163. Martial Alliance (6)
Martial Alliance (6)
163. Martial Alliance (6)
They had said that the only sects who would come seeking us were the Nine Great Sects, the Beggars' Sect, and the Five Great Clans, but the Five Great Clans weren't limited to the current five. I should have expected it from the moment the Gongsun Clan came looking for us. They had been included among the Five Great Clans during the Song dynasty. But even though they had established an estate here several hundred years ago and were no longer one of the Five Great Clans, as sects that held the Gold Plaque they could access the western district. Likewise, other former Five Great Clans that hadn't made the current list were persistently sending people.
If anything, aside from the Tang Clan, the incumbent Five Great Clans were not actively seeking us out. Even the Zhuge Clan merely wanted to make light acquaintance with the Medicine Immortal, so they sent only a martial artist from a branch line, not an elder or someone from the direct line. And the Nangong, proclaimed the greatest clan under heaven, hadn't even sent a single person. Our strength was intriguing, but pride as prestigious clans meant they naturally assumed we would come to them first. By contrast, the other clans that had been pushed out of the Five Great Clans were actively trying to meet us. With Murong Rin standing guard, poaching me would be a tall order, but they must have thought that at the very least forming an alliance or friendly ties with the currently rising Yeongsan would be a huge help in restoring them to the Five Great Clans.
In contrast to the prestigious clans, the Nine Great Sects and the Beggars' Sect were lukewarm toward us. Unlike prestigious clans who could forge strong ties through political marriages and such, the Nine Great Sects and the Beggars' Sect had no particular material to trade with us. Moreover, unlike prestigious clans who could promise wealth and glory, a great sect could only offer high-level martial arts, and the reality was that Yeongsan Sect was overflowing with martial arts secret manuals.
Because of that, these days we were dealing with a stream of prestigious clans. Perhaps rumors about the Tang Clan and Gongsun had spread, because each approached us with a different strategy. The Huangfu Clan, whose hereditary large build meant they couldn't produce beauties, gave up on seduction from the start and came to me brandishing a man's loyalty. I took quite a liking to the fiery liquor they brought as a gift, more so than any visible seduction attempt, and we were able to talk about muscles in an amiable atmosphere.
After the Huangfu Clan's visit, their self-proclaimed rival in Shandong, the Shandong Yue Clan, hurried over. Contrary to their reputation, the Shandong Yue Clan had never been included in the Five Great Clans, so they held a Silver Badge. They had earnestly asked Murong Rin to escort them into the West Street and came seeking us. If the Tang Clan put forward a direct-line daughter and the Huangfu Clan liquor, the Yue Clan put forward a child. They said they were grateful that our Cho-ryeong had been looking after the clan head's daughter, Ak Jung-young, and left many gifts. Come to think of it, Cho-ryeong had built up quite the network—Gang Ji-yeon, the successor of a vast trading company, Peng So, the granddaughter of a Top Hundred Master, and now Ak Jung-young of the Shandong Yue Clan's direct line.
Murong-hyang, the Yue Clan's daughter-in-law and Murong Rin's aunt, subtly revealed an unexpected ulterior motive: she wanted her daughter Ak Jung-young to enter Yeongsan Sect. Indeed. I learned that the clans had means of approach beyond marriage contracts. The Shandong Yue Clan, in particular, was a clan that had taken a share of the profits through active trade with Joseon, given its geography. The Gaeseong ginseng they brought as a gift seemed to have won Lee Eun-ha's heart.
Unlike the two clans that had shown excellent diplomacy, one clan was a bunch of morons. The Jinju Eon Clan. These dipshit bastards, when Dan-yeong refused the betrothal, sent the woman to me. Naturally, I had no intention of accepting a bitch whose looks and abilities were a bargain-bin copy of Murong Rin but who tried to imitate Murong Rin's power-tripping. And the fact that they thought offering an older brother a woman his younger brother had rejected made me seriously wonder if those bastards were in their right minds.
"Reverend. Do you find the Martial Alliance to your liking?"
It was Sima Buyong, the Fourth Strategist who was supposed to be in charge of us within the Martial Alliance. She had come calling today.
"It's acceptable. When will the Alliance Leader deign to meet with us?"
