To Yiling (5)
When flames rose in the forest the night before, the Shu camp had already taken stock of the situation.
Fortunately, the burning woods stood well clear of the main force, and the wind was blowing south, so the army itself suffered no harm.
They summoned the men who had raced into the Shu camp the previous night to report the fire.
"…So you're saying you spotted a Wu scout, tried to seize him, and that is how this happened?"
"Yes."
Guan Suo and Po Sanniang began their explanation before the assembled generals.
According to Guan Suo, they had been on their way to rejoin the Shu encampment when they discovered a Wu scout.
"He seemed to be approaching with the intent of setting fire to our supplies, and that is when he was spotted."
"Once he knew we had seen him, he set the forest alight in order to escape."
"…And what became of that scout?"
Liu Bei, who had been watching Guan Suo in silence, asked the question.
"I am ashamed to report that, in our haste to contain the flames before they spread, we let him slip away."
"What? So you failed to capture the man who meant to burn our stores?"
"Hold a moment. They lost him while fighting the fire."
When Zhen Shi moved to censure them, Yao Hua stepped in at once, taking Guan Suo's side.
"If they failed to catch the scout, does that not mean he has already taken the measure of our strengths and weaknesses?"
"That is not all. Without further explanation, who would believe a scout simply set a fire and fled?"
"Exactly. Is it not more likely they started the blaze themselves by accident, and are now blaming a scout to cover it up?"
With no hard proof at hand, the generals' suspicion thickened, and the atmosphere grew steadily uglier.
For some time now, many of them had resented the way Guan Suo—holding no real authority—kept inserting himself into the army's affairs. In their eyes, a man without notable achievements or rank was relying too heavily on connections, and it did not sit well with them.
But then—
"The one stroke of luck is that the wind was not blowing toward the main camp."
Li Shao, the officer in charge of supplies, observed that it was fortunate only the forest had burned and the army had been spared.
"Had the wind been from the west, and had the enemy launched a fire attack, the damage would have been beyond repair. Were we not warned of this very danger earlier?"
"…"
At those words, the generals who had been berating Guan Suo and Po Sanniang shut their mouths as tightly as clamshells.
Looking back, they had ignored Guan Suo's warning and grown careless about the threat of fire.
The night before, the wind had been blowing south, so the flames never reached the Shu main camp. That alone had allowed the soldiers to respond quickly and bring the blaze under control.
"If the wind had blown toward our camp, it would have been a disaster."
Feng Xi, who oversaw military administration, let out a long breath of relief. Though he did not show it, he had privately recognized how long months on the front had dulled their vigilance.
"…"
The generals who had been raising their voices fell silent one after another, stealing sidelong glances at Liu Bei's face.
Liu Bei closed his eyes without a word, as if lost in thought.
Just then, a voice called from outside the command tent.
"Your Majesty—Lord Fei Shi has arrived from Chengdu."
"…Fei Shi?"
"Yes. He says he has an urgent message for Your Majesty."
…At last.
Guan Suo felt a private wave of relief at Fei Shi's arrival. The timing could not have been better.
"Admit him."
"Fei Shi—what brings you here?"
"The Prime Minister has a message he bade me deliver to Your Majesty."
"The Prime Minister?"
Before setting out for Yiling, Guan Suo had sent Zhuge Liang a letter in much the same fashion as the one he had written concerning Guan Xing. The difference was that this letter had voiced his fear that Liu Bei, blinded by the thirst for revenge, might play straight into Wu's hands.
He had warned that Wu might use a fire stratagem to annihilate their forces, and had asked that someone be sent ahead to inspect the army's encampment.
Fei Shi glanced briefly toward Guan Suo, then conveyed Zhuge Liang's words to Liu Bei.
"Yes. The Prime Minister instructed me to examine the disposition of the camps here and to speak plainly."
"He said that stretching the army out through the forests is terrain ideally suited to a fire attack, and that the camps must be withdrawn."
At Fei Shi's report, the generals' eyes went wide. Liu Bei swallowed a low sound and closed his eyes once more.
When I said it, they treated me like a dog—but of course. The weight of a word depends on who speaks it.
These were not the words of just anyone. They came from Zhuge Liang, the man who had laid the foundations of Shu itself. However determined Liu Bei had been to force this war upon Wu, he trusted Zhuge Liang completely—and he could not refuse him.
"If Your Majesty's resolve to strike Wu has not faltered, then the Prime Minister asks that you withdraw the army to Zigui."
"…I understand."
Liu Bei, who so often closed his ears to others, listened when the man he called his fish-and-water companion spoke.
"You were right after all."
Liu Bei looked sidelong at Guan Suo and murmured the words with a bitter smile.
"As the Prime Minister advises, we will move the main camp to Zigui."
"Your Majesty!"
"We beg Your Majesty to reconsider!"
"If we return without even reclaiming Jing Province, the world will laugh at us!"
Zhang Bao, who had joined the campaign to avenge his father, and several of the more hard-line officers raised their voices in opposition. From their perspective, they had not been defeated by Wu—so the order to pull back left them stunned and confused.
