As the sun sank slowly toward the west, wisps of cooking smoke rose here and there among the ridges and gullies flanking the Dongzhi Plateau. The banners bearing the black field and star fluttered, some of them stained with blood, dark red blotches blooming across the fabric; amid the smoke, an air of stern, settled gravity hung over the camp.
Occasionally a lurking spy would come near, but they dared only watch from the shadows at a distance before slipping quickly away, like furtive little creatures skulking across the plateau.
The force that had charged out of the Little Cang River had made this place its base. A few days earlier, the Iron Kite Cavalry that had come charging at them had plunged, as it were, straight into an abyss—apart from a handful who managed to flee, nearly every rider’s life had been buried in that single charge. By now, the news had shaken nearly half the northwest.
The Western Xia king’s hundred-thousand-strong army was advancing toward this place—seemingly steady and deliberate, but in truth carrying more than a little reluctance.
People fear the unknown.
Far off in Huanzhou, no one yet knew what expression would cross Zhong Lie’s face when he heard the news; his Zhong family army, now reduced to only a few thousand men, could no longer stir up much trouble. But to the northeast, in Fuzhou, the Zhe family army had already begun to move. On one hand, they sent men to confirm this almost fantastical news yet again; on the other, they began mustering their troops in readiness, while also dispatching envoys, traveling day and night, toward the Little Cang River in the mountains. None of this was yet known to the Black Banner Army stationed on the Dongzhi Plateau, nor to the advancing Western Xia army—but even if they had known, it wouldn’t have been the most pressing matter at hand.
The most pressing matter remained the movements of this Black Banner Army.
Charging out of the mountains with ten thousand men, taking Yanzhou in under two days, then immediately wheeling west and crushing the Iron Kite Cavalry in their very first engagement—even the strongest of troops suffer losses, physical and mental exhaustion alike. It would have been perfectly normal for them to turn and flee, or send envoys to negotiate. But the trouble was, neither of these signs had appeared at all.
Taken to its most extreme possibility, it wasn’t even out of the question that this army, without resting further, might drive straight into the heart of the hundred-thousand-strong host.
That possibility alone was enough to send chills down anyone’s spine.
At the site of the great battle a few li away on the Dongzhi Plateau, the remaining corpses, baked under the summer sun, had already turned into a horrifying landscape of decay. In the mountain pass here, the Black Banner Army had now been resting and regrouping for four days. To outside observers, they sat silent and still, like some great slumbering beast. But within the encampment itself, the lightly wounded had largely recovered through rest, and even the more seriously injured soldiers had regained some measure of mobility. Every day, the men still performed appropriate labor—chopping wood nearby, tending fires, butchering and smoking horsemeat.
Of the two thousand seven hundred Iron Kite cavalry, fewer than half had died outright on the battlefield; two or three hundred riders had later managed to flee. Nearly five hundred had surrendered and survived; the rest had been killed one by one, either during the pitched battle or in the subsequent mopping-up. Few of the warhorses had died outright, though many had been wounded—most of those that could be saved, were. The Iron Kite rode fine horses, tall and powerful; some could be ridden immediately, and even those with minor wounds could, once healed, still be used as pack animals. The dead horses had mostly been butchered on the spot and dragged back; those left suffering with various injuries had endured a few more days before finally being put down, one by one, over these four days.
The five hundred surrendered men had been forced to carry out this butcher’s work as well. Most of these men, having become Iron Kite riders in the first place, came from Tangut noble families, having spent their whole lives in the company of warhorses—when it came time to pick up a blade and kill those horses, many found they simply couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Those who couldn’t were cut down on the spot; those who resisted met the same fate.
Soldiers whose morale had already shattered, whose courage had already turned to ice, posed only limited threat even if they took up arms to resist, given how well-guarded their captors were—and there weren’t many who tried. The soldiers of the Black Banner Army felt no womanly compassion at this point. How the Western Xia army had treated the people of the northwest wasn’t merely something passed along through the words of propagandists over these past days—it was something they had seen with their own eyes along the way. Burned villages, populations forced at spear-point to harvest wheat, corpses and bleached bones left lying by the roadside or hanging from trees. Having witnessed these things firsthand, there was only one thing left to say to any captured Western Xia soldier.
Dare to resist? Fine—then it’s a fight to the death!
