Dong Zhuo (3)
The moment word arrived that Dong Zhuo had raised an army to strike at us, we quickened our pace and hastened with the army toward Jincheng.
Riding at the head of the column, I found myself turning over the pretext Dong Zhuo had seized upon to justify his mobilization. His justification was a charge: that we had led our troops into Longxi and massacred innocent civilians.
Had to be the work of that bastard standing beside the pig.
Dong Zhuo, brutal-tempered as he was, had never been a man who would march to war over a border incursion and the slaughter of commoners. This was the same bastard who, when the emperor was enthroned in Luoyang, had accused the commoners celebrating before his very eyes of celebrating without cause, branded them bandits, and put every last one of them to the sword. A man like that harboring any love for the people? Not in this lifetime.
According to Fa Zheng's prediction — her words, at least — he had most likely disguised his own private troops as bandits, butchered the civilians himself, and then flung the blame onto us.
So this is how I end up colliding with Dong Zhuo...
I had assumed that any war against Dong Zhuo would only come after the Ten Attendants' Incident — say, a clash on the road to Luoyang after answering He Jin's summons, or a fight after we entered the capital. What I had never anticipated was him manufacturing a casus belli against us by way of Song Qian, the traitor who had usurped the throne. After all, with the court's authority still lingering — however feebly — a war waged without justification could see him branded a rebel.
Which is exactly why I'd believed that while the Ten Attendants or He Jin still stood, regional officials would never war upon one another...
Grave as the emperor's condition was said to be, the Son of Heaven still sat squarely on his throne. The reason a provincial official could lead an army and act the warlord at all traced back to the counsel of a certain imperial clansman — and to the Yellow Turban Rebellion.
Liu Yan, courtesy name Junlang.
Father of Liu Zhang and governor of Yizhou — the man who, without ever meaning to, prepared the very land upon which Liu Bei would one day rise to become emperor. When the emperor's governance and moral suasion decayed until rebellion and banditry ran rampant on every side, he petitioned the court, arguing that the authority of the provincial governors must be strengthened. Emperor Ling accepted his counsel, and it is fair to say that this was what opened the Three Kingdoms era — an age in which warlords ruling their provinces ran wild.
Of course, Liu Yan had hardly spoken out of benevolence. Ambition was what moved him to make that petition. Besides, for the suppression of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the eunuchs had likewise bolstered the regional officials, making it possible for them to exercise command on their own authority.
And yet the vicious wars the warlords of the world waged upon one another only truly began after the coalition against Dong Zhuo, when the emperor was swapped out and the central government's authority withered away. Until then, the empire's strength had gone toward crushing popular uprisings and revolts like the Yellow Turbans, and at most it ended with the pacification of warlords who raised their banners in revolt.
Which was why I never dreamed a pretext for war would be manufactured like this. At the sheer unexpectedness of it, fury came boiling up from my gut.
"...Goddamn pig."
"What are you cursing about all of a sudden?"
Startled by the oath that had slipped out of me, Ma Chao turned and stared.
"It's nothing."
"Dong Zhuo, huh... That guy. Isn't he the general famous for his archery?"
"That's him."
Every so often Ma Chao took a keen interest in the renowned generals of the realm and had gone around ferreting out stories about them. In the early days of the Three Kingdoms, Dong Zhuo was not quite the equal of Gongsun Zan or Sun Jian, but he was a general with a reputation all his own. A mastery of the bow that flowed as easily from his left hand as his right. The crushing strength born of that towering presence and hulking frame.
In the Romance, his villainy had somewhat diluted his image as a warrior, but Dong Zhuo's martial rating in the games was never set high for nothing. The novels may never have given him a scene to show off his skill, yet one need only look at how he lifted Lu Bu's Sky-Piercing Halberd — a weapon an ordinary man could barely heft — in a single hand and hurled it, to grasp the monstrous power in him. For most factions, an uncomfortable man to face head-on, to say the least...
...No. If anything, this may have worked out in our favor.
Dong Zhuo had never won distinction in honest service; his rank rested on bribery alone, and so his military strength and following stood shrunken beside the official history or the Romance. On top of that, his clash with Ding Yuan had not yet come to pass — which meant Lu Bu, Zhang Liao, Gao Shun, and the rest of the Eight Elite Cavalrymen were still beyond his reach. Xu Rong, who in the official history shattered the armies of Cao Cao and Sun Jian, had — as far as I knew — drifted naturally under Dong Zhuo's banner only after He Jin's death, when Dong Zhuo absorbed his troops, so the odds were good that he wasn't with him now.
That said, they were far stronger than the rebel host Beigong Boyu had led, and no underestimation was possible. Among Dong Zhuo's commanders, the only names that rang out for valor would be Hua Xiong and the Four Robbers.
Hua Xiong was a case of a man with scant presence in the official history being recast in the Romance as a warrior of exceptional martial skill — the one who drove back Sun Jian, whose name thundered as the Tiger of Jiangdong, and went on to fell general after general of the grand coalition the warlords of the world had assembled. ...Though in the end, he was little more than a sacrificial lamb raised up to make Guan Yu shine.
As for the Four Robbers, they were Dong Zhuo's commanders Li Jue, Guo Si, Zhang Ji, and Fan Chou. Seeing them bound under a single name, one might expect some deeper significance — in truth, there was nothing much to it. Four robbers who built their notoriety as commanders, joined Dong Zhuo's tyranny, and made a habit of cruelty and lawlessness.
