The Iron Crane people’s decades-long dominance of the outer steppe had collapsed in so short a time.

But it wasn’t simply that they had been defeated — what made it truly devastating was that this tribe, as a living people, had been erased from the world entirely.

Even after multiple great battles had greatly diminished their strength, the Iron Crane were still a tribe with a population of at least several million.

If only the Naran people had been doing the killing, there was no way they could have achieved annihilation in such a short time.

This was a slaughter in which every tribe on the outer steppe had participated — each of them taking revenge with a fury more savage than any beast. They had endured Iron Crane oppression for far too long. Once they had the chance for retribution, their vengeance knew no bounds.

Close to two hundred years earlier, the great Chu general Xu Qulu had swept the outer steppe with a divine fury unmatched for two centuries by any person from the Central Plains. At that time, the Naran tribe’s cavalry had ridden as part of his forces.

A hundred years before now, the Naran tribe — serving the Chu court as administrators of the steppe — had been caught off guard. The Iron Crane people, then their allies, had struck first.

The Naran were defeated and forced to withdraw from the outer steppe. In that period, the Iron Crane had slaughtered the Naran people who hadn’t managed to escape.

Over the hundred years that followed, the steppe’s dominant tribe changed hands several times, and in every case the new dominant tribe met the same fate — annihilation, without exception.

The Iron Crane people had been the quiet beneficiary of every one of those upheavals.

After helping other tribes defeat the Naran, the Iron Crane had not immediately harbored ambitions of sole dominance over the steppe. Instead they worked from the shadows, stoking tensions between several of the strongest other tribes — triggering a war on the steppe that lasted fifteen years.

But the Iron Crane never stepped into that war. They only grew stronger because of it.

After fifteen years of warfare, the Kuole people emerged as the new dominant power — but to reach that position, they had lost a million people over those fifteen years.

Barely five years after becoming dominant, before they had managed to recover even a shadow of their former strength, the Iron Crane had persuaded two other tribes to combine forces and topple them.

Then the Iron Crane turned those two allies against each other, and helped one destroy the other.

Even then, the Iron Crane showed no apparent desire to become the steppe’s overlord.

They played the role of loyal servants, helping the victorious tribe — the Huole people — become the new masters of the outer steppe.

It was in this period that the Huole Khan and the Iron Crane Khan became sworn brothers.

The Huole people trusted the Iron Crane completely — one might even say they followed their counsel in all things.

The Iron Crane whispered to the Huole: today this tribe harbors disloyal intentions, tomorrow that tribe has improper ambitions.

And so the Huole people were constantly at war, year after year. It seemed the blood on the steppe had not had a chance to dry in decades.

After years of this, the Huole people had completely lost whatever goodwill they had on the steppe.

Every tribe had been worn down — except the Iron Crane, who only grew more powerful. By this point, the Iron Crane’s ambitions finally showed themselves openly.

The Iron Crane Khan invited the Huole Khan to a banquet, then ambushed him on the road. The Huole Khan was killed, along with the more than a thousand in his escort.

The Iron Crane then pinned the murder on another tribe, and led the unknowing Huole forces in a joint campaign of retribution.

Over the years that followed, the Iron Crane had virtually no rivals on the steppe.

The large tribes that were a match for them chose not to provoke them, even willing to submit and buy peace.

In this way the Iron Crane’s position gradually solidified — and with the Black Martial Empire standing behind them, they became only more domineering.

In the decades that followed, the Iron Crane ran wild across the steppe. Any tribe that didn’t comply: the large ones were suppressed, the small ones outright destroyed.

Over those decades, several dozen smaller tribes had been wiped out by the Iron Crane.

Now, Naran Khan Boertiechina had used the very same trick of sowing discord that the Iron Crane had once used against others to erase the Iron Crane tribe from the steppe. Perhaps this was what people meant by the turning wheel of heaven.

The Iron Crane had spent decades oppressing hundreds of tribes as one — and in the end, those hundreds of tribes united to destroy them. There was, perhaps, something in that to make one pause and reflect.

The Naran people formally established their dominance over the steppe — but Boertiechina was different from the Iron Crane.

He understood what it meant to combine generosity with authority.

And from the very beginning, he had made clear he was not the king of the steppe — only the representative of the Khan of Khans, charged with maintaining order on the steppe.

After the battle, Dantai Qi and Dantai Yajing — father and son — led the Liangzhou iron cavalry and the Ning elite light cavalry into the outer steppe, on behalf of the Son of Heaven, to make a tour of inspection.

Dantai Yajing also brought with him an imperial decree from the Emperor of Great Ning, formally conferring upon Boertiechina the title of Master of the Steppe, Northern Frontier Military Governor, and Noble Prince of Trust and Righteousness.

Chieftains of the other steppe tribes were all given official titles and appointments by the Emperor of Great Ning as well.

From that moment on, at the very founding of the Great Ning Empire, the outer steppe had been recovered.

This land, which had fallen under Black Martial bondage, was wrested back from Black Martial hands.

The significance of this victory was not merely the recovery of lost territory. Its deeper meaning was this: in the future, because of this victory, Great Ning would never again need to worry about the scarcity of warhorses.

With both the inner and outer steppe as Ning territory, a steady and inexhaustible supply of fine horses would flow year after year to the empire’s armies.

This meant the situation on the northern frontier would be transformed in the shortest possible time. The future northern border troops of Great Ning would possess a cavalry that was all but unmatched.

