The Anti-Dong Zhuo Alliance (5)
The battle was completely one-sided. It was inevitable. The gates stood wide open, reinforcements had been severed, and the commanders remained trapped atop the walls. There was simply no way to face heavy cavalry clad in horse armor and plate cuirasses without a proper formation, and trying to stop the charge of those armored riders swinging cavalry axes and sabers was pure fantasy. The weapons relied on the sheer momentum of the galloping horses for their killing power; no real swing was even necessary. They harvested soldiers’ heads as easily as reaping wheat, and the enemy’s morale collapsed in the blink of an eye.
“Run!”
“Uwaaaagh!”
“Crossbows! Fire the heavy crossbows!”
BOOM!
“Aaaargh!”
The deafening roar and concussive pressure of exploding gunpowder could induce shell shock even in a modern soldier who had grown numb to it. For the soldiers of this era, to whom the very concept of an explosion was utterly alien, the shock delivered by these bombs was nothing short of apocalyptic.
I remembered the protagonists in those light novels the troops used to read, the ones who introduced guns to their new worlds. Sure, guns had their uses, but from the perspective of someone who had lived through the post-World-War meat grinders where millions of men were thrown at each other, firearms were surprisingly low on visual brutality. Unless you were hunting monsters or facing off against some absurdly powerful individual, guns just didn’t offer good cost-effectiveness. Now, if I could make a machine gun… that would change the conversation. But there was no way I could manufacture something that complex. So instead, I relied on these crude explosives. Their sheer visual impact was far more useful.
“Die, you pathetic worms!”
I hurled another lit Jincheonroe. The moment the soldiers realized the rock was actually going to explode, their hastily formed ranks disintegrated on their own. If they had stayed tightly packed with true resolve, the bombs wouldn’t have done much damage. But once panic set in and they broke formation themselves, they became nothing but fodder for the heavy cavalry.
“You bastard! Governor Han Fu already told me the truth! How dare you plot rebellion and then cower behind children like some frightened little girl! Do I need to drag you out by the scalp before you understand the weight of your crimes?”
Blood pounded in my head. The battle’s frenzy had swallowed me whole as I tore across the field. My condition was excellent. The two thousand cavalrymen still had plenty of fight left; in fact, they could keep rampaging for a long while yet.
“You bastard! Because of you, young men have to die in your place! I know there’s no set order to who goes first in this world, but throwing away young lives just because you don’t want to die yourself—what kind of twisted law is that?”
“S-spare me!”
“You’re dying for the greed of old men! There’s no such thing as a more pathetic death! Hahaha!”
I trampled the last hopes of the panicked infantry and used their hysteria to shatter what remained of their broken lines. By the time the sun slipped behind the western wall, not a single armed soldier remained on the field.
---
“Colonel! Ji Province has fallen into Baigyu’s hands!”
At Hulao Pass near Luoyang, where Yuan Shao was preparing for a decisive clash with Dong Zhuo, the sudden report from the messenger left him stunned.
“What?! That can’t be. Baigyu has no greed for land!”
Yuan Shao knew this fact all too well. That was precisely why he had been cultivating ties with Governor Han Fu, maneuvering to be named his successor. He had secured the loyalty of those under the governor, stirred up public sentiment by cloaking political violence in the previous governor’s name. Once the campaign against Dong Zhuo ended, removing Han Fu by associating him with the tyrant would have been simple. The justification for Yuan Shao himself to become the next Governor of Ji would have followed naturally.
So why? Why would that country bumpkin who had seemed content ruling the remote borderlands of Liaodong suddenly attack Ji Province? It made no logical sense. The pieces simply refused to fit.
“Shen Pei, do you know what’s going on here?”
“That… well…”
“Shen Pei?”
It was a loyalty contest…
Shen Pei’s reaction alone was enough for Yuan Shao to piece together the situation. His subordinates had always been divided by their regional origins and by which senior Clean Stream scholar they followed. They competed desperately to catch his eye. Under normal circumstances it wouldn’t have been a problem, but most of his senior officers had left with him to join the punitive expedition against Dong Zhuo. With no high-ranking overseer left behind, it was obvious the inexperienced old fossils would grow impatient. They had clearly tried some clumsy trick to seize Ji Province and had been caught in the act.
