The Battle of Xiabian
Cao Xiu went pale at the sight of a body of cavalry shouldering into the gap that had split the Wei army in two.
He had prepared for the worst. Should Zhang Fei have truly taken leave of his senses and come on in some reckless charge, Cao Xiu had meant to meet him with cold composure, sneering all the while at the folly. The measure he had set aside against a mere contingency had, against every expectation, become the fight itself. And still this lay beyond anything he had imagined.
He had already thought it strange that Liu Bei's cavalry was so thin, however many of the men might be rustics out of the backwater of Yi Province. He had never dreamed they were hiding a knife like this.
Cao Zhen has already gone in too deep. Turning the army about now will be nearly impossible!
Even so, he could not leave that cavalry to do as it pleased. The horsemen were smashing ordinary infantry aside like a flood tide and driving straight for Cao Hong. Their intent was plain.
If the Protector-General falls, the army breaks.
Cao Xiu himself might be the true commander, but that was a truth that held only inside the command tent. To the common soldiers, Cao Hong was the general. If that Cao Hong died beneath an enemy blade, their morale would collapse like a castle of sand.
That, at least, I have to stop!
"Cao Bin!"
He called for Cao Zhen's younger brother. Cao Bin was no Cao Zhen, but he knew well enough how an army was handled.
"You don't have to win. Just hold. Think of it as nothing more than that!"
He did not wait for an answer. Taking a portion of the Tiger-and-Leopard Cavalry he had kept in the rear against emergency, Cao Xiu spurred hard to cut off the enemy horse already running down on Cao Hong.
"You dogs! You will not reach the Protector-General!"
Only then did he realize the enemy commander was a woman. A rumor flickered through his mind—of a woman who rode draped in a long length of cloth. He set aside the question of how someone supposedly garrisoned at Dangqu could possibly be here, and steeled himself for death.
A heroine, they said, who inherited her father's martial skill….
And indeed, the fury with which she was breaking the Wei lines was savage beyond measure. Weaker, perhaps, than the absurd, monstrous strength of Zhang Fei, whom he had been watching at arm's length only moments before—but Zhang Lan's onslaught, too, had left the bounds of common sense.
Having marked his approach, Zhang Lan did not so much as glance his way. She only called a name.
"Gubu."
At those two syllables, Gubu, who had been guarding her right, wheeled his horse and barred Cao Xiu's path.
Cao Xiu meant to cut down a mere lieutenant—not even Zhang Lan herself—in a single pass. Gubu was not the easy mark he had expected.
"Kh—!"
In the heartbeat Cao Xiu faltered under a strength beyond his reckoning, Zhang Lan drove straight on. Only forward. Her eyes had not left Cao Hong for an instant.
Cao Hong, who had been staring at her ever since he first picked her out, knew it better than anyone. Behind the mask, those burning eyes were fixed on him. And he could not escape them.
Elder brother… it seems this is as far as I go.
And so he could not withdraw. He knew that if he turned his back here, the damage would be truly beyond recall.
"Cao Xiu! Cao Zhen!"
He chose the younger blood of the clan.
"This is an order! Rally the army and fall back on Wudu. I will bear the blame."
Cao Hong did not flee.
He did not begrudge his life. From the day Xu Rong had broken him, he had shaken free of any lingering love for living—for he was a man who had chosen Cao Cao over the whole of the world, and severed himself to follow him.
And yet it galls me. That I will not live to see my brother's realm through to its end.
He raised his sword toward the spearpoint descending upon him. Against a thrust no different from a thunderbolt, Cao Hong's blade was far too frail.
Steel screamed on steel.
Should he take comfort that the sword had not shattered?
The sword kept its shape. Cao Hong's body did not.
Blood sprayed—burst from Cao Hong's own flesh. The blade had held. The arm that gripped it had not.
"Ha… ha…."
A laugh leaked out, mixed with blood. Mockery aimed at himself.
"I grew complacent……."
However unbelievable the brute strength Zhang Lan brought to bear, true to the blood of Zhang Fei, Cao Hong was himself a man who had once borne a warrior's name, and his body still carried a measure of martial power. But high office had made him neglect his training. The price was bitter.
"I pray you accomplish the great work, Brother Aman."
A silver moon cleaved the battlefield. Before a single drop of blood had time to cling to it, the spearpoint sheared through Cao Hong's neck and was gone.
