Jicheng.

This was the farthest northeastern point of Jizhou. Beyond Jicheng lay not Jizhou territory but Wanshun County, administered under Youzhou.

Past Wanshun County, heading northeast still, was Yanzhou.

Zhuang Wudi had been in Jicheng for six months now — recruiting, training, and consolidating. New troops brought in from this region were organized into proper formations before being dispatched to Jizhou for Li Chi.

Outside of recruitment and training, there wasn’t much that pressed on Zhuang Wudi’s mind.

One day folded into the next — full and yet somehow hollow. That particular contradiction seemed to settle in everyone sooner or later.

At regular intervals, scouts that Zhuang Wudi had sent into Yanzhou would return to report on the fighting.

Yet every time they returned, they brought back little of use.

Tang Pidi had been in Yanzhou for six months with six thousand steppe cavalry — and in truth, even Zhuang Wudi’s scouts could not locate them.

Most of the time there was no trace of them, no word. As if they had vanished from the earth.

By the time news was followed up and scouts arrived at where they’d been spotted, they had long since moved on.

Three months prior, the scouts had reported that Tang Pidi had launched a surprise raid on a rebel army’s main camp.

What the scouts had managed to piece together wasn’t quite accurate. It wasn’t just any rebel army’s headquarters —

That particular rebel force was one of the top five powers in Yanzhou by any measure, reportedly numbering seventy or eighty thousand.

Tang Pidi had taken his light cavalry, circled wide around this force’s main camp as though guided by some heavenly eye, and pushed northeast for several hundred li.

Then he set the grain stockpile and camp of a rebel force called the Divine Blessing Army ablaze — and ran.

But before leaving, Tang Pidi’s men had deliberately dropped a handful of banners — the banners of the army they had just skirted around, known as the Leaning Mountain Army.

Tang Pidi had driven his troops at full gallop for hundreds of li, burned down the Divine Blessing Army’s camp, and without the slightest hesitation turned and bolted.

The Divine Blessing Army was incensed. When they saw the dropped banners of the Leaning Mountain Army, there was no room left for restraint.

The Divine Blessing Army’s commander, Wang Errui, rallied every soldier he had. Even if it cost everything, this debt had to be paid.

Tang Pidi had already done his research: these two rebel forces had always disliked each other and considered themselves rivals. Their territories overlapped, sharing a border, and clashes between them were common.

The Divine Blessing Army marched straight into Leaning Mountain Army territory. The Leaning Mountain Army had no idea what was happening and engaged immediately.

Tang Pidi then took his six thousand men and turned back — returning to find the Divine Blessing Army’s main camp almost entirely undefended.

He gave it another thorough going-over.

Stripped their stores bare. The weapons and armor were worthless to Tang Pidi — his men didn’t even bother.

This Grand General of Martial Prestige, severely influenced by Li Chi, issued one standing order: take only gold and silver.

The Divine Blessing Army’s vaults picked clean, Tang Pidi brought his troops back around.

The Leaning Mountain Army and the Divine Blessing Army were locked in fierce battle. Then word reached them: the Divine Blessing Army’s headquarters had been looted.

In one stroke, the Divine Blessing Army lost all will to fight. Wang Errui had no choice but to order a withdrawal.

But the Leaning Mountain Army’s leader, Yang Shuibo, was furious — and in no mood to let them simply leave.

Tang Pidi waited until Yang Shuibo had ridden out in full pursuit, then looted the Leaning Mountain Army’s headquarters for good measure.

Same procedure. Same rule.

Only gold and silver.

By the time both rebel forces understood what had happened, Tang Pidi and his men were already long gone.

This all occurred three months after Zhuang Wudi had arrived in Jicheng. Tang Pidi at that time had sent two thousand men back, escorting a vast haul of gold and silver.

When Zhuang Wudi had seen it, he’d been left speechless. For that matter, anyone would have been.

A column of two thousand men returning — no wagons, no carts, but every cavalryman serving as a pack animal.

