The Tide Turns
It was still the hour before dawn, the moon lingering above the world as if reluctant to yield the sky.
Generals Cao Zhen and Guo Huai had regrouped their scattered men and were advancing along the road the Shu army had taken in retreat.
Losing the supplies stockpiled on Beishan is a fatal blow. Having marched out with so great a host, we cannot return without some achievement to show for it.
Such was the thinking of both commanders.
"General. The enemy camp is ahead."
"I see it."
Indeed, a fortification rose in the distance, stark and solitary under the moonlight.
That must be the camp they fell back to. And yet…
Guo Huai was turning something over in his mind.
Why is no one in sight? At this range, the enemy must surely have noticed us.
But the enemy camp defied all expectation. No matter how hard they looked, not so much as a shadow of a man could be found. No banners. No weapons. Nothing.
"What do you make of it, General Guo?"
"Hmm. There is no chance that fort is empty. If the enemy has laid a trap…"
The two generals halted their advance and conferred for a moment. Then—
Creeeak.
With an unpleasant groan of wood, the camp gate swung open, and a single figure walked out from within.
"…!"
There she stood before the fort, utterly exposed. Jin Cheong—weaponless, bare-handed—faced Cao Zhen and Guo Huai's entire force with the calm of someone stepping out to greet a guest.
The more composed she appeared, the more the two generals' faces twisted with unease.
What scheme is this? Only moments ago she was tearing through our ranks.
No one stands that calmly before a host this size. This is a trap. It has to be.
Sensing danger, the two generals had no choice but to order a withdrawal.
And the very instant they turned their backs—
"Now! Attack!"
A shout rang out from behind them, and a rain of arrows crashed down upon their rear.
"The plan worked! Move! Pursue the enemy!"
Zhao Yun, who had been waiting inside the fort, spurred his horse out at a gallop—bringing my mount and weapons with him.
"Yes. Let's go!"
While Huang Zhong ordered the archers hidden in the moat to keep firing, I vaulted onto the horse Zhao Yun had brought and drove into the enemy's exposed rear.
An army advancing with its back turned cannot reverse course in an instant. Caught off guard by the ambush, the enemy broke into panicked flight.
We were still dealing heavy damage to their rear when a fresh force cut across my path.
"I will not let you run wild any longer!"
"Cao Zhang? You again?"
Cao Zhang reformed his lines and began to check our advance. As we had so many times before, he and I locked in combat. But this time, unlike the last, neither of us could force a decision.
"General Jin. We should fall back. If we linger too long, more of the enemy may arrive. We've done enough."
"Understood."
Cao Zhang's late arrival had blocked us, but Cao Zhen and Guo Huai's forces had already taken considerable losses. Together with Zhao Yun, I drew our troops back; Cao Zhang covered the Wei army's rear as they withdrew in turn.
Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!
Back in his tent, Cao Pi sat flushed crimson, snorting with rage.
When the first report of Beishan burning had reached him, he had ridden out in haste—the situation demanded it. But by the time he arrived, the supplies were already almost entirely engulfed in flame, belching only black smoke into the sky.
Just as he had resigned himself to being too late, one piece of news struck his ear.
— The enemy's female general, Jin Cheong, is said to be on the field.
This is my chance. If I can take her and no one else, that will be enough.
Defeating the woman who had once bested Cao Zhang would raise his own renown and catch his father's eye—or so he believed.
Catching up along the flank of the withdrawing Shu army, he found her without difficulty. The only woman on the battlefield. Her voice, rallying her troops, carried clearly even to him.
He led his men in along her flank and loosed an arrow aimed squarely at her.
You're finished!
But she dodged that carefully chosen shot with astonishing reflexes. She slipped the next two attacks as well—then struck back at once.
And with that single counter… he could not prevail. He lost his bow as well.
Crack!
"Ghk!"
The arrow she sent for his throat happened to punch straight through the stave of his bow. The shock wrenched his wrist so badly he could no longer even handle his horse.
And in that span of time, she was already galloping away into the distance.
"Damn it all!"
The bow that had saved its master's life met a different fate—hurled to the dirt by a master who could no longer contain his fury.
Damn it! Must I return without a single achievement to my name?
He was still sitting alone in the tent, pouring out his rage, when a familiar voice reached him.
"Elder Brother. Are you there? I heard you rode out and have returned."
"…Zhang?"
"It is. I'll come in a moment."
Cao Zhang entered the tent as he spoke.
"I heard from General Guo Huai. He said the enemy's fiercest generals took the field in force. You aren't hurt, are you?"
"…"
"Or—have you injured your wrist?"
He asked, watching Cao Pi clutch his wrist and scowl.
"…It's nothing. I only twisted it a little. Don't concern yourself. Go attend to your own duties."
"I'm glad it's no worse. Still, you ought to see a physician, and you shouldn't use that wrist for a while…"
"I said it's nothing—must you keep talking? I told you to leave!"
