Anyang City had been, in Yuwen Shangyun’s strategic plan, the first step toward his ultimate objective.

It was to be his springboard for the march on Jizhou — taking Anyang meant no small degree of security, in terms of manpower, material, and resources alike.

In the original version of his plan, Anyang occupied an absolutely critical position. And after it had fallen so easily, there had been a stretch of time when Yuwen Shangyun and every one of his subordinates had been in fine spirits.

Before this northward march into Jizhou, the truth was that everyone in the army — top to bottom — had been nursing a grievance. They had been driven away.

In Yangzhou, holding the line against that Jiangnan warlord Li Xionghu, they had fought hard enough to carve out a stretch of territory that was genuinely their own. And that territory sat in an advantageous position — Yangzhou to the southeast, Xuzhou to the northwest, and the vital approaches to Jingzhou directly to the north.

A place like that, developed with care, offered real possibilities.

But the moment Prince Wu Yang Jiju arrived, they were packed off north to garrison Yuzhou — a long journey to unfamiliar country, with no certainty of local support.

That bottled-up frustration had only begun to ease after Yuwen Shangyun declared, before the entire army, that he was no longer fighting for the court and no longer fighting for the emperor.

Most of his soldiers had been recruited in Jiangnan; roughly half were Yangzhou men who had left their home country and come to this strange place. If they could not even say they were fighting for their own futures, who could feel settled about that?

When Yuwen Shangyun stood on the southern bank of the Nanping River and announced to the whole army that they were marching on Jizhou — in that moment, morale recovered, and more than recovered.

Yet here, in this moment, Yuwen Shangyun knew he might soon face the hardest choice of his life, and that every option was wrong.

Hold Anyang — in under two months, the Ning Army would outlast them.

Abandon Anyang — as Yuwen Dian had suggested, march east and seek a new opening — and they would lose not just Anyang but Yuzhou as well.

Right now, Yuzhou was stripped of troops, his forces trapped inside Anyang. There was nothing left to hold Yuzhou with. Given Tang Pidi’s ability to command an army, taking the whole of Yuzhou would not be especially difficult.

“Great General.”

Yuwen Dian looked at Yuwen Shangyun and lowered his voice. “Please make a decision while there is still time. News that there is almost no grain left cannot be contained for long. When it gets out, the army’s will is certain to collapse.”

Yuwen Shangyun gave a small nod. He hardly needed Yuwen Dian to remind him — did he not know that himself?

So Yuwen Dian’s reminder only left him feeling more agitated.

After a long while, something in Yuwen Shangyun’s mind finally clarified enough for him to begin working toward a third option.

Not flight and not surrender — because both of those were simply accepting fate.

He had told the whole army: what he, Yuwen Shangyun, was doing was defying fate itself.

“If I…”

Yuwen Shangyun looked at Yuwen Dian. “If I sent you to surrender to Li Chi — would you be willing?”

Yuwen Dian started, his expression changing immediately. “Great General, what do you mean by this?!”

Yuwen Shangyun said, “The position we’re in — whether we move east, north, or south — we will take heavy losses in every direction, possibly even losing the entire army. In truth, the only chance of survival is to go out and gamble.”

He looked at Yuwen Dian. “If you led a force to surrender, Tang Pidi would not trust you — but as long as he accepted you, he would have to divide a portion of his troops to keep watch over you.”

Yuwen Dian said, “But what if they do not accept the surrender?”

“They will.”

Yuwen Shangyun thought as he spoke. “Li Chi does not have many soldiers. If he has ambitions to compete for the realm, he cannot afford not to seek growth.”

“He needs Yuzhou because Yuzhou is the granary of the realm — take Yuzhou and food is no longer a concern. But food without soldiers means ambition without power.”

“If you go, Tang Pidi might refuse you at the gate. But Li Chi will not. Tang Pidi aims to be the unrivaled Great General under heaven. Li Chi aims to be a ruler. There is a difference.”

