If We Go Out, We All Die — But If We Don't, He Isn't Liu Bei
A little more than half a month had passed.
"Hoo—"
Once again I had held Cao Cao's great host at bay. I walked without any sense of where my feet were taking me, and then I was at the house in Xiaopei.
"Master!"
"Jeon-a! Safe again today?"
The servants and my younger sister came running. They looked me over from head to foot, then hurried off and drew water. In that moment the taste of the cool water was something I knew I would never forget.
"Today was hard again."
"You ought to stop now! Why must you go all the way to the battlefield and stay in a place so dangerous?"
"I may not swing a spear or a blade myself, but I am of real use to Lord Xuande's army."
Before I knew it, I had been cast as an officer on the field of war. And yet I had seen it with my own eyes: the household only knit itself tighter, and the spirit of Liu Bei's army climbed day by day. Hold like this, and Cao Cao would take nothing from his second invasion. He would turn back. And so far as I knew, around this very time a very great matter was about to break loose in Yanzhou. We had only to wait, and meet it when it came.
"My lord, I came with Elder Sister Zhuge."
"Hm?"
It was Huan Ying's voice. The door opened, and two women entered carrying a copper basin of hot water, steam curling up in soft threads. They bowed before me, low and respectful.
"I'm so glad you came back safe again today."
"How did the two of you end up coming together?"
"We decided to become sworn sisters."
Huan Ying caught Zhuge Xue's hand and broke into a bright smile. Zhuge Xue's face had flushed red, and she nodded, quiet. She kept stealing glances at me, smiling as if she didn't know where to put herself, and that was lovely too.
"All we can do here is see that you rest easy when you return, my lord."
Huan Ying wet a towel, wrung it tight, and came to wipe my hands and face. I loosened my socks and the sash of my robe, and Zhuge Xue quietly brought the basin over, set my feet in the hot water, and washed them clean.
Two beauties, washing the day off me. The fatigue came undone all at once, and my eyes closed of their own accord. A luxury a man could enjoy on a battlefield—and mine alone, at that.
"Inspector! Urgent report! The defensive line at Mount Tai has collapsed, and Cao Cao's army has entered Xuzhou!"
"W-what did you say?"
Liu Bei's eyes bulged as if they might leap from his head, and he rushed the messenger.
"Tell me everything! What in the world has happened?"
"I report! Colonel Zang Ba of Tai Commandery held the Xuzhou border with the troops granted him by Governor Tao Qian, but fifteen thousand men of Yanzhou invaded. After three battles he was routed at the last, and the Yanzhou army is even now advancing on Xiapi!"
"Heavens—no wonder I haven't seen Brother Mengde at the siege of Xiaopei!"
Liu Bei clutched his head in both hands. The blow had landed clean, and even Guan Yu's brow, and Zhang Fei's, gave a twitch.
"We have been taken by a feint."
Lu Su stepped forward at once and set his finger on the lakes marked above Xiaopei Castle on the map.
"At the outset we said we would check their main force by holding at Xiaopei Castle, the gateway into Xuzhou, with the Southern Four Lakes along its flank. A detached column, however, remembered the road by which they slaughtered northern Xuzhou before, and broke through Mount Tai."
"Every day of that fighting was a grind. We held all the harder because we were certain the rest of the vanguard would come here as well!"
He was right. Before the first battle we had said it ourselves: even if we shed the most blood, we had to draw all of Cao Cao's army to this place and endure the siege. Instead Cao Cao had probed from the rear, left only Cao Ren behind, and swung wide to strike up through Mount Tai. A fox, through and through. Right before our eyes, he would butcher Xuzhou all over again, just as he had last year.
"Inspector, the Yanzhou army is not only in the Mount Tai region. On every road they travel they are gathering grain by plunder, and the people they have seized—"
It can't be. Is it actually true? Is Cao Cao really advancing by killing them one by one? All that blood, and still not enough—he's doing it again?