And these prisoners felt that resolve too. It was resolve, not fanaticism. Over these past days, what most of the soldiers in the camp appeared to be doing was slaughtering horses, and their meals each day were indeed horsemeat—but what they were truly doing, in essence, was this: kill the Iron Kite, and eat their horses.
As for the next step, the soldiers of the Black Banner Army had already begun discussing it among themselves, but only today had the matter become something more formal. The high command wanted to gather everyone’s opinion before the Western Xia’s great army arrived—whether people wanted to fight or to withdraw—and reach a collective decision. When this news spread, it took not a few people by surprise.
Hou Wu, for instance, covered in blood from processing horsemeat that day, froze for a moment upon hearing the news. “I thought we were just waiting here to fight Li Qianshun… Why does that need discussing?”
“Yeah.” Mao Yishan and the others nodded along, equally bewildered.
“Why wouldn’t it need discussing?” Battalion Commander Xu Lingming said, frowning as he stood at the front. “Li Qianshun’s hundred-thousand-strong army will be here in two days. I’m not saying we’re afraid of him, but between taking Yanzhou and fighting the Iron Kite, we’ve genuinely taken losses. Seven thousand against a hundred thousand—we can’t just arrogantly charge straight in! Fighting or leaving—even if we leave, with these two battles behind us, our Army of China has already made its name known across the realm, and there’s no shame in that! And if we do fight, how do we fight? Do you all still want to fight, is your resolve firm enough, can your bodies hold up—command needs to know these things, and it’s most solid coming straight from each of you! Every squad, every company, every platoon needs to settle on a shared position tonight, and only then will the decision be made above.”
“Of course we should fight.” A company commander stepped forward, raising his hand. “I’ve got something to say, everyone—”
“Crazy Luo, save it for later! Don’t stir things up right now!” Xu Lingming smacked the young officer named Luo Ye back with a slap. “And another thing—you can speak your mind, you can debate, but don’t you dare try to force your opinion onto everyone else. Crazy Luo, you’d better watch yourself—”
Before long, the entire camp had erupted into lively discussion.
Some thirty-odd li away, the advance of the hundred-thousand-strong army kicked up a haze of dust that blotted out the sky; the banners stretching forward and back along the great road disappeared into the horizon in both directions.
Marching with the main body this time were mostly Western Xia’s finest troops—the mountain-savvy footsoldiers known as bubo, massed ranks of crossbowmen, the sling-and-catapult operators, the formidable capture troops, several thousand imperial guard soldiers drawn from noble families much like the Iron Kite, and a small contingent of light and heavy cavalry, all together guarding Li Qianshun’s central command tent. The sheer scale and grandeur of this display alone was enough to raise the morale of the soldiers within it.
And this time, the great chieftains of the various Western Xia tribes that made up the kingdom’s upper leadership had all come along with the army as well. The Iron Kite’s existence and the survival of Western Xia itself represented the interests of every one of them. If this sudden, upstart army could not be crushed before the great host, then this entire southward campaign, mobilizing the whole nation, would have been utterly meaningless—everything they had swallowed would all be squeezed back out.
No one could tolerate such an outcome.
“…The enemy comes on aggressively, and though their numbers fall short of ten thousand, their combat strength is formidable and not to be underestimated. If they still have some scheme in mind and wish to negotiate, we can negotiate first. But if it comes to battle—by the principles of strategy, speed against slowness, few against many—they’re bound to charge straight for the royal banner!”
At the war council these past two days, the great general Asha Ganbu had offered his assessment of the enemy’s likely course of action. The Western Xia king, Li Qianshun, ground his teeth.
“Seven thousand men against my hundred thousand—if they dare charge my own central formation, let them come, and see what happens!”
