Cataclysm (2)
Shuofang Commandery, Bing Province.
Nominally a part of Han territory, it was a land that had long since lost all real governance to corruption and neglect. Shuofang, the northernmost commandery in all of Bing Province, had passed into the hands of the Xiongnu who dominated the region long ago.
Once the commandery slipped entirely from Han grasp, only two choices remained for the people who lived there: resist to the bitter end and be slaughtered to the last soul, or bow their heads and join the Xiongnu tribes. The people, who had no wish to throw their lives away for nothing, chose the latter.
Those who had scratched out a living in so remote a corner of the world knew exactly how to survive the brutal steppe. And because their methods were strikingly similar to the way the nomads themselves lived, it took no great stretch of time for Han Chinese to become just another band of Xiongnu.
Unfortunately, Shuofang was far from alone in its plight. Territories in much the same condition sprawled across the whole of Bing Province—Wuyuan Commandery, Yunzhong Commandery, Dingxiang Commandery, Shang Commandery... Their populations were pitifully small beside the commanderies of other provinces, where tens of thousands dwelled, and yet even a few thousand souls was a number no one could afford to ignore.
The twilight of Emperors Huan and Ling.
It was the era when Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling took the throne and the Eastern Han began to collapse in earnest. Watching these two benighted rulers tear the dynasty apart before their eyes, the Southern Xiongnu bared their teeth at once and set about swelling their strength at a furious pace. Sometimes they conscripted the people of surrendered lands; sometimes they absorbed fellow Xiongnu tribes—so it went, year upon year. And when those who had bowed low to the Han while quietly nursing their power finally moved in earnest, their numbers ballooned in the blink of an eye.
Thus it continued, generation after generation, until Yufuluo—the nineteenth Chanyu of the Southern Xiongnu—led a horde of no fewer than tens of thousands of cavalry in an invasion of the Han. Bing Province, to be precise.
But he had no grand design. He meant only to do what his people had always done: plunder the region and withdraw before the main army arrived.
───It's Lü Bu! Lü Bu has come!
───Hey, you cowards—! Quit running—!!
And so, the moment the tide turned against them, the Southern Xiongnu wheeled their horses around and fled. Even though they had pulled back before the main army under the General-in-Chief could arrive, the battle still cost them thousands of casualties—a result more than enough to tarnish the Chanyu's authority, and judged purely as a loss of fighting men, a wound that smarted considerably.
And now, on the fringes of the Gobi Desert, two armies stood facing one another, the air between them thick with something far from ordinary.
"Ha! You wolfish bitch—so you were just waiting for the moment I'd grow weak!"
"……."
Before he had even finished whipping his army back into order, Yufuluo was glaring at the Northern Xiongnu who had set upon him, spitting curses.
At the insult, the Chanyu of the Northern Xiongnu tilted her head.
"...Flattering me out of nowhere won't get you anywhere, you know."
"What did you..."
For an instant Yufuluo looked genuinely thrown; then he clamped his mouth shut.
She was right. On the steppe, to liken a person to a wolf was nothing short of high praise. It meant he possessed the leadership to command and guide his own pack, and the cunning and patience to stalk a chosen quarry for days, striking only at its most vulnerable moment. From where Yufuluo stood, the words had been an insult—meant to say, you are no better than a pack of beasts. Instead, they only laid bare how thoroughly he had been steeped in Han ways.
…….
The Southern Xiongnu had spent long years bowing low to the Han and trading with them. Without ever realizing it, they had been slowly, quietly changing.
"...Will you shut your mouth!"
Drawing his sword, Yufuluo roared through gritted teeth.
"The lot of you couldn't wait to bolt at the mere sight of us, and now you crawl out of hiding?!"
…….
"Fine! If it's come to this, then let's end this long war once and for all!"
There had been a time when the nomads of the northern steppe were reckoned peerless—so mighty they had crushed even Han Gaozu, the founder of the Han dynasty who had toppled the Hegemon-King of Western Chu. But as the years turned, a Han Empire restored to its full strength struck back, and the Xiongnu who barely survived that offensive splintered under the strain into the Western and Eastern Xiongnu. The Xianbei and the Wuhuan, once vassals bound to the Xiongnu, watched all of this unfold, declared their independence, and turned on their former masters. And just as they somehow managed to patch up the rift between Western and Eastern Xiongnu even as matters worsened by the day, they fractured yet again—this time over a dispute of succession—into Northern and Southern Xiongnu. Lacking an exceptional leader, they did nothing but carve flesh from one another's bones, dissolving into endless, senseless discord. It exposed, with brutal clarity, both the weakness and the limit of the nomadic peoples.
