On the night of August 25th, in the second year of Jianshuo, around a quarter past eight in the evening, the first true clash between the Black Banner Army and the Jurchen western army broke out among the hills northeast of Yan Prefecture.
As two forces meeting for the first time, there was little in the way of elaborate tactics on either side. As the Jurchen camp suddenly blazed with light and the elite Jurchen cavalry surged forward like a flood, their momentum reaching its very peak, the men of the Huaxia Army merely tightened their resolve in that instant. As the arrows rained down like a storm, the soldiers at the perimeter had already raised their shields, following motions drilled countless times before, letting the falling arrows clatter harmlessly against them.
The war drums had already begun to beat. The formation advanced and spread forward, its pace not much quickened, but steady and grim. He Zhicheng’s First Regiment led the front; Sun Ye’s Fourth Regiment held the left flank and rear; over two thousand infantry from the Lüliang Mountains held the right, interspersed with the equipment teams of the special forces regiment. On the southeastern flank of the battlefield, Han Jing’s two thousand cavalry had already spurred into motion, moving to meet Manduyu’s cavalry.
To the south, Yan Zhenguo’s army had nearly collapsed entirely, the vast battlefield a scene of pure chaos. To the north, the war drums shattered the stillness of the night, drawing the attention and gaze of many. The three hot-air balloons overhead were already sailing past the walls of Yan Prefecture, the soldiers aboard peering out over the battlefield from a distance. If the arrows loosed by the Jurchen cavalry were like a surging tide crashing forward, then the Black Banner Army at this moment resembled a great vessel cutting against that tide, breaking through the waves as it pressed steadily toward the Jurchen camp on the hillside.
The cavalry formation, loosing arrows as it went, continued to spread and expand. To the southeast, Han Jing’s cavalry and Manduyu’s cavalry had begun exchanging volleys. To the south, the horse teams towing the hot-air balloon were drawing closer to the Huaxia Army’s rear formation. Several thousand elite Jurchen cavalry had already emerged from the main camp and spread out to both flanks, and the Huaxia Army’s formation, like some vast living organism, continued shifting shape in response. The shield wall held tight, arrows launched steadily outward in return fire against the distant Jurchen riders, but the entire force never once stopped pressing forward toward the Jurchen camp.
Infantry against cavalry offered little tactical choice. Cavalry moved swiftly and spread thin; with roughly equal numbers, infantry archery accuracy was far too low to matter much, but cavalry, lacking armor and shields, could still be pressured by ranged fire—though against a disciplined formation, the only real advantage cavalry held was the initiative to choose when to strike.
This was the standard pattern of Jurchen cavalry against Wu Dynasty forces: Wu troops would typically adopt a defensive, turtle-shell posture to force the enemy back, then report victory up the chain. In the end, their success rate against such skirmishing had piled up to as high as eighty percent—yet the moment the Jurchen cavalry truly seized their opening and committed to a full charge, even a Wu formation that had held its shape perfectly would invariably collapse utterly once battle turned to a fight to the death. This had nothing to do with tactics; it was purely the outcome of an army lacking the will to die going into battle.
But the Huaxia Army was different…
…
Boom!
Boom!
Boom, boom!
Drumbeat after drumbeat, matched by the sound of advancing footsteps, shook the night sky. All around, arrows fell like rain, points of flame tumbling from either side. It felt as though one stood at the bottom of a valley of arrows.
Shouted orders and the hoarse cries of officers rang out one after another, unceasing—and at times, absurdly, even the sound of laughter could be heard.
The black banners snapped and fluttered. Qin Shaoqian, on horseback, turned his head now and then to survey the surroundings. Across the hillsides and fields, the Black Banner Army’s soldiers, organized by company, pressed steadily forward, the vast Jurchen cavalry formation stretching out in the distance. The horse team towing the hot-air balloon had already caught up from behind.
Missing one eye made things inconvenient at times.
He frowned. No one knew that, amid the tension knotted in his chest, this thought had just flickered through his mind.
