The sun was setting in the west.
On the slopes northeast of Weisheng, a man with a strikingly upright face stood facing the entire city with an imposing bearing.
Looking down from high above, within the ancient city, soldiers on horseback wove through the streets, converging toward the northeast side of the city. Birds skimmed across the sky, and on the ground, messengers carrying documents from the Ministry of War streamed out one after another from the western and southern gates, hurrying along the roads that stretched into the distance.
A great net was being woven, spreading bit by bit across the whole sky.
Zou Xu faced the city of Weisheng, spread his arms wide, and waited without fear.
But the city remained silent, giving no response.
So he lowered his outstretched arms, then spread them again — doing this several times — walked in a circle nearby, and burst out laughing.
Just as he was about to leave, the city gate behind him let out a creaking groan.
The drawbridge came down. Then the gate gradually opened, and a woman’s figure appeared at the edge of the wall, pointing this way — perhaps saying something too: “Wait a moment.” But her voice was too faint, and he could not make it out clearly.
Zou Xu tilted his head.
Lou Shuwan descended the wall unhurriedly. Out of Zou Xu’s sight, her generals took turns trying to talk her out of it, but she merely looked them over, gazing toward the still-distant approaching army, and said with a half-smile: “I’m going out to catch up with my dear nephew. As for how to keep it safe, that’s your problem to solve.”
She mounted her horse slowly. Hu Changshu came to hold the reins for her, and when he urged her to put on her armor, she shook her head: “I can’t wear it today. I haven’t the strength.” Then she added, “Once I’m out there, if the chance arises, kill him.”
“Yes.”
In the light of the setting sun, two figures passed slowly through the city gate.
On the other side, Zou Xu practically leapt up. He spread both arms, then pointed this way and shouted warmly: “No weapons—” and spun around once where he stood.
Hu Changshu tossed his long blade aside.
The war horses advanced, gradually closing the distance, until the two parties finally stopped some ten-odd zhang apart, close enough now to make out each other’s faces and hear each other speak. Zou Xu nudged his horse a little closer and swept out a hand: “Right here, I think — any closer and we won’t be able to talk.”
Lou Shuwan clenched her fist and coughed once atop her horse: “General Zou, surely you’re not afraid of me.”
“Better to assume the worst before assuming the best — I’m afraid of the man beside you. If he makes a move, all I can do is run.” Zou Xu looked her over with a smile, studying her for a moment, then cupped his hands in salute. “Congratulations to Aunt Lou. ‘To bear the humiliation of the state is to become its ruler; to bear its misfortune is to become king of the realm.’ From today, Aunt Lou has truly risen another step, to become Prince of Jin in more than just name!”
“I suppose I have General Zou to thank.”
“Of course you do.” Zou Xu did not demur. “Aunt Lou, your position in the Jin region wasn’t quite ripe before. These past two days, it was I who spread word within the city that things would go badly for the Jin region without you, the Lady Chancellor — that’s why you were able to return to such citywide rejoicing. Aunt Lou, this is what’s called the will of the people. That they happen to be lifting you up today doesn’t mean they’re entirely to be trusted. Once you’re back in power here, you must stay on guard!”
A warm wind blew across the hillside beneath the setting sun. Lou Shuwan, still on horseback, watched her expression shift gradually from a cold smile to something more serious. The horse beneath her shifted slightly, and she lowered her head, thinking it over.
“I’ll remember General Zou’s heartfelt words.”
“Many years from now, I too will remember the sight of Aunt Lou beating the drum atop the city wall today, being crowned as a prince.” Zou Xu spread his hands with a smile. “At the very least, right now, I truly want to strike here and kill an enemy like Aunt Lou. But I have great ambitions, and I still need to keep my word in matters of business.”
“Oh,” Lou Shuwan nodded. “You still keep your word.”
“Deception in war doesn’t damage one’s credibility, but attacking during a parley is another matter entirely.” Zou Xu pointed toward Hu Changshu. “So I ask Aunt Lou to restrain herself as well — otherwise there won’t be any more heart-to-hearts like this one in front of the battle lines in the future.”
Under the setting sun, Zou Xu spoke on eloquently. Lou Shuwan, seated on her horse, couldn’t help but laugh. She stroked the horse beneath her, then suddenly looked up and asked: “Have you colluded with the Jurchens?”
Zou Xu did not answer, only shook his head, silent and smiling.
“Though the question might seem pointless,” Lou Shuwan said, “why would you do such a thing?”
“If not for that, my teacher would have nowhere to turn once he emerged. Neither would I have a way to survive.”
“In your eyes, do I have a great many weaknesses?”