"All forces—! CHAAARGE!!"
…….
The Chanyu of the Northern Xiongnu stroked one of her own arrows, her expression calm, and thought. First, deal with these foolish kin standing right in front of me, and bind the tribes into one. Then drive east and absorb the Wuhuan and the Xianbei who declared independence from us. And once every people of the steppe have been forged into a single whole...
"Gwaaagh!"
...we will take for ourselves what we lack—what our people lack. Even as the thought settled and her arrow punched an enemy dead, the Chanyu's eyes were already turned toward the south.
When the messenger delivered his report, I made him repeat it, hardly able to believe my ears.
"Say that again. What exactly is coming down from the north?"
"The northern barbarians have crossed the Great Wall and invaded the border, sir!"
"The northern barbarians..."
I turned the words over in my mouth, then asked, "Are you telling me the Xiongnu, the Wuhuan, and the Xianbei have joined forces?"
"Th-that is correct! They say it is as though the whole lot of them were moving as a single army..."
"Report properly, please."
Just as the messenger, caught by my question, was stammering in confusion, one of the Little Strategists appeared nearby. Arms crossed, the violet-haired Sima Yi picked up where the report had left off.
"They aren't moving like one army. They have become one army."
"……."
"...Not that this makes the situation any better, of course."
Sima Yi heaved a deep sigh. "Apparently someone, in much the same way as us, has unified the entire steppe up there in the north."
"In much the same way as us?"
"...Are you seriously asking because you don't know?"
Faced with my blank look, the prickly little strategist huffed and rattled off an explanation. "Until a few years ago, we were every bit as splintered as those northern tribes, weren't we?"
"Ah..."
"Frankly, if a certain someone hadn't come along, we'd all still be busy killing each other right now."
Hearing her out, I caught Sima Yi's drift and opened my mouth. "...Should I thank you for the compliment?"
"Whew... I honestly can't decide whether to call that humility or naivety..."
At my dazed reply, Sima Yi let out another sigh. "Anyway, that isn't what matters right now."
"……."
"So what will you do? Are you sending the army out?"
Her question plunged me into a brief deliberation. What intent lay behind Sima Yi tossing me that question? It was simple enough. She's asking whether I intend to go to Yuan Shao's aid. I had already settled how I would treat Yuan Shao, so I answered in my usual voice.
"What choice is there? We help."
Try as I might, I couldn't see those bastards contenting themselves with plunder and turning back. Sima Yi had said it herself, after all—the nomadic powers had merged into one. And I knew all too well what happens to the world when nomadic peoples, once scattered to the four winds, are forged into a single whole.
The Liao dynasty. The Jin dynasty. The Qing dynasty.
...And the Mongols.
Honestly, not one of them was supposed to appear in this era. But I was more than aware that the original history had already been knocked off its rails.
───You there, defier of Heaven! Do you have any idea what you have done?!
───...?
───Heaven's secrets are already twisted beyond repair! Even if you were to die now, nothing would change!
That was what an old man had once screamed as he lunged at me while I walked down a city street.
───That flimsy compassion of yours will, in the end, be the death of far more people...?
The old man, who had appeared out of thin air as though by sorcery, had been shouting things I couldn't begin to parse when he caught sight of Seo Yeo standing nearby—and his face promptly went slack with bewilderment. In the moment he hesitated, her kick caught him square in the stomach and slammed him into the wall of a nearby building.
...The old man had been spouting nonsense, but he hadn't meant me any harm. If anything, he had probably intended to seize me rather than kill me. The truly eerie part was that the old man, sent flying into that wall with enough force to shatter it, vanished without leaving a single trace behind.
Was I supposed to marvel that he had taken a blow from Seo Yeo and come away whole? Or marvel that he had used sorcery to disappear without a trace?
───Tsk, tsk. Anyone who overheard would think the heavens themselves were alive.
───...??
───Heaven's secrets were crooked from the very start.
And then there was the blue-eyed girl who would murmur to herself nearby before slipping out of sight—a sight that never failed to leave me with an emotion I had no words for. I knew beings of impossible power existed in this world, but knowing it only left me more bewildered.
"Hmmm..."
I stared at the enormous map blanketing the table and thought. Someone who had united the nomads, shattered into a hundred warring pieces, under a single banner. Look across the whole sweep of history and the candidates were many—but if I had to name the most likely one, only a single answer remained.