The library of the Maraclad Estate was a silent, paneled room, heavy with the scent of old paper and the unspoken animosity of the two men within it. Yuan Shikai stood before the cold fireplace, his proposal hanging in the air between them—an alliance. An unholy, unthinkable alliance between the traitor and the hero, the spider and the sword.
Meng Tian sat in the large leather armchair, his injured leg resting on an ottoman, his face a mask of stone. He was processing the cold, brutal logic of Yuan's gambit. His honor, the rigid, ingrained code that had guided his entire life, screamed at him to refuse. To stand up, spit in the face of this corrupt, murderous minister, and accept whatever fate the Americans had in store for him. To ally himself with Yuan Shikai felt like a deep, spiritual poison, a betrayal of his very essence.
But his Battle Sense, the cool, pragmatic core of his being, told him a different story. It analyzed their situation with a dispassionate clarity that was separate from his anger. It saw the board. They were two kings, of opposing colors, trapped on the same small island, while a greater, third player moved its pieces around them. Divided, they were weak. They were specimens in a jar, to be prodded, studied, and ultimately dissected by their American captors. Yuan was right. The only strategically sound move, the only path that offered even a sliver of a chance to regain control, to continue to serve the Empire, was to present a united front.
He was a general trapped deep behind enemy lines. In such a situation, the mission must supersede all else. And the mission was survival.
After a long, tense silence that stretched for a full minute, Meng Tian finally spoke. The words tasted like ash in his mouth.
"I agree."
A flicker of triumphant surprise crossed Yuan's face, but he quickly concealed it. He had not truly expected the honorable general to acquiesce so easily.
"A wise decision, General," Yuan said, his voice returning to its smooth, confident purr. "Together, we can…"
"I have not finished," Meng Tian cut him off, his voice as cold and as sharp as the Siberian wind. He leaned forward slightly, his eyes locking onto Yuan's. "We will present a united front. We will coordinate our actions. But my cooperation is not unconditional. It comes with a price, Minister. A condition."
Yuan's smile tightened. "Name it."
"You will tell me the truth," Meng Tian said, his voice low and intense. "Here. Now. You will drop the masks and the lies. You will tell me who fired the shot that struck Secretary of War Elihu Root."
He was not asking for a grand confession. He was not interested in Yuan's secret war, or his theft, or his legion of ghosts. He was demanding the immediate, tactical truth of their present crisis. He was forcing Yuan to admit to his role in the event that had led them to this cage. It was a test. An alliance, even one of devils, had to be built on a foundation of shared, acknowledged reality.
Yuan Shikai was momentarily taken aback. The sheer, blunt directness of the question was a tactic he hadn't anticipated from the famously stoic general. His first instinct was to lie, to weave a complex tale of rogue agents or American provocateurs. But he looked into Meng Tian's eyes and knew it would be useless. The general's strange, unnerving intuition would sense the deception instantly. To build this necessary alliance, he had to offer a sacrifice. A piece of the truth.
He made a calculated decision. He would confess, but he would shape the confession to his own ends.
"Very well, General," Yuan said, his voice dropping, taking on a confidential, conspiratorial tone. He walked over to the liquor cabinet and poured two glasses of brandy, an act of feigned camaraderie. He handed one to Meng Tian, who ignored it.
Yuan took a slow sip. "It was my man," he admitted coolly, the words delivered without a trace of remorse.
He began to pace before the fireplace, spinning his self-serving version of the truth. "You must understand the position I was in. The Americans had me in a vise. They possess a… a compromised asset… who could be used to damage my reputation, and by extension, the stability of the Emperor's government. They were squeezing me, trying to blackmail me into accepting ruinous terms."
"Secretary Root was the architect of this pressure," he continued. "A brilliant, but inflexible man. I concluded that a demonstration was necessary. A reminder that we are not a helpless nation to be bullied. An act of calculated chaos, designed to disrupt their game, to throw their perfect plans into disarray and force them to re-evaluate their position. It was a regrettable, but necessary, act of resistance."
He framed the assassination attempt not as an act of personal ambition or a desperate move to cover his tracks, but as a hard-headed, patriotic act of defiance. A blow struck for the honor of the Empire. It was a masterful performance.
Meng Tian listened, his face impassive. He did not believe for a second that Yuan had acted out of patriotism. He knew this was about Yuan's own survival. But the core fact had been admitted. Yuan had given the order. He had committed an act of war on foreign soil and had endangered them all.
By hearing this confession and not immediately reporting it, Meng Tian was crossing a line. He was now an accessory after the fact. He was complicit. Their unwilling alliance was now sealed, bound not by trust, but by a shared, incredibly dangerous secret.
"Your methods are… reckless, Minister," Meng Tian said, his voice laced with contempt. "You have placed us all in a cage of your own making."
"And now," Yuan countered smoothly, "we will find a way out of it together."
Their first act as unwilling co-conspirators was to devise a plan. "The Americans are not fools," Meng Tian stated, his mind already shifting into a purely strategic mode. "And they have unleashed the Pinkertons. They will be hunting for your assassin. They will find him, sooner or later."
"Then we must find him first," Yuan replied. He revealed that his assassin was a professional, still hidden in the criminal underworld of St. Louis, awaiting new orders. "We will 'find' him, and we will deliver him to the Americans ourselves. It will be a gesture of goodwill, a sign of our full cooperation in their investigation."
"They will not believe us," Meng Tian said flatly. "They will interrogate him. He will tell them the truth."
"He will tell them the truth that we create for him," Yuan said, a cold, cunning smile on his face. "We will fabricate a new identity, a new motive. We will give the Americans a story that is so plausible, so politically convenient for them, that they will have no choice but to believe it."
He laid out their first joint conspiracy. They would frame the assassin as a fanatical Japanese nationalist, a secret agent of the Black Dragon Society. They would plant evidence on him, forge documents linking him to the Japanese legation. "We will paint a picture of Baron Komura, our ambitious Japanese friend, trying to sow discord between America and China, hoping to provoke a conflict that will benefit his own war against Russia. It is the perfect solution. It gives the Americans their culprit, it absolves us of all blame, and it damages the reputation of our most dangerous regional rival."
Meng Tian stared at him, repulsed and yet, on a purely strategic level, impressed. It was a brilliant, ruthless, and utterly dishonorable plan. And it was their only way out. He was now bound to this man's dark, intricate web. The path of survival had led him to a place where his own honor had to be sacrificed for the sake of the mission.