Boom—

Rain fell, lightning splitting across the overcast sky.

In early summer, the mountainous region around Lüliang and Hengshan was already blanketed by heavy rain, the crisscrossing mountain gaps, low trees, shrubs, and bare earth and stone all shrouded in a gray downpour.

A small band of figures, looking almost insignificant, moved slowly through the heavy rain along the mountainside.

The mountain paths near the main range of Lüliang were difficult to travel, and in many places, no path could be found at all. The group making their way through the mountains now numbered around thirty or forty people, most carrying loads on shoulder poles, all wearing straw raincoats, their burdens heavy — they looked like traveling merchants.

The northwest was a desolate land with a fierce local temperament, but during the years when the Western Army had held the frontier, there had at least been roads to travel. Back then, to gather supplies for the border, the court’s method had been to have border residents deliver their annual grain quota directly to the army camps, which meant travel throughout the northwest had remained fairly convenient. But now, with the Western Xia sweeping back in, having already broken several major cities once held by the Zhong family’s army — with massacres occurring more than once — conditions beyond one’s immediate area had grown far more complicated.

Qin Youshi was the leader of this group. He was originally a merchant from northwest of Pingyang; at the end of the previous year, he’d gone to the Bao’an Army region to sell winter clothing, bringing along some valuable goods like private salt, intending to trade for merchandise at the border to bring back. The Western Xia’s attack on Yanzhou had cut him off along the road, and though heavy snow had begun sealing the mountain passes, the chaos of war to the east made retreat equally impossible. He’d been stranded in a nearby village for months, and by now, the entire northwest region had fallen into utter disarray.

The fighting spread and kept expanding. Not long before, Qin Youshi had heard that General Zhong Lie had returned to fight, only to be defeated again by the Western Xia’s Iron Kites. The Western Army’s soldiers had scattered, and the Western Xia forces were now rampaging everywhere. Having seen many people fleeing after cities fell, and having asked around for a while, he finally decided to risk heading east.

The situation in the Central Plains was even more chaotic — word had it the Jurchens had broken through Bianliang and rampaged there for months, leaving the capital in ruins, and now the Western Xia had pushed past Hengshan as well; the realm was about to undergo some great upheaval. Though most refugees had begun fleeing west and south, Qin Youshi and his group couldn’t do the same. Pingyang, Gengzhou, and similar places lay to the east, and though the Western Xia hadn’t yet reached that far.

Their families were still there, after all.

The northwest was a land beset by war on all sides, but ever since the Western Army had grown strong, the region where they lived had known relative peace for many years. Now, with the Western Xia coming, no one knew how they’d treat the local people — whether fleeing or submitting as loyal subjects, either way, they had to get back to their families first.

The Western Xia army had broken through Qingjian, Yanzhou, and other places, and was now beginning to press outward toward the surrounding areas — but the northwest was, after all, a vast region, and even now the Western Xia couldn’t hold every inch of it. As the snow melted and the ice thawed, more and more people began fleeing their homes on a large scale, heading in every direction — south, north, east, and west. Qin Youshi, after asking around, gathered up the considerable stock of goods he’d stored over the winter and set out east with his fellow merchants. By this point, quite a few Western Xia troops were already active to the east, and the group had to move cautiously and slowly, dodging as they went. Later, wanting to risk a shortcut through mountains that were normally difficult to pass, they encountered the two strange young men now walking at the head of the group.

To go back to the beginning: this northwest region had benefited greatly from the Western Army, especially the Zhong family, and the men of the northwest, grateful for that protection, were people of considerable backbone. When the invading armies came, cities like Qingjian and Yanzhou had all put up fierce, desperate resistance. Though it ultimately came to nothing, even as routed soldiers and refugees scattered in every direction, quite a few righteous men had organized themselves, determined to fight the Western Xia forces to the last.

