Cao Cao's Second Invasion of Xuzhou
Once they reached Xiaopei, Liu Bei came hurrying out in his stocking feet to welcome them all.
"I am Lu Zijing."
"You have my deepest thanks. I feel as though I have gained a mighty host."
"I have only brought a few household servants who were doing nothing at home but eat through our stores. They are hardly much, but they know their way around a spear and a blade."
More than a thousand private soldiers, bearing at a glance the unmistakable air of no ordinary company of knight-errants, saluted Liu Bei with crisp discipline.
The thousand I had brought in company with Zhang He, and the thousand private troops Lu Su had brought with him — two thousand elite, walked of their own accord straight into Liu Bei's hands.
Liu Bei turned a smile of absolute trust upon me and gave a small nod.
A buff on this scale really was nothing short of heaven-sent luck.
"You have had a hard journey, all the way to Xiapi and back."
"And Brother Junyi has been well, I hope?"
"It seems a great battle is upon us."
When I drew Zhang He aside and spoke with him, he laid the situation out as it stood.
"The people of the small counties around Xiaopei have been pouring into the city in haste. We have also seen a great many suspicious scouts keeping a close watch on this place."
"This may prove the last crisis we face. Every one of us will have to pull together."
Zhang He studied me for a long moment, then slowly shook his head.
He almost seemed to be smiling...
"If this war passes without disaster, I believe I shall finally understand why this man came to Xuzhou."
Between Yuan Shao and me, Zhang He had chosen to trust me, and had brought every last member of his household with him. After Tian Yu departed for his hometown, Liu Bei had not only kept Zhang He's place secure, but had recommended him for the post of Major of a Separate Division of Xuzhou, and the two of them were on no bad terms.
At this point, with the balance sitting at even odds, it was only fair to say he was tipping our way rather than Yuan Shao's.
I had meant to speak with Zhang He a while longer, but another figure appeared.
Zhang Fei — a bulk to rival Guan Yu's, tiger whiskers bristling — had come looking for me.
"Ah. Lord Yide."
"Figures, don't it? A merchant. Your handiwork's something else."
"Hahaha."
"Can't help but admit it — you're exactly what our big brother needs. Let's do right by each other from here on."
With that enormous hand he clapped my shoulder in greeting, then turned and strode off.
Cool past all reason, that man.
"A truly peculiar temperament. He hunts his own men down like rats, and yet with an outsider he becomes an entirely different person."
"Well, we're all in the same boat now. We'll see how it goes, little by little."
And that evening, a council of war was convened, with Lu Su — newly come from Xiapi — among those present.
"It is plain a great battle will break before long. How do you see it?"
Liu Bei held nothing back. He laid before them the present disposition of the troops and the state of Xiaopei's walls and palisades, and even spread a map across the table.
"According to our intelligence, the army Cao Cao set out from Yanzhou will arrive within four or five days."
Four days from now, then — the start of Cao Cao's second invasion.
Lu Su had been thrown onto the front the moment he arrived, yet he seemed to have taken the whole of it into account already. He studied the map with care, then spoke.
"Hmm. From the look of it, this place will be the greatest battlefield of all."
"Hm?"
"They cannot take the same road they took last winter, so Cao Cao's army will gather upon Xiaopei."
"Why do you think so?"
Liu Bei asked, following Lu Su's reading of the map, and the answer came at once.
"First, there is a man blocking the road they used before. Across Taishan Commandery there is a warlord named Zang Ba, loosely leagued with the Governor of Xuzhou, who is swiftly building his strength amid the ruins of Mount Tai. He is enough to hobble Cao Cao's army."
"Hoh!"
"Second, they will judge the road that runs from Xiaopei through Pengcheng, straight past Tancheng and on to Xiapi, to be the easier path. But Lord Xuande has raised walls across this stretch of Xiaopei County in Pei — the very center where Yuzhou, Yanzhou, and Xuzhou meet — and sealed it shut. The matter will be decided here."
