As the night grew deeper, Long Hui had already died.
His severed corpse hung from the flagpole, beaten beyond recognition; the blood dripping from his body had gradually frozen into red icicles in the night wind.
Most of the other generals’ bodies hanging from the flagpoles were in similarly grim condition.
Between the Resentment Army’s camp and Xia Village, fires likewise burned, casting their glow over all of this in the night. The thousand-odd captives the Resentment Army had taken were penned in not far from those flagpoles; naturally, they had no bonfires or tents, and through this night, all they could do was huddle together for warmth. Many of the wounded among them gradually froze to death. Occasionally, by the firelight, Resentment Army soldiers would drag out one or several of the more troublesome captives and beat or hack them to death; screams echoed through the night.
Xia Village’s defenders watched all of this in silence.
Ning Yi and the others had not slept. Qin Shaoqian and several officers were in the command room, discussing strategy; he occasionally stepped out to walk around and observe. The bonfires in the night looked like rivers flowing from a future age; at one side of the camp, the breach broken open in the wall two days before was still being repaired and reinforced by some of the men. Far off, the goings-on in front of the Resentment Army’s camp could be faintly made out as well.
Juan’er brought in tea, then, coming back out, stood for a moment beside Ning Yi. Over these past days, with fierce fighting raging around the perimeter of Xia Village, she’d been busy inside helping distribute supplies, arrange for the wounded, and handle all manner of small tasks — busy nearly beyond bearing, and often having to manage the daily needs of Ning Yi and the others as well. The young woman now looked haggard and quite worn out. Ning Yi glanced at her, gave her a smile, then took off the coat he was wearing to drape over her shoulders. The young woman stepped back, shaking her head repeatedly.
“I’m not cold, my lord. You wear it.”
Her expression was firm, and Ning Yi didn’t press the matter, only saying, “Get some rest soon.”
Juan’er nodded, gazed off for a moment toward the Resentment Army’s camp, then stood there a while longer. “My lord, those people who were captured — is it a big problem?”
She didn’t fully understand what all the various changes on this battlefield meant, having only heard today of what had happened, though she could sense the mood in the camp had suddenly darkened — and in an atmosphere already stretched to its limit, that certainly couldn’t mean anything good.
Ning Yi thought about it for a moment, then finally smiled. “It’s fine. We can handle it.”
The Jurchens’ sudden invasion south had caught everyone off guard, but by now, many of the underlying threads of this whole affair had become clear enough. The battle for Bianliang had reached the point of deciding life and death — and this single, decisive opportunity had been wrung out, bit by bit, through everyone’s struggle.
In a sense, Ning Yi wasn’t the diehard type who believed in sacrificing oneself for one’s country; in many matters, he was extremely flexible, and as for how deeply he identified with this Wu Dynasty as something worth dying for, that too was hard to say. And yet, from the initial scorched-earth campaign, to gathering the scattered troops, to the power struggle over Moutuogang, and finally to holding Xia Village to the death — the reason he’d come this far was simple: this was the only way to break the deadlock.
He didn’t understand military affairs, and even now, what grasp he had of the battlefield remained only partial at best. But one thing he did understand: people who hedge their bets, always looking for the clever shortcut, always calculating advantage and disadvantage — such people can never accomplish anything. Many of the Wu Dynasty’s generals were like this, many ministers too, and countless others besides. Knowing when to retreat from difficulty was, in truth, not always a good habit to have. When the Jurchens staked their lives on this fight, the people of the Wu Dynasty staking their own lives in turn wouldn’t necessarily guarantee victory — but those unwilling to stake their lives at all could never win, not ever.
Whether in war or in any other undertaking, at the highest level, being willing to bet everything is merely the most basic precondition.
And so he had done everything within his power — scorching the earth, provoking Wanyan Zongwang with a letter, seizing Moutuogang, and finally, trapping himself here with no way out. The hastily assembled force of over fourteen thousand men couldn’t be pulled out now; things like the elm-wood cannons and landmines could only make the greatest difference on the defensive. If Bianliang could hold, and if this place could grind down the Jurchens’ reserves through sheer endurance, then the Wu Dynasty’s one and only sliver of hope might yet appear — at which point, peace talks could begin.
