On the fourth day, officer Gan Zhong, who had gone to Daizhou City to seek reinforcements, returned. The moment he saw Tan Qianshou, his face was written over with shame.
He dropped to both knees with a thud, pressing his forehead to the ground.
“General, I failed. I couldn’t bring back reinforcements.”
Tan Qianshou reached down and pulled him up, smiling bitterly. “This isn’t on you. I’d more or less already figured this would happen… It’s been nearly ten years, and Liu Mu still can’t untangle that knot in his heart. But honestly — how am I any different?”
All these years, that matter had sat in Liu Mu’s heart like a great boulder wedged in there.
All these years, that matter had sat in Tan Qianshou’s heart too — the same great boulder.
“Back then, we’d both just been promoted to fifth-rank generals.”
Tan Qianshou handed Gan Zhong a flask of water. He leaned against the city wall, thinking back to the past — a situation not entirely unlike today, he noticed. Both times, encircled. The one difference was that last time they had been attacking; this time they were defending.
Nine years ago, by some inexplicable boldness — or perhaps simply because he’d been beguiled by Liu Chongxin — the current emperor had issued an order to mobilize the entire nation’s forces and launch a northern expedition.
By that time, Dachu was already a realm riddled with wounds. Popular resentment was simmering everywhere. Liu Chongxin had gone before the emperor and proposed a plan: the people were cursing the court on all sides, he said, so it was necessary to accomplish something great to win back the people’s faith — and if that great thing were accomplished, His Majesty’s name would echo through the ages.
The current emperor, in truth, cared about nothing; whatever Liu Chongxin said, he went along with. Liu Chongxin said that if they defeated the Black Wu people, the common people would be moved by the emperor’s heavenly might — and would the rebels still dare rise up against an emperor who could send his armies to crush even the Black Wu?
Not even the Black Wu could defeat Dachu’s great army — surely those small rebel bands would be scared out of their wits.
Perhaps the Dachu emperor had agreed without giving it a second thought. Or perhaps he had felt that his reputation as emperor truly was too foul, and that future generations, if they ever spoke of him, would curse him with every name imaginable — and even in death, posterity would go on jabbing his spine with their fingers.
And so this emperor, seized by a sudden swell of grand ambition, issued a decree calling up troops from all thirteen provinces for a great northern expedition.
In that campaign, a hundred and twenty thousand of Dachu’s finest garrison soldiers perished outside the frontier pass. The remaining two hundred thousand fled back in disarray. Although the Black Wu people had seized the moment to counterattack without managing to break into the heartland of the Central Plains, Dachu had been left truly shaken to its bones — the loss of a hundred and twenty thousand elite garrison troops only emboldened the rebels in the northern territories all the more.
Tan Qianshou spoke with a look of subdued grief. “At that time, the main army was pulling back. Liu Mu and I each commanded a battalion, holding the flanks against the pursuing Black Wu forces. We were no more than three li apart from each other — I held the mountain pass, he set an ambush on the hillside. But then, what no one expected — his commanding general, Yu Wen Le, deserted in the face of the enemy. He took the main body of his troops and ran, leaving only Liu Mu’s force to hold the line.”
“When the fighting started, it wasn’t long before his unit was surrounded on all sides. He sent men fighting through to reach me, begging me to bring troops to reinforce him. But if I had left the mountain pass open at that moment, the rear of the retreating army would have been overtaken by the Black Wu — Liu Mu had a thousand-odd soldiers, but behind me were two hundred thousand men…”
Tan Qianshou breathed out a long, slow breath, shaking his head. “I failed him. No matter the time or the circumstance — I failed him. But if you gave me the choice again, I would do the same thing. Liu Mu and I had once been as close as brothers, but after that battle we became enemies.”
He finished and looked at his guard captain, Wang Kuan. “You weren’t yet in my command at that time, but Gan Zhong already was.”
Gan Zhong nodded. He had been Tan Qianshou’s personal guard captain back then. He too had scraped through that battle with his life. Of the twelve hundred garrison soldiers under General Tan, over eleven hundred had died at the mountain pass. When they finally pulled back, barely twenty-odd men were left — no one understood survival’s relief and terror better than they did.
Tan Qianshou said, “It was after that battle that Liu Mu changed completely. He had always been a man of uncompromising integrity. But after surviving and coming back, he sold off everything he owned to curry favor with Liu Chongxin, and even took Liu Chongxin as his adoptive father. He already had battle credit to his name, and with Liu Chongxin speaking for him before the emperor, he was promoted to fourth-rank general — and Liu Mu asked specifically to be stationed in Daizhou as its commanding general. As for me…”
Tan Qianshou smiled bitterly. “Liu Chongxin said I had deserted under fire. Though I had battle credit, it only offset my ‘crimes’ — so I remained a fifth-rank general. I’ve been stationed at this frontier for nearly ten years. Every single year, whenever I needed grain and supplies, I had to go beg Liu Mu for them — and only when he’d gotten enough satisfaction out of seeing me beg would he release the supplies.”
Wang Kuan knew that the general and Liu Mu had bad blood, but he hadn’t known the full story. Now, hearing it laid out, he couldn’t help but feel the weight of it — two men who had once been as close as brothers, now come to this.
“He was my brother. I didn’t go to rescue him back then — that was my fault.”
Tan Qianshou sighed. “To this day, I know I failed him. But I’ll say it again — if I were put in that same position today, I would still not leave that mountain pass.”
The moment his words fell, the lookout on the wall blew the warning horn.
The soldiers and villagers resting along the wall all rose to their feet. They leaned over the battlements and looked out. The Black Wu forces were coming again — a vast dark mass like a storm cloud skimming the earth.
