The climate in Yanzhou was far colder than Jizhou. It was only just past the tenth month, and beyond Dragon’s Head Pass the snow was already falling.

It was strange — heaven seemed to have drawn a line right there. Standing on Dragon’s Head Pass and looking outward, there was nothing but white in every direction. Looking inward, there were a few fine, scattered snowflakes, but the ground hadn’t turned white.

Dantai Yajing stood on the city wall and looked east. Across the vast open plain, not a soul was in sight.

“I heard from the veterans who’ve been posted here,” Zhuang Wudi said, “that in the old days, looking east from here you’d see flocks of sheep as far as the eye could see. The shepherds would crack their whips and sing out loud — quite a sight.”

But now, not a single sheep. Not a single person.

“Rich land, yet desolate,” Dantai Yajing said. “As a granary, Yanzhou isn’t much worse than Yuzhou.”

He let out a long breath. “If the realm were at peace, the people of Yanzhou would have a very comfortable life.”

Zhuang Wudi smiled. “That’s something to look forward to, then. Whenever the Ning Army plants its banner across Yanzhou, the people there will have a comfortable life.”

Dantai Yajing smiled too. “It won’t be difficult. Once things are settled in Yuzhou, we’ll have a free hand to deal with this concern in the rear.”

Zhuang Wudi nodded. “Shouldn’t be too long now.”

“Shouldn’t be,” Dantai Yajing agreed.

“When are you heading out past the pass?” Zhuang Wudi asked.

“Waiting on word from the agents we have in Yanzhou. Should arrive within three or four days.”

He looked at Zhuang Wudi. “When I come back from Yanzhou, what do you want me to bring you as a gift?”

Zhuang Wudi said: “Bring me a northern woman.”

Dantai Yajing said: “Yu Jiuling! Take your mask off!”

Zhuang Wudi: “…”

He laughed quietly. “That’s a limited view.”

“How so?” Dantai Yajing asked.

“If it were Yu Jiuling,” Zhuang Wudi said with a sigh, “would he only want a northern woman? His list would be rather longer…”

Dantai Yajing nodded. “Fair point.”

Just then, Yu Jiuling came bounding up from the base of the wall with a letter in hand, already calling out as he ran: “Message from the agents!”

Dantai Yajing hadn’t expected it to arrive so quickly. Going by the timing when they’d sent the scouts ahead to make contact with the Yanzhou agents, it should have been another four or five days.

“The situation is urgent,” Yu Jiuling said, “so the agents in Yanzhou rode through the night to get it out.”

“What urgent matter?” Dantai Yajing asked.

Yu Jiuling handed him the letter. “Read it first.”

Dantai Yajing opened it and read, and then he understood why the situation was called urgent.

After the Baishan Army’s chief — Shen Shanhu’s younger brother — was assassinated, the Baishan Army had been left without a leader.

Even so, the Baishan Army still controlled a considerable stretch of Yanzhou and remained a force of some size.

So if the Mountain-Sea Army wanted to attack the Baishan Army head-on, there was no guarantee of a decisive victory.

That was why, over the past several months, the Mountain-Sea Army had been sending people to infiltrate and bribe the Baishan Army’s generals from within, using heavy sums to split the organization from the inside.

Less than a month ago, one of the Baishan Army’s generals had been bought off and opened the city gates to let the Mountain-Sea Army in. This was equivalent to punching a hole straight through the Baishan Army’s outer walls, and the Mountain-Sea Army was now poised to cut straight through.

Once the Baishan Army collapsed — once its territory was lost and its soldiers were gone — Shen Shanhu’s family members would in all likelihood not survive.

Her brother had been killed, but there was still a sister-in-law and two children. As a widow with young children, their life couldn’t possibly be anything but precarious.

And the Mountain-Sea Army’s particular cruelty lay in this: they had issued an ultimatum to the Baishan Army — hand over those three, the mother and children, and they would halt their advance against the Baishan Army. Refuse, and they would annihilate the Baishan Army, killing every last man.

