Yet for reasons no one could explain, a rumor began to spread that the Emperor had been harmed by the empress and starved to death within the palace — and with that, the wave of popular fury surged higher still.

The news of the upheaval in the capital had not yet reached the distant northern lands.

When the Emperor’s personal handwritten plea for rescue arrived in the north, Zhao Dong was out with his troops, coordinating with Han Linfeng in an assault on the last two prefectures still occupied by the Tiefu.

Though Zhao Dong had flatly refused Han Linfeng’s initial request to fight in coordination, in the engagements that followed, there had been several occasions when the Iron-Masked Army and the Tiefu were locked in fierce, grinding stalemates with no clear victor in sight — and at those precise moments, the Wei imperial forces would appear unbidden and strike at just the right angle to help the Iron-Masked Army encircle and compress the enemy, winning one handsome victory after another.

With Zhao Dong and Han Linfeng fighting in tandem, the Tiefu royal court had been forced to pull back ten thousand li on two separate occasions.

In several of the prefectures and cities where the Tiefu had once roamed freely, hardly a Tiefu presence could now be seen. This was something that had not been witnessed in several decades.

On this day, the two men had ridden together and arrived at a particular place.

They now stood upon the summit of Qiutai Mountain — the very place where the Holy Virtue Emperor had once been surrounded and besieged.

Decades had passed. The hillsides that had been stripped bare by the fires of war were now thick with grass and trees.

In the midst of the vegetation, Han Linfeng found the stone stele the Tiefu had erected here. It was carved all over with dense Tiefu script — evidently a boast commemorating their encirclement of the Wei Emperor.

On the reverse face of the stele, several large Chinese characters had also been carved: Here the Emperor of Great Wei submitted in surrender.

A stele inscription made by the Tiefu, yet deliberately written in Chinese characters — the contempt and humiliation in the gesture could not have been more deliberate.

Zhao Dong glanced at Han Linfeng. Han Linfeng crooked a finger at the attendant beside him, who immediately understood and handed over an iron pickaxe.

Han Linfeng shed his battle armor and his upper garment, baring the firm muscles beneath, raised the pickaxe, and brought it down hard against that stele full of carved humiliation.

Zhao Dong also stripped off his battle armor, called for an iron mallet, and joined Han Linfeng in smashing it down. Blow after blow sent stone fragments flying in every direction — yet with each strike, the hearts of the assembled soldiers watching around them grew brighter and lighter.

When Han Linfeng kicked away the last remaining fragments of the shattered stele with one foot, the soldiers surrounding them broke into a great unified shout that rang up into the heavens.

When the stele lay in pieces, the two men looked at each other — and could not help but burst out laughing.

A man passes through this world but once. What he wants is exactly this — the feeling of having fought to his fullest and seen his deepest ambitions made real.

Though Zhao Dong had longed day and night to see the homeland recovered, now that he stood on Qiutai Mountain with the dream made real before him, he found himself caught in a sensation of dazed unreality, as though still inside a dream.

He looked out in all directions. Ten thousand li of territory lay covered in green grass, teeming with life on every side.

Zhao Dong let out a long, slow breath, yet could not help reminding Han Linfeng: “Someone has already sent a memorial to the court reporting that you have been in close contact with the Iron-Masked Army. Before long, the court will likely send men to investigate your background.”

Han Linfeng was indifferent to this. He had also long anticipated that there was no wall in the world without a crack in it. By now, the territory he controlled had grown to three times its original size, and the troops in his command numbered in the tens of thousands. A beast armed to the teeth — why would it fear a few fleas crawling onto its hide?

And so Han Linfeng draped an arm around the Supreme Commander’s shoulder and said with easy composure: “Let us not spoil this moment with such dampening talk. Standing here on Qiutai Mountain — for this alone, a man’s life can be called without regret.”

With that, he called for water wine, offered it to heaven and earth, then poured it solemnly onto the soil of Qiutai Mountain: “To the ancestors and forebears of the Han clan of Great Wei above — I, Han Linfeng, have not failed the charge left by our forefathers. I have at last led my army to Qiutai. Though two prefectures remain yet to be recovered, the restoration of our rivers and mountains is now within reach. I ask our ancestors to watch over me and General Zhao Dong — may our banners go forth to victory, and may we return in triumph.”