Fine veins stood out across Liu Bei's face. He clenched both fists and shook, and Lu Su seized him in haste.
"This is calculated. He means to smash every place he occupies so thoroughly that, across all Xuzhou, the mere sound of Cao Cao's name will freeze men with fear, and none will dare so much as think of resistance."
Lu Su was forcing calm into his own voice, but he too was a son of Xuzhou, and rage filled his eyes. Not only Lu Su. Zhuge Jin, Xu Sheng, Bu Zhi—all of them burned at Cao Cao's march of literal scorched earth through the homeland, and the heat of that anger boiled inside the command tent.
I hadn't known the bastard would run this wild. How did he even mean to answer for it afterward? Or was he not thinking of afterward at all—charging straight ahead, eyes only on Tao Qian's head and the fall of Xiapi, wearing the shape of some savage, man-eating beast?
"Inspector! Cao Cao's army is heading for Tan County in Xuzhou. If that place is breached, Xiapi Castle is next!"
"That will not do. I will go."
The tent erupted.
"Inspector!"
"Brother!"
As the cries went up, Zhang Fei rushed in and caught hold of Liu Bei.
"Yide, what are you doing?"
"Brother, you in your right mind? There's twenty thousand men laid out right outside, and you're talkin' about goin' somewhere?!"
"He's right. Inspector, it breaks the heart, but to leave this place is suicide."
Then the messenger reported again.
"Inspector! If a relief force does not reach Tan County now, Cao Cao will go on killing the people of Xuzhou and plundering without end!"
Hearing it all, I understood at once. This was a trap Cao Cao had laid in the open to catch Liu Bei.
Liu Bei had thrown everything away to come this far and save Xuzhou. If I had not backed him, he would have broken—looking like a beggar, with no proper supplies, watching tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of refugees starve to death before his eyes. We had only just stopped that. We had only just built a line of defense. And now Cao Cao was baiting him, smashing the villages one by one, right in front of him, doing it so Liu Bei would have to watch. Liu Bei. Will you still not come out, even like this?
"If Tan County falls as well, not only Xuzhou but Xiaopei behind it will be encircled entire. The Yanzhou army must be stopped, no matter what. I will go myself."
"Eldest brother!"
"I understand. I will follow you, brother."
Zhang Fei tried to bar the way, insisting it could not be done, but Guan Yu had already taken up the Green Dragon Crescent Blade and finished making ready to leave with him.
"Brother, this is that Cao Cao bastard's trap, clear as day! He can't crack Xiaopei, so he's tearin' through the villages outside the walls on purpose, tryin' to drag us out!"
"Yide, I know. But hear me."
Liu Bei spoke to his younger brother with a will set hard as iron.
"We came to this place, from the very first, to save Xuzhou. And we did not come to save some while choosing to leave others behind."
"B-but if you go there, what's to become of the defense here? Cao Cao's got twenty thousand on the open flat. One wrong step, and the whole lot of us gets routed!"
Liu Bei's answer rang through the tent, and there was no yielding in it.
The words struck the tent like a blow.
I understood what he meant. Did he truly intend to empty the castle and ride to save Tan County in Xuzhou? Damn it. Once he put it like that, what choice was there?
I pressed the trembling in my chest down hard and addressed him.
"Lord Xuande! I'll go with you."
In the same instant Zhang He's eyes, beside me, flew wide as he stared—but this could not be helped. I was the purse behind this army. The hero I had sponsored, I had to see through to the end. With my own eyes.
"No, Baijin."
"I meant to see this patronage through to its end regardless. I will look on Cao Cao's army with my own two eyes."
"Zijing, come here and stop Baijin."
Lu Su seized my arm, his voice rising, but he shook his head, and his hand trembled. His eyes bored into mine and said it plain: he understood what I felt, but I had to bear it.
To me, standing there, Liu Bei held out the seal he carried in his breast.
"This—what is this?"
"Keep it. Until I return from Tan County, all of this Xiaopei will be under your hand."
"Lord Xuande!"
