By the reckoning of nearly every sensible person, the reigning Emperor Yang Jing had no business whatsoever leaving the capital under the present circumstances.

The realm was in turmoil. An emperor leaving the capital — no matter how you considered it, it was dangerous beyond measure.

Yet Yang Jing understood clearly: if he hid in the capital as his father had done, perpetually pretending not to know what was happening, then Dachu truly could not be saved.

He had promulgated many new policies, hoping to drive change from the court down to the local level throughout Dachu.

But he also knew that if he did not walk the realm himself, those new policies would never be carried out.

The thoroughly rotten officials in the localities would treat the Emperor’s new policies as a passing breeze — let it blow through, and once it passed, it would leave no trace at all.

Yang Jing naturally knew that leaving the capital to travel carried dangers. But if he did not leave to make a circuit of the northern frontier, it would not be he who was endangered — it would be Dachu.

This young Emperor begrudged every moment of time, wishing he could break each day into pieces to use more of it, or praying that he could split himself in two so that Dachu might be restored to its feet faster, faster.

He stood on a high ridge and gazed out at Jizhou City in the distance, a heaviness settling in his heart.

This was Dachu’s Jizhou. It did not belong to any one man.

Yuzhou Military Governor Liu Li returned with Prince Wu, bringing with him every general of Fourth Rank and above from the Yuzhou Army. Each one was consumed with dread.

None of them had ever imagined that His Majesty the Emperor could actually be here.

The awe one held for the Emperor was instinctive — a reverence carved deep into the bones. When out of the Emperor’s sight, a man might harbour rebellious ambitions; the moment he heard the Emperor had arrived, all he wanted was to figure out how to kneel.

So while still at a distance, Liu Li’s knees hit the ground with a thud. He shuffled forward on his knees, dragging them across the earth as though feeling no pain.

“Your guilt-ridden servant Liu Li pays reverence to Your Majesty! Long live Your Majesty, long live, long live ten thousand years!”

He kept speaking as he crawled, and when he reached a point not far from the Emperor, he knelt there and knocked his head against the ground over and over.

The Emperor looked at him, then looked at the Yuzhou generals kneeling in the ground behind him, and his brow furrowed slightly.

“Liu Li.”

“Your guilt-ridden servant is here.”

The Emperor walked to stand before Liu Li and looked down at this trembling, frightened subordinate. He was certain that at this moment, at least, this man’s fear and reverence were genuine.

But the Emperor was also certain that once he departed, this man’s terror and deference would evaporate without a trace, leaving nothing behind.

“What do you suppose I will do with you?”

The Emperor asked.

Liu Li knocked his forehead against the ground: “Your servant deserves ten thousand deaths. However Your Majesty sees fit to deal with me, I will accept without complaint. I am willing to receive my punishment.”

“Very well.”

The Emperor smiled slightly. “Yuzhou Military Governor Liu Li, and every official and general of full Fourth Rank and above in his command—”

He paused.

“—execute them all.”

He had been smiling until those last four words, at which point the Emperor’s voice turned cold as ice.

Liu Li’s body went rigid. Then he raised his head and looked at the Emperor, and in the Emperor’s eyes he saw an authority that brooked no question.

“Your Majesty!”

Liu Li cried out, but before he could get out another word, a guard standing at the Emperor’s side drew his blade and brought it down. With a dull thud, Liu Li’s head was severed from his body.

The head tumbled down the slope, rolling and rolling — and no matter how it rolled, the eyes never closed.

The generals kneeling behind Liu Li were all struck dumb with shock. For a moment, cries of horror merged into a continuous wave.

“You!”

Before those generals could react, the Emperor spoke in a loud voice: “You should all share his guilt, and I have just said I would deal with you as I dealt with him — yet I cannot bear to do it!”

The Emperor looked at those generals, and his voice shifted to a tone of deep pain.

“Each of you is a pillar of Dachu. Each of you could have been a great talent. Each of you should have been someone I could rely upon — a cornerstone of the realm, a blade in my hand. When I gave you command of troops, I was entrusting you with the very foundation and the weapons of the nation. Yet what you have done has left me deeply disappointed.”

The Emperor paused to draw a steadying breath. He began to pace, and when the imperial guards moved to protect him he waved them back.

