The massive battle erupted without warning.

In the thirteenth year of Jinghan, on the night of the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, the battle that broke out was, to Ning Yi, also a vast and impenetrable chaos. Of course, this was partly because what he was responsible for didn’t reach deep into the upper echelons of the Wuchao military — even with intelligence from the Secret Investigation Bureau and information leaked by Qin Shaoqian, what Ning Yi knew about the overall course of the war remained rough at best. He only knew that on this night, Yao Pingzhong would lead his own thirty-thousand-strong Yao family army in a surprise attack on the enemy camp as the vanguard, after which the more than two hundred thousand troops stationed around Bianliang would encircle and complete a major engagement.

An army of over two hundred thousand formed a vast, sprawling ecosystem all its own. Caught up within it, Ning Yi could only make sense of things through numbers. Up close, the tens of thousands of Wurui Battalion soldiers who began breaking camp as night fell resembled a great river surging through the darkness across the plains, its head and tail lost from view. The more than twenty large carts under Ning Yi’s charge traveled at the rear of the column, carrying over a hundred elm-wood cannons currently in usable condition. But where these cannons would end up being positioned, and against whom they’d be used, still depended on how the battle unfolded.

In truth, in a battle of this scale involving hundreds of thousands of men, the contribution of a hundred-odd elm-wood cannons was negligible. What mattered more to Ning Yi was the actual effectiveness these cannons could demonstrate in real combat.

The development of any weapon inevitably requires this kind of trial and refinement. It had been two years since he’d built the elm-wood cannons, and they’d been used once or twice before, but those had been minor skirmishes. To truly perfect them, they would need to go through exactly this kind of trial by fire — that had been the intent from the start.

The towns and villages around Bianliang where the Wurui and Wuwei armies were stationed were all twenty or thirty li from Moutuo Ridge. The great army began breaking camp and advancing as night fell; since the area around Bianliang was mostly flat plains and friendly territory, the march moved along at a decent pace. If all went well, by midnight to dawn they would be able to thoroughly sweep through Moutuo Ridge entirely — even if Yao Pingzhong’s Western Army failed in its raid, the full battle line would still be able to link up.

Even though the Jurchen Eastern Route Army had driven straight through to Bianliang, at this point people still held onto confidence and hope regarding this battle. Partly this was simply because they had no choice but to have confidence, and partly because they felt that even in the worst case, the soldiers of Wuchao surely couldn’t have fallen to the point of being utterly useless in combat. Even if the surprise raid failed, with over two hundred thousand troops locked in battle with the enemy, it wasn’t as though there were no chance of victory at all.

The enemy, after all, had pushed all the way to the walls of Bianliang — they had no choice but to stake everything on this one throw and hope for certain victory.

And yet, had there been an all-knowing vantage point, one would have seen that while these two hundred thousand troops were still only halfway to their positions, the first wave of slaughter had already begun near Moutuo Ridge. Beneath the dark canopy of night, tens of thousands of Jurchen cavalry had begun sweeping back and forth around Yao Pingzhong’s nearly thirty-thousand-strong force. In the very first moments, they shattered the Yao family army’s formation entirely, and fire and blood bloomed across the plain. The Jurchen cavalry columns plowed bloody furrows through the crowds of men, savagely tearing apart every organized unit they encountered.

At the same time, the remaining forty thousand Jurchen cavalry at Moutuo Ridge split into nine columns, fanning out and racing toward the northeast and southeast. In that direction, the two hundred thousand Wuchao troops, utterly unaware, were about to be struck by a sudden, overwhelming assault.

At the very front line of the battle, Yao Pingzhong chose to flee at the first opportunity — but the direction he chose was not toward Bianliang, but rather westward, away from it, and from that point on he vanished from the historical stage. According to unofficial accounts, after his defeat he fled seven hundred-some li in a single night, eventually settling on Mount Hua to become a Daoist priest, attaining enlightenment, and living past eighty before finally emerging from seclusion, still ruddy-faced and full of vigor. Official histories record nothing of this.

The abandoned thirty thousand men of the Yao family army, their formation completely shattered, were then slaughtered by the Jurchen infantry that arrived close behind, while the ten-thousand-odd elite Jurchen cavalry who had routed them turned east under the command of the general Shuleisu, riding to reinforce and pursue.

Wind and cloud alike began to turn ominous in the sky above…

…

“I keep feeling… something’s wrong.” Amid the marching column of tens of thousands, Zhu Biao rode alongside the cart on horseback, murmuring in a low voice.

The torchlight was sparse, stretching thin into the distance. The formation of tens of thousands, in the atmosphere of this night march, seemed strangely mysterious and quiet — and the low buzz of whispered murmurs only deepened that quiet all the more.

