Invasion (3)
Yufuluo, Chanyu of the Southern Xiongnu, led his warriors across the border and launched his invasion of Han territory in earnest. The plan had been simple enough: sweep the surrounding countryside first and plunder the small, undefended villages before moving on to bigger game—
Which was why Yufuluo frowned at his subordinate's report.
"Empty again?"
"Yes, Chanyu."
His aide—a man unusually courteous for a Xiongnu—continued with practiced deference. "The villagers departed long ago, it seems. Not a single item of value remains. Just buildings on the verge of collapse."
"...Hah."
A hollow laugh escaped Yufuluo. "How does an entire village hold not so much as a single ant? Don't tell me they moved the residents out en masse?"
"...It would appear they did, Chanyu."
The aide gave a solemn nod, and Yufuluo spoke in a troubled voice. "I'd heard that bastard Jeong Reung had gone to great lengths to put Bing Province in order, but..."
He had never imagined the man would comb the entire province and uproot every last resident scattered across its outlying hamlets.
One of Bing Province's fatal weaknesses had always been its population—it was bad enough that entire commanderies held fewer people than an average county elsewhere. There were commanderies with barely a thousand inhabitants in all, so it went without saying how sorely the province had suffered from depopulation. Jeong Reung's answer had been to gather the province's scattered people into the most populous areas, concentrating them wherever they could actually thrive.
The folk living in the remotest corners of a frontier province like Bing—how dire must their circumstances have been? After relocating them, Jeong Reung did everything in his power to help them settle: tax exemptions for a fixed period, grain lent out on generous terms, employment arranged so no one was left idle.
Thanks to those efforts, Taiyuan Commandery and Shangdang Commandery—the two regions under the Han court's direct stewardship—were flourishing more with each passing day. Naturally, this had only been possible with the support of Zhang Jue and the other talents at his side.
Yufuluo sensed as much, vaguely, and clicked his tongue.
Every raid coming up empty was draining his soldiers' morale by the hour. If they wasted their time in this futile wandering and returned home empty-handed, his own authority would be the next casualty.
"...Tsk. I suppose there's nothing for it but to aim for something big."
If every village in the vicinity was in this state, the only path left was to shoulder the risk and strike near the cities themselves. Ideally he would have raised morale with a few easy village raids before making his true move—but with things as they stood, there was no helping it.
After one last mutter, Yufuluo promptly changed his plan.
"We ride deeper! Make ready!"
"Yes, Chanyu!"
The Xiongnu host under Yufuluo's banner shook the very earth as it converged on a single destination: Mount Tongtian. The plan was to cross the mountain towering over Bing Province's western reaches and descend upon Taiyuan Commandery.
At the foot of Mount Tongtian, hidden away in a well-chosen spot, the Black Mountain Bandit chief passed the time at his leisure in disguise—until he suddenly murmured, "...Should be along any moment now."
At his astonishingly relaxed manner, a nearby underling spoke up. "Aren't you taking this a bit too easy? They say over twenty thousand of those lunatics are coming."
The chief looked his man up and down and clucked his tongue. "You fool. What, would running away fix it?"
"No, it's just—I'm worried one of us will catch a stray arrow, that's all."
The chief waved the concern away with a flourish of his hand. "Oh, give it a rest. The one in question isn't so incompetent as to need your worrying."
"I show a little concern and this is the thanks I get."
As the underling grumbled, the chief of the Black Mountain Bandits smirked. "Just get your arrows ready. Can't you hear that?"
"Hm? What soun—"
Thud-thud-thud-thud—
At the tremendous roar of the earth trembling, the underling clamped his mouth shut mid-sentence. He stared out at the sight of an enormous cloud of dust billowing upward in the far distance, and spoke in awe. "Unbelievable. They're not even in sight yet, and already the dust rises that high."
"Seems you're every bit as calm as I am."
"...Am I?"
Even in the midst of that inane exchange, the Xiongnu closed the distance with every passing heartbeat. Truly worthy of the name "masters of the horse," their speed was nothing to scoff at.
"Whew. At this rate, I don't know how long we can hold them up."
A Black Mountain bandit murmured atop a cliff tailor-made for ambush. It was common knowledge that the steppe tribes crossed mountains on horseback with practiced ease; their pace might slow a touch, but that alone fell far short of stopping a Xiongnu advance.
Their leader, nocking an arrow to his bowstring, spoke. "Still, we'd best whittle their numbers down as far as we can."
The Xiongnu, mere shapes on the horizon only moments ago, had drawn near enough to pick out faces. And the instant they set foot into the mountain's mouth—into the range of a drawn bow—
"LOOSE—!!"
The leader's bellow tore across the slope.
Shwiiish—!!
