The weather was bitterly cold, and in the snow-covered valley, the arrival of the two thousand-plus men had brought a livelier atmosphere.

The two thousand men from the Lüliang Mountains were settled to one side of the valley, where the ruins of the original village’s broken walls stood; proper housing had not yet been built for them. But the original members of the Wu Rui Camp in the valley brought over firewood, lighting one bonfire after another to begin cooking, and the Lüliang men pitched their tents around the fires. People still came and went through the valley; some Bamboo Notes members who had once been to the Lüliang Mountains came to visit them, speaking with righteous indignation of friends who had recently died.

Before long, Qin Shaoqian and the others came to see them, and the surrounding area immediately fell silent. Everyone gathered on the open ground; Qin Shaoqian spoke a few words of welcome and thanks, and afterward Ning Yi stood for a moment before the crowd, his gaze sweeping across them, and waved his hand. “War is a dangerous business — I never expected you all to actually come. But thank you for coming. All right, go on and get to work — I’ll come find you for a chat when I have time.”

He spoke briefly, and naturally no one felt it appropriate to respond with much of anything, though some, seeing how frail Ning Yi’s body looked, could not help but let a flicker of concern show in their eyes.

Ning Yi commanded considerable prestige in the Lüliang Mountains — marrying Hongti, taking over Liang Bingfu’s position, and afterward organizing everything in the mountains with great order and efficiency. Most of the soldiers in the Lüliang army were men who had once lived through hard times; more than half of them had met Ning Yi in person, and even those who had not had heard countless stories about that outsider scholar after joining Green Wood Stronghold. By this point, the succession from Liang Bingfu to Ning Yi had already become something of a legend within the circles of Green Wood Stronghold.

While Liang Bingfu of Green Wood Stronghold had still been alive, he had barely managed to keep the whole stronghold running — at the time, perhaps no one had thought him particularly remarkable. But after his death, life in the mountains had actually grown better, and it was only in people’s memories, looking back on all the effort and devotion he had poured into the stronghold in those days, that it finally fermented into something that could bring people to tears.

Part of this emotional resonance, naturally, also came from Ning Yi’s own efforts. After Liang Bingfu’s death, it was during the memorial for him that Ning Yi finally told the story of Liang Bingfu and Hongti’s late master. Years ago, Liang Bingfu, entering the mountains, had run afoul of bandits, only to be rescued by Hongti’s master; because of a single promise made then, he had spent the entire second half of his life in the Lüliang Mountains, never marrying, dying without children of his own. When Ning Yi, in a calm and even tone, recounted that story of devotion to the crowd, along with the words Liang Bingfu had spoken on his deathbed, more than half of the Lüliang people listening had broken down in tears.

Whether it was sincere or calculated, some people, out of a certain moral fastidiousness, might feel that an old man on his deathbed would not necessarily have wanted his private affairs made known to others. Ning Yi had no way of asking him about this. But after this story was told, in the Lüliang Mountains, from Hongti’s master, to Liang Bingfu, and then to Hongti and Ning Yi — three generations of leaders — had truly come together to form the soul of Green Wood Stronghold. Elsewhere in the Lüliang Mountains, leadership changed hands constantly, with new chiefs rising after killing their predecessors being a common enough occurrence — but nowhere else was there anything quite like this, something that could truly settle into people’s hearts.

Afterward, whenever people recalled Liang Bingfu, they would naturally, out of emotion, exaggerate certain details in many of the stories. But whether or not the Liang Bingfu people had shaped in their memories matched the real man, Ning Yi believed that if the old man’s spirit truly still existed somewhere above, he would surely take comfort in seeing what the stronghold had become. Of course, the old man had originally only held onto the stronghold because of Hongti’s master in the first place — and now that the two of them were reunited in the afterlife, they were probably living quite happily together, with little concern left for how those still on earth might see things.

As for the real man behind the legend, so long as Hongti, Ning Yi, and the others still remembered him as he truly was, that was enough.

…

“To be honest, this time, I was somewhat hoping you all wouldn’t come. The Jurchen are formidable — cough — you’ve already seen the state of things around here yourselves. On the twenty-fifth of the ninth month, two hundred and twenty thousand men were defeated; since then, there have been three more engagements, and that number has grown to three hundred and thirty thousand. The Lüliang Mountains scraped together what little they had, with great difficulty — I didn’t want to see you all smashed to pieces here…”

“Whether it’s copper or iron, it’s always forged in fire. I came here today and saw the men outside — their spirits seem pretty good, not at all like a defeated force.”

