Liu Biao (12)
I turned my gaze upon the battle.
Thwack-thwack-thwack──!!
There had been a point, it seemed, to holding position at that knife's-edge distance: half the fire arrows loosed by Liu Biao's army never so much as grazed a soldier, burying themselves instead in the indifferent earth.
Fwoooosh─! Bam!
From the trebuchets now working in earnest, the crews heaved away — heave, ho! — hurling boulder after boulder in an unbroken stream.
It had to be maddening from where the defenders stood. Ignore the shield soldiers and siege carts massed at the vanguard, and they seemed liable to close the distance and fill in the moat at any moment; wait calmly for the shield line to creep closer instead, and stones came sailing down.
Honestly — how many soldiers could keep their composure with boulders whistling overhead?
Originally, of course, I had planned to simply pelt them from a safe remove, but Zhuge Liang had come to me with a quiet word of counsel.
"There is a stratagem that would waste their arrows and wear them down all the further. Would you care to hear it?"
White Feather Fan in hand, Zhuge Liang had come to my tent and offered up a serene smile.
I asked, a trace of puzzlement in my voice. "You have a stratagem like that?"
"Yes."
She gave the smallest of nods and went on.
"It is quite simple. First, position your shield soldiers and siege carts at a distance their arrows can barely reach — barely, and no more."
"And then?"
"After that, you need only advance a little and fall back a little, over and over. That is the whole of it."
Giving the fan a gentle wave, she continued.
"If we implant in Liu Biao's army the illusion that you intend to fill their moat, would their hearts and bodies not wear themselves ragged of their own accord?"
In other words: hand them more busywork they couldn't help but fret over. Stones were already shrieking down on them without pause; if the enemy now hovered at the moat's edge, dithering over whether to fill it or not, it would grind on the nerves past all bearing.
Since the object was to exhaust them until they splintered into infighting, there was nothing to lose by moving according to Zhuge Liang's counsel.
I gave a loose nod. "Good. We'll do it your way."
"Thank you."
When I deferred to her judgment, Zhuge Liang bowed with a courtesy so flawless it was easy to forget how young she was.
Watching her, I found myself recalling the figures a young Zhuge Liang had once held up as her own measure: Guan Zhong and Yue Yi.
Guan Yiwu was the brilliant chancellor of Qi rated a cut above even Xiao He, chief minister of Han itself; Yue Yi was the famed general of Yan who, in a single campaign, wrested more than seventy cities from Qi — then the mightiest power in the land.
The Zhuge Liang of the original history had styled himself after the pair of them — Guan Yiwu in governance, Yue Yi in command.
"I believe that one day you will develop this country as splendidly as Guan Zhong and Yue Yi did theirs."
"……."
At my words, Zhuge Liang fell silent for a moment.
What — had I said something wrong?
Then her lips parted.
"To be held in such esteem by one who has yet even to undergo the rite of adulthood — I hardly know how to repay such grace."
Bowing with perfect courtesy, she looked up at me and continued.
"But one question does linger in my mind."
I looked at her as if to say, go on then — let's hear it.
Zhuge Liang spoke.
"I find myself wondering what it was the General-in-Chief saw in our family, to raise us up so."
"Ah, that."
It was a perfectly natural question. From where anyone else stood, the true power behind the state had abruptly taken up with a house of no renown whatsoever.
Zhuge Jin, surely, nursed much the same question at this very moment.
I answered in an even voice. "For one thing, I have a good eye for people."
"……."
"I couldn't tell you exactly how to put it into words... Let's just say the Zhuge family caught my eye."
Because I'm actually from the future! — it wasn't as though I could answer with that, so I fudged her question for all I was worth.
"That's the whole of it."
At that, Zhuge Liang favored me with a bright smile.
"Then I must strive all the harder, so that your discernment is proven not misplaced."
There was no chance that that razor-sharp Zhuge Liang had failed to notice I was glossing over the question in a hurry.
But she let it pass without remark.
Whatever I had answered, she would likely have passed over it all the same. Though the reason for my favor remained unknown to her, grace received deserved repayment in kind — that, I suspected, was the shape of her heart.
She had probably just been genuinely curious.
In the original history, Zhuge Liang refused even the entreaties of those around him — which urged him, as Cao Cao once had been, to accept the Nine Bestowments from Liu Shan and swell his authority — and instead styled himself to the very end the Chancellor of Shu Han, closing out his life under that title alone.
