In the sixth month of the second year of Jingping in the Wu Dynasty, the state of the realm had entered a period of temporary stability and recovery.
Having taken Bian Liang and hauled off great quantities of slaves and resources to the north, the Jurchen were now occupied with absorbing and organizing these gains. Zhang Bangchang, the “Great Chu” emperor the Jurchen had forced onto the throne, dared not covet the imperial seat for himself; once the Jurchen departed, he abandoned Bian Liang along with a great many court officials and fled south, intending to select a new emperor from among the remaining Wu Dynasty imperial clan.
The Jurchen’s departure did nothing to settle the situation to the north—the lands north of the Yellow River were now in utter turmoil. Many Wu Dynasty commoners, sensing that something was deeply wrong, began fleeing south with their families, though the ripening wheat somewhat slowed their departure.
As for the great households north of the Yellow River, those who could leave, left; those who couldn’t began scheming and planning for the future. Some allied themselves with nearby armies; others began raising their own military forces, building private militias for self-preservation. Among these efforts, some were for private gain and some for the public good, but most sprang from sheer desperation. Various local powers of one kind or another gradually took shape across the northern land, with the court turning a blind eye to it all.
Anyone could see that, after the Jurchen’s two southward campaigns and the fall of Bian Liang, the Wu Dynasty no longer held any real control over the region south of Yanmen Pass and north of the Yellow River. It might command lip service for a time, but once the Jurchen came, the courage of the local armies and the hearts of the people there had already been broken beyond any hope of a stand.
The wheat was about to be harvested, and the rice was nearly ready as well. The soon-to-be-crowned emperor had become the new hope in the hearts of the common people. After such a great humiliation for the Wu Dynasty, everyone hoped he would select worthy men, govern diligently, and revive the fortunes of the state. And with Cai Jing, Tong Guan, and other powers who had dominated the court for years now gone, the surviving Wu court did indeed hold real room and possibility for revival. Great numbers of scholars, students, and folk martial artists once more began stirring themselves into action, hoping to render service to the rising dynasty and see their ambitions fulfilled. Even quite a few who had previously withdrawn from public life, seeing the nation in such peril, began emerging from seclusion, eager to offer counsel and strategies for the Wu Dynasty’s revival.
During this period, people’s attention gravitated toward roughly two locations. One was Yingtian Prefecture, east of Bian Liang; the other was Jiangning, on the southern bank of the Yangtze.
By now, after the Jurchen’s rampage, the former Wu Dynasty capital of Bian Liang lay in utter ruin. Its walls had been breached, and a great many defensive works destroyed—in fact, the Jurchen had withdrawn back in the fourth month partly because Bian Liang held far too many corpses, and disease had already begun to spread. This ancient city was no longer fit to serve as a capital. Some officials from the north favored Yingtian Prefecture as a temporary secondary capital for the Wu Dynasty, to rebuild the court there. On the other hand, Prince Kang, Zhou Yong, soon to ascend the throne, currently resided in Jiangning Prefecture. Where the new court’s center would ultimately be placed was, for now, something everyone was still watching closely.
Across this vast realm, the Wu Dynasty and the Jin state stood as the two dominant powers at the center of the world’s affairs. Ambitious men and those already holding real power moved busily back and forth, waiting to see how the situation would next develop, watching closely for the next round of maneuvering between the two great states. The common people, meanwhile, in this brief lull of relative peace, hoped only that such calm might last a little longer. And in a place far from the mainstream’s attention, at the edges of it all, a battle was underway.
In the northwest, at Qingzhou, on the Dongzhi Plateau—the most ancient birthplace of Chinese agricultural civilization—the land stretched out endlessly, and iron-shod hooves thundered like rolling waves.
Under an overcast sky, the armored cavalry surged forward like a great wall closing in!
The Level Mountain Iron Kite Cavalry.
One of the most fearsome heavy cavalry forces in history, the very foundation upon which the Western Xia kingdom had been built. Numbering around three thousand heavy cavalry in total, both horse and rider clad entirely in iron armor, this force had been established since the founding of the Western Xia by King Li Yuanhao, and it symbolized not merely the strongest military might Western Xia possessed, but also the noble lineage and traditions of the Tangut people themselves. These three thousand armored riders, passed down father to son, generation after generation, were nobles, officers, and the very foundation of the state all at once.
To Meile, the great commander of the Iron Kite Cavalry, the battle now before him was not the most difficult engagement the Iron Kite had ever faced—what was about to happen was, to him, nothing more than an unremarkable clash. This band of desperate bandits that had come charging out of the mountains had enraged Li Qianshun, and the Western Xia’s main encampment, more than seventy thousand strong, had already begun breaking camp and marching east. But they had not come solely for this force—rather, after the loss of Yanzhou, the Western Xia’s high command had been forced to abandon its plan for an immediate westward advance, choosing instead, at this critical juncture of the wheat harvest, to stabilize the gains they had already secured in the rear, and to prevent the Zhe family army, lying in wait nearby, from swooping in to snatch the fruits of their conquest.
Before this, Western Xia had spent twenty years being pushed back by the Zhong family; Li Qianshun’s ability to break open the northwestern situation in a single campaign had given Western Xia its first faint glimmer of resurgence. And now, with that momentum only half realized, to be stabbed in the back like this—one could well imagine the fury boiling in Li Qianshun’s heart.
Over the years, thanks to the Iron Kite Cavalry’s combat prowess, the Western Xia’s cavalry forces had grown to far more than three thousand in number—but the truly elite core still remained this noble contingent forming the heart of the Iron Kite. Li Qianshun had dispatched Meile precisely to settle the chaos in the rear once and for all, so that no lesser troublemaker would ever dare stir up trouble again. From the moment they left the Western Xia camp, Meile had led his cavalry forward without the slightest delay, bearing down relentlessly on Yanzhou.
On the morning of the twenty-third of the sixth month, the two armies met at the edge of the Dongzhi Plateau.
Neither the cavalry nor the oncoming Black Banner Army slowed their advance. At the far edge of visibility, both forces could already see the other stretching out like a black line in the distance—the sky overcast, banners snapping in the wind. The light cavalry scouts sent ahead had already clashed several times before either main force came into view. And after the defeat at Yanzhou, as the Iron Kite Cavalry advanced eastward, everyone they encountered along the way had been routed soldiers fleeing from the east—by now, they all knew that this force of ten thousand that had come out of the mountains was, without question, a formidable and ruthless enemy.
Such knowledge, however, had little effect on the Iron Kite’s commanders. Upon realizing that the enemy was actually charging toward them with such reckless courage, the most one could say, besides calling it bold, was that this army must have grown dizzy with a string of victories—Meile privately harbored his own doubts, and to guard against the enemy playing tricks with the terrain, he ordered the entire force to circle five li out of their way, changing direction before slowly advancing on the enemy again.
Far across the field, the Black Banner Army’s ranks stood in tight, orderly formation, their front rows bristling with spears; the very front line held men gripping massive horse-cleaving blades, advancing step by measured step toward the Iron Kite Cavalry, their pace as steady and even as a heartbeat.
When two armies squared off like this, there was, in truth, little choice left for either commander beyond charging forward—and for the Iron Kite Cavalry especially, there was no other option at all.
Many things, once decided, leave little time for reconsideration. Everything these past few days had unfolded at a blistering pace—the Black Banner Army’s fall of Yanzhou had been blisteringly fast, their advance since had been blisteringly fast, and now Meile’s own strike was equally fast. The meeting of the two forces fell right into that same rhythm. The enemy had, without the slightest hesitation, drawn up its formation to meet the charge, spirits running high. And for the Iron Kite—heavy cavalry facing what was mainly an infantry formation on terrain like the Dongzhi Plateau—to hesitate now would mean they might as well give up fighting altogether.
What’s more, the Western Xia Iron Kite’s tactics had never been particularly complex to begin with. Upon meeting an enemy, they gathered into tight clusters and charged straight at the enemy’s formation. On terrain that wasn’t especially unfavorable, no army in the world could stand directly against the crushing weight of such heavy cavalry.
The horn sounded from within the enemy’s formation, lighting the fuse first. Meile’s eyes hardened, and he waved his hand to give the order; a moment later, the charge horn rang out through the Western Xia ranks. At once, the iron-shod hooves surged forward, faster and faster, like a great wall closing in, thousands of armored horsemen kicking up dust from the earth, hooves thundering like an avalanche descending.
Just as the front ranks were about to enter arrow range, Meile, from the rear, saw the enemy’s formation suddenly break into a run—backward. Something felt wrong to him, but at this distance, if there truly were some trap ahead, the Iron Kite still had the ability either to change formation or simply charge straight through. And with the enemy turning to flee, their momentum already broken, once the distance closed, they’d face nothing but slaughter—he had seen this sort of wishful thinking before, enemies turning tail and setting up caltrops behind them, and it had usually only gotten them killed that much faster.
Something rose into the air, then began to fall…
…
Roughly half an hour earlier, within the Black Banner Army.
Gao Lei walked along, running a stone chip against the tip of his spear, which by now had grown so sharp it caught the light and threw it back in flashes.
All around him—front, back, left, right—his comrades ran alongside. He passed the stone chip to the man next to him, who then unhooked his own spearhead and began sharpening it in turn.
They all knew that before long, they’d be facing Western Xia’s Iron Kite Cavalry.
“Killed three men back in Yanzhou,” Gao Lei said, the whetstone rasping crisply against his spear-tip. The man beside him gave it a few strokes and passed the stone on to the next in line, speaking to Gao Lei as he did. “Think we’ll get to kill an Iron Kite this time?”
“After Xia Village, is there anyone left we’re afraid of?” Gao Lei said, head down, his voice low and heavy. At this moment, every drop of blood in his body seemed to be surging; his mind pounded with a heavy, throbbing rhythm, and his vision trembled faintly. Running had become pure instinct—nearly everyone around him, front and back, left and right, felt the same. Not running simply wasn’t an option.
Ever since cutting straight through Yanzhou, what they faced next wouldn’t be some rabble of low-grade troops, but this world-renowned heavy cavalry. In every man’s heart, a knot of tension had gathered—but woven into that tension was a thread of pride too: maybe, just maybe, they really could overpower this cavalry.
The dread they’d once felt facing the Jurchen outside Bian Liang had already faded—and back then, everyone around them had been fleeing, so even facing the strongest army in the realm, no one had really had any concept of just how strong that army truly was. It was only after Xia Village that a measure of pride had begun to take root in their hearts, and now, with Yanzhou’s fall behind them, everyone’s emotions carried a note of genuine astonishment. They could hardly have imagined they’d already grown this powerful.
This confidence in their own strength wasn’t blind bravado born of individual valor—it came from having understood, through the simple lessons taught at the Little Cang River, that an army’s true strength came from the combined strength of everyone acting together, from the trust each man placed in the man beside him. That trust was the source of their power. And now, with the results at Yanzhou laid out before them, they had already begun to imagine just how powerful this group they belonged to had truly become.
And so, even knowing they were about to face the Iron Kite Cavalry, everyone charged forward carrying a touch of tension, but far more fervor and resolve than fear.
Looking around—everyone was here!
As for tactics, the men had been going over and over the plan under their officers’ guidance since three days before. And the actual battlefield coordination had, for the most part, already been drilled into them back at the Little Cang River. Over these two or three days of marching, even the lowest-ranking soldier in the Black Banner Army had turned over dozens of possible scenarios in his mind.
When the enemy force arrived, Gao Lei charged forward exactly as planned, taking his position in the rank behind the horse-cleaving blades. Behind him, the cavalry column wound its way forward, and the Special Regiment’s soldiers dismounted rapidly, opened their crates, and began setting up, while more men surged up from behind to tighten and consolidate the formation.
When the Iron Kite Cavalry shifted its direction of attack, Gao Lei and the others adjusted their own positioning to match, running to reposition. Even though they’d rehearsed the maneuver, Gao Lei still gripped his spear tightly, settling into the flawless stance for facing cavalry.
“…The battlefield changes in a thousand ways. If something goes wrong in the rear and you can’t reposition in time, can you—the front line—still hold your ground without retreating? If the support from the men behind you can’t stop the Iron Kite, will you still have the confidence to face them!? Do you rely on your comrades, or on yourself alone!?”
This was something the officers had drilled into them again and again over the past several days of planning. Everyone had already braced themselves mentally, and everyone had confidence too—there wasn’t a single coward in this formation. Even if they couldn’t reposition in time, they were confident they could bring down the Iron Kite, because bringing them down was the only way through.
Standing in the second rank, within the massive formation now fully assembled, the presence of any single individual felt almost impossibly small. Ahead, the iron cavalry had already come charging. Thousands of armored horsemen stretched out across a front over a hundred zhang wide, gathering speed with every stride, like a great wall shaking the very plain beneath it. The Western Xia Iron Kite Cavalry did not chain their horses together in the old style; they used no hooks or cords to link one mount to another—yet on each armored horse, the iron plating of rider and steed was fitted together as one. In such a charge, even if the rider on a horse’s back had already died, the horse would still carry the corpse forward, charging on with the rest of the formation—this too was part of why almost no force in the world could stand against such a charge head-on.
Blood surged through his body as if on fire, and then the order to fall back came. He grabbed his spear and spun around, sprinting with the formation as something flew high overhead, streaking past above their heads.
That object fell toward the ground ahead. Before the cavalry had even reached them, a massive explosion of fire and flame rose into the air. The horsemen charged straight through it before the flames had even fully died down—one Iron Kite rider passed through the blast entirely unscathed. Behind him, a thousand horses shook the earth, and several more bundled packages were still flying through the air. When Gao Lei stopped and turned again, the ground beside him was already lined with long rod-shaped devices, among them several large round iron barrels, angled skyward. It was from these very barrels that the first bundled packages had been launched.
A second package dropped into the mass of cavalry, followed by a third, a fourth. The great shockwaves of air surged and spread; for that single instant, space itself seemed to warp and distort. Gao Lei stood there with spear in hand, looking forward, still unable to make sense of what he was seeing—but someone behind him was shouting, “Get back! Get back! Get further away…” Gao Lei had barely turned his head when a tremendous boom rolled over him, his mind going blank, his vision swaying and ringing with a droning buzz—and when he looked forward again, he found he couldn’t hear anything at all.
More than a hundred elm-wood cannons had fired, almost all at once!
Across the field, when the first package fell and exploded, Meile, amid his own ranks, had actually felt a moment of relief. The Iron Kite Cavalry had never feared the Wu Dynasty’s firearms; their iron armor withstood the blast of the explosion just fine, and their battle-hardened horses were unfazed by sudden loud bangs. But in the very next instant, something truly terrible happened.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom—
Countless explosions erupted almost simultaneously, the shockwave surging outward. Along that hundred-zhang-wide wall of cavalry, countless blooms of fire burst open all at once—explosive shockwaves, black smoke, flying debris, and a mingled spray of flesh and iron armor, all merging in an instant into what looked like a sudden, towering wave, expanding, rising, rising, swelling into an overwhelming flood that swallowed the entire front line of the Iron Kite Cavalry whole.
The first and second ranks were already engulfed; the third, fourth, and fifth ranks of horsemen were still charging forward, and in the blink of an eye, they too plunged straight into that wall of destruction. Judging by past experience, that should have been nothing more than a curtain of smoke and dust.
The Iron Kite squad leader, Nagu, roared as he charged into that darkened zone; the instant his vision narrowed, something came flying straight at his head—he knocked it aside with a loud clang, sending it flying behind him, but in that split-second glimpse, it had looked, impossibly, like a severed hand still in its iron gauntlet. Before his mind could process it, something exploded behind him; the sound was swallowed by the shockwave, and he felt his horse briefly lift off the ground beneath him—something that should never happen.
The massive impact came in the very next instant; horse and rider crashed to the ground together and were hurled forward a great distance. He was pinned beneath his horse, his entire lower body caught between pain and numbness at once. He had already been thrown clear of that wall of destruction—the ground that only moments before had thundered with hoofbeats now rang with an entirely different sound. He lay there, trying to struggle up, and in his last flickering glimpse of the world, saw something like countless flowers blooming, terrible and beautiful all at once…