“It took a great deal of effort to turn people’s hearts around — a lot of people died, and plenty of blame got shifted onto others along the way. We’ve only just managed to scrape together this force of over ten thousand, and their minds have shifted just enough that we can say, roughly speaking, we might be able to fight one battle. But the tens of thousands of men under Zongwang’s command are the strongest troops in the realm, the very best kind — even at two against one, we might not have the advantage. There’s really not much reason for optimism.”

“…It’s exactly because of that that we felt we needed to come all the more. Before we set out, I asked the brothers in the mountains — they were all willing to fight this battle for you. You said yourself, back then, that all our training was for the Jurchen. We’ve seen how fearsome the Liao soldiers can be, but we haven’t yet seen the Jurchen for ourselves. Still — you’re wounded again…”

A finger on the table, lightly brushing against another finger.

The creak of the door, the sound of someone coming and going outside.

The finger withdrew again.

Juan’er was arranging the bedding outside, then ran back out again.

“When we left, the warhorses at Green Wood hadn’t been this numerous yet — coming here today, seeing them, even I was a little startled. In the Wu Rui Camp, the number of usable cavalry mounts is barely any more than that…”

“We kept a few hundred back in the mountains. Following your earlier instructions, Liheng, we’ve been trying every means to buy horses. The Jin have forbidden the trade of warhorses — the Wu dynasty can’t buy any — but since we do business on both sides, we actually have some connections. Later, we made contact with a certain channel among the Jin, someone who is extremely fond of Wu dynasty calligraphy and antiques and curios. We went to great lengths to select fine pieces and pass them along to smooth relations. But what happened next was rather interesting — the men sent by this important Jin figure secretly reached out to us, and said that although their master enjoyed these items, he was really only affecting refined taste — he had no way of judging whether a piece was genuine or fake, and all we needed to do was grease the right palms below him, and we could pass off inferior goods as fine ones… It wasn’t easy for us to go around finding truly fine antiques and calligraphy either, so in the end we simply spent money to smooth over the right connections, and after that, the warhorses just kept coming, one after another. They think we’re planning to rise up in rebellion against the Wu dynasty… It’s rather a shame about those genuine pieces we sent at the start, though.”

“Genuine pieces are nothing to worry about — doing business is about keeping one’s word. As long as there are horses, whatever fine goods he wants, however many, I’ll give him. This isn’t the time to be sentimental about antiques and calligraphy. Still, this might leave us with a lingering problem. Since he has connections among the higher ranks of the Jin, someday he’s bound to run into someone who actually knows their worth. A connection like this isn’t easy to come by, and it would be a shame to lose it. By the way — what’s this person’s name?”

“From what we’ve found so far, behind him seems to be a high official named Moxin. Whether there’s anyone above him, that’s harder to say. So — should we give them genuine pieces going forward? I worry that once we do, we might never get anything good back afterward.”

“Let’s focus on the present for now. If it turns out we need this long-term, I’ll figure out something later. Under the current circumstances, calligraphy, antiques, works of art — none of it means anything. Once Bian Liang falls, every last pot and jar will be smashed anyway. I would gladly trade the entire city of Bian Liang for a hundred thousand elite Jurchen soldiers.”

“Mm.”

“So — how’s the day-to-day training coming along? They look good dismounted, but what about their combat strength? What about the regular drills?”

“Following what you told us back in the mountains, Liheng, the training’s gone well — we’ve worked on charging in as tight a formation as possible, and mounted archery. The terrain in Lüliang is uneven, and keeping the formation connected there is harder than on flat ground, so coming here, it’s actually been easier by comparison. Oh, and we’ve also been practicing firing the cannons regularly near the horses, to get them used to it…”

“Young Master, time for your medicine.”

“Oh, all right… ugh, so bitter…”

“Heh heh, hello, Miss Lu.”

“Mm… hello, Miss Juan’er.”

…

“…Ugh, I hate drinking this stuff, it’s so bitter… Oh, and you’ve also done cannon-firing drills?”

“Should be no problem there. We brought some elm-wood cannons this time too, and a few iron cannons among them that have already been test-fired. The iron coming out of the furnaces varies in quality… and then there are the land mines as well…”

The two of them talked on and on in the room for a long while, and Juan’er hovered by the doorway several times before Ning Yi finally, with a laugh, called her over.

“What is it, what is it — stop hovering, just say it if something’s the matter.”

“Um… Miss Lu’s room, I’ve already gotten it ready, and I was wondering… when should I take Miss Lu over there…”

Juan’er stood there properly, maintaining her demeanor as a dutiful maidservant. The corner of Ning Yi’s mouth twitched, half-suppressing a laugh; Hongti glanced at him, then lowered her head and stood up.

