Gunsmoke drifted off, scattering the birds from the forest; hoofbeats startled the night foxes. Under the clear, luminous stars of late April, the hills within ten li of Qingmu Stronghold in the Lüliang mountains lay in a scene of chaos and devastation.
Across the rolling low ridges, corpses stretched away into the distance as far as the eye could see. On the grass, scattered fires still burned here and there, crackling and popping, casting light on the bodies nearby. The stench of blood had drawn wolves down from the mountains, their dark silhouettes tearing hungrily at something in the darkness. Now and then, a swaying figure could be seen crawling out from the piles of corpses or the underbrush, and faint groans occasionally drifted through the night air.
Toward Qingmu Stronghold, and in the direction opposite it, the mountain forest still carried occasional bursts of unidentifiable commotion — only this particular battlefield, under the night sky, seemed to have been momentarily forgotten by everyone. The great battle that had unfolded here earlier felt almost like some sudden hallucination that had appeared beneath the night sky; now that the hallucination had faded, it had left behind the corpses of that hallucination…
In truth… it hadn’t really been that large a battle at all…
…
In a sense, every party involved in this battle outside Qingmu Stronghold had made extensive preparations. Of course, on the side of the united Lüliang bandits, what they’d prepared was sheer numbers — while at Qingmu Stronghold, the preparation had been far more long-term and thorough, though naturally, in terms of raw numbers, there was no comparison to be made.
From the moment Ning Yi first gave Hongti his advice, all the way through Qingmu Stronghold’s growth and expansion, the elite training of soldiers had always been treated as a matter of great importance for the stronghold. The stronghold’s growth and development had followed its own gradual process, and the number of soldiers available had increased accordingly — though naturally, training level, morale, combat strength, and even the supplies that could be allocated couldn’t all be perfected at once. Since the whole of Qingmu Stronghold existed in a place as extreme as Lüliang, if truly mobilized to the fullest, some eighty percent of the population could pick up a blade — but only a little over two thousand had received long-term training. Of those two thousand-odd, the twelve hundred at the very top of the pyramid were the ones mobilized to take part in tonight’s external operation.
The remaining thousand-odd soldiers had to stay behind to defend the stronghold itself, and to guard against any sudden outburst from the Great Radiance Cult, the Wusheng Army soldiers, or Tian Hu’s elite troops — there was no possibility of moving them. And so, facing the united Lüliang bandit coalition of nearly six thousand men with only twelve hundred-odd was, in theory, something of a gamble; before the battle began, no one could say with much confidence how it would turn out. But of course, during those tense days at Qingmu Stronghold, Hongti, along with Cao Qianyong, Han Jing, and the others, had put a great deal of effort into rallying and motivating these soldiers.
This kind of ideological work had, in fact, never really stopped since Qingmu Stronghold’s development began. The training methods Ning Yi had passed on to Hongti drew partly on later-era military training approaches, copied more or less directly, and partly on a distillation of the military texts of the current era. In truth, most ancient texts favored terse, economical language, for a number of reasons — the sheer physical bulk of bamboo strips as a writing medium, the relatively unrefined state of various schools of thought before they’d been fully integrated with one another, and the sense of “ritual gravity” and “loftiness” that written language carried in its early stages of development, which pushed toward brevity, even toward a deliberate obscurity that impressed through incomprehensibility.
Take, for instance, that line from the Dao De Jing: “Heaven and earth are not benevolent; they treat the myriad things as straw dogs.” Simplified into modern terms, it means that all things in heaven and earth can be regarded as ordinary elements, operating under fixed rules, never deviating according to will or preference — and therefore, when we come to understand things, the world, and society, we must first recognize these underlying patterns clearly… From this single line unfolds an entire, vast philosophical system. When Laozi wrote this sentence, he encoded within it not only its most surface-level meaning but also its deepest layers of derivation — and so, in composing his text, he couldn’t simply set down the shallow layer; the deep derivations were what he truly valued.
Much like these classical texts, ancient military treatises — such as Sun Tzu’s Art of War — likewise carried an underlying system within each passage, functioning almost like an outline, from which one could derive applications suited to any situation. But of course, as a modern man who had absorbed countless intertwined schools of thought, Ning Yi could still, to the best of his ability, extract the directional essentials from within them. In the end, the advice he gave Hongti centered mainly on three things: discipline, having each other’s backs, and initiative.
