No Locusts in the Domain I Built
The Danyang troops assigned to hold Xiapi, the administrative seat of Xuzhou, were mustered, and fifteen thousand soldiers set their course for Mount Tai.
From the moment they marched, the look Zhang Fei turned on Zhao Bao was anything but ordinary. On paper, though, Zhao Bao led the Danyang troops and held the Commandant's post, which made him the senior man. Perhaps that was why Zhang Fei rode apart with Zhuge Jin, while I kept my horse alongside Zhao Bao.
"I told you plainly that I would make an opportunity for you to prove a Commandant's worth."
"And so, to fight Lu Bu, you drag me and the Danyang troops along?"
"I'll furnish the supplies, and I'll handle the talks. If we can fight, we fight. If we can win, we win."
Wasn't this exactly what you wanted?
"Let me be clear about one thing. The remnants beaten in Yanzhou will latch onto Xuzhou however they can, stuff their own bellies, and come charging back at us. Xuzhou cannot afford to be sucked dry by anyone else. If we mean to push a great enterprise outward through this province, vermin like these have to be crushed at the start."
"I mean every word of it."
Zhao Bao looked at me, and his eyes narrowed by degrees.
"Harsher than Xuande — and doing the knife-work he could never bring himself to do."
"I don't swing it myself. I only set a thoroughly whetted blade in the hand of the man standing in front of me."
And I made my meaning plain to him once more.
"That holds whether the man stands inside Xuzhou or beyond it."
"I understand your will well enough."
I built this. And with it, the great work of all under heaven begins. If some bastard tries to dip his spoon in, you snap the spoon and throw it away. If he lays a hand on it, that hand gets its manners corrected.
So, while Zhao Bao rode at the head of the Danyang troops, I deliberately slowed my horse. Whether he had read the gesture or not, Zhang Fei came galloping up at once and drew alongside me.
"Master Baijin, up on Mount Tai — I can just smash those bastards, yeah?"
"Brother Yide, for now it's a negotiation."
"That's the story you spun for Big Brother. I know full well what you're really after. The moment we get there, you mean to take their heads."
He had come to me knowing exactly that. His own will to face Lu Bu's army was already brimming over, and the Serpent Spear might truly flash the instant they met.
"I mean to put the Governor of Xuzhou's righteousness and chivalry into practice. We open with talk. Besides, if we start a brawl on Mount Tai, there's no telling what falls on Lord Yunchang in Xiaopei. You know the army defeated in Yanzhou split in two directions, don't you?"
"Tch. No way Brother Yunchang loses to the likes of them."
"The best plan is still that they eat what we give them and clear out."
Zhang Fei quietly held out his fist. I met it with my own, and we marched on.
Meanwhile, of the Zhang Miao–Lu Bu alliance shattered by Cao Cao's army, it was Zhang Miao who had chosen to make for Xuzhou.
"Thirty li out? They mean to negotiate there?"
"Yes, Governor Zhang."
Zhang Miao, Administrator of Chenliu, had lost everything after the defeat in Yanzhou and was on his way to seek shelter in Xuzhou. Even before he reached the province, he had sent a letter to Zang Ba, Cavalry Commandant of Mount Tai Commandery, asking to be received as a guest general. He had not the faintest suspicion that Lu Bu, at the same time, had bought Zang Ba separately and already decided to use Zhang Miao himself as the offering.
"Escorts of exactly fifty, thirty li out. Cavalry Commandant Zang Ba has agreed to come in person. Settle the terms of your asylum there, and that will suffice."
"Thank you. Truly, thank you!"
Zhang Miao bowed again and again toward Zhang Liao as he poured out his gratitude.
"At the start, I only wanted to stop Mengde. For a man who has risen to Governor of Yanzhou to sweep up every last grain of seed rice and use it to butcher another province like that — it isn't right. Time and again I told him to halt the expedition against Xuzhou."
But that plan had failed in spectacular fashion, and now he himself had come seeking refuge in the very Xuzhou whose invasion Cao Cao had called off.
"If only they had answered the talks properly in Dong Commandery, I would have disbanded the army of my own accord and left. With Elder Wenli, Gongda, and the others there, I meant to take the responsibility upon myself and depart for Jingzhou or Yuzhou."
Zhang Liao held his silence.
"Enough. The water is already spilled."
Having unburdened himself of everything, Zhang Miao sighed and went into the tent. Even after he was gone, Zhang Liao stood mute — until a young officer with a viper's look came sidling up.
"Well now. A man danced on someone else's strings from the first word to the last? Is that what they call a sucker?"
