Four Captures, Four Releases (4)
"Bwahaha!! Looks like even the Shu army can't pull their clever little tricks against the Rattan Armor Army!!"
Wutugu and his Rattan Armor Army, riding a streak of unbroken victories, were swollen with pride. Seven battles. Seven wins. Every time the Shu forces met them in open combat, they failed to withstand that ferocious momentum and fled. The Shu even abandoned their camps as they ran, leaving their military supplies for Wutugu's men to claim as a matter of course. The people of Wuguo lived primarily on game, but now they had army grain enough to eat their fill.
"Just ride out and fight, and we win. It's almost too easy."
In the past, heeding Meng Huo's counsel, Wutugu had been wary of Shu's intentions. But watching them lose and flee every single time, he had come to scorn the Shu army as a pack of cowards and treated them with open contempt.
"Your Majesty!"
Tuo An, one of his subordinate officers, came running up to him.
"What is it?"
"Shu's supply train has entered a gorge."
Wutugu's brow furrowed at the report.
"A gorge?"
"Yes, sire. They've gone into Banshe Valley."
"Banshe Valley..."
A place where a single narrow path wound between steep cliffs.
"Your Majesty, it looks like they've piled their military supplies into a mountain in there!"
"Lead the army at once and seize it all!"
Drunk on their own pride, Tuo An and Hai Ni had greed glittering in both eyes. Having already captured so many supplies, their avarice had been thoroughly stoked.
"Very well. This time, we will annihilate the Shu army for good!"
Stroking his beard, Wutugu made his decision. He led the Rattan Armor Army toward Banshe Valley.
"Wutugu, you bastard! Do you even know where you've come?!"
Wei Yan blocked their path with his troops. Wutugu shouted as if he were thoroughly sick of the man.
"You again?! I've got no time for cowards!!"
Meng Huo had told him Wei Yan was an outstanding warrior, but the man only ever ran away. There was no thrill of rivalry to be had. Just as expected, Wei Yan fled into the gorge. Having driven Wei Yan's forces back, Wutugu and the Rattan Armor Army pursued them with savage intensity.
The deeper they went into Banshe Valley, the narrower it became.
How far are they going?
Suspicion began to creep through Wutugu's greed-clouded mind.
"Your Majesty! Look over there!"
Where Hai Ni pointed, grain was piled as high as a mountain — a quantity that dwarfed everything they had captured before.
"The military supplies are stacked like a mountain over there!"
The Rattan Armor Army cheered, but Wutugu felt something was off.
Something's not right.
Why would they leave such an incomparable hoard of grain completely unguarded? Unlike his soldiers, who approached in high spirits, Wutugu felt a growing unease. And then that unease became reality.
A thunderous crash echoed through the gorge. Then another, and another — massive, successive detonations of stone against stone.
"C-catapults!!"
Heavy boulders plummeted from the cliff tops toward the Rattan Armor Army.
"Damn it! It's a trap!"
Wutugu's face hardened. He tried to order a retreat, but by the time he understood, it was already a step too late. Fire arrows rained down like lightning upon the Rattan Armor Army isolated inside Banshe Valley. They struck the grain stores and the wooden crates, and through the oil the flames spread far and wide.
KWA-AANG!!
The fire that leaped across ignited the gunpowder packed inside the wooden crates. A wave of flame surged outward in an instant. Wutugu and his thirty thousand rattan-armored soldiers were swallowed by the raging inferno. Banshe Valley became a sea of fire in the blink of an eye.
"GRAAAAH—!!"
"S-save me!"
Swept up in the ferocious firestorm, the Rattan Armor Army screamed in agony. Their armor — rattan coated in fragrant oil and left to dry — was fatally vulnerable to flame. Soldiers whose entire bodies were wreathed in fire thrashed and thrashed until they died.
"L-let us out!!"
Those who had not yet caught fire tried to escape the gorge, but falling rocks had already sealed the way out. It was a scene that called to mind a painting of hell itself. From atop the cliffs, the Shu army watched the Rattan Armor Army descend into pandemonium.
Wei Yan's feigned retreat had been crucial to making this work.
To that end, Wei Yan had clashed with Wutugu's forces time and again, deliberately fleeing each engagement, drawing the enemy all the way into Banshe Valley. Having heard of Shu's lure tactics from Meng Huo, Wutugu had been cautious at first. But after winning so many battles, he had fallen into arrogance without even realizing it. The price of that pride — of pushing so deep into enemy territory — was steep.
Though they were the enemy, some of the officers, Po Sanniang among them, found the sight of men dying so mercilessly hard to watch, and turned their faces away. For a long while they stood there, watching the rattan-armored soldiers perish in the flames.
Then thunder rolled across the sky, and the Shu army's eyes turned upward. Droplets began to fall, one by one, and before long the rain was pouring down in sheets.
...Rain?
"Prime Minister, it's raining!"
