The Last Devotion, and the Reply That Followed
It was another day, the same as every other. We had gone out to save people.
"There is no telling how long this war will go on," Zhuge Jin said.
"Ziyu, the letter you wrote has reached the Inspector of Jizhou. His answer ought to come quickly."
"Do you truly believe Cao Cao will halt the war merely because the Inspector mediates?"
"If neither side can pull its feet free, this runs until one of them is wiped out to the last man. Even Cao Cao will not let it come to that."
He had raised this war to avenge his father and the rest of his kin, and he had all but butchered the people of Xuzhou. Cao Cao was a cunning hero of a chaotic age, growing as he learned the taste of the realm's blood—but he had not yet become a beast stripped of all reason. Not yet.
"So until it ends, we save every soul we can."
"You are truly remarkable."
"I'm only a merchant."
"A great merchant—one who can wield benevolence and righteousness."
At Zhuge Jin's words, the other braves turned eyes full of feeling upon me. Then one of the men who had gone scouting came hurrying back.
"I beg to report. Cao Cao's troops are in sight, and they number more than a thousand."
"That is not a force we ought to touch."
Zhang He heard the scale of it and cut the matter short. There was no call to step forward.
"Are they only scouting the district?"
"That is..."
The brave wavered, watching Zhang He's face, and the Jizhou soldiers under us were glancing at one another as well. I caught the scout by the shoulder.
"I'm the one who brought us out here. You'll give me a proper report."
"...The chief has said so. Speak."
Zhang He yielded, reluctant, and the man bowed his head.
"They are hauling a great many carts. Most of the load is supplies and people—and young women, especially. Heaps of them."
The words were so absurd that a laugh broke out of me.
"Nothing left to strip, so now they're kidnapping the women of Xuzhou and hauling them off too? How is that any different from a pack of bandits?"
"They'll be counting them as spoils. Officers half-starved and soaked in blood, sitting there like evil spirits—they'll mean to divide the women out among them."
"And we pretend we never saw, and let them pass?"
"Chief Zhang. Reckon our numbers. Then reckon the enemy's strength again."
I knew exactly what Zhang He meant, cold and practical as it was. Charge out blindly to save them, and the lives of this small flying column would be in real danger.
"If I promised double pay to any man who lives through an attack on those troops—would anyone be willing to strike?"
The men stared.
"Is double too little? Four times over for whoever survives. Three times to the families of the dead."
"You would set a price on the lives of the men here and throw them at more than a thousand of Cao Cao's soldiers?"
At that I turned to Zhuge Jin, who sat his horse beside us.
"Ziyu, ride and carry this word to Brother Yunchang. If it's him, fifty men at his side would be enough to carve through a thousand of Cao Cao's."
I had heard. I could not leave it be. I had said that until the war ended I, too, would stand as one who saved Xuzhou, and every face was turned toward me. I sent Zhuge Jin to Tancheng and resolved that we would follow Cao Cao's column.
"You truly are an impossible man."
To stake our lives against more than twice our number, all to save people we had never met, would look like madness. In truth, what I had already done was enough to win a name in Xuzhou—enough for them to praise a mere merchant for having done all a merchant could. Even so. If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing clean through. Massacre had not been enough for them; they had sunk so far as to plunder women. To let that alone pass was not chivalry.
"We won't fight them ourselves. But we can keep on their track until Brother Yunchang arrives. That much we can manage, can't we?"
Zhang He let out a long breath and took the lead.
"Haa..."
"Major, I'll count this as one great debt I owe you."
He grumbled, and still he did every last thing that needed doing, and set the field in order besides. I would repay Zhang He later, as largely as the favor was large.
We were holding our distance, set on nothing more than the pursuit, when arrows came whistling in—a thin hiss, then the clang of steel.
"I thought it would come to this."
"The enemy has spotted us!"
Mid-pursuit they had noticed us, wheeled without warning, and loosed. Zhang He battered several shafts aside and roared.
"Steady, all of you! Don't lose your heads. Ring Chief Zhang, and do not move one step!"
He went out alone to the front, leveled his spear, and faced Cao Cao's men. We were already surrounded. Cold sweat ran down my spine. We had come meaning to spring an ambush, and we were the ones caught. This might be truly dangerous.
"Fearless little bastards. So you're the rats who've been hitting our men around here of late?"
The officer on the horse had a voice like a struck bell and the solid frame of a fierce commander. Zhang He searched for a gap, ready to strike in a single rush, but the Cao troops hemming us in were the problem first.
"We've got them at last, and that's enough! I'll lay their heads before the Inspector of Yanzhou together with the plunder!"
"Hold!"
Zhang He stepped in and barred the enemy general.
"What now? Want me to hear the last words you'll leave before you die?"
"Might you be Lord Wenbo, out of Jizhou?"
"What? How does this wretch know this old man's name?"
"I am Zhang He of the Hejian Kingdom in Jizhou! And these men are Jizhou troops, sent by the Inspector of Jizhou!"
A reunion of Jizhou men—in the middle of Xuzhou?
The enemy general commanding Cao Cao's soldiers was Zhu Wenbo. Zhu Ling.
