Spring in Luoyang (1)
Did she think I'd trusted her enough that she could casually confess her ambitions?
Or did fighting that life-or-death battle together spark some kind of camaraderie?
I had no idea.
Ever since last night, Liu Bei had become noticeably warmer toward me.
"Little brother, now that we've passed Sishui Pass, shouldn't you advance on Luoyang?"
"...Of course."
The white-haired beauty smiled gently and pulled one of my shoulders against her. A warmth spread through me, soft as freshly steamed rice cake.
She's big.
F or G cup, maybe.
Right on the borderline between medium and massive.
Their weighty presence was unmistakable even through her breastplate. Ever since Liu Bei's army joined up, I'd been stealing glances, gauging the weight and dimensions, so I could state it with confidence.
'She must've been covered head to toe in blood and dust during that melee... but she smells good. Do peerless beauties really exude a sweet scent no matter the circumstances? If she were a man, she'd reek to high heaven.'
A sweet fragrance teased my nose.
It was the kind of feminine scent that could drive a man to lust in an instant.
The sweetness flowed from her silk-soft, snow-white skin. Every time those large breasts, pressed flush against my shoulder, swayed up and down, the thick carnality of it scrambled my reason.
"Your face has gone completely red. Did you like Sis's chest that much? If my little brother wants, I could hold you a lot more boldly than this."
"I'll pass for now."
"Heh, then I'll do it next time."
"..."
Had something happened to spike my affection rating through the roof in one go?
I'm clueless about romance, so I couldn't say.
Because of Luo Guanzhong's masterpiece Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei became famous as a loyalist blindly devoted to the Han Imperial House, but the reality was the exact opposite. Even when she was serving as a Guest General under Cao Cao, Imperial Uncle Liu Bei had shown her face as a schemer.
Hmm...
Ambition, sure. She probably never had the heart of a traitor, though.
So why was she showing this unlimited goodwill toward me, who'd openly declared I was defying Heaven? I stared at the beaming smile on her full lips, and the question only grew.
"Elder sister, please cross Mount Song and seize Juzhi County."
"Understood, little brother."
Sishui Pass was both an Impregnable fortress and the final bastion defending Luoyang. The moment Sishui Pass was breached, Luoyang became practically defenseless.
We could advance straight on the capital.
The Guandong provincial officers would have broken through Sishui Pass by now too.
Cao Cao's army had crushed Li Jue and Guo Si at Yangcheng and linked up with us. If we marched north from Mount Song and advanced on Luoyang now, we'd be able to coordinate with the coalition of provincial officers who'd breached Sishui Pass.
* * *
General-in-Command Hua Xiong had fallen in battle.
And word arrived that Left General Li Jue and Right General Guo Si had been routed as well.
The Sishui Pass front had collapsed.
The last bastion protecting Luoyang was lost.
Dong Zhuo's face, which had been so certain of total victory, turned ashen. He had trusted Xiliang's greatest warrior implicitly and permitted a full-scale Pitched Battle, which made the sense of loss and dispossession all the more crushing.
"Hua Xiong dead...! Impossible! I refuse to believe it!! Hua Xiong is the great warrior of this age who led every battle to victory! How could such a warrior be routed by a snot-nosed brat barely out of his teens!!"
Crown Prince Liu Seong-hwi.
Sixty thousand troops lost to that goddamn boy.
Add the forces Li Jue and Guo Si commanded, and it came to a full eighty thousand soldiers.
The Imperial Guard had been annihilated.
The Han central army that had supported the main offensive had also taken catastrophic losses.
Luoyang was effectively a crippled city. If the Guandong rebels surrounded the capital now, there'd be no choice but to grant them a Bloodless Entry into the City.
"What about negotiating with Liu Seong-hwi, the man styling himself the Alliance Leader of the coalition? A desperate last stand, bracing for something like Jade Shattering, is meaningless. For now, dispatch an ultimatum offering to cede all territory south of the Huai River."
South of the Huai River.
It was a vast territory encompassing Yang Province and Jing Province in the south.
There was no way he'd pass up a golden opportunity to acquire all the lands of Chu, Wu, and Yue—the powers that had dominated the Spring and Autumn era. It was half the realm; he could even enthrone himself as a new emperor in the south.
"Hrm!"
Dong Zhuo let out a heavy groan at Cavalry Commandant Li Su's counsel.
Negotiation.
That was all that remained now.
It would take a full two months at least for reinforcements to arrive from Yong Province and Liang Province. With all his main-line units on the front destroyed, holding out against the Guandong rebels, who were riding a wave of victories, was effectively impossible.
"For now, accept the Cavalry Commandant's counsel...!"
"I've heard the southern prefectures and counties are nothing but jungle stretched over endless weeds. If we can turn the enemy's spearheads away by handing over worthless wilderness, it would be an exceptionally fine stratagem."
