Xiangyang (2)
I watched as the countless soldiers garrisoned in Xiangyang Castle came streaming out through the gates in droves, following Wei Yan's lead. After Wei Yan presented Liu Biao's head, the leaderless army had thrown down their weapons and surrendered as though they had only been waiting for the chance.
Morale had cratered, and if I remembered right, deserters had been slipping out of the castle in considerable numbers—yet the men still remaining inside were surprisingly many.
If we had settled this with a straight clash of arms, we might have saved time, but the cost would have been staggering. That was what siege warfare—the storming of a castle—had always been.
It wasn't as though our side lacked for distinguished generals; Lü Bu, Seo Hwang, and others stood ready and able. But that was no reason to nail our soldiers to those walls. Why choose the hard and dangerous road when an easy one lay open before us? In a game, perhaps—but on a battlefield where real lives actually changed hands, there was no reason to make that choice.
As for Fancheng under Huang Zu's command, it would come over to us sooner or later once word arrived that Xiangyang had fallen. With Liu Biao—the one who had concerned me most—dead, all that remained now was deciding how to treat the surrendered and settling the hearts of the people.
I made my way to the seat of government inside Xiangyang Castle and looked over the figures kneeling before me. Liu Biao had hardly been a man without ability, and the lineup of talent that had served under him was fairly dazzling.
Wen Ping, courtesy name Zhongye. The man who took charge of Jiangxia as its Administrator after Liu Cong surrendered to Cao Cao, and who thereafter—just as Huang Zu had before him—held back Sun Quan's invasions for decades on end.
Kuai Yue, courtesy name Yidu. The civil official of whom Cao Cao had said that gaining Kuai Yue pleased him more than gaining Jing Province itself.
Beyond them, any number of other officers were arrayed there—Cai Mao, Wang Wei, and the like—but sorting through them one by one was more of a chore than I cared for just then, so I resolved to give them proper thought when the occasion arose.
What had my full attention right now, however, was someone else entirely.
…….
A woman sat among them, offering me the same courteous bow as the other officers. She had come with every weapon laid aside, as if to declare she had no intention of resistance, and I studied her for a moment before speaking.
"What is your name?"
"Huang Zhong. My courtesy name is Hansheng."
Huang Zhong answered my question with her name. When the name I had anticipated left her lips, I nodded slowly.
Huang Zhong, Hansheng. The general who would be appointed one of the Five Tiger Generals alongside Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, and Ma Chao.
Having entered Liu Bei's service, Huang Zhong had campaigned at her side and piled up achievement upon achievement—but among them all, the most eye-catching feat was one and only one.
The slaughter of Xiahou Yuan—the Ghost Speed General and one of Cao Cao's most trusted confidants—at the Battle of Mount Dingjun.
A field commander who had helped Liu Bei expand her territory and cut down even a marquee-name general from Cao Cao's ranks.
In character and in ability alike, there was not a flaw to be found in this general—yet in the years to come, she would leave the world one year before Liu Bei spent that hot night at Yiling.
Guan Yu in 219. Huang Zhong in 220. Zhang Fei in 221. Even Ma Chao, whose position had been ambiguous in those days, was dead by 222. And then in 223, as if to add the finishing stroke, Liu Bei herself followed. How was Shu Han supposed to stay on its feet through a string of deaths like that? Honestly, looking at it, you'd think Heaven itself had resolved to bring Shu to ruin. How does anyone end up holding funerals back to back like that?
Having finished that idle musing, I turned to Huang Zhong.
"Even now, the memory of that arrow you loosed at me sends a chill down my spine."
…….
Huang Zhong held her silence, unable to fathom where my words were headed.
I continued.
"I have just one question for you."
"Speak, my lord."
Near me stood Seo Yeo and Lü Bu, attached under the pretext of guarding my person. Even with the two generals who had threatened her life more than once staring her down without a blink, Huang Zhong showed not a trace of fear. It was exactly the sort of nerve you would expect from a woman fit to be named one of the Five Tiger Generals in the original history.
I leaned forward slightly and asked.
"If I told you to forget the past and give your loyalty to me from this day on—could you follow?"
Lü Bu reacted the moment my words left my mouth.
"...Uh, Jeong Reung?"
"What."
"You do remember she tried to kill you, right?"
"Of course I do."
I was hardly a fool—how could I not know? Huang Zhong had loosed that arrow at Liu Biao's command, and she had plainly meant to kill me that day. But if I were to kill every enemy I'd crossed on a battlefield, I would have to put down not only Huang Zhong but every soul who had ever stood against me. Liu Biao, that bastard, had refused my overtures time and again right up to the very end, so there had been no room left for him. Huang Zhong was another matter entirely.