If it were purely for the sake of the nation, Ning Yi might well have left long ago. But simply to see through the task at hand, he had stayed — because only by doing so could the whole thing possibly succeed.
But war is war, after all, and with things having developed to this point, Ning Yi had already reassessed the situation in front of him countless times. What looked like an evenly matched deadlock, with both sides’ morale strung as taut as a bowstring, might appear to be a stalemate, but in truth, at any moment, either side could collapse without warning. And of the two, the most likely to break, in the end, was still Xia Village’s own defenders. Just how far the morale of those fourteen-thousand-odd men could hold — and even the four thousand elite among them — neither Ning Yi nor Qin Shaoqian could say with any real precision. Guo Yaoshi, on the other hand, might well have a clearer sense of it.
That a general named Long Hui had led over ten thousand men to attempt a relief effort here — simply knowing that such an attempt had been made might lift morale somewhat. But a crushing defeat was, without question, a blow as well. And with things having developed to their current state, once that thousand-odd captives were driven to attack, the balance between morale and numbers might tip in the worst possible direction, and what Xia Village would then face could be the most difficult situation of all.
Anyone with real battlefield experience could, by and large, foresee this possibility. And though the people in this valley had grown considerably over these days of fighting, they hadn’t yet reached the point of being unshakeable. As Ning Yi had once said, dealing with the forces of Mount Liang at the Zhu Family Estate: you yourself might not retreat, but will the people around you have that same confidence? And do you have that same confidence in them? Anyone who came to realize this would inevitably suffer some loss of morale because of it.
Ning Yi couldn’t quite explain all of this to Juan’er. As she walked away, he watched the young woman’s retreating figure, his emotions complicated. As with every life-or-death crisis before this, he had crossed many such thresholds — but standing before each one, he had always wondered, in the back of his mind, whether this might be the last…
He closed his eyes, and for a moment, recalled the faces of Su Tan’er, Yun Zhu, Yuan Jin’er, Xiao Chan, and that woman far away in the southern reaches who went by the name of “Watermelon,” along with a few memories tied to each of them. After a moment, he sighed, and turned to head back inside.
Down below the camp, Mao Yishan returned to the slightly warmer shed and found Qu Qing sharpening his blade. The others who shared this small shelter had not yet returned.
“Damn it… I’d love to eat those bastards alive…”
The screams from the Resentment Army’s camp drifted over faintly. No one spoke inside the shed; only the sound of the blade being sharpened rang out. Mao Yishan sat there, silent for a moment, looking over at Qu Qing.
“Brother Qu, tomorrow… is it going to be bad?”
Because of his injury, Qu Qing had spent the past day or two lying down; in all the time Mao Yishan had known him, he’d never once seen him wear such a grave expression — at least, not when they weren’t fighting, when all he cared about was resting and sleeping soundly. He never sharpened his blade at night.
Qu Qing didn’t answer directly, only kept sharpening in silence for a while. After a moment, he ran a finger along the edge of the blade and exhaled a breath of white mist.
“Won’t be easy. You should sharpen yours too.”
He tossed the whetstone over.
Mao Yishan caught the stone, sat there stunned for a moment, then turned to look through the gaps in the shed wall, where a faint moonlight seemed to be showing in the sky.
The long night gradually passed.
As the sky began to lighten, activity was already stirring in both camps.
“Get them up—”
Amid the crack of whips and shouting, horses galloped through the camp. The gathered mass of over a thousand captives had already begun to be driven up. Since being captured the day before, they had had nothing to eat or drink, and having endured a bitter, freezing night in the depths of winter, those still able to stand were already utterly weakened; some who had collapsed on the ground would never rise again.
The corpses hanging from the flagpoles ahead had, after this freezing night, frozen into ghastly ice sculptures, crimson blood and flesh embedded within the ice.
