The Difference Between Hu and Rong (1)
Another crimson head jutted from Red Hare's back.
Even a snake or an ox with two heads will command a kind of awe. How much more, then, a horse — the animal both Xianbei and Xiongnu hold precious — if it should grow a second one.
"If anyone looked closely, they'd see through it."
The mere sight of Lü Bu's swinging halberd was enough to terrify the Xianbei. Even if I had drifted into their field of vision, the impression would have stopped at something like, Does that horse have two heads? And the Xianbei blood Lü Bu had sprayed in every direction clung to the hides and cloth I wore, completing a truly grotesque spectacle.
I pulled off that reeking mass and the wolf skull with it and drew in a lungful of clean air. Then I looked down at the "costume" I had set aside.
"It really does look like a rotting horse's head."
"You planning to keep wearing that?"
Lü Bu asked, his face making it abundantly clear he wanted nothing to do with it.
"I have to. Is it getting in your way?"
"No."
His pride would never allow him to admit that something this paltry had thrown off the swing of his halberd.
"It seems to be working, doesn't it?"
At first I had been half skeptical. But through several confrontations north of Goliu County, Lü Bu had ridden out with the rotting horse head still perched on his mount's back. Lü Bu's valor was valor enough on its own — yet inside that ornament I, very much alive, was swaying, and it had never looked like a mere grotesque decoration.
Lü Bu clenched and unclenched his fists a few times before answering.
"Thing is, they run the second they see me. Honestly, the satisfaction's been... lacking."
Ah. So that was the side effect of becoming too much an object of fear.
The military code of the Han, which had inherited a fair portion of Qin's institutions, was severe. It did not forgive soldiers who fell back out of fear of the enemy. In extreme cases, they even counted the number of paces a man had retreated and graded the punishment accordingly — or so I had heard.
But that was not how nomadic cavalry fought. If the odds turned against them, they fled without hesitation, loosing arrows even as they ran, and regrouped just as quickly.
Lü Bu was a different matter. A Xianbei rider could twist at the waist and shoot while fleeing Red Hare — and Lü Bu would simply bat the arrow aside. A heartbeat later Red Hare would close the distance, and that rider would be dead.
Once the Xianbei army understood this, they simply ran the moment Lü Bu appeared. They refused the fight altogether, so the number of Xianbei he cut down dwindled by the day.
Even so. Once you have confirmed a fixed reaction — when Lü Bu sorties, the enemy flees — building a tactic around it becomes simple.
Zhang Min, the Zhonglangjiang Protecting the Xiongnu, had clearly noticed. He began using Lü Bu for a kind of driven hunt. He even entrusted a detachment to his son Zhang Hong, and by deploying Song Xian, Wei Xu, and Hou Cheng under Lü Bu, they slowly whittled the Xianbei down.
It was not enough to reverse the Xianbei army's numerical advantage, but it had at least thrown Tanshihuai into deliberation and bought us time. On another front, they had also used Sun Jian and a portion of the Xiongnu forces to inflict fairly heavy losses.
Still, they could not pursue too deeply. The reverse was equally possible — we could find ourselves surrounded and annihilated in the heart of the Xianbei host. The Xianbei had numbers to spare. We did not.
The question was how Tian Yan, the Zhonglangjiang Defeating the Xianbei, would move.
"Hey, Captain. How long are you planning to drag that Xiongnu brat around?"
Wei Xu. At that rough voice I set my thoughts aside and looked up at Lü Bu.
Lü Bu answered curtly.
"He's not just some Xiongnu brat. He's my disciple, the son of the Right Guli King, and a gifted Hu shaman."
"Yeah, well, it's not like any of that's that important..."
Just before Lü Bu could glare Wei Xu into silence for his flippancy, Hou Cheng tapped Wei Xu on the shoulder.
"It worked. The captain judged him useful, so he keeps him around."
A rough voice, but far lower and more solemn than Wei Xu's. The words of a stolid subordinate — this is not for us to judge — and Wei Xu's brow furrowed. He turned toward Song Xian, as if asking for a little support.
Song Xian gave a short laugh.
