Xia Village.

As the wind and snow eased somewhat, the people in the valley received word from ahead — and then, figures began appearing through the wind and snow, stretching on and on.

The infantry under Yue Fei’s command, escorting the more than a thousand people rescued from the camp at Moutuo Gang, made their way into the valley one after another. Word had already been sent ahead, and bonfires were already burning in the valley, hot porridge already prepared, blankets and shelter already made ready for those who had made this long, arduous journey. Since the valley itself was not especially large, once these people, who had suffered so much abuse and mistreatment, passed through the barrier formed by the barricades and trenches, what greeted their eyes were ring after ring, row after row of soldiers, standing throughout the valley above them. Knowing that their own people had returned, everyone had come out to see; amid the wind and snow, over ten thousand figures stretched out before their eyes…

Then, these figures raised the blades and spears in their hands, letting out a roar of cheering and fury that shook the very sky.

Some of those who had been rescued began weeping with joy right where they stood.

After the crushing defeat in the early hours of the twenty-fifth of the ninth month, Ning Yi had racked his brain to the utmost in gathering these scattered soldiers together and lifting their morale. Over these two months, the initial group who had stayed by his side had served as an excellent example for the rest; extensive propaganda efforts had followed, forging within the camp a relatively fervent, unified atmosphere, alongside a great deal of training. But even so, ice three feet thick does not form in a single day’s cold — even after a certain amount of ideological groundwork had been laid, Ning Yi had never truly dared to march these ten-thousand-plus men out to fight a real, hard-fought battle.

And yet, the content of the propaganda carried out earlier in the valley had, from the very start, spoken of the suffering these people’s own families would face should the nation fall, spoken of the horrors of Bian Liang, spoken of the history of the Five Barbarians’ chaos and the “two-legged sheep.” Having truly taken it to heart, feelings of sorrow and despair had certainly been stirred up — but to draw from that any true sense of noble, tragic resolve remained, in the end, nothing more than empty talk on paper. It was only when word arrived that Ning Yi and the others had led their men straight into Moutuo Gang, burned the grain stores, and even rescued over a thousand people, that everyone’s spirits were, at long last, truly and genuinely lifted.

If everything said before this had merely been preparation and groundwork, then it was only with the arrival of this news that all that earlier effort finally closed into a complete circle. Over these past two days, Wenren Buer, left behind to manage the camp, had spared no effort in spreading word of these events far and wide: the Jurchen were not invincible after all — they had even managed to rescue their own countrymen, people who had suffered the most terrible torment, and so on and so forth. By the time these figures finally appeared before everyone’s eyes, all of that propaganda had, at last, become something real and tangible.

The roar that now rose up through the valley was, at last, a cheer and a howl of fury that everyone truly, sincerely meant. But before long, they also noticed something — the cavalry had not come back with them.

Wenren Buer asked Yue Fei and the others for the reason. Throughout the valley, the fervent atmosphere of welcoming these poor souls back was still ongoing, and word soon spread as to why the cavalry had not returned with them.

On the journey back to Xia Village, since the infantry and the rescued civilians could not move quickly, the cavalry had remained beside them the whole way, guarding their flank. And because Zhang Linghui and Liu Shunren’s force of over ten thousand men might well intercept their path, not far from Xia Village, Qin Shaoqian, Ning Yi, and the others had led the cavalry ahead, to block the route of the Zhang and Liu forces.

At this moment, with the wind and snow stretching on without end, nothing of the battle could be seen from the hills overlooking Xia Village. And yet, blocking an army of ten-thousand-plus with only two thousand cavalry, even if it managed to force them to withdraw, would still likely come at no small cost. Upon hearing this news, people immediately came forward, begging to be allowed to go help — among them were former Wu dynasty army officers such as Liu Huizu and Qiu Ju, as well as newer men who had risen through the ranks after Ning Yi and Qin Shaoqian’s reorganization. Several officers, clearly chosen by popular consensus, commanded considerable respect among the men. As they stepped forward, the rest of the soldiers surged toward the front as well, blood rising, the light of blades flashing fiercely.

