Many, many years ago, the stone had already been resting on that ridge. It was an unnamed, low ridge, entirely unremarkable, with no scenery or landmark worth mentioning — the stone was merely one among countless others, having witnessed the sun rise and set, having endured the transformation of seas into mulberry fields, weathering the turning of the seasons. The waters of the Yellow River had flooded over it several times; as people came and went around it, cowherd children had occasionally rested upon it. Across this long, long stretch of time, it had never once shifted from its place.

When men in armor dragged it away from there, snow had only just begun falling from the sky, just as it had fallen so many times in years past. Along with many other stones, it was dragged to some flat stretch of ground; just as the snow began settling in a thin layer over it, the men who had dragged it there began striking it with tools, knocking it into a rounder shape, and then it was piled together among countless other stones.

Before it stood a rough, wooden encampment; further beyond that, in the distance, a massive high wall stretched out toward either horizon.

The snow fell on and on. The sun rose and set. Around the stone, there were times of bustling activity and times of quiet stillness; people ran back and forth — sometimes carrying away one of its neighboring stones, sometimes packing in more stones beside it. Light and dark cycled and alternated, and then, all at once, the surroundings grew far busier — the footsteps of men and horses shook the earth, and more wheeled contraptions were pushed in from every direction, a restless, agitated atmosphere mixing with the falling snow.

As the sky darkened, then brightened again, an enormous, droning vibration had already begun to blanket everything. Voices ran back and forth, all manner of coarse, strange sounds. Around it, great numbers of stones were quickly carried away, arcing through the sky and vanishing. Finally, the sound of running footsteps approached, and it was lifted and placed onto a wooden plank. Men rushed swiftly across the difficult, snow-covered ground, the road uneven and bumpy, rising and falling; someone came rushing past, leaping right over the stone, and then the sound of many horses’ hooves running rose up around it. The wooden plank struck a low patch of ground, and with a loud crash, the stone rolled off, and the man carrying it fell down beside it — but a moment later, he climbed back up, and pushed it back onto the plank once more.

This small journey came to an end beside an enormous wooden contraption; when the plank came to a stop, two men lifted the stone and placed it into a hollowed-out receptacle. The stone sank down slightly, and the sound of a winch turning rose up, along with men’s shouting voices.

A brief moment later, it flew into the sky. Endless flurries of falling snow stretched out into the boundless distance; the stone collided with the snowflakes, cutting through the freezing wind, as columns of mounted riders galloped along beneath it — and beneath them, too, lay fallen men, blood, flames, and hysterical screaming. Ahead, the massive high wall rapidly grew larger; arrows with sharp heads streaked past in the opposite direction. In that fleeting instant of flight, an arrow shot forward, collided with it, and bounced off, vanishing without a trace.

The massive gate tower flashed past, the words “New Suanzao Gate” glimpsed for an instant — and then the stone struck the great wall. Fragments of stone scattered in every direction, followed by a sudden, enormous drop — it fell from the towering top of the wall, and with a heavy crash, more scattered fragments of ice and splashes of water rose up. The stone landed at the edge where the moat met the base of the wall, half of it embedded in the ice, half still exposed above it.

To its left and right, more stones struck the wall and fell in turn, and along with them fell snow, arrows, and other things besides. As it lay quietly in place, strange, unpredictable objects continued raining down upon it, again and again. Arrowheads bounced off; water pouring down from atop the high wall gradually froze into ice upon it, only to be shattered again by another falling stone; snow came down, and then massive timbers came crashing down too, thundering with impact.

The restless, violent scene paused somewhat as the sky turned dark; the snow kept falling, and there was light along the city wall, with more light stretching out behind it as well, and water still cascading down from the wall. Before dawn, when the surroundings still felt quiet, at a certain moment, the tumultuous sounds suddenly rose up again — stones came flying, arrows came flying, firelight drew closer, and massive wooden towers and ladders drew closer too. One ladder was propped up directly above where the stone lay, and then a human body came falling, crashing down beside the stone — grotesque, mangled flesh and blood, followed by a thick, black, viscous liquid.