Two thousand men had brought back a small mountain of gold and silver, which was piled up in the courtyard of the Jicheng government office.

Then those two thousand men turned around and left. Zhuang Wudi, grinning from ear to ear beside that small mountain, immediately dispatched two thousand of his own soldiers to escort the war funds back to Jizhou.

Then, roughly seventeen or eighteen days ago — about half a year after Zhuang Wudi had first arrived — Tang Pidi sent men back again.

Two thousand riders. Same as before — every one of them a transport soldier.

They dropped their cargo and left.

Watching them go, there was a certain urgency in the way they moved — but it wasn’t the urgency of men worried something had gone wrong back at camp.

It was the urgency of men who couldn’t bear to miss out on the next good time.

Seven or eight days later, the scouts returned.

The scout saw the expectant look in Zhuang Wudi’s eyes and felt a deep pang of guilt.

Because the patrols sent out this time had, again, failed to locate the Nalan cavalry.

“All of Yanzhou is looking for them.”

The scout sighed. “Not just us — every rebel force in Yanzhou can’t find them either.”

He looked at Zhuang Wudi. “This time, though, we did come back with news about the surviving remnants of the White Mountain Army.”

Zhuang Wudi’s eyes snapped wide open. “Where?!”

“A long way off. Near the border between Yanzhou and the Bohai Kingdom.”

At those words, the expression on Zhuang Wudi’s face visibly shifted.

That was genuinely far.

To take an army there from Jicheng, he would have to cut across the entirety of Yanzhou.

In terms of position, Zhuang Wudi was currently at the far southwest corner of Yanzhou. The White Mountain Army remnants were at the far eastern edge.

So he was caught between frustration and helplessness.

He couldn’t lead this regiment — twelve thousand strong — on a march straight through Yanzhou to strike the White Mountain Army. That route would almost certainly end in the regiment’s complete destruction somewhere in the middle of Yanzhou.

The scout continued, “The White Mountain Army commander who fled Jizhou — his name is Di Chun. After escaping back to Yanzhou with his remnants, he never planned to stop anywhere near Jizhou. He was probably afraid of retribution.

“He took the remnants all the way to the area near the Bohai Kingdom, and by all accounts he’s made an arrangement with the Bohai King — calling him his adoptive father.

“The White Mountain Army had always relied on direct Bohai support. Now that Di Chun has formalized the bond, the Bohai King is sparing no effort in his backing.”

The scout looked at Zhuang Wudi. “Our forces would have great difficulty making it through.”

Zhuang Wudi breathed in slowly, deeply, and nodded. “Yes.”

He looked at the scout. “Everyone go and rest. I’ll think this over on my own.”

Leaning back in the chair, Zhuang Wudi turned the problem over and over in his mind, and in the end, he let it go.

He was a general of the Ning Army — he was Li Chi’s Second Brother. He could not lead these twelve thousand men into a death march.

No matter how he burned, day and night without rest, to avenge his elder brother, to put the sword through every last remnant of the White Mountain Army.

—

At that same time, in Yanzhou, in Shelu City.

Shelu was a full two thousand li from Jizhou, nearing the eastern edge of Yanzhou.

In the days of Dachu, a stone fortress had been built in the gorge to the southeast of Shelu, with troops garrisoned inside. But since the collapse of Dachu, the border soldiers here had gone so long without resupply that staying meant starvation.

So they had pulled out on their own, and now the fortress flew the banner of the Bohai Kingdom.

The gorge was situated in a peculiar terrain — the surrounding cliffs and rock faces left nowhere for crops to grow. Even were the climate favorable, the cold alone lasted six or seven months of the year.

And the climate was not favorable for farming. Even wild grass struggled to force itself up through the cracks in the stone.

Flatland border towns without imperial supplies could at least keep themselves alive by planting their own grain for a while. In a stone fortress where the only things to eat were tree bark and roots — and precious little of those — there was no choice.

Now Shelu City itself served as a frontier post.

But there were no frontier soldiers in Shelu, either. The White Mountain Army rebels were garrisoning it.

