On this same sixth day of the great battle in the southwest, along the mountain roads outside Jishan County, banners of every kind had gathered, one after another.
Matching them, one by one, were the black banners of the Chinese Army garrisoning Jishan. Ning Yi, still dressed in his familiar blue robe, had come from Heden County to meet with the leaders of these various companies.
The fighting against the Wuxiang Army still continued in the mountains to the northeast. In Liangshan, the various tribes that had taken part in the Small Grey Ridge Alliance had now begun sending out troops — their destination, the once-powerful Mangshan Yi tribe.
This was an internal struggle among the Yi peoples. For thousands of years, the various Yi tribes that had lived and multiplied in Liangshan had fought among themselves in ways too brutal and savage to easily describe to outsiders — and it was this that had bred their fierce, tenacious folk character. Since the alliance at Small Grey Ridge, the Chinese Army had been able to recruit some warriors from among the Yi tribes into its own ranks, and the two sides would go on to deepen their cooperation and exchange further. The process of assimilation might be a long one, but at least it had begun on good footing, with a reasonably stable rear secured.
Accompanying Ning Yi was his wife, Su Tan’er, who had finally managed to steal a bit of a break, along with the children, Ning Xi and Ning Ji. For a long time now, supplies in the three counties of Heden had never really been abundant, and much of it also had to be shared with the Dayang tribe of Tibet, leaving logistics perpetually stretched thin. Especially now, with war underway, Ning Yi needed to force the various Yi tribes to take sides, and could only wait for the right moment to act. The Mangshan tribe, meanwhile, had been aggressively raiding during the autumn harvest, and Su Tan’er, who managed logistics — along with Ning Yi himself, who also had a hand in it — had constantly had to wrestle with the limited resources on hand.
On this level, Lu Qiaoshan’s strategy of speaking pleasantly on the surface while secretly trying to exhaust the Chinese Army’s resources was not without its logic. Of course, whoever it was, everyone would also have to face the consequences of pushing the Chinese Army to the point of an all-out, desperate final push — a consequence that even the Jurchens, as things stood now, would find extremely difficult to bear.
Total blockade, gathering allies, dragging out the front lines, scorching the earth — if the Wu Dynasty’s campaign against the Black Banner could truly be carried out with this level of resolve, then the Chinese Army, whose own reserves were not especially deep to begin with, might genuinely be forced to lay all its cards on the table, at the cost of ruin on both sides. But with an invasion of only a hundred thousand men, the moment the pieces had been set down at Small Grey Ridge, all of this had already been decided — no need to think it over any further.
Ning Yi and Su Tan’er, for their part, allowed themselves to relax a little.
Having seen off the Yi tribespeople who had come, largely as a formality, to demonstrate solidarity outside the county town, Ning Yi and Tan’er walked together along the foothills, uneven trees lining the way, sunlight filtering down from above. Ning Xi and Ning Ji and the other children had gone into the city to visit the wounded Su Wenfang, and had not come along.
The city lay spread out below them, looking both prosperous and strange all at once — earthen and brick houses standing side by side, waterwheels turning, factories bustling one after another, walls dividing the city into different districts, black smoke rising in columns. There were no gardens here, and the busy city had a somewhat rigid, utilitarian look to it.
“Do you still remember the courtyard in Jiangning?” Ning Yi asked as they walked.
“How could I forget — the place I grew up in.” As she walked along the path, Tan’er’s steps were light. Though her dress was plain, when Ning Yi asked this question, something of her old smile still surfaced in her expression. Back then, Ning Yi had only just awakened, and she, having fled her own arranged marriage, had come back from outside dressed in fine silk and a bright red cloak, confident and radiant — all of it now settled deep within her.
“It’s been so many years since I’ve seen it.”
“I went back, after we entered the capital. It’s only since then — Xiaocang River, the northwest, and now here — that it’s been over ten years.” Tan’er tilted her head up. “Why bring this up?”
“The firecrackers at New Year, the lanterns of the Lantern Festival, the pleasure quarters and markets, the boats on the Qinhuai River… Sometimes I think about it, and it feels like I took so much away from you.” Ning Yi took her hand. “Mm. I really did take a lot away.”
Tan’er glanced at him, only smiling in response. “When I was a teenager, looking at all that, I really did think I’d never be able to leave it behind for the rest of my life. But then, since my family was in the business of selling things, I’d always half-expected that one day I might end up with nothing left. In the end, marrying, having children — a whole lifetime never stays the same anyway. You went up to the capital, and I went with you — it was never going to be that we’d stay in Jiangning forever. Then Xiaocang River, and now here in Liangshan — it does seem like quite a journey, when I think about it, but that’s just how a life goes, I suppose… Why bring this up all of a sudden, husband?”
“Mm… just thought of it, that’s all. I dreamed last night — dreamed of the two of us up in that room, talking, like we used to.”
“That building burned down.” Tan’er stopped walking and lifted her chin to look at him. “Have you forgotten, husband? I burned it down myself.”
“That’s right, that’s right.” Ning Yi laughed.
