King of the Nanman (6)
Having heard out Zhuge Liang's plan, I toppled the serpent figurine representing King Tasa with the horse-shaped wooden piece. Now the only forces remaining were Meng Huo's main army at the front and the raiders she had dispatched under separate orders.
I tilted my head and asked.
"Good. If we assume King Tasa is dealt with this way, what do we do about the rest of her forces?"
"That won't be particularly difficult either."
Zhuge Liang positioned a handful of the figurines behind the main body's right flank.
"She brought all those spearmen expressly to counter cavalry — and now the cavalry is off attacking the enemy on the exact opposite side from herself."
"...So?"
"Naturally, the enemy grows impatient and falls upon the flank of our forces locked in a tug-of-war with Meng Huo. Wouldn't you say?"
Just as in chess, where you win by taking the king no matter how many pieces you've lost, the enemy would move to collapse my main force before the tide of battle could turn.
Zhuge Liang gave a soft, knowing smile.
"At that point, we simply set loose the units we held in reserve at the rear and surround them."
With that, she swept the idle figurines forward, wrapping them in a great U-shaped arc around the unit that had struck the main body's right flank.
The right. The front. The left.
Assailed from every direction but the rear, the unit broke and fled, suffering a blow bordering on outright annihilation.
"Once it reaches this point... I hardly need to explain any further."
With King Tasa and the reserves toppled, all that remained on the table was Meng Huo's army. Zhuge Liang's explanation concluded with the cavalry and infantry — each having disposed of their own opponents — closing in around Meng Huo's formation.
Predicting where, how, and with which units the enemy would deploy, and having a countermeasure ready for each one in advance. It was a moment that showcased the brilliance of the Zhuge Liang who, in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, had blown apart Meng Huo's every scheme the instant he cooked it up.
If things flowed as Zhuge Liang had laid them out, Meng Huo's army would struggle valiantly, all in vain, before being taken prisoner.
"Hmph. I could draw up a plan at least that good, you know."
At that, Sima Yi crossed her arms and spoke in a curt voice. Apparently the very sight of Zhuge Liang in the spotlight did not sit well with her.
Naturally, Zhuge Liang was not one to let such a remark pass.
"An adult who grows jealous of a child is said to cut a rather ugly figure."
"...I beg your pardon?"
"How very unbecoming of a grown woman. And where, might I ask, has that person gone — the one preening so proudly back when she brought up the coming-of-age ceremony?"
Apparently Zhuge Liang had kept Sima Yi's earlier remarks about her age locked away in her chest all this time, and now she unsheathed them with a razor's edge.
"......"
Sima Yi opened her mouth as if to retort, then clamped it shut. Perhaps she sensed that whatever she said, Zhuge Liang would volley it straight back.
I couldn't begin to guess what simulations had run through Sima Yi's head in that brief moment, but judging by appearances alone, she had just lost this war of words.
"......"
Of course, there was no helping the air that had settled heavily over the tent afterward. This was exactly why I had sent the other generals outside beforehand.
"Uuu..."
Pang Tong, who had joined us after Oldolgol was defeated, had at some point slipped behind my back the instant she smelled a battle of nerves brewing. Nowhere she hid made her any less conspicuous, so her plan now was apparently to make a shield of me.
I had no idea what exactly had passed between them, but at a distance that could generously be called close, all I could do was tilt my head.
The battlefield unfolded exactly as Zhuge Liang had foreseen. No sooner had the banners risen than Ma Chao and Zhang Liao appeared on the left and set about crushing King Tasa, while the serpent unit — clad in comparatively light gear — failed to mount even a semblance of resistance.
Their composure in the face of a sudden ambush suggested they had driven off cavalry before, but this time they had drawn a terrible matchup.
"GYAAAH!"
These were the elite cavalry of Xiliang — the very riders whom Cao Cao, a woman who had swallowed most of the realm whole, had avoided facing in open battle. Back when Cao Cao and Ma Chao first collided, strategists from Xun Yu on down had insisted the answer was appeasement, not combat; Cao Cao, who ignored that counsel, duly suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Tong Pass. After all, everyone knows the story of how she — fleeing so desperately she sliced off her own beard — turned the tables with a scheme of discord, driving a wedge between Ma Chao and Han Sui.
And Zhang Liao, who had broken Sun Quan's hundred-thousand-strong army with a mere few hundred men, hardly needed mentioning. Was she not the heroine of that famous siege of Hefei? Having her hundred-thousand-strong army punched through so absurdly must have left quite the scar, for Sun Quan kept betraying a lingering awareness of Zhang Liao ever after. When Gan Ning rose to prominence, Sun Quan was said to have rejoiced openly at having finally gained a general of Zhang Liao's caliber...
