Subjugating the Rebels (1)
I threw myself into persuading Father, dwelling on Pang De's superb martial skill — proven when she fought Ma Chao to a standstill — and laying out her circumstances in desperate detail, until at last I succeeded in bringing her into our army, at least for the time being.
Ma Chao, all the while, kept insisting from the sidelines that one more exchange would have decided the duel in her favor, though knowing Pang De's prowess, no one could say for certain.
Father mulled it over for a moment — taking in a stranger was no small matter — but when I begged him in earnest, he finally relented.
To me the answer had been obvious from the start. Pang De was the great general who stood beside Ma Chao as one of the twin pillars of Liangzhou; turning her away would have been the strange thing to do.
"...Well, that girl's not half bad, I guess. Can't be helped, then."
Ma Chao, so sure of her own victory until now, must have inwardly acknowledged her opponent's skill after all — she nodded along, showing no particular displeasure at marching to war beside her.
If anything, having recognized Pang De's martial talent, she was already making it plain that she wanted a rematch someday.
Watching Pang De ride along in perfect calm amid soldiers still buzzing from the duel between two heroines, I found myself recalling her exploits from the story of the Three Kingdoms.
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Pang De marches at Ma Chao's side, supporting him with cool, level judgment — yet his true worth only reveals itself after the two part ways.
Ma Chao, then sheltering under Zhang Lu of Hanzhong, accepted Liu Zhang's plea for aid and moved to fight Liu Bei, who was reaching out to claim Shu.
But at the time Pang De was lying ill in Hanzhong, and once Zhuge Liang's schemes and Li Hui's persuasion brought Ma Chao under Liu Bei's banner, he found himself with nowhere left to go and entered Zhang Lu's service.
Later, when Cao Cao invaded Hanzhong at the head of a great army, Pang De marched out to meet him and traded blows with the likes of Xiahou Yuan and Xu Chu — counted among the mightiest generals in Cao Cao's camp — in duels as even as they were ferocious.
Cao Cao, the incorrigible talent-glutton, had his eyes stolen by that dazzling display of valor; he bribed Yang Song, a man serving under Zhang Lu, and drove a wedge between lord and general with a few whispered slanders.
If Yang Song's scheming won Ma Chao for the army of Shu, then it won Pang De for the army of Wei.
Afterward, desperate to shake off Zhang Lu's suspicion, Pang De threw himself recklessly into battle to earn merit, was captured by Cao Cao, and at last surrendered to his persuasion, becoming a general of Wei.
Once among the Wei ranks he piled up merit in a string of minor engagements — and even went on to fight Guan Yu of all people to a creditable standstill. Though where the official histories have his arrow strike Guan Yu's forehead, the romance softens it to a hit on the shoulder, and it is Yu Jin who calls off the battle, green with envy that Pang De might steal the glory.
Unlike the drama of the Fancheng campaign, the official histories record no scene of him crossing blades with fierce generals like Xu Chu back in Hanzhong — but they hold plenty of passages that speak to the man's valor.
During Cao Cao's northern campaign against Hebei, he called upon Zhong Yao to strike down the armies of the Yuan brothers, Yuan Shang and Yuan Tan, and Zhong Yao answered the summons, marching out at the head of the Guanzhong generals.
In that battle, Pang De rode at Zhong Yao's side and personally took the head of Guo Yuan — a general of the Yuan clan whom even Cao Cao's own officers had struggled to handle.
As an aside, Guo Yuan was Zhong Yao's own nephew; yet while mourning the young man's death, Zhong Yao pardoned Pang De all the same, on the grounds that he had merely slain an enemy of the state.
Even in the Battle of Tong Pass — Ma Chao's moment in the spotlight — Pang De stood at the very front against Cao Cao's army, every inch the vanguard commander.
And so, whether in the official histories or the romance — records notorious for how wildly a general's treatment can swing — Pang De emerges as a fierce general of the very highest order.
His strength in single combat was comparable to Guan Yu's, and his terrifying archery once drove the man himself to the brink of death.
Guan Yu's own soldiers trembled in fear at the sight and took to calling him the White Horse General.
The same epithet, mind you, as Gongsun Zan — the one-man barbarian blender who should even now be grinding nomads to paste along the borders of You Province. Consider Gongsun Zan's standing in the official histories, and you can gauge just how formidable Pang De's martial might was.
And in archery, unlike Huang Zhong — whose image as the venerable veteran divine marksman is a gift of the romance — Pang De, like Lu Bu and Taishi Ci, was the genuine article: a true master archer.
The simplest way to put it is this: just as Zhang Liao belonged to Lu Bu's army, Pang De belonged to Ma Chao's.
The two even shared the same story — both surrendered generals, both cut loose from their original lords, and both rising to prominence under Cao Cao's banner.
Long-winded as my tribute to Pang De has been, the short version is this: a fierce general remarkable enough to set my blood racing had just joined our army — for now.
...What a relief.
Ma Chao had only just celebrated her coming-of-age ceremony, and I did carry a sliver of unease about throwing a girl so young straight against a great host. Pang De's arrival washed that unease away entirely.
Two generals, each a match for ten thousand men.
Unless the enemy fielded a truly brilliant strategist, there would be no stopping them at all.
Come to think of it, I never knew the details of Pang De's past — funny how I end up learning them like this.
Pang De, it turned out, hailed from Tianshui Commandery in Liang Province. When Beigong Boyu began bleeding her homeland dry and running rampant across the whole province, she resigned the county office she held, returned home, and raised a band of volunteer militia to stand against him.
