Winter nights are long.

As dusk fell, the sunlight at the edge of the sky quickly lost its color; amid the wind and snow, only in the west did a trace of white linger, the boundless snowfields reflecting a cold, silvery-grey in the faint light. The infantry were falling back, and then came the surging thunder of iron hooves.

With a great roar, the drifting snow rose up like a towering wall, as the charging iron-armored heavy cavalry plowed straight into the crowd. Amid the swinging of blades and spears, a black wave of blood rose up. The soldiers in front tried to hold their ground, but their blades, striking out, met only steel armor.

On the battlefield, combat is sometimes like a game of chess, offense and defense together—each man given but a single chance to strike.

The advancing cavalry surged forward like an overturning iron plow, cutting a swath of carnage through the crowd, light cavalry following close behind, and behind them still, infantry advancing in formation. And on the flank of this advancing column, over a thousand Jurchen cavalry, keeping their distance, watched from afar, not daring to advance. They rode within arrow range and loosed shots this way; the other side answered in kind. Neither side gained the advantage, and this exchange of arrows accomplished next to nothing.

Qin Shaoqian turned to look at the distance of the Jurchen cavalry, then raised his blade. “Kill! No need to change formation! Kill them all—”

Back at the Moutuo Ridge encampment, Shuliesu, upon receiving the news, froze for a moment. “What? Iron-armored heavy cavalry?”

According to the messenger, the Jurchen army that had gone out to fight had unexpectedly run into a hard nut to crack.

When the two sides had clashed, the cavalry commander Husongxiu had been in the very first row—something that should never have happened. This was partly because Husongxiu himself was a warrior of exceptional strength and courage, and partly because a long string of victories had made cutting down Wu Dynasty troops feel almost routine to the Jurchen. This time, when Zongwang attacked the city, Husongxiu hadn’t been brought along—a fact that had left him deeply frustrated. True, leaving him behind here had been a deliberate choice, given the formidable strength of the cavalry under his command—but aside from the cavalry, the infantry left behind in the camp were mostly the weakest troops in the Jurchen army, and being stuck guarding the camp with such men had been almost unbearable for him.

One had to understand—within the Jurchen army, cavalry was valued above all else. Though the infantry contingent was not small in number, most of them were used either to sweep the battlefield for minor spoils, or simply as laborers. The over six thousand infantry left in camp at this time were, in ordinary times, also expected to help the craftsmen with their work, even to carry cargo and haul goods—and yet, even so, their fighting strength still surpassed an equal number of Wu Dynasty soldiers by quite a margin.

In short, Husongxiu was thoroughly displeased, and led his cavalry to charge straight into the enemy formation, taking the lead himself. When he discovered that beneath their cloaks the enemy wore full iron armor, it was already too late to adjust. In the massive collision of cavalry, the first clash alone cost the Jurchen forces losses on a scale rarely seen in ordinary battle. Husongxiu himself was struck by a blade that cut from shoulder to chest; powerfully built as he was, he let out one great cry—”A trap—fall back—”—and then breathed no more.

In a charge like this, even though the men in front heard that cry and wanted to change formation, it had already become extremely difficult. The Jurchen cavalry’s will to fight was tremendously strong; with no way to retreat, they simply threw everything they had into breaking through the enemy with maximum force. But in this clash, lasting some tens of breaths, the Jurchen soldiers encountered an enemy of equal fighting strength to their own. As for the heavy cavalry, there was nothing to be said—in close engagement, they could barely inflict any harm on the enemy in the confusion, and though a few of the enemy’s heavy cavalry were knocked down into the snow by the sheer force of collision, the damage the enemy inflicted on the Jurchen side was several times greater.

Had this been all, the Jurchen cavalry might still have used their numbers, strength, and fighting will to surround and destroy the smaller force of heavy cavalry. But once the close combat between the light cavalry had gone on for a while, the assembled Jurchen elite realized something was very wrong. This Wu Dynasty force before them, even in their light cavalry, maintained a fighting will nearly equal to their own. Though individual combat skill still fell somewhat short, the enemy’s strikes and advances were extraordinarily resolute—the defining trait of an elite army. With this kind of will, even suffering heavy casualties, such men would rarely break and flee.

