Now to Jiangdong (1)
News that Tao Qian's army in Xu Province had been annihilated with pathetic ease crashed over Jiangdong. Inspector of Yang Province Chen Wen, shuddering uncontrollably at the calamitous tidings, summoned Jiangdong's warlords.
The warlords Yan Baihu and Yan Yu did not attend.
Only the local officials—Governor of Danyang Liu Yao, Governor of Wu Prefecture Xu Gong, and the rest—answered the call.
"Tao—Tao Qian...! That Tao Qian should collapse so feebly! How in the name of heaven can this be?!"
Chen Wen had hoped that Tao Qian's army, even if unable to seize the upper hand, would at least fight Liu Chong's forces to a stalemate. While Tao Qian's army tied down Liu Chong's main strength, Chen Wen had been assembling a plan to rally the warlords who commanded Yang Province and strike at Liu Chong's rear.
All of it had come to nothing.
Tao Qian's army destroyed,
Yuan Shu's army, with whom he had concluded a secret pact, crushed in Jing Province.
And Gongsun Zan's army, pulling back the reinforcements it had sent to Xu Province, had withdrawn from the offensive entirely.
No allies remained to defend Yang Province.
Abandoned and isolated, Chen Wen threw himself on the warlords for aid.
"For the moment... what of petitioning the Imperial House and the Imperial Court for assistance?"
"What strength remains to the Han Imperial House and the Imperial Court, relocated to Chang'an City, to succor Yang Province? They will do nothing but repeat the command to shatter like jade against the southern renegades."
At present, Liu Chong's army was wholly absorbed in subjugating the Five Prefectures of Xu Province. Having seized vast territories all at once, they were concentrating their efforts on drawing the scholar-officials and local gentry of Xu Province into their camp and extending their influence.
It was, in the truest sense, the calm before the storm.
Liu Seong-hwi would undoubtedly invade Yang Province the moment Xu Province was fully pacified.
"We cannot tamely hand Yang Province over to southern rebels who scheme to usurp the throne, can we? Every local official in Jiangdong must unite as one to defeat Liu Chong."
Governor of Danyang Liu Yao looked at the assembled local officials as he spoke.
But most of them betrayed signs of hesitation.
"The difficulty is the common people of Jiangdong. Public sentiment that holds Liu Chong in awe and reverence is confounding popular feeling."
"That is not the only problem. The movements of the local gentry are also disquieting."
It was Liu Chong and Liu Seong-hwi who had smashed the countless rebel armies from the Central Plains that had sought to advance southward. The southern commoners, renowned for their fierce sense of righteous obligation, regarded Liu Chong and Liu Seong-hwi as benefactors.
The Han Dynasty was finished anyway.
How crushing had the burdens been that the incompetence and tyranny of its benighted sovereigns had forced them to bear?
The ruinous exactions of the rotten emperor and the eunuchs had provoked furious resentment. For all that the Han Imperial House and the Imperial Court had shifted the weight of crushing taxation onto them, they had never once shielded the people's farmlands and property from the depredations of the Shanyue People—the barbarians of the south.
"Having absorbed Tao Qian's army whole... Liu Chong's forces must now easily number a hundred thousand."
A hundred thousand.
Liu Chong's army was a tiger that had sprouted wings.
The hundred-thousand-strong army now constituted as an expeditionary force would soon cross the Yangtze River in a single massed crossing.
Governor of Kuaiji Wang Lang set forth the disadvantages of the situation. As though seconding him, the local officials of Yang Province each responded in their own fashion, betraying the complexity of their feelings.
"And it is not merely the Greatest Archer Under Heaven... is not Sun Jian under his command?"
"From long ago, Sun Jian has been revered as the hero who represents Jiangdong. Once word spreads that Sun Jian has crossed the Yangtze at the head of a great host, countless local gentry families will join his cause."
The Tiger of Jiangdong was coming home.
Wu Prefecture, his native soil, would surely serve as his forward base.
A massive invasion by Sun Jian's army was a foregone conclusion. Governor of Wu Prefecture Xu Gong, who was a mere local magnate elevated by a stroke of fortune, regarded the officials around him with eyes full of desolation.
"I will mobilize Danyang Prefecture's entire military strength and reinforce Wu Prefecture. Let the Governor of Kuaiji and the other local officials likewise gather the maximum number of troops they can at Wu Prefecture. If we fail to halt Sun Jian's invasion, Liu Chong's great host will pour into Jiangdong all at once."
They would use the broad Yangtze as a moat and build a defensive line. If they concentrated their full strength and stopped Sun Jian's army, Liu Chong's forces would find their ankles seized before they could complete the crossing.
An excellent plan.
It was also the most thoroughly orthodox of measures.
The local officials nodded and accepted Liu Yao's proposal. Ever since Inspector of Yang Province Chen Wen had dispatched twenty thousand troops to reinforce the Jiujiang Prefecture faction and suffered a devastating defeat, the local officials of Yang Province had shown signs of elevating Liu Yao, a cadet imperial clan member, as their alliance leader.
"The cruel and lawless rebels who devoured Xu Province now greedily seek to plunder Yang Province as well. If we lose Yang Province too, the chance to stop Liu Chong and Liu Seong-hwi will grow vanishingly remote. Once the rebels have pacified the south, they will proclaim a false Mandate and falsely style themselves Emperor...! We shall stop them here in Jiangdong without fail!"