At that moment, a horse came galloping from the direction of a waystation not far distant.

A letter had arrived from the capital.

Zhao Dong received it and looked it over for only a moment before his expression changed entirely. Yet when he raised his eyes toward Han Linfeng, he held himself steady with deliberate composure. He took his leave of Han Linfeng and mounted his horse, departing in haste.

Han Linfeng had not seen the Emperor’s secret plea for rescue — yet before half a day had passed, he too had guessed the letter’s contents.

Because within half a day, he also received a letter from Lord Li Guitian in the capital.

The letter dispensed with all pleasantries and described the details of the palace coup directly: the Emperor was currently being held by a treacherous empress, the Ninth Prince had been killed, and the Sixth Prince, though burning with ambition to take the throne, lacked a legitimate edict of succession and would find it difficult to ascend. Under these circumstances, Lord Li had written a single terse sentence: the proper succession required an heir of both virtue and legitimate standing; the palace was currently without a ruling sovereign, and imperial relatives throughout the realm were already stirring, each eager to march on the capital under the banner of upholding the dynastic order. He and other officials had fled the capital, and the people’s hearts were in turmoil.

Han Linfeng folded the letter closed without any outward change of expression.

Because of infighting within the imperial family, there was now no one at the helm. The Sixth Prince had managed a hurried enthronement after fleeing to the imperial villa, but everyone knew the abdication edict he had proclaimed in the Emperor’s name was a forgery.

The rumor that Emperor Wei Xuan was in fact already dead had also spread widely, and even Lord Li no longer knew whether the Emperor was alive or dead.

A man like the Sixth Prince — who had murdered his own kin to seize power — what claim had he to the throne?

Moreover, as the turmoil around the capital grew ever greater, many prince-governors had begun advancing toward the capital, all flying the banner of upholding the throne and protecting the ruler. Added to them were various peasant rebel armies of every description, and chaos already reigned in every direction.

Without a powerful imperial force entering the capital to stabilize the situation, the Yun Bin Tian Shang – Chapter of Great Wei might be drawing to a close right here.

Lord Li Guitian had students spread across the realm, and had naturally also heard the heartening news of the Iron-Masked Army’s victories in recovering the lost territories of the north.

Even before the upheaval at court, there had long been rumors circulating that the Shizi of Prince Beizhen’s household seemed to have deep connections with that volunteer force — and some even claimed with absolute certainty that the Shizi of Prince Beizhen was himself the hidden commander behind it all.

Lord Li had not entirely believed these rumors, yet before making his own hurried escape, he had written a letter to Han Linfeng all the same.

He bore no imperial edict, and in his unclear knowledge of how the court’s situation was shifting by the hour, he could not in good conscience appeal to Zhao Dong — who held actual military authority — for help. After all, Zhao Dong had married the empress’s daughter. Who could say with certainty that if he returned to the capital, it would be to protect the ruler — or to serve the usurper?

And so Lord Li could not invite Zhao Dong to come to the Emperor’s rescue; to do so would be to overstep his authority entirely.

But the letter he wrote to Han Linfeng was a matter of personal friendship.

Lord Li, though also a great Confucian scholar, held to a personal philosophy somewhat different from that of Elder Kong, who had died at the palace gates.

Just as his name suggested — a man who had come up from the farmland — he carried by nature a vein of practical, grounded wisdom. In Lord Li’s view, the Emperor’s several sons were all too feckless for words. From the disaster at Yan County to the upheaval in the capital, all of it was man-made calamity.

Having heard the rumors about Han Linfeng, Lord Li found himself thinking of that striking young man who had weathered every hardship alongside him — and who had remained calm and clear-eyed even at the worst moments, trapped in the floodwaters. So much so that when he heard the reports of the northern volunteer army driving back the Tiefu, Lord Li could not help feeling a stirring of something deep in his chest — the Han imperial bloodline was not without someone of the bearing of a true sovereign. That person had simply been born too far from the capital and the throne.

