At the very start of this year, in the first month, Liu Yu, in the Central Plains, had carried out his obligations to the Jin state with great caution, sending his son Liu Lin south across the Huai River at the head of an army to attack Wu. At the same time, envoys of the Great Qi had traveled north to the Jin state, urging Wuqimai, Zonghan, Zongfu, and the others to send troops south. This was hardly the first such appeal—for two or three years now, Liu Yu, well aware that his own strength could never overcome the Wu Dynasty, and constantly fearful that the Black Banner infiltrators lurking within his own court might take his life at any moment, had been waiting for the Jin state to march south and settle every problem once and for all.
But by the third month, a great crisis struck the Jin court: Wuqimai suffered a stroke and never rose from his bed again. Though he still handled state affairs day to day, all discussion of a southern campaign was, from that point on, closed off to the Great Qi envoys.
With the emperor fallen ill, even the Jin state had to see to the stability of its own internal affairs first; the matter of the southern campaign was naturally shelved once more.
Liu Lin’s crossing of the river ended in crushing defeat, and he returned north leading a ragged remnant of his once-great force. Everyone else, in truth, breathed a sigh of relief—looking toward the Jin state, looking toward the southwest, and finding both of these terrible powers quiet, unmoving, for the time being. Better that way.
For a while longer, everyone could once again scrape by, carefully, day by day…
It was also in this season of warming spring that, along the thousand-mile stretch of land from Daming Prefecture down toward Zhengzhou, families fleeing famine, dragging children and belongings behind them, their eyes filled with fear and unease, passed through one town and checkpoint after another. Local authorities mustered what manpower they could—blocking, driving off, or outright killing—in an attempt to keep these starving refugees out of their territories.
In the relatively prosperous regions, the people within the towns, having endured the crushing taxation and plunder of the Liu Yu court, managed to scrape by. But beyond the towns, out into the mountains and wilderness, one entered something close to hell. Mountain bandits and horse-riding raiders ran rampant everywhere; refugees who left their homes found no shelter anywhere else, and gradually began drifting toward the place rumor called home to the “Ghost King.” The local authorities sent troops as well, scattering the refugee band led by Wang Shitong twice in the territory of Huazhou. The refugees, like a pool of murky water struck by a fist, scattered apart each time—only to gradually pool together again afterward.
This tide of refugees came every year; compared to the Jin state to the north, or the Black Banner to the south, it was, in the end, not considered a matter of great importance. Kill them off twice, and the army’s enthusiasm for the task would cool. There was no killing them all—sending troops cost money and grain, and in the end, one had to tend one’s own small patch of ground before anything else; even for the sake of the wider world, no one could afford to spend all their time on it.
Development mattered too.
The Yellow River, curving through its great bend, flowed on toward the northeast. From the plains near Zhengzhou to the mountains near Daming Prefecture, in many places, not even the sound of a chicken could be heard for a thousand miles. Compared to the flourishing days of the Wu Dynasty, the population of the Central Plains had now fallen to a quarter of what it once was. Village after village, their mud walls collapsed, stood abandoned and empty; migrants traveled the wilderness in small clusters of three or five, while bandits who claimed whole stretches of territory as their own, and mounted raiders who gathered in howling bands, came and went—most of them ragged, gaunt, and sallow-faced themselves.
The surviving villages, and the wealthier landholders among them, had built watchtowers and high walls; even so, they were frequently visited by officials and troops who hauled away cartload after cartload of their goods. The mounted bandits came too, since they had no other choice—and afterward, either the bandits would scatter like startled birds, or the high walls would be breached, leaving slaughter and fire in their wake, spreading without end. Women carrying infants trudged through the mud, and sometimes, without warning, would simply collapse and never rise again, until at last even the child’s crying gradually faded into silence… In a world stripped of order, few people had the means left to protect even themselves.
That world once alive with trade routes, silk and fine cloth—it had drifted far away now, into memory alone.
North of Puzhou, Wang Shitong, dressed in tattered black clothes, his hair a wild tangle, crouched on a rock, staring blankly at the churning, chaotic sea of people—starved, gaunt figures, their eyes gone the color of blood.
“Wait a little longer, a little longer…” he murmured to his one-armed deputy.
