Autumn winds had begun to rise.

The Central Plains. Weisheng.

At the Tiger King’s private estate, a grand banquet was in full swing. The lights blazed and cups passed back and forth; a crowd of ministers and generals had begun to let loose before the Tiger King, embracing courtesans and indulging themselves, when Yu Yulin walked out from the hall carrying a small flask of wine.

Outside the hall lay beautiful pavilions and terraces by the water, lanterns lit one after another, illuminating the long corridor built out over the water’s surface. He walked along the corridor, and once past the lake, came to a courtyard dominated by rockeries and winding paths, curling around the lakeshore, exquisitely beautiful. Guards stood watch every few paces nearby, some looking rather lazy, but upon seeing Yu Yulin approach, they all straightened up at once.

A little further on, in a quiet, secluded spot, stood a pavilion perched by the water’s edge. As he drew near, he could faintly hear a lazy tune being hummed, a Jiangnan melody, the soft Wu dialect lyrics unclear in meaning. Yu Yulin came around the rockery, and there, on the long bench facing the water within the pavilion, sat a woman in a grey robe leaning against a pillar, a jade wine flask hooked in her hand, humming as she swayed gently over the water, as though somewhat drunk.

These past years, the only woman who could wander freely about the Tiger King’s estate wearing a man’s grey robe was, more or less, that one alone. At the sound of Yu Yulin’s footsteps, Lou Shuwan turned her head, saw it was him, and turned back away again, still humming her tune without pause.

“Miss Lou is in fine spirits,” Yu Yulin said.

“…It’s General Yu who’s in fine spirits,” Lou Shuwan hummed a few more notes before replying. “With all the fine food and beautiful women the Tiger King has laid out, General Yu remains unmoved.”

“Fine food, beautiful women — for people like us, out here in this hard world, they’re ours for the taking whenever we like. But you, Miss Lou — the demon Ning is dead, and I never expected you’d be so pleased about it.”

“Hmph, hmph.” Lou Shuwan lowered her head and laughed softly.

“Or is it that Miss Lou knows he isn’t really dead, and that’s why you seem so indifferent?”

“Hmph, hmph.” She laughed again and raised her head. “General Yu, aren’t you bored? Are you a child?”

Yu Yulin looked at her and smiled, but the smile gradually faded. He opened his mouth, but at first no sound came out. “…It’s just — these past years, we’ve fought ourselves half to death, and suddenly something like this happens, and I find it hard to believe. Miss Lou, you’re sharper than most, and you’ve cared about that demon Ning’s affairs more than anyone. I think he might not be dead, and I wanted to talk it over with you.”

Lou Shuwan looked out at the lake’s surface. “Whether he’s dead or not, of course I care. But I’m no immortal — I wasn’t on the battlefield, I haven’t seen the head. How can anyone say for certain. You’ve said it yourself before — the battlefield changes in an instant. If you, General Yu, suddenly died one day, I wouldn’t find it strange either. If he really has died, what’s so surprising about that? A man like him — his death would be a blessing to the realm. These past years, the people have suffered so terribly… if not for him, then for whom… and yet…”

Lou Shuwan’s voice trailed lower and lower as she spoke, gradually falling silent. Yu Yulin sighed softly too, and as the night wind blew past, it wrapped the pavilion in a hush.

Indeed — these past years, the suffering of the people — four words summed up the whole state of the Central Plains. That the fighting at Xiaocang River and in the northwest would drag on this long, at such intensity, was something no one could have imagined three years earlier. For three years, in order to sustain this “western campaign,” the entire strength of the great Qi state — its manpower, its resources — had been mobilized.

Under the pressure of the Jurchens, Emperor Liu Yu had pushed hardest of all, conscripting on an unprecedented scale and oppressing the lower classes; over these three years, the great majority of the common people across the Central Plains had barely been able to survive. These regions, their resources for survival already stretched thin after the Jurchens’ three southern campaigns, were further crushed under Liu Yu’s regime — every year brought widespread famine, and even the exchange of children to eat one another’s; nearly all the grain was requisitioned as military rations, and only those who enlisted, or the cruel officials who helped enforce the regime, could get any food at all under such harsh conditions.

