Scouting for Talent (2)
The journey to Sili.
It was the first time since being born as Han Sui's son in Liangzhou that I had set out for another region, so my heart was fluttering with a certain excitement.
Part of it was that most of the major events of the Three Kingdoms era were unfolding in the Central Plains, but honestly, shedding the suffocating paperwork and getting some fresh air on an inspection tour felt wonderfully refreshing.
"Don't move!!"
"Heh heh. Leave the money and the women behind, and we'll let you keep your lives."
Bandits showed up and spoiled the mood, though.
Well, I had expected a swarm of them to appear eventually. No matter how much you strengthened security, these vermin were like cockroaches—impossible to exterminate completely, and their morale never stayed broken for long.
Especially in a poor region like Liangzhou, that went double.
The foreign-born bandits, black cloths wound around their heads, threatened us with leering grins spread across their faces. With about thirty of our escort cavalry against their fifty, they had evidently judged the odds worth taking.
More than anything, Ma Chao and Pang De's appearance had caught their eyes. Even at the risk of a fight, they meant to take what they wanted—the vulgar hunger was plain in their gaze.
I had thought I'd been fairly thorough in cracking down on molesters within the territories I governed, but seeing these foreign rabble strut about renewed my resolve.
I need to sort out the other regions soon too.
Even in the original history, after the government's authority weakened, warlords rose up in this land, and though the imperial army repelled them again and again, they rose anew each time until the campaigns ended in failure. Liangzhou was the land where forces defying the central court ran rampant.
Until the Guanzhong generals joined forces to campaign against Cao Cao, Liangzhou was a land with no master at all, entirely beyond the court's reach.
No wonder, in the Romance, Emperor Xian—little more than Cao Cao's puppet—had rewarded the Liangzhou warlords for their suppression campaigns. It was compensation for governing a land the court itself could not touch.
"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue? Huh?!"
When I stayed silent, the foreigners took it for fear and kept flapping their gums.
"...Ha, perfect timing, actually. My body's been feeling stiff."
Ma Chao, whose only exercise on the road had been sparring with Pang De, flashed a wide grin and strode toward them.
"Hey, pretty girl. Ditch that stick of a man and come play with us—"
Thwock!
Before the words had even finished leaving the foreigner's mouth, Ma Chao's spear shot out like a ray of light and punched clean through his chest.
"GAAAAGH—!!"
As the agony of the piercing drove through his brain, the man let out a death rattle of a scream.
"Tch. Couldn't even dodge that? I can tell what you lot are worth now."
Ma Chao seized the spear shaft as the man clawed at it in a desperate struggle, then simply tossed him aside.
She had swung with one hand alone, yet the monstrous strength sent the foreigner hurtling sideways through the air. He crashed down off his horse, his head striking the earth, and went limp.
"Y-you bitch!!"
"Do you want to die?!!"
Drawing their blades in a panicked rush, they postured and threatened like third-rate villains straight out of a storybook—prey thrashing in desperation before a predator. Ma Chao, realizing her opponents were mere rabble, felt no stirring of excitement at all.
Her jade-green eyes had gone flat and cold, regarding the swarm as one might watch a nest of insects.
"You're boring me. Come at me already. I don't even need help for the likes of you."
As she spun her spear, one of the foreigners studied her hair and eye color closely, then seemed to realize something. His face went white and he began to tremble.
"W-wait... the Golden... of Liangzhou..."
CRACK!!
But before he could finish, Ma Chao's spear swung around and smashed the man's skull.
"Huh. More and more people are finally starting to recognize me."
Ma Chao expressed pure, unvarnished delight that her fame was spreading.
"AAAH!! Charge all at once!!"
The foreigners, seeing their comrades fall, rushed in as one—but they were no match for Ma Chao. Every time her spear swept through the air, they tumbled like autumn leaves before a gale.
At the same moment, Pang De, Yan Xing, and part of the escort joined the fray, and the battle tipped entirely to our side in an instant—a crushing rout. Especially when Pang De's crescent blade and Ma Chao's spear flashed, a good number of hardened, scar-faced Qiang warriors were mowed down without any chance to resist.
Thus the foreigners who had charged in so confidently were subdued in no time at all.
"That was nothing!!"
Perhaps clearing out the bandits had refreshed her head, for Ma Chao wore a satisfied expression, her mood bright and cheerful.
Watching them get dispatched with such effortless ease, I made a proposal of my own.
"While we're at it, why don't we pass through some of the bandits' usual haunts and draw out more of them?"
Once the absorbed troops finished reorganizing, a large-scale suppression campaign was planned anyway, so I figured thinning their numbers in advance couldn't hurt.
It was a suggestion made on the belief that Ma Chao and Pang De alone could easily handle a hundred men.
"Alright, I'm in!!"
Ma Chao, who loved raising her name ever higher, agreed without a moment's hesitation.
Pang De and Yan Xing agonized briefly over my safety before consenting, on the promise that we would flee at once if anything serious happened.
And so, for the rest of the journey to Sili, we deliberately traveled the main roads where the Qiang were likely to ambush travelers, and group after group came swarming out from all directions to attack. Each time, the generals at my side carved them up.
...So this is how Liu Bei felt?
I could finally understand a little of what Liu Bei must have felt, traveling with Guan Yu and Zhang Fei at either side. They weren't quite at that pair's level, but with generals who could hold their own against ten thousand men guarding me, it was as good as having an army of heavenly soldiers at my back.
