On the night of the fourth day of the eighth month, Shi Jin and his companions made their way back toward Xinzhou, cutting across hills and valleys. By the early hours of the morning, the Jurchen scouts they passed in the wilderness grew steadily more frequent, a sign that they had crossed into the range where the tens of thousands of Jurchen troops were temporarily encamped — a mountain pass along the post road between Dai County and Xinzhou. Even beyond the ridgelines blocking their view, they could make out the glow of campfires rising into the sky; pressing their bodies to the ground, they could feel the low hum given off, even at night, by tens of thousands of men and horses.
In the air, they could even faintly make out the sound of weeping.
By early morning on the fifth, they had reached Xinzhou. By now the city’s north gate had already been sealed, though the south gate remained open, admitting soldiers while releasing civilians. Word of the Jurchen army advancing south had already reached Xinzhou by this point; Shi Jin and the others slipped in almost at the very last moment before the gate closed, by which time the city was already in complete chaos.
The Jin army’s sudden southward advance had sent enormous shockwaves through the entire Wu Dynasty, but for ordinary people, the information reaching them was scattered and inconsistent. Even though the Jurchen had already broken through Yanmen Pass and were advancing south, most people still couldn’t fully grasp what this meant. Some were willing to flee; far more were people who, in such a short span of time, simply couldn’t bring themselves to make the decision to uproot their whole household, and so waited anxiously to see how things would unfold. With the influx of huge numbers of refugees and tens of thousands of troops, along with the panic caused by some of the original residents fleeing, the whole fabric of the city was rapidly tilting toward chaos.
Refugees poured into the city demanding food from the authorities; some, seeing residents fleeing, began occupying the emptied houses; the friction born of panic led to widespread brawling, and the hidden tensions between the city’s various gangs began to sharpen. The army cared only about preventing outright chaos within the city and paid no attention to the finer details — they requisitioned large numbers of houses in the northern part of the city, began tearing down buildings near the walls to make rolling logs and stone blocks for defense, and no small number of hot-blooded citizens joined in, stockpiling supplies for the coming siege atop the walls.
Qian Fei still had some connections in the area, and quickly found an acquaintance within the local government, arranging for Shi Jin and Chen Xiuqing to be placed among the corvée laborers helping defend the city — as for the “Twin Heroes of Hebei,” since Chen Xi’s right hand was gone and he couldn’t move quickly, and Tang Zuhan needed to look after his companion, the two of them parted ways from the group. Like duckweed drifting on the water, the wilderness folk gather and scatter; after this parting, it was unlikely any of them would meet again.
There was no time to spare for much else. Shi Jin and the others helped tear down houses and reinforce the defenses among the laborers, and on the sixth, the first wave of Jurchen troops reached the hills northwest of Xinzhou. After that, cavalry and infantry, along with columns of the Yisheng Army escorting civilian captives, converged on Xinzhou from every direction to the north, wave after wave.
Looking out from Xinzhou’s city walls, across the plains and hillsides opposite, the gathering figures gradually coalesced into a force numbering in the tens of thousands, spreading out across the hills and fields as far as the eye could see. In front of and to the side of the Jurchen battle lines, great numbers of Wu Dynasty civilians had been herded together; cavalry assigned to guard them rode back and forth continually, cracking whips over the crowd, sometimes even swinging blades, drawing blood and flesh from the men and women within. Amid the weeping, that dark, massed crowd looked like some enormous herd of cattle and sheep.
Staggering old men, children white with terror, women clutching swaddled infants, blood-soaked young men, even corpses of the already-dead — most of them tied together in long lines by rope. Wealthy merchants, officials, soldiers, commoners, all mixed together in that dark, ragged mass, each one letting out low, stifled sobs — for the Jurchen’s shouted curses and beatings meant that few dared cry out loudly; the rare one or two who did were shot down at once by nearby Jurchen archers — and yet, even so, the vast, muffled weeping still gathered into a wave of the most wretched sound imaginable, carrying up to the walls of Xinzhou.
