Burning Battlefield (3)
Acrid smoke, seething heat,
the screams of the people.
And flames.
Dong Zhuo's Scorched Earth Tactics gave the populace not even a moment to flee, reducing the city streets to ash.
"F-fire! The Xiliang bastards set a fire!"
"R-run...! Run! The flames are coming this way!!"
No thought was given to damage or casualties.
Only a single-minded obsession to leave nothing for the Guandong rebels to seize.
Sunzi, the great master of warfare, had taught
that supplies plundered from the enemy on site are worth twenty times their value.
And so, when Governor of Ji Province Han Fu and Inspector of Xu Province Tao Qian changed sides and cut off the Guandong rebels' supply lines, Dong Zhuo had ordered this brutal Scorched Earth Tactics to leave them isolated and helpless.
"Grab all the valuables! Kill anyone who gets in the way!"
"We're going home now! Fill your pockets for the journey!"
Looting. Arson. Murder.
Countless crimes boiled over.
The Grand Preceptor had decided to abandon Luoyang.
Once the word came down, Dong Zhuo's soldiers launched a massive plundering spree to return home draped in finery.
They seized expensive jewelry, looted livestock. They even committed vile crimes, butchering whole families before a man's eyes and abducting young maidens.
"W-what in the hell... is happening! All of Luoyang is a sea of fire!!"
A surprise enemy attack?
Perhaps a sabotage operation by Guandong spies.
Lü Bu's army, which had been defending Luoyang's outskirts, had received no word whatsoever about Scorched Earth Tactics. The city streets were a sea of flames, as if a great torrent of blood had been spilled into clear water.
Lü Bu's officers radiated horror and bewilderment as they stared at Luoyang engulfed in flames. They had been ordered only to fight to the last to keep the Guandong grand army from entering the city, which deepened their shock all the more.
"Get to Luoyang right now and find out what's going on! Beat the truth out of those Dong Zhuo dogs!!"
"Y-yes! Understood, General!"
The massive, simultaneous fires erupting across all of Luoyang were both meticulous and swift.
An accidental spark was unlikely.
This was clearly an act of mass arson involving tens of thousands of personnel.
Dong Zhuo.
It could only be those bastards.
This was the desperate end of their fanatical resolve to leave no treasure for the Guandong lords. The sight of Dong Zhuo's soldiers heartlessly looting a Luoyang turned lawless land revealed the identities of the masterminds behind the great fire.
"The whole army is to withdraw. The Grand Preceptor has decided to abandon Luoyang."
"What...?"
The division officer Wang Fang was dispatched to order the retreat.
Lü Bu's beautiful face twisted as she shot the question back.
"It was decided today that Luoyang would be burned and the capital relocated to Chang'an. The Emperor and the high ministers have already crossed the pass and are headed for Hongnong Prefecture. Upon receiving the imperial order, the people of Sili Province have also begun to evacuate! The Grand Preceptor commended General Lü Bu for her distinguished service in holding off all the Guandong rebels while the Scorched Earth Tactics were being prepared!"
"...You were preparing the arson. All that time."
A fortnight.
All that time, she had led the cavalry to block the Guandong grand army.
She had, in effect, bought time for Dong Zhuo to relocate the capital to Chang'an and execute the Scorched Earth Tactics. In other words, even if she had not intended it, she had participated in Dong Zhuo's brutal scorched-earth campaign that swallowed the people of Luoyang alive.
Nausea welled up.
She trembled with rage at her own foolishness and incompetence.
And she felt a seething hostility toward Dong Zhuo for making her an accomplice to such atrocity.
"...Wenyuan."
"Yes."
She raised the Sky-Piercing Halberd.
A quiet killing intent rippled in Lü Bu's red eyes.
"We're leaving for Chang'an. Prepare."
"Understood."
She wanted to kill Dong Zhuo. Right now.
And she wanted to slaughter every last one of the minions who followed him.
But she could not.
For what had she killed her adoptive father, Ding Yuan?
For what had she sworn loyalty to the greatest traitor of the age?
-A slut with three different fathers.
'I was furious when I first heard it... but in the end, it wasn't wrong.'
She had not been an enthusiastic participant.
But it was clear she had been involved, however indirectly, in an atrocity unlike anything ever committed in Luoyang.
A rebel who pledged loyalty to an epoch-defining traitor.
One villain among many who turned Luoyang into a sea of fire.
Countless gossips and historians in later ages would record her as the worst kind of commander. They would say she was a monster, intoxicated by her own fame and Martial Power, who committed countless betrayals and atrocities, and she would be universally condemned for all time.
"General!"
"What is it?"
In the end, I will leave my name as a traitor of the era, the worst sort of historical figure.
She was resigning herself to this fate when,
the scouts arrived.
It was the unit that had been monitoring the Coalition Army's movements.
