In the second year of the Wuzhenxing era, in mid-to-late November, while the Huaxia Army of the southwest, wrapped in damp, cold cloud, carried out its new land policy, most of the rest of the Wu dynasty’s lands had already entered a landscape blanketed in white snow.
Since achieving the remarkable feat of crushing the Jurchen western army, the Huaxia Army’s most far-reaching social reform was, at this moment, not drawing much attention from the wider world. This was simply because, across the whole of this land at this time, the more immediate spectacle of war and slaughter, of power shifting hands through conflict, had not eased in the slightest despite the winter’s heavy snow.
This was a winter in which countless people died.
In Jiangnan, the chaos of war had turned this once fertile and prosperous land into a genuine hell on earth.
Since late September, when He Wen announced a clearer platform for the Fair Party and began substantively consolidating power, all of Jiangnan had plunged at once into a tangled, crisscrossing melee.
Taken purely at face value, this whole bout of slaughter within the Fair Party had indeed been started by the “Fair King’s” faction striking first against the other four factions. Yet as the war broke out, what Jiangnan showed the world was not an orderly scene of the Fair Party’s dominant five factions fighting one against four, or four against one, but rather this whole colossal structure collapsing before everyone’s eyes, with dozens, even hundreds of factions beginning to devour one another in a frenzy.
Over less than two years, the Fair Party had risen by riding the Huaxia Army’s banner, sweeping across all of Jiangnan in short order, and in the process had given rise to five major branches — the so-called “Fair King,” “Equality King,” and so on. During the Fair Party’s smooth-sailing phase, those who had joined it had been relatively united, and the various strongholds under the five banners had, for the most part, managed to follow orders; even when friction arose between them, the various faction leaders had by then established a fairly clear set of rules for “settling accounts” between themselves.
Once Fair King He Wen took the lead in “rebelling,” almost all of these rules broke down. Conflicts of interest that could once have been settled through negotiation now turned violent; those who had once harbored second thoughts began reconsidering where to stand, and a new round of realignment, outside the direct lines of the five great kings, broke out in open bloodshed. Infighting within factions large and small erupted almost daily, and mid-sized powers like the “Chaos River King,” the “Great Dragonhead,” and the “Assembled Victory King” seized the opportunity to rise up in rebellion of their own.
For a time, it was as if demons had run wild.
Over the course of two months, the four great kings — Shi Baofeng, Xu Zhaonan, Gao Chang, and Zhou Shang — nominally united against He Wen, but in reality each was thrown into disarray by the collapse of their own organizational capacity. During this period, the core forces of Gao Chang, Shi Baofeng, and Xu Zhaonan held together relatively well, but the forces of Zhou Shang — the “King of Hell,” who in earlier days had used the most radical methods to gather the largest number of opportunists — fell into almost total disorder.
On the front lines, several core towns that had originally belonged to Zhou Shang were, in the first wave of chaos, picked off one after another by He Wen, Gao Chang, Shi Baofeng, and Xu Zhaonan. His most brutal fighters, caught up in the atmosphere of infighting, proved unable to withstand the assault; after He Wen first took two of his cities, Gao Chang, Shi Baofeng, and Xu Zhaonan, reasoning that “better us profit off him than He Wen,” began taking over his frontline forces and supplies.
To rally morale, in November Zhou Shang led a vast, sprawling horde of drifters toward Lin’an, trying to use the promise of profit as bait to rebuild his authority as a leader. But this time, the “puppet army” of Lin’an, which had once been so easily crushed, struck back. Tie Yan and Wu Qimei, offering to take in a tenth of his elite troops, promising no reprisals for past deeds, and offering food and drink, shattered Zhou Shang’s sprawling column of drifters amid the freezing snow.
What the “King of Hell” never lacked was drifters. Once his forces were shattered, Zhou Shang fled with his core followers, then set about gathering men once again.
On November 17th, Wei Xuwen, “Heaven’s Killer,” who had long since secretly been in contact with He Wen, assassinated Zhou Shang near Huzhou and took over the King of Hell’s forces.
On November 21st, before news of the King of Hell’s change of leadership had even fully spread through Jiangnan, several chieftains belonging to nearby factions like the “Avici Hell Butcher” and “Karmic Obstruction,” along with one of Wei Xuwen’s own lieutenants, rose up together. After half a day of bloody fighting, they cornered and killed Wei Xuwen in a stretch of reeds out in the open country.
The chieftains who killed Wei Xuwen declared themselves the inheritors of the King of Hell’s legacy, but by this point, the organizational strength of what had once been the King of Hell’s faction — with millions of followers under its name — had completely collapsed, making it the first of the five great powers to be knocked out in this round. He Wen and the others each moved to absorb its remaining forces, and the whole chaotic battlefield grew even messier as a result.
