While the allied forces of Great Yan were converging at the Bailling Plains, the Liao army was likewise mobilizing its troops and making camp on the Wening Plains, positioned between Jingzhao and Shangzhou.
The main forces of the two sides faced each other with only the two prefectures of Shang and Jun between them. A great battle was on the verge of erupting.
Across the entire land, countless pairs of eyes were fixed on this coming war. The people of Shang and Jun were in the greatest terror — at the slightest sign of trouble, the residents of both prefectures fled by the tens of thousands, entire families abandoning their homes and taking to the roads.
Early in the morning, Li Wu rode at full gallop along a mountain path, his two younger brothers keeping pace just behind him, three horses charging forward at speed.
“Damn it all — another military council!” Li Wu cursed and grumbled. “We’ve held dozens of the things and still haven’t settled on anything! Do this every few days — are they just stringing me along?! If you’re going to fight, then fight! What’s the point of all this whimpering and whining in the tent day after day, like a dog that’s had its — Just get on with it! Don’t they know I’m busy?!”
“Busy… busy doing what?” Li Kun asked, genuinely perplexed.
“Busy keeping sister-in-law company, obviously,” Li Que said. “A good man like our eldest brother, who puts family first, is naturally upright and can’t stand to see all that scheming and backstabbing those old men get up to.”
“Those old fossils, arguing back and forth every single day — don’t they have anything better to do?” Li Wu said, radiating the resentment of a man who had been dragged out of bed and away from Shen Zhuxi and a warm blanket before the sun was fully up.
“Not everyone is as diligent in their work and fulfilled in their personal life as you, eldest brother,” Li Que said sweetly. “Just bear with it, big brother.”
Li Kun yawned and began to nod off on horseback.
After roughly the time it takes an incense stick to burn, three horses pulled to a halt before the allied forces’ main encampment.
Several soldiers immediately stepped forward to take the horses away. Li Wu and his two brothers strode quickly into the main tent.
The low murmur of conversation inside the tent came to an abrupt stop. Several heads that had been huddled together in small groups immediately drew apart.
Li Wu scanned the tent. The assembled men were seated in clearly divided factions, each clustered with their own. He and his brothers were the only members of the Zhenchuan forces in the tent.
Li Wu found a corner and took a seat. One by one, more commanders filed into the tent.
The tent filled steadily with more people, and the interrupted conversations gradually resumed.
After Li Kun had finished off the third plate of refreshments brought by a soldier, Li Qia entered the tent, accompanied by his personal guards and the Junzhou Prefect under his command.
Once the military council was called to order, the war faction and the peace faction fell into argument yet again.
Li Wu watched the drama playing out in front of him with weary irritation.
“Do you have any idea how much a single war costs? After the war is fought, who will till the fields that were destroyed? Who will rebuild the cities that were laid to ruin? Who will pay the taxes of the people who died?” The Shangzhou Prefect said with flushed agitation, his hands and spittle flying through the air together. “Every round of conscription has left my Shangzhou without a single able-bodied man. The moment war breaks out, Shangzhou will be reduced to utter devastation!”
“Prefect Jiang —” The Junzhou Prefect spoke with deliberate emphasis, raising his clasped hands toward the heavens above. “Conscription is the command of the Imperial Court, and it is for the purpose of recovering Great Yan’s ten-thousand-li territory!” He turned and fixed a fierce glare on the Shangzhou Prefect. “Your refusal and cowardice — could there be some ulterior motive behind it?”
“How dare you slander me! In my view, your incessant urging of the allied forces to throw themselves into reckless battle — what treacherous intent lies behind that?!”
The two men once again pointed fingers at each other’s faces and traded insults across the table.
Li Wu watched from the sidelines with the air of someone simply dozing off, but his gaze moved in secret, observing the two factions behind the two men.
Behind the Shangzhou Prefect stood the peace faction, led by the Shu’an Military Commissioner, Chen Yu. This faction was made up of those whose prefectures lay directly adjacent to the Capital Region — they would be the first to suffer if war broke out, and so they were adamant advocates for a negotiated settlement, hoping to divide territory with the pretender Liao state and each govern their own side.
The war faction was led by the Zhenchuan Military Commissioner, Li Qia.
Their prefectures were at some remove from the Capital Region, though not so far as to be unaffected. They all harbored the hope of using the legitimate cover of war — under the banner of restoration — to pursue territorial annexation for their own benefit.
For the war faction, the Capital Region’s cities, Shangzhou among them, were a particularly tempting prize.
The two factions had been deadlocked until now, with neither leader directly stating their position — they simply let their lower-ranking officials and subordinates bicker and clash on their behalf.
