Hulao Pass (6)
With Ma Chao and Zhang Fei assigned to keep Lu Bu pinned down, and Xu Huang tasked with halting the Bingzhou army's advance, Fa Zheng and I threw ourselves into directing the other lords of the vanguard and their troops toward the capture of Hulao Pass. If the pass fell and the pincer from east and west came together, this war would be as good as ours.
Some time ago, Fa Zheng had laid the groundwork for the pass's fall. She stripped the armor and banners from the soldiers of Ding Yuan's army who had surrendered after Sishui Pass, and disguised our own men as stragglers of a routed force. And with genuine Luoyang soldiers — defectors who had come over with Xu Rong back when we annihilated Ding Yuan's host at the capital — already serving under our banner, even the disguised men's distinctive accents would never come under suspicion.
A gate-fortress, by its nature, defends and strikes back when an enemy assails it — but when friendly forces appear, its gates inevitably swing wide. There was little fear of betrayal, either: the Luoyang troops had effectively been thrown away, left high and dry when Lu Bu fled that last battle with only the Bingzhou army while the rest were taken prisoner. Resentment was only natural, and I had promised them a lavish reward if the scheme succeeded.
Of course, survivors of Sishui Pass might well be suspected of being enemy plants, so when Yuan Shu and the other lords launched the first assault, I had ordered the infiltrators to aid Hulao's defenders with wholehearted devotion, to burn away any doubt. To deceive the enemy, first deceive your own — so the saying goes.
…Then again, "allies" was generous to begin with. These were people who begrudged, belittled, and schemed against you the moment you so much as accomplished anything.
Only that damned Yuan Shu, drunk on his family name, had the gall to belittle me and my mighty host to my face. Since the long road east to Guandong, I had met with the various lords to sort friend from foe for the battles ahead, and every last one of them had, in some veiled way, dismissed me — too young, or tainted by descent from a traitor of the past. The only ones who treated me with any real respect were Cao Cao, Yuan Shao, and perhaps Sun Jian. Though Cao Cao leaned a touch too friendly.
The lords of the coalition resented the thought of a frontier-born man like me piling up glory, and muttered that I fawned over Liu Xie behind their backs — hardly the sort to offer me a courteous hand. And even if they did, I'd be nothing but their sucker.
Worse, far from pressing close to the pass to fight a proper siege, they had charged in without so much as a council — no plan, no coordination — only to be mercilessly ravaged by the Bingzhou cavalry that roamed the field under Lu Bu's command and sent reeling in humiliating rout. The high spirits from the victory at Sishui Pass deflated for it; Clear Stream officials exposed on an open battlefield stood no chance against the battle-hardened Bingzhou army.
I gave the men I had planted inside Hulao their orders: I would raise a red flag as the signal, and on seeing it they were to answer and throw open the gates. Once Lu Bu was isolated, every enemy eye and every scrap of their attention would drift to her of its own accord — entirely feasible.
The moment Zhang Liao and Gao Shun crashed into Xu Huang's army in their bid to rescue the isolated Lu Bu, the contingents of Guan Yu, Cao Cao, and Bao Xin drove hard for the gates of Hulao — and Fa Zheng gave the order to raise the red flag. Up it went, and the impregnable gate of Hulao, an iron wall only moments before, swung open without a hitch at the hands of the infiltrators. Our army poured through and began seizing the pass.
Everything had gone according to plan. The surprise was that Ma Chao and Zhang Fei — for whom merely draining Lu Bu's strength and holding her in place would have been plenty — had actually beaten her.
So she was a bubble all along, without Red Hare?
Considering the martial brilliance she had shown when she bested Ma Chao, the fall had come off startlingly hollow. But between Yuan Shu's intervention and Zhang Liao's desperate charge, we failed to take the wounded Lu Bu's head.
"…That son of a bitch Yuan Shu…"
Xun Zheng's sudden charge had thrown the whole battlefield into chaos, and I muttered irritably as I surveyed the mess. I had expected nothing less — it was why I'd asked Yuan Shao, our alliance leader, to order the lords defeated in the last battle confined to quarters. And that one had simply blown the request off entirely.
I had prepared for it with Yuan Shu's jealousy in mind — that temper of his that couldn't stomach another's success — but evidently I had thought wrong. Alliance leader or no, a daughter of the great Runan Yuan clan, bathed in that house's formidable prestige, apparently felt no need to heed military orders from a man of low birth.
…No — wait. Isn't this actually an opportunity?
To any observer, Yuan Shu's army had just barged in uninvited and scattered ash over a meal that was already served. One of Yuan Shu's officers had led his troops barreling into the melee, and Zhang Fei and Ma Chao had lost their chance to take Lu Bu captive.
Zhang Liao and Lu Bu are already gone, though… Suppose I use this as grounds to convene a military tribunal and drive the execution of that thorn in my side, Yuan Shu?
