The King of Bohai, Shi Zaixin, was most likely the first ruler in all of history to look across the battlefield at the enemy’s formation and see his entire family staring back at him.

Such is the unpredictability of this world.

While Shi Zaixin was still hoping that the Sang naval forces would circle around to strike the Ning army from behind, the Ning army had instead circled around and struck *him* from behind.

And what a thorough flanking maneuver it was — straight into his very home.

His queen, his consorts, and an entire clan of royal relatives had all been marched by the Ning army to the front of the formation, lined up in neat rows, put on full display.

When Shi Zaixin raised his spyglass and saw his family standing there, his eyes went wide as ox eggs.

The sheer disbelief in those two ox-egg eyes was proof enough of the incredulity he felt in that moment.

Not a word had yet arrived from Pingyuan City, yet the Ning army had already paraded his family before him.

Li Chi stood at the head of the formation, gazing at the dense mass of Bohai soldiers in the distance. He knew that Shi Zaixin, wherever he stood in the center formation, was staring back at him right now.

“On the battlefield, using the enemy commander’s captured family as leverage against him…”

Li Chi murmured, half to himself: “Now that really is a shortcut…”

Everyone standing nearby burst out laughing.

Perhaps this was simply Heaven’s will — or, one might say, Heaven’s favor. The lost-and-wandering Dantai Yajing had stumbled his way into capturing the entire royal family and clan of the Bohai King. How this battle would unfold from here depended entirely on what Shi Zaixin decided to do.

Li Chi gestured toward the enemy formation. Yu Jiuling immediately spurred his horse forward.

He rode to a point not far from the Bohai lines and reined in, shouting across: “King of Bohai — are you willing to come out and talk?”

Shi Zaixin knew he could not afford to lose his nerve here. After a moment’s hesitation, he rode forward with his bodyguards and came face to face with Yu Jiuling.

Yu Jiuling asked: “Do you understand the Central Plains tongue?”

Shi Zaixin replied with fury: “If you have something to say, say it. If you have wind to pass, pass it.”

Yu Jiuling said: “No wind to pass at the moment, but if you truly want some, I can strain one out for you. If you beg me nicely, I might even squeeze out a whole string.”

Shi Zaixin’s expression darkened further.

Yu Jiuling continued: “Why have you gone quiet? So do you want words, or do you want wind? Or perhaps both?”

Shi Zaixin: “Keep up this nonsense and I’ll have you killed.”

Yu Jiuling replied: “My one life against several hundred of your family — you tell me whether I’m afraid of you. If you don’t kill me, my lord, out of his benevolence and righteousness, naturally won’t harm your family either. But the moment you make a move, you hand my lord the justification to execute half your clan first.”

Shi Zaixin’s expression shifted once more.

He knew this was no idle threat. The Prince of Ning had not yet laid a hand on his kinsmen precisely because he still needed to worry about stoking the fury and hatred of the Bohai people.

But the moment he killed the man before him, Prince of Ning Li Chi would have all the cause he needed.

After a long silence, Shi Zaixin demanded: “What exactly did the Prince of Ning send you here to say?!”

Yu Jiuling replied: “Oh, so you *did* want words — then just say so! Why were you going on about wind earlier? Now who’s being long-winded?”

Shi Zaixin thought to himself: *What in blazes — he’s calling me long-winded?*

Yu Jiuling continued: “My lord says he has long heard that your Bohai people deeply admire the splendor and prosperity of the Central Plains — in particular, Your Highness and your royal household, who have always harbored a deep longing to come walk and see this land for yourselves. My lord is happy to grant your kinsmen this wish.”

“As for you — you may go back. Your kinsmen will be well looked after. We will let them live comfortably on this land they so admired. As for when they might want to go home…” He paused. “Well, naturally they won’t be able to — but since they wanted so badly to come, they may as well settle in properly and live out their days here.”

Yu Jiuling smiled and asked: “Do you take my meaning?”

