The Jing Province Gentry (12)
Around the time Liu Du was offering the General-in-Chief a wine cup laced with zhen poison, several officers were lying in wait a short distance from the mansion, watching for their signal. They commanded private soldiers and bandits in numbers far too large to dismiss, and the officer leading them waited there for the sake of one mission alone: to annihilate the mere few hundred men who had followed the General-in-Chief to Jiangling Castle as his escort.
These were days when people died in droves with barely a day's respite, an age of endless struggles for power in which the loss of a few hundred lives hardly registered. Now that the General-in-Chief had walked into Jiangling Castle of his own accord, the fate of his guards was as good as sealed. They would meet their wrongful deaths without so much as a place to voice a complaint.
As though this were hardly his first such task, the officer observed the situation in silence and bided his time. How long did the hours stretch? Just as boredom began to creep over him, a soldier came running and dropped to one knee, cupping his fists in salute to deliver his report.
"The signal has come from the mansion!"
"...I see."
Rising to his feet, the officer answered in a level voice and turned his gaze toward the estate. A wisp of smoke, thin enough to be picked out by the naked eye, was climbing into the sky above the mansion, and the banner planted nearby was swinging left and right in time with it. The officer studied the scene, gave a nod, and spoke.
"The hour has come. Move out."
"Yes, sir!"
The aide who received the order bowed with due courtesy, and so a force of no small number began to march, footfall by disciplined footfall. Their destination, naturally enough, was the quarter where the General-in-Chief's escort stood watch.
"Hm?"
"What is that?"
The soldiers guarding the grounds near the mansion where the banquet was underway stared hard at the mass advancing on their position. A moment later, one of them grasped that the crowd's size and bearing were anything but ordinary, and his face went slack with alarm.
"...These lunatics—!"
The soldiers snatched up the drums and gongs lying nearby, beat them wildly, and bellowed with all their might.
"Enemy raid—!! Enemy attack——!!"
"...Sharp eyes, that lot."
Things would have gone far more smoothly had they stood there gaping in confusion. It seemed the General-in-Chief had not brought just any soldiers along, after all. But what of it? This side numbered in the thousands; that side, a paltry few hundred. An absolute gulf in numbers was not so easily overturned. Calling him to mind, the officer drew his sword and roared.
"CHARGE——!!"
WAAAAAGH——!!
The gentry's soldiers hurled themselves at the General-in-Chief's escort, bellowing with perfect confidence. On one side stood the corrupt magnates fighting to protect their vested interests; on the other, the General-in-Chief come to sweep them from Jing Province. And so their war began in earnest.
Guan Yu sat in her tent as she did on any other evening, reading a volume steeped in the wisdom of the ancients. The one unusual thing was that the book in her hands at this moment was not the Spring and Autumn Annals with Zuo Tradition.
There was the Analects, which every scholar of this age was said to have recited at least once, and the Mencius, said to have been compiled by Meng Ke himself — the philosopher who preached that human nature was born good. The truth was that Guan Yu, at the urging of those around her, had set the Zuo Tradition aside for the time being and taken up other books instead.
"Come on, sis! Reading starts with understanding, I keep telling you!"
"..."
"You have to climb from easy books to hard ones, one step at a time, like going up a staircase! Memorizing a difficult passage from cover to cover doesn't mean you've actually read the book!"
"Hmm..."
"Not that I'm looking down on you, Yunchang! ...Still, why not study the Analects with me, starting from the beginning?"
So had spoken Zhang Fei, who of late had taken to carrying books everywhere she went and grown remarkably sharper for it.
"Yunchang. If you can understand the Zuo Tradition, then you understand the thought of the Hundred Schools as well, do you not?"
"That is..."
"My old teacher, Master Lu Zhi, used to thrash his disciples black and blue for strutting about with difficult passages memorized and not a word of their meaning grasped."
"...Pardon?"
"'How can your interpretations do nothing but earn you a beating, line after line?' he would say, and reach beneath his desk for his club..."
So had said Liu Bei, her eyes drifting out of focus as though gazing upon some terrible past.
"Guan Yu. Have you no mind to read other books as well, and widen your horizons?"
"..."
"It is truly nothing. There are plenty of amusing tales besides, and if you simply think of it as a collection of famous sayings, the pages turn surprisingly fast."
"A collection of famous sayings... and what might that be?"