A whistling sound swept past, carrying flame with it; fire spread downward, engulfing the stone in a blazing sheet of flame, and then another burning man came screaming down as well; before long, the ladder came crashing down too…

The sun rose in the east, sweeping across that massive high wall, shifting position, then setting once more, countless flickers of light and shadow clashing all around. Throughout the stone’s journey, everything around it was both fleeting and eternal, all at once. On the far shore of the vast transformation of seas into mulberry fields, it was one with everything around it — whether undergoing massive explosions, being split apart, or reshaped, whether the surrounding medium was air, water, hard gemstone, or shimmering pearl; whether part of it became lush, verdant trees, or living flesh and blood; whether it took flight or dissolved into the soil — all of it was like sand stirred up by the wind, and that transformation, too, was simply part of eternity.

It lay quietly embedded in ice that melted and then froze again, with everything that fell around it shaping it, over and over. Cavalry charging past, arrows flying, blades and spears clashing, flesh and blood scattering, snow dancing wildly, flames burning… a corpse came crashing down with a scream, shattering its hard bones against the stone, thick blood and flesh sliding slowly down from its surface, and then, once more, beginning to freeze solid…

All of this was part of eternity — and yet, perhaps, in these brief moments in time, these things carried a somewhat different meaning for these briefly transforming beings called the living…

…

“AAAAAAAAHHHH—”

An overwhelming, hysterical scream filled everything; blood in his eyes made his skull throb with pain. The wooden framework was being frantically pushed forward amid a chaotic flash of blades; a Jurchen soldier was pushed back, slamming into the parapet. Not wanting to be forced over the edge, he reached out to grab onto the battlement, but a slashing blade cut his hand off with force, and Xue Changgong drove his foot forward, kicking the man off the wall!

“Where are the others! Where’s everyone else!”

Shouting at full volume toward a nearby officer, half his face covered in blood, Xue Changgong rushed toward the low parapet and leaned out for a look — along the wall, stretching for several li, the Jurchen were surging forward in this direction. Siege towers and scaling ladders were all being raised into position, the moat near the gate had been filled in, and battering rams, shielded by soldiers, were being pushed forward. From atop the towers, men poured down burning oil, drawing long trails of fire through the wind and snow, and arrows were raining down mercilessly as yet another wave of assault came surging in.

“This is all we’ve got left! The rest of our brothers are dead! The Jurchen just charged up here a moment ago—”

“We don’t have enough spiked flails, they got cut down — get someone to bring more up here now! And the burning oil, don’t hold back on the burning oil — don’t just focus on the main gate! Check on the fifth sector — quick, come with me! The Jurchen are about to launch a full assault over there—”

Along the wall stretching for miles, the Jurchen’s assault surged forward like an ocean tide, while inside the wall, soldiers and volunteer defenders swarmed up and down like ants in a frenzy. Even with the maximum force mobilized, the defenses along the wall still sometimes felt insufficient. The Jurchen launched a ferocious assault across the entire northern stretch of the wall, and the sheer intensity of it was enough to strike fear into the hearts of the defenders holding every single section. Yet the Jurchen commanders were, in truth, using this wave upon wave of assault to probe for weak points along the wall — or more precisely, to actively create weak points themselves, hoping to shatter the wall’s overall defense through their soldiers’ astonishing fighting spirit.

Amid this ferocious assault, the Jurchen cavalry also raced at high speed beneath the wall, suppressing the defenders atop it with a dense barrage of arrow fire. Whenever the defense along any particular stretch of wall showed even the slightest sign of weakening, the attacking force would surge toward it with frenzied force. And once Jurchen soldiers broke through onto the top of the wall, the breach that opened would immediately bring staggering casualties. Over the three days of the assault, the Jurchen had already managed this feat four times.