Granted, shielded by that cursed family's four-generations-three-excellencies pedigree and the Yuan clan's web of connections, the golden-spoon honey-guzzler enjoyed the support of countless people — cutting him down by military law looked difficult. But the blunder was colossal enough to make the attempt worth trying. He had borne a great share of the blame for letting Lu Bu escape; would it not be stranger to let that pass? At the very least, he would answer for something.
It wasn't the plan, but now that she had fled like that, Lu Bu would have to be left to Xun You's scheme. Even if it came to nothing, with Hulao Pass fallen, Ding Yuan's defeat was certain.
Which means, first things first — I need to take those ones prisoner.
Xu Huang, locked in combat with Gao Shun as the man fought tooth and nail to buy Lu Bu's escape, faltered for a breath before the fury of the Trapped Camp — then rallied, and began pressing harder with every exchange.
"Pang De."
"Yes, my lord."
I called for Pang De, who stood at my side guarding His Highness the Prince of Fufeng.
"Go reinforce Xu Huang, and bring me the officers and soldiers over there as prisoners."
"Then… who will guard His Highness the Prince of Fufeng…?"
"Nothing will happen in the short while you're gone. I'll be issuing orders to the soldiers, so don't worry — go, and come back quickly."
At my words, Pang De bowed her head, then mounted her beloved white horse and raced for the point where Gao Shun and Xu Huang collided. As she closed the distance — perhaps because she meant to finish this quickly and return to my side — she bent her bow, and the arrow she loosed flew straight for Gao Shun as he struggled against Xu Huang's ranks.
Thwang—!!
The arrow tore through the wall of air with a vicious hiss.
THUNK!!
"…Gahk!!"
Gao Shun — commanding the Trapped Camp with effortless mastery, offering up a tenacious resistance against Xu Huang's host — took Pang De's arrow, spilled from his saddle, and was finally taken prisoner.
…Xu Rong before him, and now Gao Shun — both brought down by Pang De's arrows.
Coincidence, of course.
"This can't be…."
Hulao Pass — that fortress gifted by heaven — was burning, its great gates flung wide open.
Could it have been… those soldiers from back then?
The men who had fled the rout at Sishui Pass and taken refuge in Hulao came to mind. At first they had been kept under watch, but when the vanguard lords came, the men had thrown themselves into fighting them with defiant fervor — and their Luoyang origins were beyond question, so the vigilance around them had been allowed to lapse.
…Were they waiting for this very moment?
Zhang Liao bit her lip, her expression contorting.
There is no time to retake Hulao.
Defeat was bitter enough, but Lu Bu lay unconscious, her stab wounds and puncture injuries grievous. A single arrow wound was a serious matter even for a general — and Lu Bu had been carved up by a spear on top of it….
"General Zhang Liao!!"
"What are we to do?!"
"…I will take the van myself. All of you, follow behind me."
With Hulao Pass in enemy hands, they had to fall back swiftly to Xinzheng, put the army in order, and rally it. Fortunately, though the mountains around Hulao were too rugged for a great host to slip through, wartime kept messengers riding to and fro, and there were any number of hidden paths by which a small force could escape. It was no encirclement — the enemy was even now fighting to secure the gates and walls — so if they threw everything into breaking out, swift as a single arrow in flight, they could just barely make it.
Besides, to stay was to be caught: Ma Chao and Zhang Fei would finish dealing with the officers and soldiers at their rear and come hunting them. Zhang Liao bound Lu Bu — knocked out cold by her own fist — fast with binding cloth, took up the Sky-Piercing Halberd in one hand and her own Azure Dragon halberds in the other, and the general who would one day annihilate the kingdom of Wu's hundred-thousand-strong army with a mere eight hundred slapped the saddle and shot off like the wind.
Dudududu—!!
Shredding the soldiers who pressed in on them, Zhang Liao and the handful of troops who followed her broke free before the coalition could close a ring around them, then rode day and night without rest and narrowly made good their escape to Xinzheng. But of the thirty thousand who had held Hulao, no more than a few dozen survived at Zhang Liao's back. With Gao Shun and Wei Xu among the core officers taken captive, it was a nightmarish, utter rout for Lu Bu's army — an army that had never once known defeat in Bingzhou.
Having received something from Xun You in Luoyang, Wei Yue and Cheng Lian had whipped their horses toward Hulao Pass day and night without rest — only to rein in hard at the sight of black smoke.
"Hulao Pass… it's fallen!! Are we a step too late!?"
"…Are our lady and the other officers safe?"
"For now, we ride for Xinzheng. She said that if Hulao ever fell, she would regroup and reform the army there…."
They wheeled their horses toward Xinzheng. Tucked against Wei Yue's chest was the neatly folded bamboo slip Xun You had entrusted to him — to be placed in Lu Bu's hands without fail.
When she reads this, our lady had best not fall into despair…
Wei Yue knew the gist of what was written — Xun You had told him in rough outline — and he worried what it might do to her. For what the slip recorded was decisive proof that the loyalty she had chosen, casting aside honor and the people to keep faith with Ding Yuan, was an empty thing. A cruel truth for Lu Bu to face — defeated at Hulao, her body gravely wounded and her pride with it.