When the capital’s catastrophe broke, Lord Li had found himself, as if by some inexplicable pull, wanting simply to write a letter to that young friend in the north and let him know.

As for what came next — it was like planting seeds in a field, or setting rice seedlings into the paddy. Whether the harvest came in well or poorly also depended on the will of heaven.

Lord Li decided to place it all in heaven’s hands, and to wait and see whether the fortunes of Great Wei could bestow upon it a ruler who truly held the people in his heart.

After receiving Lord Li’s letter, Han Linfeng made his way back in haste to the Wang household and sought out Prince Beizhen. Prince Beizhen’s expression changed the moment he read it. Father and son quickly withdrew into the study.

In the preceding days, fragmentary news of the upheaval in the capital had been filtering through — though none of it had been as detailed and reliable as what Lord Li had conveyed.

After reading the letter carefully once more, Prince Beizhen asked his son: “What should we do?”

Han Linfeng said: “Our ancestors divided the Han imperial clan among princely domains and stationed them at various posts throughout the realm precisely so that in times of dynastic crisis, members of the clan could step forward to uphold and stabilize the imperial order. The ancestors enfeoffed twenty-seven princes of the same name precisely to prevent the kind of catastrophe that befell the Cao Wei imperial family — isolated, with no one to come to their aid. Now that the court is in upheaval, by ancestral custom, the princes of the same clan must march on the capital to uphold the throne. I believe that the other Han dynastic princes throughout the realm must already be mobilizing and making their way to the capital. I would like to escort Father to the capital at once to suppress the rebellion.”

Han Yi heard his son out, yet felt he was being somewhat fanciful. “On what basis? On the strength of the few soldiers you have recruited for the provisions camp? We are a long-marginalized branch of the clan to begin with. In a world this turbulent, the only sensible course is to preserve oneself quietly. What is the point of going to the capital to make fools of ourselves?”

Han Linfeng said steadily: “The soldiers in the provisions camp are not enough — but what if we add the ten thousand mounted soldiers of the Iron-Masked Army?”

Prince Beizhen’s head snapped sharply toward Han Linfeng.

He had of course known that his son had been involved in certain things that did not bear scrutiny, and knew his son seemed to have a close relationship with Cao Sheng.

But for Han Linfeng to be so certain that he could bring the Iron-Masked Army into the capital — was that not leading wolves into the house? How could he be sure that Cao Sheng would be willing to cooperate and help restore the Han royal house?

At this juncture, Han Linfeng could finally lay out the full extent of his hand before his father without holding anything back.

When he revealed that he was the true commander of the Iron-Masked Army — the figure known in rumor as the Iron Battle God — Prince Beizhen found his private suspicions confirmed. He sat in his study chair for a long time, looking at his son with a heart full of a hundred mingling emotions.

He had always felt that this son of his was no creature fit for a small pond. Since Han Linfeng’s childhood, he had taken care not to restrain the boy’s nature, letting him freely pursue what he loved.

But Prince Beizhen had not done this out of any calculated ambition — rather, it had been tangled up with a sense of making amends, a desire to let his beloved son fully accomplish everything he himself had left undone in his own youth.

Yet he had never imagined that the boy, all this time, had quietly gone off on his own and nearly torn a hole in the sky.

Everyone in the northern lands knew — the Iron-Masked Army had essentially recovered the lost territories of the Twenty Prefectures. In the north, they were already a force unto themselves, commanding the authority of a fully enthroned sovereign.

The scattered forces of Cao Sheng and Qiu Zhen from earlier years could not begin to compare with today’s Iron-Masked Army. If one could command such a force of iron and blood, there was nowhere one could not go without fear.

At this thought, Prince Beizhen began to pace his study back and forth in circles, growing more agitated with every lap.

Finally, from a hidden compartment behind his bookshelves, he retrieved an old lacquered box. He opened it to reveal a large, square seal carved from tawny topaz stone, with a lifelike dragon coiled upon its face, a ring clasped in its mouth — an object of exquisite craftsmanship.

“This is the Holy Virtue Emperor’s seal. Though a private seal, it was widely used in correspondence among the imperial clan. I am placing it in your hands now. Whether you can use it to suppress this rebellion and restore the fortunes of our line — that is a matter for the destiny of our Beizhen branch to decide.”