“Don’t jinx it.” Ning Yi lifted his head from atop his horse. “Even if something’s wrong, what can you do about it?”

…

A few li ahead of the Wurui Battalion’s marching formation, in the darkness, scouts rode forward.

A night bird flew past overhead.

One rider reined in his horse, tilting his head to listen; another looked up at the sky, then leapt down from his horse and was about to press his ear to the ground when, all at once, a sound came rushing in.

“Watch out!” A low, clipped warning — for scouts like these, even in the most dire of moments, one couldn’t shout aloud. But at that low warning, warhorses came charging in, Jurchen riders bearing down with steel blades swinging.

“Waaah—” Amid the sharp, vicious battle cries, blades clashed with a metallic clang, sparks burst in the darkness. The scout on the ground drew his blade in a flash and leapt aside, and another Jurchen rider’s blade swept through the space where he’d just been. The Wurui Battalion had sent out two scouts; the Jurchens, three.

“Kill!”

“Go!”

More low shouts of clashing combat rang out in the darkness, horses wheeling rapidly in tight circles around one another. The Wurui scout who had remained mounted spurred his horse into a gallop as a Jurchen rider moved to cut him off from the side. The dismounted Wurui scout rushed forward and threw himself at the attacker; the Jurchen’s blade sank into his body, but he managed to drag the man down off his horse with him.

“Go!”

The wounded scout let out another low shout, hauling himself up from the ground to face the charging Jurchen warhorse. The Jurchen rider he’d pulled down rolled back up and slashed at him again; the Jurchen’s horse knocked him flying, and though he tumbled and staggered back to his feet, he was cut down once more.

The remaining scout’s horse galloped on, and the fallen figure was swiftly swallowed by the darkness behind him.

The pursuit of one against three soon ran into other scouts scattered across the plain, and it dissolved into a small, scattered skirmish.

…

Within a formation of tens of thousands, it wasn’t hard to sense when the atmosphere suddenly shifted. Whether it was unrest or panic, once it began, it would sweep outward like ripples in no time — though few actually knew what had caused it.

Shifts like this could be either real or false alarms, and this was especially true at night — the slightest disturbance in an undisciplined army could spiral into a full-blown stampede through chain reaction. In wartime, military police units were extremely sensitive to this kind of thing. And so, even though everyone could feel some sense of unease in the air, they all kept marching forward, watching quietly and tensely.

“What’s happening?” Ning Yi climbed up onto the roof of the cart and looked off into the distance. Along the sprawling edge of the formation, messenger riders could be faintly seen galloping. “Zhu Biao, go find out.”

“Right.” Zhu Biao reined his horse around and rode off to the side. Not long after he left, war horns sounded, and someone shouted: “Form ranks!” The front of the long column began assembling rapidly.

“The Jurchens are here,” someone said — though by this point, even without being told, most people could more or less guess what was happening. The formations nearby scrambled to organize themselves. Complex, urgent commands rang out, and the footsteps of tens of thousands surged through the night like a tide. Before long, someone came running over.

“Young Master Ning.” It was one of Qin Shaoqian’s personal guards, someone Ning Yi knew. Ning Yi cupped his hands in greeting. “What’s the situation?”

“The Jurchens are here — they came too fast. General Qin says to act as the situation demands. If it can’t be done, take these things and retreat quickly — don’t let it all be lost here.”

“What do you mean, too fast? How fast?” Ning Yi turned quickly to the subordinates beside him. “Is there anywhere nearby that could serve as a sniping position? Find it, quickly—”

Before he could even finish the sentence, far off past the hills, dark shapes speckled with points of firelight came surging over the rise.

Those were Jurchen cavalry — in the darkness, it was impossible to tell how many hundreds or thousands of riders were charging this way, dotted with flickers of fire. But before long, those points of light stretched out into long streaks — the cavalry, at full gallop, had set alight arrows wrapped in oil-soaked cloth. At the front of the Wurui Battalion’s formation, several hundred men shouted in unison: “Form ranks—!” The uniform roar shook the night sky in an instant; thousands upon thousands of infantry crowded together across the plain, shields raised, spears rising like a forest, archers drawing their bows. Immediately after, a second rank in the formation echoed the same cry: “Form ranks—!” Then a third.

In terms of overall quality among the Wurui Battalion’s training, it had to be said that Wuchao’s soldiers weren’t up to much. And yet under Qin Shaoqian’s command, he’d always managed to scrape together a few thousand usable, capable troops. Add to that the thousand-plus men Ning Yi had trained for him at Dulong Ridge, and while their combat strength might not have been extraordinary, Qin Shaoqian had divided them into three groups, using this kind of coordinated battle-cry to rally the morale of the whole formation — and that was far from useless. After all, the difference between a shout from a few thousand men and one from tens of thousands was something ordinary people could hardly appreciate without experiencing it firsthand.

