Yi Province (2)
The heart of Yi Province.
On a plain lying not far from Chengdu — the city hailed as the very center of Yi Province — corpses lay strewn in every direction. If there was anything unusual about the scene, it was that most of the dead wore the uniforms of a regular army.
"Wahahaha! All those years of strutting around lording it over us, and they turned out to be nothing special!"
A bronze-skinned woman laughed heartily, her buffalo-hide armor adorned with bird feathers and beast pelts.
"It ground my gears, the way they kept coming around near our borders every other day, strutting like they owned the place!"
A pack of high-and-mighty gentlemen had told the "southern savages" to submit and hand over tribute nice and obediently, and that had lit her fuse. So she had proposed settling things with her fists and smashed straight in — and what do you know, they crumbled without offering any real resistance. Emboldened by that success, the woman had decided that in for a coin, in for the whole purse: she would teach the northerners what fear meant, and so she called in every favor she had.
Meng Huo, a lion-shaped ornament at her belt, leveled her sword forward and cried out with utter confidence.
"Forward! Obey the commands of me, Meng Huo, the Man King!"
"...Hey. I told you not to use the word 'Man King.'"
Just as the Nanman soldiers under her banner moved to answer her boastful cry, a figure standing near Meng Huo spoke up.
"That 'Man' in 'Man King' — the character it's written with — literally means 'barbarian,' you know? How many times do I have to tell you?"
"...So what?"
Meng Huo tilted her head as if to ask what the problem was.
"'Barbarian King.' Sounds pretty awesome, doesn't it?"
"No, that word 'barbarian' is itself a slur aimed at our people... Whew. Never mind."
Confronted with a Meng Huo who couldn't be made to understand no matter how many times it was explained, the woman heaved out a sigh.
Meng Huo turned to her in a familiar tone.
"What is it this time? Are you sulking because I'm the only one with a cool nickname?"
"What kind of bullshit is—"
The woman, who had very nearly let the curse fly, clamped her mouth shut.
She muttered under her breath.
"Hold it in, hold it in... You can't go cursing out the one who leads the army..."
Whether or not she understood the woman's feelings, Meng Huo was laughing away in high spirits.
"Big sis, what do we do now?"
"What do you mean, what! We push straight on and make this entire place ours!" Hearing her younger sister's question, Meng Huo shouted with vigor.
"Let's go! Anyone who stands in our way, we smash them all!"
WAAAAAAAH—!!
The Nanman tribes, having toppled the allied army of Liu Tan and Nu Ban, raised a thunderous roar.
When you hear the word "Nanman," what comes to mind? Most famous of all would surely be the old tale of Zhuge Liang and Meng Huo — the seven captures, seven releases. The story of a king who refused to surrender through six captures, and only after the seventh, finally stung by shame, bowed her head to Zhuge Liang at last.
Contrary to the world's impression, Meng Huo was no blockhead who knew nothing but charging. Seeing through how Zhuge Liang's army wilted in the sweltering heat and switching to a war of patience, or staging a false surrender in an attempt to take Zhuge Liang herself captive — those were her signature moves.
Of course, Zhuge Liang saw through it all every single time, struck back at Meng Huo's unguarded rear, and took her prisoner instead. And each time, the spectacle of Meng Huo throwing a tantrum — this battle doesn't count! — was frankly ugly to behold.
From all that alone, you would think Zhuge Liang had thrashed her seven times without the slightest difficulty, but the reality was different. Meng Huo's true terror lay in her connections. This uncanny creature lost tens of thousands of soldiers with every crushing defeat, yet no sooner had Zhuge Liang released her and a little time passed than her ranks were restored as though nothing had ever happened, and she came marching back to pick another fight. Just how those connections of hers worked, I couldn't say — even stripped of every last soldier, she somehow roped in every power of note in the Nanman to her banner.
If I had to name the most memorable of Meng Huo's connections, it would be these characters. King Duosi, master of vipers and scorpions, who dwelt in a poisoned marsh where the mere touch meant instant death. King Mulu, who rode an elephant into battle, wielding uncanny sorcery to bend the beasts to her will. And even Oldolgol, whose scale-covered hide was said to turn aside every blade and arrow. A fantasy army in the most literal sense — Luo Guanzhong's imagination in full gallop.
King Mulu — sorcery and beast-commanding both — had even managed to put the great Zhao Yun and Wei Yan to flight once. Picture the final scene of that movie where the hero falls head over heels for the blue aliens and betrays humanity, and you'll get the idea. Watching men sent flying every which way by colossal beasts, one came to understand exactly what the power of nature meant.
From what Zhang Song had told me, it was all but certain that Meng Huo's army made use of beasts. Which meant I was about to find myself face-to-face with a fantasy army.
