The Battle of Ma'an Mountain (4)
The rock face at the edge of the sheer cliff gave way and came crashing down.
Boulders tore free and smashed into the unprepared Shu troops below.
"Aaaargh!!"
Soldiers who could not leap clear in time were crushed flat beneath the falling stone.
"…What is happening?!"
Even Liu Bei, blinded by his thirst for vengeance, whipped his head around at the thunderous roar. The sight that met his eyes was pure carnage. The soldiers pinned and broken under the rocks left his face ashen.
"Your Majesty!"
"Are you unharmed?"
Guan Xing and Zhang Bao rushed to his side. They too stared at the collapsed cliff face in stunned disbelief.
"We are unharmed, yet…"
The avalanche of stone had severed the road completely. The center and rear columns that had been following could no longer join them.
Faced with this sudden disaster, Liu Bei's reason—lost to rage—returned at last. He remembered the warnings of Cheng Ji, Ma Liang, and Huang Quan: that they must always assume a trap. He had refused to listen.
All he had wanted was to seize Lu Xun, the man who had killed Guan Yu, with his own hands and end him. Every time they had argued, he had flown into a fury and insisted on his own way—and this was the result.
Because of me, we have walked into a snare!
But regret had come too late. The situation was already racing ahead of them.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The moment the grand war drums rolled, Wu soldiers who had been lying in wait rose from concealment.
"What?!"
"Wu troops on the ground—!"
Men who had hidden themselves in carefully dug trenches appeared at once. Yu Ning and Du Lu's eyes flew wide. The officer leading them was Xu Sheng.
"Repay every humiliation Shu has heaped upon us—with interest!"
At Xu Sheng's roar the soldiers drew their bowstrings taut and loosed as one. A rain of arrows turned Yu Ning and Du Lu into human porcupines; both toppled from their saddles. The cavalry that had followed their commanders met the same fate. Seeing the two generals thrashing on the ground in bloody ruin, the surviving soldiers fled in terror.
Liu Bei's eyes snapped open at the death of the two vanguard commanders.
"It's the Emperor of Shu!"
"Make him pay for daring to touch Wu!!"
With furious battle cries, Wu's crack troops surged toward Liu Bei.
"Your Majesty!"
"You must withdraw!"
Guan Xing and Zhang Bao whirled their weapons, cutting down the Wu soldiers who pressed in.
"Your Majesty! That path is empty!"
Zhang Bao had spotted a side trail free of enemy troops and shouted the discovery.
"All forces—escape by the side path!"
The moment an opening appeared, the soldiers chose flight over fighting the ambush. As a result they could not answer the arrow storm properly. One by one, Shu men fell.
From the top of the shattered cliff, a group watched the Shu army retreat along the side trail in disorder.
…The Grand Commander is a truly terrifying man.
Zhu Ran muttered the thought as he watched the shattered Shu forces flee. Originally he had led a detached force for the fire attack; after receiving Lu Xun's letter he had marched to Ma'an Mountain. Once there, following the Grand Commander's orders, he had searched out a gorge perfect for splitting the enemy.
…I wondered why we were driving stakes into the rock.
Zhu Ran's gaze moved to the collapsed cliff. Regular intervals had been cut into the stone. On the steep face, where the rock was weakest at the edge, stakes had been driven halfway in. Rain from the long wet season had seeped along those stakes, softening the bedrock. When the siege engineers finally hammered the stakes the rest of the way home, the rock gave way.
And this is the result.
His eyes shifted to Liu Bei and the Shu troops now cut off from their main body. The rear columns had fallen into chaos as well. Zhang Nan and Cheng Ji scrambled to restore order and set out in search of the Emperor.
"…We were wary that something was being prepared in those fortresses."
From the beginning the fortresses Wu had raised were nothing more than bait to hold Shu's attention.
They built them solely to draw our eyes.
The most frightening part was that collapsing the cliff was only the beginning.
Wu has forty thousand men on Ma'an Mountain.
Lu Xun held twenty thousand himself; the remaining twenty thousand were posted in separate positions.
"Even if they escape down the side trail, ambush parties are waiting."
In a crisis, raw instinct overrides reason. That holds true on the battlefield as well.
Faced with the unexpected, men think first of escape.
While planting ambushes, they had deliberately left a side path open—an apparent way out. But it was no escape. It was a road to death.
Wei shi bi que—when surrounding an army, always leave an opening. A tactic from the Art of War. An enemy thrown into confusion, given a route of retreat, will choose flight over standing and fighting. The moment they pour through that opening hoping to regroup, the hidden Wu troops rise and strike.
