Jiangdong (3)
Jiangdong. Or, if you prefer, Jiangnan.
Pressed on the fine details, the two names technically covered slightly different territories, but in China they usually pointed to one and the same place: the lands south of the Yangtze River — the province of Yangzhou.
It was easy to mix this up with the western frontier of Xiliang, whose formal name was also "Yangzhou," just written with different characters. You really mustn't confuse the two. …Though honestly, it would be stranger if you didn't.
Spoken aloud in Chinese, the two names were practically identical, and people mixed them up constantly. Call it the difference between Liangzhou and Yangzhou. It got so bad that even the Chinese themselves gave up on the name Yangzhou entirely and took to splitting the regions apart as Xiliang and Jiangdong instead.
In fairness, the nickname Xiliang didn't appear until the Northern and Southern Dynasties, long after the Han — yet somehow, in this era, people were already using it. Made things easier for me, so no complaints.
So then — what exactly kind of place was this Jiangdong?
The districts tamed and settled by human hands were, quite literally, a land flowing with milk and honey. The regions those hands had never reached were a hell that put hell itself to shame.
The reason opinion split from one extreme to the other was simple: the environment was almost absurdly generous at growing things — plants and animals alike.
Frankly speaking, northern China — everything north of the Yangtze — didn't have much of a climate to boast of. Chilly weather, bone-dry air, and parched earth stretching on without end.
The lands beyond the Great Wall, where the foreign tribes roamed, were certainly a catastrophe — but that didn't mean you could gaze at the north of the Yangtze and carry on about its lovely weather as though it were somebody else's problem.
Then why had this land called Jiangdong gone undeveloped? Didn't I just tell you? This place is a genuine mess.
Man-eating beasts bursting out of the underbrush at every turn? That was the cute part. Far worse was the humidity and heat unique to Jiangnan — northerners who failed to adapt died one after another, infected by every disease and parasite known to man.
In the Three Kingdoms, where Wei, Shu, and Wu tore into each other, Wu had a peculiar abundance of figures who dropped dead without warning in the prime of youth — and I suspected this climate was exactly why.
Just counting the names that came to mind at once: Zhou Yu, Lu Su, Lu Meng. Zhou Yu died of illness in his mid-thirties. Lu Su seemed to hang on a little longer before passing in his mid-forties, and Lu Meng went much the same way, gone by his early forties.
And all three of them had commanded Wu's armies — its commanders-in-chief. Three successive supreme commanders, cut down in their prime one after another.
Though it was genuinely ironic that Lu Meng, who had bagged Guan Yu with a strategy of feigned illness, went and died of the real thing. Was that the curse of Guan Yu at work?
Then there was the fact that any Han man strolling through Jiangdong risked a random encounter with a roaming monster species called the Shanyue Tribe, who would strip him of every last possession. And those possessions very much included his life.
Later generations would coo over Jiangdong in its glory days — the thriving development, the fabulously wealthy people — and sing its praises in verse. Show any of them the Jiangdong of today and they'd jump out of their skin. Because the Jiangdong of now was barely developed at all.
So who was it that finally took this Jiangdong in hand and laid the foundations for all that? If you've followed along this far, you can probably guess.
“C-Could you take me with you too?!”
“Hm?”
“I'll give it my very best!”
Sun Quan, courtesy name Zhongmou. The third protagonist of the Three Kingdoms — the one who would build a nation and vie for supremacy against Cao Cao and Liu Bei.
Auburn hair, just like her elder sister Sun Ce's. Sky-blue eyes of a shade that, in the history I came from, you'd only ever see on a Westerner. The founding ruler of Wu — remembered in the annals for the appearance legend called 'blue eyes and a purple beard' — stood before me now, wound tight as a bowstring.
“So. You want to come down to Jiangdong with me?”
“Yes! I've now completed my capping ceremony — my coming-of-age rite — so I will serve you faithfully as a proper officer of war!”
Her capping ceremony already? The current year was the seventh of the Guangxi era — 196 AD, in other words. Had Sun Quan really been born early enough to come of age by now? I was fairly sure she hadn't…
Guan Yu hadn't looked at Sun Quan and sneered 'kid, pup, rat' for nothing, after all. Compared with Cao Cao and Liu Bei, the age gap put her squarely in toddler territory — no joke, nearly twenty years' difference. Which is to say, those two were closer in age to Sun Jian.
And how old were the two of them now, you ask? Uh… If my memory served, Cao Cao and Sun Jian had been born the very same year, and while Liu Bei came a touch later, the difference was barely worth mentioning…
Okay. Let's stop thinking right there. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss. Age was nothing but a number.