Zhang Lan hauled on the reins, feeling with perfect clarity the sensation of flesh parting and bone giving way. Biaoyuewu screamed and reared, both forelegs lashing the air.
The instant I took Cao Hong's head, I lifted it high and made his death known. The Wei army was elite, but the shock of a commander's death was anything but light.
That their formation held at all, however precariously, was thanks to Cao Zhen and Cao Xiu. Somehow Cao Xiu had beaten Gubu off and taken the reins again; already he had joined Cao Zhen and was pulling the army back together.
Father was strong, but without cavalry of his own it was hard to meet the Tiger-and-Leopard Cavalry head-on. That he had faced them at all with infantry was itself the proof of his ability. Once a man is mounted, mobility alone is a different thing. Cao Xiu knew that numbers meant little once morale had broken, and he moved to save as many men as he could.
"Pursue them, but don't overreach."
Our own fatigue had piled up considerably. Fighting the many with the few always costs more strength. Chase blindly, drunk on merit, and we might be the ones who paid for it.
Fu Rong, who had husbanded more of his strength, went out in pursuit, and I stayed behind to see to Cao Hong's corpse. Enemy general or not, a man of his stature was not someone to fling aside carelessly.
While I was gathering his head and body as best I could, Father came over to me.
"You did splendidly."
"I was lucky."
If Cao Xiu had been even a little closer to Cao Hong and answered in time, taking him would have been impossible. And if Cao Hong had fled, willing to let the army collapse, catching him would have been a distant hope.
It was a great victory, but our side had not come through unscathed.
"So General Lei Tong is…."
Lei Tong, who had been holding against Cao Zhen, was dead, and more than half the soldiers garrisoned at Xiabian were killed or badly wounded. The men under Father were hardly whole either. If even the cavalry had taken casualties, the infantry could only have fared worse.
"Even so, they won't be sticking their heads out of Wudu for some time."
"His Lordship will already have marched for Yangping Pass."
We had secured Xiabian, which had been the aim all along. Liu Bei could now reach Yangping Pass smoothly, without fear of being struck along the way.
And yet, victory or not, my mind would not settle.
"With Cao Hong dead, I worry over how Cao Cao will answer."
This was a man who cherished his kin to a terrible degree. When his father, Cao Song, was murdered, he answered with the great massacre of Xuzhou; when Xiahou Yuan fell, rage carried his own feet into Hanzhong. Would he truly let Cao Hong's death pass in silence?
"Ye is a long way off, and because Cao Cao has styled himself King of Wei, they say revolt is already stirring in the Central Plains. Even if he raises an army, he will not move it easily. We still have time."
By climbing to the kingship of Wei on his own authority, Cao Cao had been plagued by scattered rebellions. Only one of the Liu, men cried, might receive a royal title; for anyone else it was the tyranny of a powerful minister, treason itself—and under that banner, voices had risen calling for his destruction. Even men who had been as good as his trusted hands were nursing discontent and being purged for it. Unless he meant to throw everything away the way Liu Bei had when grief for Guan Yu drove him past reason, not even Cao Cao could bring a great host in a short span of time. It was close to impossible.
"Once word of this victory spreads, Eldest Brother will press the attack all the harder. First we raise a proper camp at Xiabian."
Father and I, together with my main force, which joined us afterward, raised a palisade at Xiabian and built a camp.
Any army coming out of Wudu for Hanzhong had to pass Xiabian. With that ground in our hands, the enemy's supply would grow that much more awkward. Given our inferior numbers, Xiabian would be forced in the end—but if our side took Yangping Pass before that happened, we would enjoy every benefit of holding the place all the same.
So Father and I held Xiabian and watched Cao Xiu and Cao Zhen, shut up in Wudu. In that interval, word came that Liu Bei's main army had at last crossed Jiameng Pass.
"He took Cao Hong? Drove them off and seized Xiabian outright?"
At the astonishing field report from Zhang Fei, Liu Bei shot to his feet, declaring he would read it himself.
Zhang Fei was, to Liu Bei, a matchless trump, but he had never expected this much. He had only hoped the standoff would hold until the main army reached Yangping Pass; if it could not, then so be it. Yet Zhang Fei, as if to protest that he had been badly undervalued, had smashed an enemy three times his number in plain sight—and taken Cao Hong's head into the bargain.