“Your Majesty’s valor commands this humble general’s admiration. But the art of war calls for striking the weak with the strong; Your Majesty is the ruler of Western Xia and should not lightly place yourself in danger. This army, having charged out of the mountains, has repeatedly employed unconventional tactics in both its previous battles. We too must not grow careless. Once battle is joined, we should rely precisely on our numerical superiority to wear down their fighting spirit, and see whether they have any further tricks up their sleeve. If the enemy attempts no unconventional stratagem, our forces, tenfold theirs, can naturally sweep them aside with ease; and if they truly do have some scheme, our hundred-thousand-strong army need not fear them either way. For this reason, this humble general recommends that once battle is joined, we should not advance rashly, but proceed with caution above all. After all, the fate of the Iron Kite serves as a warning…”
Asha Ganbu’s words carried something of a note that bolstered the enemy’s spirit while dampening their own, but this was, after all, a high-level strategic council, and with the precedent of the Iron Kite’s fall fresh in everyone’s mind, his words reflected the sentiments of many present. And so, however stifling it felt, the closer they drew to the Black Banner Army, the more airtight the Western Xia camp’s defenses became. By nightfall, the layered ranks of guard posts around the camp stretched on in a continuous line of lamplight, like some vast fortress with countless stars gathered around its center, the atmosphere heavy with grim, unrelieved tension.
That night, no envoy came to negotiate at all, and many already knew: the situation had become deeply awkward.
Meanwhile, thousands of li away in Jiangning, the marketplaces carried on in their ordinary, peaceful rhythm, though the upper reaches of the political world had already begun to stir: the household of Prince Kang was set to head north within the next two days.
As far as capitals went, the secondary capital of Yingtian Prefecture was clearly a better choice than Jiangning at this point. Even though the Jurchen had already reduced the region north of the Yellow River to a sieve, they had not, after all, formally occupied it. It hardly made sense for the Wu Dynasty’s new emperor, upon ascending the throne, to simply abandon everything north of the Yellow River—or even north of the Yangtze—right from the start.
The Jurchen had not yet finished absorbing the vast wealth and slaves plundered in their previous two campaigns, and now that the new regime had cleared out the “Seven Tigers,” if the new emperor and his new officials could rise to the occasion, there remained some real possibility of resisting the Jurchen and reclaiming lost territory in the future.
Of course, the true decision to fix the seat of power at Yingtian wasn’t made by Prince Kang, Zhou Yong—a man who had spent most of his life as an idle, unburdened prince—alone. Various forces that had long stood behind Prince Kang’s household had pushed forcefully for this outcome as well.
The will of the Princess Chengguo’s household formed the very core of it. During this period, officials such as Qin Hui, Huang Qianshan, and Wang Boyan, who had come south to welcome the new emperor, had lobbied Zhou Xuan, Kang Xian, and others repeatedly, and the matter had finally been settled. Of course, not everyone found this decision easy to understand.
“…Setting the capital at Yingtian—I honestly can’t wrap my head around why. Grandfather Kang, here, you can accomplish things, Elder Sister can accomplish things—go to Yingtian, and what happens then? Who can’t see it coming? Those high officials—their roots, their clans, are all up north. They can’t let go of what’s up north, and more than anything, they don’t want southern officials to rise. I’ve already seen right through all this scheming and infighting. Jiangning lately has just been a muddy mess!”
Jun Wu, soon to become crown prince, was speaking loudly in Kang Xian’s study, righteous indignation in his voice. Kang Xian, hair gone entirely white but his gaze still sharp and clear, sat in his chair, sipping tea and listening to the boy’s rant.
“…I have nothing to say about doing right by the nation and its people—but the country’s on the verge of collapse, and everyone’s still fighting and scrambling over it, wondering whether they’ll be the ones calling the shots. Is the country just something to hand over to them? That Qin Hui looks all righteous and upstanding, but I just don’t think he’s up to any good! Grandfather Kang, I really don’t understand. And besides…” The young man lowered his voice. “Besides, Ning… Ning Yi once said that within three years, everything north of the Yangtze will be lost. Given that, shouldn’t we be retreating south all the more? My workshops are here too—I don’t want to have to build everything all over again in Yingtian. Grandfather Kang, that sky lantern—I’ve already gotten it to fly, it just can’t carry a person yet…”
“I think you’re mostly worried about your workshops.” Kang Xian smiled faintly, pausing a moment in thought. “You’re young, and clever, but you should have heard the saying too—water too clear holds no fish, a man too discerning has no friends. These high officials, of course, all have their own interests behind them; the people north and south of the Yangtze, of course, have their own interests too. To act for those interests is, in a sense, to act for the country itself—and that goes for high officials just as much as for anyone else. Having interests doesn’t make someone a traitor; if anything, it’s the man who claims to have none at all who’s more likely to be hiding something.”