"Set your mind at ease. I will come back."
To hold Xiaopei Castle, he had given the lordship of the place over to me—seal and all. If Liu Bei failed to return, all of Xiaopei Castle would fall on me. If I could hold the place. Even the seat of Inspector of Yuzhou, to which he had originally been recommended.
"Zijing. I ordinarily wear two swords. I would leave one of them in your keeping."
Lu Su did not answer.
Liu Bei had already set every resolve in stone. And Zhang Fei, unable to break his brothers' will, took up his Serpent Spear. The three sworn brothers of the Peach Garden—Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei—would go to save Tan County in Xuzhou, and the defense here would fall, in all but name, to me and Lu Su.
Lu Su looked at the sword, gave a bitter smile, and pressed it back into Liu Bei's hands.
"How can a man riding to battle leave his sword behind? I have understood your resolve. I will keep the heart of it, and nothing more."
"I am sorry, Zijing. I have drawn you into a place of death."
"You must not say so. By this, I am certain. The Inspector is, without question, the hero who will save Xuzhou."
"You honor me, to see it so."
Liu Bei clasped Lu Su's hand tight and nodded, then turned to the other commanders of Xuzhou.
"Hear me, all of you. I will go, and I will return, so go on giving your strength to the fight here at Xiaopei. Xuzhou will be saved. On that you have my word!"
"My lord, to meet twenty thousand of Yanzhou's great host on open ground is no way to keep one's life."
"Do not fear, Ziyou. I will see it settled."
He meant it with his whole heart: he would go to Tan County's relief. The commanders, most of them sons of Xuzhou, did not dare to hold him back.
Then Lu Su stepped forward and counseled him.
"My lord, then first make the fact known in Xiaopei, and declare boldly to the soldiers within the castle that you go to save Xuzhou. And along the road through the Southern Four Lakes to Tan County, tell every soul your eyes fall upon, so the rumor takes its own tail in its teeth and runs."
"You would have me tell everyone, on every road I travel?"
"Yes. Do that, and an answer will surely come."
Not slipping out in secret. Leaving Xiaopei Castle in the open, and announcing that he went to save Xuzhou. With Cao Ren's great host sitting on the front, he might as well paint himself a moving target.
"Not only Cao Cao's army bound for Tan County—you would have that cur Cao Ren's force outside the walls take us for their mark as well!"
Just as Lu Su made to answer the words Guan Yu had flung out in a flash of anger, Zhuge Jin cried out.
"No—no! Zijing's words may well be the answer! My lord, it will be dangerous, but I beg you, do as he says. I believe a way will open!"
Guan Yu, still unable to see it, raged on. But Liu Bei caught the two of them and nodded.
"Good. So be it!"
Liu Bei took up the pair of swords Lu Su had turned aside and strode out, head high. Right to the last, it seemed, he meant to stake everything on one great gamble. I could only pray the three of them would come back alive. Say what anyone would—they were the three sworn brothers of the Peach Garden. Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei.
While Liu Bei mustered the relief force, Zhang He, standing guard at my side, spoke under his breath.
"When those men go out, they will be two thousand, perhaps three. When they come back, they will return with an army more than ten times that."
The words hit, and something flared clear in me as well.
"Is that what all of you had in mind when you proposed it?"
"Only a feeling. To announce, in the middle of a war, and to every man's face, that he is going out to save Xuzhou? Those who answer him will not be few. The two strategists of Xuzhou seem to have counseled him knowing as much."
Yes. Because he was Liu Bei, he would walk out of a stout castle and save them with his own hands. And because he was Liu Bei, volunteer companies would swell on every road he traveled, men joining their strength to his? Then this, too, might be a wager that only worked if the man making it was Liu Bei.
I closed my fist tight around the castle lord's seal Liu Bei had given me. Lu Su, Zhuge Jin, Xu Sheng, and Bu Zhi all bowed their heads to me, acting lord of the castle.
From this moment, this place was mine to hold.