Stratagem (1)
We made for Mayi County, Anmen Commandery — the place from which the expedition had first set out.
It was Lü Bu's valor, Xu Rong's stubborn fight, the fanatic courage of the Xiongnu, and every other officer giving everything he had in his own place that had let us break free at all. Hou Cheng had been as solid as ever, of course — but even Wei Xu, who never stopped grumbling, had fought well enough once the blades were out that I found myself a little surprised. Song Xian had done exactly what Lü Bu asked of him, reading the ground and guiding us through terrain that would shake a pursuit. Whenever a fold of land looked as if it might fall into the Xianbei army's blind spot, he planted a handful of cavalry in ambush and hit them as they came. The damage those strikes inflicted was never great, but the sudden appearance of our horsemen made the Xianbei cautious — which is to say, slow. In the end they gave up the chase.
Xu Rong had proven, as if the proof were still required, that he was the same commander who in the original history had smashed the anti-Dong Zhuo coalition and beaten Sun Jian and Cao Cao in turn. The moment Lü Bu tore a hole in the encirclement, Xu Rong came through it. Even Gongsun Du — who in the game Romance of the Three Kingdoms sits rotting in Liaodong until Gongsun Zan or Yuan Shao or Cao Cao wipes him out — had somehow gathered up our infantry and dragged them this far.
But we could not save everyone.
"Half," Lü Bu muttered, as Xu Rong drew up beside him.
The Youzhou infantry, already cut in two fighting Tanshihuai, had died almost to a man. The Bingzhou foot that had arrived late had lost half their number as well. The moment Tanshihuai judged the cavalry would slip his grasp, he had switched to a campaign of certain annihilation against the infantry and driven them without mercy.
When Lü Bu could not find the next words and fell silent, Xu Rong clapped him on the shoulder.
"They were dead men already. You brought them back. Think of the living now."
Xu Rong was right. I too had set my sights on saving only the cavalry — and of those, only the Xiongnu horse. I had written the infantry off. The result had been far better than the goal: most of the Han and Xiongnu cavalry preserved, and some portion of the infantry pulled out alive. The Southern Xiongnu now stood on a starting line far kinder than the one history had given them.
...But I could hardly say any of that in front of the grim face beside me.
Lü Bu managed a reply to Xu Rong's comfort.
"If there's no more pursuit, we slow the pace. Men and horses alike are on the edge of collapse. At this rate it won't be Xianbei arrows that kill us. It'll be exhaustion."
The chieftains of the various Xiongnu tribes who had fought to survive alongside the Han — my father Yufuluo among them — followed Lü Bu's lead. We shared out dried meat and the things we made from livestock's milk with the Han soldiers. Men who lived on grain might, on any ordinary day, have gagged at the smell of our food. Fresh from shaking off a Xianbei pursuit, they tore into it as if they had never tasted anything so good, sucking the grease from their fingers.
And so we, the "routed remnants" of the Han-Xiongnu allied army, trudged all the way to Mayi County, Anmen Commandery.
"Someone's coming."
At Song Xian's report, Lü Bu tightened his grip on his halberd and rode forward. We had not yet met any of our own. That meant a Xianbei pursuit column might have force-marched around us and cut the road.
I tensed with the rest of them — but the soldiers who appeared were Han. Not many cavalry, and only a few more infantry than that. Two officers led them: a man of about forty, and another who was older than Lü Bu but could still be called a young man.
Lü Bu gave the order to Wei Xu.
"Bring the Zhonglangjiang Protecting the Xiongnu and the Colonel Protecting the Wuhuan. They look like men from the Bing Province Inspectorate."
A moment later Zhang Min and Ha Yu came riding up. The two commanders opposite, seeing them, approached and offered their respects.
"Ding Jianyang!"
What?
That man's courtesy name is Jianyang? Then — is that Ding Yuan, the Inspector of Bing Province?
But Ding Yuan bowed his head to Zhang Min, the Zhonglangjiang Protecting the Xiongnu, with scrupulous courtesy. For an Inspector of Bing Province, the deference was... excessive.
"I am relieved to find you unharmed, General."
