The Choice (4)
With the great battle behind me, I took a short rest and used the breathing room to sort out my plans for what lay ahead.
The Mongol Empire would need no attention from me for the next several years. If Genghis Khan followed my proposal to the letter, she would spend that time smashing apart the nomadic peoples lingering in Central Asia one after another, absorbing them into her own ranks as she went.
A few nations, meanwhile, would poke idly at the newcomers — "what in the world are those things, anyway?" — and then get pummeled hard enough to raise dust on a rainy day, while the nomads who somehow survived would flee westward, wailing "legs, don't fail me now!"...
...Hold on. Isn't this the Great Germanic Migration?
The Germanic tribes. The barbarians who had plagued the Roman Empire since before the Common Era. You could say that if the Xiongnu loomed in the east, the Germanic tribes loomed in the west — Rome and the tribes had been colliding with one another since ages past.
The reason they fought was simple enough. The Germanic peoples wanted a life on the fertile lands to the south, anything to keep from starving, and Rome — faced with foreigners trampling into its territory — had no choice but to respond in kind.
But Rome's standing was so towering that the tribes merely prodded and tested the waters from time to time; a genuine, all-out war never came to pass...
And then, out of the east, come reports of a horde of human weapons sweeping across the frontier?
Those human weapons were the Huns — a people every modern soul who had ever studied world history would have heard of at least once. This was long before Attila would ascend any throne, and yet the Huns were already thrashing every soul they encountered along the way.
In the end, the Germanic tribes were forced to choose between two paths. Stand and fight those human weapons for the sake of this barren land where food was scarce — or cross the border and carve out a home inside the Roman Empire, all-out war be damned.
And that becomes the decisive trigger of the Western Roman Empire's downfall. Not that Rome wasn't already a shambles — by then, assassinating emperors had practically become part of the daily routine.
After that, the Ostrogoths will do this and the Visigoths will do that, and the whole place descends into chaos, but they'll sort themselves out. Would Rome — the "thousand-year empire" of the original history — really crumble that easily?
…
I tried to recall who occupied the Roman throne in this era.
Se... Se...
...What was it again?
It certainly wasn't Saber, that much was certain.
Having set out to dredge up the name, I soon realized it wasn't coming and shook my head. I remembered him as the last capable emperor to reign before Rome went through its Barracks Emperor Era, but the name simply refused to surface.
If the bomb had landed while Rome was already splintering apart in that soldier-emperor era — the way China had during its Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods — I'd have written the empire off as shattered beyond saving.
But an emperor who excelled in every field, from military strategy to statecraft, would surely find a way through. Or so I chose to believe.
Come to think of it, I had essentially hurled a bomb into their laps without asking, but what could I do? A senior who had risen nearly five hundred years before the Han dynasty would weather this crisis too.
At any rate, the Mongol Empire would sooner or later descend into internal strife, put it down, and then turn west — which meant I could stop worrying about them.
Setting that aside, no other power anywhere near the Han posed a threat to us at present.
...Though, if you pressed the details, "none" wasn't quite the truth.
In the original history it wouldn't happen for another few decades yet, but our ancestors had once led cavalry into China, you see.
Given the circumstances that sparked that war, it wasn't impossible to understand — but Goguryeo at the time... hmm... wasn't exactly a match for China.
To the north, they were locked in a low, growling rivalry with Buyeo, another state of the Korean people, and this was hardly the age when China's strength had been gutted by the War of the Eight Princes and the Sixteen Kingdoms. Goguryeo simply lacked the means to face them head-on.
And so Goguryeo — the side that had picked the fight with Wei — was crushed. Their capital, Gungnae Fortress, fell in turn, and the kingdom was driven to the very brink of annihilation.
Even amid all that, our ancestors resisted with their lives on the line and succeeded in turning Wei away... but there was no denying they had been given a thorough lesson in the pecking order.
In other words, the Goguryeo that would one day repel Sui's million-strong army and Tang's three hundred thousand was still a good while away.
So when did Goguryeo truly begin to grow strong? Once Buyeo was defeated by the nomadic peoples and fell into steep decline, and once the three kings who would lead Goguryeo's golden age took the stage, the kingdom began its ascent in earnest.
And who were those three kings? King Sosurim, and then Gwanggaeto the Great and King Jangsu.
China was tearing itself apart with the Sixteen Kingdoms and what have you, and Buyeo, much like China, was being hammered into the dirt by foreign invaders. With three exceptional kings rising in an age where every direction was a battlefield, it was hardly surprising that Goguryeo flourished.