Spring had come, warm and blooming, but many of those who had come south the year before had frozen to death that winter. More and more people gathered here every single day; sometimes edible leaves could be found in the forest, along with fruit and small animals, and fish in the water. Those who had only abandoned their homes after the start of spring still carried a little grain with them.
They were not yet hungry enough.
They would be, eventually.
North of the Yellow River, on what had once been the Tiger King’s territory, Tian Shi, having succeeded to power, had carried out a wave of brutal purges and a series of reforms. General Yu Yulin worked the fields himself, guiding a plow with his own hands. Climbing up out of the mud, washing himself clean, he saw Lou Shuwan sitting in the roadside grass shelter, dressed in black, reading through the latest intelligence reports.
Over these past years, handling a great volume of affairs, working each night by dim oil lamp, the woman had strained her eyes; her vision was poor, nearsighted, so that she now held papers close to her face in the posture of an old woman. Once she finished reading, she straightened up, and only when Yu Yulin walked over did he learn that the third arms deal for cannons with the Black Banner in the south had just been completed.
Since the coup the year before, Yu Yulin had come to command significant troops and hold high rank, and his relationship with Lou Shuwan had grown correspondingly closer. Even so, from that time to now, he had spent most of his time in the north stabilizing the situation and keeping a close eye on Wang Juyun—their “ally,” though hardly a man of good character—and the two of them actually met in person rather rarely.
“Last month, An Xifu, under Wang Juyun’s command, came to discuss defensive troop deployments with me, and brought up the matter of Li Xizhi. I could tell Wang Juyun means to go to war with Li Xizhi, and sent him to sound out our intentions.”
Yu Yulin sat down in the chair beside Lou Shuwan, telling her all this. Lou Shuwan folded her hands over her knees, thought for a moment, and smiled. “War is your business, gentlemen. What would a woman like me know of it? Please, General Yu, spell out the merits and drawbacks more clearly for me.”
Lou Shuwan’s words carried a certain distant formality, but Yu Yulin was long since used to her guarded manner, and paid it no mind. “When the Tiger King still lived, the territory north of the Yellow River was split three ways among us. Now that our two houses have joined forces, we can afford to press a bit against Li Xizhi’s side. Wang Juyun’s implication is this: Li Xizhi is a spineless man without backbone—if the Jurchens come marching in, he’ll drop to his knees and beg for mercy. Wang Juyun has openly declared his opposition to the Jin, and worries that when the time comes, Li Xizhi might strike at his back when he’s not looking.”
“So it benefits them, and not us?” Lou Shuwan said with a smile.
South of Yanmen Pass, the territory north of the Yellow River was split three ways—all of it, broadly speaking, nominally under Great Qi rule. In truth, the eastern portion was controlled by Li Xizhi, Liu Yu’s trusted confidant; Wang Juyun held the most chaotic stretch of land near Yanmen Pass, and neither he nor his men made any pretense of submitting to the Jurchens, even in name. The Tian family’s territory in between had prospered best of all, thanks to holding mountainous terrain ill-suited to cavalry, which allowed them to play both sides to their advantage.
Yu Yulin, Lou Shuwan, and the others who had led the killing of the Tiger King were, on the whole, the more level-headed and rational faction of the group; together with the more radical Tian Shi and his circle, they had long since grown weary of the many dissolute wastrels who had attached themselves to the Tian family’s kin. The Tian family’s decade-plus of rule had not yet given rise to a fully entangled web of vested interests, and after this round of killing, the invigoration within their ranks was already showing clear results, especially in dealings with the Black Banner, which had let their strength grow considerably behind the scenes. But because their prior stance had remained ambiguous, so long as they avoided an outright, open break with the Jurchens, there was still some room for them to maneuver.
“Last year the hungry refugees caused no end of trouble, and several prefectures to the east are now nine-tenths empty—an utter ruin. As long as there’s grain to be had, they’ll swallow whatever comes their way. And besides, with these extra cannons, it’s worth picking a soft target to drill our troops against. But that’s not really the important part…”
As Yu Yulin spoke, Lou Shuwan cut in with a smile. “With everything in such ruin, where would there even be surplus grain? Might as well pick the softest target to drill against and just go with them outright. We’re loyal subjects under the Jin banner, after all—striking down a rebel army is only right and proper.”
Yu Yulin laughed as well. “That’s not the important part. What Wang Juyun and An Xifu really want is to stir up trouble for Li Xizhi and provoke the Black Banner into action.”