As for the finer details — how to deploy troops, how to secure logistics, whether to eat and live alongside the soldiers — he simply handed Hongti a few military texts and let the mountain folk work those out for themselves.
A handful of unbending, iron-clad rules of discipline, to ensure that orders given below would be obeyed without fail. Various forms of training built trust that one’s back was protected by comrades, fostering group cohesion and mutual confidence — believing that on the battlefield, one’s fellow soldiers would stand together. As for initiative, that meant morale, achieved through something resembling ideological conditioning. These three elements reinforced one another, and in truth bore no small resemblance to how companies would later be managed.
For this reason, ever since Qingmu Stronghold’s development began, these three principles had been carried out reasonably well. The ideological work proceeded along several tracks: recalling past bitterness to appreciate present sweetness; making clear to the men exactly what kind of enemy they would be facing; having them look around at the neighboring strongholds and ask which of those was anything like Qingmu Stronghold; and having them discuss, repeatedly, what everyone would do if Qingmu Stronghold were ever overrun.
— That last item was, in fact, discussed with the soldiers almost every month. It set off a predictable chain reaction: it led most of the men to imagine what would happen to them if Qingmu Stronghold fell, which in turn stirred their outrage — who the hell would dare come attack us — and someone would inevitably point out that, given how well-trained they now were, who exactly was even capable of attacking them?
Then the leadership would offer up candidates: the Liao, the Jurchen — both capable of coming for them. Of course, by this point the Liao had already been wiped out, but the Jurchen were far more formidable — just imagine, as in the old days of foraging raids, they were certain to come eventually, and when they did, what then? So it had to be thought through in advance.
At this stage, some of the men would inevitably grow disheartened, and the leadership would tell them to consider whether, even if they fled to some other Lüliang stronghold, they could escape that same fate. The conclusion followed easily enough: only Qingmu Stronghold offered the best chance. From there, a clear signal would be sent to everyone: this good life, this formidable training at Qingmu Stronghold — its ultimate purpose was to face down the Jurchen someday. That was the true opponent!
Once the ideological work reached this stage, people would start talking about the Jurchen — about how the Jurchen, “once they number ten thousand, cannot be defeated,” and the story of how they’d risen from nothing. This information had all been compiled and provided by Ning Yi, and it carried a fair amount of rhetorical power — people would come to realize that the Jurchen’s former circumstances actually resembled Lüliang’s own: they too had once lived in bitter hardship, suffered under oppression, and yet they too possessed a fierce will to survive, unwilling to simply lie down and die, willing to fight to the death. And once they were unified, once they had a formidable leader, discipline, and obedience to orders — that was when the legend of the unbeatable ten-thousand-strong Jurchen host began.
— And people would realize: aren’t we exactly what the Jurchen once were, in embryo?
This whole process of ideological restructuring went through extensive trial and refinement. Alongside it came specialized training, food sufficient to fill every belly, and — after enduring rigorous training within such a collective — a clear, unmistakable sense among the men of having “grown stronger”: we, right now, are genuinely formidable!
At the same time, Qingmu Stronghold had continued expanding and developing, and although friction and killing with the outside world happened often enough, there had never once been a true large-scale deployment. The Blood Bodhisattva’s habit of treating people with kindness left many of the men feeling almost starved for action — these Lüliang men weren’t like fresh recruits elsewhere; they’d already seen blood before, killing a few people for the sake of a meal was nothing unusual to them. The scarcity of food and Qingmu Stronghold’s firm hand had taught them discipline, and having learned discipline, having come to feel they were now genuinely stronger — yet with nowhere to unleash it — it was like a pearl cast into darkness, brocade worn walking in the night; watching the other strongholds of Lüliang strut and bluster around them was, frankly, infuriating.
And this time, the Jurchen hadn’t come — but the men from the other strongholds had, in fact, come strutting right up to their door.