It was Wei Xu, Lu Bu's nephew. He and Zhang Liao had been ordered to guide Zhang Miao only as far as the approaches to Xuzhou — and then to cut him down.
"Still, what that fellow managed to hang onto isn't nothing. Five hundred taels of gold, three thousand in silver, two thousand private soldiers left after the wreck, and a hundred warhorses."
"It is our lord's command, but..."
"Split it every which way, though, and it's pocket change. Do we really have to peel off three-tenths for that Zang Ba?"
Zhang Liao gave no answer. Wei Xu only ladled on another helping and kept whispering.
"You know my uncle and Chen Gong are in Xiaopei right now, don't you? That Chen Gong says he'll handle the talks there, so it'll go smooth as anything. Uncle says the man's useful — someone we have to seize no matter what."
"I don't like it."
Zhang Liao was a brave warrior who had always fought at the front, but this mission, order or not, sat wrong with him. They were deceiving Zhang Miao, and to stab him in the back they were even parading Lu Bu's family as hostages under their protection.
"Eh, Brother Wenyuan. Is it Uncle's family that's bothering you? Don't worry about that. They're fakes."
Zhang Liao's head came up.
"Maids from the house, and a few palace women we picked up leaving Chang'an, all painted up. How was even I supposed to know? One of them in particular looks an awful lot like our younger sister-in-law. I knew Uncle had a taste for that sort of face, but still."
The subordinate generals had no way of knowing the faces of Lu Bu's wives or household. Clothes and paint thrown together like that, and everyone had been taken in — that was the gist of it. In these times a warlord's family was kept that way. The Governor of Xuzhou was the strange one, unusually willing to mingle with all and sundry and show his household without a shred of reserve.
"The resemblance was enough to fool even me. That woman was not General Lu's secondary wife?"
"She does look like her, doesn't she? Maybe even prettier. She's a maid anyway — want me to ask Uncle to introduce you?"
Zhang Miao knew none of it. With the meeting thirty li out still ahead, Lu Bu's army had already finished its preparations. Zhang Liao only wanted the business over quickly, so he could rejoin Lu Bu and run a battlefield instead.
"A settlement with fifty escorts, thirty li short of Mount Tai?"
"That's right. The proposal they put forward."
Zang Ba had told us everything. Zhang Fei, listening in silence, tapped his own skull and let out a snort of a laugh.
"These bastards are spinning their little heads something fierce. Lay the board first, then ask us to watch what they do?"
Zhuge Jin cleared his throat and added his reading.
"Most likely they assume we will become comrades in a faction against Cao Cao. Defeated remnants they may be, but they still have a force of their own, and though they lost, they believe that if we join strength again, Cao Cao of Yanzhou can be taken. So let us negotiate. That is what they mean to say."
"Master Zhuge. You really think those bastards are clinging to just that? I smell something ranker."
The corners of Zhang Fei's mouth split wide, and a thoroughly wicked smile settled there. Close to two meters of bearded muscle, grinning like that — the pressure of it would buckle anyone's knees. Still smiling, he stepped quietly in behind Zang Ba. When Zang Ba flinched at the killing intent, Zhang Fei seized his shoulder and bore down.
"Brother Yide! What are you—"
"What do you think you're doing?"
Zhuge Jin and Zhao Bao cried out together. Zhang Fei paid them no mind and put the question to Zang Ba almost casually.
"Commandant. How much did you agree to take off Lu Bu and Zhang Miao's alliance?"
In an instant the air went cold under the weight of Zhang Fei's fighting spirit. He had simply done it without a word. I used the opening.
"Xuangao. Tell them everything, just as you told me."
"...As Baijin said. Lu Bu claimed he was biding his time for another fight with Cao Cao. After we negotiated here and he took from us the supplies to go down into Runan... after that he would seize Zhang Miao and his faction, pocket their share as well, and head south with all of it."
When Zang Ba had said it all, Zhang Fei's grin stretched even closer to his ears.
"Well, well. Those bastards sure know how to pinch a share. Dreaming a proper rise up out of the dirt, are they? Isn't that dream a bit too big?"
He laughed loud and jabbed a finger at me.
"Master Baijin. What do you think?"
"If they truly harm Zhang Miao, we cut them all down on the spot."
"Same as mine!"
Zhao Bao's eyes went wide. I spelled it out.
"This is exactly it. We approached them in good faith, ready to answer their talks — but what they have done tramples righteousness and chivalry. An unrighteous, unchivalrous outrage! Bandits who ambush an escort column like this cannot be left alive."
"No, that—"
"In Xuzhou, above all!"
The words struck like a slap.
"Ah!"
"Right. Right."
