Invasion (7)
This was still before the day Lü Bu marched out from Luoyang.
She stood with the Sky Piercer Halberd slung across her shoulder, deep in thought about something.
"General, is something troubling you?"
"Ah, Wenyuan."
At Zhang Liao's voice, Lü Bu's thoughts stopped mid-stream and she turned her head. Her blood-red eyes settled on Zhang Liao as she spoke.
"You see, it's like this. I've been chewing something over for a while now."
"Yes?"
"The way I figure it, those bastards have already come crashing right up to the city gates by now."
"...That's probably true."
Zhang Liao nodded. Those bastards, of course, meant the Xiongnu.
Had the Grand General been present to hear General Lü Bu talking in such a manner, he would have been treated to the sight of the Peerless Under Heaven's face stretching out like pulled taffy yet again — but regrettably, the Grand General was at that very moment busy seeing to the relief army being prepared for Bing Province.
Lü Bu pressed on.
"Think about the messenger's timing. How long do you figure it took him to get here from Bing Province?"
Zhang Liao paused, calling the distance between Luoyang and Bing Province to mind before answering.
"Under ordinary circumstances, even stripping his time for food and sleep down to the bone, I'd say several days at the very least."
"That's exactly it!"
Lü Bu cried out at the answer.
She had a point, after all — the distance between the capital of Luoyang and Taiyuan Commandery in Bing Province was not one that could be crossed in a hurry. However quick the pace, it was a good several days' journey each way.
"My guess? Even if we march out this instant, odds are we'll be too late."
"That's..."
Zhang Liao's words trailed off.
True, the garrison forces in Bing Province had held the line against the tribal incursions well enough until now — but this time was different in kind. The leader of the Southern Xiongnu, the Chanyu Yufuluo, had taken the field in person at the head of a great host.
The nomad tribes were capricious to their very core, and divining when they might come pouring over the border was a task close to impossible.
When Zhang Liao found she could not refute it, Lü Bu spoke.
"Which is why I've come up with a really good idea!"
"A good idea, you say?"
That was her answer, but a faint wry smile had already crept onto Zhang Liao's face, as though she could guess exactly what sort of "good idea" was coming.
Lü Bu cocked her head at the expression, then declared her plan with perfect confidence.
"I ride ahead to Bing Province. Alone!"
"Just so."
In other words: rather than matching pace with the soldiers, she would reach Bing Province first, on her own. Looked at one way, it was a plan in perfect keeping with every bit of Lü Bu's conduct Zhang Liao had ever witnessed.
Lü Bu asked her:
"So? If it's fine by you, Wenyuan, I'll go ask Jeong Reung right this minute!"
…
Watching Lü Bu so earnestly seek out her opinion, Zhang Liao smiled a little.
In the old days, she would have bolted off alone without so much as asking what anyone thought. General Lü Bu had certainly been like that, back when she was still stationed in Bing Province — right up until the day she caused one incident too many, was hauled before the Grand General, and received a stern dressing-down.
The incident in question: a battle waged without a word of counsel from her officers, one that swelled the losses on their own side. She had won, yes — but had Lü Bu set her pride aside and listened to the people around her, that victory could have been bought for far less.
As ill luck would have it, the Grand General had taken part in that battle in person, leaving Lü Bu utterly checkmated.
…
The Grand General, sighing over a report that tallied the full measure of the losses; and before his desk, Lü Bu, standing rigid as a plank, cold sweat pouring down her back. Considering the wild temper Lü Bu showed on any ordinary day, it was a sight rarely seen.
The Grand General spoke.
"Lü Bu. There's only one thing I ask of you."
"U-uh? What is it?"
At the faint tremor in Lü Bu's voice, the Grand General's heart seemed to soften, and he continued in a gentle, unhurried tone.
"From now on, gather the opinions of the people around you before you act. Understood?"
"Got it! I really will!"
Had anyone else said it, Lü Bu would have flown into a rage over being handled like a little kid. Instead, she nodded her head so hard it nearly came loose.
Zhang Liao opened her mouth slowly, Lü Bu waiting on her word.
"Doesn't seem like a bad idea to me."
"See?"
At Zhang Liao's approval, Lü Bu's whole bearing turned triumphant. And as though there were not a moment to lose, she set off at once.
"Then I'll go run it by Jeong Reung!"
"Yes, General."
Zhang Liao stood where she was and watched Lü Bu speed away into the distance.
Someone might well ask: if things were so dire that the battle would be over before the relief force even arrived, what difference could one person showing up early possibly make?
