Clash (5)
As I did every day without fail, I passed the time flinging armful after armful of firewood into the bonfire.
"Brrr. It's freezing."
I'd long since lost count of how many times I'd said that today.
Mind you, Grand General in name if nothing else, the gear draped over my body was nothing short of superb. It was simply unthinkable that anyone would craft equipment destined for a Grand General carelessly — and if such a craftsman truly existed, I'd be impressed in an entirely different sense. Which meant the culprit had to be this body of mine, so pitifully frail compared to the other human weapons around me.
Hmm, though I'd like to think I was at least on par with a regular soldier…
…And that was exactly the problem, wasn't it?
One glance around made it plain enough: most of our soldiers were shivering in the cold. Even the men guarding me had gone pale in the face, and only a precious few stood their ground without yielding to the chill — the elite troops who had followed me all day from that brutal land of Bing Province. Nomads they may not have been, but they were likely the only ones who could match the tribesmen in horsemanship.
Come to think of it, the White Horse Volunteers Gongsun Zan once led probably fell into the same category — not that it mattered, given Yuan Shao had already remade those men (or what used to be them) into White Horse Volunteers of her own.
"B-brrr…"
"C-chatter…"
Sneaking a look at Yuan Shao's battle lines, I found their situation much the same as ours — soldiers huddled in tight clusters around the fires, chasing whatever scraps of warmth they could steal. The sight called to mind a penguin colony from some old documentary.
That was when Lü Bu, standing nearby, muttered in a disgruntled voice.
"Weaklings, the lot of them. What kind of fools tremble like that over a little cold?"
"Was that meant for my ears, by any chance?"
"……"
The words must have slipped out before she realized it, because Lü Bu's pupils trembled for an instant. Watching her, I heaved a long sigh.
"You're right. I'm from Bing Province myself, so it is pretty strange that I'm this weak to the cold."
"Hey, why do you keep wilting like that!"
Once again oblivious to my teasing, Lü Bu scrambled to salvage her slip with a flustered expression.
"Not that it counts for you, Jeongneung! Weak or not, I can take care of you myself!"
"……"
Somehow the conversation had veered off into very strange territory. As Lü Bu explained herself in a tone that sounded less like a daughter doting on aged parents and more like a wife nursing a sick husband, I was assailed by an emotion I couldn't quite name.
"…My lord."
"It's all right. I know how you feel, so there's no need to explain."
Determined not to be outdone by Lü Bu, I preempted Seo Yeo the moment she opened her mouth.
"……"
Apparently, having her feelings read for her pleased her immensely. Her face was as expressionless as ever, but I could tell.
Thud-thud-thud-thud───
Just when it seemed another uneventful day would slip past, an unnatural sound rolled in from beyond our makeshift barricade. That was… the sound of the earth itself groaning. And on a battlefield, only one thing could make a sound like that.
"…Huh?"
"What is that noise?"
Just as the soldiers clustered around the bonfires blinked with weary faces, someone roared.
"Enemy assault──!! Enemy assault──!!"
At that cry, drums and gongs erupted wildly from every direction, jolting every soldier's nerves awake.
Lü Bu muttered, looking thoroughly bored.
"What, they're attacking again?"
"No kidding."
Answering her mutter, I rose from my seat. Would they trade a few blows and withdraw like usual, or cook up yet another scheme to give me a splitting headache?
"M-My lord! It's bad! This is really bad!"
"Pang Tong?"
No sooner had I stood than one of my Little Strategists came pelting toward me in a panic.
"W-well, you see… hah… the enemy… hah…"
Unlike Sima Yi, whose strength was anything but ordinary, Pang Tong — a strategist born and bred — was left wheezing and unable to collect herself from even that short run.
…Had all that time curled up at home with nothing but books left her starved for exercise? I'd have to make her work out sooner or later. And I might as well drag Zhuge Liang along for it.
A plan that would have made both Little Strategists shoot upright in horror had they known of it — and with that thought tucked away, I spoke in a calm voice.
"First things first. Let's take a nice, slow breath."
"Y-yes, my lord! Sss… hoo…"
Pang Tong, who looked one gasp away from her breath giving out entirely, threw herself into some earnest deep breathing. About ten seconds must have passed.
"…O-OK, I'm good!"
Having caught her breath, Pang Tong's face immediately twisted with urgency as she cried out.
"The nomads are l-launching a full-scale assault right now!"
"…A full assault?"
"Yes!"
At my bemused echo, the girl with the spring-green eyes nodded furiously.
"A hundred thousand enemy nomad cavalry! Every last one of them is charging straight at our fortified camp!"
"……"
Considering they'd only ever committed a few thousand to a few tens of thousands per engagement until now, this was decidedly out of the ordinary. Were they planning to settle this today, once and for all?
