If you're terribly unlucky...
If you're terribly unlucky...
The fortress, left all but empty after the main army marched out.
Until just a few hours ago, this place "had been" the Yellow Turbans' Henei stronghold.
Now it had turned into an abattoir filled with Yellow Turban blood and shrieks.
"Gark!!!"
"You... you filthy wret— gurhak!!!"
Yellow Turbans dying amid curses and screams.
Before them stood a woman with blue drill-hair that had been hidden under a yellow headscarf, holding a spear.
"Mufufufu, my condolences. This Hua Xiong was, in truth, a Yellow-Turban-loathing government soldier! Every last Yellow Turban must die!"
With a wicked smile, she was slaughtering the Yellow Turbans to the last.
Hua Xiong.
She had infiltrated this place earlier at the head of several thousand subordinates and, as planned, commenced operations at the appointed hour.
The enemy stronghold had been practically emptied by the Cheng Pu she had scattered. In that situation, Hua Xiong and her subordinates fell on the remaining foes in a sudden strike and succeeded in opening the gates.
Government troops immediately surged into the fortress in coordination.
At their head, comrades who were like sisters to Hua Xiong—Li Jue and Guo Si—and her eternal lord, Dong Zhuo, rode at the fore atop Red Hare, leading the soldiers.
"Attack! Sweep the bastards away!"
"Hahahah... kill them aaaall!"
"Plan successful. Commencing headhunting."
Li Jue and Guo Si swung their weapons and butchered the enemy.
Dong Zhuo displayed divine archery, loosing two or three arrows at once and precisely piercing the enemies' hearts.
And... beginning with them, thousands of government troops poured in without pause.
The Yellow Turbans' Henei stronghold, situated inside a natural fortress built at the foot of a mountain, fell into government hands in the blink of an eye.
"No prisoners! Kill them all!"
"S... sa... spare— gurhak!"
Without a shred of mercy, Dong Zhuo and the government troops under her command slaughtered every Yellow Turban before their eyes.
In the end, save for a tiny minority lucky enough to flee, the twenty thousand Yellow Turbans who had been guarding this place were reduced to lumps of ex-Yellow-Turban meat lying on the ground.
"You have done well, Hua Xiong. All the plans proceeded very smoothly thanks to you."
"Fufufu, this Hua Xiong merely carried out her lord's orders. There is no need for praise."
Even as she said that, Hua Xiong wore an expression of sheer bliss under Dong Zhuo's hand, which was stroking her hair.
Praise from the one who had recognized her and whom she regarded as family, the most trustworthy of all, always filled her with happiness.
"Now then, we proceed immediately to the next phase of the plan. Begin."
"Understood!"
"Ho-weeeng... I shall obey."
"Guo Si, carrying out orders. Commencing ignition."
With those words, the three generals sprang into action at once.
Torches in hand, they and their subordinates began setting fire to the storehouses where grain and weapons were piled, and to the tents scattered everywhere.
"Tch... a bit of a waste."
"I-it can't be helped... there's no time to carry this with us..."
"Work complete. Must depart immediately and rejoin the main army."
The stockpiled grain alone amounted to tens of thousands of bushels—a staggering quantity. But right now, they had no time to load any of it, and above all, to secure certain victory, they had no choice but to sacrifice it.
In an instant, the grain, weapons, and tents were engulfed in flames and began belching black smoke.
Behind them, the fires blazed high, easily visible for miles around. Dong Zhuo and her subordinates spurred their horses and began to move.
With this, their work here was finished.
But there still remained one task: striking the enemy main force.
*
"Wh... what's that smoke?"
"That's where our main camp is..."
"C... could it be?"
Black smoke, clear for all to see.
The moment the two hundred thousand Yellow Turbans spotted it, a profound confusion seized them.
A great fire had broken out in the main camp where the tents and grain were stored. In effect, it was no different from their own houses catching fire.
Impoverished Yellow Turbans living on next to nothing though they were, they still possessed what little worldly goods they had—personal effects and meager rations.
And a fire had broken out where those were kept?
That was more than enough to throw the already exhausted Yellow Turbans into massive shock and confusion.
And this opening... we did not miss.
'Indeed... the bait worked beautifully.'
The ten thousand captured troops of Yellow Turban origin we had obtained earlier in Henei. They were men from whom no great fighting strength could be expected, mere filler for the headcount, but precisely because of that, I had found an apt way to employ them.
Bait to draw the enemy in.
After all, so long as you dressed them up passably and set them in formation, making them look the part was not difficult.
The effect would be further magnified by the fact this was not a wide-open plain but a forest where counting heads was no easy matter.
On top of that, placing Ji Ling—whose martial prowess was well-established—in command over them made dominating the atmosphere a simple task.
Thus the enemy swallowed the bait without a choice, and now they had arrived here, where we lay in ambush.
They were dead tired after covering a considerable distance. Their formation was a complete shambles from dashing along a cramped mountain path.
And as a bonus, their main camp was ablaze thanks to Dong Zhuo, shattering their morale to pieces.
