The people of Zigui did not sleep well that night. Fair enough, too. When your local warlord just got his head lopped off and some mysterious new guy is marching into town, tossing and turning is basically standard procedure.
A rumor tore through the dark streets faster than a winter gale, passed mouth to mouth by the servants Li Yi's estate had just thrown out. These folks had a lot to say. Turns out when you lose your job because your boss got executed for treason, you don't exactly owe him any loyalty to keep his secrets.
"Liu Huangshu has arrived from Jingzhou!" they whispered excitedly to anyone who would stop to listen. "And Li Yi? Dead. Charged with treason. Super dead."
The news swept across the city like sparks catching dry straw. Even so, for most local commoners, the first reaction was not relief, but plain confusion.
"Who exactly is this Liu Huangshu anyway?" Old Wang squinted into the darkness, scratching his head. "Is he related to the Huang who sells noodles down the lane? No, wait..."
A few of the bolder townsfolk, too restless and curious to sit still, tramped through the night to find Master Li, the refugee who had fled all the way from Yanzhou. This man had seen things. If anyone knew what warlords were really like, it was him.
To their shock, the second Master Li heard the name Liu Huangshu, the fear that usually clung to his face like a bad smell seemed to melt right off. He let out a long, slow breath, like a stone that had sat heavy in his chest for years had finally lifted.
"Liu Huangshu is a ruler of benevolence and virtue," he said, full of total confidence. "He will never raise a hand against common folk."
The crowd murmured among themselves.
"How do you know that for sure?" someone called out.
"Because I'm from the north," Master Li said, like that explained every last thing. "Trust me. When you've seen what I've seen, you can spot a decent warlord from a mile off. And this one? He's decent."
After dropping that revelation, Master Li finally felt like he could get a proper night's sleep. Which was well overdue, too. The bags under his eyes were starting to have their own gravitational pull.
---
By the next morning, official notices covered every surface of Zigui. Walls, market lanes, alley entrances, even the pillars outside tea shops. The whole city looked like it had been ambushed by a very enthusiastic poster salesman.
Unlike the usual military proclamations, written in language so fancy even scholars would squint and go "huh?", these notices used plain, straightforward words no one could misread. No obscure legal jargon, no slippery, evasive phrasing. Everyone could understand them. Even Old Wang, who had once thought "amnesty" was a type of soup.
The notices laid everything out plain as day. Li Yi, a man who had betrayed his lord three whole times. Three! The first betrayal went like this, the second like that, every detail listed clearly like a very disappointing resume.
Li Yi was a turncoat who ate from one master's table while plotting with another. A man who sold loyalty for personal gain again and again. In modern terms, he was that coworker who steals credit for your work then rats you out to the boss the second it benefits him. You know the type. Annoying, right? You hate him, right? Go on, don't hold back. Hate him properly. This man deserves every bit of it.
As kinsman of the Han and Governor of Jingzhou, Liu Huangshu had personally led troops to eliminate this threat. Good riddance, basically.
But here was where things got really interesting.
Furthermore, with spring plowing fast approaching, Liu Huangshu would soon send oxen, curved plows, and high-quality seeds straight from Jiangling. Artisans would come to build water-powered workshops along the Yangtze for public use, and officials would arrive to teach locals new farming and composting methods.
Composting! The man was promising proper composting. Revolutionary stuff.
Then came the line that made the crowd erupt. This year's grain tax would be fixed at only 30 percent.
A murmur rippled through the crowd, then cheers, then someone may have actually cried. The people did not care much for the long list of Li Yi's crimes. They were too busy doing quick math in their heads.
"Thirty percent, seriously?" Farmer Chen yelled so loud his voice cracked. "That damned Li Yi was taking SIXTY! I could buy a whole extra goat with what I save!"
Those who had traveled to Jiangling or Gong'an started talking fast, describing the water-powered mills they had seen there, grindstones and mortars turned by nothing but the river's own force.
"They use watermills for everything there!"
"The river turns the grindstones all on its own!"
"No need to waste manpower hauling and pounding!"
"Zigui sits right on the Yangtze! We have even more water than they do!"
Excitement spread like wildfire. Thirty percent tax, stamped with Liu Huangshu's official seal. That one number swept away almost all the unease left by Li Yi's death. By noon, people were already calculating how much surplus grain they might keep after the autumn harvest. And also, how many goats.
---
Liu Bei and his men only rested in Zigui for a single night. By daybreak, they were on the march again, heading straight for Wu County. This man did not believe in vacation days.
The 200 defenders there initially barred the gates tight, but when their commander saw Li Yi's severed head tossed before the walls, and 2,000 disciplined troops lined up at Liu Bei's back, he made the very wise choice to surrender. Smart man. Career preservation 101.