The credit Boertiechina deserved for recovering the outer steppe was not only an immediate achievement — its benefits to Great Ning would span a thousand generations, a feat of immeasurable service.

And since Boertiechina was already a steppe Khan in his own right, it was only natural that he be ennobled as a Prince.

The combined area of the inner and outer steppe was truly vast — comparable to Jizhou and Yanzhou together, perhaps even larger.

This meant Great Ning’s territory, at the very moment of its founding, already far exceeded that of Chu at its height. The thousands of miles of territory that Chu had lost were now easily reclaimed by Great Ning.

Yet the territory gained in this northern campaign was not only the steppe — it included the northern wilderness as well.

How large was the northern wilderness? From the Yan Mountain range northward to the White Mountain range, at its widest it spanned seven to eight hundred li, and even at its narrowest five to six hundred li. In length from east to west it stretched several thousand li.

The northern wilderness alone was equal in area to at least two and a half Bohai states.

The outer steppe? That was roughly two and a half times the northern wilderness.

One month later, Dantai Yajing and his father Dantai Qi returned together to the Ning army’s main camp in the northern wilderness. Boertiechina remained behind on the steppe.

Li Chi, having received word, came out early to welcome them with all his generals — watching from afar as the victorious column appeared, and then striding forward quickly to meet them.

Not only because Dantai Yajing and the others had returned in triumph — but more because of his deep respect for the old general Dantai Qi.

Without this old general holding the western frontier, the chaos of the Central Plains might have been far more brutal. The forces of the Western Regions, with their wolfish ambitions, might have sent flames of war sweeping through the entire west — possibly through the entire north as well.

In the most vulnerable moment of the Central Plains, it was this old general who had single-handedly held back the wolves of the northwest.

The merit old general Dantai Qi had earned for the Central Plains exceeded even the recovery of the steppe, and was more meaningful.

Seeing the Emperor of Great Ning come striding forward to meet him, the old general quickly dismounted and walked the rest of the way on foot. As they neared each other, he moved to kneel in full ceremony.

Li Chi stepped forward in one quick stride and caught the old general, refusing absolutely to receive that deep prostration.

He welcomed Dantai Qi back to the camp and held a banquet in his honor, talking from midday far into the night.

The old general drank too much — more than he had drunk in all those years. He was happy. Genuinely, deeply happy.

Dantai Yajing helped his father back to rest. The old general walked along laughing — and then, somehow, tears began to roll down his face.

“Father, what is it?”

Dantai Yajing immediately asked.

Dantai Qi raised his hand and wiped his eyes, then smiled. “Nothing. Only happiness — this must be what they call tears of joy.”

Dantai Yajing had never seen his father like this before. As far back as he could remember, his father had always been rigid and hard.

Never mind a scene like this — he could hardly recall his father ever smiling. In his memory, his father always wore a stern expression.

And it had always seemed like his father was never quite satisfied with him — no matter how well he did, his father would find fault.

That was why he had made the decision to leave Liangzhou and make his own way in the world. And why, later, he had come to meet Li Chi and the others.

“Father, let me help you back to rest. You drank too much tonight — better sleep soon or it might not sit well.”

“My son — do you know why your father drank so much tonight?”

“Father just said it was because you were happy, didn’t you?”

“Then do you know why your father is so happy?”

“I thought perhaps… it was because the Central Plains is at peace, the steppe has been recovered, and the Black Martial forces have been soundly defeated…”

He hadn’t finished before Dantai Qi shook his head, cutting him off. The old general smiled and said, “Son, what you said is all true — but what makes me happiest is that I can hand Liangzhou over, and rest easy.”

Dantai Yajing was taken aback.

“Our Dantai family has guarded Liangzhou, guarded the western frontier, for generations. Not one of us dared let our guard down for even a moment.”

Dantai Qi looked at his son, still smiling. “Before, whoever I handed Liangzhou to, your father was never at ease… But now I have seen it with my own eyes — His Majesty is a wise sovereign the Central Plains has not seen in a thousand years. So handing Liangzhou to His Majesty — whoever comes to take over guardianship of the western frontier after me — I am at ease. I am settled. I have no trouble letting go.”

He exhaled a long, slow breath, and the smile on his face deepened.

“The world is at peace. And at last, I can set down the burden from my shoulders and rest.”

Dantai Yajing said, “Father, if you truly want to rest — why not go back to Chang’an? I’ll speak to His Majesty.”

“No need for you to speak. If I want to go, I will speak to His Majesty myself.”

Dantai Qi looked carefully at his son, for a long moment. And then he smiled again.

“You have done better than I ever did. The Dantai family’s future will honor you.”

Dantai Qi gave a pat to Dantai Yajing’s shoulder.

Then he said, “Except for the fact that, up to this very moment, you have somehow still not brought home a daughter-in-law for me — in everything else, your father is satisfied with you.”

Dantai Yajing: “……”

Dantai Qi said, “I’ve heard the Empress is very fond of matchmaking. Shall I swallow my pride and go ask her?”

“Don’t!”

Dantai Yajing immediately waved both hands. “Father! If you truly want the Dantai family’s line to continue, do not — under any circumstances — go to the Empress. Absolutely not!”

Dantai Qi: “Why not?”

Dantai Yajing said, with the utmost gravity: “Father, don’t ask why. Just trust me. Whatever happens — don’t go. We’ve already been down to just one child per generation for several generations running… don’t go. Whatever you do — don’t go.”

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