Jing Province, Nanyang Commandery (4)
Nanyang Commandery, Jing Province — the domain where the governor of the province kept his residence.
Wancheng housed the administrative seat where all of Nanyang Commandery's official business was conducted. It was also the very ground from which Emperor Guangwu, the man who restored the Later Han, had launched his rise.
Louyang to the north, Hanzhong to the west, Xuchang to the east, Xiangyang to the south. Veer slightly off the road to Luoyang and the route carried you straight to Chang'an — a strategic crossroads threaded through with highways to every great city in the land. Because of that, Nanyang Commandery boasted the largest population of any commandery in all of China.
Anyone who has played a Three Kingdoms game knows it well: start a campaign with the "Three Visits to the Thatched Cottage" scenario, and Liu Bei's faction always begins holed up in a place called Xinye. That Xinye, as it happens, is not a commandery of its own — merely a county belonging to Nanyang Commandery.
Even with a city as substantial as Wancheng sitting right there, Xinye is forever the one that appears in games, and the reason is simple. To make the game work, Liu Bei's faction — one of its protagonists — has to be propped up.
Back in that era, after all, Wancheng had been under the occupation of Cao Cao's army, which had crushed Zhang Xiu and Jia Xu. I marched on Wancheng, reminiscing about the time I'd defended Xinye like it was a fortress from the apocalypse in some old game.
Just then, one of the scouts I had scattered across the area came toward me, dropped to one knee, and offered a clasped-fist salute.
"Reporting, General! Liu Biao's army, which was pressing the siege, is hastily withdrawing its forces and retreating!"
"Good work. Dismissed."
At my words, the scout gave a brief bow and withdrew from my presence. I watched the lightly armored man sprint off at an astonishing clip, then turned my head.
Where my gaze landed, Sima Yi — who had marched out to war alongside me in Jia Xu's wake — was settled comfortably nearby. She must have noticed me looking, because she immediately puffed herself up with a triumphant air.
"Well? Didn't it turn out exactly as I predicted?"
I chuckled and nodded. "It did."
It was Sima Yi who had proposed we strike from behind while Liu Biao's army launched its siege.
'So while Yuan Shu attacks Cao Cao, we seize Nanyang Commandery?'
'That's right.'
Sima Yi and I had spoken shortly before we set out — barely any time after word arrived that Yuan Shu had marched against Cao Cao.
'What do you think? If it plays out this way, Yuan Shu will get stabbed in the back so hard it'll make his spine ache.'
'Hmm...'
At my remark, Sima Yi pondered for a moment. 'What if we delayed our own departure just a little longer?'
'Delay it? Why?'
'Because,' she answered at once to my puzzled question, 'just as Yuan Shu has attacked Cao Cao now, Liu Biao — who's been watching everyone's moves so nervously all this time — will attack Yuan Shu sooner or later.'
I did not deny it. In the current state of affairs, with every warlord squatting in his own corner of the realm, it was no exaggeration to say that each one had the others' backs in his sights.
'Liu Biao's army just repelled Sun Jian's forces recently, so their morale should have soared.'
'...'
'War is a contest of momentum, after all. And Liu Biao surely harbors resentment over Yuan Shu striking at him — so he'd march without a doubt, wouldn't he?'
Her prediction had struck true with perfect accuracy. Liu Biao had sent his army out and begun laying siege to Wancheng.
I asked once more. 'Then what should we do when that happens?'
'That part's simple.' Sima Yi grinned like a little demon. 'When the two powers have bled each other dry, we simply step in and pocket the profit. Wouldn't you say?'
Having heard her stratagem, I tilted my head thoughtfully. Would this even count as the stratagem of killing with a borrowed knife?
Borrowed knife, borrowed blood — the classic scheme of turning another's blade against your enemy. Simply put, it meant souring relations between two factions until they tore into each other, letting the instigator reap the wreckage. Guan Yu had fallen prey to exactly this stratagem, stabbed in the back by the Kingdom of Wu and killed.
Relations between Shu and Wu were already poor during the siege of Fancheng, but in the end it was Wei who goaded Wu into ambushing Guan Yu. The scheme worked all too well — Shu-Wu relations plunged to their nadir, and the Battle of Yiling erupted in its wake. The two kingdoms quarreled on and on until both had collapsed to the very brink of annihilation. Shu, having spent a sweltering night in the forest, need hardly be mentioned, but Wu too suffered catastrophically, its enemy pressed right up against its homeland's gates.
And the one who proposed this very stratagem to Cao Cao was none other than Sima Yi. There was, admittedly, one other person who suggested it as well, but he isn't famous enough to bother with, so let's move on.
'We'll be able to settle things with Liu Biao before long.'
'You think so?'
'Yes. His soldiers have taken considerable losses fighting Yuan Shu, after all.' Sima Yi offered her opinion with the composure of a seasoned courtier. They say the exceptional are exceptional from the cradle — apparently the saying held true.
