The First Sortie
Ma Chao, Mengqi.
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms they called him the Golden Ma Chao of Xiliang, and among the Qiang he was spoken of with a reverence that knew no bounds as the General of Divine Might Who Awes Heaven — a storm-rider such as an age sees only once. He had succeeded his father, Ma Teng, and stood tall as the warlord of Xiliang, and though Cao Cao beat him again and again, his fame shook the world right up to the edge of death, and his sway over the tribes of the west remained immense. In Yi Province, where men lived cheek by jowl with those tribes and traffic with them never ceased, the name of Ma Chao was beyond all telling.
If a man like that stood with them, even Liu Zhang would have to admit there was no hope left and raise the white flag. But was that a thought Pang Tong or Liu Bei would have failed to reach on their own?
"And yet Ma Chao serves under Zhang Lu, does he not?"
At present Ma Chao was a guest general beneath Zhang Lu. Zhang Lu, master of Hanzhong, had been at odds with Yi Province for years, and so Ma Chao was as good as a potential enemy. I knew the two were already at each other's throats, and that Ma Chao, sensing the danger, would flee Zhang Lu — but the others, sunk in the business of Yi Province and grown careless about intelligence from Hanzhong, had no way of knowing those inner workings. Hanzhong in particular was little different from a theocracy ruled by the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice, with Zhang Lu as its head, and sound intelligence was hard to come by there. It would have been otherwise in the original history, where they had joined their reinforcements and settled into a long war, unlike now, when we had done nothing but advance, and advance again, without a single reverse. In any case.
A kind of asymmetry of information had opened between me and the rest. I could not say where I had learned what I knew, so I reached for something that would sound plausible enough.
"Ma Mengqi is a wolf. He is not the sort of man a petty creature like Zhang Lu can hold — a man content to sit in Hanzhong and never spread his wings. By now he is surely at odds with Zhang Lu and in sore straits. If you offer him your hand, my lord, he will take it gladly."
"Hmm. There is sense in what you say. I shall talk it over with the military advisor."
Liu Bei summoned Pang Tong and Fa Zheng and set them to examining what I had proposed, but the review did not last long.
The relief army out of Jing Province had arrived at Chengdu at last.
"I sent you to save Adou, and I find you in Xichuan. You reckless creature."
Those were the first words out of my father's mouth when he saw me.
Looking back, I had done my family a wretched turn. Going to Gong'an to stop Lady Sun from carrying off Adou was one thing. Leaving a single letter behind and bolting for Yi Province was another. They must have been utterly at a loss.
"You chose your friends well."
"Pardon?"
"That friend of yours, Pan Jun. He came in person and explained, long and earnestly, just why you had gone to Yi Province. I wondered whether the man had feelings for you. If I hadn't heard he had a wife, and that the two of them got on, I'd be wondering still."
"Chengming..."
My conscience stung. I had not sent so much as a single letter since I entered Shu.
In my defense, I had been busy. Saving Pang Tong had consumed me, and if you set aside the fighting at Luo Castle, I could count my days of rest on one hand. And Luo Castle itself — the only long fight of the campaign — had left me no room for anything but the thought of keeping Pang Tong alive.
"In any case, they say you've won great merit."
"Ah. Yes. I did work hard."
"No need to be modest. All through Yi Province they're telling the tale of the Young Worthy — how she shielded Military Advisor Pang from Liu Xun's attack, how she showed peerless valor and took Luo Castle."
"Ahem. Father, that nickname, the Young Worthy —"
"And lately you beat Wei Yan as well, I hear."
"It was only a sparring match."
"Elder Brother says you held back. It wouldn't have gone much differently in a real fight. He may not be much of a fighter himself, but his eye for skill is exact."
In earnest combat Wei Yan would bring his full strength to bear, and even so I did not think I would lose. I let a silence that meant yes stand for my answer, and Zhang Fei laughed under his breath and stroked my head.
"You've had a hard time of it. Look at you. A few years out of my sight, and you've already grown this much."
"I'll grow more."
