When Li Chi rescued Yu Chaozong, he had not yet known that the reigning Emperor Yang Jing had already arrived. He had therefore assumed the Youzhou army might still be contending with the Yuzhou army, and so he hastily led everyone back into the underground vault and sealed it shut.

After Yu Chaozong came to, he told Li Chi what had happened — that when the Yuzhou army had broken into Jizhou, they had been shouting a battle cry declaring they acted by the Son of Heaven’s decree to destroy traitors and rebels. Only then did Li Chi realize the Dachu Emperor had been there all along.

Li Chi had heard something of this man long before, back when Yang Jing was not yet Emperor of Dachu, but still Crown Prince.

After Gao Yuanzhang had established the Four-Page Academy, he had once been summoned back to the capital by imperial order. At the time, the old Emperor had wished him to return and serve as Steward of the Eastern Palace, to instruct the Crown Prince.

Gao Yuanzhang had spent a year and a half in the capital, but finding himself utterly unable to bear the capital’s prevailing customs, he had pleaded illness and returned to Jizhou.

Yet he had praised Crown Prince Yang Jing without reservation, saying more than once that though the Crown Prince was young, his gaze already swept across past and present, and his heart encompassed all under heaven.

Li Chi had later heard Gao Yuanzhang speak of this Crown Prince and had learned something of the man’s conduct in the capital. At the time, Li Chi had formed his own judgment: this Crown Prince was a man who could endure.

Those who could endure — when they finally erupted, it was never a small thing.

“Now I have some regrets.”

Yu Chaozong lay in bed, holding Li Chi’s hand the entire time, not releasing it even as he spoke — as though afraid that the moment Li Chi turned away, he would already have breathed his last.

Yu Chaozong sighed softly and said, “I do not regret on my own behalf, but on behalf of Dachu. If the reigning Emperor had been born thirty years earlier, Dachu would not necessarily be what it is today. I would still be a man of letters — just like anyone else, either making my way to the capital for the great examinations, or carrying letters of recommendation to seek a posting and earn a name for myself.”

He spoke in a very quiet voice: “But it is too late. Even someone like me has already turned against the dynasty. Even now that Dachu has an enlightened sovereign, it cannot be saved. It is not that defeating us at Yanshan Camp would allow Dachu to be stable — in the great tide of events under heaven, Yanshan Camp is nothing more than a grain of dust.”

Li Chi gave a small nod. Yanshan Camp was without question the largest rebel force in the northern reaches. No matter how good its reputation, no matter how well it conducted itself, from the court’s perspective, Yanshan Camp was naturally a rebel army.

But Yanshan Camp was not the most powerful rebel force within the whole of Dachu’s realm. There were at least two other rebel armies considerably stronger.

In the southern reaches of Dachu, there was a man named Li Xionghu. He had been a laborer from a fishing village, driven beyond endurance by oppression, who had risen in rebellion with a band of fellow laborers at his side.

Because they were all laborers by birth — without enough clothes to cover themselves, without armor — they were called the Thin-Shirt Army.

Li Xionghu was different from Yu Chaozong. He had never read a book, could not write, and was incapable of delivering the kind of sweeping reasoning that came so readily to Yu Chaozong’s lips.

He had won the loyalty of those around him for two reasons alone.

First, he had told them: I did not raise this army because I wanted to play emperor. I raised it to save more souls born to suffering, like myself.

Second, he had also told them: Since we have already rebelled — if anyone won’t submit, we fight.

His early forces had been drawn from laborers working along the coastal regions of the southern reaches — men built strong from hard labor who knew the land well. Skirmishing with government troops, they had never once come off the worse.

Li Xionghu had raised his banner before Yu Chaozong, two full years earlier. By now, the Thin-Shirt Army numbered three hundred thousand, and dozens of prefectures across Dachu’s southern reaches had fallen to him. Government troops dared not engage them head-on.

Prince Wu’s great army excelled at land warfare, but the terrain of those southern reaches was a web of waterways and river channels where boats traveled freely, leaving almost no role for cavalry and little ground for the kind of decisive infantry engagements at which his forces were best. Even if Prince Wu’s army were to march south, there would be little it could do against the Thin-Shirt Army.

The southern officialdom had long since grown more corrupt than elsewhere, and the troops had not been drilled in years — they simply could not beat the Thin-Shirt Army. All they could do was watch helplessly as it grew stronger and stronger.

On equal footing with the Thin-Shirt Army was the Army of Heaven’s Mandate in Shuzhou.