The reason the Jurchen had won so many battles these past months lay precisely here: ten thousand cavalry against tens of thousands of infantry—in the first clash, the losses on both sides were never far apart, with the cavalry losing one or two hundred, the infantry three or four hundred. But once that first clash was past, Jurchen elite cavalry casualties would drop off sharply, while the infantry whose front line of defense had been broken would face nothing but slaughter.

And even in cavalry-versus-cavalry engagements, it was often the same. The Wu Dynasty did have cavalry, and since building a cavalry force was no easy task, they had usually gone through extensive training—but once their psychological defenses broke in that first charge, these Wu Dynasty cavalrymen too would become nothing more than prey to be hunted down. In the era of cold-steel warfare, in large-scale army engagements, what mattered above all else was will—if that were not equally matched, every other factor barely counted for anything.

At the Battle of Hubuda Ridge, if the twenty thousand Jurchen soldiers had faced not eight hundred thousand Liao troops but eight hundred thousand stray dogs, it might well have been the Jurchen who lost. When morale collapses on a battlefield and triggers an avalanche effect, men become worse than dogs.

The Jurchen soldiers on the field at this moment could perhaps not put this into words clearly, but after fighting battle after battle, their instinct for combat remained extraordinarily sharp. Husongxiu’s death caused some hesitation among them, but once the deputy commander below him realized something was wrong, he immediately gave the order to retreat. And by this point, many of the junior officers among the Jurchen cavalry had already begun leading their men back.

Over five hundred Jurchen soldiers, having unexpectedly run into this Wu Dynasty force, were cut down in blood.

The remaining fifteen hundred who fell back still maintained their will to fight; under the leadership of Husongxiu’s deputy Talai, the Jurchen cavalry began shifting to the flank, trying to draw the enemy’s attention. At the same time, messengers were sent to warn the infantry to retreat, and to alert the camp. But they soon found that this Wu Dynasty force did not change course to pursue them—instead, they charged straight for the Moutuo Ridge camp, and the infantry commander Pulu, leading two thousand men, happened to be right in their path.

The daylight was dim; as the heavy cavalry came bearing down through the wind and snow, Pulu’s troops didn’t have time to retreat into the camp. Though only a moment before Pulu had still been chewing over just what sort of thing this “Wu Dynasty elite cavalry” that Talai and the others had reported really was, and had formed up a defensive line, he now understood it all too clearly.

Heavy cavalry might be slower than light cavalry, but when they advanced with such resolve, the road ahead became a carpet of infantry corpses—severed limbs, mangled flesh, spilled organs, bodies crushed beneath hooves, a scene of horror stretching out in an instant. What had so often been the fate of Wu Dynasty infantry cut down by Jurchen cavalry was here reenacted, on a small scale, in reverse.

The gate of the Moutuo Ridge camp lay not far behind; Pulu tried to organize resistance while still attempting to pull his men back into the camp, but then Shuliesu’s order arrived.

Hold your ground outside the gate. Defend where you stand. No one enters the camp!

In the distance, Shuliesu had climbed atop the camp gate, and had already seen through the enemy’s intent; he at once ordered the gate sealed shut. In the distance, as many as two thousand soldiers had abandoned formation and begun turning to flee. The Wu Dynasty cavalry pursued from behind, cutting them down amid the hooves and snow; these Jurchen soldiers seemed as though chased by an angry tide, men swept up and lost along the way. Meanwhile, on the flank, in the dim light, the Jurchen cavalry unit was circling swiftly, trying to seize the upwind position to strike back at the Wu Dynasty force.

“After Husongxiu died, Talai took command?” Shuliesu asked from atop the gate.

“Yes.”

