Jizhou City.

Li Chi never could have imagined it — Tang Pidi had taken a million taels of silver to the Naran Steppe, and had not bought back a single warhorse.

Not one.

“One million taels of silver.”

Tang Pidi looked at Li Chi and said calmly: “Six thousand Naran warriors. Three years. I didn’t buy warhorses — I hired the finest cavalry on the Naran Steppe.”

Li Chi blinked, turned it over in his mind, and then the corners of his mouth began to curve upward, spreading wider until they nearly reached his ears.

“Good gods, Old Tang!”

Li Chi clapped Tang Pidi hard on the shoulder. “That’s quite a deal, isn’t it?”

With a million taels of silver, the most one could have bought on the Naran Steppe was six thousand warhorses.

A hundred and sixty or seventy taels — that was the price of a warhorse. But now, in addition to the horses, there were six thousand warriors.

Six thousand warhorses had a price. Did six thousand battle-hardened Naran horsemen?

He asked Tang Pidi: “Does Borjigin Chino have any other intentions?”

Tang Pidi answered with a smile: “He didn’t set conditions. He said he considers us friends — even without the million taels, if you asked him to send troops, he would come without question.”

Then, more earnestly: “So I made him a promise. He didn’t ask for one, but I had to give it.”

Li Chi nodded. “Naturally.”

“Don’t you want to know what I promised him?”

“Whatever it is,” Li Chi said, “what you give, I give.”

“Lord of the Steppe.”

Li Chi paused at that. It was, admittedly, a touch beyond what he’d imagined, and his eyes narrowed slightly.

Tang Pidi smiled. “I told Borjigin Chino that we would lend us his six thousand elite cavalry, and that in the future, we would help him fight his way out to the outer steppe, so that he could become its lord.”

Li Chi considered this for a moment, then nodded. “So be it.”

Tang Pidi asked: “Don’t you think what I promised was a bit outrageous? Weigh it against six thousand elite cavalry for three years — doesn’t that feel like we got the worse end?”

“Not at all.”

Li Chi draped an arm over Tang Pidi’s shoulder and smiled. “Borjigin Chino lending us six thousand elite cavalry — that’s a debt of friendship. Measured against it, a million taels is nothing worth mentioning.”

“As for promising to help him become Lord of the Steppe someday — does he even believe you?”

“He said he did,” Tang Pidi replied, “but he didn’t really take my promise seriously.”

Li Chi laughed. “So he doesn’t truly believe you. Then let’s show him whether your word is worth anything or not.”

Tang Pidi glanced at Li Chi, and laughed as well.

Just then, a personal guard came running from outside to report that the cavalry from the Naran Steppe had returned.

Li Chi and Tang Pidi exchanged a look, then both stepped outside in the same instant.

Yu Jiuling was leaning against a nearby pillar, watching those two men move in near-perfect unison. He glanced over at Gao Xining, who was standing beside him grinning vacantly, and said: “Ning, I genuinely sometimes feel like you’re surplus to requirements.”

Then he added: “I mean — it’s not that you’re sometimes surplus. That’s what I feel sometimes. But you’re surplus all the time.”

Gao Xining’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Yu Jiuling jogged out to follow Li Chi and the others, calling back over his shoulder: “I’ll go keep an eye on those two for you.”

The city gate.

When Li Chi caught sight of Borjigin Chino, he strode forward with a smile. Borjigin Chino vaulted down from his warhorse and ran to meet him.

Li Chi had barely opened his mouth when Borjigin Chino threw both arms around him in a bear hug — a forceful one.

“Brother.”

Borjigin Chino released him, gripped his shoulders, and looked him over carefully. “Brother Tang Pidi told me you’d gone south. I thought I might not see you this time.”

“If I’d known you were coming to Jizhou,” Li Chi said, “I would have sprouted wings and flown back.”

Yu Jiuling, standing to the side, thought to himself: the chief really is hopeless — even the things he says to men come out so ardently.

And besides — sprouted from where, exactly?

Borjigin Chino laughed. “I just led the steppe warriors on a chase after your enemies. They shouldn’t dare come back.”

He took Li Chi by the hand and walked alongside him, talking as they went. “We pursued them for dozens of li. The ones who fled didn’t even dare look back.”

At this, he turned his head and called out: “Borjigin Tengge, come here.”

A young man of about seventeen or eighteen came running forward — dark-complexioned, with an honest, open face, but eyes that glittered like stars in a night sky.

Borjigin Chino said to Li Chi: “This is my brother. Not by blood, but as close as blood — a warrior of our Borjigin clan.”

Then to Borjigin Tengge: “From now on, you’ll stay with Li Chi and serve him. Remember: he is to you as I am. I am your elder brother; so is he, and so is Tang Pidi. Whatever loyalty you show me, you must show them.”

“Yes!”

Borjigin Tengge placed his hand over his heart and bowed to Li Chi. “Elder Brother Li Chi.”

Li Chi laughed heartily. “Good, good, good!”

Borjigin Chino said: “The six thousand cavalry I’ve brought are men I handpicked — every single one a seasoned warrior. I have already told them: show Li Chi and Tang Pidi the same respect you show me, the same loyalty.”

“Brother Li Chi, you and Brother Tang Pidi are benefactors of the Naran Steppe, and you are my brothers. I place them all in your hands.”

Li Chi nodded firmly. “Done!”

That night, Li Chi was thoroughly overwhelmed by the hospitality of his guests from the steppe.

Thoroughly.

Li Chi’s capacity for drink was formidable — formidable enough that he privately felt he could hold his own against anyone in the room.

At times like this, a man’s self-assessment can be markedly unreliable.

He hadn’t made it through even a third of the table before he was face-down, fast asleep, a trail of drool spreading beneath his cheek.