Lou Shuwan blinked. “That’s a bold claim. What business is it of theirs?”
“The Black Banner has some presence built up in Shandong.”
Lou Shuwan turned her gaze to Yu Yulin—deep, thoughtful, but not puzzled.
“And it’s not only the Black Banner… Back when Ning Yi used strategy to break Liangshan, he drew on the strength of several estates around Dulong Ridge, and later trained troops there as well—he has real ties to two of the estates on that ridge. Zhu Biao and the others from the Zhu Family Manor once served under him. After the three years at Xiaocang River, the Black Banner withdrew south, and though Li Xizhi took control of Shandong and Hebei, the folk there are tough and fierce, and there are many places he still can’t fully subdue by force. Dulong Ridge and Liangshan are among them…”
What Yu Yulin was describing, Lou Shuwan of course already knew well. Back when Ning Yi had broken Liangshan and made common cause with the tough, hardy folk of Dulong Ridge, no one had thought much of it at the time. It was only after Ning Yi killed the emperor, and people traced things back, that they suddenly realized Dulong Ridge had in fact been one of the birthplaces of Ning Yi’s armed forces. How much he had left behind there was difficult to say, even now.
The three years of great war at Xiaocang River had thoroughly frightened the people of the Central Plains. Li Xizhi, who had once attacked Xiaocang River himself, had of course also sent troops against Dulong Ridge after gaining control of Shandong—but frankly, the fighting there had proven extraordinarily difficult. The Zhu and Hu families of Dulong Ridge, forced back by the direct advance of government troops, had been compelled to abandon and destroy their own estates, after which they had taken to wandering the Liangshan marshes, gathering into a howling band of bandits, causing Li Xizhi no end of embarrassment. He had later burned Dulong Ridge to bare earth, but never occupied it, and the area had instead become a chaotic, ownerless no-man’s-land.
And on the outside, the power now standing behind the bandits of Dulong Ridge and the Liangshan marshes turned out to be, of all things, the sworn enemy of the Black Banner: Southern Wu. Back when Ning Yi had killed the emperor, many had been implicated in the fallout. The women of the great scholar Wang Qisong’s household had survived only because Crown Prince Zhou Junwu had protected them, and Wang Shanyue, the sole surviving heir of the Wang line, who had originally held office in the south, had fled north under the protection of his wife, Hu Sanniang, taking shelter at the Hu Family Manor after the marriage. After the fall of the Central Plains, though he bore the mark of a criminal, he had never forgotten his concern for the nation, and had continued leading his followers in a running struggle against both the Jurchens and Great Qi troops. On the surface, then, this territory in fact belonged to the resistance forces loyal to Southern Wu.
Factions with hearts still loyal to the southern court were far from rare across the land of the Central Plains, and if anything, this made them easier for people to tolerate. Li Xizhi’s several campaigns having failed to root them out, he had eventually let the matter drop, and no one spoke of it much anymore. Only this year, with stirrings beginning in the south again, had this kind of speculation begun to circulate once more.
“Wang Juyun believes that, whether or not there’s a Black Banner presence in the north right now, there certainly is one. Unlike the Black Banner spies planted in our own courts and armies, this particular force in Shandong is very likely a dormant elite unit of the Black Banner, lying low. If chaos breaks out inside Li Xizhi’s ranks, given how shrewd Ning Yi is, there’s no way he wouldn’t come out to seize the advantage—and to seize an advantage, he’d have to take on some risk. When the Jurchens eventually march south, the first place they’ll turn their attention to will certainly be Shandong. When that day comes, he won’t be able to avoid relying on you and me—at the very least, he’ll want us to hold out as long as we can.”
“And if the Black Banner doesn’t move?”
“Then we split the interests in Shandong and Hebei between us. If the Jurchens march south, we can naturally withdraw back into the mountains. Shandong—so what if we lose it, in the end?”
“…He’s dead set on fighting the Jurchens.”
“‘The lands of the Han may fall into disorder among ourselves, but they must not fall into the hands of foreign barbarians.’ That’s An Xifu’s exact phrasing.”
“…Minister Wang, is it.” Lou Shuwan thought for a moment, and smiled. Minister Wang Yin, of the Yongle uprising, was someone she had glimpsed once, back in her Hangzhou days—though she had been young then, and the memory of those years, more than a decade past now, had faded, though it stirred a peculiar feeling in her all the same, thinking of it now.
