Yi Province (3)
Contrary to my expectations — I'd assumed we'd have to fight and bleed our way through again on the road from Hanzhong into Yi Province — we entered the province with almost laughable ease.
I'd been staring into the dark wondering how on earth we'd get past Jiameng Pass and Jianmen, so this was a mercy.
Jianmen in particular was a gate built atop terrain so vicious it made Yangping Pass look like an amateur.
Yangping Pass had been filthy enough; I never dreamed there'd be a place that outdid it.
Now I understood why Deng Ai had insisted that crossing the mountains was the better option and gone hiking over them.
...Though given that more than half her soldiers died on that crossing, I suppose there wasn't much difference in the end.
The reason we passed through gates like Jianmen so easily was simple.
The Liu Tan faction holding them had opened the gates without a fuss, begging for their lives.
"Y-You've come, General-in-Chief!"
Met by a man welcoming me with the expression of someone beholding a savior, I slowly tilted my head.
"You look a mess, you know that?"
"Ha, ha..."
Just as I'd said, Liu Tan was in a wretchedly haggard state.
Dark circles... or should I call them shadows under the eyes, in this era?
Either way, the shadows beneath his eyes ran nearly down to his cheeks, and exhaustion was caked across every inch of his face.
He'd wasted away to skin and bones besides — he looked ready to drop dead on the spot.
Was he born frail, or did excessive stress do this to him?
Did someone lay a curse on him or something?
Having reached Chengdu, the heart of Yi Province, without spilling a single drop of blood, I opened my mouth to Liu Tan.
"Before I help you, there's one thing we ought to get perfectly straight first. Wouldn't you say?"
"..."
Liu Tan, having caught why I'd raised the matter, held his silence.
I continued in a level voice.
"Your father was no loyal servant of the Han imperial house."
"That..."
Liu Tan tried to object, but couldn't find the words.
As the son who had watched Liu Yan more closely than anyone, he would know better than anyone — just what designs that sinister old man had been nursing when he came down to Yi Province.
"Personally, I'd been agonizing over whether to deal with Liu Yan the way I dealt with Liu Biao."
"...!"
At my words, Liu Tan's face went white with fright.
Dealing with him "like Liu Biao" meant branding his entire family traitors and dragging them down into the abyss.
Honestly, Liu Biao had deserved every bit of such treatment. He'd refused my offer of surrender and instead hurled abuse at me, calling me a traitor — how else would Her Majesty, who wraps me in her favor, have reacted?
The eldest son, Liu Qi, had died in Xiangyang Castle thanks to Liu Biao's madness, and the second son, Liu Cong, had been spared only in consideration of the fact that he'd only just learned to toddle.
...Though he couldn't escape becoming a slave at that tender age, of course.
The Liu Biao household had been scattered to the winds, quite literally, under imperial mandate.
Such is the usual end for those devoured by their hunger for power.
I looked at Liu Tan and spoke.
"...Or perhaps he simply couldn't bear the shock of losing his eldest son, before I ever made a move."
Liu Yan, who had swaggered about flaunting his ambition for power, took the calamity that befell his eldest son hard, languished in grief, and died.
Yes — that old man, who like Liu Biao would never have relinquished the power in his grasp to the very end.
From a son's standpoint, a father who had cared well for his family had passed away; from the grand strategic view, a man who would have dragged his family into ruin had died.
Should I call that misfortune? Or should I call it fortune?
Liu Tan must be feeling something even he himself couldn't put into words right now.
"Now then, my question for you."
"..."
"Are you willing to hand all of your forces over to me and surrender?"
At my question, Liu Tan closed his eyes for a moment and sank into thought.
"...Before I answer that question, there is just one thing I would like to ask."
"What is it?"
"If I surrender, will my family be allowed to keep their lives?"
At Liu Tan's question, I let out a small chuckle.
"What an obvious thing to ask. I'm not the sort of man who enjoys the sight of blood."
"...That is a relief."
"Well... though odds are good you'll be posted to some region other than Yi Province."
"That much is of no concern."
Answering in a calm voice, Liu Tan bowed respectfully to me.
"I, your servant Liu Tan, hereby swear to offer my loyalty to the Han imperial house and to the General-in-Chief."
"Good. I welcome you."
Having swallowed Yi Province whole without shedding so much as a drop of blood, I wore a satisfied expression.
My thanks, O Nanman. It's all thanks to you.