Li Yi's death had shattered his influence across all of Ba Commandery. Just as Zhao Wei's rebellion had collapsed the second its leader died, the same happened here. Turns out when your boss is a headless corpse, loyalty tends to drop off pretty sharp.
Sticking to the rule that speed is the soul of war, and also that sitting around too long makes soldiers hungry and grumpy, Liu Bei left a small garrison in Wu County and hurried onward.
From Wu County, the march pushed west. Three days to Yufu, fifteen to Quren, eight to Linjiang, then twelve more to Jiangzhou. Jiangzhou was the last outpost of Li Yi's old territory, and for Liu Bei, it marked a long, long way from his base in Jingzhou.
Over the past month, the whole party had grown lean and hard from the road. Their uniforms were worn thin, their boots were barely holding together, and they all smelled like they had not bathed in, well, a month.
Even so, as Liu Bei stood atop the walls of Jiangzhou and looked out, his spirit was as unshaken as ever.
Yizhou, he thought. Now I, Liu Bei, have finally arrived.
Chengdu was now within his reach.
Pang Tong stood at his side, just as thrilled. The original plan had been Zhuge Liang's idea, but it was Shiyuan who had refined it, finalized it, and seen it through every step of execution.
A deep, warm rush of satisfaction bloomed in his chest, washing away the lingering frustration of always being overshadowed by Zhuge Liang back in Jingzhou. He had the urge to let out a long, triumphant whistle. He did not, because that would be deeply undignified. Instead, he just smirked a whole lot.
His eyes drifted northwest. The mountain ranges blocked the view, but he knew Chengdu lay just beyond them.
"If my lord had 10,000 battle-ready troops," Shiyuan said softly, "Chengdu could fall within two months."
There was clear regret in his tone. Since departing Linju, only 3 soldiers had been executed for breaking military discipline. Twelve more had been lost to ravines and poisonous insects. For a campaign of this scale, it was almost miraculous.
Meanwhile, Zhao Zilong was steadily securing the rear, making sure the captured cities stayed stable while fresh supplies rolled in from the east. The 3,000 men under Liu Bei's direct command were worn out. But they were veterans now, tempered by the long march.
Pang Tong could not help but picture it. Ten thousand men, a straight push for Chengdu. Maybe the capital would fall before it even understood what was happening.
Liu Bei smiled and shook his head.
"We have already secured 6 cities and reached Jiangzhou." His tone was calm, practical, the voice of a man who had been running across China for decades and knew a thing or two about not overextending.
"We have spent nearly 70 percent of this year's reserves, but the soldiers are whole and the civilians have not been harmed. For this campaign, we have only spent gold and grain. That is a grand victory."
"But if we push for Chengdu now, that grand victory could turn into a disaster for everyone. Also, I am dead tired... hehe."
Pang Tong accepted the point, standing shoulder to shoulder with Liu Bei as the river breeze washed over them. It felt different here than in the east, fresher somehow, like it carried a hint of something new. Shiyuan asked, "I wonder how things are going back in Jingzhou?"
"Since Li Yi's head is no longer needed to open gates," Liu Bei said, remembering the head they had preserved in lime for the past month, a truly charming travel companion, "I will write a letter and send it, along with the head, to Liu Zhang. Since I have arrived in his territory, I owe the master of the house an explanation."
Liu Bei's gaze drifted back to the mountains.
"The Light Screen praised Chengdu as a city shaped by the nine heavens. I wonder what kind of prosperity waits for us there?"
---
Back in Gong'an, Zhuge Liang was buried head to toe in administrative work. As Liu Bei and Zhao Yun pushed west, the treasury flowed through his hands like water. Grain moved by Wooden Oxen toward the newly secured cities, while pack horses carried supplies deeper into Yizhou.
The water-powered workshops were running at full capacity, crushing coal from Jingzhou and beyond into the fine powder needed for the army's portable heaters. It was basically the Han Dynasty version of a full factory, and Zhuge Liang was the world's most overqualified plant manager.
Mi Zhu was just as busy, turning profits from his merchant networks into grain and shipping it nonstop from the east. The volume was so large it even prompted a concerned letter from Lu Su in Sun Wu, asking about the sudden flurry of activity.
"Hey Kongming," the letter basically said, "you guys have been buying an awful lot of grain lately. Everything okay? Not planning anything... big, are you?"
Zhuge Liang's reply was a masterpiece of partial truth. Technically, Zigui belonged to Jingzhou, and the Governor of Jingzhou was simply taking back what was his.
"Oh, you know how it is," he wrote back. "Just some administrative reorganization. Nothing to worry about at all! How is the family?"
Smooth, Kongming. Very smooth.
---
Within Gong'an, the specialized workshops for Doctor Zhang Zhongjing had also been expanded. Beyond gold-wound powders, they were now producing medicines for insect repellent, miasma prevention, and swelling.
