Night had grown deep, and atop Dulong Ridge the clamor of battle still seethed, refusing to settle. Along the road between Zhu Family Manor and Hu Family Manor, wave after wave of fighting continued. Hu Sanniang rode her horse into a group of Liangshan soldiers ahead, fixing her eyes on the officer leading the unit, and in the dim light her twin blades — the Sun and Moon Blades — clashed against the iron hammer in her opponent’s hands, while the manor’s able-bodied men at her side pressed forward to cut the enemy down.
Not until she had driven the enemy back did she learn who that officer had actually been.
In the darkness, she had drawn close to the eastern gate of Zhu Family Manor when, on the road to one side, she saw another group of Liangshan men bearing torches charging toward her. The officer in the lead rode a blue-gray warhorse, wore a tall cap, and sported a long beard, wielding a green dragon blade. Her heart sank — the enemy had already closed in!
“Little girl, you ought to be at home embroidering! With the world in chaos like this, what are you doing out here!”
The long blade slashed down in fury. Hu Sanniang gritted her teeth and swung her twin blades to meet it.
She had not crossed paths with this man before, but after several days of fighting, the names of some Liangshan commanders had reached her ears all the same. This “Big Blade” Guan Sheng was said to be a descendant of Guan Yunchang from the Three Kingdoms; wielding his green dragon blade, he rarely met his match in battle and was counted among the fiercest commanders on Liangshan’s side. For a moment she was unsure whether she could hold her own against him, and after a brief exchange she had her men fall back toward Zhu Family Manor.
After exchanging more than ten bouts, Hu Sanniang — already drained from the earlier fighting — began to defend clumsily, but fortunately she had drawn close to the gate tower of the Zhu manor, and the enemy dared not pursue further. He reined in his horse, blade held level, and watched the several hundred men retreat into the manor before wheeling around to ride off and reinforce elsewhere.
The fighting on Dulong Ridge went on in just this fashion, wave after wave. Though each side numbered in the tens of thousands combined, the terrain around Dulong Ridge consisted mostly of winding mountain paths — twisting, sometimes wide and sometimes narrow — and even at the widest points, no true large-scale pitched battle could be fought. Each time, a commander would lead two or three hundred men, at most five hundred, charging back and forth between the manors, and in fighting of this kind, a commander’s personal martial strength mattered enormously.
It was now the early hours of the first day of the sixth month. Hu Sanniang rested briefly near the manor gate before being led by the manor folk to see Squire Zhu. On the way, passing by a courtyard, she saw that young dandy, Young Master Lei, stretching lazily in the doorway in his flashy clothes; when he spotted her, he gave her a courteous smile. Seeing his air of leisure, Sanniang had no patience to deal with him — this fellow probably still thought his side had the upper hand. Though she hoped that were true herself, if it were not… he would soon learn his mistake.
He was a wealthy young master come to do business, after all, and her side had no grounds to fault him; she merely thought it over briefly in her heart. A moment later, she also saw that attendant who looked so much like a woman walking past at the young master’s side; he cupped his hands toward her in greeting as they passed each other.
This is troubling… Wang Shanyue thought to himself.
The fighting had gone on for three days now, and on the surface at least, things remained in a stalemate. At first the Liangshan forces had suffered a few minor setbacks. The terrain around Dulong Ridge was complex — the roads outside only led to the correct route after turning past a stand of white poplars — and this had caused the enemy some trouble at first, though they had soon worked around it.
Of course, even once they found the way, the people of Dulong Ridge still held the advantage of terrain, being far more familiar with the surroundings, and ambushes that made use of the local ground had managed to cause the enemy real trouble. At the very start, they had even managed to defeat and capture several of Liangshan’s minor and mid-level commanders; although their own side had suffered losses too, it had still done something for morale. A pity, though…
If Liangshan’s present approach could be called a steady, dignified advance of an overwhelming army, then Dulong Ridge’s side had thrown everything it had into merely avoiding outright defeat — and this, surely, the exhausted fighters on both sides had begun to sense by now…
And on top of that… there was still the problem of Li Family Manor holding back its strength. That Sky-Piercing Eagle Li Ying was surely watching the wind from both sides, sitting on the fence…
Wang Shanyue furrowed his brow and walked toward where Ning Yi, still showing no sign of movement, was seated.
