Morning mist rose over the river.
Thirty li east of Zhenjiang, on a fog-shrouded riverbank, orange firelight occasionally flickered. As dawn approached, sounds began to carry across the water — boats, one after another, docking at the crude, worn-down wharf along the bank, followed by the noise of splashing water, voices, and carts and horses. Cart after cart loaded with goods made their way ashore along the long-neglected wooden walkway by the water’s edge.
A middle-aged man, around forty, with only half of his left arm remaining, watched from the trees nearby for a while before approaching with three trusted men carrying torches.
More than a dozen carts had come ashore, with over a hundred accompanying men. They climbed down from the boats, hitched up the carts, and unloaded the cargo swiftly and in perfect order. These men had already noticed the movement by the trees, and by the time the one-armed middle-aged man and his companions arrived, others came forward to meet them.
Leading the group on this side was an older, scholarly middle-aged man. As the two sides approached each other through the darkness, and once they could finally make each other out clearly, the scholarly man smiled and clasped his hands in greeting. The one-armed man, finding it awkward to return the gesture, struck his right fist against his chest instead. “Master Zuo, it’s been a long time.”
The visitor was none other than the renowned elder of the Zuo family, Zuo Xiuquan, who cupped his hands together in a bow. “Master Duan, you’ve worked hard. I’m truly sorry to have troubled you to risk this journey again.”
“We’re family — why speak like strangers? Do you really see me as an outsider?” The one-armed middle-aged man frowned slightly.
“Quite right, quite right.” Zuo Xiuquan nodded, smiling. “Look who else has come.”
As soon as he said this, a figure among those following behind stepped forward a few paces and spoke. “Uncle Duan, do you still remember me?”
This figure wore clothing suited for combat, in the style of the martial world, but the voice that spoke was unmistakably a woman’s. The one-armed middle-aged man narrowed his eyes, blinked once, and finally recognized the woman before him, his voice trembling as he spoke. “It’s — it’s… young miss? Miss Yinping? Why have you come?”
“It’s been so long since I last saw you, Uncle Duan — I couldn’t stop thinking of you, so I came.”
The woman was tall and slender, her voice gentle and natural, but in the firelight, her bright brows and starry eyes carried an unmistakable, commanding air. This was none other than Yue Fei’s adopted daughter, nineteen-year-old Yue Yinping. She walked up to the one-armed middle-aged man and took his hand, looking at his severed arm with a faint trace of sorrow in her eyes. The one-armed man shook his head.
“You — you’re someone of such noble standing, how could you…”
“Don’t look down on me, Uncle Duan. Back when we fought side by side against the enemy, I never once lagged behind.”
“Right, right.” Hearing her speak of fighting in battle, tears welled up in the one-armed man’s eyes. “It’s just a shame… it was I who fell behind…”
“Uncle Duan fought until the very end — you need not feel inferior to anyone. Surviving is a good thing. When Father heard about this, he was overjoyed… Oh, right, Uncle Duan, look — see who else has come?”
At this, the man looked back toward the wharf, where shadowy figures moved about, their exact appearances still hard to make out in the dim light. His heart stirred with excitement. “Are they… are they all brothers from the Beiwei Army?”
Yue Yinping nodded. At that same moment, not far off, the wheel of one cart had sunk into the sandy riverbank and could not budge. A figure moved to the side, bracing against the shaft and the wheel, calling out in a low voice, “One, two, three… lift—” The cart, loaded with cargo, was hoisted almost single-handedly out of the sand.
Hearing that voice, the one-armed man raised a hand and pointed. “This is… this is…”
The figure laughed heartily and ran over. “Uncle Duan, do you still remember me?”
The man running over was tall and broad-shouldered, though his features looked rather young. The one-armed man said, “Young General, you — you… this is dangerous ground, how could you all come along together?”
“With Master Zuo coming here, and Uncle Duan in this place, how could any of us Yue family members stand aside and do nothing?”
The one referred to as “Young General” was, of course, Yue Fei’s son, Yue Yun. Coming close, he reached out and embraced the man. Unlike his sister, he showed no particular sorrow over the missing arm.
Beside him, Yue Yinping said, “This gathering at Jiangning is no ordinary matter — it may well bring about many changes to the future course of the realm. My brother and I have come along with Master Zuo to broaden our horizons. But as for you, Uncle Duan — now that you’re caught up in this, once it’s over, I’m afraid you won’t be able to stay here any longer. You’ll have to come back to Fuzhou with us.”
