After the Ning army passed through Xiushan, the next obstacle standing before them was Tiger Wall Pass — said to be one of the Seven Great Fortresses of Shu. Shu’s natural defenses were considered unrivaled in the realm. Even the founding Emperor of Great Chu, at the height of his military might, had found every step forward through Shu a struggle.

Now the Ning army entered Shu by the same road the Chu forces once traveled, fighting the same battles that had once stopped the Chu army in its tracks.

The difference was: this opening engagement, the Ning army had won without a single casualty.

From Xiushan to Tiger Wall Pass was a journey of several days. Gao Zhen led troops as the vanguard, scouting the road ahead for the main force.

By this point, the Shu army high command likely understood it was impossible to defeat the Ning army in open battle, and so this entire stretch of road offered no threats whatsoever. The Shu forces had apparently consolidated their strength at the key passes, intending to bleed the Ning army there.

Gao Zhen’s advance column reached Tiger Wall Pass without encountering so much as a shadow of a Shu soldier. Only upon arriving at the pass itself did the strategy become clear: Pei Qi’s plan was to concentrate every dispersed unit at the fortresses and fight a war of attrition.

Unlike Lean Mountain Pass, Tiger Wall Pass stretched four or five li across. Its walls rose far higher, built from massive blocks of stone — Shu’s exceptional geography had furnished excellent materials. Walls of such density would normally have been impregnable. But now the Ning army carried a large complement of trebuchets, and those changed the equation.

After Gao Zhen’s forces arrived, he split off a portion to fan out and scout both flanks. The rest began preparing for the main army’s arrival — laying perimeter walls and constructing camp quarters.

By every measure, taking Tiger Wall Pass would be harder than taking Lean Mountain Pass, even though both were among the Seven Great Fortresses of Shu. Geography simply didn’t allow Lean Mountain Pass to be built as large.

Several days later, the Ning main force arrived and began establishing their field camp outside the pass. Li Chi brought his officers up to high ground to study Tiger Wall Pass.

“Look there,” Xiahou Zhuo said, pointing.

“They’ve been paying close attention to us.”

Hanging from the outer face of Tiger Wall Pass’s walls were thick curtains of straw matting, with timber lashed in other sections. It was a technique the Ning army had used themselves — it would absorb the majority of trebuchet strikes. Keeping the matting and timber constantly wet also countered fire arrows.

What had once been a Ning army tactic had now been adopted by the enemy. With this countermeasure in place, causing structural damage to the walls with trebuchets would be extremely difficult.

“Interesting,” Dantai Yaojing murmured to himself.

Every force still capable of holding its own against the Ning army had been studying and copying Ning tactics relentlessly. Constant adaptation was the only way to survive the Ning army’s overwhelming momentum.

“Fire attacks won’t work well either,” Xiahou Zhuo said. “But if the trebuchets can’t knock down the walls, can’t they aim for the top of the walls and hit the defenders?”

The possibility existed — with the right adjustments, there was a real chance of landing stones on the wall-walk and causing casualties. But the odds were poor in practice, since stones varied in size and shape. No one could use uniform projectiles.

After Dantai Yaojing raised this point, Li Chi’s brow lifted slightly.

“Stones are inconsistent in size and shape — so we use something we can make nearly uniform.”

He looked at Zhuang Wudi. “We have plenty of sacks with us. Canvas too. Fill them with earth and use those.”

Zhuang Wudi said, “But earthen sacks wouldn’t cause much harm to the defenders.”

Li Chi smiled. “What if causing harm to the defenders isn’t the primary goal?”

Everyone looked at Li Chi, waiting.

Li Chi said, “At Xianlai County, when Han Feibao had me surrounded, he used the simplest, crudest method imaginable — spending lives without mercy to pile up a ramp.”

He pointed toward Tiger Wall Pass. “We have those sacks, and if we run short, we’ll make do with other materials. We keep throwing them onto the walls — give the defenders nowhere to stand.”

He looked toward the pass. “We’ll raise their walls for them.”

Whether it would work or not, they’d find out by trying.

From the second day after Ning’s arrival, the support battalion set to work — men hauling earth and filling sacks without stop. With twenty thousand men at the task, the pace was astonishing. In just a single day, a massive pit was dug outside Tiger Wall Pass.

Countless sacks piled up at the front, ready to be used — and the sight left the Shu garrison utterly bewildered.

Originally, the commander responsible for holding Tiger Wall Pass had been Yao Zhiyuan. After he volunteered to defend Xiushan instead, Pei Qi had appointed another of his most capable generals to hold the pass in his place.

This man had a deep bond with Yao Zhiyuan — one might call him Yao’s teacher-at-arms, or the patron who had made him. Had it not been for this man, Yao Zhiyuan could never have risen through the ranks of the Shu army. In an age of rigid class divisions, for a man of humble birth to make something of himself — the difficulty was immense.

That man was Gao Guangxiao, renowned general of Shu.

Pei Qi had brought the retired Gao Guangxiao back precisely because of his relationship with Yao Zhiyuan. The two were bound to work in concert — Yao Zhiyuan at Xiushan, Gao Guangxiao at Tiger Wall Pass, their coordination enough to bar the Ning army from entry.

What Pei Qi never anticipated was that Yao Zhiyuan would choose to give up without a fight.

