Inspection Tour (1)
As Jia Xu had advised, I threw myself into domestic administration, and I could feel time slipping by faster than ever.
There was no shortage of work.
Bing Province. I checked on the frontier tribes still running rampant, and confirmed whether the settlers had put down roots and how their crops were faring. Skirmishes with the nomads still flared up here and there, but the surrendered Black Mountain Bandits were working themselves ragged, racing about to protect their own families and property. Word was that some chieftain had recently begun rallying the nomads under a single banner—a matter worth keeping a very close eye on.
Luoyang. I paid my audiences with the Emperor to make sure nothing was amiss, glaring daggers as I kept watch for anyone skimming bribes off the side. Once the entrenched corrupt officials had been swept out, Luoyang slowly began living up to its name as the capital and prospering. As the talent shortage gradually eased, efficiency climbed by the day—though the payroll climbed right along with it.
Chang'an. ...The region with the heaviest workload, bar none. A metropolis that could have stood toe-to-toe with Luoyang had collapsed in a single day; of course the work never ended. Even so, we kept pouring in manpower and resources and threw ourselves into the reconstruction, so given time it would surely reclaim its former glory. I couldn't say exactly how much time it would take, but with nearly everything we had devoted to the effort, it wouldn't be long.
Xiliang. The rebel armies there had lost their nerve the moment Dong Zhuo was crushed and surrendered, so the territory had been absorbed with barely any intelligence gathered on it. Even the reports left me puzzled. From what I could gather, Han Sui was pursuing a policy of assimilation with the Qiang tribes and taking the nomads in, but the details were hazy. Invasions had clearly tapered off, so it seemed to be working. Setting Han Sui himself aside, I honestly had no idea how the place was run at all. It was territory under my command—how could I afford not to know?
I rose from my seat and stepped out of the room with Seo Yeo.
"What? Out of nowhere? Where are we going?"
"Xiliang."
Then I scooped up Lü Bu, who had been idling her days away in the city with nothing to do, and the three of us left the city behind.
Our destination: Xiliang.
To put it bluntly, what I had planned was a surprise inspection. If word reached Han Sui that I was coming, he would turn his entire domain upside down scrubbing it spotless before I ever arrived. And then I'd never learn how Xiliang actually ran on an ordinary day.
That wasn't what I wanted. I meant to see for myself whether the people were being treated unjustly, whether officials were corrupt and taking kickbacks—things like that. And if such graft was going on and he got caught red-handed... well, he might just try to kill me on the spot.
But with Seo Yeo and Lü Bu at my side, what was there to be afraid of? If he tried anything, I could simply wring his neck instead.
If Xiliang turned out to be governed properly, I'd just hear what concrete plans he had and head home. And I was curious about Ma Chao too, on a personal level. She was still only a child, but I figured there was no harm in laying eyes on her once.
The journey toward Wuwei turned out to be more eventful than expected. Thanks to how ruthlessly I'd cracked down on public order in Sili, not a single bandit showed its face even with just the three of us on the road. Then again, after the whole Black Mountain and Baibo Bandit affairs, the word going around was that I saw red at the mere sight of a bandit, so it wasn't exactly strange. The handful who'd survived had probably relocated elsewhere or quietly melted into the cities. Chang'an was taking in people by the droves for its reconstruction, so surely some of them were looking to make a fresh start there.
No bandits in Sili. I nodded to myself, feeling a quiet swell of pride.
"Not even one fight, huh?"
With no battles to be had, Lü Bu was bored out of her mind, and at one point she'd even tried to talk Seo Yeo into a sparring match.
"..."
Seo Yeo hadn't so much as glanced at her, meeting the overture with pure, unbroken silence. Clearly she was worried that while the two of them traded blows, I'd be left standing there defenseless.
"Yeah, no dice, as usual."
Lü Bu knew it too, apparently; even being so pointedly ignored, she only shrugged.
A few days after we set foot in Xiliang, the fight Lü Bu had been waiting for finally came.
Tribesmen unmistakably of the Qiang surrounded us with vile grins and hurled their threats.
"Well, well. Some rich lord come all the way from the capital? Seems you don't know yet what kind of place this is."
Had Han Sui simply failed to deal with these nomads? Or did he know about them and look the other way? My list of questions for Han Sui seemed to have grown yet again.
Oblivious or indifferent, the tribesman carried right on with his speech.
"Think of it as a lesson. Leave everything you own—and your women—right here..."
"Just die."
"Gwark!"
Lü Bu's Sky Piercer Halberd punched through the tribesman's belly mid-sentence.
The other tribesmen ringing us in went bug-eyed.