The Army of Heaven’s Mandate was peculiar, for its chief — the self-proclaimed King of Heaven’s Mandate, Yang Xuanji — was unlike either Yu Chaozong or Li Xionghu in his origins.

Yang Xuanji was of the imperial bloodline. Though he was only a few years older than the current Emperor, by family seniority he was the Emperor Yang Jing’s uncle.

Yang Xuanji’s father and Yang Jing’s grandfather had been brothers. After Yang Jing’s grandfather ascended the throne, he had enfeoffed Yang Xuanji’s father as Prince of Brocade, with Shuzhou as his domain.

Prince Brocade had been the youngest of his siblings — nearly twenty years younger than his eldest brother — and had sired a son only in his old age.

Prince Wu was already over sixty. Yang Xuanji was barely thirty.

When Yang Xuanji was in his mid-twenties, his father Prince Brocade died of illness. Yang Xuanji sent a memorial to the court, fully expecting the old Emperor to issue a decree allowing him to inherit the title of Prince of Brocade.

He had not anticipated that the old Emperor, on Liu Chongxin’s advice, would abolish the Prince of Brocade title and grant Yang Xuanji only a marquessate — the title of Marquis of Knowing One’s Fate.

The meaning was plain: *This is your lot in life. You should know it yourself. Stop harboring vain ambitions.*

The mockery embedded in this was so unmistakable that Yang Xuanji could not possibly swallow it.

And so Yang Xuanji simply rebelled. Prince Brocade had spent many years cultivating Shuzhou, and there was no shortage of those willing to follow Yang Xuanji.

Moreover, Shuzhou was a place that was genuinely difficult to attack. Within the span of three or four years, Yang Xuanji had assembled over two hundred thousand troops, and declared himself King of Heaven’s Mandate.

His meaning was equally plain: You made me Marquis of Knowing One’s Fate, saying this was my lot. I will show you that my lot is nothing less than heaven’s own mandate.

Li Xionghu and Yang Xuanji — one holding dominion over the southern reaches, one reigning as king in Shuzhou — had no rivals left in those regions.

And compared to Yu Chaozong, both enjoyed far more favorable terrain and connections.

Yu Chaozong’s background was respectable enough, but his father had only been a prefectural official. How could his network of connections possibly compare to Yang Xuanji’s?

In Shuzhou, Yang Xuanji had the backing of every great family — money when he needed money, men when he needed men. And in the ten thousand ranges of Shuzhou, Prince Wu’s army would be just as helpless. Yang Xuanji could advance to take the central plains and retreat to hold Shuzhou. Even if he simply enthroned himself in Shuzhou and ruled his corner of the world alone, the court would have no way to stop him.

Li Xionghu in the southern reaches had the support of every impoverished soul in the land. They said he commanded three hundred thousand troops, but if he called out, gathering a million would not be particularly difficult.

The people of those southern reaches already knew only Li Xionghu, not the court. They knew only the Twelve Edicts of the Thin Shirt, not the court’s laws.

By comparison, Yu Chaozong’s position in Jizhou had been far more difficult. There had been the Jizhou army, the Youzhou army, then the Yuzhou army and Qingzhou army, and later Prince Wu’s great army as well.

The northern reaches, moreover, bore no resemblance to the fertile south.

Had Yu Chaozong heeded Li Chi’s strategy and stayed his hand — waiting for the great battle over Jizhou to conclude, stripping away all factors involving Yanshan Camp from the outcome — the result would have been the same anyway.

Zeng Ling’s death would have been certain. The Yuzhou army would have taken control of Jizhou. Luo Geng’s Youzhou army, though seemingly favored, would in practice have been sidelined.

The Emperor would not have lingered in Jizhou, nor would Prince Wu. At that point, Yanshan Camp could have pushed south to seize Jizhou — not easy, perhaps, but not far from it.

But Yu Chaozong had simply refused to listen.

Following Li Chi’s thinking, perhaps half a year later — at most a year — Yu Chaozong’s Yanshan Camp would have surpassed both Li Xionghu’s Thin-Shirt Army and Yang Xuanji’s Army of Heaven’s Mandate in both prestige and strength. At the very least, it could have held firm dominion over the northern reaches.

As things actually stood, though — who was it that truly posed the danger of destroying Dachu? Was it Li Xionghu? Yang Xuanji? Yu Chaozong? Was it the Liangyan Stronghold that had raised its banner in the marshlands southeast of Qingzhou? Or the White Mountain Army in Yuyang, seven or eighty thousand strong, backed by the Bohai Kingdom?

