Chapter 20 - Wise Lord?
Original by Bro Got a Gun, Translated by James
The Langye region. Although located in the Xu Province, it has never obeyed it. When Tao Qian was still the governor of the Xu Province he ignored Langye completely. When Liu Bei became the governor of Xu Province, he acted like requested for allegiance of Langye but was unable to actually do anything to it.
When it became Lu Bu’s turn, the situation changed a bit. Boss Lu was extremely stubborn and mighty confident of his own prowess. The chieftain of the Langye bandits, Zang Ba, too was a individual like that! Thus, when two extremely stubborn and proud people met, conflict naturally broke out and Boss Lu beat Zang Ba to subordination!
For majority of the people, they would rather reasons with their mouth than fight with their fists. However, Boss Lu was different! He would rather use his fists than bother arguing with you!
Thus, under Lu Bu’s rule, Zang Ba sworn his allegiance to him and served as one of Lu Bu’s familial generals, guarding Langye for Lu Bu and becoming one of the eight superior generals of Lu Bu!
Lu Bu’s army was marching on the main roads. Right ahead was the Langye region. As they marched forward, more and more ordinary people of Langye started fleeing toward the Mount Tai.
The results of war was shown clearly here. Cao Cao’s massacre of Xu Province have really scared these ordinary people witless!
“Mother! Mother!” A little child seemed to have been separated from his mother by the crowd of fleeing people. He looked all over searching for his mother!
Tears were about to fall from his eyes!
“Good, good. Let this uncle help you find your mother!” Liu Mang had received a warhorse from Lu Bu. Although he did not know how to use it in battle, he was still able to ride a horse. Seeing the child, he quickly dismounted from the horse, passed it to Cheng Yu and picked up the child.
“War! Sigh! Those who are harmed the most is always the ordinary people!” Liu Mang sighed deeply.
“Sire! We still have to arrive at Langye as soon as possible! We can’t possibly be able to help this child find his mother!” The whole Xu Province was in turmoil. Refugees come and go. Trying to find the child’s mother from all this was even harder than trying to find a needle in the haystack!
The scouts have already noticed the approaching Cao army. All cavalries. On top of that, they’re the heavily armored Ferocious Cavalries! Currently, what the Lu Bu army had to do is to enter the city and avoid the approaching cavalries. Otherwise, they will certainly be annihilated should they encounter the cavalries on the plains!
The Formation Breaker was already crippled! The Bing Province Cavalries without their mounts was simply unable to do anything! Finally, there’s the newly surrendered Chen family soldiers. As they have just surrendered, they cannot possibly help at all when the enemy attacks, instead, it is likely that they will be the first to create chaos!
“But this child!” In the turmoil and chaos of war with refugees everywhere, a child who could not even find his mother would either starve to death or be eaten by others! This was an era of cannibalism!
[TL: Cannot tell if Liu Mang meant cannibalism figuratively or actual cannibalism. Well, chances are it’s both.]
“There’s nothing to but about! If we do not speed up our march, we cannot possible escape from the cavalries!” Cheng Yu was a veteran of hundred wars, he was totally aware how powerful the cavalries are on the plains!
“No! We can’t do this! This is a life! If we abandon him, I’ll be forever disturbed!” Liu Mang shook his head. He came from the modern era, an era of peace. He wasn’t someone who lived in troubled times who no longer held feelings for human lives! Right when Liu Mang rejected Cheng Yu’s suggestion, a voice of disdain came from his side.
“Soft hearted like a woman! Humph!” A female replica of Lu Bu came by on her horse. Wasn’t this Liu Mang’s fiancee Miss Lu, Lu Lingqi?! After Boss Lu received the Poseidon Scale, he gave his flowery patterned battle robe to his precious daughter. Lu Bu was about was about six foot tall. Miss Lu wasn’t short either, she’s about five foot nine inches!
“Soft hearted like a woman!?” Having called that by Miss Lu, Liu Mang immediately got angry. He pointed at her and shouted “Heck do you know! This is life! Life! They are all the children of Han! Just because of a small group of people for their own interests decided to set the world to chaos! They had it their ways, but what about the regular folks?! Families separated and unable to obtain food! What are the casualties from the actual battles?! Compare them with the casualties caused by all these destruction of homes!”