"Do not be disordered! This is only a temporary withdrawal."
Liu Bei's hand trembled.
"I, too, find it hard to accept that I must fall back and leave my enemy Lu Xun untouched."
Zhuge Liang's persuasion had finally brought him to order the retreat—yet some corner of his heart still refused to yield.
"We will reorganize the army at Zigui until autumn, and only then decide what comes next."
As he ordered the withdrawal to Zigui, Liu Bei also dispatched messengers to Huang Quan, who was watching the Wei forces to the north, and to Fu Rong and Shamoke, who were assaulting Yidu, commanding them to return.
At that, the generals who had opposed him bowed their heads and received the order.
So he still hasn't given up the thought of revenge…
In Liu Bei's face, Guan Suo could still see the grudge and the lingering attachment.
In the Eastern Wu camp as well, reports of the previous night's events came in.
"It appears one of our scouts was discovered, and in the course of fleeing set fire to the forest."
Han Dang frowned in puzzlement.
"What are you talking about? We sent no scouts into the enemy camp yesterday."
"I am only repeating what was heard in the Shu camp."
Word followed that the Shu army was striking its camps in the forest and pulling back toward Zigui.
Lu Xun drummed his fingers on the table, lost in thought.
Setting fire to an enemy's supplies before launching a proper fire attack only heightens their vigilance.
Has someone read my play?
Liu Bei, who had started this war in a blind fury and could barely tell right from wrong, was hardly the man to have seen through Lu Xun's design. And Zhuge Liang, the reputed genius of strategy, had not even taken part in this campaign.
They say Ma Liang—the so-called White Eyebrows, that gifted man of Jing Province—is with the Shu army. Did he read my mind?
Or… did someone inside Shu deliberately set the fire? No. That is absurd.
It was pure conjecture. Shu had not been bought over by Wu, and who would deliberately set fire to a forest near their own main force? They did not even know a fire attack was coming. How could they?
In any case, pressing ahead with the original fire stratagem has become… awkward.
With the nearby woods already ablaze, Shu's wariness of fire had only sharpened—and now they were withdrawing their camps.
The generals' anger, which had cooled somewhat when word of a delayed offensive first arrived, boiled up again.
"The Shu army is striking camp and preparing to withdraw!"
"Is that not a good thing? Has Your Lordship not sought to avoid a fight with Shu?"
Luo Tong did not see the present turn as a misfortune. That Liu Bei—who had steeled himself for a fight to the death—was now falling back meant something in his thinking had shifted.
Sun Quan had betrayed his ally Shu and seized Jing Province. Worse, he had taken Guan Yu's head, earning Liu Bei's rage and lighting the fuse of this war. Yet to fight Shu while Wei watched like a wolf from the side placed a heavy burden on Wu. That was why Sun Quan desired peace with Shu.
"Might we not seize this chance to send another envoy and reestablish diplomatic relations with Shu?"
As a civil official, he floated the idea of reconciliation. The more martial of Wu's generals opposed it with heat.
"What nonsense is that? Have you no pride? What of all the generals of ours who have already died?!"
Shu had lost Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Huang Zhong, and others—but Wu had bled just as freely. The fierce Gan Ning, once ranked alongside Zhang Liao himself; the capable Pan Zhang; and men like Tan Xiong, Xie Jing, and Li Yi—all had fallen in the war with Shu. Simply letting the enemy go after being battered by them was more than their pride would allow.
"And do you think Liu Bei is the sort of man to give up so easily? If we simply let him leave, he will reorganize his army and strike Jing Province again!"
Han Dang did not believe that a man of Liu Bei's deep affections would quietly abandon vengeance for Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.
"You are not wrong."
Lu Xun agreed with Han Dang.
If Liu Bei had been capable of surrendering the revenge of his sworn brothers, he would already have accepted the peace offer that included the return of Jing Province. The present movement of the Shu army was almost certainly an attempt to shift camps—to escape the heat that bred heatstroke, and to avoid a fire attack.
"Then you will permit us to pursue Liu Bei?"
"No. After last night, the enemy's guard will be at its highest. They will have laid ambushes as well."
Whether the story of the scout was true or not, the main Shu force had been thoroughly alerted.
"So you mean to simply let the Shu army go?"
Liu A grumbled that the words did not add up.
"That is not what I mean. I am only changing direction."
Lu Xun had planned to annihilate them with fire. When a variable intervened, he adjusted his course.
"I will revise the strategy and defeat the Shu forces piece by piece while they are dispersed."
When one move is blocked, one simply makes the next.
"Send word to Generals Zhu Ran and Xu Sheng. Order them to move their forces near Ma'an Mountain."
If they simply allowed Shu to withdraw, the blade would only be turned toward Wu again later.
We must deal them one solid defeat—show them that Wu is not so easily handled.
Even if peace were to be made, that would come after.
"And send word as well to Zhou Tai and Ding Feng, who command the naval forces."
Lu Xun's eyes flashed cold and sharp as steel.
"We will first annihilate the force that has surrounded Yidu."
Having revised his strategy, Lu Xun resolved to begin by relieving Yidu—where he had, until now, sent no reinforcements.