“Good.” Shuliesu nodded. “Give the order—ready bows. At maximum range… prepare… fire—”

Atop the wall, arrows filled the sky; falling back down, some flew into the cavalry ranks, and at the same time, several of the Jurchen soldiers running at the rear of the retreat fell.

Between the routed troops and the heavy cavalry, an invisible line seemed to hang, both watching the gate from afar. The cavalry had stopped, this Wu Dynasty force apparently waiting for its infantry to catch up—their intention seemed clear enough: they meant to storm the camp.

The clash between the two sides had not lasted long, and it had been a long time since Shuliesu had felt anything like this. It was much like what had happened when Zongwang first moved against the Wu Dynasty—in a single night, tens of thousands of troops had, with the force of a thunderbolt, shattered over two hundred thousand Wu Dynasty soldiers on the plains outside Bian Liang, and upon seeing the enemy broken, had nearly crushed the will to fight of every Wu Dynasty force entirely. This unnamed Wu Dynasty force before him seemed to have the very same idea—before Shuliesu closed the gate, they had meant to use the chance of the Jurchen infantry re-entering the camp to punch straight through with their heavy cavalry leading the way.

Often, the simplest tactics are the strongest. The Jurchen had grown used to victory on this land; had Shuliesu been even a little arrogant, a little hesitant, unwilling to abandon allied troops given their unbroken record of victory, he would now be fighting with the gates wide open.

But for now, that cavalry force, beyond the range of arrows, had come to a halt.

On the snowy field, Qin Shaoqian gazed far off at the firelit camp, then turned to look at Han Jing beside him. Han Jing too sat reining in his horse, brow furrowed.

“General Han, the enemy commander Shuliesu is truly a veteran of a hundred battles. We must decide quickly.”

In this all-or-nothing battle, though the cavalry was nominally under his command, Qin Shaoqian understood that the one truly leading this force was Han Jing, who had come down from Mount Lüliang. The bandits of Lüliang had always been fierce, and though Ning Yi had won over their leader, Miss Lu, it was hard to say exactly how one ought to deal with these soldiers—Qin Shaoqian himself had no wish to press them under his authority as a commander. More importantly, in this battle, with cavalry leading the charge, though the fighting just now had indeed caught the Jurchen off guard, leaving over a thousand dead in their wake, the losses truly suffered had fallen upon this elite cavalry from Mount Lüliang. At this moment, among the heavy cavalry who had broken through, many were catching their breath, seizing the chance to recover.

In ordinary times, this would already have been an accomplishment worth boasting of before the throne itself—but now, there was not the slightest room for complacency.

Han Jing cupped his hands. “Since we’ve already come this far, we’ve already set aside thoughts of life and death. General Qin, there’s no need to defer to me—just give the order.”

Atop the gate of the Moutuo Ridge camp, Shuliesu drew a breath, then let it out. By now, the entire Jurchen camp had been roused into motion, great numbers of soldiers pouring toward every part of the wall. “Give the order—signal Talai by horn: hunting-fox tactics. Strike at the Wu Dynasty infantry and heavy cavalry, draw their cavalry in to attack, and wear down the heavy cavalry’s stamina!”

Before this order could even be sent out, in front of the camp, that force of over two thousand light cavalry had already begun a feigned wild charge, heading toward Talai’s force of over a thousand cavalry, while the infantry and heavy cavalry began to merge and hold formation. At once, the Jurchen cavalry too began to move.

If it were simply a light-cavalry clash, fifteen hundred against two thousand, Talai might well have dared it. But considering the enemy’s heavy cavalry was still in play, and defending the camp was of paramount importance—this wasn’t a matter of winning just this one fight—he had no wish to be tied down by the enemy cavalry.

The Wu Dynasty light cavalry kept pace parallel to the outer wall of the camp, riding due east in a straight line, while the Jurchen cavalry circled around against them. From a distance, the two columns, kicking up clouds of snow dust, looked like two long dragons racing across the field. Atop the camp gate, Shuliesu issued a stream of orders, warning the soldiers defending the western wall to stay alert.