“Miss Lu you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth! You had both good food, warm clothes and a roof over your head! What about them?! If it wasn’t for the war! If it wasn’t for all those conspirators! If it wasn’t for those warlords! Then let me tell you, all of them, all these refugees, they should all be in their home instead of fleeing right now! They would be in their warm homes enjoying a happy life! Alas, how many people have neither homes nor families?! How many people know where they are to go?!” Liu Mang almost roared.
Surrounding him were either people fleeing for their lives or the soldiers who came from poor families!
They heard Liu Mang’s speech and all lowered their heads with bleak expressions. Liu Mang’s speech have caused them to think of themselves! The atmosphere got heavier! Their eyesights directed at Miss Lu also began to have ill intent!
Cheng Yu too was silent! He thought of his old mother. Had the world not be in chaos, had Cao Cao not attacked Xu Province then he would’ve been by his mother’s side and cultivating the fields. Then he would’ve saved up some money and get a wife and had a happy life together with his family!
But now?! Gone! Everything was gone! His mother was dead! His house was ruined! In order to not starve to death, in order to avenge his mother he joined the Lu Bu army! Now, it had already been several years!
“You, you!” Miss Lu only wanted to ridicule Liu Mang. Who would’ve expect that Liu Mang would have such a huge response to her words?! Now, the eyes of the surrounding people looking at her changed too! In actuality, her personality wasn’t bad! However, with Liu Mang’s speech, she had now turned into a rich spoiled princess that knows neither the pain nor sufferings of common folks!
“Humph!” In her anger, Miss Lu pulled her horse, gave a humph and left with an ugly expression on her face!
“Sire… Miss Lu she…?!” whispered Cheng Yu.
“Leave her! She can do whatever she wishes to do!” Liu Mang held the child. He wanted to find the child’s mother but with the ocean of people, where would he find the child’s mother?!
“Sigh!” Liu Mang looked at the coming and going refugees, his heart extremely bitter “say, Cheng Yu, why is it so difficult to have peaceful times?!”
“This lowly Cheng Yu doesn’t know!” Cheng Yu too did not understand. All he knew was that as long as he follows Lu Bu, as long as he follows the Liu Mang, then he could obtain his revenge!
Liu Mang shook his head. He can’t help but deeply sigh with sorrow. “Flourish, people suffer! Perish, people suffer!” After saying that, he took the child and left. It was true that he had no time and cannot waste any time here. Thus, he decided to take the little guy with him and figure things out after settling down!
[TL: Liu Mang is quoting the poem 'Meditation on the Past at Tong Pass' by Zhang Yanghao 1270-1329 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Yanghao]
Liu Mang’s silhouette gradually disappeared with the army. Suddenly on where he previous stood appeared a youth. Although this youth’s clothes were very dirty from fleeing, it did not stop the radiance in the youth’s eyes.
He muttered to himself. “Flourish, people suffer? Perish, people suffer?!” With a deep and profound gaze he looked at the leaving Lu Bu army. “Who is this man? Besides Chen Gong, there’s such an individual in the Lu Bu army?!”
“Teacher, teacher!” The youth’s train of thought was interrupted by a book servant boy looking person. “Teacher, teacher, where are we headed to this time?!”
“Let’s go back!” said the youth shaking his head.
“Go back?!” The book servant boy was puzzled. For the teacher to come out this time, other than visiting the former residence, was to find the so called Wise Lord!
“Is teacher really going to return to Xiangyang?! Is the teacher not going to look for the Wise Lord?!” The book servant boy knew that his teacher was a man of great talent!
“Not going to look anymore!” said the youth, laughing.
“Oh!” The book servant boy nodded as if he understood but not understand. In this chaos, the servant boy really didn’t want to come out. Now that they’re going back, he was actually pretty happy!
Is he the Wise Lord?! The youth’s thoughts was once again ignited.
He then started laughing. “Stop stop stop! Better return and discuss with Shiyuan and them first!”
[TL: Shiyuan is Pang Tong’s Courtesy name.]
A book servant boy and a young teacher started traveling toward the direction of Jing Province!