The Siege of Hanzhong (2)
Having accepted Zhuge Liang's strategy, I submitted a memorial to Her Majesty announcing the expedition, then took the field in person.
"Hm... Marching off somewhere quite far away, leaving your own betrothed behind."
...
"We understand that it must be done. Even so, return to Us as swiftly as you can."
It shall remain a secret that the barb in Her Majesty's words pricked my conscience more than a little. After all, this was nothing short of a newlywed husband suddenly departing on a long business trip at the very height of the honeymoon....
Still, if the goal was to catch Zhang Lu's eye, nothing less would do. Not that the generals under my command were wanting in any way — but renown was its own currency, and mine outshone theirs.
And I would need to keep my commanders well mediated so that the operation itself could proceed without a snag. Honestly, my ranks were packed with people who were each spectacular in precisely one way. Without me — the axis holding them together — the odds were good they would each wander off in their own direction.
Of course, even scattered, their abilities were so absurd that things were unlikely to go wrong.... But what if a genuine catastrophe broke out in the meantime? I had no intention of handling things complacently and manufacturing a crisis beyond my control.
"Mmm... So this is that Yi Province place, the one I've only ever heard about?"
"That's right."
Around the time the road began to turn rough, Lü Bu, riding close by, muttered this under her breath. By rights, with her pregnant, I had meant to strike her from the order of battle entirely....
"No! I'm coming, and that's final!"
"...Uh, Lü Bu? If you push yourself and something happens—"
I did my utmost to reason with the whining Lü Bu, but unlike her usual self, she showed not a hint of yielding. Then she raised her voice.
"The real disaster is you being somewhere I'm not, Jeong Reung!"
...
"I swear I won't budge so much as an inch! Huh?!"
"...Whew."
Confronted with such desperate pleading, the one who caved in the end was me. Was this, too, down to the pregnancy? She had often been like this even in perfect health, but now Lü Bu refused to be apart from me for so much as an hour.
How to put it — whenever I lingered out of her sight for too long, it seemed to weigh on her like an unbearable stress. If I pried her off and left her behind, she looked ready to sneak after me anyway; and even if she minded me and stayed quietly put, there was no telling what that crushing stress might do to the baby in her belly.
Wasn't this the very picture of a bind — unable to advance, unable to retreat?
Leave her in Luoyang, and I feared the stress alone might end the pregnancy; take her along, and I feared some accident on the road might do the same. A dilemma of the finest order, in other words.
It was no joke, either — she looked genuinely on the verge of tears — so in the end I could only heave a sigh and bring Lü Bu along.
If this was how Lü Bu behaved, then what of Seo Yeo?
"...My lord."
"If I told you to stay behind and rest, you wouldn't do it, would you?"
"No."
One look at that resolve, and I gave up quietly then and there. Honestly, neither of them was displaying what anyone would call the behavior of a normal mother-to-be. The way they clung to me needed correcting too — but how in the world was I supposed to manage that?
"...My lord, I shall remain in Luoyang."
"Good. My thanks."
It was a relief that Guan Yu, that living embodiment of loyalty and honor, had actually taken my advice.
Turning my head, I pressed the plea on Lü Bu yet again.
"Lü Bu. You stay put and behave, right here beside me. Understood?"
"Aigoo, I said I got it! I can't speak for anyone else, but your words I follow just fine."
Had it been any other day, Lü Bu would have been mounted on Red Hare; at present she sat at her ease in a carriage I had prepared for her separately. Which raised the question of where, exactly, Red Hare was.
—Neigh!
...Out in front, hauling the very carriage Lü Bu rode in.
A carriage drawn by Red Hare — the sort of legendary mount you'd expect to unlock in some game. Despite pulling the carriage entirely on its own, Red Hare showed not a flicker of strain. At the outside, it could have been thrown into the line as a war chariot that very moment and managed without trouble.
Not that I would ever commit such lunacy, so the fantasy began and ended in my head.
...
Seo Yeo's situation was much the same. The only difference was the horse — Red Hare swapped out for Ochyma; she too rode in a carriage I had prepared specially.
Red Hare and Ochyma.
Neither was a horse of particularly sweet temper, so not only the people nearby but even the beasts in the vicinity wouldn't so much as dream of approaching the carriages. The soldiers did look curious as to why Seo Yeo and Lü Bu had taken to carriages at all, but the moment a few sharp-eyed elite veterans pulled faces that plainly read pry and you'll regret it, the curiosity was withdrawn on the spot.
As expected, wherever you went, rank was king.
And so we walked the mountain road — better kept than I'd expected — for several days.
"...God, I hate this terrain."