Hearing this, the one-armed figure across from her fell silent for a moment, then solemnly stepped back two paces, and in the flickering firelight, raised his arm sharply and gave a formal military salute.
Sound rang out along the light night wind of the riverbank.
“Beiwei Army! Duan Siheng! Reporting for duty…”
Bearing the weight of mountains upon one’s back, having pledged this body to the nation — even in death, this body remains.
This — is the Beiwei!
…
The line of carts left the riverbank, heading west along the road in the early dawn hours. The middle-aged man, once a member of the Beiwei Army and now missing an arm — Duan Siheng — sat at the front of the lead cart, guiding the way for the group while pointing out and describing the surrounding conditions.
The sky was not yet bright, thick patches of mist still lingering around the road, but with Duan Siheng pointing things out, the others began recalling a great many things from the past.
“There used to be a village over there…”
“Is Quanfeng Village still standing…”
“A little further to the northwest, that’s where we fought Wanyan Xiyin!”
“We’ve marched this road before… that was during that defeat…”
Standing on the cart, Yue Yun rambled on about these memories.
Zhenjiang had once been the very core of the southern defense line along the Yangtze. The Beiwei Army had trained here; Jun Wu, on a hill by the riverbank, had once wept as he executed his own brother-in-law; when the Jurchens attacked, the man who was now the Emperor — then still the Crown Prince — had rushed about inside and outside the city walls, shouting himself hoarse, fighting without pause. When he was struck by a stray arrow from the Jurchens, countless local townsfolk had charged onto the battlefield themselves, clashing with the Jurchens in open combat.
As for Yue Yun and the others, in that battle they had once torn straight through the center of the Jurchen formation, cutting down the Jurchen general Aluba, and had for a time driven their spearhead all the way to the front of Wanyan Xiyin’s own position. At the time, the four directions had already collapsed and there was little hope left of turning the tide, but Yue Fei had still placed his last hopes on that single, desperate strike. In the end, though, they had failed to kill Wanyan Xiyin, and it had not been enough to delay Lin’an’s eventual collapse.
Duan Siheng had taken part in that battle, as had Yue Yinping and Yue Yun, and recalling the bloodshed of that fight now, they still could not help but want to sing out in fierce, stirring defiance.
Later, Jun Wu had ascended the throne at Jiangning, only to abandon Jiangning again not long after, fighting and fleeing all the way, at one point even fighting his way back to Zhenjiang. The Jurchens had driven a million surrendered troops from the south to hunt them down, and tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians, including the Beiwei Army, had fled from place to place. Returning to that old battlefield, Duan Siheng had lost his arm to a blade during that flight, fainted, and fallen behind. By the time he woke, having survived against all odds, the distance had grown too great for him to catch up and follow the others all the way to Fuzhou.
Drawing on his experience as an officer in the Beiwei Army, he had gathered together some of the refugees nearby to band together for mutual protection, and later joined the Fairness Party, earning himself a minor leadership position within it. After the Fairness Party’s power grew, the court in Fuzhou had repeatedly sent people like Cheng Zhouhai to make contact. Although the Fairness Party, under He Wen’s leadership, no longer recognized Zhou Junwu as emperor, the small court had continued to treat them with courtesy, even sending food and supplies as a gesture of amends — and so, despite the fact that the two sides’ territories did not directly border each other, relations between the Fairness Party’s leadership and the Fuzhou court had never entirely broken down.
After several such exchanges, Duan Siheng had reestablished contact with the Fuzhou side and become one of their usable inside contacts here.
“…The man I currently serve under is one of the Fairness Party’s five great kings — Gao Chang, known as the Heavenly King Gao…”
As the morning breeze stirred the mist, having finished reminiscing about past battles with Yue Yun and the others, Duan Siheng wiped away his tears, composed himself, and began describing the current state of the Fairness Party to Zuo Xiuquan, Yue Yinping, and the rest.