At noon on the twenty-third of the eleventh month, more than fifty Jurchen soldiers successfully climbed onto the wall in one instance, and cut down the surrounding defenders — along with the civilians assisting in the defense — driving them into a massive rout. In the brief span of time it took to forcibly kill those fifty-plus men and reclaim the wall, over five hundred soldiers and civilians were sacrificed, a large proportion of them killed simply by being thrown down from the inner side of the wall by Jurchen soldiers.

And in the afternoon of the twenty-second, when the Jurchen first climbed onto the wall, their overwhelming fighting strength had repelled three separate attempts by Wu dynasty soldiers to retake it. At the time, they had held that stretch of wall firmly, with more and more Jurchen soldiers surging up behind them, turning the Wu dynasty’s attempts to retake it into a piecemeal, ineffective effort. It was only when Zhong Shidao personally led the Divine Archer Battalion over, covering the top of the wall with a barrage of arrows, and then pushed over three thousand elite troops forward on both ends of the wall at tremendous cost of life, that the Jurchen were finally driven back, temporarily. This single engagement resulted in fifteen hundred casualties; at the time, neither the Jurchen nor the Wu dynasty defenders had yet grown accustomed to this level of intensity, and yet the Jurchen’s instinctive sharpness in combat proved astonishing. Of course, in the fighting that followed, mid-level Wu dynasty officers such as Xue Changgong gradually began to adapt to this kind of combat as well.

Flying stones and arrows occasionally sailed over the wall entirely, crashing down into the crowds gathered on the inner side — among the Jurchen’s siege equipment, few could actually launch stones this far, and even those that could often had to move dangerously within range of arrow fire to do so. But nearly every such instance still carried the potential to cause casualties. Compared to the Jurchen, who as the attacking force could set up ladders anywhere outside the wall, the Wu dynasty, as the defenders, generally had only fixed stairways for moving up and down the wall. Whenever the intensity of fighting atop the wall grew too high, the defensive equipment needed constant resupply, which meant these stairways became crowded with large numbers of people — and they, in turn, often became the victims of stray arrows or falling stones.

But apart from instinctively ducking for cover on the spot, or grabbing a plank of wood to shield themselves, there was no other option — they could not simply retreat, because the moment their work stopped, the defense atop the wall would be thrown into immediate peril.

In truth, the Jurchen’s frenzied assaults and astonishing fighting strength had already begun to erode the fighting spirit of part of the defending forces. This erosion of will did not mean people were fleeing outright — it simply meant that people were truly beginning to grasp just how powerful this army was. That astonishing fighting spirit meant that once the Jurchen managed to break through onto the wall, driving them back required several times the cost in lives. It was not that the Wu dynasty soldiers were consciously avoiding the fight — rather, in the very moment of engaging the enemy, a subconscious thought would rise up: we cannot win this.

At this time, the troops defending Bian Liang were, without exception, the Wu dynasty’s most elite imperial guards, well-trained and well-supplied in ordinary times; they were not the type to simply flee — fleeing would have done no good anyway — but that was about the extent of it. Facing the founding army of an entire dynasty, the gap in sheer will and initiative was almost impossible to bridge. Over these three days, along this stretch of defensive line running for several li, the string of this defense had remained stretched taut the entire time; people scrambled to respond to everything happening around them, faster than they could keep up, and the whole defense felt, at times, as though it might collapse at any moment.

But, in the end, it had not collapsed.

Rolling logs and stones rained down from the wall like a torrential downpour, mixed in with burning oil, boiling water, and arrows. Along the stretching length of the wall, rows of spiked flails, fitted with sharp blades or barbs, hung ready; soldiers wielding the long-handled forks were occasionally struck down by stray arrows, falling into pools of blood, while civilians bringing up supplies would sometimes snatch up a fork themselves, shouting and swinging it in an attempt to fend off the Jurchen climbing up the ladders. The blazing, surging sound of shouting and fighting mixed with the wind and snow sweeping across the sky, spreading across the entire length of the wall.

