Preparing to Take Flight
A few days after that spectacular bout of personal disgrace, we left Luocheng and set out for Chengdu. The wine of this age is nearly all cloudy rice brew, weak as drink goes, but when you watch men ladle it down like that and rise the next morning without a trace of a hangover, you have to admit an officer's body is built on another level.
On the march to Chengdu my place was in the center army, the same as Pang Tong's. Huang Zhong had the vanguard, Pang Tong the center, and Liu Bei himself saw to the rear—a deployment that said, plainly enough, that he meant to leave the whole conquest of Yi Province in Pang Tong's hands.
I had piled up merit, but the war was not finished, so I was still only Acting Army Sima, keeping the seat at Pang Tong's side. This time, though, I was not the only one there.
"Advisor Zhang, judging by the sword dance I saw the other day, you seem deeply versed in the blade as well. What would you say to a bout, one of these days?"
Wei Yan was marching with the center. The van had gone to Huang Zhong and a general named Zhuo Ying, while Wei Yan had been ordered to assist Pang Tong alongside me—Liu Bei's own measure. However cleanly Pang Tong had brushed himself off and stood back up, the arrow that had found him still left Liu Bei uneasy.
"Gladly. I learned the spear from my father, but I prefer the sword myself. Once Chengdu falls, we'll make the time."
"Oh, I'll be looking forward to it."
Wei Yan was remarkably well disposed toward me. Stepping up the other day and offering to answer his sword dance had probably bought me the goodwill.
A little unexpected. His ability was fact—Liu Bei's own word, and real battlefield merit to prove it—but when it came to character, the failing marks were many. Contrary to the Romance, where Zhuge Liang opposes him, it was under Liu Bei's and Zhuge Liang's protection that he had actually been able to use what he had. After they were gone he fell out with his fellow generals and walked into the rebellion ending everyone had already scheduled for him. By his own account he was on decent terms with my father, and that tracked: an able man, which put him squarely among the sort of people my father liked.
With Luocheng behind us, the road to Chengdu was clear sailing. No great river, no mountain wall in the way. Whether Liu Zhang had resigned himself to a siege rather than a field battle, even at Xindu County, lying between Luo County and Chengdu, there wasn't so much as a soldier's nose to be seen.
"If only Liu Zhang would accept the way of things and surrender."
Pang Tong sounded faint-hearted, which was not like him.
"Chengdu still has stores in abundance. Timid as he is, Liu Zhang worried over his own safety and piled soldiers and supplies inside the city even when he had plenty of both. And because of that, Chengdu will not be easy for us to take now."
"They say he has thirty thousand men, but how many of those can be real elite? He scraped them together in a panic, most likely."
Wei Yan said it full of confidence, and I was inclined to agree. The notion that he had kept thirty thousand genuine elite troops wrapped up and unused hardly bore saying. There had been so many forts and passes far easier to hold than Chengdu itself. And if he truly had thirty thousand and had still been too frightened to send them, then there was even less to worry about. It would only mean Liu Zhang was that incompetent and that afraid, and a proper rhythm of fighting, browbeating, and soothing would bring him to surrender.
"I don't think we'll lose either. Kongming is already working his way north, bringing Yi Province to heel piece by piece from the Jing Province side, so Chengdu cannot possibly hold. What worries me is what lies outside."
"Outside—you mean Cao Cao?"
Wei Yan asked, but Pang Tong did not say yes. Thinking of the future waiting beyond this, I answered instead.
"Cao Cao and Sun Quan. Both of them."
"Yes. Both powers concern me."
"Isn't Sun Quan our ally? I understand Cao Cao has broken Ma Chao and is already eyeing Zhang Lu's Hanzhong, but do we really need to be on guard against Sun Quan?"
Wei Yan had not yet grown into seeing the larger board. Or perhaps he truly was a talent brilliant only in tactics, the sort who could offer something like the Ziwu Valley plan and stop there. Either way, Pang Tong rejected the notion outright.
"If anything, I believe we must watch Sun Quan more closely than Cao Cao."
