I Am the Daughter of Zhang Yide
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Even in modern Korea, where anti-Chinese feeling had climbed to a fever pitch, it remained a perennial bestseller read across the whole of East Asia.
There were probably not many men in Korea who had never heard of the Three Kingdoms at all. For my generation in particular, it had been treated as required reading in one's school years, and I, a history major, could hardly have been ignorant of it. I did not have every year committed to memory, nor every figure who occupied a line or two in the histories, but I knew the broad current of events, the dates of the great ones—Red Cliffs, for instance—and, as a matter of course, anyone who had made a decent name.
Thanks to that, I grasped my situation at once.
If the Battle of Red Cliffs had been fought last year, then this was 209, the fourteenth year of Jian'an: the year Liu Bei had just conquered the four commanderies of southern Jing and, for the first time since Xu Province, secured a domain he could call his own base.
And I, Zhang Lan, was Zhang Fei's eldest daughter, turned nine this year. The birth year of Empress Jing'ai, Zhang Fei's eldest daughter, had been unknown; in truth, it seemed she had been conceived the moment he married. As for how old Lady Xiahou—Empress Jing'ai's mother, and Zhang Fei's wife—had been on her wedding day...
"Lan'er, what are you brooding over now?"
Mother's voice, gently chiding, pulled me out of my thoughts and fixed me on what was before my eyes.
"Forgive me, Mother. It's been so long since I've seen Father that I couldn't help wondering whether he might have been hurt..."
At that excuse which was not quite an excuse, a great roar of laughter rang out. Following the booming sound, I found a man of towering build.
A hero counted among the protagonists of the Three Kingdoms; Liu Bei's sworn brother; a general who had dominated the age, said to be a match for ten thousand men. And, at the same time, my own father. Zhang Fei was looking at me.
He was not the bandit-rough savage the novel described, nor was he the delicate beauty some of his contemporaries had called a flower of a man. If one had to choose, he leaned toward the former—an impression for which the words a splendid man seemed made. Bold lines, a fierce gaze. If ever a man was born to be called masculine, it was Zhang Fei. Mother, Lady Xiahou, was certainly a beauty, but with a father of this caliber, Zhang Lan's looks made perfect sense.
"So you worried this father of yours would come home wounded? Don't. There are only two men under heaven who could hurt me."
And when he added that one of them was gone now, I could guess who both were. The one who was gone would be Lü Bu. The one still living would be his sworn elder brother, the god of war who had shared that same fame of matching ten thousand: Guan Yu.
Before Zhang Fei, whose pride towered as high as his skill, I bowed my head deeply in place of an answer. He stroked my hair with a large, thick hand, then went inside with his wife.
Only after Zhang Fei had gone did I slip free of the tension and let out a long breath.
His presence was as overwhelming as his looks. Aura, killing intent—I had always dismissed such things as exaggeration and literary flourish. But the pressure rolling off that massive frame truly had a way of crushing a person. Not even a week after being reborn as Zhang Lan, the first core commander of the Three Kingdoms I had faced—and the man who was also my father—had left an enormous shock behind.
Can I really do this?
Even a man like that had failed to swim against the current of the age. Guan Yu, his equal, had stood beside him, and the man they followed had been Liu Bei, a hero of the age named in the same breath as Cao Cao. Could the mere insertion of someone like me truly bring about a meaningful change—in this ancient world, no less, where the superiority of men over women was simple common sense?
It's not as if I have nothing to rely on.
Knowing the future is a great power. I had liked the Napoleonic Wars more than the Three Kingdoms, and I had studied Napoleon's life more deeply than the lives of Liu, Guan, and Zhang, but I was still one of Korea's history enthusiasts. My knowledge of the Three Kingdoms was certainly above average. If I could prevent the death of Guan Yu—the beginning of the end of the Oath of the Peach Garden—and, before that, the death of the Fledgling Phoenix, who had led one of the twin heads of Liu Bei's faction, the future would surely change in a great way.
I clenched my small, lovely hands tight.
I was someone who had admired the great figures who left their footprints on history, and who had wished to carve even a single line of my name into the records. I was no longer a man, and my name had changed, but that longing had not changed in the slightest.
I can do it.
