The Cursed Ghost Blade

"Grain this way! Stack it in this warehouse!"

"Move, move!"

Two divisions of the Garrison Army had left Longquan County and, in two days of forced marching, eaten up a hundred and fifty li of mountain road in a single drive. Twelve thousand soldiers took Songxi County at a stroke.

"Th-then you mean to say you're going to relieve Jianning?"

"We are. By the order His Grace the Duke of Yue has given, we are on the road to Jianning's relief."

Hu Shen ran his eyes over the magistrate of Songxi and the heads of the great clans, every one of them watching him with thoroughly unsettled faces.

"There will be no foraging off your villages, so set your minds at ease. We will draw our rations from the tax grain in the government granaries, and from grain shipped out of Chuzhou. All we ask is your help in moving those supplies on toward Jianning."

"O-of course, Qianhu Hu! This is the realm's business. We are bound to put our backs into it. Isn't that so?"

"How could it be otherwise?"

"Each of us will send laborers to help!"

The great clans, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wound tight at the arrival of an army they dared not stand against, promised their full support. Songxi lay close by Chuzhou, and the Tiger Hunting Army had passed through often enough while hunting bandits. They knew in their bones how terrible the Duke of Yue's soldiers were. Better, to their minds, to live under the Duke's hard rule than under the Red Turbans of Jiangxi who had Jianning ringed in. And unlike government troops, righteous armies come from elsewhere, or common bandits, these men were not said to go plundering from place to place, or to swing steel about, under the excuse of raising provisions.

Hu Shen secured Songxi as a supply base, left a portion of the force behind, and started the march early the next morning.

"Division Commander. Is it all right to advance this slowly?"

The column stretched away along the flowing river. Wu Zhide, commander of the Garrison Army's Fourth Division, coming up from the rear, stepped forward to ask.

"From Songxi to Jianning is no more than a hundred and thirty li. The Akuto are crossing the Wuyi Mountains out of the north, and our lord's main army still has Yanping to take. If we mean to keep step with them, there is no cause to hurry."

"That is certainly so."

They had marched the moment the order came and seized Songxi by forced march for one reason only: to plant a sure supply base in the rear. The rear was firm now. This was the hour to move with care, not haste.

"We follow this water down, take a defensible strongpoint near Jianning first, and build a solid camp there. After that I mean to lay dozens, hundreds, in ambush on every side path that can turn the steep mountains to either side of us."

At Hu Shen's words Wu Zhide looked to the rugged ridges flanking the road and nodded.

"In ground like this, even an army of a million would be hard put to bring its strength to bear."

"We have only to hold this place and wait until the army out of the north arrives, and our lord's main force with it."

It had already been settled that Jin Go, circuit commander of Chuzhou, would furnish the grain, with support from the Wenzhou circuit. High summer, the busiest stretch of the farming year—a hard time to call the people out. Even so, they meant to pay generous wages, hire laborers, borrow oxen, and haul the provisions over the mountain roads to Songxi. After that it was simple enough: put boats on the river running from Songxi down to Jianning, and float the grain along it.

"Don't grow careless. Hold fast. Do that, and we will never come to grief at their hands."

"I'll remember it, Division Commander."

The two men nodded hard.

The Wuyi Mountains, a savage wall between Zhedong and Fujian. Between the sheer ridges a very narrow defile ran on and on, and the gate that barred that road was called Fenshui Pass. Above the gate a black banner flew—the Black Dragon standard, mark that this was the Duke of Yue's domain.

"Taisho, we had to ready this in haste, and the grain is not what it should be. I'll send more down this road as quickly as I can."

"For something gathered on short notice, it is excellent, Jiro."

The moment Hojo Kagetora had the news from the courier he had sent ahead of his own arrival, a faint smile touched his face for Nagano Jiro, who had already brought the supply train up to Fenshui Pass.

Nagano Jiro, senior division commander of the Akuto, and the man who held Xinzhou on the farthest front. Long since, he had not only taken Fenshui Pass—the gate out of southern Xinzhou into Fujian—but, with the support of Xinzhou's circuit commander, had put that road itself in order. All of it was work their lord An Hyeon had directed beforehand. Even so, Jiro's steady, meticulous hand, tending to details of this sort while he still held the front line, was a satisfaction.

"These are Patrol Army soldiers out of Xinzhou, men who know the ground of Chong'an and Jianyang. Take them as guides, and they'll help you read the country round about."

"Yes. They'll be a great help. You've done well."

"Taisho. Wouldn't it be better to send me, or Toji, rather than go yourself? Our lord entrusted the armies of inland Zhedong to you... and he didn't order you to come in person, did he?"

"No. I have to go myself. Our lord has taken the field. How could I only watch from behind?"

Nagano Jiro, second among the Japanese warriors who commanded the Akuto, nodded at that.