The defenders atop the walls could only watch in silence. That afternoon, there was even a brief disturbance in the outer city, when a young officer tried to lead troops out to attack and was harshly berated back by the commanding general. Shi Jin, preparing rolling logs on a corner of the wall, watched all this in silence as well.
The Jurchen army, along with the Liao remnants who made up the Yisheng Army, kept gathering in ever greater numbers, and the civilians being captured and driven in from the surrounding area grew more numerous still. That night, the Jurchen army outside the city didn’t even bother setting up large numbers of tents; they prepared siege ladders in the fields behind their battle lines and waited for further siege equipment to arrive, while great numbers of Jurchen simply slept out on the open plains and hillsides, weapons at the ready.
Firelight stretched unbroken across the landscape; that night, the gathering of Jurchen troops never once let up from start to finish. Cavalry scouts carried torches as they circled the city, keeping a simple watch against any Wu Dynasty sortie. The next morning, as a thin mist still lingered in the air, Wanyan Zonghan stood on a hillside surveying the situation around him, then raised his hand.
“Attack,” he said.
The Jurchen sounded their horns.
…
The sharp pain had, by now, gone almost numb; the cold settling into his body seemed to have gone numb as well. When the clamor rose around him, he was dragged to his feet and pushed forward with the crowd. Mist hung in the air; in the distance stood the walls of Xinzhou, and the voices of the Jurchen carried from behind.
His name was Wu Cheng. He was a farmer from near Dai County, thirty-five years old. Not long ago, he’d had a wife, and a daughter nearly of age to be married off. Now he had neither.
He… kept feeling like everything happening before his eyes was some kind of hallucination — that perhaps at some point, he would simply wake up…
Two days earlier, a unit of the Yisheng Army had swept into his village. They had been dragged out and captured, and he had watched a group of men violate his wife and daughter before killing them; they had broken one of his hands, and struck him on the head with a rock.
When he woke, he had already been bound and tied into a column of captives. Every time his broken right hand was jerked, an unspeakable pain shot through him; he stumbled forward, his whole body trembling, the image of his wife’s and daughter’s deaths flashing before his eyes over and over. He kept replaying that moment in his mind, cursing himself for not having grabbed a hoe, a rake, anything — there had even been a kitchen knife not far from him at the time, and he had no idea why he hadn’t gone for it.
Ahead of him walked a stout woman, her clothes torn to shreds, barely covering her, perhaps in her forties or fifties, weeping without pause. His broken hand, dragged by the rope, sent unbearable pain through him every time it was jerked, and he kept stumbling and falling. His clothes, already shabby to begin with, had lost their waistband entirely; when his trousers finally fell, they tripped him, and the Jurchen beat him for it. The column dragged him along through the mud, and from that point on, he had no trousers left at all — he was simply hauled along in the line, bare from the waist down.
What it meant for a grown man to be dragged along like that, without any covering below the waist, was something he could no longer clearly grasp. They pressed on without stopping; many people in the crowd had soiled themselves, the stench rising as they walked; there was no food, only occasional water when they passed a stream. After two days of marching, they were gathered beneath the walls of Xinzhou. Then, through this very night, Wu Cheng was dragged onward, forced to walk.
Why not fight to the death… he thought to himself. But all around him, ahead and behind, on either side, were people weeping, forced to press on regardless. Someone behind seemed to have been killed; the Jurchen’s voices grew ever more savage. In his dazed, hazy state, Wu Cheng understood that the Jurchen were driving them toward Xinzhou. Wu Dynasty banners flew atop the city walls, dense ranks of soldiers standing guard. Wu Cheng thought — maybe they would come down and save them. But some deeper understanding, and a deeper fear, were also settling into him — strangely, he knew, in his heart, that the battle was about to begin.
The dragging force pulled him forward a few staggering steps; the Jurchen voices drew closer, and then someone passed close by him, swinging a blade to cut the ropes — but it was one of those strangely dressed Jurchen soldiers, mingled in among the crowd, raising their bows toward the walls.