'So the question is whether Liu Biao will swallow his pride and surrender to survive, or cling to his ambitions, rebel, and crumble in the end.'
'...'
'Frankly, I'm rather looking forward to finding out.'
Should I call that a bad personality? While I was quietly deliberating, Sima Yi blurted something out.
'Oh, and take me with you when you march.'
'Uh... about that...'
'Please?'
'...'
My original plan had been to leave Sima Yi in Luoyang. It went without saying why. Why on earth would I drag a child barely into her teens onto a battlefield?
'Sima Yi, you're still too young to see blood.'
I could feel exactly how much she would sulk if I left her behind, but I said my piece anyway. 'At least until you've come of age...'
'I've already seen blood, back in Luoyang.'
'...??'
Stunned by her sudden confession, I couldn't collect myself for a moment. '...What exactly were you doing?'
'Ah, that's a secret.'
At my question, a smile curled at the corner of her mouth, and in the end she never told me. What in the world had happened without my knowledge? She certainly didn't look like she was lying.
Luoyang — what on earth were they letting children experience in that city? I'd brought her along to broaden her horizons, sure, but I had absolutely no intention of letting her see blood at her age. Our dear little Emperor was one thing, and now this — there was something in Luoyang's political world that corrupted children, something I could not name.
With a complicated look in my eyes, I watched Sima Yi climb into her small carriage. Sensing my stare, she spoke up.
"Why are you staring at me like that?"
"Shall I carry you in my arms from now on?"
"...N-no thank you! I don't need carrying!"
When I teased her, Sima Yi held her silence for a moment before snapping that out. One look at her and there was no mistaking it — an utter child through and through.
I glanced around. Zhang Fei, who had been dragged off by Guan Yu, was rubbing her head, tears welling at the corners of her eyes as if she'd taken a knuckle sandwich. "...That actually hurt, you know."
"Stop whining."
Guan Yu kept her junior sternly in line as she led the troops, and Liu Bei smiled wryly at the pair of them.
"...What? When did you get here?"
"Uh... just now?"
At some point, Lü Bu — who had been striding far ahead of the column — had sneaked her way over to my side. "..."
Seo Yeo, the woman who claimed all women were beasts, simply followed me in silence. Luoyang and Nanyang Commandery lay quite close together, so it hadn't taken terribly long to march the army all the way to Wancheng — a staggering pace for a forced march. Our soldiers, elite troops hardened by endless training, pushed forward without hesitation no matter what obstacles rose before them.
And so I arrived at Wancheng, sweeping my gaze across the city. Sections of the wall had crumbled here and there as if to prove a siege had raged until only moments ago, and plumes of black smoke of unknown origin billowed up from nearby. The moat, dug by diverting the waters of the river nearby, had been entirely filled in with earth — and as if they had paid dearly for that labor, the corpses of soldiers lay strewn everywhere. Siege ladders and the wreckage of what had once been siege engines were visible as well; had this gone on any longer, Liu Biao's army might have taken Wancheng after all. That man had been deadly serious about seizing the city.
Well, Nanyang was genuinely fine land, to be fair. But what was I to do about this? He sweated and bled for it, and now it looked like I'd be the one to eat the prize. I'd wager Liu Biao was nursing quite the stomachache in Xiangyang Castle right about now.
If he's that sore about it, he can turn his army around and come at me again. Not that he'd manage it.
"You're really not going to fight them?"
Just then, Lü Bu, who had been eyeing Wancheng, came over and asked me. It was a natural question — if the defenders had resisted Liu Biao's invasion that fiercely, it stood to reason they'd be no different when it came to us.
I smiled at her doubt. "Don't you trust me?"
"Ah, w-well... it's not that..."
Lü Bu's eyes darted every which way as she answered. Most everyone around me was amusing to watch, but Lü Bu was especially entertaining.
"For today, let's pitch camp and hold position. Come tomorrow, they'll make their move."
"Got it."
Lü Bu nodded and immediately began commanding the soldiers. As I watched the troops bustle about raising the encampment, the gates of Wancheng began to swing open.
"...Hm?"
At the sudden development, everyone froze mid-task and fixed their eyes on the gates. Through the opening came a procession of figures — a woman draped in a cape of tiger skin across her back, and behind her, one look told you, grizzled veterans thick with the scars of a hundred battlefields.
Intuition told me exactly who they were, and I rose from my seat and started forward. Behind me, Seo Yeo and Lü Bu fell in at my flanks as a matter of course, guarding my steps.
As the distance closed, we halted and faced one another. The woman spoke.
"...Are you the General-in-Chief himself?"
"I am."
When I acknowledged it plainly, the woman dropped at once to one knee and offered me a clasped-fist salute. In the same breath, the veterans standing behind Sun Ce bowed in unison.
Sun Ce spoke. "I, Sun Ce, hereby present this Wancheng to the General-in-Chief."
"Welcome."
Smiling, I accepted Sun Ce's surrender.
So it really can be done like this.