Go Forth and Make Disciples of All Peoples

Watching Zhang Liao and the Wuhuan soldiers bustle through their work, Lü Bu turned and looked at Yufuluo.

Yufuluo met his eyes and nodded.

Bao was a son he could not fathom, yet a son he loved. And that child heard the voice of Tengri.

How, then, could he — the boy's own father — fail to act?

Yufuluo immediately shouted to the Xiongnu warriors under his command.

Lü Bu, too, turned to the cavalry under his command and called out.

"Is there any among you who has been moved by the Xiongnu Khagan and come to believe in Tengri? Then go! Aid the Xiongnu and Wuhuan soldiers, and tend to the starving people!"

Seven years ago, the refugees born of defeat in the campaign against Tanshihuai — and those who had fallen so far they stood on the brink of becoming wanderers — had gathered beneath the faith of Tengri.

They knew nothing of what the Way even was, nothing of Tengri or Chengli, nothing of the Heavenly God of the Xiongnu. They simply seized the helping hand the Khagan had stretched out to them.

Seven years had passed since then.

They had scattered among the various Xiongnu bands, and by now had grown reasonably familiar with the Xiongnu tongue and culture.

To people whom the Emperor, the officials, the Turbid Stream and the Pure Stream had one and all turned their backs on, the Khagan of the Xiongnu was Heaven itself.

Of course, there were also those who had not become Xiongnu nomads, but had instead entered Lü Bu's cavalry. Even among such men, however, many would flock to catch a glimpse of the Khagan whenever word spread that he was passing nearby.

Among the people of Bing Province, quite a few could manage some Xiongnu, gestures mixed in, and Khagan Luanti Bao conveyed his words to them as simply and clearly as he could.

Meanwhile, Lü Bu's own influence had swollen as well.

The God of War, the God of Battle, who rides a red horse and wraps his body in crimson cloth.

And the armor that sheathed him from head to heel had been dyed still redder with the blood of his enemies.

Among the Xiongnu, there were already those who regarded Lü Bu as a lesser god beneath Father Tengri — a divinity descended to walk the earth.

Among the Han who dealt with the Xiongnu, even those who did not worship Lü Bu as a god were growing in number who held a similar awe.

And when it was said that such a man was the Khagan's teacher, a rather plausible three-generation myth began to take shape.

Tengri had sent Lü Bu down to the earth. Lü Bu had taught the Khagan. And at last, through Khagan Luanti Bao, the will of Tengri was spreading far and wide.

It was still only crawling, an infant of a myth — but it was growing, steadily and without fail.

Those who had somehow fled and survived, those who had hidden in the mountains and forests and along the riverbanks, those who had run farther still and joined the camps of the Greater Fang and Lesser Fang — they all came home.

They sank down before their burned houses and wept. They screamed at the horrific corpses of their families. When they saw a surviving woman they knew, they pulled her into an embrace and wailed together.

Though language and custom were entirely different, even the cavalrymen from Bing Province felt their eyes grow hot at the sight.

"Who are you people?"

A Taiping Dao believer of some apparent standing approached the army commanded by Lü Bu and Yufuluo and asked.

Lü Bu answered.

"We come from Bing Province. This is the Right Guli King of the Xiongnu, and I am Lü Bu."

"Thank you for driving off the enemy. And for sharing clothes and food as well..."

"We simply couldn't look the other way and ride on. Are you all of the Taiping Dao?"

"I am, but many others are not. There are those who simply wear the yellow turban to show respect to the Great Worthy Teacher, or to the Greater Fang and Lesser Fang who helped them. Those people didn't care about such distinctions — they just killed them all as 'Yellow Turban bandits'..."

At those words, Lü Bu's brow twitched again. He turned to Hou Cheng and Song Xian standing behind him and gave the order.

"Among the prisoners, separate those who were forcibly conscripted into the rebel army from those who were originally private soldiers of the great clans."

Then he looked back at the Taiping Dao believer.

"Of the supplies in our baggage train, once we set aside what we need for our own provisions, there isn't much left for relief. So you'll have to reclaim what was plundered from you — from the houses of the great clans who joined the rebels."

The Taiping Dao believer nodded as if he had been waiting for those very words.

"I'll show you the way."

The people of the Taiping Dao seemed to be emerging from their shock and despair. At first they gazed at the Bing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Province cavalry with gratitude; then they began to send puzzled looks.

"You're not of the Taiping Dao, and you don't even know the Great Worthy Teacher... Then who exactly are you people?"

Someone approached Zhang Liao, who was in the midst of distributing food and pitching tents for the refugees to shelter in, and asked.

"We are the people of the Khagan who hears the words of Tengri."

"Tengri...? Khagan...? What are those?"

Zhang Liao was about to repeat it in the Han tongue as Chengli and Kehan, then paused in thought.

Even if he said it that way, these Han people wouldn't understand.

"Tengri is the Heavenly God the Xiongnu believe in, and the Khagan is the Great Chanyu."

"The Heavenly God of the Xiongnu? You look every bit a Han man — and you believe in a Xiongnu god?"

"I do."

"Why do you believe in a Xiongnu god instead of pursuing the Way and serving Heaven, as we other Han people do?"

How was he supposed to explain this? Zhang Liao, without stopping his work, sank into thought again before answering.

"Tengri is Heaven itself, and we have a Way that our Heaven has shown us."

"Then what is your Way?"

That, at least, Zhang Liao could answer at once.

