The Ning army had completed all battle preparations; the only thing left to do now was wait for news from Dantai Yajing’s side.

This was the first time Dantai had ever faced a scene of such importance entirely on his own, and whether he succeeded would determine the fate of the realm.

Whether those three or four hundred thousand Chu soldiers could be put to proper use all depended on whether Dantai Yajing could hold those Chu commanders in line.

But the very fact that Li Chi had sent Dantai Yajing was proof enough of the trust he placed in him — in his ability as much as his nerve.

Once the signal came from Dazing City, this battle would be both beginning and end.

Because its outcome would settle, once and for all, who would hold the realm.

While Li Chi and Tang Pidi were making their rounds inspecting the pre-battle preparations, a personal guard came running from a distance to report that someone had delivered a letter for the Ning King.

Li Chi asked where the messenger was. The guard said the man had dropped the letter and left in a hurry, as though he were frightened.

The guard offered the letter with both hands. Li Chi was curious — who would be sending him a letter at a time like this?

When he opened it, he found it was from the Marquis of Guanting.

*”In the first half of my life, over these twenty years, my path has crossed with the Ning King’s many times — though the Ning King did not know I was there, nor that I held him in admiration.”*

*”When I was in Jizhou, I already knew the Ning King was no ordinary man. Though I am some years his senior, I have always felt that his conduct could be my teacher’s.”*

These opening lines gave Li Chi a mild start. He had suspected that the Marquis of Guanting had known him since his time in Jizhou, but seeing it written plainly still stirred something in him.

*”When Jizhou was in turmoil and every faction at its strongest, the Ning King, starting from nothing, stirred the winds and clouds and dealt every side heavy losses. I witnessed this myself as he grew in strength, and I admired him deeply.”*

*”When the Ning King went to the Yanshan Camp to urge Yu Chaozong to send reinforcements to the frontier, I was still in Jizhou. When I learned of what he had done, I began to regard the Ning King as someone I could learn from.”*

*”When the Ning King disguised himself as Young Master Cao and entered Dazing City, I happened to be in Dazing City as well. Others did not know his identity, but I saw through it at a glance. That bearing, that audacity — again, I was awed.”*

Tang Pidi stood beside Li Chi, reading over his shoulder, and smiled. It was wall-to-wall flattery.

The letter’s general meaning was this: the road Li Chi had walked was, as it happened, also the road the Marquis of Guanting had walked — except that at every turn, the Marquis had been watching Li Chi walk it, while he himself merely looked on. The more he saw, the deeper his admiration grew, until he came to regard Li Chi as something of an idol. And so in the time that followed, when he might have faced Li Chi directly, he had not dared, held back by that very awe and reverence.

The letter also said that at the Battle of Mangdang Mountain, the people behind the Marquis had pressed him hard to strike simultaneously with Han Feibao — but he had refused. After that, he felt that if he went on defying their orders, he might be eliminated, and so he decided to strike first. He chose to purge those people in Yangzhou, then lead his army back to Yuezhou, and take no further part in opposing the Ning King.

He also wrote that Han Feibao was cold and calculating by nature but razor-minded. When the Marquis had been in Jizhou, Han Feibao had been there too — but at just over ten years old, Han Feibao returned to Yongzhou, where, under the direction of the hidden masterminds, he spent years laying the groundwork.

The Marquis said that Han Feibao actually harbored some fear of the Ning King, which was precisely why he was so desperate to defeat him. When one person inspires in another a crushing sense of dread, the only way to resolve it is to kill them.

The Marquis’s meaning was: the Ning King probably did not even know this himself — but in Han Feibao’s eyes, he was a figure that could not be surpassed, and that was exactly why Han Feibao was so single-mindedly set on killing him. In relative terms, Han Feibao could set aside the contest for the realm entirely if it meant defeating the Ning King and the Ning army first.