“Get them up, get them moving! Anyone who can’t stand — finish them off with a blade—”
The Resentment Army had already formed up in ranks; whips cracked from behind the captives, driving them forward. Beyond, at Xia Village’s walls in the distance, rows upon rows of figures stretched out, watching this unfold.
He Can’s teeth chattered, and he began to cry.
He was one of these thousand-odd captives, having originally been a low-ranking soldier under Long Hui. When the Resentment Army struck the day before, of all the units, Long Hui’s own men had suffered the fewest desertions — partly because of Long Hui’s own fight to the death, but mostly because the collapse had simply happened too fast; they had been a step too slow, and were surrounded before they could get away. In the end, few of this group had actually died in battle; most had been surrounded by the Resentment Army afterward and had simply thrown down their weapons and surrendered — after all, they were no supermen, and in such a hopeless situation, surrender was only natural.
Long Hui had fought until his strength gave out entirely; only after his arm was severed had he been captured. He Can hadn’t known this superior officer well, only having seen him, during the subsequent transfer, bound with rope and dragged behind a horse, with Resentment Army soldiers chasing after him, beating him the whole way — and later, tied to that flagpole and whipped to death. He couldn’t quite say what was going through his own mind, only that something had become clear to him: he knew he was about to die.
Supported by those around him, he wept as he walked past those flagpoles, glancing once at Long Hui as he passed. That frozen corpse looked utterly desolate; by the time the Resentment Army had finished with him, his face was already unrecognizable, his eyes gouged out, a mess of blood and flesh — only his mouth remained open, as though still trying to say something. He glanced at it once, then didn’t dare look again.
The wind howled down through the valley; the atmosphere across the valley floor had grown almost solid with tension. Tens of thousands of men stood facing each other, and with every step the group of captives took forward, the distance between the two sides continued to shrink. Before the Resentment Army’s ranks, Guo Yaoshi sat solemnly on horseback, waiting to see how the other side would respond. On the platform within Xia Village, Ning Yi, Qin Shaoqian, and the others watched all of this with grave expressions as well, a handful of officers and messengers moving through the crowd. A little further back, the archers had already nocked their final arrows.
Time seemed to flow past before everyone’s eyes.
The turn of events came from a place few had anticipated.
Across the entire battle line, the stretch where the thousand-odd captives were being driven forward was the only place that still showed any real commotion — mostly the shouted curses of the Resentment Army soldiers behind them, cracking their whips, driving the captives on, while occasionally drawing their long blades to finish off, one by one, any who could no longer rise from the ground. Some of these were already dead; others still had a breath of life left, but were finished off all the same, the smell of blood spreading through the air as it always did.
He Can felt someone tug at his hand — it was the tall companion who had been walking beside him this whole time, who had suddenly stopped.
Since being captured, these soldiers had all had their weapons confiscated and had been given neither water nor food; as for other restraints, they’d simply had their hands bound with a length of rope — a restraint with limited real effect on soldiers, except that most of them no longer dared resist at all.
He Can heard the tall man say, “I’m not walking any further.”
Then, a mournful voice called out from off to the side, ahead: “Don’t go any further!”
Warhorses charged past, and then came a flash of blades; someone fell. A Resentment Army cavalryman shouted: “Walk! Anyone who dares stop, dies—!”
Most of the crowd was still moving forward. He Can heard the sound of arrows; a shaft flew past, and the tall man fell. “Walk—”
Amid that roaring shout, another voice suddenly rang out — this time, high and clear: “Brothers! Ahead are our own men! We can’t help them, and we won’t be the ones dragging them down any longer—”
After this cry, chaos and slaughter erupted. The Resentment Army soldiers pressed forward from behind, and their entire main formation began advancing as well; pulling, struggling, falling, and dying became more and more frequent. He Can stumbled forward, swaying, through the crowd. Not far off, the tall flagpoles and the corpses hanging from them swayed in his field of vision as well.