For a warrior who served his lord, to hang back would be disloyalty—and if Kagetora answered the summons in person, it would look well besides. Lee Dae-nam, Great General of the Tiger Hunting Army, was a rival of sorts to the Akuto, and he was kindred to their lord An Hyeon through his wife's family. They themselves were not even men of the same country. The warriors of the Akuto had nothing to lean on but their lord's trust. For Jiro, who had set his heart on marrying a woman of Jiangnan and making his house flourish here, and for most of the Akuto's officers, this was something that had to be done.

Oxen lowed. Laborers and militia raised in Xinzhou shouldered their carrying frames; a good many more loaded grain onto horses, mules, and oxen, and began to move across the pass.

"Then, Taisho. I wish you fortune in battle."

"I'll come back with the victory, Jiro."

Kagetora mounted and crossed the gate. Behind him the long column of warriors and soldiers in crimson armor advanced into the narrow road, white banners streaming.

Tramp. Tramp. Tramp.

They had climbed the ascent to Fenshui Pass, and now the red-armored host stretched down the long descent beyond the gate. Marching in heavy armor and helmets, the Akuto soldiers walked pouring sweat in the sweltering heat.

A shrill whistle cut the air, and shouts burst out on every side.

"Rest! A short rest!"

"Keep a proper watch on the flanks! Don't just flop down where you are!"

Warriors and soldiers sat along the edge of the narrow road, pulled the bamboo canteens from their belts, worked the stoppers free, and drank.

"Don't drink too much water! Put a little salt in it first! Understood?"

"Yes, Battalion Commander!"

Heisuke, a young warrior of twenty-seven and a battalion commander of the Akuto, walked among the resting men, checking them as he went. Where he came to a stop, a man had even taken his helmet off and was mopping the sweat from his brow with a cloth, panting hard.

"Heisuke! You're here? Hot—damn, it's hot! A regimental commander can't go around with his armor off, can he..."

Heisuke smiled at the man sticking his tongue out in a comic grin—his lord, or rather his superior, Kamei Doken—and drew a bamboo fan from his robe to fan him, quietly.

"Ah, that's cooler. Heh heh..."

"They say Chong'an isn't far. Bear it a little longer."

"Good thing the road keeps dropping. Climbing up to Fenshui Pass just now, I honestly thought I was going to die."

Grumbling, Doken winked at Heisuke, who was still fanning him.

"You know well enough you've got me to thank for that promotion to battalion commander?"

"Yes. I'm grateful for it, always."

Pirates had taken Heisuke and dragged him off as a slave. Doken, a wandering robber-warrior, had saved him and kept him as a follower ever since, and the life of the man who had crossed the sea in his wake had changed a great deal. Kamei Doken had started at the bottom, a kachi, and stacked up merit one campaign at a time, and Heisuke had been at his side for every one of them. Leader of a twenty-man file, then platoon commander, company commander, battalion commander.

It had not stopped at feats of arms. To handle soldiers of the southern people, Doken had learned the Wu ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tongue. On top of that he had ground away at Korean to the last, the better to work with the Tiger Hunting Army's officers and to stand well in the Duke of Yue's eye.

"Those Hojo-shu bastards, looking down on me... They're exiles and ruined houses themselves, aren't they? Am I wrong?"

"Even so, didn't the Taisho recognize your merit and recommend you for regimental commander?"

"Tch. Well. He did, yes..."

Doken was a man passing himself off as of the Kamei clan. The warriors who had come into the Akuto early, through their ties to the Hojo and to Kagetora, and sworn their loyalty to An Hyeon, kept a cool distance from him. Anyone could see he was no true warrior-house man, that he lacked even the minimum of breeding, and they looked at him coldly for it. More than that, he was the first man outside the so-called Hojo-shu to climb to the post of regimental commander.

"My lord—no, Commander. If you became one of His Grace's own gokenin, might things not improve?"

"Hm. There'll be a limit, though. Those Hojo-shu fellows stick thick as thieves, don't they? And His Grace is a man of Goryeo."

At the grumbling, Heisuke stole a look around. If talk like this reached the wrong ears, the harm could be great.

"Heisuke, listen. I want to rise higher. Great General, at the least. Yes. Nothing short of that."

"..."

"And why not, tell me? His Grace himself isn't from any house this country thinks much of, is he? A man of Goryeo sits up there as Duke of Yue and throws his weight around—why shouldn't this Doken do the same?"

At the dreadful words Heisuke swallowed hard and whispered in a rush.

"My lord, your voice is too loud. And you have to remember the grace His Grace has shown us!"

"Well, the treatment is good, I'll give him that. This Doken married a proper lady, and got himself a fine big house. Heh heh heh."

Doken clapped the shoulder of Heisuke—always grateful for what he had, and wanting little—and snickered. This was why he liked the man. Heisuke would not betray him out of greed.

"It isn't enough, though. Eh? Heisuke, I'm telling you. I'm still hungry."

"..."

"What about you? You don't want to rise? When I rise, you rise with me."

Heisuke shook his head, his face sunk.

"What I have now is enough for me. Don't even the monks say that greed is always what eats a man away from the inside?"

"Bah. You sorry wretch. And you call yourself a man..."

Doken waved him off and got to his feet. Heisuke took up the helmet he had set aside, brushed the dirt from it, and offered it with courtesy.

