The Worst Judgment (1): The Map

"Brothers."

Qiu Liju and Nanlou both knew perfectly well that the word Tanshihuai had just spoken was nothing more than a political ploy.

And yet their hearts pounded.

Tanshihuai was asking them to go back — back to the age before the Xiongnu had torn them apart, back to the age of the old stories they had once heard leaning against their grandmothers' knees.

To the days when they had been called the Donghu.

To the days when the Xianbei and the Wuhuan had been one.

"The hair we crop short is not the hanging locks of the Xiongnu. We who eat each from our own vessel are not the Xiongnu, who eat from a single pot. That we are alike is the proof that we were once one."

While Qiu Liju and Nanlou hesitated over how to answer, Tanshihuai took them both by the arm and drew them deeper into the command tent.

Whether it had been plundered from the Han or bought from them, a map had been ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠painted across a sheet of clean silk.

Qiu Liju and Nanlou saw that the left side of Tanshihuai's tent was occupied by northern commanders of the Xianbei and the other steppe peoples, while the right side held Han strategists. The map was the work of those Han advisors.

"A map of Yuzhou."

"Our Xianbei army will annihilate the Han main force here."

"Then our Wuhuan army…?"

"You will go and save the Wuhuan tribes you left behind in each commandery of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Yuzhou."

Shanggu, Yuyang, Youbeiping, Liaoxi, and Liaodong — five commanderies — and the Liaodong Dependent State besides. At the invitation of Emperor Wu of Han, the Wuhuan had scattered to live across those five commanderies and that one dependent state. Of course some Wuhuan had remained beyond the border, and once the Great Wall had been rendered powerless they had come and gone as they pleased, ignoring the frontier altogether.

"The Han think you live in Yuzhou by their generosity. History says otherwise."

Tanshihuai's eyes turned toward his advisors. It was thanks to the passages from the Records of the Grand Historian those men had recited that he had come to know, in far finer detail, the history the Xianbei had passed down by word of mouth.

"Yuzhou was originally the land of the Donghu. Before the Han, before even the Qin, the state of Yan stood upon that ground — and Yan's territory never reached beyond Guangyang Commandery."

Guangyang Commandery. At its heart, Ji County. Even now the place was still customarily called Yan. So fierce was that pride that not only the people of Guangyang but the Han of the surrounding lands as well still styled themselves men of Yan.

"When Yan seized the land of the Donghu, we were weakened. We became slaves of the Xiongnu. We were divided. We were driven out."

Yan had driven out the Donghu, pushed Joseon south of the Yalu, and then established Shanggu Commandery to the northwest of Guangyang, Yuyang to the northeast, and Youbeiping, Liaoxi, and Liaodong in succession to the east. Through the dynastic succession from Yan to Qin to Han, nothing had changed except the creation of the Liaodong "Dependent State" between Liaoxi and Liaodong Commanderies, ostensibly to administer the foreign peoples. Then, when the Xiongnu threat grew fierce, the Han had magnanimously summoned the Wuhuan back to their original lands.

And so Qiu Liju, Nanlou, and the Wuhuan army departed for the east.

"Da-ren!"

The Xianbei chieftains crowded before Tanshihuai, Helian among them.

"To send the Wuhuan off like that! It would have been better to use them here — pin the Han army in place while our main force struck the commanderies of Yuzhou…!"

"Yes. Beginning with Shanggu Commandery, no doubt."

Tanshihuai said it with a faint smile, and his chieftains hesitated. When Tanshihuai smiled like that, it meant he was thinking something the rest of them were not. And ordinarily that something proved right, and a great victory followed. Twenty years of victories, and the unification of the north, had been built in just that way. Knowing this, the chieftains simply watched his mouth and waited.

"Do you know what stands in Shanggu Commandery?"

Neither Gachui nor Queju of the Central Division could answer, nor Yilü Chuyan, Chijianluoluo, or Yanluyu of the Right Wing. Only Helian of the Left Wing spoke.

"…Juyong Pass, is it?"

Tanshihuai broke into a broad, delighted grin. That his son's eyes could see that far was, to a father, a deep joy.

