The Shaman's Prophecy
The operation to exterminate Tanshihuai.
Sun Jian’s words were clearly about next year… the year 177 AD, the campaign to exterminate Tanshihuai.
The problem was that in that war, the Han and Southern Xiongnu allied forces were completely defeated.
This year I was four. Next year I would be five. There was no way for me to reverse the outcome of that war.
If my status had been very high, I might have been able to imitate the “genius” in some way, but originally I sat at the bottom of the Chanyu succession.
Even if I somehow won my great-grandfather’s trust as the Chanyu, my great-grandfather was a collateral royal of the Han and lacked true legitimacy.
So I had no way to command the Xiongnu army at all.
Miraculously, if I were to somehow get my hands on commanding the Xiongnu army, as a Southern Xiongnu person I was thoroughly out of the mainstream in Han society.
The Southern Xiongnu was just one of many immigrant tribes subordinated to Han.
What could I do when the Emperor in distant Luoyang and the eunuchs wanted to cut off Tanshihuai’s throat?
Up to now the only thing I had intervened in history was perhaps bridging the relationship between Lu Bu and Yufuluo.
Or, originally, whether that was something I changed in history was also unclear.
The friendship between Lu Bu and Yufuluo was just not recorded in the history books, or perhaps it had always been that way.
The current memories of “Xiongnu Liu Bao” at this point were “memories from when I was four years old,” so they didn’t help much.
Still, I had to do everything I could.
Ah, of course, as time passed, naturally my grandfather Qiangqu and father Yufuluo would take the Chanyu position in turn.
The Chanyu position of the Southern Xiongnu, which was only a name, would become more ruined than now—an empty shell.
If the Southern Xiongnu fell to that point, I wouldn’t be able to do much even until the 250s in history.
By then the “Xiongnu Liu Bao” who had reincarnated in me would unify the Xiongnu of Bing Province’s west, but with an age in his eighties he would only threaten Wei a little and show no great achievements otherwise.
…Then it would be a straight shot to the hell ending that monkey demon had shown.
Damn.
My body was still four years old, and from the Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184 AD—when the Three Kingdoms truly began—I wouldn’t be able to intervene.
What should I do…
Suddenly, a bunch of white feathers hanging in the corner of the yurt of Yufuluo, the Right Wise King, caught my eye.
“This is…”
It was the coat my father had worn during the Xiongnu religious ritual.
Made of swan feathers, its white color reminiscent of the sun and the bird itself were sacred symbols in Xiongnu, so it was a garment worn only during religious rituals.
Originally it should have been kept carefully, but perhaps it had been taken out to dry for a moment.
I reached out my hand to the swan-feather coat. Fortunately, I touched it.
For my father Yufuluo it was a coat that barely covered the shoulders, but for me it was large enough to wrap my whole body.
My mother… even if she was the wife of the Right Wise King, in the poor Xiongnu society the nomadic women did almost everything. Thanks to that, I could avoid my mother’s gaze.
I secretly slipped out of the yurt.
While building friendship with Lu Bu, Yufuluo had moved the tribe following Lu Bu’s camp. There was also the matter of educating me, Lu Bu’s disciple.
So it wasn’t far from here to Lu Bu’s camp.
I thought about stealing a colt, but decided to just walk.
It was already a big enough crime just bringing this swan-feather coat. Thinking about how in nomadic society “stealing a horse” meant death… even if I was a royal, I shouldn’t make more trouble.
Moreover, because of the nomadic custom of making food with mare’s milk, the colts were strictly managed.
Whether someone’s eye caught it or a mare kicked it, the risk was the same.
So I wrapped the swan-feather coat in another cloth, tied it to my back, and ran toward my master Lu Bu’s residence.
***
That day Lu Bu saw something strange.
He had thought from the beginning that the son entrusted by the Xiongnu Right Wise King was strange. His patience was abnormal, his speech not something a four-year-old could utter.
It might be because he was just a smart child… but it wasn’t.
Liantie Bao, that child was not looking at Lu Bu’s martial arts with curious eyes like his peers.
His eyes held a clear purpose.
He knew what meaning the martial arts held for Lu Bu, and his gaze was clear with the purpose of thoroughly learning under him and using it someday.
Such a disciple appeared today wearing white clothes.
The clothes made of feathers hung loosely.
“You…”
He tried to ask what the hell, but Lianjie Bao opened his mouth.
“Master.”
It wasn’t a gloomy tone like a child’s. Nor was it imitating an adult.
It was the tone of an adult who knew what to say when speaking seriously.
That was what was flowing from the mouth of the child named Lianjie Bao right now.
“I have something I must tell you today.”
Lu Bu briefly looked up at the sky. It was midday with the sun high in the center.
It wasn’t that strange things only came out at night.
The child wearing the white swan-feather clothes looked like he had seen a ghost.
“What is it?”
Lu Bu barely composed himself and asked his disciple.
“Regarding what the adult Sun Wen Tai said last time.”
What Sun Jian had said. The news that the Tanshihuai extermination was being discussed in the court.
Did this child understand that and want to say something?
“Keep talking.”
“My father and mother don’t know this fact either. I have received the blessing of Tengri and can see a little into the future.”
Tengri. In Han characters it was written as Tangli. The name of the Heavenly God believed by the Xiongnu.