Ah. So that was it. Ding Yuan was a Bingzhou official, yes — but he was not yet Inspector. A man of outstanding martial skill and a humble house, he would not become Inspector of Bing Province until after the Yellow Turban Rebellion.
Then who was the man beside him?
The younger one also paid his respects before Zhang Min.
"Zhang Yang, at your service."
Not Zhang Rang of the Ten Regular Attendants — the other Zhang Yang, the one who would one day be a warlord. A native of Yunzhong Commandery in Bingzhou, and a friend of Lü Bu. The man who would walk a tightrope between Dong Zhuo and Yuan Shao, send grain to Liu Xie, Emperor Xian, after he fled as far as Luoyang, walk another tightrope between Yuan Shao and Cao Cao... and die at the hands of his own subordinates. They said he was too kind: that he had wept as he pardoned the very officers who meant to rebel against him. His face did look round and gentle, it was true.
Yunzhong Commandery sat immediately east of Wuyuan Commandery, Lü Bu's own home — frontier land, same as the rest. But Zhang Yang's face was nothing like what one expected of a man from the border. Still, he was not without loyalty. When a decision had to be made, he made it. He would help his friend Lü Bu slip Yuan Shao's pursuit. He would raise troops to save Lü Bu in the hour before Cao Cao killed him.
And even a man like that was, for now, nothing more than a junior officer of Bingzhou.
Zhang Min nodded to Ding Yuan and Zhang Yang. Ding Yuan stepped to Zhang Min's side.
"I will escort you as far as Mayi."
Zhang Min, Ha Yu, and Ding Yuan took the lead toward Mayi County. Only then did Lü Bu and Zhang Yang drop their official faces and grin at each other.
"You've had a hard time of it, Fengxian."
"Brother Chishu."
"Let's leave the battle talk for now. More to the point... the mood inside the walls is ugly, with the news of the defeat."
"Why?"
"Why? Have you forgotten?"
Forgotten?
I must have been wearing the same look as Lü Bu when I turned to Zhang Yang.
"The eunuch the court sent to supervise. You remember."
Ah.
Regular Attendant Wang Fu.
I had forgotten him completely — the man who had gone white as a sheet and locked himself inside the fortress.
"He keeps raving that His Majesty is going to have us all killed, then drinking himself unconscious. Over and over."
Before Sun Jian's eyes, Juyong Pass was burning.
"What is the meaning of this!"
Gongsun Zan had seized one of the soldiers drifting north of the pass and was snarling the question into his face. Sun Jian did not turn. He kept his gaze on Juyong Pass. His ears, though, took in every word.
"Th-the Wuhuan suddenly came in through the gate..."
"That doesn't make sense! The Wuhuan are pouring down from the north and you didn't even close the gates — you let them in?"
"That's not it... the Wuhuan came from the south..."
"What...?"
Only then did Sun Jian turn and walk over to Gongsun Zan and the soldier.
"Bogui, if you're that rattled you can't even hear what the man's saying."
Gongsun Zan clicked his tongue and took a step back. Sun Jian let his voice drop into something gentler and asked the soldier,
"The Wuhuan came from the south? What do you mean by that."
"I mean... not the Wuhuan who'd marched out to war. The families they'd left behind in Youzhou came to the pass and asked to go through. They said they wanted to go out and pray for their husbands and sons to come home safe — and to meet them that much sooner."
"And you believed them?"
"The Colonel Protecting the Wuhuan had ridden out so proudly, swearing he'd smash Tanshihuai. We thought a victory report would be coming any day..."
"So you opened the gates and let the Wuhuan in, and they suddenly turned and raised hell inside the pass."
"Yes! And after that... when the Wuhuan from the north hit the gate, we couldn't hold. We tried to get the doors shut somehow, but the Wuhuan were faster..."
Sun Jian closed his eyes.
Whose head had this scheme come from? Was it a Wuhuan design — Qiu Liju's, or Nanlou's? Or had it been cooked up by those Han advisers under Tanshihuai that he and Cai Yong had confirmed together?
There was no use turning it over. Juyong Pass had fallen. That was the fact.
"Quite a blaze."
He let the thought out in a breath and opened his eyes to slits. How many men had the Wuhuan left in that pass?
