The Summons (1)
It was the day after the banquet held to honor the officers and soldiers who had endured the hardships of the battlefield.
My father announced that he would withdraw from the front lines to look after the people of Liang Province and devote himself to holding back the foreign tribes pressing in from the north—and that he was entrusting every last authority to me.
At the sudden declaration, a few of the generals of warlord stock objected that I was far too young and refused to accept it, but my father had already hardened his resolve, and his decision did not budge.
Truthfully, I was every bit as stunned. I had assumed that inheriting command of our forces was a matter for the distant future—yet it had come about out of nowhere, without so much as a word of prior consultation.
When we met privately afterward, Father explained that he simply lacked the gifts of a ruler, and that was precisely why he was handing full authority to me.
It rang true. Even in the official histories and the Romance alike, Han Sui had never been the sort of man to stand at the head of a faction. In the days of rebellion he had propped up Beigong Boyu and Wang Guo as figureheads, and when the warlords of Guanzhong banded together to face Cao Cao, it was Ma Chao he raised up as their leader. He had always been a supporter—the power behind the throne—never the man out in front.
"Don't worry about me. As Governor of Jincheng, I intend to govern so well that you'll never have to spare a thought for the frontier tribes."
I tried to decline with all due courtesy, protesting that I still fell short in far too many ways to lead, but Father only said his mind was made up and he had no intention of taking it back. And just like that, the forces of Han Sui became the forces of Han Yeong.
"Isn't this actually for the better?"
"Precisely. Things run far more efficiently with you at the head, my lord."
Ma Chao, Pang De, Fa Zheng—the generals who followed me naturally threw their support behind my father's decision.
"You must have grand ambitions of your own, my lord—no doubt that's why he chose you. Ah, come to think of it, I suppose I should be calling you 'my lord' from now on instead of 'young master.'"
Yan Xing, who had commanded my personal guard, backed my father's decision as well. His formal absorption into my command came with the added flourish of a change in how he addressed me.
Nor was my father the only one stepping back from the field.
"Hahaha!! Well then, perhaps I ought to retire from the front lines myself, eh?"
"I—excuse me?!"
What on earth was this supposed to mean? My head was already spinning from everything else, and now Ma Teng of all people was announcing his own withdrawal from the field—I could hardly do anything but gape.
"I'm the Governor of Wuwei, am I not? If Wenyue means to hold Jincheng, then someone had best hold Wuwei too."
It wasn't wrong, exactly. A governorship did carry the duty of governing the city under one's charge.
"But General, you're still hale and hearty—isn't it far too early for you to step back from the field?"
"Don't you fret. If the day ever comes that you truly need me on a battlefield, send for me and I will take the field without hesitation. But if our families in Liang Province are to be kept safe, someone has to stay behind, no?"
With Ma Chao, Ma Tie, and even Ma Xiu all following in my wake, Ma Teng explained that he meant to take the field less often so that he could protect the family who remained behind.
"Please, worry not. I will remain at their side and look after Lord Han Sui and General Ma Teng both."
Cheng Gongying had chosen not to enter my command, remaining instead at my father's side to assist him. In the histories, too, when Cao Cao asked whether he had surrendered with a sincere heart, he had proudly declared that had his lord Han Sui not died, he would never have surrendered at all—and he proved as good as his word, bearing a loyalty as unbending as a plank of hardwood. Clever, a fine archer in his own right, and thoroughly capable, it was only natural that he aid my father.
After much agonizing, I chose to look on the bright side and accept the arrangement. Honestly, my head was a hopeless tangle, but if anything, this would leave me freer to move about and recruit talent of my own.
But there was one thing I had overlooked...
Thud!!
Along with that dull thump, an utterly mountainous heap of bamboo documents settled onto my desk.
"..."
What in the world is all this? This mountain of bamboo slips...
