Eastern Wu King of Virtue (1)
"...What was that? The General-in-Chief is marching on this place?"
"Yes, my lord! The report says he has set out at the head of a massive army, citing as his justification the claim that the masterminds of the recent assassination attempt are here among us!"
"Huh... What in the world..."
At his messenger's report, the man seated at the head of the hall murmured weakly.
Our faction tried to assassinate the General-in-Chief?
What on earth was that even supposed to mean?
Liu Yao, head of the Jiangdong coalition, had truly known nothing. He was hardly the sort of fool to go poking a hornet's nest for sport, and he had never entertained the slightest intention of standing against the Han army in the first place.
What, exactly? Hold back the northern army by leaning on the Yangtze?
Rubbish.
Anyone who knew that the General-in-Chief had spent years conducting large-scale naval exercises along the Yangtze could never have put forward such an argument. And was the man commanding that navy not a native of Jiangdong besides? A commander already at home on the water, leading a fleet of staggering size — there was no stopping them on the rivers. None whatsoever.
Which left a fight on land. He might as well clutch an armful of straw and hurl himself into the flames; his odds of survival would be better.
These were elite soldiers who had spent decades passing through every battlefield under heaven, trading blows with one enemy army after another. Even the frontier tribes — men who held a weapon from the cradle and counted war among life's great pleasures — were no match for them. They said the northern tribes had fallen eerily quiet of late, and surely that, too, was nothing but those same tribes glancing nervously over their shoulders at the General-in-Chief's host.
The tribes were always like that. Convinced you were weaker, they came swarming; convinced you were stronger, they busied themselves reading your moods and groveling toward power. One had only to look at the zenith of the Later Han under Emperor Guangwu, when the Southern Xiongnu half-submitted to the Han and helped hound the Northern Xiongnu to the very brink of ruin.
What reason could there possibly be to provoke a power mighty enough to accomplish that?
He had no cause to resist the Han army descending from the north to begin with. Even if he dug in his heels and tried to bar their way out of sheer stubbornness, without a cause most of the talented people under him would simply turn their backs and surrender to the enemy.
And yet someone, it seemed, had not seen it that way. Scheming to assassinate the General-in-Chief and sow chaos through their own ranks... What on earth had given them the confidence?
As if he were not already harried enough by that halfwit marching into his lands while proclaiming himself the Eastern Wu King of Virtue — now a man under his own banner had gone and stirred up this calamity entirely on his own initiative. It was enough to drive a saint to madness.
Liu Yao dragged a hand down his face and heaved a sigh.
"Mm... If this keeps flowing the way it is, all of us will simply die."
"......"
"What are you all standing around for? Find the wretch who cooked this up on his own authority — now!"
With matters come this far, surrender alone would hardly be enough to preserve his neck. Which left exactly one road to survival: to root out the true culprit, whatever it took, and present him to the General-in-Chief.
"Understood!"
The messenger who received Liu Yao's order bowed with utmost courtesy and slipped swiftly from the hall.
Liu Yao watched him go, then sagged wearily back into his seat.
"...I'm going mad."
An imperial clansman of the Liu line had forgotten his dignity entirely and spat out a curse. No — remembering that it was precisely that Liu name which had won him his post as Inspector of Yangzhou, it would have been stranger if he had refrained.
Being named an Inspector was no bad fortune in itself. Being named Inspector of a frontier province where the court's hand barely reached, however, was another matter entirely.
A climate that men raised north of the Yangtze could never easily stomach. Wilderness untouched by a single stroke of development, choked with forest, with savage beasts bursting out at every turn. And as if that were not enough, the Shanyue tribe — a foreign people who called this land their own and sealed off every road between the cities.
For all these reasons, the people who stayed in Jiangdong were pitifully few, and with so few hands the taming of the land fell ever further behind. Remember, too, that most of those few were refugees who had fled to Jiangdong to escape the chaos of the heartland, and it was hardly surprising that the region had gone undeveloped in all the centuries since the Han was founded.
The soil was so rich, so overflowing with the earth's power to bear crops, that anything could flourish there, and even the sweltering warmth, could one only adapt to it, promised a life more comfortable than any in the north. It was a land brimming with potential.
...The trouble was that potential was all it had.
No people to develop the land, no army to put down the bandits and the Shanyue raising havoc in every corner of Jiangdong — what, precisely, was one man supposed to do? Liu Yao had joined hands with the handful of great clans of the region upon taking office as Inspector of Yangzhou, but the situation had refused, damn it all, to improve.
"...If anyone could manage it, perhaps it would be the General-in-Chief."
Word had it the man had brought not only Yi Province to heel but even the distant southern tribes they called the Nanman. All Liu Yao could hope was that he would come down to Jiangdong and deal with these wretched Shanyue while he was at it.
