Setting fire on a river’s surface is no easy thing — without fire oil it would be impossible, and even with fire oil, the flames would not spread far.
But there was no question about it — Ning Army’s aggressive counterattack had disrupted the Heaven’s Mandate Army’s rhythm.
Rhythm — the word is hard to define.
But once a rhythm is broken, the side that loses it falls into a reactive posture.
For instance, the Ning Army’s catapults had been drawn toward the pontoon bridge, and then the Heaven’s Mandate Army had begun crossing the river in a strange and unorthodox manner — in an instant, the catapults’ rhythm was broken.
Xiahou Zuo’s deployment of several hundred strong swimmers had broken the Heaven’s Mandate Army’s rhythm in turn.
The Heaven’s Mandate Army had already seized the initiative — then scattered fires erupted across the water, and they could not help but grow tense.
Yet those men who entered the water were not truly aiming at that. Their true objective was the wooden stakes holding up the pontoon bridge below the surface.
Ning Army soldiers fastened ropes from the large boats to the pontoon bridge stakes, so that when the boats pulled forward, the result was that the Heaven’s Mandate Army tore their own pontoon bridge apart.
These men did not need to succeed many times over — even if only three or five of the boats’ tow ropes were tied to the pontoon bridge stakes, the entire structure would be in critical danger.
Several hundred men thoroughly disrupted the Heaven’s Mandate Army’s assault rhythm before pulling back. The fighting in the water was brutal.
“Light the bow of the boats!”
Xiahou Zuo’s command rang out.
On the Ning Army’s side of the bank, prepared boats were set alight. Soldiers drove the fire ships out into the river at ramming speed. When they got close enough, the oarsmen leapt off — whether they hit anything or not, the purpose was to obstruct.
From the very beginning, Xiahou Zuo had never intended to fight a passive defense — because Pei Fanglun would certainly expect exactly that.
The flames climbed from the small boats, and the front-rank Ning Army soldiers crouched behind shields while the men behind them rowed with everything they had; when the gap was nearly closed, they abandoned ship, their aim to block and hinder regardless of the result.
Several hundred burning small boats on the river surface made a sight of real spectacle.
These fire ships brought the Heaven’s Mandate Army’s advance to a complete halt. Vessels swung hard to evade the fire ships, and the soldiers being towed behind them were thrown off in swarms.
Some of the cargo boats rammed into the pontoon bridge and set it ablaze almost at once.
Setting fire on water is no easy feat, yet this was the first wave of resistance Xiahou Zuo delivered to Pei Fanglun.
Though the river was calm and still, the boats were loaded with combustibles and burned fiercely, driving the Heaven’s Mandate soldiers to frantically haul water, leaving them no mind for pushing forward.
As a result, more and more Heaven’s Mandate Army soldiers were piling up in the middle of the river, unable to advance.
Whether on the boats or on the burning pontoon bridge, they were all stopped.
Xiahou Zuo looked at the signal runner beside him. “Sound the horn. Give the order to Zhuo Qinglin.”
The horn rang out a second time — a different call from before.
In the rear formation, Zhuo Qinglin understood immediately. Because in truth, the real fire attack was only just beginning.
“Switch to oil barrels! Don’t hold back — swap them onto every catapult!”
After the last great battle, Tang Pidi’s side had not used much of the fire oil. Li Chi had known even then that the next time the Heaven’s Mandate Army attacked, it would be needed.
Nearly everything that could be mobilized from Yuzhou, he had transferred to the camp on the northern bank.
This was not foresight or prophecy — it was simply the inevitable logic of the situation.
Once Yang Xuanji, King of Heaven’s Mandate, received word that Tang Pidi had led Ning Army’s main force east, he would certainly order the Heaven’s Mandate Army to attack Yuzhou.
The preparation, therefore, was careful judgment — not seeing through some heavenly design.
To make this fire attack as terrifying as possible to the enemy, Xiahou Zuo had also devised a trick.