"Honestly. You let them talk nice for one second and they always have to cross the line."
Lü Bu tilted the halberd she held in one hand slightly upward.
"Kuaaagh—!"
The impaled tribesman dangled from the Sky Piercer Halberd, howling in agony. She could have finished him in a single stroke; that she'd deliberately avoided his vitals said just how furious she was.
And how strong was she, exactly? She'd hoisted an armored grown man clean off the ground with one hand.
"P-please, spare..."
Gripping the shaft with both hands, the tribesman resisted with everything he had, but his breath finally ran out and he went limp.
Lü Bu watched the whole scene, then remarked:
"Kicked the bucket."
"Watch the language."
She shot me a sidelong glance and corrected herself.
"...He died."
Lü Bu swung the halberd with the corpse still skewered on it, shaking the body loose. As I nodded in satisfied approval, one of the tribesmen let out a roar.
"Are you mocking us?!"
"Seems you still haven't figured out the situation."
Lü Bu rolled one shoulder, loosening up.
"Xiliang really does have a lot of people who don't know me, huh."
"What is that supposed to—"
The tribesman staring at her abruptly shut his mouth. He took in the color of her hair, the color of her eyes, and his face froze in horror.
"No way..."
"Huh? What, you know me? Then why'd you jump us?"
Faced with Lü Bu's utter composure, the tribesman ground his teeth.
"...She's just one woman! All of you, charge!"
"Heard that one before."
Lü Bu nodded—and without so much as a flicker of effort, cleaved the tribesman lunging at her clean in two.
"Every idiot who ever said 'there's only one of her' ended up dead."
"D-Don't waver! It's a lie!"
"It's not."
As she spoke, the sweeping halberd lightly cut down three or four more tribesmen.
Gauging the enemy's numbers, Lü Bu spoke up.
"What, a hundred or so? Reminds me of back then."
"Back when?"
"When I first met you."
"Ah."
I nodded at that. She'd slaughtered a hundred-odd nomads all on her own back then too, hadn't she? And I'd watched the whole thing, then dragged her off and commissioned her on the spot.
"I took down a hundred even back when I was swinging whatever weapon I could scrape off the ground. You think I can't manage it now?"
"Ooh. That was kind of cool, actually."
"...A-Anyway! Keep your eyes on me!"
Ah, so she does get embarrassed when I compliment her.
Even as she turned her head away, Lü Bu spurred Red Hare and charged straight in, and before long the tribesmen were finished off.
Just like that, the nomads became nomads no more.
The ambushes kept coming even after that.
"Leave everything you own... guhark!"
"Forget him—come play with us inst— gwek!"
"Khehe... kkiek!"
Tribesmen popped out of everywhere, from every direction. Watching the ones who'd charged in meaning to take me hostage instead lose their heads to Seo Yeo, I found myself thinking:
That's a bit much, honestly.
With escorts like these I was never in any danger, but with roads like this, no ordinary commoner would ever dream of setting foot outside a city wall. These nomad bandits were, in their own way, a small-scale nuisance—whenever a punitive force showed up, they'd no doubt use their superb mobility to slink away in secret, only to creep back out again.
Having thought that far, I spoke up.
"Seo Yeo. Lü Bu."
"Yes."
"Hm?"
They responded, weapons still in hand. Their respective weapons, drenched in blood and gleaming with a grim light, were honestly a little terrifying.
"Let's put off Wuwei for now and go hunt down some nomads instead."
"If that is your will, I shall follow."
Seo Yeo answered with perfect courtesy.
"Doesn't matter to me, but... that means we'll be stuck out here a good while, right?"
Lü Bu didn't particularly object either, though her expression was puzzled.
"It's fine."
Wasn't this exactly why I'd thrown myself so hard into collecting talent? I'd told the others I was off to Xiliang and back, so the odds of any confusion were slim. I'd get an earful if I stayed away too long, but...
"We need to thin their numbers as much as we can before word of us spreads through Xiliang."
If rumors spread that I'd come to Xiliang with Lü Bu, every thug like the ones sprawled at our feet right now would bury themselves in hiding. Then the moment I headed home, they'd creep back out, watch their step for a while, and start stirring up trouble all over again.
"Sees a bandit, sees red," or so the stories about me circulating through the realm went. It was true that bandits displeased me, so the rumor wasn't exactly wrong.
"In that case, shall we head somewhere even more remote?"
Deep in the backcountry, even more bandits would take the bait.
With Seo Yeo and Lü Bu in tow, I threw myself into bandit hunting.
They called it an inspection tour, but honestly? It felt more like I'd just left on a bandit-slaying trip.