At the moment chaos broke out, Guo Yaoshi gave the order to advance. At Xia Village, Ning Yi rushed forward a few steps and climbed the watchtower at the edge of the platform; the next instant, he shouted something down below. Qin Shaoqian froze for a moment, then suddenly threw up his hand as well. On horseback not far off, Yue Fei raised his spear.
At the edge of the camp, Mao Yishan stood behind the wall, watching that slaughter unfold from a distance, the hand gripping his blade trembling, his jaw clenched so tight it ached. Great numbers of captives had simply stopped moving right where they stood, some weeping, some crying out, pressing back toward the butchers’ blades behind them. But there was nothing to be done about any of it — the moment these people drew close to the camp, their own archers would have no choice but to shoot them down. And it was at this very moment that he saw warhorses charging past from the rear-side.
A voice rang out.
“All ranks, form up, prepare—”
“You’ve all seen it—” someone shouted from atop the watchtower.
Countless mounted messengers waved flags and galloped off in every direction!
“Those are our own countrymen! They’re being slaughtered by those bastards! What are we going to do about it—”
“Those cowardly scum from the north! Coming to our land, killing our families, seizing what’s ours! Everyone, it’s come to this! There’s no more road left to walk—”
Mao Yishan listened to that voice, feeling the stirring of the entire valley, and suddenly understood something. Dragging his blade, hand trembling, eyes red, he turned to his comrade beside him with a grin. “Hahaha… hahaha…” That laugh was manic and strange — perhaps this was a moment unlike any Mao Yishan had ever experienced in his life; never before this had he ever felt such a fevered, burning desire to kill the enemy. When those captives had been driven forward, he’d known in his heart that all his side could do was hold the line — but at this very moment, the men above had made the opposite decision.
Above, the great commander’s banner, streaming in the wind, had begun to move.
He Can staggered forward toward the Resentment Army soldiers swinging their blades. He was one of the survivors of this battle — when the long blade severed his arm, he passed out, and in that instant, his mind, oddly enough, thought: now I’m the same as General Long.
Back on that earlier battlefield, when everyone had been surrounded by the Resentment Army’s cavalry, that blood-soaked general had shouted in despair: “We’ve lost, we’ve lost… don’t let yourselves be used—” He had, faintly, heard those words.
In the moment before he lost consciousness, he heard, from behind him, a sound like a mountain torrent, like an earthquake.
Every wooden gate throughout the Xia Village camp swung open at once, thundering; along one stretch, soldiers had torn down a section of the crumbling wall. In this moment, every weakness of theirs was laid bare. Guo Yaoshi’s warhorse paused for a moment; he raised a hand, about to give some order.
“Today, right here! They have no need to think of going back! Brothers—”
That voice rumbled like thunder: “Let’s devour them—”
On the eastern side of the camp, the blade of Yue Fei’s spear gleamed with a dark, bloodthirsty light as he strode out through the gate.
On the southeastern side of the camp, an officer named He Zhicheng climbed atop the wall, drew his long saber, tossed aside its sheath, and, turning back, said: “Kill!”
At the main gate, blade-and-shield formations lined up; the officer at the front sat his horse, saber leveled: “Ready!”
Pang Liu’an directed his soldiers in tearing down a section of the wall; outside lay piles of corpses, and he stepped over them as he advanced. Behind him, some poured out through the breach, others scaled over the wall, spreading out in every direction.
On the western side, Liu Chengzong roared: “Kill—”
“KILL!!!!!!”
That furious roar surged like a bursting dam, shaking the entire mountain valley in an instant; the clouds in the sky seemed to freeze in place, and tens of thousands of men, arrayed along the sprawling battle line, faced off against each other. The Ever-Victorious Army hesitated for a moment, and then Xia Village’s defenders surged forward toward them with the force of a thundering avalanche.
On this day, the more than eighteen thousand men who had once gathered in this valley finally completed their transformation. At the very least, in this one moment, as Mao Yishan gripped his blade, eyes burning red, and charged toward the enemy, what would decide victory or defeat had already become something that lay beyond the edge of any blade.
Arrows flew feebly across the sky; and before long, the two armies crashed together in the most savage clash imaginable…