Amid the clamor, someone shouted from behind, “Move! Run! Stand still and you die!” Cries of agony rose here and there as well. The rope binding Wu Cheng’s arm was still there, but it no longer connected to anyone in front or behind. Still, Wu Cheng was pushed and jostled forward; just ahead of him, a Jurchen soldier crouched low, bow drawn, advancing. Wu Cheng wanted to lunge and bite the man, but something like an invisible force seemed to hold him back — the image of his wife and daughter being violated flashed before his eyes once more, his daughter’s clothes torn away, her screams lost in the crowd…
With a sharp release, the Jurchen soldier ahead let his bowstring fly. Arrows shot toward Xinzhou’s walls from every direction; not far to the side, a long ladder was being carried forward.
The advancing mass suddenly convulsed into even greater chaos, countless voices flooding Wu Cheng’s ears; he was shoved and sent tumbling to the ground, someone trampling over him. When his vision cleared again, he saw, not far off, the stout woman who had been walking ahead of him, screaming — crawling on the ground, half her body drenched in blood, wailing madly, one calf crushed and horribly twisted, white bone visible amid the gushing blood; as a Jurchen soldier charged toward her, she braced herself desperately with both hands, trying to crawl aside to avoid him.
Why not fight to the death… the thought rose again in Wu Cheng’s mind. His whole body was wracked with agony, his hand already broken — but he thought, he could still throw his own body against someone, bite them to death, at least. Struggling with that thought, he tried to rise — and suddenly, a greater force shoved him back down to the ground, and an arrow shot from the wall struck him through the neck.
Wu Cheng was pinned to the earth, dead forever.
Around his body, countless people were screaming, running, shouting; the Jurchen drove the captured civilians forward, loosing arrows, carrying siege ladders, charging toward the thirty-foot-high walls of Xinzhou…
…
Shi Jin poured out a cauldron of boiling oil, standing there, watching the Jurchen charge madly toward the wall.
He had trained under Wang Jin, drill instructor of the Eight Hundred Thousand Imperial Guards, and had later joined Liangshan, where he’d faced government troops in battle and seen a fair amount of the world; he had some general sense of what a siege — attacking or defending — ought to look like. Though he had no clear idea how many Wu Dynasty troops had been mustered to defend Xinzhou, from what he could roughly judge, the defensive preparations seemed to be quite thorough.
The Jurchen, by contrast, had barely made any preparations in terms of siege equipment. They had gathered beneath Xinzhou’s walls after only a day’s time, and whatever they’d managed to bring from places like Yanmen Pass and Dai County, or improvise on the spot, amounted to little more than simple siege ladders. As for larger equipment like trebuchets, they had none at all. And yet they had launched their assault regardless.
Arrows blanketed the top of the wall; the Wu Dynasty defenders returned fire in kind. Below, in that surging tide of humanity, the great majority were, in fact, ordinary people who had once belonged to the Wu Dynasty. But at this moment, no one among them had any right to choose. Once the Jurchen had driven them forward, their fates were, essentially, already sealed.
Then the ladders went up, followed by a flurry of grappling hooks and ropes.
The Jurchen scaled the ladders and hauled themselves up the ropes with a fierce, almost reckless abandon. The defenders above dropped rolling logs and stone blocks, deployed spiked wolf-tooth clubs and demon-mallets fitted with hooked barbs to fend them off — but to Shi Jin’s eye, even as the Jurchen climbed at breakneck speed, they still made clearly deliberate evasive movements.
“What are you doing! Are you tired of living! Get down, now!”
Just as Shi Jin stood there watching, a Wu Dynasty officer nearby suddenly rushed over and yanked him back — a young, junior official. Shi Jin hastily ducked to the rear, and was set to carrying stones under the man’s direction; the young officer then pulled a small iron pot-like heart-guard from inside his robe and tossed it to Shi Jin.
