Catching One's Breath, Watching for Opportunity
I watched Cao Cao turn his horse and lead his army away, and the tension finally drained from my chest.
“Whew. They’re leaving.”
Honestly, when Zhang Fei had been hurling insults at Cao Cao, I’d been half-afraid the man would charge us on the spot. Showing spirit was fine, but did he have to go that far with the language…?
Either way, it seemed we had weathered the crisis at Changban more or less as history intended. And I had managed to save Xu Shu’s mother as well.
Also—that general who’d dueled Zhang Fei earlier (if you could call getting thoroughly humiliated a duel) and ended up in the water—that had been Xiahou Ba, hadn’t it? If he was the Xiahou Ba I knew, he wouldn’t die here. He’d be fished out and sent home. And in the future, perhaps…?
“Ahem. They won’t come near us for a while. We use this opening to escort our lord and move again.”
Zhang Fei, who had held the bridge until Cao Cao’s army was completely out of sight, came back with his spear shaft resting across his shoulder and a look of pure triumph on his face.
I went over to him.
“Your valor is truly the equal of ten thousand men, General. I am in awe.”
“You and Zhao Yun cut straight through the middle of the enemy ranks. Compared to that, this was nothing.”
Zhang Fei and I took the handful of cavalry still hidden in the brush and rejoined Liu Bei’s main force in the rear.
“Cheong!”
“Father.”
My father came running, out of breath, and planted both hands on my shoulders.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
He turned my face this way and that, studying me with such intensity that I could tell how badly he had fretted.
“I’m fine. Please don’t worry so much.”
“There’s blood here…”
“It isn’t mine. It’s the enemy’s. You’d do better fretting over them than over me.”
I slipped a little joke into it, and he let out a long, relieved sigh.
“Right. There’s no winning with you. Still—thank heaven. Never do anything this dangerous again.”
“Yes, Father.”
I said it without much conviction, and he didn’t look as though he believed me either.
We walked on talking, and before long I could see Liu Bei, Zhao Yun, and the other officers gathered ahead. Thankfully, everyone seemed unharmed—Liu Bei’s family included.
Then a familiar voice reached my ear.
“Lady Jin!”
Xu Shu was waving, a broad smile on his face.
“I’m so glad you’re safe. When I heard you’d charged into the enemy lines, I nearly jumped out of my skin.”
“I’m glad you’re safe as well, Advisor Xu. You’re not hurt, are you? From the look of you, it seems you fought.”
His clothes and sword hilt were soaked through with blood, and his face looked a little drawn. Liu Bei’s robes were just as stained—clearly they had fought their way here through hard combat of their own.
Even so, Xu Shu answered with undimmed energy.
“I took up a sword for the first time in a long while. My shoulder’s a bit sore, but it seems my skill hasn’t rusted away just yet. And our lord is unharmed as well.”
“How is your mother?”
“Thanks to you, Lady Jin, she made it here without a scratch. She’s resting in the carriage now.”
He pointed. There sat the carriage of the mother I had rescued. Dangerous as the plan had been, it had borne fruit.
“Lady Jin…”
“Yes?”
Xu Shu trailed off in a way that was unlike him. When I turned, I found him bowing his head.
“Thank you…”
I couldn’t see his face, but his voice was trembling.
“Ah…”
“Truly—thank you. For saving my mother…”
He took both my hands and stood there for a long moment, shoulders shaking, on the edge of tears.
After that I had a brief private audience with Liu Bei. He praised my courage and my service.
“To accomplish something so valiant, even as a woman—you are a model for the entire army.”
I also received his thanks for saving his son. Along with a request that I never again risk a precious life for the sake of a worthless boy. Very much a Liu Bei sort of thing to say.
“Once the rearguard is in order, we move at once. We must link up with Guan Yu.”
Having gathered what stragglers he could, Liu Bei declared there was no more time to waste and resumed the march.
Along the way I had a brief chance to see Liu Shan. Lady Gan was caring for him. Both she and the child were unhurt—a mercy.
Looking at him, I fell into thought for a moment. Liu Shan—the last ruler of a fallen kingdom, mocked even in the modern age for this and that. There were people who said Zhao Yun’s greatest mistake in life had been saving him. I might well hear the same thing said of me someday.
Watching the infant fuss in his swaddling clothes, the thought came unbidden.
Still… how could anyone leave a child who knows nothing of the world behind in the middle of a war?
