The Crown Prince mustered fifty thousand troops at the eastern camp and set out west toward Yellow Water Gorge. The fifty thousand Eastern soldiers, all clad in yellow armor, stepped onto the early spring plains—from a distance they looked like a brilliant sunflower. The Crown Prince, draped in golden chainmail, glowed under the soft morning light. He walked at an unhurried pace, his expression relaxed, as if he were out enjoying a spring outing rather than marching to war. Yet excitement roared beneath the surface. Glancing back at the gleaming helmets and disciplined ranks behind him, then out toward the depths of the plain, he felt for the first time the thrill of commanding an army, felt for the first time that a man should serve in the military, felt for the first time a longing to raise his blade and kill. Had Grand Commandant Wang and Yanhui not repeatedly urged him to stick to the plan, he would have loved nothing more than to swing his sword and charge all fifty thousand men forward at once—how satisfying that would be!
Early that morning, right after Liu Jue had left, the Crown Prince had gone to Prince Anqing’s residence. After voicing his concerns, he said, “Both sides have two or three ten-thousands of troops. If Fourth Brother and Yunzhi really let their tempers get the better of them, this fight… how terrible would that be!”
Prince Anqing stroked his beard confidently. “Your Highness needn’t worry so much. That brat of mine won’t hold back over a woman he wants! As for the Fourth Prince…”
“Uncle! This isn’t child’s play, not the time to shield your own! They’re both pillars of our Ning Guo—how can they be allowed to slaughter each other like this?!” the Crown Prince declared earnestly.
Prince Anqing paused. The Crown Prince paced back and forth with his hands clasped behind him. “As their elder brother, I absolutely cannot stand by and watch this happen… Uncle, there’s no need to argue further—you must understand this old prince’s sincere intentions!”
After this righteous speech, the Crown Prince set off with his fifty thousand troops to break up the fight. Passing the south gate, Prince Anqing personally ordered the pontoon bridge lowered to let them through, standing solemnly atop the wall as he called down, “Your Highness, do go and talk sense into them!”
Five li from Yellow Water Gorge, soldiers pressed their ears to the ground and, after a moment, reported that something was off ahead—it sounded as if troops were already fighting. The Crown Prince smiled with satisfaction. So they really were fighting? He gave the order: “The entire army rests half an hour before we proceed to break up the fight!” The sunflower of fifty thousand troops halted on the plain.
Five li away, Yellow Water Gorge was a rift where Yuxiang Mountain’s foothills split open onto the grassland. Legend held that long ago, during the great war between the Heavenly Realm and the Demon Realm, the divine elephant that served as a god’s mount, mortally wounded, staggered to this spot and collapsed. Yellow Water Gorge was its final footprint—the divine elephant had stamped a deep, wide pit into the plain, cracking the earth itself. At its narrowest points, the gorge measured only two or three zhang wide. The center leveled out like a broad training ground, with sheer cliffs rising on all sides—hold the two entrances, and not even a bird could cross.
Zili’s Right Flank Army wore gleaming silver-white armor; Liu Jue’s Southern Route Army wore stark black—the two stood at opposite ends of the gorge, black and white in sharp contrast. Both now sat watching four thousand of their men sparring in the gorge below. Word of the Crown Prince’s camp five li away soon reached them. Liu Jue’s gaze drifted toward distant Yuxiang Mountain—the lush green forest lay utterly still. Calculating the time, he drew his sword, pointed it at Zili, and called out clearly, “Everyone listen! Today this prince and the Fourth Prince will duel—no one is to interfere!”
Below, the four thousand men broke off their sparring and fell back into formation, clearing a space in the center. Liu Jue, his slender frame wrapped in black soft armor, pulled down his face guard and walked calmly to the center. Zili, in white robes and silver armor with a helmet shielding his brow, revealed only a pair of mocking eyes, regarding Liu Jue with apparent disdain. Liu Jue let out a great shout, sword already drawn. In an instant, all anyone could see were two figures—one black, one white—locked together. They closed and drew apart in turns, a truly striking sight. Flashes of sword-light flickered through the gorge, ringing with the clash of blades, for a good two incense-sticks’ worth of time, until suddenly a great shout rang from the clifftop: “Stop!”
The two men, deep in their fierce exchange, paused for only an instant before closing in again, ignoring the call entirely.
A cold smile curled at the corner of the Crown Prince’s mouth as he shouted, “How can the two of you disregard the good of the nation over a single woman, wounding each other to the point of ruin—inviting other kingdoms to exploit the chaos! Stop this instant, or this prince will show no more patience! I cannot let the two of you continue this folly!”
