Fa Zheng (1)
A strategist, huh...
Watching the man and woman before her carry on in easy, unhurried conversation, oblivious to everything else, Ma Chao felt her insides churn with displeasure.
"Lingming. Have you ever heard the name Fa Zheng? Is she really that famous?"
Having long since made peace with Pang De and grown reasonably close to her, Ma Chao now tossed out the question casually, using her courtesy name without ceremony.
"Well... from listening to the two of them talk, I could gather nothing beyond the fact that she is the daughter of some renowned scholar. Beyond that, I honestly couldn't say."
Pang De answered with a puzzled tilt of her head.
Fa Zheng was the daughter of Fa Yan, once a high-ranking official at the imperial court, and the granddaughter of Fa Zhen. Her grandfather had been a pillar of the Han court's Clear Stream Faction in his day, a man whose renown was such that he was honored with the title Master Xuande. Considering that Fa Zheng would one day go on to serve as the strategist of Liu Bei — Liu Xuande himself — the shared name carried a rather wry irony.
Of course, Han Yeong knew every one of these fine details and all of Fa Zheng's future deeds besides, but there was no earthly way Ma Chao and Pang De could have known any of it. From where the two women stood, the whole scene looked like nothing more than Han Yeong lavishing favor on the daughter of a distinguished house who had suffered at the hands of bandits.
"Isn't she a complete nobody? I know we're short on civil officials, but does he really have to fawn like that?"
Ma Chao aired her grievance, glaring at the cozy exchange between Han Yeong and Fa Zheng. Even so, the reason she held back — why she didn't flare up and put a stop to it the way she had with Pang De — was that the image of Han Yeong, buried alive in work and worn down by it, was still painfully fresh in her mind.
Even she had only pitched in for a short while, and hadn't her head nearly boiled over from it?
That civil officials were needed in Xiliang — a land teeming with her father and other commanders of the saddle — was something even Ma Chao, no great scholar herself, understood perfectly well. But understanding it in her head did nothing to cool the slow fire smoldering in her heart.
"Let's put our faith in our lord."
"You don't look any happier about it than I am, though..."
"...No, I suppose I don't. So long as her abilities remain unproven, trust is not something I can simply give."
Pang De, too, had caught herself subtly scowling at the sight of Han Yeong courting Fa Zheng. Special treatment, granted for no reason other than that the woman was a scholar. For Pang De — newly sworn into Han Sui's army as she was — it was impossible not to rankle.
Ma Chao turned around to Yan Xing, who had been trailing behind them in silence.
"What do you think, Uncle?"
"You're both quite right that we can't extend our trust without first testing her abilities. And yet..."
"And yet what? What is it?"
Impatient as ever, Ma Chao pressed him for the rest.
"You know the Young Master's temperament, don't you?"
Yan Xing's eyes, fixed on Han Yeong's back, gleamed with unwavering conviction. Long before Ma Chao and Han Yeong had met and become childhood friends, he had served as Han Yeong's personal guard, watching from closer than anyone as the boy changed Xiliang, piece by piece.
Xiliang was a land that might as well have been wasteland — ground given over to war far more than to crops, and it was no exaggeration to say so. The people who lived there endured hellish lives at the mercy of the Qiang tribes, and Yan Xing had known it full well. He had simply never tried to change any of it. He had decided that no one man's strength could, made his peace with reality, and given up.
That very Xiliang was what Han Yeong had been changing, little by little, since childhood. Lowering taxes and relieving the starving went without saying; he had dreamed up improvements to practical tools like the stirrups fitted to a saddle, easing his soldiers' lot however he could. And he had a warm heart besides — he had even looked after Yan Xing's own aged mother, left alone in the world.
Time and again, Yan Xing had watched those tireless efforts put smiles on the people's faces. He could not bring himself to believe that a man like that was doing any of this merely because a pretty face had turned his head.
He still addressed Han Yeong as "Young Master," as befitted a man in Han Sui's service — but the day Han Yeong stepped out into the wider world, Yan Xing intended to follow him as his lord. Such was the faith he placed in Han Yeong: nothing less than absolute.
"The Young Master never lifts a finger for nothing. That Fa Zheng woman is bound to have something special about her."
"Really? Well, if you say so..."
With that firm answer from Yan Xing — one of the most senior men in the camp, and one of the few who truly understood Han Yeong — Ma Chao withdrew, half convinced, half not. Pang De likewise let her furrowed brow smooth out at his words, and quietly kept watch.
Looks like Yan Xing talked them around nicely.
Their voices were pitched too low for me to catch the words, but whatever he had said, it took some of the wind out of Ma Chao's and Pang De's sails.
In fairness, even to my own eyes I must have looked a bit ridiculous. Hovering over her, hanging on her every word, striking up conversation again and again — all to land a single strategist...
And had I simply raised her to high office with no deeds to her name, it would have amounted to what my old world called a "parachute appointment." In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, hadn't Guan Yu and Zhang Fei likewise grumbled nonstop at the sight of Liu Bei holding Zhuge Liang in such reverence — right up until they saw her abilities for themselves?
Favoritism this blatant could easily deepen the resentment and friction among the officers under one's command, but Yan Xing had stepped in and smoothed things over before they could fester.