“I only just got here — I still need to go check on how Han Jing and the others are setting up camp. Miss Juan’er, why don’t you take me to see where the room is first.”

“All right.” Juan’er nodded with a smile.

The shelter prepared for Hongti was actually not far away; Juan’er led her over, and before long, returned. Ning Yi was sitting under the lamp, going over the day’s various reports from around the camp. There had still been a few snacks on the table from entertaining Hongti earlier, and Juan’er quietly went in to clear them away, then quietly tidied the bedding as well, before going back out to sit quietly in the small side room, waiting for Ning Yi’s instructions. But when she saw him rubbing his eyes under the oil lamp, she could not help but slip carefully back inside.

“Young Master.”

“Mm?”

“Young Master, are you angry?”

“About Hongti? When have I ever gotten angry at any of you over something like that?”

“Then… Young Master, you and Miss Lu…”

“Ah… you mean, whether there’s — that kind of relationship…”

“Um… what I mean is… that kind of relationship… um, it’s…” Juan’er weighed her words for a long moment, clearly finding it difficult to say. Ning Yi laughed.

“More than just being close friends, I suppose. Mm, yes, there is — my relationship with Hongti is probably like the one I have with Miss Yun Zhu. It began when I went to Lüliang. This is something I feel somewhat guilty about, toward Tan’er and Yun Zhu both. But things being what they are now, there’s no point lying about it.”

Juan’er’s expression changed; she stood there with her fingers twisted together, nearly wringing them pale. “I… I didn’t mean… that… that…”

“No.” Ning Yi stood up, gently pulling Juan’er’s arm to guide her to sit by the table. “Sit — you don’t have to be like this. Whether it’s as a member of the household, or out of anger on Tan’er’s behalf, you’ve done nothing wrong. However you look at it, in this regard, I have a habit of straying — and to be honest about it, whether it concerns your young mistress, or Yun Zhu, or Hongti, I owe them all something of an apology.”

“Men… having several wives and concubines, that’s really… just…” Juan’er’s voice had dropped to barely a whisper, the words clearly difficult to get out.

“No, it’s not really like that. In the past, I was quite willing to find excuses for myself too — how pitiable I was, how I couldn’t bear to let go, how soft-hearted I was, and so on. But on a practical level, it’s just that I’ve strayed. Your young mistress has been very indulgent with me in this regard, and so have Yun Zhu and the others — that’s certainly been part of what enabled it. But at the root of it, it’s something I did myself.”

“You, and my young mistress, and Chan’er, and Miss Yun Zhu, and Miss Jin’er — it’s different with them, compared to other men. When other men take several wives and concubines, they treat women as playthings…”

“Mm, so I suppose I can find a little comfort in that, at least.” Ning Yi laughed, then paused briefly. “In any case, that’s the whole situation. But… Miss Lu really does need to go out tonight to check on how the camp is being set up, and besides, she has two thousand men under her to manage — with over ten thousand people here watching her, she can’t very well move in openly to live with me. So arranging a room for her was necessary, too.”

He sighed. “In any case, this may well be the situation our household has to deal with going forward — I just wanted you to know. I’m already doing my best to hold back, whatever you think of your young master, whether you think he’s a good man or a bad one. Well, even if you do think I’m a bad man, grumbling about it in your heart, or even scolding me to my face a little — I can put up with that too. There’s still a lot of work I need to ask you to handle, so just don’t go throwing up your hands and quitting on me.”

Ning Yi said all this with a smile, and Juan’er, usually so composed, found her face flushing red. “I — I never thought Young Master was a bad man. I… I’m just a maidservant, and… Young Master is a good man.”

“Oh, a ‘good man’ card…”

“Then… I’ve heard that Miss Lu is a heroine of the martial world, a great master of the arts, very skilled at treating injuries. So should I… go call her over? I… I’ll go stay somewhere else first…” Juan’er looked at Ning Yi hopefully.

Ning Yi furrowed his brow, thinking it over for a moment. “Um, I think… my injuries might genuinely need her help. Juan’er, you… it’s fine if you want to get a room set up for yourself.”

“…Mm.” A trace of disappointment crossed Juan’er’s face; she nodded and went out to tidy up a room, carrying the bedding away with her…

Once she had left, Ning Yi looked toward the doorway, sighed, and gave a wry twist of his mouth. “So now I’m the bad man, is that it…”

…

The two thousand men from Green Wood Stronghold had arrived at night, and settling them in involved not only the matter of tents and where to house the horses, but also a great many questions about the rules to be followed once camp was set, sentry duty, and so on. Though Hongti had come to see Ning Yi, it was of course impossible for her visit to be purely a private matter. After leaving Ning Yi, she went to inspect the state of the encampment, then coordinated with the officials already managing the valley on matters of patrol and deployment.