Cavalry is ill-suited to besieging a fortified camp, but that doesn’t mean it’s entirely incapable of it. On the flank of this Wu Dynasty cavalry force, Talai, leading his fifteen hundred Jurchen horsemen, kept a consistent distance of nearly one arrow’s range from the enemy—the moment they moved within range to fire on the camp, he would immediately close the distance and, together with the camp itself, unleash a combined volley on this light cavalry.

At the same time, the Wu Dynasty infantry formation directly in front of the gate began to advance, pushing toward Talai’s cavalry. The Wu Dynasty cavalry, having ridden out into the distance, began wheeling back, trying to press the Jurchen cavalry into the angle between the two ranges of fire.

Like a giant dragon, the long columns thundered across the snowfield. Talai led his force, wheeling in an arc—on one side, the Wu Dynasty infantry pressing forward, and behind, the Wu Dynasty light cavalry closing in. Both sides drew their bows and loosed arrows together, the shafts flying skyward in different directions; only a scattered few landed within either formation’s ranks.

Talai, leading his cavalry, threaded neatly through the narrowing gap between the two converging forces and broke free!

“Well done!” Atop the gate, Shuliesu pumped his fist and let out a great shout. That was the kind of near-artistic battlefield control the Jurchen had cultivated through countless slaughters!

Once Talai had broken through and pulled away from the Wu Dynasty light cavalry, he centered himself on the Wu Dynasty infantry formation and began charging in wide circles, loosing arrows, trying to provoke the heavy cavalry stationed with the infantry into action. The infantry returned fire in kind. Meanwhile, on the other side, after chasing off the Jurchen cavalry, the two-thousand-plus Wu Dynasty light cavalry wheeled around again, this time aiming at the walls of the Moutuo Ridge camp itself, and began a mounted assault, loosing arrows as they rode. Atop the wall, soldiers raised their shields, returning fire with their own bows. But since the wind was from the north, the Moutuo Ridge camp was on the downwind side; for a time, arrows striking the shields rang out like hail.

As with the Jurchen tactics used outside Bian Liang, every section of a wall needs defending, yet high-speed mounted fire allows for rapid shifts in position. The Wu Dynasty force’s evident plan was the same—find a weak point in the camp wall through this rapid maneuvering, then have the two thousand men swarm that spot all at once. Without question, if these four thousand men managed to break the camp, everyone involved would lose all face.

The intensity of the battle was building…

Do the Wu Dynasty still have troops with this kind of fighting spirit left? Atop the camp wall, Shuliesu watched it all unfold, his mind turning over the thought…

South of Moutuo Ridge.

Over a hundred figures in white plunged swiftly onto the surface of the frozen lake, silently rushing toward the brightly lit Jurchen camp on the far shore…

At the same moment, in Bian Liang.

The most brutal fighting since the war began, both inside and outside the city, was underway.

…

Blood was everywhere around her.

Fierce, boiling battle cries came from every direction; amid the chaos, Shishi heard someone shouting: “The gate—!” and then came the strange war cries of the Jurchen as well. A column of Wu Dynasty soldiers rushed past and clashed with nearby Jurchen troops.

Shishi saw a corpse on the ground, staggered backward, then forced down the surging nausea in her stomach, and pressed her hand against the wall as she rushed toward the nearby field hospital.

The fighting spread; Shishi ran until she reached the large tents of the field hospital, where some Jurchen soldiers were locked in combat with the camp guards nearby. They knocked over bonfires, setting the tents ablaze. All around, snow, blood, and the corpses of the dead had blended into one. Those tents were all full of people; some had rushed out through other exits, others had come out to try to fight. But in truth, most of those in the field hospital were the gravely wounded—those with only light injuries had been bandaged and sent elsewhere, since there was no room to house them here. Wounded as badly as they were, joining the fray made little difference; a few blows and they were cut down.

