Liu Bei, Commander of the Front; Zhang Qian, Commander of the Rear
Three days before Cao Cao's army fell upon Xiaopei.
The city held the several thousand troops Liu Bei had gathered, yet every man of them was wound tight — still haunted by the trauma of the first great massacre of Xuzhou, and strung tighter still by word that a host nearly ten times their number was coming down on them again.
"This will be an exceedingly difficult battle."
"War is the very last thing a man should seek, if he can help it. But if the force that has come for us will not be turned aside, then we must fight, and we must drive them off."
I took in Liu Bei's words and looked over the keyed-up army of Xiaopei.
"Then I think we had best slaughter every pig and chicken around the city."
"Hm?"
"They say an army must be well fed. And for soldiers with a war before them, what is needed most of all if not meat?"
"Hah!"
"I will furnish the coin. Until the fighting begins, let them eat and drink their fill."
Liu Bei studied me for a moment, then broke into a wide smile, so delighted that those long earlobes of his actually swayed.
"You know the hearts of soldiers!"
"Wh-what is all this?"
"We're going to eat it."
"...These past few days an absurd quantity of goods has been pouring into Xiaopei. You're throwing a feast at a time like this?"
"Men may die. All the more reason their bellies should be full to the last."
A servant of the caravan, come with the livestock I had bought, made his report.
"My lord, we have ten head of cattle and fifty pigs ready for the knife."
"Have them prepared at once. If it isn't enough, slaughter as many more as you need."
"Yes, my lord."
The butchers of Xiaopei would fall upon the work, and an astonishing quantity of meat would come of it.
"Baijin, this is..."
When Su Shuang asked in shock, I explained at once.
"I planned it to raise morale ahead of the battle for Xiaopei. Ordinary military grain is being seen to by Lu Su, who came down from Xiapi this time, so we are the ones standing the great treat."
"If you add all of that up... well, it isn't money we can't pay."
"What matters is stopping Cao Cao's army from coming back. Hold them off this time, and our house becomes the patron that did the most to block two invasions of Xuzhou within a single year. With that in hand, we can negotiate from strength in Xiapi."
"Didn't you say you failed to meet the Governor of Xuzhou last time? Will there be a next?"
"There will. And there I mean to secure, beyond any doubt, the distribution rights to one of the three — iron, salt, or oil — within Xuzhou."
We had come down from Jizhou with our minds made up, and the trading profit was to have come from selling the household goods brought out of Jizhou, together with the cost of the wall-works around Xiaopei. I had spent more than twice that sum on meat, and Su Shuang went on clutching his head and flicking his fingers. He worked them this way and that in the empty air, then snapped a stroke with his index finger, for all the world as if he were clicking an abacus against nothing at all.
"You spend it all in a single stroke, and the return trickles in over years... Haa. It isn't a loss, but the profit isn't exactly large, either..."
"Husband!"
My sister caught him by the collar and cried out, and Su Shuang nodded.
"Yes. What matters first is that everyone lives. I'll enter this into the accounts for now."
"Brother-in-law, trust me. If we only stop this offensive, there will be no war after it, and we can go back to nothing but trade."
"Fine. I understand. You're the head of the house."
Once I had Su Shuang's leave, I threw myself into motion.
From that day on, the sound of pigs, cattle, and chickens having their throats cut never ceased around our house. Thick enough to drown the raw reek of blood came the sizzle of meat on the grill, and the soft curl of steam rising off pots of meat broth.
"Here you are."
"Thank you. Truly, thank you."
"Aigoo — when a pretty young lady brings the food herself, just looking at her fills me up."
"Ah, then I'll be going."
I had never asked for help, yet the whole of the Zhuge household came and cooked for the soldiers inside Xiaopei. Zhuge Xue in particular bound up her own hair, cooked the rice, boiled the meat broth, and served it alongside her younger sister, Zhuge Hua.
"Everyone, a fresh pot of soup is ready. Come and take your share."
"Yes, madam!"
Nor was it only the Zhuge family. Zhuge Xue brought the women of Xiaopei, so they might cook for the husbands and sons who would march out to war.
It was something to be truly grateful for, and yet...
She wore no trace of makeup, her hair wrapped in a cloth and an apron tied over her like any wife of a neighborhood house, and still her looks were extraordinary. If Huan Ying was slight of stature, with neat, delicate features, a bright and obliging nature, and a figure of generous curves, then Xue was tall and slender like her elder brother Zhuge Jin — and no matter what she did, she could not hide a beauty both proud and tender, a lofty grace that would not be concealed.
"My elder brother has become strategist to the warlord you sponsor, and my sister comes to help with every matter of your household, great and small."
!
I turned my head, and there was Zhuge Liang. The boy, fourteen this year, had clung to our house these past several days.
"Ziyu is calculating the war supplies, and your sisters are cooking rice and soup for our house. What are you doing?"
"I am simply listening to everyone's stories."
"Hmm."
"Before the war, I am hearing every word, without missing one, of the soldiers who are afraid — men of an age to be fathers, uncles, and elder brothers."
"And has it done any good?"
"Even if I only sit still, meet their eyes, and listen, I can see them grow calm."