None of them. It was Dachu’s thirteen regional governors — those men of distinguished families who had already caught the scent of higher, greater power.

Even if the current Emperor Yang Jing had the will to turn the tide, could he actually turn it?

The thirteen regional governors — even without Zeng Ling, without Cui Yanlai, without Liu Li — would the remaining men simply submit meekly to the court once more?

They were no fools. Zeng Ling, Liu Li, Cui Yanlai — those were living examples, now dead examples, right before their eyes.

Were they willing to submit, could the Emperor suffer their existence? He might for now — but the moment the political situation stabilized, he would finish them off one by one.

These men saw the situation with perfect clarity. Every one of them would come to a reckoning. They would not have risen to such heights if they were fools.

The Emperor’s defeat of Yu Chaozong was not much of a great victory at all — for in terms of its effect on the shape of things under heaven, the fall of Yanshan Camp was simply not worth counting.

For Yu Chaozong in this moment, there was nothing left to hope for. He had not yet died, but his heart was already dead.

And yet he saw more clearly now than ever before. One probably could not arrive at this kind of clarity without passing through all that he had passed through.

“Third Brother.”

Yu Chaozong held Li Chi’s hand, his voice faint but sincere: “With your abilities, you ought to seek your own path. Your gifts far exceed mine. This world holds much for you to accomplish.”

“Elder Brother, stop letting your mind run wild,” Li Chi said. “First get your body in order. There’s no need to rush to think about what comes later.”

Yu Chaozong shook his head. “I know my days are short. Let me finish what I want to say. Third Brother — Yanshan Camp has fallen, and I have lost. For the realm of the central plains, it is as if a small stone has dropped into a lake — too slight to matter.”

“But the deaths of Liu Li, Zeng Ling, and Cui Yanlai — those are three mountains collapsing. When they crashed into this same lake, what they set in motion was not a ripple but a towering flood.”

He looked at Li Chi with grave seriousness: “Because of those three deaths, the other regional governors understand all the more clearly that if they do not rebel, the Emperor will not spare them regardless. Rather than waiting to be disposed of one by one, they would sooner rise up now. If no one can be the Emperor of the central plains, then let everyone carve up the central plains between them.”

He paused to draw a breath, then continued: “After this great battle, Jizhou has actually become the most favorable ground of all.”

Li Chi understood what he meant.

Jizhou’s Yanshan Camp had been defeated, Zeng Ling was dead — it looked like the great danger had passed, and the Emperor would now redirect his attention elsewhere. In Jizhou, by contrast, the conditions for growth were now most suitable. Youzhou’s Luo Geng and Yuzhou’s Yu Weiyin were bound to be at odds — while those two jostled against each other in open rivalry and quiet scheming, neither would have attention to spare for anything else.

And the Emperor would certainly not hand the surrendered Qingzhou soldiers to either of them, nor the surrendered Yanshan Camp soldiers — Prince Wu would take all of them.

“My guess,” said Yu Chaozong, “is that the Emperor will soon return to the capital, and Prince Wu’s army will escort him south. Yuzhou and Qingzhou are the great grain-producing regions, and I expect Prince Wu’s army will be stationed to garrison those two, to secure the court’s food supply.”

“With this arrangement, even Prince Wu Yang Jiju will have no capacity to concern himself with elsewhere. Li Xionghu in the south and Yang Xuanji in Shuzhou, seeing the situation as it is, will surely move their forces.”

He tightened his grip on Li Chi’s hand: “I have wronged you, and I have wronged every last brother of Yanshan Camp. I am no longer strong enough to watch over the brothers who are still alive. I will write a letter and give you the chief’s token. Wait for the right moment, then leave Jizhou and return to Yanshan Camp. Old Seventh, Golden Armor, is still at the stronghold keeping watch. When you return, tell him I have already passed the position of chief to you. Take the brothers and live well. With your abilities, you will one day be able to lead everyone in seeking vengeance, and go contend with those men for the realm of the central plains.”

Li Chi was about to offer more words of persuasion when Yu Chaozong broke into a violent coughing fit. He had spoken too long, and the emotional agitation was more than his body could endure at this moment. After several bouts of coughing he began spitting blood.

It was some time before the episode subsided, and he sank into a deep sleep once more — so frail he seemed to be holding on by the thinnest thread.

Li Chi stood by the bedside, looking at the chief’s pallid face, and found his heart would not settle.

—