Gather the iron of the Nine Provinces, and forge it into a single character.
Chapter 577 — Worldly Affairs, Wine for the Departed Souls (I)
In the mud, blackened houses burnt to charcoal, and corpses lying one after another.
The rain had stopped not long ago. This was a village that had been ravaged by the calamity of war — the rain had washed away the flames and the reek of blood, but in doing so it had blended everything into an even more indescribable stench, the kind that made anyone who smelled it want to retch. In the woods on a small hillside nearby stood three riders on horseback, looking this way.
The rider in front had a beard and wore a scholar’s robe, appearing quite composed and at ease. In one hand he held a notebook, and in the other a fine brush, which he dipped now and then into a small ink pouch at his waist, sketching this scene of post-massacre devastation onto the page. After a while of drawing, he would lick the tip of the brush against his tongue and then spit out a mouthful of black saliva.
The two men behind him appeared to be officers of the Martial Dynasty. Glancing at the sky, one of them said in a low voice, “Lord Cheng, we’ve lingered here far too long. If we don’t leave now, we might run into a Jurchen scouting party…”
The man surnamed Cheng added a few more strokes, then held up the notebook and shook it, blowing on it gently. After a moment, once the ink had dried somewhat, he put it away and spoke slowly.
“Nianhan’s main force sacked Xinzhou; Wanyan Loushi broke through Daizhou. I’d guess it won’t be long before they reach Taiyuan.” His tone was not loud, carrying a certain detachment. “Where are you two headed?”
This remark from Lord Cheng left the two officers looking uneasy — fortunately, it seemed he was merely making an offhand observation. After a moment, he pulled on his reins. “Let’s go. Hurry back, before the Jurchen scouts catch up with us.”
The three riders skirted around the woods and rode off swiftly.
…
In the great city of Taiyuan, Qin Shaohe stood on a small rise outside the city gates, watching the great crowds of common people streaming into the city. Farther off in the fields, large stretches of harvested rice were also being transported into the city.
Not long after, a group of riders, working their way carefully through the crowd, arrived from a distance, travel-worn and weary. The man in the lead, wearing a scholar’s robe, dismounted and bowed to Qin Shaohe. “My lord.”
“Zhouhai, how is it?”
“Daizhou has fallen, Xinzhou has been massacred entirely, and the areas around the city were affected as well… it was unspeakably tragic.” Cheng Zhouhai looked at him with a cold, hard gaze, then sighed and turned to look back the way he had come. “If I hadn’t seen it myself, I could never have imagined it.”
“It’s not hard to imagine. Taiyuan is close now too.” Qin Shaohe turned to look at the towering walls of Taiyuan behind him. He had been appointed prefect of Taiyuan that year; while Tong Guan had held command here, he had taken his orders from Tong Guan, but now that Tong Guan had fled south, only he and the military commander Wang Bing remained to defend this place.
As the eldest son of Qin Siyuan, Qin Shaohe had always upheld the way of the gentleman, modest and courteous by nature — but this time, when Tong Guan abandoned Taiyuan and fled, Qin Shaohe had nearly come to blows with him on the spot. Of course, the Prince of Guangyang’s mind did not change, and he went south regardless, leaving Qin Shaohe with no choice but to shoulder the burden together with Wang Bing.
This time, the speed of the Jurchen advance southward had made the Martial Dynasty’s defenses look as flimsy as paper. Neither Qin Shaohe nor Cheng Zhouhai had any basis left on which to judge what the army could actually accomplish. Shuozhou, Xinzhou, Daizhou — one moment word came that the Jurchen troops were only encroaching, and the next moment it seemed the massacres had already begun. Taiyuan’s defenses were certainly sturdier than those cities, but how long they could hold, no one felt certain in their heart.
Across the distant fields, the wind swept and the clouds raced. Atop Taiyuan’s walls, great numbers of fortifications were being built even as the soldiers and civilians poured into the city. Countless reports arrived from the west and north — among them, news that martial artists had attempted to assassinate Wanyan Zonghan. Though it was said some commanders had been killed, since Wanyan Zonghan himself had only been wounded, the outlook for Taiyuan could still not be called optimistic.
It seemed that, perhaps within a matter of days, everyone here might die.
Watching this endless stream of refugees, Qin Shaohe and Cheng Zhouhai could not help but feel this very thought pass through their minds. But since they had already taken their place here, all that remained was to fight with everything they had. After a moment, Cheng Zhouhai went into the city to summon the Bamboo Chronicle’s man in charge of Taiyuan, to begin the work he excelled at — stirring the entire city’s soldiers and civilians to join together in the defense. Qin Shaohe, after a brief moment’s rest, climbed up onto the city wall as well, and the pace of command and organization grew busier still.
Not long after, Li Pin, who had already settled into his post as Vice Commissioner of River-East Water and Land Transport, also entered the city along with the great flow of transported supplies and people.