When people grow tense, sometimes strange, ill-timed feelings surface. The Jurchens—this wasn’t his first time facing them. In battles past, that brutal—no, it could hardly even be called a battle, only a brutal rout and slaughter—the countless screams outside the walls of Bianliang still seemed to circle endlessly through his mind, that desperate, hopeless struggle. At times like this, his father’s face, streaked with white hair, would flash before his eyes, along with his elder brother’s face…
Within his family, he had never been the pillar of the household—that role belonged to his elder brother, who had inherited their father’s learning and legacy. Doted on by his mother, he had grown up somewhat brash and unruly in his youth. Fortunately, with guidance from his father and brother, he hadn’t turned out too poorly behaved. With the family’s scholarly path already destined to reach its peak through his brother, he himself had chosen to join the army—partly out of rebellion, partly out of the pride burning in his chest; knowing he could never surpass his brother on the scholarly path, he refused to fall too far behind in his own way.
If a man is always following in the shadow of another man’s path, perhaps the thought buried in his heart back then was simply the hope that, one day, on some other road, he too might become a man like his father. Unfortunately, the rot within the military and the petty scheming of his fellow officers had quickly buried that hope deep within him.
That prosperous Wu Dynasty, awash in song and splendor—what did it matter if the army was riddled with problems? The bandit threats were still put down in the end. His own rise within the ranks hadn’t been without help from his father’s and brother’s connections, but so what? If the world had truly stayed at peace, living out his life this way wouldn’t have been so bad—but the world, in the end, hadn’t stayed at peace.
The Jurchens’ invasion south had brought its full weight crashing down. He had led comrades he trusted into hopeless charges, watching them die in agony all the same; the Jurchens swept through everything in their path like dry weeds before a scythe. Fortunately, later, thanks to men of exceptional talent like Liheng, the desperate struggles of his father and brother, and the sacrifices of countless others, they had beaten back the Jurchens’ first invasion.
That time, he had thought there might be hope…
And now, this time, he was charging once more toward the Jurchen ranks, leading this very different army. This time there was no Wu Dynasty, no father or brother, no countless multitudes of common people standing behind him, no banner of righteous cause. There was nothing at all.
If his father and brother were still alive, they likely wouldn’t much care for the state he found himself in now—nor, probably, could they bring themselves to like Liheng either. But in the end, they were gone.
With one eye lost, the whole world looked different now…
The army’s front line surged fiercely up to the very face of the Jurchen camp, the shield wall advancing. Within the Jurchen camp, flames flared to life, and in the next instant, a rain of flaming arrows rose into the sky.
The fiery rain came clattering down, but the tight shield wall stood unmoved. It was late autumn now, and the arrow-fire scattered here and there, igniting patches of withered grass on the ground.
Liu Chengzong waved his hand, and the artillery line rolled forward.
If, in this brief clash, the Jurchens had shown the swiftness of wind and the ferocity of fire, then the Huaxia Army showed the steadiness of forest and the stillness of mountains. Advancing straight through the arrow-fire and harassment toward the enemy’s must-defend position, driving straight to blow open their gates—let the cavalry do whatever they wished!
At that moment, atop a corner of the Jurchen camp’s outer wall, Wanyan Loushi watched the scene unfold with a stern, quiet gaze. Their firearms, and that great sky-lantern of theirs—both held his interest. Seeing the enemy already closing in, he said to the guard beside him: “This is truly the most aggressive Wu Dynasty army I have ever seen.”
Within the Huaxia Army’s ranks, Qin Shaoqian tilted his head up, frowning slightly. “Wait…” he said.
Suddenly, something strange occurred in the sky behind the formation—a sea eagle, sweeping in through the darkness, dodged past the arrows and tore a gash into the outer skin of the hot-air balloon aloft. Flying at low altitude, the balloon began slowly sinking.
At the front of the formation, the soldiers who witnessed this lit the fuses at once, and a sudden volley of cannon fire tore through the night sky—in an instant, countless bursts of explosive fire and flame rose up, the earth itself seeming to tremble! Standing beside the wooden wall, Wanyan Loushi, witnessing the power of cannon fire for the first time, struck his fist against the wall before him, then turned abruptly and walked away.
…
As the flames rose with the explosions, standing at the front of the formation, Chen Libo felt as though he could sense the very tremor running through the wooden gate of the enemy camp. He was the company commander of the Third Company, First Battalion, First Regiment, under He Zhicheng, standing in the second row of the shield formation, with rows of comrades pressed tightly around him, their hands already gripping their blades. Watching the explosion unfold, the comrade beside him turned his head, and Chen Libo could clearly see the man’s jaw clenching.
