The Conquest of Gangdong (2)
Near the Yangtze, on the Shuchun front.
The Yangtze was a monstrous river—the kind that would take an ordinary guy like me, bare-skinned, sweep him off in the current, and turn him into what used to be a person.
After all, no lone human being can hold out against Mother Nature. Well—barring a few exceptions.
That Golden Bandit over there, for one, was demonstrating his so-called method for swimming the Yangtze, which consisted of kicking his soldiers' backsides and sending them plunging straight into the water. The surprising part was that the method genuinely worked. The human will to survive—do not drown, whatever it takes—turned out to be a truly awesome thing.
"General-in-Chief! Scout report!"
"Right. Good work out there."
While I stood facing the Yangtze, letting my thoughts drift down a brief tangent, a scout came up and respectfully held out a report.
"Hmm…."
Report in hand, I naturally gave it a thorough read. One massive defensive fortress on the far bank of the Yangtze, and anchored before it, no fewer than several hundred tower ships…. Those Shanyue devils were better prepared than I'd expected. Their resolve came through loud and clear: try anything so half-cocked as crossing the Yangtze, and they'd sink us on the spot.
It went without saying that I had no intention of flinging myself at the river on the strength of naval superiority alone. The Cao Cao of the original history had tried exactly that, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers had evaporated into nothing.
Ordinarily, a river-crossing operation meant building a pontoon bridge—one of those bridges that floats on the water—and marching straight over. But the Yangtze before me was a different beast altogether. How to put it…. Its length, stretching away toward distant Nanzhong, was one thing, but it was also so absurdly wide that I had to wonder whether this could honestly be called a river. It was no accident that an army of hundreds of thousands had once massed at Red Cliffs, hulls moored together, brawling it out on the water.
Building a pontoon bridge? Nothing stopping us. But did anyone seriously believe the Shanyue would stand by and watch us file across it? Naturally they'd rain arrows on us from afar, and a few of the lunatics among them would set their ships alight and ram them headlong into our painstakingly assembled bridge. Then every soldier crossing it would become a water ghost in bulk, booked on the express route to the underworld. I didn't even want to imagine how many ways out would remain after a defeat like that.
Supplies were a problem regardless, so for the future's sake as much as anything, it would be far cleaner to settle the waterways once and for all and bend this great river to my will. The gravest issue was that the gulf between land warfare and naval warfare ran so deep that even Cao Cao had smashed herself against it….
….
And had I not prepared for precisely that long ago? Meizhou Lang—the woman who had reduced Cao Cao's grand fleet to a fistful of ash in the original history—would take care of it herself.
I nodded along at the sight of Zhou Yu gazing across the Yangtze, her face full of some grave deliberation.
"…Heh."
Perhaps she'd sensed me watching her with fond eyes, because Zhou Yu grew a touch restless and began sneaking glances about.
…Was I staring too openly?
Well, ordinary people are surprisingly quick to notice when someone's eyes are on them.
….
Me, I'd long since gone numb to it—hard not to, when a certain someone had been boring holes into me with her stare from the moment I woke until just before I slept. Honestly, staring at me all day couldn't be much of a pastime… yet Seo Yeo didn't look bored in the slightest. Whenever I tried to grant her a rest, she stubbornly insisted that this was her resting, and I never had a word of rebuttal. In some ways, she even outdid Her Majesty.
"Hm? What in the world is going on here…."
"General-in-Chief! Urgent report!"
Just as Sun Ce—fresh off leaving his own father, Sun Jian, half in a wreck—voiced his puzzlement at the sight of Zhou Yu, a messenger came rushing up with a shout. That familiar uniform—it was from the detachment under Cao Cao, no mistake. What on earth could have happened to warrant an urgent report? …Don't tell me she'd slammed into the Yangtze just like in the original history? The mere thought painted such a dire image that I nearly clutched the back of my neck and keeled over—but thankfully, my imagination proved wide of the mark. Hearing the circumstances from the messenger Cao Cao had sent, I let my astonishment show.
"What? Cao Cao crossed the Yangtze?"
"Yes, sir! She said she couldn't for the life of her fathom what the enemy was thinking, leaving the Lujiang front wide open, and so she moved at once!"
Quite the detailed account, this. I'd only heard the messenger's relay, yet it felt as though Cao Cao's voice were sounding right beside my ear. And the explanation didn't end there.
"She, um… said that with time too tight to seek approval for every single move, she would judge matters at her own discretion…."
"I see."