"Ah. Perhaps that analogy was a poor one."
So had said the General-in-Chief, wearing an embarrassed look at his own question. With those closest to her urging her, one and all, to read other books, even a spirit as proud as Guan Yu's could hardly disregard them. Two were sworn sisters who had vowed to die with her at the very same hour, and the remaining one was a great man more than worthy of her service.
"In meeting others he carried himself with courtesy; in serving his superiors, with reverence; in nourishing the people, with grace; and in employing them, with righteousness..."
Reciting the passage from the Analects, Guan Yu nodded along, phrase by phrase.
"Truly. There is a reason people hold this book in such esteem..."
WAAAAAGH——!!
"..."
At the clamor rising from outside, Guan Yu's brow creased faintly. She closed the book and murmured.
"...Quite the racket."
With a fair idea of what was unfolding, Guan Yu took up her beloved blade and stepped outside. She had barely shown herself before a messenger stationed nearby hurried over to make his report.
"General! A force of unknown identity has attacked us!"
"The state of our soldiers at present?"
The messenger answered her question.
"Yes, ma'am! Just as you have instructed us time and again, we are holding the enemy at bay within the narrow ground!"
"Then all is well."
As though no further report were needed, Guan Yu set off toward the direction of the shouting.
"I have a fair guess as to who is behind this attack."
The local magnates, who had pressed close with strange eagerness, all in the name of fostering friendship. What might have come of it had Lady Xuande not skillfully deflected their overtures? She could not say for certain, but a fight breaking out had been easy enough to foresee. Victory would have fallen to their side regardless — yet to begin such a fight on their own initiative, without their lord's command, was something Guan Yu's loyalty would never countenance.
Guan Yu asked the messenger.
"Where is Yide at this moment?"
"...Sh-she said she caught sight of a suspicious group a short while ago and stepped away for a time."
"...Haaah."
Guan Yu let out a long sigh. Was she to call that bravery, or recklessness? Yide was hardly the sort to meet her end on any battlefield, but hearing that she was roaming hostile ground alone, worry came unbidden.
"Then I suppose I must ride out alone for now."
With that, Guan Yu swung herself onto the horse the General-in-Chief had provided.
She spoke.
"Good work with the report."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Having given the messenger a word of encouragement, Guan Yu seized the reins and shot away from her position. The field where battle raged was not far off.
"Push them back! Tear a hole in them, quickly!"
The enemy pressed in wave upon wave on the strength of their numbers, grinding their opponents down through sheer exhaustion.
"Hold your ground! General Guan will be here shortly!"
Her men, shields locked before them and teeth gritted, held the line by whatever means they could.
"......Hm."
Faced with the scene, Guan Yu paused to consider her options. Urgent as the moment was, she could hardly go charging into her comrades' backs. And so she reined in her pace, slowing as she drew near the allied line. Had she been riding the Red Hare beneath Lü Bu, even that distance would have been swallowed in a single bound — but regrettably, the horse beneath her was not of that caliber.
"General!"
Color flooded the aide's face the moment he spotted her.
Guan Yu spoke in an even voice.
"Would you open a path for me, if only briefly."
"At once!"
The aide bellowed to the soldiers around him.
"Rear ranks, fall back slowly and open a lane——! General Guan has arrived——!!"
"R-really?"
"The General is here?"
At the aide's command the soldiers moved swiftly, clearing a road for Guan Yu. That they could re-form their lines with such precision even in the midst of battle was, whatever anyone might say, the mark of the elite troops entrusted with the General-in-Chief's protection.
"...Good."
Guan Yu nodded, satisfied.
"Then I shall be on my way."
"Yes, ma'am!"
The aide saluted, and Guan Yu spurred forward without a backward glance, driving her speed straight up to a gallop.
A soldier at the front, holding back the enemy with sweat streaming down his face, raised a triumphant cry as the hoofbeats drew steadily nearer.
"You're all dead men now—!"
"What's that supposed to...?"
The bandit, locked in a contest of strength with the escort soldier before him, broke off mid-sentence and lifted his eyes. A beautiful general, still mounted, was soaring clean over the escort's head. Bathed in moonlight, Guan Yu's figure seemed almost otherworldly. The instant her horse touched down, she swung the Green Dragon Crescent Blade — and that was the last sight the bandit would ever remember.