Now, within Tiger Wall Pass, there were also a fair number of soldiers who had retreated from Xiushan. Of the ten-plus thousand men, roughly half had gone home; another two or three thousand had gone into hiding to see how things played out. Only about two or three thousand had made it back to Tiger Wall Pass — and these men had already told Gao Guangxiao everything that had happened at Xiushan.

Up on the wall, Gao Guangxiao studied the Ning army’s activities, brow deeply furrowed.

“Are they planning an all-out assault regardless of cost?”

The veteran general, nearly seventy years old, muttered the question to himself.

By conventional analysis, the Ning army had prepared that many sacks and was still filling more — they intended to use the simplest, most brutal method of taking a fortress, one that also carried the heaviest casualties.

Gao Guangxiao’s adjutant, Shu general Han Zai — a fourth-rank officer — offered a quiet reminder: “Marshal, the stories all say Ning King Li Chi cherishes his soldiers like sons. It seems unlikely he’d use such tactics.”

Gao Guangxiao nodded.

As a man who had commanded armies for the better part of his life, he knew the importance of understanding one’s opponent before any engagement. After accepting Pei Qi’s invitation to come out of retirement, his very first act had been to request intelligence on Li Chi from the command office. Not just Li Chi — information on Tang Pidi, Xiahou Zhuo, every named commander in the Ning army. The more the better.

The man tasked with providing exactly this information, stationed at his side, was a banner officer from the command staff named Cui Shang.

After Han Zai’s reminder, Cui Shang added a few words.

“Not only Ning King Li Chi himself — none of the generals under him have any precedent for throwing away soldiers’ lives recklessly.”

Gao Guangxiao nodded.

If they weren’t planning to pile up a ramp to storm the walls, then why all these sacks?

Since the Ning army hadn’t yet set up their trebuchets, Gao Guangxiao failed to make the connection. In truth, trebuchets as a siege weapon were something from after his time in active command.

“Wait and observe for now.”

Gao Guangxiao gave the order, then turned and descended from the wall.

Back in his quarters, he had his men bring in several of the soldiers who had retreated from Xiushan. The soldiers hurried in and immediately knelt before him.

In the Shu army, if Yao Zhiyuan was the aspiration every soldier of humble birth looked up to — the living proof that such a man could rise — then Gao Guangxiao was the legend. He was a veteran commander from the fu-bing military household system of the old Chu empire, and he carried that tradition’s particular pride — the unshakeable conviction that the fu-bing stood above all others. At the height of Chu’s power, the fu-bing truly had represented the ceiling of military capability in the Central Plains. For a man who had once commanded such a force, the arrogance was understandable.

Even when the Great Chu had begun to fracture and rebellions had sprung up across the land like weeds after rain, the fu-bing’s dominance had gone unchallenged. Against rebel forces in those early days, the fu-bing had cut through them like a scythe. Only later, as those scattered rebellions merged into massive armies — and as large numbers of fu-bing soldiers defected to the rebel cause — did the dynasty’s collapse accelerate.

Gao Guangxiao asked, “Tell me again, carefully — why did Yao Zhiyuan surrender?”

“Marshal…” one of the soldiers said, kneeling. “General Yao didn’t exactly surrender. It was more that he…”

Gao Guangxiao’s brow tightened. “He retreated without fighting. If that’s not surrender, what is? Don’t spare my feelings because of my relationship with him. He is a traitor now. He is no longer my disciple.”

The soldier quickly said, “Yes, yes, Marshal. Before General Yao… before he surrendered, he had met with someone who’d come from his hometown. His cousin, it seemed.”

Another soldier said, “General Yao’s family home is in a village in Qingmian County. The Ning army has taken that area.”

At this, Gao Guangxiao felt a sudden shift in his understanding.

He had always known Yao Zhiyuan to be the most resolute of soldiers. For a man like that to abandon a soldier’s dignity and withdraw without fighting — something had to have threatened him deeply. And now he thought he understood.

“So it seems the Ning army captured Yao Zhiyuan’s family and used them as leverage. That’s why he surrendered.”

After saying this, he asked more carefully about the matter of the supposed Daoist powers. Cross-referencing his own analysis, he simply refused to believe Yao Zhiyuan had quit out of fear of supernatural forces. He knew his own disciple better than anyone.

What he failed to consider was that Yao Zhiyuan hadn’t quit because the Ning army had mistreated his family — but because the Ning army had treated the common people so well.

And this, too, defied all logic as he understood it. A distant expeditionary force couldn’t possibly maintain supply lines that long. Every army on a long march had to live off the land — stripping whatever territory it passed through to feed itself. He couldn’t believe the Ning army would strain to maintain such extended supply lines just to care for people they’d only just conquered. The cost was simply too great. Feeding one million soldiers and transporting those supplies this far from home — by the time the shipments arrived, perhaps sixty percent of the original load would still be intact, and that was counting from Jingzhou, not from somewhere even further afield.

“You’re dismissed.”

Gao Guangxiao waved them away.

He exhaled slowly, rose, and walked to the window. A moment later, he gave quiet instruction to his aide: “Send someone in secret to Yao Zhiyuan’s home and find out what really happened. If he was threatened, find a way to get his family out.”

The aide bowed. “As you command.”

Gao Guangxiao murmured to himself: “I am his teacher. He should not have to bear this alone. Others may not be able to help him. I will.”

—