Moutuo Gang.

The heavy snow had paused for the time being, and the wind was not strong. In the Jurchen camp, surrounded on three sides by water, bonfires burned vigorously within the tents. In the largest tent at the very center, six iron braziers blazed with charcoal fire, and everything around — the decorations, the furs, the blades and spears, and even the men gathered within — was cast in an air of stern and imposing severity. Wanyan Zongwang sat behind the long table, looking at the tattered letter in his hands.

Wanyan Ashema, the Han army commander Liu Yanzong, the general Saila, and others sat nearby, occasionally exchanging glances or murmuring a few words to one another. By the time they had arrived, they already knew, more or less, what had happened — that letter, torn in half, had been handed to Wanyan Zongwang on Wanyan Ashema’s orders, and the scout captain still stood below, waiting to be questioned. Wanyan Zongwang studied the letter for a long while, his expression shifting several times, before finally slapping it down on the table.

“Hmph. The southerners think they can deceive me!” was the first thing he said. Then, glancing at the expressions of the men below, he frowned slightly and turned toward the scout.

“Tell me the details. When, where, and under what circumstances did you encounter this man, and how did you come to obtain this letter?”

“Yes, my lord…”

The scout captain bowed and began recounting what had happened.

As winter deepened and the heavy snow began sealing off the mountains, the Jurchen had, in truth, already reduced the frequency of their patrols and sweeps. This particular scouting party had encountered the man on a mountain road roughly ten li from the main camp at Moutuo Gang. There had been three men — the messenger among them, apparently a Wu dynasty official, with two others beside him serving as guards. A little further down that road lay the route toward the outskirts of Bian Liang.

This Jurchen patrol, five men in all, was tasked specifically with this stretch of territory, attempting to cut off communication between Bian Liang and the outside world — though of course, such an attempt could never truly succeed, since Bian Liang was simply too vast; even if the Jurchen sent out tens of thousands of men, they likely could not have encircled the entire city. But even if a full blockade was impossible, they could still, at the very least, intercept some of the messengers moving in and out. Upon spotting these three men, the five scouts had immediately given chase.

Both sides were on horseback, and the other party proved quite alert as well — seeing the Jurchen approaching, they turned and fled at once, firing arrows back over their shoulders. Their own scouts returned fire, and one arrow struck the official in the back.

The three riders fled into a rugged stretch of nearby mountains, with the Jurchen scouts pursuing them the whole way. In the end, having suffered a severe wound, the Wu dynasty official fell from his horse. As chance would have it, below lay a dry riverbed; he fell into it, and the two Wu dynasty guards had no time to turn back and rescue him.

The Jurchen scouts split their forces, continuing the pursuit while also circling around to search the river valley for the official’s body, where they discovered this letter. It seemed that after falling into the riverbed, the official, still alive, had tried to tear the letter apart and scatter it, but by then he had no strength left, and only managed to tear it in half. He had thrown it aside, and the wind carried off a small portion of it — the larger remaining piece was what the scouts recovered.

The scouts had not thought it their place to read the letter themselves, and had handed it to their immediate superior; upon reading it, that superior judged the matter to be of great importance and passed it along to Wanyan Ashema, who was in charge of this matter. After reading it himself, Wanyan Ashema had immediately sent for Wanyan Zongwang.

Wanyan Zongwang looked at the scout. “From the moment you saw the Wu dynasty official fall from his horse into the riverbed, until the time you circled around to reach it, was the official’s body ever out of your sight?”

The scout said, “Because of the detour, there was a brief moment — but no more than ten breaths at most.”

“Hmph.” Wanyan Zongwang considered this for a moment. “Was the body brought back?”

“They brought it back,” said Wanyan Ashema, who stood nearby. “I’ve already gone to examine the corpse myself.”

Wanyan Ashema was a half-brother of Aguda, eleventh in line among the brothers. Wanyan Zongwang’s expression eased somewhat. “Eleventh Uncle, what did you find?”