But this was not that era. For Gwanggaeto the Great — the greatest conqueror in Korean history — to appear, a good two hundred years would yet have to pass, unless he defied his era...
Unless he...
...Mmm.
All right. That's as far as that thought goes.
Afraid my words might take root as seeds, I turned my attention instead to the Gongsun whats-their-names wedged between Goguryeo and the Han.
Dragging my ailing body along, I arrived in Jizhou, the land Yuan Shao ruled, and put a question to the woman standing before me.
"What is Gongsun Zan doing at the moment?"
"Yes — according to the intelligence our spies have sent, he remains shut away inside Yijing Tower, refusing to show himself."
I gave a vague nod.
"Good. I'm glad nothing has changed."
Honestly, when I heard he had opened his gates to the nomads, I'd wondered whether he'd had a change of heart. Even if he mended his ways now, I doubted it would amount to much — but it would still spare our allies bloodshed, and good was good, no?
Yijing Tower was, quite literally, a mega-fortress built by pouring the full strength of an entire faction into a single structure. If they resolved to hold out, our situation would become decidedly thorny.
"Since things have flowed this far, I may as well hear the explanation. How did you intend to take Yijing Tower?"
"...You mean my plan, my lord?"
When I nodded, Yuan Shao answered, golden eyes resting on me.
"Some time ago, General-in-Chief, you remarked that Gongsun Zan, cowering behind his walls, would soon commit outrages beyond all comprehension."
"That prediction proved exactly right, and faced with the madness of a Gongsun Zan who would not show himself even within his own ranks, soldiers and officers alike began deserting one after another."
Yuan Shao, answering as though it were no trouble at all, continued without pause.
"An army diminished in size and drained of morale cannot mount a proper defense."
The golden-haired woman, reciting an obvious truth, bowed her head once more.
"My plan was to seize on the moment their vigilance weakened and dig tunnels, avoiding a pitched siege altogether."
"Is that so?"
Just as I had expected — finding a frontal assault utterly hopeless, Yuan Shao had planned to tunnel her way into Yijing Tower, precisely as in the original history.
Then again, with ten nested layers of trenches, ramparts each towering past twelve meters, and thousands of watchtowers studding the walls, no one in their right mind would simply hurl themselves at that monstrous fortress.
Anyone laying eyes on Yijing Tower for the first time would probably stand gaping at its staggering scale.
At any rate, Yuan Shao's tunnel plan was far from bad — but midway through, a single problem reared its head.
"...Before the plan could even be set in motion, the nomads came pouring in from the north."
"That is so."
Yuan Shao lowered herself in courteous deference at my murmur.
"Now that the northern tribes have withdrawn, you need only give the word, and I will bring Gongsun Zan before you in chains."
…
After a moment's deliberation, I realized the end of winter was fast approaching and gave a small nod.
"Very well. Let the soldiers rest for a time, and then we subdue him."
"As you command."
Like Cao Cao, Yuan Shao had already resolved to fold her forces into mine, and she submitted without the slightest resistance.
Absorbing a power of this size usually comes with a measure of grumbling, but perhaps because they shared the memory of once joining hands against a colossal enemy, no pointless quarrels arose.
"Hmm... How exceedingly dull this is."
"Hm?"
Just as my conversation with Yuan Shao wound down, a familiar voice drifted over from nearby.
If Yuan Shao was gold, then this woman deserved to be called platinum.
Cao Cao, who had been watching the entire scene unfold, clicked her tongue and addressed us.
"You two finally meet after so very long, and yet here you are, droning on about official business with faces frozen stiff?"
…
There she went again, spouting nonsense.
Cao Cao's personality — impossible to predict, bouncing every which way like a rugby ball — made its presence known even now, punctual as ever.
"Since you were so desperate to see one another, why not exchange a few tender, heartfelt sentiments while you are at it?"
"...Quiet."
Head in my hands, I bit the words out, and Cao Cao answered with a beautiful smile worthy of her looks.
"Such commanding presence. That, too, has its charm."
…
Unbelievable. This woman was going to drive me out of my mind. How on earth was I supposed to shut her up?
"Oh, Benchu. Are you aware of this? When a man and a woman share a bed, the General-in-Chief..."
"Whoa there."
I hastily cut off Cao Cao before she could spit out something decidedly untoward.
Where on earth did my privacy go?