The Emperor walked slowly through the crowd of prostrate Yuzhou generals, speaking as he moved.

“My grief is not only because of your dereliction of duty. I grieve also for my own negligence. Had I dealt with Liu Li sooner, had I come sooner, you would not have been led step by step down this wrong path with him.”

“That is Liu Li’s great crime — and it is also my failing. Just now I thought to myself: you are all soldiers, and soldiers must follow orders. What right do I have to punish you for that?”

The Emperor stopped, standing in the middle of those kneeling men.

He drew another measured breath, then continued, his tone turning gentle: “So I will not execute you. I still have use for you. I tell you now, plainly and formally: go back to your camps, lead my Yuzhou Army, and take back my Jizhou City. Crush the rebels. Do that, and I will not only refrain from punishing you — I will reward you most generously. I will then let you lead this victorious army back to Yuzhou to govern it well on my behalf. I will treat you with favour; you will treat the realm with faithfulness.”

The Emperor looked at the generals: “Among you, who holds the highest military rank?”

Yu Weiyin, a full Third Rank general serving under Yuzhou Military Governor Liu Li, hesitated a moment, then kowtowed and replied: “It is your guilt-ridden servant, Yu Weiyin.”

The Emperor walked to him and took hold of his arm to raise him, then said: “I know it is you. I have studied you. In the twenty-first year of Tianshou — fourteen years ago — you served as a personal guardsman under Prince Wu.”

Yu Weiyin’s expression shifted. He lowered his head and said: “Yes… I was the squad commander of the Prince’s personal guard at that time.”

The Emperor said: “In the twenty-sixth year of Tianshou, Prince Wu promoted you to full Fifth Rank general. In the twenty-eighth year, on account of military merit, Prince Wu elevated you to associate Fourth Rank general. In the thirtieth year, Liu Li was transferred to the post of Yuzhou Military Governor, and Prince Wu assigned you to serve under him. The late Emperor raised you to full Fourth Rank.”

The Emperor looked into Yu Weiyin’s eyes and said: “Just now I asked Prince Wu: is Yu Weiyin trustworthy? Is he of use? Prince Wu answered me: he is both.”

The Emperor turned to look at Prince Wu Yang Jiju, who stood to one side, and asked: “Now that we are in his presence, I ask my royal uncle once more — is Yu Weiyin of use? Can he be trusted?”

Prince Wu bowed and replied: “In answer to Your Majesty’s question, even asked again, my answer is the same. Yu Weiyin is trustworthy and of use.”

The Emperor turned back to Yu Weiyin and asked loudly: “Then answer me yourself — Yu Weiyin, are you trustworthy? Are you of use?!”

Yu Weiyin fell to his knees with a thud, trembling as he answered: “Your servant is willing to walk through fire and water for Your Majesty. Your servant is willing to die ten thousand deaths for Your Majesty!”

“Good!”

The Emperor raised Yu Weiyin to his feet again, and looking at this middle-aged general trembling with emotion and gratitude, spoke word by deliberate word: “I am placing the Yuzhou Army in your hands. Take Jizhou City. Wipe out the rebels. I will reward you and your soldiers most generously. And then I will let you lead this triumphant army home to Yuzhou to govern it well on my behalf. I will treat you with favour; you will treat the realm with faithfulness.”

The Emperor placed his hand on Yu Weiyin’s shoulder: “Yuzhou Military Governor, General Yu — I am entrusting this battle to you. I am entrusting Yuzhou to you.”

“Your servant will give his life if that is what it takes!”

Yu Weiyin knelt again, kowtowing with repeated, resounding thuds.

The Emperor called out in a loud voice: “Hear me, every one of you. Whatever wrongs you committed by following Liu Li — once today’s battle is won, I will pardon every one of them. You will still be my most trusted subjects. You will still be the pillars of Dachu!”

He pointed in the direction of Jizhou City: “Go. Carry out the law of the nation on my behalf. Strike down the rebels!”

“Long live His Majesty!”

The kneeling Yuzhou Army generals knocked their heads against the ground again and again.

The Emperor called out: “Bring me the hundred-forged blades! Each of these generals — I present each of them personally with a blade. Take the blades I have given you and go cut down my enemies!”

An hour later, outside Jizhou City.

General Yu Weiyin leapt from his horse. He lowered his gaze to the hundred-forged blade in his hand and drew a long breath.

