Ye Province (6) — The Great Heaven Army

Somewhere in a remote stretch of mountains in Ye Province.

Inside a makeshift dwelling lashed together haphazardly from this, that, and everything else, a handful of figures sat gathered around a table.

One sat with arms crossed and eyes shut; another propped her chin on her hand and gazed out the window, apparently wrestling with some grave problem. A man whose bulk rivaled a hillside stood ramrod straight at his place, while a wrinkled elder kept a cross-legged silence.

Each posture was distinctive enough to lay its owner's personality completely bare. They looked as though they couldn't have less in common — and yet between these people stood exactly two things they all shared.

The first: despite the mismatched arsenal slung across their bodies — swords, spears, clubs, bows, and everything in between — the bearing of every last one of them was anything but ordinary.

The second was that all of their gear, from head to toe, was tinged in yellow.

"...Hey."

The woman who had been brooding over something, chin in hand, finally broke the silence. Still gazing at the wide-open sky beyond the window, she blurted out:

"I've been thinking about this for a while now — would it kill us to make that window a little smaller?"

"..."

"No matter how I look at it, it's just too big."

To words that fit the solemn mood not at all, the quiet, level-eyed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠figure with folded arms replied.

"What kind of nonsense is that all of a sudden?"

"What do you mean, nonsense? Every time the sun goes down, swarms of bugs come flying in here!" The lightly armored woman shouted, rolling up her sleeve.

"Look at this! They chewed me up last night, too!"

As if to prove her point, her forearm was littered with the unmistakable welts of insect bites.

Watching her, another figure let out a scornful snort.

"Hmph! Whining over a few bug bites — how weak can ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you be!"

"What was that?"

The woman's face twisted at once toward the hulking man who had sneered at her.

"Oh? So you're saying you've never been bitten even once?"

"Haha! What a question! Just look at these muscles!"

As if he'd been waiting his whole life for that exact prompt, the giant snapped into a pose and flexed for all he was worth.

The bald man's completely unprompted muscle show left his onlookers with a feeling that defied description.

"Mere insects could never pierce these steel muscles of mine, tempered through years of relentless training!"

"Oh... is that so."

Or maybe you're just not the type bugs like to bite.

Not that saying it aloud would have accomplished anything; no way that lunatic would understand. Others trembled at his very name — the Heaven-Sundering Yaksha, the demon said to cleave the sky itself — but as far as she could tell, the only thing the man had ever sundered was his own sanity.

It was then that the one who had been quietly observing everything spoke up.

"...Quiet, both of you. Have you forgotten what day it is today?"

The words of the man who had propped his spear against the wall beside him.

"That's..."

"Ahem..."

At those words, the two loudmouths shut their mouths, wearing the sheepish looks of people with nothing to say for themselves.

And so the mood settled. Who knew how ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠much time passed after that.

BANG—!

"It's finally here!"

A woman made her entrance by kicking the building's door open with a mighty stomp.

At the riotous arrival, a soft tsk escaped the wrinkled elder.

"Kicked the door to pieces again, I see."

"That is not what matters right now!"

"Aigoo... we really ought to patch it up so it survives the next kick..."

The woman who had answered the elder thumped the bundle she'd been carrying so preciously down onto the table with a heavy clunk.

The treasure borne here with such care by the strongest fighter in the entire group was none other than a letter.

"Q-quick! Open it, quick!"

"Uooooh! I can't hold back a second longer!"

The sheepish woman and man of moments ago erupted with excitement the instant the letter appeared — a striking display of chemistry for a pair who'd been bickering over something ridiculous just minutes before.

Absurd it may have been, but not a single soul inside the building moved to scold them.

"..."

Because every one of them was barely holding down the stirrings in their own chest.

From the quiet, arms-crossed man to the elder who had just been clicking his tongue at her, all eyes in the room were drilled into that letter.

Precious, precious news that arrived only once a month.

With the General-in-Chief tacitly looking the other way, these people had even built a small intelligence line of their own, trading letters back and forth with one particular individual.

And who might that individual be?

"Sniff... Great Good Master..."

"Now, now! How many times have we been told not to call her that anymore?"

"Ah, r-right. That's true..."

The one whom countless people had once looked to as their spiritual pillar. The leader of the Yellow Turbans — she who, in the original history, fired the opening shot of the Han dynasty's collapse.

