Nanman (3): The Fall of Dulong Cave
“What is the meaning of this, King of the Man?”
King Tasha stared in shock at Meng Huo, who had come seeking him out. The man’s armor hung in tatters, as if he had already lost a war; his wretched appearance was pitiful to behold.
“Shu has marched down from the north, determined to rule us by force,” Meng Huo said. “Lend your strength to your own people.”
He laid out the whole chain of events and begged for aid.
“Of course I will!”
The tribes of Nanzhong might quarrel over profit among themselves, yet they still called one another brothers.
“Do not worry yourself overmuch, Great King. This Dulong Cave is a natural stronghold.”
Even the Man who lived in Nanzhong found the place nearly unendurable. Venomous snakes and scorpions thronged the paths; poisonous mists rose from the ground. Anyone who breathed them in choked and lost the power of speech. A river of lethal toxin ran through the valley, fordable only by night.
“Unless a man is born of Dulong Cave, he has no choice but to perish. Rest easy.”
“Hahaha! Truly formidable!!”
Even a strategist as brilliant as Zhuge Liang would be helpless here.
“The enemy also uses a strange crossbow,” Meng Huo warned. “Beware of that, and we will be fine.”
He kept a wary eye on Shu’s Yuanrong Crossbow while stockpiling arrows and throwing stones for the defense. They would harden their walls and wait for the terrain of Dulong Cave itself to exhaust the Shu army.
“If Shu cannot endure and flees, that is when we strike the final blow.”
Hold firm behind the walls, and the moment the Shu troops—unaccustomed to the southern wilds—showed signs of collapse, they would smash them in a single stroke.
While they were still fortifying every approach, a band of soldiers appeared before Dulong Cave. Receiving the report, Meng Huo and King Tasha climbed the walls.
“Is that the Shu army?!”
“No, my lord! We are allies!”
The men who had reached the cave were Dong Dona and Ah Huinan. Meng Huo had not heard a word of them since his own release by Shu; he had the two dragged before him at once.
“Where have you been, and what have you been doing, to arrive only now?”
He berated the generals who had done nothing while he suffered at Shu’s hands.
“Forgive us, Great King. An ambush shattered our ranks; we were gathering the survivors.”
Dong Dona and Ah Huinan explained that Shu’s hidden troops had inflicted heavy losses, after which they had reorganized what remained of their camp and set out to find Meng Huo. The soldiers they brought numbered a little over ten thousand. Hearing that their king had headed for Dulong Cave, they had hurried after him, they pleaded.
“Do you know what I endured? Had I not beaten Shu’s soldiers senseless and broken free myself, I would not be standing here.”
Meng Huo swaggered, flaunting his own prowess. With King Tasha looking on, he could not allow the reputation of the Man King to diminish.
“I will acknowledge the merit of gathering the scattered troops and spare you punishment. Wipe away your guilt by winning glory in the next battle.”
He pardoned the defeated generals, displaying the magnanimity of a true sovereign—hoping, by that show of clemency, to raise the loyalty and fighting spirit of his men.
Dong Dona’s reply, however, was not what Meng Huo expected.
“…Yet, Great King—must we truly fight Shu to the death?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Dong Dona voiced his doubts about the war.
“What?”
Meng Huo’s eyes narrowed; his face twisted.
“Shu does not seek to conquer all of Nanzhong. They only wish for the two realms to live in harmony—”
Before the words were finished, Meng Huo’s hand moved like lightning. In a rage he seized a wine jar from beside him and hurled it.
Crash!
Shards of the shattered jar flew in every direction. Fragments struck Dong Dona’s face and drew blood.
“You dog…!!”
“One defeat and you’ve become curs with your tails between your legs! How dare you urge surrender upon me!!”
“N-no, Great King—this humble one only—”
“Silence! Cut off Dong Dona’s head for disrupting military discipline!”
Meng Huo roared the order to the soldiers around him.
“Great King!”
“To behead a general in the midst of war will only destroy morale!”
Dailai Dongzhu and the other chieftains rushed forward, desperately restraining him.
“…Hmph. Count yourself lucky.”
Still displeased by their lecturing tone, Meng Huo settled for twenty strokes of the cane instead. Dong Dona, who had offered loyal counsel only to be beaten for it, glared at his king with open resentment. Meng Huo paid him no further attention and strode off to rally the troops.
“The dogs of Shu will die of poison and mist long before they ever reach Dulong Cave!!”
He boasted loudly to the soldiers. The thought of finally avenging his earlier humiliation put him in high spirits.
Yet a few days later, the Shu army appeared before Dulong Cave without having suffered any losses at all.
At that same hour, in the Shu camp.
“A poisonous river and mists?”
At Zhuge Liang’s question, Guan Suo nodded.
“Yes. Even among the remote strongholds of Nanzhong, Dulong Cave is infamous for its harshness. Poisonous streams and toxic fogs are its defining features.”
In the original course of events, the terrain of Dulong Cave would have given Zhuge Liang enormous trouble. Knowing the future, Guan Suo could not simply stand by and watch soldiers die for nothing.
