An Interlude
The road home, once the talks with Cao Cao and Sun Quan were finished, was light beyond measure.
From Hanzhong to Shangyong, from Shangyong to Xiangfan, and from Xiangfan all the way to Gong'an, my Nanling Army had run and fought and run again without a breath to spare. Now, for the first time in a long while, a true liveliness returned to those dear, steadfast ranks, and I was proud of them for it.
Jiangling, seat of Nan Commandery and one of the greatest cities in Jingzhou, had turned into a city that never slept. Every granary of the yamen stood flung wide, baring its empty belly, and from within the walls the smoke of cooking rice and the smell of roasting meat drifted out to the far edge of the night sky.
Soldiers who had fought with everything they had, common people who had kept faith, civil and military officers who had done their utmost each in their own place — not one of them was missing from the laughter, and talk blossomed everywhere like flowers. Those who had piled up a fat store of merit in this campaign were already sketching bright futures, swollen with hope for the rewards that would soon come down. One man was certain that, with the feat he had performed, a grand administrator's post was his. Another was sure that, having taken such-and-such a captive, his rank was bound to rise.
Amid all that happy boasting, I somehow picked out a man whose face was dark, and I went to him.
"Xiaoxing, what's wrong? Are you hurt somewhere?"
Swept up in the festival air blanketing all of Jiangling, my tone came out lighter than usual. It felt less like a superior speaking to a subordinate than like friends trading words.
At my call, Gou Bu hastily set his expression to rights.
"Ah — forgive me. On a fine day like this, what a lapse. I'm not hurt. No, not in the least."
"Enough of that. You can take it easy for now. If something's weighing on you, say so, and don't keep it bottled up. I'll listen, if that helps at all."
Where was the Gou Bu who had always been bold and easy among people? He only turned his wine cup in his fingers, like some timid boy. Well, everyone has things that are hard to say. I had no wish to make him uncomfortable, so I simply kept the place beside him in silence.
A little later, he asked, carefully.
"General… we did achieve a great merit, didn't we?"
"Hm?"
"We beat both Cao Cao and Sun Quan."
"Mm… that's right. We won against the whole realm. You're allowed to be proud."
"Then the reward will be great as well. We might even be given high office. Haha."
It was a dry laugh. He had won a great merit and made his name; a fitting reward would raise him in the world. What was there to worry about?
Ah. The burden of earning great merit so young!
Gou Bu was still in his twenties — young, and among the army's senior men, green as new grass. Most of the generals under me were like that. Even Ma Dai, the oldest of them, had only just passed thirty, the age of standing firm.
"Worried you've risen too young?"
"Sir?"
"Don't fret over a thing like that. Huo Qubing was made General of Agile Cavalry at twenty-one. Nothing worth losing sleep over."
"Ah. Yes. Thank you."
Hm? That didn't seem to be it. His answer was thoroughly lukewarm. I was casting about for something more to say when the men of the Eight Wings, spotting Gou Bu and me together, began to drift over one by one.
"What are the two of you talking about so happily?"
"Make room for us as well. We'll be hurt if you leave us out."
Affable Wang Si and Ma Zhong came up already talking, while the taciturn trio — Wang Ping, Liu Yin, and Fu Qian — settled into seats as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Unlike Wang Ping and Liu Yin, who truly had little to say, Fu Qian was only fashionably silent; his shoulders twitched with how badly he wanted in. Something about upholding his dignity as captain of my personal guard. A funny fellow, in any case.
"Where have Bai Qian and Shengzong gone?"
"Shengzong? I saw him over there, drinking with his friends from home."
"The ones who enlisted with him from the very start?"
"So it seemed."
Now that was friendship. That was friendship.
"And Bai Qian?"
"He's matching cups with General Pang."
They hadn't seen each other in a long while. That, I understood. So everyone who was going to gather had gathered.
"Watching from the side, it looked as though you were hearing out Xiaoxing's troubles. His color wasn't good."
"Mm. Everyone has worries."
Looking at them now, I could see it in the others as well — behind the laughter, shades of discontent great and small, or else the look of men nursing some private dread. Sharp-eyed Ma Zhong seemed to realize they were all sharing the same one.
"Well. So it wasn't only me."
"Mm… I see."
There they go again, knowing something among themselves and leaving me out.
I watched, a little sour about it, and Ma Zhong let out a snort of laughter, then spoke as if embarrassed.
"If this merit is recognized and we're given offices, I fear the day may never come again when we stand beside you, General. Isn't that so, Xiaoxing?"
"It is."
It was not only Ma Zhong and Gou Bu. Everyone gathered around me nodded as if of one heart and one will, and looked at me. Ma Zhong had been the one embarrassed to say it. The one truly abashed was me.
"Ahem. Ahem. What are you all fretting over a thing like that for?"
"Because every one of us was chosen by your own hand, General."
Coming from taciturn Liu Yin, the words were all the more sincere.
"Age, birth — none of it mattered. You looked only at the person. I've been studying letters, and there's a saying: a scholar dies for the one who knows him."
"That's right! If not for you, General, who would ever have known us?"
Wang Ping, who had never set his studies down even as he went from battlefield to battlefield, opened the gate, and Fu Qian, itching to speak, hurried to add his piece. They wanted to stay with me, and they grieved that they would have to be parted all the same. Their true feelings closed my throat. Afraid the wetness might show in my voice, I braced myself and declared it to them.