Was this not, in every sense, a meal already set on the table?
"Attack! Sweep the bastards away!"
The moment the order was given, tens of thousands of government troops began to move.
Thirty-five thousand in total—still outnumbered by the enemy—but they were on a fundamentally different level from the ten thousand troops of Yellow Turban origin who were only dressed up for show as bait.
Emerging from the underbrush where they had hidden, the government troops at once set about cutting apart the enemy, who had been strung out into a long, thin column.
When the two thousand cavalry led by Ji Ling pierced through the shallow, extended enemy line, the infantry drove in through the gaps, decisively splitting and carving the enemy apart.
Like an otter gnawing at a spent crocodile, the government troops nibbled the enemy away piece by piece.
Watching that scene draw closer to victory in real time, a deep smile settled on my lips.
But the very next moment, I was reminded yet again.
"That's him! That bastard's the government commander!"
"Kill the bastard in the black surcoat over there!"
The man called "me" in this world really had unspeakably rotten luck.
'Fuck my life...'
*
A government surprise attack in the worst possible circumstances.
Dead tired, the Yellow Turban Army collapsed helplessly under the enemy assault.
"Damn it all! What are you all doing? Fight! Beat the enemy back!"
"General! You must withdraw at once! Anything more is impossible!"
"Withdraw?! We are a great army many times their numbers! How can you speak of retreat?"
"The men are already exhausted and have lost their will to fight. If we stay like this, we all die!"
"We fight all the same! Do you not understand that if we collapse here, we are finished? Go rally the soldiers! I would sooner die here with every last man than retreat!"
It was a reckless command, yet Zhang Liang had no other choice.
The great army had been forcibly conscripted, and now even the main camp had been sacked.
He knew that a crushing defeat meant the collapse of the chain of command.
The only path remaining to him was to somehow repel the enemy and seize victory.
So Zhang Liang drove his subordinates forcefully and strove to continue the battle by any means.
Just then, "Huh?... Th... that man, could it be..."
Suddenly, one person caught his eye.
It was a man directing soldiers from atop a low hill a short distance away.
A fellow in striking, magnificent armor, with a black surcoat wrapped around him.
The moment he saw that appearance, which carried an air of unmistakable nobility, Zhang Liang knew by pure instinct.
"There! The enemy commander is over there! Kill that bastard! If we only kill that bastard, we can win! I will bestow great reward and rank upon the man who brings me his head!"
Pointing his drawn sword at the hill, Zhang Liang raised his voice desperately.
Immediately, he signaled with his banners and, together with the nearby troops from Ji Province, began charging toward the hill.
The movement of their commander stood out amid the chaos. Once a clear objective was fixed, the Yellow Turban Army also began charging that way.
"Did everyone hear me? If you want to live— no, if you want wealth and glory, whoever you are, go and take that bastard's head!"
"For the Yellow Turban Great Cause!"
Dead tired though they were, the Yellow Turbans summoned every last ounce of strength they possessed and charged.
Dying this way was no different from dying that way, and now that a thread of hope had appeared, they began to swarm like enraged bees.
The movement was not orderly. It was a reckless advance, wholly ignoring everything around them and charging at one target alone.
Naturally, horrific losses occurred in the process—government troops were swinging weapons at them from every direction—but fallen into confusion, despair, and madness as they were, comrades dying beside them no longer mattered.
"Wh... why, you bastards!"
"Protect the general!"
The bodyguards hurriedly attempted to mount a defense as the tide turned in an instant.
But with thousands upon tens of thousands pressing in all at once, the strength of the mere few hundred guards was limited.
Though solidly arrayed, the defensive formation began to crack under the overwhelming pressure of numbers.
A female general who belatedly noticed the crisis was galloping over with her cavalry, but the distance was considerable, and the intervening space was so choked with Yellow Turbans that it looked difficult for her to reach them anytime soon.
As a ray of hope began to glimmer amid despair, a deep smile began to spread across Zhang Liang's lips.
'What fortune. To think I would spot the enemy commander at such a moment. As I expected, Heaven has not forsaken us!'
The losses from this reckless attack were indeed severe. Perhaps more than half our forces might be annihilated.
However, if the government army was of this size, it meant most of the main strength in Henei was gathered here.
If I can take the enemy commander's head just like this... if that can bring victory...
Then my mission to pacify Henei would be practically fulfilled.
"The formation's breached!"
"Push in! Take the enemy commander's head!"
At last, the enemy's defensive line broke, and the Yellow Turbans poured in toward where the enemy commander stood.
All that remained was to behead the enemy commander and then ride that momentum to reverse the whole tide of battle.
That was what... should have happened.
"Gyaaaak!!!"
"Hedeebwuuuuh!!!"
"!? Wh... what?"
Agonized screams erupted without warning.
Amid the spurting blood stood a woman who had blocked the path to the enemy commander.
A woman with a massive greatsword, with blonde hair and pale skin, wearing an ordinary common soldier's uniform.