"What nonsense is this lunatic spouting? Why would the Inspector of Jizhou send a relief army to Xuzhou?"
"You still don't see it, with this warrant in front of you? I am a major, and I have come leading troops under the Inspector's own command!"
Now I see it.
Yanzhou had invaded Xuzhou, and Yuan Shao's men, seconded into Cao Cao's Yanzhou army, had run straight into Yuan Shao's men sent to aid Liu Bei's army in Xuzhou. In a knot like that, I could step forward and mean it.
"So you are Lord Zhu Wenbo? Just as Lord Benchu said—a man of truly formidable skill."
"You there. Slender. No beard. Who are you? Junyi's adviser?"
"I doubt you fail to know the Zhang trading house of Zhongshan Commandery in Jizhou."
"What? Then you're the son of the great merchant Zhang Shiping?"
"...Watch your mouth. This army is a personal guard Lord Yuan granted me."
Few of the Jizhou soldiers had actually come from Yuan Shao; most were braves Guan Yu had given me. But Zhang He was here, and this was a contest of nerve. Cringe, and we would be cut down in a blink. Better to go forward on gall.
"Lord Wenbo, we are bound to meet again in Yecheng. Let us not spill each other's blood in this place. What do you say?"
"Damn it. The thing's snarled. If you truly are Jizhou troops, I can look the other way—"
"No. Not merely look the other way. Of what you've gathered, leave those carts and go."
Zhu Ling's eyes flew wide, and Zhang He turned on me a look salted with blame. Why are you pouring oil on this? But it had to be settled clean.
"Taking wealth? If you mean to carry off spoils, you may. Stripping grain? If your side is starving, that too. People are another matter. From the look of it, you're dragging off a crowd of young women from Xuzhou. Set them loose, and then go."
"Listen, merchant's son. Do you want to vanish off this battlefield without a rat or a bird the wiser?"
Zhu Ling drew his sword, came in close, and laid the edge against my throat. My back was soaked through. The moment when one slip meant death had come for me at last. I did not give a step.
"If I disappear, can you stomach the fury of the Inspector of Jizhou sitting in Yecheng? It was settled before I came: only if I return safely do Jizhou's salt houses and the army's horse pastures pass into his hands."
"What?"
"I am a merchant. I staked my life as capital and came to Xuzhou to trade in goodwill, and I bargained with the Inspector with the saving of Xuzhou's people as the profit. If I die, the investment in Yecheng fails. When he is beside himself with rage, where do you think that rage will land?"
"This brat's tongue runs longer than his father's."
"I told you to watch your mouth. He is not a man you may mock as you please. He is master of a house that deals directly with the Inspector of Jizhou—and he is my father!"
"You insolent little—"
Then the earth shook with the drum of hooves.
"Hm?"
"Commandant! The Xuzhou army is coming! A long-bearded general, nine chi tall, is riding at their head!"
"Guan Yu? Shit!"
Guan Yu had come fast. Zhu Ling knew him well enough, and he knew there was nothing to gain by stalling. He lowered the blade in front of me.
"Damned brat. Fine. I'll leave the wenches. But the instant I return to Yecheng, I'll report every scrap of this."
"That will do."
"Don't preen. A petty huckster living off the Inspector of Jizhou's authority—that lasts only for now!"
To avoid a clash with Guan Yu, and having taken the measure of me and of Zhang He among the Jizhou troops, Zhu Ling simply drew off.
"Leave the carts full of wenches. We go as we are."
"Commandant!"
"Enough. I'll tell the Inspector of Yanzhou. Whatever comes of it will come."
So Zhu Ling withdrew his force. By the greatest fortune, no one died. It ended in the standoff alone. The Cao soldiers who had ringed us looked us over, smacked their lips as if the taste had gone sour, and peeled away one by one. Was it our blood they had wanted a drink of, or were they sour at leaving the women of Xuzhou behind? I couldn't say. What I did know was that they would not be coming back like this again.
Guan Yu came pounding in at the head of the soldiers from Tancheng and looked us over at once.
"Is every one of you unharmed?"
That terrifying nine-chi giant of a beard, flustered the moment he heard how we had fared—I had to grant it. He kept his own people with a ferocity that was almost dreadful.
"Lord Yunchang. We've saved more people."
"Oh! Truly?"
With Guan Yu and Zhang He beside me, I opened the doors of the carts Zhu Ling and Cao Cao's men had left behind.
"Eek?!"
"Aaaah!"
Young women filled them, fair-faced and packed close. Pretty faces, all of them. It was well we had saved them.
"This is Xuzhou. You may come out. There is nothing to fear."
"Yes. The war looks to be finished, besides."
"What? What do you mean by..."
"Ah. In my haste to come, I never said it. Elder Brother at the front sent a messenger. Cao Cao's host out of Yanzhou is withdrawing, company by company. This war will end soon."
Whoa.
In the next breath my legs went out from under me, and I sat down hard where I stood. I had held this ground to the very last, and one fruit of it was in my hands.
For the present, Cao Cao's first invasion of Xuzhou was over.