To such a question, Zhang Liao could offer only one answer:
"Hey! Out of the way! I'm not liable if I run you down!"
An individual's overwhelming martial prowess had a way of producing results no one could have predicted.
The most famous example would be the Battle of Pengcheng — the battle where the Hegemon-King of Western Chu, Xiang Yu, shattered a Han army of no fewer than 560,000 with a mere 30,000 troops.
Lü Bu was hardly that man's equal. Even so, Zhang Liao believed she could bring a decisive variable to a battlefield whose outcome had all but been decided.
And the sight of Lü Bu herself arriving would put a little more fight into the defenders of Bing Province, too. That was all there was to it.
"Hey! Long time no see, you lot!"
A booming voice rang out from close by, without the slightest warning.
"...That voice."
The Xiongnu under Huchuquan's command seized on the sound, their whole bodies snapping taut. It was a voice far, far too familiar to wave away.
Just as the halted Xiongnu began to sense that something was deeply wrong, the voice came again.
"Still can't tell what's going on?!"
"...The ridge to the right! Fire everything!"
The moment the adjutant placed where the voice was coming from, he barked his orders, and the Xiongnu obeyed at once, loosing arrows in a wild spray.
The veterans, their experience piled layer upon layer, fired through cold sweat, while the green recruits — still with no idea what was happening — nocked arrow to string with blank, bewildered faces.
The arrows of several thousand horse archers, loosed as one, all flew toward a single lone figure.
But it was already far too late.
"Slow on the uptake, aren't you!"
Lü Bu came hurtling in atop that colossal blood-red steed whose mere sight made the knees buckle, and the arrows arcing toward her swept clean past her oncoming form to bury themselves in blameless trees and bare earth.
Like some dreadful thing out of an old fireside tale, Lü Bu had revealed herself all at once.
"Let's go—!!"
The instant she cried out, Red Hare snorted a hot blast of breath and hurled itself at the Xiongnu.
Red Hare, it was said, could run a full 1,800 li in a single day — and despite the immense distance it had covered, the stallion showed not a trace of flagging.
Within the Xiongnu formation, which had permitted Lü Bu's approach all too easily, a gale of blood began to howl.
"GYAAAAH!"
"Wh-what in the world is happening?!"
The Xiongnu under Huchuquan plunged into utter chaos.
These nomads had weathered countless battles since their days back on the steppe and were capable hands at close quarters too — but none of that meant they could stand against Lü Bu.
A few of them, summoning their courage, rushed her with single-edged blades in hand.
"You damn bitch—! Quit rampaging however you please all on your own—!"
"Hm? And who might you be?"
Lü Bu turned her head toward the Xiongnu bearing down on her with such a confident face — and swung the Sky Piercer Halberd in one enormous arc.
"Guhk—!"
Caught by her single blow, the man split in two without so much as a sound, his life ended on the spot.
At that sight, the nomads understood at last: to rush Lü Bu was not courage but foolhardiness.
Even many charging her at once, their strength pooled, meant nothing; and the instant you showed her your back to open the range and shoot, off came your head. Try to go for the massive blood-red stallion she rode, and its speed was simply too great — there was no catching it.
And so, in days past, the Xiongnu had thrown every method they knew at Lü Bu, who caught and killed them day after day after day. But the harder they tried, the clearer one truth became.
"Huh. These bastards have even less fight in them than the last time we met."
Lü Bu was, as they stood now, simply a foe beyond their power to face.
Within the Southern Xiongnu, the name Lü Bu had been a byword for terror since long ago. And was there not even that enemy commander elsewhere — Zhao Yun — who pierced through entire armies all on her own?
Lü Bu to the front; Zhao Yun on the flank. And a nomad culture that attached no shame whatsoever to running.
Their decision to withdraw was swift and decisive.
"Scatter! To hell with the loot — staying alive comes first!"
"We do all this to put food in our mouths! What good's it if we die in a heap right here?!"
In that fleeting moment, the nomads began to move as one heart and one mind.
How many times had they bolted at the mere rumor that Lü Bu had appeared on the battlefield — without even pausing to ask whether it was true? The present situation was little different.
The objective: escape.
Watching the Xiongnu scatter in every direction away from her, Lü Bu shouted in sheer incredulity.
"Hey! Some of you aren't even dead yet—!!"
Strike the soft spots with their heaven-given mobility, and the moment the tide turns, run for your lives. A perfectly sound way of waging war, truly — but being the one on the receiving end of it was enough to make anyone's blood boil.