While the autumn sun in the southwest still fell golden and warm across the land, several thousand li away in the Jin territory, the chill of winter had already arrived ahead of schedule.
Ninth day of the eighth month. Yunzhong.
Leaden clouds hung heavy over the sky, and the north wind had already begun sweeping across the land. As one of the few great cities within Jin territory, Yunzhong seemed helplessly sunk into a swamp of grey, and cast one’s gaze wherever one liked, the whole city seemed tinged with a heavy, oppressive gloom.
The carts and horses passing in and out of the city seemed to carry less vitality than usual; the hawking cries in the markets sounded a touch more listless than before; and the talk among patrons in the wine shops and teahouses carried a heavier weight, with people leaning close to whisper to one another as if discussing something secret and momentous.
Along the muddy lanes and alleys of the city, Han slaves walked huddled in their clothes, backs bent low, heads down as though hoping not to be noticed—but they were not cockroaches, after all, and could not simply shrink themselves out of sight. Some pressed themselves against walls, fearfully trying to dodge the passersby ahead, yet were still knocked to the ground, and might well take a kick after, or worse.
Amid this atmosphere, the nobles within the city still carried themselves with high spirits. That high spirit, tinged with cruelty, would occasionally erupt within the city, and in the midst of all this oppressive gloom, bloody bouts of revelry would sometimes break out.
In a small courtyard on the southern edge of the city, Xu Xiaolin met Tang Minjie for the first time.
Xu Xiaolin was a messenger sent up from the southwest.
The southwest and Jin territory lay several thousand li apart, and in this era, the exchange of information was extremely inconvenient. For this reason, most operations in the north were left to the full discretion of the person in charge on the ground; only at certain critical junctures would the two sides communicate, so that the southwest could make adjustments to its broader strategic direction.
News of the outcome of the entire southwestern campaign had reached Yunzhong in mid-May, prompting Lu Mingfang to set out southward to report on the progress of the work there and to provide Ning Yi with further reference for the next stage of development. He had been killed in the field in late May.
At almost the same time, the southwest had already arrived at further conjectures about how the situation in Jin territory was developing. Ning Yi and the others, not yet knowing that Lu Mingfang had set out, reasoned that even without his trip south, developments in Jin territory would still need to be adjusted and understood—so not long after, they sent Xu Xiaolin, who had some prior experience living in Jin territory, north.
By the time Xu Xiaolin arrived in Jin territory, it was already nearing the end of July. The process of making contact proved cautious and complicated, and it was only afterward that he learned the person in charge of operations in Jin territory had already been killed—since the Jurchens had made a great show of publicizing it as an achievement of their own.
Though the Huaxia Army had internally considered contingency plans for the event that the primary person in charge might be killed, carrying out such a plan while deep in enemy territory still required a great deal of time. The main reason was that, under the necessary caution, verifying each link in the chain, making contact, and rebuilding trust all required many more steps than usual.
For this reason, although Xu Xiaolin had roughly conveyed news of his arrival by the end of July, the first actual contact didn’t come until several days later, and he himself, remaining wary, carried out two separate probing tests. Only in this fashion, by the ninth day of the eighth month, was he finally brought here to formally meet the person who had taken over responsibilities after Lu Mingfang.
This person, code-named “The Clown,” was gaunt in appearance, his cheeks somewhat sunken—someone the highest levels had quietly assured him, before he set out, could be trusted in a moment of crisis. Combined with the two probing tests, Xu Xiaolin had finally come to trust him. The other man had likely spent several days observing him in turn. After their meeting, he moved aside a few piles of dry firewood in the courtyard and took out a small parcel to hand over—inside was medicine for treating wounds.
Before joining the Huaxia Army, Xu Xiaolin had spent some time traveling with merchant caravans in the north; he was fairly tall and knew the language of the Liaodong region, making him a suitable choice for this kind of courier work. Yet he hadn’t expected the situation here in Yunzhong to have grown so tense—he’d exchanged only a few words in Chinese with a Han slave on the street, and had ended up beaten by a group of Jurchen thugs looking for trouble along with several Han slaves nearby. He’d taken a blow to the head and still wore a bandage.
