Xinye's Cat (6)
Rain fell. The sky, thick with clouds, began soaking the earth, turning the ground so sodden that every step sent mud splashing. After the battle.
Was the heavens mourning the deaths of countless young men? A steady drizzle poured down. I grabbed an umbrella and stepped out to gaze upon the battlefield where the fighting had ended. I couldn't go down there myself—just viewed the scene from the spot where I'd wielded the command banner.
Blood. Corpses. Death everywhere. Amid the clamor of shouts and clashing steel during the fray, I'd had no idea—but surely, people had been dying right in the thick of it. The number of the dead was overwhelming, far beyond anything I'd witnessed in my lifetime.
I was struck anew by the horrors of war. By how utterly mad it was for people to kill and be killed. No trace of life's vitality lingered; these were just cold bodies, abandoned in the chill rain, cooling to await the worms and beasts that would devour them. That was war's outcome.
This is war.
Since the Yellow Turban Rebellion, I'd dodged countless battlefields like this one. A slaughterhouse filled solely with human deaths, where no one could tell how anyone had met their end. Trampled by charging cavalry? Beheaded by Gan Ning's twin iron halberds? Pierced by arrows from the archers I'd personally commanded? Or perhaps executed on the spot by Yuan Shu's officers after throwing down their swords and fleeing?
I didn't know. I didn't want to know. It didn't matter how each bug caught in the web had been devoured by the spider. What mattered was that the web had been spun in a place teeming with bugs. I was the one who'd laid the trap that killed all these people here.
From my desk, firing off a few letters to weave the web. Then waiting here for the enemy to blunder in, ready to devour them. But they weren't mere prey. Those snared in the web were mantises come to seize the territory, and the spider had fought with all its might to defend its home. In the end, the spider repelled the invaders. The captured mantises? Eaten alive. All in the span of a single day.
Less than half a day, really. The battle was a resounding victory for our Liu Biao-Zhang Su alliance: roughly a thousand of our men dead, ten thousand of Yuan Shu's army slain.
Generals Lei Bo and Chen Lan had fled all the way back to Yeonam Castle under pursuit by our coalition forces. Most of Yuan Shu's troops either routed or surrendered.
Of course, we took no prisoners. We stripped them of their weapons and drove them off.
"What the hell are we supposed to do now?!"
"Go back to Yeonam, or wherever. But if you head to Yeonam, we'll kill you. Traitors to the Middle Kingdom."
"What do you expect us to do?! Some of us were drafted by force!"
"Not our problem."
We turned the prisoners away without mercy.
"We can't go! We'll die out there same as here! If you're pissed, just kill u—"
"Go while we're letting you!"
Those who lay there whining got chased off with fists from Mun Bing and Gan Ning themselves.
"Who the hell are you to hit me—"
"Traitors deserve death." Slash.
In the process, some were genuinely killed.
"This is the domain governed by Inspector of Jingzhou, Liu Biao. You came to plunder it, attacked the garrison defending Jingzhou—you're traitors to Han."
"No different from Yellow Turbans. We avoid needless killing, but we don't hesitate when it's necessary."
"Who are you to decide if our deaths are 'necessary' or not?!"
"Chatty bandits." It might've seemed needless slaughter, but if not, the prisoners might've all ended up sprawled across the field.
"If you're mad, take it up with Yuan Shu. If you don't wanna die, scram! You get till the count of ten to run, or else."
"Ah, that's this guy. I'll count to ten, then come kill you?"
"General!"
"Keeping 'em alive's a hassle. Oh, some are already running? Alright, counting. Ten, seven, three, two—"
Our goal wasn't to chase off the raiders, seize their gear as spoils, or shelter Yuan Shu's deserters and refugees in Jingzhou soil.
"If you're attacking someone else's land to steal their lives, you gotta risk your own. This chaotic age. Survival of the fittest. In troubled times, only those who can survive do."
"Now run. Who knows? Out of ten who flee, maybe three make it."
On the surface, driving them out was selfish. In truth, it was to let them live.