Zhang Jue.

Having placed a portion of the army in Zhang Liao's hands and appointed her as its commander, I gave the plan one final review as I spoke with Zhang Jue.

"You're going to send word to the Yellow Turban army and have them vacate their positions in advance?"

"Yes. As it happens, we already have couriers in place, so it will not be a difficult task."

I nodded slowly at her words.

It was true that a number of Yellow Turbans had been lingering in Luoyang, disguised as perfectly ordinary civilians.

Yellow Turbans slipping into a city in the guise of common folk — on paper, a chilling prospect. What they actually got up to in Luoyang, however, was next to nothing.

Day to day they lived peaceful lives as merchants or farmers, the kinds of trades that blend easily into a crowd, and then, once a month on a set date, they would receive a single letter from Zhang Jue and set out for a city to the east.

The destination changed each time, but whether it sat in Xuzhou or Yanzhou made no difference. All that mattered was that Ye Province lay somewhere along the route.

Judging purely by their conduct, they were harmless citizens to the letter — which was why their tails had never once been stepped on. They existed, quite literally, for one purpose: to carry letters. They never entered restricted zones, never showed the slightest interest in ferreting out secrets. How exactly would they be caught?

Granted, the moment any of them displayed even a hint of suspicious behavior, the soldiers surveilling every corner of Luoyang would have them before they could blink.

It feels a little awkward coming from me, but the military discipline over there was nothing short of brutal. Watching some poor soldier get torn apart by a senior over the smallest slip was enough to send memories of my past life flooding back in vivid color.

One lone assassin stealthily clearing out an entire garrison, the way it works in games? Impossible here. This world had none of that venerable gaming courtesy where every guard grits his teeth and looks the other way.

Now, if human siege engines like Seo Yeo or Lü Bu strode in openly and butchered the whole base, that might be a different story.

...Except that wouldn't be assassination, would it.

I turned to Zhang Jue and spoke.

"Good. In that case, where do you plan on moving the Yellow Turbans?"

"...On that subject, there is something I would like to ask of you."

"A question?"

When I tilted my head, Zhang Jue asked in a grave voice.

"Do you... intend to take them in?"

"Of course I'm taking them in."

The answer came without a moment's deliberation.

"There's plenty about them that gives me pause, but that doesn't mean I can just put every last one of them to the sword, does it?"

"..."

"Anyone who wants to go back to living as an ordinary citizen is free to do so. And anyone who'd rather keep serving in an army, the way they always have — for them, I'll establish a new unit."

Elite soldiers who knew their way around a fight were welcome any day of the week. And judging by how ready these people were to leap off a cliff at Zhang Jue's merest word, reining them in would be no trouble at all.

Run them as some kind of special forces unit, and everything should fall neatly into place.

"Now, what should we call this new unit..."

Mulling it over with Zhang Jue right in front of me, I found myself recalling the slogan the Yellow Turbans of the past had shouted until the words wore smooth.

"Let's go with the Great Heaven Army."

"That is quite... a tremendous name."

I nodded at Zhang Jue's verdict.

Honestly, there was no deep meaning behind it. I had simply strung together characters that looked cool to my eye. There was, after all, an unwritten rule from the old days that special units carried the flashiest names you could find.

Cao Cao herself had named her personal corps the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, and hadn't Liu Bei christened her own troops the White Feather Guard? One bore the name for its ferocity like tigers and leopards on the hunt; the other for its warriors armored in white plumes and beast hides.

Come to think of it — did Liu Bei build that unit under Gongsun Zan's influence, him and his White Horse Volunteers?

Either way, both Wei and Shu had special forces bearing names like those. There was no way I was going to fall behind.

And what special forces did Wu have, you ask? Sorry. Completely slipped my mind.

I walked over to Zhang Jue and gave her shoulder a couple of light taps.

"I'm putting their command in your hands."

"...Will that truly be all right?"

"I doubt they'd take orders from anyone but you in the first place."

Weren't we only able to absorb these people at all because Zhang Jue stood at their center? There's an old saying, after all, that kindness carried on long enough starts to be mistaken for a birthright.

I had no desire to become one of those ugly creatures who took everyone around them for granted.

"..."

"Is there something you'd like to say to me?"

"...No. It is nothing."

After holding her silence a moment longer, Zhang Jue looked up at me and broke into a soft smile.