"So then... what exactly do you think you are doing?"
His thoughts set in order, Liu Yao lifted a calm gaze to the general standing before him — a hulking man glaring down at him, an axe still dripping blood in his grip.
"Oh, this?"
Ze Rong flashed him a grin steeped in bloodlust.
"Can't you tell just by looking? It's a rebellion."
"I see. So you are the one who tried to assassinate the General-in-Chief."
Under that avaricious grin, Liu Yao let out a long, deep sigh.
"A talentless clod like you could never have managed this alone. You've joined hands with another power, haven't you?"
"Heh heh. Talentless, am I? Isn't that a touch harsh?"
Ze Rong whirled his axe as he advanced on Liu Yao.
"Not a flicker of fear with death an arm's length away. Have you something hidden up your sleeve, then?"
"Hmph. Strange talk, this 'something up my sleeve.' Had I any such thing, I'd have pacified Jiangdong long ago."
Liu Yao answered the question with a scornful snort.
"What does it matter how this sick husk of a body dies?"
"......"
"I'm not long for this world either way."
Hunting savage beasts. Reclaiming wild ground. Shoving back the Shanyue. And atop it all, turning aside the incursions of grasping warlords like Yuan Shu — it would have been stranger if his body had not given out. Forced march upon forced march with barely a day between them, and Liu Yao's flesh had, regrettably, at last failed to outrun its exhaustion.
"Hoo..."
Another sigh escaped him. He had long since lost count of how many that made today.
Liu Yan and Liu Biao's endings had been rather ugly, granted — but at least they had spent their days lording it over their own domains like emperors. And what was his own state by comparison? He had worked himself to the bone, fallen ill at forty — an age when a man is meant to have settled all his doubts — and now his life hung by a thread from one day to the next. And now, as the finishing touch, some bandit had raised a rebellion and his head was set to go rolling.
"Life truly is unjust."
"Is that all you have to say about Liu Yan?"
"That's all. It's over, so do as you please."
That graceless bandit cur.
And it had all been for nothing — taking the man in, telling himself it would be a pity to cast someone aside over a single lost hand. Even in his Xuzhou days the fellow had done nothing but cause trouble, and the moment Cao Cao came sweeping down he had bolted headlong with his men in tow. What on earth had he trusted when he accepted him?
"Then die."
Whoosh—! Ze Rong brought the axe down, wearing a savage grin that would have marked him a bandit to any eye—
CRACK!
"Ghhk...?!"
—and something hurled from behind caught him square on the back of the head. The bandit chief who had been lunging so eagerly to take Liu Yao's life now lay crumpled on the floor, blood streaming down his skull.
"...Hm? What in the..."
"Lord Liu! Are you all right?!"
The words of confusion were barely out of Liu Yao's mouth before a woman in crimson armor came bursting into the room. At the sight of the familiar plum-colored hair, astonishment spread across his face.
"Taishi Ci? What are you doing here?"
He was quite certain he had assigned her a scouting mission...
Before his question could be answered, Taishi Ci swept Liu Yao up over her shoulder like a bundle of luggage.
"Explanations can wait! Getting out of here comes first!"
"Wh-what? No, wait, what is the meaning of—"
"The Shanyue have opened the gates and are pouring into the city!"
"......"
At her shout, Liu Yao's mouth clamped shut.
Ze Rong — don't tell me the power that bandit joined hands with was the Shanyue?
...But how? The Shanyue ground their teeth at the very mention of the Han...
"UWAAHAHAHA—! This land now belongs to the Eastern Wu King of Virtue—!"
Just then, from beyond the government office, there rang out a voice he knew — one he had heard somewhere before.
"Well? What do you think! This is exactly who I am!"
"As expected of the boss! Magnificent!"
That bizarre manner of speech, the kind that scraped raw against one's nerves just to hear, could belong to one person alone.
"Ahem! Not 'boss' — you are to address me as the King of Virtue! Disobey my words and you shall be punished!"
"Our deepest apologies, King of Virtue!"
"Yes! Precisely that!"
There was no doubt about it. In all the world there was exactly one woman who spoke in so absurd a fashion.
"CHARGE—! Just like this, we shall devour all of Jiangdong whole—!"
WAAAAAGH—!!
It was Yan Baihu — the woman who had pestered him without end, forever boasting that she would show him the might of the White Tiger.
"Lord Liu! I swear I will see you to safety!"
"...Yes."
Carried along like a sack of grain over Taishi Ci's shoulder, Liu Yao thought:
'I had hardly dared believe it — but she really was the chieftain leading the Shanyue.'
It seemed one truly ought never to judge a person by appearances alone.