"Just so. Juyong Pass. If our Xianbei cavalry are to cross the many mountains that join the Yan range to the Jundu Mountains, we have no choice but to take the level road. Naturally the Han built Juyong Pass across that road to keep us from using it."

To bypass Juyong Pass, one would have to take the harsh northern tracks and enter Youbeiping through Luolong Pass. But that would cost far too much time.

"Would you rather jam our Xianbei cavalry into a narrow defile and try to force Juyong Pass yourselves? Or is it wiser to leave that work to the Wuhuan?"

"Da-ren, then…"

"Even if the Wuhuan fail to break Juyong Pass, once we have annihilated the Han army here we will be free to plunder the Han frontier as we please. Conversely, even if we ourselves broke Juyong Pass, so long as the Han army remained intact we would have to live in fear."

Tanshihuai swept his gaze across the chieftains and thought: the Xianbei were not yet a state. Too many of them still thirsted for the raid of the moment, the prize of the moment, and too few were ready to devote themselves to the long work of building a nation. Twenty years was half of Tanshihuai's own life, a long span by any measure — and still far too short to change the thinking of the northern peoples at the root. That was why he had to set the gains and losses before his men in terms they could not misunderstand.

"Will Wuhuan who have already betrayed the Han fight hard for us here? I think not. Better to let Wuhuan we cannot use go chasing their own profit, and take our profit with it, than to keep them penned up here doing nothing."

It was for this reason that Tanshihuai had given up direct command of the Wuhuan. His thoughts on the other tribes now under his banner were not so different. The Gegun, the Northern Xiongnu, the Dingling… The Northern Xiongnu, of course, had to be watched to be sure they were not in secret contact with the Southern Xiongnu. The Gegun and the Dingling, too, had once tried to fill the vacuum the Xiongnu had left and become masters of the steppe even before the Xianbei. Show them an opening, and even Tanshihuai could be betrayed. So this "defensive battle," in which he had gathered every force he possessed, was also a rehearsal — practice in commanding many tribes at once. The Wuhuan could be governed later, once that rehearsal was done and he had learned the knack of it.

"And…"

There was one rumor that troubled him. Whenever a certain red cavalry appeared, his own horsemen lost their heads and fled. The tactics of a nomad host were, at bottom, to run when the fight went badly and to gather again and strike when it went well — but if they ran too terrified, that was another matter. The whole Xianbei army might scatter. The Han could recoup their losses with their overwhelming numbers. For Tanshihuai, a single defeat would mean the end of twenty years of labor.

He did not know what that red cavalry truly was. But he had to have an answer for it. They had won the first fight handsomely; he could afford a bolder stroke.

Ha Yu and Zhang Min were Han. The authority of Tengri held no power over them. So I had no choice but to go back and forth between my great-grandfather's royal court and Lü Bu's command tent, waiting for word to reach me secondhand. I would hear of decisions already made, exert only the most indirect influence, and then lay my countermeasures — over and over. Because of that, I had given up early on the original goal of turning the historical defeat of the Han-Xiongnu allied army into a victory. I could not save both the Han and the Xiongnu. The only aim left to me was to find some way of saving the Xiongnu alone.

Even now, in places my hands could not reach, Ha Yu's army was being smashed to pieces, and Gongsun Zan was learning a hatred of the Wuhuan and the other northern peoples that would sink its roots deep. I had already prophesied the defeat of the Han-Xiongnu allied army to my great-grandfather, Grand Chanyu Tute Ruoshi. After Ha Yu's hideous reverse, the faith that he and the other Xiongnu magnates placed in me had only grown stronger — a mercy, at least, in the midst of misfortune. Advice to take this or that precaution was carried out a little more smoothly after that.

Still… the vanishing of the Wuhuan army, which I heard of while the standoff dragged on, left me uneasy. All I knew was that they had been defeated. I did not know how. The original Xiongnu Liu Bao had not come to this battlefield at the age of five either.

The unease became fact soon enough.

"Juyong Pass is under attack! The Wuhuan have come crashing in on Juyong Pass!"

The emergency, loud enough even for me to hear, swept the whole encampment. Men ran in every direction, throwing on armor and snatching up weapons, either bracing against a Xianbei movement or scrambling to answer the Wuhuan. I waited for my master.

