The Virtuous King of Eastern Wu (5)
Once I had entered Shuchun, I set my mind in earnest to the question of how to pacify Jiangdong while my soldiers took their rest. When it came to simply stabilizing the land, Jiangdong was a punishingly difficult place. After all, no one knew exactly how many of the Shanyue tribe were hiding across that vast territory.
It spoke volumes that even the Kingdom of Wu under Sun Quan had needed decades to bring the Shanyue to heel. Sun Quan had left his share of stains on his record in life and drawn no small amount of criticism for it, yet for stabilizing the Jiangdong that Sun Ce had done nothing but conquer, and for laying the foundations of its development alongside a wealth of talented men, he deserved very high marks indeed. If Sun Ce was a ruler of conquest, then perhaps Sun Quan should be called a ruler of administration.
In point of fact, in any battle that lacked capable commanders like Zhou Yu or Lu Xun, Sun Quan tasted nothing but the bitterness of defeat no matter where he attacked. Zhang Liao at Hefei, who reduced every army Sun Quan ever sent to rubble, goes without saying — he could not even breach the cities held by outstanding defenders like Wen Ping or Man Chong.
One curious thing, though: his defense was nothing short of miraculous. Even after the Battle of Red Cliffs, Cao Cao had invaded Wu one more time — and against an army of several hundred thousand led by Cao Cao in person, Sun Quan snagged them by the ankles, dragged the campaign out interminably, and showed the world what textbook defense looked like.
Look at how Sun Quan is depicted in that famous Romance of the Three Kingdoms game series — the one that takes plenty of flak for "lacking effort" — and he is suspiciously specialized for defense, isn't he? In one installment he shows up with a trait that guards against stratagems; in another, with a tactic that clears status ailments and sends a unit's defensive power soaring….
With that image in mind, I could see exactly why he had succeeded in defending his homeland of Wu from the Shanyue.
The one problem was that the Shanyue were so ferociously tenacious that his solution amounted to half-resurrecting feudalism. Since the talents under him showed little enthusiasm for the campaigns, Sun Quan spurred them on by granting any man who drove out the Shanyue and pacified a given territory that very land as his reward. He also instituted something called the hereditary troop-command system, under which the great clans could keep private soldiers outright — and pass those soldiers down to their descendants in turn….
It gets more complicated from there, so let's move on. Honestly, I don't remember the details all that well myself. Either way, the point is that Jiangdong was enough of a disaster zone to drive Sun Quan to decisions like these.
Even if I made one grand circuit of Jiangdong and crushed every Shanyue tribe I laid eyes on, more would simply keep crawling out of the woodwork. There was no way to sweep every last mountain range and forest of Jiangdong, combing through them one by one. Which meant the conclusion was this: I needed someone capable of governing this place even after I had left it.
And the person best suited to that role was, naturally….
"My lord."
"Oh. Right."
I had been lying back at my ease, staring at the ceiling while my thoughts churned; at Seo Yeo's call I parted my lips slightly, and she slipped a piece of fruit into my mouth.
Mmm… sweet.
Well, it was fruit. Of course it was.
I chewed the bite-sized morsel, then gave a small nod.
"You're in there right now, aren't you? I'm coming in."
At the familiar voice drifting in from beyond the door, I turned my head. Sima Yi. What business could she have here at this hour?
"Yes. Come in."
With no reason to refuse her entry, I answered as I always did. Sima Yi stepped into the room, a sheaf of bamboo slips in her right hand —
"…?"
— and stopped dead in her tracks the moment she laid eyes on me.
Look at that bewildered expression. Somehow, exactly as I'd predicted.
"…What are you doing right now?"
Having frozen stiff the instant she stepped inside, Sima Yi asked in a curt voice.
"What am I doing? Resting. It's break time, isn't it?"
I replied placidly, my head still pillowed on Seo Yeo's lap.
"Why? Is there a problem?"
"Greeting people like that is the problem…. Whew, never mind. What's the point of even saying it? You'll only give me some answer like 'don't be so stiff.'"
"Don't be so stiff."
"……."
At that, Sima Yi fixed me with a glare of pure menace.
Yep, she's angry. Push her any further and things would turn ugly.
I abandoned the teasing, sat up from where I'd been lying, and asked, "So what is it?"
Seo Yeo, who had been lending me her lap, looked distinctly reluctant to give it up, but there was nothing to be done. I could not withstand a full barrage of nagging from one of my little strategists.
"…Good grief. How did I end up serving a man like this…."
Even Sima Yi, who had been glaring at me for a good while, apparently could not bring herself to snap at a smiling face, and let out a long, deep sigh. Composure recovered, she grumbled as she came to the point.
"I've roughed out a plan for pacifying Jiangdong, and I believe this approach is the best one."
"Oh? And what would that be?"
