The Black Wu people had absolutely no intention of giving the Dachu garrison soldiers at the frontier a single moment to breathe. Their original objective had been to capture Daizhou’s frontier pass within three days at most, break through Daizhou within seven days, and be at the walls of Jizhou City within fifteen.
Black Wu Khan Kuokedi Dashi, upon learning that the Dachu dynasty in the Central Plains had reached the verge of collapse, gave the order to send troops south with almost no hesitation at all. He was not about to let this opportunity slip away. For as long as Black Wu had stood as a nation, its unwavering goal had been to conquer the splendid lands of the Central Plains.
From the very first Khan of Black Wu’s founding generation, this dream had been passed down through the bloodline of every successive Khan — for hundreds of years already.
The Black Wu people understood perfectly well how complex and frequent the internal strife of the Central Plains people could be. They had long believed that if the Central Plains people didn’t give them an opening themselves, even a power as mighty as the Black Wu Empire couldn’t force its way in. Fortunately, the Central Plains people erupted into internal conflict from time to time, and when they did, it threw the entire Central Plains into turmoil — and that was the Black Wu people’s opportunity to strike south.
The Black Wu people equally understood that while the Central Plains people could be ferocious in their internal strife, they were also extraordinarily resilient. If the opportunity to invade the Central Plains came and they failed to decisively crush and terrify the Central Plains people in a single campaign, then the Central Plains people would quickly stand back up again.
Black Wu General Lü Chi had been ordered to advance south, and the weight of that pressure on him needed no elaboration.
This time, the Black Wu Empire had both cajoled and strong-armed the steppe people into opening a route — this was the closest Black Wu had come in hundreds of years to having a genuine chance of breaking into the Central Plains.
He drew his curved blade and pointed it toward the frontier pass in the distance.
“Drive forward! Let these weak Central Plains people know how fearsome our curved blades are! Make them submit beneath the blades of Black Wu’s warriors! Turn the Central Plains into our fertile fields and the Central Plains people into our slaves!”
With the horns’ low, mournful cry, the Black Wu army began to press toward the frontier pass. The mountain gorge that led from the steppe into Daizhou was the only route, and the gorge was wide enough that the Black Wu forces could deploy in formation and bring their numerical advantage to bear.
In truth, the Black Wu people had always looked down on the Central Plains people. They believed that in terms of height, build, and courage, the Central Plains people were inferior to them in every way. In the Black Wu people’s own words, the Central Plains people were an inferior race abandoned by the Moon God, who had nonetheless stolen the most magnificent and prosperous lands in the world.
“Kill!”
With that battle cry, the Black Wu soldiers began their charge.
Frontier General Tan Qianshou raised his hand and wiped his mouth at the corner. His eyes held not a trace of fear — only the fierce resolve of a man about to plunge into carnage.
“Save the arrows! Let them get close to the walls before you loose! Don’t waste a single shot!”
He shouted this out, and his soldiers responded in unison.
When the Black Wu formation came within range of the archers, a shout rang out and arrows cascaded down from the city walls. The arching volley fell into the densely packed mass of people like a heavy rain striking the sand — each strike leaving a dimple behind, each dimple marking a Black Wu soldier crumpling to the ground.
But relative to the size of the Black Wu army, the damage was still too small. After all, only about five hundred Dachu soldiers on the wall could still fight — and those five hundred couldn’t all fire at once. To sustain continuous combat, they’d been split into two alternating groups.
The Black Wu people roared and charged forward. No matter who fell beside them — even the closest of friends from years of daily companionship — they couldn’t spare a thought for them now.
Braving the arrow rain, they pressed to the base of the city walls and threw all their strength into trying to raise scaling ladders. Those steadying the ladders became the first targets of the Dachu soldiers. Before long, bodies began piling up beneath the walls — but it still couldn’t prevent the ladders from being leaned against them.
“Push the ladders down!”
Tan Qianshou shouted as he shoved hard at a ladder with a hooked pole. The angle at which a ladder leaned against the wall made it impossible to simply topple it with your hands — the top would catch against the battlements and resist any push to either side. The only way was to push it straight forward.
The ladder fell. The Black Wu soldiers clinging to it wailed as they tumbled down. The lucky ones scrambled back to their feet quickly; the unlucky ones broke bones in the fall and, packed in among the dense crowd below, could barely rise again — and might well be trampled to death by their own comrades before long.
Tan Qianshou pushed down one ladder, then looked out into the distance. From the base of the wall to the mountain gorge, there was nothing but a solid mass of Black Wu troops — black as a storm cloud pressing in. The one ladder he’d pushed down was like a single drop vanishing into a surging sea.
—
At that same moment, in Daizhou City.
Daizhou’s garrison general Liu Mu looked down at the man kneeling on one knee before him. It was a young officer who had ridden without sleep or rest from the frontier — his face was written over with exhaustion, and written over equally with desperate hope.
“General, I beg you to immediately dispatch troops to reinforce the frontier. General Tan does not have enough men — the Black Wu vanguard alone outnumbers our frontier garrison by dozens of times. Please, General, send troops at once.”
The officer’s voice trembled as he spoke.
“The Black Wu people?”
