You Have Already Been Seen Through
You have already been seen through.
The plan was to feign a bid for Lijiang while swinging the main host around behind them and striking straight for the enemy’s heart.
Northwest of Lijiang rose the rugged highlands of Liangshan. The name itself used the character for “cool,” and the place lived up to it—steep terrain and high elevation made the climate chill year-round, weather utterly unlike the rest of Yunnan.
Compared to the Kunlun range, which no army would lightly attempt to cross, Liangshan was at least passable. And what lay beyond Liangshan?
Panzhihua County. It was not Yunnan soil at all, but Sichuan’s—the southwesternmost hinterland of the province, the land that linked Yunnan and Sichuan. A vital corridor between the two. From Panzhihua, a southeast march led straight to Kunming, capital of Yunnan.
Adiya Khan calculated that by continuing the pressure on Lijiang and waiting until Yunnan’s defenders were fixed upon it, he could race ahead and take Kunming in a single stroke.
“We simply follow the flat ground between the mountain paths all the way to Kunming.”
Long-distance marches were nothing to cavalry, but mountain trails changed everything. Dismount and walk those paths, and even veteran troopers managed only forty to sixty li a day. Given that the average soldier of the age covered roughly thirty li, the estimate was already generous.
Still, Adiya Khan soothed his noyans well.
“Of course the route is poorly suited to a great host of horsemen. That is precisely why the enemy will never expect us to come that way.”
It sounded plausible enough. The noyans, their spirits still crushed by the catastrophic defeat, ground their teeth and answered:
“Give us the chance!”
“Our ulus will be the spearpoint that smashes Kunming’s walls!”
Adiya Khan smiled at the fierce display of vengeance and competition for merit, yet inwardly he cursed them.
Cowards.
They were afraid to advance on Lijiang. He could see it clearly. Rather than charge again into the city that had become a city of the dead, they meant to take the easy path, drive a dagger into the enemy’s heart, and claim the glory for themselves—sly little calculations written all over their faces.
From Adiya Khan’s standpoint there was no reason to stop them even knowing that. He had to remain at Lijiang. If the Great Khan himself abandoned the place and rode for Kunming, word would spread that he had lost his nerve, and the morale of the entire army would collapse.
He summoned Noyan Barda Khan and Noyan Katsuka Khan, kinsmen of a nearby clan.
“I give you a hundred thousand cavalry. Take Kunming. Without fail.”
“Yes!! Great Khan!”
The two khans, eyes blazing with revenge and ambition, gathered their men and rode for the rear.
Meanwhile Adiya Khan and the remaining noyans pulled back from Lijiang and pitched camp along the banks of the Jinsha River. The wounded needed clean water.
“Uuuuugh….”
“Water… give me water….”
The gers of the steppe, being portable tents, served readily as field hospitals. Adiya Khan gathered the survivors of the Lijiang assault into carefully guarded gers and forbade every other soldier from approaching. The quarantine was meant to prevent plague, but it was also meant to keep the troops from seeing the horror and losing heart.
Those exposed to the mustard gas were a sight no eye could bear. Yellow blisters erupted and burst across their bodies, weeping mustard-colored pus while the necrotic flesh rotted; fever from infection brought dehydration and delirium. The endless moaning of those men would have drained the fighting spirit from even Xiang Yu himself.
Adiya Khan found himself sighing.
“Merciless beyond measure. What poison is this, in all the world?”
Poisons, as a rule, made a man cough blood or clutch his chest and die—drugs designed simply to kill. This toxic fog, however, had been conceived on an entirely different principle.
Killing? Secondary. Its true purpose was to inflict the maximum possible suffering on those it touched, and to exhaust everyone forced to care for them. It multiplied patients who could not march, slowed the army, consumed food, and, given the chance, became a breeding ground for secondary infection and corpse-born plague. A weapon of pure, deliberate cruelty.
Even the Mongol nomads, butchers of the steppe, felt their minds reel when confronted with this bottomless malice of settled men. A weapon born at the absolute zenith of human evil and madness—the Second World War—was more than enough to inspire such dread.
How many more weapons like this do they possess? Can we even defeat people who fight with such things?
For a moment the sight of the ruined soldiers made Adiya Khan’s heart falter. He shook his head.
No! We have lost only fifty thousand. Take Kunming and we seize all of Yunnan in one blow, choking the enemy’s throat. Then I will have my revenge—I will bind every man taller than a cartwheel to the horses and tear them apart!
At that same hour Hwiyeom was receiving counsel from Wang Yangming.
Wang Yangming offered his assessment.
“The enemy will not violate Lijiang. They will choose the detour through Liangshan and drive on Kunming.”
“Why?”
At Hwiyeom’s question Wang Yangming pointed to the mountains flanking Lijiang.
“They have already seen that we hold both heights and can rain arrows and artillery from above. The Art of War says: even with superior numbers, do not advance against high ground. They will neither climb the mountains rashly nor march into Lijiang.”
