On the eleventh day of the seventh month, the ninth year of the Jinghan era, at the border of Huzhou and Hangzhou, just past noon, dark clouds spread across the sky as though wrapping the world in premature dusk, thunderclouds gathering. In the camp, several thousand remnant soldiers of the Wude Camp began gathering on an open stretch of ground.
Unease spread through the crowd. Near the main tent, the officers and gentry who now made up the leadership of the fleeing column were engaged in a heated argument under the oppressive, overcast sky; some, more hot-tempered by nature, looked almost ready to come to blows, before being pulled back by those around them.
It wasn’t only here—word that Lu Qiao’s army had discovered the direction they were hiding in, and was now advancing toward them, had also gradually begun to spread through the ranks. Some among the civilians had by now caught wind of it too, though no real panic had broken out yet, because if the news was true, no one could even bring themselves to make a rash decision at this point—ahead lay rivers and lakes about to be lashed by rain, behind lay walking straight into the enemy’s net. No one knew which way to flee.
Some were still trying to confirm whether the news was true; others sought out people they knew, asking what to do. At the main tent, all manner of onlookers focused their attention most intently on those inside. Tang Xiuxuan, Qian Haiping, Chen Xingdu, and the sickly young scholar Ning Liheng, along with a number of others who had once held reputations for talent or office back in Hangzhou, all found themselves under close watch.
Ning Yi occasionally exchanged a few simple words with people, most often with Tang Xiuxuan nearby. As one of the heads of the four great families, this elderly man still held the highest standing and the widest network of connections. The Wu Dynasty had, for many years now, favored civil officials over military men, and even Chen Xingdu, at this point, could not afford to treat a true member of the gentry lightly. Tang Xiuxuan spoke with Ning Yi for a long while, and at one point finally, brow furrowed, looked deeply at him and nodded.
“Master Xiwen thought highly of you back in Hangzhou, didn’t he… At this point, there’s nothing left to do but follow your lead. Go on, then. Take care of yourself.”
Just as he said this, an officer suddenly moved to charge angrily at Ning Yi, only to be pulled back by others. Tang Xiuxuan glanced over, shook his head, and turned to walk away, leaning on his cane, while the officer, still cursing under his breath, was dragged back at a distance. Ning Yi paid him no attention; supported by Su Tan’er, he made his way off in another direction. Though already exhausted, there was still work to be done.
At that moment, Yao Yi’s forces were pressing steadily southward toward their position without pause, while farther to the north, the Black Plume Guard had changed course and was racing toward them at full speed. Beneath that sky, on the northeastern edge of this great battlefield, on the far side of the river, a woman named Liu Qianqian—known by her childhood name, Liu Xigua—was leading a detachment of the Overlord Blade Camp in a flanking maneuver toward the north side of the Shiqiao crossing. She was in no hurry, simply waiting for Lu Qiao and the others to defeat the fleeing column somewhere to the north, after which she intended to go collect the military strategist she had her eye on.
As Ning Yi, forcing back his dizziness, made his way toward the open ground where the Wude Camp soldiers had gathered, he could already hear, from some distance off, several waves of uproar rising up. Faintly, he could make out Chen Xingdu speaking, laying out the entire situation they now faced, plainly and in full, to the assembled soldiers.
It was a stretch of grassland that, at this moment, had come to resemble a small parade ground, with a simple platform erected at the front. The wind was light. As Ning Yi approached from the side, half the crowd turned to look at him. Su Tan’er did not follow him up; a place like this was not one where she could properly support him. On the platform stood not only Chen Xingdu, but also Tang Xiuxuan, Qian Haiping, and a number of Hangzhou officials and gentry. Looking at Ning Yi, who appeared rather frail at this point, they harbored no small amount of resentment, though most kept it from showing openly—some simply stared at him, others turned their heads away.
On the large platform, a simple cloth banner had been set up, marking out everyone’s current position and the five enemy forces bearing down on them.