In the final section, the Marquis wrote that Han Feibao had reinforcements positioned in Liangzhou, already deployed south of Dazing City. To defeat Han Feibao, that hidden force had to be cut off first — and so he was willing to do the Ning King a favor. When he marched south, he had detached a force of one hundred thousand, routed around Jingzhou and into Liangzhou, which would be enough to give the Liangzhou army cause for worry. It would not be enough to make them withdraw, but it would force them to split their forces to deal with the threat.

The Marquis said his reason for doing this was simply to ask the Ning King to spare him when the time came — not to wipe him out entirely. At a single word from the Ning King, he would withdraw from the Central Plains.

“I can’t make sense of him,” Tang Pidi said to Li Chi after finishing the letter. “This man is clearly more cunning and more capable than Han Feibao — yet he bowed out early, and is even willing to withdraw from the Central Plains…”

He looked at Li Chi. “Does he genuinely fear fighting you, or is this a feint?”

Li Chi shook his head. “I can’t make sense of him either.”

Tang Pidi said, “Perhaps even the people behind him couldn’t make sense of him… If we have people in Yangzhou who can send word back confirming what this Marquis of Guanting says is true, then it might be worth extending some goodwill toward him.”

Li Chi smiled. “If he truly withdraws from the Central Plains, there’s no reason to go after someone who’s already gone.”

Tang Pidi said, “Let’s see whether the Liangzhou forces south of Dazing City actually split. If the Marquis of Guanting does us a great service, some reciprocity down the line wouldn’t be out of the question.”

At the same time, in Dazing City.

In the great hall, Emperor Yang Jing sat upon the dragon throne, gazing at the cold and proud young man before him, thinking: that men of such caliber were all under Li Chi’s command made perfect sense of how the realm had come to belong to him.

Xiahou Zhuo, born of imperial blood, was willing to ride ahead for Li Chi. The only son of the great northwestern commander Dantai Qi served under Li Chi’s banner as well.

All the talents of the realm were in Li Chi’s hands. What question could there possibly be about how this would end?

“By His Majesty’s decree,” the young eunuch Yuan Ying called out in a loud voice, “from this day forward, all military forces encamped within the capital shall be placed under the command of General Dantai.”

Those who had already half-expected it still had their own thoughts. The Emperor was going to surrender — the appearance of the Ning King’s chief commander in the Chu court said everything. Handing over command of the Chu army, though no formal announcement of the dynasty’s end had yet been made, already signaled that Chu would soon cease to exist.

Dantai Yajing walked to the center of the hall and stood there, straight as a pillar.

“My name is Dantai Yajing. I come from Liangzhou in the northwest, and have followed and served the Ning King at my father’s instruction.”

When the assembled officials heard that surname, some had already begun to wonder about his connection to the great Liangzhou commander Dantai Qi. Now, hearing it confirmed, they exchanged glances all around.

Among the Chu army, the two most influential figures were Prince Wu Yang Juju and the Liangzhou commander Dantai Qi.

The Dantai clan had guarded the western frontier for generations, holding the western regions in check through the strength of one man.

In a certain sense, what Dantai Qi had accomplished commanded more respect than even Prince Wu. After the age of forty, Prince Wu had fought nothing but civil wars; Dantai Qi, his entire life to this point, had fought only foreign enemies.

“I have a few things I would like to say to everyone here. I will not take much of your time.”

Dantai Yajing swept his gaze around the hall and spoke. “You may have questions. I will answer the most important ones.”

“First: some of you are thinking that you can surrender without fighting — that you are willing to submit to the Ning King, but not willing to fight in his name. I answer on the Ning King’s behalf: that is not acceptable.”

“Second: some of you are thinking, *who are you to say what’s acceptable?* Perhaps you are thinking that when the moment comes to march out and engage, you can simply pull your forces back and there is nothing I can do. My answer: if any of you retreat from this battle, the Ning army will hunt you to the ends of the earth. There will be no peace until you are dead.”