"He said he would arrange a meeting after the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering concludes. Only fifteen days remain now, so please wait at your leisure."
"The problem is that the people around us keep bothering us and won't let us be at leisure."
I grumbled at the innocent woman with a hint of irritation, but she simply beamed at me and said:
"I'm sorry. The truth is, I didn't come today as a Martial Alliance strategist but as a guest who will bother you. The Sichuan Tang Clan and the Gongsun Clan. The Huangfu Clan, the Shandong Yue Clan, the Jinju Eon Clan. Quite a few guests have already come calling, haven't they? The Sima Clan also wishes to pay its respects to Yeongsan Sect. However, our clan only holds a Silver Badge, and unlike the Baek Clan Estate or the Shandong Yue Clan, we cannot come here accompanied by a Gold Plaque holder, so the clan sent me."
Ah... right. She was also from the Sima Clan, a prestigious clan, wasn't she?
The Sima Clan. A sect in an even more ambiguous position within the martial world than the Gongsun Clan. They were also descendants of royalty, like the Murong Clan—no, in their case, they were descendants of the imperial family of a unified dynasty, the Jin. The victor of the Three Kingdoms era, represented by Wei, Shu, and Wu, had been neither Liu Bei, nor Cao Cao, nor Sun Quan, but the incongruous Sima Yan. Though the Jin dynasty they established met its downfall at the speed of light the moment it unified the country, they were unmistakably the true imperial family of a unified dynasty.
Normally, when a country fell, its royal or imperial family would be thoroughly purged, as happened to the Wang clan in early Joseon. But after Jin fell, the land fractured into the Sixteen Kingdoms, and even the Sui Dynasty, which had barely reunified the Central Plains, stupidly provoked Goguryeo and evaporated in an instant. That was how the Sima Clan somehow managed to survive in the Central Plains. As descendants of the brilliant strategist Sima Yi, they still produced exceptional staff officers like the woman before me thanks to their outstanding resourcefulness, but their limitations were equally clear.
When it came to the most popular literature in the Central Plains, myself included, the undisputed champion was the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, where countless heroes and champions appeared, stratagems and schemes ran rampant, and fiction and history were blended in just the right measure. The problem was that unlike genuine historical texts viewed from multiple perspectives, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms was a novel written entirely from Shu's standpoint, so readers inevitably sympathized with Shu, while Wei came across as the villains.
Especially Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi, who emerged as the greatest rivals after the deaths of Liu Bei and Cao Cao. Guan Yu was enshrined as a god, but Zhuge Liang's popularity in the Central Plains was stratospheric. As a result, Zhuge Liang's descendants still monopolized the Martial Alliance's Advisory Staff Hall even when pushed out of the Five Great Clans, thanks to a wise and loyal image. Meanwhile, the Sima clan, cast as the villains who ultimately even betrayed the Cao clan, were saddled with a treacherous and untrustworthy image.
Judging people for the sins of ancestors dead for over a thousand years was absurd, but even in the twenty-first-century Republic of Korea, people prejudiced against others solely because of their region of origin were everywhere. Once an image had been branded onto someone, it did not fade easily. That was why the Sima Clan still walked such a bleak road that people seriously debated whether it even counted as a prestigious clan.
"Reverend, do you also feel displeased when you learn someone is from the Sima Clan?"
As I closed my mouth to collect my thoughts for a moment, Sima Buyong looked at me and asked.
"I do not. I am from the Jilin Baek Clan Estate. It is a place much like the Green Forest, so I am simply unaccustomed to dealing with clever people."
"There's no need to mind my feelings enough to bring up your own family. You call us clever people? Even so, did not our High Imperial Forefather leave behind Dead Zhuge Scared Off Living Sima, a textbook example of foolishness?"
She was still beaming, but I detected a quiet grievance as she spoke to me. High Imperial Forefather, she said. As expected of Sima Yi's descendant, she honored her ancestor with his posthumous title.
Dead Zhuge Scared Off Living Sima. The anecdote that a dead Kongming made a living Zhongda flee.
"Do you truly believe His Imperial Majesty the Former Emperor, who was the supreme staff officer moving the armies of a nation, would have withdrawn his forces just because he heard a mere rumor of that caliber? Even a young wench like myself, let alone His Imperial Majesty the strategic genius, would never fall for such a ploy."
