The sudden passing of Zhou Gongjin placed an almost crushing burden upon Lu Su, who had temporarily assumed the role of Commander-in-Chief.
In private, Lu Su's admiration for Zhou Yu ran deep.
Men like Zhou Gongjin were exceedingly rare. With the prestige of an old retainer from Sun Ce's time and the overwhelming authority won through the victory at Red Cliffs, he had managed to forge Jiangdong into a truly unified whole.
Under his command, the Jianghuai faction, the Jingzhou interests, and the great local clans of Jiangdong had all moved in concert, acting with a single will.
Lu Su could analyze the complex makeup of his subordinates with scholarly precision, but he lacked the sheer force of personality needed to command them through authority alone.
Men like Gan Ning, always hungry for the clash of blades, whispered in private that Lu Su was just a scholar who did not understand the flow of battle and therefore had no business leading an army.
Others, like the ever-watchful Lü Meng, kept casting sharp looks toward Liu Bei and muttered that Lu Su was selling out Jiangdong's future for the sake of a fragile peace.
Even Pang Tong, once one of Zhou Yu's closest confidants, had sought an audience with Lord Sun Quan. After being rebuffed, he simply packed his bags and defected to Liu Bei.
To make matters worse, the friction between Lü Meng and Gan Ning had already become something of a public scandal.
At a recent banquet, Lü Meng had "accidentally" insulted Gan Ning by dismissing him as nothing more than a brawler.
Sun Quan, rather than genuinely stepping in to mediate, handed down matching punishments that very clearly favored his personal favorite, Lü Meng.
Each of these headaches left Lu Su with a deep, bone-weary exhaustion.
As for the situation in Jingzhou, Lu Su slowly unfurled the stack of intelligence reports he had painstakingly organized.
References to hydraulic workshops and near-revolutionary agricultural methods stood out at once, threaded between repeated speculation over troop movements.
His spies suspected that Liu Bei might already be in the process of taking Yizhou, though the exact progress of the campaign remained shrouded in uncertainty.
Tucked beneath the report was a formal recommendation from Lü Meng: press Liu Bei for the return of Jiangling City as leverage, reclaim the four southern commanderies, and hold the river line against Cao Cao.
Lu Su did not spare it a second thought. He set the recommendation aside just as Bu Zhi stepped back into the room.
"Commander, General Lü Meng has already led his troops out of camp," Bu Zhi reported, his voice even.
"What?!" Lu Su's head jerked up in shock. "He has no orders from me. On whose authority has he mobilized?"
Bu Zhi remained perfectly composed, his posture as impeccable as ever. "General Lü Meng's adjutant says the mobilization order was submitted directly to Lord Sun Quan. He requests that the Commander need not concern himself with it."
Lu Su stood there in silence for a long moment, his lips drawn into a thin, rigid line.
At last, he gave a slight wave of the hand, dismissing Bu Zhi to return to his duties.
He understood well enough that Sun Quan was almost certainly furious that Liu Bei had moved on Yizhou without so much as a word of notice, yet Lu Su still felt compelled to offer his counsel.
Jiangdong was not yet fully secure. Why spend blood and treasure on another campaign when they could simply press for the designs of the circular water wheels and the new agricultural methods as compensation? That was the far more practical course.
With a heavy sigh, Lu Su spread out a fresh sheet of paper and began to grind the ink.
Even as he worked, one question continued to trouble him: should he send a private letter to Kongming? If I write to him, Marquis Sun may think I am siding with Liu Bei. If I do not, that fool Lü Meng may end up turning the riverbank into a bonfire by tomorrow morning.
In Linju, Liu Feng had gradually settled into his new life with a stoic kind of resignation.
Or rather, he had not so much adapted as been forcibly adapted to it.
When your immediate superior also happened to be Uncle Zhang Fei, arguing was never really an option. Whether it came as a blistering tongue-lashing or a punishment harsh enough to leave every bone in his body protesting, Liu Feng could only lower his head and endure it.