Crouched behind the parapet, the man gestured and shouted, “Put it on your head! Put it on your head!” — apparently mistaking Shi Jin for some dim, oversized simpleton.
Shi Jin rushed down from the wall, and by the time he came back up a second time, he saw the young officer lying dead in a pool of blood, an arrow through his skull. He took the officer’s bow and quiver, and fired several arrows down at the wall in quick succession; one arrow grazed past his own cheek in return. In the surging crowd below, a Jurchen archer spotted him and loosed a shot; Shi Jin returned fire, missing the man but instead killing a civilian standing slightly ahead of him. The Jurchen fired again; Shi Jin dodged it, and when he drew the small bow with full force to fire back, the bow itself snapped with a crack.
Along the whole sprawling length of the wall, the Jurchen were climbing madly upward, dodging past the wolf-tooth clubs and demon-mallets sweeping across at them, even cutting the ropes of these defensive devices. Further off, Jurchen cavalry units were spreading out rapidly in two directions, most of the riders carrying bows and grappling hooks, threatening to strike at Xinzhou’s walls from other directions as well.
Shi Jin had once heard tales of the Jurchen’s prowess at siege warfare — the most astonishing account claimed that Aguda of the Wanyan clan had once taken the Liao’s Supreme Capital with his great army in only three hours, an almost unbelievable feat. But witnessing this Jurchen assault firsthand, he suddenly understood that such a claim might not be so strange after all.
As arrows blanketed the wall, the Wu Dynasty defenders could barely lift their heads — yet below, those tall, ferocious Jurchen warriors were already swarming up the ladders and ropes at incredible speed. Some had their ropes cut and fell into the moat, but the moat itself had long since been filled with the blood and bodies of Wu Dynasty civilians; those who survived the fall simply climbed back out and began a second ascent. Along the boundary of the wall, amid tremendous chaos and clashing, the first Jurchen soldier made it over the top within less than half an hour of the assault beginning; though he was cut down by Wu Dynasty soldiers, from that point on, Xinzhou’s walls were breached again and again by Jurchen climbers.
Shi Jin gritted his teeth and dashed down from the wall, rushing to a nearby blacksmith’s shop that had been torn apart — the smith himself had already been conscripted to forge weapons for the army, but there, buried amid the rubble, lay an iron rod the army had discarded. Shi Jin pulled it free and charged back up onto the wall. Tremendous chaos was erupting on the other side of the wall, and on Shi Jin’s side, a Jurchen soldier climbing over was struck square on the skull by his staff — the man’s head burst apart like a watermelon and fell away.
Around him, arrows filled the air amid the endless clash and roar of fighting; Shi Jin ducked behind the parapet, and when another Jurchen soldier climbed up, he rushed forward and killed him. Not far off, on the other side, the sound of fighting erupted — a tall, powerful Jurchen warrior had climbed up and, wielding his blade like he was cutting through melons and vegetables, cut down two Wu Dynasty soldiers. Shi Jin charged over and thrust his iron rod, shattering the man’s knee; the Jurchen warrior collapsed, still swinging his blade to sever a soldier’s leg, before finally being stabbed to death on the ground.
More and more Jurchen were charging up onto the wall…
…
First one, two, three — then five, six, seven, eight, nine… By the time he’d killed his fifth man, “Iron Hook” Chen Xiuqing had made his way up as well, giving Shi Jin a signal; by the time he’d killed his seventh, Shi Jin had traded the iron rod for a spear.
The blood surged hot through his veins, his palms burning. On a battlefield like this, a man’s spirit and vitality were pushed to their absolute peak — flying arrows might take his life at any moment, and even so, he needed to strike his enemies down without fail, every blow carrying force at its very limit; and much of his prior combat experience simply did not apply here.