…
“Our army has already secured the advantage.”
In an open space at the edge of the forest surrounding the battlefield, Wu Yong watched the clusters of light rising into the distant sky and said this with a smile, fanning himself. Beside him, Song Jiang — dark-skinned, with eyes like a phoenix’s — walked over, hands clasped behind his back. “Wasn’t the outcome of this battle something the strategist foresaw from the very start?”
Wu Yong pointed his fan toward the distance. “Now we can see it more clearly. Once we press right up to the manor walls, they will have no terrain advantage left at all. Victory is already ours — now it’s only a matter of losing as few men as possible while watching them squirm a while longer, ha ha.”
As he spoke, a group of soldiers had already returned. Black Whirlwind Li Kui, carrying his twin battle-axes, came over half-covered in blood, grinning. “What a rush, what a glorious kill! Brother Gongming, Strategist, when do we break their manor?”
“Patience, Iron Bull. Just a few more days.”
“When we do, we’ll kill every last one of those bastards, down to their whole families!”
As they spoke of this, more men returned. Now that units were being sent out wave after wave, Wu Yong also had it in mind to use the real fighting as training for the troops, in preparation for Liangshan’s coming expansion. As for Dulong Ridge, it was doomed to fall regardless — a few days sooner or later made no difference — and once they seized the grain and money stored there, they would have far more room to maneuver. Training troops while preserving strength: that was the proper way to go about it.
This time, the ones returning were Suo Chao, Yang Zhi, and Lin Chong. Earlier, Suo Chao and Yang Zhi had fought together outside the manor against Zhu Family Manor’s drillmaster, Luan Tingyu, exchanging more than twenty bouts; the man had held firm without breaking, retreating but never losing, until Lin Chong had come rushing up, having seen that the two might be lured into an ambush near the manor, and hastily sounded a warning, at which the three had returned together. Speaking of this Luan Tingyu, they could not help feeling some admiration. Earlier in the fighting, even Qin Ming, “Thunderbolt,” had been defeated by his hand and taken prisoner; over these last several days he had beaten back Guan Sheng, Hua Rong, Lin Chong, and others in succession — truly formidable.
The men said among themselves, “Now there’s a proper hero.”
“Once the manor falls, if he’s sensible and treats Brother Qin and the others well, we might spare his life.”
“If he won’t surrender, let him taste my axe — I’ll take his head off!”
…
Though this group had retreated, they showed no sign of dejection, while over at Zhu Family Manor, when Luan Tingyu entered the gate carrying his octagonal copper-alloy staff, the manor folk let out a cheer, saying to one another, “Those men just now were something else.” “Blue-Faced Beast, Impetuous Vanguard — both great commanders of Liangshan.” “Drillmaster Luan very nearly took them both!” “Incredible!”
Amid the crowd’s cheers, Luan Tingyu smiled as well, raising his heavy staff in acknowledgment, but as his eyes lowered, a flash of severity crossed them, and in the shadows where none could see, his arm trembled faintly.
A pity — he had failed to capture those two men… there likely would not be another chance like that.
Over these past days, he had fought with everything he had, pushing himself to his very peak, defeating opponent after opponent and even capturing three enemy commanders. And yet even so, together with the desperate fighting of his disciple Zhu Biao and the others, the situation showed no sign of improving; the pressure weighing on his heart only grew heavier.
Walking further in, he saw Zhu Biao, who had spent half the night fighting and was drenched in blood, returning in high spirits, and they greeted each other. After dismounting, several children came skipping up to hand him wine and water, following behind him with towels to wipe the blood from his armor. Knowing how heavy the stench of blood was on him, he drank a bowl of wine and sent the children away. Back in the courtyard where he lodged, the exhaustion and anger he had suppressed finally surged up. He went into his room, set the heavy staff against the wall, sat down in a chair, and drew a deep breath, his eyes fierce.