“We’ve been hiding back here — we shouldn’t let our brothers bleed out there on the front lines while we sit idle—”

“They dare challenge us with just ten thousand men — let’s charge out there and swallow them whole—”

“Brothers, we’ve held back for so long, trained for so long — now’s the time to lay our lives on the line! Let’s see who among us is still a coward—”

“Lay our lives down, no turning back!”

At this moment, the entire valley seemed to erupt like a pot boiling over, everyone calling out to one another, their fighting spirit fierce and unrestrained. Wenren Buer, his heart heavy with concern for the battle unfolding ahead, was himself rather inclined to send men to reinforce them — but he ultimately held back the crowd’s rising fervor.

“With a great battle underway, military orders stand firm as mountains — this is no matter to be trifled with! General Qin has sent men back specifically instructing us not to act rashly — that means he already has a plan in place. Keep your spirits up, that’s all you need to do! The Ever-Victorious Army is right outside — do you think there won’t be fighting enough for you? Impatience is the most dangerous thing when facing the enemy! Though the Ever-Victorious Army may not match the Jurchen’s main force, they’re still among the finest troops in this world — sharpen your blades, and wait quietly—”

After two months of reorganization within the valley, aside from Qin Shaoqian, those responsible for overall command consisted of Ning Yi’s own network — Bamboo Notes and the chancellor’s household system. Once Wenren Buer gave the order, though the officers were reluctant, none dared to defy it, and had no choice but to suppress their fervor, order the soldiers under their command to prepare for battle, and wait quietly.

The wind and snow drifted on and on; everyone had received the order, but the boiling blood within them could not be suppressed all at once. The soldiers responsible for the inner perimeter finished settling in the rescued prisoners, while those on the outer perimeter had already begun sharpening their blades, waiting at any moment for the Ever-Victorious Army to arrive. A grim, killing air hung over the entire valley — the prisoners who had just been brought inside had only just settled in when they saw the surrounding soldiers taking up their weapons and putting on their armor, surging forward like streams of water flowing toward the front. They knew a great battle was imminent, and yet, across this stretch of land, tens of thousands of people had already made their preparations.

An army like this — surely they could defeat the Ever-Victorious Army… Many people found themselves thinking exactly this.

Before long, along one side of the mountain slope, the shapes of cavalry could be seen sweeping through the wind and snow, surging along the white mountain path — one horse, then two, gradually swelling to a hundred, then a thousand — it was the elite cavalry force led by Qin Shaoqian, Ning Yi, and the others, gathered into a torrent, galloping back at full speed…

…

Fulu’s figure moved through the mountains like a bolt of lightning fused with the wind and snow itself; he had been following at a distance behind that column of cavalry, and the two officers accompanying him, despite having some martial skill of their own, had already been left far behind.

A moment ago, upon that snowy ridge, the standoff between the two thousand cavalry and the army of over ten thousand had been tense, grim, on the verge of eruption at any moment — and yet, in the end, it had not come to a direct clash.

The two thousand-plus men, their goal being to shield the infantry behind them, had chosen to reveal themselves atop the snowy ridge as a means of intercepting the Ever-Victorious Army, and within moments, had already exerted an enormous psychological pressure on the more than ten thousand troops of the Ever-Victorious Army. Each time that sound of scabbard striking saddle rang out, it seemed to be gathering strength for a charge; below, the great host, banners fluttering, did not dare make any rash move — their position was, after all, precisely suited for a cavalry charge, and if those two thousand-plus riders truly let their horses loose in an assault, the consequences would be unthinkable.

