Eastern Wu King of Virtue (6)
The rest I granted my soldiers did not stretch beyond a single week. Let men idle too long, and body and mind only grow dull. A rare few with iron discipline might escape that fate, but most humans are pitiful creatures who inevitably lose to their own desires. Then again... perhaps it was precisely this pursuit of comfort that had carried mankind as far as it had come.
With every last day of rest spent, I marched out of Shuchun once more and gazed at the broad river unfolding before my eyes.
"So this is the Yangtze."
The Yangtze — the "Long River." One glance at the characters tells you everything: it simply means a very long river. It came pouring in from the sea and stretched its reach all the way down to Nanzhong, at the far southern tip of Yi Province. If my memory served, it was the longest river in Asia — and third longest in the entire world.
A river this size, and the world only handed it bronze? Clearly the world was wider than I gave it credit for. In any case, after regarding the Yangtze — whose breadth proved every bit as formidable as its length — I turned my head.
"How is the other force faring?"
"Yes, my lord!! As per your orders, we have taken Lujiang and are currently advancing on our next objective!!"
The instant the question left my mouth, Sun Quan answered with brisk, snap-to precision. Every time I laid eyes on her, she put me in mind of a recruit on day one of training. ...Though come to think of it, with this being her very first campaign, a recruit was exactly what she was.
It had been mere days since Sima Yi laid her stratagem before me.
"There is no reason for us to lose, so let us divide the army and save ourselves some time while we are at it."
In concrete terms, her plan was to split the host in two and drive it inward, one column from the east and one from the north. The main army at Shuchun would sweep the north, while the detached force that seized Lujiang would answer for the east.
"Frankly, my lord, our army has grown simply too large."
"Well... that much was true, I suppose?"
Bing Province, Sili, Xiliang, Jing Province, Yi Province, Ye Province — and on top of those, Yanzhou, Xuzhou, and Qingzhou, which had come into our hands when Cao Cao's power merged with our own. A territory of staggering expanse, and the untold manpower settled across it. Population was national power, as the saying went. With its grip on the land restored and its old bulk nearly recovered, the Han now possessed a truly colossal military host.
Granted, the wider the lands we had to garrison, the more soldiers were siphoned away — yet the army never shrank for it. If anything, every reorganization and every new posting seemed to swell its ranks further. If we truly set our minds to it and scraped together every available man without a thought for tomorrow, several hundred thousand would answer the call. A force of this scale was the kind that struck fear into anyone possessed of a sane mind.
...Although hadn't the Cao Cao of the original history cackled over that very same logic before burning to nothing at Red Cliffs?
If a detached force was to be formed, then, the question of who should command it demanded real deliberation. Under ordinary circumstances I would have named Cao Cao without a second thought, but pairing her with Jiangdong — no matter how I turned it over, no pleasant picture came to mind. I knew the Cao Cao of today was not the sort to half-ass a command just because the odds favored her and get her army slaughtered, and yet something about it nagged at me. A bad taste I couldn't quite shake.
As my thoughts ran on from Sima Yi's proposal, a sudden worry surfaced, and I put a question to her.
"Hmm... then who would you have me appoint as the detached force's commander?"
"...Hmph. You decided that long ago, didn't you?"
"Huh?"
What was that supposed to mean? The commander, already decided?
Regardless of whatever reaction I showed, Sima Yi folded her arms and declared on her own authority:
"Cao Cao."
"..."
"You seated her in the post of General of Agile Cavalry — second-in-command of the entire military — with precisely this in mind, did you not?"
At the curt clip of Sima Yi's voice, I understood at once. She's sulking. ...But why on earth?
Even as I wondered inwardly at her inexplicable huffing, Sima Yi pressed on.
"Passing over the General of Agile Cavalry to hand the detached force to some other commander? People will talk, you know. All sorts of things."
"Will they?"
"...No. Did you seriously not realize?"
At my response, Sima Yi exhaled a long sigh, as though her head were throbbing.
"Whatever your intent may have been, from the outside it is more than enough to breed ugly whispers — that the General-in-Chief means to keep the General of Agile Cavalry in check, and so forth."
She had a point. Then again, what were official posts for, if not this? Authority existed so that a task could be entrusted to someone and trusted to them. And the General of Agile Cavalry stood second in the military hierarchy, just as Sima Yi said. So if the General-in-Chief — the military's very first seat — withheld command from his own right hand and passed the detachment to another, ugly talk could easily take root: that the army was about to turn its coat, that the post had been an empty title all along... Cao Cao herself would never think that way, but there was no telling how the men and women beneath her banner might react.
This was exactly why politics wearied me so. Even a careless, thoughtless act of mine collected every conceivable motive, with people nodding gravely — "ah, so that was your design!" — until a man wanted to tear his hair out. These were the sort who would sing my praises even if I spent my days in some back room scratching my backside: "everything he does is deliberate!" Was this how the leads of all those misunderstanding-comedy novels had always felt? My stomach was starting to curdle.
