The Tide of Victory
Meanwhile, Lu Chu—utterly unaware that Zhang He had fallen into a trap—continued his march at the head of the central army. Just then, a soldier came scrambling frantically from the vanguard.
"General Lu Chu! General Lu Chu!"
"What is it?"
"It's a disaster! General Zhang He at the front has fallen into the enemy's trap. Please send reinforcements at once!"
"Damn it—so they got him after all…."
He had fretted the entire way over the possibility of an ambush. But there was no time left to think.
"Hurry! Advance at full speed and save General Zhang He!"
The soldiers picked up their pace. Yet racing through the narrow mountain path only stretched their already elongated formation even further, scattering their strength.
If they hit us from the flanks like this, we're finished. But I can't just ignore our allies in danger either.
Lu Chu's mouth went dry, but trusting in Lü Qian's rear guard, he decided to press forward for now. Yet before he could even reach Zhang He's forces, a sudden war cry slammed into his flank and stopped him cold.
"Halt! You are surrounded. Surrender at once!"
An unknown voice rang out from the side of the road. Whoever it was, the threat was unmistakable. The very situation Lu Chu had dreaded most had become reality.
Damn it—ambushers here too….
And almost simultaneously, torches blazed to life, revealing the enemy.
"The enemy!"
"I urge you once more. Surrender quietly! Do so, and your lives will be spared."
As the surroundings lit up, Lu Chu realized the enemy's threat was no bluff. The ambushing force was considerable. And a moment later, another realization struck him—
The enemy commander… is a woman. As far as I know, there's only one female general.
He identified her from her voice. So it was her—the female general Jin Cheong. He would not lose to a woman. Lu Chu bit down hard on his lip.
"Silence! Who said anything about surrendering? Today is the day you meet your end!"
Lu Chu shouted back without yielding, his mind racing.
They claim we're surrounded, but right now that single unit by the roadside is all they have. If we hold out here until Lü Qian's rear guard joins us, we can turn the tables and crush them instead.
Gripping his spear tightly, Lu Chu roared.
"Drive them back!"
Mount Palmong was swept into the currents of fierce battle in an instant.
Deliberately drawing troops out of the main camp to lure the enemy in. In a sense it was a common enough tactic, but Zhang He's decision to bite hard on the bait proved, in the end, to have been the right call.
The plan went like this.
I, along with my subordinate commanders Wu Ban, Wu Lan, Lei Tong, and the others, each took a portion of the troops and left the main camp. Then, pretending to move toward a rear stronghold, we used the cover of darkness to set an ambush along Zhang He's expected route of advance. Because we had to travel the rugged mountain paths, we left the horses behind and went on foot.
I had drafted the outline of the operation; Zhang Fei had completed it with terrain reconnaissance and detailed instructions.
Would it work this time too? The question lingered in one corner of my mind—but the moment I saw Zhang He's army snaking down the night path, I knew instinctively that we had succeeded.
I waited in hiding for the right moment, then cut into the middle of the enemy formation and shouted.
"Halt! You are surrounded. Surrender at once!"
But even with the call to surrender, the enemy chose to resist.
"Silence! Who said anything about surrendering? Today is the day you meet your end!"
The man who appeared to be their commander shouted and hurled his spear at me. I sprang one step forward and swept my own spear downward, striking the flying spear out of the air.
Crack!
The spear the enemy commander had thrown tumbled to the ground with a dull thud.
"Charge! Annihilate the enemy! Victory is ours!"
I hadn't truly expected the enemy to surrender quietly. The moment the charge order fell, soldiers seized their weapons and hurled themselves at the foe.
"Don't lose heart—counterattack! Hold on just a little longer and Lü Qian's unit will arrive. If we buy time, this is a fight we can win!"
The enemy commander drew the sword at his waist and met us head-on.
Dozens of days spent sharpening invisible blades in the fog, facing each other down. This was the moment that standoff came to an end.
At once, enemy and ally tangled together, and a blood-spattering fight began. I joined the battle with spear in hand.
Around the time I had felled several enemy soldiers with sweeps of my spear—
"This Lu Chu will face you!"
That same enemy commander charged at me with his sword. The blade caught the moonlight and flashed as it aimed for my head.
Clang!
I parried his sword once with my spear blade, then immediately retreated several steps. My plan was to exploit the greater reach of my weapon.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
Having opened the distance, I immediately set my wrist whirling, dancing the spear tip before the enemy commander's eyes. The technique was meant to dazzle his vision so he couldn't tell from which direction the attack would come.
"Ugh?"