"Keeping the Right Guli King's son with us is definitely to our advantage. The Xiongnu troops actually listen to us because of it. The Zhonglangjiang Protecting the Xiongnu and the Inspector have been treating us better, too."
Song Xian was right. Once Lü Bu had formed something like a sworn brotherhood with Yufuluo, the Right Wise King lineage among our Southern Xiongnu had become remarkably cooperative with Lü Bu's unit. From Zhang Min's perspective, channeling control of the Xiongnu through Lü Bu saved him a great deal of trouble, so Lü Bu's standing had risen by degrees. And naturally, the purses of Wei Xu, Song Xian, and Hou Cheng under him had grown a little fatter than before.
Even in the conversation unfolding in front of me, the three men each had their own character. If I had not been the Xiongnu's Liu Bao, I would never have lived to learn their temperaments. I probably would have thought of them the way people think of Jian-Sun-Mi — Jian Yong, Sun Qian, and Mi Zhu under Liu Bei. Those men have their own personalities too, if you dig deep enough.
Anyway. Wei Xu, from what I had heard, was a distant relative of Lü Bu. Capable, but as just demonstrated, a bit light in character. Hou Cheng was grave and heavy — a man who believed that if it was Lü Bu's will, obedience came before questions. Song Xian was a man who weighed profit with precision. That was why the advantages of Lü Bu keeping me around had spilled so readily from his mouth.
Knowing these three men's natures would be useful someday. In the original history, they betray Lü Bu in the year 198. I could prevent that betrayal — or remove them before they ever had the chance.
The second head of Red Hare had not only been effective against the Xianbei. It had an unexpected effect on my own people, the Xiongnu, as well.
Of course, the Xiongnu did not think it was another of Red Hare's heads. They took it, instead, as a new shamanic costume for me — the one who would someday become Grand Shaman.
"They say Lord Lü poured Xianbei blood over the prince to strengthen the spell."
"He's using a great wolf's skull to lay a death curse on the Xianbei!"
"Tengri descends in the form of a wolf as well, so the death of that wolf-body must be visiting death upon the Xianbei too."
"There's even talk that Lord Lü's martial prowess is thanks to our shaman-prince's blessing!"
"He hears Tengri's voice directly from horseback, and that little body of his can barely endure it — that's why he shakes so violently, they say."
"The poor thing... that child's body, all for our sake..."
They had even taken to pitying me, of all things. Well, if pity was useful for raising morale, I had no objection. Pity away.
"Even the Xianbei have no choice but to fear the power of the great wolf."
"Haha! That's satisfying! If we could just sweep the Xianbei away like this!"
Consolidating my standing among the Xiongnu through the faith of Tengri was all well and good. The problem was getting even one more Xiongnu who had come to look on me with favor back alive to our homeland on the Hetao Plateau. If seven or eight tenths of them died as they had in history, none of this would matter. Worse — the popular feeling I had gathered through the faith of Tengri would turn against me.
Fraud! He claimed he heard Tengri's voice and deceived us!
Tengri? What Tengri? If Tengri were so great, why did He leave us to die?
Imagining those people cursing me like that sent a chill down my spine. A shaman whose miracles have run dry has a way of becoming the offering at the next sacrifice. And I was a prince besides — it could bring down the dynasty itself.
So I would have to do exactly as I had promised my great-grandfather: even if the Han army was annihilated, I would pull the Xiongnu army out intact and withdraw. The key to that lay with Lü Bu — and perhaps with Sun Jian.
But how, exactly, was I supposed to make it happen...?
The Wuhuan army had vanished from the battlefield.
"They didn't join the Xianbei to attack us, and they weren't wiped out in some falling-out with the Xianbei either. They simply... disappeared?"
Zhang Min, the Zhonglangjiang Protecting the Xiongnu; Ha Yu, the Colonel Protecting the Wuhuan; and all those under them — Zhang Hong, Lü Bu, Sun Jian, Han Dang, Gongsun Zan, Gongsun Du, Xu Rong — could only look at one another in bewilderment. Left Wise King Hozheng, attending the council in place of his aged father the Chanyu, tilted his head as well.
