Tianshui (5)
"They truly are no joke."
Watching them breach in a single day a city that his own forces had failed to crack time and again, Han Sui felt a chill crawl up his spine. No power in this world could stand against that army now. Everyone kept their mouths shut, but inwardly, every last one of them silently agreed.
Han Sui was still watching Dong Zhuo's army crumble when a Qiang officer approached from behind.
"My lord. The men wish to loot the city. May we have your permission?"
The question startled Han Sui half out of his wits.
"Stop them! Stop them this instant!"
"Huh? Y-yes... We haven't started yet, my lord."
Since coming under Han Sui's banner, the Qiang who had more or less woven themselves into Han culture no longer rolled their eyes back and threw themselves into plunder the way they once had. With a roof worth living under and rice enough to fill their bellies, they no longer felt the need to stake everything on pillage. A few who had yet to assimilate, however, still hadn't managed to break themselves of the old habit.
Wiping away the cold sweat that had broken out in those few heartbeats, Han Sui spoke.
"You do know Jeong Reung hails from Bing Province, yes?"
"I do."
"Then how many of the tribes who lived by raiding do you suppose he put to the sword in that province?"
"...A great many, I'd imagine?"
The Wuhuan. The Xianbei. And the Xiongnu besides. Even the Qiang and Di tribes of Liang Province fled at his mere mention.
At the officer's answer, Han Sui slapped his knee.
"Exactly that!"
"My lord?"
"The moment we sack this city, in that man's eyes we stop being anything but one more pack of barbarians in need of a good subjugation!"
In other words: how we conducted ourselves would decide how we were treated. Those grim, wintry eyes that had seemed to say, for now, we shall see. Even now, whenever Han Sui called that scene to mind, the goosebumps still came.
"Then you'll lose your heads—and mine too, thrown in free of charge for taking you in! Is that what you want?!"
"N-no, my lord."
"Then don't loot!"
So desperate was he—shouting with bloodshot veins standing at the corners of his eyes—that the Qiang officer could only nod along in a daze.
"Then what would you have us do?"
"We show them we mean no harm! We go about the city seeing to the aftermath and laying the people's fears to rest!"
Having said his piece, Han Sui thrust his face at the officer yet again.
"And tell them that any man too wedded to his old habits to keep his hands off the people, I will cut down with my own hand!"
"Y-yes, I understand, so please stop shoving your face into mine like that. You gave me quite a fright."
When it came to his own skin, Han Sui was, as ever, a man fighting for his life.
Having taken Tianshui, I turned the city inside out in my search—and in the end, I caught Dong Zhuo, who had been hiding away in the palace.
Unexpectedly, he had not fled. He had simply stashed himself somewhere out of sight and waited for me at his leisure.
And the moment I passed before him with Seo Yeo at my side—
"Even if I die here, I am dragging you down with me───!!"
Mace in hand, he came lunging.
Not a bad idea, honestly. If I hated someone enough to want them dead, I'd think taking that someone along as a traveling companion into the great beyond wasn't such a bad way to go either.
It had been a genuinely dangerous moment, in its own way. Dong Zhuo had once been a fierce general who led armies from the front rank, subjugating the frontier tribes. The guards around me threw up their shields, but they couldn't withstand his monstrous strength—the shields crumpled and the men went down beneath them. They lived, at least. Small mercies.
"Die──!!"
Having flung the guards aside, Dong Zhuo came at me swinging his mace, roaring with murderous fury.
But it was all for nothing.
CLANG─!
"What the—?!"
Seo Yeo drew the Chu Heaven Sword from her back and batted Dong Zhuo's mace out of the air in a single stroke,
"Who the hell are y— khagh─!"
—then hammered the flat of the blade across his face and knocked him cold.
Perhaps a touch of feeling had slipped into the blow: his lips split clean open and a few teeth went flying. It didn't matter.
"Thank you."
"..."
When I stroked her head, Seo Yeo's face went red.
And now.
Dong Zhuo knelt before me, bound tight as a beast. Around him knelt the men he had used as his hands and feet—Li Ru, Dong Min, Niu Fu, Zhang Ji, and sundry others besides. Aigoo, what a crowd. Every last notable from Dong Zhuo's camp had been taken just the same, trussed up and made to kneel.
By now Dong Zhuo had come back to his senses, glaring at me as he spat out the blood pooled in his mouth.
I smirked and spoke, entirely unbothered.
"Been living comfortably lately, have we? You've put on even more weight since I last saw you."
"You bastard...!"
My taunt turned Dong Zhuo's face crimson with rage.
"What are you bugging your eyes out at me for?"
At my words, the soldier standing beside Dong Zhuo seized his eye and gouged it out.
"GAAAAAHH──!!"
"..."
At that brutal display, the faces of Dong Zhuo's men went deathly pale.
"You'd best be careful with everything you say and do from here on."
I said it while still watching Dong Zhuo moan.
"There is not one person in this room on your side."
And just as I said—not a single soul so much as frowned at the brutality. Every person present had seen with their own two eyes what Dong Zhuo had done in Chang'an.
"Dong Zhuo."
"Ghhhh..."
"Not answering, are we?"
The instant the words left my mouth, the soldier who had just taken his eye kicked Dong Zhuo square in the head.
"KHHGAAH!!"
"I said answer."
"Y-yes! I hear you!"
This time, when the soldier drew back his fist, Dong Zhuo blurted it out in a panic.
This was the man Gao Shun had recommended as just the right fit for the role, and I liked him immensely.
"Listen well. You know this already, but the things you did were mad enough that I have no intention of sparing your life."
"..."
"We'll take our time deciding how to kill you later. For now—cripple him and throw him in a cell."
"Wh-what! Wait! Just let me speak—"
THWACK─!
