The Battle of Ma'an Mountain (2)
The Wu army, which had stood immovable through every provocation, finally took the field.
When the fire attack failed, Lu Xun revised his strategy and began to move with cunning precision. After confirming there were no ambushes waiting for him, he pursued the Shu forces that had withdrawn as far as Ma'an Mountain.
Even so, Wu did not strike first. For several days the two armies simply faced each other across the field, locked in a stalemate.
Then the Wu soldiers started raising walls and building fortifications. Judging that the enemy meant to dig in and hold a defensive line, the Shu commanders moved to stop them.
After a stretch of stifling heat broke into the rainy season, Du Lu and Liu Ning launched a night raid on the Wu camp—only for Lu Xun, who had anticipated the attack, to drive them back in defeat. Daytime feints and lures met the same indifference; Wu would not so much as glance at the bait.
With one stratagem after another torn apart, a war council was finally convened. As Guan Xing's adjutant, I was permitted to attend. Whether it was the blood of the Guan line or simple good fortune, my wounds had nearly closed.
But can I truly fight on the front line?
I had been living an ordinary modern life when I suddenly found myself reincarnated as Guan Suo—and the first thing waiting for me when I opened my eyes was the catastrophe of the Battle of Yiling. I had raced here driven by a single resolve: to stop the disaster however I could. Whether I was actually capable of fighting was another question entirely.
Every time I swung a weapon, the motions still felt awkward and foreign. Now that war stood right before me, my mouth went dry with nerves.
I expected this much… but still.
I kept my face carefully blank, yet my hands trembled in tiny, traitorous spasms, and cold sweat traced the length of my spine. Guan Suo's memories had poured into me, but that did not make me the same man.
"…Hmph. You wrote those high-and-mighty letters, and now you're scared?"
A few of the generals cast me open sneers—Chen Shi and Du Lu among them, men who had argued from the start that Wu must be met in battle. My counsel had pulled the army clear of the fire attack, but they had never lived through that nightmare themselves, so they dismissed the danger as overblown caution.
Fair enough. From a soldier's point of view, we were winning—and I was the one who made them turn the army around.
I could hardly take offense at a little grumbling.
"Forgive me. I took a wound in the recent fighting, and it seems my body has not quite settled."
I offered the excuse lightly and watched the mood of the tent. Inside the Shu camp the debate had split cleanly in two: those who demanded an immediate assault, and those who wanted to hold the line and wait.
"We must strike Wu at once. They are building fortresses against our advance."
Once siege engines were in place and the walls finished, any assault would become a bloody grind.
"Exactly. The Northern Expedition General's forces have joined us, and the enemy sits right under our noses—how can you still counsel delay?"
Zhao Rong turned on Ma Liang with open bewilderment. No word had yet come from Fu Rong or Shamoke, but Huang Quan's army—posted to the north to watch for Wei—had already linked up with the main force. With his arrival, the soldiers camped under Shu's banners numbered eighty thousand. The enemy's strength was estimated at a mere twenty thousand.
"And the terrain favors us, does it not?"
Shu troops trained among steep mountains excelled at highland warfare. A single concentrated blow, the generals believed, could shatter the enemy's command standards and annihilate them in one swift stroke. Shu had never yet lost to Wu in open battle; that confidence ran deep.
"Lu Xun saw through both our night raid and our lures. His insight is formidable. We must not dismiss him."
Ma Liang urged caution, but the generals' patience had already worn thin.
"What is this Lu Xun, that we should fear him so?"
Zhuge Liang had warned of a fire attack, and the danger had been real enough—but whether Lu Xun would ever have carried it out remained unknowable. To the Shu officers, Lu Xun was simply a clever, cautious youth inflated by reputation.
"This place is nothing but rock and mountain. And with the rain two days ago, a fire attack would be nearly impossible."
Chen Shi leveled a hard stare at me as he spoke. Because of the fire-attack warning, an army riding a wave of unbroken victories had been forced to pull back from Yiling. The resentment of several commanders now settled squarely on my shoulders.
"In open-field experience, we hold the advantage."
"Agreed."
Liu Ning and Du Lu insisted that even if a trap existed, the head of Wu's Chief Commander was worth the risk.
"We have Guan Xing and Zhang Bao. What is there to fear that we would refuse to fight?"
Guan Xing and Zhang Bao, who had carved through the enemy ranks and taken enemy heads, commanded a trust I simply did not. I had won no battle honors of my own; the army had withdrawn on the strength of Zhuge Liang's letter alone.
"It is true Lu Xun shows himself only before us and never seizes the initiative."
He merely dogged the rear of the Shu army as it moved toward Ma'an Mountain.
"Yet there is design in every move they make. The way they goad us is unmistakably a lure."
They even let cooking smoke rise from their camp, testing the generals' endurance. It was the exact reverse of the situation at Yiling, when Shu had been the one baiting Wu.
"They have too few troops for a proper lure. Where could they possibly have hidden ambushers?"
