This was to be Tang Anchen’s final stand against Prince Wu — the last time he would block the prince’s path before pulling his forces from the battlefield.
Per Tang Pidi’s orders: at daybreak, let Prince Wu’s army through. By then, the Ning army would have completed its encirclement.
This was the darkest hour before dawn — and the most savage stretch of fighting in the entire battle so far.
The Chu forces launched a frenzied assault against the defending Ning troops. The open ground was blanketed with people — the living and the dead alike.
“Your Highness!”
A colonel came running back from the front, his face smeared with blood.
“The general has fallen.”
Prince Wu asked, “The general has fallen — where is the deputy general?”
“The deputy… has also fallen.”
“Then you are the general now.”
Prince Wu looked at the colonel and said, “Take what’s left of the men and keep pushing forward.”
“Yes, sir!”
The colonel answered and turned to go. He had wanted to tell Prince Wu that their unit had barely three hundred men left — but the moment Prince Wu said *you are the general now*, those words died in his throat.
As men of the Left Martial Guard, when the Prince commanded an advance, you advanced. Even if only one man remained.
“Report!”
Another man ran up to Prince Wu: “General, our forces have broken through on the left flank — requesting Your Highness’s support!”
“Go!”
Prince Wu responded at once and pulled his men from their current position toward the left flank.
But by the time they arrived, every Chu soldier who had punched through the Ning line was already dead.
The Chu general who had broken the Ning defenses lay on his back in the dirt, his body bristling with at least dozens of arrows, eyes still open.
The Chu attacks came like waves. The Ning defense was the seawall. Each wave that crashed over it, the Ning soldiers behind it reformed like sandbags and stones, plugging every gap.
In this butchery, the Chu casualties far outnumbered the Ning’s. Yet what choice did they have? They had come too far. There was nothing else left.
“Your Highness!”
A man came running over, drenched in blood — whether his own or a Ning soldier’s, no one could tell.
“The forces attacking from the right flank… were surrounded by Ning troops and encircled. Not one… not one got out.”
“The Ning army is forming a trap…”
Prince Wu saw it clearly. He simply hadn’t expected it — that even Tang Anchen’s brutal defensive stand was itself a lure.
“We must concentrate our forces for a frontal assault,” Prince Wu said. “Once Tang Pidi’s encirclement closes, we won’t be able to break out.”
He turned and ordered: “Send word to the main force — have Zhao Chuanliu bring the center up!”
At Prince Wu’s command, a messenger mounted and rode out at full gallop.
At this moment, Prince Wu judged that he was facing the Ning vanguard — the force meant to stop his breakout.
Zhao Chuanliu, commanding the center, was burning with anxiety. His troops had been trailing behind Prince Wu all night, and he had wanted to advance countless times — but he would not act without the Prince’s order.
The Prince had said: if the center was needed, he would send for it.
Watching the Ning resistance grow fiercer, Prince Wu had concluded that this was the decisive ground Ning had chosen — and that the Ning troops ahead were nearly at their breaking point. It was time to bring the center up and deliver the killing blow.
The center was Prince Wu’s trump card, his last reserve. He hadn’t anticipated that Tang Pidi’s own trump card was still waiting ahead.
The moment Zhao Chuanliu received the order, he sounded the horn without a second’s delay, and the center surged forward at a dead run.
By the time they arrived, both Ning and Chu were at the edge of collapse.
The Chu reinforcements hit like a flood, and the Ning line shattered. Tang Anchen led his remaining men in a fighting retreat, pulling back toward the flank. He had to give the front to the Chu forces — otherwise not a single man under his command would survive.
After breaking through the blockade, the Chu army’s morale soared.
Prince Wu raised a hand and wiped the sweat from his brow, then reached down to unclasp his canteen — and only then noticed there was an arrow lodged in his shoulder.
His armor was of the finest make; an ordinary arrow could never pierce it. But the Ning volley had been so thick that this one had slipped in through a gap in the plates. Fortunately the gap was narrow, the arrow hadn’t gone deep — nothing more than a flesh wound.
He pulled out the arrow, looked at it briefly, and tossed it aside.
“We have broken through the Ning line!” Prince Wu called out. “Give me one more push — ride with me forward to rejoin the Princess Consort!”
His men answered as one.
There was no time to rest. They pressed on by sheer will — and by now the eastern horizon had begun to glow, the world sharpening into clarity around them.
They charged on for seven or eight more li, reckoning that the Princess Consort’s position was no more than twenty li away. The men of the Left Martial Guard began to feel something they hadn’t felt in hours: excitement.
Exhausted as they were — having fought through an entire night — the thought that the breakout had succeeded was enough to lift every face around him.
Prince Wu spotted a low ridge off to the side. The terrain near Mangdang Mountain was all like this — rolling mounds, nothing steep or dramatic, looking from a distance like a row of giant steamed buns.
He rode up the rise and raised his spyglass to look south. If the distance was truly only thirty li or so, he should be able to see the fighting around the Princess Consort’s position.
At the far edge of his vision, he could just make out a discolored patchwork across the earth — bodies, carpeting the ground. But there was no moving force. No army. His stomach dropped.
“Report!”
At that moment, a messenger came thundering from the rear, shouting while still far off: “Your Highness — disaster! The rear guard has been pinned down by the enemy!”
Prince Wu’s expression darkened.
