General Who Defeats the Barbarians Sun Jian
Sun Jian, unlike other warlords who prized pragmatism above all, showed himself willing to obey the authority of the Imperial House and the Imperial Court.
He had no thought of overturning the Imperial House,
no intention of defying the Imperial Court.
Countless warlords rose across the Central Plains, but the man who set the standard in the early chapters of the Three Kingdoms was Sun Jian. As if to prove he was a one-man army, he joined the anti-Dong Zhuo coalition and struck such terror into Dong Zhuo—who had seized absolute power—that even the tyrant trembled.
Yet,
in the end, Sun Jian never became a "lord."
Foolish judgment and reckless bravado.
As a commander of a single army he was a peerless warrior, but as the ruler of a state he lacked the necessary qualities.
"Major of a Separate Command Sun Jian requests an audience with the Crown Prince of Chen Kingdom."
The finest warrior of overwhelming martial might.
The man, now in his mid-thirties, burned like a roaring flame.
Hair as dark as wildfire.
A sharp, oppressive presence that evoked a tiger.
And a powerful, imposing physique that testified to the countless desperate battles he had fought.
"I present myself before the Crown Prince!"
His subordinate officers were the same.
Their rugged, muscular frames made them look capable of beating a man to death with their bare hands.
"I am Crown Prince Liu Seong-hwi. I have long heard of the fame of Major of a Separate Command Sun Jian, which has shaken the realm."
"You flatter me."
"I shall appoint you General Who Defeats the Barbarians at once. Your officers and soldiers will also receive military ranks, as I promised."
"Henceforth I will serve His Highness the King of Chen and you, my lord, with utter devotion."
Sun Jian's force numbered one thousand.
An independent corps that followed the Tiger of Jiangdong.
We recruited Sun Jian's army by offering high offices and salaries, as if hiring mercenaries. For the moment we could not expect genuine loyalty from them, but step by step we would build a firm lord-vassal relationship.
"For now, I will entrust the training of new recruits to the General Who Defeats the Barbarians. Countless refugees from the Central Plains continue to stream south. To protect and command them, we need seasoned troops, do we not?"
"I accept your orders."
Simply increasing the number of soldiers was not enough.
We needed more trained elite troops.
The soldiers of the south had no experience facing a disciplined regular army. They had only made their name fighting the Yellow Turban rebels and barbarians who attacked with no aim but plunder.
Minor lords they could probably beat.
But against the warlords who would dominate the chaotic era, they did not stand a chance.
Dong Zhuo commanded a Xiliang Army nearly 100,000 strong. Moreover, in the process of seizing Luoyang, he had absorbed the Imperial Guard and the troops that had been under General-in-Chief He Jin, raising him to the status of supreme warlord above all others.
'By altering the original history, I have brought Sun Jian's army—which would have entered Yuan Shu's service—under my own command... If we do not join the anti-Dong Zhuo coalition, Sun Jian will not march, and the Guandong Coalition Army will be utterly crushed by the Imperial Guard Dong Zhuo dispatches from Luoyang.'
Every dazzling early success the anti-Dong Zhuo coalition achieved was the work of Sun Jian. Without the Tiger of Jiangdong, who rode out as the allied lords' vanguard, the coalition would have collapsed like a rabble.
And I had taken that Sun Jian into my service.
In other words, the success or failure of the anti-Dong Zhuo coalition now depended on me.
* * *
While inspecting the condition of the new recruits, Sun Jian assessed the forces Chen Kingdom possessed.
And he responded with considerable surprise.
'Archers and crossbowmen are overwhelmingly numerous. They must have had to face the human-wave offensives that kept pushing south from the Central Plains.'
The archers and crossbowmen armed with bows and crossbows numbered several thousand.
And that was not all.
The numbers of long-spear troops and shield-bearers in support roles were also large.
It was an efficient disposition of the right troops in the right place to counter human-wave tactics. Sun Jian came to realize that Liu Seong-hwi—who had made his name as the Greatest Archer Under Heaven—was a man of outstanding military strategy and tactics.
"Some very fresh assholes, aren't they!"
"Endure it with grit and guts! You chose this—no, you were forcibly conscripted for it!!"
Manliness,
I'll pound manliness right into you bastards.
The veteran officers of Sun Jian's army shouted as they stripped off their tunics.
"Huuup!"
Pectoral muscles solid as steel.
When they extended both arms forward, their latissimus dorsi and trapezius muscles flaunted their presence.
Countless scars showed through their manly, sun-bronzed skin. As was fitting for battle-hardened men who had led countless melees to victory, their upper bodies were covered with the marks of sharp blades that had cut and stabbed them.
"Where might the Crown Prince be?"
"As soon as he finishes his administrative work, he will be practicing archery at the training grounds."
As he had promised, Liu Seong-hwi appointed Sun Jian as General Who Defeats the Barbarians and simultaneously made the officers of Sun Jian's army officers of Chen Kingdom. He also paid the back salaries the Imperial House and court had withheld, on their behalf, to Sun Jian's troops, who had been suffering extreme poverty.