We personally swept up the vermin who spewed sexual insults or plotted to kidnap me for ransom, and while we were at it, emptied their coin purses—then performed a good deed by dividing the spoils among the nearby villages. Seeing the common folk weep with gratitude warmed something in my chest.
Even if it wasn't really me who did anything.
At any rate, after several days of such adventures, we passed through Yong Province and arrived in Sili.
Upon arriving in Sili, we spent several days scouting for talent and eventually drifted into Fufeng Commandery.
To be precise, Fufeng was the territory that would later be transferred into Yong Province.
Yong Province was home to Chang'an, a great city that could rival Luoyang itself, and Fufeng as well was a considerably large and prosperous city. Merchants bustled back and forth through the streets, and vitality spilled from every corner—so much so that Dong Zhuo would later use the wealth he extorted from the people to build an enormous fortress here called Meiwo, nearly the size of Chang'an itself.
It'll all turn into a battlefield when Dong Zhuo's lackeys stage their rebellion later, but I'll make sure to stop that too.
Perhaps because of that, word of our search in Liangzhou had led us to learn that the Taixue—the institution of higher learning established by Emperor Wu of the Former Han—had a branch here as well.
"Young master! Let's go check over there!!"
"Yeah, we came all this way—let's have a look around! Huh? Just a peek~."
Faced with a city far more refined and prosperous than the sticks of Liangzhou, Ma Chao and Yan Xing kept pestering me to go sightseeing.
I very nearly caved to Ma Chao's aegyo, but I recalled our purpose and held firm.
"No. We came here for a reason, remember? That comes first."
"......Tch."
"Very well, sir."
Ma Chao and Yan Xing trailed behind me, shoulders slumped, dragging their feet.
We visited the Taixue and looked for renowned scholars, but nearly all the eminent scholars and academics had gone off to take up official posts. There were so few people around that I grabbed whoever I could and asked, only to learn that remnants of the rebellion in Yang Province were rampaging through the area, and most of the outstanding scholars were fleeing their homes.
Damn it all.
Could it be that because we'd been cracking down on security in Liangzhou, the trouble had flowed right into neighboring Yong Province? Is this how the snowball of altered history rolls?
The timing was terrible.
I did at least need personnel to handle civil administration, and after winnowing down the graduates at the Taixue, I secured permission to commission a few of them—but there was no one who could truly be called a name, the kind that the Romance of the Three Kingdoms made famous.
I'd at least expected to come away with Zhong Yao or Zhang Ji...
I looked into Jia Xu's whereabouts as well, only to hear that she had already left in search of a lord to serve. Following history as written, that lord was likely to be Dong Zhuo.
Damn it all... I wanted to bring her in before she reached Dong Zhuo.
"You're making quite the gloomy face."
Ma Chao, oblivious to what was weighing on me, asked breezily as she munched on food bought from the market stalls.
"I just didn't expect it to be this bad, that's all..."
"Don't worry!! Who needs strategists anyway?! I'll sweep them all away myself!!"
It was clearly meant as comfort, but her bold, roaring confidence only made me smile wryly inside.
That's exactly why I'm hunting for a strategist, you know.
No matter how outstanding Ma Chao's valor and martial prowess were, they'd be wasted without a head to deploy them properly against a great army. The generals of Liangzhou seemed to regard me—since I handled the civil administration—as their strategist, but I was merely a man who had come from the future, knew the flow of history, and imitated the achievements of those who came before.
Is there no strategist anywhere who could put military strategy and tactics to use where they're needed most?
"Help me—!!"
Just then, a young woman's voice pierced the air.
My companions' and my gazes snapped reflexively toward the source of the cry.
"I'm begging you!! Your father was once Governor of Yang Province, wasn't he?!"
A petite woman with green hair, apparently of our own generation, clung to a man's trouser leg, her face streaked with tears. Her eyes brimmed with desperation and sorrow.
The man's clothing was the more flamboyant of the two, but the woman didn't look especially poor either.
"A bandit horde made of foreigners has kidnapped my father! I wish to borrow your father's strength, so please—!!"
"Shut up!!"
Disgusted by the woman clinging to him and pleading so earnestly, the man shoved her roughly aside.
"Your father is on the Ten Attendants' blacklist!! Who knows when that fire might scorch me, and you refused their proposal too—why should I help you?!"
Shaking her off coldly, he shouted in a heated voice.
"Besides, I'm leaving soon to seek my fortune in a far-off post! Your father is your problem—save him yourself!"
With those callous words, the man disappeared into his own house, leaving the woman standing utterly alone at his gate.
"What kind of bastard even is that?"
Ma Chao showed open disgust at the man who had so heartlessly turned his back on a matter that wasn't his own, and everyone else felt the same.
"......"
My own conscience uneasy, I watched her for a moment before stepping forward to help her up.
From what she'd said, this woman too was a victim of the bandits descending from Liangzhou. As someone duty-bound to suppress those very bandits, I couldn't help feeling a pang of guilt.
"...Here."
"......?"
She had been so badly shaken that she was only murmuring something under her breath, and as I drew near, a chill crept from the words spilling from her lips.
"...I'll pay them back. I will pay it back. I'll pay it back a hundredfold, I swear I will..."
The murmured words were a vow of vengeance.
...What is this?
I couldn't tell whether they were meant for the bandits or for the man who had betrayed her, but the moment I unwittingly met her eyes—burning with a vicious, killing intent—I broke out in gooseflesh and froze solid, my hand still outstretched to help her up.