Talents Gather
After the volunteer corps joined us, our guide was no longer Ma Zhong, but Gou Fu. Ma Zhong was a son of Baxi Commandery himself and had served the army as a registrar, so he had the maps by heart—but he still could not match a true native of these hills.
Gou Fu already knew where Du Huo kept his stronghold. Du Huo, as it happened, knew just as much about us.
The moment we entered the mountains, they showed themselves. Unlike regular soldiers, every man was armed in a different fashion. They looked less like an army than a band of mountain brigands.
Picking Du Huo out was easy. The one in the most splendid dress was Du Huo. True to his title of Marquis of Congyi, he had draped himself in silk, as if he truly were a ranked marquis of the realm.
They held the high ground and were spread wide, so I could not be certain of their numbers, but they did not seem to outnumber us. They dared show themselves so boldly against a regular army with a force like that? After spending their days bullying Liu Zhang's feeble troops, they had lost any honest measure of their own strength.
Wang Ping was a man of Dangqu, but I could not yet be sure of him, so I watched a little longer to see how Du Huo carried himself.
"I hear the commander over there is that woman, Zhang Lan! The Marquis of Congyi has come in person—step out at once and show your face!"
The way he spoke was pure bandit. Still, it might have been the old stratagem of provoking a general—trash talk meant to heat the blood—so it would have been foolish to dismiss him on that alone.
Ma Dai and Liu Eun were both in their twenties, blood still quick to rise. They bristled, but they seemed to keep it in hand. Until the next words.
"They say Zhang Fei's eldest daughter is a rare beauty, and that her temper runs as wild as an unbroken colt. If a hero such as I does not take her in, in whose arms is she going to weep?"
"Hahaha! Just as the Marquis of Congyi says!"
"A beauty belongs to a hero, doesn't she?"
Drum and gong both—they cheered their own performance from start to finish.
I, the person actually being discussed, let it pass with the private thought that it was simply ridiculous. Those around me did not. Unlike after the first outburst, my lieutenants made no effort to hide the anger filling their faces.
"General, if you would only give the order..."
A great laugh rolled out and cut Liu Eun short, echoing off the slopes.
"Marquis of Congyi! How dare you break our agreement and try to claim her first!"
A voice of that size was nearly on my father's level.
The force that appeared on the flank, apart from Du Huo's men blocking our front, looked no more respectable than his. This was Bu Hu, who had led the Ba tribes alongside Du Huo in surrender to Cao Cao and been named Administrator of Badong.
Bu Hu's strength was plainly greater. He led only the Banshun Man, one branch of the Ba, yet he was called king of that people's Seven Surnames—the seven clans that bore the name. The Na, the Du, the E, the Duo, the Xi, the Gong, and the Bu. The Bu wrote their name with the character for Pak, but pronounced it Bu, and they were the greatest clan of all.
They had been sitting around Dangqu County, and now they had come all the way to Hanchang. That saved me the trouble of going to them.
"To whoever takes Zhang Lan, I will give a thousand in gold. Who but I, King of the Seven Surnames, is a fitting match for the Heavenly Maiden? Marquis of Congyi, I'll leave you your chance after I've had her. Wait your turn."
Even I found that thoroughly sickening. I was drawing a long, deep breath at Bu Hu's open declaration that he meant to pass me around, while the lieutenants beside me snarled as if they could endure no more.
"I'll take that one's head. Only give the order."
"The one who wagged his tongue first is mine."
Hemmed in on two sides, our will to fight did not break. Of course it didn't. We had already expected this.
Napoleon set great store by cutting an enemy's line of retreat and, in turn, seizing his rear. I had cast scouts wide to read the routes of their advance, so that I could strike them from behind. And when we found the Banshun Man climbing up from Dangqu, I—now with Gou Fu as a new guide—sent Ma Zhong with part of the army to seal their way back.
In truth, I hadn't expected them to come forward this readily. Even after rushing all the way from Dangqu, they had thrust their faces at us without a rest. The bait that was me must have looked tempting indeed.
I was angry too, but my real object was securing Wang Ping. Subduing the Ba mattered, yet it was only the reason on the surface. Wang Ping was the true prize, so it was right that I stay in the rear, watch the whole field, and find him.
I nodded and slipped the leashes off my two hounds, both of them burning.
"Very well. Bring me their heads."
"As you command."
"By your order."
Ma Dai and Liu Eun shot forward like arrows loosed from bows drawn to the limit.
