The twelfth month of this year was nearly upon them. Along the Yellow River, the wind and snow stretched on endlessly, falling as it always had, as though it had no wish to ever stop again.
Only now, even the human presence that had once dotted the land, coming and going even through the heaviest snow, had grown sparse. The wild villages lay desolate as a realm of ghosts, and among the snow lay scattered bones.
Amid the wind and snow, the crunching sound of hooves would still, from time to time, rise up. At the edge of a stand of trees, three tall Jurchen riders advanced slowly and cautiously on horseback, their eyes fixed on the nearby woods; one of them had already drawn his bow, an arrow nocked.
The instant the shape of a horse appeared in their line of sight, a sudden crash rang out, and snow came showering down from an entire tree, as a figure leapt down from among the branches, blade in hand. Amid the falling snow, the startled horse spun sharply, an arrow flew up into the sky, and the Jurchen rider drew his sword in an instant, letting out a sharp cry — at the same moment, another figure charged in from the side, a tall, powerful shape, swinging a fist forward like a tiger pouncing, striking with a heavy blow against the neck of the Jurchen’s warhorse.
A great spray of blood and shredded flesh burst outward; the warhorse let out an agonized scream and staggered, collapsing like a falling mountain, the Jurchen rider atop it tumbling off amid a spray of snow. In that same instant, figures clashed on both sides, weapons meeting weapons; one Jurchen soldier, suddenly cut off from the others in the chaos, found himself surrounded by two Han men closing in. The burly man who had just charged in and shattered the horse’s neck with a single blow was tall in stature, even taller than the Jurchen soldier himself; after a few exchanges, he managed to grab hold of the fur coat at his opponent’s shoulder.
This burly man, thickset and powerfully built, had spent years steeped in Tiger Claw and Tiger Fist techniques; the sudden pounce just now had come like a tiger descending from the mountain — even that towering northern warhorse, struck once on the neck by his hand, had its throat crushed entirely. Now, having seized the Jurchen soldier by the shoulder of his fur coat, he tore at it with all his strength. Yet though this Jurchen soldier had never trained in any systematic form of Central Plains martial arts, he had spent years hunting through the wilderness of the northern White Mountains and Black River region, and had likely encountered black bears and fierce tigers more than once in his time — with his right hand, he thrust his saber forward in a desperate, reckless strike, while wrenching his left shoulder free with all his might, twisting like some great serpent. The burly man tore, then stepped back — the fur coat ripped wide open across the sky — yet all that showed on the Jurchen’s shoulder was a trace of blood.
But before this Jurchen soldier, the man who had leapt down from the tree a moment ago was already charging forward, blade in hand. With the burly Tiger Claw practitioner on his left and another Han scout closing in from the right, the Jurchen soldier stepped back — only to find a large tree trunk directly behind him.
With a heavy thud, his body slammed into the trunk; the man with the blade lunged forward with his whole body, nearly merging with the weapon itself, the tip of the blade driving straight through beneath his throat. The instant it pierced through, the swordsman yanked it back violently, sweeping the blade’s edge upward and around in an arc toward the rear, clashing with another Jurchen scout who had rushed forward to help. A thin line of blood, pulled from the body, sprayed far across the pristine white snow, a single straight streak.
Among the Han, there were those trained in martial arts, but the Jurchen, born to struggle against the elements of heaven and earth themselves, were, in raw strength, by no means inferior even to accomplished martial artists. Take, for instance, this Jurchen scout now besieged by three men — the very technique he had used to wrench himself free from the tiger claw grip was something most skilled martial artists could not necessarily have managed themselves. In a straightforward, life-or-death duel one against one, the outcome might well have gone either way. But in the chaos of battlefield combat, there was no room for such rules; once blood was drawn, the three Han scouts found their momentum surging, and closed in once more against the lone Jurchen man behind them.
The other scout, still mounted, fired an arrow, then wheeled his horse around and fled. The Jurchen scout left behind was cut down within a matter of moments. By the time the fleeing rider had reached some distance away, he turned back and loosed another arrow — this one aimed at the blade-wielding man who had leapt from the tree and killed the first soldier.
The arrow came whistling through the air; the man, blood at the corner of his mouth, gave a cold sneer and reached out to catch it — only to grasp empty air, the arrow having already buried itself in his heart.