The more they flee from ambush to ambush, the more their strength fails. Men begin to drop out one by one, and those stragglers are cut down. So the noose tightens, slowly, around Shu's throat.
Cut off from the rear columns, contact with the main camp becomes nearly impossible.
Liu Bei could only move as Lu Xun intended.
What remarkable foresight.
It was like watching hunters drive game.
After a long flight from successive ambushes, the Shu army was finally herded into a dead end.
"Your Majesty!"
"The road is cut off!"
Separated from the center army, the thirty thousand men who had remained with Liu Bei had dwindled to a mere four thousand.
"…"
Cold sweat beaded on Liu Bei's brow as he turned. Guan Xing and Zhang Bao, who had forced the path open at the front, were clearly exhausted. Yao Hua and Zhao Rong had fought with equal fury, yet both looked pale—wounded. The remaining soldiers gasped for breath; despair clouded every eye.
I have been a fool.
Looking at them, Liu Bei was seized by crushing guilt. If only he had heeded Zhuge Liang and Zhao Yun. If only he had accepted Ma Liang and Guan Suo's counsel to make peace with Wu. If only he had at least taken Cheng Ji's advice not to pursue the enemy so deep…
None of this slaughter would have happened.
These precious lives need never have been thrown away…!
While Liu Bei bit his lip and drowned in regret, an officer stepped forward from the Wu ranks that had closed the net.
"It seems this is as far as you go."
He murmured the words with a thin smile.
"I am Xianyu Dan, a general of Wu."
He was the same Xianyu Dan who had served as Lu Xun's adjutant.
"To claim the life of so exalted an Emperor with my own humble hands is an honor I never expected."
At Xianyu Dan's signal the soldiers surrounding the Shu force raised their spears and advanced.
…So this is the end.
In the instant they saw no path of escape and began to despair—
"E-enemy attack!!"
Screams erupted from the rear of the Wu formation. Someone was striking their rear.
Liu Bei and every other officer turned toward the sound.
"Guan Suo?!"
Guan Xing, who had been sagging with fatigue, cried out in shock at the sight of the general leading the charge.
I had been certain Lu Xun was preparing some scheme. A commander of his caliber—master of both strategy and tactics—would never have accepted a pitched battle without a plan.
Thinking that, I asked a favor of Po Sanniang.
I ordered her to take a hundred sharp-eyed soldiers and seize the mountain summit. Holding the high ground lets you see the enemy's entire deployment at a glance. Of course, planting a full camp on the peak would turn you into Ma Su the mountain climber—but a small observation force was enough to track their movements.
Red flags for Wu, green flags for Shu; if all was well, wave a green banner. I stayed with the rear and kept my eyes fixed on the summit of Ma'an Mountain.
Not long after, an urgent report arrived from Cheng Ji: the cliff had collapsed and Liu Bei had fallen into a trap. Feng Xi, who had been holding the main camp, immediately dispatched search parties. I sent a messenger up to Po Sanniang asking for Liu Bei's position, then set out with the troops the Emperor had given me.
While we searched, Po Sanniang found him and signaled with a green flag.
…Admittedly I had a little trouble reading the waving pattern.
Still, we located Liu Bei faster than expected. He and his officers were completely surrounded—on the brink of annihilation.
At the sight I ground my teeth. Was I furious at the Wu army?
No.
My rage was aimed straight at Liu Bei.
…Damn it, I came all the way to Yiling and saved your life—now you're trying to die again?!
We had stopped the fire attack at Yiling only for him to walk into a lure and throw away the bulk of his army. I glared at him with murder in my eyes. Liu Bei never noticed. He was simply astonished that reinforcements had arrived; the other officers cheered as if hope had returned.
If he weren't the Emperor I would have punched him.
Sadly the difference in rank forbade it.
Still, I can't just leave him to die.
It wasn't because I liked Liu Bei. Thinking of the next Emperor who would have to take the throne after him, I had no choice but to fight for every scrap of his life. So I slammed into the Wu rear to save him.
"That one's the commander!"
Wu soldiers recognized me and charged.
"…"
Ever since I had become Guan Suo, one worry had never left me: could I actually cut a man down? I was a modern person who had never killed anyone. Even when I performed the martial forms still buried in this body's memory, a certain awkwardness had lingered in the movements.
But now…
My body moved on pure reflex. As the enemy soldiers rushed in, my hands flowed as if they had always known the path.
—Crash!
The crescent blade traced a perfect half-moon and hurled the charging men aside.