It was a strange story; I should just leave… but I couldn’t.
A four-year-old suddenly appearing in a completely different appearance from yesterday and reciting a prophecy itself was strange.
Or divine.
“Future?”
“The extermination of the barbarian Tanshihuai will fail.”
Lu Bu frowned.
If it was a strategy discussed in Luoyang, the Emperor would have directly intervened.
Determining that the thing the Emperor was discussing would “fail” was something to face death even in front of an Emperor who listened well to advice.
“Be silent.”
Lianjie Bao calmly brought both hands in front of his chest.
As if understanding Lu Bu’s confusion.
What was this? Was this the shaman’s sorcery I had only heard about? I had heard of the shaman’s sorcery that deceived Emperor Wu, but…
“As a disciple, I cannot pretend not to see my master’s danger, and I cannot pretend not to hear the urgency that Tengri is signaling.”
“If you are not joking with me, and if I can really see what will happen in the future, does that mean I will die in the barbarian extermination?”
The small head of Lianjie Bao, who had been hesitating for a long time, moved up and down.
“But it can be prevented.”
“I am a cavalry of Bing Province. Although I am at the bottom, I am a subject of the Emperor. Even if all your words are right, the only way not to participate in the barbarian extermination is desertion. And desertion is soon death.”
“The method I will tell you is the way to return alive from the battlefield.”
The strange speech of the child who could not be seen as four years old today had heard the voice of the Xiongnu Heavenly God and foretold his own death.
And he also said there was a way to avoid death.
Although Lu Bu was the best in martial arts and cavalry command in Bing Province, he could not help but ask.
“What is that method?”
***
It was a sorry thing for Lu Bu, but I had told a lie.
The prophecy that Lu Bu would die in the 177 AD Tanshihuai extermination was just something I had made up.
I wasn’t sure if Lu Bu had participated in the campaign or not. But given Lu Bu’s age and actions, the possibility of participation was high.
Of course, Lu Bu did not die in that campaign. Exactly twenty-two years later, in 198 AD, he died at Xiapi City in Peizhou.
But I was in a desperate situation, so I had to move Lu Bu’s heart even by lying.
To Lu Bu who asked for the method, I answered like this.
“Take me with you.”
“Take you to the battlefield? Can you follow?”
“Of course I can’t follow. But I can ride with you as per my master’s words.”
And my master Lu Bu was not the kind of person who could not show martial arts ability because he had one child in his arms.
His beloved horse Red Hare was the same.
When I sent such eyes and smiled, Lu Bu burst into laughter as if he found it unbelievable.
“I will think about it.”
“You must take me.”
I said that and left Lu Bu’s residence, on my way back to Yufuluo’s yurt.
Participating in the Tanshihuai extermination in Lu Bu’s arms… I did not think I could accomplish any great feat there.
But I had to do something. The bigger the event, the more I had to intervene.
Of course, I might die.
Then I would accomplish nothing and go to hell.
But even if I stayed like this, it was also a hell path.
Since both were hell paths, it would be better to try something.
Perhaps some variable would act and a great opportunity would come.
There was a great opportunity in great danger.
Well, it was not a reckless act.
If Lu Bu survived in history as usual and returned to Bing Province, he would see me as a quite capable shaman.
Since Sun Jian had come to Bing Province as a subordinate of Zhang Min, he would also participate following Zhang Min.
Zhang Min was one of the commanders in the Tanshihuai extermination war.
So far, if I was just a disciple of Lu Bu and only knew Sun Jian’s face, after the Tanshihuai extermination war I could make “Sun Jian listen to my words.”
As the “mysterious shaman who prophesied the victory of Tanshihuai” who was advising Lu Bu while being taken around.
If I could build friendship with Lu Bu and Sun Jian, the top martial artists of the early Three Kingdoms, and further exert influence on them.
I might get a little closer to the “conquest of northern China” that the monkey demon had thrown.
By the way.
Separately from my grand plan, the reality I had to face was approaching.
“Liu Bao! Liu Bao!”
The voices of my father and mother desperately searching for me.
Ah, this would really be a big scolding.
It was sunset. In the middle of the grassland dyed red by the setting sun, the entire Right Wise King and all the people of his tribe were searching for me.
There had also been the incident where Xiongnu cavalry tried to kidnap me and my mother, and I wondered if a wolf-like creature had taken me.
They would be extremely worried.
What to do.
Should I go there and get scolded with eyes closed?
Or, was it that I had to “do something” even here?
I went to a place where people would naturally “discover” me.
While doing so, I spun around in place like dancing.
The sound of grass swaying and feet stepping on the ground. I continued to dance.
“Liu Bao! What are you doing here!”
The voice of father Yufuluo.
But I continued dancing as if I did not hear that voice, then stopped abruptly.
And I bowed toward the west where the sun was setting, extending my hand.
A large hand of Yufuluo grabbed my shoulder.
“Liu Bao! Do you know how much I searched for you?”
I deliberately made a dazed expression and looked at Yufuluo’s face, then smiled.
“Father.”
“What is this… are you okay?”
I whispered.
“My father who will become the Chanyu of Yufuluo.”
Yufuluo froze.
“I heard the voice of the Tengri Lord.”
The acting was too good.
The next day, father Yufuluo took me to the shaman in the Chanyu court of my great-grandfather.