The old man poured himself a cup of tea. “The Wu Dynasty stretches north to south across thousands of li. Interests come in all sizes—an acre of wheat field south of Yanmen Pass is still our Wu Dynasty’s wheat. The Wu Dynasty is that wheat, and that wheat is the Wu Dynasty. For the farmer who grows it there, if the wheat is seized and his home burned, then his Wu Dynasty is gone too. How can you say that because he acts for the sake of his wheat, he isn’t acting for our Wu Dynasty as well? It’s the same whether you’re a high official or a commoner. Wherever your home is, that’s what you act for. If a man truly wanted nothing, cared about nothing at all, then the Wu Dynasty would mean nothing to him either.”
“You act for your workshops, others act for their wheat, and officials act for their families up north—all of that is a good thing. What’s dangerous is having your eyes blinded to everything else.” The old man stood up, handed the teacup back to him, his expression turning serious. “Since you’re going to be crown prince someday, and perhaps even ruler, you cannot afford to think in narrow terms. It’s true that the land north of the Yellow River is becoming impossible to hold, and anyone else may abandon it and flee south—but the emperor cannot. That is half the nation; it cannot simply be spoken of as something to discard. You are of the House of Zhou—you must give it everything you have, and hold on until the very last moment.”
“And if we can’t hold it—are we supposed to just march up there and throw our lives away for nothing?”
“How can anything be absolute before you’ve even tried!?” Kang Xian shot him a sharp look. “If something like the fall of Bian Liang happens again, then yes, you can flee at that point. But as long as even the slightest possibility remains, we naturally must give it everything we have. Take your master—with everything he’s faced, has he ever once complained of hardship? When the Jurchen first laid siege to the city, he still managed to hold them off. He said that the loss of everything north of the Yangtze isn’t a certainty—only a possible outcome, nothing more.”
This was the first time in recent memory that Kang Xian had brought up Ning Yi in front of Jun Wu, and the boy brightened at once. “Then, Grandfather Kang, do you think, if I really do become emperor someday, it might be possible to bring my master back to…”
“Silence!” Kang Xian snapped. “Don’t even mention it today, and never mention it again in the future. He committed regicide and rebellion—the whole realm is united against him. Someone of the House of Zhou can never reconcile with him! If you ever let such thoughts show in front of others in the future, you won’t even get to keep your position as crown prince, let alone anything else!”
“I hadn’t even finished saying it…”
“I know exactly what you were about to say, child.” Kang Xian looked at him and sighed, then his expression softened, and he reached out and patted the boy’s shoulder. “Jun Wu, you’re a clever child—clever since you were small. It’s a pity no one could have foreseen you’d become crown prince; some things have come to you rather late in your education. But you observe and think a great deal, you’re careful with your words and actions, and you can see things clearly enough. You want to stay in Jiangning—for your workshops, and because the Princess Chengguo’s household holds influence here in the south, and you feel you can accomplish things more easily. You, boy, still want to shelter under the eaves of the princess’s household, hiding from the rain. But the truth is, you’ve already become crown prince.”
“Once you’re crown prince, you must become the eaves for others, so that others may shelter under you from the rain. You say all these high officials act for their own interests—that’s true enough, but you are the crown prince, and one day the emperor; managing them is simply your job to do. Some problems in this world can be avoided; others cannot. Your master never once complained, even when times were at their hardest—he still defeated the Grievance Army at Xia Village, fighting his way through certain death time and again, and when the road finally proved impassable, he killed the emperor with his own hand. Killing the emperor brought him no end of trouble, and so he went straight to the northwest instead. As things stand now, he’s caught between north and south, hemmed in there in those mountains—but I’ll wager this, Grandfather Kang will bet you: he will not simply sit and wait for death. Before long, he will surely make his move. However narrow the road, you can only keep walking it; if you cannot find a way through, then you die. It’s as simple as that.”
“Once you become crown prince, once you become emperor, and the road proves impassable—will you simply kill yourself, then? The officials will contend with you, the common people will contend with you, the Jin state will contend with you—and if you cannot overcome them, well, then you die. But before that death comes, you must give everything you have. You say the officials are no good—then find a way to make them good. If they get in your way, find a way to put them to use. If it truly comes to it, and you have to kill them one by one, piling up mountains of corpses and rivers of blood, heads rolling everywhere—well, that too is what it means to be emperor. What matters most in getting things done is the outcome and the cost. See it clearly, then do it, and pay whatever price must be paid. There’s nothing extraordinary about that.”