The reason they had issued this demand was clear. Before rising to power, the Mountain-Sea Army’s greatest stumbling block had been the Baishan Army — had been Shen Shanhu’s brother.

In several engagements, the Mountain-Sea Army had failed to gain much advantage and had lost a number of capable commanders.

“On the surface, they’re demanding the Baishan Army hand over those three people,” Dantai Yajing said, “but in reality, this is still a move to split them from within.”

“The Baishan Army right now is certainly already divided into two factions — one side that refuses to comply, because surrendering those people would be too shameful, a betrayal of all loyalty and righteousness. But those who have already been bought off will use every means to pressure the others into making the handover.”

Zhuang Wudi said: “You mean to enter Yanzhou as quickly as possible?”

Dantai Yajing nodded. “We can’t wait. At the very least we have to get those three out of there — otherwise, when Shen Shanhu finds out, how much pain will she have to bear?”

He looked at Zhuang Wudi. “The chief said it before: those who have placed their trust in us and called us their own — we can’t afford to let them feel their faith was misplaced. Shen Shanhu threw in with Old Tang. Her family is the same as our family.”

He turned to Yu Jiuling. “Tell the men — get everything you need ready today, get a good night’s sleep, and at first light we go through the pass. From that point on it’ll be hard riding, day and night.”

“Understood!” Yu Jiuling called back, turned on his heel, and went to make the arrangements.

Zhuang Wudi clapped a hand on Dantai Yajing’s shoulder. “Be careful out there.”

Dantai Yajing smiled, a trace of easy pride in his bearing. “Old Tang has come and gone through Yanzhou three or four times and come out alive every time. I may be somewhat less than him, but surely I can at least manage one round trip?”

Zhuang Wudi laughed. “If you get the chance, I’d love to go with you.”

“Big Brother Zhuang, you’re better off here at Dragon’s Head Pass waiting to meet us on the way back. Besides, the chief said a convoy escorting supplies will be arriving soon — you’ll need to be here to receive it.”

Zhuang Wudi nodded. “I know… I just want to go with you. These two years have left me feeling cooped up and restless.”

—

The next morning, the sun had barely lifted its head when Dantai Yajing’s force was already fully assembled.

Equipped and supplied, one man with two horses — a party of two hundred and eighty, they left Dragon’s Head Pass and plunged straight into Yanzhou.

Across the boundless snowy plain, the column moved forward through the snow.

Well over a thousand li away, on another vast snowy plain, a group of roughly a hundred riders in heavy padded coats were escorting a carriage through the white expanse.

The climate here was even colder than Dragon’s Head Pass — and it was no exaggeration to say that water froze the moment it left a vessel.

Every face was wrapped in thick scarves, and on top of the scarves — frost. On eyebrows, frost. Even on eyelashes, enough ice to blur the vision.

Fortunately there was no wind today. If there had been, it would have been even harder going.

Inside the carriage sat a young woman who looked to be about twenty-three or twenty-four. In her arms she held a little girl, only a year or two old. The older child — a boy of four — had his head resting on his mother’s leg and was asleep.

“My lady.”

A voice came from outside. The young woman glanced down at the two children and was relieved to see they hadn’t been startled awake by the sound. She quietly let out a breath.

“What is it?” she asked.

“About thirty more li ahead is Mengyuan Fort,” the voice replied. “Let’s rest there for the night.”

The young woman nodded. “Whatever the general decides.”

Her name was Lin Huiyun — the wife of the Baishan Army’s chief. After her husband was assassinated, she had been left with almost no place in the Baishan Army that could be called safe.

Those who had already been bought off by the Mountain-Sea Army kept pressuring the others to hand over her and the children.

Every day was unsettled and anxious. At any moment she might be seized and dragged away.

They had even said it at her husband’s own funeral — right there in front of everyone — that she and the children were harbingers of misfortune and had brought their master’s death on themselves.