"Of course you will. You're the daughter of Zhang Fei, Yide. Eight chi, nothing less."
A chi of the Later Han came to roughly twenty-three centimeters, which put me a little past seven. Even that was well above the average grown man, and among women I was enormous. Set beside a father who stood a little short of a hundred and ninety centimeters, though, I was still small.
"Elder Brother has had a great deal to say about you."
He said it with a feeling that was not like him.
"It's been a long while since I saw him so glad. Gladder than when we won at Red Cliffs. The last time I remember him this happy was when he gained Kongming."
That much? This was Liu Bei, who had won a man's service only after three visits to a thatched cottage and had gone so far as to call it a friendship of fish and water. I hardly thought I bore comparison with Kongming.
Was it Father's buff at work? Their blood was not the same, and yet even in open company he called me niece. I had once been chosen for his daughter-in-law besides, so it was only natural he might feel I was family in truth.
"Thank you. For giving Elder Brother cause to smile."
"Doesn't Uncle smile often?"
"Lan'er. How many years do you think your father has been beside Elder Brother?"
Father was born in the year 165, and since Liu Bei himself had given him the courtesy name Yide, they must have known each other by the time he was twenty at the latest. I had heard they rode together from his youth; reckon it from about the year 180, and they had already shared thirty-four years.
"Well over thirty, then."
"Yes. Thirty-five, this year. We are not blood, and yet Elder Brother, I, and Brother Guan Yu are brothers. I can tell whether Elder Brother smiles from the heart or smiles for other men to see."
The bond of Liu, Guan, and Zhang was the true thing. All that later talk — that Liu Bei had cast Guan Yu off on purpose by failing to aid him in his hour of danger, that there had been bad blood between them — was nonsense, it seemed. Something else might yet arise in the years ahead, but hearing the earnestness in Father's voice, I did not think so. Guan Yu had left Cao Cao's great house for a Liu Bei who did not even amount to a startup, and Liu Bei, when Guan Yu died, would tear the main pillar out of his own enterprise. Had they not become a god and an emperor on the strength of that loyalty alone?
Talk with the father I had not seen in years went mostly like this. He asked, I answered, he spoke. Fathers are like that in any age, I suppose: tenderness dissolved into bluntness.
We were catching up on everything we had missed when an aide came in with Liu Bei's summons.
"Father, we ought to go."
"Mm. We should."
We were already armed, armor on and blades at our hips, so there was nothing to prepare. We set out at once.
As we were leaving the tent, Father called my name.
"Lan'er."
"Yes?"
"You've become... very beautiful."
A compliment offered shyly, almost against his will.
When I heard such things from other men, my stomach turned and a sour irritation rose for no good reason. From Father it was different. I did not dislike it. A soft warmth spread through me, slow and swelling. Was a family's praise simply another thing?
Well. In any case, it was not bad. Truly.
"Ah... yes."
"Ahem. Right. Elder Brother will be waiting. Come on."
The great central tent served as both Liu Bei's quarters and the council hall. When we stepped inside, only a few seats stood empty, and I wondered whether we were late.
Liu Bei occupied the place of honor, and behind him, to left and right, the Sleeping Dragon and the Fledgling Phoenix stood in attendance. The seat on his right, second only to his own, was of course Father's. Opposite it, to my surprise, sat Fa Zheng. Whether they had divided civil from martial, the generals had ranged themselves after Father, and the aides had taken their places beside Fa Zheng.
"We are all assembled. I have called you, my generals, to hear the report of the relief army, and to consider what Army Major Zhang Lan has proposed."
Hm. Having their interest gather on me was not entirely unpleasant. I drew eyes wherever I went, true enough, but that was my face doing the work. This was different.
Once Zhuge Liang began his report, the attention on me broke apart, though a few still stole glances at my face. Yes. That was the unpleasant kind.
Yi Province had, in effect, all but passed into Liu Bei's hands. Unlike the original history, his army had not suffered a single defeat, and men cowed by that irresistible advance had surrendered and submitted one after another. That was why, even though he had closed the ring around Chengdu more than half a year sooner than in that history, it had not taken long for him to join with the forces coming up behind under Zhuge Liang.