Integrating the forces of Yi Province proved not particularly difficult.
"We, too, will follow the General-in-Chief!"
The Yi Province gentry factions and the Ba tribes who had once raised their banners against Liu Tan to protect their own interests.
As Zhuge Liang had mentioned before, the man leading them was one named Lou Fa.
He had quite a glowering, heavy-browed look about him, and had originally been staying at Jiangzhou conducting joint military operations with Liu Tan — but the moment word reached him that I had arrived at Chengdu, he came racing over at a dead run and flopped down into a deep prostration before me.
"..."
It was only natural that Liu Tan, watching the scene, looked utterly dumbfounded.
A man who had lorded it over him with full swagger was now groveling before me.
...Natural, when you think about it.
If it stings, the only thing I can tell you is: go swallow half the realm for yourself, then come back and complain.
You could call it the behavior of an opportunist, but remembering the ones who failed to seize even that opportunity and lost their heads for it, this kind of case was far preferable.
Men who bow and scrape quietly are far better than those who shed pointless blood over useless stubbornness.
I asked Lou Fa about something that puzzled me.
"I'd half expected a three-way war among the Ba tribes in Yi Province — when did you all come together in an alliance?"
"Ah! You mean that, General-in-Chief?"
Lou Fa rubbed his hands together, wearing a faintly irritating smile.
...Why does this guy act so much like a scheming courtier?
Even Han Sui and Huang Zu, who grovel before me at every opportunity, don't go this far.
Whether he sensed my faint displeasure or not, Lou Fa hastily corrected his posture and spoke.
"The savages marching up from the south proved stronger than we'd imagined!"
"..."
"So we reached an understanding: settle our own quarrels later, and drive those bastards out first!"
At Lou Fa's answer, I asked once more.
"And? Did it get you any results?"
"W-Well, that is..."
Lou Fa could produce nothing further and broke into a cold sweat.
Watching him, I could roughly guess how the fighting against the Nanman had gone.
"...Might I be permitted to explain in your stead?"
At that point, Liu Tan stepped slightly forward and offered.
I nodded at the proposal.
"Very well. Let's hear it, then."
"To begin with the heart of the matter: even joined in alliance, we achieved nothing of note."
Liu Tan recited the facts in a flat voice.
"There were troops wielding outlandish sorcery, commanding fierce beasts, and even clad in armor that turned arrows aside."
"Armor that deflects arrows?"
Hold on — they brought the Vine Armor Soldiers too?
Man, setting these bastards on fire is going to be pure joy.
While I laid out countermeasures against the Nanman in my head, Liu Tan's account continued.
"I pride myself on having studied quite a few military treatises, but nowhere in any of them was there a method for facing troops like those."
Well, naturally.
What strategist would ever compose his treatises anticipating such grotesque forces?
If anyone had foreseen it, that man would be a prophet, not a strategist.
"At present, all we can manage is holding a handful of key strongpoints and devoting ourselves to defense."
"Hmm... I see."
Hearing him out, I tilted my head.
If they could be stopped in the field, stopping them in the field was far better.
Fortress defense ultimately means gritting your teeth and holding on at the cost of the city's economy.
But if they'd been driven to hole up inside their walls doing nothing but defend, then they'd truly been pushed to the brink.
The moment those strongpoints fell, it would only be a matter of time before the Nanman army came surging all the way to Chengdu and Jiangzhou.
Liu Tan offered his opinion.
"We must find a way to seal off their methods as quickly as possible — even a single day sooner matters."
"Don't you worry about that."
I answered with my usual air of nonchalance.
"As for that, I've already prepared countermeasures for everything."
"..."
Sorcery, beasts, vine armor.
The sorcery threw soldiers into confusion; the beasts smashed enemies with destructive power on an entirely different plane from any ordinary army; and the vine armor turned aside spears, arrows, and every other blade.
Listing only the strengths, they'd sound like a perfectly invincible army.
But their weaknesses were every bit as clear-cut.
Not knowing them, you simply stand there and take the beating — but once you know the counters, they're an army that poses no problem at all.
Even in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it was the local residents who revealed everything about the poisoned streams and the vine armor, allowing Zhuge Liang to strike straight at their weak points.
What I had to do now was no different from that.
I pictured the weapons being busily forged under Zhuge Liang's direction, then began sketching out the plan ahead.
...I won't actually have to capture him seven times, will I?
The battle with the Nanman was now close at hand.