So whenever the Bohai Kingdom sent troops, they could pass through with ease into Yanzhou.

Back when Laozi had led the White Mountain Army, the reason it had been able to rise so quickly in Yanzhou was in no small part due to Bohai troops crossing the border to fight alongside them.

With Dachu’s border wide open, if it had been the Black Wu Kingdom bordering them instead, perhaps all of Yanzhou would already have fallen into foreign hands.

But the Bohai Kingdom was simply not powerful enough. Far too weak.

The White Mountain Army’s approach had always been: take your food, take your resources, borrow your soldiers to fight, all fine.

But if Bohai forces were to enter Yanzhou in large numbers, that was not acceptable.

Back then, Laozi had said plainly: if he let the Bohai people in and they seized all of Yanzhou, then the whole of the Central Plains would curse him. He could forget about contending for the Central Plains and making himself Emperor — a single mouthful of spit from every person in the land would drown him.

To say nothing of the outside — within Yanzhou itself, everyone would rise against him.

So the relationship between the White Mountain Army and the Bohai Kingdom had always been delicate.

The Bohai King, following instructions from the Black Wu Khan, had been nurturing Dachu rebel forces — but how could he not dream of occupying the Central Plains himself? Or if not the entire Central Plains, then seizing all of Yanzhou would still be worth it: Yanzhou alone was larger than two Bohai Kingdoms combined.

But the Bohai King understood that the White Mountain Army would never simply open the gate to him.

Shelu City was now the White Mountain Army’s main base.

Di Chun’s approach to the Bohai people differed somewhat from that of his predecessor, Laozi.

Laozi’s position had been relatively clear: he flatly refused to let Bohai forces cross the border.

But Di Chun, in recent times, had been increasingly tempted to do otherwise.

Let the Bohai people in to fight — set them against the rebel forces throughout Yanzhou, with both sides ideally grinding each other into nothing. Then he could take his chance to seize all of Yanzhou and press on toward the Central Plains.

Right now, the White Mountain Army had close to a hundred thousand troops. But Di Chun knew well: more than half of them had no real fighting capability. Impressive when ahead, but one setback and they would collapse.

The Bohai people were savage and fierce, bred for war. If they came in…

But Di Chun also worried: if he did this, he would be a sinner for the ages. He wasn’t afraid of being a sinner for the ages in his ambitions for the throne — what he feared was exactly the same thing Laozi had feared: the whole world rising against him.

He had been wavering back and forth for weeks.

On the main street of Shelu City.

Tang Pidi looked for all the world like any local man — rough cloth clothes, beard grown out, tall and weathered.

He had just bought two sticks of candied hawthorns, handing one to Boluete Tengge beside him.

“What do you think of this place?”

Tang Pidi asked.

Boluete Tengge was dressed in the same fashion, the same beard.

“Looks all right now. Come winter, it could freeze you dead.”

Boluete Tengge sighed. “Winters on the steppe are cold enough, but this is something else.”

Tang Pidi laughed and spotted a pleasure house down the street, then smiled and said, “I’ll treat you — go and warm up.”

Boluete broke into a deep, rumbling laugh.

“A pleasure house is a fine place.”

Tang Pidi strolled along and said, “More information can be gathered in one place like that than anywhere else.”

Boluete Tengge looked puzzled. “Pidi brother, why did we come all the way out here? This is too far from Jizhou. If something goes wrong, pulling back would be a nightmare.”

“We came to pull out a thorn.”

Tang Pidi smiled slightly. “A thorn lodged in our Chief’s heart. And in Second Brother Zhuang’s heart. And in the heart of the Central Plains.”

He turned aside and bought two skewers of mutton, and Boluete Tengge laughed. “This doesn’t hold a candle to what we have back home.”

Tang Pidi glanced ahead. The distance between here and the Shelu City garrison command was not so great now.

“Come.”

Tang Pidi pulled Boluete Tengge by the arm. “Let’s go have a drink.”