At first, Li Wu had watched with genuine interest, studying the art of political maneuvering — one tactic feigning an attack from one direction while actually striking from another, another making a move that appeared straightforward but concealed a hidden strategy. But gradually, he grew tired of it —
He felt a deep sadness on Shen Zhuxi’s behalf.
Setting aside this one princess whom the world had already forgotten, every single person he saw was fighting and clawing for their own interests, and the fate of Great Yan had long since been cast to the back of their minds.
Yet she was still spending her days and nights hoping and praying that this decisive battle would recover the lost territories and rebuild Great Yan’s former glory.
And they were relying on this rabble of scheming opportunists to do it?
Li Wu had already given up hope for this coming war.
Just as the military council seemed ready to once again reach no conclusion, Li Qia gave a quiet cough and finally began to speak.
“It is the Emperor’s intention to go to war. The Imperial Decree has been issued and is beyond any possibility of revision. The military council exists for everyone to produce a workable strategy for engaging the enemy — not for Prefect Jiang to stand here and do nothing but advocate for retreat, undermining the morale of our forces.”
Chen Yu stroked his long beard with a calm hand and let out a cold laugh as he spoke. “A military council exists precisely to allow everyone to voice their views. It is not the exclusive platform of any single voice. Prefect Jiang speaks from genuine concern for the state. His Majesty may indeed speak with the authority of a decree, but he is also a wise ruler who welcomes remonstrance. If such a council could save the lives of an entire region of people, then one day in history it would be called a fine achievement in its own right. Commissioner Li would do better not to casually invoke His Majesty as a shield — the charge of insubordination is a small matter, but tarnishing His Majesty’s good name is a great one.”
This was the first time the two faction leaders had squared off directly at a military council session — a sign that the deadlock was drawing toward its end. The prefecture officials and commanders aligned with each faction began one by one to take a public stance, each contributing their portion of the fire.
Great Yan was in decline, and the Imperial Court had little meaningful authority left. Both factions were urgently pressing to gain the upper hand at this critical moment — their goal was to seize firm control of the allied forces’ actual military power before the Great General dispatched by the Imperial Court arrived.
Though no one here truly placed the Yuanlong Emperor in their eyes anymore, in this particular moment, he was still the most useful weapon anyone could deploy.
Riding the tailwind of the Yuanlong Emperor’s eagerness to reclaim the lost Capital Region, and backed by the overwhelming majority of military strength within the allied forces, Li Qia gradually took hold of the situation around the council table.
“The reason we are still deadlocked after all this debate is, when it comes down to it, because we lack a single leader to command us. The Great General sent by the Imperial Court is still on his way, and the pretender Liao forces are already massed just outside Shangzhou, watching us like tigers eyeing their prey. Who knows when they might launch a sudden assault.” After all this long preparation, Li Qia finally stated his point. “I therefore propose — let us nominate one person from among ourselves, someone we can genuinely respect, to temporarily lead our allied forces and conduct operations against the enemy.”
The moment Li Qia’s proposal was made, several voices broke into enthusiastic applause. A glance revealed they were all lower-ranking officials aligned with the Zhenchuan forces.
Chen Yu had no desire to concede defeat so easily. He said: “Since we are choosing a leader for the allied forces, let us settle it by vote. Every person in this tent with a military rank shall each have one vote, and we shall elect the most trusted and worthy leader among us.”
He gave Li Qia a sidelong glance and smiled coldly:
“Only then can it be called fair and just.”
The soldiers on the Bailling Plains were more numerous on Li Qia’s side; the people inside the tent were more numerous on Chen Yu’s side.
Li Qia gave a cold laugh and said nothing. His subordinates, reading the room with practiced skill, charged forward on his behalf:
“By that logic, Commissioner Chen, your Shu’an forces ought to be the first to take the field when the battle begins! His Majesty called this allied coalition into being, and Shu’an contributed a mere sixty thousand soldiers — they must be some truly remarkable elite troops. When the time comes, we must insist on watching these soldiers of ours — these so-called rabble — see what your forces are made of!”
What good was the popular support of Chen Yu’s faction?
In an era of chaos, whoever held the military might held the power!
Even all the peace faction members combined could barely manage to match the dominant Zhenchuan forces, and as Li Qia delivered several more combinations of blows and concessions, the peace faction began to fracture.
The voices calling for Li Qia to be appointed as supreme commander of the allied forces grew louder. Chen Yu’s face turned progressively darker.
Li Qia, confident of victory, allowed a trace of satisfaction to show in his eyes.
The outcome was nearly decided when a sudden commotion erupted outside the military tent.
“What’s happening?” Li Qia frowned with displeasure. “Who is making noise outside there —”
A slender, lean hand lifted the tent flap.
A rush of cold autumn air flooded into the tent, freezing every voice inside into silence.