Since only a limited number of men were to be deployed, in the days beforehand Cao Qianyong, Han Jing, and the others kept up the rallying: “Think about your purpose! Think about how much more training you’ve had than those outsiders! Look around you — you’re strong! Out there beyond the mountain, they’re nothing but a mob relying on raw blood and courage, without even a proper formation! Show them blood and they’ll turn tail and run! And now they actually dare push all the way up to our own Qingmu Stronghold — absolutely outrageous! You’ve been waiting a whole year for this. Now it’s time to open the eyes of all Lüliang—”
After this kind of motivation, the soldiers in the mountain grew fiercely enthusiastic, and across the companies and squads, men were practically bursting with excitement: “Boss, just tell us who to kill…”
“Boss, I already know who deserves it — I know a bunch of people in that crowd… damn spineless bastards, daring to show up here for the fun of it…”
“Finally we get to go out there and really do something, this feels great…”
Amid such fervor, Hongti had no choice but to pass word to Cao Qianyong and Han Jing, instructing them to order the men below to stay as calm as possible, not to act recklessly or arrogantly, to keep in mind their training — one could look down on the enemy strategically, but must take them seriously tactically. This order had, naturally, come from Ning Yi’s indirect counsel to Hongti.
As their first real battle, he had no way to be certain of the outcome, but caution was never wrong. And even with the men below fired up like they’d been injected with adrenaline, Cao Qianyong, Han Jing, and the other stronghold leaders remained plenty vigilant themselves. That night, as bonfires blazed in the great hall of the Righteous Gathering, they led their twelve hundred-odd men out and, with great seriousness, discussed their battle strategy: which force to strike first, which unit called for a decapitation strike against its leader, how to weave through and support one another in coordination. After such careful planning, they linked up with the two hundred men who had come down from the rear mountain escorting the elm-wood cannons — the final tally: fourteen hundred against six thousand.
Seven li from Qingmu Stronghold, on the ridge called Huochuan Ridge, bonfires and battle formations covered the hillside. The “Black Skull King” Luan Sanlang held the center; the forces of Chenjiaqu, led by the “Chaos Mountain King” Chen Zhenhai, held the front-left; the Fang Yiyang brothers’ forces occupied the higher ground of the ridge, slightly to the rear-right, though their formation counted the most cavalry of anyone present. Among them, too, were large numbers of scattered Lüliang households, along with the six hundred-odd men, formerly small-time bandits, positioned to Luan Sanlang’s flank.
Bonfires blazed across the entire mountainside, facing off against the fourteen hundred-odd men of Qingmu Stronghold’s square formation — the two sides simply stood there, silently facing each other down. Though Luan Sanlang and the others had sent envoys over to talk with Cao Qianyong and Han Jing, both sides were still waiting on Qingmu Stronghold’s final decision, holding their emotions in check.
Compared to Qingmu Stronghold’s relatively quiet formation of fourteen hundred, the six thousand-strong allied host up on Huochuan Ridge seemed remarkably high-spirited. Many of the scattered households had lit bonfires, roasting meat, singing, drinking, sharpening their blades, looking down with contempt at the Qingmu Stronghold forces below. Luan Sanlang and the others occasionally went over to join in the revelry with some of them — after all, if they could settle Qingmu Stronghold, this whole gathering would become the perfect opportunity to expand their own influence. Amid it all, some shouted loudly toward the other side in provocation, and a few groups even came to blows over petty quarrels, stirring up small disturbances along the ridge.
Cao Qianyong, Han Jing, and the others watched with grim, solemn expressions, growing visibly irritated at the provocations directed their way.
Then a flare rose up from Qingmu Stronghold, followed a moment later by a second flare relayed from several li away. Even those on the ridge who didn’t understand the signal could guess it was a message from Qingmu Stronghold — across the mountainside, amid the roaring crowd, men drew their blades and fell into formation, torches surging together like a vast, restless ocean. On this side, Han Jing, his face grim, murmured to the man beside him: “This is our first real battle…” He pulled out a slip of paper, glanced at it, and — though he’d always found the thing written on it a bit too outlandish and embarrassing to say aloud — found himself, in this moment, saying it quite naturally.
“Battle name: Beating Up the Little Children. Commence.”
That mobilization order sure as hell wasn’t written by Hongti, he thought to himself. Beside him, Cao Qianyong spurred his horse forward, raising his blade, and let out a tiger’s roar.
“Every last one of Qingmu’s sons is here! Follow me and… trample them into the dirt—”
In the next instant, Luan Sanlang and the others’ roars echoed back from the ridge: “Charge! Eat them alive—”
The earth shook, figures surging forward like a flood. In Qingmu Stronghold’s formation, the front ranks loosed a single volley of arrows before the men behind them, already shouting at the top of their lungs, broke into a furious charge; the archers slung their bows over their shoulders and drew their blades to follow.
