The War Begins (1)
…This battle at Hulao Pass was going to be quite the spectacle.
Had events followed the original history, our army—far from joining the coalition for the sake of righteousness—would have ended up groveling at Dong Zhuo's feet, begging for an amnesty. Instead, we had taken the field proudly as the warlord governing the Yong–Liang provinces, a true lord among the assembled lords.
Thanks to the strange currents of this era, Sun Ce and Zhou Yu—unexpectedly powerful additions—had been born early, just as Ma Chao had, and now joined the war at twenty years of age, a single year my senior.
That Liu–Guan–Zhang were nowhere to be seen did leave me a little uneasy, though…
Honestly, if it were up to my heart, I'd have asked him to work under me instead of Yuan Shu… but alas, that was impossible. A shame, really.
I had found Sun Ce's discourtesy at our first meeting unpleasant, true enough—but he was a hot-blooded youth of twenty, and with his father Sun Jian still alive to indulge him, a certain lack of polish was only to be expected. It wasn't beyond forgiving.
Sun Jian and his son had joined the coalition as lords in their own right, yet theirs was a faction presently sheltering under Yuan Shu's wing. Their actual post at Changsha lay far too distant to supply them, so every scrap of military provision came from the golden-spoon-born Yuan Shu—which meant he would never accept my offer.
So, reluctantly, I gave up on recruiting him for the time being and changed course: I would build a friendly relationship instead.
That way, at least, I'd stay on good terms with the man destined to conquer Jiangdong.
Judging from the way he'd been appraising me, though, I couldn't promise that such friendship would actually blossom.
The next morning, I expected Sun Ce and Zhou Yu to appear again. Instead, it was Sun Jian who came looking for me personally, greeting me with a light inclination of the head and delivering an apology.
He looked, on the whole, like the man Sun Ce would become in middle age—marked by the same fierce, tigerish presence.
"Forgive me, General Who Pacifies the West. I am told my son committed a discourtesy toward you."
I answered the father apologizing for his son's rudeness with full courtesy of my own.
"Please think nothing of it. If anything, the honor is mine—I had the privilege of meeting the son of General Sun, whose name rings across the realm as the Tiger of Jiangdong, and of witnessing his gallant bearing and bold spirit up close."
"Haha, thank you for looking so kindly on my inadequate boy."
Sun Jian knew perfectly well that I was still a green whelp short of twenty, yet—perhaps because I sat in the coalition as his equal—he treated me with every courtesy.
"Please, feel free to treat me casually. Compared to General Sun Jian, whose prestige commands all under heaven, I'm nothing but a callow rookie not yet twenty."
With a well-oiled tongue, I lowered myself and hoisted him up in the same breath—a man the other lords sneered at as a mere frontier general. Considering the fame he had spread through all the land as the Tiger of Jiangdong, it was only fitting.
Besides, he'd be a headache if we ever became enemies.
If he followed Yuan Shu—our adversary—to the bitter end, we would clash someday. But while he remained inside the coalition, there was no need to bare my fangs at him. Unlike the incompetent lords who were all gilded mouth and no action, Sun Jian played a genuinely vital role in this alliance.
"Haha!! How humble you are, young man!!"
At my self-abasement and flattery, he laughed his big, booming laugh, plainly pleased.
They say he has a temper, but he's surprisingly easy to talk to?
I wasn't as wary of him as of Yuan Shu, who treated me with constant hostility—but I did keep an eye on Sun Jian in my own way. After all, this was a man who had once failed to rein in his temper and killed his own superiors: Wang Rui, Inspector of Jing Province, and Zhang Zi, Administrator of Nanyang.
Having broken the ice, Sun Jian and I traded views on the coalition's prospects and the state of the various regions, and little by little we grew friendlier.
"General. The Administrator of Nanyang is asking for you."
Just as the conversation was picking up, a man who looked to be one of Sun Jian's officers approached and passed the message along.
"Ah, aye, I know. I'll be along directly."
"A pity. I was enjoying a rare chance to talk with a promising young warlord…"
"And I regret being cheated of a renowned general's instruction."
