Moling (10)

Wipe out the countless Shanyue scattered across all of Jiangdong in a single, decisive battle. The plan itself, I'd say, was far from a bad one. The Shanyue differed from every other foreign people in one crucial respect: the land they lived on overlapped directly with the territory of the Han. Short of handing Jiangdong over to them outright, the Han had no choice but to see things through to an end, whatever that end might be.

And the victor could even put the defeated to work as labor and develop the land on top of that? Sun Quan — a ruler so earnest about population that he sent soldiers as far as Japan and Vietnam to haul captives home — was never going to let that opportunity pass. There was a reason he traded blows with the Shanyue without end in the original history. Though to begin with, with these fellows blocking the roads between cities and digging in, pacification was the only option anyway.

…But I doubt anyone expected to fight them for decades on end. True to form for a people who had raised hell against the Han for hundreds of years, the Shanyue splintered into every manner of branch organization and kept hammering Sun Quan's blind side. If my memory served, they were still stirring up revolts well past the year 250 — an era when even calling it "Three Kingdoms" was stretching the term. It was also because of them that Wu looked strong in defense yet weak on the attack. The Shanyue were so formidable that Sun Quan permitted the great clans ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and local magnates ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to raise private troops, and the result was command authority pulling in separate directions, making a unified army impossible.

If we tried to occupy Jiangdong the ordinary way, countless soldiers would end up tethered here suppressing revolts. There would be a staggering loss of administrative capacity as well, until every kind of report stood piled high on my desk. Now that… would be a truly tiresome, exhausting business. A future like that was unacceptable.

That was why I had used Yan Baihu to draw every last Shanyue in Jiangdong into one place. Victory after victory, then releasing Yan Baihu each time — I repeated the cycle to deliberately cultivate a sense of crisis. And now, at long last, my long labors had borne fruit.

"How dare these weaklings—!"

"Something about this feels wrong…."

That's right. About time you noticed things had gone strange. With an overwhelming advantage in sheer bulk, they should have flattened their opponents long ago — yet oddly, the enemy refused to fall? And on top of that, their rear was under assault by some unidentified cavalry.

"GYAAAH!"

"What is this impossible strength—?!"

Worse still, they were helpless before the enemy officers tearing through their formation single-handedly. Guan Yu and Zhao Yun, whom I had sent deep into the enemy lines on their own, were still displaying their peerless martial prowess, felling Shanyue at every turn.

"My lord—! Please watch me—!"

"I'm the strongest, so you should be watching me—!"

…Ah, right — there were those two as well. Ma Chao, who ever since swearing herself to me had flung the very concept of shame off to parts unknown, was one thing. But Lü Bu turning into that was something I had never seen coming. Don't tell me she'd been rampaging all this while on the notion that I would be watching her? Looked at a certain way, it was so very Lü Bu.

Then, as Zhang Liao and Ma Chao's cavalry charge threw the battlefield into even greater tumult, the situation shifted dramatically.

"That place, without a doubt…."

"…The Virtuous King! The Virtuous King is under attack!"

A number of the Shanyue, who had been meeting our soldiers head-on in an effort to hold the front, began to waver. I supposed this was what Zhuge Liang had meant by "a body that has lost its head."

"What's the problem with one measly woman dying?! Attack the enemy this instant!"

"Can't you keep your mouth shut?! Insult her like that again and I'll kill you where you stand!"

"What did you say?!"

What was even more remarkable was that the Shanyue who had merely cooperated with Yan Baihu for a time and the Shanyue who had followed her from the very beginning were now at odds with one another.

"We will protect the Virtuous King! Make haste!"

"…Tch! A pack of cowards, the lot of you!"

And there the force split apart yet again. Such was the ragged rabble an army became when its command went ununified. …Then again, with each individual soldier that strong, perhaps "rabble" wasn't quite the word?

Had Yan Baihu simply passed down an order to keep attacking no matter what happened, none of them would have fallen back. But then, what manner of person was Yan Baihu? Benevolence aside, she was unmistakably lacking in ability — not the sort to foresee an assault on her own main camp and issue such meticulous orders in advance.

