Liu Biao (9)
The Grand General's army had planted itself brazenly in full view, right before the walls of Xiangyang Castle and Fancheng.
"I haven't the faintest idea what they mean to do."
There the enemy sat, dawdling the days away without so much as raising a proper fortified camp, and Liu Biao, watching it all from atop the city wall, made no effort to hide his bewilderment.
"Have they grown drunk on complacency, so certain they cannot lose? And if not that…."
Liu Biao turned to Kuai Yue at his side.
"What do you believe is the reason they behave so?"
At the question, Kuai Yue bowed respectfully at the waist and answered.
"With what little cunning I possess, my lord, I suspect they are spreading a lure."
"A lure, you say?"
"Yes, my lord."
Liu Biao pressed him further.
"They have dug their trap, and now deliberately bare the gaps in their ranks — waiting for us to take the bait."
"Hmm…."
"This Xiangyang is a fortress gifted by heaven itself. However mighty the Grand General's host — the strongest in all the world — would it not pay dearly to force its way in by sheer strength?"
The treatises of war speak with one voice on this: to assault a walled city is the worst choice a commander can make.
And they say the one skilled in employing soldiers takes the enemy's city without ever attacking it — so perhaps the enemy was lounging about with precisely that in mind.
When one speaks of a defensive battle, the image that comes to most minds is barring the gates tight and enduring the enemy's onslaught — but opening those gates to strike whenever the besiegers showed an opening was every bit as much a part of holding a city.
Liu Biao nodded along, judging Kuai Yue's reasoning sound — and yet another doubt stirred within him.
"But might not a gap made on purpose become a true weakness after all?"
A camp thrown up haphazardly, with no defense readied against a sudden cavalry raid — and there they were, cooking their meals in the open.
Come every mealtime, they doffed their armor and lit fires beneath their cauldrons in plain sight.
Nor had they drawn up any proper battle formation. If this was a staged display of vulnerability, it was overdone far past all reason.
So much so that even Liu Biao caught himself thinking a blow struck this very instant might well drive them out.
Kuai Yue spoke.
"I shared that doubt, my lord. But the Grand General is a man who has held Bing Province against the foreign tribes since days past, piling up every manner of battle experience there is."
"……."
"And does not the Peerless Under Heaven — the very warrior every soldier in our army fears — sit enthroned within that camp even now?"
"Quite so."
"If we launch our raid and are crushed by the Peerless One's martial might — if our spirit breaks for even a moment — the situation will plunge straight to the very worst."
So saying, Kuai Yue offered a courteous bow.
"To know that our own army can attack, yet not to know that the enemy can strike back at us in turn — our chances of victory are then no better than half."
Having quoted the words of Sun Tzu's Art of War, Kuai Yue went on.
"And should it come to that, our city will fall without our mounting any real resistance at all."
"…Mmm."
Liu Biao could only marvel that a single commander, alone, could weigh so heavily upon a battlefield.
"Then there is nothing for it but to bar the gates fast and wait for relief to come."
"……."
Hearing him out, Kuai Yue merely bowed in quiet assent.
So several days passed — and then an upheaval swept through the Grand General's camp.
The army that had idled as though biding its time for something suddenly burst into frantic motion from one day to the next.
Watching the sprawling, disheveled camp take on a proper, disciplined shape within mere minutes, Liu Biao knew that Kuai Yue's prediction had been right.
"…We came within a hair's breadth of ruin."
It was a display worthy of the Grand General's army, whose name as the finest soldiers under heaven rang far and wide.
What would have become of them, had he ignored Kuai Yue's counsel and hurled his men into that raid?
He could not say in detail — but of one thing he was certain: a gale of blood would have torn through his own ranks.
A faint chill of sweat prickling his skin, Liu Biao gazed out at the Grand General's camp.
Why would a man who had kept his lure running for days on end reverse his course so abruptly?
Because the situation on this battlefield had turned all at once, no doubt.
Watching the Grand General's movements, Liu Biao concluded that the reinforcements under Cao Cao and Yuan Shao must have drawn near to Jingzhou.
A thin smile stole across Liu Biao's lips.
"What a pity this must be for him."
To find himself assailed from every direction at a stroke — surely even the Grand General could not be easy in mind.
Liu Biao could feel it: little time remained before the Grand General was driven from Jingzhou altogether.
Trapped in a siege with his intelligence choked off, he could hardly have thought otherwise.
Not until a messenger slipped through the Grand General's watch and reached the city to make his report.
"I bring report! General Yuan Shao and General Cao Cao are alike in no position to send reinforcements!"
"Wh-what did you say?!"
Liu Biao — counted among the Eight Gentlemen of Jiangxia, a man who never once let his composed bearing slip — startled as though he would leap clean out of his seat.
He had taken it for certain glad tidings. What calamity was this, falling out of a clear sky!
Liu Biao shouted.
"Explain—explain yourself at once! What in the world is the meaning of this!"