In the wilderness, when men crossed blades, there was a distinction between feints and true strikes — because when you struck at an opponent, if he saw the danger, he would dodge. Many techniques required anticipating the opponent’s evasion in advance: you’d throw out a feint, pretending to strike a vital point, he’d dodge, and then you’d land a heavier blow. But here, there was no more room for feints. Every strike had to be given everything, because your opponent would hardly care about your feints at all — he’d simply come at you with his blade, and if you couldn’t kill him outright, you’d be the one who died. In the old days, whether facing government soldiers or bandits, Shi Jin could swing his iron rod and simply break an opponent’s arms and legs, and the man, howling on the ground, would lose all will to fight — many would even flee at the mere sight of his ferocity. But now, breaking an enemy’s knee might well provoke an even deadlier counterstrike. It was like driving a knife into someone’s belly — if you didn’t twist it hard enough to shred his guts, he might still manage to bring his blade down on your skull. Such life-and-death moments were happening on that wall, every single instant…
After an hour of fighting, the battle line along the wall surged back and forth like a wave in violent motion. The Jurchen’s assault was simple and direct — overwhelming fighting will and personal skill made manifest, driven relentlessly up the wall by sheer force. Shi Jin had never witnessed fighting this relentless — not even at the height of Liangshan’s power could battles have been fought like this.
He could only aim every strike of his spear or blade straight at his enemy’s vitals. By the time he’d killed roughly a dozen men, Chen Xiuqing had been cut down by a Jurchen soldier, dying in a pool of blood. Shi Jin himself took an arrow in the shoulder and two blade wounds to the body — fortunately, given his skill, these were only minor injuries — but the pressure of this fierce, relentless combat weighed directly on every man atop the wall. Each time Shi Jin killed a man, he could feel his own mental and physical strength draining away sharply. The Jurchen assault seemed almost endless, crashing again and again against this stretch of reef; the wall was repeatedly overrun, sometimes broken through entirely, only for the Wu Dynasty commanders to muster soldiers and force them back down again by sheer force. But the whole situation was, at a rate visible almost to the naked eye, steadily crumbling.
For the Wu Dynasty’s commanders — at Yanmen Pass, at Shuozhou, at Dai County, at Xinzhou — each garrison commander had likely heard rumors of the Jurchen before, but for most of them, this was their first direct clash with the Jin. In holding a city under siege, they had, at the outset, more or less maintained their composure and confidence — yet time and again, that confidence seemed to shatter with equal speed against the Jurchen’s ferocity.
In the battle for Xinzhou, the Wu Dynasty had mustered forty-eight thousand defenders, facing off against Wanyan Zonghan’s command of thirty-two thousand Jurchen infantry and cavalry, along with over ten thousand men of the Yisheng Army. The Jurchen began driving civilians forward to launch their assault at dawn; by around midday, the first section to fall was Xinzhou’s south gate.
In this battle, the section that truly bore the brunt of the Jurchen’s frenzied assault was the northwestern wall of Xinzhou. Over ten thousand Jurchen soldiers, together with the Yisheng Army — former subjects of the Liao — drove roughly the same number of civilians forward in an almost unbroken assault on this section, while two columns of Jurchen cavalry circled the city.
Jurchen cavalry moved with tremendous speed, far outpacing what the defenders on the walls could match. As noon approached, they staged a feint against the eastern wall, then rapidly concentrated their forces near the south gate, launching an overwhelming assault with bows and grappling hooks — the entire breach took less than the time it takes to brew a pot of tea. Once the Jurchen who’d broken through opened the gate, the southern part of Xinzhou collapsed into street fighting, and at the same time, cut off any possibility of escape for the Wu Dynasty defenders and residents alike.
About an hour and a half later, the north gate too was forced open, and Xinzhou’s defenses were utterly broken. The wild, brutal fighting through the city’s streets had begun…
…
The setting sun spread across the sky, columns of smoke rising with the flames, countless screams and cries of agony filling the air. As a warhorse charged toward him, the man planted one end of his spear against the ground and sank his stance low.
