Ma Chao's Retaliation

And another volume is done. I hope you enjoyed the introduction of guys like Ma Chao, Pang De, and Xu Huang because they'll remain important for most of the story. Seeing how strong the armies of Xiliang are this volume, you really have to wonder just what the hell Ma Teng was doing all this time (Red Cliffs, for example) given that he also signed that blood-oath to destroy Cao Cao. And indeed, this is something that isn't supposed to make sense since actual historical records show him to have hardly cared for the Emperor's cause. But it makes for a fun story and that's all that really matters. Also, you might've noticed some of Ma Chao's troops are actually using shields and had quite different-looking armour, most likely as a part of Yokoyama's attempt to differentiate the Qiang-heavy Xiliang armies. It comes across as a little ironic, though, since using shields would be more a marker of Chinese-ness than foreignness. But that's what you get when a Japanese mangaka is working in a time when Japan and China had very little friendly interaction and the only readily accessible pictorial materials were Edo-era prints that superimpose the idea of Japanese warfare to the scenes of war in Water Margin or Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

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Sangokushi v31:   Mediafire
Sangokushi c191-192:   Sendspace