Zhuge Liang, remarkably sharp even at that age. Having come to this era and saved the young Zhuge family in Xuzhou, I found myself eager to see just how far the boy would grow.
"When this war is over, you and your younger brother are welcome to stay properly in our house. I will attach a fine tutor, and support you until you can become renowned scholars of the realm."
"Do you mean you will take our household in as one family?"
Zhuge Jin was the same, and this one too kept gently pressing his sister's marriage to me.
"What matters most is your sister's heart."
"If my sister truly felt nothing, she would never have come to your house to help as she has."
"I promised Ziyu we would speak of it properly once the war is over. Let us get past this great crisis first, and then talk of the good things as well."
At those words Zhuge Liang brought his hands together and bowed his head to me.
Just then Zhang He came hurrying to our house.
"Lord Zhang, so this is where you were?"
"Major?"
"The scouts sent out with your merchants report that they have found Cao Cao's army. Twenty thousand men, and the vanguard commander is Cao Ren, Cao Cao's younger cousin."
"They're coming fast!"
"At their present speed, they will arrive in two days."
"I must find Lord Xuande and tell him."
"If it is him, there is no need to search far. He is in the marketplace now, with the soldiers and the common people gathered before him."
At that I ran with Zhang He for the center of the city. Just as he had said, I found Liu Bei, who had drawn soldiers and commoners together and was personally pouring wine from a jar and passing meat around in generous portions.
"Lord Xuande!"
"Oh! If it isn't Baijin! All of you, look here!"
He seized me without warning, sat me down, threw an arm about my shoulders, and pointed me out before the great crowd.
"Every one of you, give your thanks to Zhang Baijin of Zhongshan in Jizhou! All of this is the gift of this great merchant, and it is by him that we can eat and drink as we do!"
The tremendous cheer that rose toward me was not unwelcome, but the important matter came first. I put my mouth to that great Buddha-ear of Liu Bei's and spoke.
"A scout report. Twenty thousand of Cao Cao's troops are coming, with Cao Ren at their head as vanguard. They should arrive in about two days."
!
For an instant Liu Bei's eyes changed, and he filled an empty cup with wine.
"Come — take up your cups, and all of you rise."
Utterly unperturbed, Liu Bei, who had been sitting and eating and drinking among them, brought the soldiers to their feet one by one. Then, before the eyes of Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Jian Yong, and the rest, he shouted with all his strength.
Everyone flinched at once, and at the word that a real war was nearly upon them, the common people began to murmur. To shout a thing like that outright in the marketplace...
For a moment everyone flinched — and then they surged to their feet.
Liu Bei raised his cup high to heaven, prayed, and then drank it down in great lusty gulps, like a man who meant every word.
"We will follow you!"
"We will follow you until the day our lives end!"
Those two giants, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, roared in answer to Liu Bei, and Zhao Yun, Jian Yong, Zhuge Jin, Xu Sheng, and the others shouted with them. Then everyone in the square of Xiaopei took up the cry.
"We will fight!"
"We will follow General Liu!"
"We will stand with the general!"
The soldiers inside Xiaopei shouted until their throats nearly tore, and every commoner of Xiaopei gathered there joined their voices, until heaven and earth shook and a thrill ran the length of my body. Liu Bei's gift for drawing out the strength of people could truly be called the finest under heaven.
Never forget the taste of today's wine and meat, for the rest of our lives? Watching the banquet I had hosted, and Liu Bei forging it into resolve, I meant to keep it in my own heart as well.
Amid that tremendous surge of morale, Liu Bei caught me and Zhang He at once and made for the government office.
"To think the report from the scouts Zijing sent is already in — we must go at once. If we mean to smile again after today, we will have to give it everything we have."
I went with Liu Bei to the government office. For two days we debated the defense within those walls, and in every spare moment we went out to keep heartening the people and the soldiers — work enough that even several bodies would not have sufficed — and we carried it through both days without pause.
Two days later.
Eight thousand of Xiaopei's death-sworn stood to meet Cao Cao's great host of twenty thousand.
Since coming to this world, a real battlefield had set me truly trembling, and an enemy number of twenty thousand was shocking in its sheer mass.
"Twenty thousand is already this much. A hundred thousand later, a million — I can't even begin to picture it."
"A great war like that might happen once in a lifetime. If it happens at all."
Zhang He, fully armored, stepped in front of me and raised his shield.
"Lord Zhang is a merchant, so stand back. I will see to the defense here."
Zhang He was before me, Zhao Yun to my right, Lu Su to my left. When Liu Bei had gone to survey the enemy beneath the watchtower with Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, he had assigned me no fewer than three guards. It was reassuring. Looking at the great host beyond the walls, I trembled all the same.
"At least before a battle, some sort of final ultimatum..."
Shhhk—CRACK!
No such courtesy came. An arrow flew straight for Liu Bei and buried itself in a pillar. The fletching of the shaft stuck in the post right beside him quivered and shivered, but Liu Bei paid it no mind at all. He raised his sword and shouted.
"Return fire!"
At those words I clenched my teeth until they ached.
Now it begins!