Even though they had already steeled themselves for the possibility of sacrifice, none of them yet knew just how difficult and drawn-out the battle awaiting them would be…
…
In the capital, the rain had just stopped, leaving a trailing drizzle behind.
Under the gloomy sky, Shishi woke from her sleep — it was still afternoon, and the Fan Tower was already bustling with life. Because of the war in the north, business at the Fan Tower had grown unusually good these past few days. Great merchants passing through the capital, officials coming and going from the court, country gentry come up to the city, and impassioned young scholars — all of them gathered here.
Under the shadow of war, merchants with business in the north needed to shift their assets and come to the capital to smooth over their connections; gentry worried about damage to their family holdings sought out officials they knew to ask about the shifting tides of the war; within the court, officials with various tangled interests needed to conspire privately; and impassioned young scholars came to hold forth loudly on state affairs and pour out their feelings. All manner of things, all bustling and chaotic together.
There were also scholars who had decided to set down their writing brushes and take up arms, heading north to resist the enemy — invited here to the Fan Tower, seen off with poetry and wine, promising one another that they would meet again before long, somewhere in the northern lands.
At times like these, Shishi could not help but think of Ning Yi, who had already been gone north for several days. He had not said very much, nor had anyone seen him off with poetry and wine — he had simply settled his wife and children at home and left, just like that. Even now, Shishi still did not know exactly what his purpose in going north was; she guessed it must be something important, but he had also urged his family to go south.
“Things could turn out either minor or serious. If it’s possible these days, it would be good to head south for a while.”
Those were the words Ning Yi had said to her on the afternoon he left. At the time, he had simply called her to the house and told her the fact that he would be heading north for a while — but afterward, he had added that sentence to her as well. Shishi was, after all, an exceptionally perceptive woman; she guessed easily enough that Ning Yi’s journey north was in preparation against the possibility of the Jurchen invasion south — and once she understood that, the deeper implication of those words became rather frightening.
At the time, she had stared at him in stunned silence for a good while, then asked quietly, “Is it really that bad?” Ning Yi had only nodded gravely. “It’s possible. Better to be prepared.”
He had been directing the packing of things for the journey north at the time, his expression far too calm, his words far too composed. Shishi had been so shaken in that moment that she hadn’t even thought to tell him to be careful on the road north.
Thinking back on it later, in all the time she had known him — his dealings with the Liangshan bandits, opening shops and doing business in Bianjing, taking in orphans, recruiting great numbers of workers, having the Bamboo Chronicle tell stories of scholars upholding righteousness and warriors serving their country, exhausting himself for famine relief, and in the process offending many people with powerful backers, leading to assassination attempts every few days — through all of it, he had always faced things with composure. But that particular calm, casual expression of his that day, perhaps, meant that he was about to start taking something seriously again.
This time, it was to meet the Jurchen head-on. Even without understanding exactly what he intended to do, she could guess at the danger involved.
After he left, what weighed on Shishi’s mind was that she had never told him to be careful. Sometimes she wondered — by telling his family to go south, and by extension telling her the same, did that mean his feelings for her were no different from those for his own family? And if she found herself dwelling on such thoughts, did that mean she herself harbored romantic feelings for Ning Yi?
But then she thought again — for someone like him, no matter who it was, she would have wanted to tell him to be careful; how much more so, given that he was her childhood friend as well. With that thought, her heart settled, and she no longer dwelt too much on matters of romantic feeling.
After that, the news circulating through the Fan Tower grew ever more complicated and varied. She listened carefully — at times hearing that Guo Yaoshi’s surrender had been the result of someone’s persecution, at times hearing that Wanyan Zonghan’s forces were already pressing on Taiyuan, sometimes hearing that Zongwang had suffered a great defeat in Hebei, and sometimes that the Wucheng and Wufeng armies were preparing a pincer attack on Zonghan, and so on and so forth, without end…
Within the court as well, all sorts of talk circulated — some argued for peace negotiations, some for striking out, some for holding firm; it was said that Grand Marshal Zhong Shidao’s western army would soon be setting out; and there were pessimists too, who said the Jurchen army would push all the way to the walls of Bianliang itself — this particular claim came from the Prince of Guangyang, Tong Guan, and Shishi noted that it bore some resemblance to Ning Yi’s own thinking. And indeed, preparations for a scorched-earth defense seemed already to be underway around Bianliang, with the relocation of a million or even several million people, an act that some were furiously denouncing as tyranny…
With her usual command of information, Shishi could ordinarily untangle a clear thread from even the most chaotic reports — but this time, it was not so easy. And in the midst of it all, she could not glimpse what Ning Yi, gone north, might actually be doing at this very moment. The Martial Dynasty’s armies nearby all seemed to be heading north, preparing to meet the Jurchen head-on. Given that, why did Ning Yi still believe Bianliang itself might be in danger?
