War arrived far more suddenly than people had expected — because when faced with something terrible, people always find themselves hoping it will come later, or not come at all.

And everyone tends to think: surely my luck isn’t that bad. What they forget is — if your only hope is luck, how far gone are you already?

The people of Jizhou City hadn’t had time to prepare before they heard blasts of horn calls outside the walls that sounded like they could tear the sky open.

The Jizhou soldiers on the walls were holding. Arrows flew in front of them, above their heads, and into the bodies of comrades beside them — and sometimes into their own.

Remarkably, there were still people in the city’s teahouses. They sat there drinking tea, listening to the distant sounds of battle cries. No one spoke. They just sat quietly and listened.

Predictably, there appeared within the city a group of people who had decided that the end of the world had arrived, and that this gave them license to do as they pleased. They stormed into shops and homes, seizing what they could — as though taking what belonged to others might somehow add years to their lives.

Then the Jizhou troops came to suppress them. Several hundred were bound and forced to their knees in the street, and beheaded one by one.

The next day, another such group appeared — as though the souls of yesterday’s dead had inhabited a fresh batch of bodies.

Then another batch was executed.

The common people had no stockpiles of grain to begin with, and the arrival of war pushed them moment by moment to the brink of collapse. The only thing keeping them from breaking entirely was the single breath of air still in their lungs.

Wealthy families clutching bags of silver and paupers with only a handful of copper coins queued together, waiting for the grain stores to open. They all believed that if they spent everything they had, they could buy themselves a chance to survive.

—

On the city wall. Zeng Ling had gone without sleep for a full day and a night. The Jizhou forces were still well-supplied enough that things hadn’t yet become desperate at the very outset of the battle — but he knew: if he hadn’t stood alongside his soldiers from the beginning, this fight might not hold for long.

Fortunately, the initial assaults were only probing attacks. Neither the Qingzhou army nor the Yuzhou army had committed their full strength. They were all waiting for Luo Geng. No one would spend their own forces first and then hand Jizhou to someone else.

—

The Underground Palace.

Li Chi stood before the sand table as though lost in thought — mentally reconstructing the strategic scenario he and Tang Pidi had worked through together that day.

After a long while, Li Chi let out a slow breath.

He wasn’t worried about Luo Geng’s Youzhou forces. He wasn’t worried about the Qingzhou army, or the Yuzhou army. What he was worried about was the Yanshan Camp.

This was not the ideal moment — but some people would believe it was. If the Yanshan Camp entered the game now, Li Chi’s whole arrangement might amount to nothing.

“Thank heaven Zhuang-dage went back to the Yanshan Camp.”

Li Chi murmured, almost to himself.

Given the trust Yu Chaozong placed in Zhuang Wudi — and the trust Yu Chaozong and Zhuang Wudi both placed in Li Chi — as long as Zhuang Wudi argued against it, Yu Chaozong hopefully would not move south.

Please. Don’t.

Because what was visible right now was not the whole board.

Li Chi heard footsteps and turned. Gao Xining came over carrying a cape and draped it around his shoulders.

Deep autumn had arrived; the weather outside was already cold, and the air in the underground palace was even colder.

“You haven’t uncrinkled your brow in two days.”

Gao Xining stood behind Li Chi and raised her hands to knead his shoulders.

Li Chi smiled, forcing a lighter tone: “Yu-dage’s side should be fine. Zhuang-dage knows my plan — he’ll do everything he can to hold Yu-dage back from entering the game right now.”

Gao Xining gave a quiet hum. She had been the one who asked Zhuang Wudi to return — and hadn’t she done so precisely out of worry that Yu Chaozong might not follow Li Chi’s thinking?

Because a man in power, a decision-maker, always carries a confidence that others don’t have. Whatever people tell him is, at most, a suggestion.

“Yu-dage can see the situation clearly.”

Li Chi added.

Two sentences, almost the same meaning — which was itself proof that Li Chi wasn’t very sure.