“…Brothers! We have no way back now! They mean to drive us to our deaths! We have only one way to go—forward! We number three thousand; they number only a thousand, and scattered at that, unable to reinforce each other in time… It’s only because they underestimate us that we have this chance at all. If we let them come to their senses, we’ll have no chance left at all… These past few days, we’ve worked ourselves to the bone just to pull them apart. Someone else can point the way, but you have to earn your own life! Any of you with blood still in your veins, take up your blades, and let’s cut a bloody path through!”
Chen Xingdu himself had some skill at arms, and his voice, raised now, carried across the entire field—though he was no smooth talker, and what he said was, in essence, simply a repetition of Ning Yi’s own words. When he finished, Ning Yi walked over, handed the thick stack of registers he was carrying to Tang Xiuxuan, then moved to stand beside Chen Xingdu. “I don’t have much strength left. General Chen, would you pass my words along for me?”
Chen Xingdu nodded. Ning Yi swept his gaze across the dark mass of over three thousand men and spoke, low and slow.
“Doubling back midway, and putting ourselves into this dead end—that was a deliberate scheme of my own making. I am Ning Liheng, and I set all of you up. But other than fighting our way out of certain death, we have no second path left to take.”
Chen Xingdu paused a moment, taken aback, before finally repeating the words loudly for the crowd to hear. At once, a low buzz of murmuring swept through the army once more. Ning Yi waited a moment before continuing.
“No way forward, pursuers behind us. A column of nearly ten thousand people cannot hide the trail it leaves. No matter which way we go around this stretch of country near Hangzhou, given enough time, we face nothing but death. Ahead of us lie close to six thousand enemies—but after the battle for Hangzhou, Fang La’s rebel forces have already grown careless. Yesterday, doubling back from the Shiqiao crossing, we fooled them that easily—that’s proof enough. We still have one card left to play: we are the Wude Camp… we are elite soldiers of the imperial army.”
Ning Yi looked out over them, but in truth, this kind of flattery had little effect.
“In the battle for Hangzhou, we lost—lost because of bad timing, lost in a way that even confused us ourselves. There are still three thousand of us walking here today. I don’t know if all of you have begun to feel afraid. But Fang La’s men already think of us as nothing but a flock of chickens and tiles waiting to be smashed. They sent five armies after us, each barely a thousand strong, and these men are too busy quarreling among themselves, unwilling to let any one side claim too large a share of the spoils, to give much thought to how they’re actually going to defeat us and take what we have. They think, just like all of you do, that this is already a foregone conclusion. But we still have three thousand men, and among us, those bodyguards and armed escorts number close to a thousand more. The situation right now is drawn out on the map behind me. They’re coming at us, arrogant and confident, a little over a thousand strong. We number over four thousand. They have one thousand. We have four thousand.”
“I don’t know much about warfare. I don’t know whether we can win. But by now, all of you understand our situation clearly—it’s different from before. This time, every one of you understands clearly how we’re going to fight, and you understand it just as well as I do. All I can do now is help you with a few other things.”
He waved a hand, and several men carried forward a number of chests, large and small.
“Since yesterday, we’ve been recording the names and hometowns of every one of you brothers. Everyone here today—led by Elder Tang—I’ve just handed over the entire register to him. All of us in this column now, we’re in the same boat. If we can make it back to Huzhou, look up at this platform, look over there—every one of them owes you a debt of gratitude. Every single one of you can rise in rank and gain in fortune.”
The chests were opened, and the gleam of gold and silver flashed out.
“None of the people here are the sort to forget a debt of gratitude. All of you have defended Hangzhou—I know many of you have family, brothers, who were also in this city. Some of them are in this very column. Some have already died in Hangzhou, or couldn’t get out at all… Fang La killed them, burned your homes down… and there were women, too…”
Ning Yi paused, then pointed toward the cloth banner behind him. “These men aren’t like the elite troops that first attacked Hangzhou. They’re farmers—they don’t even have proper swords and spears among them! They’re fighting us with rakes and clubs in their hands! And even now, a little over a thousand of them are already bearing down on us, full of bluster! Think about how to escape if you like—strip off your clothes right now and swim across the river! Or you could go trample them into the ground right now! You’ve already seen it with your own eyes—their five armies are scattered. We take down Lu Qiao’s force, then Yao Yi’s, and the others won’t be able to catch up in time. We hold the river and fight, circle around and take down Xue Dounan too—it’s about to rain, and that’s heaven helping us… How this battle goes, whether we can win it—that’s for you to decide for yourselves!”