But throughout it all, one person had stood by her without wavering: her husband’s most loyal subordinate, his closest sworn brother, General of the Baishan Army, Qiao Mo.

Qiao Mo commanded the personal guard, and had originally had eight hundred elite soldiers under him — all of them exceptional fighters.

But over the course of this flight, fighting through one engagement after another, the eight hundred had been worn down to just over a hundred and twenty.

Qiao Mo had told Lin Huiyun at the time: if they stayed any longer, something bad would happen sooner or later. Better to leave while they still could.

She asked where they could go. Qiao Mo said that Miss Shen had taken her people to Youzhou and had never returned — she was most likely already settled there. He could have the personal guard escort them the whole way, protecting the mother and her two children as far as Youzhou.

Qiao Mo also said: if Miss Shen were willing to come back to Yanzhou, that would of course be best of all. With her standing, the moment she returned, whoever was stirring trouble would not dare act with such audacity.

Mengyuan Fort stood at the foot of a high ridge. Beneath the ridge was a large market town, and that was the town’s name.

The name had quite a story behind it — a solemn, heroic story, and a warm one too.

Long ago, when the Bohai kingdom sent six hundred thousand troops in a ferocious assault on Yanzhou, the Dachu court had mobilized garrison forces from all directions to reinforce it.

Afterward, those garrison forces had turned and swept deep into the Bohai kingdom itself, leaving hundreds of li of scorched earth in their wake.

When the great army withdrew back inside the border, many of the wounded couldn’t walk any farther. Those who pressed on with the column would likely die along the road.

Some of those wounded had simply stayed behind, settling in this place. Ordinary people came from all around to tend to them, and gradually a large market town took shape.

There was an old woman, known as Grandma Meng, who had been among the first to come, tending to many of the wounded soldiers on her own.

Everyone held her in the deepest respect, and over time the place came to be renamed after her — Mengyuan Fort.

Years of war and chaos had followed, but the people of Mengyuan Fort were not the kind to be pushed around, and so they had managed to stay put all this time.

Most of the townspeople were descendants of those old veterans, passed down generation to generation. Men and women alike were willing to practice martial arts — the bones of their old garrison-soldier ancestors lived in them, that fearless, tenacious fighting spirit.

The town was not especially wealthy. It had a population of several thousand, and if bandits came, they would fight back hard — everyone, old and young, men and women, together. Bandits had no desire to tangle with them either. Bleeding and dying for all that effort, and the spoils weren’t even worth it.

Qiao Mo took out his long-range scope, wiped it clean, and lifted it to look ahead. In the hazy distance, he could just make out the faint rise of cooking smoke above Mengyuan Fort.

“Xiaogi.”

He glanced back.

A young man — looked to be about seventeen or eighteen, full of spirit — rode up promptly.

“What do you need, General?”

His name was Guan Qi. The origin of the name was simple: he was the seventh child in his family.

There were four older sisters and two older brothers above him, though only three had survived. Their hometown had been caught up in war, they’d been scattered — and he hadn’t been able to reach any of them since.

Guan Qi was quick-witted and eager to learn, which had made him one of Qiao Mo’s most valued men.

“Take a few riders ahead to Mengyuan Fort,” Qiao Mo said. “Ask to speak with the village elders. Be honest about our purpose — we only need a place to rest for the night, nothing more. Don’t lie. Answer whatever they ask, truthfully. The people of Mengyuan Fort don’t like those who aren’t straight with them.”

“Understood, General,” Xiao Qi acknowledged.

He called out to a few riders and spurred his horse forward, the small group galloping ahead.

About sixty or seventy li behind their column, a force of several thousand cavalry had halted.

The man at the front dismounted, studied the tracks on the ground, and his eyes lit up.

“Just up ahead.”

The shaved-headed man in his mid-thirties smiled slightly, a flash of cold cruelty crossing his eyes.

He swung back into the saddle. “Keep moving! After them!”