No sooner had he shouted this than two thousand men burst from each side’s ranks below, fighting even more fiercely within the gorge. The Crown Prince’s eyes tracked the black and white figures. With a decisive wave of his hand, three thousand archers surged up onto the gorge’s rim, loosing a torrent of arrows down like driving rain. Shield-bearers rushed out below to block them. Some were still struck; screams of pain echoed through the gorge. Furious, Liu Jue drew breath and roared, “Do all of you see this clearly? The Crown Prince claims to come and make peace, yet he clearly means to kill both me and the Fourth Prince! Liu Jian! You harbor murder against your own brothers—heaven will not forgive this!” With a flick of his hand, a firework tube shot into the air and burst into a red bloom.
The Crown Prince froze, then laughed loudly. “Stop and surrender now, or Yellow Water Gorge becomes your grave! If you think you can escape with your lives—that’s a dream!”
Liu Jue stared at him, a strange look crossing his face—as if shaking his head in despair that the Crown Prince had never set foot on a real battlefield, as if sighing at his sheer foolishness, as if wondering how the shrewd Wang Yanhui could have let him act this way!
By now, not only arrows but boulders were raining down from above. Liu Jue didn’t move; where he stood, the force of the incoming arrows had already weakened, and the black-clad riders beside him gently deflected them. The Crown Prince glared at the black and white armies below—he had only fifty thousand men, enough to hold both ends of the gorge and trap them, but not enough to wipe them out entirely. Just then, shouts of battle rose from behind him. He spun around in shock—arrows poured in like a swarm of locusts from the distance, and in an instant his rear guard collapsed in rows.
The Crown Prince looked toward the deep gorge ahead and shouted, “Rear guard to front! Charge!” The fifty thousand Eastern soldiers surged backward like a golden tide toward a beach, only to be driven back again by a wall of dark arrows.
Fixing his gaze on the source, he saw a white banner flying in the wind—the attack from behind came from Zili’s Right Flank Army. The Crown Prince’s heart finally sank with certainty; the two had indeed joined forces. There was no room left for mercy now. He said grimly, “Form ranks!”
Holding the gorge entrance, the Eastern Army swiftly formed a defensive square on the high ground. Soon, the plain ahead filled with flecks of silver-white, gathering into a mass that encircled the golden sunflower like clouds. Zili rode forward. “Elder Brother, it seems I wasn’t wrong to guess. Do you truly wish to kill me?”
He eyed the gorge suspiciously, only now realizing the white figure who had dueled Liu Jue had not been Zili himself. The Crown Prince called out clearly, “I am Crown Prince of Ning Guo, rightful heir to the throne. Yet you covet the throne and secretly mobilize troops—if Father knew you sought to murder your own brother and seize power, he would not rest in peace even in the afterlife!”
Zili laughed heartily. “Father’s final edict is in my hands. The Wang clan has thrown our court into chaos—I will surely fulfill Father’s wishes and revive the might of our Liu royal line! Did you truly think it would be so easy to seal off this gorge? To trap us all within it?”
The Crown Prince surveyed the scene—behind him lay the deep gorge, with Liu Jue’s twenty thousand Southern troops inside; ahead lay the plain, with Liu Fei’s twenty thousand Right Flank troops. He smiled brightly. “Men! We outnumber them—form ranks and fight!”
Below, ten thousand voices roared as one: “We follow the Crown Prince!”
Drums thundered, war cries split the sky, and five thousand vanguard troops from each side charged forward, golden light plunging into the depths of white cloud like sunlight piercing through mist, fireballs crashing onto the plain, the din of slaughter and anguish shaking the grassland. Liu Jue called out, “Break through the Eastern Army’s rear! Attack from front and back!”
The black-armored Southern Army surged forward like roiling dark clouds, howling as if to blot out the sky, soldiers pouring toward the gorge entrance.
Caught between two fronts, the Crown Prince watched the clouds creep forward, swallowing the sunlight bit by bit. Anxiety flickered across his face. Just then, the earth shook violently—a black line raced across the plain from the direction of the forest. The Crown Prince’s heart eased; he waved his command flag and laughed loudly. “Your time to die has come!”
Zili peered into the distance, listening to the thundering hoofbeats pound the earth like a great hammer. As it drew closer, he startled—it was not cavalry, but thousands upon thousands of terrified cattle, charging with the force of thunder straight at the ranks. The Crown Prince had already retreated to high ground; the Right Flank Army, exposed on the open plain, was scattered in an instant. Soldiers too slow to dodge were trampled to the ground. Wherever the hooves fell, flesh and blood scattered; thousands of soldiers, before they could even raise their blades, were crushed into pulp, screams echoing without end. Worst hit was the force inside the gorge—part of the panicked herd charged in, but with the narrow exit ahead, the cattle couldn’t escape and instead rampaged wildly within the gorge itself.
