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“…We must give them a choice,” Cheng Pu said. “Lord Sun is right: these
two have been gathering new followers and making this all a lot harder. People
like them: we must publicly crush their will to fight so that others will stop
fighting too.”
“So then we’ll just sit here and let them come to us,” Sun Jian decided.
“Uh… they have the high ground, so we weren’t really going to do
anything else but let them come to us, Lord Sun,” Cheng Pu chuckled nervously.
“Or did you really intend to charge up there…?”
“I’d have certainly tried it: they wouldn’t expect me to, so I’d have
the element of surprise on my side,” Sun Jian retorted.
“Ayah… this is why I whinge!”
Wu Jing cried. “I followed you into battle at Xihua, but if you want to charge
uphill at these heretics, then you can do it on your own!”
Sun Jian laughed and replied, “Alright.”
Sun Jian’s militia was joined by two others, and the resulting blockade
left the Yellow Turbans with no way to secure food. Local villagers were either
reluctant to show support to the defeated rebels or never supported them in the
first place, so it was only a matter of time before Liu Pi and Huang Shao -
despite protests from some of their more devout followers - decided to
surrender.
“We can’t do that!” one officer protested.
“We have to, Shen,” Liu Pi insisted.
“We rose up against oppression by the wicked emperor and his heathen
ways!” the official Hè Man said. “Teacher Zhang promised us a future where all
would be prosperous! We have to keep fighting!”
“What good is a ‘prosperous future for all’, Hè Man, when we’re all dead?” Liu Pi replied.
“…That… may be right,” Hè Man said.
“It is,” Liu Pi insisted. “The only way for our great cause to survive
now is to feign surrender, pledge allegiance to their emperor again and-”
“We would be defying the will of
Heaven!” a third officer cried. “I
say that we fight!”
A dozen of the other officers agreed: they ignored Liu Pi, Huang Shao
and Hè Man’s pleas and led a small force of like-minded acolytes down the hill
and to certain death.
“What a… what a waste,” Han Dang said as he looked down at a defiant
young woman that was close to death; he looked at his bloodied sword and tried
to reconcile the truth behind his actions.
“We had no choice,” Cheng Pu insisted.
Han Dang then turned his gaze to the corpse of a young man and added, “I
don’t know whether I can do this anymore. It’s harming me, Demou.”
“I can’t say I’m enjoying this anymore than you are,” Cheng Pu said as
he looked at some of his own victims. “But… but as I said, we had no choice. We
have no choice.”
“Hold up!” Zu Mao cried. “S’another lot coming, I think!”
Han Dang, Huang Gai and Wu Jing groaned as one: Sun Jian steeled himself
for more futile bloodshed and said, “We’ll do what we must.”
But the second wave of Yellow Turbans was not coming down the hill to
fight: they carried no weapons, and many of them were removing their offending
yellow headwear as a sign that the battle was over.
“Oh, thank goodness…!” Huang Gai whispered.
“ENOUGH!” Liu Pi bellowed. “Enough… your beloved emperor has won.”