He collapsed onto the snow, and his two companions rushed over to catch him.
This brief, fleeting battle soon subsided into stillness, leaving only crimson scattered across the wind and snow, which, before long, would freeze solid as well. The remaining Jurchen scout rode his horse in a desperate gallop, continuing on for some time, until, reaching a snowy ridge ahead, just as he was about to round a bend, a figure suddenly flashed into view.
He instinctively loosed an arrow, but the black-clad figure was impossibly fast, like a bolt of thunder, like a ghost — one moment still several zhang away, the next, already right in front of him, so swift it seemed even the wind and snow parted before him. The black-clad figure struck down with a blade across his body; on the snowy ridge, the Jurchen cavalryman seemed to stiffen abruptly mid-gallop, then was knocked clean off his horse by some unseen force.
Behind the ridge, two figures now emerged — two men dressed in the uniform of Wu dynasty military officers, staring in astonishment at the Jurchen warhorse spinning in confusion on the snow, and the Jurchen scout now lying in the snow with blood beginning to seep out. But what drew their attention most was, of course, the black-clad man standing beside them — this saber-wielding man in black had a calm expression, and features that were, in truth, no longer young. His martial skill was formidable; he had struck with everything he had a moment ago, leaving the Jurchen soldier utterly without any means of resistance, and now a faint heat rose visibly from his temples.
“Elder Fulu, Jurchen scouts usually patrol in groups of three. If this one was alone, there may still be companions nearby…” one of the officers said, glancing around as he offered this caution.
The blade-wielding man in black shook his head. “This Jurchen was running with great urgency, his blood and energy in complete disarray — signs of having just been through a life-and-death struggle. He was alone here, which means his two companions have likely already been killed. He was clearly still trying to make it back to report — having encountered him, I couldn’t very well let him go.” As he spoke, he moved to search the corpse on the ground.
“Elder Fulu speaks rightly.” the two officers said, and went to search the saddlebags on the fine horse as well.
The man who had appeared here was none other than Fulu, who had, by sheer luck, survived after accompanying Zhou Tong on his failed assassination attempt against Wanyan Zonghan.
In that assassination attempt against Zonghan, Zhou Tong had fought until his strength was utterly spent, and was finally beheaded by a single stroke of Wanyan Xiyin’s sword. At the final, critical moment, Fulu’s wife, Zuo Wenying, had charged into the crowd and thrown Zhou Tong’s severed head to him; after that, both Zhou Tong and Zuo Wenying died, and Fulu, carrying Zhou Tong’s head, had no choice but to fight his way out with all his strength, clinging to a bare thread of survival.
He was pursued relentlessly by the cavalry Wanyan Zonghan had sent after him, and with a bounty placed on his head by Zonghan, there were even some among the Wu dynasty’s own outlaw circles who tried to attack him, hoping to claim Zhou Tong’s head for the reward. Carrying Zhou Tong’s severed head, he had, through a winding, roundabout journey, finally made his way back to Zhou Tong’s ancestral home in Tongguan, Shaanxi, and found a burial site there — he did not dare tell anyone of this, fearing that if the Jurchen’s power ever grew great enough, someone might dig up the grave to claim the reward from Zonghan and the others. As he buried the old man, a cold rain fell in a fine, misting drizzle; the surrounding hills lay wild and desolate, and he alone stood as mourner. His heart had long since felt as good as dead — and yet, thinking of how this old man, who had devoted his entire life to his country and its people, might now, after death, not even have a burial place he could openly acknowledge, nor anyone left to mourn him properly, he could not help but be overcome with grief, bowing low and weeping.
Fulu had followed Zhou Tong for his entire life — part servant, part disciple, part kin, part friend. After marrying Zuo Wenying, they had had a son together, but after the child’s first month, they had sent him away to be raised in the countryside; by now, that son had likely already grown up, married, and had children of his own. Yet Fulu and Zuo Wenying, having remained by Zhou Tong’s side all these years, had never once looked after or shown concern for this son, nor for whatever grandchildren he might now have. To Fulu, his true family, in truth, had probably only ever been Zhou Tong himself, and the wife who had grown old alongside him.