As Han Linfeng reached out to receive it, Prince Beizhen suddenly gripped his son’s hand tightly: “Together with this seal, I am placing in your hands the lives of every soul in Prince Beizhen’s household.”

Han Linfeng gripped his father’s hand firmly in return: “Father, be at ease. This journey to the capital is to show all the princes the true strength of Prince Beizhen’s household. When it is done, no matter which prince sits upon the dragon throne, no one will ever look down on Liang Zhou again. At the very least, my sons and grandsons will no longer have to go to the capital as hostages, to be ordered about at other people’s pleasure.”

The throne was not a comfortable seat, and the situation in the capital was far from clear. But Han Linfeng knew it was time for the Iron-Masked Army to make itself visible before the assembled nobles and powers gathering in the capital.

A beast armed to the teeth must eventually make itself known — only that would ensure that no one in the future would be reckless enough to contemplate provoking Liang Zhou.

While the Prince Beizhen father and son were deliberating on their plans for entering the capital, letters were falling like snowflakes across the desk in Zhao Dong’s encampment as well.

The Han imperial clan had long ago enfeoffed a great many princes, and with the capital now thrown into chaos and no clear leader to follow, those princely relatives had naturally found their ambitions for the throne ignited.

But those princes also understood — to return to the capital with nothing but an imperial title and empty hands would be no different from throwing meat-stuffed buns at a dog. They would be swallowed up and destroyed by the rebel vagrants crying for their blood.

Only one who entered the capital with a powerful army at their back could truly be the immovable pillar capable of steadying the Han dynasty.

And so Zhao Dong, stationed in the north, became the figure that every faction of princes was fighting desperately to recruit. Every manner of extravagant promise imaginable was on offer — some letters even implied that if Zhao Dong could help a given prince enter the capital and secure the throne, that prince would send his own daughter to Zhao Dong as a bondswoman, to be beaten and ordered about as he pleased.

The nearly disgraceful contents of such letters were enough to turn one’s stomach.

Princess Yuyang also came rushing from Hui City, eyes streaming, and threw herself into the camp to beg her husband to return to the capital at once and rescue her mother the empress and her younger brother the Sixth Prince.

Zhao Dong furrowed his brows and said coldly: “Are you aware that the Emperor is being held by the empress and the King of Hengshan at the imperial villa? They need rescuing?”

Yuyang was stunned speechless.

In ordinary times, she had taken her husband’s lead and stayed well clear of court politics, refusing even to be drawn into the succession struggle between her two younger brothers, for fear of putting her husband in a difficult position in the middle.

But now, hearing Zhao Dong say that her mother had taken the Emperor hostage — had even gone so far as to stage a coup and execute Consort Qiong and her Ninth imperial brother — she was shaken to her core, and needed time to absorb it.

Yet thinking of her mother’s fiercely competitive nature, and the white-hot escalation of conflict between her two brothers that she had witnessed before leaving the capital — if her mother had launched a palace coup, it was, on reflection, not entirely beyond comprehension.

Whatever the case, the capital was now in chaos. Zhao Dong had to lead troops back immediately to purge the treacherous influences surrounding the throne and restore the two sovereigns to the palace.

At that moment, the princess caught sight of the desk covered in letters from every faction of princes, each scheming to recruit allies. She glanced through a few and felt her heart seize with fury.

“What a shameless pack of scoundrels — to actually think they could recruit you at a moment like this! Have they not considered who you are the son-in-law of?”

Zhao Dong said nothing. After all, to the outside world, he had always appeared to have bent under the pressure of the imperial family and been forced into an unwanted marriage to the arrogant Princess Yuyang, his life presumably full of resentment and suppressed misery.

Those princes presumably imagined that now that the imperial family had met with catastrophe, the reluctant son-in-law Zhao Dong would be itching for change and renewal — no longer willing to be controlled by emperor and empress.

Hence all these letters from one prince’s faction after another, each trying to win him over.

Zhao Dong stopped Yuyang from reading any more of those infuriating letters, and simply ordered the entire army to break camp at once and make for the capital with all speed.