"Then we come to the Army Major's proposal. She would have us bring Ma Chao over to our side. Does anyone wish to speak?"
"Your servant is Li Hui."
"Ah, Master Li. Speak."
Li Hui was a man of Jianning Commandery, in the south of Yi Province. He had been recommended for service and was on his way to Liu Zhang when he read the times correctly and gave himself to Liu Bei. Why did I remember him? Because this was the very man who persuaded Ma Chao to surrender.
"As I have heard it, Ma Chao has left Zhang Lu and taken refuge with the Di of Wudu. This humble servant will go to him in person and bring him to submit to you, my lord."
"Good. I trust you with it."
"You honor me beyond my worth."
Liu Bei flicked a glance my way, as if to ask whether that would do. Ma Chao's being among the Di was probably not something Li Hui had uncovered on his own. More likely Liu Bei, having heard my proposal, had set men to look into it. I had been given that same report myself. That Li Hui had been settled on as the man for the task meant Liu Bei had marked him beforehand. I had no complaint. There was, in truth, no reason to replace him for the work of bringing Ma Chao over.
But it could not end there.
"Your servant, Army Major Zhang Lan, begs leave to speak."
"Speak."
"Ma Chao may be in Wudu, but I am told he stands entirely alone. If we mean to receive him, then I believe we ought also to take in his wife and children, and the men who follow him, who remain in Hanzhong."
The reaction was poor. Taking Ma Chao in was one thing. The mood of the tent was that there was no call for us to wear out our own feet fetching the people around him as well. The Sleeping Dragon and the Fledgling Phoenix, Fa Zheng, Liu Bei — men like these had surely seen why I was saying it, and still they put the question to me.
"Must we run that risk?"
"Because there are three advantages."
"Name them."
"The first is that we may win Ma Chao's true heart. Again and again he has suffered the loss of his kin. If we save the last of his blood that remains, he will be moved to awe, and he will give my lord his loyalty."
"But is he not a man who abandoned even his own wife and children and fled?"
"With respect — Emperor Gaozu himself nearly committed such an error when he was in danger. When Xiahou Ying, the Marquis of Ruyin, rebuked him, he reflected, and he granted the man a fief. Ma Chao simply had no such person beside him. How can we say he has no love for his children?"
To answer a charge of coldness in Ma Chao by implying that Liu Bang would then be a cold-blooded man himself was a deeply impious rebuttal. Liu Bei said nothing, and the mood around us was to let it pass.
Come to think of it, Xiahou Ying — the man who had rebuked Liu Bang for trying to throw his children from the carriage — was my own direct ancestor. On my mother's side, but still.
When no further objection came, I went on to the second.
"The second is that by looking after even the family of a surrendered general, we raise my lord's virtue in men's eyes."
It was so unimpeachable a point that every head nodded. Virtue was the greatest justification Liu Bei possessed, and his greatest practical strength. Who would oppose the chance to add to it?
"The third, and the last, is a general in Ma Chao's service by the name of Pang De."
"Pang De — Ma Chao's vanguard, is he not? I have heard his prowess is fully a match for Ma Chao's own."
Pang De, the White Horse General. A master archer and a fierce commander, who had fought Guan Yu to the bitter end and even planted an arrow in his brow. On martial skill alone, I did not think he would fall short of Shu's pride, the Five Tiger Generals. Ma Chao, once he came over to Liu Bei, never managed another feat worth the name — burnout, perhaps. Pang De surrendered to Cao Cao instead and made his name in war. Handing a man like that to Cao Cao was not to be thought of.
Cao Cao's hunger for talent was famous, but Liu Bei was no less a collector of men. The winning of Pang De seemed to draw him more than the first two advantages. He looked to be weighing it deeply.
"But unlike Ma Chao, his wife and children — and Pang De — are in Hanzhong, are they not? Zhang Lu will not let them go."