"The Southern Heir and the Guandong rebels have moved...! We have an urgent report that they are approaching with a vanguard of countless wagons, like an impregnable fortress."
"They intend to push us right off the Luoyang front."
They would block cavalry charges while shoving their way to the front's end.
The anti-cavalry tactic of deploying large numbers of wagons had often been used on the northern front where tribal incursions were constant. A general of northern origin, Lü Bu knew this tactic well.
A formidable move, to be sure.
Lü Bu let out a laugh at Liu Seong-hwi's offensive and raised the Sky-Piercing Halberd.
* * *
The hundreds of wagons advancing through clouds of dust were like an impregnable fortress. The intent was clear: if Dong Zhuo's vaunted cavalry dared charge, they would be crushed beneath those massive wheels.
Rumble...
With the flame-engulfed capital to their flank, they deployed into a defensive formation.
At the same time, Lü Bu's army revealed itself, leading its armored cavalry forward with red banners held high.
"It is not too late. Surrender."
When the situation was on the verge of erupting,
Liu Seong-hwi,
the Coalition Army's Alliance Leader, came forward with his bodyguards to the front.
There was no further reason to fight.
He urged the valiant Flying General, who was gazing at the landscape of Luoyang drowning in flames, to surrender.
"Surrender? You seem to be mistaken... I remain on the front line purely to sweep away all you rebels before I withdraw to Chang'an. And just because I'm a slut with three fathers, don't get the idea I'll surrender meekly."
"...You certainly can hold a grudge."
A slut with three fathers.
That was a crude epithet meant as a provocation.
At Lü Bu's menacing warning, Liu Seong-hwi shrugged his shoulders.
"Dong Zhuo has burned Luoyang and scattered millions of people to the winds. The commoners trapped by the horrific flames, of course... but also the people of Sili Province who fell behind the evacuation are being indiscriminately butchered by Dong Zhuo's forces. Dong Zhuo's scum have even committed the outrage of robbing the royal tombs of past Han emperors and vassal kings to plunder the gold, silver, and treasures within. Even knowing this, will you still give your life for that epoch-defining traitor?"
Countless commoners had died.
And many more would die.
To sever this chain of tyranny, he needed her.
Even as he urged Lü Bu to surrender, Liu Seong-hwi presented her with an opportunity for absolution.
"How dare you speak such insolent drivel! General Lü Bu, kill him at once! Surely a general of your near-legendary prowess can cut down a notorious enemy in a single stroke?!"
"You shut your mouth."
A Dong Zhuo officer shouted.
It was Wang Fang, who had gone among the troops to announce the withdrawal.
Hearing Wang Fang's urgent voice, Lü Bu raised the Sky-Piercing Halberd. It was a wordless warning: if he didn't shut his mouth immediately, she would split him in two from crown to toe.
"You're making a mistake. Once word gets out that the noble Crown Prince of the South tried to recruit a lowborn villain into his fold, you'll be met with nothing but ridicule."
"A villain... that's a very welcome word. I guarantee it: before long, I will earn infamy as a vicious and monstrous villain, a traitor who threatens the Han Imperial House and the Imperial Court."
Vicious and monstrous.
Liu Seong-hwi's expression as he spoke those gruesome words was more serious than ever.
A villain. A traitor.
Such notoriety was unbecoming for a noble Cadet Imperial Clan Member.
How could a man who received such deep love from all the people of the realm possibly earn a fearsome name as a monstrous villain and traitor?
What in the world was he planning?
No,
what in the world was he trying to seize?
Lü Bu studied Liu Seong-hwi with a doubtful gaze after his loaded remark.
"Whew... I really can't fathom your scheme. You treat the pariah of the age who killed her own adoptive father without the slightest hesitation, and on top of that, you extend a helping hand in the worst possible situation, with the whole place a sea of fire... Truly, there can be no freak more extreme than you under heaven."
"I'm told that rather often."
"I appreciate the offer, but I refuse. It's a fact that I have been complicit in Dong Zhuo's appalling atrocities all this time, isn't it? So let it go. In the end, I am nothing but a heinous villain who defied heaven's law. I am not fit to be someone personally taken in by the Southern Heir, who is loved and respected by all people."
"You are fit. More than fit and far more besides. I am always deliberate and careful when selecting the men I recruit. Lü Bu, abandon Dong Zhuo and swear your loyalty to me."
Without you, it can't be done.
And it has to be you.
Liu Seong-hwi delivered a declaration rife with potential misunderstanding in a voice that left no room for doubt.
The black-haired beauty who attended Lü Bu let out a delighted "Oh my...!" and covered her own mouth with one hand, a deeply intrigued smile on her lips. And Lü Bu, having received what amounted to a confession of earnest intent in such a hair-trigger situation, could only tremble her lips, at a loss for what to do.