"Don't go thinking of anything else. Just follow me. I'll see to all of it. Eh? That'll do."

Doken shrugged and walked on ahead. At his waist swayed a tachi in a beautifully dressed scabbard, bought by emptying the stipend that had come with his rise to regimental commander.

A famed blade: Choki. A ghost sword that had driven every master it ever had to a wretched death. Heisuke knew neither the name nor the tale, and yet something about it always felt unclean to him.

"Namu Amitabha, Guanyin Bodhisattva..."

Heisuke prayed to Guanyin. That the vain flame of greed burning in the heart of Doken—his benefactor, his lord—might be made to die down.

"Everyone up! The march resumes!"

"Ooooh!"

At the vigorous command, the warriors and soldiers of the Akuto began once more to march south.

A great river crossing Fujian. The waters of the Min, running inland, split three ways. One branch flowed northeast: the Jianxi. One flowed south, and split again into the Shaxi and the Futunxi. Where the streams gathered into a single river lay Sanjiangkou, the Mouth of the Three Rivers, and on that vital ground stood a fortress. The southern wharf of Yanping was busy with boats laden with grain.

"What are you doing! Move!"

Soldiers out of Jiangxi bellowed in the Gan dialect, raw with anger.

"Wh-what's he saying?"

"What's he saying? Shut your mouth and move, that's what!"

Local men of Yanping, pressed into hauling the provisions, grunted as they loaded the boats with rice sacks piled up like mountains.

Once, this wharf should have been crowded with merchant craft—the specialties of Fujian, porcelain and timber, medicinal herbs and tea, loaded aboard and sent down the water to Fuzhou, and coming the other way salt, seafood, cotton cloth, and sugar from the coast. Now most of the riverboats had been impressed, and there was no rest from unloading the grain that would feed Chen Youliang's army in its assault on Jianning.

Deng Zhiming watched it with a sharp eye.

"The grain?"

"Loaded first."

"My elder brother said to send timber and bamboo. He's having siege engines built."

"For that, I think we'll have to send to the Shaowu and Tingzhou circuits for more. Around here we've already scraped up everything there was and sent it on..."

"Send a man at once. No—better to send a boat outright."

Deng Zhiming, who had been frowning over it, looked to the flotilla that had already finished unloading and gave the order.

"Good. Depart at once. Tell my brother the rest of the supplies will go as quickly as we can manage."

"Yes, General!"

When Deng Zhiming had finished and gone back into the city through the south gate, Deputy Commander Wang, who had the flotilla, climbed aboard a boat and roared.

"Move, damn you! Raise anchor and drop the sails—what are you standing around for!"

"Y-yes, sir!"

Dozens of riverboats, loaded so deep with grain and materiel that they sat low in the water, wallowed and would not come on quickly. Had the summer rains not deepened the river, they might well have grounded on a shoal.

"Push! I said push!"

"Hey, get out of the way! We've got to come out before we can go!"

Boatmen at the stern shoved with poles and worked the oars. One by one the boats spread sail and began to leave the wharf.

Deputy Commander Wang stood at the bow of the big riverboat in the lead. He glanced downstream, off to his right—and his eyes flew wide.

"No. Th-that..."

The Min stretched broad there, a good three hundred paces across, some four hundred and fifty meters, and boats were coming up against that great current as if to fill it. Sails spread wide, closing fast.

"E-enemy! The enemy navy is here!"

"Turn the boats! Turn them, I said!"

Wang's face crumpled as he bellowed. But the boats were too heavily laden, and they crawled.

A boom. Then the light, brisk crack of swivel guns and matchlocks.

A Black Dragon Ship, large and yet quick on the water, drove in among the enemy boats making for the upper river. Few soldiers were aboard them. Most never managed a real resistance; one after another they were overwhelmed by the sailors and Tiger Hunting Army men who laid alongside and boarded, and the sight of it filled the eye.

A groan like a throat being scraped—and Makdong pointed upriver to the north, giving his hand signals.

"Send the flag signal! Not one of them is to get upstream!"

When Makdong's adjutant gave the order in his place, the command ship's great banner snapped in the wind, and the drums began to beat. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Small, sleek fast boats, ten and more, rowed like arrows, driving north against the current.

I gave no separate order. I watched Makdong command. Drums and trumpets, and flags of every color swung, and each time the navy he had trained over long years moved with a practiced ease.

A heavy wash of water. The command ship came alongside a sandbar on the far bank, off the southeastern corner of Yanping's walls.

"Disembark! Watch the perimeter!"

"First squad, up that way! Second squad, south! Third squad—with me!"

The boats that filled the river scattered according to plan and began the landing. I made for the safety of the far bank. Fang Guozhen went ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ashore with the first wave to throw a bridgehead up south of Yanping, and Huindungi, with the naval gunners, would build his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠battery where that bridgehead stood.

"Well then. Shall we begin? Get the field guns ashore at once! We build the battery here!"

"Yes, my lord!"

I could hardly stand by and only watch.