"They would mass on this place even though we are holding it shut?"
"I am sorry to say it, but I have heard that last year as well, while you held Cao Cao's army across the north of Xuzhou, Lord Xuande's forces were driven back again and again. Cao Cao will think the same this time."
At those words the faces of Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and the others darkened, but Liu Bei nodded with easy composure.
"You are right. Set beside Brother Mengde, my gift for command falls short. Even so, I will hold this place until I die, if that is what it takes to stop the slaughter."
"If you have a will of that order, and preparations such as these... then there is hope."
Man. The moment Lu Su walked in, the whole air of the council changed.
"I do not know who built this defensive line, but it has been prepared with remarkable thoroughness."
"That would be Zhuge Ziyu, there. Our friend is the one who did it."
When Liu Bei indicated Zhuge Jin, Lu Su — who had once received him as a guest — met his eyes in greeting and went on.
"As you will see from the map, the vast Southern Four Lakes, the Nansi Lakes, lie above Xiaopei, and beyond them stand Taishan Commandery and Donghai Commandery of Xuzhou."
Watching where Lu Su's finger rested, I understood why Xuzhou was so rich a land. Four lakes, each broader than a fair-sized city, lay joined together — the four lakes of the south, called the Nansi Lakes — and with them as the boundary, this was a granary of open plain.
"Aside from Taishan Commandery, the country is flat. A seasoned army can drive straight in without the least hesitation."
"Master Zijing — if that army of Zang Ba's you spoke of earlier should collapse, what then?"
"Yes. I cannot say how far Cavalry Commandant Zang Ba will manage to hold. But even should they fall, we cannot cross the Nansi Lakes. We would have to leave the city of Xiaopei entirely, swing wide around, and make for Mount Tai by way of Tancheng."
Did he mean that even if Cao Cao struck here, a detached force could still reach Mount Tai?
"Of course, that is the worst of cases. Unless this Cao Cao means slaughter from the very first, and is resolved to butcher every remaining county and town of Taishan and Donghai, we shall have no cause to go beyond the walls of Xiaopei."
Lu Su set out the terrain and the situation, then spoke of the way we would have to fight.
"We do not simply fight. We must mock them and provoke them to the utmost, and by any means bind the feet of Cao Cao's main force here. It is the most dangerous method — and it is also the method by which Xuzhou survives intact."
"So only by drawing every danger onto this one place can we keep Xuzhou whole. Is that not so?"
Lu Su nodded at that, and the council chamber grew hot.
All of that tremendous heat was fury toward Cao Cao, and the first to rise was—
Guan Yu had shot to his feet, burning with a killing will that promised death to any man who dared come against him.
"Same here! I'll go out and stop 'em myself!"
Zhang Fei rose as well. He looked once around at all of them and once at Liu Bei, and made his resolve plain.
"That Cao Cao bastard took our homes and our families — took everything we had!"
"I will help as well!"
"I will stake my life and have my revenge on those men!"
Bu Zhi, Xu Sheng, Yan Jun, and the others rose with them.
Then Zhang He, who had sat quiet, moved.
"I came as reinforcements from Jizhou. But if an army of Yanzhou, with nothing to do with the Inspector of Jizhou, attacks us, I will gladly strike back."
When Zhang He showed his will, Liu Bei turned to Lu Su and let his own blaze once more.
"Master Lu. We will see this through to the end, right here!"
"With morale and spirit of this order... very well. Let us try it, all of us together."
And at last Lu Su himself joined that current.
And what was there for me to say? As ever, it fell to the strategist to hear how the stores stood.
"Baijin. How much oil for the war do we have inside Xiaopei?"
"Five thousand dou of fish oil, pressed from herring, and another two thousand dou hidden away."
These were the people I had asked to stay and fight rather than flee, the people I had gathered here to wage this second war. Was I going to do nothing but cheer from the side, simply because I could not go out and fight myself, or draw up the plan of battle?