After his death, later generations bestowed upon him the posthumous name of Marquis Zhongwu — a shihao being the name granted to rulers and ministers alike once they had passed from the world.
Zhongwu — Loyal and Martial.
Now, didn't that word feel remarkably familiar? The very Chungmu of Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin — Korea's immortal admiral. From that alone, one could gauge how exalted Zhuge Liang's name remains in China.
Peerless in ability, matchless in loyalty: the ideal servant of state, the very figure every ruler who would steer a nation dreams of finding.
Zhuge Liang bowed with grave courtesy.
"Your servant Liang shall devote body and soul alike, until the day of my death, to the country the General-in-Chief wishes to build."
"……."
Why was a line straight out of his war memorial coming out of her mouth right now? Was she seriously planting a death-by-overwork flag here?
Recalling exactly why Zhuge Liang had died, I let out a long breath.
"Hard work is a fine thing — but pushed past a certain point, it does more harm than good."
I talked day in and day out about grinding through capable talent, but I was hardly so black-hearted an employer as to drive a person to a literal death at their desk.
"If word ever reaches me that you are working while neglecting your own body, I will have you placed under house arrest in your own home. Am I understood?"
I held Zhuge Liang's white eyes for a moment, then broke into a chuckle.
"No — that's not something one says to a girl who hasn't even had her coming-of-age rite yet."
She showed me wisdom beyond my own so often that I sometimes forgot, but Zhuge Liang was still a child of not quite fifteen.
Then again, age means precious little to the genuine article — to the true geniuses.
Even Einstein, they say, left his professors floundering from his student days on.
How many stories have shown us a genius protagonist schooling their professors with knowledge beyond the syllabus? Every last one of those had already happened in reality first.
The minds of geniuses are something one simply must not attempt to understand. A sparrow that tries to keep stride with a stork only ends up tearing its own legs apart.
I looked at Zhuge Liang. "The most important thing for you right now is simply to eat well and grow well. Understood?"
"...I shall bear it in mind."
Once she came of age, she would be worked until she was thoroughly sick of it anyway. Whether she knew that future awaited her, I couldn't say.
Zhuge Liang curved her lips into a faint arc.
"One more reason has just been added as to why I must undergo my coming-of-age rite."
"……?"
Her abrupt remark left me puzzled. One more reason? Whatever did she mean by that?
Nothing about her air suggested she would answer even if I asked, so I merely blinked.
"Excuse me."
"Hmm?"
I was partway through the reminiscence when a familiar voice spoke up nearby.
"...You're not hurt anywhere, are you?"
Turning my head, I found Sima Yi gazing at me, worry plain in her eyes.
"There isn't, so don't fret."
"No — how could anyone not fret after watching what I just watched?"
At my breezy reply, Sima Yi fixed me with a long, flat stare.
"Do you know what becomes of this entire enterprise the moment the General-in-Chief is gone?"
"Beats me."
"Ugh — you impossible man."
Sima Yi heaved a huff of a sigh, somehow endearing in its exasperation.
"You aren't thinking of toppling with your own two hands the tower you bled to raise — are you?"
"……."
"The instant the General-in-Chief vanishes, this nation tears itself apart along every seam. That is what happens."
Sima Yi delivered the chilling warning as though remarking on the weather.
Looking over the people under my command, I had to admit it tracked. Lü Bu. Liu Bei. Sun Ce. Skimming just the heavyweights, that was roughly the shape of it — three who had each built power bases entirely their own.
...As for Seo Yeo — where that one would go if she went, not even I could predict. I could feel her strangling her temperament down; what I couldn't gauge was how much of it remained unstrangled.
Sima Yi spoke up.
"If you would rather not watch everything you have built be shredded to ribbons, then take a little more care of yourself. Understood?"
"Got it."
When I nodded, she muttered under her breath.
"How on earth did I come to be serving someone like this..."
Watching Sima Yi be exactly her usual self, I smirked. She chided and grumbled at me without fail, but I knew the worry folded inside it all — and so far from finding it unpleasant, it only left me feeling warm.
"...Why are you looking at me like that again?"
Catching my gaze, she snapped at me.
I stepped over to the still-petite Sima Yi and ruffled her hair to pieces.
"Thank you for worrying about me."
"Ahh — ! You're ruining my hairdo!"
So she cried — yet nowhere was there the smallest motion of slapping my hand away.
Honestly. What a prickly little thing.