A unified shout from a few thousand men was more than enough to give tens of thousands the symbolic sense of being “of one mind.”

Arrows filled the sky like locusts, sweeping across the night.

There was no time for much mental preparation. After the Jurchen cavalry loosed their fire arrows, facing a return volley of arrows streaking back at them, they showed no sign of slowing down. At the front of the Wurui Battalion’s line, the infantry planted their stances firmly, packed into an impenetrably dense mass; on the flanks of the formation, the Wurui Battalion’s two thousand cavalry were also rapidly repositioning.

Historically, Wuchao’s forces had held a seventy or eighty percent win rate against Jurchen cavalry — facing an iron-clad defensive wall like this, after the first volley of arrows, the Jurchen cavalry would normally wheel off to the side, keeping their distance. But on this night, none of that happened as expected, and even Ning Yi, standing atop the cart, hadn’t fully anticipated it. Whatever understanding he had of warfare, he was, after all, no true expert in it. But Qin Shaoqian, as a seasoned commander, had likely already sensed this — which was why he’d sent his guard ahead with those orders.

The vast formation of tens of thousands stretched out toward the front, and farther beyond, the Jurchen cavalry surged past what was traditionally called “arrow range.” These riders, clad in leather coats and long-tailed felt hats, hurled grappling hooks to one another as they charged, swiftly hooking them onto their own saddles, while the handful who’d been struck by arrows were already left behind at the rear of the column.

The two sides had closed the distance so tightly now that neither side had any opportunity left to loose arrows.

Every man drew his blade, roaring at the top of his lungs, eyes bloodshot and red. Thousands of elite Jurchen cavalry, formed into columns of several or a dozen riders each, linked together and charged straight at the front line of the Wurui Battalion.

At this moment, there was no retreating for anyone.

Among Jurchen tactics, the method of striking from the flanks in encircling maneuvers, conserving one’s own strength while probing for the enemy’s weaknesses, was called the “guaizi ma” — the “hooked cavalry.” It’s said this term originated from the way the horse piece moves diagonally on a chess board. But when they truly resolved to charge head-on, linking horse to horse so that the combined momentum of several or a dozen riders was unleashed as one, that was called “lianhuan ma” — the “linked cavalry.”

Under conditions like this, even if there had been cowards among the ranks — men or even horses unwilling to risk death — retreat simply wasn’t an option.

Within the formation, Qin Shaoqian’s eyes went wide, and he swung his arm down sharply. “Kill!”

At the front, the soldiers pressed onto the front line planted their stances, gripping blade and shield, staring at the cavalry bearing down on them at breakneck speed, letting out hysterical roars, eyes wide with rage.

“Kill—!”

“Kill—!”

“Kill—!”

Three unified roars rang out in succession from the front, middle, and rear of the formation, each wave rising higher than the last.

The distance of the battle shrank to zero.

The cavalry columns crashed thunderously into the dense infantry formation, wave after wave, like some maddened pile driver, hammering relentlessly into the ranks of the Wuchao army. Thousands of blades flashed and danced along the front line; blood burst and sprayed, horses and men alike ground into a mass of pulp along this frenzied line of battle. The riders atop their horses swung their blades as they plunged into the packed crowd. In this single instant of collision, the entire battle reached its most brutal, harrowing peak.

Qin Shaoqian commanded his troops to surge forward rapidly, his cavalry charging in as well. He had wanted to hold some reserves in case, but at this moment, holding anything back had lost all meaning — to withhold even a fraction of one’s strength now was simply to invite death.

As a senior commander of Wuchao, he understood at least one thing: the supposed win rate that Wuchao’s forces normally held against the Jurchens was, in ordinary times, a meaningless joke. Only when the Jurchens truly unleashed their linked cavalry charge like this did the real test, the real reckoning, begin. And the question was this: when the Jurchens truly threw caution to the wind and engaged head-on, who could possibly stand against this savage army that had brought down the entire Liao dynasty?

The Jurchens, when fewer than ten thousand, could not be defeated; once they numbered ten thousand, none could stand against them.

Cavalry and infantry alike crashed together in the melee. The three unified shouts Qin Shaoqian had arranged beforehand had indeed done much to bolster morale, wrapping the Wurui Battalion in something like a hardened shell, holding the line against the Jurchens.

At least… for a while.

Not long after, the Wurui army’s entire line collapsed.

That same night, on other stretches of the plain outside Bianliang, the rest of the armies met with the very same fate.