Luoyang hall and from the air before the Zhongmou tavern. It stood far from the air in which a single blade had come down upon a man's shoulder the evening before.

His father Cao Song (曹嵩) ran out into the courtyard. Before looking at his son's face, he stretched a hand toward the reins. "Son. How did you come this far?" Cao Cao dismounted and knelt deeply before his father.

"Father. The ancestral altars of the Han are tilting. I obtained a horse and dragged this road here. Now I wish to loose the household's fortune and gather a righteous militia (義兵)."

Cao Song's face stayed still for long. He laid his hand quietly upon his son's shoulder. "The fortune of this house alone will not be enough for a great work. In this county there is a xiaolian (孝廉) named Wei Hong (衛弘). He treats wealth lightly and honors righteousness, and his household stands first in this region. If you can receive his help, your meaning will open a road."

Two days later, Cao Cao set a small banquet in the house and invited Wei Hong. Wei Hong was a man of a wide forehead. His eyebrows were thick, and even when he laughed his teeth were scarcely visible. As soon as he crossed the threshold, he looked long upon Cao Cao's face and bowed his head lightly.

"Mengde (孟德). I have heard your name long. Today is the first I see your face directly. Tell me first the reason for calling me to this seat."

Cao Cao rose properly from his seat. Not a single cup had yet gone around. "The court of the Han has no master. Dong Zhuo holds power as he pleases, despising the ruler and harming the people; all under heaven grinds its teeth. I wish to use my strength to hold up the ancestral altars, yet my strength is only the strength of one man. Hearing that you are a man of loyalty and righteousness (忠義), I bring this request today."

Wei Hong did not keep silent long. He rose from his own seat and bowed deeply toward Cao Cao. "Mengde. This heart this old one has long carried. Only, I had not yet met a hero to receive it. If you have a great meaning, today I lay down all the fortune of this household before you."

Cao Cao knelt low. Today his knee was of a different grain from the knee he had bent before the couch of the Luoyang residence. This knee bent toward an old one who asked nothing in return; that knee had bent before a man who counted out prices upon the necks of the court.

That night, inside the courtyard of Chenliu, one white banner was raised. On one side of the banner, two characters were written large: Chungui (忠義, loyalty and righteousness). From the day after that banner was raised, a strange wind began to blow on the streets of Chenliu. Unknown young men came — tens on one day, hundreds the next, and by the third day a thousand in a single day — walking in one direction up through the alleys of Chenliu. What they bore was not a blade but mostly an old hoe or a bundle of straw sandals. Yet the quietness of their step sat heavier than a hoe.

The grand administrator of Chenliu, Zhang Miao (張邈), came in person to Cao Cao's house. It was his promise to open the gate of the Chenliu county's armory. From the name of the old ally Minister over the Masses Wang Yun, a secret summons came down. The first draft of Cao Cao's proclamation was going onto paper this night for the first time. At the end of each character the ink trembled, yet the grain of the characters settled low.

Among the gathering, Cao Cao's kin and early companions rose beside the banner: his cousins Xiahou Dun (夏侯惇) and Xiahou Yuan (夏侯淵), his clan-brothers Cao Ren (曹仁) and Cao Hong (曹洪). Each brought men of his own; each laid a bow and a sheaf of arrows in front of the white banner. Not one among the four spoke a long line. They simply stood in their own places, like four corners that, once planted, would not easily move. Behind Cao Cao, from this night on, four silent corners had taken their seats.

The nineteenth night of Book 1 deepened quietly beneath the white banner in the courtyard of Chenliu. The three characters Suuigi (首義旗, the first banner of righteousness) were planted as a seed: the posture on which the quietness of unknown young men's step sat heavier than a hoe. The dawn of Day 18's mirror that turned first had, this night, crossed into the front of the two characters upon a white banner.

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