“The Huaxia Army has made a detailed study of every hero under heaven. Aunt Lou, your problem has always stood out — a woman, without an heir, holding together the various clans of the Jin region through your skill with commerce. Though there’s been some sweetness in it, it’s never lasted. You’ve used Huaxia’s tiger-skin to paper over every contradiction, playing the shrew before the Black Banner as though you’d gained the upper hand. The moment you’re gone, the Jin region becomes a heap of loose sand. One assassination could solve every problem. Tell me — what exactly are the various clans of the Jin region playing at with you?”
Lou Shuwan tilted her head back and laughed: “Well put… and here I’d thought that of all the powers under heaven, mine was the only one enjoying some peace lately.”
“That peace is only because no outside force has tested you yet, and because none of them know Huaxia’s stance — they’ve been holding back where you’re concerned. But true gold has to be tempered by fire. Take Liu Guangshi, for instance — he couldn’t withstand the refining, and one fire burned him clean away. Tie Yan and Wu Qimei simply sat waiting to die like frogs in slowly boiling water. He Wen, by contrast, deliberately provoked a split in the Fairness Party to weed out the wavering, exposing himself to the flames and tempering himself in them — but the most interesting of all is the Zhou clan of the southeast. They’ve cast aside almost everything the old Wu Dynasty once stood for, stripped power from the great clans, established military academies, and elevated the young — all under the banner of ‘honor the king, expel the barbarians.’ They’ve whittled themselves down to their weakest point. But once the core that truly belongs to them takes shape, such people become formidable. As the world says: the gentleman’s virtue is the wind, the petty man’s virtue is the grass — once you have a firm core of your own, everything else will come flocking to you in time.”
In the sunlight, Zou Xu’s words flowed smooth and forceful. He showed not the slightest trace of fear or dejection. Lou Shuwan watched him: “Then… in your view, what should the Jin region take as its core?”
“Simply surrender.”
“Hm?”
“Surrender to me, or surrender to the Southwest.” Zou Xu said loudly. “It’s a pity to say, but the Jin region never had the chance to establish a core of its own. Broadly speaking, you’re nothing more than a hastily assembled resistance coalition, forced together under Jurchen pressure. As I said — Aunt Lou, you command the various sides for now through your skill with commerce, and while you can direct them for the moment, every great clan has its own interests to pursue. The instant you’re gone, they’ll start thinking of their own futures… To have a core of your own, you’d first have to centralize power. But to centralize power, you’d have to form your own faction of interests, and forming your own faction of interests breeds large-scale corruption, and large-scale corruption gives every household a reason to turn against you…”
“What can hold corruption in check?”
“Culture — or rather, a spiritual core that points toward long-term interest, which can offset short-term corruption. Take the ancient Confucian teachings my own Old Dai upholds, or the fairness He Wen champions, or the ‘honor the king, expel the barbarians’ of the Zhou clan in the southeast, or the Four Peoples of the Southwest — all of these give people a reason to act nobly and resist short-term greed. In these respects, Aunt Lou, you cannot compete.” Zou Xu waved a hand. “What’s more — I’ve already made my move. The Jin region is about to become a battleground on four fronts. There’s no more time left for reform. If you don’t surrender to me, this land will be trampled to bare earth.”
Seated on her horse, Lou Shuwan looked quietly at Zou Xu across from her. At this moment, the two of them stood, in essence, at the same height. She thought for a moment: “Shandong still has the Huaxia Army, and the Guangwu Army.”
“Meaningless.” Zou Xu shook his head. “The Huaxia Army of the Southwest may be invincible under heaven, but north of the Yellow River, you cannot hold back this raging flood of a chaotic age.”
“He could break through and come.”
“It’s very hard for my teacher to break through.” Zou Xu said, his tone rising. “What he wants to do is the most fanciful thing in this world — the most long-term of interests. He wants to make people noble, wants to make people love one another, wants people to cast off private desire, wants everyone for me and me for everyone. He carries out land reform, wants to tear down the clan system so the great families can never rise again, wants to use universal education and the slogan of the Four Peoples to bring about a world where everyone is equal. Even someone like me is, in his eyes, a flawed product. To accomplish something like that, he first has to gather the largest number of comrades, the sturdiest of cores…”
“He is carrying out the Four Peoples policy, but you go too far in saying—”
“Ha, that’s because Aunt Lou never truly sat in on his lectures. Back in the Southwest, he even spoke once of a dream about communal ownership…” Zou Xu paused here and shook his head. “But let’s return to the matter at hand. Take the technical comrades from East City, for instance — in the Southwest, they received an education in incorruptibility. Once they came to the Jin region, it was you, Aunt Lou, who corrupted them, and that let me step in and offer them more — more promises. So at this moment, they have no choice but to follow me… Aunt Lou, you know he treats them too harshly. You know we’re a little better.”