The sudden downpour startled the generals into shouting, but Zhuge Liang remained perfectly calm.
"I am aware."
He had learned from Nanman soldiers that showers came at this time of year. Zhuge Liang had studied astrology in his youth and knew how to read the heavens. Just as he had once determined when the trade winds would shift southeast at the Battle of Red Cliffs, he had predicted the weather this time as well before launching the fire attack.
...Has history changed because the southern campaign concluded faster than before?
Originally, no rain would have fallen, and the Rattan Armor Army below would have been annihilated to the last man. Guan Suo recalled how, in that other history, Zhuge Liang had lamented in bitter self-reproach — that wiping out the seed of Wuguo and destroying an entire nation had been an act of unconscionable cruelty.
"Prime Minister, if you knew the rain was coming, why launch the fire attack on this of all days?"
Wei Yan, watching the rain fall, asked with genuine puzzlement. Had the shower come even a little earlier and soaked the gunpowder, all the damage they had so painstakingly prepared would have been greatly reduced. Every deliberate defeat he had suffered would have been for nothing.
"Wouldn't it have been better to use this chance to wipe them out to the last man?"
Having clashed with the Rattan Armor Army so many times, Wei Yan knew well how dangerous they were. He could not understand why Zhuge Liang wanted to spare them.
It could be seen as a contradiction. But Zhuge Liang, trapped in a situation where war was unavoidable, was pursuing the most moderate course he could find.
The pouring rain began to quench the flames that had been raging through Banshe Valley. As the fire receded, the state of the gorge — previously hidden by smoke and flame — came into view.
"...Urrrgh."
The rattan-armored soldiers who had survived numbered fewer than a few hundred. No — surviving that hell of fire at all was remarkable enough. Zhuge Liang ordered the survivors brought before him.
Wutugu, King of Wuguo, had barely clung to life. The heavy rain had saved him, but he was far from intact. Sensing something ominous, he had hastily thrown off his rattan armor, yet he had not escaped the flames entirely. Half his upper body was charred black. He had also badly injured his legs falling from his elephant.
"...I... I surrender."
Wutugu, who only yesterday had been overflowing with confidence, had lost all will to fight. His subordinate officers, Tuo An and Hai Ni, blinded by greed, had approached the crates packed with gunpowder and paid the price. When Wutugu looked up, he could see the archers waiting on the cliff tops. Having thrown off his rattan armor to escape the fire, he had no way to stop their arrows. Unlike him, his two officers had not even left corpses behind.
"May I take it that you have no further intention of standing against us?"
"...Of course."
Seeing the once-boastful Wutugu so thoroughly broken, Zhuge Liang nodded. A few hundred wounded men, even wearing rattan armor, could do them no harm.
"Treat the survivors among the Rattan Armor Army and confine them in the prison."
"Yes, Prime Minister."
The soldiers took the remaining few hundred rattan-armored men as prisoners. It had taken considerable time, but through all the twists and turns, they had at last succeeded in defeating even the Rattan Armor Army.
"The end of the southern campaign is coming into view."
Zhuge Liang turned his gaze toward where the Nanman main camp lay. What remained was Meng Huo, King of the Nanman. Just one man. The end of the long southern expedition was beginning to show itself.
The Nanman encampment stood several dozen li away.
"...There's been no word from King Wutugu."
Meng Huo's legs trembled as he paced, unable to sit still.
"Brother, why are you so restless?"
Meng You asked, watching his anxious older brother.
"If things were as usual, a victory report would have arrived by now. Of course I'm uneasy."
...He hasn't fallen for Kongming's schemes, has he?
Zhuge Liang had routed Nanman forces with a wide array of tactics. The thought flickered through Meng Huo's mind that even those days of consecutive defeats might themselves have been part of a strategy.
"Brother!"
Lost in thought, Meng Huo turned at his younger brother's call.
"What is it?"
"What's that smoke?"
From the gorge where the Rattan Armor Army had gone, a pale plume of smoke was rising into the sky.
"What kind of smoke is that?"
The Meng family was staring in puzzlement at the acrid smoke billowing from Banshe Valley when a shout cut through the camp.
"Your Majesty!! A messenger has arrived from the Rattan Armor Army!"
"What?"
At the news that the messenger he had been waiting for had finally come, Meng Huo started walking at once.
"What's the report?"
"King Wutugu has succeeded in driving the Shu army into a corner!"
Meng Huo's eyes went wide.
"Is that true?"
"Yes, sire. He set fire to Shu's grain stores in Banshe Valley, and the enemy's formation has collapsed!"
So the smoke from Banshe Valley is from burning their grain!
Meng Huo's face brightened at the good news.
"And what is King Wutugu doing now?"
"He has driven the enemy commander into a corner and formed an encirclement. The enemy is resisting stubbornly, but they won't last much longer."
At last. At last, they had defeated Zhuge Liang. Meng Huo felt the rims of his eyes grow hot. The thought of paying back every humiliation he had suffered made all the hardship fade away.