If he truly could not hold out against these men… he thought of what had happened at Zengtou Market, and then of Liangshan’s recent cries of “carrying out the Way on Heaven’s behalf” and the crimes they had proclaimed against Dulong Ridge… Honestly, having lived here so long, in this corner of Shandong where bandits and gangs of every stripe ran rampant, he knew Zengtou Market and Dulong Ridge alike had gotten their hands dirty with all sorts of business, and clashing with others now and then — his own side was hardly spotless either. But Liangshan’s “carrying out the Way on Heaven’s behalf”? With the few acres of land they farmed and the handful of pigs they raised, how could this bunch, wanting both to carry out Heaven’s Way and to feast on great bowls of wine and meat, ever explain where all that wine and meat actually came from!?
But when facing wicked men, it made no difference what one said — whether they looked repulsive or claimed righteousness, in the end they meant to kill their way in, slaughter the manor, and carry off everything. He did not know how many more days he could keep fighting. Among the bandits on Liangshan’s side there were too many skilled fighters, and he himself was constantly being pushed to his limit. As he weighed his own strength in this way, a knock sounded at the door — Zhu Long calling him out to eat something. He pressed down his exhaustion and rose to his feet.
Though he longed to rest, the morale of the manor still depended on him to hold it up; it was not yet time to let go…
…
Night, at least, favored the men of Dulong Ridge, who held the advantage of terrain, and so the fighting did not resume that night once darkness fell. But by the morning of the first day of the sixth month, the battle began again, and after that, on the second and third days of the month, fear and exhaustion finally began to show on the manor folk. However hardy the local temperament, however well they had been trained, as mere farmhands their mettle in battle simply could not compare to Liangshan’s soldiers.
The instructors of every rank — Zhu Long, Zhu Hu, Zhu Biao, and the rest — had all suffered wounds to various degrees. Luan Tingyu himself was injured but still holding on; at least as of the third day, his skill showed no obvious decline. But Li Family Manor’s reluctance to commit its strength had grown increasingly obvious, and the Zhu and Hu manors had grown more cautious about sending men out to fight, even beginning to prepare to defend their own respective manors alone. Under these circumstances, Wang Shanyue’s anxiety had reached a peak, for once the two manors could no longer support each other, it might well mean things had deteriorated to a dangerous degree.
In the courtyard, she would sometimes see Ning Yi sitting there lost in thought, the agate bracelet in his hand turning bead by bead like a string of prayer beads. But most of the time he stayed shut up in his room, and sometimes the lamp burned all night without going out. On the morning of the fourth day of the sixth month, when the Liangshan forces attacked again, Wang Shanyue watched him go out for a walk; when he returned, his face still wore the smile of a carefree young dandy, but the moment he stepped back into the courtyard, his expression turned serious again. Even the bandits among their group could tell his mood had grown tense. That afternoon, sitting in the courtyard, he turned the agate beads of his bracelet one by one beside his ear, lost in thought, and Wang Shanyue went over and asked him, “Things have reached this point — when do you plan to make your move?”
“Let me think a little more,” he answered, then returned to his room.
Ning Yi was indeed thinking.
Sitting in the darkness of his room, watching the pearly light roll between his fingers, his feelings were complicated, though not purely from tension. It had not been so long since Xi Junyu and the others had struck into the Su household in late April; and yet in the time since, so much had happened between him and Tan’er, and Xiao Chan, and Yun Zhu, and Jin’er — the journey north, the upheaval on the canal, then Bianliang, and now here… The time that had passed did not seem so long, but a great deal had truly happened. And what he was about to do now, he was not entirely confident of — though he had come to this world quite some time ago, this would be the first time he had ever deliberately, by his own hand, set out to harm people this way.
This time, it might be pure malice combined with pure efficiency — pure harm and plunder, just as it had been when he first started his company. Whether tactics of that kind could succeed here, and what it would look like if things expanded smoothly, he had no certainty of either. But matters had come to this point, and there was no more leisure left to sit and think things over slowly.
As evening approached, with the fighting still going on outside, he stepped out of his room, bracelet turning like prayer beads, and when Wang Shanyue came over, he said, “Brother Wang, and the three Qi brothers — right now, let’s go pay a visit to Squire Zhu.”
Wang Shanyue raised an eyebrow. “Laying the cards on the table?”
“More or less. Also, as we discussed before, have them bring out all the brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones from the third cart. Get dinner early, take a short rest if you’re tired — tonight there may be no sleeping at all.”