“…Ever since news of the Jin army’s defeat came through in May, the whole of Jin territory has fallen into this state. Picking fights on the road, beating people—none of that even counts as serious anymore. Some of the great households have started killing their own Han people outright. Emperor Wuqimai decreed that killing Han people at will would carry a fine, so these great clans simply pay the fine openly and slaughter the Han people in their households anyway. Some sons of the nobility have even taken to competing over it—whoever pays the biggest fine is counted the bravest, most admirable man. Last month two marquises got into a spat over it—you kill one, I’ll kill two, then the other family tops it with two more—in the end each family had killed eighteen people before the authorities stepped in to mediate and put a stop to it.”
Having Xu Xiaolin sit down on a stool, Tang Minjie unwound the bandage on his forehead and applied fresh medicine. As he worked, Xu Xiaolin listened, and could see in the man’s eyes a certain depth and calm. “This wound of yours is actually one of the lighter ones. Those thugs don’t kill outright, mostly because they’re afraid of having to pay compensation—though some people do get beaten to the point of severe injury on the spot, and don’t last more than a few days, yet the fine never falls on the ones responsible.”
Xu Xiaolin, a soldier who had lived through the southwestern campaign, clenched his fist as he looked at Tang Minjie. “Sooner or later, we’ll settle this score.”
“Mm.” A faint smile finally appeared in the other man’s calm gaze. He poured a cup of tea and handed it over, continuing to speak. “The trouble here isn’t limited to this. Winter comes early in Jin territory, and the cold’s already setting in. Every year, a good number of Han people here die of it, but this year it’ll be worse—the refugee slums outside the city are packed full with Han slaves rounded up over the past while. In previous years, this would be the time to start cutting down trees and gathering firewood for the winter, but the wastelands and hills outside the city all technically belong to the noble lords in the city, and now…”
He paused, took a sip of water. “…Now, they’ve set men to guard the wastelands, forbidding Han slaves from cutting wood or gathering grass there at all—it’s become the fashion. These past days, there’s been talk almost daily of people beaten to death out there for stealing firewood, and this winter is sure to see even more freeze to death. On top of that, several private gambling dens have opened up in the city—places that used to host cockfights and dogfights now put on killing matches instead.”
“Aren’t the Jin dogs supposed to want captives for labor…” Xu Xiaolin said.
“Once people get carried away with it, who bothers thinking that far?” Tang Minjie said with a faint smile. “I mention all this not for any other reason—there’s no stopping it, but someone needs to know what things are actually like here. Yunzhong is far too chaotic right now. I plan to try to get you out of the city within the next few days—whatever needs reporting can wait until then… What are the instructions from the south?”
“Actually, the south has already made some conjectures about the situation here.” As he spoke, Xu Xiaolin drew a crumpled piece of paper from his sleeve, with only a few characters written on it. Tang Minjie took it—it looked like a simple goods manifest. Xu Xiaolin said, “I’ve already committed the message to memory. That’s all there is to it.”
“Give me a moment.”
Tang Minjie stood and walked into a side room. Xu Xiaolin nodded and sat there drinking his hot water.
Before long, Tang Minjie came back out. Once decoded, the message on the manifest would come out even shorter—and in fact, since the entire order was neither complicated nor required excessive secrecy, Xu Xiaolin essentially already knew its contents; handing over the manifest to Tang Minjie was mainly to establish its authenticity.
“The south has made certain conjectures about the current situation in Jin territory, and in order to ensure everyone’s safety, recommends that all intelligence work here go dormant—no active investigation of Jurchen affairs, and no sabotage operations of any kind. They hope you’ll all prioritize preserving yourselves above all else,” Xu Xiaolin said, looking at Tang Minjie.
Tang Minjie’s expression and eyes betrayed little emotion; he simply nodded slowly. “Still… the distance is too great. The southwest, after all, doesn’t know the specific situation here…”
Xu Xiaolin nodded as well. “Broadly speaking, the principle of independent action here won’t be overturned—the specific adjustments are up to your own judgment. But the overall guiding policy is to hope, above all, to preserve the lives of the majority of you. You’re all heroes, and someday you should be able to return south alive and enjoy the rewards of peace—every hero fighting in a place like this deserves that much. Those are Master Ning’s own words.”
Tang Minjie fell silent for a moment, then looked over at Xu Xiaolin.
“By the way, how are things going in the southwest? Could you tell me in more detail? All I know is that we defeated Zonghan and Xiyin, and cut down two of Zonghan’s sons—beyond that, I know nothing.”