“Judging by the body, he was clearly a man accustomed to a life of ease and comfort in the past, and there were no marks of restraint on his wrists or ankles. This is no small matter — I examined him carefully, several times over, and it does not appear that he was forced into this.”

With Wanyan Ashema having said as much, Wanyan Zongwang fell into a brief silence. Bold and forthright by nature, he was nonetheless a man of careful mind; after thinking it over for a moment, he reached out and tapped the long table. “And yet — the men of the southern court, small-time tricksters that they are, how could they possibly muster the resolve for something like this?”

“In the span of just over a month, our army has crushed more than three hundred thousand Wu troops in this area alone. They may have run out of options entirely — cornered dogs sometimes leap over walls; it wouldn’t be so strange.”

“Mm.” Wanyan Zongwang nodded. “Commander Liu, select several men from the army most well-versed in Han scholarship and calculation, and bring them to this tent. And someone — summon General Guo Yaoshi, along with his subordinates Zhang Linghui and Liu Shunren, to come discuss military matters at once.”

Those below received the order and went to carry it out. Wanyan Zongwang returned behind the long table and looked over the several pages of the letter once more, setting two of them aside. Once Guo Yaoshi, Zhang Linghui, Liu Shunren, and the rest had arrived, along with several craftsmen and scribes, he finally handed the remaining pages to Guo Yaoshi. “General Guo, take a look at this first, and then… pass it around.”

“Yes, my lord.” Guo Yaoshi nodded in acknowledgment. This letter, meant to be passed around, was divided into five pages, four of which bore complex calculations and diagrams, each page partially torn. Guo Yaoshi began by simply reading the text, but before he had gone very far, the color in his eyes changed, and his expression turned grave. By the time he finished reading, he said nothing, but passed it to Zhang Linghui; once Zhang Linghui had read it, he passed it to Liu Shunren, and it continued being passed along after that, to the scribes and craftsmen. Some wore looks of confusion; others, their expressions changing entirely. One scribe bowed to Wanyan Zongwang and requested, “May the Grand Marshal grant me paper and brush.”

A look of approval showed in Wanyan Zongwang’s eyes; he waved a hand. “Brush, ink, paper, inkstone. Also, bring a table and chair for him to sit.”

Before long, everyone had read through it once; the letter continued passing among the scribes and craftsmen, examined and discussed again and again. Wanyan Zongwang studied the expressions of those present.

“This is a letter intercepted today from the Wu side. The matter is grave, and whether it is genuine or false, even I find difficult to judge. That is why I’ve called all of you here together, to examine and discuss it.” He raised a hand slightly. “Whatever thoughts any of you may have, speak them plainly.”

Among the men of the Loyal Volunteer Army, Zhang Linghui had little in the way of learning, while Liu Shunren had rather more insight; he was the first to clasp his hands and speak. “If it please the Grand Marshal, this humble officer believes this is nothing more than a bluff put on by the Wu side. Their men are timid and cowardly, yet always fond of tricks and schemes — there is no shortage of men among them who think themselves clever. This letter before us is likely nothing more than the self-important scheming of some individual — after all, when you really think about it, actually carrying out such a thing is almost unimaginable…”

“Oh? General Liu believes it’s false?” Wanyan Zongwang turned to Guo Yaoshi. “General Guo, what do you think?”

“What Brother Liu says has some merit.” Guo Yaoshi said. “The Wu dynasty follows Confucian ways, revering Heaven and honoring their ancestors; within Wu territory, the reverence held for the Yellow River is beyond ordinary imagining. If what this letter describes were truly carried out… breaching the Yellow River to drive back our great army — setting aside what would happen to us, within the city of Bian Liang alone, out of a million people, very few indeed could hope to escape. What’s more, once the Yellow River breaches its banks, the land for a thousand li around Bian Liang would become a flooded wasteland, plagued by flooding for years to come. For the Wu dynasty, such an act would be nothing short of an outrage against Heaven and man alike. Whoever carried out such a scheme would surely be condemned by the entire nation, and would likely be remembered with infamy for a thousand generations to come…”

The letter being passed among them described, precisely, a plan to breach the Yellow River’s embankments and use the resulting flood to drive back the Jurchen army. It opened with impassioned rhetoric, stating: the war may be lost, the city may fall into peril, but the nation must not perish, and honor must not be abandoned. After this stirring preamble, it laid out the formal plan itself — complete with diagrams, specific procedures, and extensive calculations, all remarkably meticulous and thorough, genuinely difficult to distinguish as either real or fabricated.