This is no time to stand around!
Shaking off his reverie, Meng Huo asked the messenger:
"Where? I'll go myself and help King Wutugu capture Zhuge Liang!"
"Wait, Your Majesty!"
"Father, we can't rule out the possibility that this is a trap."
Zhurong and Huaman suspected this was an enemy ruse. But Wutugu was not the only one who had grown arrogant after seeing the Rattan Armor Army's victories.
"I understand your caution. But if we miss this chance, Zhuge Liang will die at King Wutugu's hands."
Meng Huo wanted nothing more than to force Zhuge Liang to his knees and repay every humiliation he had endured. Unable to contain the emotion surging through him, he led his troops out.
They had not gone far before a rain of arrows poured down upon them.
"Wh-what!?"
Meng Huo swatted the arrows aside in bewilderment.
"It's Meng Huo!"
Soldiers who had been lying in ambush to capture him revealed themselves.
"Kongming's trap?!"
Zhurong and Huaman's faces hardened.
...Have we been played again?
Realizing they had been deceived, the Meng family tried to retreat to their main camp. But flames were already rising from the very encampment they had just left. While the Meng family was away, infantry led by Zhang Nan and Cheng Ji had stormed the camp.
"The enemy has already reached our camp?!"
As they milled about in confusion, Shu generals began appearing one after another.
"This is as far as you go, Meng Huo!"
Zhao Yun, clad in silver armor, blocked Meng Huo's path with three hundred cavalry.
"I'll hold them here — get out first!"
"Mother?!"
"W-wait, my queen!!"
Before Meng Huo and Huaman could stop her, Zhurong charged out to fight Zhao Yun. Hurling her throwing daggers, she threw everything she had into holding him at bay.
"...Damn it!!"
Meng Huo could not bring himself to leave his beloved wife behind. Caught between staying and going, he was about to join her against Zhao Yun when a voice cut across the field.
"Meng Huo! This time, it ends!!"
A general astride a red horse cut him off. Meng Huo's expression hardened with resolve as he adjusted his grip on his axe.
"Daughter. I'll handle this, so—"
"Guan Suo!"
Before Meng Huo could finish, Huaman charged out.
"We never settled things last time!"
Huaman thrust her spear at Guan Suo. He reacted to the javelin flying at him like a bolt of light, swinging his Guandao to meet it.
CLANG!
"You already know from our last bout, don't you?"
Guan Suo muttered evenly, raising his Guandao high.
"You're no match for me."
The Guandao came down over Huaman's head like a thunderbolt.
CLANG!
Meng Huo barely managed to intercept the lightning-fast blow, planting his axe shaft at a right angle.
"Nngh!"
He had just managed to insert himself between the two of them. The crushing weight made the shaft feel as though it would buckle. Sweating coldly, Meng Huo knocked the Guandao aside.
"Hah!"
The opening appeared, and Huaman drove her spear at Guan Suo.
"Not a chance!"
Po Sanniang, who had been following Guan Suo, burst in and blocked the spear as well. With four people now engaged, the fight naturally settled into two-on-two.
"GRAAAAH! Don't you dare underestimate the King of the Man!"
True to his title as King of the Southern Barbarians, Meng Huo displayed a raw strength that did not yield to Guan Suo. A harsh whistle of displaced air tore past their ears as he swung his axe in every direction, pressing Guan Suo hard. Guandao and axe collided again and again, each impact booming across the field.
Guan Suo narrowed his eyes, reading the trajectory of the incoming axe.
The head.
He had been about to swing his Guandao to meet the descending axe — then tilted the shaft at an angle instead. The axe blade rushing at his skull scraped along the shaft, its path forcibly diverted. With a motion as fluid as flowing water, he had successfully deflected Meng Huo's strike. The seasoned technique he had learned from Zhao Yun was paying off.
"What?!"
Meng Huo's center of gravity pitched forward. Guan Suo did not miss the opening that collapse created. He reversed his grip on the Guandao and swung. The shaft smashed down on Meng Huo's wrist, knocking the axe from his hand.
"Gah!"
As Meng Huo clutched his wrist and groaned, the Guandao leveled at him.
"G-go on, kill me!!"
Meng Huo shouted, clinging to his pride to the last. Guan Suo's eyes turned cold at the sight—
"Wait!!"
As the Guandao pointed at Meng Huo's throat, Huaman, who had witnessed it, called Guan Suo off.
"We've lost."
Zhurong, her throwing daggers spent, had been subdued by Zhao Yun as well. Their main camp had fallen. The Rattan Armor Army had been defeated. There was no one left to call for help. Shu troops were deployed on all sides, forming an encirclement that even wings could not have escaped.
Huaman, who had been exchanging blows with Po Sanniang, discarded her spear.
"We'll surrender. Spare my father's life."
Once more, the Meng family fell into Zhuge Liang's hands.