General Liu Mu gave a dismissive grunt and said, “For hundreds of years, the Black Wu people have never come south through Daizhou’s frontier pass. The way I see it, the forces attacking you are probably rebel troops. If it’s rebels, your General Tan should be sending people to Prince Wu — Prince Wu is the one with imperial orders to suppress the rebels in the northern territories. As Daizhou’s commanding general, I cannot simply march my troops away on a whim. If I fall for a scheme to lure the tiger from the mountain and lose Daizhou, it will be my head on the block, not your General Tan’s.”
The officer’s head snapped up, his eyes wide with shock.
“General, the Black Wu people have truly come — I beg you—”
Liu Mu said, “You don’t need to beg me. If your General Tan had come to beg me himself, perhaps that might do some good. You go back and tell him — when I was holding my position to the death, I sent men to him three times for reinforcement. And do you know what your General Tan said? He said each officer has his own post, and he was unable to leave his.”
Liu Mu said, “You take that exact message — no, tell him those are his own words — and return them to him. I, as Daizhou’s commanding general, do not dare abandon my post rashly. Each of us has our own post, and I am unable to leave mine.”
“You have no shame!”
The officer rose to his feet, eyes red as blood, and glared at Liu Mu. “Back then, during the fighting against the Black Wu, General Tan was also encircled! If he had pulled out to come to your aid, the army’s flank would have been broken wide open by the Black Wu — how many men would have died?!”
Liu Mu didn’t get angry. He just smiled faintly and said, “So — other people cannot die, but I — his closest friend — absolutely had to die?”
He waved his hand. “Throw him out. How dare he howl at a superior officer — where is your military discipline? Twenty slaps to the face, then drive him out of camp!”
“Yes, sir!”
Liu Mu’s personal guards came forward, seized the officer, and dragged him toward the exit. The officer roared, “Liu Mu! You’re letting the frontier battle go to ruin out of personal spite — you’re a contemptible villain!”
Liu Mu shrugged and said, “Yes, I am a villain. Go back and tell your General Tan — I didn’t die back then because I was lucky enough to survive. I sincerely wish him the same luck now.”
—
The following day, at the frontier pass.
Tan Qianshou sat slumped against the city wall, the exhaustion carved deep into his face. He hadn’t slept properly in two days and two nights. With the thousand-odd troops under him, he had beaten back more than a dozen furious assaults by tens of thousands of Black Wu soldiers.
But even now, he didn’t know how much longer they could hold. Two days and two nights — his soldiers had suffered so many casualties there were almost no unwounded men left to fight. There was practically no one on the wall now who hadn’t taken a wound; those with light wounds were all still on the wall, those with serious wounds were lying inside the wall.
“General…”
His personal guard captain, Wang Kuan, sat beside him. This man who had lost his right arm — it had been cut off blocking a Black Wu blade meant for the general when Black Wu soldiers broke through onto the wall — looked ghostly pale, though he had not one moment of regret.
He looked toward General Tan and said, “The men aren’t afraid to die. Everyone still fighting by now knows we’re done for. But our men haven’t had a bite to eat in a full day and night. Every man who can still move is on the wall — the Black Wu people won’t give us a moment’s rest. They have tens of thousands who can rotate in and out, and we…”
Tan Qianshou patted Wang Kuan on the shoulder. “When we get to the other side — if there’s a tavern down there — I’ll treat every one of our brothers to wine and meat. But right now…”
“Food’s coming!”
Just then, someone inside the walls came running up with a carrying pole over their shoulders — a broad, honest-looking man of about forty. From each end of the pole hung a large bamboo basket covered with a padded quilt, and hot steam was still seeping through the quilts.
Behind him, quite a few more people were climbing up onto the wall — women, old men, and half-grown children, all carrying something with them.
The man ran up to Tan Qianshou, opened one of the baskets, and pulled out two steamed corn buns. As he held them out to Tan Qianshou, his face was full of apology.
“Sorry, General, sir — we truly… we truly had no white flour, only cornmeal. But General, don’t worry — we didn’t mix in any bran or chaff. This is food for the brothers. We brought out the best we had… it’s meager, but this truly is the finest food we could put together.”
Tan Qianshou looked at the hot steamed corn buns in his hands, nodded hard, and kept nodding. He bit into one — and the bite left a smear of blood on the pale bun.
“Delicious!”
Tan Qianshou forced himself to smile as lightly as he could, but tears fell anyway, refusing to obey.
“Fellow villagers!”
The man picked up his carrying pole and called out, “Those who can fight, stay and help — women and children who can’t fight, go back home. Help however you can. No proper weapons? We can’t shoot arrows, but we know how to throw rocks at those Black Wu animals!”
“Good!”
The villagers responded. Their hands held no real weapons — just hoes, carrying poles, kitchen cleavers, sickles — and a hearts full of burning will to protect their homes. This was their home. This was their life.
Tan Qianshou steadied himself against the wall and stood. He looked at the villagers. The villagers looked at him.
“Dachu frontier soldiers!”
Tan Qianshou shouted.
Every soldier on the wall who could still move stood up — standing at attention. They were all covered in blood, every one of them wounded — some seeming to lack even the strength to eat — but in this moment, they stood ramrod straight.
“Salute!”
Tan Qianshou’s hoarse voice rang out as if it had pierced through the sky itself and broken through the clouds above.
With a single sweeping motion, those frontier soldiers — bodies soaked in blood, every man wounded — raised their hands in the most perfect, most precise Dachu frontier military salute.
—