Lü Bu pressed on.
"And even so, you're going to spare her?"
"That's right."
"...Seriously?"
"Seriously."
Whatever it was that galled her, Lü Bu kept pelting me with questions.
"...Fine. Fine. Then I'll just have to live with it."
Seeing that my stance would not budge, Lü Bu heaved out a sigh.
…….
Seo Yeo said nothing either, but a faint shadow of disappointment crossed her face.
Seo Yeo and Lü Bu. They looked for all the world as though, had I ordered Huang Zhong's head, each of them would have taken the blade into her own hands.
...They really have fallen for me, hard.
If I didn't keep standing up for her, I had a feeling Huang Zhong would end up a goner.
"So—have you made your decision?"
Assuming she had reached one during my brief exchange with Lü Bu, I prompted Huang Zhong for her answer.
Huang Zhong lifted her head and met my eyes.
"A wise choice."
Staring at Huang Zhong's face—far younger-looking than I had expected—one small curiosity stirred in me.
...Just how old is she?
I would have to ask her sometime, when the chance presented itself.
I had more or less expected as much, but the rebellion that had overtaken Liu Biao had not been Wei Yan's undertaking alone. It was a revolt raised by the gentry clans who had grown disaffected with Liu Biao, carried out in concert with Wei Yan—and even granting that, the whole thing had collapsed with a rather spineless lack of fight.
But once I actually took Xiangyang, the reasons it could never have held came pouring out.
I addressed the general standing before me.
"You noticed Liu Biao had gone off his head, and quietly smuggled your household out?"
"Th-that is correct."
Cai Mao, an officer of the Cai clan—gentry of Jing Province—answered while carefully gauging my expression.
"He would mutter to himself one moment and take a servant's head the next. Where was I to find any peace of mind, living under that roof?"
…….
"My youngest sister was shaking like a leaf, begging me to save her, so I had no choice but to pull her out with me."
"Hmm..."
I listened to Cai Mao's explanation and sank into thought.
In the original history, the Cai and Kuai clans of Jing Province were the very families who, after Liu Biao's death, had actively urged Liu Cong to surrender to Cao Cao. Such was the Cai clan's power in those days that Liu Cong had meekly followed their counsel and capitulated. In all likelihood, then, it was the Cai clan—holders of military authority within Liu Biao's faction—who had been quietly backing Wei Yan from behind the scenes. However outstanding generals like Huang Zhong and Wen Ping might be, without the military authority to command soldiers, their talent counted for nothing.
Liu Biao and the Cai clan had indeed bound themselves by marriage, but that, too, had in the end been a union made for power. In other words, theirs was a relationship that could be betrayed whenever it proved convenient.
And that applied to me just as much.
…….
…….
I held Cai Mao in a long, silent stare, and Cai Mao—Heaven knew what he imagined I was thinking—broke into a cold sweat beneath my gaze.
The days of fearing betrayal were long behind me, so I clapped Cai Mao on the shoulder as though nothing were amiss.
"I do hope the days ahead treat you kindly."
"O-of course!"
Why did he have to stammer like that? Anyone watching would think I was about to eat him alive.
"So, where are Liu Biao's children?"
"That is..."
"Every last general under his command answered my summons, yet the very heir of the house never shows his face."
When I put on a deliberately displeased voice, Cai Mao hurried to speak.
"The eldest son, Liu Qi, met his death at Liu Biao's own hand, and the second son, Liu Cong, is still far too young to come before the General-in-Chief!"
"What did you say?"
The news, beyond anything I had imagined, made my eyes go wide. I hadn't expected Liu Qi—despised as he was by the Cai clan—to come through the ouster of Liu Biao alive, but dying at his own father's hand was beyond anything I had ever imagined.
I asked Cai Mao.
"Explain. In more detail. Liu Qi died at Liu Biao's hand?"
"Yes! In the end, Liu Biao, consumed by his madness, cut down the household servants—and along with them, his own eldest son!"
…….
"Had I not spirited my nephew away together with my sister, who knows what would have become of him.... The mere thought of it turns my stomach."
To think he would kill his own child with his own hands. It was a tale I could scarcely believe.
...Maybe I had pushed him too hard.
No—if that was the problem, the answer was to surrender. What in the world was power worth, that he would cling to it so desperately to the bitter end?
It was an end so wretched I could scarcely believe this was the man Jia Xu had once judged capable of rising all the way to the Three Excellencies.
"I've heard enough. You may withdraw."
"Yes, my lord!"
At my words, Cai Mao beat a hasty retreat, erasing himself from sight as though he had been waiting for nothing else.
Just what did he take me for, that he guarded his hide so desperately? It was beyond my guessing.