Decision (8)
The stretch of time I had spent aboard ship at the head of my army was considerable. And with good reason — if a man only knew the route well, he could sail straight from Shouchun to Luoyang.
The rivers split into branch after branch, so a map was indispensable for finding the right way. Just when you decided a current must be heading north and thought you had your bearing, you would meet a waterway that cut off without warning; another would twist and coil so senselessly that you lost your way before you even knew it. Even with a map in hand, the hard routes stayed hard.
Maps in this era were, after all, nothing more than hand-drawn products of someone personally tramping across every inch of the land, so if you asked whether they were a hundred percent accurate, all I could do was shake my head. People were not artificial satellites. What was inaccurate was bound to be inaccurate.
As though she had foreseen every one of these pitfalls, Zhou Yu had attached several men well-versed in geography to my staff.
Poring over the chart, the guide launched into his briefing.
"First we sail a short way down the Huai River, then pick up the current of the Lingshui, and once we've worked our way up the Honggou for a while, we'll come upon the Geishui."
"……."
"And since the Geishui in turn connects to the Yellow River, from that point onward we can proceed directly—"
What on earth was he saying? The guide Zhou Yu had assigned me was unmistakably speaking the same language I was. So why could I not understand a single word of it? Was the problem with me, then? One thing at least was certain: guiding was no trade for just anybody. So this was why people made such a fuss about experts.
"The waterways here are as tangled as the Huai's. I wonder what would become of us if a naval battle broke out in a place like this..."
Sima Yi, having already conquered her seasickness, kept scribbling away, one hand feeling the hull sway beneath her in irregular lurches.
"Reckless civil works and the opening of new farmland — and at the slightest excuse, floods and massive soil runoff besides... Hmm..."
Briefed on the Yellow River, Zhuge Liang murmured some incomprehensible monologue to herself.
"Th-that is, in the military manuals, you see? This is when you ram straight into the enemy ships and inflict massive damage, right!"
"Then may I ask how you intend to bring this ramming tactic to a successful conclusion?"
"...Just, um, by steering the ship really well...?"
And so Pang Tong and Jia Xu passed the hours trading questions and answers of every description. Was that how it worked — you only grew clever by never letting your mind stop turning, even in the idle stretches? For me, such a thing was impossible.
Beyond the strategists, there were also a few peculiar souls who flinched in alarm the moment they laid eyes on me.
"...!"
"Eep!"
Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, to name the chief offenders. Liu Bei, eldest of the Peach Sisters, behaved exactly as she always did, but those two went taut as bowstrings every time their gazes met mine. Whether out of sheer embarrassment or some other feeling I knew nothing of, I couldn't say. Well — in the end, that was a matter for time to mend.
All I had to do was glide smoothly past the dubious looks the pint-sized strategists kept sending my way.
"...He really is strange, isn't he."
"......Ahem."
Which, admittedly, was not easy in the least.
In any case, how far had we come like that? The voyage that had brought my soldiers nothing but torment at last drew to a close.
"I-it's Sili Province!"
"Finally, it's over... HUUUEECK!"
Such was the soldiers' joy that even as they emptied their stomachs over the rail, they never once stopped cheering.
Lü Bu, standing nearby, muttered:
"If we'd walked the whole way it would've taken forever. We got here faster than I expected."
"That's exactly why we took ships."
However close Shouchun might be, it was still Gangdong. Merely cutting straight across Ye Province came to some 1,200 li — about 470 kilometers — and going by way of Jing Province to reach Luoyang stretched the road that much farther. Even if the distance grew by only half again, that was a full 1,800 li, or 700 kilometers. Factor in a supply line, and the march would easily swallow a month — with every likelihood of taking longer still.
From what I remembered, the merchantmen of the Roman Empire far off to the west averaged roughly twelve kilometers an hour. Even with our speed cut to half of that, we would arrive several times sooner. Nor were we short of warships — we had built them with a vengeance ever since seizing Jing Province — and no hostile power prowled these waterways as though they were its own front parlor. With all that in our favor, what possible reason did I have not to sail?
River pirates? Our esteemed Silken Sail Bandits had already exterminated the lot, so worry not on that count. I heard that having finished every task assigned to them, they were now simply letting the months drift by — which meant I would have to find somewhere new to put them to work before long.
Just then, a soldier gazing dully at the land spoke up.
"...Say, how many days did it take us to get here?"
"Couldn't tell you."