To the enemy's eyes, my spear tip would have looked like a reed stalk bending this way and that, tracing dizzying arcs of spear-light. His eyeballs rolled back and forth, tracking the tip. In the moment he hesitated—whether to charge or not—my thrust, seizing the opening, flew straight at his face.
Clang!
"Ah!?"
He was rattled by the first attack, and—
Clash! Clash!
"Kh… this…."
Two successive sweeps broke his stance apart.
Clang!
The next strike knocked his sword high into the air, and I finished it by driving my spear into his throat.
"Guh!"
He collapsed, frothing blood at the mouth.
"Yaaah!"
But before I could even pull my spear free, another enemy soldier charged straight at me from the side. I hurriedly recovered my spear and dropped into a low stance to deflect his attack. At that very moment—
"Uwaaaah!"
With a monstrous yell, one of our own soldiers barreled into the enemy's flank with a full-body tackle. With a thud, the enemy soldier and he tumbled to the ground together. What… what was that?
He couldn't get up right away, groaning on the ground. He'd thrown his weapon somewhere—he was bare-handed. It was a rather clumsy move, but at least it was clear he'd been trying to help me.
I quickly finished off the enemy soldier sprawled on the ground with my spear, then helped him to his feet.
"Hey. You all right?"
"Eh? Y-yes…."
He was still dazed, mumbling nonsense. Looking closely, it was that young, timid soldier—the one Zhang Fei scolded more than anyone else, the one whose face I remembered from helping him several times.
"There, you're fine now. This time you helped me. Well done."
The impact of the body tackle must have been significant—he was still looking rather vacant. Even so, for someone who'd always only shown a timid side, he seemed quite admirable this time.
I picked up a sword that had fallen nearby, pressed it into his hand, and said,
"Pull yourself together. This is a battlefield. Stick right behind me. Got it? Then you'll be fine."
"Y-yes, yes…."
As I patted his back and soothed him, his vacant eyes gradually returned to normal.
I surveyed the battlefield again. Confusion clouded the eyes of the enemy soldiers who had lost their commander.
Then—
"Smash the enemy's flank! They're in disarray!"
Wu Ban's unit, which had been leading a separate detachment from another direction, revealed itself from the opposite side—and poured a fierce assault into the flank of Lu Chu's remaining forces. Now we've got them!
With their commander dead and pincered from both sides, the enemy army crumbled at a rapid pace. Now, as planned, Lei Tong and Wu Lan would each sever the enemy's waist from their assigned positions and crush them.
"One step remains. Sweep the enemy clean! Victory is right before us."
The wind whipping through Mount Palmong grew ever hotter.
Our morale-soaring forces began mopping up an enemy that had lost all will to fight. The number of fallen enemies swelled rapidly, and those who discarded their weapons and surrendered poured forth in droves.
"Everyone, just a little… just a little more…. That way. We need to go that way."
"Huff, huff."
Zhang He was wandering somewhere on Mount Palmong with only the few subordinates he had left.
Up until the moment he faced Zhang Fei, and even when a force approached from behind, he had believed he still had a chance of winning.
Reinforcements have come!
But the cry that rang out from the newly arrived unit shattered the last thread of hope.
"Capture the enemy general Zhang He!"
At that shout, Zhang He understood. The rear guard had already fallen as well.
He had barely managed to break through the encirclement and escape. At least he could be grateful that he had stayed long enough on Mount Palmong to learn the lay of the land.
There's a side path this way. If I can just reach it, I can escape.
He was exhausted to the bone from breaking through the pincer attack, but a single thread of hope that he might still escape remained.
But even that betrayed Zhang He's expectations. Dark shadows already in position came charging into his field of vision.
"Take them all alive!"
"Break through! If we just get past this one crisis, we can return alive. Out of the way!"
Zhang He gathered what strength he had left and thrust his spear at the foremost shadow racing toward him.
Clang!
That shadow calmly received his thrust and immediately launched a counterattack.
Clash!
"Ugh!?"
Even accounting for his exhausted body, the martial skill of the one blocking his path was no small thing. They exchanged several exchanges, but the strength was steadily draining from the hand that held his spear.
"I—I surrender."
"We'll submit—please just spare our lives."
While the two dueled, Zhang He's subordinates cast aside their weapons one after another, raising both hands in surrender to the enemy.
Clang!
"Kh!"
His opponent's attack sent Zhang He's spear flying far away. As Zhang He clutched his wrist and staggered, the spear tip stopped right before his throat. The faint moonlight filtering through the trees beautifully wrapped the sharp spear blade.
His opponent's subordinates had already formed a circle around Zhang He, thrusting their spears inward. There was nowhere left to flee.
"Surrender."
A voice unsuited to the battlefield—the soft tone of a refined woman—flowed out right before him.