Yuwen Shangyun paced as he spoke. “Once you surrender with a full force, Li Chi will want those battle-hardened regulars — he will keep you. That divides Tang Pidi’s troops, which means the Ning forces north of the city will be significantly weakened.”

“You go first and surrender. I will arrange for Yuwen Jing to come after as a pursuing force — then Yuwen Jing feigns surrender as well. With two forces of ours inside the Ning Army…”

A light went on in Yuwen Dian’s eyes.

He asked Yuwen Shangyun, “Great General’s intent is — by surrendering in sequence, since Li Chi wants battle-hardened troops he will take them in, and our provisions problem is solved as well? We go and eat off Li Chi’s supplies!”

Yuwen Shangyun nodded — and having conceived this strange yet ingenious plan, some of the tension in his chest eased slightly.

According to the scouts’ reports, the Ning Army force north of the city did not exceed fifty thousand. Based on Yuwen Shangyun’s own assessment, they likely did not even reach forty thousand.

If two separate Chu forces went to surrender in sequence, thirty-odd thousand Ning soldiers would find themselves responsible for guarding nearly twenty to thirty thousand prisoners, while also feeding them, while also watching them, while also fighting a war.

What would they have left to fight with?

Yuwen Dian said, “Great General, this plan is beyond unconventional… yet precisely because of that, Li Chi and Tang Pidi may not see through it.”

Yuwen Shangyun said, “Even if they do see through it, what can they do? If they refuse your surrender, you just come back — you’ve only been for a walk outside the walls.”

Yuwen Dian said, “But if Tang Pidi is ruthless — accepts the surrender, strips our weapons and armor, and then slaughters us all…”

Yuwen Shangyun frowned. He had not failed to consider this possibility.

But he felt that neither Li Chi nor Tang Pidi were the kind of men who would do that.

To slaughter tens of thousands of surrendered soldiers without question or cause would instantly and permanently ruin Li Chi’s and Tang Pidi’s names across the Central Plains.

Li Chi was a man of great ambition and deeply protective of his reputation. He would never permit such a thing.

“Let us try it.”

Yuwen Shangyun said, “First, send someone to make contact with Li Chi in secret — as if communicating covertly. Tell him I vomited blood three times, that I flew into a rage and killed men without cause. See how Tang Pidi responds. If Li Chi is not currently with the Ning Army, Tang Pidi will not dare act unilaterally — he will have to send word to Jizhou for instructions. The round trip alone will buy us some time.”

Yuwen Dian nodded. “Then I will do as the Great General instructs — I will draft a letter to Tang Pidi tonight and have someone deliver it secretly tomorrow.”

“Not in the daytime — at night. Tell Tang Pidi that you had the authority to be on duty guarding the walls tonight, and you used that opportunity to send the letter out… That way, Tang Pidi knows you have the authority over the walls, and it will give him something to think about.”

Only now did Yuwen Dian understand the full shape of it. The Great General’s plan was not aimed at a single outcome — it was one move with many branches.

If Tang Pidi agreed, Yuwen Dian would go and eat the Ning Army’s provisions — an obvious gain.

If Tang Pidi thought he could exploit Yuwen Dian’s authority over the walls, and made contact hoping Yuwen Dian would open the gates and let the Ning Army in — the Chu forces could spring a trap inside the city and possibly snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

“Go.”

Yuwen Shangyun said, “Take stock of the remaining provisions — enough for perhaps ten-odd days. If it proves impossible to hold out, we will have no choice but to turn to the wealthy households and great families in the city for what they have…”

Yuwen Dian was alarmed. “But Great General — doing that would surely lose us the hearts of the people and their support?”

Yuwen Shangyun smiled bitterly. “When there is no way to survive, why concern ourselves with such things?”

Yuwen Dian thought about it and supposed that was right — if the entire army had no way out, why spare a thought for the wealthy households inside the city?

He bowed and left Yuwen Shangyun’s study, thinking all the while about how the letter to Tang Pidi ought to be written.