His ancestor, Nie Yi, had committed a crime against the Great Chanyu of the Xiongnu — and that crime had been erased. Erased by his senior martial brother, the Khagan himself. Young in body, yet a soul that communed with Heaven, a gaze that pierced through to places Zhang Liao could not even dare to imagine.

Zhang Liao's answer had not come from any deep contemplation of doctrine or ideology.

Yet it left a profound impression on those who had received his help.

The Han dynasty, as the successor to Qin, was a land of strict law. Han was said to be more flexible than Qin, but that was only relatively so. The opposite of strictness is leniency — not "less strictness."

And so Zhang Liao's words — that Tengri was one who forgives — struck people as a shock.

The notion that the sins of ancestors, the grudges tangled among ancestors, did not fall upon their descendants also sounded bizarre to them.

Some dismissed it as strange and gave up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠trying to understand. Others, curious, followed not only Zhang Liao but other Han cavalrymen, and even the Xiongnu horsemen, asking questions as they went.

A few of the more learned arbitrarily concluded it was something akin to Mohism.

But one thing was certain: Zhang Liao's answer remained in people's memories.

Yet even the relief efforts of the Bing Province cavalry could not stop what could not be stopped.

This was why Lü Bu had so quickly ordered Hou Cheng and Song Xian to separate those ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who had merely been conscripted.

"Look! Look at what you've done!"

After fear, despair, grief, bewilderment, and hunger had all passed over the people, what finally overtook them was rage.

The Taiping Dao commoners went to Lü Bu and demanded the prisoners be handed over, and Lü Bu, if only to save those who had merely been dragged along, had no choice but to surrender those who had come as private soldiers of the great clans.

Clashing with the enraged people of the Taiping Dao was something Lü Bu, for his part, needed to avoid. Besides, Yufuluo's side had reacted along the lines of, Vengeance is their right — why should we stop them?

"Nngh-hiiiik..."

Before the prisoners from the private-soldier ranks, their hair seized in clenched fists, lay the corpses that had barely been gathered. Among the bodies were some that, though recovered, still left no doubt as to the horrific manner of their deaths.

But the prisoners felt no remorse. They merely knew they could not escape death, and in terror they shed tears of self-pity.

Without warning, the people's blades hacked into those prisoners' necks. The commoners' poorly kept edges made sure the prisoners felt every moment of their throats being sawed through while still alive before they died.

Of course, there were those Lü Bu himself would not spare.

"Ptui—!"

A great-clan lord of the rebel side, captured at the camp they had just taken, spat in Lü Bu's face.

"You've taken up with those lowborn scum and become a bandit yourself! And you still call yourself a warrior of the Great Han?!"

Lü Bu wiped the spit from his face and answered the man.

"We're merely returning to the people what you plundered from them. The bandits who make a trade of plunder are you."

"Plunder? For those lowborn things to offer us their lives and their goods — that is righteousness itself! For us to spend the lives of those lowborn things in the service of righteousness — that is the Great Cause! Plunder? You dare call it plunder?"

Even bound, the great-clan lord's neck veins bulged, and he roared with bloodshot eyes.

"The very fact that they have not offered it up to us means our property has already been plundered! It means righteousness has been cast down into the dirt!"

"...He's completely mad."

Lü Bu hoped this thinking belonged to this one great-clan lord alone — or at least that the man was merely lashing out because his stolen goods had been taken from him.

He suspected that hope would not be fulfilled.

Lü Bu muttered it under his breath, but the Taiping Dao forces who had joined his cavalry in suppressing the rebels were not so patient.

"What? Bandits? Plunder? You son of a bitch! Why the hell are we the bandits?!"

"We're the people! We're the people, damn you! We are!"

It was a roar mixed with sobbing, almost a scream.

Before the great-clan lord could shout anything more, he was dragged away by the hands of the Taiping Dao commoners.

Listening to screams so horrific that even Lü Bu, long seasoned on the battlefield, was unaccustomed to them, he approached the great-clan lord's family.

Instead of the halberd he usually wielded, Lü Bu drew his sword. The blade was well-honed; it would cut through anything without resistance.

The great-clan lord's family, already utterly unhinged by the screams of their patriarch, felt the terror of death anew at the sight of Lü Bu.

"Even if I let you go, you'll die more painfully at their hands. I give you my word. I'll make it instant."

Lü Bu's hand moved several times. Each time, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a body fell without a scream.

That was all he could grant them.

Word of Lü Bu spread all the way to the command tent where the three kings besieging Guangzong County had gathered.

While the three kings sat in silence, their faces as wrinkled with displeasure as they could manage, the words of the renowned scholars and great-clan lords who sat there as supposed advisors flew chaotically about the tent.

"Cavalry from Bing Province have joined the Yellow Turban bandits and are plundering government offices and civilian homes!"

"The Yellow Turbans have risen in Bing Province as well?"

"No — a rebellion has broken out in Bing Province. A man named Lü Bu, who once fought and defeated Tanshihuai, is leading the cavalry, they say."

Though the Emperor had already designated them as rebels, they stubbornly averted their eyes from reality, calling the Taiping Dao Yellow Turban bandits and the army aiding them rebels.

"Hah! That warrior fellow scored a few merits and grew arrogant, and now he's finally rebelled!"

"Plundering government offices and civilian homes... They ought to be cut down!"

Of course, to these men, "civilian homes" meant the houses of great clans like themselves. The common folk were not even counted as "the people" — they were not even human beings.

An elder among the renowned scholars rose indignantly and declared: