The chaos still hadn’t settled; hanging faintly in the air was the smell of blood.
The eighteenth of the sixth month, afternoon, Yanzhou city—columns of smoke rising.
It was still the height of summer; bright sunlight poured down, and the shadows of trees swayed clearly along the streets of the city. Amid the cicadas’ droning, the sound of fighting and killing spread unchecked through the streets. Common folk barred their doors, waiting anxiously at home for how things would unfold. But some, with blood still hot in their veins, took up blades and clubs, called on a few neighbors, and went out to hunt down the Western Xia soldiers.
Yanzhou had been governed by the Western Army for many years, and its people still carried some of that fighting spirit; when they could do nothing, they had had no choice but to hide in humiliation—but now that an army had fought its way into the city, there was, after all, courage enough in them to follow in its wake and vent their fury.
There was also a white-haired old woman who opened her courtyard gate, brought out a bucket of well water and a few dates, and stood there trembling, waiting to offer food and drink to the soldiers who came through, handing them out to anyone who passed. “Are these the heavenly troops? Has Lord Zhong come back?” she kept asking.
A soldier pointed to the black banner behind him. “We are from the Little Cang River—the army of China!”
The old woman perhaps didn’t quite understand, but her eyes had already filled with tears. “My children… they’re already dead. They were killed by them…” When the Western Xia had come, the army had massacred the city, and after half a year of rule since, more than a household or two had been reduced to nothing but widows, orphans, and the childless.
The small squad of soldiers that encountered her paused for a moment, stunned, then swept onward to reinforce the street fighting.
One unit ran down a street and paused briefly at a small plaza at its end; some men, gasping for breath, sat down against the wall by the roadside. This was the Second Company, First Battalion, Second Regiment of the Army of China; Mao Yishan was among them, drenched in sweat from the fighting—he’d only rinsed off with river water at noon, and was already half-covered in blood again. His hand, bound to the hilt of his steel blade, trembled slightly as he finally untied it.
Platoon leader Hou Wu was in somewhat better shape. Not far off was Qu Qing, stripped to the waist, who had moved with them the whole way. His skin was dark and taut, muscles knotted, a bandage wrapped from his left shoulder across to his right ribs, now likewise caked in blood and dust. He stood there, mouth slightly open, working to steady his breath, blade still in his right hand. His left hand reached out and snatched the wooden ladle from a bucket a soldier was carrying, took a drink, then poured the rest over his head.
“Ha ha… that feels good—”
Everyone knew he’d once commanded troops, that he was steady and reserved by nature, not one to make a show of himself. But now this man’s right hand trembled slightly as he let out that shout—even amid overwhelming exhaustion, it came straight from the heart, an excitement he couldn’t hold back.
Behind him, others suddenly burst out as well: “That’s right!”
“That’s how you fight! That’s exactly how you fight—”
“So satisfying!”
Their voices carried a slight tremor, a mixture of enormous excitement, exuberance, and exhaustion all at once.
Ahead, more men were still charging past in the distance, spirits high, hungry for more.
Ever since setting out from the mountains the day before, the Black Banner Army’s overall speed of advance had been staggering—so fast that even the officers and soldiers within the army itself found it astonishing. Sun Tzu’s Art of War speaks of moving as swiftly as the wind, invading like fire—easy to say, but for an army to actually achieve it is another matter entirely. Yet from the day before, the Black Banner Army had burst from the mountains, and at the strategic level, the whole campaign had come down like a single blade stroke—reckless of life, unstoppable in its advance.
Whatever the scale of the engagement, whatever it touched, it shattered!
In the hearts of the many soldiers and officers, this battle had never once been treated lightly. Nearly a year of shared pressure, of gradually building identification with those around them, had let them charge out of the mountains without a shred of hesitation—but the Western Xia was no soft target either. With no other option, over nine thousand men had charged out together to deal the enemy a crushing blow; but for themselves, such an action was bound to be a near-certain death sentence. And yet, charging out with just that resolve to die, within two days they had routed tens of thousands of enemy troops one after another, storming straight into Yanzhou without pause—so much so that not a few in the army began to wonder whether they’d simply been running into nothing but Western Xia’s rabble troops.
Only a man like Qu Qing could truly understand what kind of martial spirit this represented. He had once commanded troops of the Wu Dynasty, wiped out entirely under the pursuit of Jurchen cavalry; later, at Xia Village, he had watched this very army fight its way, against all odds, to victory over the Grievance Army; then came the rebellion, and a year of pressure and tempering at the Little Cang River—all of which had given them something almost too powerful to bear.
No amount of harsh training could double or triple a person’s physical stamina. And yet, when thousands of men crash together like a raging tide, the single stroke of the blade delivered at the instant of contact is what determines just how formidable an army truly is. The Western Xia were far from weak—they formed ranks according to their training, and when engaging the enemy, swung blade and thrust spear exactly as drilled. But the men on his own side had, as their overriding thought, only this: cut down the enemy in front of them with a single stroke—not just cut them down, but try to force through and shatter whatever stood in their way.
Many believed that in the instant of head-on collision, whether a soldier caught up among thousands could kill or survive depended purely on training and luck—and for most armies, that was indeed the case. But in truth, once training reached a certain level, a soldier’s hunger for the kill, his fervor, and the clarity of mind that coexisted with it, could still determine the outcome of that instant of engagement.
When, in that same instant, one side loses eight men and the other loses only two, that gap alone is enough to bring about earth-shattering consequences. In battles like this, victory or defeat comes down to nothing more than the casualties in the front two or three ranks of the formation; when those two or three ranks collapse too quickly, the ranks behind them get shoved forward and swept along into an avalanche of total rout.
Of course, soldiers like this are exceedingly difficult to forge. But having gone through a year at the Little Cang River, Qu Qing knew that—at least in this moment—the men gathered around him were exactly that kind of soldier.
His arm trembled slightly now, hot blood still surging in his chest. With comrades like these around him, what would have happened years ago facing the Grievance Army, or facing the Jurchen, was now barely more than a faint, wistful thought. But what would happen going forward—there was, by now, hardly any doubt left in his mind.
“Whose blade hasn’t drawn blood yet?”
“None!”
“Then… the battle’s not over yet. Have you all had your fill of killing!?”
“No—”
After a brief rest, the men rose again, their spirits soaring!
With a boom, the gate was thrown open, and the one-eyed general in the black eyepatch and black cloak strode forward without slowing, flanked by his guard detail. Along the path, through the courtyards, Western Xia banners lay toppled, corpses strewn everywhere. The great balloon drifted overhead.
Further ahead, in a courtyard filled with carts, clearly the site of fierce earlier fighting, one cart was still burning. Soldiers of the Army of China carried buckets of water, dousing the flames; many had gathered there, most bearing some amount of blood on them, surrounded by rows of storehouses. Chen Tuozi wiped the blood from his face with a wet towel and walked over. Sweat and even more of his enemies’ blood had long since mingled on his body, congealing into a foul odor.
To the enemy, that smell might well have been true terror itself.
“General, Jila Saile was caught completely off guard—he never had time to arrange for the grain to be burned on a large scale. Most of what’s inside now is newly harvested wheat, along with the Western Xia’s earlier military stores.”
The storehouse doors were thrown open, revealing sack after sack piled up like small hills before them. Qin Shaoqian glanced over. “And the other granaries?”
“All secured.”
The greatest problem facing the Little Cang River had always been a lack of grain. Chen Tuozi and his men had been lying in wait within Yanzhou for months, and had long since scouted out the locations of the granaries. Once the north gate was breached, the top priority for several elite units had been to seize these storehouses. The Western Xia, ever certain of their superiority, had never even considered burning the grain.
“The fighting in the city needs to wrap up quickly, but there will still be plenty of Western Xia soldiers left scattered around Yanzhou—we don’t have time to stay and clean them out. You’ve spent months here; you’ve already made contact with the locals, haven’t you?”
The fighting in the city had not yet died down. Qin Shaoqian glanced over as he spoke, walking outward as he did. Chen Tuozi, a man of the underworld by background, blinked his small eyes, sinister and bloodthirsty. “There are some local gangs willing to lend a hand—some with conditions attached, heh heh…”
“Never mind the conditions. Leave your men here, and I’ll have the Fifth Regiment leave you another two hundred men. Gather up the wounded from this campaign here in Yanzhou, and keep watch over these granaries. The main army will take five days’ worth of provisions; everything else can wait until we’re back.”
Chen Tuozi blinked. “Is the army continuing on? General, I’d like to come along and fight. Yanzhou’s settled—there’s not much point in staying behind.”
The two of them were walking out together by now. Qin Shaoqian turned back and clapped him on the shoulder. “This place needs someone who can hold things steady. You’ve followed Brother Ning for a long time, and you’ve spent months here in Yanzhou—no one puts my mind more at ease than you. We’re using speed against their slowness; taking Yanzhou worked because we caught them off guard, but taking Yanzhou alone means nothing—what comes next is the real point of no return. If anything goes wrong, having you here as a base to fall back on will help.”
The words were simple, but carried enormous weight. Chen Tuozi nodded and clasped his hands in salute; Qin Shaoqian swung up onto his horse and returned the gesture. “Brother Chen, take care.”
“Take care yourself, General. All of you, take care.”
Within Yanzhou, blood flowed and the marks of battle lay scattered everywhere. Large numbers of Western Xia soldiers were now retreating in rout from the city’s western and southwestern sides, with pursuing Army of China soldiers pouring out after them continuously. In the hills northwest of the city, a whirlpool of fighting still raged on; Jila Saile’s command banner had already fallen, yet the units pursuing him charged on like mad tigers—from the moment they’d entered the city, these units had driven straight for his main formation, and even now they clung to him without letting go.
Because expectations had been set so high before the campaign began, many of the Black Banner Army’s soldiers, both inside and outside Yanzhou, still felt they hadn’t killed enough—especially among the officers of the army, for whom a certain segment of the younger Little Cang River soldiers held an enormous, almost irresistible pull: after all, the spiritual leader of the Little Cang River had killed an emperor.
A handful of personal guards and a large mass of routed soldiers surrounded Jila Saile. The Western Xia general stood there clutching his spear, his chest tight with suppressed pain and stifled breath. This army that had swept down from the mountains was one he had never encountered before. Even now, standing at this final moment, part of him still felt dazed—in a mere two days, the world had turned upside down, tens of thousands of troops routed, the enemy as ravenous as wolves and tigers. From an objective standpoint, he could understand the reasons for his defeat, yet still, he could not bring himself to truly comprehend it.
The gap in fighting strength had simply been too vast. In the instant of contact, the ferocity the enemy suddenly unleashed had already far exceeded what any ordinary army could withstand. There had been nothing wrong with his own command, nothing wrong with his strategy, nothing wrong with the defensive plans laid out beforehand—it was simply that no plan had ever been prepared for something this far outside common sense.
It was much like the disparity in fighting strength between Jurchen soldiers and those of the Wu Dynasty. Once Wu Dynasty commanders had accepted the reality of Jurchen strength, they could at least trade blows evenly when facing Jurchen forces. But if, from the very start, both sides had been measured as equals, then a single head-on clash would have been enough to send any number of Wu Dynasty troops crashing down like a landslide.
Here in the northwest, the Western Xia army already held the advantage; even facing the Zhe family army, a head-on clash was hardly a bad bet. Who could have predicted that a force this far beyond reason would suddenly leap out from the mountains?
Overwhelming chaos swept over everything; faintly, the sun on the horizon had already taken on an orange-yellow tinge, and the sounds of fighting and killing drew ever closer. In his last glimpses, he saw, not far off, a young officer drenched entirely in red, cutting his way through a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, shouting at the top of his lungs: “That’s mine—” Then, turning his head slightly, he saw someone raise a steel blade and bring it down on him from above—
Yanzhou. The Western Xia’s Ganzhou-Gansu Military Command, led by Jila Saile, had held out on this stretch of northwestern land for only two days. On the afternoon of the eighteenth of the sixth month, Yanzhou fell, and the Western Xia’s great army scattered like a tide swept apart. And this sudden force that had leapt from the mountains, moving with such reckless fury, had by now completed only the first half of its plan.
…
Boom—crash—
Lightning split the gloomy curtain of rain; amid the downpour, the rumble of thunder rolled in.
On the twentieth of the sixth month, the valley of the Little Cang River lay shrouded beneath a torrential storm.
In the small courtyard halfway up the mountainside, oil lamps had been lit inside the house, and in the courtyard people still hurried back and forth amid the general commotion. Yun Zhu sat by the door holding her daughter, watching the rain, when she caught the sound of voices carrying from next door.
“…To speak of transforming this world’s old customs sounds fine, and to say we should let the people understand also sounds fine. But if it could truly be done, do you think no one would have tried it these past years? What would it even look like… Your army at the Little Cang River is indeed impressive—you can give them back their fighting spirit, let them indulge one moment of bravery, but how will you govern them afterward? Being able to fight for oneself—do you call that being reasonable? Do you think there’s a single scholar who doesn’t wish to bring people to understand reason…”
“…And besides, bringing people to understand reason isn’t something reading alone can accomplish. You said it yourself—that the Zuo family’s descendants are unworthy. Which family’s descendants are all good? Are they all merely spoiled by their elders!? Which of the Zuo family’s children can’t read? Is my family’s discipline not strict enough? Failing to understand reason, thinking oneself always right—nine times out of ten, that’s how it goes, even in my family, a family of scholars for generations. I dare say that even if you truly gave the whole world books to read, not one in ten would come to understand reason!”
“…Confucianism is a circle! This circle may be hard to change, but it can certainly be expanded gradually—it simply cannot be transformed overnight! You want to pursue the investigation of things, so you turn against Confucianism? How many issues does that involve? You want people to understand reason—what books will you even give them to read? Will you write them yourself, you impudent child!? They’ll still have to read the Analects, still have to read the words of the sages. Once they’ve read them, will you really stop them from believing? I’ll grant you this much—even if one day there really were a body of learning that could bring people to understand reason while being distinct from Confucianism, and Confucianism gave way to that gap between itself and this non-Confucian thing—what would you fill it with? If you can’t fill it, then all you’re doing is talking empty nonsense—”
After the chaotic battle in the valley the day before, Li Pin had left, but Zuo Duanyou had stayed behind. Now, amid the thunderstorm, the old man’s words rang out sharp and clear; Ning Yi, listening, couldn’t help but nod, though he frowned as well…
…
In the heartland of Yuanzhou, at the Western Xia army’s camp, Lou Shuwan stepped out of her tent and noticed unusual activity in the camp—Tangut noble officers hurrying past, speaking urgently among themselves. When she asked a nearby attendant who understood the Western Xia language, he frowned. “It seems… they’re saying His Majesty the Emperor has been injured…”
Lou Shuwan’s heart jumped. She frowned, then quickened her steps and hurried over, catching hold of a young officer she’d already come to know. “What happened? Has His Majesty… been attacked?”
“No, His Majesty overturned his own table and got a minor injury on his hand,” the officer said, glancing around. “A battle report came in from Yanzhou.”
“Yanzhou?”
“Jila Saile…” The officer was about to elaborate, then suddenly recalled who this woman was and some of the things she’d said before. “…What you mentioned before—that band of bandits in the mountains—they’ve made a move.”
“…Ning Yi?” Lou Shuwan actually froze for a moment before getting the name out, then her eyes went wide. “The people from the Little Cang River?”
“Four days ago, they charged out of the mountains east of Yanzhou—about ten thousand of them in total—straight at Yanzhou. Jila Saile couldn’t hold them back.”
“…They bypassed Yanzhou? Where are they headed?”
“They attacked Yanzhou head-on and took the city in half a day…” Lou Shuwan’s eyes widened in shock as the officer relayed this almost mythical news. Wind swept over the camp, and the whole world seemed to take on a desolate air. Lou Shuwan was stunned at first, then fell into thought. She wanted to say, “I knew he’d make some kind of move”—and indeed she had vaguely expected as much—only she hadn’t imagined it would take this particular form. That man had never been one to simply sit and wait for death.
But what truly stunned her to the very core, what made the air of the entire world feel, for a moment, as though it had vanished into unreality, came from the next, almost offhand question she asked.
…
She asked, “And after taking Yanzhou—then what? Are they…”
The officer answered her question.