These days my footing was so unshakable that everything I did was read in the rosiest possible light, but back when I had only just chased out Dong Zhuo and taken the seat of General-in-Chief, the court had run its misfortune circuits at full power. Misfortune circuits — not the happy kind. These people had been seared so badly by the Ten Attendants and Dong Zhuo that I couldn't blame them, and yet... it took a very long time indeed before such eyes finally let their suspicion of me go.
Perhaps retirement truly was the answer. ...But how could it be? Having become the Emperor's husband, like it or not, I was bound to political life for the rest of my days.
Ringed through the nose, and thoroughly so. So this was what they called imperial statecraft.
Having settled the matter, I nodded and spoke.
"Mm... understood. Then Cao Cao it is — she shall command the detached force."
"Do just that. It was your intention from the start, was it not?"
"..."
So why were you sulking so hard, then?
I mulled it over for a moment, then sidled, little by little, toward Sima Yi, who knelt in formal courtesy at her place.
"Sima Yi."
"...What is it?"
"Thank you."
No telling what the cause was, but she looked out of sorts — so it fell to me to smooth it over. Children, after all, hunger so keenly for recognition that an adult's praise undoes them entirely.
"You know this already, but I lean on you a great deal."
"..."
"So I'm counting on you going forward, too."
With that, I patted the head of Sima Yi, grown so much compared to the girl of the past. Though "grown" was a relative term — she was still an utter pipsqueak.
"...That is exactly why that look in your eyes displeases me."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Hmph. Never mind."
Sima Yi turned her head away with a wounded pout, yet she no longer looked genuinely upset. Her sulk seemed to have dissolved. A relief.
"...Seducing another one again."
Lü Bu, watching the whole scene, muttered something strange under her breath, but I pretended not to hear. This was hardly a once-or-twice occurrence with her. Out of nowhere she'd start hurling non sequiturs — tidy up your conduct, walk with more discretion — like a shepherd fretting that the wolf might yet steal away a lamb.
"..."
Seo Yeo, for her part, said nothing at all — simply bored her gaze straight through me. Well, all women were beasts, as they said, so I supposed her circumstances were little different. Honestly, what was I going to do with them.
Lujiang. Like Shuchun, a region that could serve as a springboard for the crossing of the Yangtze.
"...General. Lujiang has been taken, as ordered."
"Good. You have labored hard."
Until mere moments ago, this land had lain in the clutches of the Shanyue Tribe under Yan Baihu, but the silver-haired woman who had wrested it from him without the slightest difficulty now studied the officer before her with level eyes.
"..."
His every gesture, plain to anyone with eyes to see, spoke of a man obeying against his will.
"Why, this impudent—!"
"Enough. That will do."
Xu Chu, standing guard at Cao Cao's side, had naturally begun to step forward at the sight — only for Cao Cao to stay the movement with a small gesture of her hand. Cao Cao, leader of the detached force, knew perfectly well that this officer nursed disloyalty toward her. And that he was not the only one.
At the sight of the officer silently awaiting her word, Cao Cao allowed herself a faint smile and said:
"Further orders will come before long. Withdraw and stand by."
"Understood."
The officer, who had knelt on one knee in salute, withdrew from her presence the instant the words left her mouth. Xu Chu watched him go, then turned to Cao Cao.
"My lord! Why do you let such a disloyal wretch go unpunished!"
"...She speaks truly. This is flagrant insubordination." Even Dian Wei, who until that moment had been silently attending to her duties nearby, now spoke up — and Cao Cao answered them both in a voice entirely untroubled.
"Is that not only to be expected?"
A power that had swallowed three whole provinces, merging into the mightiest power in the realm — it would have been far stranger if not a whisper of discord followed.
"From where they stand, they are being asked to obey not the lord to whom they swore their fealty, but a stranger they have laid eyes on exactly once."
"Which is to say — to them, we are outsiders. Nothing more than a stone that rolled in from off the road."
Cao Cao knew full well that a subtle undercurrent still ran between the General-in-Chief's established faction and her own; she merely kept her bearing serene.
"Only time can resolve this."
"My lord..."
"Enough. Did you truly take me for someone who would fail to foresee this much?"
Uncomfortable, if uncomfortable was the word — yet each time the situation chafed at her, Cao Cao steadied her heart by summoning a certain someone to mind.
"Awah!"
Her precious little one, waiting for her now in Luoyang.
"Er — how do I put this. If anyone in our faction ever gives you trouble, you come tell me. I'll pound some sense into them myself."
Her beloved husband, coughing a cough that suited him not at all, going red with embarrassment at his own words.
The memory drew a soft laugh from Cao Cao, and she murmured:
"It seems my temper has dulled a great deal of late."
"My lady?"
"Merely talking to myself. Pay it no heed."
She simply wished to finish this business swiftly, and hurry home to her family.
General of Agile Cavalry. The "agile cavalry" of the title denoted horsemen mounted on sturdy, swift steeds — so the office itself meant, at its root, the commander who led an elite mounted force. ...Then surely the proper course was to prove worthy of the name, and pacify this uselessly vast land with all the speed it deserved?
Picturing the Shanyue Tribe that awaited beyond the Yangtze, Cao Cao's lips curved into a smirk.