Talent Scouting (3)
I calmed the woman who had sunk down weeping in the street and brought her to the residence where we were lodging for the time being. I meant to hear, in detail, just how she was tangled up with the bandits.
This place was not under our jurisdiction, but we had been the ones charged with overseeing the peace of Xiliang, and the thought that remnants of the rebellion had drifted into the region and were doing harm to its people weighed on me. All the more so because this was the work of the stragglers I had failed to round up when I crushed the uprising in its earliest days.
"...I beg your pardon for my discourtesy."
Where moments ago she had made a display that sent a chill down my spine, she now bowed with perfect decorum and apologized. Studying her dress and the way she carried herself, I instinctively knew she was no ordinary person — a woman with pale-green hair and brown eyes that seemed, if anything, a shade too dark.
'...Hmm. No telling who she is just by looking.'
Most of the figures in the Three Kingdoms had been men, after all. When human siege engines like Ma Chao and fierce generals like Pang De were turning up as women, what hope did I have of guessing this stranger's identity? Ma Chao had been easy enough to place, with that golden hair of Qiang blood and her snow-white skin; but had Pang De never demonstrated her martial skill, I would never have identified her from her face alone.
Judging by her clothing, she was no soldier; she looked closer to a renowned scholar, or the daughter of some distinguished house. The only clue to her identity was how she had behaved before I raised her from the ground.
'Still — a civil official obsessed with revenge, of all things. I've seen that concept somewhere plenty of times before.'Could it be Wang Yi? ...No, the timing doesn't match. Strange — the memory refused to surface.
Ma Chao's face betrayed a flicker of displeasure at my meddlesome habit of hauling the woman back to our lodgings. But she, too, had fought the ferocious Qiang, and the plight of a woman whose father had been dragged off by bandits seemed to weigh on her as well, for she raised no objection.
"By the way — that man who shoved you aside just now. Who was he?" The word my lady sat awkwardly on my tongue, but I didn't know her name and no better form of address came to mind, so it would have to do.
"He was an old friend of mine. We have parted ways now, but..." The woman's expression turned somewhat hollow. Being cast off by a friend of so many years seemed to have struck her harder than she let on.
"Forgive me if this is presumptuous... but might I ask what passed between you?"
"Of course. And please, speak at your ease. You seem to be someone far above a mere commoner without office such as myself..." Drawing a deep breath to still her trembling, she began to lay the whole affair out, plainly and in order.
"My father held office in the imperial court."
'So she is an official's daughter, after all.' I had guessed as much from her bearing over the teacup; she had carried the unmistakable polish of a careful upbringing.
"A month ago, my father was driven from his post through the machinations of the Ten Attendants. He planned to return to our hometown to rest and recover."
"Don't tell me—"
"Yes. On the road home, he was ambushed by bandits." She clutched the hem of her skirt, fury she could not hide rising to the surface, and her eyes smoldered like a wick newly set alight.
"And so I turned for help to the father of an old friend, a man who had once served as Governor of Yangzhou. But he feared to aid my father, who had drawn the Ten Attendants' grudge — and made me another proposal instead."
Her story told, I was just opening my mouth to ask her name when Ma Chao spoke first.
"So what was this proposal?" Ma Chao cut straight into our conversation. You could call it rude, but they seemed to be of an age, and the woman did not appear to mind in the slightest.
"He said that since Father could not be saved regardless, I should sever ties with him — and that in exchange he would look after me, so I was to follow him off to some other region."
"Ugh, wow..."
"...How utterly despicable."
Ma Chao was revolted by the man's habit of dangling conditions over another's plea for aid, and Pang De's face curdled into open contempt. He had been decent-looking enough, that man — but the vileness of demanding that a daughter abandon her own father, an act of pure unfiliality, earned him nothing but scorn from the two of them.
"I knew him a long while, yet never once did I imagine he would tell me to abandon my own parents." The woman had rejected the mad proposal outright, and the man, it seemed, had fallen into a deep disappointment over it.
"But a man who has betrayed loyalty is no longer my friend. He is my enemy. Our Fa clan never forgets a kindness — or a grudge." Even as she said it, a ferocious anger lingered in her eyes like embers that refused to die.
But something else in her words, as she chewed over that rage, caught my attention. 'The Fa clan, you say?' The Fa clan of Fufeng Commandery in Sili — one of its great houses. It couldn't be...
"I know it is hardly proper to press such a favor upon you at a first meeting, but—"
"...One moment, my lady. Your name, if you would."
"...Ah — you're right. I have been terribly slow to introduce myself." Clasping her hands in a formal fist-and-palm salute, she presented herself with perfect courtesy. "My name is Fa Zheng. I am called Xiaozhi."
"......!!"
Here, in the last place I ever expected it, stood a talent worthy to be named alongside Cheng Yu and Guo Jia — the famed strategists of Cao Cao's camp.
