The Naval Commander of a Land Without Rivers (2)

Rattle— clunk—

"……"

Ugh. For crying out loud. I told her to just stay home…

After putting in a token appearance at the Commander's headquarters in Zhongshan, I had decided to set out and tour my jurisdictions—Zhao, Changshan, and Zhongshan—for a while. Calling it a journey was a stretch, though. We had a carriage, and we had soldiers escorting me, so it was closer to a march than anything else.

And yet…

"Once you get outside Ye, the breeze really does feel cooler, and the people seem so much kinder… Anyway, that's how it is! Don't you think so, Lord Xingba?"

"Ah… yes."

I had not expected Yuan Yi to invite herself along for the ride.

Yuan Shao had not sent her off willingly, of course. He had layered escort after escort around her and only given his permission on the condition that the moment anything looked even slightly dangerous, she was to be packed straight back to Ye.

Strictly speaking, this was official business. I could have drawn myself up and declared that a woman had no place on a tour of inspection—

If I'd actually pulled that, I probably would have gotten to see Yuan Shao lose his mind for real.

Pull a stunt like that and Yan Liang, Wen Chou, and the rest of Yuan Shao's inner circle would have come tearing after me. Wen Chou in particular would have been grinning ear to ear at the thought of taking my head.

And so, "with no other choice," I found myself sharing a carriage with Yuan Yi for a very long trip.

It was not just the two of us, either. Zhen Zhengwu was along in his capacity as Sima of the Separate Division, as was Xiahou Lan, who commanded the troops recruited out of Changshan—and then there was…

"Haha. You two haven't changed a bit, I see."

"…Brother Fengxiao. Could you please, for the love of everything, go sit in your own carriage?"

"Me? Why?"

"……"

"Hahaha. I'll go when it's time to sleep, so don't you worry."

Guo Jia, third-in-command of our Naval Commander's office and our resident strategist, had come along as well.

Unbelievable. Of course he would leave at bedtime. What, was he planning to sleep in here with us?

Thank god Yuan Yi was here. Guo Jia's particular brand of lunacy was as intact as ever.

"Ah, that reminds me—I ought to fetch the documents for the Chancellor of Zhao and the Commandant. Excuse me a moment."

"Yes. Please. Go do your job."

"Haha. I'll be right back."

No—don't come back, you menace!!

I all but shooed Guo Jia out of the carriage and, for a blessed moment, had some peace.

Which was when I noticed Yuan Yi staring straight at me.

"Do you hate it, Lord Xingba?"

"Hate what?"

"That I came along."

"What? Ah…"

"You can't even answer. So you did hate it."

"N-no, that's not—I don't hate it, I just—"

"It's all right. I understand. This isn't a pleasure trip. You're going to work."

"……"

There was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠not a trace of sulking in the words themselves. But I could read the spaces between them well enough. She was a little hurt.

"Haha… I, uh. I think I've been a bit too much of a stranger to you lately, Lady Yuan Yi."

"Not at all. You've been busy with your duties. We may be betrothed, but that hardly gives me the right to meddle."

"…Th-then, is there something you want?"

"Something I want? I don't know. I just wish you would treat me more comfortably, Lord Xingba."

"I—I could do that?"

"Yes. The way you keep saying 'Lady Yuan Yi, Lady Yuan Yi' already looks like it's killing you."

"…Does it?"

"Yes. You don't have to go as far as 'Yi-ya~' or anything, but you could at least call me Lady Yi…"

"……"

So calling her Lady Yuan Yi had been the problem all along.

And that was not the only grievance. Once the dam cracked, everything behind it came pouring out.

"Even when you came back from the battlefield… I went all the way out to see you off, and you still didn't come to me… and then…"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"……"

"And I keep hearing that when a man takes up a post somewhere like this, he brings in a wife, or a concubine… Of course, it would be unreasonable of me to make an issue of concubines when we're only betrothed, but still, I can't help…"

"…Pff—hah!"