“If we win, you can avenge the family and brothers you lost in Hangzhou! You can split this gold and silver among you! You can go to Huzhou and rise in rank and fortune! You’ll be the only army to come out victorious from this whole disaster at Hangzhou! Every one of your names is recorded clearly in that register in Elder Tang’s hands. That register goes to Huzhou with us, and not one of you will be forgotten. And even if you don’t make it back yourselves, your families will still receive what’s owed to them—those of us who survive will care for your families as our own kin!”
Elder Tang nodded. “This old man will personally see to it. Heaven and earth bear witness.” Someone relayed his words out to the crowd.
Ning Yi smiled faintly. “But if we lose, there’ll be nothing left at all. Brothers, my own wife is with child right now—she’s standing right back there. If we lose even with everything stacked in our favor like this, we all die here. This gold and silver, they’ll take every last bit of it. You won’t survive. And Hangzhou—where they broke the city, destroyed your homes, killed your loved ones—that debt will never be repaid. Push forward now with everything you have, and you live, and you have everything. Turn back now, and none of you will ever get your revenge—it’s certain death… They’re a mob of rabble who don’t even have full sets of weapons among them, untrained, with no discipline, here only to loot and kill. There’s only a thousand of them. Are we really going to lose to that? Hand over everything we have to them?”
“Or are we going to take something back?”
Having said this, the whole scene fell into a suffocating silence. Beneath the dark, heavy clouds, everyone stared at the great banner, stunned for a long moment—until at last, someone spoke. “We can get our revenge…”
“How could we possibly lose—”
“Trample them into the ground—”
The roar of voices began to build, gathering momentum, and it was at this moment that someone suddenly burst forward. “Don’t listen to him—he’s spreading lies to deceive us, he’s the one who trapped us here in the first place!” This was the officer who had come after Ning Yi earlier. His surname was Xia, given name Qi—he was the cousin of the man Ning Yi had beaten half to death on the morning of the ninth for harassing someone trying to fetch water. Over the past several days, he had crossed Ning Yi several times, and now, rushing forward like this, he brought the crowd’s rising emotion to an abrupt halt. Xia Qi immediately began claiming that the entire plan had been Ning Yi’s doing alone.
The men on the platform were likewise taken aback. Chen Xingdu, who had just been delighted to see the soldiers’ spirits rallying, pointed at the man. “Xia Qi! Isn’t it enough that you’ve been making unreasonable trouble these past few days over your cousin’s private grudge against Master Ning? Now you dare stir up chaos among the ranks at a time like this!”
In a column of ten thousand, word could travel far or stay contained, depending—but the grudge between Ning Yi and Xia Qi’s cousin was something a fair number of the soldiers already knew about. Xia Qi tilted his head back. “General Chen, everything I’m saying is the truth. If it weren’t for this Ning Liheng…”
Before he could finish, Ning Yi, up on the platform, had already taken a few steps to the side, snatched up a crossbow from a nearby soldier’s hands, drew it back with all his strength, and aimed it straight at Xia Qi. Xia Qi froze for a moment, then spread both arms wide. “You wouldn’t dare—”
The next instant, there was a sharp crack, and a spray of blood shot out—the crossbow bolt had struck him directly in the forehead. The man’s eyes remained open, his arms still spread wide, as he crumpled to the ground. Ning Yi grabbed a spear from another nearby soldier with his other hand, using it to keep himself steady. “Enough of your nagging! Your endless whining! Your yammering! You’re no man!”