General of Chariots and Cavalry Dong Min and General of the Household Niu Fu spoke in trembling voices. Realizing the current situation had reached a hair-trigger crisis, they were shaking from head to toe.
Dong Zhuo looked deeply swayed by the pleas of his full brother and his son-in-law.
"An urgent report!"
Did he truly have to bow his head to some southern bumpkin?
While he was still deliberating,
the urgent report arrived.
It came from scouts keeping watch on the Sishui Pass sector.
"The Guandong rebels are pressing their momentum and advancing on the capital! The figure leading the troops is said to be Rear General Yuan Shu!"
"Our situation has grown truly absurd...! That even the worthless scoundrel from a Four Generations of Three Dukes house is prancing around like a naked fool!!"
Rear General Yuan Shu.
That Street Ruffian of the Runan Yuan Clan had launched an offensive.
Yuan Shu was the coward who'd fled Luoyang to save his own skin the moment his clan and kinsmen were swept up in the threat of family extermination. Now that cowardly street thug had ordered a general assault by his entire army, aiming to snatch the absolute power that Dong Zhuo's forces had seized.
* * *
The main force of Dong Zhuo's army that had been screening the Sishui Pass front was completely annihilated. Most critically, the Imperial Guard that had defended Luoyang had been wiped out at the Battle of Yangren, and with that, the morale of Dong Zhuo's army disintegrated.
This was it.
Now Luoyang was practically an empty house.
Exterminate the arch-traitor of the age and retake Luoyang, and absolute power would fall into his hands. He'd place the ineffectual Imperial House and the Imperial Court underfoot and make every warlord in the realm kneel.
'Liu Seong-hwi is still at Yangren...! No matter how fast those southern bumpkins move, it'll take them at least another day to reach Luoyang! And the idiot feudal lords are drunk on taking Sishui Pass, dragging their feet on the march!!'
Power belongs to no one.
There is no permanent master.
Whoever snatches it first simply takes it.
Dong Zhuo, who'd grown into a Warlord by quelling the frontier rebellions, had been no more than a schemer who grabbed the throne above all others only because General-in-Chief He Jin and the Ten Regular Attendants had conveniently annihilated each other. Yuan Shu now targeted Luoyang, driving his men through forced marches to intercept the Heavenly Fortune that had been granted to Dong Zhuo.
"Young master! Even if we set aside the Southern Heir... what about the Guandong feudal lords?"
"What a stupid thing to say, General Ji Ling! I have no intention of sharing power and glory with fools! The more people you split power and glory with, the smaller my own share gets, doesn't it?!"
The Coalition Army was finished.
Hadn't it been a group formed out of selfish greed in the first place?
The Southern Heir, who was nothing but a rustic.
The bastard daughter of a lowly servant, and the granddaughter of a base eunuch household.
Whenever he recalled the insults and humiliations he'd suffered in the anti-Dong Zhuo alliance, hatred and bloodlust boiled up inside him. Yuan Shu burned with raging fury, vowing to take revenge on them once he'd seized control of the realm.
"Hahaha! The Governor of Henei, Wang Kuang, has rallied a great host and agreed to join forces with us! The Han Imperial House and Court will be seized by the kinsmen of the Runan Yuan Clan!!"
Wang Kuang of Henei Prefecture had promised to join him with a host of thirty thousand.
Thirty thousand.
He himself had fifteen thousand troops.
Forty-five thousand in total.
That was more than enough to wipe out Luoyang, which was practically an empty house.
Sensing his surging ambition, Yuan Shu repeatedly emphasized the forced march to all his commanders. He looked like a man consumed with anxiety that someone else might snatch a gold ingot that had fallen onto the dirt.
"Beyond the dust cloud, I see troops raising a Grand Command Banner!"
"Ohh! That must be the army of Governor of Henei Wang Kuang! He's brought his main force out to welcome me!"
They'd reached a barren plain veiled in thick dust.
Fifty li.
Luoyang now lay roughly fifty li ahead.
Luoyang was right before his eyes.
His loyal Governor of Henei, Wang Kuang, must have been waiting at the crossroads with his great army. Yuan Shu, intending to commend the governor's loyalty, ordered the troops who had been driving the forced march to halt their steps for a moment.
"You. Are you Yuan Shu."
The thick dust cloud cleared.
At the same moment, a beauty with flowing, muddled-white hair revealed herself.
Thud—
She tossed something she'd been holding in one hand.
The object, tumbling across the dirt and dripping blood, was a human head. Wang Kuang, the Governor of Henei who'd intended to join Yuan Shu's army and march on Luoyang, had been reduced to a headless ghost.
Boooooooooo───.
A solemn blast of war horns rang out.
Then thousands of iron cavalry from Bing Province arrived on the field.