The fire oil was limited in quantity, so each barrel’s worth was divided into three barrels, then packed with worn-out clothing and cloth scraps to fill the space.
In this way, the fire oil went farther, and the resulting flames looked far more fearsome than the actual quantity warranted.
Every wooden barrel, before being loaded onto a catapult, was scored with a saw along one side, ensuring that when it struck the water it would crack open.
At Zhuo Qinglin’s command, every catapult launched at nearly the same instant, hurling the barrels out in unison.
On the river, the Heaven’s Mandate Army soldiers packed and clustered there looked up in unison as one black shape after another came arcing over from the distance.
With a crack, the first barrel struck the water’s surface and split open, fire oil spreading across the surface.
Some barrels shattered on the pontoon bridge, others broke apart on the enemy’s warships; and at that moment, the second volley of fire arrows from Ning Army was loosed.
In moments, fires sprang to life across the river surface. The Heaven’s Mandate Army soldiers crammed onto the waterway screamed and dove into the river in droves.
Those who swam well trod water and stayed afloat; those who could not found broken planks to cling to; and the unlucky ones drowned quickly.
Thick black smoke billowed up from the river surface. In the chaos and scramble, the Heaven’s Mandate soldiers could no longer even make out the Ning Army formation on the opposite bank.
Southern bank.
Watching this, Pei Fanglun’s expression grew troubled; he pressed his fist closed involuntarily.
This was a clash between a younger generation of commanders and an older one — the outcome of this battle was one thing, but thinking deeper, one saw it for what it was: a collision between the old era and the new.
Under flames and smoke that thick, there was no possibility for the Heaven’s Mandate Army to push forward any further. They could only retreat.
They fell back at great cost, while the pontoon bridge they had built with such sacrifice burned, and the splintered wreckage of their boats drifted on the river.
Had the river not been choked with men to trap the fire oil and burning cloth in place, the fire attack would have achieved little — current and water would have swept the oil away.
At last the smoke began to thin. By now dusk had fallen. Against the dying light, the last embers on the river seemed to echo the dark red sun on the horizon.
The first day — the Heaven’s Mandate Army’s assault had been pushed back. They had not reached the northern bank as planned.
But that was not the most important thing. What mattered most was that Xiahou Zuo had dealt a devastating blow to the Heaven’s Mandate Army’s morale.
Those soldiers who had begun the day believing they could fight this battle and at last redeem their previous defeat — defeated again now, their fighting spirit would be sharply diminished.
Xiahou Zuo looked at his men. “Divide into three shifts and take turns through the night watch. The enemy may make a move tonight. At irregular intervals, send fire arrows and heavy crossbow bolts across the river — make sure we detect any enemy movement early.”
The men acknowledged the order and divided into three shifts to prepare.
Xiahou Zuo turned and looked back — not far away, Li Chi was sitting on the sandy bank, propping up sticks of wood to toast some flatbreads over a fire.
Xiahou Zuo returned to Li Chi’s side and sat down. “Praise me.”
Li Chi: “You’re the elder brother here. Making your little brother praise you — isn’t that a bit much?”
Xiahou Zuo: “The little brother is a king. Not praising his elder brother — isn’t *that* a bit much?”
Li Chi smiled, lit the fire, and skewered a steamed bun on a stick to toast over the flames. “Just now, watching you command the battle from the bank — it made me think of many things.”
Xiahou Zuo sat up straight. “Is the praise about to begin?”
Li Chi said, “I thought about… all of you being this capable, and me feeling more and more like someone without a real role. And after you win, I still have to rack my brain thinking up all kinds of ways to praise you — and if I don’t do it well enough, I get looked down on. Doing this as a king…”
He looked at Xiahou Zuo. “Isn’t this just a little bit absurdly comfortable?”
Xiahou Zuo burst out laughing.
A moment later, Li Chi handed Xiahou Zuo a toasted bun. “So this praising business — I need to ration it.”
