Longtou Pass.

Han Feibao led his battered, exhausted forces to a halt about twenty *li* from the pass and ordered the army to regroup. He went himself, with a small escort of scouts, to get close and observe — this was the most important moment of his life so far, and he could not afford the slightest carelessness.

Han Feibao had once imagined many kinds of important moments in his life.

The greatest of them, the dream he had cherished longest, was of course to stand draped in golden-yellow silk, a nine-dragon crown on his head, atop that three-foot-high dais — and from there, to hold the fate of the realm in his hands.

Now he thought of what this most important moment of his life had actually turned out to be — standing before a fortified pass that he had to kill his way through in order to flee.

After so long on the run, the distance between those two visions of himself had somehow stopped feeling as vast as it once had.

In the same way, he had once despised the Black Barbarians to the marrow — had even fantasized that if he ever became the Son of Heaven, the very first thing he would do would be to wipe the Black Barbarians from the face of the earth.

To build an empire that would endure through ten thousand generations — in his imagination, this had been entirely within his power to decide.

And yet what he was thinking now was that if Yuan Zhen’s words were true, then with the support of the Black Barbarians and the Bohai people, perhaps he could genuinely establish a footing in Yanzhou.

From contending for the Central Plains, to establishing a footing in Yanzhou. From dreaming of crushing his enemies, to depending on others for shelter.

“My lord.”

Yuan Zhen lay prone behind a ridge, looked through his spyglass for a moment, then lowered his voice: “From the numbers of soldiers visible on the walls, they appear to have had some warning.”

Han Feibao nodded. This was expected. He had, after all, made his way from the western end of Jizhou all the way to the eastern end — it would have been far stranger if Longtou Pass had made no preparations at all.

The Jizhou that Li Chi had governed with such care was the first place to fulfill Li Chi’s vision of what a province should be. Here, not only did the common people live with relative comfort — they had also developed an extraordinary habit of solidarity, a thing that could also be called: *one enemy to all*.

So many years, so many people who had ravaged Jizhou and its people. Li Chi had spent years restoring peace to Jizhou, years giving the people a decent life. How could those people possibly tolerate an enemy coming to oppress them once more?

So it was entirely to be expected: every city and town in Jizhou had locked its gates and held firm, and Longtou Pass was no different.

“Grab two tongues.”

Han Feibao said it quietly.

Inside the area controlled by Longtou Pass, there were quite a few villages large and small. Because the Ning army had a large force stationed here, people had come to feel that this was a safe and reliable place to be. So since Jizhou returned to peace, the population of the villages around Longtou Pass had not diminished — it had grown steadily.

The land here was wide and open; whether for farming or for herding, if you were willing to work at it, life didn’t have to be hard.

Han Feibao looked at Yuan Zhen: “If there are only garrison troops and no ambush forces, then we can attack at nightfall — or at the latest, first thing tomorrow morning.”

Yuan Zhen appreciated that Han Feibao still understood this — he had not entirely lost the basic military competence of a commander, even now. The concern was straightforward: if there were hidden forces inside the pass or in ambush positions among the surrounding hills, the moment the Yongzhou army attacked Longtou Pass, they would find themselves encircled by the Ning army from both sides.

The simplest way to gather intelligence was to seize a villager and ask.

If a large Ning force had passed through, the villagers could not possibly have missed it.

Yuan Zhen looked toward his personal guards. These men had accompanied him all the way south from the Black Barbarian lands. Though Yuan Zhen’s official rank within the Black Barbarian court appeared unimpressive, the Great Khan genuinely valued him and had placed great hopes in this southern mission. The Great Khan understood clearly that however powerful the Black Barbarian Empire, after several failed campaigns south, it could not mount another large-scale invasion of the Central Plains in the near term. The only option was to encourage the Central Plains to keep tearing itself apart, consuming its own strength.

So he had dispatched a number of truly capable men to protect Yuan Zhen, confident that Yuan Zhen’s abilities would yield results.

What the Black Barbarian Great Khan had not anticipated was this: he trusted Yuan Zhen’s abilities, but the Han Feibao he had chosen to support was genuinely unequal to them. Put plainly — if Yang Xuanji had been in Han Feibao’s position, Yang Xuanji would have done far better. Put another way — if it had been the Marquis of Guanting who had accepted the Black Barbarian offer of assistance, he would have become a catastrophe for the Central Plains.

As it happened, not everyone in this land bent their spine so easily.

Yuan Zhen thought for a moment, then looked toward one of his personal guards — a man around thirty, in his middle years.

This man was called Hutuo. He came from the Black Barbarian Blue Office. Though his rank within the Blue Office was not high, this said nothing about his martial skill or his capability compared to those with higher titles.

The Black Barbarian system of hierarchies and ranks was even more rigidly stratified than anything in the Central Plains. Their reverence for noble bloodlines exceeded by a wide margin the reverence the Central Plains people placed on noble bloodlines. Perhaps when the people of the Central Plains were forming their own aristocratic class, the Black Barbarians were still half-subsisting on blood and raw flesh. Having absorbed some Central Plains culture, they had taken those habits further and made them more pronounced than the Central Plains people ever had.