To be honest, I felt not the slightest patriotism toward the Han. If anything, the sense of still being Korean was so strong that I felt more affection for a country like Goguryeo, which was only just beginning to grow. Then, for the sake of a future Korea, ought I not leave China torn apart as in the original history? I wasn't sure of that either. If I helped found a unified dynasty, and it was the Han rather than the Jin that went on ruling the continent, what butterfly effect would follow?
I decided not to worry about such things. Whether history would change no matter how I struggled was uncertain to begin with, and the odds were very low besides. The opponent was Wei—a state that had already conquered the Central Plains and, in effect, seized hegemony over all under heaven.
In truth, the age of rival warlords contending for the Mandate of the Central Plains had already ended at the Battle of Guandu. Everything after was little more than Wei's wars of suppression against Shu and Wu, powers thrashing in the corners of the provinces and trying somehow to raise themselves, while Wei moved to write the period's final chapter. If there was a single exception, it was the storm Guan Yu had raised: the first moment Cao Cao had felt a sense of crisis. When that ended as nothing but a fleeting spring dream, hope converged endlessly upon zero.
So I would forget every worry. The time left to me was far too precious to spend fretting over an uncertain future.
"I've decided."
What I wanted to do. What I had to do. For that, I moved my feet.
One step. The step inward was heavy. Would he grant my request? The age was not kind to me. Having been given a woman's body, I was starting not from zero, but from below it. But I had a bond that could fill that gap.
"Father. I have a request."
Zhang Fei—the pillar of a faction, a famed general who stood as a symbol of the age. My father.
"A request?"
He looked at me, come without warning, and asked as if puzzled. Mother, beside him, scolded me with her eyes—what do you think you're doing?—but I stubbornly ignored her and met Zhang Fei's gaze.
"Yes."
"Hmm. Speak."
Perhaps my resolute attitude had stirred his interest; he permitted me to speak. Even so, he quietly raised his presence, pressing in on me with the momentum of a warrior honed across countless battlefields.
I could not retreat here. People commonly thought of Zhang Fei as a hearty hero, frank and hot-blooded, but that was the novel. The real Zhang Fei was calculating and cold—a man who revered gentlemen and despised petty men. To catch his eye, I had to prove my ability. Show him something beneath his expectations, and he would cast me aside without hesitation, daughter or not. To rise despite the disadvantage of being a woman, I had to surpass others by that much more.
I put all my strength into my eyes, barely held my body's trembling in check, and spoke with my head high.
"I wish to learn the martial arts."
Silence settled. Zhang Fei stared at me where I stood, and beside him Mother was aghast. The pressure in his gaze, as if he meant to lay my innermost thoughts bare, revealed a blade-keen oppression that made everything before seem like play.
"Do you mean that in earnest?"
The martial way. In this age, what those words contained was not something to show off before others. Blades and spears crossing, flesh and blood torn to shreds—a hell. The art of killing, built up so that one might slay men on the battlefield and seize victory and survival. That was what the martial arts were now.
If my half-brothers, Zhang Bao or Zhang Shao, had brought such a request, Zhang Fei would have received them gladly. He might even have praised them, adding that they were indeed his sons. But I was different. Being a woman felt like a shackle holding me fast.
"Of course."
Absurdly, I drew confidence from the very half-brothers I had just called to mind. Sickly Zhang Bao, and Zhang Shao, better suited to a civil office, had both failed to inherit Zhang Fei's martial way. But Zhang Fei took pride in that way. He could not possibly have failed to hope his children would possess talent like his own. Setting aside the eldest son, born frail and destined to die young, Zhang Fei had thought highly of scholar-officials who combined learning and character, so he would not much oppose his second son becoming a civil official—yet inwardly he would regret it. How could he not wish for a child of his to follow him, hone the martial arts, and become the vanguard of the great work those sworn brothers longed for: the unification of the realm, and the restoration of the Han?
I would step into the empty place that wish had left.
Women generals were rare, but they had certainly existed in history. The tale of Joan of Arc, the maiden who saved her country, was all too famous, and even in the history of the China where I now stood, women such as Qin Liangyu had left their names. Why should I be unable to do the same?
Bearing the conviction that I could, I met Zhang Fei's contest of presence. A manly way of speaking, a bold bearing, a steadfast heart. At the declaration I had weighed word by word and deed by deed, a different light kindled in his eyes.