Among the commanders of the Ever-Victorious Army, Guo Yaoshi was, without question, the strongest, but the forces under Zhang Linghui and Liu Shunren still had four thousand cavalry of their own. Only, being light cavalry, having already lost the advantage of surprise by trying to circle around and outflank the enemy, charging directly up the snowy slope was naturally not a realistic option either. The other side was using the classic method of wearing down morale — a first charge full of spirit, a second weaker, a third exhausted entirely — and often, in such situations, the tension of a threat withheld proved far more agonizing than actually facing a charge from a position of advantage. Fulu lay hidden in the snow nearby, watching this standoff between the two sides, the wind, snow, and killing intent pressing down over heaven and earth alike, casting everything into a dim, oppressive gloom.

This was a genuine standoff between truly powerful forces. Each strike of that cavalry column’s sabers against their saddles came with a uniformity as precise as if performed by a single man — and yet, because it was the combined force of over two thousand men, each strike landed with a weight heavy enough to seem to beat against every single person’s own heartbeat. Each time that sound rang out, it seemed as though the enemy might come charging forward with a roar at any moment, wearing down the opposing side’s resolve — and yet, in the end, they remained standing there in formation amid the wind and snow. Fulu, having traveled the martial world alongside Zhou Tong for so long, knew of many mountain bandits and horse thieves who would use similar tactics of intimidation — striking rhythmically to force a surrounded prey into surrender — but never had he seen it done with such perfect, disciplined uniformity as this.

Just as the Ever-Victorious Army’s side seemed to be growing unable to hold back any longer, the cavalry atop the snowy ridge nearly all at once reined in their horses and turned around, vanishing from the great host’s view below the mountain in perfectly coordinated step.

This brief span of confrontation had left the two officers beside Fulu with parched throats and burning bodies from head to toe; before they could quite react, Fulu had already set off at a swift pace, pursuing in the direction where the cavalry column had vanished.

Passing through the mountain ridge ahead, before long, Fulu caught sight of the valley nestled within the snowy hills; the cavalry from before was already circling around toward the side to enter it. On either side of his field of vision, wooden walls, over a zhang in height, stretched along the mountain ridge in an unbroken line. Though this level of fortification fell short of many small cities and towns, the sight of fires burning throughout the valley, and the forest of blades and spears within it, made it plain enough — by luring the Ever-Victorious Army here, they clearly meant to make their stand and defend this place to the death.

After the army’s defeat, this stretch of territory at Xia Village had operated under the name of Qin Shaoqian, the right chancellor’s second son, but had only ever gathered together somewhat over ten thousand men. Before this, there had been some contact with the surrounding factions, a general sense of each other’s presence, but no one had ever actually come to inspect it firsthand. Seeing it now, though, the sheer force of will on display here was, in truth, an entirely different concept from what he had seen in the Wusheng Army’s own camp.

Before this, it was not that Fulu had been unaware of the true state of the Wu dynasty’s armies — quite the opposite. Zhou Tong had, his entire life, longed to lead troops into battle in service of his country, and understood all too well exactly how the Wu dynasty’s forces truly stood. It was precisely for this reason that when Chen Yanshu sought to enlist his help in lifting morale, even though he himself could accomplish little in that regard, he could understand perfectly well why Chen Yanshu remained so timid and hesitant, why the thirty thousand men stationed there remained utterly incapable of fighting — even had he wished to reproach him for it, there would have been nothing meaningful to say. On the contrary, had the army not been like this, that would truly have been the surprising outcome.

And yet, this force before him now, from the earlier standoff to the present scene, displayed a fighting spirit, a killing intent, that overturned all of those assumptions entirely.