Then he raised a foot infantry shield in his left hand and gripped the straight blade tightly in his right.

“Follow me into the city! Repay the Emperor’s grace or die in the attempt!”

“Charge!”

Yu Weiyin was the first to hurl himself at the gate of Jizhou City. Behind him, the soldiers of the Yuzhou Army surged forward with a roar.

The fighting that followed was the most brutal this entire battle had seen from start to finish.

For every step the Yuzhou soldiers forced forward, countless men fell. Yuzhou soldiers. Yanshan Camp soldiers. Jizhou Army soldiers.

Once the Yuzhou Army’s fierce assault began, both Zeng Ling and Yu Chaozong knew: this was their final battle.

And so the Jizhou Army and the Yanshan Camp fighting shoulder to shoulder against the Yuzhou Army seemed, in that moment, to become simply the way things were. There was nothing absurd about it. There was only grief.

Outside Jizhou City.

The Emperor sat on horseback, took a spyglass from a waiting attendant, and peered through it toward the city gate. Countless Yuzhou Army soldiers were still pouring through — like floodwater rushing into a cavern. Through the forest of heads, he could barely catch a glimpse of what lay inside the city.

He could not see properly. Only a surge of heads, pressing and jostling.

“Your servant congratulates Your Majesty.”

Youzhou General Luo Geng bowed: “Through Your Majesty’s divine might, Jizhou has been successfully retaken.”

The Emperor lowered the spyglass. He glanced sideways at Luo Geng, was silent a moment, and then said: “General Luo — do you think reclaiming a city from rebels is something worthy of congratulation?”

Luo Geng’s heart tightened.

In that moment, his thoughts turned at a furious pace, trying without pause to understand what the Emperor actually intended, and what those words concealed.

“The Yanshan rebels — in only a few years they have already mustered an army of more than one hundred thousand. They have dared to besiege a major prefectural city of Dachu. They have dared to call their leader a Heavenly King.”

The Emperor said: “I truly do not know what there is in defeating rebels of this sort that would give me cause for joy.”

He looked at Luo Geng and asked: “I have also been told that even now, great numbers of Yanshan rebels are holding fast to mountain strongholds in the Yanshan ranges, wreaking havoc in every direction. Even if we capture the rebel leader Yu Chaozong today, the Yanshan threat remains.”

Luo Geng understood at once: the Emperor was asking him to continue his campaign against the Yanshan Camp.

He bowed immediately: “Your servant is willing to lead troops. Once this battle is concluded, I will drive north immediately to sweep out the Yanshan remnants.”

The Emperor’s expression eased; he smiled. “That a Grand General is willing to share my burdens, willing to rid the people of this menace, and willing to win glory for the nation — this gladdens my heart greatly.”

He asked Luo Geng: “Do you already have a plan to defeat them?”

Luo Geng replied: “Yesterday your servant captured a number of Yanshan rebels. Among the prisoners, one man claims to be the Eighth Chief of the Yanshan Camp, named Zheng Gongru. He has expressed willingness to surrender and to guide our army in attacking the Yanshan strongholds. He says he knows the terrain of the Yanshan strongholds better than anyone, and is confident he can lead us to take them.”

The Emperor laughed aloud: “Rebels are rebels — nothing but a rabble of outlaw vagabonds. All that talk of loyalty and brotherhood, and the moment disaster strikes, they cannot wait to save their own skin and betray their own people.”

The Emperor said: “Since someone is willing to show the way, then it falls to the Grand General to accomplish the deed. If the Yanshan rebels are eliminated and the northern frontier pacified, I will rest easy with the north in your hands.”

He paused a moment, then smiled and said: “If the Yanshan rebels are swept away, I will grant the Grand General a reward without precedent in our history.”

Luo Geng felt something stir within him, and a quiet irritation rose.

Prince Wu had said earlier that once this battle was done, His Majesty would give him a reward without precedent. What else could that be but the conferral of the title of a prince with a different surname?

But now the Emperor was saying: after the Yanshan rebels were swept away.

At that very moment, a wave of cheering erupted from within the city.

“Rebel chief Zeng Ling has been killed!”

Voice upon voice, each one rising higher than the last.

The Emperor on horseback burst into hearty laughter, filled with the high spirits of triumph.

—