Are you on the right or left?
Are you on the right or left?
Ji Province.
One of the most prosperous regions during the Later Han's Three Kingdoms Era—and infamous as the territory Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan bloodied themselves fighting over. But that was later.
Right now, it was the Yellow Turbans' de facto stronghold, the base of their leader Zhang Jiao, and at the same time, from my perspective, it had become a place I had no particular reason to visit, except that when the higher-ups say jump, you jump. So here I was.
"Hah..."
"My lord, is something wrong?"
"No... it's nothing."
"That is not 'nothing.' Your expression has been darkening by the day lately. What in the world is causing it?"
"Hah..."
Ji Ling asked with a mix of curiosity and worry, but I obviously couldn't tell her the truth.
How was I supposed to say that my mood was wrecked because the meet-cute event with my ultimate favorite character—the one I'd been aching for, for years—had been blown to pieces?
I was about to hide the truth and offer a plausible excuse when—
"That seems rather obvious."
"Huh? Obvious? What do you mean, Xu Rong?"
"Think about it. To be perfectly blunt, how many achievements has the General piled up so far? Starting at the Hedong-Bing Province border, through southern Hedong, and now all the way to Henei. The enemies my lord has swept aside must number at least three hundred thousand."
"Mm... now that you mention it, that really is a lot of thrashing... although about half of them are our own troops now."
"Exactly. And yet despite such feats, those esteemed superiors of ours gave him no proper support—merely bumped his rank by one notch and called it even. Would anyone be in a good mood when they've risked their life to achieve a miracle victory and all they get for it is that sort of compensation?"
"Their mood would be foul. All the more so when the ones responsible are Ten Regular Attendants scum."
"And on top of that, the place we're headed now is none other than the Yellow Turbans' main base."
"That is what it comes down to."
Ji Ling replied as though it finally clicked, and Xu Rong finished the thread.
The real story, of course, was closer to "I had no expectations to begin with, so no disappointment," but there was no need to say so.
Watching the situation resolve itself, I felt all over again that recruiting Xu Rong had been an excellent move.
She wasn't a natural genius strategist like Zhuge Liang or Sima Yi, but she could use her head and analyze a situation on her own.
Right or wrong, she interpreted and explained things that I would otherwise have had to spell out at length, and that was surprisingly convenient.
At any rate, half-listening to my officers and half-letting it go, we continued moving fast after entering Ji Province.
Total strength: 100,000.
As an army of a hundred thousand, the scale was genuinely staggering.
But despite that size, I knew perfectly well that our fighting power was unexpectedly unimpressive.
More than half our forces, roughly seventy percent, were Yellow Turban prisoners swept up in the last war,
and only the remainder were the elite troops Dong Zhuo and I had brought all the way from Hedong.
Prisoners who had become our soldiers through a fair binary choice: lose your head right here, or earn merit and prize money and go home.
In every respect they were rawer than regular troops, and at the first opportunity they'd try to bolt. An army made up mostly of those types was, in truth, just like the earlier Yellow Turban horde of 200,000—big on the outside, hollow on the inside: an inflated bluff.
Fortunately, Ji Ling and our new addition Xu Rong were drilling the soldiers passably well, but with so little time the limits were obvious... Damn it, now that I saw it that way, this was also the fault of those Ten Regular Attendants sons of bitches...
In any case, it was a force best employed for purposes other than direct combat, much like before. Handling them inevitably meant no end of considerations.
One of my men broke into my thoughts.
"My lord, the day is growing late. What shall we do?"
"As it happens, there's a river nearby with plenty of open ground—it seems a good spot to pitch camp."
"Understood. We need to scout the surroundings anyway and make contact with the local Governor, so we'll stay here for now."
Following Ji Ling and Xu Rong's advice, we decided to halt here,
and Dong Zhuo's army, which was moving with us, likewise began erecting their camp nearby.
"Then I'll go see the Governor with Li Jue and Guo Si. I leave things here in your hands."
"Of course. Travel safely, Governor Dong."
"Did I not tell you to call me Zhongying?"
"Er... yes. Lady Zhongying."
"I wish you would drop the 'Lady' as well... but I'll be off."
Dong Zhuo departed with a small escort just as the camp setup was wrapping up. Unlike me, she had to take over matters related to the General of the Household for the North commission, so she headed to where the Ji Province Governor was detaining General Lu Zhi.
So, with Dong Zhuo gone
and the remaining camp affairs left to Ji Ling and Hua Xiong,
I set out on horseback to clear my head a little, taking a look around with Xu Rong as my escort.
Ji Province was a vast stretch of plains.
Thanks to its fertile soil and commercial development, major cities dotted the land beyond the plains.
It wasn't for nothing that in the Original Timeline, Yuan Shao became the most powerful warlord of the Han the moment he took this region.
Which, in other words... meant the Yellow Turbans who controlled this place were no ordinary force.
