The Battle of Changli
The letter’s sender was the Emperor. After stripping away all the flowery rhetoric and distilling it down to the essential information, the message was simple: my master had accomplished something truly remarkable, and I was being ordered to lead troops from Liaodong, strike the Yellow Turbans from behind while they were busy playing with fire in the heartlands.
“What do you intend to do, Governor?”
“What’s good about going?”
“You could earn merit, right?”
“So everything else is bad, huh?”
“…You still have to enter Luoyang, don’t you?”
“Would I really go?”
I wouldn’t. Of course not. Yeah…
Liaodong was a frontier among frontiers. Imperial authority barely reached it, and even the Inspector of You Province couldn’t be bothered to make the long, troublesome journey out here. Thanks to that, Liaodong had long enjoyed a level of autonomy that earned it the nickname “Liaodong Kingdom,” and its governor could rule it like a king. Besides, in these times when even high officials could lose their heads at the slightest misstep… going to Luoyang after earning merit would be more like a demotion than a promotion. Even I wouldn’t want to go.
“So you’re going to ignore it?”
“An official order has been issued to attack, so ignoring it completely would be difficult… How many troops can we actually mobilize right now?”
“Around a thousand. Fifty heavy cavalry, one hundred and twenty strongbowmen, eighty horse archers, and the rest are regular infantry. We could scrape together more if we really tried… but that would weaken border defense.”
For an era where armies of five hundred thousand or a million seemed to pop out of nowhere at the drop of a hat, it was a pitifully small number. Liaodong’s population wasn’t large, and there simply wasn’t much surplus agricultural production. On top of that, the only foreign power in the region had been Old Joseon, which Emperor Wu of Han had wiped out long ago. The only neighboring state left was Goguryeo, which had barely risen above being horse thieves. There was no need for a large standing army. Moreover, because it almost never rained here for most of the year, the land could only support dry-field farming, leaving no margin to maintain a large force.
“You’re going, right?”
“What? Me?”
“Why, is there a problem?”
“I’m newly married, you know.”
“You little shit, I was suppressing rebellions right after my own honeymoon. These days it’s peasant uprisings, but back in my time…”
And there it was. Again. Gongsun was a good man at heart, but he sure loved to talk. It took nearly an hour before the “Back in my day” stories finally ended, and I had no choice but to nod and say I would go myself.
---
“Sigh… What a life.”
“Why the long face?”
“Ah, brother. I’m a civil official, remember?”
“I’m a civil official too, you idiot. What am I, the chief of staff? I left my newlywed life behind to come out here with the army, and you’re complaining?”
“Brother, just look at your body and then talk! How is that the body of a civil official? That’s the reincarnation of Xiang Yu!”
There weren’t many generals in Liaodong. Partly because there weren’t many people to begin with, and partly because this place was so remote that sending anyone from the Clean Stream faction who had fallen out of favor in the capital would almost guarantee they’d grow into a warlord. The Dirty Stream faction? Would someone who bought their office with money even accept a posting in this remote border where tax revenue was negligible? If such a person existed, wouldn’t the Yellow Turbans have erupted here instead?
In the end, the only ones fit for command were myself—with my decent physique—Jeon Hae, the civil official who had served under me, and Chu Dan, a native of Liaodong. The three of us were leading our forces across Bohai Bay and into You Province.
“Hey, Jeon Hae.”
“…Yes, brother.”
“You see that?”
Near the horizon, a hazy cloud of sand dust was rising. In this region, especially now that winter was approaching, there was no chance of a natural sandstorm. That had to be dust kicked up by a large group of people.
“Boys, it’s about time to get ready.”
We still had some distance. We couldn’t tell yet whether they were heading toward us or moving in the opposite direction, but there was a world of difference between meeting an enemy without any intention of fighting and meeting one fully prepared for battle.
One heavy cavalryman galloped over the hill leading a spare horse. The strongbowmen began grunting as they drew their bows. The infantry unslung the large shields from their backs and started forming ranks. The cavalry drew their bows and gripped the reins together with them.
Each second felt like a year. Even though these soldiers had leveled up by beating down nomads, most of them had never faced more than a few hundred horse bandits at once. It was natural for them to be nervous.