“…”
“So — if you join me, the regime in the Jin region can truly take root, and everyone’s interests can be safeguarded. This time, they won’t be broken up and destroyed again. Aunt Lou, you could walk right up to his face, could even defeat him — and once you have, I’ll let him live. Join me.”
Zou Xu’s words rang out, resounding. Lou Shuwan said nothing more, gazing at him calmly. After two breaths, Zou Xu knew his impromptu attempt to win her over had failed.
He smiled too.
“The new land policy still needs another two or three years to complete. A great army marching out, seizing vast tracts of land, gaining vast numbers of subjects — that will, in turn, water down his ranks of cadres. Many will grow corrupt, just as I did, leaving the seeds of disease and disaster for his future reforms. That’s why he won’t come out easily. What’s truly interesting is that — perhaps because my teacher started out as a merchant — his push for scientific inquiry and so-called capital in the Southwest may also burn his efforts to ash. He always does things that contradict themselves… One misstep, and he too could become this age’s Wang Mang. And you see, Aunt Lou, all I can do, here and now, is pose him a question.”
Lou Shuwan remained silent, running her hand along the neck of the horse beneath her, mulling over the exchange. After a while, she said: “You say you’ve all discussed this problem of mine…”
Zou Xu smiled: “I’m sure that in his letters to you, he’s touched on it — only he’d never spell it out too plainly.”
“Why?”
“You see — with no one to point it out, you’ve only now come to understand it yourself. In this world, you too are his disciple.” Zou Xu smiled. “I’m the one who set you this question. As for Guanzhong, consider it your tuition, so to speak.”
“Not too dear… quite fair, actually…” Lou Shuwan murmured with a nod.
“And if Aunt Lou can, in the end, solve the puzzle of the Jin region, I imagine it would please him greatly.”
“If you’d said this to me a few months ago, I’d have been glad to hear it too.”
She said this with a sigh, then slowly turned her horse’s head, preparing to leave.
Only at the last moment did she turn back: “I’m curious — you knew you couldn’t talk me into surrendering. Why did you want to see me this time?”
“My teacher once said in his lectures: an enemy you can see clearly is far easier to deal with than one you can’t. Aunt Lou has undergone a transformation — you’re no longer the person you were. I wanted to see it with my own eyes.”
“And what did you see?”
“This time, you didn’t once speak out of spite or defiance.” Zou Xu raised a hand with a sigh. “I suspect I’m probably going to die this time.”
“If you die, I’ll see you buried with honor, in tribute to this question you’ve set me.”
“No need.”
…
Out on the open field, in the sunlight, Zou Xu laughed.
“— Just find yourselves a cauldron and boil me in it!”
…
At that moment, the dying sun bled red across the sky.
Lou Shuwan rode her horse slowly back toward Weisheng.
Zou Xu, too, mounted his horse.
Inside the open city gates, assembled soldiers began to appear, streaming out through the gate. In moments, they passed by the returning Lady Chancellor.
Before long, the cavalry, skirting what might be mined ground, began their charge.
Over on the earthen slope, Zou Xu returned to his already-arrayed army. He shouted as he ran.
“This time I came prepared with a full plan of retreat. The various forces that turned against the Jin region won’t be going back — they’ll cover our withdrawal. Weisheng still has to hold its city; the men who rush out in haste won’t number many. Hold off the first wave, and there’s a way out. Come with me to Guanzhong, and I’ll give you a lifetime of riches!” he roared. “As for whether I keep my word, ask the men of the Gongchen Guard beside you—”
Beneath the blood-red sunset, a battle broke out — not large in scale, but ferocious beyond measure—
…
BOOM—
Beneath the sky over the Jin region, cannon fire or gunfire suddenly rang out. Five hundred li east of there, in the tangled waterways and mountains of the marshland, thunder rumbled ceaselessly in the sky as well.
The rainy season had arrived, and the marsh saw days on end of thunderstorms, its vast waters growing turbid.
Amid the wind and rain, Liangshan Island rose in solitary peaks, its sprawling buildings divided into two military camps — one belonging to Shandong’s Huaxia Seventeenth Army, the other to the Wu Dynasty’s Guangwu Army.
The two armies, stationed together at Liangshan, were as close as brothers, yet competed with each other all day long. Their daily training mostly took the form of mock battles between the two forces, and their matches on the practice field — football, sparring — were likewise held between the two armies each day.