His wife’s temperament had been resolute and decisive, even more so than his own. Looking back now, in the battle to assassinate Zonghan, both he and his wife had already prepared themselves for certain death — and yet, at that final, critical moment, his wife had seized the old man’s severed head and thrown it to him instead. The meaning of that gesture, of that devotion, needed no words — she had wanted, even in that last instant, for him to still find a way to live on. And so it was that, within the span of just a few breaths, the two people who mattered most in his entire life had died, one after the other.
After burying Zhou Tong’s head, life had lost all meaning for him; and thinking of his wife’s final act, that one last throw before her death, only deepened his grief and desolation. And yet, having spent so many years by the old man’s side, the thought of taking his own life would never once have occurred to him. He left Tongguan, thinking that, with his martial skill, he might perhaps still find a way to make another attempt on Zonghan’s life. But by this time, Wanyan Zongwang had already swept south like an unstoppable tide, and he thought to himself: had the old man still been alive, he would surely have gone to wherever the danger and the stakes were greatest. And so he had made his way steadily south, intending to reach Bian Liang, hoping for a chance to assassinate Wanyan Zongwang there.
Yet by the time he made his way down, Wanyan Zongwang had already launched his offensive outside Bian Liang, and several hundred thousand troops sent to relieve the siege had been defeated one after another, their scattered soldiers fleeing in all directions, their broken corpses littering the fields. Fulu found no opportunity to assassinate Wanyan Zongwang, but in the course of moving through the surrounding area, he encountered no shortage of outlaws and men of the martial world — in truth, news of Zhou Tong’s death had, by this point, already been spread widely through the influence of Bamboo Notes’ propaganda efforts, and among these outlaws were some who recognized Fulu on sight. Once they saw him, they looked to him as their natural leader; when he said he intended to assassinate Wanyan Zongwang, they all readily agreed to follow him. But the situation outside Bian Liang was not like that at Xinzhou — Moutuo Gang was sealed tight as an iron bucket, and finding any real opportunity for assassination proved far from easy.
Following the trail of propaganda, Fulu eventually came across the name Ning Yi, and recalled this man, so different in his methods from Zhou Tong, yet a man Zhou Tong himself had come to admire greatly. Fulu did not particularly care for him, but felt that in matters of great importance, this man was surely someone reliable, and thought he might find some opportunity to inform him of the location of Zhou Tong’s grave. Fulu himself had nothing left in this world to hold him back, and did not expect to live much longer; if he told this man of the grave’s location, then someday, once the Jurchen had left, if others wished to pay their respects to Zhou Tong, they would at least have somewhere to go. That man was known as “the Demon in the Heart,” “the Butcher with Blood on His Hands” — if anyone truly did try to desecrate the place where Zhou Tong lay buried, then with his ruthless methods, he would surely make them regret it beyond words, wishing for death and finding no path to it.
Only, having made this decision, the first man he encountered was Chen Yanshu, the Regional Military Commissioner of the Wusheng Army stationed at Daming Prefecture. In the Jurchen’s sweep during the early hours of the twenty-fifth of the ninth month, the Wusheng Army had suffered a crushing defeat; Chen Yanshu had fled with his personal guard, abandoning his armor and weapons, though he himself had escaped without serious injury. After the defeat, fearing the court might hold him responsible, and hoping to achieve some kind of accomplishment to redeem himself, he had thrown himself frantically into gathering up scattered troops, and it was in the course of this that he encountered Fulu.
Chen Yanshu knew of Zhou Tong; though he had not thought much of the old man at first, the tireless propaganda efforts of Bamboo Notes over this period had caused the reputation of that so-called “greatest master in the realm” to surge dramatically among the troops. With his own forces having suffered such heavy losses, upon meeting Fulu, having some prior knowledge of him, and knowing that this man had followed Zhou Tong closely for years — that though he kept a low profile, he had inherited the entirety of Zhou Tong’s true skill, and could rightfully be counted among the very top handful of masters below the grandmaster level — Chen Yanshu made every effort at once to recruit him. Fulu, not having found Ning Yi right away, cared little for whose cause he served, and agreed readily enough, taking up a position helping out under Chen Yanshu’s command.
