Xiangyang Castle (9)
"I don't see any problems."
That was Sima Yi's verdict after she skimmed through Zhou Yu's report.
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Scattering Liu Biao's surrendered soldiers here and there so they can't stir up trouble was well handled, and drafting men accustomed to the water to shore up our navy is a fine idea too."
When I asked, Sima Yi conceded the point with calm composure.
"Well, if I had to name the measure I like best..."
After letting her words trail off for a moment, Sima Yi broke into a distinctly sinister smile.
"Posting dedicated watchers beside Liu Biao's surrendered generals, so that not one of them can hold military authority alone."
"......"
"It's only natural. What reason do we have to trust those men? You have to clamp down on them from the very start so they can't entertain any foolish notions — that's how you spare yourself future trouble."
Sima Yi passed merciless judgment on the surrendered officers.
Just as she'd said, Zhou Yu's report included a carefully vetted roster of personnel to be posted beside each general who had once served under Liu Biao. Which raised the question: who, exactly, were these watchers? ...I had no idea. So many of the names were unfamiliar that I half wondered whether such people even served under me — but there was nothing I could do about that. How was anyone supposed to memorize the names of every commander leading hundreds of men?
One look at the names streaming in neat columns down Zhou Yu's report had been enough to make the world tilt. Sun Ce didn't call her a workaholic for nothing.
That surrendered generals were treated poorly went without saying in this era. Take Wei, for instance: Li Dian and Yue Jin were posted alongside Zhang Liao at Hefei, and Zhang He was made to campaign under Xiahou Yuan or Sima Yi — the point being that none of them was ever granted sole command of an army. If even Zhang Liao and Zhang He, decorated with towering military merit, were handled this way, what chance did ordinary surrendered officers have? There were rare exceptions like Jiang Wei, a former enemy officer treated remarkably well, but such cases were few and far between.
...Then again, wasn't Zhou Yu, the very author of this report, herself a surrendered general who had jumped ship from Yuan Shu? I had no particular complaint to make, but watching one former surrender keep tabs on all the others left a strangely odd taste in my mouth.
"That, too, is a stratagem — one devised to sap the strength of Liu Biao's surviving faction."
"...?"
At the voice beside me, I turned my head to find Zhuge Liang wearing a bright smile.
"Since Liu Biao's death, the forces of Jing Province have divided broadly into two camps."
"Which camps, exactly?"
"The followers of General Huang Zu, who guarded Jiangxia, and those of General Cai Mao, who held Xiangyang Castle."
Zhuge Liang continued, the White Feather Fan raised lightly over her mouth.
"As you know well, General-in-Chief, the power of the Jingzhou gentry clans who have submitted to us is nothing to be taken lightly."
I conceded the point. Liu Biao had indeed succeeded in tightening his grip on Jingzhou, but it had always been an incomplete sort of power. The province's great clans had merely bowed their heads and bided their time — not because they lacked strength. And when Liu Biao, hounded and cornered by me, finally spiraled into madness, had they not cut him down as though they had been waiting for precisely that moment?
Zhuge Liang explained with unruffled calm.
"Is the aim not to bind their hands while we absorb Liu Biao's remnants, so that they find no room to resist?"
"I see."
"A splendid measure indeed — one that reorganizes the army while keeping the gentry of Jing Province in check in the same stroke."
She had pierced straight through the very worry I had been nursing in silence, and laid it bare for me. But how had she known what I was wondering?
Zhuge Liang answered, a soft arc forming at the corners of her eyes.
"What sort of strategist could not read her lord's troubles before he ever voiced them?"
"......"
At that, Sima Yi folded her arms and fixed Zhuge Liang with a disgruntled glare, as if to say, let's see about that.
Why did I suddenly feel like the two of them were about to go at each other?
"I imagine it would be quite impossible for a certain someone who deals in abrasive words and shows her lord no respect whatsoever."
"......"
So that's what this was about.
No matter how Sima Yi glared at her, Zhuge Liang paid it no mind and simply said her piece. And naturally, Sima Yi was not the sort to sit quietly while being insulted.
"Excuse me."
"Hm?"
"I keep hearing a strange voice — one that affects lofty detachment while doing nothing but taking roundabout digs at people. How about it excuses itself from this room?"
Sima Yi's brows twitched, and unlike Zhuge Liang she abandoned all subtlety, carving into the girl before her with naked bluntness. Yet Zhuge Liang, without a trace of anger, parried with perfect calm.