The moment Dong Zhuo showed signs of struggling, Seo Yeo—just as before—hammered the other side of his face and put him under again.
"Well done."
"Thank you."
Watching the soldier drag Dong Zhuo away by the heels, I turned my head.
A gaunt man with a neatly trimmed beard was waiting for my word.
"Li Ru."
"...Speak, if you would."
Ask anyone to name Dong Zhuo's closest strategist, and Li Ru was the name that came to mind. There was no denying the man had real ability.
"I have a question for you."
"..."
"The burning of Chang'an. Was that your plan?"
Even in the original history, it had been Li Ru who predicted that moving the capital to Chang'an would make the anti-Dong Zhuo coalition fizzle out. And sure enough, once Dong Zhuo reduced Luoyang to ashes and moved the capital, the coalition—its target suddenly gone from before its eyes—fell apart before long.
At my question, Li Ru shook his head.
"No. I advised him that if he sacked Chang'an, the Grand General would hunt him down to the very end."
"Hmm."
"I merely urged that we withdraw to Liang Province and bide our time."
Clever. Li Ru had successfully predicted exactly how I would react to any given move. In the end, Dong Zhuo had ignored his counsel, and here we were.
"Do you regret serving such a man?"
At my question, Li Ru closed his eyes. He knew, no doubt, that his answer would decide his fate. I found myself faintly curious what he would say.
After a moment, Li Ru opened his eyes and gave me his answer.
"No. I do not regret it."
"Interesting."
Dong Zhuo certainly kept real talent around him, that much was clear.
I waved a hand.
"Send him off without pain."
"...Thank you."
Li Ru bowed his head, then walked to the execution ground under his own power.
"Next is..."
"Grand General! I beg you, spare my life!"
A man with a face as stuffed full of greed as Dong Zhuo's slammed his forehead into the dirt.
"I only did as my brother commanded! I had no choice! Please, think of him—!"
"Oh, I am. Thinking of him is exactly why you get the same punishment as Dong Zhuo."
"What manner of—!"
"Cripple him like Dong Zhuo and lock him in a cell."
I clicked my tongue as Dong Min was dragged away shrieking.
'No choice,' my foot.
We had full reports that he'd been the most enthusiastic looter of the lot.
"Next—Zhang Ji and Zhang Xiu."
At my words, two men with strikingly similar faces were hauled forward.
Well, well. Names that anyone worth their salt would know. Zhang Ji was one thing, but Zhang Xiu was the man who, together with Jia Xu, had fallen upon Cao Cao and killed Cao Ang, Cao Anmin, and Dian Wei.
Our resident married-woman killer, Cao Cao, had gone and lost her head over a widow, and... well. Trading one widow for her eldest son, her nephew, and her bodyguard-general was a bargain that still looked pretty funny even now. Dian Wei's death was one thing, but losing her eldest son Cao Ang is regarded even in the modern day as Cao Cao's most agonizing blunder.
My thoughts had wandered off for a moment there—but that was that, and this was this.
I looked at the two men with their mirror-image faces and spoke.
"Zhang Ji. Anything to say?"
"...Nothing!"
"Good."
I nodded.
"Zhang Xiu. Zhang Ji was one of those who looted Chang'an, so I cannot let him live."
"..."
"From what I hear, you were off beating back the frontier tribes in Tianshui at the time."
"That is so."
Zhang Xiu looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite read.
"Are you close with your uncle?"
"At the very least, we are not strangers to one another."
"Close enough to die together?"
"..."
Zhang Xiu caught the meaning behind my question and shut his mouth. Zhang Ji stared at him in alarm.
"You—don't tell me you mean to surrender to this man?!"
"...Uncle. Did I not tell you this was no banner worth staying under for long?"
Zhang Ji, quite past containing himself, headbutted Zhang Xiu. Caught square on, Zhang Xiu's lip and nose began to bleed.
"You ungrateful beast, daring to surrender to the very man who killed me! Then just die here! Die, I say!"
"..."
Apparently they weren't as close as I'd imagined.
Zhang Xiu shook his head slowly, then answered my question.
"I will surrender."
I nodded and gave the order.
"Send Zhang Ji to the execution ground. Release Zhang Xiu."
Watching Zhang Ji hauled off toward the executioner's block, raging and thrashing all the while, Zhang Xiu's face clouded over.
"Xu Rong."
In the original history, the famed general who had crushed the Tiger of Jiangdong—or rather, the Jiangdong house cat—and the married-woman killer alike. Though he had lost his life to a comrade's betrayal, he could fairly be judged a general of exceptional command.
"You're a rather unusual case."
"Yes."
"You were in Chang'an at the time, and yet you didn't join the looting?"
"...No. I did not."
Xu Rong's face darkened, as if turning something over in his mind.
"Then that's enough for me."
"...?"
"Xu Huang tells me you surrendered. I'll be counting on you from here on."
As I spoke, a soldier stepped forward and untied the ropes binding Xu Rong.
This was the man who had routed both Sun Jian and Cao Cao. If a man was guiltless, putting his talents to use was only common sense.
And yet in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the credit for routing Sun Jian gets snatched away by Hua Xiong. The reason for the theft? Nothing much. Hua Xiong, who had routed even that Sun Jian, was cut down by Guan Yu before the wine in his cup had even gone cool!
In other words, the poor man was a casualty of Guan Yu hype-building. A sad state of affairs.
Xu Rong still wore a dazed expression, apparently unable to quite grasp what was happening.
I went on at an easy pace.
"Then, next is..."
And so, having settled the fate of Dong Zhuo's army one man at a time, I rose from my seat and stretched out the kinks.
September of 186—the season when the rice harvest was just coming in.
Dong Zhuo's army was no more.