Come to think of it, every time they'd tried circling around to raid the nearby villages, we'd sent cavalry out to intercept them. …Not that there was much left worth raiding, seeing as Gongsun Zan had already picked You Province clean — which was its own kind of problem.
For the Mongol Empire to walk away with any meaningful plunder, they'd need to push all the way down to Jizhou — and any detachment that strayed far from its main host, we could swat aside whenever we pleased. Light cavalry, so quick on the move? We had Match-for-Ten-Thousand warriors faster still. And Yuan Shao had garrisons posted all across Jizhou besides. The moment one of those detachments was delayed even a little, the cavalry on their heels would launch them straight into the afterlife.
They were already outnumbered, after all — with a great clash of main armies looming one way or another, surely they wouldn't be foolish enough to carve up their own forces.
"Grab your shields and move!"
"Archers, ready your arrows!"
Watching our people settle into position behind the stakes with practiced ease, how long had it been before —
"Charge──!!"
WAAAAAGH──!!
As if truly intent on ending it today, the nomads came surging in with monstrous momentum. The sight of them charging without the slightest regard for their own lives made it clear: fear of death had never been the reason they'd avoided a head-on fight all this time.
"GRAAAAGH─!"
A Xianbei rider whose horse had been skewered on the stakes scrambled up from where he'd fallen and hurled himself into the very heart of our formation. "Let's show these fools who can barely ride a thing what true mounted archery looks like─!" — the Wuhuan, shifting position without pause while raining arrows on our archers. "Trample them all──!!" — and the Xiongnu, plowing into our lines with nothing but sheer, crushing mass, as crude as it was devastating.
"…Ha! So they really do mean to finish this today!"
The battlefield dissolved into screaming pandemonium in an instant. Lü Bu flashed a grin at me.
"Sit tight and behave! If you die, I'm dying right along with you!"
"……"
It wasn't as if we shared some damage-linking skill — what was this dying-together nonsense? Utterly Lü Bu, that threat. Already mounted, I answered in a dazed voice.
"…Got it. See you when you're back."
"Off I go!"
BOOM─!
With that now-familiar crack, Lü Bu plunged into the fray and, astride Red Hare, began carving through the enemy.
"It's Lü Bu─! Kill them──!!"
"Come and try it, if you dare─!"
Like a single boulder damming a river thundering toward the sea, the sight of Lü Bu splitting their host all by herself astonished me every single time I witnessed it.
"Sister Yunchang! Wanna bet on who kills more?!"
"…Yide. This is no time for games."
"I'm dead serious!"
The two Match-for-Ten-Thousand sisters were already flinging nomads skyward at the front, while Zhao Yun and Zhang Liao slammed into the enemy head-on with the cavalry.
"Don't you dare flinch! Kill every last one of them─!!"
"Baibu, mind your tongue in front of our lord…"
The generals commanding the infantry were battling furiously in their own right as well. It was a sudden all-out offensive, but just as I was breathing easier at how firmly we were holding, Cao Cao drew near.
"Hwahyeon."
"…What?"
"The scouts I've posted around our perimeter just brought back some deeply unsettling news."
Telling a man that in the middle of a battle was a fine way to set his heart pounding. It had to be truly serious — Cao Cao, usually all mischief and teasing, wore an air of grave composure.
"Another massive nomad horde has appeared in the east."
"…The east?"
At those words, I went rigid for a moment as I recalled what lay in that direction.
"East would be the direction of Beiping."
"That's right."
"Which would mean…"
When my voice trailed off, Cao Cao gave a small, level nod.
"Gongsun Zan has thrown in with the nomads."
"……"
He'd joined hands with the very nomads he so despised? Was the man out of his mind? …Ah, right. He was. The whole realm knew by now that Yuan Shao had hounded Gongsun Zan into a hollowed-out recluse. So: allying with the enemy he hated slightly less in order to kill the one he hated most. I supposed this, too, deserved the old saying about Wu and Yue crossing a river in the same boat — sworn enemies forced to cooperate.
A flicker of headache crossing my face, I fired off my next question.
"Fine, so Gongsun Zan opened the road for them. How many nomads came out of the east?"
"A hundred thousand."
"…Huh?"
That number had no business existing. A vacant look must have flashed across my face for a beat.
"And more than half of them are Yilou."
"Yilou?"
At the name, a hollow laugh spilled out of me.
The Yilou. A thoroughly obscure name, granted — but anyone who knew what these people would one day be called could hardly have reacted any other way.
The Mohe.
Or, later still, the Jurchen.
What more was there to say? These were yet another nomadic people who had bided their time in the wilds of Manchuria before one day sweeping aside the dynasties of China to found the Jin and the Qing.