Gao Xining said quietly: “Are you regretting it?”

Li Chi’s smile stiffened slightly. Only Gao Xining could see through him with a single glance.

He was, in fact, regretting. He felt now that he should have gone back to the Yanshan Camp himself — only by going in person could he be certain Yu Chaozong wouldn’t enter the game too soon.

Because right now, at Yu Chaozong’s side, there was a peculiar Eighth Chief whispering strategies in his ear. The man’s thinking was far too aggressive. Setting aside whatever reason he had for wanting to kill Li Chi — just looking at how he had seized Daizhou and Xinzhou, one could draw a rough picture of his character.

“I really am regretting it a little.”

Li Chi said. “What worries me now is that someone might tell Yu-dage — with Luo Geng’s Youzhou forces gone to Jizhou, now’s the chance to seize Youzhou. That would be the second most foolish move on the board. The most foolish would be marching straight to Jizhou right now.”

He turned to look at Gao Xining: “The Black Wu forces fought for years and couldn’t take Youzhou. How could the Yanshan Camp possibly take it?”

Gao Xining said: “Stop wearing yourself out thinking about this. Rest for a bit.”

Li Chi gave a small nod and smiled. “Actually, I’m rather hungry. Let’s go see what Auntie Wu is making — it should be about time for lunch.”

Gao Xining sighed faintly: “We just had lunch.”

Li Chi blinked.

Gao Xining said: “If you keep turning things over and over like this, you’ll only make yourself more and more miserable. If you get stuck in a dead end, it won’t only be Yu-dage’s situation that’s beyond your control — you’ll have no energy left for this side either. There are hundreds of people here counting on you.”

Li Chi jolted awake — he had, in fact, already gotten stuck.

“I’m… afraid of failing.”

He looked at Gao Xining.

Gao Xining said: “You’re tormenting yourself over things you cannot control. The things you can control, you’ve already handled as well as anyone could. If someone else’s shortcomings cause you grief — that’s not a very wise way to live.”

Li Chi instinctively asked: “Then what should I do? I really don’t have full confidence in Yu-dage’s side…”

“Rely on yourself.”

Gao Xining said it suddenly, those three words cutting right through his sentence.

Li Chi blinked again. Almost involuntarily, he repeated her words.

“Rely on myself?”

Gao Xining said: “You can’t make other people’s decisions for them — unless everyone is willing to let you make their decisions.”

Something struck deep in Li Chi’s chest.

—

Meanwhile, at the Yanshan Camp.

Eighth Chief Zheng Gongrui looked at Yu Chaozong and knew the man had been moved. He could tell, because this time Yu Chaozong had not immediately refused his proposal.

Zheng Gongrui had originally intended to go into the northern steppes to find the faction of the northern wanderer, but Yu Chaozong had not agreed — because for the Yanshan Camp, this was also a pivotal moment that would decide its future course.

Yu Chaozong still preferred to take counsel from educated men. It was something embedded in him from birth; he suppressed it deliberately, but it had never truly gone away.

So Zheng Gongrui had been forced to hand the task of finding the wanderer’s faction to that woman he’d only just met — a woman he didn’t trust in the slightest.

“Chief.”

Seeing Yu Chaozong beginning to waver, Zheng Gongrui pressed further: “Scouts have brought word that the Youzhou forces have already set out for Jizhou. Accounting for the time the scouts took to return, they should be outside Jizhou City by now.”

“The Qingzhou forces are here…”

He rose and walked to the map, tapping a point with his finger.

“Here. The Yuzhou forces are here. Both are closer to Jizhou than the Youzhou forces — which means that as of now, three armies have Jizhou surrounded.”

Yu Chaozong murmured: “So our Third Brother has no way to get back. No way to send a letter out either.”

Zheng Gongrui cursed inwardly, but his face betrayed nothing.

He pretended not to have heard, and continued: “Luo Jing is still inside Youzhou City — which is the single most disadvantageous fact for Zeng Ling. With Luo Jing moving from within and three armies pressing from without, breaching the city is only a matter of time.”

