Huaman (1)
Meng Huo and his family were dragged before Zhuge Liang and made to kneel.
Having watched even the Rattan Armor Army crumple before the fire attack, they looked as though their souls had fled their bodies.
All of this is thanks to Feng Xi.
I turned my gaze toward him. He stood at Zhuge Liang's side with a solemn expression, holding his post. A man who had once served as Grand Commander, Feng Xi had methodically dismantled every faction still friendly to Meng Huo. Isolated on all sides, with even his stronghold fallen, Meng Huo no longer had the means to raise another army.
That was why he had so hastily called upon King Mulu and Wutugu for aid. And now, with even the Rattan Armor Army—his last remaining hope—defeated, Meng Huo had lost every force capable of mounting a recovery.
...I figured he'd surrender, now that there's nowhere left in the Nanman lands to raise troops.
Yet there was something forced about the way Meng Huo knelt. A fierce defiance still burned in his eyes. Between the Han people and the foreign tribes lay a bitterness that was not easily bridged.
Is it because we never went as far as the Seven Captures?
In the original history, Meng Huo only submitted after being captured seven times. Through defeat after defeat he had stubbornly risen again like a weed, until at last he was moved by Zhuge Liang's magnanimous character and pledged his allegiance. This time, however, he had been beaten only four times or so—and the rebellious fire in him still burned strong.
"We've nowhere left to go, so I'll surrender."
Meng Huo had never settled on an answer to the question Zhurong had put to him before.
"But mark my words. I have no intention of bowing to the Han like this—"
"Father."
Someone cut him off just as he was laying bare his resentment toward the Han people.
"Father, it's time you gave it up. This wretched display is unworthy of a warrior of Nanzhong."
The speaker was Huaman, princess of the Nanman. She let out a deep sigh and looked upon her father with eyes that all but condemned him.
"H-Huaman. How can you..."
A look of betrayal crossed Meng Huo's face at the sight of a daughter who would not take his side.
"We have lost completely. Admit defeat cleanly."
Even Meng Huo, who had been putting on such a shameless front, reeled at the sting of his beloved daughter's words.
"W-why? We aren't dead yet."
"We're alive, and that's all. There is no path left to us. Isn't that so?"
"..."
Huaman's words struck like a blade between the ribs, and Meng Huo had no reply. He no longer had a foundation from which to raise an army, nor the standing to gather men to his banner. The general Feng Xi had already accepted the surrender of Yang Feng and the other tribal chiefs. The great powers of Nanzhong—King Duosi, King Mulu, and Wutugu among them—had all been broken.
Had those men still harbored resentment toward the Shu army, they might have been stirred to revolt. But the Nanman soldiers held as prisoners had been so moved by Zhuge Liang's benevolent rule that they showed not the slightest will to fight him. In the truest sense, Meng Huo's foundation had been stripped away. He had neither troops nor factions left to his name.
"Huaman's right. How long do you intend to keep being stubborn?"
Zhurong, who had been listening from the side, scolded her husband as well.
"...You think so too?"
"Honestly, I'm not happy we lost like this either."
Genuine bitterness was written across Zhurong's face. Before they had faced Zhuge Liang, she too had been of the mind that they should resist Shu to the bitter end.
"But think about our family's future."
The longer they resisted, the more they would earn their enemy's ill will. Meng Huo and Zhurong had a daughter. If they scorned their enemy's mercy and repaid kindness with treachery, what would become of that daughter's name?
Meng Huo chewed his lip, turning Zhurong's words over in his mind.
...Fine. What's done is done. I have to face it.
He let go of the resolve that had driven him to resist Shu to the last. Ambition had lived in his heart—a desire to pacify Yi Province and claim it for his own. But it was equally true that no path remained. He lived by the law of the strong devouring the weak, yet he was still the King of the Man, sovereign of Nanzhong. What a king of the Man owed his people was peace and stability. Instead, his own stubbornness had been driving the people of Nanzhong toward ruin. The resentment for that would fall not only on him, but on his daughter as well.
"...I'm sorry. All of you."
Having recognized his own fault, Meng Huo apologized to the family who had suffered for his sake.
"Forgive me, Prime Minister. My thinking was shortsighted. It seems I've been far too stubborn."
In Nanzhong, a single defeat meant death. By that measure, a man captured four times should have been long since dead.
"You may strip me of my throne if you wish. I only ask that you use your influence to see that no harm comes to my family."
Meng Huo bowed his head to Zhuge Liang, apologizing for every discourtesy he had committed. He had resisted with the shamelessness of a man who knew no shame—but he was not a man without honor. He had given Zhuge Liang every reason to put him to death, and so he lowered his head and made his plea.
"There is no need for that."
Zhuge Liang laid a gentle hand on Meng Huo's shoulder.
"...Prime Minister."
Meng Huo, who had steeled himself for punishment after all the offenses he had committed, stared with his eyes wide.
"Continue to govern Nanzhong well."
"You have my gratitude, Prime Minister."
Deeply moved by Zhuge Liang's generous pardon, Meng Huo bowed his head.
Zhurong and the rest of Meng Huo's family bowed their heads along with him.
Having pledged his allegiance to Shu, Meng Huo returned to Yunnan. The people of the Nanman welcomed him home. The war had exacted a heavy toll, but when all was said and done, Meng Huo was still the King of Nanzhong. The prestige of a man who had united countless tribal chiefs and led them as one could not be dismissed.