It turned out that becoming the official ruler of a faction had doubled my workload overnight. Ma Chao and Yan Xing had fled for their lives from the mountain of paperwork, and Pang De, newly saddled with weighty responsibilities of her own, could no longer lend me a hand. All I had left at my side were Fa Yan and Fa Zheng—and Fa Zheng, a specialist in battlefield stratagems, was still young, and perhaps for that very reason was nowhere near as adept at the political side of things.
I need another strategist to handle civil administration.
...I wonder when Jia Xu will finally make her way to me.
After the battle at Didao that decided supremacy over Liang Province, time had flowed past like a rushing stream, and half a year slipped by before I knew it.
Surprisingly, the Ten Attendants were unanimous in raising no objection to our clash with Dong Zhuo over Liang Province. In the first place, the authority of the regional governors had swollen so great that the central government had little power to interfere.
The news that reached us later held that Emperor Ling had sunk deep into illness and now hovered near death, and that the conflict between the Ten Attendants and He Jin had been driven to its extreme, their confrontation deepening by the day.
Half a year had lent me the seasoned bearing of a leader who officially commanded a faction of his own, and I marched my army into Yong Province to bring Dong Zhuo down. There was justice in it, to be sure—punishing Dong Zhuo and the whole Dong clan for the tyranny they had inflicted upon the people—but more practically, if I meant to move my armies when the Ten Attendants' rebellion broke out, I had to pacify my surroundings and settle affairs in advance. We had already slaughtered every core commander who might be called Dong Zhuo's arms and legs, but he had to be trampled before he could somehow pull his faction back together.
Thanks to Jia Xu's persuading, the powerful clans of Yong Province, unable to endure Dong Zhuo's misrule any longer, had come over to our side. Dong Zhuo sent his kinsmen and what officers remained to meet our assault. His relatives Dong Min and Dong Huang, carrying out his orders, forcibly conscripted soldiers the moment word of our approach arrived and marched out to face us. But with every veteran commander capable of leading an army and every core staff officer capable of plotting a campaign already gone, they had no hope of besting us in open battle.
"All forces, CHARGE!!"
As always, Ma Chao took the vanguard and hurled herself into the fight. Not a soul in Xiliang was ignorant of the name Splendid Ma Chao—the enemy soldiers broke into convulsions at the mere glimpse of that platinum-blond hair. She came galloping through their lines, spear whirling, and the forcibly conscripted soldiers dropped away in futility, a sight that suited the saying about autumn leaves swept off before the wind.
"AAAAAGH!! It's Ma Chao!!"
"Hiiiik!! Run!! Run for it!!"
The soldiers of the Dong army who witnessed the scene lost every scrap of their will to fight. Even the bold tribesmen and hardened troops of Liang Province had fled in terror at nothing more than the sight of her. At the mere flash of Ma Chao's golden hair streaming in the wind, the Dong soldiers' knees turned to water, and they ran as though fire were licking at their heels.
"Y-you bastards! Will you fight this instant or not!!"
Dong Min, Dong Zhuo's younger brother, harried the men fleeing from Ma Chao, swinging his sword and urging them to stand and fight. Having no stomach to face her himself, he vented his fury on his own soldiers instead.
"Then why don't you fight!!"
The moment Ma Chao laid eyes on Dong Min, she spurred Shalifei straight at him.
"H-hiiiik!!"
Unlike his brother, Dong Min had no talent for the martial arts whatsoever—he had whiled away a dissolute life leaning entirely on Dong Zhuo's name—and now, without even the thought of fighting, he threw down his very sword and ran.
It hardly helped that Hua Xiong, Li Jue, Guo Si, and the rest of the generals distinguished in strategy and valor had been ground to pieces at the battle of Didao, leaving nothing behind in the army but mediocrities. Colonels Wang Fang and Li Meng, who had once led Dong Zhuo's private retainer troops, had been promoted to general and given command, but theirs was a clumsy sort of leadership, and there was no chance in the world they could stem the triumphant advance of Han Yeong's army.
"Fight!! I said fight, damn you!!"
"...The enemy general stands right before your eyes. Where, pray, are you looking?"
"Wh-when did she...!!"
SHRAK!!