At that same moment, outside Zhu Family Manor, the octagonal copper-alloy staff was blocking a broadsword as Luan Tingyu fought fiercely against Guan Sheng and the others.
Having had her wounds bandaged and paid her respects to Squire Zhu, Hu Sanniang was leaving the main hall of the Zhu residence when she saw the group of men who had just arrived. She had come to make sure the Zhu and Hu manors could still support one another, and, somewhat puzzled, she pulled a manor hand aside to ask what was going on. She was told these men had come specifically to see the manor master, saying they had an important matter to discuss. Hu Sanniang thought to herself that they had probably seen how badly things were going on Dulong Ridge and meant to flee — how pathetic.
For a moment she could not even summon a proper feeling of scorn, because their disgrace, from her side’s perspective, might well mean the nightmare of the entire manor being wiped out. Perhaps when the fighting became hopeless, Hu Family Manor could still surrender, but Liangshan had come for all manner of goods and grain, and they were not necessarily going to spare the people here even then.
Not long after, in the main hall of the Zhu residence, Ning Yi presented Squire Zhu with every document proving his connection to the court and his own identity. Squire Zhu’s eyes were sharp and grave as he studied him.
A while later, as night fell and the hour reached the second watch, in the courtyard at Zhu Family Manor where prisoners were held, the captured Liangshan soldiers had just begun to eat when a group of manor men burst in and overturned their bowls and chopsticks, dragging out five commanders along with over two hundred Liangshan soldiers, marching them to a larger courtyard square nearby to kneel.
Since the fighting had begun, whatever the reasons these soldiers had been captured for, Zhu Family Manor had not treated them too harshly, on the reasoning that should things go badly for the manor, there might still be room to negotiate mercy, and it would not do to burn every bridge. Several of the commanders wore defiant expressions and refused to kneel, but the manor folk around them, armed with blades and spears, had already taken up guard positions. Before long, more men entered, each carrying a finely made military crossbow — an extravagant weapon by local standards.
A large open space had been left before the crowd, with rooms further ahead, lamps already lit within, where people could already be seen waiting inside.
The atmosphere was distinctly eerie. No one spoke. Then, a young man who looked extremely wealthy dragged in two chairs, bringing several people with him, and as he walked toward the front of the square, he glanced toward the lamplit room.
“Everything ready?”
“Ready.”
The effeminate-looking man beside him nodded coldly in reply.
The wealthy young master nodded, and as he walked in, he pointed casually at the five commanders, his tone cold and detached: “Qin Ming, Huang Xin, Deng Fei, Cao Zheng, Meng Kang — take them to the back first.”
As he said this, Qin Ming and the others tried to speak, but several crossbows were instantly leveled at their heads. Without so much as glancing at them, the wealthy young master walked straight to the front, set down the two chairs with two loud clacks, stood there, and cupped his hands with a cold, indifferent expression.
“Sorry to interrupt everyone’s meal. I’ll be brief. My name is Lei Feng — in the jianghu they call me the Chaos Thunderbolt Hand. I’ve come from the capital; you could call me one of the court’s hunting dogs, if you like. I’m no good man. I’ve come to wipe out Liangshan. Tonight I have some business to attend to. Don’t worry — I’ll tell you exactly what to do.”
As soon as he finished speaking, muffled curses could already be heard rippling through the crowd — low murmurs, quiet insults. The wealthy young master rubbed at his forehead with one hand while wiggling his fingers with the other, signaling to the two men beside him, who went to the front of the crowd and pulled up one of the captured Liangshan soldiers, seating him in the chair. The soldier looked left and right, eyes defiant, and the wealthy young master patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll go slow. You’ll be able to keep up.”
He looked around at everyone. “Just one question. I want to wipe out Liangshan. Will you tell me everything you know about Liangshan?”
The question was blunt, and once it was asked, mocking laughter rose up somewhere in the crowd. The young master named Lei Feng only looked at the man before him with an earnest expression; the man froze for a second, then let out a scornful, “Tch—”
The wealthy young master picked up a crossbow that had been set aside, moved it in front of the man’s head, and pulled the trigger in the same motion.
“Understood. Next.”
The sound rang out, blood sprayed, and the body fell.