Gangdong (2)
Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shao — two rivals locked in a struggle for supremacy over Hebei. Their letters had arrived, and after a moment's deliberation I decided whose side to take.
Truthfully, "deliberation" was too generous a word. That bastard Gongsun Zan had spilled far too much blood — and most of it had come from commoners guilty of no crime, who had wanted nothing more than to live in peace.
Liu Bei, who had once toured a city under his rule with her own eyes, said there wasn't a single young person to be seen on its streets. Only frail old men and children, listless in the lifeless lanes, nervously watching the soldiers. Piece it all together, and it seemed Gongsun Zan had dragged every last young soul from his cities and villages to raise that colossal fortress called Yijing Tower.
Worse still, under the pretext of filling his war coffers, he had looted and set fire to empty homes — and households sheltering nothing but children and the elderly were granted no exception.
Sure, this was an age without internet or cell phones, but the deeds of warlords always found their way into the record one way or another. That was simply the fate of anyone who climbed into a high seat.
Come to think of it, this man was no different from Dong Zhuo. Skilled at war, cruel by nature, and plundering his own people under the banner of providing for his troops. Right — this guy was Dong Zhuo 2.0. So Dong Zhuo's legacy was being carried on here after all.
...Haven't I had this exact thought somewhere before? I was almost certain the same notion had crossed my mind while cataloguing the crimes of that honey-water guzzler who'd usurped the imperial title. Well, that was then. Time to think about what came next.
Say I threw my weight behind Yuan Shao — was I obliged to lend a hand in taking Yijing Tower? Honestly, even with my help I didn't see the fortress falling quickly. It was a stronghold Yuan Shao had only seized after hammering at its walls again and again, deeming it hopeless, and finally tunneling underneath — and even that tunnel gambit had succeeded only because Gongsun Zan's incomprehensible lunacy had sent soldiers and officers fleeing one after another, leaving the watch half-blind.
People amused themselves by calling Gongsun Zan, holed up in Yijing Tower, a "shut-in recluse" — and the joke was that he really had become one. Perhaps the unbroken string of defeats had finally snapped something in him: he never left the tower he lived in, refused to properly receive any male over the age of seven, and drilled his concubines to project their voices so he could bark one-way orders at them from hundreds of paces away. Then he'd gone and sworn brotherhood with a pack of dubious fortune-tellers and merchants, so no one could blame the subordinates who watched all this, concluded the faction was beyond saving, and deserted.
Granted, if I kept feeding troops into the grinder, the place would fall eventually. But knowing that Gongsun Zan was fated to collapse in a manner not far removed from self-destruction, I saw no reason to rush it. ...The problem was that it would take a hell of a long time.
Even so, it beat hurling soldiers at Yijing Tower's insane defenses and watching them die by the droves. When, exactly, would those enormous pits before the walls ever be filled? When would the thousands of watchtowers crowning the ramparts ever be breached? A mega-fortress built by concentrating the manpower and wealth of an entire province could hold out stubbornly against whatever power came knocking.
Hmm. In that case, perhaps my letter to Yuan Shao should read something like this:
— Gongsun Zan is a man who will bring about his own ruin in due time. You need only bide your time and wait. —
I couldn't help the stiff formality that crept into my letters. Yuan Shao and I simply weren't close. I had spoken with her all of twice in my life — once before we destroyed Dong Zhuo, and once after. Cao Cao, whom I'd met around the same time, had been a different story entirely; she'd declared me fascinating and never stopped pressing her advantage. And the presumptuous advice I'd given Yuan Shao back then — something about not letting the hunger for power devour her — still made me cringe to recall. Where on earth had I found that confidence?
"I found it! I found it, I said!"
Huh? That curt, prickly voice was very familiar indeed. I had been in the middle of jotting down notes on Gongsun Zan, and I turned my head toward the sound.
"There you are! I've been looking all over for you!"
"Sima Yi?"
She had flung the door open and come bursting in, plainly in a hurry, and I let my puzzlement show.
"What's got you so worked up? Did something big happen?"
"Something big? You nearly got assassinated — that's what happened!"
Ah. Dropping that on me out of nowhere, I see. Was the news that someone had tried to kill me really so earth-shattering? When I went sheepishly silent, Sima Yi pressed on without mercy.
"Anyway, just look at this! It's intel my agents spent the past month gathering!"
"Uh... right."