Across the snow-blanketed land of Jiangnan, this war burned like a great fire out of hell, with those caught in the conflict each seeking only their own survival, turning group after group into ash within that fire. The people caught up in this war were fevered and hysterical, yet it was also perhaps the most bewildering chaos of these many years. Some tried to flee, only to be killed out in the open country, dragging their families along, by yet another band of drifters fighting for their own survival; some held fast to their own strongholds, yet still found themselves inevitably forced to pick a side. Mounds of bones, burned by the fires of war, were buried beneath the pure white snow.
He Wen, Gao Chang, Shi Baofeng, and Xu Zhaonan — those still with strength to spare — while securing their own footing, also began each laying out clearer governing platforms of their own. Internal purges and consolidation proceeded alongside the external war.
This brief and yet interminable winter, the Fair Party’s collapse in Jiangnan produced the most chaotic farce, and very nearly the most brutal series of bloodbaths, of these recent years. Throughout the entire course of the war, it carried within it, all at once, gravity and absurdity, loyalty and betrayal, idealism and folly, calm calculation and fanaticism, the laughable and the tragic, meaning and meaninglessness… It drew nearly the most attention from across the entire realm, yet most people couldn’t really say why they were fighting at all.
In any case, countless lives were reduced to remains.
And while Jiangnan turned into hell on earth, other upheavals of comparable intensity were brewing elsewhere across this land.
In the southeast, at Fuzhou.
Within the minor court that had inherited the legitimate line of the Wu dynasty, undercurrents seethed, never once still.
A pivotal clash broke out that very winter.
“…Zhou Shang was knocked out — a bit too fast, wasn’t it…”
On November 24th, a long procession of carriages was making its way along a mountain road of moderate difficulty. In one of the carriages, Jun Wu held intelligence he had just received, comparing it against a map, studying the unfolding situation in Jiangnan. Also riding along with him in the carriage were Cheng Zhouhai and Zuo Xiuquan.
Ever since ascending the throne in Jiangning, in the two years of moving steadily south, Jun Wu had thrown himself into governance and study, allowing himself little rest or relaxation. At the start of this year, when Zuo Wenhuai and others arrived in Fuzhou, bringing support from the teacher back in the southwest, some of his major strategies had gradually begun to take shape with the combined efforts of the advisors around him — on one hand, promoting the study of natural science, pushing maritime trade, and forging ties with Lingnan; on the other, tightening domestic governance, consolidating power, promoting young officials, and building up a military academy in the southeast to unify people’s thinking.
In the latter half of Wuzhenxing’s second year, once the southeastern court had settled on the direction of reviving maritime trade, piracy had flared up off the coast of Fujian. Jun Wu, with the help of Zuo Wenhuai and others, used ruthless methods to root out several major merchant-shipping households whose fortunes were still land-based, while at the same time opening up shares in the official fleet’s trading ventures directly to the public and courting the merchant fleets of Lingnan, fighting several fierce battles against the “pirates” out on the open sea. Only now had he managed, barely, to establish some measure of authority as sovereign.
This whole run of actions had, of course, drawn no shortage of impeachments and remonstrations at court. Local gentry and merchants, along with the visiting great scholars, had all found the young emperor’s headstrong, self-willed conduct hard to stomach, and “not competing with the people for profit” had become the refrain Jun Wu had heard most often this past year.
By the time winter arrived, the various conflicts across the region had, if anything, only intensified rather than eased. This was because, once Jun Wu had arrived in Fuzhou and secured his footing, he had begun “selecting talent” on a large scale, modeling himself on Ning Yi’s approach, promoting all manner of young functionaries based on results and purpose. Especially after Zuo Wenhuai and the others arrived, with Jun Wu putting Zuo Wenhuai in charge of the military academy and granting more authority to lower-level functionaries, these young officials had begun conducting all kinds of investigations throughout Fujian, some of them already taking charge of various administrative matters, and friction with local power structures in Fujian arose accordingly, and often.
Fujian was only so big a place to begin with. The local powers who had originally welcomed the emperor had wanted wealth and glory, perhaps even a rising tide lifting everyone connected to them — who could have known the young emperor’s ambitions ran this deep. The moment he arrived, he was purging household registers, tallying the population, auditing accounts, even seizing the maritime trade business — and as if that weren’t enough, he was also stuffing a whole crowd of young men into positions of power. There was only so much power to go around in any given place, and everyone wanted a share, so it was inevitable that arguments broke out again and again at the golden hall. At this point, Jun Wu had not yet moved on a large scale to strip local gentry of their real power, but the situation was clearly already on the verge of open confrontation.