“On top of that, even the springs are poisoned. Finding drinking water is nearly impossible.”
I told Zhuge Liang every scrap of knowledge about Dulong Cave that I carried in my head.
“Yuji, how do you know all this?”
“I captured some of the local natives and questioned them.”
I offered a plausible excuse. In truth, whenever we moved through other parts of Nanzhong I had made a show of rounding up natives and gathering intelligence. Through that pretense I had already relayed every danger that awaited us at Dulong Cave.
The other generals remained half-skeptical, yet Zhuge Liang—who trusted Guan Suo—advanced the army with the utmost caution.
The moment they actually saw the poisonous river flowing and the mists spreading, every last man believed Guan Suo’s words. Because he had known the geography of Dulong Cave in advance, the Shu army reached its walls without suffering serious losses.
“E-enemy attack! It’s an enemy attack!!”
King Tasha, watching the Shu host arrive virtually unscathed, was struck speechless with horror.
“What are those men?! Did they receive aid from the gods themselves?”
He was so full of himself, yet the Shu army has taken no damage at all!
Meng Huo cursed King Tasha in his heart.
The Nanman troops loosed arrows and hurled stones, trying to keep the Shu soldiers from scaling the walls.
“Get out of my way!”
One general swung a pair of halberds, cutting down Man warriors without mercy. In the blink of an eye he reached the top of the wall and roared at the defenders.
“Anyone who stands before this Wei Wenchang—I’ll cut you all down!!”
Wei Yan’s ferocious aura cowed the Man soldiers. One after another, Shu officers climbed onto the battlements.
“What are you doing?! Stop them!!”
“So you are King Tasha?”
Wei Yan’s fierce eyes locked onto the king.
“I’ll take your head myself.”
Enraged, King Tasha drew the great blade at his waist.
“A Han dog dares?! I’ll teach you a lesson!”
Watching the king charge, Wei Yan wore a cold smile.
“Hmph!”
Clang!
Wei Yan swept the halberd in his right hand; King Tasha’s great blade went flying. As the king clutched his wrist and staggered, the halberd in Wei Yan’s left hand crashed down upon his head.
Crunch!
The back of King Tasha’s skull shattered. He died at Wei Yan’s hand without even a last word. Having slain him in an instant, Wei Yan impaled the head on a spear shaft and held it high.
“King Tasha is dead! Surrender at once!!”
With the lord of Dulong Cave fallen, the soldiers manning the walls fell into chaos.
“Damn it all! We cannot be taken this easily!”
King Tasha’s death sent morale plunging. Meng Huo sensed the battle was lost. Before the Shu army could seize him, he tried to slip out of the fortress with Meng You and Dailai Dongzhu.
“Great King!”
“This way!”
Two generals came running at the head of troops.
“Dong Dona! Ah Huinan!”
“King Tasha is dead—this fortress will not hold much longer. We must hurry and—”
At that moment a blade pressed against Meng Huo’s throat.
“Wh-what is the meaning of this?”
The man holding the sword to the Man King’s neck was none other than Dong Dona.
“Seize them all!”
Ah Huinan ordered his soldiers; they seized Dailai Dongzhu and Meng You as well.
“You—you traitors! What are you doing?!”
“Is it not obvious?”
“We are merely making the choice that is best for Nanzhong.”
The soldiers under their command threw open the gates of Dulong Cave. The moment the gates swung wide, the Shu army poured in like a flood and took the fortress in an instant. The impregnable Dulong Cave of King Tasha, renowned throughout Nanzhong as an iron bastion, collapsed without resistance.
Dong Dona and Ah Huinan dragged Meng Huo before the Shu commanders. These two had been captured by Guan Suo in the first engagement and held separately from Meng Huo.
Afterward Zhuge Liang had treated them generously and instructed them to persuade Meng Huo for the sake of peace in Nanzhong. Yet Meng Huo had only boasted of his own might with lies, and had refused even to listen to talk of peace. Instead he had ordered them flogged for “disrupting discipline.”
Nursing that grudge, Dong Dona and Ah Huinan decided to submit to Zhuge Liang.
“Captured again, I see.”
At Zhuge Liang’s calm observation, Meng Huo ground his teeth and shouted,
“Khh—this is only because my own subordinates betrayed me!”
He cast a venomous glare at Dong Dona and Ah Huinan, who had gone over to Shu.
“This was not a fair fight! Give me one more chance!!”
“A man who speaks two ways with one mouth—have you no shame?”
Zhuge Liang frowned at Meng Huo’s stubborn display. Even Dong Dona and Ah Huinan, who had once served him, showed open disappointment. They had never imagined their former lord would demean himself so.
“It is unjust that we could not fight fairly!”
“…Very well. If that is what you desire, I shall grant you one more opportunity.”
Zhuge Liang still wished for Meng Huo’s complete submission, and so he released him once more. Freed yet again by Kongming’s mercy, Meng Huo fled toward Yunnan with his younger brother Meng You and Dailai Dongzhu.