Tan’er let go of his hand and walked on ahead a little. Over the years her figure hadn’t changed all that much, but at over thirty, the sweetness of her twenties had given way to the restraint of a mother and the softness of a wife, along with a certain resilience earned from having traveled so much road. “In the end, it was only by burning down that building that we could end up living together — and that’s how we got Xi’er, too. Whatever might have happened after burning it down, I didn’t think it through clearly at the time, but a building like that was always going to burn eventually. Jiangning, too, was always something to leave behind. I’m out here in Heden now, and sometimes I feel stifled, but when I really think about it — leaving Jiangning, and then leaving the capital after that — none of it seems so strange after all. But you, on the other hand…”
She crossed her arms and turned to glare at him. “Ning the Butcher! What are you scheming this time?”
“My wife sees clean through me.” Ning Yi’s smile widened. “After all this time here…”
“Who’s going to have their bad luck this time?”
“This morning, Wenyu volunteered himself to go negotiate with the Wuxiang Army.”
“Oh?” Tan’er’s expression changed abruptly, her brow furrowing.
“Based on my long assessment of Lu Qiaoshan, in a situation like this, Wenyu should be fine. Don’t worry — Wenfang’s wounded, and Wenyu would love nothing more than to see them dead. Going to negotiate lets him extract the most favorable terms — that’s the reason he gave for volunteering himself. But that’s not all I wanted to say. We’ve kept our heads down in Liangshan long enough…” He paused. “It’s time to step out.”
Tan’er was silent for a moment. “So the time has come?”
“We’ve kept our tails tucked in here for years now, and it’s come to the point where every two-bit clown thinks he can come poke at us. That the Wu Dynasty, in this state, still dared send Lu Qiaoshan out here — it’s time they learned a lesson. Since when did I become someone who just swallows losses without complaint?” Ning Yi frowned and shook his head.
“But… husband, you said before, there were reasons not to go out.”
“There were.” Ning Yi walked forward, taking Su Tan’er’s hand. “You can conquer a place by force. The Black Banner has several hundred thousand men — if we really committed to it, I could cut a path straight through the whole Wu Dynasty. But to truly win over a place, to assimilate it, you can only do that through culture and learning. These past years at Xiaocang River and in Heden, all this talk of equality, democracy, republicanism, capital, natural science, even the great unity of all under heaven — put these ideas out among the millions of people of the Wu Dynasty as they are, and they’ll vanish without a trace. After all… their lives are still just about bearable enough as it is.”
“The fire I’ve lit within the Black Banner Army — even after ten years of earnest effort, it’s still only a spark. If we truly had to go all-out, the only thing that would really work is shouting slogans about killing the rich and dividing up the land, plain and simple. When Zuo Duanyou left, I joked with him once — that if the whole world truly turned against me, I’d start shouting for equality and land redistribution. But you know, if the world is ever going to truly get better, before it can get better, it first has to acknowledge the differences that exist right now.”
“Overcorrection always goes too far. If we handed power back to the common people as things stand now, our cultural heritage would be severed entirely. It wouldn’t matter much if the old Confucian system as it stands were to end — but respect for culture and wisdom must not be allowed to die, and the dignity of scholars and intellectuals must not be allowed to die either. To get onto the right path, we can’t rely on the words of fools. In the end, we still need wisdom at the core. At the very least, I want to make sure that in this new era, people come to understand the weight of culture, that scholars themselves recognize that weight, come to understand their own responsibility — and that, because of that responsibility, they might even be willing to stand unbending before raw power, and pay a price for the truth.”
“Killing a man’s spirit is easy enough — just tell everyone under heaven that you’re all the same, that wisdom is no different from ignorance, that being educated is no different from being illiterate. I could smash through the Wu Dynasty, smash through the Jurchens too, unify all under heaven — and then kill every last person who opposed me. Kill one batch of scholars, then another, do it enough times, and what’s left will all be men on their knees. But… then the ones who come after will also kneel, without any backbone left in them at all. They’ll do things for money, for advantage, and whatever culture remains in their hands will carry no weight for them anymore. When people are faced with real questions, how could they ever trust such men again?”
“Letting people understand reason, giving every person the right to choose — the hope is that everyone might become the master of their own fate. But once cultural dignity is severed, then even if you understand reason, once your access to information is blocked, you still won’t be able to make the right choice. And in the future, we’d only end up right back on the same old road. If I smash through the Wu Dynasty just to build another Wu Dynasty in its place, what would have been the point of any of it? Scholars with backbone are troublesome, I know — but for an age to truly get better, it needs scholars with backbone. This is something… I simply cannot ignore.”
The two of them continued down the mountain path together, with several people following at a distance. Tan’er smiled. “If anyone heard you talking like this, husband, they’d say you were just bragging.”
“Look far ahead, and plan well in advance.” Ning Yi smiled too. “But the time’s about right now — let’s step out a little at a time… The most important thing is, those who lose must pay a price, that’s the only way to make an example of them. And besides, the Jurchens are marching south — there’s no guarantee the Wu Dynasty can even hold them off. We don’t have much time to spare, no room left to dawdle. Let’s take a few cities first, and see how it goes. I’ve asked Yong Jinnian to write something…”
“So you’re saying we might actually get to spend the New Year out there this year?”