The next morning.

Li Chi rose at his usual hour, went out to the courtyard to train. The summer sun climbed early; Li Chi stood in the early light, bare-chested, drenched in sweat.

The muscles across his torso caught the light, each bead of perspiration glinting.

Training done, he bathed and changed, then set out with Tang Pidi and the others beyond the city walls.

The column split into two. Tang Pidi and Borjigin Chino led the cavalry south to confirm whether the remnants of the Anyang Army had truly retreated.

Li Chi took the Ning Army forces to White Slope Lake, to the water stronghold there, to begin clearing the bodies left by the Anyang Army.

The corpses were hauled from the water, stripped of their leather armor, and buried.

It was not a pleasant task. The mountains of dead were war’s cruelty made visible.

So many bodies needed tending, and no single day could finish it. But in the summer heat, decay came swiftly — everything had to be done as fast as possible.

To prevent plague, the areas where the bodies were handled were covered with a layer of quicklime.

Li Chi then gave the order to transport the captured weapons and armor back to the city, where the townspeople could come to claim them.

Not as a gift, of course — rather, the townspeople were invited to help clean and restore the equipment.

Cleaning and preparing a set of leather armor was delicate work: it could not be dried in direct sunlight, had to be air-dried in the shade, and then carefully conditioned.

Once the work was done and the armor returned to the Ning Army camp, each worker would receive one tael of silver.

After this one battle, the Ning Army’s force of over twenty thousand men garrisoned in Jizhou would each have a full set of equipment.

Several days later, Borjigin Chino departed Jizhou for the Naran Steppe. Li Chi and Tang Pidi rode out to see him off for fifty li.

A few days after that, Li Chi received a military dispatch from the northern frontier, sent by Xiahou Zuo.

The Black Wu forces had indeed marched south — but exactly as he and Li Chi had anticipated, they had no intention of fighting to the death.

Their army of one hundred and fifty thousand had encamped just inside the northern frontier, formidable in appearance, and no more than appearance.

Three months later, a further dispatch from the frontier: the Black Wu forces had withdrawn. From beginning to end, the border had not been attacked.

The dispatch also reported that the identity of the new Black Wu Khan had been confirmed.

Kuokedi Dashi’s younger brother, Kuokedi Yijilü, had emerged victorious from the struggle for the throne. The contest had drawn in the entire Kuokedi imperial family and all the great clans.

The final victor had climbed to the high dais where the throne sat — climbing over the bodies of countless men to get there.

The Sword Gate’s sect master had presided over the coronation ceremony. Kuokedi Yijilü now stood at the apex of Black Wu power.

The intelligence reports indicated that compared to Kuokedi Dashi, Yijilü was more aggressive in temperament — younger, more hungry to make his mark. But he was not a man of mere impulse; his cunning and strategic mind were not to be underestimated.

This was precisely why he had sent the Black Wu army south for show and nothing more. A man of nothing but aggression might have led the campaign himself.

What mattered most to him now was consolidating his throne as quickly as possible — far more important than launching an assault on the Chu empire.

Within Black Wu’s capital, countless men still refused to accept him.

For the Central Plains, however one looked at it, this was good news.

The Black Wu Khan would likely have little attention to spare for the Central Plains over the next two or three years.

Xiahou Zuo wrote in his letter that, barring unexpected developments, he would return to Jizhou this winter to celebrate the New Year with them.

Autumn was already deepening. In a few more days it would be the Start of Winter, and Xiahou Zuo’s return was not far off.

More significant news arrived two days later: Luo Jing had returned to Youzhou.

Exactly as Li Chi had predicted, without a single deviation — Luo Jing’s expedition had come back empty-handed.

He had failed to take Yanzhou, and on the surface had suffered no great losses, though he had wasted more than a year of time and resources.

Also as Li Chi had foreseen, Luo Jing had no intention of coming to Jizhou — he hadn’t even sent word to Li Chi that he was back.

Such a proud man. For him to have failed so visibly was a terrible humiliation.

He would rather stay away from Jizhou entirely, rather truly cede Jizhou to Li Chi, than come and face him.

And for Luo Jing, this expedition had no “no-win, no-loss” outcome. Not winning was losing.

He had consumed enormous quantities of money, grain, and supplies, and lost no small number of soldiers before the walls of Yanzhou.

Youzhou’s forces had already been stretched thin; after this campaign, they were thinner still.

By the time that winter arrived, the Ning Army’s strength had reached thirty-eight thousand men.

This did not include the six thousand Naran Steppe cavalry — that figure was the Ning Army’s own.

Of course, it included those who had withdrawn from the Yanshan Camp.

The mountain stronghold was to be kept: it remained everyone’s fallback. But now that Jizhou was stable, the main base could be moved here.

So Li Chi sent men to Yanshan with a message for Zhuang Wudi, asking him to arrange capable hands to keep the camp: twelve hundred men were to stay and hold the stronghold.

The rest of the force had already relocated to Jizhou City before winter came.

Thirty-eight thousand men. Three full divisions of soldiers. A force of this scale — how could one’s heart not surge?

In truth, had both Tang Pidi and Li Chi not maintained such exacting standards for their army, the numbers would easily have doubled.

Given Li Chi’s reputation, influence, wealth, and the stability of Jizhou, a force of a hundred thousand — a hundred and fifty thousand, even — would have been achievable, if they had cared nothing for quality.

But an army of that kind was not one Li Chi wanted. Tang Pidi even less so.

Above the walls of Jizhou City, the great Ning banner flew.

Years ago, a child had followed his master through the gates of this great city, not fully understanding why.

His master had told him: you are still young. When you are older, you will understand — your master is rewriting your fate.

Five years later, this great city was his.

He was no longer a child.

—