"Haha!! You certainly pick the prettiest words to say!!"
Booming with laughter, Sun Jian clapped me on the shoulder.
"Let's hope another chance to talk comes soon. Well then, I'll be off first."
Hearty and easygoing to the last, he gave a breezy wave and strolled away.
"His face looks scary as a man-eating tiger, but he's surprisingly generous and easygoing, huh?"
So Ma Chao offered her verdict on the famous Sun Jian's countenance, and I nodded along in agreement.
"My lord."
We were striking the barracks and sorting through military stores for the advance on Sishui Pass when Pang De came up to me.
"What is it?"
"Yuan Shu is stirring up trouble in front of the army gate again."
It had happened every single day since we joined the coalition, so by now it barely registered.
"With Cao Cao or Yuan Shao? Or one of the other lords?"
"No, my lord. He is tormenting a group of women who wish to join the coalition—spitefully railing at them over their birth and their lack of office."
I paused mid-motion at that.
"…How many of these women are there?"
"Three, my lord."
Could it be?
"Really? Then—shall we go have a look?"
Ma Chao, Pang De, and I set our steps toward the army gate where Yuan Shu was kicking up his fuss.
"…We beg of you. Is there any way that we, too, might take part?"
"Insolence!! Where do you lowborn things, without so much as an office to your names, get the gall to think you can join this honorable assembly of the realm's lords!!"
At the mouth of the gate stood Yuan Shu, jabbing his finger at the three women. His insolence—that eternal habit of sneering at other people's titles and looking down his nose at them—was more than enough to knot my brow on its own.
"What seems to be the trouble?"
I approached Zhang Miao, Administrator of Chenliu, who stood nearby watching the scene, and asked what was going on.
"Volunteer soldiers hoping to join the coalition. But as they hold no proper office, the Administrator of Nanyang is trying to drive them off."
Birth and office. Of course. Exactly the arrogance you'd expect from a man who judges every human soul by those two measures alone.
"Huh? Those girls…"
Ma Chao trailed off, watching the women with something like surprise.
"What is it?"
"The weapons they're carrying. Don't they look insanely heavy? And the aura they're putting out feels seriously intense too?"
At her words, I took a long, careful look at the women's dress and armaments before the gate.
Their clothes were ragged and their pauldrons ancient, as befitted volunteers—but their weapons, whether the work of some renowned master smith or not, looked magnificent.
…So it really is them.
One carried paired swords; one, a crescent blade painted with an azure dragon; and one, a long polearm that coiled and zigzagged at its tip like a serpent.
The pink-haired woman at their head, still pleading with Yuan Shu, was especially striking for her distinctly elongated ears—the kind that called fantasy elves straight to mind.
No doubt about it. The three Liu–Guan–Zhang sisters.
Nowhere to be found when I'd searched for them so hard, only to appear the moment I gave up…
"Hm? Isn't that Liu Bei?"
Cao Cao had spotted the woman at the front pouring her plea out to Yuan Shu, and now drew near.
"Ah, General Cao!!"
They had crossed paths during the Yellow Turban Rebellion, it seemed, for Liu Bei and Cao Cao greeted each other like old acquaintances. Liu Bei's face bloomed with relief and warmth just as her plight with Yuan Shu reached its worst.
Their fated rivalry had not yet begun, and for now their relations looked perfectly amicable.
"…Cao Cao. You know these women?"
Cao Cao gave an indifferent nod and introduced the three to the assembled lords.
"These are the ones who led volunteer armies to great distinction during the Yellow Turban Rebellion. I can vouch for their abilities personally."
"Hmph!! How could nameless country wenches without a single office between them possibly be folded into the honorable coalition marching out to punish the traitor!!"
The moment Yuan Shu learned they were acquaintances of Cao Cao—a woman he despised—he set about reviling them with even more petulant venom.
"Why, that—"
"…Hold your tongue, Yide."
