The Nanman (1)
Having settled how the captured officers would be treated, I next turned my mind to the matter of what to do with the Nanman people themselves.
And what was that decision, you ask?
"You intend to formally absorb the Nanman into Yi Province?"
"That's right."
The plan was to bring those Nanman who were searching for a fresh start into Yi Province as full subjects. Hadn't Meng Huo declared it to my face just a short while ago — that if she went home, she could come back with an army of a good two hundred thousand? This was a land that harbored a population numbering in the hundreds of thousands. There was a reason Zhuge Liang, a woman who should have been drowning in the affairs of state, had taken the field in person and captured Meng Huo seven times over.
For Shu, whose population at the time trailed Wei's by a full factor of four, licking its lips at the hundreds of thousands of people in the south was hardly strange. And if the goal had been nothing more than putting down troublesome tribes, Zhuge Liang would never have needed to campaign herself — even if Liu Bei had burned an entire army to ash at Yiling, Shu was hardly bereft of capable generals. No, Zhuge Liang hadn't set out merely to crush a rebellion. She had meant to bind the Nanman people themselves to Shu.
At that, Sima Yi, who had been listening to my proposal, spoke up.
"Hmm... It's not that I object, exactly, but do you really think the Nanman will fall in line so meekly?"
"That's precisely why I let Meng Huo go."
Granted, she had made an ugly spectacle of herself, bawling that it hadn't been a proper fight — but for all that, Meng Huo remained the one her people upheld as king. The sort of woman who, no matter how many soldiers Zhuge Liang chewed through, would rebuild her host the instant she was released, as if nothing had ever happened. That she pulled it off seven times running tells you everything about the standing Meng Huo commanded among her own. If she bowed her head in earnest and threw her full weight behind me, we could make the realm prosperous without a whisper of dissent.
……
Besides, with Zhuge Liang — a prodigy of domestic administration — on our side, what could possibly be difficult about it? The only real question was how many times I would have to catch Meng Huo and let her go. We'd manage, one way or another. Nothing remained that could introduce a variable into Meng Huo's story. For all her talk of two hundred thousand soldiers, that scale was quietly commonplace in Chinese history — hardly worth gasping at. We would simply keep knocking her flat, exactly as Zhuge Liang had in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Just as I was turning over our future course, an aide approached and saluted.
"My lord, Meng Huo left a letter behind before she departed."
"A letter?"
I unrolled the bamboo slip — a rather handsome-looking piece of work — and gave it a read. This is what it said:
"I fought you one battle in your territory — so this time, you come to mine!"
……
Well, that's certainly a novel way to request a rematch. How exactly was I supposed to describe this feeling? One thing was certain: it sounded precisely like something Meng Huo would say.
Tidying the bamboo slip away, I spoke.
"Looks like we're in for another long march."
If my memory served, that road had been every bit as brutal as I recalled. Well — when she says come, we come. What else was I going to do about it? If I refused this request and beat her anyway, she would inevitably come storming back with another round of shameless wailing.
I addressed the generals gathered nearby.
"Let the soldiers rest for the time being. Our next destination is south."
"Yes, my lord!"
The generals answered in ringing voices and bowed with perfect courtesy.
Ask anyone who has read Romance of the Three Kingdoms what the Nanman's terrain is like, and the answer would come back: jungle, isn't it? They wouldn't be wrong — apart from the small matter that those jungles came paired with towering mountain ranges stretching beyond the horizon. In other words: dense jungle and high mountains braided together into one maddening landscape.
Hardy peoples who dwelt in the mountains and caverns, gathering at the first stir of trouble and scattering again once it passed, over and over in endless repetition. You might call them a breed specialized in a different direction entirely from the horse-riding tribes of the north. And suddenly I understood why Meng Huo had been so supremely confident.
Heat that pressed down like a steamer. Jungle where even a single step was hard-won. Steep slopes that reared up the moment you let your guard down. Faced with this treacherous land, my officers and strategists each showed a different face.
"Whoa... live here and you'd never need mountain training."
Lü Bu, surveying the terrain from the saddle of Red Hare, spoke in a voice of genuine admiration,
"Ueeeh..."
while Pang Tong, apparently no friend of the heat, lay draped across the carriage like a dried squid.
...Is a phoenix really allowed to wilt in the heat? That one's a bit of a gray area.