"…!!"

"Ah—I'm sorry. I just—pff."

"……"

Yuan Yi was glaring at me, her face gone thoroughly sullen at the laugh that had burst out of me.

How was I supposed to not laugh at that?

That's what she was upset about? That's… kind of…

I don't usually say this kind of thing—it makes my skin crawl—but… was that not adorable?

No.

To be completely honest… it was devastatingly cute.

The kind of cute that made me want to grab those cheeks and squish them into oblivion.

"Y-you never take me seriously, Lord Xingba! You always just look at me and laugh!!"

"…I-I'm sorry. It's just—pff."

"…Y-you—!!!"

Ah. I was in trouble.

Yuan Yi's face had gone the color of a garden balsam in full bloom. Embarrassment, a thread of real anger—some mixture of the two, anyway.

But honestly, why was a person allowed to be this cute?

"Haha. I'm sorry. I've never ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been much good at taking things seriously."

"…I had noticed."

"Haha… But I do mean it when I say I'm sorry. Getting engaged and then tossing your fiancée aside like that—that's the behavior of a genuine bastard."

"……"

"So… from now on, in private or in public, shall I just call you Yuan Yi?"

"…Y-you will?"

God. The way she looked up at me with those round, shining eyes nearly shorted out my brain.

Ahem. Anyway.

I managed to hold onto my wits just long enough to scoop her up and set her down on my lap.

"Of course, Lady Yi."

"…!! S-say it again!"

"Lady Yi?"

"…!!!"

I had no idea what was so wonderful about being called Lady Yi, but this time she went straight past garden balsam and bloomed into a full crimson plum blossom.

"Hauu… th-that feels really nice."

"D-does it? Haha… I should have started calling you that sooner."

"…You're the worst. You really are."

"Pardon?"

"…If you didn't hear it, then that's the end of it."

Yuan Yi gave a little yawn. The long carriage ride must have worn her out.

"If you're tired, go ahead and sleep."

"I can sleep here?"

"…Well, if that's what you want."

"Hehe. Then I'll sleep right here on your lap, Lord Xingba. Hold me up a little?"

"Ah. Yes."

The position was a bit strange, admittedly… but I had given her more than enough reason to feel neglected. I could endure this much.

And so I kept her on my lap as the journey rolled on, waiting for her to fall asleep.

She's a lot lighter than I expected…

Yuan Yi was light enough that it was not particularly hard. The problem was…

Jolt—!!

"……"

Rattle— clunk—!!!

"……"

Every time the carriage bounced, her backside would brush against me, just slightly…

Ahem. Anyway. Every time it happened, I tried very hard to keep myself under control.

…Should I start singing the national anthem? God. Damn it.

She was breathing softly now—fully asleep. I stood to ease her back onto her own seat, and then—

Thud— clunk—!!!!

"…!!!"

I lost my balance and sat right back down, and—

Oh no oh no oh no—

Something soft pressed against me, and things got a little… you know.

And that was the exact moment.

Creeeak—

Bang—!!

"Commander Gan! We've arri—hm? What's with that look on your face?"

"……"

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Of all the people in the world, it had to be the one I least wanted to catch me.

"Ah… haha. Lady Yi dozed off on my lap for a bit, that's all."

"Well, well… rubbing it in right to my face now, are we? Lady Yi, no less. What a devoted couple you make."

"Haha… Anyway, my clothes are a bit rumpled, so I need a moment to put myself together. Would you mind shutting the carriage door?"

"Yes, yes. Of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠course."

Click.

Hoo. I just aged ten years.

If that man had seen… that… I would have spent the next decade as the punchline of every joke in Jizhou. "Gan Xingba the Upstanding," or some garbage like that.

"Mmh… are we there already?"

"Ah. Yes…"

"Hauum… d-did I stay on your lap the whole time, Lord Xingba?"

"…Yes."

"…Ah. Th-that's—wait, I-I'm so sorry!!"