"I do find myself doubting whether one who wags her tongue so flippantly in a council on future policy could ever amount to anything of great consequence."
"......"
"And surely such frivolous conduct can only reflect poorly on our lord's good name?"
These two were going to drive me insane.
Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi, much like Lü Bu and Zhang Fei, did nothing but snarl at each other the instant they met. The difference was simply this: Lü Bu and Zhang Fei were both muscle over mind, strangers to complicated vocabulary, so their quarrels ended the simple, brutish way — with weapons swinging. Those two, by contrast, traded words so vicious that anyone standing nearby felt a chill crawl down their spine.
"I'd say I'm a sight better than you, who pick fights at every turn while prattling on about etiquette."
"And I would say I am better than one who drags out what could be settled in a moment, all for the sake of that worthless pride."
Sima Yi resented Zhuge Liang for having, one day and without any prior ties, planted herself at my side; Zhuge Liang, in turn, thought none too highly of Sima Yi, who was forever grumbling at me without a shred of courtesy. Still, they fought like this because they were young — once they had come of age and matured a little, surely they would stop. In the original history, after all, the two had shown genuine respect for each other's abilities.
"Somehow everything you say sounds exactly like those self-styled scholars who hole up in mountain valleys and squander their years droning over books."
"And you seem incapable of distinguishing between the empty theories such men spout and the work that truly must be done."
...They'll stop fighting, right?
I wanted desperately to believe it. With the argument showing no sign of burning out, I was beginning to seriously consider dealing out a few knuckle raps.
Just then the office door burst open, and a general strode in.
"My lord! I, Wei Yan, have returned — your command is fulfilled!"
The instant Wei Yan appeared, the two girls who had been glaring at each other swung their eyes onto her. Sima Yi fixed her with a murderous, fury-soaked stare; Zhuge Liang regarded her with the same placid gaze as ever. Caught between two looks that could not possibly have belonged to children, Wei Yan glanced around warily and asked with careful politeness:
"...Sh-shall I come back later?"
"There's no need."
I rose from my seat and laid a hand on the head of each girl who had been staring Wei Yan down.
"......"
Sima Yi, catching my meaning, gathered her emotions and returned to her usual self. ...Zhuge Liang, who had worn a calm expression throughout, changed not in the slightest.
Having watched her, I turned back to Wei Yan and spoke.
"Good. Is the work all finished?"
"...It is!"
When I asked, Wei Yan answered with her chest out.
Wei Yan, courtesy name Wenchang. This woman, who had propped up the twilight years of Shu, was a general of outstanding ability with a small flaw in her character. Perhaps because she had clawed her way up from common soldier to general, she carried a certain arrogance — an air of I am not like the rest of you. Guan Yu, for all her pride, at least refrained from clashing with officers of her own faction; Wei Yan, if someone grated on her nerves, would barrel into them headfirst, ally or not.
The popular impression is that Zhuge Liang slighted Wei Yan, but in truth Zhuge Liang esteemed her highly and took her under her wing. ...Granted, that is the account of the official histories; in the Romance, she was disparaged as bearing "the face of a rebel."
Wei Yan — a woman who wore her hair in the ordinary fashion, grown to just past her shoulder blades — shouted to me:
"Is there any further task you would have of me?!"
"...?"
"I, Wei Yan, stand ready at any hour to receive the General-in-Chief's orders!"
What was with her?
Maybe it was just me, but Wei Yan's eyes seemed to be sparkling like mad. Come to think of it, hadn't she stared at me a touch too intensely back when she surrendered, Liu Biao's head in hand? She looked primed to sulk catastrophically if I said there was nothing, so I put my mind to work for a moment.
"I hear that with Jing Province in such turmoil of late, there are bands exploiting the chaos to commit crimes. Could you round them up for me?"
"To think such wretches dare exist! Fear nothing, my lord! Just as the General-in-Chief desires, I shall seize every last one of them and hurl them into the dungeons!"
"Uh... right."
"Then I shall take my leave!"
When I agreed in a daze, Wei Yan bowed with impeccable courtesy and withdrew briskly.
...What on earth was that? She was remarkably eager. It was as if the Liu Bei devotion Wei Yan had displayed in the Romance had been bent out of shape — don't tell me the object of that devotion had simply been switched to me?
"...The face of a rebel?"
Just then, Zhuge Liang beside me murmured.
Stop with the lookism.