The Battle of Didao (1)
We arrived at Didao with an army of fifty thousand.
Unlike Liangzhou, this land lay adjacent to Yongzhou, and beyond the open plains scattered mountains broke the horizon — fine ground for an ambush. We were still pitching our camp a good distance from Dong Zhuo's army when an awkward problem reared its head.
And that problem was...
"...So? What exactly are you two doing here?"
The wholly unexpected turn of events had set my head throbbing. Narrowing my eyes into a glare, I looked down at the little white-blond punks standing before me.
"We've both completed our coming-of-age rites, so we're more than qualified to take the battlefield!!"
"We want to help Father and Big Sister — and you too, Big Brother!!"
Kneeling stiffly at attention and shouting with every ounce of boldness they possessed, the pair were Ma Xiu and Ma Tie — Ma Chao's younger brothers. Unlike Ma Chao, who had turned into a woman, the two of them had never swapped genders and remained male. As for why they were here at all, the answer was simple enough: they had stowed away aboard the supply wagons and followed us in secret, only to be discovered by the soldiers while we were sorting through our stores to establish camp.
They had played with me constantly ever since my childhood days with Ma Chao, so they too called me "Big Brother" and doted on me accordingly.
Hold on — these two are older than Ma Dai? They've already come of age?
Ma Dai, whom I had been planning to recruit, hadn't even reached that milestone yet, and I found it genuinely astonishing that Ma Xiu and Ma Tie had crossed it and tagged along in her stead.
"Why are you two somewhere this dangerous?! Get back to your mother's side, right now!!"
Ma Chao, standing at my side, erupted at the sight of her younger brothers — weaker than she was — recklessly trailing an army onto a battlefield.
"But, Big Sister!! How can we just stand and watch while our own family fights?!"
"That's right!! What kind of person sits on their hands while their family gets thrown into a living hell?"
Well, in the original history, the one who threw her own family into that hell and let them all die is standing right in front of you, but...
Whack!!
"Aaagh!!"
The very person I had just been thinking of rapped her fists across the heads of her two brothers, who had been shouting away without a shred of fear.
"Cut the chatter and go home! You two are far too weak!!"
"...They didn't seem that weak to me."
"Stay out of this, old man!!"
Brushing off Yan Xing's attempt to quietly take the Ma brothers' side, Ma Chao tried once more to send them packing.
The Ma brothers were no match for Ma Chao, but they outclassed most ordinary officers. Fighting as a pair, they could give even Yan Xing a genuine workout — and true to Ma Teng's blood in their veins, their martial skill alone put most warlord-born commanders to shame. Honestly speaking, either one of them alone could trounce me without breaking a sweat.
...I suppose that's only natural?
"When I was your age, bandits didn't even dare meet my eyes!! But you two can't catch ten of them on your own!!"
Like someone possessed by the spirit of a cranky old-timer, Ma Chao lectured her brothers at length.
...Isn't that just because you're absurdly strong?
Her standard for what counted as "strong" seemed to have gone crooked somewhere.
Ma Xiu pleaded his case with his whole face, but Ma Chao turned him down time and again — until at last, as if he would resort to his final weapon, he shot to his feet with a clenched fist.
"...If you won't grant us permission, then I'm going to reveal, right here and now, the secret you're so desperate to keep hidden, Big Sis."
Ma Xiu's whole demeanor shifted — and his form of address dropped from the reverent "Big Sister" to a pointed "Sis."
"Ha! What secret could I possibly have? You've got me curious now!"
As if she hadn't a thing to feel guilty about, Ma Chao snorted, hoisted her chin high, and dared him to go ahead.
"When Big Sis is alone in her room—!!"
Whoosh!
The instant the words alone in her room reached her ears, Ma Chao's body flew across the distance like a loosed arrow, and her hand clamped over Ma Xiu's mouth.
"S-Shut uuuup!!"