This move was genuinely unexpected — but it was also a move of profound risk.

That night, a letter left Anyang City and was brought to the Ning Army camp.

Half an hour after the letter arrived, the principal commanders of the Ning Army had all gathered inside Li Chi’s command tent.

Li Chi passed the letter to Tang Pidi. Tang Pidi read it and gave a faint smile — no comment.

Master Wu read it and smiled as well. He said to Li Chi, “Your Highness — Yuwen Shangyun has been driven into a corner. This plan is meant to scatter our forces, so he can look for a chance to make a decisive fight.”

Li Chi nodded. “Master Wu is right. His only chance of winning is to fight us to a decision before his provisions run out. Win that one battle and the Ning forces on the southern bank no longer matter.”

Master Wu said, “Since Yuwen Shangyun believes this plan will work — then let him come.”

He looked at Tang Pidi when he said it, not at Li Chi.

And in that moment, from that look directed at Tang Pidi rather than at him, Li Chi already knew what Master Wu had in mind.

Kill them.

However many come, kill them.

And the reason he looked at Tang Pidi rather than Li Chi was precisely because that stain — that infamy — should not be borne by Prince Ning.

“I will handle it.”

Tang Pidi gave a small nod and said only those three words.

“No need.”

Li Chi shook his head. “Yuwen Shangyun will not dare risk a full-army assault. If he threw everything at us, Dantai would cut him down from behind. So in responding to this surrendering-soldiers scheme, there is no reason anyone needs to carry the infamy of a massacre.”

Tang Pidi said, “That is not infamy to me. That is simply my intent. However many come — kill them.”

Everyone in the tent knew: when it came to military affairs, Tang Pidi had always been this way — cold, and without mercy.

Li Chi smiled. “Write back to this man. Tell him one force alone makes very little difference. Ask him if he has the ability to persuade more people to come and surrender to us.”

Tang Pidi’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Li Chi continued, “Anyang City has a Chu force of no fewer than a hundred thousand. Yuwen Shangyun is proud. If this plan is so easily seen through, he must have a follow-up move. One that I have not yet thought of.”

Tang Pidi looked at Li Chi — but Li Chi shook his head. “What that follow-up is, I cannot guess yet. Let us respond to him first, as I said.”

He rose, looked at Master Wu, and said, “I know that in war, killing the enemy is paramount. I understand that logic. If we were fighting the Black Wu people or the Western Regions forces, I would follow your thinking without question. But this is a war between our own people… if we can kill fewer, we should.”

Master Wu pressed his fist to his chest. “Your Highness…”

Before he could finish, Li Chi had already shaken his head. “Let us not discuss this today. We can speak of it tomorrow.”

Li Chi straightened his clothes, stepped toward the door and walked out. “Everyone go and rest.”

A short while later, in the Ning Army camp.

Tang Pidi walked to Li Chi’s side. The two of them stood together, shoulder to shoulder.

Li Chi spoke first. “I know you are right.”

Tang Pidi, whose mouth had just begun to open, did not manage to produce even a single syllable.

He looked at Li Chi and smiled. “You thought I came to argue with you?”

Li Chi nodded.

Tang Pidi said, “In war, killing the enemy is paramount — that will never be wrong, no matter what. It simply depends on whether you wish to say it aloud. In the age before the Zhou, when the warring states clashed, any opportunity meant wholesale slaughter. Killing twenty thousand surrendered prisoners — things like that happened.”

“Without question, it looks brutal — but it is, in practice, the most effective approach. And yet…”

Tang Pidi looked at Li Chi, and smiled. “I know you are right.”

Li Chi burst out laughing.

Tang Pidi asked him, “Have you thought of Yuwen Shangyun’s follow-up move yet?”

Li Chi shook his head. “I need a jug of wine and three jin of meat. Without those, I cannot think.”

Tang Pidi turned and called back, “Come!”

Yu Jiuling came trotting over, holding wine and meat.

—