“Hoo…”
“Nervous?”
“N-no, sir!”
“Relax. Just do what you were taught. Remember that if the guy next to you dies, you die too. And if you die, the guy next to you dies. Keep only that in mind and hold out until the end. I’ll take care of the rest. Just endure. You trust me, right?”
“…Yes!”
Good eyes. Honestly, from the perspective of the people of Liaodong, this battle held no real justification. The country might be in danger, but Liaodong had always been treated more like a foreign land than part of Han. Patriotism didn’t just sprout naturally in such a place. The absolute amount of tax the central government expected was small, and the Liaodong governor himself had no interest in earning merit to advance into the capital, which helped maintain some public sentiment. Asking people like that to help because the Central Plains were in crisis… well, it felt about the same as Koreans being sent to fight in the Vietnam War. They had volunteered because they were told they’d get paid if they performed well—enough to put a few measures of rice on their family’s table.
That was why I couldn’t treat these men as disposable. If they were abandoned even once, their loyalty would collapse, and some of them would wrap yellow cloths around their heads and happily join the glorious revolution.
“Hold the line no matter what. Even if I die, I’ll be the first to go. If I fall, don’t look back—just run.”
At the very least, I had to make them believe the ground they stood on was one step back from a cliff. They had to feel safe as long as I was still alive.
“Here they come.”
The youngest of the scouts was galloping back.
“Brother! Brother! It’s me! Don’t shoot!”
“What is it!”
“It’s the army of the Inspector of You Province! They’ve been cut in half and are in a dangerous situation! We need to support them right away!”
What the hell is this bullshit… The Inspector should be a commander with full military authority. Getting his waist cut by mere Yellow Turbans? What kind of idiot is he? Wait… are they even on our side?
Most revolutions tended to happen in a haze of “Huh? Huhhh?” The Yellow Turbans didn’t show particularly organic or organized movement. Since the report had come from Liaodong, the most remote of remote regions, I couldn’t be one hundred percent certain, but I could at least believe the information that most of them were nothing more than four hundred zerglings mindlessly clicking attack-move toward Luoyang. There might be a few hero zerglings or raptor variants among them, but the vast majority of the millions of Yellow Turbans were just zerglings. The idea that they could cut the waist of a properly organized government army and gain a tactical advantage was simply impossible.
So it was probably more realistic to assume that horse-bandit-origin Yellow Turbans—those raptor variants—were running wild. But even then, for the Inspector’s actual army to get its waist cut? What was this, a proto-Tang army? Or a proto-Zhang Xueliang’s Fengtian clique? A rebel resistance?
“Goddammit, let’s go! The young masters from Luoyang are in danger!”
I had no idea. Fuck.
---
“Haa… Goddammit.”
Liu Bei could not accept the current situation. It had been good to rise up as a righteous volunteer leader to suppress the Yellow Turbans. Although her force numbered only about five hundred, the fifty elite soldiers personally trained by her senior disciple Gongsun Zan had drilled them thoroughly. She had believed that would be more than enough to sweep away mere bandit rabble, and in reality it had been.
At a glance the Yellow Turbans had clearly exceeded ten thousand, but in a proper clash her army would win. The so-called “invincible” Yellow Turbans had been swept away like autumn leaves in the wind. She had personally slain Zheng Yuanji, the leader of the You Province Yellow Turbans, and pursued the remnants eastward.
Behind her was the army of Inspector of You Province Liu Yu. The plan had been to link up with her senior disciple’s forces advancing westward along Bohai Bay and crush the enemy together. But her plan had been beautifully twisted.
The government troops, who had never received proper training, couldn’t even endure a march of a few hundred li and began to fall apart. Hong Geoliang, who had taken over after Zheng Yuanji, launched another reckless all-out charge at that weak point. It was an indiscriminate assault that could hardly be called strategy, but numbers were violence. Even though dozens of Yellow Turbans had already fallen for every one of her soldiers, hundreds and thousands more still remained behind them.
The one fortunate thing was that a scout had apparently broken through the enemy horde—meaning her senior disciple’s army must be nearby—and confirmed their situation before returning. The unfortunate thing was that since the scout had only just come and gone, it would still be quite some time before the main force could arrive.