Liu Yao condemned the cadet imperial clan members of Chen Kingdom as rebels who defiled the majesty and good name of the Han Imperial House, and charged the officers under his command to halt Liu Chong's army at the cost of their lives.
Fan Neng. Xue Li. Yu Mi. Zhang Ying.
The officers assigned to Danyang Prefecture led their forces forth.
Combined with the armies of Governor of Wu Prefecture Xu Gong and Governor of Kuaiji Wang Lang, they would amass a host in the tens of thousands. Not enough to fight a pitched battle against Liu Chong's main army, but sufficient to stop the crossing of Sun Jian's army, which would be organized as the vanguard.
"Elder, assign me to the vanguard."
Just as they prepared to march on Wu Prefecture,
a beauty with a prominent deep scar etched across her cheek rendered a military salute and spoke.
Taishi Ci.
A heroine famed as a master of the short halberd.
She had gained renown for the almost unimaginable feat of breaking through tens of thousands of Yellow Turban Rebels alone, racing to Gongsun Zan's army to beg for aid, and thereby rescuing Chancellor of Beihai Kong Rong and the people of Qing Province. Afterward, Taishi Ci had refused Kong Rong's offer of employment, come south to Yang Province, and become a junior officer in Liu Yao's army.
"I shall entrust the vanguard to Fan Neng and Xue Li. I will have you take charge of the scout detachment."
"...Yes."
She had the face of one who would betray her lord.
Frightened by the warning of the physiognomist Xu Shao, Liu Yao treated Taishi Ci with marked wariness.
Scouting.
Or training.
He never once entrusted her with any duty that involved directly commanding troops.
Yet Taishi Ci accepted the blatant slight without any particular show of resentment, with composure. Scouting—leading a scout detachment to observe the enemy's movements—was, after all, an important role in its own right.
* * *
The north wind was blowing.
For Liu Chong's army on the verge of setting out, it was a thoroughly satisfactory omen.
If they drove forward on this fierce north wind, they would land at Wu Prefecture at a single bound. Sun Jian's army, appointed as the vanguard detachment, readied weapons, arms, and supplies in preparation for the advance.
"A hundred merchant vessels from Huaibei and Huainan have arrived."
"Hah! Truly my heart pounds! A fleet of five hundred ships being committed to the campaign—!"
Four hundred vessels from Xu Province.
And one hundred from Yang Province.
A total of five hundred merchantmen had assembled at Xiapi Port and Guangling Port.
It was strength more than sufficient to sweep away every warlord who dominated Jiangdong in a single stroke. The local gentry families of Jiangdong, who had done nothing but squabble over territory in cramped Yang Province like frogs at the bottom of a well, would be waving white flags forthwith.
"Ce'er, you shall take the sharp point."
"Yes!"
Left General Sun Jian entrusted the spearhead to his eldest daughter, Sun Ce.
She answered in a voice full of mettle.
"Our Sun army must rise as the foremost contributors to the subjugation of Jiangdong. To repay the favor of His Highness the King of Chen and the Crown Prince—and, moreover, to avert a tragic internecine slaughter among fellow people of Jiangdong."
"Of course. I intend to settle this as swiftly as possible."
Truly reassuring.
Watching his eldest daughter, grown into a gallant heroine, Sun Jian felt himself swell with exaltation.
That the little girl who used to trot at her father's heels and cling to him for affection should have grown into so bold and spirited a young woman. He marveled at Sun Ce's capacity, which so closely resembled his own, boasting the martial prowess to fight a hundred men single-handedly—and at the same time felt relieved when he beheld her slender face, which took after her mother in its lovely features.
"Once Jiangdong is subjugated... His Highness the King of Chen will declare his assumption of the imperial throne and select a Crown Princess Consort, will he not? This campaign may well be your stepping-stone to securing the place of the Crown Prince's principal consort."
"F-Father!"
Her cheeks, white as polished jade, flushed crimson.
The change, swift as a drop of red dye striking the surface of water, overtook her in an instant.
"It stands to reason that our young lady must become the Crown Princess Consort!"
"There is not a single officer or soldier who does not know that our young lady has been secretly pining for him! We, your uncles, shall aid you with a spirit that shatters bone and grinds flesh!"
A great roaring laugh went up.
The officers of Sun Jian's army boomed out their bold pledges accompanied by hearty laughter.
Her father had caught her.
Her uncles knew it too.
The situation had progressed to the point where even the officers and men under their command had all divined it.
Her face blazed with heat.
If a mouse-hole had opened before her eyes this very instant, she would have gladly dived into it.
The beautiful girl, her crimson hair flowing loose, fumbled and let her words trail away. At that adorable response, her father and uncles burst into loud guffaws.
"If she is chosen as Crown Princess Consort... one day she will rise to the rank of Empress."
Empress.
The station at the apex of all beneath heaven that was vouchsafed to a woman.
Sun Jian and his officers, flaunting their rugged, manly thews, volunteered themselves to serve as a Magpie Bridge of love. In a fashion befitting a band devoted to the martial path, they had settled upon the simple and unsophisticated method of "If we display abundant courage on the battlefield, will not the Crown Prince fall for her?"