"Then we go and bring them out. A small, picked party, and we take them from under Zhang Lu's nose. Even if a pursuit forms, a handful of men can give it the slip and come home, and once we are inside Wudu Commandery the enemy will not be able to follow."
Call it what it was: the rescue of Ma Chao's family.
Just as Zhao Zilong had brought Adou and Lady Gan out of Changban, this time we would bring out Ma Chao's wife and children. And why leave Pang De off the list? Because Pang De was not someone to be rescued. He was one of the rescuers. To keep a man like him, you would need Guan Yu himself, or Father.
"I will go myself. Entrust it to me."
"You, Lan'er? In person?"
"I was the one who proposed it. Should I not be the one to go?"
"But to send you on so dangerous a task..."
Liu Bei hesitated, and from beside him a firm voice filled the tent. He spoke low, and yet it carried with the weight of a bass in full voice.
"Send her."
It was Father.
"Yide?"
"She says she will go, which means she believes she can. Should she fail, the failure will teach her the measure of her own strength."
"And you are not worried? I cannot tell you how my heart dropped when Zilong went to bring Adou back. Lan'er is your daughter."
"Before she is my child, she is a vassal of Elder Brother, one who stepped forward to share in the great work. She goes to raise her lord's virtue and to lay the foundation of our power. How should I, a vassal the same as she, stand in her way? Send her."
"Yide..."
Before he was Elder Brother, before he was Uncle, Liu Bei was a lord. However dear one's family, a ruler must set the great work — and the hopes of all who follow him — above even the lives of his own blood. That is what a king is. To stand above other men is to swear that you will treat those beneath your feet as equals. Grant special favor because someone is blood, or because they are someone you cherish, and who will ever offer you loyalty from the heart?
Liu Bei shut his eyes hard. He let out a long breath, and then he spoke.
"I permit it. Tell Li Hui to inform Ma Chao that we will bring his wife and children to him."
Once he decided, he did not retreat. Once he resolved to give his trust, he did not look back. That was Liu Bei.
"And you, Army Major."
"Yes, my lord."
"Take Lieutenant-General Zhao Yun with you. Zilong has already brought Adou out once. He will be a great help. Lieutenant-General — will you accept the order?"
"Of course, my lord. I will assist the Army Major, and I will see the mission done."
"It would be against the proper order of things, besides, for a Lieutenant-General to take his orders from an Army Major. I appoint Army Major Zhang Lan Lieutenant-General. The rank is granted for the present, on the strength of the merit you have already won. When we later dispense rewards according to service, I shall confer the office in form."
"I will not betray your expectations, my lord."
A general. At last, a general. I had finally met the least condition for leading a force of my own and wielding an independent command.
And Zhao Yun besides. It would be hard to fail now, even if I tried.
"The two Lieutenant-Generals will confer, choose the men you require, and report."
"My lord, permit this servant to go as well."
"Wenchang — you too?"
"I may fall short of the two Lieutenant-Generals, but I will never be a burden."
"Good. I shall remember your devotion."
Wei Yan as well? Was this truly an all-star roster?
Zhao Yun, and Wei Yan. And in Hanzhong, Pang De would join them. A rescue — an escape — carried out by fierce commanders of the age, men with biographies set squarely in the Book of Wei and the Book of Shu. A grand event that belonged in the Romance.
"Hah. The blood's boiling."
"Restrain yourself, Yide. Zilong is one thing. If you move as well, won't they take notice?"
By they he might have meant Liu Zhang, shut up inside Chengdu, but it sounded more as if he meant Zhang Lu would catch on. Father was too famous by half, and his size, his voice, everything about him was far too distinctive.
No one could say how matters stood in Hanzhong, so Zhao Yun and I formed the party within a day and reported to Liu Bei, and he approved it the moment he saw it.
The next day, when we gathered ahead of our departure, more men sent by Liu Bei were waiting for us.
"I am Chen Dao. My courtesy name is Shuzhi."
My lord. This is honestly too much, isn't it?
At this point we had gone past all-star and arrived at the Avengers. Truly.