Amid such thoughts, she found herself unwilling to dwell any further on the suggestion Ning Yi had made that she go south. This familiar city — she could not go north as he had, but she could still wait here for the outcome, staying in this place.
Water dripped from the eaves after the rain, and the wind blew in from the courtyard, stirring the thin gauze of her robes and bringing with it a chill. The noise from inside the tower carried faintly through the walls into the courtyard; a maid arrived as well, bringing news that two groups of visitors had come seeking an audience together. She adjusted her collar and looked out at the sky, still blanketed in gloomy clouds.
Ah, how the autumn chill deepens so pleasantly…
…
A vast scorched-earth campaign was unfolding across the land to the north. Countless reports converged southward like falling snow, and at the very center of this flood of information, in a carriage moving steadily forward, Ning Yi was sorting through a great mass of news and materials, occasionally dictating brief, pointed opinions that would let the Bamboo Chronicle take action.
A great deal of information relevant — and irrelevant — to the progress of the scorched-earth campaign was converging on him as well; because of his position, he learned of things earlier than even the capital did.
Zonghan had broken Xinzhou; Wanyan Loushi of the western army had broken Daizhou; to the east, Wanyan Zongwang, with Guo Yaoshi’s Ever-Victorious Army as vanguard, was advancing south — Peng Zuhui led sixty thousand troops to intercept Zongwang north of Dizhou, only to be crushed by Guo Yaoshi; Peng Zuhui fled south with eight thousand survivors, and after Dizhou fell it was put to the sword; the Jurchen eastern army was racing swiftly toward Jinan, and so on and so on…
The Jurchen advance was swift and fierce, and since it happened to be the season of the autumn harvest, a broad, thorough scorched-earth campaign was almost impossible to carry out smoothly. Within the court, there was a great deal of questioning and criticism as well, arguing that the scorched-earth effort in the north was entirely meaningless as a way of stopping the Jurchen. Nearly every problem seemed to reach a crisis point the moment it arose, and Ning Yi’s time was stretched extremely thin, especially in these early days — he was constantly summarizing reports and issuing concise, clear instructions one after another. So when Zhu Biao brought that particular piece of information in to him, he only glanced at it briefly, set it down, then picked it up again and looked once more. He made a few quick revisions on it with brisk strokes of his brush.
“Hand this to Dong Fangxian. Add it to the propaganda campaign, top priority — push him up onto a pedestal.”
Zhu Biao hesitated for a moment — in truth, he was not normally responsible for personally delivering messages to Ning Yi, but this time he had felt the news important enough to bring himself. After a moment, though, he took it back and lifted the carriage curtain to step out.
The carriage continued on its way, with people occasionally coming up to knock on its side. About an hour or so later, another item arrived — this time brought by Dong Fangxian himself, the man in the Bamboo Chronicle responsible for propaganda, who handed a draft to Ning Yi. Ning Yi took it and read it over.
“The backgrounds of the eight named Jurchen commanders who died may still need closer verification, but this is what we have on hand for now — we’ll flesh it out further as we go. Please have a look and tell me if this works.”
Ning Yi read through it quickly, marking a few points with his brush, then said briskly, “Aside from the eight named individuals, the rest should be emphasized as elite troops from Nianhan’s personal guard. The numbers can’t be vague. Saying they suffered over a hundred casualties has no impact — raise it. Write two hundred and sixty-eight casualties total: one hundred twenty-seven dead, the rest wounded. Write it that way.”
“If someone asks how we came to know the exact numbers…”
“Say it came from Nianhan’s own army’s internal count.”
“Understood.”
Dong Fangxian took the draft and went off. Ning Yi continued handling matters; half an hour later, a second draft was brought to him. He looked it over, then waved his hand impatiently, dismissing the messenger to take it away.
The carriage continued forward, the accumulated business continuing to be dealt with. When there came a brief lull, the carriage stopped, and Ning Yi prepared to step out and stretch his limbs. As he rose, something occurred to him; he rifled through the various reports on the desk, then quietly called over an attendant and sent him to fetch something.
As he stepped out of the carriage, the sun hung faint and pale in the distance. The attendant came running back, bringing with him the note Ning Yi had earlier had Zhu Biao deliver to Dong Fangxian — the original piece of information itself. He sat on the edge of the carriage’s shaft, looking at the words written on it.
“On the night of the ninth day of the eighth month, Zhou Tong, leading a band of greenwood heroes, assassinated Nianhan at Xinzhou, killing eight Jurchen commanders including Chixian, Shumutu, Han’erguo… Jurchen generals Nianhan, Wanyan Xiyin, Yinshuke, Bolisu, and others all suffered wounds of varying severity… those known to have taken part in the assassination include… Zhou Tong perished…”
He had seen a great many reports that day — defeats, massacres, one after another — but perhaps because this particular report contained the name of someone he knew, it left his mood sinking…
Zhu Biao, too, wearing a complicated and downcast expression, walked over from nearby…