What was more, the force Zhang Liao led was itself an elite cavalry that yielded nothing to the frontier tribes. These were soldiers who had spent years playing a deadly game of tag with the nomads across the sprawling mountain ranges of Bing Province. Granted, the game had one small flaw — being caught by 'it' meant death — but cavalry who survived conditions that extreme had always proven a rock-solid, dependable force.
If soldiers in full heavy kit, rigged out precisely to fight cavalry, looked questionable against such riders, one could only imagine the prospects of light infantry in the barest of armor. Watching the Nanman warriors cartwheel through the air as though struck by a truck, I tilted my head.
Just then, a messenger came running with a report.
"My lord! The enemy who were lying in wait on our right flank have begun their advance!"
"Understood."
So the enemy had finally caught on to which way the wind was blowing. The ones who had been glancing warily at the reserves massed in our rear, biding their time, had grown impatient — exactly as Zhuge Liang said — and moved.
"RAAAAAGH—!!"
"DIE—!"
Nanman soldiers hoisted massive two-handed spears in both hands — shields, apparently, were a luxury — and hurled themselves at our flank.
Truth be told, taking an attack from two directions at once was a dangerously precarious position in itself. Yes, the plan was to encircle the enemy and annihilate them in a single stroke, but that only held for as long as the main force serving as the anvil could endure. And it was riskier still because the Nanman, unlike any ordinary army, came at you with utter disregard for their own defense. Call it obsession — even if they fell, they seemed determined to drag you along as company on the road to the underworld. Heaven only knew what sort of lives they had led in that jungle, but it had plainly been no gentle existence.
Any ordinary unit would have failed to withstand that mountain-beast ferocity and done nothing but fall back, over and over. Yes — if it were an ordinary unit.
"Never give a single step back."
The commander surveying the field near the front issued her orders to the soldiers under her command. The woman with grey hair pinned up and blue-green eyes spoke in a level, calm voice.
"The one who turns her back to run will have her throat opened not by the enemy, but by my hand."
"Ma'am!"
The soldiers who answered her drove their great shields firmly into the earth and set their stances. Helms on their heads, heavy armor sheathing them from head to toe, enormous shields in their grip — a reassuring sight. The very fact that they could move at all wearing such weight spoke volumes about the training they had endured. Elite soldiers, bodies sheltered behind their barricade, blades leveled at the foe.
If the cavalry had Ma Chao and Zhang Liao, then the infantry had this commander.
"Gao Shun."
"...You called for me."
The woman with her hair pinned high answered my summons without a moment's delay.
"Can you hold?"
"Yes."
Gao Shun gave her answer without a sliver of hesitation, then went on, meeting my eyes with those clear blue-green ones of hers.
"Even if it costs my life, I will hold."
"Good. That puts my mind at ease."
Of course, with so many formidable generals like Zhao Yun and Seo Hwang on the field, the worst case Gao Shun described was never going to arrive. Which is to say, unless war tigers or elephants came charging in out of nowhere, there was no reason on earth for the formation to break. It was a moment that made King Mulu — the one who had commanded such beasts — look impressive all over again.
Soon the Nanman had clamped onto the front and the flank alike, striking both at once, and the unit holding the line began to answer in kind. Once I confirmed that the rear-guard units Zhuge Liang had positioned were on the move, I settled calmly into my post.
My role in this battle was a simple one. I was the buff totem, plain and simple. Even in war games, troops fight harder with their sovereign at their side, no? It was much the same. The only difference being that the moment somebody tried to smash the totem, two terrifying generals came sprinting in to stop them. Proof enough: just a short while ago, one assassin had come for my life and walked away with nothing but a bellyful of arrows.
"Hmm..."
Turning the exquisite, poison-smeared dagger over in my hands once more, I was struck by a curious sense of déjà vu. A general of Nanman birth, deadly with a dagger... If my memory served, there was exactly one such person. It was a matter that could wait, so I thought no more of it.
Then, as I watched the field, something gave me pause: the Nanman formation wavered all at once. The warriors at the fore, locked in ferocious combat, were unchanged — but those in the rear guarding the main body began to seethe and shift, like a body plunged into confusion. The reserves Zhuge Liang had spoken of had not yet even begun their encirclement. What in the world was this?
Curious though I was, I held my position calmly.