News arrived from the northwest of Shu Province: traces of Ning Army forces had been spotted in the northwest. The report nearly made Pei Qi collapse on the spot.
In his mind, this was simply impossible. How could the Ning Army have reached Yong Province so quickly?
And indeed — Tang Pidi could not have. Tang Pidi’s forces were still pursuing Han Feibao, fighting as they chased, and hadn’t even reached Yong Province yet. They were still in the northwest of Ji Province.
The one who had reached Yong Province was Tang Anchen.
By rights, Tang Anchen should have been further ahead, cutting off Han Feibao’s path — Li Chi had already sent word to him. But the problem was that Tang Anchen moved too fast. After splitting from the main force with his ten thousand cavalry, he’d been worried about fighting breaking out in the northwest and had set a brutal pace.
By the time Li Chi and the others were still locked in battle with Han Feibao, Tang Anchen had already arrived in the northwest of Ji Province.
When he got there, he discovered something: he had nothing to do.
He’d gone to the northwest out of concern that the Yong Province army might strike into Ji Province from the west, and to guard against the Western Regions Alliance invading Central Plains. But when he arrived, he found that however quickly he’d come, he hadn’t come close to matching the speed of Great General Tantai Qi’s campaigns.
The Western Regions Alliance had come in full force — tens of thousands strong, full of bluster — yet the moment they reached the passes west of Liang Province and caught a glimpse of the Liang Province Iron Cavalry, they wheeled around without a moment’s hesitation and retreated.
These Western Regions men were shrewd creatures. They had no intention of fighting the Ning Army head-on. Yes, they’d made a pact with Han Feibao, but what they truly hoped for was to let Han Feibao do the fighting up front and tie down the Ning forces while they picked off whatever spoils they could in the northwest of Central Plains.
Han Feibao hadn’t even shown up — and they were supposed to go toe-to-toe with Tantai Qi? Madness.
Their numbers were ten times that of the Liang Province forces, of course — but then again, hadn’t they always come with ten-to-one odds? And when had that ever been enough?
If an opportunity for a sneak attack presented itself, they’d take it. But they’d barely reached the western passes before finding the Liang Province Iron Cavalry already waiting there. With that, there was nothing left to discuss.
The Western Regions Alliance withdrew with admirable self-awareness. They didn’t retreat fully — but they adopted a posture of watching and waiting.
Great General Tantai Qi sent an emissary to the Alliance commander with a simple message: *If you want to fight, come and fight. If you don’t want to fight, make sure I can’t see you. If I have to look at you every day, you might be able to hold yourselves back — but one day I might not, and then I’ll come out and fight you myself.*
The Alliance commander hastily replied: *We’re not here to fight. The various kingdoms agreed to meet here for a hunting trip.*
In truth, the standoff served no real purpose. They didn’t dare attack, and staying in place cost them supplies no one would reimburse. So after lingering outside the western passes for the better part of a month, putting on a show of bravado, the Western Regions Alliance scattered — each returning to their own home, their own mother.
Tang Anchen had arrived in the northwest, sent men to pay respects to Great General Tantai Qi, and learned that Tantai Qi had already moved toward the Nalan Steppe.
Tang Anchen considered: if he followed Tantai Qi to the Nalan Steppe, the northwest would be left without troops — a dangerous situation. Should those weathervane Western Regions men hear that the Liang Province Iron Cavalry was gone, they might come roaring back, and the western passes would have no forces to hold them.
So Tang Anchen ordered his ten thousand cavalry to garrison in the northwest of Ji Province. The first few days were fine — the soldiers needed rest after their long march anyway.
But a few days later, Tang Anchen grew restless.
He was bored. He had nothing to do.
So he decided to find something to do.
Out here, the obvious place to find something to do was Yong Province.
At first, he only meant to fight a few small skirmishes — seize some grain and supplies from the enemy, and honestly, now that he was right on Yong Province’s doorstep, it would just feel wrong not to at least have a go.
But once he started fighting, he found it was going rather well.
So Tang Anchen left two thousand cavalry at the border and led the remaining eight thousand straight into Yong Province.
In two months of continuous fighting, with just eight thousand men, he cut clean through Yong Province.