Large numbers of wounded were carried down and sent into the wounded soldiers’ camp. With the weather so bitterly cold, those wounded even a day or two earlier had, with their bodies’ resistance weakened, quickly developed chills and fevers. Those with weaker constitutions were dying constantly, everywhere, and every physician in the city had already been mobilized. Li Shishi was among those helping, having gone without rest for a full day and night; her clothes were filthy and disheveled, her hair a mess, her forehead and face smeared with other people’s blood and the ash from brewing medicine. Surrounded by countless wounded in the camp, she moved through the work mechanically.

This sudden, brutal scene had left her somewhat numb. Combined with the near-ceaseless exhaustion of these past few days, accompanied constantly by blood, it had become difficult for her to think clearly about what was happening around her — all she could do was keep working without pause, to cope with it. Hou Jing had once told her about the casualties from the Jurchen’s full assaults, and yet, faced with a scene like the one before her now, even Hou Jing himself might have found it overwhelming.

In these short three days, under the Jurchen’s ferocious assault, perhaps the entire city of Bian Liang had been left utterly stunned.

A wave of terror over the war swept through everything.

…

Twenty li northwest of Moutuo Gang, the more than forty thousand men of the Ever-Victorious Army, led by Guo Yaoshi, Zhang Linghui, and Liu Shunren, had already departed from the Jurchen main camp.

Wanyan Zongwang, intent on launching a full assault on Bian Liang while further honing the Jurchen’s siege capabilities — already steadily improved since the conquest of the Liao — had given no thought at all to the possibility of failure. In this major campaign, he had not included Guo Yaoshi’s forces in the battle at all — partly, of course, out of arrogance and confidence, but also because, throughout this entire campaign, the Jurchen’s eastern army had never once truly fought a joint battle alongside the Loyal Volunteer Army.

In the course of their advance south, there had been no enemy that required the two forces to combine in order to defeat; and more importantly, if he were to fight shoulder to shoulder with Guo Yaoshi on the battlefield, a large part of the outcome of the battle would inevitably fall into Guo Yaoshi’s hands.

Wanyan Zongwang had, of course, already accepted the Ever-Victorious Army’s surrender, but this force had not yet undergone anything resembling a process of true assimilation. Suppose the two forces attacked Bian Liang together — if Guo Yaoshi genuinely committed his full strength, the city would fall without question — but if, at the most critical moment, he turned against them on the battlefield instead, then even this strongest Jurchen army under his own command might well be facing near-certain death.

Wu dynasty scholars were fond of all manner of schemes and conspiracies — who was to say whether Guo Yaoshi might be playing some kind of long con, waiting for precisely the most critical moment to plunge a knife into his back?

If the Wu had truly conceived such a vicious plan — allowing his own great army to advance deep, all the way to the walls of Bian Liang, only to be betrayed at the last moment — then it would truly be as that letter had described: no one would remain to hold Nianhan in check.

With this consideration in mind, Wanyan Zongwang would not allow the Ever-Victorious Army anywhere near the battlefield of the siege itself. Guo Yaoshi understood this as well. Once Wanyan Zongwang assigned him his task, he immediately launched an investigation to determine exactly which Wu dynasty force intended to breach the Yellow River. He soon concluded that the most likely candidate was the western army currently under the command of Zhong Shizhong.

Of course, this conclusion had been reached somewhat hastily. But it hardly mattered — Wanyan Zongwang had already begun his assault on Bian Liang, and Guo Yaoshi had no wish to wait until everything was fully confirmed before taking action, lest Bian Liang fall before he ever got the chance. On top of that, having thrown in his lot with the Jurchen, he now found himself unable to claim much additional credit or merit; before Wanyan Zongwang took Bian Liang, he felt he needed some kind of achievement of his own to show for it. With this in mind, the western army made for the best possible target — everyone else was simply too weak an opponent. Had he still been serving the Wu dynasty, defeating a force like that could have been used to claim credit; but now, serving the Jin, casually defeating such an army and boasting about it would only invite ridicule.