“That much is true.”
“Which leaves two roads. One is to accept still heavier losses, leverage their numbers, smash straight through Lijiang, and push toward Dali. The other is the side path that skirts Liangshan and heads directly for Kunming.”
“And you believe they will choose the latter.”
“I do. The former is impossible given the sheer size of their host. A large army always shows gaps on the march; leave enemy forces on the heights on both sides while you force a city between them, and the casualties will snowball. No competent commander would take that worst of options. They will make a great show of attacking Lijiang while secretly peeling forces away to strike Kunming.”
Hwiyeom nodded at the confident analysis.
“If so, there are still four Noksan outposts between here and Kunming. Could we not use the outposts and trenches for a delaying action and cut their strength down considerably?”
Wang Yangming answered:
“Do not stop them at the outposts. Let them through.”
“Why?”
“They will rush the road in haste to hit Kunming. Naturally the army’s pace will become uneven; the mountain path is narrow, so the column will stretch long and its strength will fragment, while the supply line grows ever longer.”
When people move slowly they stay together; when they race without restraint, the fast and the slow naturally string out. Simple principle.
“In enemy territory a dispersed army and an elongated supply line are perilous. Once their elite have passed the outposts, strike when the heavy-laden supply train at the rear tries to follow. They will be like snakeheads dragged onto dry land—helpless, waiting only to be disposed of. That is drawing the enemy in and striking the rear. We answer their Steal the Beams and Replace the Pillars with Lure onto the Roof and Remove the Ladder.”
Hwiyeom looked to the Lijiang garrison commander—after Wang Yangming, the man most versed in military strategy present. The commander nodded in admiration.
“Master Wang’s words are entirely sound.”
“…I am no longer ‘Master.’ Call me Director.”
Hwiyeom smiled faintly at the correction.
“Very well. Can we outpace them?”
“Racing the mountain trails with a horse detachment would be slower. Lead only a few swift elites by the side paths and we can reach the outposts faster, undetected.”
“Good. The Noksan outposts must be moved, so I will go myself.”
“Young Master, the road is dangerous—let me—”
“Master Wang must face the enemy’s main force; you cannot leave Lijiang. Besides, no one knows the Noksan outposts and the powder weapons stationed for Kunming’s defense better than I. That is precisely why His Majesty entrusted me with the command tally.”
“…Young Master.”
Wang Yangming’s face was full of worry and loyalty. Hwiyeom smiled gently at him.
“Do not worry. I have something to rely on as well.”
“Something to rely on?”
“Yes.”
Wang Yangming’s gaze flicked to Dang Su-jeong, who never left Hwiyeom’s back for an instant. But Hwiyeom only looked up at the sky and smiled.
“I trust the guardian deity of the Dang Family—and the colossal evil born of human good intentions.”
Ye-eun ran through the forest like the wind. She used no formal light-body technique, yet every time her foot touched the ground her form vanished and reappeared, erasing a dozen zhang at a stride.
The two thousand li from Lijiang to Chengdu took her only two days. At the speed of a legendary thousand-li horse she reached the Sichuan Dang Family and went straight to the Innovation Hall.
Facing Dang Unhwa, she produced Hwiyeom’s jade token.
“It is time for Deceive the Heavens to Cross the Sea.”
Dang Unhwa’s mouth split from ear to ear.
“At last!”
He flung his arms wide like an opera actor and bellowed.
“I have been waiting!!!”
He spun on his heel and strode swiftly toward the Poison Hall; Ye-eun followed in silence.
The moment they met the Master of the Poison Hall, Dang Unhwa drew a black plaque from his robe.
“Authorization for Hide a Knife Behind a Smile has been granted!”
The Master of the Poison Hall flinched, then let out a small sigh, produced a key from his own robe, and handed it over.
“…And the blades?”
“We will mobilize the Poison Toad Unit.”
“…Very well. May fortune favor your arms.”
Once the Master of the Poison Hall withdrew, they cleared away the tea table at which they had been sitting. Beneath it a secret stair led down into the underground experimental facilities.
In the hidden laboratory-warehouse beneath the Poison Hall lay the TNT Hwiyeom had prepared, the smokeless powder still under research—and the Gatling guns that had not yet been deployed to Noksan, stacked and waiting.
Weapons meant to be fixed in fortress machine-gun nests, nightmares that would grind down infantry charging without tanks or air support. But when sturdy young men in black rose from the shadows like ghosts, Ye-eun gave the order.
“Poison Toad Unit—equip the Type-A Manual Rapid-Fire Guns according to doctrine.”
“Yes, Director!”
Elite orphans raised in the Spider Institute, black operatives of the Dang Family’s Minjeongwon who had passed the specialized training of the Fire Net and Cutting Wind units—the Poison Toad Unit’s eyes burned with fire. They were martial artists of the jianghu. What was a Gatling gun and an ammunition pack to men like them?
Thus Hwiyeom’s trump cards finished their preparations for the battlefield.