With a thunderous crash, the dead horse’s body slammed into him, carrying the Jurchen rider along with it toward the end of the alley, where it smashed through a wooden frame. Amid the dust, the Jurchen rider staggered to his feet, trying to make sense of what surrounded him through the haze — and then the tip of a spear punched through his throat with a crack. He fell; only then did another swaying figure emerge from the dust, steadying himself against a wall.
He too was already covered half in blood, his tattered clothes revealing a scraped and bruised chest and back, and upon that body, the tattoo of a dragon showed clearly.
It’s over… it’s already over…
Looking out at this city, restless amid its own destruction, this thought flashed through Shi Jin’s mind. Over the course of this day, he had witnessed the entire course of the battle, had truly come to understand what overwhelming, crushing strength meant. If a walled city, held in defense, could only manage to fight this far against the Jin army, then what would open-field battle against them even look like…
In the end… he’d even forgotten what he’d come up here to do in the first place…
Back in the county town, watching the fleeing crowds, he’d originally meant to run himself — but upon overhearing Qian Fei and the others’ plans, he’d decided to come see for himself. And now, here he was: some of his companions dead, others scattered, and he himself, quite possibly, about to die as well…
He pulled out a piece of dry rations from his clothes, took only a small bite, and tried to breathe evenly to recover his strength. When he heard the footsteps of another squad of soldiers approaching, he scaled a wall and chose a direction to run.
The key points for escaping the city were said to have already fallen entirely into Jurchen hands; tens of thousands of soldiers, and just as many civilians, were now trapped and scattered throughout this city, resistance and slaughter still raging fiercely — but most of that resistance and killing was happening amid total collapse, and sooner or later, it would all be extinguished. Xinzhou was truly finished, and he had no idea whether he himself might still survive. Running like this, he came to a courtyard, and vaulting over the wall found himself suddenly face-to-face with five Jurchen soldiers who had just finished a killing of their own.
Both sides froze for an instant, then the Jurchen raised their blades and charged. Shi Jin turned and ran, cutting through the buildings, and as he burst forward, collided with another Jurchen soldier. The man swung his blade at him; Shi Jin slammed into him with a shoulder-strike, sending him crashing into the wall, then reversed his grip on his own blade and slashed the man’s throat open, a line of blood spraying out — but the remaining Jurchen soldiers had already closed in around him.
Amid the flashing blades, Shi Jin cut through another man’s throat, taking a blade wound to his own arm in the process. At that same moment, a whistling sound tore through the air, and someone else burst into the courtyard, swinging a great broadsword at the remaining four Jurchen soldiers. Shi Jin took the opportunity to cut down one man; the broadsword-wielder killed another, and the last two Jurchen soldiers went down struck from behind by thrown darts.
The one wielding the great broadsword was a burly, powerfully built man; the one who’d thrown the darts from outside was a middle-aged woman — both of them, it was clear, had just come through fierce fighting of their own, blood covering much of their bodies. The three of them looked at each other for a moment; the big man spoke. “One of ours, from the road?” Good work with those hands — care to come with us?”
Shi Jin only looked at them. The woman raised her head slightly. “Your skills are solid. If you want to come, keep up.” She turned and started walking. The burly man waved a hand. “Come on, better to move together than alone.”
Shi Jin nodded, and, though wary, followed along. The woman ahead moved with remarkable speed, and the big man kept pace quickly as well; Shi Jin pushed himself forward too, matching their pace without falling behind. The woman leading them clearly had exceptional skill — perhaps even a match for Shi Jin himself — and her breath ran deep and steady, still with reserves of strength; every so often, sensing Jurchen soldiers ahead, she would change course smoothly. The blade-wielding big man, behind, noticing how formidable Shi Jin’s own skill clearly was, cupped his hands in a low greeting. “This one is Peng Dahu of Shuangliang Mountain. What’s your background, brother?”
“A man of the wilderness. Shi Jin.” By this point, there was no longer any need to hide his identity; he cupped his hands in return even as he ran. “Where are you all headed?”
“To see Grandmaster Zhou,” Peng Dahu said.