"The name Colonel Protecting the Wuhuan is a disgrace to me."
He had taken the field under a title that meant he protected the Wuhuan, leading them into battle — and he had not even noticed their betrayal. Ha Yu hung his head.
"Don't blame yourself too harshly, Colonel Ha. No one could have predicted this."
When Zhang Min offered that comfort, Left Wise King Hozheng spoke as well.
"Even when we Xiongnu were the hegemons of the north, the Wuhuan were a people who betrayed as casually as they drank fermented mare's milk. No — everything that sprang from the Donghu is like that. They are the sort who dug up the tombs of previous Chanyus and committed every outrage imaginable..."
Hozheng no doubt meant it as consolation, but his Xiongnu pride ran far too deep. The history he was reciting belonged to an age when the Han had faced a unified Xiongnu instead of the Xianbei. If he kept talking, the atmosphere would only grow more awkward.
Zhang Min was just about to check him when a sharp sneer cut in from an unexpected direction.
"Hah... so the northern barbarian's mouth still draws breath."
Xu Rong's face tightened in alarm and he reached out as if to stop the man who had just spoken — but the words had already reached Hozheng's ears.
"Who are you, to wag your tongue so freely before the Left Wise King of the Xiongnu?"
"I am Gongsun Bogui. A northern barbarian running his mouth about other northern barbarians as if he were something — how is that not laughable?"
Hozheng's brows shot up. He knew perfectly well what it meant when a Han man introduced himself not by surname, given name, and courtesy name separately, but by joining surname and courtesy name together. It was an expression of towering arrogance. To address someone by surname and courtesy name was a courtesy one offered to another. To apply it to oneself was to elevate one's own person.
A clatter of overturned seats crashed through the command tent. It was the sound of everyone rising at once — Hozheng ready to fight Gongsun Zan, Gongsun Zan goading him to try, and everyone else lunging to hold them apart.
"Brother Bogui!"
"Bogui!"
At the shouts of Han Dang and Ha Yu, Gongsun Zan spat his words as if chewing them.
"We should have done it the way Zhonglangjiang Tian Yan did it — the way Grand Commandant Duan Jiong did it!"
What he meant was that the title should never have been Colonel Protecting the Wuhuan. It should have been Colonel Defeating the Wuhuan — or General Defeating the Wuhuan.
"From the beginning, every last Wuhuan settlement should have been swept away and put to the torch!"
Zhang Min's tone turned stern.
"Gongsun Bogui, was it? You go too far."
"Half of our You Province army died in a single day."
Zhang Min flicked a glance at Ha Yu. The meaning was clear: the man's superior was to give the order.
"Bogui! Get out of here! Confine yourself to your tent until you are summoned!"
Gongsun Zan jabbed a finger at Hozheng's face.
"I know what you Hu are really thinking! The moment you see an opening, you'll betray us too!"
"Gongsun Zan! Out!"
Only when he was called by his given name, not his courtesy name, did Gongsun Zan withdraw.
They sat back down with faces that were awkward and, at the same time, quietly relieved. Zhang Min spoke again.
"The shock of the Wuhuan betrayal must have hit him hard. Colonel Ha, I trust you will settle him down."
Ha Yu nodded weakly.
The words of this Gongsun Zan had not been mere shouting born of rage. You Province's army really had lost half its men in a single day. The campaign was extremely unfavorable. That they were even holding the line at all could only be put down to an excess of luck.
"Zhonglangjiang Tian Yan will have to move well for us... For now, let us wait for word from that quarter."
The council ended in a somber mood. Zhang Min apologized to Left Wise King Hozheng again and again, and asked that today's incident not be allowed to reach the ears of Tute Ruoshi Gongzhu Chanyu.
Hozheng nodded, as if agreeing only because he had no choice.
Zhang Min departed. Hozheng stood looking up at the sky for a long while, then sighed and was about to start back toward his own camp when someone drew up beside him.
"Whether in Bing Province or You Province, the way they look at the Xiongnu doesn't seem all that different, Left Wise King."
It was Sun Jian.