Princess Yuyang insisted on going too, but Zhao Dong refused. The capital was in chaos, he said — bringing women along would be an inconvenience. Yuyang was to remain in Hui City in the north and wait for word once the capital had been pacified.

By now, virtually every prince throughout the realm who had the strength to challenge for the throne was gathering troops and advancing toward the capital.

Consort Wang was not greatly concerned with the politics of the capital, yet she understood what it meant for a member of the imperial clan to march on the capital in a time of dynastic crisis.

Her husband and son suddenly leading troops to the capital — in her view, this was surely not about contending for the throne, but about demonstrating loyalty to the Emperor and joining the effort to uphold and protect the ruler.

Yet Consort Wang had little confidence that the ragtag forces of Liang Zhou could accomplish anything of great consequence. She felt her husband and son were being somewhat overambitious — recklessly marching into the capital with their modest resources to make embarrassments of themselves.

And so when the household was gathered together at leisure, she could not help complaining to Luoyun.

Luoyun said nothing, her mind heavy with its own preoccupations. She was turning over in her memory the scene from three days earlier, in the predawn hours, when she had personally seen Han Linfeng off at the gates of Liang Zhou.

Unlike Consort Wang, who remained in the dark about the true nature of the situation, Luoyun understood the full extent of Han Linfeng’s power. This time, with him leading the Iron-Masked Army into the capital, it was absolutely not going to be a simple matter of upholding the throne. The capital at this moment was a place of rising winds and competing powers, with great upheaval liable to break at any moment. No one could know whether this journey to the capital would end in fortune or in catastrophe.

Luoyun had hung around his neck a spirit talisman she had personally sought from the temple. Though she felt as though there were a thousand things she wanted to say to him, by the time the words reached her lips, only one remained: “You must come home safely.”

Between coming home safely and having the world — titles, honors, and glory — she would choose her husband returning safely to her side every time.

As for the rest, she asked for nothing. She only hoped that after all this was over, Prince Beizhen’s household would at least no longer have to live with their tails tucked between their legs.

While Consort Wang rambled on in scattered conversation, Luoyun kept her silence throughout.

Young Master Han Xiao, however, launched into an extended lecture. He regarded his elder brother’s insistence on leading troops to the capital together with their father as thoroughly inadvisable, and cited historical precedents at length to argue that across the ages, those who tried to exploit a crisis for personal gain had invariably come to bad ends.

In times of capital upheaval, truly intelligent people went to great lengths to keep their distance. Han Xiao could not begin to understand what sudden surge of ambition had overtaken his elder brother, leading him to make a gambler’s wager like this — and he was equally displeased that father and elder brother had not consulted him.

After all, he was the one who had read the most books in the entire household. If they had only discussed it with him, he would certainly have counseled both of them against taking such a reckless risk by going to the capital.

Though Prince Beizhen and the Shizi had both departed for the capital, this had not prevented the young master from holding court in the family’s courtyard, displaying his deep and broad knowledge for the benefit of the household’s womenfolk.

The result was that Consort Wang, thoroughly frayed by her son’s discourse, wished she could ride out at that very moment and intercept the two of them — she absolutely could not allow them to blunder into the capital and bring catastrophic trouble down on the family.

As for Zhao Dong — when he set out for the capital, he did not take his son Zhao Gui Bei with him. The Twenty Prefectures of the north had only just been pacified, and while the Tiefu were unlikely to launch any incursion in the short term, it was still wise to guard against unforeseen possibilities.

Zhao Dong also had a personal reason. He knew the capital at this moment was far too unpredictable, and his son was young and had only just been married. Why drag the boy into that murky water?

And so he simply left the young couple in Liang Zhou. Han Yao was therefore also at her family home, sitting through her younger brother’s long-winded disquisitions.

She found them far from pleasant listening, and narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you know, a bookworm like you? Brother is remarkable — you have no business cursing him like this.”

Under Zhao Gui Bei’s influence, Han Yao knew considerably more than Consort Wang and her son. Though she was unaware that her elder brother was himself the Iron Battle God who had made the northern lands tremble, in Han Yao’s eyes, her elder brother was an even more reliable presence than their father.