"N-no, not at all. If anything, I was the one who…"

"…?"

"……"

Ah. Misspoke.

I must have been so wound up that I tacked on something I absolutely did not need to say in front of her. I did my best not to meet her eyes. She clearly suspected something, but with no actual evidence she could not press me any further.

"…Hmph. Ah! And please don't call me Lady Yi in front of Lord Fengxiao! He's a good man, but he teases far too much, that's the problem… wait, why is your face like that?"

"D-did you… happen to be awake earlier?"

"……"

I had thought I was in the clear. God damn it.

She had noticed a long time ago.

"From when, exactly…?"

"…F-from when the carriage started jolting."

"……"

"I-it's all right, though! When a carriage jolts, that kind of thing can happen! Yes! Exactly!"

"……"

I wanted to die.

I finally understood what people meant when they said they wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out.

"…I'm sorry. I, uh, wasn't trying to… it was more of a startled reflex, you could say…"

"N-no! P-please don't explain it any further!"

"……"

"I-I hid it from you too, so let's just pretend neither of us saw anything!"

"S-shall we? Ha, haha."

I had a sinking feeling that the rest of this journey with Yuan Yi was about to get a lot more awkward.

Bang—!!

"Are you still not ready?"

"…!!"

"…Brother Fengxiao."

"Yes?"

"Please get out…"

"Yes? W-wait, I—"

Click.

"……"

"……"

"…We should go."

"…Y-yes."

God. This really sucked.

It really was a dick of a situation.

Fuck.

"I present myself before Commander Gan."

"…Yes. Chancellor Xin. A pleasure to see you as well."

"Hm? Was the road here unpleasant, by any chance?"

"Pardon? Ah, no? What makes you ask…"

"Ah. Haha. I heard the Commander was coming, so I had the roads repaired first thing. I was worried they might still have been rough."

"……"

The roads had, in fact, been unpleasant. Extremely so. If you were going to repair the roadsides, why in the world would you leave the rocks?

I gave Xin Pi a look with just a hint of grievance in it, then let out a breath and put my serious face back on.

"Ahem. Well… you have not been in the post long, Chancellor Xin, but how does Zhao look to you?"

"The overall situation in Zhao, you mean?"

"Yes. I'd like to hear your general impression."

"That? The worst, of course."

The worst, he said.

"On account of the neighbors, perhaps?"

"Just so. Our neighbors are not what one would call friendly people."

Of the three territories I had been given—Zhao, Changshan, and Zhongshan—Zhao sat at the southernmost end, relatively close to Ye. And even Zhao was in this kind of shape. I was starting to dread the places still ahead of us.

"First, refugees driven out by the Heishan Bandits in Bingzhou and the civil war in Youzhou have been pouring into Zhao, which is comparatively prosperous and safe next to Changshan and Zhongshan. The local people are rather unhappy about it."

"…I see."

Useless neighbors, the lot of them. If they were going to govern that badly, they might as well just hand the land over to us.

"On top of that, a famine has struck the entire Central Plains, Jizhou included, so grain prices have risen considerably."

"That's… not something we can do much about, I suppose."

We could not exactly predict the weather or the harvest. All we could do as human beings was release the grain we had stockpiled for the army, little by little, and try to steady the prices.

"Anything else?"

"Yes."

Good lord. This was not a list of problems, it was an exam booklet.

"Just before I arrived, I found considerable evidence that the previous Chancellor of Zhao and Liu Si, the King of Zhao, had been skimming a great deal of tax revenue."

"…!!!"

Ah. That was not a problem I could just put my hands on.

The country might have been falling apart, but touching a king who still held a fief was never a simple matter.

"And when I traced where that embezzled tax money went… it was confirmed to have flowed to the remnants of Liu Yu, the former Governor of Youzhou, who is currently at war with Gongsun Zan."

"…You have got to be kidding me."

Of all the people in the world, they had gone and handed us a perfect pretext on a silver platter.