The regions not directly under Liu Yu’s control fared somewhat better. The Tiger King’s territory was among the best of these — partly because it had, from the start, placed importance on commerce; after surrendering to the Jurchens, Tian Hu’s forces had continued trading with them, offering small concessions in exchange. And partly, too, because the alliance formed by Lou Shuwan, Yu Yulin, and Tian Hu’s nephew Tian Shi had, early on, taken military control of large tracts of farmland, even sealing off entire counties as restricted zones, strictly forbidding the free movement of population. As a result, though many refugees were turned away and left to starve or be killed outside Tian Hu’s territory, this approach both maintained a degree of productive order and preserved a certain level of combat readiness among the troops under his command. Tian Hu’s forces used this advantage to attract talented people, becoming, amid this chaotic age, a place of no small pride.

Even so, compared to peaceful times, life remained extremely hard.

It had to be acknowledged that the person chiefly responsible for the emergence and implementation of this set of measures was Lou Shuwan — drawing on many of Ning Yi’s own methods and combining them with a woman’s sharp instincts, she had, together with allies like Yu Yulin and Tian Hu’s nephew Tian Shi, pushed these policies forward.

And with the Jurchens’ strength and Liu Yu’s rule over the great Qi state weighing heavily upon him, Tian Hu had, over time, come to appreciate the value of having such a capable “household manager.” And so, though the regions under the mismanagement of Tian Hu’s own unambitious relatives remained rife with corrupt officials and suffering people, he granted Yu Yulin, Lou Shuwan, and others considerable power and protection, keeping several strictly administered territories to boost production and support the operation of his entire domain. And as Lou Shuwan grew ever more important within Tian Hu’s ranks, she was granted the position of Censor, tasked specifically with impeaching others — a way of using her to check and balance his relations with everyone else.

In this delicate position, Lou Shuwan often opened fire at court, impeaching this person for corruption and dereliction of duty one day, that person for factionalism and corruption the next — and invariably, whoever she targeted was indeed guilty. As relationships around her grew more and more strained, she had, by now, genuinely become one of the powerful “ministers” beneath the Tiger King.

Over these three years of great war, Yu Yulin, through his alliance with Lou Shuwan, had managed to avoid the disaster of being sent to the very front lines. Yet even in the rear, the hardship of those days was something only he himself could know, and he understood full well just how brutal the fighting at the front had been. Over these three years, the numbers fed into that bottomless pit numbered in the millions; though no precise count existed, well over a million of those sent never returned at all.

Among the generals and soldiers dispatched to that killing ground — not just those under Tian Hu, but those under Liu Yu as well — hardly any had truly wanted to go. Once on the battlefield, all of them looked for any chance to avoid the fighting. But there was no escaping the Jurchens’ watchful eyes, nor the Black Banner Army’s sudden strikes. Over the years, the number of important figures who had died at the hands of the Black Banner Army went far beyond Liu Yu’s general Ji Wenkang alone — Liu Yu’s own younger brother Liu Yi had begged desperately for his life before the end, yet had still not escaped that final blow.

Among the forces Tian Hu sent out, Wang Yuan and Sun An had led their troops into the mountains, initially planning only to retreat at the first sign of the enemy, yet in those mountains, the Black Banner Army had brought down a single artillery barrage across a ravine, collapsing the mountainside and burying nearly a thousand men alive in the valley — neither Wang Yuan nor Sun An ever came back out. When General Wu Neng returned, he was at death’s door, unable even to speak a word when seeing his family one last time. Ling Guang, Fan Yuming, and others were scattered after an ambush, and their bones were never even recovered from the mountains…

Back when he had first met Ning Yi at Lüliang, Yu Yulin had thought only that the man was indeed formidable — for a mere merchant to reach such heights was remarkable in itself. But after these three years of great war, Yu Yulin had truly come to understand just what kind of man this was. Killing the emperor, killing Loushi — those hardly needed mentioning; Wang Yuan, Sun An, even Ji Wenkang and Liu Yi were nothing worth remarking on at all. This man had dragged along several million men in a headlong rampage, chased a renowned general like Zhe Keqiu into desperate flight, personally beheaded the captured general Cibushi atop the walls of Yanzhou, and had never once, not for a moment, considered peace talks with the Jurchens. That was no longer something that could be summed up merely as “formidable.”

Across the entire Central Plains, anyone who had fought against him had been dragged, without exception, deep into that same mire.

Yu Yulin had even, at times, felt as though the whole realm might well drown, dragged down along with him.

And yet suddenly, one day, word came that he had died. In his heart, though he did not think it entirely impossible, there were certain thoughts he simply could not let go of.

“I… in the end, I don’t believe he’d have no contingency plan. For him to suddenly die, in the end, it just seems…”

After a moment of silence, Yu Yulin spoke again. Across from him, Lou Shuwan continued gazing at the lake, then suddenly stirred her wine flask, her eyes lifting slightly. “I don’t believe it either.”

