Anyang City.

Luo Jing was eating his evening meal — a simple spread: four stir-fried dishes, one bowl of soup, and a small pot of white rice.

He was midway through when General Guan Feicheng came in from outside and bowed.

“Young General!”

“What is it? Speak.”

“The scouts report that over these past few days, Yang Jiju’s forces have been pulling back thirty li each day. They have now reached Jinfeng County.”

Luo Jing’s chopsticks stopped in midair. He turned to look at Guan Feicheng. “They pulled back again today?”

Guan Feicheng said, “Again today — they’ve reached Jinfeng County. And north of Jinfeng County, they’ve set up a heavy defensive line.”

Luo Jing smiled, set down his chopsticks, and asked, “What do you make of it?”

Guan Feicheng bowed his head. “In this subordinate’s view, the Young General’s ruse at the riverbank must have enraged the old bastard something fierce. He fell from his horse that day — most likely coughed up blood from sheer fury.”

He glanced at Luo Jing, saw no objection, and continued.

“This subordinate thinks the sudden withdrawal is a sign that he’s fallen seriously ill and has pulled back to a fortified position to hold steady.”

Luo Jing said, “And how do you think we should respond?”

Guan Feicheng bowed. “Observe a while longer before making any judgment. If the enemy continues to fall back over the coming days, then most likely that old bastard truly is dying.”

“He won’t die.”

Luo Jing said, “I’ve told all of you to study what is known of past battles. You never think it’s worth your time.”

“I once walked you through how Li Chi won against vastly superior numbers with the White Mountain bandits. Do you remember it?”

Guan Feicheng was taken aback.

Something stirred in his memory, vague and half-formed.

Luo Zhijie, standing off to one side, offered a prompt: “The parallels to today’s situation are rather striking — a deliberate retreat each day to lure the enemy into pursuit.”

Guan Feicheng understood at once.

In Li Chi’s battle against the White Mountain bandits, the bandits had outnumbered him many times over and held the advantage of a rested force. Li Chi’s few thousand, meanwhile, had just completed a long march back from afar.

And yet Li Chi had led his forces in a series of retreats over several days, drawing the White Mountain troops into pursuit, and struck when they were halfway across a river — routing them completely.

Luo Jing smiled. “In front of Li Chi that day stood a great river. In front of me today stands a great river.”

He picked up his chopsticks and went back to his meal.

“The lure-and-bait maneuver that old bastard is running is straight out of what Li Chi used back then. If I had taken his bait, wouldn’t that have made me no better than those White Mountain bandits? He took a shallow view of me.”

Luo Jing ate while he talked. “Keep this one thing in mind at all times: it is the old bastard who is desperate for a swift and decisive battle — not us. We are in no hurry.”

“Understood!”

Luo Zhijie and Guan Feicheng bowed in unison.

Luo Jing quietly thought to himself: a good thing he had remembered Li Chi’s words in time, a good thing he had recalled that battle Li Chi had fought.

Otherwise, before his own men, he could hardly have carried it off with such effortless, seamless composure.

Then he thought again: Li Chi was quite something.

Prince Wu Yang Jiju — commanding troops for decades, with a lifetime of hard-won experience — could devise a lure like this.

And Li Chi?

Before that fight with the White Mountain bandits, what real battle experience had he had?

One man had trained for years. One had walked off the street.

Luo Jing let out a quiet sigh inside himself, and thought: thank God Li Chi isn’t an enemy.

He looked at Guan Feicheng. “Pass the word through the ranks — no one is to leave camp without my order. Apart from the daily patrol contingents along the river, all other soldiers are to remain inside Anyang City.”

He paused in thought, then added: “Keep a particular eye on the Anyang troops. They and I are not yet of one heart.”

—

The next day. Jizhou.

Li Chi glanced over at Xiahou Zuo, who was packing his belongings, and smiled. “Made up your mind?”

Xiahou Zuo said, “Made up my mind. You’re right — the situation is entirely different now.”

He straightened up and looked at Li Chi. “Back then, going to the northern frontier made sense because there was no one in Jizhou who genuinely cared about supporting the border troops.”

“Now it’s different. You’re in Jizhou. As long as you’re here, the northern frontier will never be without someone to watch their back.”

He smiled. “And Mother misses me so much — I’m planning to take her with me to Youzhou.”

Li Chi nodded. “As long as Mother agrees, I’ll send soldiers to escort you.”