Over the more than a month he had spent with the Wusheng Army, Fulu had come to understand, in vague terms, that this man Ning Yi — Ning Liheng — had taken shelter here at Xia Village alongside Qin Shaoqian. Only, with the capital in such grave peril, the nation itself facing calamity, he had not yet found the chance to come here and entrust the matter of Zhou Tong to him. Only now did he find himself unable to help recalling his earlier dealings with this so-called “Demon in the Heart.” His original intention to entrust Zhou Tong’s whereabouts to this man had been born of Ning Yi’s own ruthless dealings with the men of the martial world — but at this moment, what truly rose to the forefront of his mind instead were the tales of Ning Yi wiping out tens of thousands of men at Liangshan, and his confrontations with the wealthy and powerful across the realm during his disaster relief efforts. This man, who seemed, on the surface, to be nothing more than a bandit lord from the martial underworld, a wealthy merchant of great influence — what exactly had he and this General Qin done here, to transform this entire camp into what stood before him now?

What exactly were they trying to accomplish…

Fulu gazed off into the distance; beyond the wind and snow lay the banks of the Yellow River. Unlike every other faction of scattered troops currently hovering around Bian Liang, only this one camp seemed to be waiting, almost expectantly, for the arrival of the Ever-Victorious Army, and even the Jurchen themselves — they had not even prepared themselves any real avenue of retreat. Ten-thousand-plus men, and once this camp fell, they would not even have a direction left to flee toward, should they be routed.

Burn the boats, break the cauldrons; a desperate army fights hardest and wins…

Just as this thought flashed through his mind, from within that valley, the roar of battle rose up like thunder…

…

Gazing toward the direction of the wind and snow, Ning Yi, Qin Shaoqian, and the others rode their horses up onto a previously constructed raised platform.

By now, word had already spread throughout the camp of how the two thousand cavalry, through sheer force of presence alone, had managed to hold back the more than ten thousand troops of the Ever-Victorious Army, keeping them from advancing. However strong one’s fighting strength, defense would always hold the advantage over offense; so long as it could be avoided, outside the valley, Ning Yi and the others had no intention of recklessly engaging in open battle.

“Brothers! We’re back!” The sound of his voice carried through the wind and snow. Atop that raised platform stood the young man who, of everyone in this camp, was most tenacious and ruthless, and also most skilled at patience and careful scheming — everyone knew that without him, none of them would ever have achieved the results now before their eyes. As his voice rang out, people began waving and shouting in response, but soon the valley fell silent, and the young scholar known as Ning Yi spoke on, his words calm, even cold. “We’ve brought back your loved ones, and we’ve brought back your enemies as well. From here on, there will be no more time to rest.”

“Beyond this valley, eleven thousand of the Loyal Volunteer Army are on their way here now. I don’t care to comment on how formidable they may or may not be — all I need to tell you is, there will be more and more of them coming. Guo Yaoshi still has twenty-five thousand men under his command; Moutuo Gang holds ten thousand; outside Bian Liang there are fifty-seven thousand more. I don’t know exactly how many will come to attack this place — but there is one chance for victory. Hold on…” he said. “Hold on.”

“Hold through this winter. When spring comes, victory will come with it. You don’t need to think about any way back, don’t need to picture what defeat might look like — two months ago, you suffered a humiliating defeat here, but that will not happen again. This winter, every inch of ground beneath your feet will be stained with blood — either yours, or your enemy’s, whether Loyal Volunteer or Jurchen. I don’t need to tell you how difficult this will be, because this is, quite simply, the most difficult thing you could possibly imagine — but I can tell you this: when this place becomes a river of blood, I will be here with you; every commander in this place… yes, even the mediocre ones… will be here with you; your brothers will be here with you; the million people of Bian Liang will be here with you; the fate of this entire realm will be here with you. If we lose, everything is destroyed together. If we win, you will have accomplished the single hardest thing in this entire world.”

When he mentioned the “mediocre ones,” he gestured casually toward the mid-level officers standing nearby; no one laughed.