Xiahou Zuo: “The way you hoard things, it’s genuinely unpleasant to look at.”
Li Chi said, “How about this — let me try to arrange a match for you. You’re not getting any younger; you really ought to have a companion.”
Xiahou Zuo narrowed his eyes. “After all these years, have you and your wife’s shop finally opened for business?”
Li Chi said, “Nonsense. It’s not that the shop hasn’t opened — it’s that we’re… *selective*. We’re pursuing excellence. We refuse to settle.”
Xiahou Zuo: “Fine. Go ahead and look.”
Li Chi sensed something was off. He asked, “Why aren’t you refusing?”
Xiahou Zuo said, “A king this stingy — this might be the only reward on offer. You expect me to turn it down?”
He shot Li Chi a look. “If I refuse even a verbal reward, what’s left for me to get?”
Li Chi said, “I suppose my reputation is lost.”
—
At this same time, in Qingzhou.
The administrative city.
Once the main base of the Tyrant King’s Army, after Gan Daode’s death the Tyrant King’s Army had scattered like monkeys fleeing a fallen tree. Everyone wanted to seize this great city as their stronghold, but no one would submit to anyone else. After several rounds of fighting with no clear winner, the city was simply abandoned.
Until Shen Shanhu led a hundred thousand Yanzhou troops south into Qingzhou. The various factions there were defeated one by one in successive battles and were ultimately forced to band together again, retreating to hold the administrative city against the Yanzhou army.
What they had not counted on, however, was a second Ning Army force arriving — Luo Jing had come as well.
After seven days of relentless assault, the battle flags of Ning Army — blazing red — were at last planted atop the walls of that great city.
Now, in a large open space within the city, a great many people had been surrounded by Ning Army troops.
They stood looking at each other in bewilderment, not knowing what fate awaited them.
Shen Shanhu sat in a chair, one leg propped up on the low wall in front of her, swaying lazily, looking as though she were about to fall asleep.
Luo Jing walked up to her. He seemed reluctant to disturb her rest, opened his mouth, and in the end said nothing, turning to leave.
“General Luo is wondering whether you should handle it, or whether I should,” Shen Shanhu said.
Luo Jing smiled. “That’s exactly what I wanted to ask.”
Shen Shanhu smiled. “When it comes to extracting retribution, it’s naturally better for a man to handle it. If a woman were to do it, it would probably be too cruel.”
Luo Jing laughed heartily. “Then I’ll take care of it.”
He strode into the crowd. The people hastily parted to clear a path.
Luo Jing walked to an elevated position, stopped, swept his gaze around, and called out in a loud voice: “You all probably know why you’ve been brought here. You also know that I marched all the way here from Yuzhou. But you certainly don’t know why I came all this way from Yuzhou.”
The space fell quiet. So many people, yet not a sound — every one of them tensely waiting for Luo Jing to continue.
“Because many of you agreed to Yang Xuanji’s demands and refused to sell grain and supplies to my Ning Army. That is why I am here.”
Shen Shanhu, seated in the distance, smiled faintly and said to those beside her: “You see — that is why I could not go up there. Because I did not come for that. We simply wanted to take Qingzhou.”
Luo Jing went on: “Because you refused to sell, I came. Think about it — if you had sold us the grain, you would have had money, and you would have made friends of us. What a fine outcome that would have been.”
“But!”
Luo Jing’s voice went cold.
“You did not sell. You chose Yang Xuanji.”
He swept his gaze around once more. “For failing to earn money that was right there to be earned — I pity you. But Prince Ning is merciful and generous, and instructed me not to be too heavy-handed with you. So I give you two choices now: keep your lives, or keep your grain and wealth?”
Shen Shanhu smiled again and murmured to those beside her: “Which is why I couldn’t go up there… I want both the lives *and* the grain and wealth. Even if Prince Ning gave instructions… because a woman doesn’t always have to listen.”
—