Kang Xian waved his hand, his words still echoing through the room. Jun Wu stood there, a little dazed, and then watched the old man let out a breath and smile at him warmly. “Just remember these things for now. Grandfather Kang won’t be able to go north with all of you. Once I’m in Yingtian, who knows if we’ll ever see each other again. But this world, boy, holds many people worth loving, worth respecting. If you become emperor, you must carve out a path for them to live by. Of course—just do what you can.”
Jun Wu was silent for a long moment. “I’ll remember. But Grandfather Kang—don’t you think… you ought to hate my master?”
“A friendship among gentlemen is a friendship of shared principle—if our principles align, we walk the same path; if they don’t, we simply go our separate ways. As for hatred—your master, in everything he’s done, has staked his own life on it, and he’s done it all openly, without hiding behind anything. I’m just an old man—I don’t even know if I’ll ever see him again in this life. What is there to hate? Only a touch of regret, that’s all. Back in Jiangning, when we sat together playing chess, chatting idly, I understood far too little of what was really in his heart.”
The old man paused, then lowered his voice slightly. “Your master’s way of doing things resembles old Qin’s quite closely—he places enormous weight on results. You once took him as your master; those high officials at court are surely not unaware of that. Part of why they still support your father as emperor has something to do with the Princess Chengguo’s household’s ties, yes—but there’s likely no small part of it, too, that comes from valuing you, and valuing your master’s way of getting things done. As far as I know, during his time in Bian Liang, your master had a hand in all manner of affairs; some of the people he once employed have left, some have died, and some remain, scattered here and there. Being crown prince is a noble position—a good roof to shelter under. Go to Yingtian, study the investigation of things all you like—there’s no harm in it—just don’t waste the position you now hold…”
Jun Wu’s eyes lit up, and he nodded eagerly, then added, “I only wonder how my master is faring now, caught in that predicament out in the northwest.”
He had arranged for some people to gather news from the northwest, though it was hardly a proper network; by comparison, the Princess Chengguo’s household’s intelligence channels were far more effective. Since Kang Xian was now willing to speak of Ning Yi so openly, Jun Wu took the opportunity to probe a little further—but the old man only shook his head.
“Heaven is high and the road is far, boy. The situation in the northwest is an utter mess—how could Grandfather Kang possibly know everything happening out there? No word has come yet of that band of rebels making any move. It’s just—hemmed in on both sides by Western Xia and the Jin, with most of the northwest already lost, it can’t be an easy thing to bear…”
The old man sighed, and Jun Wu nodded along as well. Leaving the Princess Chengguo’s household that day, he still felt a lingering trace of regret in his heart. Though Kang Xian was, at this point, clearly grooming him to be crown prince, his own desire for that role was, in truth, not particularly strong. If anything, he found himself far more interested in his workshops, and in how Ning Yi, far off in the northwest, was faring.
Before long, Prince Kang would move north and ascend the throne, drawing the eyes of the whole realm. But the young crown prince would not learn, until the news finally caught up with him amid everything that followed, that on this very day, the northwest—following the Little Cang River’s sortie—had already been thrown into utter upheaval amid rolling thunder, and that at this moment, standing on the very brink of its greatest tremor yet, countless strings had already been stretched to their absolute limit, ready to snap at the slightest touch.
Evening at the Little Cang River.
Ning Yi sat in his study, watching through the window as, out in the courtyard, Min Chuyi’s parents led the little girl up to the door, carrying a gray-and-white rabbit with them.
The hardened farming couple, unused to fine words, felt that the incident during which Ning Xi and Min Chuyi had gotten hurt while catching rabbits had little to do with their own daughter—yet both families still felt, in their hearts, that it was their own daughter who had caused the trouble. In their minds, Mister Ning was a truly great man, and they hardly dared even approach his door. It was only after catching another wild rabbit that day that they finally worked up the courage to bring their daughter along to apologize.
Su Tan’er, slender but visibly recovered in spirit, received them, then sent the now fully-healed Ning Xi off to play with the little girl.