“Our scout just came through! Reinforcements will be here soon! Just hold on a little longer!”
The one advantage they had was that thanks to the dozens of horses received from Su Shuang and Zhang Shiping, they at least possessed a small cavalry force. The disadvantage was that those same dozens of horses were already exhausted.
“Are the Yellow Turbans pulling my friends out of the fields? Why do they never end?!”
Among the three sworn sisters, the youngest—Zhang Fei—was spinning her spear, which was three times taller than her petite frame, and cutting down Yellow Turbans one after another. But she was clearly tiring; her speed had slowed considerably compared to when she had first begun.
“Aaaagh, I’m cut!”
“You bastards! Aaaagh!”
Screams, screams, screams, screams. They were warriors who could fight a hundred enemies alone, yet one by one the cries of the wounded began to rise.
— BOOM!
And then came the sound of thunder.
Dozens of Yellow Turbans were blown apart.
---
Fuck… This is going to be a pain in the ass. Why the hell are you here?
Liu Bei, you idiot… Weren’t you supposed to rack up a monstrous body count against the Yellow Turbans all by yourself and become a major warlord? You were the budding tyrant who would eventually divide the Central Plains into three and devour them all. Not some nameless civil official like me.
How can you be struggling here of all places?
Because I had unconsciously thrown a padrip at Cao Cao, I ended up using one of the precious Jincheonroe (shrapnel grenade version) I had made over several years by secretly scavenging neighborhood furnaces. I had only managed to produce ten of the damn things. They were insanely valuable.
Confirming that everyone’s attention had been drawn by the explosion of a gunpowder weapon a thousand years ahead of its time, I knew exactly what I had to do.
In a battlefield where both sides possessed only cold weapons, the only thing that mattered was whether morale broke or not.
Once my thoughts were organized, I dismounted. It was an act that threw away tactical advantage, but my greatest infamy had not been built on horseback. To instill the greatest terror in them, I had to get down.
I took the axe hanging from the saddle in one hand. In the other I held a dagger. Then I untied my bound hair and let it loose.
Fortunately, I had stopped on a hill, so every single one of them could see me clearly. Even though it had been several years, any bandits among them would never be able to forget this sight.
“I am Gongsun Zan, a man of You Province.”
The appearance of the human butcher who had skinned every bandit roaming the regions of Runan, Chen, Chenliu, Henei, Guangping, Julu, and Zhongshan.
---
The battlefield froze. Everyone felt it.
A single stone had been thrown, followed by a bolt from the blue that swept away dozens of Yellow Turbans. Then a demon descended from the hilltop.
Although he had gone to Liaodong, it was a name that had been heard everywhere just a few years ago.
“They say he eats people.”
“They say blades can’t even pierce his body.”
The rumors from that time had swollen to the point that he was already treated as a monster rather than a man. The bandits who had been active since “that time” held fairly high positions even among the Yellow Turbans. The rank-and-file soldiers saw the terror in their leaders’ eyes and were infected by vague dread.
Fear by nature comes from the unknown. They didn’t know exactly what Gongsun Zan could do or what he had done, but if even their mighty “boss” was trembling like that, then there was nothing a mere foot soldier like themselves could do. They fell into that delusion.
Logically, if the tens of thousands of Yellow Turbans charged him after he had given up the absolute advantage of horseback, Gongsun Zan could not possibly win. Yet the Yellow Turbans, crushed by the terror carried by those three syllables of his name, could not process that obvious fact in their brains.
“What are you all doing?”
“S-surrender!”
“Surrender! Surrender!!!”
“U… Uwaaaaaaaa!!!!”
Several of the leaders threw down their weapons and immediately dropped to their knees. Others turned and began to flee. The giant man who had called himself Gongsun Zan raised his hand and pointed at them. The cavalry behind him immediately spurred their horses, caught up to the fugitives, and brought axes and spearheads down on their backs.
The infantry that soon arrived advanced slowly with unified footsteps. Above them, the strongbowmen’s heavy arrows began to rain down like a steel storm.
A single man’s name had halted tens of thousands of Yellow Turbans.
It was both the beginning and the end of the Battle of Changliao (Bohai Bay).