I let out a sigh as I took in Yangping Pass, standing sentinel beyond the mountains. Enormous ranges sealed off both flanks, and the one broad stretch of flat ground had a fortress wall planted squarely across it — to any eye, forcing the pass was plainly the better option.
"You scoundrel! This is the territory of Zhang Gongqi, Governor of Hanning!"
...
Well, well. And what was this fellow playing at now? The reason they called Hanzhong "Hanning" was a simple one: Zhang Gongqi — Zhang Lu's courtesy name — had rechristened the province the moment he declared his independence. Renaming cities however he pleased; he truly seemed to believe himself a king.
"Jeong Reung! I have long known you would covet this Hanning of ours!"
When I turned a puzzled gaze on the general booming from atop the gate, Jia Xu, at my side, spoke up.
"That would be Zhang Wei, Zhang Lu's younger brother. According to our intelligence, he is the one advocating a defense to the very last."
A war hawk, then. Men of that stripe always listened better after a sound thrashing.
But Yangping Pass looked even more forbidding than I had anticipated, and hurling ourselves at it head-on promised heavy losses. Zhang Wei, evidently aware of that fact himself, cried on in a ringing voice.
"This is your final chance! Bandit, withdraw your army at once and remove yourself from—"
Shwwwng—!
"Hwaargh!"
Zhang Wei, resplendent in his splendid helmet, had been proclaiming with perfect confidence when the arrow came streaking in at him; he wrenched his head down with a yelp.
"Oh? He actually dodged it."
Lü Bu — bow in hand at some point without my noticing — murmured in disappointment.
...
"...What? Shooting a bow is perfectly fine, isn't it?"
Catching my eye, Lü Bu looked faintly guilty and launched into her own defense. Fine. It wasn't as though she was whirling weapons about on horseback — loosing arrows from a fixed position was probably acceptable.
Lü Bu read my mind with a ghost's intuition and put on a triumphant look.
"Hey! Stick that head back out! What was all that bandit talk, huh?!"
"Gahk!"
It was a range no ordinary archer could ever hope to reach, but Lü Bu couldn't have cared less and began raining arrows down at random.
"Aaagh!"
"Khek!"
A few unlucky soldiers who had merely been loitering near Zhang Wei also caught her arrows. Faced with that absurdity, Zhang Lu's army promptly dove behind the walls, and Lü Bu clicked her tongue.
"What a pack of weaklings. How do you fail to knock down a single arrow?"
...
The ones doing the knocking down would have been the strange ones, frankly. From what I remembered, the arrows Lü Bu loosed buried themselves deep even in solid rock; precious few people alive could turn aside a shaft carrying that kind of monstrous force.
...But there was no need to say so and deflate her spirits, so I pressed my lips shut and gazed at Yangping Pass.
Zhang Wei, at the head of Zhang Lu's army, seemed thoroughly cowed by Lü Bu's display, quite unable to recapture the swagger of his first appearance.
"K-khem! A woman who knows not the height of heaven and struts so proudly will not live long!"
He was simply mindful of his soldiers' eyes, devoting himself entirely to salvaging his dignity. Naturally, Lü Bu was not one to let such a taunt slide.
"I'll outlive you at the very least, so stick that head out already."
"Khm-khm! To your stations! The enemy will assault us before long!"
"Are you ignoring me?"
Zhang Wei desperately pretended not to hear a word as he steadied his soldiers. Honestly, it was a touch pathetic to watch — was he really fine with that?
Picturing Hanzhong waiting beyond the pass, I spoke.
"Once the engines are assembled, press the attack with as much noise as you can possibly make."
"Understood, my lord."
Gao Shun, who had attended me in silence at my side, bowed and moved off to direct the soldiers.
Raise the clamor in the east; strike the enemy in the west. It was time to set in motion the strategy Zhuge Liang had proposed — make noise in the east, strike in the west. Although, seeing as I happened to be on the western side myself, ought it to be make noise in the west, strike in the east?
Entertaining myself with that worthless bit of wordplay, I carried the thought onward. Stones whistling from the trebuchets, ram carts hammering at the gate, archers tucked behind the shield carts raining arrows without pause — surely that would be commotion enough.
Keep the performance up for a few days, and Zhang Wei would inevitably cry that he could hold out no longer and beg Hanzhong for fresh reinforcements. And the moment Zhang Lu consented — that would be the moment Hanzhong fell.
...I could only hope my work in winning over the insiders had gone off without a hitch.
I turned my head toward Zhuge Liang, and she — as though to say, worry not — veiled her lips behind the White Feather Fan and offered a look of perfect confidence.