Back then, that innocent, young woman’s heart had known nothing but fear; seeing those men who had marched into Hangzhou, she had thought them nothing more than rough, uncouth peasants. Now, having witnessed the fall of the Central Plains, the overturning of heaven and earth, holding the livelihoods of a million people in her own hands, and facing the fear of the Jurchen threat, she suddenly felt that among those men who had entered the city that day, there had perhaps been true, towering heroes after all. And this idea of a hero was very different now from what it had once been.
“Sounds like quite the formidable man,” Yu Yulin said, then stood and paced a few steps. “But looking at it now, this hero, you and I, everyone in this court, our army of a million men, even the world itself—it all seems to be a plaything in that one man’s hands.”
Lou Shuwan’s gaze remained calm; she said nothing. Yu Yulin sighed. “The fact that Ning Yi is still alive must be settled by now. Looking at it that way, last year’s great upheaval was likely his doing behind the scenes too. It’s almost laughable—we fight and kill each other over matters of life and death for millions of people, and it all turns out to be nothing more than someone else’s puppet show, with us as the strings.”
Yu Yulin spoke these words without much sign of despondency. Lou Shuwan pressed her thumb lightly against her palm. “Brother Yu is a remarkable man in his own right—no need to belittle yourself. The world bustles about, all of it in pursuit of gain. He simply took advantage of the current; we, in turn, gained something from it. That’s all there is to it.” Having said this, she saw Yu Yulin look up at her, and murmured softly, “In someone else’s hands…” What thoughts that phrase stirred in her, no one could say, but a fleeting look, bitter and yet somehow alluring, flickered through her eyes before vanishing. The spring wind stirred the hair of this fiercely independent woman; ahead of them, the green fields stretched on and on.
“I met with Sect Leader Lin of the Great Illumination Sect a few days ago, and agreed to let them keep building temples and spreading their teachings here. Before long, I intend to join the Great Illumination Sect myself as well.” Yu Yulin’s gaze followed her own, out toward the horizon, as Lou Shuwan went on in a calm voice. “Under the tenets of the Great Illumination Sect, beneath the Radiant Lord, there is a position they call the Mystic Lady Descended to the World, who governs the sect’s leaders of high and low rank across this territory. The Great Illumination Sect isn’t to overreach into military or political affairs, but they can freely recruit monk-soldiers from among the poor. North of the Yellow River, we’ll stand behind them, and help them expand further into Wang Juyun’s and Li Xizhi’s territories. They gather grain from the south, and we can help escort and transport it for them as well… Sect Leader Lin has great ambitions, and has already agreed to all of it.”
She smiled. “Before long, people will come to know that our great lord is also a god descended from heaven—a living Mystic King in this world. And you, Brother Yu, will be a divine general who patrols the realm in heaven’s stead. Whether you’d rather be the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King or the Heavenly King Who Upholds the Realm, the choice is yours.”
Yu Yulin looked at her for a long moment. “That monk is no innocent either. Take care of yourself.”
“In times like these, you can’t catch the wolf without giving up the sheep. I know what I’m doing—it’s either him eating me, or me eating him.”
Yu Yulin said nothing more after that. The two of them, one standing, one seated, gazed out ahead for a long while. At some point, low murmurs began drifting through the air between them.
“…In someone else’s hands…”
“…Sooner or later I’ll bite a piece of flesh right off him…”
The two great figures talked out there in the fields for a long while, and by the time they rode back into the city by carriage, brilliant evening clouds had already spread across the sky, casting their glow down over the walls of Weisheng. The streets bustled with crowds, and beggar children clustered near the city gates as well—but compared to the rest of the Central Plains at this moment, this town, having weathered more than a decade of relative peace, showed a certain hard-to-describe steadiness and calm instead. Even far from despair’s edge, life and vitality could still be found gathering in this one corner.
“Holding this land, keeping the people safe within these borders, Miss Lou—all of it is owed to you. Your merit is beyond measure.” Lifting the carriage curtain, Yu Yulin said this much.
Lou Shuwan gazed out at the crowd, her expression calm, as it always had been these past years. Little vivid expression could be read on her face any longer.
There had long since been no one left with whom she could share any of this.