"To that degree?"
"Cao Cao was never going to share a world with us. He is a fated enemy, and for him and for us it is enough to think of nothing but throwing the other down. Sun Quan is different. He is not simply someone to fight and beat. For now we must cooperate, and yet both sides are quietly whetting knives behind their smiles. It is the old shape of things—honey in the mouth, a sword in the belly—and you never know when the other man will draw."
"No different from Wu and Yue sharing a boat."
"Only Cao Cao, sitting there in front of them, keeps them from moving rashly. The moment something goes wrong, Sun Quan will try to swallow us and finish Zhou Yu's plan to split the empire in two. You can see it coming."
Just as Pang Tong warned, Sun Quan would one day strike Guan Yu from behind while he was locked in battle with Cao Cao, and gulp Jing Province down whole.
"What matters is stabilizing Yi Province as quickly as we can. Only then can we harden Jing Province's defenses and give our full attention to the fight with Cao Cao."
And indeed, to swallow Yi Province quickly, Zhuge Liang, Zhao Yun, and even my father had already led armies into Shu. By now Guan Yu would be holding Jing Province alone, grinding through it. These days people love to call Guan Yu overhyped, but a man who can mount a one-man defense under miserable conditions and then attempt a northern campaign on top of it is still a monster. Liu Bei had not handed him Jing Province for nothing.
"Don't worry. With me, Advisor Zhang, General Huang, and General Zhuo each taking a front and driving in from all four sides, how is Liu Zhang supposed to hold?"
"Advisor Zhang is Acting Army Sima. How can you speak of putting her in the van?"
"What? But after the valor she showed at Luocheng…"
"Take it up with our lord in a memorial. Then I'll have nothing to say."
The moment Liu Bei was invoked, Wei Yan's mouth glued itself shut. By now there was no one in Liu Bei's army who didn't know how fiercely he doted on me. There had been the banquet, and after that he had taken to keeping me with him at all times—how many people had watched that?
Tell a man like that to send me to the foremost line, where people die, and even Wei Yan, favorite though he was, would catch a thorough scolding.
"Liu Xun is with us on this side, so we ought to press them to surrender. Fa Zheng will have to write a good letter."
As Pang Tong had feared, Liu Zhang barred the gates of Chengdu tight and made plain his will to resist. Fa Zheng sent a letter urging surrender, but no white flag ever rose over the walls.
Unlike Luocheng, there was no assault—only a standoff that dragged on. The four-sided attack Wei Yan had boasted of was unrealistic from the start. The army under Liu Zhang inside Chengdu and the army under Liu Bei surrounding it were not so different in number. The decision was to hold the standoff and wait for the reinforcements coming behind us. The fight was already won; any further loss of men would be waste.
A sort of leave, then, until my father arrived. Since it had come to this, I decided to have the bout I had promised Wei Yan.
"I saw Advisor Zhang's valor with these two eyes, clear as day. This humble officer will hold nothing back."
"Nor will I. I'll give you my best."
Word that Wei Yan and I were to spar must have spread. Aside from the men drawn off to maintain the encirclement of Chengdu, the other officers gathered in twos and threes—garrison captains and battalion commanders, colonels of Wei Yan's own rank, and even Liu Bei, who had been in the rear, came hurrying at the news and planted himself in a prime seat.
He clearly meant to use the bout as a bit of spectacle, something to lift the spirits of soldiers worn down by a dull standoff. Trust Liu Bei. When it came to showmanship, he never missed.
"Both of you, display your skill to your hearts' content—but take care that neither of you is harmed."
With that kindly charge from Liu Bei, Wei Yan and I turned to face each other.
The first move was his. His sword was fast. Of everyone I had faced until now, only Yu Jin could be set beside him. He cleared Liu Xun and Lady Sun with room to spare, and he still fell well short of my father. Even so, Wei Yan was a body tempered through countless real fights. A sword sharpened by war for nothing but the killing of enemies stays vicious to the bone, even with the killing intent drawn back out of it.
The nine-year-old who had first gone into battle would have been knocked out of it in a few exchanges, the same as when I met Yu Jin.