And so, hearing her younger brother so obliviously pontificating about their elder, Han Yao immediately told him off without the slightest hesitation.

Han Xiao slanted a glance at his sister and gave a cold laugh. “When the nest overturns, no egg survives intact. Do not imagine that marrying into the Zhao family puts you safely outside all this. Zhao Gui Bei is not Princess Yuyang’s own flesh and blood. When the time comes, he will not be able to protect you — daughter of a traitor.”

These words were enough to make Han Yao leap to her feet and go for her younger brother.

But Consort Wang, who always took her son’s side, immediately fixed her with a glare. “What is Xiao’er wrong about? Since you got married you have grown more and more capable — you answer back to me at every turn, and now you want to throw your weight around as the elder sister right in front of my face! If that is how it is, move out of this household immediately, and stop coming back to give me grief.”

Han Yao could not get the better of her mother, and could only sit down in aggrieved silence beside her sister-in-law, refusing to engage with their mother any further.

But at this point, Luoyun looked up and glanced briefly at her young brother-in-law. In a mild tone, she said: “When the royal house is in turmoil, it is ancestral custom for the provincial princes to march on the capital to uphold the throne. Father is a son of the Han clan — how could he be content to remain in a corner and think only of his own comfort? Keep what you said just now within the walls of this courtyard. If you speak such words outside to your friends, that is what will bring disaster upon this household.”

In ordinary times, Luoyun had never disputed anything with her young brother-in-law. When he indulged his bookish, superior posturing, she would simply smile and let it pass — he was Consort Wang’s own son, and one had to make allowances.

But what he had said today was uninformed nonsense, and Luoyun could not leave it unanswered.

Han Xiao was accustomed to having the last word in the household in everything — his father and elder brother excepted. Suddenly being dressed down by a sister-in-law of common birth whom he had never much respected, he was left standing frozen in place, unable to collect himself.

Consort Wang was somewhat displeased as well, but she also knew that Luoyun had spoken sense — Han Xiao was always socializing with friends his own age, and if he was not careful with his words, he could indeed bring trouble upon them.

And so she finally said a few words of mild reproof to her son, which left Han Xiao red-faced with swallowed irritation, in the way of a man who would not stoop to bicker with women.

Luoyun had no interest in further verbal sparring with the boy. On the pretext of showing Han Yao some new embroidery patterns, she rose, offered Consort Wang a bow, and drew her young sister-in-law out of the garden with her.

With Luoyun, Han Yao spoke freely and without constraint. Yet her heart was in truth hanging with worry over her elder brother and father. She said in a low voice: “The news Gui Bei has been receiving these past few days says the capital is in absolute chaos. My father-in-law has also rushed back to the capital. Father and Elder Brother have gone as well. Might they find themselves on opposing sides and end up in conflict?”

Luoyun pressed her lips together without answering, because she truly did not know how things stood now. All she could do was hope that within a month or so, good news would find its way down from the capital.

But before long, letters from the capital began to arrive less and less frequently. The postal roads became as empty as though abandoned, and not even a scrap of news could be had.

Even when Consort Wang went around to the residences of the various officials’ wives to gather what intelligence she could, all she came away with were unreliable and contradictory rumors of every variety.

Some of those who had fled from the capital said the entire capital and its surrounding districts had been occupied by the rebel vagrant armies — that many local officials throughout numerous prefectures and counties had been seized by those vagrants and strung up dead at the gates of their own offices.

Countless noble families had fled the capital. In the surrounding area, not a single functioning government office remained. Burning and looting and killing went on without cease — the scenes of a dynasty in its death throes.

Hearing this, Consort Wang could not sit still even in the comfort of an official’s residence in Hui City. She looked around and found that Luoyun, who had been keeping her company, had disappeared entirely. She asked the attendant nanny beside her where the Shizi’s consort had gone.

Only then did she learn that the Shizi’s consort appeared to have gone into the city to attend to some business at the money house.

Consort Wang rolled her eyes at the ceiling in exasperation, muttering to herself: “Of all times for this — and she still has the composure to go fussing over her spare cash.”