“Under no circumstances must one man control both Ji and You Provinces.”
“I am sorry.”
“Liu Bian was taken by Dong Zhuo, and Liu Xie has been taken by Gongsun Zan. What do you propose we do about this?”
“I am… sorry.”
“I’m not asking for an apology. I’m telling you to come up with the next plan. What exactly must I do to become the hegemon of the world?”
“…How about striking Gongsun Zan? The Governor of Ji was, after all, an official personally appointed by His Majesty. The moral high ground lies with us.”
“Gongsun Zan’s military talent is real. Even the training our own troops are currently undergoing is based on the military manual he wrote while serving as Colonel of the Left. The Ji Province army was no rabble, yet he crushed them. To fight the Liaodong army that defeated them, we would need to finish off Dong Zhuo first, heal our wounds, and only then consider it.”
By then the Liaodong army would only be stronger. Yuan Shao deliberately left that last thought unspoken. Shen Pei, however, easily read the words he had swallowed.
“Call Shunshen. We need to redraw our grand strategy.”
“Just one more chance… No, I apologize.”
“Tsk. Now that I think about it, that fellow Liu Xuande went to see our friend Cao Cao claiming he was Gongsun Zan’s subordinate… Where is he now?”
“He should be with Colonel Mengde right now, attacking Hulao Pass.”
“Haa… Leave me. Send a messenger to that friend Liu Xuande and tell him I wish to see him.”
“…Understood.”
Shen Pei bowed deeply and withdrew from Yuan Shao’s quarters. Once alone, the gentle smile on Yuan Shao’s face twisted hideously.
“Ugh… Uwaaaaaaaaah! Uwaaaaaaaaagh! Damn it! Damn you, Gongsun Zan! You rotten bastard!”
They had once been friends, yet the man constantly tripped him up. He had killed Yan Liang—practically his right arm—while stopping the Mengjin Ferry incident, and now he had snatched Ji Province, the very backyard Yuan Shao had been preparing to claim.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
No matter how skilled Yuan Shao had become at wearing masks and hiding his true self, he could not maintain his composure when his plans had been ruined to this extent.
“I’ll kill you. I will definitely kill you, Gongsun Zan! I’ll make you pay the full price for opposing Yuan Shao! I’ll kill you, chew your intestines to shreds, and swallow them!”
---
At the same moment, Liu Bei, who had been preparing to face Lu Bu at Hulao Pass, felt an icy shiver race down her spine.
“…?!”
She had certainly heard of the fearsome reputation of Lu Bu, the valiant defender of Hulao Pass. His martial prowess had been proven the previous day when he brutally cut down three of their generals. Yet compared to the bloodthirsty, perfectly honed swordsmanship her elder brother Gongsun Zan had displayed, she had thought Lu Bu was manageable. As dawn approached and the time for the duel drew near, she had already told Cao Cao that the three sworn sisters would take on Lu Bu themselves. But now her instincts—the same instincts that had always kept her alive—were screaming at her to flee.
“What’s wrong, Sister?”
“Woo-ya, Bi-ya… we need to run.”
“Sister?! Why are you suddenly saying that?”
“My gut feeling is bad. Dong Zhuo… joining him was simply a path I chose for future advancement. Lord Wenjie agreed to look after His Majesty, so there was no need to worry about what came after. If we waited a few more days, my brother would arrive. This was a rare chance to raise my own name.”
“You know all that, so why are you suddenly talking about running away?”
“My senses are warning me.”
“Your senses…?”
“Sister’s instincts are usually reliable… Let’s do as she says. But convincing the soldiers will be difficult, won’t it?”
“They weren’t our troops anyway; they belonged to Ji Province. If we explain the situation, Colonel Mengde should be able to handle them well.”
“I was a little excited because they said that Lu Bu fellow was so strong… but it seems we have no choice.”
“I’m sorry… but staying here feels genuinely dangerous. I’ll go report to Lord Mengde first. Start packing our things.”