A master of horsemanship in the manner of the Xiliang cavalry, Ma Dai drove his mount through mountain country as if it were level ground. His soldiers followed in a fury, unable to stomach the insult done to their commander. Liu Eun, by contrast, swung down from the saddle and charged on his own two feet. "I'm still more at ease on foot than on horseback," he had said—and he swept in at a speed that did not fall behind Ma Dai.
"Strike!"
"Take Zhang Lan alive!"
"Spare none of the rest!"
Bu Hu's men and Du Huo's came down the slope and met us head-on, strength against strength.
But my troops aren't the same grade as the likes of Liu Zhang's men you've been used to fighting.
In the instant after the clash, they learned with their bodies how far their notions sat from reality.
"These aren't the ones from last time! Guh—!"
"Wh-what kind of monster is that...!"
Liu Eun swung his zhanmadao as if it were a tree branch.
Each time that enormous sword—the blade alone nearly a meter long—cut the wind, several enemies collapsed in a spray of blood. In medieval Europe the elite of the famed Landsknechts, the Doppelsöldner, were said to take the vanguard with greatswords like the Zweihänder, shearing pike shafts and breaking formations. The ferocity Liu Eun showed now was explosive enough to call up those among the Doppelsöldner who had been called masters of the art.
In the original history, Liu Eun had piled up brilliant merits even against the elite soldiers of Wei, the state that held the age in its grip. The Ba tribesmen who rushed him without knowing their place were nothing more than moths flinging themselves into a bonfire.
That side will be settled shortly.
Ma Dai's martial strength did fall short of Liu Eun's. Historically, the one clear merit to his name was pursuing the rebel Wei Yan and taking his head. In the Romance he displays prowess on Ma Chao's level, but from what I had seen fighting beside him, his skill was not bad—and not exceptional either.
Which is why I placed Gou Fu under him.
Ma Dai alone might not have been enough, but with Gou Fu added—a man once spoken of in the same breath as Wang Ping—they would break a line harder than Liu Eun could alone.
Just as I expected, on Bu Hu's front Ma Dai and Gou Fu led like a two-headed eagle, driving the soldiers of the Banshun Man back from both sides. Then confusion broke out in the enemy's rear. Ma Zhong had arrived. Seeing the battle joined and the enemy being pushed, he had not been content to sit across the road and wait; he had brought his men up and struck the rear himself.
Already exhausted from scrambling here out of Dangqu, the Banshun Man held the high ground and still milled in panic, crumbling like a castle of sand. Their chief, Bu Hu, had lost every shred of the swagger with which he had been mouthing off about me. He hustled his soldiers in a panic and stumbled about.
Yet in the midst of it all, one sector neither gave much ground nor broke. Someone there had thrown up a solid defense and was holding. If the enemy had a man capable of stiffening a line while we held an overwhelming field, there could be only one.
"There you are."
I grinned and drew the reins.
The field would be cleaned up without me. I meant to harvest this battle's real yield.
"I'll break through! Follow me!"
My horsemanship was not yet equal to forcing a mountain path. The ground was narrow to begin with, soldiers tangled at arm's length, and trees and other obstacles cluttered the fight. A sword suited it better than a spear.
A heavy crash.
I slipped the spearheads and blades stabbing in at me, cut, beat them aside, closed, and kicked through the enemy shields. Strength that beggared belief. They had locked those shields tight, leaning into one another, but that was as far as it went. Too few men stood behind to brace the rank, and a defense has its limit.
A dam fails in an instant once a hole is opened. The moment I punched through their formation, the soldiers at my back poured in as one and tore the line completely apart.
Collapse. A ruin that could not be turned back.
"Throw down your weapons and surrender. Yield, and you'll live."
Ba soldiers who knew they could hold no longer flung their arms aside and pressed their heads to the earth. Not all of them.
I had ordered from the start that taking prisoners came before slaughter, so my men left those who had lost the will to fight and dealt only with those who kept their weapons and kept resisting.
And among those Ba soldiers there was one who could only be called a crane among chickens. Even with several men attacking him at once, his defense stayed calm and unbroken, and the counters he aimed into the gaps of soldiers unused to a tangled press were vicious.
A flashing riposte was an instant from taking one soldier's head when my sword cut between them.
Steel rang.
I was on the point of turning the blade to wrench his weapon away when he simply let go of his own accord, rolled clear across the ground with quick grace, and snatched up another sword lying there.
The command to steady broken men and rebuild a line. Sound martial skill. And a swift reading of a changing field. No mistake.
"So it is you."
The young man before me was Wang Ping.