He said this with a certain light, easy smile, and walked over to sit down at the table. Xu Xiaolin smiled too. “Of course. I left Sword Pavilion in early June, so everything I know only goes up to that point…”
He went on, smiling, to recount what had happened in the south from the end of the southwestern campaign through early June—including the proclamation Ning Yi had sent out across the whole realm, inviting guests and allies from every quarter, the various reactions across the realm to the southwestern victory, and the military review and representative assembly already being planned. Tang Minjie asked many eager questions about the outline and proceedings of the representative assembly.
News of the June assembly hadn’t yet been made public, but within the Huaxia Army a concrete work schedule already existed, so Xu Xiaolin, working on the inside, could speak to a fair number of the finer details. Yet whenever Tang Minjie pressed him on certain key points, he often found himself stumped. Tang Minjie didn’t press further where Xu Xiaolin couldn’t answer, simply moving on to other topics—there were even a few moments where Xu Xiaolin felt this leader in the north carried a faint shadow of Master Ning himself.
He asked the most questions about the representative assembly; when it came to the military review and the martial tournament—things others might have found more interesting—Tang Minjie had fewer questions, merely nodding now and then, occasionally offering a smiling remark of his own.
“…So, gather everyone in, put on a great show, and during the review, execute a batch of named Jurchen prisoners—after that, once everyone disperses, the news should spread across the whole realm…”
Xu Xiaolin thought it over for a moment. “There was no mention of executing the Jurchen prisoners… Some people outside have said that the captured Jurchen prisoners could be used as good bargaining chips in negotiations with the Jin state. Just like after the campaign against Western Xia, and again at Wangyuan Bridge, prisoners were exchanged both times. And holding prisoners might make these Jurchens think twice before acting rashly, for fear of endangering them.”
“Think twice for fear of endangering them?” Tang Minjie laughed. “You mean, if we don’t kill the prisoners and just keep them alive, the Jurchens might, out of fear, treat the Han people here a little better?”
Xu Xiaolin frowned, thinking it over. Across from him, the other man shook his head, smiling. “The only way to make them think twice for fear of endangering something is to kill more of them. More still… and then even more…”
The room fell silent for a moment. Tang Minjie poured a cup of water, took a sip, and his tone softened. “Of course, setting that aside, what I mainly think about is this: even though we’ve opened our doors to welcome guests from every direction, plenty of those who come from outside still won’t like us. They’re skilled at writing eloquent essays, and once they go back, they’ll go right on cursing us, finding all sorts of excuses… But there’s one thing among all this that they simply cannot hide.”
He said, “The realm has been at war for over a decade now, and countless people have died at the hands of the Jurchens. By now, perhaps thousands, tens of thousands of people have gone to Chengdu, and what they’ve seen is that only the Huaxia Army has killed Jurchens—openly, righteously, in front of everyone, killing those who deserved to die. This one fact, no eloquent essay or twisted argument can cover up. However elaborate the reasoning you write, whoever reads it will still remember their own dead kin…”
“Of course, this is just my own thinking—how it’ll actually play out, I couldn’t say for certain,” Tang Minjie said with a smile. “Go on, go on…”
Xu Xiaolin then went on to talk about many other things—tragedies that had occurred in the southwest, though he spoke more, naturally, of the rarer joyful stories. Whenever he spoke of people who had survived and been reunited with their families, he could see a smile appear at the corners of this gaunt man’s eyes.
After a while, he suddenly remembered, and brought up the defection incident that had stirred such outrage within the Huaxia Army during that period—speaking of Zou Xu, who had colluded with the enemy near Fuling Mountain, set himself up as a local warlord, and brutalized his own comrades…
Outside the room, the north wind moaned, and the whole world was grey. In this small room, Tang Minjie sat quietly listening as the other man spoke of so many, many things, the tea in his hands carrying a touch of warmth. He knew that, far to the south, the tireless efforts of countless people had already brought new shoots blooming from the earth.
…
“…The Jurchens’ eastern and western route armies have both returned by now. Even without any push from us, their eastern and western courts are bound to go to war before long. Let them fight. Please, do take the orders from the south seriously—no more needless sacrifices. We’ve already given up far too much.”
At the end of that day, Xu Xiaolin gave Tang Minjie this final admonition once more.
Tang Minjie nodded.
“I understand,” he said. “Thank you.”