Several months had passed since then; now, with the snow falling and the Jurchen launching their fierce assault on Bian Liang, Chen Yanshu had gathered over thirty thousand men under his command — yet they remained utterly without morale, entirely incapable of fighting. Within Bian Liang, there had been repeated calls urging the armies coming to the emperor’s aid to hasten to relieve the capital, but by now, most had probably already given up hope of this happening; though the calls continued, they carried no real pressure to compel action from below. And so, even as Wanyan Zongwang’s army pressed its assault on the city, and Bian Liang’s defenses grew more perilous by the day, the situation outside the city had become rather delicate — everyone was waiting for someone else to make the first move, yet everyone also understood that these scattered troops, with no fighting spirit left in them at all, were no match for the Jurchen even in a single clash. And in the midst of this stalemate, word suddenly spread across the snowy plain: four thousand men had abruptly launched an assault, boldly striking straight into the main camp at Moutuo Gang.
At this time, though the scattered forces on this snowy plain were divided into several separate factions, some basic communication still existed between them; every day, they would go through the motions of empty talk, striking poses of righteous solidarity and patriotic concern, saying things like, “If you move, I’ll move too” — this was common enough, but when it came to actually mobilizing the troops under their command, it simply could not be done. Morale had already been shattered; gathered together in one place, they could still maintain some semblance of an overall formation, but if they truly tried to march on Bian Liang for a decisive battle, less than halfway there, two-thirds of their men would have already scattered and fled. Among them, only Zhong Shizhong’s western army perhaps still retained a measure of real fighting strength; for the rest, this was, by and large, the state of things.
Under these circumstances, that someone had still summoned the strength to act, without so much as a word to anyone else, and had struck the Jurchen such a savage blow — not only had it shocked the Jurchen, it had shocked everyone else as well. The first reaction of most was that the western army must have made the move — after all, in ordinary times, the two sides had relatively little contact with one another, and Zhong Shidao and Zhong Shizhong, the two leaders of the western army, were both renowned commanders of their age, their reputations considerable; that they might have kept some strength in reserve was hardly surprising. But soon enough, word came out of the capital that directly contradicted this.
At this time, those four thousand men were still stationed squarely at the center of the various scattered factions, appearing, remarkably, quite bold and conspicuous, showing no fear whatsoever of a Jurchen surprise attack. All the various factions on the snowy plain promptly sent out scouts to investigate. And on this battlefield, the western army began to move, the Ever-Victorious Army began to move as well — the forces of Zhang Linghui and Liu Shunren, under the Ever-Victorious Army, split off from Guo Yaoshi and charged fiercely toward this force of four thousand-plus men at the center. These men finally began moving too, amid the wind and snow — even bringing along the more than a thousand civilians with no fighting capacity whatsoever, tracing a great arc through the wind and snow toward the direction of Xia Village. Meanwhile, Zhang Linghui and Liu Shunren, leading their ten-thousand-plus men, rapidly adjusted course, and on the twenty-ninth of the eleventh month, quickly closed the distance with this force of four thousand-plus. By now, scouts had already begun clashing at close range.
Fulu had been sent out by Chen Yanshu to scout all of this — he had, in fact, volunteered for the task himself. In this recent period, with Chen Yanshu keeping his more than thirty thousand men stationed and unmoving, Fulu, living among them, had come to sense their utter lack of fighting spirit, and had already been inclined to leave. Chen Yanshu had noticed this as well, but on one hand, he had no way to bind Fulu to stay, and on the other, he still needed him around for propaganda purposes; in the end, he sent two officers along with him, but did not release the other men of the martial world Fulu had brought with him to accompany him as well, thinking that this way, Fulu would most likely have to come back.
As for this force that had suddenly appeared, Fulu, too, found himself curious. He was deeply pained by the abysmal fighting strength of the Wu dynasty’s armies, yet he understood all too keenly the sheer strength of the Jurchen as well. Did there really exist an army capable of standing against the Jurchen head-on? Or had they simply gotten lucky with a surprise raid, their achievement then exaggerated beyond its true measure? This latter thought was, in truth, the prevailing view among the surrounding factions.
Whichever army it was, they’d really struck it lucky, hadn’t they…
Fulu himself, of course, did not think along quite these lines; to his mind, even if it had been a matter of luck, if they could build on this foundation and press their advantage while their spirits were high, that alone would already be a good thing.
Coming here this time, the first force he sought out was the Ever-Victorious Army.