“And so, victory — and every other messy, complicated thing — that’s for us to worry about. You’re fortunate, in a way, because from here on, there’s only one thing left for you to think about, and that is: whoever comes from outside — no matter how many of them there are, Zhang Linghui, Liu Shunren, Guo Yaoshi, Wanyan Zongwang, the Loyal Volunteer Army, the Jurchen themselves — whether it’s a thousand men, ten thousand, or even a hundred thousand — you are to bury every last one of them right here, using your hands, your feet, your weapons, your very teeth, until there’s no more room here to bury anyone else, until you’re walking through blood, until bone and viscera rise up to your very ankles—”

Atop that wooden platform, Ning Yi’s voice, now raised to a fever pitch, carried through the wind and snow; in this instant, he paused, and then, quietly and simply, finished what he had to say.

He said: “Kill.”

A moment of silence followed, and then, from nearby, someone spoke it aloud: “KILL!”

The voices behind him rose up in answer as well: “KILL—”

Another brief silence, and then, nearly twenty thousand voices roared as one, like a clap of thunder: “KILL————————————” The sound rolled through the entire sky above, the very earth trembling beneath it.

Beneath the ice of the Yellow River, hidden currents surged. Before long, the shapes of the Ever-Victorious Army’s great host appeared outside the valley.

…

Zhang Linghui and Liu Shunren stood upon the snowy slope, surveying the condition of this camp.

Directly ahead of the camp lay, indeed, an open stretch of road — but further ahead, mounds of packed snow, anti-cavalry barricades, and trenches together formed a stretch of ground where launching a charge would prove exceedingly difficult, extending all the way into the camp’s interior.

And yet the walls of the camp were not especially tall; that they had managed, in such haste, to build a defensive line over a zhang high to shield everything within was already no small feat — even with sharpened wooden stakes and spear-like obstacles set up in some places, the barrier they could offer was, in all likelihood, still no match for the walls of even a small city.

“Why did they choose to make their stand here?”

“…Because the Yellow River lies at their back?”

Before long, this occurred to Liu Shunren as well.

When Wanyan Zongwang set out to assault Bian Liang, the task he had assigned the Loyal Volunteer Army was to identify which faction intended to breach the Yellow River; Guo Yaoshi had chosen the western army, since defeating them would bring the greatest credit. But given how thoroughly the Wu dynasty’s armies had carried out their scorched-earth strategy, with many cities and towns around Bian Liang already abandoned, and given that any defeated army could, in theory, have chosen to hole up in any well-defended fortified city, the fact that this particular force had instead chosen a valley like this one, with no line of retreat whatsoever, pointed toward an answer that was becoming rather obvious.

Earlier, the Jurchen had gathered some intelligence on the areas surrounding Bian Liang, but after a certain point, having confirmed that the Wu dynasty’s armies, once scattered, had their morale shattered all the more thoroughly, they had stopped paying much attention to these factions at all. Only now, taking real notice, did they discover that this particular location matched the description of a plan to breach the Yellow River rather closely.

There was another matter as well: earlier, at the banks of the Chaobai River, Guo Yaoshi had originally intended to fight Wanyan Zongwang’s army to a decisive conclusion. Zhang Linghui and Liu Shunren’s betrayal had forced him to surrender to Wanyan Zongwang instead; though he had, by now, come to accept his fate, it was simply not possible for there to be no lingering resentment at all between him and these two men who had once been like brothers to him. Serving under the Jurchen, with both sides remaining wary of each other, if Guo Yaoshi could help eliminate this particular thorn in Wanyan Zongwang’s side, it would surely count as a great accomplishment.

“And yet, this place reportedly holds nearly twenty thousand troops garrisoned here, and what we saw earlier showed no small measure of fighting strength — while our own forces number only a little over ten thousand. If they fight to the death, we may well end up badly weakened ourselves…” After their discussion, Zhang Linghui still found himself somewhat concerned.

The two thousand cavalry that had blocked their path earlier had displayed astonishing presence, particularly in that extraordinary coordination when they struck their sabers against their saddles all at once — something no ordinary army could possibly have managed. In the heat of battle, with blood and adrenaline running high, even well-trained ordinary troops would inevitably have some men whose timing fell out of sync with their comrades beside them, in the moment. Zhang Linghui and the others, having spent half their lives fighting on battlefields, had certainly felt a jolt of alarm at the sight — but they had also been waiting for the enemy’s composure to falter even slightly, at which point they would have launched their own attack.