“The days ahead may not be easy. My husband says a boy needs to be able to take his knocks if he’s ever going to shoulder real responsibility someday. Elder Brother and Sister-in-law Min, your daughter is remarkably sensible—she knows far more about life in these mountains than Ning Xi does. It’s no trouble at all for Ning Xi to keep playing with her from now on.”
He drew his gaze back inside and bent over his desk to work, then, after a while, picked up a few pieces of intelligence lying beside him, glanced them over, and set them back down, his eyes drifting toward the window, his mind wandering slightly.
The Black Banner Army’s fall of Yanzhou, its crushing of the Iron Kite on the Dongzhi Plateau, and now the army camped at the edge of the plateau, waiting for Western Xia’s hundred-thousand-strong host—he had gone over these reports again and again, more times than he could count. Zuo Duanyou had come by earlier that day and asked about it as well. The old man was an old-school Confucian scholar—on one hand carrying something of a righteous, indignant streak, and on the other, entirely unable to accept Ning Yi’s radicalism. And beyond that, the possibility that such a formidable fighting force might be buried out there because of that very radicalism had made him genuinely anxious; he had come specifically to ask Ning Yi whether he truly had confidence, and what backup plans he had—though in truth, Ning Yi had none.
The reach of tactical war-gaming had its limits, and even the estimation of morale itself remained hazy at best. If the battle for Yanzhou had still fallen largely within the bounds of planning and control, then the confrontation with the Iron Kite on the Dongzhi Plateau had only ever been something he could grasp in broad strokes. The Black Banner Army had brought cannon and gunpowder along, on the mere estimate that they might one day encounter the Iron Kite; if earlier engagements hadn’t been too intense, the cannon and gunpowder were to be kept in reserve, held for exactly such a critical moment. And after the battle at the Dongzhi Plateau, the earlier war-gaming had essentially lost all further relevance.
Seven thousand against a hundred thousand. Given the enormous deterrent effect of having wiped out the Iron Kite in a single battle, this hundred-thousand-strong force would surely now be on guard, no longer underestimating the enemy—the seven thousand would be facing a genuinely hard fight this time. As for exactly how far the Black Banner Army’s morale and fighting spirit could carry them, Ning Yi had no way of estimating that either. At the same time, it was also regrettable that after Yanzhou, the Iron Kite’s collapse had been so swift and clean that it hadn’t spread to the rest of the Western Xia forces, failing to trigger any avalanche effect among them.
Western Xia’s remaining hundred-thousand-plus combat-ready troops would still hold an overwhelming advantage across the northwest; with the Iron Kite destroyed, they would not withdraw. Should the Black Banner Army retreat now, the enemy would instead press forward to attack Yanzhou, or even the Little Cang River itself—and given the current strength of the Zhong family and the attitude of the Zhe family, neither of these two forces was capable of dealing Western Xia a decisive blow as a main fighting force.
Weighing all this together, Ning Yi was, at this point, no longer the one making decisions for the front lines. All he could do was wait, carrying a certain tension, for news of what would happen next—whether to fight or withdraw, whether victory or defeat, or whether it would come to mobilizing the Green Wood Stockade—a place built on long-standing trade relationships, its outer network already thoroughly infiltrated by nearby powers, and thus quite a sensitive card to play. That would require factoring in the attitudes of the Jurchen and the surrounding powers as well—an entirely new strategic calculation in its own right.
But on the whole, Ning Yi was satisfied with this campaign so far. The fall of Yanzhou and the destruction of the Iron Kite both proved that the Black Banner Army’s morale and fighting strength had reached an extraordinarily high level. And yet, alongside that satisfaction came a measure of regret. Set against a broader comparison, the Jurchen had won their great victory at Hedian, three thousand seven hundred routing a hundred thousand; at Huzhou, twenty thousand routing seventy thousand; and, without even a complete set of proper siege equipment or well-honed tactics, had taken the Upper Capital in half a day—and they had accomplished all that without gunpowder.
Just how far had this Army of China—this Black Banner Army—truly come? Was its morale genuinely unbreakable? And measured against the Jurchen, did it stand higher or lower? On these questions, Ning Yi, so far removed from the front, still carried a measure of doubt and regret he couldn’t quite shake.