This force of over ten thousand men advanced swiftly through the wind and snow, sending out large numbers of scouts to probe the way ahead. Fulu naturally knew little of military affairs, but as a martial artist approaching the level of a grandmaster, he was intimately familiar with matters of physical constitution, willpower, and the aura that radiated from within a person outward. The fighting strength displayed by these two units of the Ever-Victorious Army, though somewhat inferior to that of the Jurchen, still far surpassed that of the Wu dynasty’s own armies — these northern men, having passed through the finest training beyond Yanmen Pass, were, by any measure, leagues above.
Fulu watched with a quiet sense of alarm. From another scouting party sent out by Chen Yanshu, he learned that the force of four thousand men, apparently under Qin Shaoqian’s command, was not far ahead now, and, burdened by the more than a thousand civilians they were escorting, might well be intercepted before they could reach Xia Village. Fulu had been hurrying in this direction, and it was in the course of this that he had just killed this particular Jurchen scout.
Though the wind and snow were not especially heavy at this moment, out on the snowy plain, it remained difficult to make out direction or destination clearly. After searching the bodies, the three of them pressed on, only to realize before long that they had likely gone the wrong way; they turned back, and after that, encountered or brushed past several more scouting parties from the Ever-Victorious Army, before finally confirming that they had caught up with the main force.
By now it was already afternoon, the daylight dim and overcast. Reaching a snowy ridge, Fulu had already begun to sense some kind of movement in the wind and snow ahead; he warned the two men beside him that the Ever-Victorious Army might well be just ahead. They dismounted nearby and advanced quietly, passing through a stretch of woodland; ahead lay a snowy ridge, and once they climbed it, the three of them dropped suddenly into a crouch.
An army of over ten thousand men stretched out before them.
These were the forces of Zhang and Liu, of the Ever-Victorious Army; banners stretched out in an unbroken line, the whole formation grim and imposing, drawn up in battle order ahead — and, remarkably, it seemed as though they had brought their columns to a complete halt, front to back.
The two officers of the Wusheng Army looked on with a shudder of alarm; though they might not necessarily have been able to win against such a force in battle, they had an eye for these things, having led troops in combat themselves, and knew at once that if an army like this ever engaged their own current force, the Wusheng Army as it stood now would simply be slaughtered like pigs and dogs. Fulu, a martial artist himself, felt this same killing intent, and his own blood and energy stirred within him as well; he gritted his teeth, half-wishing he could charge out and die alongside the enemy commander then and there. But a moment later, the three of them came to their senses:
“Why have they stopped…”
“What’s happened…”
Just as they began to speak of this, Fulu, peering through the wind and snow, made out, faintly, the scene atop the snowy ridge on the far side. From where they stood, the view was blurred, but on that distant ridge, there were, unmistakably, figures moving.
Then, a sound reached them — “BANG” — though in truth it was not a single sound at all, but what seemed to be hundreds, even thousands of such sounds, all merged together as one. It resembled the clash of metal against metal, or perhaps metal striking against leather; Fulu could tell that it was, in fact, the sound of war sabers, still in their scabbards, being slapped hard against saddle leather.
Thousands of sabers, striking their saddles all at once, in perfect unison.
The sound rose suddenly amid the wind and snow, carried across the distance, then fell silent — and after a few breaths, it came again, once more. Monotonous as the sound was, coming from several thousand sabers striking in this fashion, it carried with it an unmistakable air of killing intent. In the wind and snow far off, dimly visible, a column of cavalry stood arrayed in silence atop that snowy ridge, waiting for the great host of the Ever-Victorious Army to arrive.
A moment later, a shout charged with killing intent rose up from this side as well: “EVER-VICTORIOUS—”
“EVER-VICTORIOUS!”
“EVER-VICTORIOUS!”
Three times in succession, ten thousand voices roared as one, a sound almost powerful enough to tear through the wind and snow itself — and yet, until the order came from their commander, not one man charged forward.
Fulu could already taste the faint tang of iron in his mouth — a subtle thrill unique to martial artists. The opposing formation, all its cavalry combined, numbered no more than a little over two thousand. And yet, there they stood, facing down an Ever-Victorious Army numbering a full ten thousand, and amid this overwhelming killing intent, not one man among the ten thousand dared to advance.
A moment later, that slapping sound rose again, monotonous, carried across the distance — and then again, at the same steady interval, as though striking against the very heartbeat of every man who heard it.
The wind and snow howled, the battle formations stood like a forest of blades — the whole atmosphere on the verge of erupting at any moment…