Morale on both sides seemed equally high as the two forces clashed, all the figures blurring together into a single mass, locked in a frenzy of slaughter so chaotic it became nearly impossible to tell the two sides apart…
Cao Qianyong, Han Jing, and the others strained to make out their own men within the battle line, trying to judge how the fighting was going. Before long — by Ning Yi’s reckoning, roughly five minutes in — flashes of light began erupting along the flank of the battle line: the secret weapons Ning Yi had brought. And after about twice that span of time again, everything that followed left everyone caught completely off guard.
“Straighten the formation! Straighten the formation! Whose unit is that running up the hillside — don’t push forward recklessly, get over there and stop them, don’t push forward! Don’t fall for a trap! Who’s over on the right? Why did that whole group charge into the woods — damn it! Get back here—”
“Third Company! Third Company, Qi Qianjun! Why are they still pushing forward! Your mother… what the hell are you people doing… What? They were supposed to be coordinating with the Fifth Squad? The ones who charged over the ridge WERE the Fifth Squad? Zheng Shitou’s bunch — if something happens to them, it’s entirely their fault! Just because his father’s the second-in-command doesn’t mean he gets to run wild! I’m reporting this to his father, I swear I’m reporting this — tell them not to push forward recklessly — why are you bringing me a head, whose is it—”
“F-f-f-f-f-fang—”
“Fang your mother—”
“It’s Fang Yiyang’s—”
“Gah…”
Across the vast battlefield, once they’d finally gotten a clear picture of what was happening, Cao Qianyong and Han Jing suddenly found their command authority collapsing like a landslide, stamping their feet in frustration, eyes bloodshot with anger. And yet, reviewing the whole situation afterward, the scene was genuinely so bizarre it left people at a loss for words.
What had begun as a straightforward, blood-charged clash, with morale sky-high on both sides — of course, given how visibly outnumbered they were, the men of Qingmu Stronghold had gone in tense, and so, right from the start of the battle, they’d thrown themselves forward with everything they had. Qingmu Stronghold’s current military organization was simple — since Ning Yi’s written instructions had only offered a rough, simplified “for example,” the stronghold, following the letter of it, had adopted a rather elementary structure of five-man cells, ten-man squads, thirty-man companies, and hundred-man battalions. With enemies pressing in on every side, even the company commanders couldn’t clearly make out how the overall battle was unfolding — so, per the original plan, they simply pressed forward and killed with everything they had.
By the time they finally got their bearings, they discovered that their own men had been cutting straight through the ranks of the Lüliang bandit coalition on the ridge like a knife through bean curd…
Especially after the cannon fire — amid the spectacular flash and glow — the six hundred men in the center of the coalition, formerly under the small-time bandits, suddenly mutinied on the spot, many of them screaming “the sorcery’s back again…” and turning to flee. And on Qingmu Stronghold’s side, plenty of the men had no idea what was even happening — especially one company chasing after these several hundred fleeing men, shouting “stand and die,” running the fastest of anyone yet actually killing comparatively few. Fired up with soaring morale, they were suddenly met by what looked like a squad of reinforcing heroes dropping from the sky, trying to cut them off — and by the time they registered what was happening, a mounted giant of a man was already bearing down on them, bellowing: “Who dares face Fang Yiyang in battle!”
The two forces crashed together like waves against a reef. Fang Yiyang spurred his horse forward, blade leveled, and the handful of Qingmu Stronghold’s fiercest fighters at the front of that company had no time to think — they simply charged straight in, coordinating a joint strike, using a technique Hongti herself had taught them. And then, somehow, after Fang Yiyang sent one man flying with a blow, he himself was cut down and toppled from his horse; by the time his subordinates behind him surged forward, Fang Yiyang himself had already been swallowed by the surging crowd — and trampled to death beneath it.
For Luan Sanlang and the others, what unfolded before their eyes was, without question, the strangest experience of their lives. Some of his core men held firm well enough. But the coalition’s charge had been like a single wave — it crashed against the shore, carried them up onto it, and then just as quickly receded, and by the time anyone reacted, three of Qingmu Stronghold’s hundred-man companies had already surrounded them and were tearing them apart, while Chen Zhenhai’s cavalry had already turned and fled. Off in the distance, Han Jing cursed furiously through the darkness, and Luan Sanlang genuinely had no idea what he was even cursing about — who the hell had actually won here, what in the world was even going on…
The entire battlefield, amid this boiling, bewildering chaos, spiraled wildly and completely out of control…