……
Seo Yeo, as though the heat were beneath her notice, kept watch at my side without shedding a single bead of sweat. Some days I honestly wondered whether she was even the same species as the rest of us.
"As you well know, General-in-Chief, guerrilla warfare is the one thing my people can claim confidence in."
As the column moved forward, everyone in their own distinctive fashion, King Mulu — who had volunteered to guide the way — spoke up.
"Meng Huo is certain to turn this land to her advantage as well, so it would be prudent to be caref—"
"No, it's fine."
I said, shaking my head.
"Our own soldiers are every bit as versed in mountain warfare."
It was a stroke of luck that I had brought elite troops seasoned in the mountains against exactly this contingency. They might not measure up to the Nanman, but my soldiers had their share of mountain calluses. The memories of scrambling up and down ridgelines at the drop of a hat, playing tag with the steppe horsemen — no amount of time would ever gild those.
"You'd like to know what tactics Meng Huo will use?"
"That's right."
"That much is obvious."
So had spoken Sima Yi, in a voice that made light of it all, back when we were hashing out plans before moving the army.
"She'll wear us down on terrain we don't know, then throw everything at us in a single wave."
...
"Rack her brain all she likes — that's about the ceiling, wouldn't you say?"
Sima Yi, having seen straight through how Meng Huo would come at us, laid out her proposal.
"So let's play along. Just a little."
"Hm?"
"If we keep drifting around looking vague, she'll take it as proof she's right and come charging in."
Having said her piece, Sima Yi put on a positively impish expression.
"To start with... shall we muss up our own formation a touch?"
...
I couldn't quite bring myself to say so to her face, but the way Sima Yi looked just then was downright villainous.
"WAAAAAGH—!"
Just as I was lost in the past, a sudden roar of shouts erupted around me, and an aide came running to make his report.
"My lord! We're under attack!"
Hearing it, I gave a slow nod. From here on, Meng Huo would keep her main force hidden and keep up her guerrilla assaults, exactly as Sima Yi had predicted. So what was our part in all this? Simply to play helpless against the raids and let our weakness show. It would all have to end in a real fight eventually, which meant Meng Huo was certain to appear on the battlefield herself — and once she did, we would seize her tight, and that would be that.
I addressed the aide waiting on my orders.
"Parry them just enough, and do not pursue."
"Yes, my lord!"
Once the aide vanished with my orders, I turned my gaze to the battlefield and watched it unfold.
"You picked the wrong day to show your faces! Die!"
From atop the ridgeline, the Nanman rained down rocks and arrows with tremendous gusto.
"Shields up! Dig in and hold! This is nothing!"
Infantrymen sheltered behind tower shields as big as their own bodies.
"Loose!"
Thwip-thwip-thwip—!
"Gahk!"
"Aaagh!"
And then the archers, loosing volley after volley the instant they pinpointed a Nanman position. Amid that bedlam — bedlam being precisely the word — I mulled over our next move.
"My king! The enemy is losing steam!"
"Hahahaha! What did I tell you! Peck at them bit by bit like this and they're nothing!"
Several days had passed since the General-in-Chief's army and Meng Huo's host had collided in earnest. Meng Huo, who as usual had been dispatching raiders to drain the enemy's strength, clapped her hands together and laughed at how sweetly things were flowing. The foe fought back hard, loosing arrows as though they refused to be taken easily — but that was as far as they went. They didn't dare chase our warriors as they fell back, too busy scrambling to patch up their own lines. With every passing day, fatigue the enemy could no longer hide seeped across their faces, and their formation had grown badly frayed. Meng Huo, who had kept a sharp eye on their movements for days, knew this was the moment.
"...You're certain?"
"Hm?"
"I asked whether you're sure they're actually worn out."
"Haha! Is that what's worrying you?"
When Zhurong — bandages knotted here and there across her body — pressed the point, Meng Huo threw back her head and laughed.
"There's no way they'd be shuffling along like that unless they were exhausted."
……
"You just hang back and watch! I'll go flatten every last one of them!"
Swinging herself atop her red-furred ox once more, Meng Huo bellowed to the warriors around her.
"Let's show those enemies that last time they only beat us by dumb luck!"
"WAAAAAGH—!"
"CHAAARGE!!"
No sooner had the cry left her lips than the Nanman waiting in reserve at the main camp began their advance on the General-in-Chief. It was the moment Meng Huo, the woman they called the King of the Nanman, would cross blades with the General-in-Chief for the second time.