Shi Zaixin’s expression grew darker and darker. The Prince of Ning’s message was clear: if you withdraw your forces, your kinsmen live. If you are heartless enough to press on, then your kinsmen will find their eternal rest on this soil.

Shi Zaixin raged: “In the midst of battle between two armies, the Prince of Ning stoops to this kind of despicable tactic to threaten me — does he feel no shame?!”

Yu Jiuling replied: “What do you think?”

That question left Shi Zaixin momentarily stupefied.

Yu Jiuling continued: “If we felt any shame about this, would we have come to say these things to you? You couldn’t beat us in battle, and now you expect to talk us into submission with reason and principle?”

He turned his horse around: “Think it over carefully. The Prince of Ning gives you one day to consider. If your forces haven’t withdrawn by tomorrow, we will have no choice but to take the initiative — and we’ll invite your kinsmen to walk at the very front of our advance. Not as a threat against you, of course — mostly just so they can have a good chance to try and talk some sense into you.”

With that, Yu Jiuling turned and rode back to the Ning army formation.

Shi Zaixin returned to his own forces as well. He had barely reached the center formation when a group of people came rushing toward him at a half-run, travel-worn and dusty, clearly having been on the road for a very long time. They threw themselves to their knees before him, and the one leading them spoke with a tearful voice: “Your Majesty — terrible news — the Queen and the others may have been taken by the Ning people.”

Shi Zaixin kicked out. His boot connected squarely with the man’s face.

*May have been.*

He had seen it with his own eyes — and they still had the nerve to say *may have been*?!

—

Li Chi and the others returned to the main camp. He looked toward Dantai Yajing: “On your way back — did you mark the route the entire way?”

Dantai Yajing replied: “We left markers all along the route. The Bohai people will likely destroy them, though. A path that no one ever knew existed has now become a tremendous threat — they absolutely won’t leave it intact.”

Li Chi made a sound of acknowledgment: “The Bohai forces will trace back along the route you used to withdraw from Pingyuan City. Once they do, they will certainly find the markers — which means they will certainly discover that path.”

Dantai Yajing had initially assumed that Li Chi meant to send more troops through that same mountain route to launch a surprise strike on Bohai’s heartland. But listening now, it seemed that wasn’t quite it.

“Take your own troops and go set up an ambush.”

Li Chi smiled.

Dantai Yajing understood in an instant: “Understood!”

He turned at once and strode out of the command tent, went back to gather his own troops, and led them into the mountains to take up their positions.

Li Chi turned to Yu Jiuling: “What on earth were you saying to him just now? I could see through the spyglass that Shi Zaixin’s face looked absolutely terrible.”

Yu Jiuling replied: “I appealed to both his emotions and his reason.”

Li Chi squinted at him. Yu Jiuling let out a snicker.

“I really did just reason with him politely — but he kept insisting I pass some wind first. That kind of request, I’ve never heard anything like it in my life.”

“Did you manage it?”

“Tried — couldn’t squeeze anything out.”

“…”

—

Early the next morning, a scout came to report that he had spotted the Bohai army packing up their gear, appearing to be preparing a withdrawal.

Not long after this report arrived, an envoy sent by Bohai King Shi Zaixin appeared outside the camp, requesting an audience with the Prince of Ning.

Li Chi had the envoy brought in. Shortly afterward, he received him in the central command tent.

The envoy appeared to be a middle-aged man in his forties or fifties. He looked somewhat frightened, though he strained to maintain composure — even attempting to affect a measure of arrogance. But the moment he laid eyes on the Prince of Ning’s personal guards flanking both sides of the tent, whatever arrogance he was trying to project simply refused to materialize.

“The King of Bohai’s position is this… our great army is prepared to withdraw. However — before sunset today, the Prince of Ning must release all members of the Bohai King’s clan and return them. Otherwise, the two sides will have no choice but to settle this on the battlefield.”

The envoy spoke these words with little conviction behind them.

“Go back and tell the King of Bohai: withdraw into Bohai territory, and I will release half his people and deliver them to the frontier pass first. If he does not withdraw first, I will send him half a load of corpses.”