He hadn’t occupied the entire province, but after driving through it like this, there was no one left with the courage to step up and say *I’d like to try you one-on-one.* That was understandable — the two who’d thought they could during those first two months were no longer around to express opinions.
Tang Anchen’s force, which had begun at eight thousand, had grown to sixty thousand by the end of those two months.
This was the army that appeared at the northwest of Shu Province. Tang Anchen was still weighing whether to turn back or push further.
He’d only shown his banner briefly, but the garrison soldiers guarding the northwest passes of Shu Province took one look at the Ning Army battle flags and were thoroughly terrified. The faster the news traveled, the worse the panic it carried.
When Pei Qi received the report, he — a man who had weathered storms enough to reshape the politics of Central Plains by his own hand — was, this time, genuinely afraid.
If the Ning Army truly attacked from the northwest, he would have no choice but to split his forces to respond. But if he sent troops northwest, how was he supposed to cope with the several hundred thousand Ning Army soldiers Li Chi was personally commanding on his other flank?
—
Meanwhile, northwest of Ji Province.
Great General Tang Pidi’s forces had been chasing Han Feibao all the way to a position not far from the Nalan Steppe. Ahead of Han Feibao stood a Ning Army stronghold. Beyond that pass lay the Nalan Grasslands. And behind him, close as a shadow, was Tang Pidi.
Three choices now lay before Han Feibao.
**First:** throw everything into attacking the fortress, break through, and link up with the Iron Crane Tribe cavalry. Success would mean celebrating with drums and cymbals.
**Second:** throw everything into attacking Tang Pidi’s pursuing force from behind, and if victorious, all his troubles would vanish. Success would mean celebrating however he pleased.
**Third:** let himself get caught between the garrison ahead and the pursuers behind and take a beating from both sides — whereupon it would be the Ning Army doing the celebrating.
Of course, he might be overthinking it. Perhaps he wasn’t worth Tang Pidi’s celebratory drums.
But objectively speaking, given the current situation, the probability of the third option becoming inevitable seemed considerably higher than either of the first two.
So Han Feibao was deeply, thoroughly miserable.
In that moment, he couldn’t help but regret alienating Pei Qi back in Shu Province. If he hadn’t done that, he and Pei Qi could be fighting the Ning Army together right now — there would still be some hope.
These past weeks had taught him the meaning of *bringing calamity upon oneself.*
What he didn’t know yet was that his Iron Crane Tribe allies had already withdrawn.
Early on, the Iron Crane cavalry — numbering in the hundreds of thousands — had dealt the Nalan Steppe serious damage. After all, sixty thousand of the Nalan Tribe’s warriors were away from the grasslands.
But the Iron Crane Tribe, even after suffering their last defeat, had failed to learn the most essential lesson: the people of the Nalan Steppe do not yield easily.
The Iron Crane forces had seized more than two-thirds of the Nalan Steppe, yet they had not won the tribe’s submission. Every day brought resistance. Every day brought bloodshed. After more than two months of unrelenting effort, the Iron Crane cavalry had still failed to break the Nalan Royal Court.
Last time, they’d split their forces and struck fast, breaking into the Royal Court quickly — only to walk into Bo’ertiechina’s ambush and have ten thousand of their iron cavalry smashed in a single engagement.
This time, they found themselves blocked outside the Royal Court entirely.
The steppe warriors, who had studied many of the Ning Army’s tactics, used those same tactics against light cavalry.
Even the Nalan women had taken their place in the lines, forming pike formations to stop the Iron Crane charges. Outside the Royal Court, they had planted dense fields of horse-stopping stakes to deny the cavalry a clean charge. And after the lessons of last time, the Nalan tribe had built walls around the Royal Court — something without precedent in steppe history. They used pit traps and trenches to slow the enemy’s advance, and pike lines to cut the horsemen down.
After two months of assault, the Iron Crane forces had never set foot inside the Royal Court.
Then, making things worse for the Iron Crane forces, the Liang Province Iron Cavalry arrived.
Though Tantai Qi’s cavalry was vastly outnumbered, they were more effective fighters. And when Bo’ertiechina returned with his riders, the Iron Crane Tribe knew: this campaign would end as fruitlessly as the last.