“Tsk… Fine, I guess. I was curious what the greatest Hulao bastard who had switched fathers three times looked like, but I suppose I’ll have to satisfy my curiosity later—”
“Is this the place where they abandoned our liege and ran off to fight?”
The white horse with a faint golden sheen was so enormous that even the Red Hare Lu Bu rode looked small by comparison. The silver horse armor draped over its body gleamed like dragon scales in the sunlight, and the bluish cuirass made the already massive figure appear even more menacing. The face was hidden behind a mask, but the sleeveless hemp robe worn over the armor marked him as a soldier of Liaodong. And among the Liaodong troops, there was only one person she knew who wielded such a ridiculously oversized axe.
The man slowly approached with thousands of heavy cavalrymen, iron balls clinking at his waist. Her sworn brother. Her martial arts instructor. The true ruler of Liaodong.
Gongsun Zan.
“B-Brother… that is… um… so…”
“Lucky you, huh? Our Prince of Bohai nearly died from a summer cold, yet here you are playing nursemaid and getting all itchy for a fight?”
He lifted his face mask. The refined features that seemed so mismatched with his demonic, murderous physique were now twisted into an expression that finally suited the body.
“I can explain everything! No, I will explain! Please… just let me explain!”
“Governor Han Fu couldn’t even control his own subordinates, so rebellion broke out. Then he took a dying old man suffering from a cold and tried to stabilize Ji Province. I basically became the guy who wipes your ass for you, didn’t I?”
“Brother… please…”
“Shut up and pack your bags. I’ll deal with your punishment once we reach Ji Province.”
“…”
“That bastard Yuan Benchu had already marked Ji Province as his own. Since I swallowed it whole, whether we like it or not, we’ll have to fight him. You love fighting, right? This time you can have your fill.”
“You’re going to fight Colonel Yuan…? But isn’t he also a loyal subject of Han?”
“Woo-ya! Please… let’s just do what Brother says…”
“Sister, I’m sorry, but some things need to be clarified. Colonel Gongsun, are you perhaps planning to rebel against the Han Dynasty?”
Gongsun Zan removed his helmet. He swept back his sweat-soaked, glistening hair, let out a long sigh, and looked Guan Yu straight in the eye.
“How could that bastard Yuan Shao be a loyal subject of Han? He was the one who released the Black Mountain bandits at Mengjin Ferry.”
Liu Bei’s army was serving as guest generals under Cao Cao’s forces, so quite a few of Cao Cao’s subordinates were present. The bombshell Gongsun Zan had just dropped was enough to seize everyone’s full attention.
“W-wait, wait a moment, Colonel Gongsun. What did you just say?”
“And who the hell are you?”
“I am Cao Hong of Yan Province. I followed Brother Mengde as vanguard in the campaign against Dong Zhuo and am currently assisting Lord Liu… Anyway, is what you just said true?”
“The leader of the Black Mountain bandits was Yan Liang. I took his head myself and sent it. I didn’t expose the rest because it seemed Yuan Shao was plotting something, but there’s no way a bastard acting like that could be a loyal subject. Right?”
“…May I report this to Brother Mengde?”
“Do as you wish. Liu Bei and I are leaving this place anyway.”
“You can’t! At dawn, Lord Liu is scheduled to duel the valiant defender of Hulao Pass, Lu Bu. If the general who promised the duel runs away, it will severely damage morale.”
“Haa… Bi-ya, is that true?”
“…Yes, Eldest Brother. We promised to fight the valiant defender this time.”
Gongsun Zan always looked at Zhang Fei with complicated eyes. The rage-twisted expression softened slightly, and as always, he reached out to stroke her hair.
“Haa… You two pack your things. Gao Balgi will take the duel instead.”
“It’s Gao Balgi!”
“Shut up, Go Balgi. Watch the situation, throw a Jincheonroe when needed, then run immediately. You’re several times better than me on horseback, so you’re confident, right?”
“That Lu Bu fellow is quite… hmm… Tsk, fine. I’ll give it a try.”