At first, his mind had been a storm of dark suspicions, most of them circling endlessly around Adou, Adou, and still more Adou.
Yet as the months passed, he slowly began to realize something.
Though his Third Uncle was a tyrant on the training grounds, the same man would personally sit beside him late at night, carefully applying a medicated herbal paste to the bruises he himself had left behind, all while grumbling out blunt but sincere advice.
The contrast was almost absurd.
By day, Zhang Fei looked ready to beat him into the earth.
By night, he turned into a half-physician, half-grumbling elder who seemed personally offended by the existence of untreated bruises.
Little by little, the darker thoughts in Liu Feng's heart began to recede into the background.
His days only began to regain a spark of life when the young master of the Mi clan arrived.
Then, when that "deserter" Ma Su was escorted in under guard, Liu Feng felt that his social life had truly reached its peak.
Watching "Deadweight Mi" and "Ma the Deserter" argue with each other day after day gave him more entertainment than he had enjoyed in years.
Since neither man was willing to say a word about why they had both been banished to this godforsaken backwater, Liu Feng simply took to calling them by their respective nicknames.
Three months after Ma Su's arrival, Liu Feng finally received orders from Zhang Fei.
Pack your gear. The garrison is moving out.
At once, the dull monotony of life in Linju was swept away.
Though no destination had been formally announced, the army was clearly heading upriver, threading its way through the dangerous gorges as it turned west.
Liu Feng did not need a map to understand where they were going.
They had entered the borders of Yizhou.
"So, Ma the Deserter," Liu Feng said with a grin as they marched, "is this the same road you chose when you ran off last time?"
Ma Su had long since lost the will to argue.
He lifted his gaze toward the distant city of Zigui, his eyes dimmed by old memories.
"The Lord Liu disguised himself as the Military Advisor's personal attendant back then," he said quietly. "He drew the rebel general out into a duel and took his head in a single strike. From Zigui all the way to Jiangzhou, every city along the route surrendered without so much as an arrow being loosed."
"My father truly is unmatched in both courage and strategy," Liu Feng said, unable to keep the pride from his voice.
But the feeling quickly gave way to a nagging unease.
"If even the Linju garrison is being redeployed to Yizhou, then Father must be fully determined to take the province."
He frowned slightly as the thought settled in.
"I just wonder what happens if Jiangdong decides to stir up trouble in Jingzhou while we're gone."
"Lord Sun is the Master of Jiangdong and an ally of our Lord," Ma Su insisted. "Why would he stoop to something so treacherous?"
"Oh, Lord Sun will definitely make trouble," Mi Fang replied with a smirk. "But with General Guan holding the province, Jingzhou is as steady as a mountain."
He let out a dry laugh.
"Ma the Deserter, you parade yourself as a master of military texts, yet you still cannot see the true nature of a flip-flopper like Sun Quan?"
Ma Su frowned, the unease on his face impossible to hide.
"Would Lord Sun truly act that way?"
Mi Fang merely smiled and fell silent, plainly refusing to say another word.
Liu Feng watched the two of them, once again gripped by that familiar sense of confusion.
This was the part that always left him baffled.
"Deadweight Mi" seemed to have more faith in General Guan Yu than Liu Feng himself, even though Liu Feng was the man's actual nephew.
Yet whenever the subject turned to Jiangdong, Mi Fang spoke with nothing but dry, cynical contempt, as if he were quietly waiting for the punchline to a joke no one else had heard.
Meanwhile, Ma the Deserter spoke of the conquest of Yizhou with such absolute certainty that he scarcely seemed to regard Liu Zhang, the actual Governor of Yizhou, as worth mentioning.
In his eyes, Liu Zhang, Zhang Lu, Ma Chao, and Han Sui all appeared equally irrelevant.
The more Liu Feng listened, the stranger it all felt.
Mi Fang behaved more like General Guan's nephew than Liu Feng ever did.