Once Guo Yaoshi had finished speaking, Wanyan Zongwang frowned. “So General Guo also believes it’s fake…”

“And yet… it isn’t.” Guo Yaoshi hesitated a moment before saying this. “Wu dynasty scholars are indeed fond of grandiose talk, and rarely accomplish much when it comes to practical matters. But among them, there are also many of fierce, unyielding character, who believe in dying with honor rather than living in disgrace. Our great army has swept south unstoppably, and yet… small pockets of resistance have shown remarkable resolve at times. Given how the fighting outside Bian Liang has developed so far, if there is truly a Wu official who has reached such despair as to attempt an act as unthinkable as this — using floodwaters to drive back our army, at the cost of a million lives — I, Yaoshi, do not find that so surprising. And so it is difficult to say for certain either way.”

Most of the scribes summoned into the tent at this time were Jurchen or Khitan, though some among them were versed in Confucian learning as well; after Guo Yaoshi finished speaking, several bowed in agreement, saying that Wu dynasty scholars, though physically weak and unable to lift so much as a chicken, were certainly not lacking in those willing to plot out such drastic acts — and some, out of concern for how they would be remembered after death, were even especially drawn to such things.

But then someone else pointed out that even if some individuals were willing to carry out such a scheme, sending the plan to Bian Liang itself would surely be met with condemnation and suppression — perhaps this, too, was simply a ruse.

Yet after this, someone else noted that a later passage in the letter seemed to address precisely this — stating that before the great battle, boats had already been brought into the city around Bian Liang in advance, so that if the Yellow River were breached and the floodwaters came rushing in, there would still be time to get the emperor and senior officials aboard ships to safety. Though the Wu dynasty would suffer terrible losses, its central government would remain intact — it would merely be the loss of a single city. The Jurchen, though formidable, had already committed half their entire national strength to this campaign; if this flood swept through, it would be as though they had lost half of the Jin state itself. The Wu dynasty had certainly made many mistakes up to this point, but it was not too late to learn from them and strive to govern well from here on — and so on and so forth.

Not long after, the elderly scribe who had been bent over his calculations spoke up as well, praising the work and reporting to Wanyan Zongwang, “The mathematical and engineering scholarship of the Wu dynasty is truly exquisite — the calculations in this letter represent, without question, the very pinnacle of their craft. It’s a shame that a good portion of it has been torn away, but even so, it offers valuable insight for our own scholarship in these fields as well…” He went on lamenting the loss and praising the work, clearly wishing he could see the missing torn portion.

Opinions among those present varied, but as to whether the letter was genuine or false — and, more importantly, whether the other side truly had the resolve to carry out such an act — no consensus could be reached. After a while, Wanyan Ashema spoke. “Even if they truly intend to attempt such a desperate gambit, it would only take effect once the spring flood season arrives next year. Our army has already made preparations to storm the city in the heavy snow; as long as we take the city this winter, this matter hardly needs further consideration.”

Wanyan Zongwang nodded. In truth, most of the men in the tent shared this same thought, but Wanyan Zongwang himself was no reckless man. “Uncle speaks with reason, but in all things, one must also consider the worst possible outcome. At present, the Wu armies have all been scattered by our forces, their remnants dispersed across the surrounding area. Going forward, let the main army accelerate preparations for the assault. Within five days, I want every siege engine completed, and the full assault launched. As for this other matter… have the scouts thoroughly investigate the surrounding area, and determine exactly which faction is behind this plan. After that… General Guo, this matter falls to you — crush them for me!”

The men present acknowledged the order.

“Yes!”