“Third: some of you are thinking that since I am so aggressive, perhaps it is better to turn on you mid-battle and fight alongside Han Feibao instead. I can tell you now: Ning forces drawn from Jizhou, Qingzhou, Yanzhou, Suzhou, Jingzhou, and beyond are converging as we speak — no fewer than a million strong.”

Dantai Yajing paused, then swept his gaze around the hall once more. “The Ning King says: he will remember every act of loyalty and repay it tenfold; he will not forget a single act of betrayal, and will repay that a hundredfold.”

“Win this battle, and every one of you will still have a future ahead — your descendants will flourish for generations.”

“There is one thing you need only remember,” Dantai Yajing said. “The Ning King has never been stingy when it comes to rewarding merit.”

He cupped his fist in salute. Some in the hall instinctively returned the gesture; others still hesitated.

But Dantai Yajing paid them no further mind. He turned to face Emperor Yang Jing and inclined his head slightly. “Thank you for your support, Your Majesty.”

The Emperor was still Emperor, and the proper courtesies were still owed.

“I have long wished to meet the great General Dantai,” the Emperor said, rising from the high throne and descending from the dais. “To tell him how hard he has worked — for my sake, and for the sake of the tens of millions of the Central Plains.”

He came to stand beside Dantai Yajing and said, “Since Great General Xu drove out the invaders, the Dantai clan has guarded the western frontier generation after generation. It is what I have admired most.”

With those words, Yang Jing looked out at the assembled commanders, paused a moment, and said, “I can no longer give you orders. This time, the choice must be your own.”

He gave a small nod to Dantai Yajing, then turned and walked away.

Silence fell over the great hall — an unsettling silence. Then Dantai Yajing cupped his fists once more toward the assembled men, turned, and left as well. With both the Emperor and he gone in quick succession, the hall erupted at once, everyone talking over each other.

“What was that? A threat?”

“Exactly — that arrogant manner, as though the realm were already the Ning King’s.”

“If none of us agree, does he really dare move against us? I don’t believe it. Without us, he can’t control hundreds of thousands of troops.”

“Precisely!”

“Do whatever you like. I’m not going to serve him. I’m going home and shutting my door. Let’s see if he dares lay a finger on me.”

A commander surnamed Guo said all this, then walked straight out of the hall without looking back.

Once outside the palace, he leaned into his carriage and hissed, “Quickly, quickly — to Yibin Garden to pay respects to General Dantai. We cannot fall behind the others.”

The driver answered and whipped the horses into a gallop.

Dantai Yajing had barely returned to Yibin Garden when Commander Guo arrived. The man was through the door and down on his knees in an instant, declaring that he had long since wished to submit to the Ning King, that he was nothing like the others — he had been longing for the Ning King’s great army to arrive like a drought-stricken land yearning for rain.

He was still talking when someone else arrived at the gate. None other than the man who had just said, *I don’t believe he can control hundreds of thousands of troops without us.*

It made no difference. He was through the door and on his knees as well, swearing that he would give his full cooperation to the General’s every arrangement, that at a single word from the General, he would walk through fire and water without hesitation.

These two had barely settled in when more kept coming. That was not an end — it was a beginning.

Those who had been the loudest in the hall, most righteous in their indignation, turned around and raced for Yibin Garden as fast as their legs could carry them, desperate not to be last.

The result was the full assembly, every single one of them, gathered at Yibin Garden without exception.

What was perhaps even more astonishing was that not one of them showed the slightest trace of shame. Each declared that his loyalty to the Ning King was deep enough to move the sun and moon.

When word of all this reached the Emperor back in the palace, he could not even muster the energy to be angry.

Instead, he laughed.

“Ha — I should thank them, actually. At least they had the decency to keep their dignity in front of me and didn’t drop to their knees and swear allegiance right there in the hall.”

The Emperor looked out the window. “Not bad at all.”

—