"Does Gongsun Zan's army know?"

"It's only a matter of time before they find out."

"……"

What was wrong with these people? Did being imperial kin mean a blade could not find their necks?

"They've taken leave of their senses. Does our lord know about this?"

"I reported it not long ago… and he said he would leave the matter in the Commander's hands. That is part of why I brought it up."

"……"

Yuan Shao, you absolute menace!! Do not dump a problem like this on me!!

If I set my mind to it, of course, I could just have that beggar of an imperial clansman quietly assassinated and write it up as a natural death. But…

"So I am to deal with this without giving Gongsun Zan a pretext, without making enemies of Liu Yu's remnants, and—above all—without anyone in the world finding out?"

"Yes. Most perspicacious of you, Commander."

Perspicacious, my ass.

I pressed my fingers into my temple and started to speak.

"First, the money that went to Liu Yu's remnants—"

And then—

Bang!

"Commander!!"

"……"

Open the door like a normal person, you bastard.

Guo Jia came in as if he meant to tear the thing off its hinges.

"What is it?"

"At the north gate… tens of thousands of refugees are coming this way!"

"…Tens of thousands? Not thousands, not hundreds—tens of thousands?"

"Yes!!"

That he was not exaggerating became obvious the moment I climbed the wall and saw the people coming on, kicking up a cloud of dust.

"This is so fucked…"

"Commander! What should we do?!"

How the hell should I know?

Old men pulling carts. Children carried on backs. The wounded. People whose clothes had been patched with scraps of cloth. A handful of armed young men watching the surroundings as they came down. There was no mistaking it. They were refugees.

"Are all of those people from Youzhou?"

"Yes… it would seem so."

"……"

If that many of them had made it as far as Zhao, which was practically in the middle of Jizhou…

"Changshan and Zhongshan will be even worse."

"Yes… they almost certainly will."

God. I really wanted to do something about these neighbor bastards.

"Commander."

"…What now."

"Over there… behind the refugees… cavalry is moving."

"…Cavalry?"

I looked more carefully past the dust at Xin Pi's words, and sure enough, horsemen were riding hard on the refugees' heels.

"Wait… aren't those Gongsun Zan's men?"

"It would appear so."

"And they came all the way down here?"

"…I suspect a show of force is part of the point."

Their numbers did not quite break a thousand, of course. Zhang Liao or Tian Yu could not very well throw open the gates and hit them alone. I was the one in charge of northern Jizhou, after all.

God. How little did Gongsun Zan think of me, to send troops this far?

"……"

"Commander. You must not open the gates."

"……"

"The moment we take them in, Gongsun Zan will take it as proof that we are sheltering Liu Yu's remnants."

"……"

"And there are tens of thousands of them. In Zhao's present condition, even feeding them will not be easy."

He was right.

Those people were not my soldiers. They were not my people. There was no reason for us to take on that kind of risk just to let them in—

"C-Commander!!"

"They've come this far. If we leave them out there, we lose Youzhou that very day."

"…E-even so!"

"However poor we are right now, we are not so poor that we cannot keep them alive."

"But… if we take them in, we will have no way of obtaining military grain until the sowing season!"

"So we can keep them fed until autumn, then?"

"…That, yes. That is true."

"Then just open them. We'll think about the rest after we've stopped Gongsun Zan's cavalry."

"…I receive the Commander's order!"

Yes. Honestly, it was closer to an excuse than a reason.

Rationally, it was a choice I should never have made. Whether Gongsun Zan's cavalry ran them through or did whatever else they pleased, the smarter move was to look the other way.

Rationally, that is.

"But fuck… I got thrown away on a 'rational' decision too, didn't I? So I should just accept that?"

The world, however, did not run on reason and calculation alone.

"Yes, sir!! Form up!!!!"

The moment they were driven all the way to Zhao by Gongsun Zan's army… they became my people. My own.

And I do not abandon my own.