Five years. I wasn't playing around for those five years. I'm not who I was then.
Clang!
I took Wei Yan's sword on mine with a heavy ring of iron. I didn't give way in strength at all. If anything, I was a little stronger than he was.
The shock of losing the measure of strength must have hit him; his blade trembled, unsteady. In a real fight I might not have taken his head from there, but one of his limbs would have left him. As if determined to avenge that loss of strength, Wei Yan opened his movements wider. It was a clever method. In earnest combat the gaps you expose only grow, so it would have been a bad hand—but in a bout where neither of us was trying to take the other's life, wasn't it precisely the way to push your strength to its limit?
Krang!
Not bad…
The shock running down my arm was heavier than the last. Not enough, though, to break my composure. A sense of how far I had come flooded through my whole body.
Five years had grown me from a mere girl into a proper officer. A height that had not even cleared four feet had, somewhere along the way, passed five foot three, and the body that had been knocked aside by a single blow from Yu Jin now took the full strength of Wei Yan—his equal—without so much as swaying. Eyes that had once seen nothing but death now caught the gaps in an opponent, and feet that had known only how to run had learned how to advance.
One step. And one sword.
A cut rising from below to above. Unterhau. I swept a wide arc and struck aside the blade Wei Yan was bringing down. My rising cut carried his sword away, his torso opened, empty, and I simply extended my own.
"It's over."
My sword had stopped at the side of his neck, the flat a breath away from touching skin. It never made contact, but the cold coming off the steel was enough. A chill sweat ran down Wei Yan's cheek.
"I lost."
As he conceded, I drew the sword back. Wei Yan lowered the arm he had raised and sheathed his blade, and from the people who had been watching a thunderous cheer broke out, with a passionate drumming of feet.
It must have been a fine thing to watch. Not wooden swords—live steel—so the tension would have put sweat in every palm. Wei Yan had a showman's streak of his own, after his lord, and I had matched him with big, showy movements, so there would have been plenty worth looking at. Liu Bei in particular had apparently not expected me to beat even Wei Yan. Surprise sat all over his face, and over it, a thoroughly satisfied smile.
"Colonel Wei is timber for a fierce general, well worthy to be set beside General Huang—and our niece surpasses even that. Isn't that so, all of you?"
I hoped petty Wei Yan wouldn't go off and sulk over losing to a woman. Liu Bei's praise and the flattery around us lifted my mood, and in one corner of it a worry put out shoots. Looking at him, Wei Yan didn't seem especially displeased—maybe he was one of those ability-first men, like my father. Then again, he had clashed with Zhuge Liang too, so perhaps not. I could only hope this wasn't heading toward the plot where he takes one look at my face and can't even stay angry. The trouble was that this looked like the most likely outcome, which left me in a thoroughly complicated frame of mind.
Winning had left a bad taste, but Liu Bei only came over to me, pleased as anything.
"Splendid. Yide's daughter indeed. After the valor that brought Luocheng down, the byname Little Xiannü is hardly too much for you."
Ugh. That nickname had traveled all the way here? The soldiers I'd brought with me must have spread it. I should have told them to watch their mouths.
"Cao Cao said it, didn't he? If you are going to have a son, have a son like Sun Zhongmou. Then if you are going to have a daughter, shouldn't she be like our niece?"
How thick a coat of gold was he planning to slap onto my face? Gold plate—come to think of it, of the Five Tiger Generals, Ma Chao was the only one I still hadn't seen. Didn't he come over and surrender right about now?
Something felt ready to surface, and I sank into the thought. A clever stroke to end this tedious standoff at Chengdu—a change that would make Liu Zhang understand he could go no further. If there was such a thing, it was surely…
"Lan'er, are you all right? You weren't hurt somewhere in the bout…"
"Uncle."
"Yes. What is it?"
"I think I've thought of a way to make Chengdu surrender."
"What? Chengdu? Speak, quickly."
"We bring Ma Chao over to our side."
Yes. It would be Ma Chao joining us.