Throughout this period, Princess Imperial Zhou Pei, who had better relations with the various gentry and great scholars, often reminded Jun Wu that the local gentry’s power was not small, and that the various clans, closely tied to one another by kinship, were more unified than clans from outside the region — this was not something to force through by hard means. Jun Wu understood this; while having his sister work to keep the various scholars united, he himself had no choice but to spend much of his time smoothing things over, all the while hoping his own power base would grow stronger faster — that maritime trade would show results soon, or that his side’s scientific development would break through, so he could produce the kind of rocket-artillery the teacher back in the southwest had, and level anything he found displeasing.
With winter’s onset came snow, and the various local administrative matters had eased somewhat as a result, but Jun Wu kept his head down and worked all the same. Whenever he had time to spare, he still often looked in on the progress of the science institute and the military academy. Those around him were gratified by the emperor’s diligence in governance, yet at the same time frequently urged him to rest more.
Jun Wu paid the advice no heed. By November, with Noble Consort Shen Ruxin in poor health, he arranged for her to go take the hot springs at Lianjiang. By mid-November or so, he announced he was going to join the Noble Consort at the hot springs to recuperate, but in truth brought along Zuo Xiuquan, Cheng Zhouhai, and a large group of young officials-in-training, making his way in a roundabout route toward Lianjiang through the snow-covered countryside, inspecting the local people’s livelihoods along the way.
By the 24th, news had arrived that Zhou Shang had been knocked out of the game.
“…According to Lord Zuo’s earlier arrangements, word that Gao Chang is willing to defect hasn’t leaked out yet. If we let General Gao take these areas bordering on Lin’an to the south, then when we break out of Fujian afterward, we might be able to strike some kind of understanding with He Wen — divide things along the Yangtze for now. That way, the waterways would open up, and maritime trade would also become that much more convenient…”
“Given He Wen’s temperament and his current holdings, if he wants the Yangtze, I suspect it’ll still come to a fight.”
“Then we’ll just have to fight it.”
Poring over the map, Jun Wu and Cheng Zhouhai were exchanging thoughts, when at that very moment a warning cry rang out ahead, followed by the sound of an explosion from behind.
Everything around them turned chaotic at once. The carriage lurched and pitched, tilting with a jolt — one of its wheels seemed to have caught on something in the road. Zuo Xiuquan and Cheng Zhouhai both blanched, one saying, “Is Your Majesty all right?” the other, “Your Majesty, do not act rashly!”
Jun Wu waved a hand and, inside the tilted carriage, pushed aside some of the curtains. A guard stationed by the carriage called out, “Your Majesty, are you all right?” At that moment Tie Tianying was some distance off; his gaze swept over this way with apparent casualness, and Jun Wu made a hand gesture toward him, at which the man’s eyes moved on.
There was more than one carriage in the advancing procession; nine of the ten were decoys. Through the gap in the curtains, Jun Wu glanced ahead and behind, and saw that the fighting and warning cries up front still seemed to be some distance off, over toward the mountainside, while the explosion behind was closer — it seemed a fire ship loaded with explosives had collapsed a bridge over the riverbed behind them. This procession of some three hundred people was now cut off from retreat by the small river, while up ahead, assassins seemed to be coming down out of the hills, shouts of battle filling the air. Their forward scouts had already spotted the attackers, and it would take the enemy some time to reach them, but whether any assassins lay in ambush nearby was harder to say.
Looking front and back, Zuo Xiuquan and Cheng Zhouhai both grasped the whole situation.
Cheng Zhouhai said quietly, “The attackers seem to number in the thousands. The carriages carry leather rafts — Your Majesty could cross the river now with Lord Tie and the others.”
Jun Wu smiled. “If a thousand men have come, this is no mere band of assassins — this is an army.” He had already pulled his armor out from under his seat.
Zuo Xiuquan frowned. “For anyone to deploy a thousand men in a place like this, whoever has that kind of strength… Your Majesty, do not act recklessly…”
Jun Wu tore off the robe he was wearing to reveal the armor beneath, then put on the remaining pieces he hadn’t yet donned, and set his helmet on his head.
“And if we cross the river and turn back, only to be cut off there too? When the Hegemon-King of Chu fought the Qin army at Julu, he smashed his cauldrons and sank his boats, and won nine battles straight — I’ve always longed to do something like that.” He walked out, smiling.
On the road, soldiers were assembling. The several dozen young officials who had come along on this trip had all already drawn their swords, and when they saw the emperor emerge from the tilted carriage and stride, with a firm step, straight up onto its roof, even Tie Tianying was startled enough to come rushing back.
The roar of battle rolled down from the hills. Jun Wu spread one arm wide and laughed.