“So what if their cavalry is fierce—when you attack, you strike where they must defend. However many cavalry the Jurchens have, they can’t do without supply lines. Let’s see what Wanyan Loushi does now.”
“The hardest part’s still ahead—don’t let your guard down. If it goes the way it was taught in the lessons… uh…” Chen Libo paused mid-thought, suddenly recalling something, then shook his head. Surely not…
By now, the volley of cannon fire had ended; half the gate of the Jurchen camp ahead had been blown open, the remainder now burning, teetering on the edge of collapse. All around, the soldiers were already drawing quiet breaths, preparing to charge. In the next instant, an order came suddenly through, shouted by a loud-voiced messenger: “Pass the word to all units—hold steady—”
Chen Libo looked up, his gaze fixing on something atop the nearby wooden wall not far off. “What is that!”
With a thud, a Jurchen soldier hurled down a wooden barrel, and then, all along the sprawling camp wall, barrel after barrel came tumbling down, some rolling down the slope, others shattering on impact, black liquid splattering across the ground, a pungent smell drifting over moments later. The slope wasn’t especially steep, so the black liquid didn’t quite reach the range where the Huaxia Army stood—but moments later, flames roared to life, and before the Black Banner Army’s eyes stretched a vast, blazing wall of fire.
It was fire oil.
Within the Jurchen camp, Wanyan Loushi had already mounted his horse, spear in hand. The Jurchen soldiers who had emptied the fire oil dashed for their own mounts, and horns sounded—high, piercing calls, the signal for the Jurchens to begin their encircling hunt. To the south, the full seven thousand Jurchen cavalry had already heard the signal and began wheeling around to converge, forming into one massive tide.
The Huaxia Army’s rear formation of over two thousand men suddenly began contracting, their shields driven hard into the ground ahead, iron rods braced behind, men packed shoulder to shoulder, raising a dense forest of spears, bracing the shafts down until the press of bodies could no longer move at all.
The central and flanking forces had already begun retreating back, and the special forces regiment’s soldiers pushed their cannons back at a desperate run. Meanwhile, the seven thousand Jurchen cavalry had already merged into a single tidal wave, arrows raining down from the sky in a torrent.
“Hold steady—”
A massive, hysterical roar of voices—
Rewind a moment, before the cannon fire. Qin Shaoqian had looked up at the sky, gazing out at the scattered points of fire in the distance, brow furrowing slightly: “Wait…” he had said.
“There aren’t enough arrows…”
This was the Black Banner Army’s first true confrontation with the Jurchens, and every strategic calculation had been made on the assumption of the Jurchens’ near-unmatched combat strength across the realm—they carried their own confidence and pride, and Wanyan Loushi in particular boasted a record of victories arguably the most brilliant in the entire world. But the Black Banner Army had no reason to retreat either—because retreat simply wasn’t an option. Armed with cannon, they had resolved to fight with the hardest possible tactics, having gambled through countless possible scenarios beforehand—yet some things simply could not be fully anticipated.
Wanyan Loushi had truly taken the Black Banner Army seriously as an opponent—had, in fact, treated them with an almost unimaginable degree of caution, guarding against both the cannon and the hot-air balloons by withdrawing the entire camp’s supply train and infantry before the first clash even began…
Strike where they must defend—but what if he simply chose not to defend at all?
To the right of the front formation, the sound of hoofbeats was already drawing near—not only from below the slope, but also from beside the burning Jurchen camp, where a cavalry force was now sweeping around from the flank. This time, the Jurchens had committed everything.
Chen Libo suddenly burst out laughing, telling the men around him: “Just as I thought—it was never going to be that simple.” The men beside him, still stunned, soon burst into laughter too.
“Reform ranks—”
The tight shield formation began shifting direction, the spear-forest lowering, simple iron caltrops pushed forward into position ahead of the line! Someone shouted: “What are we!?”
Countless voices roared back.
“HUA! XIA—”
At that moment, the hillside was engulfed in a spreading, roaring wall of fire; not far below the slope, seven thousand Jurchen cavalry had already gathered their momentum—no path forward, pursuers closing from behind.
Chen Libo let out the breath he’d been holding, his smile twisting into something fierce and savage: “Stupid Jurchens…”
he thought.
Ahead, the surging charge of the Jurchen cavalry was growing clearer and clearer by the moment—
…
Impact.