It was a face I had never seen on her before. Utterly flustered, cheeks burning scarlet, Ma Chao squeezed so hard the veins stood out along the back of her hand as she sealed her brother's mouth shut for good.
"Then I'll tell them. Big Sis—!!"
Whoosh!! Ma Tie, who had tried to speak in his brother's place, was pinned silent by Ma Chao's other hand.
"What secret could be worth hiding like that? Do share it with the rest of us, won't you?"
"...I find myself rather curious as well."
Watching Ma Chao fly into such an unprecedented fluster, Fa Zheng and Pang De raised questions of their own, wondering what on earth this secret could be.
"Th-That's... absolutely not..."
At Ma Chao's voice, oddly dying away even as her face glowed red, I chimed in too.
"That's right — move those hands. Let's all find out together."
"...Shut it."
She could barely keep her squirming brothers — wordlessly begging her to free their mouths — pinned down, and now a torrent of questions demanding her secret was raining in from every direction. Ma Chao was on the verge of losing her mind.
After a moment of silence, she turned her head toward Ma Teng.
"...F-Father, could you just... give them your permission?"
"But Ma Xiu and Ma Tie..."
"Th-Then they can just stay and guard Han Yeong's side! That old man has to lead his own troops this time anyway!!"
"I am not an old man..."
Fa Zheng, unfamiliar with the pair's abilities, glanced my way.
"Those two. As officers, are their martial skills outstanding?"
"Either alone is no pushover, but from what I hear, even Yan Xing finds them a handful when they team up?"
"Then it would be best to entrust them with my lord's protection. I was already anxious — we're short on reliable people as it is."
Handing my security to warlord-born officers in Yan Xing's absence had always been too great a risk; it was a problem I had been racking my brains over for some time now.
I could probably take down two ordinary soldiers, given enough time... but around here, I get treated as a hopeless weakling.
And since the strategist Fa Zheng remained at my side, guarding me meant guarding her as well.
"Excellent. Here is what we'll do: you two shall take charge of my lord's protection. Surely you can grant at least that much, General?"
"...Very well. That much I can allow."
The moment Ma Chao released her hands, Ma Xiu and Ma Tie — still wilted under that crushing pressure — rubbed their jaws for a moment before their joy broke through, honest and unguarded.
"Thank you, Strategist!!"
"We will protect Big Brother, no matter what!!"
The Ma brothers beamed at Fa Zheng — the woman who had allowed them to join the campaign — with unconcealed admiration.
Ma Chao still found the idea of her brothers setting foot on a battlefield distasteful and unnerving, but in the end she turned away with a sigh, as though admitting defeat.
Yan Xing sidled quietly up to the delighted pair.
"So what is that girl's secret, anyway? You can't tell me?"
Yan Xing — who nursed a grudge over always being called "old man" — asked after her secret with naked curiosity, and since I was curious myself, I discreetly leaned an ear their way.
"Ah, well, you see..."
"You want that mouth of yours sewn shut!?"
But Ma Chao's lightning-fast intervention cut the reveal short.
One way or another, Ma Xiu and Ma Tie were formally entered into the army's rolls, assigned to guard my side in place of Yan Xing, who had troops of his own to lead.
And once the army's reorganization — the Ma brothers now included — was complete, three detachments slipped out of the camp deep in the night, as laid out in Fa Zheng's battle plan.
When the pitch-black night gave way to dawn, both camps burst into frantic motion. Dong Zhuo sought the annihilation of Han Sui's army — the force he accused of invading his territory and massacring his people — along with the lands of Liangzhou itself, while Han Sui's army meant to drive back the very enemy who had pinned those crimes on them, and dreamt of pushing into the Central Plains. With both sides aiming for nothing less than the other's outright destruction, war was simply unavoidable.
Today, on this ground, the fate of one power would be decided.
Brimming with ambitions as towering as they were grand, Dong Zhuo let his confidence burst forth in a booming laugh. In ordinary times he was the sort of commander who beat his men raw whenever his temper flared — yet also the sort who showered rewards on anyone who stroked his ego when his mood was good.