They had never received such generous treatment before.
They had only ever faced scorn and injustice, dismissed as rootless local gentry from the frontier.
They had to repay this profound grace.
Sun Jian felt genuine gratitude toward Liu Seong-hwi for giving him and his Jiangdong brothers high positions.
'Having already entered the realm of a master archer, he continues to train. Truly admirable.'
Liu Seong-hwi came into view.
He stood gripping a bow, staring at the target.
One hundred thirty bo (about 150 meters).
Not a distance astonishing enough to warrant surprise.
A trained master archer could hit the target nine times out of ten.
Sun Jian was skilled in swordsmanship and martial arts and also had a respectable proficiency in archery. So with a cool-headed eye, he gauged the difficulty of the shot by the distance to the target.
"Hmm...!"
Let's see the skill of a master archer called the Greatest Archer Under Heaven.
Just as he was thinking that,
Sun Jian witnessed a sight so astonishing that he inadvertently let out a gasp of consternation.
FWAAANG—!!
The arrow left the bowstring and embedded itself dead center in the target.
Liu Seong-hwi had picked up the bow with one hand, his eyes covered by a black blindfold.
He had only gauged the target's distance for a moment.
Brief as it was, he had achieved a divine feat: hitting the target with his vision blocked.
'Is this the true ability of the Greatest Archer Under Heaven? I feel as if I have encountered a ghost in broad daylight.'
Without the slightest hesitation, he fired in quick succession.
Every time, the arrows that left the string pierced precisely through the center of the target.
Not a single miss.
As if to prove he was the Greatest Archer Under Heaven, every arrow entered the cramped single point at the center—a spot that from a distance looked like the eye of a needle.
"Would the General Who Defeats the Barbarians like to show me his skill as well?"
"Compared to the art of my lord, a master archer of the age, my ability falls far short. I fear my clumsy skill would disgrace you."
Sun Jian did not know humility.
He had a habit of blindly overestimating his own ability.
His rash nature, the way he indulged in arrogance and recklessness, had earned him the hatred and distrust of his superiors and colleagues. Yet even that arrogant commoner, confronted with divine art before his very eyes, had no choice but to bend his confidence.
"You are too modest. Surely the General Who Defeats the Barbarians is also an excellent archer."
"I am not equal to my lord's startling, ghost-like skill. You have only just reached the age of adulthood... how did you come to achieve such astonishing ability?"
"Practice often against moving targets, and you will get there."
"..."
Moving targets—
he meant he had used the foreign enemies who invaded his territory as targets for cultivating his archery.
It was a bold and very honest answer.
"I shoot at the training grounds every day. Come and shoot whenever you wish. I teach the bow personally to all officers and soldiers, regardless of rank."
"Yes!"
Among those who learn the bow, there are no bad men.
Liu Seong-hwi taught the bow personally to the officers and soldiers who wanted to learn.
* * *
When the central government's control broke down, vicious river pirates appeared, centered in the south. Their depredations—plundering merchant ships, burning surrounding prefectures and counties—grew so severe that the lower Yangtze River was blockaded.
As the chaos mounted,
a martial house of high renown led out its family soldiers.
The Wu Prefecture Sun Clan.
A rising local gentry family famous for its tiger's progeny.
"Kill every last bandit threatening Jiangdong! Let the Yangtze fish feast on them!!"
A girl with flowing crimson hair charged at the forefront. Though her body was small and slender, she displayed the monstrous strength to wield a large, heavy weapon freely.
The keen point of her great blade tore through flesh.
Then a second swing cut off their breath.
"Shit! It's that monster bitch from Jiangdong!"
"The Female Leopard...! That cursed bitch has already brought down countless river strongholds!"
The blood-drenched girl bared her teeth and laughed.
She was enjoying it.
The fear and terror of her enemies,
and the blood and shreds of flesh dripping from her weapon.
To the river pirates, the being before their eyes was a monster wearing the form of a beautiful girl. As if to proclaim her own martial might and fame to all the realm, she was notorious for slaughtering as brutally as possible.
"I say this every time, but you go too far. If you pile up that much evil karma, retribution will find you someday."
"Hmph! I killed them because they were worth killing."
The young man, a childhood friend, spoke while covering his mouth with a handkerchief.
The girl shook the flesh off her great blade and spoke.
"It's no wonder my lady mother already worries about my marriage prospects. Who would take a daughter of a martial house who makes the famously vicious Yangtze pirates tremble as his bride? I should be doing something to ease my father's worries while he fights in the Central Plains... Sigh, that the eldest daughter of the Wu Prefecture Sun Clan has turned out such a ruffian."
"If you're so worried about marriage, all I need to do is bring home a hero so splendid I fall head over heels in love, right? If I fall so madly in love I don't know what to do with myself, I might even settle down a little! Of course, you'd have to bring the greatest hero under heaven, someone worthy of me!"
As if such a ridiculous thing could ever happen!
Sun Ce, Sun Jian's eldest daughter and daughter of the Wu Prefecture Sun Clan, burst out laughing fiercely.