Moling (6)
"Charge! CHAAARGE!"
RAAAAGHHH——!!
The Shanyue commander at the very front barked the order to attack without so much as a word of parley. Apparently he couldn't spare even a moment for conversation. Then again, if he picked a war of words and came off the worse for it, his soldiers' morale would likely crater — every barbarian who had ever opposed me had managed nothing beyond "Die!" or "Hand over everything you own!"
So where did all the silver-tongued barbarians go, you ask? Where indeed — dead, every last one, I'd wager. Barbarians were the sort who swung their weapons first and debated right and wrong never. Why waste time haggling when you already held the perfect tool for conversation in your hand?
Yan Baihu must have known full well that I would never surrender.
THOOM-THOOM-THOOM-THOOM——
How was I even supposed to describe the sight of the very earth groaning before my eyes? Across that vast, boundless plain, no fewer than several hundred thousand Shanyue came tearing toward our camp. A green recruit new to the battlefield might well have been forgiven for trembling in his boots, but the only men left in this place were elite, iron-hardened troops forged through countless battles.
"All archers, nock your arrows!"
Watching our forces move as one at the adjutant's cry, I sank deep into thought.
'So, how exactly do you plan to fight this battle?'
That was the question I had put to Zhuge Liang just as we first drew near Moling.
'Why, that is simplicity itself, my lord.'
Zhuge Liang had answered in a voice that suggested nothing in the world could be easier.
'They are nothing more than a makeshift coalition, lacking even the barest semblance of discipline.'
'...'
'What, then, would such a force contemplate — but a headlong charge, with no true strategy to speak of?'
The pint-sized strategist had declared that the Shanyue would meet us by the simplest means imaginable. Put plainly, so that even I could follow: the Shanyue would charge, and keep on charging. No sitting idly behind their lines waiting for our supplies to run dry; no feigned attacks and withdrawals repeated in some pointless psychological game. We had counters prepared for all of it, so there was no real problem...
Not that the counters had been my handiwork, of course. The little strategists had drawn those up too.
'Hold the line, my lord. And then hold it once more.'
'...That's all?'
At that, Zhuge Liang had smiled.
'Just so. And then the enemy will have no choice but to lose.'
'...'
Faced with the little strategist's knowing, meaningful smile, I had held my tongue. One look was enough to tell she was scheming something. Still, whatever it was would benefit me if anything — it could hardly harm me — so I hadn't pressed the matter.
"LOOSE——!"
SHWIP-SHWIP-SHWOOM——!
While I was still chasing my thoughts, the adjutant judged the range closed and gave the signal — and in the same breath, a storm of arrows met the Shanyue head-on, wicked sharp tips leading the way.
THUNK-THUNK-THUNK!
"Gyaah!"
"GRAAAGH!"
Meeting that violent welcome, the Shanyue who had charged shields-first collapsed where they ran, shrieking in agony. The volley cut down a good number of them, but against several hundred thousand massed Shanyue, losses like these could hardly put a dent in anything.
"Move faster!!"
"Don't let our comrades' deaths be in vain——!!"
If anything, the sight of them going bloodshot-eyed and running faster was almost frightening. What were those things — berserkers? The way their eyes rolled the instant they saw blood said yes. Any normal army faltered at least a little when its comrades started dropping to arrows; the Shanyue did no such thing. They simply kept charging.
Sun Jian's soldiers must have shown exactly this kind of madness at the Battle of Hulao Pass... Now it made sense. Fighting lunatics like these was what had turned the men under Sun Jian's command into maniacs themselves.
What on earth had the Sun Quan of original history been fighting all those years against these people? Truly a ruler who knew nothing of taking the offensive, yet was second to none when it came to the defensive battles that protected their own domain.
"Crossbowmen, ready!"
Despite the arrow storm, the Shanyue kept up their blistering pace, and before long the adjutant, spotting them crossing into crossbow range, barked the next order.
"LOOSE!"
FWOOM-FWOOM-FWOOM——!
At last a sound heavier than the bowshots rolled out across our lines.
"UURRGHAAAGH!"
The crossbow bolts punched ruthlessly through Shanyue shields and armor alike, laying their bodies out cold upon the frozen earth. Crossbows couldn't fire in an arc, which gave them shorter range and a slower rate of fire than a bow — but in sheer destructive power, they outclassed the bow outright.
"Next unit, ready!"
They were easier to train with than bows, too. Though with every unit here already elite, that particular advantage hardly stood out.
"Kill them all! Kill every last one!"
"GRAAAAAH——!"