At the time, with the Yellow Turbans running riot through the Central Plains and the Ten Attendants making corruption a way of life, the court could barely govern the capital itself — reaching out to meddle in the frontier province of Liang, Liangzhou, was simply beyond it.
But just as the rebels' host had swollen to the point that resistance was becoming hopeless, our army drove Beigong Boyu's forces back at Jincheng Commandery.
Then, hearing that we meant to formally submit to the court and were marching under the banner of punishing traitors, she sent word asking to join us, offering her cooperation.
Thank you, Beigong Boyu. I owe this one entirely to you.
If we helped her settle that grudge, there was every chance Pang De would enlist with us for good.
With some five hundred volunteers and the great general Pang De added to its ranks, our army marched for Wuwei Commandery with morale at its peak.
To probe the enemy lines, the scouting party rode out, with Ma Chao leading a small company of soldiers on reconnaissance.
By the time we reached the approaches a few dozen li out from Wuwei, the enemy's fortified camp had come into view. One glance at the stockade's size and the teeming host within told me they outnumbered us at least two to one.
The armies of Beigong Boyu and the Qiang chieftains were colossal even in the official histories — the host Han Sui inherited after slaying them had swelled to nearly a hundred thousand, and what lay before my eyes alone had to be at least fifty thousand strong.
"...They've already thrown up their camp, huh."
"Whoa~, that was fast!"
Ma Chao whooped in delight, marveling at the sheer size of the enemy force.
Dust billowed in choking clouds wherever those riders wheeled — a spectacle that would send any but the stoutest hearts weak at the knees.
And worse, these were border peoples who killed without a flicker of hesitation.
The compassion of offering an enemy terms, the magnanimity of accepting surrender — the courtesies of the storybook battlefields we know — were things I could not count on here.
The sight left me a touch wound up, and I asked Ma Chao, riding at my side.
"Aren't you scared?"
"Huh? What are you even saying?"
At my question, Ma Chao shot me a look that said I was talking nonsense.
"Something on this scale is the bare minimum for the name Ma Chao to cross Liangzhou and reach those people living out there in the Central Plains, you know?"
"I suppose you're right."
As I nodded, Ma Chao spun her spear in a great circle, a smile brimming with fighting spirit spreading across her face.
"Then I'd better smash my way through at least this much, right? The Central Plains will be packed with bastards even worse than these!"
She wasn't wrong.
The Central Plains truly were crammed with heavyweights these rebels couldn't begin to compare to — the sworn trio of Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei; Lu Bu, called the Flying General; Sun Jian, the Tiger of Jiangdong; and Cao Cao, the Hero of Chaos, among others.
At the heart of the world, those names were surely carving their legends with their exploits.
Set against them, the rabble over there might flaunt its might for the moment, but history would never remember them — just another pack of traitors destined to fade.
Perhaps I looked needlessly uptight, but watching a real battlefield unfold before my eyes, a man with a modern soul couldn't help feeling the strain.
It's better now, at least — I've seen it a few times.
There was a time I hadn't adjusted at all; the sight of starving civilians, or villages butchered by the Qiang, would drive me to retch in secret.
Living through this brutal world had remade my values, and my revulsion toward war had softened into plain, manageable tension.
"Young Master!! Maenggi!!"
Yan Xing came galloping up on horseback and called for us.
"The lord summons you."
"Understood. Let's go, Ma Chao."
The three of us returned to the stockade where our army was encamped.
By the time we finished our scouting run, Han Sui and Ma Teng were waiting in the command tent — along with Pang De, our guest general, and Chenggong Ying, who served as the army's staff strategist.
"So, you're back."
"How many enemy troops would you estimate?"
"Around fifty thousand, I'd say."
When Chenggong Ying asked for the enemy's numbers, I gave him my count.
"Fifty thousand..."
"That is well over twice our own strength."
When we had marched on Jincheng, the rebel army had numbered around twenty thousand.
They must have held forces in reserve, or drawn other warlords into their fold to shore up their numbers.
"Does anyone have a good plan?"
Han Sui asked, looking around the tent, but no one had anything worth offering.
Ma Chao and Ma Teng, for all their martial flair and gift for commanding troops, were a little short on deep thinking, and so they clammed up like a pair of oysters; Chenggong Ying, meanwhile, seemed to be agonizing over the disparity in numbers.
He was hardly brilliant enough to be called a true strategist, but he was among the most cunning of my father's officers, which was why he attended these councils as our staff advisor.
"...The gap is twofold. And this ground — wide, open plain, exposed on every side — makes even a surprise attack a doubtful proposition."
Nearly all of Liangzhou was sweeping, open steppe, without a proper forest anywhere to conceal so much as a body.
It was ideal ground for raising cavalry — and hopelessly inefficient for any strategy beyond a head-on clash.
Small wonder that every battle I had witnessed to date had amounted to nothing more than leading the cavalry in a charge.
"The only option with any promise is a night raid. But there is no chance they will fall for the same trick we used last time."
In the last battle, with our forces roughly even, we had seized the upper hand precisely because we struck by night.
Ma Teng's ferocity, added to that midnight assault, had let us hold Jincheng and carry off the victory.
But no one but a fool falls for the same ambush twice — and they would certainly be braced for it.
Just as everyone in the tent labored over Chenggong Ying's words, one person finally broke the silence.
"......If I may — I have a thought."
Pang De.
The guest general, who had until then only watched the proceedings in silence, was the one who had spoken.