I read through the documents she'd brought with a dazed expression. They contained everything there was to know about Jang Gae-yang, the man who had tried to take my life — she had clearly resolved to leave no stone unturned, unearthing every trivial detail of his personal history. Who his parents were, how he'd spent his childhood, what he'd done before turning to assassination...
One thing stood out: against all expectation, Jang Gae-yang had operated under his real name. The reason was simple. I had been his very first target.
"I dug around," Sima Yi explained in an even voice. "Turns out he used to serve as an aide under Yuan Shu."
"I see."
Yuan Shu really was a strange specimen. A fool with not a single accomplishment to his name — and yet, whether by throwing money around or sheer dumb luck, he'd attracted an almost unnatural number of devoted followers. Then again, even the brutish Dong Zhuo had loyal men like Li Ru and Hua Xiong, so perhaps it wasn't so strange after all...?
"The problem is what he did after Yuan Shu died."
"..."
"He vanished without a trace for several months, then resurfaced with an enormous fortune and succeeded in winning the Prince of Chen's favor."
Right. That matched what Yu Chong himself had told me. Jang Gae-yang had cried out that he would hand his family's entire estate to the poor, begging to be taken in as a humble servant. And when Yu Chong, uncomfortable with the intensity, refused, the man had promptly drawn a dagger hidden in his breast and tried to kill himself on the spot.
Truly an audacity that wrung gasps of admiration from anyone who heard of it. Faced with such an outburst, Yu Chong said he'd had no choice but to accept. A righteous man who had given away his every possession to the people and devoted himself to virtue — who would dare treat such a man with anything less than the utmost favor? And so, Yu Chong had answered, he kept Jang Gae-yang always at his side and cherished him.
...So that's how, in the original history, Yu Chong died at Jang Gae-yang's hand.
Honestly, I had been curious. Even a rough once-over told you the old general was formidably skilled — so how had he died without offering a single stroke of resistance? In a straight fight, he was a terrifying old man whom common soldiers couldn't have hoped to touch. People praised his mastery of the bow and crossbow, but with hands the size of cauldron lids and muscles like knotted rope, I doubted close combat was any great weakness of his.
On the surface, then, there was nothing suspicious about Jang Gae-yang. Except for exactly one thing. Because Jang Gae-yang's family had been nothing more than ordinary, unremarkable farmers. A farmer's son could not have showered a prince with "his family's vast fortune" and charmed his way into favor. Which left exactly one conclusion: someone had put him up to this — and bankrolled him besides.
The realization clicked into place, and I lifted my head — straight into Sima Yi's frost-chilled gaze.
"...Liu Yao."
"Huh?"
Why was that name surfacing here? The man was out beyond the Yangtze, tangled in a chaotic brawl with Yan Baihu. What spare energy could Liu Yao possibly have for trying to assassinate me?
Reading the bewilderment on my face, Sima Yi said flatly, "To be precise, it was a general under Liu Yao who acted on his own initiative, hungry to make a name for himself."
"..."
"He must have learned that Gangdong is our next target and moved first... Yes. Fat chance of that working out."
Oh dear. I couldn't say I failed to understand the ambition, but all the man had done was kick a hornet's nest. I had been planning to attack anyway, but... well. One thing was certain: even if I welcomed others who surrendered, the man himself would never know a safe end. Say I forgave him and took him in — wouldn't he turn up one day as an unidentifiable corpse in some lonely back alley? No, they wouldn't be so conspicuous about it; they'd kill him quietly and dress it up as an accident. I could take the hard line instead — make an example of him and swear never to look upon his kind again — but I didn't feel the need to go quite that far.
"..."
"Right. So it's those bastards, then?"
Behind me, Seo Yeo and Lü Bu, standing guard, were radiating a distinctly ominous air, like hunters whose prey had just walked into the open. This... was about to get very loud. Seo Yeo I wasn't worried about, but I would need to keep a firm hand on Lü Bu before she went tearing off on her own.
At last I surrendered to Sima Yi's stare, which had been boring holes into my face the entire time.
"...Fine. The weather's turning mild — time to begin the conquest of Gangdong."
"Good. An excellent decision."
The moment the words left my mouth, Sima Yi broke into a smile so bright and crisp it was almost frightening.
Gangdong... Gangdong, of all things. So the day I would cross that great Yangtze had finally come. Back when I was brawling with foreign tribes in Bing Province, I couldn't even have imagined such a thing. What a strangely new feeling it was.