THWACK!
"Uwaaargh!"
"Kghk!"
Several Xiongnu riders shrieked as arrows plunged down upon them from above. Watching them fall, the leader rallied his men.
"Let's teach these stupid barbarians exactly who owns this mountain—!!"
"Uraaaaaah—!!"
As arrows cut down the men at the head of the column, the aide beside Yufuluo blurted out in a panic. "An am—an ambush, Chanyu!"
"I know."
His voice was so level one might never guess they were under attack at all. Yufuluo turned his gaze toward the arrows' origin.
"Hm. Up on the cliffs, is it. Clever of them, scaling a stretch of rock that's high for no good reason."
He could pursue them up there if he wished, but he felt no particular need. The cliffs were treacherous enough that only a handful of defenders could be perched on them, and weighing the time it would cost to climb against the worth of those rabble, taking them on would be a loss, not a gain. It wasn't as though he was here to trade blows with that Jeong Reung bastard himself—what was the point of wasting effort on such small fry? All he needed was to grab what was worth grabbing and be gone.
"Ignore them and keep riding. They're only buying time."
"Yes, Chanyu!"
The aide relayed the order down the line, and the Xiongnu spurred to even greater speed, sweeping past the ambush zone in no time at all. The Black Mountain bandits on the cliffside let fly every arrow they could, yet against the sheer mass of the horde, the damage they inflicted was negligible.
Yufuluo couldn't suppress a smirk. "They likely think they've been clever, but they haven't a chance. All that's left now is to press straight on—"
Before the words had left his mouth, the Xiongnu riders at the very front suddenly dropped out of sight.
"Gwaaargh!"
"Ugh!"
A pit had opened in the earth without warning, and every rider who plunged into it was skewered on the sharpened stakes packed tight along its floor. To put it plainly—
Those pits were traps the Black Mountain Bandits had dug every spare hour they had. Anyone passing through this stretch who wasn't one of them was an enemy, plain and simple, so they'd seeded the ground with their traps without a second's hesitation. No common villager would ever set foot in this kind of wasteland with Taiyuan or Shangdang within reach—if anyone did, it could only be criminals fleeing the long arm of the law.
"Oi, you lot! Anyone crossing through here pays the toll first!"
Another voice rang out from the cliffs above. Yufuluo glanced up to see a Black Mountain bandit in a black hood, sighting along his bowstring as he bellowed,
"And naturally, that toll is your lives! Loose—!!"
At the cry, arrows came streaming in from all sides once more. The Black Mountain Bandits knew the geography of every mountain in Bing Province down to the last stone, and so they knew precisely where the Xiongnu would have to move.
"...What a farce."
Yufuluo felt a flash of anger at the contemptuous display, but swallowed it. That was exactly what they wanted—to goad him into bleeding strength and time on ground that mattered nothing. One look at where they had planted themselves said as much.
"Ignore them. We're hardly eating many arrows as it is."
At his word, the horde blew past the ambush zone in the blink of an eye yet again. This ambush too accomplished nothing of consequence—at worst it was an irritation. Several more awaited them along the way, but Yufuluo swept through each one as if to ask so what? and before long had reached the outskirts of Taiyuan Commandery. The losses from the repeated ambushes had certainly piled up, but they sat comfortably within the range he'd budgeted for.
And then, at last, settlements of real size began to appear on the horizon.
"They've certainly grown wealthier than the old days."
So Jeong Reung's labors had not been wasted, it seemed. But all of that hard work was about to be reduced to ash—if that man could see it coming, he'd be clutching his head in despair right about now.
True, the choicest spoils would be tucked away behind the city walls, beyond his grasp—but plundering the villages in this vicinity alone would more than suffice.
The moment Yufuluo opened his mouth to give the order, something stirred nearby.
"...Hmm?"
A military force had revealed itself, none too far off. For an instant Yufuluo's spine went cold—reinforcements, already?—until he measured its size and barked out a hollow laugh.
Ten thousand, if that. Against him, leading more than twice their number, it was a laughably meager showing.
"Have you come seeking a fine place to die, then? What in the world do you think you'll manage with that pitiful handful!"
"...Ahem. I can't exactly argue with that."
replied Sui Gu, an officer under Zhang Yang, with a distinctly sheepish expression.
Beside him, a woman sat mounted on horseback, paying Yufuluo's roar not the slightest attention as she sat tall and serene in the saddle. Just as Sui Gu began to wonder at her, the woman slowly opened her mouth.
"This was never a question of living or dying..."
"Hm?"
The woman in silver armor turned her gaze straight ahead, her blue eyes deep as the embrace of the sea.
"I simply do what I believe to be right."
With those words, the woman urged her white horse forward.