The records said he could not read, and I had half expected a dull face. Instead he was rather good-looking. The past, more than my own age, had prized appearance and counted it heavily when judging a man. Remembering that, it was no surprise that Wang Ping—who had surrendered to Cao Cao and been made an acting colonel, then, the moment he came over to Liu Bei, been appointed General of the Standard and Deputy General by the sovereign's own hand—should be better than average to look at.
His bright, intelligent eyes stayed perfectly calm even with me at sword's length. Wretched as his circumstances were, Wang Ping did not bend.
"Surrender."
"King Bu Hu may be an arrogant, lawless man, but I have received his favor. I can't."
Orphaned young, raised in his mother's family, and living with the army from childhood—so the records said. It was only natural he should have some tie to Bu Hu.
"If I pledge to spare him, will you yield?"
"...Why go so far to make me surrender? Someone of your skill could cut me down whenever you pleased."
"Because I want your sincerity."
A different light came into Wang Ping's eyes. For the first time, a ripple of unrest crossed the face that had not changed even when the line collapsed.
"...I have done enough by my loyalty to King Bu Hu. Let me see the whole of your strength."
"Good."
The most recent real fight I had known was the rescue in Hanzhong. Pulling Ma Chao's family clear and clashing with the pursuit, I had taken the measure of how much I could do against many. One against one, against a true strong opponent, was still unknown. A bout with my father would have settled the question easily, but I had never had the chance.
Personally, I didn't think there were many who could force me to show the bottom of my skill. My father, Guan Yu, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao, Huang Zhong, Pang De—and, arguably, Chen Dao. I had beaten even Wei Yan, though that had only been sparring. How far did Wang Ping's skill go? I wanted to find out.
"I'm coming."
I stepped in and laid my reach over his, drawing Wang Ping inside the arc of my sword as I drove up off the ground.
I hauled the force rising from the planted step through my whole body—from the sole, through the leg, the waist, the shoulder, and into the wrist. A cut that gathered what martial artists call the channeling of the entire frame, the mystery of turning force and releasing it in a single blow, came straight down on Wang Ping.
A crashing ring of steel.
"Kh—!"
Wang Ping stopped my sword. Not because he had chosen to block. He had judged that he could not evade, and defense was the next best course. The line of the cut had been honest and simple, but the speed was simply too great.
My body, heir to Zhang Fei's physique, held a destructive power that a small frame made hard to believe. And that meant I could follow a blow like this with a second, and a third, as often as I liked.
Steel screamed.
I shoved Wang Ping hard, and the second arc of the sword split the air. Even as he staggered he showed astonishing focus and tried to let the edge slide off. But a broken stance cannot properly shed an impact.
A sharp, brittle crack.
Already notched by the first strike, the sword failed to bleed off the shock and snapped clean through.
"The blade..."
The sword had broken, but Wang Ping himself was unhurt. Hands thick with callus had not even split across the palms. They trembled a little, yet he could easily have fought on.
"A poor sword. I'll give you time. Fetch another."
When I drew my blade back, Wang Ping looked down at the broken weapon for a moment, then flung it aside.
"I surrender."
He dropped to one knee and bowed his head, then raised both hands together above it. His speech had shifted entirely into respectful address, but I pressed him.
"And your sincerity?"
"I have heard that a man of Han gives his life for the one who knows him. The blood of the Banshun Man may run in me, but do you think I fail to understand the highest duty? You want me in earnest, and so I will serve you in earnest."
I turned my sword flat and tapped his shoulder lightly with the face of the blade. The gesture came unbidden before a posture that looked like a knighting. Since it had come to this, I thought I might as well do it properly, and I put strength into my voice.
"I will carve it into my bones."
The moment the surrender rite—dressed up as Wang Ping's investiture—was done, my lieutenants returned as if they had been waiting. Each had a severed head gripped in one hand.
They had kept the words they had spoken, to the letter. The heads they carried were Bu Hu's and Du Huo's. Gou Fu, who had followed Ma Dai, had taken a head as well—none other than Yuan Yue, who had surrendered to Cao Cao together with Du Huo and Bu Hu.
In a single battle we had killed all three chieftains who ruled the Ba, and their power was shattered completely.
"General, a great victory."
"Our congratulations."
"Isn't all of this thanks to your perfect lure?"
"Haha..."
I might have enjoyed it freely if not for that last remark. He just had to be the one to spoil it. Liu Eun—I'll remember this.
Even so, my mood was good.
"Let's go back."
It was time to return in triumph.