"Heavens—Xiaozhi, did you hear? No. Look at this. Haha! I have slighted my brother far too much. Wouldn't you say?"
Victory at Dangqu, and now victory at Xiabian, one great triumph upon another. At Zhang Fei's dazzling merit—routing Cao Hong's twenty thousand with only a few thousand of his own—Liu Bei beamed as if he might break into a dance on the spot.
Fa Zheng, for his part, turned over whether his own estimation of the man had been flawed, this Zhang Fei who kept producing results beyond all expectation, and read the report with care.
"It says the one who took Cao Hong's head was the General of Radiant Might."
"Yes. I saw that too. Heh—my niece cuts such a figure. How could I not be glad?"
Unlike Liu Bei, who looked ready to seize Fa Zheng in an embrace just to let the joy out, Fa Zheng did not lose his cool head.
"With Cao Hong dead, Cao Cao's heart will ache all the more."
"It will."
Liu Bei briefly wondered what he himself would do if he lost Zhang Fei. The mere imagining was dreadful. If such a thing truly came to pass, he would stake everything he had to destroy the hand that killed him.
But the Cao Cao in Fa Zheng's mind was a different man.
"Cao Cao will not be able to move lightly."
"Why do you say so?"
"He has presumptuously risen as King of Wei, yet he did it before he had settled his enemies without, and so he has stirred trouble within. A poor move. Should he, grieving for Cao Hong, resolve to raise an army all the same, that too would serve us well. We would only have to draw the army back for a time, lean on Jiameng Pass and Jian'ge, drag matters out, and wait for the enemy to destroy himself."
Once the giant called Cao Cao fell, the Central Plains would again be a land without a master, racked by the chaos of rival warlords—and Liu Bei, having gathered his strength upon Yi Province and Jing Province, need only take the realm step by step, as Liu Bang once had.
"For us, the best outcome would be Cao Cao losing his restraint. But he will not."
"No… Cao Cao has grown too large now to pour everything he has into a single throw."
Cao Cao had love of family. The massacre of Xuzhou was its most brutal proof. But he was King of Wei now, and too much a realist to tear up the root-pillars of the state he had built and go charging off. He was a treacherous hero who set advantage above sentiment.
"Still, it will not be without effect. We should assume he will move faster than before, and adjust our own plans accordingly."
"In what way?"
"Now that we hold Xiabian, Yangping Pass is isolated the moment we cut the Maming Gallery. Send a force, take the gallery as well, and seize the pass."
"Whom would you send?"
"Chen Shi should suffice, I should think."
Yet even with Fa Zheng's recommendation, Liu Bei hesitated over the appointment.
With Xiabian taken, seizing the Maming Gallery would be that much easier. As Fa Zheng said, an unremarkable commander of Chen Shi's caliber would be enough to succeed—but Liu Bei's appetite had grown a little larger. The ferocity Zhang Fei and Zhang Lan had shown would already have spread among the neighboring tribes. In that case—
"I will send the General Who Pacifies the West."
"You mean the Marquis of Duting?"
"Have Chen Shi serve as his lieutenant and hold the Maming Gallery. The General Who Pacifies the West I will set to bringing the surrounding tribes to submission."
A considerable number of the Di lived between Wudu and Hanzhong. If Ma Chao—whose fame still stood high among both the Qiang and the Di—took the field in earnest, it would be no great strain for the Di to come and offer their allegiance.
"Hm. Very well. It seems entirely possible."
"Then I will tell the General Who Pacifies the West myself. Xiaozhi, go and make ready to advance on Yangping Pass."
"Yes, my lord."
Ma Chao had come under Liu Bei, but if he was to be treated in a manner worthy of his fame, it was better that Liu Bei deal with him in person. Moved that his family had been spared, just as Zhang Lan had proposed, Ma Chao had vowed in all sincerity to serve with a loyal heart—but the eyes of others still had to be considered.
Waiting for Ma Chao to arrive, Liu Bei forced his excitement down. Hanzhong shimmered before his eyes. And beyond it, all the Central Plains. It had drawn near enough now that he felt he might seize it if he only reached out his arm.
Not yet. This is not the time to ease my heart. Xuande—you have only just won a place where you may speak of the realm with the likes of them. Why this haste?
That self-reproach went on until word came that Ma Chao had arrived.