“As for the current state of the Fairness Party, what outsiders commonly know is that there are five formidable great kings — in the past they were called the ‘Five Tigers.’ The greatest among them, of course, is the one known throughout the realm as the ‘Fairness King,’ Master He Wen — nowadays, in name at least, all of Jiangnan looks to him as its leader. They say he came out of the southwest, and once engaged in a philosophical debate with that Master Ning as equals, matching him blow for blow — a truly remarkable man. In the past people said he’d inherited the mantle of the Black Banner from the southwest, but looking at things now, that doesn’t quite seem to be the case either…”
“No one disputes that he’s the top man, but below Master He, things are actually quite chaotic — I’m not exaggerating, it’s an absolute mess,” Duan Siheng said. “The one I follow, this Heavenly King Gao, is relatively straightforward by comparison. If you’re asking about his character, he loves fighting; his troops are the fewest in number among the five, but his discipline is strict, somewhat similar to our own Beiwei Army — that’s actually part of why I joined him back then. Relying on these elite troops of his, he can fight, and so no one dares provoke him carelessly. Outsiders call him Heavenly King Gao, referring to the Guardian King of the East among the Four Heavenly Kings. On the surface he has no conflict with Master He, and he’s the most obedient to Master He’s commands out of all of them — though as for what’s really going on beneath the surface, we can’t say for certain…”
“Below the Fairness King and Heavenly King Gao is Xu Zhaonan, who calls himself the Wheel-Turning King — though that’s not one of the Four Heavenly Kings, but rather one of the Ten Kings of Hell. This man rose up on the old foundations of the Maitreya Sect and the Great Illumination Sect, and those who follow him are mostly believers from the Jiangnan region. Back then, the Great Illumination Sect preached that the mortal world would face thirty-three great calamities, and after the Jurchens invaded, believers in Jiangnan grew beyond count. Among the sect soldiers under his command, some drink talisman-water before battle, some shout that they’re immune to blade and spear — truly fearless of death, all because they believe this mortal world is nothing but suffering, and that once they die, they’ll ascend to the true, empty, eternal homeland to enjoy eternal bliss. In earlier battles against the Lin’an forces, some of them kept running across the battlefield even with their intestines spilling out, terrifying people to tears on the spot — he has a great many followers, and many of them genuinely believe he is the reincarnation of the Wheel-Turning King.”
“Below Xu Zhaonan is Shi Baofeng. The people under him come from all walks of life — he deals with every sort of person and, by all accounts, never puts on airs. Outsiders call him the ‘Equality King.’ But his greatest ability isn’t just gathering wealth — it’s generating it. The Fairness Party has reached its current scale, and in the beginning, of course, it was all about looting whatever they could find — weapons and the like were simply taken and used as-is. But once Shi Baofeng rose up, he organized a great many people, and only then was the Fairness Party able to repair and manufacture its own weaponry…”
“By now, the Fairness Party has raised an army of several million, and more than seventy percent of its weaponry is under his management — cannons, gunpowder, all sorts of supplies, he can produce them all, and most of the trade and transport channels are under the control of his people. He and Master He were said to have been on very good terms in the past, but now that he holds this much power, friction keeps breaking out between them from time to time, and their people are locked in fierce, hidden rivalry beneath the surface. Especially once he came to be called the ‘Equality King’ — think about it, ‘Equality King’ and ‘Fairness King,’ just the names alone sound like they’re bound to clash…”
“As for the fifth one, Zhou Shang — outsiders call him the Yama King, because he’s utterly ruthless and merciless, the cruelest killer of them all. Every landowner or local gentry who falls into his hands meets a terrible end without exception. The men gathered under him are also the most vicious lot around… Master He set down a rule long ago that whenever the Fairness Party takes a territory, they are to compile records on the local wealthy gentry and landowners — those with a record of misdeeds are to be executed without mercy, but those with good conduct may be shown leniency and spared, never wiped out entirely. But wherever Zhou Shang holds sway, these people are killed off to the very last one, every time — some are even buried alive or skinned, dying after enduring the cruelest tortures. It’s said that relations between the two sides have grown quite tense over this as well…”
By now the morning breeze was blowing, and a faint hint of the fish-belly white of dawn had begun to show on the horizon behind them. Having roughly finished describing these details of the Fairness Party, Duan Siheng fell quiet. Yue Yinping thought it over. “These five certainly each have their own distinct character.”
Ahead of them, Duan Siheng laughed bitterly. “If you think the Fairness Party is just these five people, you’d be mistaken.”