"Then would you grant my reque—"
"I'll grant anything you ask. Come — we leave at once!!"
"......?" "......??" Fa Zheng and the others stared at my sudden about-face, suspicion deepening on every face.
It couldn't be helped. To get my hands on the master strategist standing before me, I was willing to agree to anything.
Before we had come to Fufeng, Fa Zheng had already sent discreet instructions through her household retainers to locate where the Qiang bandits were holed up. But the few private soldiers of the Fa household were hardly enough to pry her father free, and with her father marked by the Ten Attendants' disfavor, the local authorities proved of no help — or so she said.
The Qiang they had tracked down numbered close to two hundred, which meant troops would have to be brought in from Xiliang, and I was still wringing my hands over the problem — until Fa Zheng said she had a scheme, whereupon I led the escort force straight for the bandits' lair.
Ma Chao and the other officers of Xiliang could only tilt their heads at the sight of me volunteering help so abruptly, wondering what had come over me to make such a fuss.
And the reason for the fuss was simple enough. I knew her true worth from the histories.
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, he counts among its casualties — a strategist who, alongside Zhou Yu of Wu, had his exploits and prominence stolen away by Zhuge Liang.
In the true history, however — unlike the meager role he played in the Romance — he stood paired with Pang Tong as one of the greatest strategists of the age, leading Liu Bei's army through its golden era.
When Liu Bei entered Shu, Zhang Song, who had plotted the whole affair at his side, was already dead; yet Fa Zheng, devising stratagems alongside Pang Tong, lent enormous aid in seizing Yizhou — the land where Liu Bei would make his seat.
Even in the Hanzhong campaign — the open, all-out war between Liu Bei's and Cao Cao's armies — Zhuge Liang originally took no part in the fighting; of all his strategists, only Fa Zheng and Huang Quan marched with the army to shape its plans.
Acting in concert with Huang Zhong, he contributed mightily to the slaying of Xiahou Yuan — Cao Cao's fiercest general and a master of open-field warfare. And when Liu Bei, pressed at a disadvantage, flew into stubborn defiance and insisted on battling Cao Cao's host, Fa Zheng stepped out before his lord amid the storm of falling arrows and declared:
Hearing those words, Liu Bei — dreading the loss of Fa Zheng — swallowed his stubbornness and withdrew; and so Fa Zheng played the decisive role in closing out the Hanzhong campaign as Liu Bei's victory.
But Fa Zheng died young, at a mere forty-four, and with him the strength of Shu began to wither. In the catastrophe of Yiling — where Liu Bei carried off and burned away every talent who might one day have led Shu — Zhuge Liang lamented that had Fa Zheng lived, the disaster would never have come to pass.
So keen was the grief at his passing that the moment Fa Zheng died, Liu Bei conferred upon him the posthumous title of Yihou — "Wing of the King."
And yet, there were two reasons I had failed to recognize such a peerless talent standing right in front of me. The first, of course, was that Fa Zheng — a man in the histories — had been born a woman here. The other was that I had never dreamed of meeting her in Yongzhou of all places; I hadn't even considered recruiting Fa Zheng, figuring we would not cross paths until I set out on the conquest of Yizhou.
Besides, judging by her age — like Ma Chao, born ahead of the original history — she had already undergone her coming-of-age ceremony. Pang De, too, seemed older than her historical self; in this world, most figures appeared to arrive early, ahead of their time.
'Doesn't matter. All the better, in fact.' I had been tearing my hair out over the lack of a strategist; if Fa Zheng joined us, it would be a welcome beyond welcome.
The histories record Fa Zheng's temperament as proud and unbending, with an astonishingly long memory — kindness and grudge alike were never forgotten. He was said to chase a debt of gratitude to its very end to repay it, and to pursue an enemy every bit as relentlessly for his vengeance. It had been the sight of her earlier, nursing her revenge against the man who betrayed her, that stirred my hazy recollection of that character — though I could not place it with any certainty until she named her own family...
Which was to say: with a temperament like hers, bestow a kindness upon her, and the odds were more than fair that she would serve our army in return.
Running these calculations in my head all the while, I introduced myself to Fa Zheng and kept the conversation going.
"Forgive me — I failed to recognize you sooner, and for that I am ashamed. So you are Lord Han Yeong, son of General Han Sui, Administrator of Jincheng..."
"Think nothing of it. Surely the urgent matter is rescuing your father first, my lady."
"..."
Ma Chao, who had been watching my business smile from behind with open displeasure, wore an expression like a slammed door. Her mood was enough to make even Yan Xing shrink back a step. From where she stood, it must have looked as though I were courting Fa Zheng with abandon, angling to score points by any means necessary.
'...What can I do? Fa Zheng is exactly what our army needs.' If I ever hoped to claw my way out from under that mountain of work, there was no other choice.