She hid in the shadows, watching anxiously for a moment, then picked up a nearby water bucket, trying to circle around to the other side of the tents. Halfway around, she suddenly came face to face with a disheveled Jurchen soldier.

He tilted his head slightly, then swung his blade at her viciously.

In that instant, the young woman’s mind went utterly blank—but in the next moment, the Jurchen soldier’s arm was severed clean off by a flash of steel, and a figure charging in from the side kicked the man away with one foot. Shishi froze; beside her stood a burly man wielding a single blade, gripping his steel sword, powerfully built—yet not only was his head wrapped in bandages, his entire left arm was gone, the stump now also wrapped in bandage.

The man who had saved her turned his head: “Hey, you…” as if he’d recognized her.

Then blood sprayed across her face, warm against her skin—a long blade thrust straight through the man’s chest from behind, and the one behind him swung again, cutting off the man’s head.

Right before Shishi’s eyes, that powerful frame simply lost its head in an instant. Ahead, several more Jurchen soldiers were already closing in—but then, Wu Dynasty soldiers rushed in from the side as well.

Blades clashed, blood sprayed; Shishi stood frozen where she was, her body trembling, only faint sounds of “ah, ah…” weeping escaping her lips. She looked at the headless body on the ground; before she knew it, more people seemed to have arrived. Shishi bent down and tried to pry the blade from the headless corpse’s hand, but pulling twice, she couldn’t get it free. The body had no head, yet the hand still gripped the sword with such tightness—still, Shishi finally managed to wrench the blade free, and she held it as she walked forward. Most of the Jurchen soldiers had already been killed; the last one was skewered through the belly by two spears, two Wu Dynasty soldiers pulling and pushing at him, dragging him along until he was pinned dead against a nearby mound of earth. By the time Shishi reached them, the Jurchen man had already stopped breathing.

The soldiers nearby, seeing Shishi holding the blade, assumed she meant to strike the corpse—not that they minded—but Shishi only wept, and never brought the blade down. A few of the men glanced back at the burly man’s body, and one of them said, “Was that your man?”

Shishi didn’t answer. Shouts came from somewhere in the distance, and the men headed off that way: “Quick, go, this is dangerous.” one of them said as he left.

Shishi sat slumped on the ground, still holding the blade.

After a while, someone called out again: “Miss Shishi, Miss Shishi.” coming this way in search of her—it was Hou Jing, Xue Changgong’s brother-in-law, leading a squad of soldiers; the sound of fighting throughout the city seemed to have grown even fiercer. Seeing Shishi’s state, Hou Jing grew visibly anxious, but Shishi had already begun to gather herself out of her fear: “What happened? What’s going on right now?”

“The Jurchen breached the wall a moment ago—we’ve taken it back. Some Jurchen soldiers broke through, trying to seize the gate; I’m heading there now to reinforce. Miss Shishi, are you all right, are you truly all right?”

“I’m fine.” Shishi said. “Go, quickly—”

“Then I’m off. Find somewhere to hide, hide yourself away!”

Hou Jing waved anxiously, then led his men running toward the gate.

Shishi wiped away her tears. She first steadied herself against the mound where the dead man lay, then slowly rose to her feet, and once her legs had stopped shaking, continued rushing back toward the field hospital. Some fires had already been put out, many were dead, some more gravely wounded still; Shishi moved among them, beginning to tend to their injuries again. By now, most of the tents had burned down; wind and snow blew in through the gaps, and Shishi could see the distant wall, where, on that section supposedly retaken, the white-hot fighting still raged on, countless men swarming up like ants, the sound of battle still buzzing from the direction of the gate.

Firelight filled the air, the city was in motion; more and more people, wave after wave, led by soldiers and officials, were surging toward that place.

A vast whirlpool of war—on this night, countless human lives were being poured into it, filling the void…

Ten li away, at Moutuo Ridge.

A staggering scene of slaughter and chaos had also begun…