He had already been in a weakened state, but forced himself now to summon what strength he had left, his voice carrying across the entire field. For a moment, not only the soldiers below but even Tang Xiuxuan and the others on the platform stared in shock at this normally sickly-looking scholar, a chill running through them. They had heard the rumors of Ning Yi’s ruthlessness, of his clash with Shi Bao and the others, but had never witnessed it themselves—not until now, seeing him kill a man so decisively, without hesitation.
“There are only two roads left! Forward! Or back! Choose, and then walk it, and fight for your own life! If any of you have a personal grudge against me, come find me afterward! Kill me! I’ll take you on, no matter how many of you come! But anyone who tries to sow chaos among the ranks right now is an enemy to every single one of you! Whether you listen to them or not, that’s your choice to make!”
Having said all this, Ning Yi’s hands and body began shaking violently, though he still remained standing there. Among Xia Qi’s followers, a number of men had originally been present, and after the initial shock passed, one of them suddenly shouted, “How dare he kill a man in front of everyone, brothers—” Before he could finish, there came a sharp clang—someone behind him had suddenly drawn a blade and struck at him. The man, alert enough, blocked the blow and stumbled back several steps, while the one who had struck shouted, “Who the hell is your brother!” This turned out to be someone who had long held a grudge against him.
In the crowd, someone else drew a blade with a hiss, pointing it this way. “This man means us no good!”
“Kill him!”
More voices began shouting wildly. The man retreated several steps with his blade raised, but shouts were now rising from every direction, and many, their eyes already reddened by the blood just spilled, understood there was no point coming after Ning Yi now. Amid the shouting, a blade suddenly came down across the man’s ribs from someone beside him, blood spraying out; wide-eyed with shock, he swung his blade wildly in every direction. A burly man in the crowd of soldiers charged straight at him, plunging a blade into his stomach with a single stroke. “I’ll kill you myself, you coward—”
One strike, and then another—the soldiers around him had already formed a circle, blades flashing down upon him again and again, blood spraying in every direction, until someone finally split his skull open with a single blow, and the ground all around had turned red with blood. The burly man at the front raised his blade high, turning to face north. “Brothers, kill every last one of those bastards! Revenge—”
“Kill them.”
“Kill every last one of those farmers—”
“I want my revenge!”
In a matter of moments, nearly everyone had had their eyes reddened by this bloodshed; blades flashed like fire, the roar of voices rising to a boil. The army, in this state, could hardly be said to have much in the way of proper command—but the raw, desperate bloodlust of men with their backs against the wall had, at last, been fully unleashed.
Ning Yi stood there, leaning on the spear, watching it all unfold. He blinked, and then, the darkness closed in around him from every side. His body turned cold, his vision began to tilt, and as he drew a breath, he faintly heard someone shout: “Master Ning—”
“Master Ning…”
Consciousness slipped away…
…
Half a quarter-hour later, beneath the overcast sky, on a hillside amid a stretch of hills less than two li to the north, Lu Qiao and his men caught sight of the target of their pursuit and charged toward them like a pack of wolves, the two sides quickly closing to within bowshot range. A scattering of arrows flew across from this side, seeming to have little effect.
Lu Qiao was still puzzling over why the two sides had closed the distance so quickly when the several thousand Wude Camp soldiers on the other side, eyes red with fury, blades and spears swinging, surged forward like a tidal wave, their war cries shaking the sky.
The soldier from Lu Qiao’s ranks charging at the very front sensed, faintly, that something was wrong, and almost instinctively slowed for a moment—only to be knocked to the ground and trampled by the man behind him. More and more of the men ahead began, likewise, to instinctively slow their pace or stop altogether. This was not developing the way they had imagined it would, nor anything like what they had experienced in similar encounters over the past several days.
The confusion among these thousand-odd men did not last long. Within moments, they were swept away in a single, unstoppable push by this utterly unstructured charge, driven purely by raw fury. The furious tide of several thousand men rolled forward across a battle line several li long, surging northward.
There was no protracted battle, no tactics, no further encirclement or pursuit needed. In the wake of this charge, a carpet of red spread out across the ground, littered with corpses…