This is why Zhuge Liang brought Meng Huo to heel.
Even the other tribal chiefs who had been held as prisoners, still insisting on a fight to the end, heard of Meng Huo's decision and at last resolved to submit to Shu as well.
"Shu is our neighbor and our friend! Anyone who scorns them or treats them as an enemy will answer to me!!"
Zhuge Liang and Meng Huo hosted a banquet to reconcile soldiers whose hearts still carried the bitterness of war. Those who had at first hung back, watching one another for cues, began to lift their cups one by one. Zhuge Liang sat facing Meng Huo. Zhao Yun took up a place at the Prime Minister's side, ready for any unforeseen trouble.
As they shared their wine, Zhuge Liang made Meng Huo a proposal.
"Shu wishes to expand its trade with Nanzhong, and to receive military assistance as well. Naturally, we intend to pay a full and fair price."
Shu's productive power was formidable, and its stores of goods were rich. The silk of Yi Province—Shu brocade—was famed throughout the land as a treasure of the highest grade. Wu coveted it, and even the hostile state of Wei would pay dearly for it; its worth was beyond imagining. Zhuge Liang meant to sell it to the nations beyond Nanzhong and reap still greater profit.
"It shall be done."
The arrangement was no hardship for Meng Huo either. Through exchange with Shu, his own people could advance their crafts and techniques. Before returning to Shu, Zhuge Liang promised to set Nanzhong's facilities and education in order.
"What worries me is our Man soldiers being folded into the Shu army."
Zhuge Liang, who had long coveted the formidable stamina of the Man peoples, planned to relocate ten thousand households to Shu for the sake of harmony between the two nations. They would be organized as a specialized unit, much like Shu's own White Ear Troops or Wei's Tiger and Leopard Cavalry—the Wudang Flying Army. Zhuge Liang intended to raise a new corps of elite soldiers in preparation for the northern campaigns.
"I share that concern, I confess..."
Trust between the two nations was only now being built. It would take a considerable stretch of time before the Man soldiers could fully answer to the command of Shu's generals.
"I have an idea."
Huaman cut into the conversation between Meng Huo and Zhuge Liang.
"What is it, Huaman?"
"I will enter the Wudang Flying Army as its adjutant and help lead the troops."
"You?"
"Yes. If I, a princess of Nanzhong, stand among them, the two armies can be brought together."
If she distinguished herself as an officer of Shu, she argued, she could blunt the prejudiced gazes that the Han and the Man still turned upon each other.
"I never knew you cared so deeply for Nanzhong."
Meng Huo looked at his daughter with a trust he had not shown her before.
"It would serve our purposes as well."
With a princess of Nanzhong residing in Shu, the distance between the two nations would close all the faster.
"But I ask that you grant me one request."
"A request? What might that be?"
Zhuge Liang asked her this in a courteous tone.
"To bind the friendship between Nanzhong and Shu, I ask for a marriage."
At the words that left her mouth, every soul at the banquet fell silent. Her father Meng Huo's jaw dropped like a hippo's; he could not conceal his shock.
"A political marriage? Don't tell us she means to marry the Crown Prince?!"
"That's absurd!"
It was the generals of Shu who broke the silence. Naturally, given Huaman's standing as a princess of Nanzhong, they assumed her intended was Liu Shan. Princess of Nanzhong or not, Liu Shan was already betrothed to Zhang Fei's daughter—and privately, none of them liked the thought of a foreign tribeswoman carrying the seed of the royal house.
The tribes of Nanzhong were not about to sit still in the face of such fierce opposition from the Shu officers.
"What did you say?! Are you telling me my daughter isn't fit to be Crown Princess?!"
"Are you insulting Princess Huaman?!"
Meng Huo and the tribal chiefs rose to their feet, grinding their teeth. The warm, convivial atmosphere collapsed toward disaster in an instant. The air turned so sharp it seemed they might draw blades on one another at any moment.
"Excuse me—who said anything about a political marriage with the Crown Prince of Shu?"
Of everyone present, the coolest head belonged to the woman at the center of it all. Huaman muttered as though she could scarcely believe what she was hearing.
"I have no intention of marrying His Highness the Crown Prince."
Huaman had heard the rumors about Shu's heir. A frail prince without a scrap of spirit. A bearing and a character that fell far short of Liu Bei, whose name as a sage ruler rang across the land. There was not a single quality in him that Huaman found appealing. She had enough sense, of course, not to say any of that out loud.
"I-is that so? Then who do you intend to marry?"
At Meng Huo's question, Huaman's finger pointed toward a general sitting quietly in the corner, drinking his wine. It was none other than Guan Suo.
"That man. Guan Suo, was it?"
Ever since she had first faced him, Huaman had been fixated on Guan Suo. In all of Nanzhong there was no young man whose martial skill surpassed her own—until him. His striking features and solid build had pleased her as well. And above all else, there was the way he had mastered Red Hare in a single attempt, a horse she herself had struggled so hard to tame.
At Huaman's words, a hush settled over the camp. I was every bit as stunned as the rest of them.
She came charging at me talking about using me as a breeding stallion, and now she wants this...?
A sharp crack shattered the silence.
The sound had come from Po Sanniang's hand—she had been drinking at Guan Suo's side. The cup she held had burst apart, and the wine it contained spilled across the floor. A heavy shadow fell across her eyes, and they gleamed with a killing light.