Xiahou Zuo said, “Once I get to Youzhou, just as you said — whoever guards the northern frontier from here on won’t need to worry about being forgotten.”

Li Chi smiled. “The farmland under Youzhou’s jurisdiction produces enough grain to supply the frontier. Luo Geng in his time was constrained by Jizhou’s Zeng Ling — Youzhou’s grain couldn’t just ignore the frontier. Give it and Youzhou’s army had to answer to Jizhou. Refuse to give it and if the frontier fell, Youzhou would be first to go.”

He looked at Xiahou Zuo. “You farm and raise troops in Youzhou, supply as much grain as possible to the frontier passes, and whatever Youzhou needs — leave that to me.”

Xiahou Zuo laughed out loud. “Understood. Once I get to Youzhou I’ll start thinking about how to scout things in Yanzhou — see if there’s a way to help you take their money.”

Li Chi said, “Getting money is too vulgar a business — I’ll handle that myself.”

Xiahou Zuo shook his head. “Shouldering everything alone is exhausting.”

Li Chi said, “Don’t talk nonsense. I love getting money — that’s the fun of it.”

Xiahou Zuo laughed again.

That same day, Xiahou Zuo set off for Youzhou, leading the elite division Li Chi had assigned to him — twelve thousand soldiers in all.

By this point, the arrangement within Jizhou had been settled.

Xiahou Zuo stepping back from the northern frontier by one degree — from holding a single pass to presiding over the entire north.

Under the jurisdiction of Youzhou and Jizhou combined, the northern line ran through nine vital passes in all.

Now Xiahou Zuo stood as the shield for all nine.

Madam Xiahou and Xiahou Yili went to Youzhou with Xiahou Zuo as well. It would likely be a while before they could meet again.

Once Xiahou Zuo arrived in Youzhou, he would rotate Dantai Qi back.

From this point on, Li Chi was truly going to stir things up.

Three more months until spring arrived and the flowers bloomed — by then, the Ning Army, which had been kept in reserve for so long, would need somewhere to go and get some real fighting in.

With Xiahou Zuo sent off, Li Chi began to map out his plans for raising funds.

He was the same as always — he liked to sit on top of a wall and look out into the distance while he thought. Somehow, with his eyes turned to the horizon, the thoughts in his head ran clearer and more freely.

Back in his carriage depot days, he had liked to sit on the depot’s courtyard wall and think.

Now that he was master of Jizhou, he liked to sit on top of Jizhou City’s high walls and think.

He was in the middle of turning things over in his mind when Tang Pidi came up carrying two paper-wrapped packages. Only then did Li Chi realize it was already noon.

Tang Pidi tossed the larger of the two packages to Li Chi. Li Chi opened it and found, still warm inside, a clay-oven flatbread.

Tang Pidi settled in beside Li Chi, and the two of them sat facing out over the land beyond the walls.

“Yu Jiuling came and found me today to talk about something.”

Tang Pidi ate and spoke. “It’s not urgent, but it does need addressing.”

Li Chi asked, “What is it?”

Tang Pidi said, “Shouldn’t we think about giving you a proper title?”

Li Chi said earnestly, “Has ‘Dad’ been working out badly all this time?”

Tang Pidi gave him a look.

Li Chi knew perfectly well what Tang Pidi meant. Quite a few people had raised this with him recently — even Gao Xining had brought it up two or three times.

“Out in Qingzhou, there are dozens of kings — large and small — some granted by His Imperial Majesty of Dachu, some self-proclaimed.”

Tang Pidi said, “In Yanzhou, the number of self-styled kings is no fewer than seven or eight.”

He looked out into the distance and took a bite of his flatbread.

Li Chi looked at Tang Pidi’s flatbread. “Why does yours have so much more on it than mine?”

Tang Pidi said, “Do you really not know?”

Li Chi laughed sheepishly.

Tang Pidi said, “I’ll admit, I do think this isn’t something to rush over. A title and reputation — when the whole world knows your name, they’ll come to you naturally.”

“But then again, thinking about it further — the soldiers in the ranks genuinely want something like this, a name they can say and feel proud of.”

Li Chi said, “You come up with one.”

Tang Pidi was just about to speak when he suddenly noticed a company of troops approaching from outside.

This group was unusual — part Ning Army outriders, and part figures dressed in what looked like official court robes, though rather disheveled.

An hour later. In the general’s residence.