The envoy had likely already anticipated this outcome before he even set out, because he argued back only halfheartedly for a few exchanges before taking his leave.

His visit was never about showing weakness — only about confusing the Ning army.

The Bohai army made a show of reorganizing their equipment for a withdrawal, moving at a leisurely, unhurried pace — three full days to clear out of the camp, then a slow, gradual retreat toward the mountain valley. Their marching pace was equally slow. Such a vast army, spreading across the hills and fields as they withdrew, was a spectacle to behold.

By the fifth day, the Bohai forces had barely managed to fall back to the mouth of the valley, where they halted again, feigning an orderly queue-by-queue entry into the mountain pass.

By the eighth day, Ning army soldiers came down from the mountains — each one with roughly three or four heads tied to his belt.

This Ning force deliberately passed within plain sight of the Bohai forces. Those Bohai soldiers watched with perfect clarity just how many blood-soaked heads were strung through the Ning army column. Above all, the commanding general himself — the war horse encircled by heads hanging all around its neck — this grisly spectacle put fear into no small number of men.

Not long after, the King of Bohai received word: the force he had sent through the mountains to strike the Ning army from behind had been annihilated to the last man. Fifty thousand and more soldiers — ambushed by Ning army General Dantai Yajing leading twenty thousand troops. Twenty thousand Ning soldiers had slaughtered every one of those fifty-odd thousand men.

The following morning, a Ning cavalry unit rode up to the Bohai encampment, tossed down a dozen or so heads, then wheeled their horses around and left.

The Bohai soldiers carried the heads back. When Shi Zaixin saw them, his face instantly went white.

These dozen-some heads all belonged to figures of considerable standing and prestige within the royal clan — a warning from the Prince of Ning.

*If you keep playing tricks, prepare to receive many more heads.*

Now, at last, Shi Zaixin was truly caught between the tiger’s back and the ground.

Retreat?

If he retreated, his kinsmen might not be freed — but they might at least survive. If he did not retreat, his entire clan would be wiped out.

He so desperately hoped that the Sang navy had already ferried troops around to strike the Ning army from behind.

Against foreign invaders, Li Chi had never once concerned himself with righteousness or moral principle — and whether this manner of killing violated any such principles troubled him not in the least.

If the Bohai forces withdrew, he could turn his full, undivided attention to dealing with the Black Wu forces on the northern frontier.

—

Several days later, word arrived from Bafu County on the Yanzhou coast: the Sang naval fleet had come ashore at Bafu County, with Bohai troops disembarking. But the Ning army had long been prepared — Shen Shanhu’s Ning forces had deployed all along the coastal line. Tens of thousands of Bohai soldiers launched a fierce assault on Bafu County, but were caught in a pincer strike by Ning reinforcements rushing in from both sides. An army of fifty thousand was cut down to a third, and the survivors fled in disarray.

As if fated for misfortune, on the return voyage they encountered a massive storm. Half the Sang naval vessels that had been dispatched suffered catastrophic losses — only a third made it back.

The situation on the Yanzhou front grew increasingly unfavorable for the Bohai side.

The Sang fleet limped back to Bohai territory in disgrace. The Black Wu Empire’s envoy prince, Kuokedi Dashi, had completely lost faith in both the Sang people and the Bohai forces — and, having also sustained an injury, departed to return to Black Wu.

The Yanzhou front settled into a stalemate. Perhaps because of something Kuokedi Dashi said before departing, the Bohai King Shi Zaixin, feeling deeply humiliated, ordered his army to continue the offensive — with complete disregard for the lives of his own family. From that point forward, the conflict became a protracted engagement. Neither side could find a decisive strategy to break the other in the short term.

—

Two months later — the northern frontier, beyond Beishan Pass.

Having been thoroughly disillusioned by both the Sang forces and the Bohai forces, the Black Wu army had decided to handle matters themselves.

Beyond Beishan Pass, gazing into the distance, the Black Wu formations stretched across the land like an ant migration — a dense, teeming mass without end.

—