Her tone was low; she paused, then spoke again, softly. “A contingency plan… dragging along several million men, fighting a three-year war without ever once retreating — for what? Just for that one point of pride? I can’t make sense of it… Ning Liheng calculates ten steps ahead in everything he does. He said, in the end, there’s an injustice that can’t be settled — he killed the emperor, and there was still a path forward even after that. Was this all just so the Jurchens wouldn’t be pleased? First, it’s for the sake of reputation — the name of regicide can never be washed away, and he’s already burned that bridge that others still have open to them. If he’d shown even the slightest willingness to compromise with the Jurchens, his standing would have collapsed instantly. And so, having fought head-on for three years, in the end, there would be people willing to follow him — he carved out a path forward, straight through the front…”

“To risk everything he owns, everything he’s built, just for the sake of reputation — that seems far too much…”

Lou Shuwan fell silent for a long while. “Three years of great war. Once they entered the mountains, it was chaos — the Jurchens just kept pushing people forward, not caring whether they lived or died, and those generals only cared about saving their own skins, and time and again, the camps broke and scattered in panic. In the end, how many died — General Yu, do you know?”

Yu Yulin frowned. “What are you getting at…”

Lou Shuwan’s gaze grew distant. “Last April, Shan Shiqi returned after a great defeat and was put on trial. I went to interrogate him, confiscated his gold and silver, and asked him about the situation in the mountains. Without meaning to, Shan Shiqi mentioned something, and it’s stayed in my mind ever since. But I don’t know battlefield matters well, so I couldn’t dig any deeper — it’s just something I’ve kept buried in my heart…”

“…”

The night wind was gentle now, the lake glimmering; from somewhere off to the side, the sounds of the great hall still drifted faintly. Lou Shuwan began laying out her suspicions, choosing her words carefully, speaking slowly.

“After Shan Shiqi’s defeat, he fled with a group of his personal guards and eventually sought shelter under Liu Yu’s general Su Gai. A few nights later, Su Gai’s army was suddenly struck — twenty thousand men, their camp thrown into chaos, fleeing blindly in every direction, and it was only once the Jurchens arrived that order was restored. Shan Shiqi told me that, that night, he caught a faint glimpse of one of the officers leading the charge against Su Gai’s forces — a man who had once been a deputy commander under his own banner.”

Yu Yulin’s mouth fell slightly open. “In these three years of war, there certainly have been people who defected to the Black Banner Army. But — are you saying…”

“These past years, to try to starve the Black Banner Army out in the mountains, the Jurchens have indeed placed great emphasis on grain and supply units. But how much grain the Black Banner Army actually has stored up in those mountains, no one can say for certain. How much they’ve seized, no one knows either. We’ve always assumed that, with things so hard even out here, the Black Banner Army in the middle of a great war couldn’t possibly take in that many prisoners — they simply couldn’t feed them. But… what if it were possible?”

Lou Shuwan spoke evenly. “Several million men sent into those mountains, fighting against a Black Banner Army of just a few tens of thousands — but how many, really? Who can say? In the first year of this war, the troops still had some fighting spirit left. By the second year, it was all conscripted peasants, handed a knife or a spear and sent up to be ground to pieces in those mountains… General Yu, originally, not many people wanted to join the Black Banner Army — regicide doesn’t exactly make for a good reputation. But the Jurchens forced them up there to test the cannons first. If they had the chance to choose again, General Yu, do you think they’d rather follow the Jurchens, or follow that Han army? General Yu, you know how Ning Liheng trains his troops.”

Yu Yulin’s brow had already knit tightly, and he fell into a stunned silence.

“Three years of great war, never once retreating on the front line, throwing several million men onto that killing ground, and when the blade comes down, asking them which side they’d rather join. If… I’m only saying if… he seized that opportunity… then that entire mountain range might have become nothing less than a recruiting ground, entirely his to choose from. Ha, several million men — and after we’ve picked through them, they get to pick too…”

Lou Shuwan’s laughter rang out through the pavilion, then stopped abruptly — the joke was too dark, and for a moment Yu Yulin could not bring himself to respond. After a while, he said, “In the end… it wouldn’t have been easy to keep secret…”

“…Yes, I thought about that too, afterward — if it were really true, why would so few people ever have spoken of it? Perhaps, in the end, I’ve simply been overthinking it…” She paused, lifted her wine flask, and took a sip, her eyes distant. “Who can ever really say, when it comes to the battlefield. Three years, and the Central Plains has been beaten into this state — whether he’s really dead, or only pretending to be, everyone gets a way to save face over it. General Yu, why dig any deeper? Who knows — maybe next time, it’ll be you sent to the front…”

Yu Yulin took a drink, nodded, and after a moment, without so much as a farewell, walked quietly away.