And so, over that winter, among the fleeing refugees, no end of stories and legends about these righteous men had begun to spread — someone had died fighting Western Xia foot-soldiers while fleeing, someone else had refused to leave and died together with their city, someone else had gathered several hundred good men determined to fight the Western Xia head-on. These stories, true or false, included one that was rather peculiar.

It was said that after Qingjian and Yanzhou fell and the refugees scattered, with Western Xia troops pursuing and plundering along the way, a force had emerged from the mountains to cover the refugees’ escape. In that winter of deep snow sealing the mountains, they had even helped some refugees who had nothing left at all, giving them a bit of grain to help them flee. In truth, whether deserters or righteous men of the martial world, doing such things wasn’t especially strange in itself — what made this particular group strange was this: they had people write down two characters.

According to the story, after this group rescued people, they would say all sorts of odd things to them — the gist of it being something like, we are all children of Huaxia, and ought to look out for and help one another. That much was upright and proper enough, nothing so unusual. But after saying this, they would often bring out a notebook and have the person write down the two characters “Huaxia.” If someone couldn’t write, that was fine too — they’d teach them how.

Just imagine: after a city falls, on a snow-piled mountain range, an army rescues refugees, and then has them use tree branches to write two characters in the snow — however you look at it, it’s a strange scene indeed. But that’s how rumors in this world tend to go — vague, murky, unclear — and in such circumstances, people make up all sorts of nonsense that’s rarely reliable. Qin Youshi had heard this story vaguely, twice, and dismissed it as something someone had made up. Though he later heard other versions too — claiming this army belonged to the Wu Dynasty rebels, or that it was the direct descendants of the Zhong family, or the Zhe family’s forces, and so on — he’d never bothered to look into it further.

But just as they were about to enter the mountains, they happened to merge with a group of fleeing refugees, and two men, seeing them asking about the mountain paths, came over, offering to guide them. Qin Youshi wasn’t new to traveling abroad, and he understood well enough the principle that unsolicited kindness usually meant either a trap or ill intent. Yet in the course of their conversation, the young man leading the pair suddenly asked: “Can you read? Do you know how to write the characters for Huaxia?”

Qin Youshi immediately recalled that rumor.

With Western Xia forces blocking off the main roads all around at the time, Qin Youshi didn’t have many options left. Though he didn’t verbally agree, once they entered the mountains, the two groups did end up crossing paths again. Qin Youshi’s men were all northwestern types accustomed to traveling these lands, most of them armed, so he had everyone stay on guard; after a few encounters with the other side, the two groups eventually ended up traveling together.

For Qin Youshi, this was, in the end, a gamble born of necessity — he wanted to get home, had no guide on short notice, and couldn’t possibly wander these desolate mountains with his whole group for months on end. Recalling those rumors, he sensed these two didn’t seem like the type of bandits who’d lure travelers into the mountains only to rob them. After some conversation, he learned the two had ties to Green Wood Stockade.

Green Wood Stockade in the Lüliang mountains had a certain reputation among merchants in the northwest. But the young man leading the pair seemed to be an outsider, going by the name Zhuo Xiaofeng, carrying a broadsword on his back, ordinarily amiable and talkative. Piecing together their conversation with the scattered rumors he’d heard before, Qin Youshi began putting together some clues in his mind.

In the latter half of the previous year, rebels had murdered the emperor and raised an army in revolt; though the northwest hadn’t been greatly affected by it, it seemed this army had indeed entered these very mountains. It must have been them who came out during the winter, clashing with the Western Xia forces several times and rescuing people along the way. Understanding this much, Qin Youshi felt somewhat reassured — where he might once have felt some wariness upon hearing about the regicide rebels, he found himself hardly afraid of them at all now.

The two groups traveled on together, with the Green Wood Stockade man serving as guide, walking up front alongside the young man named Zhuo Xiaofeng, while Qin Youshi followed alongside, chatting with them. This stretch was the most desolate section where the western range of Lüliang met Hengshan, the terrain rugged and, with the heavy rain now falling, even harder to traverse. When the group reached a stretch of wild ridge, Qin Youshi, squinting across the ravine, noticed that though the terrain on the far side looked difficult too, there seemed to be a faint path running through it — much easier going than their current route.