Li Jue and Guo Si especially — the pair who destroyed Dong Zhuo and then turned on each other, plunging everything into an uproar — look like nobodies if all you read is the Romance, but in the official history they were generals of genuine military talent. It's true their political ability was nonexistent, enough to ignite the Chaos of the Three Fubu and turn the Longxi region into a shambles. And yet Guo Si, though beaten in his one-on-one duel with Lu Bu, had made that duel with Lu Bu happen at all, and he was an able commander who had savaged the Qiang tribes. Li Jue was every bit as capable — alongside Guo Si he defeated Lu Bu's army and beat back Ma Teng and Han Sui.
Seen one way, they too were victims of the Romance. The sorry losers you thought you knew turned out to be sorry losers who happened to be good at fighting, that's all? Of course, measured against Cao Ren — a general sent down from Heaven himself, remade into a vending machine for victory points and a punching bag — or Zhou Yu, whose importance was gutted by Zhao Yun, a killing machine that exists only in the Romance, this pair had gotten off comparatively lightly.
Beyond them, a considerable number of additional generals served under Dong Zhuo. Even the sheer difference in the count of commanders leading troops was overwhelming. I couldn't decide whether we ought to count ourselves fortunate that we would fight him before he acquired Lu Bu and the others to close the qualitative gap.
What nagged at me most were Li Ru and Jia Xu...
If you were asked to name Dong Zhuo's chief strategists, those two would be mentioned without fail. Jia Xu was uncertain, perhaps — but Li Ru was Dong Zhuo's son-in-law, so he was guaranteed to be at his side.
"Honestly... we punish a traitor, and now our own territory comes under attack. It's maddening. I'm starting to wonder whether we even serve the same country."
"So this is what they mean by an age of chaos."
At Yan Xing's grievance, I nodded along in agreement.
"Han Yeong."
"...?"
Just then, Ma Chao, riding at my side, called my name.
"Dong Zhuo's army has plenty of strong generals, doesn't it?"
"...It does."
Lu Bu's presence, appearing at the Battle of Hulao Pass as the centerpiece of Dong Zhuo's forces, had simply been that overwhelming — that was all. The quality of his other generals was decent, no better. Setting aside Ma Chao, Pang De, and Yan Xing, the majority of Dong Zhuo's generals would likely prove superior to the rest of our own commanders.
"Still, don't you dare get cowed!! You've got me, don't you?!"
Ma Chao — whose name had of late been on every tongue as far as the Central Plains, after her campaigns against the foreign tribes — let her confidence show. Not yet twenty, she brimmed over with youthful fire, and yet that confident bearing of hers was so reassuring that I found myself wearing a quiet smile, the tension knotted in my chest loosening just a little.
Yes — it was true they had generals aplenty, from fierce ones to valorous ones. But our army had the valiant commander who shook the world: the Five Tiger General, Splendid Ma Chao.
What was there to fear?
"Young Master! So you've arrived!!"
A few days later, when we came with the army to Yuzhong County, the seat of Jincheng Commandery, Chenggong Ying — who had received word of our approach — came running out to greet us.
"This way, please. My lord is waiting for you."
I nodded and followed his guidance into the government offices.
"They say Dong Zhuo has raised an army. How do our forces stand?"
"We have proclaimed a wartime footing and are gathering every soldier across Yongzhou into one place. We've won over the local magnates and secured provisions, and the Xiliang cavalry — still in the middle of its training — is being mustered in full as well."
The Xiliang cavalry. An elite force of light cavalry with no rival on the open plain. The superb mobility of their mounts, horsemanship drills built around the stirrups, and a recruitment drive carried out under conciliatory policies toward the foreign tribes — above all else, the unit boasted peerless breaking power. One could even boast it a match for the White Horse Volunteers, the horse-archer corps under Gongsun Zan's command.
Truthfully, I'd have liked to clad their horses in barding like the cataphracts of Goguryeo...
The Xiliang horses were so hardy and strong that I had put the idea forward, certain they would move well even under full armor — but regrettably, the proposal was struck down for want of iron. There wasn't even enough to forge weapons and farm tools as it was, they told me. Where would any be spared for horses?
"General Ma Teng and Chief Clerk Fa Yan are waiting as well."
At the news that their fathers had already arrived, Ma Chao and Fa Zheng's eyes widened a touch.
"Come along in, you two."
Father spread his arms wide in welcome the moment we arrived.
"No sooner do we punish a traitor than war breaks out... I'm ashamed to show my face."
At his shamefaced words, I would hear none of it.
"...This is no fault of yours, Father."
We had merely been caught in a snare laid by the treacherous Dong Zhuo. No one in that room bore any blame.
"How is Dong Zhuo's army organized?"
"By our scouts' account, eighty thousand strong. Roughly half are cavalry, with the remainder arrayed as infantry and archers."
Fa Yan answered Fa Zheng's question.
"...Then how far have they advanced by now?"
"They finished assembling their forces at Tianshui a few days ago and have only just set out. Within days, they'll reach the vicinity of Longxi."
Longxi...
Unlike Jincheng or Wuwei, where open plain stretched nearly everywhere, Longxi was broken up by mountains, forests, and other features of the land scattered throughout — cavalry could well walk into an ambush, so caution was called for. But we, for our part, held the advantage of turning that same terrain against them.
Just as the council was about to resume, someone knocked at the door and stepped into the chamber.
"What is it?"
"General! An envoy has arrived from Dong Zhuo's army!!"
"...What did you say? An envoy?"
At the word envoy, a shadow of war began to steal across every face in the room.