Remember why Xuzhou had burned twice, and that single line sent a thrill through every mind present — Zhao Bao's not least among them.
"Baijin, now I see it! From the very start you meant to cut the sprout before it grew."
At Zhuge Jin's words I thrust out my fist.
"Come on, all of you! Let's go smash those bandit bastards!"
Zhang Fei set his huge fist against mine. Zhuge Jin followed, then Zhao Bao, and Zang Ba, after a moment's hesitation, raised his as well.
"Squash them! Locust bastards!"
"Good!"
"The fifty escorts will be Danyang men used to hauling goods. The ones who go into the talks: me, Brother Yide, and Xuangao."
Every face jerked toward me.
"Commandant Zhao and Ziyu — I'll fire a whistling arrow as the signal. Wait for it, then start the pursuit of Lu Bu's remnants at once."
When I laid the operation out on the spot, every head nodded.
And so we went together to the appointed place. What I had learned from Zhang Fei in the meantime had put some solidity in my body. I could swing a sword well enough now.
"Everyone, let's try not to catch a blade."
"Not getting hit on a battlefield? That's the real hard part."
"You manage it, though, don't you, Brother Yide?"
"Keh heh heh..."
Zhang Fei laughed and pounded my back, and at last we came face to face with Lu Bu's army. They had fought their way out of Yanzhou; dried blood and mud crusted helmets and armor. They had scraped together what elite they still had worth a fight, and every one of them looked bedraggled. But there was nothing common in their eyes. A pike stays a pike even after it rots, and these men had that look about them.
From their center, a man came toward us first.
"Oh! The gentlemen from Xuzhou?"
"We are. Zhang Qian, courtesy name Baijin, come in place of Lord Liu Xuande, Governor of Xuzhou."
"Can it be! The Thousand-Gold Merchant I've only heard of in rumor, come as proxy. What good fortune!"
Zhang Miao approached in relief, and beside him stood two warriors. One was tall and powerfully built, with a striking beard and a great crescent moon blade slung across his back. The other was tall as well, with a loose, swaggering air.
"Everyone's gathered, then?"
"We are. Let the others give their names as well."
"This humble one's name is Wei Xu, nephew of General Lu, and—"
Steel whispered free.
A wet crack.
In that instant Wei Xu, standing at Zhang Miao's back, drew and ran his sword clean through to the man's chest.
"Kuk— kuhuk..."
"Hold still, you bargaining sacrifice."
"Kuaaargh!"
Blood burst from Zhang Miao's mouth. He shuddered, and when Wei Xu yanked the blade free he collapsed as blood fountained in every direction. Wei Xu wiped his face and sword on his battle robe as if it were nothing, and smiled a smile that stank of blood.
"Sacrifice for the talks is done, so now we take what's owed, give what's due, and wrap this up qui—"
"Yide!!!!"
Zhang Fei burst forward, heaving the Serpent Spear high to split Wei Xu's skull in two—
Clang!
The bearded man beside Wei Xu drew his crescent moon blade and stopped the blow cold.
"Hoh?"
Steel rang, rang again, and crashed. After three exchanges Lu Bu's men rushed in around Zhang Fei, and our Danyang troops read the field at once, drew, and charged in alongside them. In the fifty-against-fifty clash of escorts, the bearded man cut our soldiers down one by one as he came toward me. He looked at me, let out a long breath, and crooked a finger.
"Your name."
"From a man about to die?"
"How else do I carry your head back and report to the Governor of Xuzhou?"
"Huu—"
He sighed, then charged with a crescent blade dripping blood. A sword shot in front of me and caught the blow in a shriek of steel. It was Zang Ba.
"Baijin, leave this to me and get back!"
"Zang Xuangao. You dare defy the will of the Flying General?"
"Defy him? I merely carried the nonsense that bastard Lu Bu fed me up to the Governor of Xuzhou in Xiapi."
Zang Ba beat the crescent blade aside and met him head-on.
"You thought to drag me in over nothing more than a bandit's split of loot! Zhang Liao — you took this Zang Ba far too lightly!"
So the man with the crescent moon blade was Zhang Liao after all. He and Zang Ba traded blows in a furious fight. Out of the chaos of the melee, Zhang Fei — soaked in blood — burst free and took up my guard at once.
"Master Baijin, shout. Good and loud!"
I did as he said.
I seized the whistling arrow meant for the signal and aimed it at the sky.
The whistling arrow's cry tore across heaven and earth, and before long the waiting Danyang troops of Zhao Bao and Zhuge Jin came on with their banners streaming.
You don't set foot on the soil of Xuzhou. Die here — or run, and die all the same.