The Black Wu people’s original plan had been to take the frontier pass within three days. But this was already the fourth day. Vanguard General Lü Chi had already raged several times, and today had issued a severe order — if the frontier city wall was not broken through, every commanding officer on the front line would be court-martialed.
With such an order hanging over them, the officers in command were terrified. Each unit began frantically pouring toward the base of the frontier city wall.
“Today may well be where our fates divide.”
Tan Qianshou looked at the villagers and said loudly, “Everyone, please go down. While the Black Wu haven’t yet broken through, go back and gather what you can and flee. If you move quickly enough you can reach Daizhou City. Liu Mu and I don’t get along, but he has always cared for the common people — if you reach Daizhou, he won’t abandon you.”
A white-haired elder shook his head slowly. “General, where would we go? Even if we fled to Daizhou, could Daizhou hold? Daizhou City only has three thousand soldiers… I’m this old — I’ve lived my fill. If I can kill one Black Wu animal, then I’ve come out ahead. I’m not going. I’m not going anywhere. Leave these old bones right here.”
Once he said he wasn’t leaving, the other able-bodied men even more refused to go. If even an old man wouldn’t flee to save his skin, how could they run with a clear conscience?
Tan Qianshou saw that no one would leave. After a moment of silence he called out, “Anyone under sixteen, anyone over sixty, and all women and children — leave. Someone has to survive. Someone has to go back and tell our people back home: I, Tan Qianshou, and the twelve hundred frontier soldiers under my command — not a single coward among us. And tell them too: the common people at the foot of the frontier wall — not a single coward among them.”
Having said that, Tan Qianshou bowed low to the villagers.
“Dachu garrison soldiers!”
Tan Qianshou turned to face the city’s exterior.
“Fight to the death!”
The frontier soldiers — already so few — called back in unison, “Fight to the death!”
Outside, the Black Wu forces had already driven straight to the base of the wall. The frontier soldiers had run out of arrows yesterday — with no reinforcements and no resupply, they had no choice but to let the enemy approach and rely on rocks brought up by the villagers to inflict casualties.
Scaling ladders went up one after another, and were pushed down one after another — yet the Black Wu had simply too many. One toppled, two went up; two knocked aside, four more were raised.
A massive Black Wu soldier roared as he hauled himself over the top of the wall, and Gan Zhong drove a blade through his chest. The roar turned to a wail, and then the sound plummeted from the height of the wall down to the ground far below.
A second Black Wu soldier scrambled up almost immediately, swinging his curved blade in a frenzy. A farmer tried to knock him back with a carrying pole, but the muscular Black Wu warrior snatched the pole with one hand, jerked it toward himself — the farmer, no match for the enemy’s strength, was yanked off balance and, in his shock, couldn’t even let go in time. A moment later, the Black Wu warrior severed his head with a single stroke.
“Die!”
Tan Qianshou charged in and cut down that Black Wu soldier. The headless body of the farmer fell beside him, and blood from the stump sprayed over Tan Qianshou like a stream, running down him.
A cry rang out not far from Tan Qianshou. The old man who had just been speaking moments ago was struck by a Black Wu soldier who had climbed up — the blow sliced away half his shoulder. The bloodied man staggered backward several steps and collapsed on the wall, his innards spilling out across the stone.
“I beg the General to leave the wall!”
Gan Zhong cut down the enemy in front of him and called out to Tan Qianshou.
The others called out too.
“Please, General, leave the wall!”
Tan Qianshou said, “I am your general. We live or die together.”
A Black Wu officer climbed up — half a head taller than Tan Qianshou, he was — and cut down the villagers in front of him with two or three strokes. He looked out at those ragged, threadbare people with genuine astonishment in his eyes. He had not expected that even now, even at this moment, the people still standing on this wall to resist them were ordinary commoners — people who didn’t even have enough to eat!
He raised his eyes, looked ahead, and spotted Tan Qianshou cutting down one of his own men. So this massive, bear-like Black Wu officer came for Tan Qianshou. Tan Qianshou was in the thick of the fighting and didn’t notice someone coming from behind. The Black Wu officer raised his blade and brought it down on the back of his neck.
Thwip!
An arrow flew in, striking the Black Wu officer square in the throat. The arrowhead punched through and out the other side, trailing a jet of blood.
“Daizhou forces have arrived!”
From behind the mass of fighting men, Daizhou garrison general Liu Mu shot dead that Black Wu officer with a single arrow, threw the bow to his subordinate, and drew his long saber. He plunged into the Black Wu soldiers like a maddened tiger.
Tan Qianshou turned around just in time to see Liu Mu already almost upon him.
“You came!”
Tan Qianshou shouted, his very voice trembling.
Liu Mu cut down the man in front of him, shot Tan Qianshou a glare, and said, “If I stood by and watched you die, who would I torment after this? I haven’t had nearly enough fun tormenting you yet — you’re not allowed to die!”
After officer Gan Zhong had left Daizhou City, Liu Mu had immediately mustered his troops, loaded up food and supplies, and come riding for the frontier at top speed. His three thousand men had come at a flat-out run — and arrived only slightly behind Gan Zhong.
“Kill!”
Liu Mu let out a thunderous roar. “Drive these Black Wu animals back!”
Behind him, the Daizhou forces stormed the wall like a pack of madmen swimming against the current. They hacked and slashed their way through — trading life for life — and pushed the Black Wu forces back over the edge once more.
Tan Qianshou looked at that man who had fought ahead of him — his former brother, estranged for so long — and something rose up in him that he didn’t quite know what to do with. He just wanted to roar.
“Ahhhh!”
He threw his head back and bellowed.
Liu Mu turned and looked at him, then cursed, “What the hell are you screaming for, scared me half to death. Get your ass to the back and rest. Useless piece of garbage. I’ll hold this frontier wall for you. Just watch — I’ll do a better job of it than you!”
—