Watching the messenger steal furtive glances at me, I calmly nodded along. In other words: should some situation arise, act first, report after. There was nothing strange in it—the most important thing on any battlefield is the judgment of the commander on the spot. Don't films and dramas the world over love a soldier who defies headquarters' orders, insisting this is the right call in a situation exactly like this one? I seem to recall that modern military law actually has provisions written to that effect… though my memory is an old thing by now, so who can say.
"Understood. Tell her I won't make an issue of it, so she needn't worry."
Not that Cao Cao was the worrying sort. The Cao Cao I knew would no doubt have grinned impishly and murmured something like, Of course—I knew you'd give exactly this answer.
"Yes, sir!"
Cao Cao's messenger, who until that moment had been cautiously reading my mood, barked the reply with the look of a man who'd just been handed back ten years of his life.
"My lord."
"Hm? What is it?"
As I idly watched the messenger nimbly make himself scarce to enjoy his rest, a familiar voice spoke up nearby.
"Do you truly judge that this Cao Cao's abilities can be trusted?"
Oh—it was Liu Bei.
Zhang Fei, whose belly had grown too obvious to hide, had been left behind in Luoyang, but Guan Yu, who had borne her child, and Liu Bei had both declared they'd rested quite long enough and were campaigning at my side. Zhang Fei had squirmed about how her body was itching for action too, but fat chance. The only thing you can do right now is sit tight and wait quietly, my dear. There had even been a moment when, on hearing my answer, she'd wailed, "Then what about Seo Yeo and Lü Bu?!"—but that rebellion in name only was swiftly brought to a close, courtesy of Guan Yu's ferocious hand.
….
Unlike Liu Bei, who had addressed me, Guan Yu simply devoted herself in silence to the task at hand. Still—a question about whether Cao Cao's abilities could be trusted. Coming from Liu Bei of all people, it wrung a snort of laughter out of me.
"You already know full well how formidable her abilities are, don't you?"
"…."
At my answer, delivered without a moment's hesitation, Liu Bei held her silence.
Even in the original history, Cao Cao had been the sort to strike boldly the instant an enemy weakness showed itself, seizing victory no matter what it took. Hadn't she won the Battle of Guandu against Yuan Shao precisely by gambling—leading out nearly her entire army to capture Wuchao, the granary of the Yuan forces? He—no, she—had displayed staggering brilliance every single time she committed to something in earnest. That was exactly why the woman called Cao Cao had been able to stand tall as the Hero of Chaos.
If she had a flaw, there was only one. I've mentioned it before, haven't I? The gap between Cao Cao's casual game and her tryhard game was considerable. Backed to the brink of death, she would enter an awakened state and, whatever ordeal came her way, ultimately surmount it. But let her believe she held the advantage, and she would charge ahead in a haze of optimism, leave an opening wide open, and lose on the spot. Cao Cao was a woman who lacked for nothing—standing shoulder to shoulder with Emperor Guangwu himself—yet that damned temperament of hers threw it all away.
Then again, in a way, it was precisely that flaw of character that gave birth to the thrilling tale known as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Had Cao Cao's character been as flawless as Emperor Guangwu's, she'd have brushed aside every enemy barring her road and gone on to restore the Han or found the Kingdom of Wei, whichever suited her. Ah—though I suppose Liu Bei would have given her some trouble. The Liu Bei of the original history, that devil of a man who ensnared every great talent he met, kept two match-for-ten-thousand generals at his side… and was himself a commander so brilliant that no faction in the land would have refused him. The reputation of the Peach Brothers as butchers of men hadn't spread for nothing.
Lü Bu? She never listened to a word her strategists said, played however she pleased, and ended up isolated and dead. Xiang Yu, who behaved much the same, couldn't escape death in the end—so what hope did Lü Bu have?
Only one thing truly puzzled me. Her life was never in danger, so why had Cao Cao slipped into an awakened state and begun taking the war seriously? She'd swallowed Lujiang in the blink of an eye, and hadn't she just sent a messenger declaring that even the time spent reporting was now too precious to waste, and that she would act on her own judgment? Hmm…. Cao Cao had always been a rather impulsive creature, even in the original history—perhaps some shift in her heart was behind it. Good news for me, either way.
"Could it be you're feeling a little lonely, watching Cao Cao lead the detachment on her own?"
….
"If so, I can raise a force for you to lead whenever you wish."
I stepped over to Liu Bei—who still showed no sign of getting along with Cao Cao—and gave her shoulder a friendly pat.
"Well? Any thoughts?"
At my smiling question, Liu Bei smiled right back and answered.
"No, thank you. I am quite content."
"Truly?"
"Yes. Truly."
This wasn't working.
And so, once again today, the Liu Bei Independence Plan dissolved into soap bubbles.