In the Original Timeline, Zhang Jiao, the Yellow Turban boss, had been ailing and was soon shipped off to the netherworld, which drastically weakened the Yellow Turbans...
The problem was that the Yellow Turban Rebellion had broken out ten years earlier here. I couldn't be certain whether Zhang Jiao's health was currently failing or not.
'Tch... if I'd known it would turn out like this, I should've tortured that Zhang Liang bastard before killing him and at least squeezed out information on Cheng Pu...'
That operation had been handled by Dong Zhuo, not me, so it couldn't be helped, but I still couldn't help feeling regret.
Lost in scattered thoughts, I was absently surveying the surroundings as if out for a stroll, when—
"Hm?"
Someone entered my field of vision as I idly turned my head.
A woman, seated on a flat rock, gazing somewhere with a vacant expression.
A calm face, yet from it seeped a look of grief not easily concealed.
That said, it wasn't merely her melancholy air that briefly seized my attention.
Short-cropped black hair,
and red eyes—a rarity even in this colorful world.
And... between them, long ears.
Their shape felt slightly unnatural, but as someone who had enjoyed a good deal of subculture in the modern world, one word surfaced in my mind.
'... Elf?'
The race colloquially called "knife-ears" in fantasy worlds.
Obviously, there was no way an elf race existed in this Central Plains Three Kingdoms world, but the woman's ears before me were the very picture of the thing.
And one more thing—
besides those strikingly peculiar and mysterious ears, another element had captured my gaze.
It was precisely...
'I never imagined there could be another woman in this world whose bust rivals Dong Zhuo's...'
Dong Zhuo's bust was so enormous you might wonder if the chest itself was the main body.
And the bosom of the woman before me was prodigious enough to practically match it.
Crass, but as a man, it was a sight utterly impossible not to look at.
As though spellbound, I wore a dazed expression for a moment, taking in the sight of that mysterious woman staring somewhere beyond the plain.
Then...
"...?"
"!..."
A beat late, she registered my gaze and turned her head.
Swiftly, she wiped the sorrow from her face,
settled a calm smile on her lips, and slowly rose from the rock.
"Ah... er... my apologies. I certainly didn't mean to disturb you..."
"It is all right. Might you have some business with me? You do not appear to be an ordinary person..."
The sudden wash of awkwardness.
So I apologized, sheepish, and the woman responded with a quiet question.
Just then.
"You there! Do you not know how to show proper respect? This is His Excellency General Who Conquers the North, Yuan Shu! Lower your head at once!"
"General Yuan Shu...? He is that famous...?"
Xu Rong, standing before me, spoke in a severe tone,
and the woman's expression flickered with surprise.
"Forgive me. I failed to recognize such an exalted personage. I offer my apologies."
She lowered her head with courtesy.
Watching her, I smiled wryly to myself.
Granted, given my current position, her behavior was entirely natural...
but for someone who'd never paid much mind to such things, it was honestly a little uncomfortable.
Ji Ling, knowing this side of me, handled it appropriately on her own, but in that respect, Xu Rong still left a bit to be desired.
Making a mental note to clue her in gradually, I first gestured for Xu Rong to stand down, then stepped forward.
"It is quite all right. This is no official occasion; there is no need for formality. If anything, I should apologize for inadvertently disturbing your contemplation."
"Ah..."
I, too, inclined my head toward her with an apology.
In a society with rigid class distinctions, behavior like this tended to fluster those around me, but experience had taught me that the effect was correspondingly powerful.
I didn't know who she was,
but from her appearance to the aura of mystery about her, she clearly was no ordinary person.
No specific figure sprang to mind, but she could well be one of the Three Kingdoms characters who hadn't yet appeared.
There was no need to stiffen pointless pride and make an enemy of someone like that.
No, in situations like this, finding some way to raise her affinity was the correct play.
Having thus shown a measure of courtesy, I carefully asked the still visibly troubled woman,
"That aside, is something the matter? Your complexion looks far from well. It seems as though you have a tale to tell."
"That is..."
The woman started to speak, then hesitated.
Seeing that, I let a light smile touch my lips.
"Please, speak freely. As one who draws a salary from the Han, is it not my natural duty to aid the common people in distress?"
"!..."
At that thoroughly textbook statement, she looked at me with a rather startled expression.
I know.
In a world where corruption is the baseline, spouting words like that only makes people think, what fool of an official still carries such naïve notions in times like these?
Even so, the reason I went so far as to extend goodwill was that the aura she gave off struck me as exceptional—something told me there was more to her.
And as it happened, as General Who Conquers the North, I held a fair degree of power.
So, with a toss-it-out-and-see approach, I put the question to her...
"... If you truly insist... might I venture a question to the renowned General Yuan?"
"Of course. Speak."
"General... what do you believe the governance of a state is?"
"!?"
The moment that out-of-nowhere "So, right or left?" question hit me, I instantly regretted it.