But this time, withdrawing easily was not an option.
Lian Daren had ridden in from Ji Province with over ten thousand cavalry and coordinated with the Liang Province Iron Cavalry and the Nalan riders to attack from three sides — making the Iron Crane forces believe they were being encircled by a massive Ning Army. In their panicked retreat, they were routed from three directions, sustaining devastating losses.
Bo’ertiechina had been prepared to pull back once the steppe was reclaimed, but Great General Tantai Qi was not finished. He argued that if the Iron Crane Tribe was not frightened badly enough this time, they would cause trouble again in the future. Better to strike them hard enough once that they lost all appetite for moving south.
Lian Daren agreed, and placed all his cavalry under Tantai Qi’s command. Bo’ertiechina immediately decided: Tantai Qi would serve as supreme commander of all three forces.
Roughly seventy thousand cavalry in total — pursuing a force of at least three hundred thousand Iron Crane riders.
They poured out through the mountain passes and into the northern desert. Great General Tantai Qi fought seven engagements and won seven. The Iron Crane forces lost no fewer than several hundred thousand men. Only a shortage of supplies finally forced Tantai Qi to order a withdrawal — if he’d had a supply line, the old general had been half-tempted to keep going until he’d driven all the way into the outer steppe.
Han Feibao knew none of this.
He didn’t know, and so he still clung to his fantasy: once he broke through the pass, five hundred thousand Iron Crane cavalry would be waiting for him. He’d already colluded with the Western Regions men to become emperor — was he worried about the added infamy of colluding with the Iron Crane Tribe too?
—
But at that very moment, Yuan Zhen felt that something was wrong.
Observing the fortress, he noticed that the Ning Army soldiers on the walls were moving in disciplined formation, changing their watch every hour without fail.
That meant there was no fighting on the other side of that pass. If there were still active combat, the garrison wouldn’t have enough men to maintain regular rotations.
So Yuan Zhen urged Han Feibao to abandon the plan to return to the northwest.
Han Feibao was unwilling. If he could take the fortress ahead, he could return to Yong Province even without the Iron Crane alliance.
And if he turned back now, they would have to take a different route — at least seventeen or eighteen hundred *li* out of the way. Enough distance for Tang Pidi to close the gap.
On a hillside.
Yuan Zhen spoke patiently: “Right now, the best choice is not to go back to Yong Province. The General doesn’t know what the situation there looks like.”
“It’s my homeland,” Han Feibao said. “What is there I don’t know?”
“If Ning Wang Li Chi made arrangements before all this,” Yuan Zhen said, “then Yong Province may not be safe.”
Han Feibao’s voice sharpened: “He’s not a god. Has he been one step ahead of me at every turn?”
Yuan Zhen went quiet. There was no point arguing this. A waste of breath.
After a pause, Yuan Zhen continued: “If the General will hear me out, striking northeast right now — unexpectedly — may yield something greater.”
He looked Han Feibao in the eye. “Right now, the Ning Army forces in Ji Province must be stretched thin. Because of the campaign on the Nalan Steppe, every available soldier in Ji Province will have been sent as reinforcement.”
“We can move northeast through Ji Province — not to occupy it, just to seize grain and supplies along the way — and drive into Yan Province at maximum speed.”
Yuan Zhen spoke earnestly: “Yan Province’s forces are even thinner. Once inside, the General can forge a northern alliance with the Black Wu Empire and an eastern alliance with the Bohai Kingdom, and rebuild from there — working toward dominion at a measured pace.”
“Collude with the Black Wu men?” Han Feibao let out a cold laugh. “What nonsense are you talking?”
Yuan Zhen fell silent for a moment, then slowly exhaled. “I am Black Wu. My coming to meet the General was on the orders of the Black Wu Khagan. General… if you want to speak of working together with the Black Wu Empire — that has been true for quite some time already.”
Han Feibao’s fury ignited. His hand flew to his sword hilt. “You want to die?!”
Yuan Zhen simply looked at him and said nothing more.
A long moment passed. Slowly, Han Feibao’s hand slid away from the hilt.
—