In one rare still moment, Zhuge Liang sat with Zhang Zhongjing beneath lamplight.
They spoke of the plague called smallpox mentioned by the Light Screen.
"Kongming knows history well. You must remember the 18th year of Jianwu," Zhang Zhongjing said.
Zhuge Liang answered immediately.
"General Ma Yuan, Ma Fubo?"
Zhang Zhongjing nodded and unfurled an old bamboo scroll.
"When the Jiaozhou rebellion broke out, Emperor Guangwu ordered General Ma Yuan to suppress it. The war lasted 2 years. The Book of Han records the victory clearly."
He tapped the bamboo slip.
"The rebels held the mountain passes, and the general could not break through quickly. Then a plague broke out from the rebel rear. They fell into chaos and were defeated. When the army returned, many soldiers carried the disease back with them."
"It resembled cold damage, but left pustules on the skin. At the time, they called it the Barbarian Pox. Since then, there have been scattered records across different commanderies. People call it the God of Pox and hire shamans to drive it away."
Zhuge Liang sat very still. He felt like some giant, invisible beast had opened its jaws south of Jiaozhou, waiting to swallow the whole world.
"The plague in the Great Qin came from Parthia... and Parthia sits close to the Kushan Empire... and what the Light Screen calls the Indochina Peninsula is where the old Shendu Road runs..."
Pang Tong's earlier fear might be right.
This plague had likely already existed for a very long time.
"Is there a cure?" Zhuge Liang asked.
Zhang Zhongjing shook his head, rolling up the old scroll.
"I have not heard of this plague causing a major catastrophe since the time of General Ma Yuan. Why do you ask, Kongming? Is there an outbreak in Jingzhou?"
Zhuge Liang finally spoke plainly.
"I heard the decline of a great western nation may have been tied to this very disease."
Zhang Zhongjing listened intently as Zhuge Liang shared everything he knew. When Zhuge Liang finally left the residence, he took a long, deep breath of the night air.
The fragmented knowledge from the Light Screen had made the sky feel wider than ever, making him feel like a young student again, struggling to grasp just how vast the world really was.
But, he thought, I am not the Prime Minister who will lead the Northern Expeditions yet. I have plenty of people standing at my side.
---
In Zigui, commoners watched as army after army passed through their town, heading west along the river. Even so, the soldiers stayed perfectly disciplined, and the town stayed peaceful. No looting, no pillaging, none of the usual chaos that came with troops moving through.
The people finally got everything that had been promised. A small office was set up beside the county government. Outside stood a curved plow, and next to it a crude wooden model of an ox.
Those with savings could buy the tools outright. Those without could lease them from the government. The condition was simple. An extra 10 percent tax at harvest time.
The math was easy. Liu Huangshu's base tax was 30 percent. With the lease, it became 40 percent. That was still a steal compared to the 60 percent Li Yi had been squeezing out of them. Many did not hesitate to sign the lease papers.
Master Li, who had some savings left hidden in a very clever spot, chose to buy his own equipment. For oxen, he rented from a local wealthy family. With spring plowing almost upon them, he and his son took the new plow out into the fields.
Even without a side-by-side comparison, Master Li could feel the difference immediately. The work was so much lighter. His back thanked him. His son, who had been complaining nonstop, even went still for a few whole minutes. Success!
During a break, his neighbor Zhao A came over to share some tea.
"Old Li," Zhao A said softly, glancing west toward where the troops had marched, "if every governor were like Liu Huangshu... you never would have had to flee, would you?"
Master Li did not answer for a long time. Finally, he said, "Liu Huangshu is no different from me, really. He is also a refugee from the north."
Zhao A stared, full of disbelief.
"But... he defeated Li Yi!"
Master Li only sighed. "A general like Li Yi would not have survived three days up north. He only thrived here because he could bully locals for years. Up north? The warlords there would have eaten him for breakfast. With soy sauce."
After a pause, Zhao A asked, "Do you think the northern armies will come to fight him?"
"Most likely. Why?"
Zhao A looked sad. "Liu Huangshu seems like a good man. I wish he could stay as our governor forever."
Master Li thought of the Cao soldiers that had terrified him into fleeing south, and let out a long sigh. He thought of the chaos, the battles, the endless running. He thought of how nice it would be to just... stay in one place. To plow his fields. To watch his son grow up without fear hanging over his head every day.
"Let's just get the plowing done first," he said finally.
And so they did. Because in the end, no matter who ruled from the capital, the fields still needed plowing. The grain still needed growing. And life, wonderful, stubborn, ordinary life, went on.
Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crowed. Spring was coming. And for the first time in a very long time, Master Li let himself hope that maybe, just maybe, this Liu Huangshu fellow would be different.