Scouts had searched; aside from the force that had marched out of Yiling, not so much as a puff of dust had been seen.
"No word has come from Fu Rong and Shamoke at Yidu. Could Wu have struck there?"
Those two, the officers assumed, could have escaped by ship once the order to withdraw was given. Huang Quan had joined them—yet from Fu Rong's side, no messenger had arrived.
"They may already be caught in a trap and hard-pressed."
"Then all the more reason to smash Lu Xun's army at once and ride to their rescue."
The Shu generals shouted that they should march immediately and take Lu Xun's head. The head of Wu's Chief Commander was a prize worth more than the lives of thousands of ordinary soldiers.
"I have decided."
Liu Bei, who had watched the council in silence, finally spoke.
"…We will strike Lu Xun."
"Your Majesty!"
Ma Liang stared at him, stunned.
"Did Your Majesty not say you would withdraw to Zigui and reorganize the army, just as the Prime Minister advised?"
Ma Liang invoked Zhuge Liang's counsel, trying to hold him back.
"We left the forests and pulled the army back, as the Prime Minister said. But he never told us not to fight, did he?"
Ma Liang and Huang Quan bit their lips. It was true. Zhuge Liang had warned of the fire attack and ordered a withdrawal; he had never once forbidden battle itself.
"My sworn enemy has come out into the open—how can I turn away? And the fire attack you all feared is useless now, is it not?"
The smoldering coals of Liu Bei's rage began to flare again. He had stepped back for a time at Zhuge Liang's word, but the man responsible for Guan Yu's death stood before him, and the old fury was rising beyond his control.
Anyone would struggle to keep his reason when the murderer of his family stood within reach. The knowledge that the architect of his sworn brothers' deaths was here, before his eyes, cracked the restraint he had forced upon himself—and his emotions erupted once more.
While Liu Bei poured out his wrath against Lu Xun and the advisers fretted, Guan Suo sat deep in thought.
…Lu Xun would never set his camp without a reason.
In the chronicles of the Three Kingdoms he ranked among the greatest commanders ever to lead an army. The depths of that mind remained opaque.
Is he using Liu Bei's state of mind, deliberately inviting an attack?
If so, the lure was certain—and some other design lay behind it.
"Your Majesty, may I speak a word?"
"You insolent whelp!"
"You are only an adjutant—how dare you offer counsel before the generals have spoken?"
Liu Ning and Du Lu snapped at me at once.
"Enough."
Liu Bei raised a hand and silenced the furious officers.
"Speak. But if you mean to talk me out of war, I will not hear it."
"I have no intention of holding you back."
"Oh?"
"Grant me two thousand men."
When a man had already lost his reason with the enemy of his heart standing before him, argument would achieve nothing.
Better, then, to learn what Lu Xun truly intends.
Po Sanniang had told me that the office Guan Suo received after first taking the field at Fan Castle was Cavalry Commandant. Two thousand men should be within my authority to command. If this was a lure, there had to be another scheme at work—and I needed the strength to find it.
"That cannot be allowed."
Feng Xi, the Chief Commander, stepped forward in opposition.
"The chain of command is already set. How can we hand over control of troops at a moment like this?"
It was not simple dislike of me; he simply refused to entrust soldiers to anyone in so critical an hour.
"The Chief Commander is right!"
"You should be grateful we made you an adjutant at all!"
Chen Shi and Du Lu roared in agreement. Liu Bei studied me for a long moment, then asked:
"Until only recently you opposed this war. Why the change?"
He sounded genuinely puzzled by the sudden reversal.
"My earlier words came from loyalty to the throne. But…"
I dropped to one knee and let raw feeling color my voice.
"I, too, am a son of the Guan line. My father's killer stands before my eyes. If I do not add even one hand to the blow that strikes him down—how can I call myself filial?"
Satisfaction lit Liu Bei's face. For the first time he smiled at me, soft and warm.
"At last you understand my heart. Do as you will."
The wish to help avenge Guan Yu was enough. Liu Bei granted me two thousand soldiers—on the condition that Guan Xing would hold the vanguard while I remained in the rear.
"I will take Lu Xun's head and comfort the spirit of my fallen brother!"
Despite every plea from Ma Liang and Huang Quan, Liu Bei resolved at last to strike Lu Xun.
After the council broke up and word spread that Guan Suo had been given two thousand men, Po Sanniang came running.
"My lord—your body still isn't healed. Can you truly fight?"
Worry filled her voice.
"…I'm a little worried myself."
But I had already earned the hostility of half the officers. Even Yao Hua and Guan Xing, the ones who might have listened, were burning with the need for revenge and would not hear me. I wore Guan Suo's name, yet I still did not know whether I could call upon his talent for command or his martial skill.
First I have to learn what Lu Xun is plotting with this lure.
"Po Sanniang. I have a request for you."
At Guan Suo's order, Po Sanniang took her own retainers and a portion of the soldiers under his command and set out for a destination known only to them.