Pang De had stolen up without a sound to the side of Li Meng as he shouted his commands, and the instant her crescent blade came whistling around, his head went flying. Seeing Li Meng die before their very eyes, the officers and men of the Dong army plunged into chaos all over again.
"The forest!! Flee into the woods, where the cavalry can't bring their strength to bear!!"
At Dong Min's command, the infantry beat a collective retreat into the forest nearby. Woods inevitably blunted the speed and breaking power of a cavalry charge, so it might have passed for a shrewd bit of judgment—had Fa Zheng been the sort to miss such a thing. She was not.
"Now."
The moment Dong Min's army slipped into the forest, Fa Zheng gave the signal by changing the flags. At her word, red banners rose where black had flown, and a whistling arrow shrieked aloft, its shrill note ringing across the field. On cue, smoke came billowing up from the very wood into which Dong Min's men had retreated, and flame rippled out and took hold. Han Yeong's soldiers had loosed volley after volley of fire arrows at a forest long since prepared for exactly such a fire attack.
Struck full by the fire arrows and bathed in heat that seemed ready to sear the skin from their bones, Dong Min and his soldiers writhed in agony, clawing desperately for any way out.
"F-fire attack!!"
"Run—!!"
But any who fled the flames outward were met instead by the Xiliang cavalry, whose encirclement had long since closed around them.
"Sweep every last one of them away!!"
Ma Chao whirled her spear without mercy on the soldiers staggering half-blind out of the firestorm, cutting them down with swift, lithe strokes. Before them, the Xiliang cavalry; behind them, the forest devouring itself in roaring flame. For Dong Min's soldiers, caught fast between advance and retreat, whichever way they chose, only death lay at the end of it.
Ma Chao swung her spear and lopped the head from the fleeing Wang Fang. Dong Min went gray as ash at the sight of his subordinate's death, and Ma Chao, seeing it, hauled on her reins and bore down on him—within moments he was in her grasp. As an aside, Dong Min, much like his brother, was fat with rolls upon rolls of flesh.
"Hiiiik!! I-I surrender!! So p-please, I beg you, just spare my—"
"No need."
SHUNK!!
Dong Min had tried to grovel his way into surrender even as he threw his weapon down, but Ma Chao's merciless spear put an end to his life on the spot. Orders had been given to purge the entire Dong clan, sparing only the young children. Letting the children live was the work of the barest minimum of conscience. Someone watching might sneer and call it hypocrisy—but even so, the crimes belonged to the adults. Putting innocent little ones to the sword would have been pitiless, would it not?
"R-retreat!! Retreat, I say!!"
Dong Huang, watching from the rear as Dong Min was butchered so wretchedly, bellowed the order to withdraw the moment he saw it done, abandoning even the city and fleeing north toward Anding.
"D-damn it all...!!"
Dong Zhuo, who had developed a very real fear of Ma Chao in the last battle, had been observing from the rear astride Red Hare—and now he too bolted for Anding, where his family waited. Even with our encirclement closed, the absurd, cheat-like performance of that horse carried him clear once more. Fat as a pig he might be, but at wriggling out of pursuit he had no equal among rats—a veritable 'pig-rat,' through and through.
Still, Anding is the end of the road for Dong Zhuo's faction. Once we take that place, he'll have nowhere left to run.
Half a year of persuading the local magnates and waging war had delivered Longxi Commandery and Tianshui Commandery into our hands—and now Fufeng Commandery, the gateway to the Central Plains, had fallen under our control as well.
Feels as though I'm becoming a conquering warlord, spreading my domain wider and wider.
From the rear, under Yan Xing's protective guard, I watched the battle draw quietly to its victorious close, thinking to myself...
Whatever else, the road to the Central Plains stands open now.
I had hastened the pacification of my surroundings in anticipation of the Ten Attendants' rebellion, so all that remained was to stand by and wait for He Jin's summons. Father would watch over the Liang Province rear, so waiting here was all I needed to do.
With the Dong clan driven back to the outskirts of Anding, our army made its entry into Chang'an, the heart of Guanzhong.