The future? The future could be changed.
After that, our army managed to meet Guan Yu’s reinforcements before Cao Cao could renew the pursuit. Then Liu Qi’s forces from Jiangxia joined us as well, and we reached Xiakou.
The situation itself was grim—but there was good news too. Several Jingzhou officials who had refused to follow Liu Cong and Cao Cao sought Liu Bei out and offered to serve under him.
One of them was Guo Jun.
“This humble officer, Guo Jun, will from this day forward wield his spear for Lord Liu Bei.”
Oh-ho. At last. The master of fortress defense.
And with Guo Jun came another man—someone I had not been at all certain would come.
“This humble officer, Wang Wei, has come with General Guo Jun. I beg you to take me into your service.”
Wang Wei as well!
I later learned that Liu Bei, acting on my earlier advice, had already spoken to him in private:
Should you ever find yourself unable to fulfill your ambitions, come to me at any time.
Wang Wei had almost certainly urged Liu Cong to strike Cao Cao first—and been refused. If word of that counsel reached Cao Cao’s ears, Wang Wei’s life would not be worth much. So he had come to the man who had already shown him goodwill. His arrival was a pleasant shock.
The two of them had also brought a modest number of soldiers with them.
All told, the forces we had gathered came to roughly twenty thousand. Not a small number—but still absurdly insufficient to face Cao Cao.
Liu Bei held council after council with Zhuge Liang, Xu Shu, and the other advisors, their faces grave. No doubt they were discussing cooperation with Eastern Wu.
The generals under him kept the troops’ morale up and maintained order, but they could not hide their unease.
I, however, was not particularly worried. If things went as expected, an opportunity would come soon enough—an opportunity to catch Cao Cao himself.
“Cheong.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Doesn’t any of this trouble you? Everyone else is on edge.”
“Oh, of course I’m worried. But if we hold on and wait, won’t a chance present itself before long?”
“True. We’ve followed our lord through countless hardships, so I believe there will be a way out this time as well—but I can’t see how it will come.”
And so the days passed in that anxious atmosphere.
Ah—one small development of my own:
“Jin Cheong is hereby granted the rank of Duwei.”
In short, I was given an official post. A Duwei was roughly a junior officer’s rank, awarded by Liu Bei for my service at Changban.
And not long after, a distinguished guest arrived—a visitor from Eastern Wu.
“This humble servant, Lu Su, presents his respects to Left General Liu Bei.”
“You are most welcome. I have long heard of Master Lu Su’s renown. We have prepared a place for you—please, come this way.”
“I am grateful for so grand a reception. By order of General Who Conquers the Caitiffs, Lord Sun Quan, I have come to offer condolences for the late Lord Liu Biao.”
Just as expected—Lu Su had come as an envoy. And true to form, he did not state his real purpose at once, using condolences for Liu Biao as his pretext.
Liu Biao and Sun Quan had never been on good terms, so the condolences made little sense. He simply did not want to lay all his cards on the table before negotiations began.
Sure enough, Lu Su soon let a glimpse of his true intent show.
“Lord Liu Bei—Jingzhou has already fallen into Cao Cao’s hands. Where do you intend to go from here?”
There’s nowhere left for you but our Eastern Wu—so what will you do? He was testing the waters. But Liu Bei, for his part, kept his own counsel.
“I have long been on friendly terms with Wu Ju, the Grand Administrator of Cangwu. I thought I might go there and seek his aid.”
“Cangwu is that far southern land, is it not? And Wu Ju has no capacity to weather these troubled times. It is only a matter of time before some other power absorbs him.”
In other words: Stop talking nonsense and show your true colors. You need Eastern Wu’s strength, don’t you?
Lu Su must have been fretting in his own way. They would have to stand against Cao Cao now, and that meant gathering every scrap of strength they could find.
In any case, after a back-and-forth that was not quite a tug-of-war, the two of them arrived at the final proposal: an alliance.
The Sun–Liu alliance. The starting point of a critical fork in history—and an alliance that, mishandled, could lead to ruin.
“Then I shall send our military advisor, Master Zhuge Liang, to Eastern Wu as our envoy.”
Send Zhuge Liang to firm up the alliance. That was Liu Bei’s plan. And as for mine…
“I wish to accompany Advisor Zhuge to Eastern Wu as well. Please grant me permission.”
Zhuge Liang going was only to be expected—but my going was not. Every gaze in the room swung toward me.