...Come to think of it, those Shanyue seemed to turn more bestial with every step closer. It was old news that the border tribes did not fear death, but this was pushing it even for them.
The frenzied Shanyue finally reached the wooden palisade our forces had raised — and with staggering ferocity, they vaulted it or smashed clean through it. Look at the way they moved. Practically flying. And here I'd hoped the thing might buy us a little time; it was cleared in the blink of an eye.
The Shanyue who followed Yan Baihu made a habit of bolting at her command the moment the tide turned against them, but these warriors — clearly only her temporary allies — seemed to have scrubbed the very word retreat from their vocabularies entirely. Temperaments that different... maybe that was exactly why they refused to follow her. Every faction bred its hardliners, so it was no strange state of affairs. These had to be the ones defying Yan Baihu — quite possibly extremists convinced that every Han in Jiangdong had to die, conciliation policy be damned. Considering the centuries of piled-up ethnic hatred, it was hardly surprising. From what I'd read, the Han had committed plenty of vicious atrocities of their own. With relations this shattered, taking up arms and coming to blows at least once was simply inevitable.
And then I saw it: a single Shanyue warrior, having punched through every obstacle in his path, finally crashing into our line.
"UWAHAHA! I got here first—! GAHK—!"
"That's right. Now get lost."
The warrior who had moved like a demon possessed died before he could finish his own sentence. Lü Bu had appeared in the space of an instant, as though she'd crossed a thousand li in a single stride. A few of the soldiers nearby stole a glance at her and wore briefly dumbstruck expressions.
"...Tsk."
Halberd still skewering the dead Shanyue, Lü Bu scanned her surroundings and clicked her tongue.
"You awake now? Here comes the next one."
"Y-yes, ma'am!"
Casually flicking the corpse off the Sky Piercer Halberd, she seized Red Hare's reins and roared.
"Hey, you sorry weaklings! Whoever wants to die first, get your ass out here——!!"
Coarse language she normally avoided out of deference to me mixed freely into the bellow, and with that Lü Bu launched herself straight at the Shanyue. To a people who had spent their whole lives on the battlefield since the day they could first grip a sword, the insult weakling functioned rather like a switch for a berserk fit. It was like being told "god, you're trash at this game" back in the modern world — the blood shoots straight to your head. Probably not so different from that.
"The hell did you say?! Weaklings?!"
"So the truly weak just love flapping their mouths however they please, huh!"
As if to prove my theory right, several Shanyue whipped their gazes toward Lü Bu and came at her with murder in their eyes.
Hundreds of thousands of Shanyue charging in from every direction — and a lone general charging straight back at them. To any observer it was suicide plain and simple, but Lü Bu already had a record of single-handedly churning entire battalions into paste. The first instance was Hulao Pass, where she'd demolished the coalition arrayed against me. The second came when the Xiongnu Chanyu invaded Bing Province: she abandoned her own unit, burst out alone, and sent tens of thousands of nomads running for their lives. There had been her rampage against Dong Zhuo as well, and the time she swept aside the Qiang tribes stirring up trouble out in Xiliang. For Lü Bu, this battle would be no different.
"Hmph!"
Utterly indifferent to the countless murderous glares fixed upon her, Lü Bu charged —
KWAAANG——!
"GYAAAAAH!"
"GAK—!"
— and sent her enemies quite literally flying.
NEEEEIGH——!
Even Red Hare beneath her was crushing and trampling down the Shanyue that collided with that magnificent body, forcibly carving out a road.
"Wh-what the—?!"
The moment a highway tore open through their ranks courtesy of a human tank transcending the ages, the Shanyue's eyes went wide as lanterns.
"Ugh... what in the world is this idiotic strength?!"
A Shanyue who had, by pure luck, blocked one of Lü Bu's blows and collapsed on the spot barely managed to gather himself, crying out in sheer bewilderment. It made no sense — and yet, astonishingly, something remarkably like it had actually happened in the true history.
While everyone else found themselves unable to tear their eyes from Lü Bu, I quietly let my gaze drift elsewhere.
"..."
Guan Yu — Yunchang. That woman, with her strikingly serene bearing, was the fearsome general who at the Battle of Guandu had stormed Yuan Shao's camp all alone, sliced through every hindrance in her path, and split Yan Liang in two — the warrior, not merely the name.
Given that this world leaned a little fantastical... no, call it outright wuxia — I had a feeling she would soon stage a spectacle every bit as spectacular as Lü Bu's.
A Match for Ten Thousand.
Our camp, at this very moment, was simply drowning in asymmetric assets.