Fortunately, most of those responsible for the day-to-day affairs of the valley were Bamboo Notes people, and some of them had been to the Lüliang Mountains before, so coordination between the two sides was not particularly troublesome. Hongti made her appearance there, inspected things, and left the specific matters in Han Jing’s hands. In truth, Hongti’s presence within the stronghold was not exactly a warm and approachable one — if it had been otherwise, no doubt many people would have come to ask her about Ning Yi’s condition.

By the time she had more or less finished going over everything and made her way back, it was already close to midnight. A solitary figure stood there, rubbing her hands together outside her room door — on closer look, it was Juan’er.

“Miss Juan’er.” Hongti was somewhat surprised. “So late — were you waiting for me?”

“Miss Lu.” Juan’er bowed to her. “I… I came to apologize.”

“Oh? Whatever for?”

“I… um, about you and Young Master…”

Juan’er’s words came out somewhat haltingly, but Hongti only laughed, walked over and took her rather cold hands, then went to open the door. “Come inside first, we can talk there — it’s a little warmer in the room.”

In truth, the two of them had met once before, long ago — during the events in Hangzhou. When Ning Yi had been trapped within the city of Hangzhou, Tan’er had turned back to find him, and along the way had traveled together with Hongti, then still going by her identity as the heroic swordswoman, with Juan’er also present. Only, at the time, Hongti had been in disguise, made up to look like a woman in her thirties; though the two had spoken with each other then, now, seeing Hongti’s true face, Juan’er understood full well this was the same heroic woman from before, yet still could not help but feel a certain unfamiliarity toward her.

In truth, Hongti’s real temperament was rather gentle. When she and Ning Yi had first met, she had seemed tough and unyielding, but underneath, she was, to some degree, still a country girl at heart — enough so that she had later been thoroughly taken in by a few of Ning Yi’s stories. It was only after so many years as chief of the stronghold, especially with Ning Yi’s help in setting Green Wood Stronghold on the right course and steadily expanding it, along with her own status as a grandmaster of martial arts, that she had come to carry herself with a certain grandmaster’s bearing. Now, as she took Juan’er’s hand, Juan’er found her palm warm and soft, and could not help but feel her own body warming in turn; feeling a sense of closeness, she began speaking about the matter that weighed most on her mind.

“Miss Lu, your martial skill is so high — surely there’s something you can do about Young Master’s wounds. He’s been injured for more than a month now, working himself to exhaustion day and night, and his wounds are healing so slowly — I’m afraid it might leave him with a lasting weakness. Earlier, when I gave Young Master his medicine, I saw you sniffing it, Miss Lu — you’re such a great master, is there something wrong with the medicine…”

Pulled along by Hongti into the room, Juan’er kept chattering on. Hongti had her sit down in the dark room, went and struck a fire-striker to light the oil lamp, then came back and sat down before Juan’er, taking her hand. “I’ve already checked over Liheng’s wounds myself, of course — the medicine is appropriate for his condition. But right now, I’m more worried about you, standing out in the snow this long, so late at night. You’ve been working hard for quite a while too, haven’t you? Keep this up and you’ll fall ill yourself.”

“Um, I — I’m in good health, it’s Young Master and the others who are really exhausted. They were badly wounded from the very start, just from going to burn the grain the Jurchen had seized, and even after being wounded, they’ve barely had any chance to rest. As soon as Young Master could sit up, he’d already started working again — with so many people dying and wounded at the time, Young Master hardly stopped at all, trying to save people…”

As Juan’er spoke, she kept shaking her head, insisting she herself was fine. Her temperament was cool and reserved, and even as she spoke, her face showed little outward sign of grief — but by the end, her eyes had reddened slightly all the same. Hearing this, Hongti nodded.

“There was no other way for them, given the circumstances. When a person is severely wounded, the vital energy must not be allowed to break — pushing through that one breath at the hardest moment can actually allow a person to advance further. It’s the same in martial arts training. Liheng recklessly used the Breaking of the Six Paths — that’s harmful to the body, and I’ve warned him about it many times. But there’s no helping it — when it needs to be used, he has no choice but to use it, and all I can do is tend to his body afterward… Even if you hadn’t told me all this, Miss Juan’er, I would have done my best regardless.”