In the earlier years, Liangshan had nearly been reduced to scorched earth, supplies scarce, everything in ruins. The soldiers, half-starved, had trained little. But by this year, the stronghold, with support from the Jin region, had largely recovered, and thanks to its position on the marsh, fish were never in short supply, so training had redoubled in intensity.
Even now, in the rain, there was still morning drill and indoor cultural instruction to attend each day, and the training ground halfway up the mountain beside the marsh saw fighting without pause, day after day. The elite fighters of both armies split into different squads, sparring in rounds from morning to night — training in sunlight when it was clear, rolling in the mud when it rained.
Of course, only the army’s most elite scouts earned the chance to fight here; the fiercer the fighting, the more supplies were allotted to support it. At this moment, Zhu Biao, Lu Junyi, Wang Shanyue, and others had all gathered at the front of the training ground, shouting themselves hoarse to cheer on the members of their own squads, their soldiers’ cries nearly enough to lift the rain shelter off its frame.
Across the mud-splattered training ground, all manner of objects had been set out to simulate different kinds of terrain. Between the squads, besides simple brawling, there were also coordinated maneuvers of dividing and converging forces, army-style.
The fighting was at its fiercest when someone pushed in from outside the field, shoving through the crowd toward where Zhu Biao and the others stood, throwing a few punches and kicks along the way. When several Guangwu Army soldiers struck back, he couldn’t resist showing off his ability to take on a crowd alone, stirring the whole group into chaos.
“Hey! No brawling in the spectator area—” the guards keeping order shouted.
“They were blocking my way. I’ve got an urgent order,” Luo Ye bellowed hysterically.
He belonged to the army’s mid-to-upper ranks, born into a wealthy family, and on ordinary days, apart from talk of battle, he generally carried himself with composure and elegance. Being well-traveled and well-informed, after coming to Liangshan he had taken up work in the staff office and the intelligence department. Now, waving his arms, he shoved through the crowd in a headlong rush until he reached Zhu Biao’s side, saluted, grabbed him, and made to leave.
“Wha-wha-what, what’s wrong?” Zhu Biao, bare-armed, had been itching to get into the fight himself, and this was the first time he’d seen Luo Ye wear such an expression.
“Come, come, come — there’s, there’s something—”
Seeing the scar-faced yet still striking Wang Shanyue standing nearby, Luo Ye didn’t say much more. Zhu Biao instinctively glanced at Wang Shanyue too, then turned and followed. The two of them pushed through the excited soldiers and hurried away from the training ground toward their own command post, and when Zhu Biao glanced back without warning, he saw Wang Shanyue sneaking along right behind them.
“Hey, what’s it to you! This is a military secret. Go away!”
Wang Shanyue caught up in a few strides, an arm already draped around Zhu Biao’s neck in an easy, familiar way: “No nonsense. If Luo Ye’s like this, it must be something big. We’re all brothers here — let’s hash it out together.”
The two armies were nominally serving different masters, but they had weathered hardship together, and here at Liangshan, they weren’t kept too separate either.
Luo Ye dragged Zhu Biao all the way back to the command post. He turned to look at Zhu Biao, then at Wang Shanyue, then back at Zhu Biao again, hesitated a moment, then rushed to the table, past caring anymore.
“According to… according to the intelligence gathered from the north these past few days… the Jin state, the Jin state — the Eastern Route Army appears to be massing in large numbers, Wanyan Chang, Wanyan Chang is moving south — there’s every indication that… the Jurchens’ fifth southern campaign is about to begin—”
Two drowned rats stood in the doorway, still frozen in their arm-around-the-shoulder pose, mouths hanging open. After a moment, Wang Shanyue came to his senses, gave a sniff, then reached up and wiped away something — rain or drool, he wasn’t sure which — from the corner of his mouth.
“You — what did you just say…”
Zhu Biao turned his head, looking dazed: “This… this is our army’s secret, you’d better get lost…”
“Hahaha…” Standing between the table and the blackboard, Luo Ye began to laugh. He wiped the water from his face, pounded his fist on the table a few times, looked at the two of them, and then: “Hahaha… hmm…” He covered his mouth.
The second half of last year, a letter had come from the Southwest, informing him that his only surviving sister — the one who had lost her mind — had reached Chengdu, and that the higher-ups in the army hoped he would return to Chengdu to report on his work and, in passing, see his only remaining family. He hadn’t gone back.
That night, sitting by the water behind the hills, reading the letter over and over — he had cried, almost exactly like this…
At this moment…
He had waited far too long already…