At dawn on the last of the three days during which twenty-four thousand had crossed the river, Liu Bei (劉備) dismounted at the shallow waters of the southern bank.

His horse's four hooves sank into the mud. The water rose to the belly of Dilu (的盧). Liu Bei stepped one pace into the river. His straw sandals drank up the water. It did not reach his forehead, but it rose to his chest. That rising was, for this dawn, Liu Bei's baptism. The straw sandals of a man who had moved across yards for twenty years were, for the first time, wholly wet.

The river was a tributary of the Chang Jiang (揚子江). It was not called the Chang Jiang by name. The tributary's name did not matter to the twenty-four thousand. What mattered was the south bank.

Upon the south bank, the twenty-four thousand who had already crossed sat quietly in waiting. The tail of the column of the old and frail; the rear of the able-bodied; the rear of the middle group; and now, the head of Liu Bei's own column. Four columns had been the four layers of three days' time. Now the four layers of people had gathered into one layer upon a single bank. The divisions between layers were erased, and upon one sheet of earth, twenty-four thousand sat together.

Liu Bei, standing in the water, cupped his hands, lifted the river, and washed his face. Two days' dust came off. The face of two days ago had been the face inside a seven-year yard; the face of this dawn was the face before twenty-four thousand. Between the two faces lay the baptism of water.

Kongming (孔明) watched Liu Bei quietly from a rock on the bank. A faint strand of ash from last night's fire still clung to his face. He did not wipe it off. Ash and water were the two marks upon the two faces of the two men.

Guan Yu (關羽) crossed second. Without Red Hare (赤兔馬), on an ordinary chestnut horse. His long beard brushed the water lightly. Its tip grew wet. He did not wring it out; he climbed up the bank as he was.

Zhang Fei (張飛) crossed third. His Eight-Serpent Spear (八蛇矛) swayed large beside the saddle. As soon as he had crossed, he turned toward the river and looked up at the northern sky. The northern sky no longer held red. Xinye's fire had gone out. Cao Cao's (曹操) great army had reached Xinye last night, spent a night before the empty city, and by this dawn had already begun to move south.

The twenty-four thousand on the bank watched the four men — Liu Bei, Kongming, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei — as they crossed the river. No one rejoiced aloud. No one wept aloud. Only a young mother held her small child more firmly. The child cried softly within her embrace. That small cry was the only sound on the bank this dawn.

Liu Bei stepped onto the bank and walked toward the mother. The water from his wet straw sandals left a light mark upon the earth. He raised one hand and laid it lightly upon the child's head. The crying ceased. The child's two eyes looked clearly upon Liu Bei's face.

"What is the child's name?"

"We call him Liu (劉)."

The mother's answer was quiet. It was the same character as Liu Bei's own surname. The name was a coincidence, and yet, upon the bank this dawn, it did not sound like one.

Liu Bei smiled briefly. Then he clasped his hands and bowed before the mother. A general bowing before a single mother among twenty-four thousand is a scene that hardly appears in any history of the world.

The southern road stretched beyond the bank. The road was dark. The dawn sun had not yet risen in the east. Only the edge of the eastern horizon was beginning to turn a thin, pale blue.

Kongming came up beside Liu Bei and spoke quietly.

"Your Lordship. This dawn's baptism is the baptism of the twenty years to come. While the wet straw sandals dry, Your Lordship's name will be written quietly upon one sheet of earth on the bank of these twenty-four thousand. Until this dawn, these sandals were the shoes of one man; once this sun rises, they will become the shoes of the first step of twenty-four thousand."

Liu Bei bowed his head. The water of his sandals ran cold between his toes. The shoes of the first step of twenty-four thousand were beginning from the wet straw sandals of a single man at this dawn.

The eastern horizon at last turned a pale yellow. The sun of the third day's end was about to rise. The faces of the twenty-four thousand on the bank were dipped, all together, into the yellow of the east. The water upon Liu Bei's sandals began to dry slowly inside that yellow.

The first step of the river-crossers was completed, this dawn, upon a wet pair of straw sandals. The next step stretched into the dark of the southern road. But the sun was rising in the east. Its first light was lighting the first stretch of the southern road.

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