"…Why are you so angry? There's no call for it."
"Don't pretend kindness. I come back looking like this, and you've clearly come to mock me."
At Cao Pi's barbed words, Cao Zhang's face filled with quiet regret.
"Mock you? I came only because I was worried for you, Elder Brother."
"Don't lie. You're laughing at me inside."
"Why would I laugh at you…"
"Enough. Go. I want to be alone."
"If that is what you wish. Very well. I'll take my leave—look after yourself. Wrap the wrist well, and don't move it for a time."
"…"
Even after Cao Zhang left, Cao Pi sat motionless for a long while. Then, without warning, he slammed his fist down on the table with a bang that cracked through the tent.
It did nothing to ease his temper. It only left his fist throbbing with pain.
In the wake of the defeat at Beishan, a deeper shadow settled over the Wei army.
King Cao Cao's face, above all, had grown darker still.
They had clashed many times already, and suffered defeats more than once—but never of a kind that invited despair. The outcome of the Beishan battle, however, was a catastrophe that delivered despair into his hands.
"Most of the supplies have burned. At this rate, we will not hold out long."
The roads into Hanzhong were treacherous; fresh provisions would take considerable time to arrive. And the calculation was plain: the stores would run dry before any resupply could reach them.
In the early days of the war—when he had entered Hanzhong and rescued Xiahou Yuan, Guo Huai, and the rest—Cao Cao had believed victory was well within reach.
But after Yan Xing fell, and after his second son Cao Zhang, whom he had brought with such confidence, was defeated by the female general Jin Cheong, a primal unease had begun to take root.
Jin Cheong again. That one.
Looking back, it felt as though she had been barring his path for some time now. From Bowang Slope to the Red Cliffs, to Nanjun, and now here in Hanzhong—whenever misfortune struck, her name was never far behind.
When he first heard of her, he had assumed Liu Bei was merely putting a young girl forward as some kind of propaganda.
Is he trying to cloak his faction in the mystique and novelty of keeping a woman general?
But from Sun Guan onward—Yu Jin, Xu Huang, Lu Chu, Zang Ba—mid-ranking generals had fallen one after another to her hand.
And when word came that even Cao Zhang, famed for his valor, had been bested, Cao Cao had no choice but to acknowledge her as one of the fiercest champions of Liu Bei's army.
At Beishan, he had seen her courage and prowess with his own eyes.
Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao—those were already renowned throughout the land, and he had long accepted them as such. But the existence of a female general named Jin Cheong stirred many feelings in him. Chief among them was a hunger for talent.
Why does such a person follow Liu Bei?
Regret was useless. She was already Liu Bei's.
A defeat in a single short engagement was nothing of great consequence. Cao Cao had gone to Cao Zhang's sickbed and offered these words of comfort:
"Victory and defeat are common things. Do not take it too much to heart—devote yourself to recovery."
Cao Zhang, too, had let the flush leave his face and sworn he would win the next time. Watching his son display a warrior's spirit, Cao Cao had been reassured—and before long, Cao Zhang answered his expectations.
Matching Jin Cheong blow for blow in their rematch, and gathering the Qingzhou Soldiers who had stood on the brink of annihilation and bringing them home—that was achievement enough.
And only recently, he had heard, Cao Zhang had also saved Cao Zhen and Guo Huai from what nearly became a rout.
The real problem lay with his eldest, Cao Pi.
— The General of the Household of the Five Offices is said to have mocked General Cao Zhang.
The report Yang Xiu brought in secret gave Cao Cao a headache.
And after Beishan, Yang Xiu brought another.
When General Cao Zhang came to offer comfort, the General of the Household of the Five Offices turned on him in anger instead.
I brought him here to secure his place as my heir—and after what he did to Wang Zhong last time, what is this nonsense now…
A mistake on the battlefield was something that could be overlooked without difficulty.
He had brought Cao Pi for no other reason than this:
I do not expect him to take up a sword and charge the enemy lines as I once did. I only wanted him to gain experience, and to forge some bond with the generals who fight beside him…
In the hard fighting after the defeat at the Red Cliffs, that shared struggle had forged a bond among them. He had hoped Cao Pi might learn even a fraction of it. He had brought him for that—and Cao Pi was doing the opposite of everything intended.
He had summoned Cao Pi quietly and offered counsel, but it seemed to go in one ear and out the other.
Having once resolved to firm up Cao Pi's standing as heir, Cao Cao now thought he would have to reconsider once this war was over.
For that, the war first had to end.
He had meant to drive Liu Bei's army from Hanzhong, but Liu Bei refused open battle, holding his ground with stubborn firmness and relying mainly on troublesome raids—so even that had not gone as planned.
And the recent assault on Beishan by Huang Zhong, Zhao Yun, and Jin Cheong had dealt a decisive blow.
The soldiers' morale was broken, and one by one the strongpoints they still held had to be yielded.
As the shadow of defeat grew denser, Cao Cao's face grew darker still.