Seasick from dawn to dusk, the men's sense of time had gone dim; not one of them had yet realized they had reached Sili Province well ahead of schedule. ...Mm. Watching them, I could guess exactly how much they had suffered. But even at the price of queasiness, if there was something to ride, you rode it. Time is money.
"Steady and smooth, now! Anyone who steers us badly and slams us aground somewhere ridiculous will not be let off!"
"Yes, sir!"
The rivers of Sili Province were none of them especially wide, so even the soldiers at home on the water had no choice but to handle their ships with care. And so we went on. At last, with the Yellow River looming directly ahead, the officer at the tiller addressed me.
"From here on, we can go no farther."
"Is that so?"
"Yes, sir."
When I pressed him, the officer at the helm gave his reasoning.
"The Yellow River's rapids grow savage, and there is no telling what lies hidden in that muddy water. A ship as large as ours is perfectly primed to run aground somewhere."
"...Can't argue with that."
The man had a point. No doubt this was why the coalition had never managed to sail around and stab us in the back at the Battle of Hulao Pass. They would have come swarming in, and the moment a single thing went awry, collisions would have cascaded until the whole lot of them became water ghosts together. Not that men who had once starved for want of even a mouthful could have built proper ships in the first place. Even so, on the bare chance, I had stationed a portion of our soldiers at the port... and as it turned out, the coalition was not quite that stupid.
I gave a slow nod and spoke to the officer.
"Right. You've been through a lot. What will you and your men do now?"
"What else would there be? I suppose we turn about and head back to Gangdong."
"Without even a rest?"
At my astonished tone, the officer offered me a sheepish smile.
"Well... you see, our commander has an uncanny gift for catching anyone who so much as thinks about shirking."
"……."
"Circling the training grounds till the end of time — once in a lifetime is plenty for that, believe me."
There was a distinctly weary note in his voice. It seemed Zhou Yu drove the forces under her command brutally hard. That was, admittedly, how elite soldiers were forged...
"Oof. She has the figure of a willow wand, but cross blades with her in earnest and we're the ones who end up flat on our backs."
Hearing this, I nodded in calm agreement. In the original history, after all, she had commanded battlefields from the foremost line alongside Sun Ce; a foundation in the martial arts went without saying. Had she stood on the front line with half-baked skill, she would have been consigned to a nameless grave long before, never ringing out with any fame at all. By that measure she was an all-around talent cut from the same cloth as Cao Cao — command, martial strength, stratagem, with not one of the three wanting.
"And — this is a secret, mind you — there's no shortage of idiots who enlisted bewitched by that staggering beauty of hers, only to end up shrieking."
"...Hm? What do you mean by that?"
Warmed by my friendly manner, the officer shook his head and went on.
"When she recruits soldiers, you see. She coaxes people along so sweetly, insisting she is nothing more than an ordinary soldier herself..."
"……."
"Then on the very first day of training, her face turns to stone, just like that... I honestly thought I was beholding a demon."
Goodness. So that was how she put her looks to use. No wonder the recruitment rolls had been swelling so briskly — now I knew the reason.
Meaning it as encouragement, I clapped the chatty officer on the shoulder a few times.
"Hang in there."
"...Thank you, sir."
Gangdong — the Shouchun sector.
"...So. You had a conversation of that nature with the General-in-Chief?"
"...Y-yes, ma'am."
Facing the woman across the office, the officer broke out in a cold sweat, his eyes rolling every which way. Hers was a beauty that could steal the senses of anyone, man or woman, at a single glance — and yet the officer could take no pleasure in it whatsoever. Small wonder: the woman before him was his direct superior. Had gleefully broadcasting his conversation with the General-in-Chief all around the camp been his undoing? The officer cursed his own chattering tongue.
"……."
The officer's superior, Zhou Yu, trembled briefly where she stood, then spoke in a level voice.
"One hundred laps around the training grounds."
"Pardon?"
At the bolt from the blue, the officer's eyes went round for a moment.
"……."
"Y-yes, ma'am! One hundred laps around the training grounds! Executing now!" But the instant he met the murderous gleam in Zhou Yu's eyes, the officer barked back his acknowledgment and bolted from the room.
"...Phew."
Zhou Yu stared into empty air for a while, then exhaled a long sigh. What was she to do if the General-in-Chief went about thinking of her as some loose woman? Whatever the case, she resolved, the next person she dispatched had better be someone far more tight-lipped — and she pressed a hand to her brow.