Hutuo’s bloodline was unremarkable — of the Ghost Moon Eight Clans, but not nobility. An origin like his was acceptable for joining the Blue Office, but high office was almost entirely out of reach.

Fortunately, those at the top were still aware of who had real ability.

Yuan Zhen said to Hutuo: “Pick a few sharp, capable men. Have a look around the nearby villages. Don’t take the elderly, don’t take young men in their prime. Find middle-aged women, or boys between ten and fourteen or fifteen.”

Hutuo bowed: “As you command.”

His manner was respectful, but in truth, men of Black Barbarian blood looked down on Yuan Zhen’s origins as well, of course.

Hutuo took several subordinates and slipped quietly off toward the nearby village.

One subordinate asked curiously: “Sir, why did Yuan Zhen instruct you to take middle-aged women or half-grown children?”

Hutuo said: “Don’t take the elderly because they are cunning, and at their age they may not fear death — they’ll deceive you. Don’t take men in their prime because they’re trouble; even if they’re no match for us, a man in his prime has backbone.

“Middle-aged women: they’re already mothers, so their weakness is easy to find. Half-grown children: because they can’t hold out under questioning.”

His subordinate nodded, understanding at last.

Yuan Zhen and Han Feibao remained outside Longtou Pass with their scouts, observing for a while longer before returning to camp.

About two hours later, Hutuo came back with several captured villagers.

Yuan Zhen heard Hutuo had returned and came in person to conduct the interrogation.

“Separate them.”

He gave the order, then looked at Hutuo: “Did you question them on the way back?”

Hutuo said: “A few questions. But with all of them together, nobody would open their mouths.”

Yuan Zhen looked at the group: “That woman and the half-grown boy — are they mother and son?”

He had noticed two figures who seemed different from the others. The boy was perhaps fourteen or fifteen — still soft-faced, but with a kind of courage that made him step in front of his mother.

And the mother was straining with everything she had to push the boy behind her and shield him.

Yuan Zhen was silent a moment, then pointed: “Bring those two over together. Question them together. The others, separate.”

Not far away, the woman — who appeared to be in her thirties — had gone white-faced. She had never experienced anything like this, and her heart had been trembling with fear ever since she was taken. But over and over she repeated something to her son, her voice very quiet and absolutely firm.

“Don’t say anything. Whatever they ask you, say nothing.”

“Mother, I know.”

“They may beat you. They may beat me. But if we bite down and say nothing, they have no power over us.”

She knew, of course, that these people had all manner of ways.

“Mother, you always said — a person has to have a conscience first.”

The boy, whose upper lip had barely begun to show a faint down of hair, held his mother’s hand. “Mother. I know.”

His father was in the army.

Yuan Zhen had the mother and son brought to an open space. He looked at the woman with a smile, took a water flask from one of his guards, and held it out to her. “Have some water first.”

The woman looked at Yuan Zhen, then at the flask. She said nothing.

“Give it to me.”

The boy held out his hand. “I’m thirsty.”

Both the woman and Yuan Zhen looked at the boy at the same time. In the woman’s eyes: astonishment, disbelief. In Yuan Zhen’s eyes: something like amusement.

He handed the flask to the boy. “Here.”

The boy took it, gulped down several mouthfuls, then wiped the corner of his mouth and tossed the flask aside.

Yuan Zhen was just about to ask him something when the boy said: “I’m hungry. I want food.”

Yuan Zhen’s brow furrowed slightly, but he quickly smiled again. “All right.”

He ordered: “Bring some rations for him.”

The boy shook his head. “I’m not eating any dry rations. That stuff tastes awful. I want meat — no meat, no deal.”

Yuan Zhen’s brow furrowed deeper.

“We can’t make fires to cook, so you’ll have to make do.”

“Make do?” The boy gave a short, derisive sound. “You dragged me and my mother here — obviously you need something from us. If you need something from people, and you still want those people to *make do*?”

He looked Yuan Zhen directly in the eyes: “Either you start beating me right now — use whatever your interrogation methods are — or you go find me some meat. And by the way, I’ve never had wine before. If there’s wine, that would be best.”

“Lin’er!”

The woman seemed to have understood at last, and called out in a voice of heartbroken sorrow.

“Mother, we’re going to die anyway. After they’ve asked what they need, they’ll kill us for certain. Better to eat a proper meal first.”

The boy looked at Yuan Zhen: “Your choice.”

Yuan Zhen was silent for a moment, then looked at Hutuo. Hutuo understood.

Hutuo walked up to the boy, smiled coldly, and said: “You think you’re grown now? Think you’re a warrior?”

He moved suddenly, striking the boy hard on the back of the neck. The boy let out a muffled grunt and fell.

But Hutuo didn’t strike again. He crouched down and looked into the boy’s eyes. “You have no idea,” he said, “that some things you simply cannot fight.”

He rose and walked toward the woman.

The boy tried to struggle upright, but was pinned down hard by one of Hutuo’s men’s boots.

“The bond between mother and child,” Hutuo said, drawing a dagger as he walked, turning it in his fingers. “You wanted meat, didn’t you? Your mother’s flesh — would you eat it? Which part?”

—