"I think so as well. He had secured sufficient military achievements, and it was time to withdraw, so he withdrew. At that time, time was on the side of Wei, the great power."
In reality, it was Shu, not Wei, that was impatient. In the end, the five northern expeditions failed to strike Wei's vitals, and Wei, having defended against Shu's northern expeditions, was the absolute victor. Of course, I disliked Sima Yi too. I was a reader, not a historian, so I really hated that the heartbreaking heroic epics of heroes like Liu Bei, Cao Cao, and Sun Quan ended with the incongruous grandson of Sima Yi. But one ought not insult another's ancestors. Though the events were already over a millennium past, insulting someone's ancestor in front of her while she called Sima Yi the Former Emperor was unthinkable.
But at my answer, her large eyes sparkled and she reacted far more strongly than I expected.
"Exactly. That is military strategy. History is judged by its results. Marquis Zhuge was certainly a true hero, but it was our Sima Clan that defeated him and defended Wei, then overthrew the Wei dynasty after it had fallen into turmoil and unified all under heaven as Jin. We can accept the stigma of betrayal with the magnanimity of the victors. But at the very least, our Former Emperor was never defeated by Marquis Zhuge in strategy."
A far fiercer reaction than I expected. In this era, knowledge of the Three Kingdoms was almost entirely the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Unless one was a scholar studying history, very few went out of their way to consult the official histories and adopt a new viewpoint. In an age before printing had developed, people who read the Romance overwhelmingly outnumbered those who read the official histories, the Wei Lue, and the like, so the Romance was the sole truth to the people of the Central Plains, just like the Christian Bible. That was why, in the Romance, a son of a bitch remained a son of a bitch even a thousand years later.
And here, because I had given Sima Yi a reasonably high evaluation, her rancor seemed to have caught fire. But what good did that do? The Zhuge Clan had long ago leveraged their ancestor's illustrious reputation to become a core power in the martial world for thousands of years, while the Sima Clan, still unable to properly wash off their ancestor's stigma, were in no position to do anything but be the Zhuge Clan's errand dogs.
"I've thought about it a great deal after listening to Lady Murong. I am a strategist sworn to the Alliance, not a servant of the Nangong and Zhuge. The Alliance Leader's Nangong Clan is still trying to use Yeongsan Sect however the Nangong please. The fact that they haven't properly made public the Black Heaven Association incident, or even the recent Great Sun Association incident, reveals their true intentions.
"Their pride must have been wounded. The Beautiful Madness stole the march on them, which is why Yeongsan Sect is now in this estate, and it must be awkward for the Nangong and Zhuge to now send someone to Yeongsan Sect when you still don't come calling on them. So, join forces with us. If Yeongsan Sect, with its martial power and honor, joins hands with my clan, with its wealth and wisdom, we can build a new power within the Martial Alliance."
The conclusion of this long-winded speech was the same as all the other clans. She was the talkative type, so I resolved to cut this off decisively.
"I apologize, but Yeongsan Sect will not join the Alliance. If you desire power within the Alliance, I suggest you join hands with the Tang Clan, the Nangong's rival, or the Murong."
Though I swiftly expressed my refusal, her eyes remained unchanged.
"I thought you would say that. However, the Tang Clan and Murong are not inclined to associate with the Sima Clan. If we are to join hands, it will have to be the other prestigious clans that failed to make the Five Great Clans, after all."
Ah. Seriously. She talks in circles so damn irritatingly. What she meant from the start was that she wanted to join hands with clans pushed out of the Five Great Clans, like the Huangfu or the Eon, but because the Sima Clan's image was so poor, she was asking me to mediate. Since those clans were constantly coming to visit Yeongsan now.
"His Imperial Majesty the High Forefather of Jin sought no one else's help and personally laid the cornerstone for unifying all under heaven. The same was true of the Murong Clan, descendants of Yan who rose after Jin fell. If you invoke the descendants of sovereigns, then I hope you will walk the path of a sovereign."
In my own way, a clean refusal. At my words—since it had been one thousand two hundred years since the Three Kingdoms era, if she wanted to play royalty she could do it on her own—Sima Buyong quietly bowed her head.