As the two of us faced each other in silence, Mother, watching from the side, could endure it no longer.
"Lan'er, what on earth are you saying? How can you talk of taking up a spear and following your father onto the battlefield? Husband, please say something. Did you not say Lan'er would marry our lord's son?"
Our lord's son. If "our lord" meant Liu Bei, then the talk was of marrying me to Liu Shan. Given Zhang Fei's standing, it would not have been strange if a betrothal had already been arranged from childhood. But I did not want my life to end that way. I did not want to be recorded as Liu Shan's wife, under the name Empress Jing'ai. Zhang Lan—the name that was now mine—I wanted to remain not a passive empress, but a general who had actively coursed through the age.
"I refuse."
The words slipped out before I could stop them.
"There is Yan'er, is there not? I don't wish to live as a noble lady who only receives honors in the palace. I wish to live as a general who achieves the great work of the Han upon the battlefield."
Zhang Fei had two daughters: the eldest, me, Zhang Lan, and the second, Zhang Yan. Both would marry Liu Shan and rise to become empresses. So even if it was not me, a bond between Zhang Fei and Liu Bei through marriage was entirely possible.
"Do you mean that in earnest?"
"Yes. There isn't the slightest lie in it."
"The hairdressing you loved so much cannot be done on a battlefield. A battlefield is not the place you imagine. Withdraw."
However manly a figure I showed, this body was still a girl's. Zhang Fei seemed to have decided on refusal. He loosened his presence and waved a hand. At that unmistakable order to leave, I drew the dagger I always kept against my breast.
"Child!"
Zhang Fei's brows twitched. Mother cried out, the color draining from her face. Before the two of them, I seized my long, fine hair without hesitation and swung the dagger.
A soft, sliding whisper. Hair fell in a scatter and spread across the room.
When the hair that had reached my waist was cut short enough to cover only the nape of my neck, Mother's mouth fell open and her eyes flew wide, as if she might faint on the spot. Zhang Fei, by contrast, spoke calmly, as if he had expected even this.
"Is that your resolve?"
"Yes."
"......"
Zhang Fei, who had remained seated throughout, rose abruptly and stood before me. Facing a height that seemed twice my own, and a body trained full of muscle, I felt a chill even knowing I was this man's daughter. He looked down at me, let out a long sigh, and stroked my crudely cut hair with a gentle hand.
"What changed you so overnight?"
"They say even a single day is long when one conceives a purpose. And when one meets again a man of resolve after seven days have passed, one ought to rub one's eyes and look anew."
Sorry to Lü Meng, but I would use it first. From now on, when people told the tale of scraping one's eyes to look anew, it would be my name—Zhang Lan's—that was spoken, not Lü Meng's. Whether I was too far immersed or not, it was also a petty revenge upon the man who had shattered the dream of Shu-Han.
"Parted from a scholar seven days, one ought to scrape the eyes and look anew. I see you have taken in learning as well as purpose."
Zhang Fei took the dagger from my hand as if it were the most natural thing and trimmed my hair. He had reached such mastery of the martial arts that every skill seemed to flow back to a single source, and his hand with a haircut was remarkably fine. He slid the dagger back into its sheath, returned it to me, and spoke.
"Very well. I will teach you the martial arts."
Done!
At the thought that I had fastened the very first button to perfection, a smile spread across my face and color rose in my cheeks. Zhang Fei smiled faintly at the sight and went on.
"But remember this. There will be no leniency because you are my child, nor because you are a girl. Rather, because you are my child, I will treat you all the more harshly. If I judge that you fall short of my standard, you will stop at once—and the same goes for taking the field. Do you understand?"
"I will remember."
"Good. Then follow me."
Strike while the iron is hot: the moment he gave permission, Zhang Fei declared that they would begin now and strode outside. Mother, catching up to the situation a beat late, hurried after him with quick little steps.
"W-what are you saying? That child is a girl. She ought to hold a comb, not a spear—rouge, not a book of strategy. How can you do this?"
"How should conceiving a purpose differ between a boy and a girl? Lan'er has already taken a great cause into her heart, so the distinction of man and woman means nothing. See to Yan'er, wife. I will look after Lan'er."
Having already come out as far as the yard used for training, Zhang Fei took up not bladed spears but two wooden staves meant for practice, and held the shorter one out to me.
"Let me see your skill."