The newcomer was tall and lean, dressed in a robe of moonlit gray with a sky-blue velvet overcoat. A jade crown with a water-ripple pattern gathered three thousand strands of black hair, and with the newly risen sun behind him, he appeared cool and clear as jade buried in distant mountains.
Fu Xuanmiao swept his gaze across the assembled gathering. His eyes paused for a moment on Li Wu, who had quietly straightened in his seat, then he strode forward and entered.
Behind him, the core commanders of the Fu family forces and the Imperial Court’s supervising eunuchs filed in one after another, filling the military tent in moments.
The assembled commanders rose to their feet one by one. Li Qia and Chen Yu exchanged a glance and read the same sharp wariness in each other’s eyes.
“This is…”
“Allied forces, hear the Imperial Decree —”
The supervising eunuch stepped forward, shook out a length of imperial yellow silk from his sleeve, and began reading the proclamation aloud in a drawn-out, measured cadence.
The tent full of assembled men knelt as one in the direction of the decree.
“By Heaven’s mandate, the Emperor decrees —”
Li Wu pulled the still-bewildered Li Kun into a kneel alongside the crowd. All the while, he felt a persistent and impossible-to-shake sensation — as if a pair of scrutinizing eyes were circling the back of his neck, like a vulture hovering overhead, searching out the right place to strike at its prey.
He glanced up carefully. All around him, some were listening to the decree, some were in the act of reading it aloud — not a single person was looking at him. Whatever he had just sensed seemed to be nothing more than his imagination.
Li Wu fixed his eyes on the tall young man who was looking straight ahead, and knew it had not been his imagination.
As fate would have it, the “distinguished guest” who had once stayed temporarily at Jindi Pavilion had turned out to be none other than Shen Zhuxi’s nominal betrothed — the number one scoundrel in the land.
It was him who had sent people searching far and wide for the trace of Princess of Yue, and it was by an unlikely twist of circumstance that his subordinates had nearly gotten that foolish woman killed.
And it turned out they had met so much earlier than he ever knew.
“…Fu Xuanmiao, Participating in the Administration of Governmental Affairs, is hereby specially commanded to take supreme command of the allied forces and recover the lost territories of our realm.”
The shadow beside him gave a sudden violent shudder.
Li Wu turned to look. Li Que had gone pale as a sheet and sat completely motionless, his gaze locked on the ground. The hands resting in his lap before him were clenched with such force that his knuckles had turned white.
“Que’er, what’s wrong with you?” Li Wu lowered his voice.
Li Que gave no response, as if he had fallen into a world of his own.
Without anyone noticing, the reading of the decree above their heads came to an end. The eunuch said slowly:
“Fu Participating Official, receive the decree.”
“Your servant receives the decree.” Fu Xuanmiao extended both hands and bowed his head.
The eunuch rolled the yellow silk and handed it into Fu Xuanmiao’s waiting hands with a formal two-handed presentation.
Only after Fu Xuanmiao received the decree and rose did Li Qia lead the assembled men in the tent to their feet.
“Participating Official Fu, the Emperor commanded you to lead the allied forces — a matter of such magnitude, yet not a breath of rumor leaked out beforehand?” Li Qia said with a smile that did not reach his eyes.
Fu Xuanmiao smiled faintly and replied with measured composure: “Does it affect Commissioner Li’s subsequent strategies in any way to know who the commander of the allied forces will be?”
“Of course it doesn’t…”
“Then it matters little when the Commissioner learned of it.” Fu Xuanmiao’s expression shifted, and before Li Qia could say another word, he spoke in a tone that brooked no argument: “Have all seven military commissioners assembled?”
Li Qia said, “They have —”
The Longhei Military Commissioner, who had until now kept an entirely low profile, stepped forward and spoke with clasped hands.
“Reporting to the Great General: all seven military commissioners have arrived.”
Li Qia, whose words had been stolen, stared at the Longhei Military Commissioner with an ugly expression. The other man appeared not to notice.
“Have the forces of all thirty-six prefectures been assembled?” Fu Xuanmiao asked again.
Li Qia said, “Report —”
“Reporting to the Great General: a combined force of six hundred thousand soldiers from all thirty-six prefectures has been assembled!”
The Qingyan Military Commissioner stepped out and cupped his hands.
Li Qia and Chen Yu exchanged a glance — and the expressions of both men darkened sharply at the same moment!
What could still be unclear?
The fact of Fu Xuanmiao’s coming must have been known only to their own two factions — no one else had been in the dark!
The Fu faction members and the loyalist officials embedded deep within the allied forces had known of this development long ago!
“Since all who should be here have arrived,” Fu Xuanmiao swept his gaze across the assembly. His voice was cool and self-possessed, carrying an authority that needed no affectation. “Let the formal military council now begin.”