By the time I surfaced from my conversation with Fa Zheng, we had come to a stretch of mountain country.
"There it is."
We arrived just as the setting sun was bleeding red across the sky, and Fa Zheng pointed out the dwelling where the bandits made their home.
"Yep. Looks every inch the bandit lair."
Burly men with villainous faces stood guard at the stronghold's entrance. Perhaps it betrayed the nature of their trade — in any case, there wasn't a shred of military discipline to be seen, and the sentries slouched lazily at their posts.
Fa Zheng looked down on them with frost in her eyes and went on.
"The man who leads them is one called Song Yang."
"Song Yang? I feel like I've heard that name somewhere."
While I was racking my memory for who he might be, Pang De leaned in close and supplied the answer.
"He commanded the defense of Wuwei Commandery for the rebels. When Beigong Boyu lost the war, he fled, taking his inner circle with him."
...Ah, now that she mentioned it — there had been word of a few rats slipping away when we took Wuwei Commandery. I had received a report that remnant rebel forces escaped during the occupation, but buried in work up to my neck, I'd let it slip my mind entirely.
I had put out warrants for the escapees soon enough, and had been wondering why they were never caught. Apparently, the moment they realized there was a price on their heads, they had upped and moved their hunting grounds to Yong Province, right next door.
...So then, is this one on us?
I shot a slightly tremulous glance at the possessor of that vindictive streak of hers — the kind that repays every debt in full, down to the smallest — but she showed no particular sign of minding.
"It isn't your fault, Lord Han Yeong. If anything, the fault lies with those wretches, too rotten in the head to come to their senses even after a defeat as miserable as theirs."
The same Fa Zheng who was so demure in her manner toward me let a certain boldness bleed into her voice the moment she began cursing the bandits.
So that's her real personality, is it?
Gazing up at the bandits' stronghold — the lair of the very enemies who had abducted her father — I took note of how starkly her blunt, cutting tongue had emerged. Even the official histories recorded Fa Zheng as clumsy in the art of getting along with people, quick-tempered to a striking degree, and unafraid to speak her mind. It was why her disposition — what she loved, what she revered — never sat well with Zhuge Liang's upright devotion to their lord, and the two could hardly be called close; and yet they had worked hand in hand, all for the sake of the master they both served, Liu Bei.
"Do you have a method in mind for dealing with them?"
I asked out of sheer curiosity, wondering what the woman hailed as a genius strategist had in mind.
"I have turned it over from every angle... though first, might I ask what Your Lordship intends to do with them?"
"Subjugate them, every last one, naturally."
They were, after all, the very culprits who — Beigong Boyu's equals in infamy — had reduced Wuwei Commandery and the whole of Liang Province to a shambles. Pardoning the sins of trash like that and letting them live would have been the truly strange thing to do.
"But my father is held prisoner there, so however many peerless warriors we may count at our side, a head-on assault is out of the question."
She had a point. When it came down to it, we had come here partly to put down Song Yang and his band, but the greatest reason of all was to rescue Fa Zheng's father, Fa Yan. Even with Ma Chao and Pang De on hand, if we barged in without a plan and started swinging, it would all be over the moment one of the bandits seized a hostage.
"You're right. Saving your father comes first."
"Thank you. And that being said — I do have an idea."
Having thanked me for putting the hostage's life first, Fa Zheng drew from her sleeve what looked like a map.
"What's that?"
"A map marking the rough layout of that stronghold."
Sketched across it in brisk strokes were the hostage's location and the whereabouts of the plundered valuables, along with finer detail besides — the main hall where the chief lodged, and the outbuildings where his men were quartered.
"Oh, my. You are thorough."
"Taking revenge on trash calls for proper preparation. It's only natural."
"..."
This girl's true colors are showing more and more, aren't they?
The apologetic expression Fa Zheng had worn back when she was begging for my help was quietly dissolving from my memory. ...I had better watch what I say around her. One careless remark and I might well end up bleeding for it. With that in mind, I resolved to mind my tongue — and not to get too familiar with Fa Zheng.
"Then — since it will be dark before long, shall we wait a little and then carry out a night raid?"
The sun had gone down and the light was thinning; linger a little longer and pitch darkness would swallow the mountain whole. Politely, I put it to her whether we should go with the most efficient option on the table — a night raid. With prisoners on the enemy's side, I judged it the most effective method we had.
"No. That, we must not do."
Fa Zheng shot the idea down on the spot.
"Song Yang has packed the buildings close together in anticipation of precisely that. What is more, he keeps guards posted where my father is confined as well. One misstep, and we would be the ones seized as hostages."
Whether they had bound him in place believing him a man of importance, I couldn't say — but the watch around Fa Yan was every bit as airtight. The sentries rotated in relays, holding a wall-tight posture that would make infiltration difficult for anyone.
"And bandits or no, you would do well to account for the fact that they outnumber us roughly seven to one."
"Then what course of action would you recommend?"
At my question, Fa Zheng let her gaze sweep over those gathered around us.
"By any chance — are there among us a few who are handy with a bow and skilled in horsemanship?"
So she went on, drawing out each of our commanders' strengths and weaknesses one question at a time, and began to assemble a concrete plan of action.