Yuan Shu's done for. The Middle Kingdom had only the path to ruin left. When a mere rural scholar's scheme routed their regulars, who would believe in their mighty army? Yuan Shu's generals would scheme rebellion or quietly defect without fierce loyalty. In the end, only the troops who'd fled with him from Shouchun would remain. How many would truly serve him out of devotion? Probably just those who'd hastily scratched the 'Han' from their chest tattoos and replaced it with 'Zhong'. We drove them all away, spears leveled at the fleeing, arrows loosed after them.
Great if Xinya's population grows, but no thanks to ex-Yuan Shu soldiers.
No matter how backward Xinya was, we couldn't take in refugees loyal to Yuan Shu's Middle Kingdom. Even if they'd been forcibly conscripted from their homes—that was their problem. Tragic, sure, but we weren't the state; we couldn't care for thousands.
In chaotic times, you gotta be selfish to survive. Worry about yourself first—who looks out for others? This wasn't like Xuzhou, where a massive refugee wave forced our hand. So we killed them all.
...Correction. Officially, we killed them all. Treated them as dead. Of Yuan Shu's ten thousand dead, about four thousand prisoners survived and fled. The actual slain numbered under six thousand. The rest scattered or ran.
If those who fled from here didn't return to Yeonam Castle, it was as good as them being dead to Yuan Shu's army. Who counts a soldier who tossed his sword and bolted from the field as alive?
I wanted to spare them out of pity. But Jingzhou's situation made absorbing them tricky. I wasn't Liu Biao; I couldn't just let thousands into Xinya willy-nilly.
"No prisoners from Yuan Shu's army. Kill them all." I'd set the board, but our forces were 'Liu Biao's army'. Liu Biao's will mattered; my directions were just suggestions.
"Kill to eliminate future threats. I'd heard the words, but seeing it for real..."
Liu Biao's thinking was 'cut out the seeds of discord'. I'd used Lady Cai to nudge him that way. Some died in battle, others while fleeing—hunted down. To make them truly run, to prove we'd kill for real, we slew even those escaping.
Gan Ning, Mun Bing, Huang Zu, Zhang Su... and Sima Yi chased them. I'd made them do it.
Before leaving, Jia Xu had said:
"Once you bite, show no mercy to an enemy bent on your destruction. Ha."
Who approaches a blade-wielding assassin with words instead? Who opens their arms for peaceful talks, even against a blood-sworn foe? In this selfish age, only the ruthless survive. Mercy isn't easy in these hard times.
We live in an era without righteousness.
"Mercy comes after I'm safe, Geum Taeyang. Save yourself first. That's the mindset." Survivors might turn their blades on us, seek personal revenge, even assassinate.
"We kill to live." So we resolved to kill them all. Even those we didn't want to.
A contradiction. You can't go fully evil or fully good. Chase both rabbits, lose them both. So I'd ordered pursuit, then carved an escape path—living the paradox.
"In the end, I'm..."
"Master."
A quiet voice cut through the rain.
"There you are."
In the darkness, under moonlight that seemed especially red tonight, Sima Yi glowed with a crimson aura.
"Crying again?"
Her words left me speechless.
"People died."
"Yes. They deserved it."
"We killed people."
"If we hadn't struck first, they would've killed us."
"We drew swords before even talking."
"How do you talk down someone swinging a blade?"
"Yi'ya. I'm a hypocrite. A murderer who slew multitudes to survive. This water on my hands looks blood-red."
"Master."
Sima Yi folded her umbrella and leaned against me.
"The rain's heavy. No one would hear a thing out here."
She pressed close. "Speak freely to me. Pour it all out. The downpour muffles everything beyond this umbrella."
"Yi'ya." I did.
"I'm a vile beast. I killed them all to save myself. I'm no better than an animal."
"I know. You and I both became beasts to survive. The memories of all these dead will haunt our futures forever."
"We killed them to live."
"That's chaotic times for you. I'm a beast too. And I will be. If anyone eyes our land again..."
Sima Yi took my hand on the umbrella handle.
"I'll become a beast alongside you."
"Yi'ya."
It was revolting. "...Thank you."
Her words comforted me, eased my guilt, justified my actions. The relief of thinking this wasn't my fault shamed me deeply.
"...Looks like the rain's picking up tonight."
The downpour showed no sign of stopping.