In my case, I had ordered everyone to focus on their own duties, since I could somehow slip away even should the worst come to pass. …Though frankly, Lü Bu would probably ignore every word of it and come charging straight for me. Even if I scolded her for disobeying, a hundred times out of a hundred she would wheel about to save me without fail. And with Seo Yeo there besides, they were all hopelessly overprotective.

Did I really look like a man who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠would quietly drop dead the instant they took their eyes off him? …Fair point. Even by my own reckoning, I was a sunfish who never knew when or where he might die.

The reason was simple.

Honestly, who could hear words like those and not be bothered? Especially coming from a Taoist who could see straight through the mandate of heaven itself? They called it a fortune that could climb higher than anyone, but frankly, I couldn't picture such a sight at all. Once I had settled this age of chaos, I intended to go nowhere at all and simply live in peace. I hadn't the slightest intention of bursting into Europe on some fool's errand of world conquest like the Mongol Empire. And ascend the imperial throne, the seat above ten thousand men? Why on earth would I.

I've explained this before, but the throne was an unbelievably busy post. Legitimacy, schm-legitimacy — it was simply too much of a hassle, so I wasn't doing it. But if I wasn't rising high, then all that remained was to plummet to the earth and shatter to pieces… Ugh. Horrifying even to imagine.

I shuddered as I pictured myself being split into Jeong/Reung. For all I knew, I might just end up scattered as J-e-o-n-g R-e-u-n-g. That wasn't even a proper death by dismemberment — what the hell was this?

In an ancient age like this one, divination held enormous sway, so I could understand why the people around me were so worked up about it. Even I, a man of the modern age, felt an uneasy surely not stealing over me — imagine how the people of old must have felt. Besides, whenever I set foot on a battlefield, blind arrows came flying in at a frankly unnatural rate. If Seo Yeo hadn't been at my side, I'd have taken dozens of arrows to the body by now. At the time I'd brushed it off as simple bad luck, but looking back on it now, it was nothing short of suspicious. Perhaps the reason Seo Yeo never strayed from my side no matter what happened was that she, too, sensed some uneasy premonition.

…!

CLANG!

There. See that? Even now, an arrow loosed from somewhere came flying dead-on for me. Had Seo Yeo not batted it aside, I'd be sporting a rather pretty new hole in my body. What made it truly vicious was that this one hadn't even been aimed at me — it was nothing more than an indirect volley loosed at the enemy in general, yet by some uncanny stroke it rode the wind as though guided and came hunting for me. Was this that "heaven's attention" Zhang Jue had spoken of, or whatever one would call it? I want no part of that.

Honestly, the thought did cross my mind now and then. Was I a person who was never meant to exist in this world, and did that keep drawing misfortune to me? You know how some stories feature a strange faction — guardian types who declare, "You are disturbing the original course of history, so in heaven's name we shall set it right." If such beings were ever to appear, the odds were very high they'd be Taoist sages or immortals of some stripe. Considering the whole repertoire of Daoist arts Zuo Ci had once performed before Her Majesty, and the uncanny talismanic craft Zhang Jue displayed, it wasn't a possibility I could dismiss out of hand.

"…My lord. Behind me."

"All right."

…Well, even if beings like that did show up, Seo Yeo would cut every last one of them clean in two. Against those who had stepped beyond humanity, one simply needed someone equally beyond it to step forward. Flow of history or not, nobody was getting to snuff me out politely.

"We must protect the Virtuous King! Move, quickly—!"

"Don't listen to that order! Focus on smashing the enemy in front of you!"

I watched as the Shanyue formation split clean in two. With their orders in open conflict, even the Shanyue who had charged in without a flicker of fear now found themselves at a loss. And the fate of an army that loses its discipline and drifts aimlessly was always a foregone conclusion.

"Out of the way, now! We have to reach the main camp!"

"What a goddamn mess…! One minute this, one minute that — what the hell are we supposed to do?!"

And there went their formation. With no proper commander, allies crashed into one another and threw their own lines into confusion. That's allied armies for you — always like that. This battle, I suspected, might not even last a few days.

I nodded slowly to myself, recalling how Yan Baihu of the original history had once surrendered to Sun Ce.