Mangdang Mountain, Chu Army Camp
Standing atop a tall wooden platform, Prince Wu raised his spyglass and surveyed the land below. The Ning army’s encampments stretched endlessly across the terrain, dense and undulating like rolling hills.
Fifteen days had passed — a full half-month — and the Ning army had shown not the slightest movement.
Throughout those two weeks, the Chu army had spent nearly every day searching for a way out, yet found nothing. Prince Wu understood perfectly well that since Tang Pidi had handpicked this location, there could be no escape route worth finding.
Yet what Prince Wu sought was not a path wide enough for a full army — only one that could let a handful of men slip through. He had to send someone back to Daxing City to report the situation to His Majesty and urge him, above all else, to hold the city fast and send no reinforcements.
Tang Pidi and Li Chi could not have failed to anticipate that the Emperor would dispatch a relief force. Those hundreds of thousands of elite Ning soldiers surrounding Mangdang Mountain were not only besieging the mountain — they were waiting for whatever troops the court might send.
Now, there was no one capable of leading an army. The court had no one to spare, and even if it had, no one could match Tang Pidi.
Prince Wu also wanted to send word to Yangzhou to seek an audience with the Marquis of Guanting. The enemy of your enemy is your friend — perhaps something could be made of it. He still commanded over a hundred thousand elite soldiers. If the Marquis agreed to strike the Ning army from the rear while he broke out from within, a combined assault might just be enough to defeat Ning King Li Chi in a single blow.
Though Prince Wu knew, even if such a letter reached the Marquis, the chance of acceptance was nearly zero. To call it a pincer attack was a fiction — in truth it would be the Marquis bearing the full brunt of hundreds of thousands of Ning troops alone. As long as the man hadn’t lost his mind, he would never agree to it.
Yet Prince Wu’s desperation to save his Left Vanguard Guard drove him to try every option he could imagine. Not just the Marquis of Guanting — he also needed to reach Han Feibao, wherever that man might be. If Han Feibao and the Marquis of Guanting joined forces, they might truly be able to swallow those hundreds of thousands of Ning soldiers whole.
But then what?
That was a plan that took everyone else for a fool — using the Marquis and Han Feibao to batter the Ning King into exhaustion while he reaped the spoils. Anyone who wasn’t a complete idiot would see right through it.
So he knew. No reinforcements were coming.
“Your Highness.”
Just then, Cui Yuansheng, the general of the personal guard battalion, came rushing over.
“Your subordinate has thought of a plan. The back mountain is sheer cliff, but if we strip tree bark and twist it into rope — as much as we can make — we could lower ourselves down. It might work.”
Prince Wu had considered this already. But after examining the back mountain cliffs, he had been left close to despair. The drop was immense — at least two hundred zhang, perhaps three hundred. At that length, the rope’s own weight would be enormous, and adding a man would cause it to snap before long.
And even if it were feasible, lowering men one by one would only deposit them somewhere mid-cliff — not at the base of the mountain, but on a ledge halfway down. What conditions awaited them there was unknown. If the terrain continued to fall away as sheer rock, those men would be trapped on a sliver of stone.
And the dangers of the back mountain were not only geographical…
“Your Highness…”
Seeing Prince Wu’s silence, Cui Yuansheng pressed, “We have to try. The soldiers are watching.”
Prince Wu exhaled. “Go ahead. Lower a few men first to scout. If it proves impossible, pull them back up.”
Cui Yuansheng agreed at once and hurried off to prepare. They braided a rope long enough for the descent, secured it to a great boulder at the cliff’s edge, and selected their most agile scout to make the attempt. Every precaution was taken for his safety, though at this height, all the precautions in the world were somewhat academic.
When they first flung the rope downward, it tumbled and spun through the air — then snapped taut and broke almost immediately. Undeterred, they twisted a thicker rope, tapering it from top to bottom to reduce its own weight, and this time paid it out slowly, hand over hand.
When the full length had been lowered without breaking, a cheer burst from the assembled soldiers, as if they had already found their way out.
The chosen scout gathered his things, wrapped himself in a padded cotton quilt bound with rope, legs bundled too — cumbersome-looking, but reassuring to the heart. Impressively, as he began his descent, the rope groaned and creaked, yet held.
Just as the scout was nearing the bottom of the cliff, a shadow flickered below.
Then came a cry of pain.
Not a fall — he had been struck by an arrow before he fell.
Soon after, Ning soldiers appeared among the trees at the cliff’s base and dragged away the wounded Chu scout. A Ning officer called up to those above:
“Save yourselves the effort. We were posted here on the General’s orders long ago. We showed mercy this time — wound only, not kill. Send another man down, and we will behead him where you can see.”
The Ning soldiers withdrew with their prisoner, vanishing as if they had never been there at all.
Cui Yuansheng reported this to Prince Wu, who had already anticipated it.
But even if he had said so beforehand, his men would not have believed him. They could not fathom that Tang Pidi had thought to station guards at so remote and seemingly impassable a place. No matter how patiently Prince Wu might have explained, they would have dismissed it as excessive worry — their own minds were not capable of such meticulous calculation, so they could not imagine another’s mind might be.
Only after suffering the lesson did they understand how naïve they had been.
“This is not entirely a bad thing,” said Prince Wu, his voice calm. “The Ning army has no reason to make things hard for a lone scout. That man may well be the first of my Left Vanguard Guard to come down from this mountain alive.”