I asked, brimming with anticipation. My own idea had amounted to nothing more than slamming headlong into the Shanyue. If one of my little strategists was willing to draw up a detailed plan for me, of course I welcomed it.
To my eager question, Sima Yi gave a calm, level answer.
"Split our forces into several separate armies."
"…Huh?"
"No matter how I look at it, there is no reason for us to lose."
Having said that much, Sima Yi pressed on without pause.
"The sooner a nuisance is dealt with, the better — wouldn't you say?"
"That much is true."
But was it really possible? The genius strategist — who in the original history, too, had prized lightning-swift, decisive victories and waged war chiefly through maneuver — only looked at me and flashed a sly little smile.
Moling.
Once Liu Yao's main stronghold, and the district that in the original history Sun Quan — once he had ascended as emperor — made his capital and renamed Jianye. That region, worthy of being called the very heart of Jiangdong, now lay in the grasp of a figure no one could have predicted.
Hair a dizzying swirl of black and white. Blue eyes more than striking enough to leave a deep impression on anyone who met them.
"Mmm! This is precisely the place befitting the residence of I, the Virtuous King of Eastern Wu!"
…Complete with a peculiar way of speaking that would plant a question mark on the face of anyone hearing it for the first time.
"Now that I have claimed this place, the other rabble entrenched in Jiangdong can no longer stand against me!"
The girl possessed a truly striking, almost otherworldly appearance — and was doing her level best to bury every bit of it under her bizarre speech as she laughed with supreme confidence.
"As expected of you, big sister! Magnificent!"
The mature-looking woman trailing behind her cried out, eyes shining. Judging by looks alone, one would have sworn the older and younger sisters had been swapped — but in truth, the girl was the elder.
The girl — Yan Baihu — turned to her younger sister, Yan Yu.
"Yan Yu! My men are not up to any funny business, are they?!"
"Worry not!"
At her sister's question, Yan Yu thumped her own chest with all the high-spirited swagger of the elder sister herself.
"I've drilled them soundly, so they won't lay a finger on the people of this region!"
"Mmm! That is my sister, through and through!"
Her sister's report left Yan Baihu wearing a thoroughly satisfied expression.
The Virtuous King of Eastern Wu. The virtuous sovereign of the eastern land of Wu. Merit and virtue. Morality. And benevolence…. Having proclaimed herself the King of Virtue, Yan Baihu intended to govern the people beneath her through virtue itself. Hadn't the Shanyue — her own kin — been so moved by her example that they had begun to rally to her? As long as the Shanyue spread across all of Jiangdong followed her, this land could rightly be called hers. Wasn't word even now arriving that her enemies could not withstand her fierce assaults and were being steadily driven back, inch by inch?
"Heh heh heh…."
If things kept going like this, her ambition might truly be realized — and the thought drew a smug chuckle out of Yan Baihu.
Just then, Yan Yu posed a question.
"Come to think of it, big sister — what shall we do with that fellow Ze Rong?"
"Hm? You mean that bandit?"
Yan Baihu tilted her head, sinking into thought. Wasn't he the one who had betrayed his own lord without a second thought over an offer to share out a portion of the spoils she had taken from Liu Yao? Having finished her deliberations, Yan Baihu pronounced judgment.
"A creature of such thick-faced shamelessness, a human face atop a beast's heart — such a thing is of no use to me whatsoever!"
Thick-faced shamelessness: to be so brazen as to know no shame. A human face atop a beast's heart: to wear the face of a man while nursing a heart as vicious as any beast's. Two famous four-character idioms, one from the Classic of Poetry and the other from the Book of Han.
"Lock him in a cell and pretend he does not exist! Do I make myself clear?!"
"Yes, big sister!"
…Why a woman who had studied hard enough in this era to know such words insisted on speaking so strangely was a mystery for the ages.
"King of Virtue! Urgent report!"
While the sisters were trading views, a Shanyue warrior came sprinting from far off, shouting as he ran.
Yan Baihu turned to him.
"Mmm? What is the matter?"
"W-we have word that Lujiang, the territory we held, has been seized by the Han General-in-Chief!"
"…Lujiang, you say?"
Lujiang. The region where Yan Baihu, noticing that no governor ruled it, had first raised her army of Shanyue. By her understanding, the powerful clan that had once governed the area had been summoned away by the central court — but to Yan Baihu, that had been no concern of hers.
"Hmph! It matters not! We half-abandoned that region on our way here in any case, did we not!"
She had seized it purely to advertise her presence here; in truth, the city across the Changjiang lay entirely outside her interest. And so, even at the news of Lujiang's fall, Yan Baihu's confidence never wavered.
"Even should they cross the Changjiang, it will not be too late to repel them then! All of you, make your preparations!"
"As you command!"
At Yan Baihu's order, the Shanyue roared their assent. The hill tribes who had defied the Han for hundreds of years were on the move once more.