“Soldiers, all of you! Among our company today are two renowned men. Lord Zuo Xiuquan, advanced in years and moral standing, all of you have heard of him. And Lord Cheng Zhouhai, who over a decade ago followed the Qin family’s eldest son in defending Taiyuan for a year, endured battle after battle, and still carries the wounds from it — winter is never easy on him. This trip, we set out to accompany them both to Lianjiang, to take the hot springs!”
“And now, someone bars our road. Soldiers, all of you — comrades—”
He drew his long sword.
Amid the snow-covered road, there was a moment of silence, and then they heard Zhou Junwu’s voice.
“Follow me and strike down the enemy—”
The imperial guard accompanying Jun Wu on this trip wasn’t a large force, but every one of them had once charged alongside Jun Wu beneath the walls of Jiangning, and so, the instant they heard the word “comrades,” the very bearing and momentum of the men up ahead visibly transformed.
Coming down from the hills were the most elite loyal retainers of one, or perhaps several, of Fujian’s great clans, howling as they cut through the snowy woodland.
“Death to the tyrant—”
“Long live the Empress—”
And what met them was a thunderous battle cry—
“Kill—”
……
Just as the front lines clashed, along one side of the ridge, a white-clad force, nearly indistinguishable from the snowy mountain itself, suddenly surged like a wild tide, driving straight into the assassins’ formation.
Zuo Wenhuai, a former Huaxia Army soldier, led the charge, driving straight for wherever the enemy’s leadership was positioned.
At the same time, Jun Wu, leading the imperial guard and the sword-wielding young officials, held firm against the surging tide crashing in from the front.
Blood sprayed and danced across the snowy sky like scattered silk, figures tumbled and fell into corpses, and explosions rang out here and there.
Jun Wu shouted, charging forward, then was pulled back by the imperial guard on either side of him. Tie Tianying, some ten paces ahead, cut down the scattered assassins who rushed at him, one after another, felling them to the ground.
“Kill—”
Jun Wu had no choice but to bellow fiercely.
Blood surged upward like a rising tide from below, and at one point, as Jun Wu was being escorted forward, someone suddenly lunged at him from behind.
“Ah—”
He whipped around; one of the young officials who had come along, originally in his own retinue, was now slashing at him with a blade. The guard beside him rushed to meet the attack, and Jun Wu, wielding his long sword with both hands, hacked out fiercely as well. Blades flashed and crossed in the air; Jun Wu’s sword clashed hard with the man’s full-force strike, and with the next stroke, he split the man’s neck open with a single slash.
A soldier cut the man’s belly open at the same instant, and more blades were already hacking down at the assassin.
Blood, hot and reeking, splashed across Jun Wu’s face; the assassin had been all but hacked to pieces, collapsing behind him. This was the first time in the young emperor’s life that he had personally killed a man; he took two breaths to steady himself, then turned back around and gave another fierce roar, charging forward once more.
Being surrounded like this was tedious, but no matter what, he had to spend everything he had to rally morale.
The assault force, nearly a thousand strong, was soon cut through by a counterattack of close to two hundred men, and Jun Wu, leading his men, pursued and cut down the fleeing enemy all the way up to the summit of a nearby snow-capped peak, where he finally stopped, sword in hand, upon that snowline of the moment. The winter sun shone down, etching his silhouette into the memory of everyone present.
Beneath his armor, Jun Wu’s body trembled faintly.
He then thanked Zuo Wenhuai and the others who had followed him all these days.
……
That same evening, at Fuzhou.
Upon learning of the day’s events, Zhou Pei summoned the dozen or so prominent ministers, great scholars, and clan representatives currently gathered there, and told them of the assassination attempt Jun Wu had faced that day, and of how he had turned back and defeated a force of a thousand with barely over a hundred imperial guards, of his heroic bearing in the fight.
“Over a decade ago, in the shame of the Jingping era, the late emperor fled south to Lin’an, and the common people of the realm followed him south as well. Later, with too many people and too little land, the court declared that southerners should return south, northerners should return north. But in truth, the northerners had no north left to return to. That we came to such a pass — that was our Zhou clan’s own failure of virtue…”
“And now, here in Fujian, it seems we must say the same thing again — southerners return south, northerners return north. And this time, it seems they mean to drive out us northern-born royals from here altogether…”
She wore a long gown, her gaze sweeping across the room. Then the teacup she had been holding slipped from her hand and shattered on the floor with a sharp crack, in a hall gone utterly silent. She looked down at the broken cup, was silent for a while, then straightened, her expression composed, and tears began to fall from her otherwise unreadable eyes. Her voice came out hoarse.
“Death to the tyrant, long live the Empress… all of you mean to drive Zhou Pei to her death… very well, do it now, if you must.”