He had left the rear to Wu Suohai, one of his steadiest commanders — and had warned him again and again: *be careful. Be careful.*
“Have they been surrounded?”
“Ning troops hit from both flanks — too many to count. Ning cavalry appeared behind General Shi’s rear column. They’re holding them in a death grip. I fear they’re already surrounded.”
Zhao Chuanliu immediately stepped forward: “Your Highness, take the center and keep pushing through. Give me ten thousand men and I’ll go back for General Wu and the rear.”
Prince Wu thought for a moment. “You take the center and continue the breakout. I’ll take all the cavalry back to relieve General Wu.”
Zhao Chuanliu tried again to argue, but Prince Wu would not hear it. The old man who had been fighting all night swung back into the saddle, seized his iron spear, and gave a shout.
Cavalry from various units rallied behind Prince Wu and charged back the way they had come. And by now the rear guard had indeed been completely encircled by Ning forces.
But at this same moment, less than fifteen li ahead of where Prince Wu turned back, Princess Consort Wu was herself surrounded.
Had he not turned back — had he pushed straight forward instead — he might still have saved his wife in time.
By now the Princess Consort had fewer than three thousand men. She had been hemmed in between two hills, which was why Prince Wu, looking south from the rise, had failed to spot her.
Ning troops pressed in from both sides of the hills. The Chu forces had formed a circular defensive formation with the Princess Consort at the center.
General Shen Shanhu stood at the front of the Ning line, surveying the ragged, shattered Chu army, her expression still calm.
She had fought the Chu forces all night with half their numbers — and the Chu army was down to this.
“Princess Consort Wu!” Shen Shanhu called out across the field. “You know what your situation is. This is our Grand General’s strategy. Prince Wu is by now trapped as well — he cannot even reach Mangdang Mountain. If you surrender, you may accompany me to the front line and appeal to Prince Wu. Your husband and his soldiers could still have a way out. If you refuse, you die — and Prince Wu will not survive alone. Think carefully. At this point, do we truly need you alive? Only because the Ning King instructed us: if at all possible, let husband and wife be reunited.”
The Princess Consort stood in the center of the formation, her face white as bone.
Of the fewer than three thousand men remaining at her side, half were jianghu fighters she had recruited herself, along with her Fushen Guard. The jianghu men — those outside the Guard — had long since lost their nerve. They had no will to fight.
But she was the wife of Great Chu’s Prince Wu. How could she surrender?
“General Shen!” the Princess Consort called back. “In commanding troops, I am no match for you. But in courage, I will yield to no one. I trust my people — and we will not yield to yours.”
Shen Shanhu let out a quiet sigh, then raised her voice: “Chu soldiers, hear me. If you deliver the Princess Consort alive and unharmed, your lives will be spared. Otherwise — not one of you leaves.”
The moment those words landed, nearly every Chu soldier turned to look at the Princess Consort.
“What are you looking at?!” Zhaoluan shouted, his voice raw with fury. “The Princess Consort has shown you nothing but grace and loyalty — what do you think you’re doing?!”
Cainan stood at the Princess Consort’s side, blade in hand: “Anyone who moves — I will cut you down where you stand.”
Zhaoluan stepped back to guard the Princess Consort’s other side. “Fushen Guard!”
Three hundred Fushen Guards answered as one, closing ranks to form a protective circle around her.
But the jianghu fighters were visibly wavering. And the chance of them moving against her was far greater than the chance of them holding.
Then Shen Shanhu called out again: “Anyone who harms the Princess Consort will die.”
One jianghu fighter, hearing that, turned to face her directly. “Princess Consort — surrender. With this few men left, even if you refuse, how long can you hold? The fight is over.”
Another spoke: “The Princess Consort has been generous to us — we have no desire to commit treason. But you must think of the men who remain. There is no possible way to hold.”
Shen Shanhu pressed on: “If the Princess Consort surrenders now, she may still see Prince Wu. Perhaps there is yet a chance for you both to withdraw from the world together. If you refuse — when you die, Prince Wu will not live on alone either. You should weigh this carefully. After all this fighting, do you think we truly *need* you dead? Only that the Ning King gave the order: if opportunity allows, let them be reunited.”
The Princess Consort’s expression shifted again and again. Her eyes went, without thinking, to Zhaoluan and Cainan. These two who had always obeyed her without question had now become her anchor, and she desperately wanted an answer from their lips.
“Whatever decision the mistress makes,” Zhaoluan said quietly, “Cainan and I stand with you.”
Cainan nodded. “Live together, die together.”
Perhaps it was those words that reached the last soft place in the Princess Consort’s heart. She let out a long breath — and let her sword fall to the ground.
“We… surrender.”
The moment the words left her lips, Zhaoluan and Cainan both froze.
But from the Chu soldiers came a burst of cheering — as though they had just won a final and decisive victory, not a defeat. There was no shame in that sound. None at all.
In that moment, the Princess Consort finally understood. Their refusal to surrender had never been unwillingness — they were soldiers, and soldiers do not surrender. But they had not wanted to fight for a long time.
The Chu soldiers threw down their weapons without a moment’s hesitation. Not a flicker of regret. The weapons clattered to the earth, and the men sank to their haunches.
And in that moment, the Princess Consort saw clearly what she had never seen before: she could never have won. Not from the start.
The conviction that demanded victory — that had always been hers alone. It was never the conviction of this army.
—