At Yuan Shu's slander, waving pedigree and rank about like a cudgel, the two women besides Liu Bei trembled, their hands shaking around their weapons. It was plain to see how hard they were strangling their fury.
If the one holding the long spear over there ever let it blow, I had a feeling she could turn that noble-born fool frothing right in front of us into honey water.
The other lords betrayed nothing on their faces, but they seemed distinctly reluctant to take in women with no office and no verifiable lineage.
Knowing the man as she did, Cao Cao tried once more to win them over.
"Their talent for command and their martial skill are superb. They led volunteer troops through the Yellow Turban Rebellion and won enormous merits, again and again."
"Cao Cao!! You do realize you're hardly in a position to stand shoulder to shoulder with the other lords?! How can the rest of us accept these wenches on your word alone?!"
Yuan Shu snapped that she stood on altogether different footing from the other warlords.
He seemed to mean that her seat here had been bought by her considerable contributions to founding the Anti–Ding Yuan Coalition and her part in spiriting Liu Xie to safety—tucked in as a favor rather than admitted as an equal.
"Who besides you would approve of it—!?"
As Yuan Shu shrieked himself hoarse, I—naturally—raised my hand and opened my mouth.
"Would it not be perfectly fine to accept them?"
Every eye at the gate swung toward me, but I continued, calm and level.
"We have General Cao Cao's guarantee, and when their hearts are set on serving the imperial house, what does an official title matter? If anything, more hands raised to strike down the traitor is a thing to be welcomed."
I'd stake my word on it: among the lords gathered here, setting aside the armies they commanded, not one of them as a mere individual came anywhere close to those three.
"Han Yeong. You—"
Yuan Shu couldn't stand how I contradicted him at every turn, but—unlike with Cao Cao—he could find no grounds on which to overturn what I'd said, and so could not mount any real rebuttal.
Cao Cao, for her part, smiled with open delight at having me take her side.
Yuan Shao, still only half convinced, granted the women her sanction—swayed by the word of her dear friend Cao Cao and by the endorsement of the one lord whose military strength stood among the coalition's finest.
With his opinion brushed aside yet again, Yuan Shu gnashed his teeth and stormed back to his tent.
"Thank you. You saved us, standing up for us as you did."
"Talented people should always be welcomed. It's only right."
Even if Cao Cao had never stepped forward, I would have stepped up myself and found some way to bring them into the coalition. And if all else failed, I'd have taken them on as guest generals of my own army.
"…Um."
While I was still trading words with Cao Cao, Liu Bei approached me.
"Thank you for standing up for us. I am called Liu Bei, courtesy name Xuande. Might I ask the General's honored name?"
"Ah—forgive my late introduction. My name is Han Yeong, courtesy name Baeryeom. I hold the office of General Who Pacifies the West of Han."
At my name, Liu Bei's eyes went slightly wide.
"Ah!! I have heard so much of you!! The young hero who pacified the rebel armies that once wracked Liang Province…"
"…Haha, you flatter me. I'm hardly so great a personage as all that."
Being praised by the Liu Bei herself put a little spring in my mood. Naturally, Ma Chao—watching me turn bashful before a beautiful woman—thrust out her lips and pinched the flesh above my hip.
"Sis. Isn't he awfully young?"
"…Yide. He is the General Who Pacifies the West of Han. Mind your courtesy."
When Zhang Fei pointed out my age—not yet twenty—Guan Yu quietly chided the rudeness.
I can hear every word, you know…
Ma Chao was staring at Zhang Fei, plainly curious about her strength, while Pang De kept glancing toward Guan Yu—another crescent-blade wielder like herself, exuding the same glacial composure.
…Is it fate? Why do I keep fixating on the ones I crossed blades with in the original history?
"Well then—as fellow members of this coalition, I look forward to serving alongside you."
"Yes! And we look forward to serving alongside you!!"
And so the sworn sisters of the Peach Garden Oath were folded into the coalition as guest generals under Cao Cao's army—the commander they already knew.
The other lords I couldn't speak for, but with their strength considerably reinforced, the coalition marched on Sishui Pass with morale at full boil.