Furious, Liu Jue roared, “Loose arrows! Spearmen form ranks, shields behind!” He himself surged forward, sword flashing, blood spraying like a fountain as he beheaded one bull with a single stroke. The black-clad cavalry followed suit, and the Southern Army’s spirits rallied; they pressed forward behind a wall of raised spears, leaving hundreds of dead cattle strewn across the gorge. Panting, Liu Jue glanced at the burning torches tied to the cattle’s tails and cursed aloud, “Wang Yanhui, you truly are no ordinary woman!” A headcount revealed that of the ten thousand men in the gorge, five thousand had fallen.
On the other side, Zili’s forces regrouped—of thirty thousand, eight thousand were lost. Shocked and grudgingly impressed, he realized this single maneuver, without costing a single soldier of hers, had already gravely wounded both armies. The panicked cattle, once free, had already vanished deep into the plain within moments. Before either side could catch its breath, that blinding golden light pressed forward once more. This time it was close combat. Through the thick white clouds, glints of gold flickered; where the golden light shone, black clouds churned. Neither pure blue sky nor solid cloud cover remained. The playful smile on Zili’s face hardened into gravity, the killing intent radiating from him freezing the clouds around him to ice. He knew the stampede had already cost them dearly—both armies were struggling to hold on, and if the hidden reinforcements couldn’t be drawn out, this battle was surely lost.
Liu Jue’s temper flared; everyone had fought themselves into a bloodlust, morale and numbers both failing, holding on by sheer will alone as they grappled with the Eastern Army. Gritting his teeth, he charged toward where the Crown Prince stood—capture the Crown Prince, and that hidden army would have no choice but to act in haste. Three of the black-clad cavalry broke from formation together, surging toward the central command like a furious black dragon, roaring and twisting. Wherever they passed, the golden light receded, and from a distance the black cloud seemed rimmed in gold, drifting slowly toward the brightest point of light. Liu Jue and his riders cut through resistance like a blade, arrows aimed straight at the sun’s heart.
Panic showed on the Crown Prince’s face; numbers alone couldn’t stop Liu Jue and his black cavalry from closing in. He had long heard of their ferocity. He waved his hand, and the central command raised a golden banner, flashing urgent signal flags.
At last, movement stirred in the distant forest. Like winter snow silently falling upon the plain, without a single battle cry, a wave of green surged forward at astonishing speed.
The Crown Prince’s spirits soared. Brandishing his sword, he laughed loudly. “Now you’ll see the might of Ning Guo’s Northern Army!” With reinforcements arrived, the Eastern Army’s morale surged; the Southern Army broke out of the gorge to regroup with the Right Flank Army, fighting their retreat toward Feng City. The Crown Prince bellowed, “Pursue at once! Kill them!”
Liu Jue’s expression finally relaxed. At his command flag’s signal, the two clouds merged into one, black and white intertwined, strange and eerie. Golden light spilled out, the arriving green-armored Northern Army closing tightly around it, the sunflower’s petals unfurling, its leaves standing tall. As they charged into the cloud, the black-and-white cloud suddenly split apart, transforming into two ropes that bound the flower’s stem tight, letting it sway helplessly upon the plain.
Within both armies, the white banner suddenly unfurled and the black banner waved wildly. The plain, like a chessboard scattered with pieces, seemed struck by a furious fist, the pieces leaping and scattering, shattering the calm. Like surging waves, one crest crashing after another.
The Crown Prince rubbed his eyes; once his vision cleared, he realized what he’d taken for swaying grass was in fact soldiers who had lain in ambush all along. Every one of them wore grass cloaks and held powerful crossbows—the Eastern Army found itself surrounded on all sides. The Northern Army, too, clearly realized they’d fallen into a trap. Grim resolve showed on their faces as they cried out “Charge!” and fought desperately to break through to the front.
Zili’s eyes turned cold and clear. He exchanged a glance with Liu Jue, then dropped his command flag—the crossbow strings snapped taut, all thirty thousand ambush troops armed with short-range, high-lethality bolts, firing in relentless waves, tearing apart the sunflower’s tender petals without mercy. Both armies surged forward, bright blades severing the sunflower’s green stalks, spears and halberds thrusting wildly, the once-flourishing blossom torn to shreds.
The Crown Prince stared bitterly at the white banner ahead. Seventy thousand men—gone in the blink of an eye. The situation had reversed in an instant. They had been far more ruthless than he’d imagined—using forty thousand troops to hold off the Eastern Army’s fifty thousand, while secretly laying an ambush of thirty thousand more. They had held their nerve so completely, letting the Eastern Army pass through unharmed, using the forty thousand as bait to draw out the twenty thousand Northern troops before finally striking. Fourth Brother, you… you truly are something.