“These five,” he went on, “are simply what the Fairness Party’s current five leaders look like on the surface. Back when the south suffered its great defeat and the Jurchens ran rampant, His Majesty… took his people and fled to Fuzhou. Master He rose up under the banner of fairness, and naturally gathered some followers around him — but before long, all across Jiangnan, forces flying the banner of ‘fairness,’ seizing food from the wealthy, sprang up everywhere. Later, these various forces gradually linked up with one another, all claiming to follow the banner of fairness, all claiming allegiance to this person or that — but in truth, the man at the very top often had no idea just how many little factions existed beneath him…”
“At the time, the Fairness Party had practically sprung up everywhere across Jiangnan, but the territory was simply too vast to bring it all together under one banner. So Master He issued the ‘Book of Fairness,’ laying out a great many rules, declaring to the outside world that anyone who believed in these rules was a member of the Fairness Party. So everyone acted according to these rules, but exactly whose banner they followed was entirely up to themselves. Some people would casually pledge themselves to some Fairness Party elder brother, who in turn had his own elder brother above him, and so on up through several tiers — until eventually it might trace back to Master He, or to Xu Zhaonan, or to whoever else…”
“Over this past year or so, Master He and the other four kings have grown the most famous and hold the most territory, having absorbed and trained a fair number of proper, disciplined troops. But once you get to Jiangning, you’ll see for yourselves — from top to bottom, layer upon layer, faction against faction, everyone fighting bitterly over territory and spoils on the inside. In the middle of all this, Master He has his ‘Seven Sages’ beneath him, Heavenly King Gao has his ‘Four Garrisons,’ Xu Zhaonan has his ‘Eight Enforcers,’ Shi Baofeng has his ‘Three Talents,’ and Zhou Shang has his ‘Seven Killers.’ Everyone still fights over territory, and sometimes it comes to open bloodshed right in the streets — it gets so bad, blood covers the ground, and there aren’t even enough hands to collect all the bodies…”
Since the Fuzhou court’s network of informants and intelligence relay was, after all, nowhere near as systematic as that of the southwest, Yue Yinping and Yue Yun listened to Duan Siheng’s account of the Fairness Party’s internal affairs with open astonishment, and even the normally composed Zuo Xiuquan furrowed his brow, struggling to make sense of everything he was hearing.
“And another thing — don’t assume the Fairness Party is limited to just these five great kings. In truth, apart from those who have formally joined the ranks under these five, there are plenty of so-called heroes, whether officially affiliated or not, who all want to carve out their own little kingdoms. Beyond the five most famous names, over the past half year, all sorts of other factions have sprung up outside — ‘Chaos River,’ ‘Great Dragonhead,’ ‘Gathering Victory King,’ and so on — all claiming to be part of the Fairness Party, all following the ‘Book of Fairness’ in their own way, all hoping to carve out their own sphere of influence and power…”
“After all, the Four Heavenly Kings aren’t all filled yet, and there are only two of the Ten Kings of Hell so far — who’s to say that with enough ruthlessness, one couldn’t earn a place among the ranks when the day comes to settle the roster of heaven’s generals and celestial soldiers? Ai, Zhenjiang is currently Heavenly King Gao’s territory, so you won’t see too much of this here — we’ll take a detour, and once we reach Jiangning, you’ll understand…”
As dawn broke and clouds drifted past, Duan Siheng drove the cart onward, telling the group about all these strange and curious matters while leading the convoy west toward Jiangning. Along the way they encountered a group of guards wearing blue headscarves, manning a checkpoint. Duan Siheng went over and exchanged some coded gestures with them, then slapped one of them on the head and barked at him to get lost. Seeing how well-armed and numerous this group was — and with Yue Yun still flexing his muscles for show — the guards sheepishly stepped aside and let them pass.
“We’re currently under the ‘Four Garrisons’ of Heavenly King Gao — I’m the second general under Lin Hongjin, the ‘Sea-Suppressing’ garrison commander. My title is… uh, One-Armed Dragon…”
Duan Siheng said this rather sheepishly. Yue Yun nearly burst out laughing, while Yue Yinping asked, “Why ‘second general’?”
“Below the chief general comes the second general — it’s just so everyone knows where you rank…”
Duan Siheng’s voice grew smaller and smaller as he spoke, thoroughly embarrassed. All around him, the members of the Beiwei Army burst out laughing.