It was not long before Lü Bu came, scooped me up, and set me on Red Hare.

"…The Wuhuan army that vanished on us has shown up in front of Juyong Pass."

His eyes asked the rest. Did your Tengri know of this? I looked away.

Hebei — the land that would one day become Yuan Shao's foundation, and after that Cao Cao's prize — was a great plain ringed by three mountain ranges. To the northeast, blocking the road out toward Liaodong, the Yan Mountains. To the northwest, blocking the road out toward Dai Commandery, the Jundu Mountains. To the west, blocking the road out toward Taiyuan Commandery, the Taihang Mountains. Juyong Pass in Shanggu Commandery was the fortress of the Jundu range, one of those three. If it fell…

"If we are not careful, the Wuhuan will pour into Guangyang and Zhuo Commanderies."

"The Yuzhou Inspectorate will be in danger before the day's out. General Zhang and Colonel Ha are of one mind on it."

Of course. Ji County was the heart of Guangyang Commandery, and the Inspector of Yuzhou would be there. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games, Ji County was drawn as Gongsun Zan's principal city — and in later ages it would become Beijing. In this era, with the capitals at Luoyang and Chang'an, it was still a frontier town. But on this frontier, it was a center in its own right. It would not be too much to say that Shanggu, Yuyang, Youbeiping, Liaoxi, and the rest of the commanderies had been established for the defense of Ji County. If Ji County burned, it would mean the Han-Xiongnu allied army had been defeated in the fullest strategic sense.

No. Wait.

The Han-Xiongnu allied army had suffered a heavy defeat in the original history — but the central city of Yuzhou, Ji County, had never come under attack. Could it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be that I… that the things I had done to change history…?

Binding Lü Bu more closely to the Xiongnu. Making him stand out on the field. Trying to keep as many of the Xiongnu alive as I could. Things I had thought so small.

I haven't twisted history in a direction I never saw ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠coming. Have I?

"Nnnngh…"

Unlike Ha Yu, who sat with his head buried, Zhang Min paced the command tent with his hands clasped behind his back, making a low sound in his throat.

"Zhonglangjiang Tian has done what he ought never to have done."

Just now, as if the crisis at Juyong Pass had not been enough to crush them, worse news had arrived.

"One must not face the Xianbei as one faces the Qiang and the Rong…!"

Tian Yan, the Zhonglangjiang Defeating the Xianbei, had set out from Yunzhong Commandery — and instead of coming east to join them, he had driven straight north.

"North! Across the desert! Has the man lost his mind?"

With the Xianbei army before their eyes they could not even think of riding to save Yuzhou. The only way had been for Tian Yan to arrive and join them, so that they could peel off a portion of the cavalry in haste and send it to Juyong Pass. That man had ruined everything.

Ha Yu muttered, all the strength gone from his voice.

"What if we crossed the mountains south into Jizhou, then turned northeast to relieve Yuzhou?"

"I do not know that Tanshihuai would simply watch us move south. And even if he left us alone, that road would take far too long. If Juyong Pass falls in the meantime and the great hosts of both the Wuhuan and the Xianbei pour into Guangyang Commandery… there will be no way to stop them."

If the interior of Yuzhou collapsed, the many officers and men whose homes were there would waver. The Yuzhou army, already cut down to half its strength, would vanish without a trace.

Despair had just finished knocking on the floor when Gongsun Du burst into the tent.

"The enemy—! Tanshihuai is pulling his army back!"

Ha Yu and Zhang Min looked at each other and ran outside at once. From the observation platform raised on the crest of the hill, the movement of the Xianbei army lay open at a glance. A vast host of horsemen was rolling north, lifting a storm of dust.

"Besiege Wei to rescue Zhao…"

At the Warring States anecdote Ha Yu murmured, Zhang Min found himself nodding. To save the state of Zhao, one did not need to go to Zhao. Threaten Wei, the attacker, and Wei's army would withdraw from Zhao of its own accord. It might be misfortune for Zhonglangjiang Tian — but Tanshihuai, it seemed, had chosen to answer first the threat Tian Yan was carrying into Mobei.

"This is the time Zhonglangjiang Tian has bought us. Quickly — form a force to relieve Juyong Pass!"