Ma Su, meanwhile, sounded more like Liu Bei's own son than Liu Feng himself.
And every time Liu Feng tried to press further, the two of them would lapse into the same perfectly synchronized silence, which only drove him half mad with curiosity.
"Keep moving," Liu Feng said, tightening the wraps around his calves.
He had no idea where his father had come across the design for these leg wraps, but for long marches they were nothing short of a blessing.
They kept the legs from swelling, eased the strain of the road, and somehow made the whole column look far sharper and more disciplined.
Even exhausted soldiers seemed a little less miserable when everyone looked properly put together.
"If Ma the Deserter is right, we still have several more days of marching before we reach Jiangzhou," Liu Feng said.
Beside him, Ma Su lowered his gaze and silently checked the wraps on his own legs.
His thoughts, however, were nowhere near his feet.
They were fixed on the coming campaign.
If he ran again in the middle of a real battle, would Zhang Fei simply cut him down on the spot?
The thought was so vivid that the back of his neck went cold.
Over the next two weeks, Liu Feng came to witness the stark and jagged beauty of Yizhou for himself.
Towering cliffs rose on either side, while emerald waters wound like silk through the depths of the gorges.
Above them, the mournful cries of gibbons echoed endlessly through the mountains.
The scenery was unlike anything he had ever seen.
When they finally reached Jiangzhou, they were granted only a few days of rest before fresh orders came down to march once more.
This time, however, their numbers had swelled considerably.
Zhang Fei now rode at the head of a massive column, with two lieutenants at his side, one old, one young.
"The younger one is Huo Jun," Ma Su said in a lowered voice, the envy in his tone impossible to miss. "He has a remarkable gift for independent command."
For a moment, Ma Su's gaze lingered on the man ahead.
He had spent his entire life buried in military scrolls for precisely this reason.
What he had always wanted was the same kind of recognition Huo Jun now carried with such effortless ease.
His eyes drifted from Huo Jun's polished armor back to the pitiful scraps of leather padding on his own person.
At once, the full weight of that title, deserter, seemed to settle over his shoulders all over again.
Zhang Fei turned to the older lieutenant, a man whose years seemed to surpass even Huang Zhong's.
"General Yan Yan," Zhang Fei said, a rare note of respect in his voice, "my big brother was in such a hurry that I never got the full briefing. Tell me clearly, what exactly is the situation?"
When he had arrived in Jiangzhou, Liu Bei had told him only one thing: the military situation was critical.
There had been no time for further explanation.
Command of Huo Jun and Yan Yan was placed directly into his hands, and he was ordered to march for Baishui Pass at once.
As for Huo Jun, Zhang Fei knew full well what the young man was capable of, the lightscreen had shown a record that was even more brilliant than his own.
As for Yan Yan, he only knew that the man was a local of Yizhou who considered himself a loyal soldier of the Han.
For some reason, Zhang Fei liked the old man instantly.
Yan Yan was visibly moved by Zhang Fei's unexpectedly courteous manner.
"About half a month ago," Yan Yan explained, "Liu Zhang sent a hollow summons, ordering Pang Xi to enter Chengdu alone."
He paused for only a breath before continuing.
"Pang Xi naturally refused. After that, Liu Zhang issued a proclamation accusing Pang Xi and Li Yi of conspiring to sell Yizhou to the highest bidder, then mobilized troops to have Pang Xi executed."
"The attack failed," Yan Yan went on. "So a few days ago, Liu Zhang ordered the garrison at Baishui Pass to strike Pang Xi from the rear. Our lord is concerned that Zhang Lu may take advantage of the chaos to invade Yizhou and bring harm to the people. That is why he has ordered us to reinforce Baishui Pass and make certain Zhang Lu cannot cross the border."
From the side, Huo Jun added, "Liu Zhang has wanted Pang Xi removed for a long time. Previously, he was restrained by Li Yi's presence. With those two holding the north and the east, it was too dangerous to move rashly."