Cui Yuansheng’s expression shifted. For a moment he didn’t know what to say.
Prince Wu looked at him. “You are my personal guard general. If even you do not trust me, how can anyone else? I did not stop you precisely because I knew you would not listen.”
Cui Yuansheng bowed his head, ashamed. “Your subordinate was wrong.”
Prince Wu let out a slow breath. “The enemy is Tang Pidi. Do you truly believe your minds are a match for his? If they were, it would not be us trapped here.”
He waved a hand. “Go. I will find a way to break through.”
Cui Yuansheng bowed and withdrew, his cheeks still burning as he left.
Seven days later. Daxing City.
The Emperor appeared somewhat recovered compared to before — at the very least he no longer looked like the living dead he had resembled those weeks past.
The deaths of the Empress, Zhen Xiaodao, and Hui Chunqiu had struck him with a force beyond imagining. Those three had been, in every meaningful sense, his last family. And Zhen Xiaodao and Hui Chunqiu, who had followed the Emperor from the very beginning, were his closest companions as much as his retainers.
Yet it was the Empress’s death that had broken him most. She had been the pillar of his spirit — even more steadying than Prince Wu.
“Your Majesty.”
Jiang Qihai, former general of the Liangzhou army, spoke from his chair — his wounds had been too severe for him to stand for long. By rights he should have died; the imperial physicians had said as much. Yet somehow he had pulled through, though he still looked terribly frail.
In recognition of his service protecting the Emperor, he had been ennobled as a First-Rank Marquis and appointed Supreme Commander of the Imperial Guard, overseeing all forces within Daxing City.
Standing beside Jiang Qihai was Dou Yong, another former Liangzhou general.
Jiang Qihai called out to the Emperor, who turned his gaze and managed a faint smile. “General Jiang. You have something to say?”
Jiang Qihai tried to rise, his hands braced on the chair arms, legs trembling. Dou Yong moved to assist him but was waved off. Forcing himself to his feet, Jiang Qihai turned to face the Emperor:
“Your Majesty, Prince Wu is trapped on Mangdang Mountain. Your subordinate believes we must dispatch a relief force at once. The city still holds several hundred thousand troops, and beyond the walls another two hundred thousand stand ready. We are not lacking in strength.”
The Emperor regarded him but neither refused nor agreed. “General Jiang, please sit — you are not yet recovered…”
“Your Majesty, your subordinate can still take the field.”
Jiang Qihai pressed on: “Your subordinate is willing to lead two hundred thousand men to relieve Prince Wu. Prince Wu is the great pillar of Chu — the people’s heart follows him. If it becomes known that the court stood by while he was besieged, the people’s faith will shatter, Your Majesty…”
“I know,” said the Emperor.
He drew a long breath and descended from the dais to stand beside Jiang Qihai, gesturing for him to sit. Jiang Qihai lowered himself back into the chair.
“Since receiving the news,” said the Emperor, “I have not slept for two days and two nights. I have been searching for a course of action with no weaknesses.”
He turned to survey the assembled officials — and every one of them averted their eyes.
“My desire to rescue Prince Wu is greater than any of yours. But if we send troops without sound planning, we may walk straight into Li the Pretender’s trap.”
He began to pace. “Rescuing my royal uncle is the most urgent matter. But how to rescue him — without sacrificing the relief force in vain — that demands careful calculation.”
Jiang Qihai said: “Your Majesty, the moment our reinforcements arrive, Prince Wu will know from within Mangdang Mountain. We attack the Ning rear; he leads his army to break out. There will be casualties, but there is a real chance of extracting him.”
What the Emperor did not lack was soldiers.
Though Prince Wu had taken nearly two hundred thousand men, that represented more or less his own original force — with only a portion of the Tianming Army added. Of the Tianming Army’s four hundred thousand, after all attrition, nearly two hundred thousand remained encamped beyond the city walls. The recent mutiny within Daxing City had involved barely over a hundred thousand rebels.
The Liangzhou Army numbered two hundred thousand; the Yuezhou Army two hundred and fifty thousand. Combined, the available forces within Daxing City totaled over six hundred and fifty thousand — and that was a conservative count.
Adding the original city garrison troops, the Emperor commanded no fewer than seven hundred thousand soldiers.
Strength was not the problem.
The problem was that there were no generals to lead them.
The Tianming Army’s commanders had all been killed. The Yuezhou Army’s commanders, likewise. Had Zhang He, the former Imperial Guard general, survived, he would have been the obvious choice — Prince Wu’s trusted subordinate, intimately familiar with the Prince’s methods, and a martial talent without peer.
But looking at the men left in Daxing City, only the Liangzhou generals remained. And the finest of them, Jiang Qihai, sat before him in this condition — leading an army might well kill him before he reached the battlefield.
Dou Yong had courage that rivaled Zhang He’s, but he lacked strategy. The Emperor could not entrust hundreds of thousands of soldiers to a man of brawn alone.
“I have been searching my mind for who might turn this tide…”
He swept the hall with his eyes. “Two days and two nights without sleep, and I have thought of every name among you, more than once…”
His words were cut short by a voice from beyond the hall doors.
“I’ll go!”
The Emperor turned. Every official in the hall looked toward the entrance. There stood Princess Wu, clad in full battle armor, striding into the hall.