The tent seemed to shake with the force of their response.

Wanyan Zongwang tapped his fingers on the table. Once everyone had left, he paced back and forth several times within the tent, then returned to the table and picked up the last two pages he had not shown to Guo Yaoshi and the others, reading them over once more.

These final two pages were largely persuasive in content, following on from the vision of a future in which Wanyan Zongwang’s army had been swallowed by the floodwaters. The letter spoke of a number of internal problems within the Jin state, noting that Aguda, a peerless hero of his generation, had brought vigor and vitality to the Jurchen after rising up, with talented men emerging one after another — yet hidden within this, there were also latent dangers.

After Aguda’s abdication, his successor had not been his own son, but rather his fourth younger brother, Wuqimai. Wuqimai was a steady, cautious man, more skilled at preserving what already existed than at further expansion — truly a choice Aguda had made only after painstaking deliberation. Yet this also revealed a certain problem: among the Jurchen, talented men had emerged in great numbers, creating a situation where the branches had grown as strong as the trunk. Now that Aguda was dead, and succession was passing to the third generation, what the situation would look like was difficult indeed to say.

Among the Jurchen, the Grand Marshal Nianhan was likewise a man of great talent and ambition. With Wuqimai on the throne, Wanyan Zongwang and the others could still hold their own against him, in a rough balance of power — but what would happen without Wuqimai there to maintain that balance? The Wu dynasty’s policy of allying with the Jin to fight the Liao had been an error hard to undo now, but if the Jin’s second prince, Zongwang — by far the most formidable among the emperor’s sons — along with the tens of thousands of troops under his command, were to be annihilated here, then the only man left within the Jin state who held military power capable of settling the realm would be the Grand Marshal Nianhan alone.

The Jin’s eastern and western armies had marched south together to invade the Wu dynasty, and yet Zongwang had reached Bian Liang first, while Nianhan had been held up by the fortified city of Taiyuan. It was said that Zongwang had issued orders several times, commanding Nianhan’s army to advance south with all speed — yet even though Taiyuan could clearly be bypassed, Nianhan had remained stalled there, showing no sign of moving. Was there, perhaps, some rift between the two of them? If the Yellow River were breached now, it would mean the loss of only a single region — but within a few years, the Jin state would inevitably fall into chaos. The Jurchen had seized control of the realm suddenly, without any deep foundation to sustain it; if they failed to recover their strength and govern wisely, within a few generations they would surely perish on their own — no longer any threat to the Wu dynasty at all…

These final two pages, word for word, revealed the letter-writer’s understanding of the internal affairs of the Jin state — every sentence of it a piece of psychological warfare, aimed straight at the heart.

In truth, Nianhan’s decision to remain stationed at Taiyuan stemmed from caution as well — this was their first invasion of this nation, and if the entire army truly pushed south while leaving Taiyuan behind them, and the western Wu army genuinely managed to cut off their retreat, having over a hundred thousand troops trapped deep within Wu territory could turn into a truly dangerous situation. Wanyan Zongwang could naturally understand this concern himself, but this letter showed no such restraint — its words left him with the impression that it was, at once, both an attempt at sowing discord and something that might genuinely be true. At the very least, having read through all of it, his first instinct was to believe that the enemy’s plan to breach the Yellow River might well be real.

As for those passages that seemed designed to sow discord, he had done his best to rationalize them away — but having already read something laid out so plainly, there was no way to simply un-think it now.

In that sense, whether this letter was genuine or false, it had, at the very least, already achieved a certain effect.

Thinking this over, Wanyan Zongwang brought his palm down hard on the table.

The scholars of the Wu dynasty were, for the most part, nothing but small-time tricksters — and yet this one, not only had he demonstrated a clear understanding of the internal affairs of the Jin state, but these underhanded tactics of his stirred a particular fury as well.

If the chance ever came to lay hands on this man, he would flay him alive with his own two hands!

As Wanyan Zongwang thought of this still-unidentified Wu dynasty schemer, the thought flickered through his mind, sharp and clear.