"So what you're telling me is that the Nanman really do command beasts and work sorcery?"
"H-hard to believe, I know, but it's the truth!"
Sima Yi, who had taken the report from the scouts infiltrating Yi Province, pulled a face that said this was one headache too many.
"What in the world are these freakish creatures now..."
I could sympathize with the sentiment. To have fought nothing but ordinary armies all this while, only for beings playing by some other world's rules to pop up out of nowhere — how disorienting would that be? It wasn't for nothing that Zhao Yun and Wei Yan, Shu's twin aces in the history that followed Liu Bei's passing, had flinched and reined in their troops.
"Beasts... beasts, hm... Should we simply set a fire?"
"Th-that does seem for the best."
When Sima Yi had muttered that much, Pang Tong voiced her agreement.
"We can't very well clash head-on with beasts, after all..." Pang Tong went on in a tiny voice.
Fair enough. Let an elephant slam into a square of spears and it would be dashed to splinters; let a tiger deign to throw a mere cat punch, and your neck would end up spun a full 180 degrees. Even the old tales, when they wanted to say a man was strong, had him wrestle a tiger single-handedly. But picturing those tigers charging in a snarling pack was enough to make me feel a faint chill.
Just then, Sima Yi addressed Zhuge Liang, who had been smiling from beginning to end.
"Hey. You wouldn't happen to have some clever idea, would you?"
Her expression made it abundantly clear that the very act of asking Zhuge Liang for anything displeased her immensely. But true to her habit of drawing a strict line between public duty and private pride, Sima Yi folded her ego away and sought Zhuge Liang's opinion.
"My own view is not so very different from everyone else's."
Lips half-hidden behind the White Feather Fan, Zhuge Liang continued in a serene voice.
"Beasts, by their very nature, tuck tail and flee the moment they behold that which makes them tremble in fear."
In other words, she meant to drive a wedge into the difference between man and beast. Unlike humans, who possess reason and can weigh a thought, a beast simply surrenders its body to instinct. Unless she truly were a druid communing with the animals in both directions, there were bound to be limits.
The problem was exactly that.
"So how, precisely, do you propose to frighten them?"
Calming ferocious beasts whose eyes had rolled back at the fresh meat standing right in front of them — that was the question. Making creatures come charging while bellowing for fresh meat tremble in fear would be no small feat. And that was precisely the flaw Sima Yi was pointing out.
To that question, Zhuge Liang answered in a tone that asked whether it was even worth asking.
"Why, did you not all mention it yourselves just this moment?"
"...You mean fire attack?"
"Yes."
Certainly, when it came to frightening animals, nothing matched flame. The scene of a castaway hero whirling a torch in a standoff with snarling beasts — you've seen it a hundred times, haven't you?
"If opinion is so unanimous, then I suppose there is no helping it."
At Zhuge Liang's placid reply, Sima Yi heaved a deep sigh.
"Even accepting some losses, then, we'll thread our way toward setting fires—"
"There is a better way than that. Would you care to hear it?"
As though she had been waiting for this very moment, Zhuge Liang clipped off Sima Yi's sentence and turned the question on me.
"..."
At Zhuge Liang's provocation, Sima Yi of course trembled from head to toe.
"Ughhh..."
Pang Tong, witnessing the scene, trembled as well — in a rather different sense, quaking with fear.
She was hardly a toddler; why on earth did she carry on so? ...Then again, come to think of it, she was a little kid, wasn't she? Zhuge Liang had not yet seen her fifteenth year. It wasn't for nothing that I called her "the pipsqueak strategist" every time I laid eyes on her.
"...Hmph. Carrying on so childishly — as if to prove you're not some little girl who hasn't even had her coming-of-age rite."
Well, now it's a fight.
Naturally, Zhuge Liang was not one to take that lying down.
"You are not so very much older than I, are you?"
"Yes, I'm quite sure you're right."
Sima Yi parried with easy composure, every inch the mature adult graciously letting it slide. Certainly, of everyone gathered here, the only one who had not yet undergone her coming-of-age ceremony was Zhuge Liang. Pang Tong was Sima Yi's age, after all, and had passed hers long ago.
"Nnngh..."
Even Zhuge Liang, she of the fabled divine stratagems, appeared powerless against attacks on her age. Then again, nothing stings quite like an age jab when you're still young. Under ordinary circumstances I would have been planning to seize Zhuge Liang by the cheek and give her a proper talking-to, but there seemed to be no need for that now.
...Of course, to my eyes, Sima Yi and Zhuge Liang looked equally young all the same. It was like watching a high schooler lob age jabs at a middle schooler. Considering the two of their actual ages, though, it wasn't exactly an unfair jab, either.