…Not that the words changed anything — both of their birth years had been pushed back in this world too. Seen that way, there was nothing odd about Sun Quan having arrived a little ahead of her historical self.
I studied Sun Quan, still standing there stiff as a plank, and spoke.
“Hm. You want to distinguish yourself as an officer of war?”
“Yes! Father himself praised my archery, so I'm certain I'll be of use!!”
Why was every sentence delivered like a battle cry?
Not that I doubted her. Even Zhang Liao — who had pureed Sun Quan's army in a blender at the Siege of Hefei — had reportedly marveled at the valiant officer who rode superbly and shot even better. Of course, the moment a surrendered soldier let slip that this valiant officer was no mere general but the ruler of Wu herself, Zhang Liao had bolted on the spot — but that bus had already left the station.
In other words, while she lacked her father's and elder sister's gift for commanding armies, she carried more than enough martial ability to hold her own as an officer on the front line. This was, after all, the woman with an anecdote about walloping a tiger barehanded on a hunting trip. Had I tried anything of the sort, one of my arms would've ended up the tiger's snack.
Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Sun Quan… Why were they all so absurdly capable in a fight? Was this the defining quality of rulers who found nations?
Arms crossed, I mulled it over for a moment, then turned to the middle-aged man standing at Sun Quan's side, his expression perfectly placid.
“Sun Jian. What do you think?”
“Hahaha! I'd say it's a fine idea!”
The grizzled warrior — armored from head to toe, much like his daughter — let out a booming laugh.
“After all, not long past my own capping ceremony, I was out cutting down river pirates and building my experience!”
“…….”
“And I hear Bofu — that would be Sun Ce — had barely finished her own ceremony when she cut down, in a single stroke, the warrior who'd very nearly ended my life!”
What was with this family? Were they some kind of warrior race? Having your capping ceremony in this era meant you were all of fifteen — a body not yet fully grown, and they were out slaughtering grown men like apprentices at a butcher's shop. Were these people even the same species as me?
“…….”
Mid-deliberation, I felt Seo Yeo's and Lü Bu's eyes on me and gave a small nod. Right. It was only this family that was freakishly exceptional. Ordinary human beings, capping ceremony or no, do not casually cut men down.
Sun Jian seemed to have caught on to my worry, and put on a look of supreme confidence.
“Fear not! I shall glue myself to Zhongmou's side and guard her personally!”
“Have your wounds fully healed?” I asked, surprised.
The injuries Sun Jian had suffered looked grave even to my untrained eye; recovery should have taken a very long time. Hua Tuo herself had warned that any overexertion might tear the wounds open and force another round of treatment — rest needed to come first, she'd said.
Sun Jian answered my question with another hearty laugh.
“All healed! If I don't start moving soon, I'll be crawling out of my skin!”
“Hmm…”
“If you doubt me, go ask the Divine Physician yourself! I'm in perfect shape!”
“Well, if you say so.”
He didn't look to be lying, so I gave a small nod. Having Sun Jian lend his strength to the Jiangdong campaign was welcome news — I had faced his army head-on at Hulao Pass, after all, and I knew exactly how brilliant his battlefield command was.
Even so, putting a fifteen-year-old to work as a military officer, rather than keeping her at a safe remove like some desk-bound civil official, still didn't sit entirely right… Mulling over what to do, I spoke in a tone that conceded nothing on this one point.
“Sun Quan.”
“Yes—yes, sir!”
“This is your first campaign. You will serve as my adjutant and watch closely how a battlefield actually runs.”
If a child's safety was the worry, the answer was simple — put her in the safest spot on any battlefield. Sima Yi, Zhuge Liang, and Pang Tong had all gotten their start in much the same way.
“Ah…! Th-thank you!”
At my approval, Sun Quan's face lit up and she cried out with all her might.
“But remember this one thing.”
“…?”
I stared straight into those blue eyes as I delivered my warning.
“If a pointless hunger for glory and a name ever sweeps you beyond my side, I will never bring you to a battlefield again.”
“…I will keep that firmly in mind!”
On a battlefield, defying orders could get you summarily executed, and no one would say a word — or so the saying went. In a family suspiciously devoted to the martial arts and the art of war, there was no chance she didn't know it. She would not cross me.
“Cool and aloof on the surface, yet he provides for everything that truly matters…. Mm, as expected.”
What on earth was that man going on about now?
Turning away from the sight of Sun Jian nodding to himself as if he'd just cracked some great mystery, I set off.
“Then let's move.”
“Yes, sir!”