Wariness rising in his heart, he looked over that way and asked cautiously, “There seems to be a small path over there.”

The Green Wood Stockade guide nodded readily enough. “Mm, that side is closer, originally.” “Then why…”

“We fought the Western Xia there before.” Zhuo Xiaofeng answered this one, pointing toward both ends of that mountain path. “A few months ago, Western Xia foot-soldiers chased us to that spot. Our forces blew up both ends of the path — the snow above collapsed down, and the ravine below is full of bodies now. That mountainside is unstable these days, very unsafe.”

Qin Youshi felt a jolt of alarm. “Western Xia?”

“Western Xia foot-soldiers. Very hard to deal with.” Zhuo Xiaofeng nodded. Qin Youshi looked at that hazy mountainside through the downpour, and indeed there were signs of recent disturbance. Looking down into the ravine, he saw only roaring floodwater rushing through the heavy rain, everything else obscured.

In this region, the Western Army and the Western Xia had clashed frequently over the years, and those with wide experience were generally familiar with the Western Xia forces. The Iron Kites were unmatched in a frontal charge, but in the mountains of the northwest, what people feared most were the Western Xia’s elite foot-soldiers — these infantry, handpicked from among the mountain peoples, moved across ridges and through gorges as easily as flat ground. Refugees fleeing might still find some way to hide in the mountains from the Iron Kites, but if they encountered the foot-soldiers, there was nowhere they could outrun them. And these soldiers’ combat strength was roughly on par with what the Western Army itself had once possessed — now that the Western Army had scattered, no one in the northwest could stand against these foot-soldiers any longer.

As for the origins of this “Huaxia” army, Qin Youshi had already harbored some suspicions, though he hadn’t thought too deeply about it. Thinking it over now, this army — having murdered the emperor and risen in rebellion, having come to the northwest — clearly wasn’t some group of pushovers either, holding their own against the Western Xia’s elite foot-soldiers in these mountains, even gaining the upper hand. The young man spoke of it so lightly, yet inwardly, Qin Youshi felt a quiet shock.

Just then, thunder rumbled across the sky. As the group pressed forward, they heard a great roaring crash from ahead, and the mountain seemed to tremble faintly. On the slope across the ravine, earth and stone surged through the hazy rain, and in an instant turned into a churning river of mud, thundering down along the mountain’s contours. This mudslide poured continuously into the deep ravine right before their eyes; below, the floodwater collided with the earth and rock, rising rapidly, the muddy water churning and surging violently in every direction. Watching from the mountainside above in the pouring rain, the group could only feel the overwhelming, crushing force of nature, and how utterly insignificant they themselves were by comparison.

The mudslide continued before their eyes for a long while before finally settling. It was likely that the explosion from a few months earlier, which had triggered the avalanche, had loosened the slope, and it had only now given way under the soaking rain. Having witnessed this, the group grew noticeably more cautious as they continued on, and talked less among themselves. The party wound its way through the mountains, and by evening that day, the rain had finally stopped — by which point they had already entered the main range of the Lüliang Mountains.

This stretch of territory was already close to Green Wood Stockade’s own range, and thanks to the trade routes previously established, it hadn’t suffered much disruption from the fighting; the road ahead was no longer especially difficult. Zhuo Xiaofeng and the Green Wood Stockade man took their leave of Qin Youshi here. Seeing the two of them, having helped so much, ready to simply and cleanly take their leave, Qin Youshi instead grew flustered. He pulled out two dried deer legs from among his goods to offer as payment, only to see Zhuo Xiaofeng pull out paper and brush from within his robe. “Master Qin can write, I take it?”