Because of this line of thinking, when word spread that it was the western army intending to carry out this scheme, he believed it immediately, and broke camp at once, marching toward the western army’s current position — with no interest in lingering idly at the main camp any longer.

…

Outside Bian Liang, at a distance somewhat farther from the Jurchen camp, Ning Yi sat on horseback, holding up a telescope, watching the staggering scene of the assault on the city. Hongti followed slightly behind and to his side, Qin Shaoqian on the other, and Han Jing and several others were present as well.

Lowering the telescope, Ning Yi swallowed hard. “Fighting like that — how long can Bian Liang hold out?”

No one answered. After a long moment, Qin Shaoqian finally spoke. “…I don’t know.” His voice carried no confidence at all.

Seeing that no one else was speaking, Han Jing raised a hand and pointed toward Bian Liang. “In any siege, if the attacker cannot surround the city with tenfold force, there are still tactics of concentrated assault, or diversionary feints. The Jurchen’s attack is this intense and concentrated on a single front — if they can’t take it after a prolonged assault, I’d guess Zongwang will inevitably split off forces for a surprise strike against the other gates. If we can anticipate that move in advance, we might just be able to catch them off guard and take out a portion of their force.”

Ning Yi frowned. Yue Fei, standing not far off, held no particularly high status among this group, but the days spent together had made them familiar with one another by now; he spoke up. “General Han makes a fair point. But the Jurchen here are all elite troops under Zongwang’s direct command — even one against one, with a surprise attack thrown in, I doubt we’d gain much of an advantage. What’s more, coordination on the battlefield moves quickly for them — Zongwang’s men fight on foot when dismounted and as cavalry when mounted; I doubt they’d simply let us slip away. This needs careful consideration.”

Han Jing said, “Brother Yue makes a fair point as well.”

“And yet, the main camp at Moutuo Gang still has at least twelve thousand men remaining — mostly infantry, though there are craftsmen among them too. Given our numbers, it’s still difficult for us to make a move against it.” someone nearby added.

“Whatever the case, we can’t keep dragging this out.” Ning Yi exchanged a glance with Qin Shaoqian, Hongti, and the others. “Let’s head back — we need to make a decision tonight… prepare to act!”

The group turned back, but their destination was no longer Xia Village — instead, it was an abandoned village on the snowy plains near Bian Liang. In total, four thousand three hundred men had already moved out from Xia Village and were now stationed there.

Of the force Hongti had brought from the Lüliang Mountains, nearly two thousand men in total, the heavy cavalry, painstakingly assembled, numbered one hundred and sixty-four riders, with the rest being light cavalry. Within the Wu Rui Camp, the more than a thousand soldiers Qin Shaoqian had originally entrusted to Ning Yi for training at Dulong Ridge now numbered fewer than five hundred, following the crushing defeat at the end of the ninth month. The over two thousand cavalry the Wu Rui Camp had once, with great effort, managed to assemble had suffered heavy losses as well; Qin Shaoqian now had fewer than five hundred riders left under his own command. Combined with the rest of the usable veteran soldiers, this made up the total force gathered here now: twenty-five hundred cavalry, eighteen hundred infantry.

As for those left behind at Xia Village, all told, there were still over fifteen thousand of them. Among them were, of course, some elite troops kept in reserve, along with Bamboo Notes administrative staff and martial arts experts — but this group’s morale had only just been stirred up over the past month or so, and could only be kept at Xia Village to handle the defensive battle that lay ahead. Pulling them out to face the Jurchen head-on would have been, essentially, suicide.

The wind and snow did not let up, falling over that frozen, abandoned village, as Ning Yi and the others discussed the situation, calculated the state of the battle, and occasionally argued for a moment or two. The Jurchen were simply too strong, and no one could say with any certainty just how far the force they had at their disposal could really go. But there was no more time left — this very night, they had to make their decision.

In Bian Liang, the white-hot fighting continued without pause…

Wanyan Zongwang meant to settle everything within just a few more days.