Prelude to the Great War

The road back from Chengdu, once every matter there was finished, teemed with men and horses — the very opposite of the small, spare party that had gone up to the capital. It was crowded even after the vanguard had already set out, bearing the gifts bestowed in honor of our merit. Into the places left empty by Ma Dai and Ma Zhong came Zhang Yi and Wang Si, both newly taken into service; and as if to prove how deep Wang Si's good name ran, friends who had been close to him followed after, declaring they would enlist as well. They were not a great number. Still, it was no small thing that men would willingly leave the bustle of Chengdu's outskirts for Dangqu, a far and rugged country.

When we reached Dangqu County, I was met by a sight I had not expected.

"That is..."

Bound across the shoulders of the soldiers drawn up in ranks was, unmistakably, a cape of the same cut as the one I wore. Unlike the dramas of the twenty-first century, the generals and soldiers of this age did not wear capes at all. The very word was French, which settled the matter; and so I had been obliged to invent a name for the thing on my own shoulders, and call it a Brocade Cape. The capes worn by the soldiers, the company leaders, and the captains differed from mine in length and in cloth, but not in form.

Ma Zhong, who had come out to receive me, followed my gaze to its end and launched into an explanation, plainly pleased with himself.

"Ah — you remember the silk we were given last time? As a rule the men sell it, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to keep their families. But one of them, I hear, refused to sell and wore his just as the General does. Then the men beside him all followed suit, and Zijun and Xiaoxing had to step in and put the business in order."

Silk was the finest textile of the age, and worth a fortune. The silk of Yi Province was special even among silks — Shu brocade, set apart and handled as a grade of its own. If my entire command went about draped in the stuff, we would be taken for nothing short of gold-plated goblins. Looking closer now, I saw that what they wore was not silk at all, but plain cloth. I was idly wondering whether it made sleeping in the open a little easier when I noticed the blue bird worked onto the back of each cape.

"And that bird — what is it?"

Ma Zhong laughed, a little sheepish, and answered with the care of a man waiting to see how I would take it.

"They say they took the pattern from your name, General, and made it a luan. There was talk of cutting the emblems from the silk just bestowed on us. Xiaoxing allowed it, on the condition they be kept small. Wang Ping was against the idea, but the soldiers were remarkably stubborn."

Wang Ping and Ju Fu had already settled the matter. Both had their dignity to consider; I was not about to forbid it now. I had known Ma Zhong for quite some time, and still he did not know me so well as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this. A nature too full of consideration, I supposed.

"It's fine. But silk is precious. Have them warned, so that nothing unseemly comes of it."

"Haha — the men treasure those capes like their own bodies. Nothing of the sort will happen."

He answered with easy optimism. Theft was strictly forbidden under military law, and a man caught at it lost his head; there was little sense in tightening the rope any further.

At any rate, the magistrate of Dangqu County had arrived as well, and I turned my full attention to taking the army in hand. The first thing I touched was the establishment of proper branches. The force I had inherited was differentiated after a fashion, but only into cavalry, infantry, and supply. Everything else — the miscellaneous work — was done by pulling men out as the need arose. I bound that miscellaneous work into formal units, and raised a corps of engineers, a medical detachment, and a corps of couriers.

There was no hope of a true medical system in this age. The medical detachment amounted to little more than carrying the wounded and keeping the camp clean. Even that, though, would show an effect. It was a famous story that Nightingale had driven death rates down dramatically by nothing more than the hygiene of a field hospital. I would not reach so far. Still, for keeping wounded men alive and heading off disease, it would serve.

And yet this measure of mine became the occasion for a rumor to spread through the ranks. So the General likes things clean, does she — being a woman, after all.

Doesn't every human being prefer things clean?

Looking back over history, though, it was not quite so. Even in the twenty-first century, when the importance of hygiene had become common sense, there were places where it had not. And one of those places is right here.

Even so, the soldiers obeyed readily enough once I ordered it. Men — and above all the soldiers of an antiquity where no proper education in character had ever been given — kept to principles closer to instinct than to reason. Drawn to a pretty woman, following whoever was stronger than themselves: the law of the primitive. I satisfied both. Had I been only a pretty woman, they might have ignored me, and at worst something ugly might have come of it; but I had force of arms as well. Not every soldier was of that sort. Even those with the makings of trouble, though, tended to find their discipline properly settled after a single round of corrective instruction from me.

For couriers I drew mostly on the young. Since the introduction of the stirrup, simply sitting a horse was no great difficulty. They still needed training to handle the animal, but making a courier — a rider who had only to mount and run — took very little time. At the same time, the units under my colonels were specialized.

Until then Ma Dai had commanded the cavalry alone. Once warhorses had been bought and the stirrup let us raise horsemen in numbers, the mounted arm was divided in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠two. Ma Dai's existing cavalry became light horse, so that their superb horsemanship could be put to use. The new cavalry I entrusted to Ju Fu became heavy horse, clad in armor for mount and rider alike.