The age of chaos was not over. The Three Kingdoms had only just been completed. War would go on.
"So follow me. Win your merits, and on the day I become Grand General, stand at my side as you do now, and aid me."
To be Grand General meant the whole of the army would lie beneath me. When that day came, I wanted them in the vital posts. I wanted them risen high enough that I could entrust them with an army and believe in them. If it came to that, then on the day we crossed Guanzhong and drove for the Central Plains, they would be beside me again, just as they were now.
When the feast that had seemed as if it might go on forever was at last drawing to a close, I was not at the official residence in Jiangling, but at Pan Jun's private house, meeting him there. With tea between us rather than wine, I needled him.
"I hear they're calling it the Nanling Stratagem?"
"Mm. So they are."
I had asked with a little mischief in it, meaning to tease him, and he took it with perfect calm. Tch. No fun at all. I pushed my lips out in a pout, and Pan Jun laughed under his breath.
"It isn't wrong, is it?"
"Chengming isn't my subordinate. And there is no Nanling."
"Must one be a subordinate? It is enough to share a heart. And must there be a place called Nanling before one can be a comrade who stands with Mingjing? If you carry a luan in your heart, are you not all the Nanling Army?"
"I can't beat you with words."
To win an argument with Pan Jun, I suspected I would have to haul Zhuge Liang himself all the way over. I had thought my own tongue had improved a little by now, but the orthodox school really was different. And yet the fact that I was quietly glad of every word he refused to yield — was that because his actions, more than anything, were the proof that his words were true?
In the history I knew, friction with Guan Yu had led Pan Jun to neglect his duties, until Sun Quan's earnest persuasion won him over and he became a famed minister of Wu. Here, to keep his friendship with me, he had stepped forward as the man who carried out the most dangerous part of the stratagem.
"The General of the Front gave you a hard time, didn't he?"
"You may simply call him Second Uncle."
I had used the title so it would not sound as if I were taking Guan Yu's side. Had it been that obvious? Or was Pan Jun simply quick at reading what I meant? Either way, for all my concern, he only shrugged, as if it were nothing.
"It's all right. I understand him, a little."
"You understand?"
"The General of the Front has always been a man who disliked my teacher."
Guan Yu had not disliked Pan Jun for no reason. He slighted the scholar-gentry, yes, but he did not reject those who had both ability and character. Whatever the original history, the Pan Jun before me could be counted among such men. Even so, Guan Yu had never acknowledged him, and his teacher's shadow had much to do with it.
Pan Jun's teacher, Song Zhong, was the man who had once carried word to Liu Bei that Liu Cong had surrendered to Cao Cao. And it had not been Liu Cong who sent the news first. Song Zhong had kept it from Liu Bei until Liu Bei pressed him, and only then had he spoken. Liu Bei, furious at not having been told, had meant to kill him, and in the end had let him go. Guan Yu, quietly narrow in the chest, had looked on Song Zhong with distaste, and the slight had extended even to the disciple, Pan Jun. In the original history, Pan Jun's sulking had been the answer to that.
"And Mingjing told me herself, did she not?"
"Me?"
"Yes. That you took the General of the Front to task for slighting me."
"Mm. Well. I did."
"Who in the world could say such a thing to the General of the Front himself? That Mingjing stepped forward for me is reward enough for my pains."
"That isn't enough."
I had been waiting for this, and I brought out what I had prepared.
"This is…"
Surprise spread over Pan Jun's face at the sight of it. What I had taken out was a gold-silk mantle. I had hurried to have it ready while we lingered in Jiangling for rest and feasting.
"A gift."
"May I try it on?"
He said it with his eyes shining, exactly like a child given a birthday present. I lifted a hand and told him to go ahead, and he was on his feet at once, settling the mantle over his shoulders.
"Hm? It seems a little short, Mingjing."
"I had it made that way on purpose. Not like that — this way. There."
I set the gold-silk mantle on his shoulders myself and settled it at the proper angle. The one I had prepared for Pan Jun was unlike the usual sort: it covered only a single shoulder. A long, heavy cloak would only have been a burden to a man whose life lay far from marches and camp.
Properly draped, he looked for all the world like a philosopher in a Western toga. He looked down at his own shoulder — at the place where a blue luan had been worked into the cloth.
"Did you make it yourself?"
"I have no gift for needlework. I did draw the design, though. There's only one crest, so I thought a single mantle would suit."
"I have received the finest of gifts. I shall keep it all my life."
"If it gets too worn, you're allowed to throw it away."
"Haha. Then I had better wear it sparingly."
Pan Jun stroked the luan on his shoulder and laughed, well pleased. It was the day before I left Jiangling to return to Chengdu.
"General — there. That's Chengdu."
The end of the long road was there.
Nearly four years had passed since I had stopped to receive the rewards for the Battle of Dangqu, and Chengdu was not as I remembered it. Beyond the gates the ground was packed with people — not the ordinary flow of traffic, but ranks held in good order.
"Zijun, am I truly seeing this?"
The sight was astonishing enough that the question slipped out of me. I drew the reins and halted, then swung down and started forward on my own two feet, toward the people who had thrown Chengdu's gates wide to welcome me.
Those waiting before the gate came slowly forward as well. And at their head was Liu Bei.
"Welcome home."
I went to my knees before him, clasped my hands, and answered.
"I have returned."
It was the tail end of Jian'an 24.