Li Chi sat in the main seat, looked at the court official before him — whose face held three parts haughty dignity and seven parts ill-concealed fear — and managed, with some effort, not to laugh outright.

This man had just, with great ceremony, read aloud an imperial edict in Li Chi’s presence.

Indeed — an imperial decree.

If this were happening to anyone other than Li Chi, Li Chi would never have imagined it possible.

The gist of the decree was as follows: His Imperial Majesty had heard that someone in Jizhou called Li Chi, though of lowly origins, harbored a heart loyal to the Emperor and devoted to the nation.

His Majesty had also heard that over the past years, Li Chi had been steadily supplying provisions and materiel to the border armies, which rendered him a true pillar of Dachu.

It was further learned that Li Chi had taken control of Jizhou, where he treated the common people with kindness and saw that justice was done — and on this account His Imperial Majesty felt that Li Chi was really quite commendable.

His Majesty had further learned that Li Chi’s forces called themselves the Ning Army, and he presumed that the character “Ning” was intended to convey a wish for peace and tranquility throughout Dachu.

His Majesty felt touched and gratified by this — and so he wished to reward Li Chi and the soldiers of the Ning Army.

Naturally, this reward was entirely verbal.

Yang Jing had decided to confer upon Li Chi the title of Prince Ning, along with the position of Jizhou Military Commissioner, with authority to govern Jizhou’s military forces and overall administration of both military and civil affairs.

There was also a great deal of encouraging language — telling Li Chi that His Majesty was entrusting Jizhou to him, that he must guard it well and not fail His Majesty’s trust, and so on in that vein.

Along with a statement that if any further uprisings occurred in Jizhou, swift suppression was to be carried out, and His Majesty would certainly not fail to reward them accordingly.

In summary: the Emperor had granted Li Chi a title of prince.

If you were to describe this situation, it could not have been more absurd. And yet — thinking about the fact that the Emperor had already granted titles to five or six princes over in Qingzhou, and Li Chi was the first to receive one here in Jizhou — it wasn’t so very surprising after all.

Far from feeling any resistance, Li Chi found it all rather amusing.

He smiled and asked the court official, “Besides sending you here to convey this decree to me, did His Majesty also dispatch someone to convey a decree to Luo Jing?”

The official’s expression shifted, and for a moment he didn’t know how to answer.

Li Chi smiled and asked, “What title did Luo Jing receive?”

The man deliberated at length and finally answered.

“In reply to Your Highness Prince Ning — His Majesty’s title for General Luo is… Prince Ji.”

Li Chi spluttered with laughter.

The Emperor’s petty little calculation — transparent as ever, not a trace of novelty in it.

This same trick had kept a dozen princes in Qingzhou fighting each other into the ground. Now he wanted to use it to set Li Chi and Luo Jing against each other.

“Then I shall gratefully accept His Majesty’s commendation.”

Li Chi looked at Yu Jiuling. “Take the imperial envoy to rest — see that he is well attended to.”

Yu Jiuling acknowledged the order and led the party out.

Changmei the Daoist felt somewhat uneasy — tremendously excited on the one hand, and worried on the other that Li Chi would attract too many enemies now that a royal title was attached to his name.

He looked at Li Chi and asked hesitantly, “Does… does he accept the title the Great Chu Emperor has granted?”

Li Chi said, “Accept it — of course we accept it. What a magnificent tiger skin to drape over our shoulders — why wouldn’t we?”

He looked at Gao Xining with a grin. “See how good that character ‘Ning’ is.”

Gao Xining smiled back. “It really is good.”

She leaned close and spoke in a voice just barely above a whisper: “That character — it brings good fortune to a husband.”

Li Chi grinned like a fool.

Li Chi turned to Tang Pidi with a grin. “Say — if I were to play along with the Emperor’s wishes and write Luo Jing a letter, asking him whether Prince Ning outranks Prince Ji, what do you think Luo Jing would do?”

Tang Pidi replied flatly, “Luo Jing would ride day and night from Anyang to Jizhou, spit in your face, and then ride straight back to Anyang.”

Li Chi laughed. “Then what if we go spit on him first?”

Tang Pidi said, “You’re a prince now. Have some dignity.”

Li Chi said, “Fair enough — let’s have some dignity. The Emperor has sent us a gift; I should send him something back in return.”

Tang Pidi asked, “What will you send?”

Li Chi said, “Didn’t you just tell me to have some dignity? A dignified return gift, naturally — let me go and see how many authentic works by Master Songming are left…”