"Those frontier fools have brawn, but no brains. Not like me — I have a strategist like you, Li Ru."
"Your insight is impeccable as ever, my lord."
The only name among the enemy that carried any real weight was Ma Chao's — the girl who had ground the foreign tribes to pulp with overwhelming martial might. Beyond her they had no officers of renown, and a strategist? Less than none. Liangzhou's soldiers specialized in cavalry and did little else but crush their foes under sheer strength; set against the intricate tactics of the Central Plains, they were simplicity itself.
"An army of blockheads who know nothing but charging straight ahead? That's nothing to fear."
"Quite so, my lord. Once their vanguard is pinned in place, Li Jue and Guo Si strike the flanks — and you will annihilate them in short order."
Li Ru played to Dong Zhuo's mood from beginning to end, and the sweeter the flattery sounded, the higher his lord's spirits climbed.
"There, my lord! The enemy host comes into view — their formation is an Arrowhead Formation!!"
"Hmph. Mostly cavalry, as expected. And the formation, too, is precisely what I foresaw."
Everything was unfolding exactly as Li Ru had predicted. Han Sui's army clearly intended to sweep the enemy aside in a single stroke with an Arrowhead Formation spearheaded by Ma Chao, then drive straight for this position.
"Hahahaha!! Hua Xiong! Hu Zhen!!"
"Yes, my lord!!"
Dong Zhuo summoned his two loyal retainers, men whose valor was famed far and wide.
"Their vanguard will most likely be that whelp Ma Chao. Go, and bring me the head of the pup they call the Splendid Ma Chao of Xiliang!!"
"Yes, my lord!!"
Hua Xiong and Hu Zhen marched out at the head of the vanguard force to the thunder of war drums. Dong Zhuo had no doubt that men of such valor would return with Ma Chao's head long before Li Jue and Guo Si's forces ever found their opening on the flanks.
A shame, truly. I did so want to see with my own eyes that face they call the First Beauty of Xiliang...
He was a man as well, and helpless before a beauty — so in his heart he mourned never laying eyes on Ma Chao.
Before long, barely after the two vanguards had collided, a roar like rolling thunder erupted from outside.
"Urgent report, my lord!!"
A soldier came sprinting into the command tent.
"What is it?"
Only moments had passed since the vanguard forces clashed — and already a report was arriving. Dong Zhuo broke off his musing and turned to the man.
"M-My lord!! General Hu Zhen has fallen in battle to the enemy!!"
"Wh-What did you say?!"
Dong Zhuo's face twisted in shock, and even Li Ru went ashen — nothing in his reckoning had accounted for Hu Zhen's death.
"That pup they call the Splendid Ma Chao?"
Ma Chao's hair was as fine as silk and pure platinum gold — precisely that gleaming color had made her name ring far and wide. Even someone who had never seen her face could pick her out of ten thousand by hair color alone.
I made myself perfectly clear: on sight of the Splendid Ma Chao, you were not to engage her...
Li Ru concluded that Hu Zhen must have recklessly gone for Ma Chao's head and been struck down for his trouble.
But Hu Zhen's death had not unfolded the way Li Ru imagined.
"No, my lord!!"
"No...? Then who in blazes was it?!"
"The one leading the enemy vanguard was a woman, my lord — long black hair streaming loose, a crescent blade in hand! That warrior took General Hu Zhen's head with a single stroke!!"
"...Not the Splendid Ma Chao?"
With the very first clash of the campaign already veering from his expectations, Dong Zhuo found the words catching in his throat, his expression contorting beyond all recognition.
"You mean to tell me there was another warrior out there, besides Ma Chao, who could take General Hu Zhen's head in a single stroke...?"
Li Ru, who had poured his every waking thought into devising tactics for his own army, likewise fell speechless at the revelation that Han Sui's ranks held a general every bit Ma Chao's equal.