As Dehmel looked back at him, Rheinhardt found himself smiling at the man, pleased that, after a month of hard fighting, there was something good to come of it.
Dehmel leaned toward Rheinhardt. “Might I speak to my men, General?” “Of course ...” Rheinhardt stood, his officers getting to their feet as one.
Dehmel stood. Then, allowing one of his captains to pull back his chair, he stepped out from the .table and went to the front of the platform. “Men!” he said, addressing the seated mass, his voice, carried by the lapel mike he wore, echoing back and forth across the massive space. “You have heard the great T’ang. You have heard his most generous and unexpected offer. You have also heard what fate awaits you should you choose not to fight any longer.”
He paused, nodding, a faint smile on his lips. “Now. . . You are great fighters. You have proved that a thousand times, beyond any doubt. What I asked you to do you did, and more. . . .” Again he nodded, a fierce pride emanating from him now. “Why, Wu Song himself would have been proud to call each one of you his brother!”
There was laughter at that but also a strong murmur of approval. “So what do you say? Shall we accept the great T’ang’s generous offer? Or shall we skulk like beaten women and lick our wounds?” There were cries of “No!” at that. Men were now on their feet. “Well?” Dehmel said, puffing out his chest. “What is the feeling of the Fifteenth?”
It began slowly, only a few voices at first, but within seconds it had been taken up throughout the hall, the two words muffled at first by the sound of the Fifteenth getting to its feet, then emphasized thunderously as thousands of booted feet stamped in time with the chant. “Li Yuan! ... Li Yuan! ... Li Yuan! ... Li Yuan! . . .” Dehmel raised both hands. Slowly silence fell. He turned, looking up at the screen, then bowed his head. Behind him thirty-eight thousand men—the last of a once great army—did the same.
“Chieh Hsia...” Dehmel said, his voice trembling with emotion. “The Fifteenth is yours!”
li yuan stepped down from the dragon throne and gestured toward his Chancellor.
“Master Nan, tell my cousins the good news, then send Tolonen in. I need to speak to him.”
Nan Ho bowed. “Chieh Hsia ...”
Li Yuan watched him go, smiling, pleased that the day had gone so well, then walked across to the Great Map.
He was proud of the map. It was something that had occurred to him while sitting at his desk, poring over charts and musing upon the progress of the war. He hated sitting. He liked to walk while he thought. So why not build a huge map that he could walk upon? Nan Ho had acted on his suggestion at once, bringing in craftsman to design and make the thing, adding a few details of his own.
Nestled between the pillars at the far end of the audience chamber, it was a huge thing that was raised up a full man’s height above the stone floor. A steeply sloping ramp followed the contours of the map’s edge, allowing access to its surface. Spots lit it from above. He climbed the ramp and stood there, on its southern edge, looking across to the north, some twenty paces distant.
Africa ... it was so vast, you could pick Europe up and drop it whole into that great northern mass between Dakar in the west and Asmara in the east. He walked across until he stood above Asyut, his feet planted either side of where the Fifteenth had surrendered to him, then turned, looking about him, studying the map for what seemed like the thousandth time. The surface of the map was translucent, registering those immutable details of geography that Man had failed to alter. Beneath that was a second layer—semiopaque—that showed the City’s boundaries, the growing areas, and other details of social importance—seaports and spaceports, barracks and palaces. Beneath that—and this was Nan Ho’s touch—was a constantly updated data-stream, showing the placement of troops and supplies, commander details, and known movements of the enemy forces. Moreover, he had only to press the surface with his toe and the computer would provide him with the latest report from that area. It was a wonderfully helpful tool, and he had spent many nights here, consulting the map, getting clear in his mind what needed to be done before talking with his cousins. He looked about him. The City itself covered less than twenty-five percent of that great land mass. In some places, like the Gold Coast, North Africa, and the eastern seaboard, it hugged the coast, hemmed in by mountains or desert; in others—in ancient Egypt, the Congo, old Nigeria, and in the south—it formed vast blocks, linked by narrow corridors. Another thirty-eight percent constituted the growing areas, the great Plantations that had been Africa’s traditional strength. The rest, just over a third of the total—a higher percentage than for any other City bar Eastern Asia—was desert or mountain.
It was a great City. Or had been until just four weeks back. Now it was effectively six separate Cities.
His own forces controlled a broad corridor from the coast of the Mediterranean at Alexandria a thousand li south to Asyut on the Nile—an area constituting half the ancient land of Egypt and a large chunk of what had once been Libya. Added to that, he had opened a second front at Freetown, and his forces had liberated that strip of the City that hugged the coast from Dakar in the north to Tiassale in the east, two hundred li short of the regional capital of Abidjan. There his Fourth Banner were facing Wang Sau-leyan’s Twelfth in a confrontation that was becoming bloodier by the day.
He turned and walked back across. Tsu Ma’s forces were in the Congo, Wei Tseng-li’s on the Mozambique coast. Neither had met with great success. To hold a hostile City was, they had discovered, much easier in theory than it was in practice. It was like playing wei chi in three dimensions. Unless you physically destroyed those areas you had passed through and herded the inhabitants on, the likelihood was that, as soon as you were ten stacks on, the citizens would rise up behind your lines. You could place garrisons, of course, and both Tsu Ma and Wei Tseng-li had taken to doing this, but the cost in additional manpower was enormous and simply added to the already horrendous problems of logistics. Regular drops onto the roof of the City were not enough, and food and munitions were constantly being depleted to an almost critical point. One bad defeat for either force and they would have to pull out altogether. The problem was made worse by the fact that, in the south, large parts of the City had already rebelled and thrown off Wang’s rule. Two new kingdoms had set themselves up, and though their kings seemed short-lived and their ragged armies posed no direct threat to the Alliance, their example was pernicious. City Africa, seized by the turmoil of the war, had decided it had finished with the rule of Seven, and revolutionary pressures, long suppressed under Wang, had now risen to the surface. Nor was that the only problem. As when North America had fallen, refugees from the African Above had poured into the other cities. But whereas before there had been room enough—just—to cope with the sudden influx, now the position was untenable. Many of those who had fled had been forced to put up with what they considered inferior accommodation, ten, even fifteen levels down. Unrest, something unheard of in the top twenty levels of his City, had spawned some ugly incidents, and he had been forced to intercede to calm things down. Right now things were peaceful, but how long would that last?