The infantry fell naturally to Liu Yin, Wang Ping, and Zhang Yi. Liu Yin's command was built for breakthrough and striking power, and men of exceptional physique were posted to it first — a kind of grenadier. Wang Ping's, by contrast, prized defense. In the hammer and the anvil, the anvil was his: the center that would hold. Zhang Yi's were special troops, swift on the march and drawn from natives of the Three Ba who were at home in the mountains. When Wang Ping stood and Liu Yin broke through, Zhang Yi's men were the living joint between the two.

And last, my own guard. Once a battle began I could not linger in the rear; I would have to fight at the very front. It sounded like praising myself, but a fierce commander of my measure idling behind the lines was far too great a waste. The guard numbered only about a hundred, yet every one of them was the elite of the elite, accomplished both in the mounted fight and on foot. They would be given the most dangerous ground and the most vital objectives, and so they had to be the finest of all.

The organization was, of course, modeled on the Grande Armée Napoleon had built for France. In scale it was barely a single division. But the men leading the three brigades and two cavalry regiments that made up that division were, every one of them, the stuff of corps commanders, and so its latent strength rivaled several divisions. Ma Zhong and Wang Si, serving as marshals of the march, helped me carry out the reform. With two men so well versed in administration, the change came quickly, and without strain.

Once the army had been set in order, the days of real training began. While the soldiers were being remade into men fit for the units that held them, their commanders were busy improving themselves as well. Wang Ping at his letters, Ju Fu at horsemanship, Wang Si deepening his grasp of the army as a whole — and amid all that progress, I stepped forward and drove one point home.

Under that logic, whenever the soldiers rested, the officers had to spar with me and train at arms. Liu Yin, the strongest of them, joined as a matter of course; and unexpectedly Wang Si and Ma Zhong declared they would take part as well, without a moment's dragging of the feet. If even the two weakest were willing, the rest were openly delighted. Liu Yin threw himself into the drills with the greatest zeal of all. Ma Dai's skill, by contrast, sat squarely in the middle — above Ma Zhong and Wang Si, short of Wang Ping and Ju Fu.

In raw martial power the eight of them fell into three strong, three middling, and two weak. On horseback, the reckoning changed. Even with stirrups, matching Ma Dai's horsemanship was beyond them. It was only natural. Take Ma Dai away, and every one of the rest was a man of Yi Province.

So the days passed, soldiers and officers alike bent to their training, and before I knew it the year Jian'an 23 had dawned.

That day my officers and I were at our map exercises.

"As expected of you, General. We thought our own skill had improved a great deal, and still we are ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no match for you."

"Hah. You think so?"

I was eighteen already. A stature nearing five feet seven — towering in this age — and the explosive strength of a body hammered into shape now fully rivaled Zhang Fei's own. Of late, even Wang Ping and Ju Fu coming at me together were no particular threat. I was not Lu Bu in the Romance, taking Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei all at once; but merely to hold my own against Liu Yin, Ju Fu, and Wang Ping was already an absurdity. Liu Yin, that fierce general of Shu Han in its later years, and Ju Fu and Wang Ping, grown strong through their training with me — set any one of them apart, and he was still a commander of real weight.

Feeling the growth in myself, I held out a hand to Liu Yin where he lay on the ground. The palm that met mine was rough with callus. There had always been a few hardened patches on him; now the difference was stark. My own hand was no different. The Mountain Spirit's peculiar blessing, it seemed, had not extended so far as calluses. I preferred it this way. A hand that kept the traces of effort, whole and unhidden, was what I thought of as true beauty.

Liu Yin took my hand and rose, then picked up the sword that had rolled aside. It was only a blunted practice blade, and still he sheathed it with care. His character showed in that.

"You've grown entirely used to the mask, it seems. At first, minding it left an opening — a very slight one."

I had begun wearing a mask around this time, for no reason that needed much explaining: my face drew far too many eyes. Come into the latter half of my teens, my looks had opened into full bloom, until a person speaking with me face to face would sometimes stare in a blank daze and forget whatever he had been saying. Hiding a face that stood out too much — I might as well have been the Prince of Lanling, that ancient lord who masked a beauty too dazzling to show. And considering that my army was already called the Luanling Army, it almost seemed as if I had planned the thing. Lanling, and Luanling. They sound alike. The words are not the same.

While I was turning that idle thought over, a figure burst out from the entrance of the training ground.

"Urgent report!"

The one who came pelting up, all in a scramble, was none other than Ma Zhong. He was a man who smiled softly every time, easy and unhurried. If something could shake him into this kind of haste, only one possibility came to mind. About time, really.

And so it was. Gasping, he wrung the shout out of himself at last — and it was precisely what I had been thinking.

At last.

Liu Bei and Cao Cao. The hour had come for two heroes of the realm to meet, and to contend for supremacy.