Sun Jian called Gongsun Zan, Han Dang, and Left Wise King Hozheng together. Gongsun Zan and Hozheng were still awkward with each other, so Sun Jian had no choice but to stand between them.
"Bogui. Yigong. Are the Wuhuan men who sit on land — or men who sit on loot?"
Did they occupy a place and settle on it, or did they put plunder first? That was the question. Gongsun Zan answered.
"They've rarely taken cities so far. They'll plunder the villages scattered outside the walls. They're probably doing it right now..."
He was violent about it — but was that violence the anger of a man watching his home, Youzhou, being torn apart by the Wuhuan? Sun Jian took Gongsun Zan's measure. A man who loved his native Youzhou deeply, and had not the eye to see the realm. In that case... if he could simply show this Han Dang a different face from his hometown senior Gongsun Zan, making the man his own would not be difficult.
Sun Jian sent a look at Hozheng. Hozheng met it squarely and nodded, so slightly it was barely there.
On the road to Juyong Pass, Hozheng had told him this:
That little Hu shaman, Luanti Bao, had said such a thing...
Sun Jian did not particularly believe it. But if the sky-god of the Xiongnu truly had his eye on him, he wanted to put it to the test. There was no other road anyway.
"If Tanshihuai sends even a detached column, we'll be crushed between the pass and the Xianbei."
Han Dang added, his voice bitter,
"We came here to do that to the Wuhuan. Now we're the ones in that position."
"Yigong. Come to think of it, you never asked how I trained elite troops under such poor conditions."
"Ah — no, I didn't."
"I'll show you."
Sun Jian asked a soldier for a shield and a spear, and then he started running toward the pass.
"Wentai!"
Gongsun Zan, Han Dang, and Hozheng all started after him in shock. Juyong Pass was a plug driven into the road between mountains, and it sat higher than the ground they had been standing on. Even so, Sun Jian showed not the slightest sign of slowing as he drove toward the gate.
"Go! Protect Sun Wentai!"
Once the commanders were running like madmen, the soldiers began to run with them. Arrows came, and Sun Jian flicked them aside as if they were nothing. The resistance was not that fierce.
He jammed a spear into a crack in the gate-wall. The Juyong garrison had fought the Wuhuan so hard that finding a weakened spot to plant a spear was not difficult. Then he clapped the shield over the head of the soldier who had come up behind him.
"A spear. Give it here."
He took a fresh spear and drove it in higher. Something — rock or arrow, he could not tell — slammed into the shield. From another soldier he took a third spear, and knocked aside an arrow coming in on a slant.
"More! Give me more spears!"
"Shoot that bastard!"
The Wuhuan soldier who had leaned his whole upper body out over the battlements to loose at Sun Jian took three arrows in a cluster, thud-thud-thud.
Sun Jian flicked a glance downward. A fair number of soldiers had gathered at the foot of the wall. Crowded together with their shields held over their heads, they looked like the shell of a tortoise.
"One more!"
The soldier serving under him threw a spear this time, aimed past Sun Jian's side. Sun Jian snatched it out of the air and drove it in higher still. He could see other soldiers beginning to copy him.
He shouted,
"I go over first! The merit for first over the wall is mine!"
Goading his men like that, Sun Jian smiled as if this were exactly what he had expected. If Gongsun Zan was right and the Wuhuan cared more about looting Youzhou, the force they had left at the pass would be thin. Leaving the towers to burn had been a bluff — hide how few they were, and cow whoever came against them.
His foot found the higher spear — and then, with a light tap, he was on the wall.
Sun Jian cut without looking at what stood in front of him. For staying alive, it was better to let the hands move than to look and judge.
The moment he came over the wall and cut down the man beside him, the Wuhuan soldiers hesitated and fell back. Sun Jian did not offer surrender, and he did not bother to count how many they were.
The will of the Xiongnu sky-god, is it.
He cut, and cut, and cut, and went forward.
Even if Youzhou burns, the merit of retaking Juyong Pass will stand high.
The thought pleased him so much that a smile rose on its own.
And if the realm itself burns, my military glory will climb still higher.