“What do you mean, Young Master Zhuo…”

“The children of Huaxia are all one family. In times like these, with everything so unsettled, we ought to look out for and help one another. We happened to travel this road together with Master Qin — that’s fate enough. It was no trouble at all, just a small thing. Of course, if Master Qin really feels the need to repay us, just write two characters in this notebook.” Seeing Qin Youshi still hesitating, he smiled and opened the notebook, revealing page after page of crooked, uneven characters for “Huaxia.” “Of course, it’s just two characters — no need to leave your name, just something to remember it by. If Master Qin should run into any trouble in the future, just remember these two characters — if there’s anything we can do to help, we’ll do our best.”

Qin Youshi hesitated only briefly before laughing and picking up the brush to write in the notebook, though a question lingered in his mind. He could understand people doing good deeds hoping for reward, and people doing good deeds without expecting anything back — but what exactly was this supposed to mean? If you’d received a kindness, writing your name down would make sense as a kind of pledge — but not even leaving a name, just writing “Huaxia” in bold, upright characters — what good did that actually accomplish?

Still, he was a man with some foresight. After writing the two characters, he still insisted on handing over the deer legs, but the other two firmly refused to accept them. By now it was already growing late, so the group found a place to make camp for the night, and Qin Youshi warmly invited the two men to stay, preparing a rather generous meal of meat, and asking Zhuo Xiaofeng and the others about how things might unfold from here.

This trip west had originally been for business, but with the Jurchens having swept through, some of the valuable goods he’d originally acquired were now essentially worthless — this trip was plainly going to be a loss. But a loss wasn’t such a big deal in itself; what mattered most now was where to go from here. This army could hold its own against the Western Xia — its reputation might not be the best, but forming a good connection with them couldn’t hurt; who knew whether he might need their help someday?

Over this half-night of conversation, the other side proved quite forthcoming, laying out for Qin Youshi an analysis of the difficulties that lay ahead. With the Jurchens running rampant and the Western Xia pressing in from the south, there was no way the old prosperous days north of the Yellow River were coming back anytime soon — though ordinary people wouldn’t necessarily be wiped out entirely either. The Wu Dynasty had once been fairly prosperous, and various wealthy households still had some surplus grain even now, but within a year or two, once the Jurchens and Western Xia moved to consolidate their hold over this land, keeping only enough grain to survive on would be practically inviting death. Being a merchant himself, he might do well to adapt — stay active, and seek shelter under some larger power.

Something like Green Wood Stockade in the Lüliang Mountains, tucked away in its mountain hollow, wasn’t something they’d recommend outright — but for now, Green Wood Stockade still maintained a few surviving trade routes with the Jurchens. The precious goods and valuables he was bringing back might be of little use in these chaotic times, but Green Wood Stockade might be able to help him transship them; and the mountains would surely be short on grain, so if he had surplus, it might not be a bad idea to trade some of it for weapons to protect himself. Of course, this was all just a passing suggestion.

Qin Youshi wasn’t a man without opinions of his own; he took what was said only as something to consider. By the next morning, the two parties bid each other farewell and went their separate ways. Qin Youshi watched the two figures head north, thinking again of the characters for “Huaxia” he’d written the day before, finding this whole group of people truly peculiar.

…

After parting ways with Qin Youshi, Zhuo Xiaofeng and the Green Wood Stockade man named Tan Rong made their way back along the rugged mountain path. Once they could see, from a distance, the mountainside where the earth had collapsed, they turned back toward the northwest.

By afternoon, they caught sight from the ridgeline of the outline of Small Azure River in the distance — the river winding swift and sinuous, stretching toward a mountain pass where traces of a dam could be seen in the distance, a watchtower standing beside it. In the rugged valley between the two mountains, a small group of figures could be faintly seen moving together — children from the Small Azure River settlement, out gathering wild greens.

Sunlight filtered down through the white clouds overhead; the wilderness lay desolate, with only the occasional rustle of wind breaking the silence, as Zhuo Xiaofeng and Tan Rong made their way down the mountain path.