Lou Shuwan remained leaning against the pavilion, head still lowered, the wine flask swaying gently in her hand. She began humming again, and after a while, the melody could be faintly made out: “…willow-lined bridges veiled in mist, painted screens of emerald green, a hundred thousand households scattered close together. Clouds and trees ring the embankment’s sands… angry tides roll like frost and snow, the great chasm stretching without end… layered lakes and peaks, clear and fine. Three autumns bring cassia blossoms, ten miles bring lotus flowers… reed pipes play beneath clear skies, water-chestnut songs drift through the night, old fishermen and lotus-picking girls at play together… a thousand riders escort the high banners…”

This was something Ning Yi had written, years ago, in Hangzhou — back when the two of them had only just met, when her father and brother were still alive, when the waterside towns of Hangzhou had been rich and prosperous — a beauty no one could ever have imagined losing one day. What splendor, what happiness that had been… and now, all of it, in the end, was gone forever, never to return…

Thinking of her lost family, and of her one remaining brother, now a man reduced to a shadow of himself, drifting through each day meaninglessly, and then, thinking again of that name — Yu Yulin had been right, if he had suddenly died, she would not be glad, because she always found herself thinking that she wanted to kill him with her own hands. But — Ning Yi…

“Ning Liheng…”

The name drifted through her mind, and in her eyes, too, there passed a complicated, pained expression. She lifted her wine flask again and took another drink, pressing all those feelings back down.

“Ning Liheng, if you really have died like this… then so be it…”

She murmured this to herself, both lamenting and hoping.

Across this land that had suffered so much, the night lingered long and deep. To the west, the great mountains that had, for three years, never once stopped boiling with fire, had finally, gradually, begun to fall still. Atop what had once been the thriving stronghold of Qingmu, the moonlight now lay clear as water; in the valleys long since burned black, the ruined wooden structures had turned to rich new soil, new saplings sprouting up among them, birds flying in to rest briefly upon this land, still dark with old fire, before continuing on their way.

At Xiaocang River, the old buildings had long since been utterly destroyed — the houses, the streets, the plazas, the fields, the waterwheels, all trace of them gone. Where the buildings had collapsed, their wreckage lay scattered in crisscrossing lines; with the people gone, the place had become like a haunted ruin. This land, too, had once endured slaughter beyond imagining, nearly every inch of it once stained red with blood. The once-massive reservoir dam had long since collapsed, and the river now poured back into the valley as it had in ages past; after the great flood and the decay of the dead, the grass and trees in the valley had grown thick and lush, and beneath that greenery lay countless bleached white bones.

The great battle for control of Xiaocang River had ended more than a year ago now, and even the handful of Jurchen and great-Qi soldiers still stationed nearby no longer dared come this way. On this night, beneath the moonlight, several shadowy figures emerged rustling from the ridgeline — only a handful of men, moving quietly, crossing the outer ravines and passing through the breach in the collapsed dam into the valley within.

They kept careful watch on their surroundings as they moved, walking silently past place after once-familiar place; some of them ran their fingers along the broken, crumbling walls. They climbed partway up the mountainside and saw that the small courtyard there had long since burned down, leaving only the traces of its foundation, over which wild grass had now grown.

“Let’s go,” someone said quietly — these were, perhaps, the very last of the Black Banner troops still remaining in this place.

At the mouth of the valley, the stone tablet that had once borne the words “Xiaocang River” had long since been smashed to pieces, only the marks of its destruction remaining now. They ran their hands over that spot, and in the moonlight, turned to look back once more into the valley. “One day, we’ll come back.”

“It won’t be long now…” someone said.

These figures crossed the valley, passed over the ridgeline. Beneath the moonlight, Xiaocang River still flowed on as it always had, winding through this land where a million men lay buried, and those who left this place — some, in some future day, would return; others would never come back at all. Perhaps they now existed, somewhere, in a state of peace.

And the war.

The war had, for now, fallen quiet. And yet, nourished by weakness and hiding, someday it would return once more, in a fiercer, more transformed form, spreading like wildfire.

In the third year of Wu’s Jianshuo era, at the turn from summer into autumn, the history of Xiaocang River turned another page.