"The Military Advisor had already analyzed the situation and concluded that once Li Yi died, Liu Zhang would move quickly to consolidate power. That is why he is pressing Pang Xi so aggressively."
Zhang Fei kept one thought to himself.
I'd bet Shiyuan helped pour a little oil on this fire too.
Still, he could not help asking, "If Liu Zhang and Pang Xi are already at each other's throats, isn't Liu Zhang worried about my big brother sitting right beside him?"
Huo Jun let out a laugh and shook his head.
"General Zhang, you must be joking."
His tone carried an easy confidence.
"We came from the poor four commanderies of Jingzhou, fought our way upstream, and took no more than six small, insignificant towns. In their eyes, we have neither the grain nor the means to sustain a large army."
He gave a faint smile.
"How could we possibly pose a threat to the vast wealth of Yizhou?"
Then Huo Jun's smile turned almost amused.
"Besides, General Zhao Yun follows Advisor Pang's instructions to the letter."
"Every ten days," he said, "he sends Governor Liu Zhang another letter…begging for more grain."
That Shiyuan really is full of dirty tricks. Zhang Fei shook his head with a grin.
"Pass the order to the whole army," he barked. "We march for Baishui Pass!"
In the city of Langzhong, Pang Xi stood atop the battlements, staring into the distance with a hollow gaze.
The walls still bore the scars of Liu Zhang's recent assault.
The attack itself had lacked conviction, while the defense had been born of sheer desperation. After several days of almost ceremonial skirmishing, Liu Zhang's loyalists had withdrawn to a safe distance.
Yet Pang Xi felt no sense of relief.
In his mind, he could already see the dust clouds rising from the direction of Baishui Pass.
"He won't listen to reason. Liu Zhang is as stupid as a pig!"
Pang Xi slammed his fist against the stone parapet, his anger echoing along the wall.
Beside him, Zhao Ze waited in silence until the outburst subsided.
Then, in a low and careful voice, he said, "In my humble opinion, Liu Jiyu truly means to take your head this time, you should begin preparing an exit strategy, General."
Pang Xi fell silent for a long while before finally speaking. "Are you here as Liu Bei's lobbyist?"
Zhao Ze nodded without the slightest attempt to hide it. "Lord Liu is a man of virtue."
His answer came calm and direct.
"In our private talks, he had already predicted that once Li Yi was gone, Liu Zhang would come for you next."
Zhao Ze lifted his gaze toward the city below.
"As a native of Langzhong, I have witnessed the kindness you have shown this city for more than a decade. That is why I sought Lord Liu's permission to come here alone.
I came to pull you out of the fire."
Pang Xi's voice came out rough and hoarse.
"Can Lord Liu truly withstand the Baishui army?"
Though Liu Bei had never explicitly made such a promise, Zhao Ze did not hesitate for even a moment.
He brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve, carrying himself with the easy confidence of a man certain of the outcome.
"With Wolong and Fengchu at his side," he said, "Lord Liu has nothing to fear. The Baishui army is no more than a trifle, as long as you can hold Langzhong, that army will be broken."
Pang Xi made his decision. "Send the letter."
As he watched Zhao Ze walk away, he could not help but wonder how the world had turned upside down so quickly.
In less than half a year, Yizhou had gone from uneasy balance to open fracture.
"How did Yizhou fall into such a state so quickly?" Liu Bei looked over the latest intelligence reports, genuine astonishment in his eyes.
Pang Tong only shrugged, looking utterly unconcerned.
"I merely gave the fire a few small pushes, Pang Xi has Zhao Ze whispering in his ear, and as for Liu Zhang…A man like him was never going to listen to sound advice."
Liu Bei blinked. "It was really that simple?"
Pang Tong nodded.
"If Liu Zhang had been willing to sit down and speak frankly with Pang Xi, the entire scheme would have collapsed on the spot, but while Liu Zhang may be 'kind,' he is not magnanimous.
He lacks the breadth of mind to forgive."