Chapter 15: Jock Jams
Since Lu Bu ousted Zhang Fei and took Liu Bei's city, Liu Bei is now that one that has nowhere to live anymore. Yuan Shu, who Liu Bei is currently campaigning against, promises a bribe to Lu Bu if he attacks Liu Bei in the rear. With Yuan Shu in front, Liu Bei would be completely surrounded.
Lu Bu agrees and marches in, but Liu Bei catches wind of this and buggers out before he gets there. So Lu Bu shows up and Yuan Shu's like, well, you didn't actually eliminate Liu Bei, so we're not giving you diddly.
So now Lu Bu is mad and wants to attack Yuan Shu; but his advisor Chen Gong is like, hey, Yuan Shu is really strong, we couldn't take him. But if you had Liu Bei working for you...
And since Liu Bei doesn't actually have anywhere to go... that's what happens. Liu Bei is now working for Lu Bu, when two days ago Lu Bu was working for Liu Bei. That's just how it do be some days I guess.
Anyway it's been a while since we checked in on Sun Ce, the son of late protagonist Sun Jian. We should see how's he's been getting on. He's now working for Yuan Shu! That's pretty interesting. Yuan Shu actually likes the kid, but Sun Ce is a little mopey because he hasn't accomplished as much as his father.
On the other hand Sun Ce, your dad died pretty young. You might want to think about that. (hint: he doesn't)
Because of his inferiority complex, he decides wants to build up his own little pocket of China, so he asks Yuan Shu to borrow some troops. To which Yuan Shu says shit no, why would I do that.
Sun Ce offers to let Yuan Shu have the Imperial Seal as collateral. You know, the seal of the state his father found back in Chapter 6, which if you had in your possession could very well be used to claim that the mandate of heaven has passed to you and you are the rightful emperor.
Yuan Shu says shit yes, take some men and get out of here.
Anyway the translator himself pauses here to say that the rest of this chapter is kind of a drag and summarizes it if you want to skip it. That's a bad sign. Although I can honestly say the rest of this chapter is actually a very fun romp, and Chapter 13 was the one that needed to be summarized.
With troops in hand, Sun Ce is marching against Liu Yao, because the Sun family is kind of stuck in this guy's territory. Liu Yao is not a name you have to remember beyond this chapter, by the way.
On the way, Sun Ce happens to run into his BEST FRIEND FOREVER SINCE CHILDHOOD, Zhuo Yu. And Zhuo Yu comes with and things are AWESOME. These guys wear matching letterman jackets and sunglasses, and for the rest of the chapter, I will be referring to them as SON CE and BRO YU.
So SON CE attacks Liu Yao, who sends out Taishi Ci to duel. Now if you remember, Taishi Ci is that rando who showed up in Chapter 11 to help Liu Bei and Kong Rong fight off Yellow Turbans. Ta-da, here he is, much farther south, dueling with SON CE.
The first day of dueling results in a draw. The next day, SON CE is out scouting with just a couple of men, when Taishi Ci attacks. They duel some more, and then Taishi Ci leads SON CE away from everyone else. I dunno, the story SAYS that the duel devolved into a bare-handed brawl where they were ripping off each other's clothes and stuff... but I'm pretty sure they just had sex and made up a cover story. Whatever. Eventually SON CE captures Taishi Ci and recruits him into his own army.
Oh and also while you were thinking about hot man sex, you completely forgot about BRO YU, who uses the distraction to sneak behind Liu Yao and besiege his home city.
The siege actually goes very easily because there's an officer on the wall with his hand against a wood pole, and Taishi Ci's like, "hey, I'm gonna shoot an arrow and nail that guy's hand to that pole", and he DOES. So they just give the city over because they figure they ain't doing any better than that.
SON CE also attacks somebody named Yan Baihu (not important either), and BRO YU comes out of nowhere again and attacks from behind. This is kind of their M.O.; usually the book narrates the coordination between generals prior to a battle, but in this chapter in particular, you don't hear about BRO YU for a while, and then he's attacking your rear while SON CE has you distracted with the main narrative. I told you they were awesome.
We get introduced to a few more important characters at the end of this chapter. SON CE's younger brother Sun Quan is guarding a city that gets beset by mountain bandits in the middle of the night. He can't repulse the attack, but one of his soldiers named Zhuo Tai gets him on a horse and defends the hell out of him. Except Zhuo Tai was caught entirely unaware by this attack, so he does this pretty much butt-naked. Yeah, some of the bandits get killed by a naked dude. He eventually he gets on a horse and Lady Godivas it out of there with Sun Quan. Sustaining no less than twelve injuries, mind you, but he's gonna be okay.
Anyway, now that SON CE has a huge power base in the south, he calls up Yuan Shu and tells him he wants the seal back. But Yuan Shu pulls the old "SHHHH-sorry, I thi-SSHSHHHSH-breaking up-SHHHSHHSH" into the receiver. Classic.