And yet, right up to the very end, the enemy had shown no crack in their formation at all. Just as Zhang Linghui and the others had finally been on the verge of taking action themselves, the enemy had suddenly withdrawn — and in that single exchange, it was, in effect, the enemy who had come out ahead. For the rest of that day, the troops under their command would likely carry some measure of psychological scarring from the encounter even in future engagements — which was precisely why they had not pursued closely on their heels, choosing instead to bring their forces up at an unhurried pace.

If the entire enemy force possessed this same level of quality, then even a direct, head-on confrontation could well wipe out their own army entirely — to say nothing of the fact that the enemy also held the advantage of terrain in defense.

“Still… the Wu dynasty’s armies suffered such a crushing, scattering defeat before. If they’d truly had this level of fighting strength from the start, they never would have been beaten so badly. If it were you and me, even if we later got our hands on some elite troops, with our numbers still insufficient, would we really dare hold anything back, wanting to raid Moutuo Gang?” Liu Shunren offered this analysis. “That’s why I’ve concluded that within this valley, the number of genuinely capable fighting troops is no more than four thousand or so, with the rest made up of scattered, defeated soldiers — men they likely wouldn’t even dare bring out to fight at all. Otherwise, why would they have taken such a desperate gamble, pitting four thousand men against ten thousand?”

The Jurchen army was, at this moment, the single strongest force in the entire realm; with over ten thousand men garrisoned at Moutuo Gang, even the most formidable, most arrogant of commanders, so long as he still had any reserves of strength left, would surely never resort to using only four thousand men for a surprise raid. Working from this logic, the composition of the forces within this valley became, in a sense, self-evident.

Mixing sixteen thousand weak troops with four thousand elite ones could, admittedly, still be lifted somewhat by the presence of those elite troops — but if the rest were truly weak enough, whether these twenty thousand men as a whole were stronger or weaker than a mere four thousand elite troops alone was, in truth, genuinely difficult to say. Both Zhang Linghui and Liu Shunren understood the true state of the Wu dynasty’s forces all too well; that night, as their army made camp, they weighed the odds of victory carefully in their minds, and by the early hours of the following morning, launched their assault on the valley at Xia Village.

The wind and snow still fell; the night sky remained a solid black. Having waited through the entire night, the defenders of Xia Village had already detected the stirrings of the Loyal Volunteer Army. White breath steamed from people’s mouths; some wiped their faces with handfuls of snow, baring gleaming white teeth; soldiers drew their bows, raised their shields, stretched their arms, and let out short, sharp cries into the darkness.

Two months on, the mortal struggle of war was, once again, sweeping in like a rising tide.

There was no possibility of retreat now…

Ning Yi walked among the crowd. “Pass the order — prepare the cannons.”

“No.” Qin Shaoqian, Yue Fei, and the others all raised objections at once. Qin Shaoqian glanced at the young officer beside him with a look of approval; Yue Fei clasped his hands and bowed, then withdrew to the back.

“Why not?”

“Let there be blood first.” Qin Shaoqian said. “Blood on both sides.”

…Only by seeing blood could people instantly grasp the cruelty of war.

Ning Yi nodded. When it came to war, he still understood, in the end, far too little.

The first volley of arrows rose into the darkness, arcing across the sky between the two sides before falling again — some landing on the ground, some striking shields… someone fell.

In the dim light, the smell of blood began to spread. Ning Yi turned to look back; across the entire valley, only a scattering of firelight remained, and everyone seemed fused into a single, unified mass. In this gloom, the sound of screaming pain felt jarringly, unnervingly loud; those responsible for treating the wounded rushed forward, dragging the fallen away. Ning Yi heard someone shouting, “I’m fine! I’m fine! Don’t touch me! It’s just a scratch on my leg, I can still kill!”