Juan’er nodded, and went on to mention that she had already moved out of Ning Yi’s room and into the one next door. At this, a faint flush rose to Hongti’s face as well. “Actually, you didn’t need to move out. It’s just that I… can’t very well be there every night. Given his condition right now, it’s better to have someone able to look after him at night. In the evenings, I… will need to spend some time channeling his blood flow through his meridians — it’s good for his body, but once I’ve finished, well… I can call you back in. It’s a bit of a hassle, I know.”

“It’s no trouble, no trouble at all.” Juan’er shook her head quickly. “I can wait until you call for me, Miss Lu, before going back. Young Master needs someone to look after him at night, and I’m really the more convenient choice — I… I was always the Su family’s maidservant, after all.”

Saying this, a shy, endearing smile spread across her face, and her usually cool, composed features flushed slightly once more.

Before long, Hongti made her way to Ning Yi’s room, to channel his blood flow through his meridians and tend to his body. Seeing Hongti come in, Ning Yi was, in truth, somewhat surprised — he had half expected Juan’er to try to stand in the way of it. He had already received this treatment from Hongti’s hands before; back in the Lüliang Mountains, in order to help him recover, Hongti had often done this for him. This method of using external force to guide the circulation of blood and energy resembled massage in some ways, but naturally differed from it in many others; truly interfering with the flow of blood using outside force was, for Ning Yi, quite painful. Especially now, with fresh wounds already causing some stagnation in his blood vessels, Hongti working through the acupoints one by one made the pain even sharper.

Only, the two of them had long since become husband and wife in all but name — back in the Lüliang Mountains, there had already been all manner of intimate moments between them — and so Hongti’s technique naturally carried a gentler touch. And Ning Yi, of course, was never one to remain entirely well-behaved while being handled like this; that, between husband and wife, certain things unsuitable for outside ears took place in the process, was hardly out of the ordinary.

And so, that night, when Hongti came to knock on the door to send Juan’er back in, her face still carried a faint, burning flush — fortunately, it was already night, and Juan’er could not make out much of anything by the dim light. But back in the small side room outside Ning Yi’s chambers, Juan’er could not help but wonder, in her own mind, just what exactly the two of them had gotten up to in there. Curled up under her own blankets, she tossed and turned, finding it difficult to sleep.

Over the following several days, this same pattern repeated itself again and again…

The day the Green Wood Stronghold cavalry arrived was the eighth day of the eleventh month of that year. After that, Bamboo Notes continued its scorched-earth evacuation efforts, braving the heavy snow, making their way through one desolate mountain after another, working to move every last person out of this broad stretch of land around the outskirts of Bian Liang. The daily training in the valley continued unabated as well, and after the arrival of the Green Wood Stronghold men, the two groups engaged in a certain amount of sparring and exchange.

And with the heavy snow continuing, though the Wu side still held onto the Yellow River crossing, the increasing difficulty of transporting grain, the growing demand for heating supplies, and the disorder — even breakdown — of the supply system meant that the encampment in the valley at Xia Village was beset by no small number of difficulties. Still, though the cold weather made life somewhat harder, it remained, in the end, a manageable inconvenience.

The real trouble lay with the Jurchen at Moutuo Gang, still preparing for their assault on the city. If Ning Yi had to sum up the toughness of these people from the north in a single phrase, it would be this: they were a people who could survive temperatures of dozens of degrees below zero in the northeast without relying on heating.

Though the technology for heated brick beds already existed by this time, in the north, that too remained something only wealthy households could enjoy. Before rising up, the Jurchen’s living conditions had already been harsh to begin with — surviving, hunting, and keeping warm in freezing winds of twenty or thirty degrees below zero, relying only on tents and campfires — something that would, for a modern person, be absolutely unbearable.

Though there were, of course, regional differences between north and south — the winters in the south were damp and cold, and even without such extreme low temperatures, they could still feel thoroughly miserable — for this particular group of Jurchen, launching an assault on the city in heavy snow was, in truth, nowhere near as unthinkable as one might imagine.

Nearly everyone understood, deep down, that sooner or later, the Jurchen would organize a large-scale assault on Bian Liang, and when that time came, the city’s defenses would face a truly enormous test.

Time moved on. Ning Yi and the others continued drilling their troops in the valley, while the Jurchen built and even refined all manner of siege engines at Moutuo Gang. By the sixteenth day of the eleventh month, the heavy snow finally paused for a time; a blanket of pristine white snow already covered everything around Bian Liang. As the Jurchen army’s scouts swept the surrounding area on patrol, they suddenly intercepted a piece of information.

This information was swiftly carried back to the main camp at Moutuo Gang, then passed up to the Jurchen’s senior leadership, and from there, delivered to the desk of Wanyan Zongwang, Grand Marshal of the Eastern Route Army…