I had Lu Su confirm our present stores once more, and I told him everything — down to the emergency supplies we had kept hidden.
"I come from Yecheng myself. When I saw that Yecheng, under Inspector of Jizhou Yuan Shao, kept eight thousand dou of fish oil on hand, I matched Xiaopei to something of the same order."
"Good. And are the weapons sufficient?"
"Thirty thousand arrows, and we are still shaping more even now, against any chance. Beyond that, three thousand suits of hide armor, caltrops, and iron enough for spearheads — this much. Against any chance, we have secured the sources of the wells and hauled in water from the rivers round about."
"Remarkable. You have made a very great preparation, Baijin."
"Just as I told the fine gentlemen in Xiapi. I have stocked Xiaopei with every supply it can use to hold on its own."
"When this battle is over and we have driven out the army of Yanzhou, your support will be known throughout the realm."
Lu Su confirmed it all, nodded, and smiled.
It was the certainty that this was worth the attempt.
Liu Bei, who always took the danger upon himself and stepped to the fore.
And the generals who were as his own hands and feet followed after him with absolute loyalty.
The first year of Xingping — A.D. 194.
Cao Cao led a great host of fifty thousand out of Yanzhou and marched once more upon Xuzhou.
He had already heard every report. The paltry army of Xiaopei that dared stand in his path, and every commandery and county cluttering the road before him — he would sweep them all away.
"They do not even know what it means to bar my way. They mean to fight me with a rabble scraped together from wherever they could find it?"
He had come to avenge his father and his kin, who had died in a strange land in Xuzhou, and he would kill every last thing that clung to his ankles.
This was a vast revenge of blood.
Until he had Tao Qian's head, this war would not end.
"Zhicai."
"Yes, my lord!"
"I hear that this time, besides Liu Bei, there is a certain 'backer' who has thrust himself into the affairs of Xuzhou."
Cao Cao put the question of Xuzhou's present state to Xi Zhicai, whom he had brought along as military counselor in place of Xun Yu and Cheng Yu.
"The backer you speak of is a merchant come out of Jizhou. His name is Zhang Qian, and he is called Baijin. Together with his brother-in-law, Su Shuang, he has sought an alliance between Jizhou and Xuzhou, and by opening a fortune of a thousand gold he has drawn the troops of Xuzhou together."
"Zhang Baijin? Su Shuang? Wait a moment. I have heard the name Su Shuang."
Cao Cao thought briefly, then spoke what rose in his mind.
"Yes. That's it. Su Shuang! Long ago, on the field before Hulao Pass, Liu Bei spoke of him. When the Yellow Turbans ran wild through Hebei, that great merchant of the north who furnished him with all his horses and his iron."
"That is correct. He is the Su Shuang of Zhang Shiping and Su Shuang."
"Then who is Zhang Qian?"
"He is said to be that Zhang Shiping's son."
"Oh?"
Since trampling Xuzhou the year before, Cao Cao had at last learned the identity of the backer who had the gall to gather an army all over again.
"A young head of a merchant house, heir to a thousand gold from his father, is investing in Xuzhou and backing Liu Bei."
"I can see what the fellow fancies himself. His eye for where to put his money, though, is hopeless."
Cao Cao snorted and spoke of Zhang Qian.
"Had he invested in me, that thousand gold would have become several thousand. And he dares throw good coin away blocking my road? Impudent wretch!"
"Just so, my lord. And yet, to see him empty his private fortune and steady Xuzhou in so short a time — he does not seem an ordinary man."
"Is that so? Then when we bring Xiaopei down, shall we catch the fellow and have a look at what sort of man he is?"
Cao Cao's great army advanced on Xiaopei at a frightening pace.
Behind him marched fifty thousand elite of Yanzhou, and by the torches in their hands alone they advanced down the dark of the night road with the momentum of a vast demon of fire.
Cao Cao was coming. With a host greater and more terrible than last year's, and by the strength of his own will alone, beholden to no one...