"Yes, my lord!"
Still on one knee, fist wrapped in palm, the messenger carried on with his account.
"General Yuan Shao says her war with Gongsun Zan grows fiercer by the day, leaving her in no condition to spare a single soldier. And the moment General Cao Cao dispatched her army toward Jingzhou, Tao Qian of Xuzhou invaded with a great host, and she was forced to wheel about in haste!"
"Th-that sly old serpent of a man!"
Liu Biao's face burned scarlet with fury.
"He means to seize this chance to stretch his power into Yanzhou!"
Liu Biao raged and roared.
"Now is not the time for such grasping!"
In an hour when all their strength combined would scarce suffice to curb the Grand General, the man had let petty greed seize him, reaching for private land while the world burned!
If Jingzhou dropped into the Grand General's clutches, Cao Cao's power would come next — and once Cao Cao was done, Tao Qian himself would be the quarry!
'…No — is that precisely why he strikes at Cao Cao now?'
Once the Grand General held Jingzhou, he would surely attack Cao Cao to take Yanzhou.
Cao Cao would stem his onslaught alone until, at the last, she begged Tao Qian for relief.
Yes. And by then, whether Tao Qian had swallowed Cao Cao's lands or not would be beside the point.
Yesterday's foe becoming today's friend was the commonest thing in a world gone mad — the old man had moved to milk the moment for all it was worth.
'That wretched old bastard.'
In his heart, Liu Biao cursed the serpent coiled in Xuzhou.
'And what would it amount to anyway, but the lot of them gnawing each other's strength away?'
To seize Cao Cao's territory, Tao Qian would surely have to stomach grievous losses of his own — where did he find the nerve…?
Still sunk in thought, Liu Biao asked the messenger.
"Did the Grand General's army pursue Cao Cao's forces as they fell back?"
The messenger answered.
"The detachment that crossed paths with Cao Cao's army took no action whatsoever, even upon seeing them in retreat!"
"Hah…."
So that was how it stood.
Tao Qian must have set his great host in motion the moment word reached him that the Grand General's army and Cao Cao's had clashed.
When war breaks out and armies collide, when does the damage run deepest?
When pursuers fall upon an army in flight.
Keep up the standoff with the Grand General, and Tao Qian's army would claim Yanzhou behind a monstrous host of soldiers; yet to withdraw was to dread the Grand General's pursuit.
Caught between advance and retreat — the old phrase for a plight in which one can move neither forward nor back.
A lesser man would have managed neither and simply burned the hours, but in that very strait Cao Cao ordered the march home without a flicker of hesitation.
That decisiveness, at least, deserved its due.
And yet, through all of it, the Grand General had not chased Cao Cao's army.
What could it mean, to leave untouched an army stripped of every defense?
Elite though Cao Cao's soldiers were, had the Grand General struck her rear in retreat and dealt her ruinous losses, holding back Tao Qian's great host would have cost him dearly.
As it was, Cao Cao — her army withdrawn whole — would now stand against Tao Qian's host and keep the fight alive for some time yet.
The stratagem of killing with a borrowed knife.
Whichever power emerged victorious, neither would walk away with losses light enough to brush aside.
An anxious thought took root in Liu Biao's mind.
'…It couldn't be.'
What if the Grand General's intent lay behind Tao Qian's strike at Cao Cao?
What if he had foreseen that Liu Biao would beg Cao Cao for reinforcements — and had his countermeasure laid long in advance?
Who in heaven's name could have devised such a scheme?
Was he fated, after all, to end this war utterly alone, cut off from every ally?
The thought carried him that far, and a shudder ran through him as cold sweat broke upon his skin.
Inside the camp of Jeong Reung's army.
Within a tent, a white-haired girl with a fan of white feathers in hand calmly gathered intelligence.
She watched as the messenger made his report to the Grand General.
The report ran thus: Cao Cao, having advanced to the very outskirts of Jingzhou, had obediently drawn off her army and returned the way she came.
The girl gave a small nod.
However the currents bent, Liu Biao was bound to end up isolated all the same.
If Cao Cao accepted Liu Biao's plea and marched out, one need only goad Tao Qian into attacking Yanzhou.
And what if Tao Qian refused to strike Cao Cao?
The girl had lived in Xuzhou long enough to know: that greedy old man was precisely the sort who could never turn down such an offer.
If anything, seized by the lust to swell his own domain, he would have driven the attack forward no matter what anyone around him said.
"Everything is proceeding exactly as calculated."
At her words, the Grand General beside her smiled and patted her head.
"It is. You've done splendidly."
"……"
The girl — Zhuge Liang — had just settled into a look of deep satisfaction when she noticed another girl off to one side, watching her with open displeasure.
Zhuge Liang curled the corner of her mouth upward — at precisely the angle only that girl could see.
"…Grrk."
The sight of her grinding her teeth, seething — it was truly delightful.