In truth, just as Zuo Duanyou had said, passion and radicalism didn’t necessarily mean understanding reason; being willing to stake one’s life didn’t necessarily mean the people’s minds had truly been opened. Even in the era he himself had once lived in, the spread of knowledge hadn’t guaranteed the spread of wisdom—more than ninety percent of people, even there, couldn’t clear the most basic threshold of autonomy and understanding, the fundamental unity and conflict between one’s worldview and one’s outlook on life—let alone in an age such as this one.
Dismantling Confucianism, changing certain things, inserting new ones in their place—however boldly he spoke of it, he still walked every step that followed with real trepidation. It was only that, the road having already been taken, there was no possibility of turning back now.
He spent a while worrying over the situation at the front, then lowered his head again and returned to organizing the day’s argument and the insights he’d drawn from his exchange with Zuo Duanyou.
…
At the Black Banner Army’s encampment, the captured Iron Kite rider Tuoji was being marched under guard between the tents, the surrounding noise loud and chaotic. He strained to follow along with his broken Chinese, still not quite understanding what was happening.
Before being led out, he had still been murmuring in low tones with a fellow captive about what might happen next—whether this strange army might negotiate with the Western Xia royal forces, whether they might be sent back, and what punishment might await them upon return, and so on and so forth.
It was only a little while later, amid a jarring mix of astonishment and disbelief, that he came to understand what had already happened—and what was about to happen next.
“…Why did we charge out of the Little Cang River in the first place? Why did we take Yanzhou, why did we crush the Iron Kite? If we retreat now, once Li Qianshun catches his breath and chases us all the way back to Yanzhou, can we possibly outlast him in a drawn-out fight? Right now is our only chance—hit him! Scare him so badly he never forgets it! I’m not saying this chance is easy to seize, I’m not saying Li Qianshun is easy to beat—a hundred thousand pigs aren’t easy to slaughter either. But if we can’t manage it, then every brother of ours who’s already died will have died for nothing.”
“…What did Mister Ning say before we set out? Why did we have to fight—because there was no other possibility! Don’t fight, and we die. It’s exactly the same now! Even after winning two battles, the situation hasn’t changed: if he lives, we die; if he dies, we live!”
“…I’ll tell you straight—two days from now, out of that hundred-thousand-strong army, it’s Li Qianshun’s head I want.”
“…How do we fight? Isn’t that obvious? Mister Ning said it himself—when the balance of power is this uneven, the best strategy is to drive straight for the enemy’s central command. Why should we bother fighting our way through a hundred thousand men one by one? Cut off Li Qianshun’s head, and what does it matter how many men he has left?”
“…They’ll be on guard? So what if they’re on guard? Are you only interested in fighting enemies who aren’t watching for us!? Even if they’re guarded, all we can do is charge—”
“…Anyone can talk big, anyone can talk big! Facing a hundred thousand men, you think there’s nothing left to plan? Do we split into one column, two, or three—have you even thought about that? The Western Xia’s tactics and troop types are different from ours—crossbowmen, light cavalry, catapult troops—how do we handle each of them when we run into them, how do we charge, what terrain works best—do you think none of that needs thinking through? Since we’re all here, I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing—I’ve been pulling prisoners out, one at a time, questioning them one at a time…”
“…You there, brother—where in Western Xia are you from? If you don’t want to die, how about lending a hand…”
Before being dragged out onto the open ground, Tuoji had been left somewhat dazed by the flood of news washing over him—His Majesty the Emperor was charging in with a hundred-thousand-strong army—and now he stared at what looked almost like a bonfire festival: facing down that oncoming army of a hundred thousand, this force of fewer than ten thousand men seemed as excited as if a holiday were coming.
Weren’t they supposed to be discussing whether to flee?
He looked around. In the glow of the campfires, countless voices, near and far, were still buzzing with discussion; across this small clearing amid the tents, a group of what looked like perfectly ordinary soldiers in uniform—every one of them apparently mad—were now staring straight at him.
“…Speak up. First question—when your catapult troops meet the enemy, how do you usually fight?”
…
The long wind swept on, rolling across the vast, boundless northwestern land; this summer was drawing to its close.
On the morning of the twenty-ninth of the sixth month, the Western Xia’s hundred-thousand-strong army broke camp nearby and advanced to the edge of the Dongzhi Plateau, slowly entering the engagement zone.
The most ferocious slaughter of all was about to arrive, along with the coming of autumn.