He returned to stand before Yu Chaozong, gave a deep bow, then straightened and said: “I have three strategies — superior, middling, and inferior — for the Chief’s consideration.”

Yu Chaozong said: “Let’s hear them.”

Zheng Gongrui said: “The inferior strategy: the Chief holds his forces steady and waits for the four powers to fight each other to exhaustion, then looks for whatever gains can be picked up in the aftermath. This is the most cautious approach — it avoids being drawn into the conflict. In eight or nine cases out of ten, there will be nothing to gain, but neither will anything be lost. The only way to guarantee no losses is to not fight at all.”

“The middling strategy: the Chief immediately mobilizes the full Yanshan Camp forces to strike hard at Youzhou. With Luo Geng’s army away in Jizhou, the Chief moves into the opening. Once Youzhou is taken, there is a great city for a stable foothold — but the risk is that Luo Geng, upon hearing the news, will wheel around and march back. If the Yanshan Camp has not managed to secure Youzhou by then, we would instead have inadvertently relieved the siege of Jizhou for Zeng Ling. And a battle against Luo Geng would be hard to call in advance.”

He paused there and cast a glance at Yu Chaozong, watching his expression.

“The superior strategy: the Chief acts decisively. Enter the game now. With the Yanshan Camp’s present strength, we have more than enough force to throw the situation into chaos. Even without seizing Jizhou outright, while those four powers are locked in their free-for-all, the Chief can pick any one of them to hit hard — and it will be an overwhelming victory.”

“If the Chief strikes the Youzhou forces, Qingzhou and Yuzhou will not come to Luo Geng’s aid — and by the same token, whichever side the Chief attacks, the other two will not intervene, because each of them is quietly hoping the others are eliminated.”

Zheng Gongrui said: “Bring the decisive battle to Jizhou. Defeat every rival presently in Jizhou in one stroke, and the Chief can then take the whole of Jizhou.”

Yu Chaozong’s expression shifted rapidly. He rose to his feet and began to pace the room, turning over Zheng Gongrui’s words in his mind even as he recalled the letters Li Chi had sent.

Li Chi had already laid out every dangerous scenario that might unfold. But Yu Chaozong was now working very hard to convince himself that the worst of them would not materialize. Because there wasn’t enough time. The distances were too great. How could something like that really come to pass?

“We march.”

Yu Chaozong’s resolve snapped into place.

He looked around the hall at the other chiefs, paused, and began to give his orders: “Seventh stays behind to hold the stronghold. The stronghold is our foundation — no matter what happens in this campaign, the stronghold cannot fall.”

The Seventh Chief rose: “Brother, rest easy. I’ll hold it to my last breath.”

Yu Chaozong nodded. “The rest of you — return to your posts immediately. Order all forces under your commands to muster. Bring full supplies and provisions. Move as fast as you can. Even if we set out right now, it will take twenty days to reach Jizhou… Twenty days. And in twenty days, the situation could change in an instant. Let’s just hope we’re not too late.”

Everyone answered at once, and every face held a trace of excitement.

In truth, they had all been wanting to march on Jizhou for a long time — just like Yu Chaozong. Because Jizhou City was a symbol.

Whoever held Jizhou City was the true ruler of this vast stretch of northern territory.

“Brothers.”

Yu Chaozong called out: “This battle decides the future of our hundred thousand brothers in the Yanshan Camp — and your own futures as well. Take Jizhou, and we rule the north. Then we march south.”

“The power and wealth of kings lie underfoot, waiting for our Yanshan brothers to claim them. Do you remember what I once told you all? However the powerful once humiliated us — today, we repay every last bit of it.”

Yu Chaozong strode out of the hall.

“We march!”

“Long live the Chief!”

Someone in the crowd cried it out — and in an instant, countless voices joined in. Hearing it, Yu Chaozong felt first a tightening in his chest, and then a flush of elation.

—