Beyond the camp wall, out on the snowy plain, the crunching sound of footsteps grew ever more intense; even without climbing up to a higher vantage point, Ning Yi could tell that the shield-bearing soldiers of the Loyal Volunteer Army were charging forward. The sound of shouting, faint at first from a distance, gradually swelled, like a tidal wave surging forward, converging into a single, tremendous roar!

After two volleys of arrows, that roaring wave crashed against the camp wall. The wooden wall, barely over a zhang tall, offered, in truth, little real obstruction on a battlefield as desperate as this one. In the very instant the two sides clashed at close quarters, a sudden roar rose up from within the wall: “KILL—” tearing through the night! The tidal wave struck against an immovable boulder! Ladders were propped against the camp wall, grappling hooks flew up over it; these northern soldiers from beyond Yanmen Pass pressed forward behind their shields, shouting, surging in like a flood — and within the wall, soldiers who had spent these past days undergoing endless, monotonous training met them with the very same ferocity, thrusting spears, swinging blades, firing arrows up and down along the line. In an instant, along the point of contact, a wave of blood erupted violently outward…

In the thirteenth year of Jinghan, in winter, on the first day of the twelfth month, in the early hours of dawn — atop the teetering walls of Bian Liang, the new day’s fighting had not yet begun, while nearly thirty li away, at the valley in Xia Village, another decisive battle, sparked by the assault of Zhang Linghui and Liu Shunren, had already quietly begun. At this time, few people yet realized the significance of this particular battlefield; most eyes remained fixed on the fierce, precarious defense of Bian Liang itself, and even those who occasionally glanced this way assumed only that Xia Village had, at last, drawn the attention of the Loyal Volunteer Army, prompting a retaliatory strike against them.

As for the fierce fighting, the courage, and the recklessness unfolding here, opinions among onlookers varied — some scoffed, some pitied, some held it in genuine respect. But whatever feelings people held, one fact remained beyond dispute: the other scattered forces around Bian Liang were, under these circumstances, in no position to relieve the siege of the capital themselves. As for whether Xia Village could play any truly significant role in this battle, at least at the outset, no one held out much hope for that. Especially once Guo Yaoshi turned his own attention this way, committing the entire thirty-six thousand-plus strength of the Loyal Volunteer Army to this battlefield — after that, most people’s only remaining expectation was to see just how many days this place could hold out before finally collapsing and surrendering.

Whatever the case, on this first day of the twelfth month, within the Ministry of War in the capital, Qin Siyuan received the final message sent from Xia Village: Our forces, as planned, have entered into fierce battle. From this moment on, the capital and Xia Village are one and the same — living, we live together; dying, we die together. We ask that all of you in the capital take care of yourselves. After this battle, may we meet again.

This message was both simple and strange all at once — it sounded, at once, like something Ning Yi might say, and also like something Qin Shaoqian might say; it read like something a subordinate might send to a superior, or a colleague to a fellow colleague, and yet also like something a son, away from home, might send to his own father. Qin Siyuan received it just as he was stepping out of the main hall of the Ministry of War; having read it through, he tucked it into his sleeve, and paused for a moment beneath the eaves. His attendant saw the old man standing there, leaning on his cane, the street before him in chaos, soldiers and galloping horses churning everything into mud, the sky filled with wind and snow. The old man faced all of this directly; the veins on the back of his hands stood out from the force of his grip, his lips pressed tightly together, his gaze steady and stern, mixed with something else — a trace of fierce, unrelenting harshness.

These past few days, this expression had, for the most part, become his constant one — as though he were locked in battle against everything at once: against the Jurchen, against heaven and earth themselves, against his own aging body. No one could break him while he held that gaze.

And it seemed that, so long as he himself was not broken, no one could break this city either.

The Jurchen’s assault on the city continued without pause.

And after this, there would be a great many people who would never again have the chance to say goodbye…