“Let’s hope for a good year, at least…”
The couple walked on, talking further, and by the time they reached the halfway point of the slope, they saw a few people coming up the road ahead. Tan’er smiled and pointed toward an old man in front. “There, Master Yong.”
This old man’s name was Yong Jinnian, a Confucian scholar introduced through Zuo Duanyou, now working on compiling official documents at Jishan. After exchanging greetings, Ning Yi got straight to the point. “Master Yong, I’ve asked you here because I need to borrow your brush to write a proclamation for the Chinese Army.”
“A proclamation?” The old man’s eyes lit up.
“Yes. Something along the lines of… since the Jinghan era, the Jurchens have risen, and the realm has fallen into turmoil, with the survival of the Central Plains and the Chinese people gravely threatened. Since the founding of the Chinese Army, its officers and soldiers have shed their blood and given their lives for the survival of the realm, holding nothing back even at the cost of their own bodies… During the Jianshuo era, the Central Plains fell under the heel of the Jin bandits, and the Chinese Army resisted for three years in the northwest, repeatedly crushing armies of the puppet Qi and the Jin state totaling nearly a million men, cutting down the great Jurchen generals Loushi and Cibushi in battle, and, finding no reinforcements at their backs, at last withdrew south…”
…
The autumn wind had already begun to rise, though Liangshan still felt warm. At the Wuxiang Army’s main camp, after Su Wenyu proposed unconditional surrender, the two sides declared the first round of negotiations broken off amid mutual hostility.
Su Wenyu turned and walked away, waving a hand.
“In that case — let’s fight for another couple of days!”
Before long, black banners spread once more, sweeping across the mountains toward the Wuxiang Army’s positions.
The war would go on. Before long, Langge would receive word that the Mangshan tribe was under siege from the great army…
…
“…Since the Chinese Army came to Small Liangshan, it has lived quietly and cautiously, harming not a single hair of the local people, dealing with the outside world always on the basis of contract and good faith, never cheating or wronging anyone. Since the Wu Dynasty installed its new emperor, the Chinese Army has consistently maintained restraint and goodwill — and yet, this restraint, this goodwill, has been misread by others. Our goodwill has been mistaken for weakness! In the ninth year of the Jianshuo era of Wu, with the Jin princes Zongfu and Zongbi eyeing the south with hungry eyes, and the Chinese people facing the very real threat of annihilation, the Wu Dynasty has, in this moment, dared to send the hundred-thousand-strong Wuxiang Army against us — choosing, even as the greatest external calamity looms, to turn on kinsmen, to strike at those of the same house—”
…
North of the Yangtze, across the Central Plains, the hungry ghosts continued to swell in number, destroying everything within reach. Bianliang had been under siege for months; as autumn passed, the fields burned by the hungry ghosts yielded no harvest at all, and their stores were already exhausted. Around Bianliang, countless other towns suffered the same fate.
Ali Gua led his troops out to strike, repeatedly crushing and slaughtering the hungry-ghost forces they encountered; several armies once loyal to the puppet Qi also fought desperately to resist the hungry ghosts’ incursions. That autumn, a million or more people either starved to death or were killed on this land; the stench of corpses spread everywhere, and plague began to break out. And yet the numbers of the hungry ghosts continued to swell at an unstoppable rate.
Driven mad by hunger and sickness, Wang Shitong commanded his enormous horde of hungry ghosts to attack everything in sight — there were simply too many people for him to worry about how many were lost on the battlefield. And food had grown far too scarce; even when a city fell, there was not enough to fill the bellies of those following him for long. Wherever the hungry ghosts passed, the bark and roots on the hillsides had already been stripped bare; with autumn gone, even the last of the wild fruit had vanished. People set up cooking pots, boiled water, and began to consume their own kind.
Some of the puppet-Qi warlords who still held territory even tried to clear a path south for the hungry ghosts to pass through — but the hungry-ghost horde, like a rising tide, chose instead to besiege the cities in its path. Jiangnan was too far, too far away; all they could do was seize whatever grain lay within reach.
Small, emaciated, skin stretched over bone, these people pressed onward, weeping until they had no tears left, despair traveling with them every step of the way, spreading like the creeping cold, soon to soak through this earthly hell entirely.
There was no stopping it.
The Black Banner’s eight thousand elite troops slipped past this tide of despair, still making their way toward Xuzhou.
…
“…As for the shortsightedness and folly of our neighbors, the Chinese Army will not sit idly by or show them leniency. Against all who come to attack us, our army will strike back without mercy… Now that the Wuxiang Army has been defeated, in order to preserve the survival of the Chinese Army, to guarantee the safety and interests of the people of Liangshan, and to safeguard the trade routes and exchanges the Chinese Army has long maintained with all parties — given that the Wu Dynasty is no longer able to uphold these things — our forces will personally guarantee the safety of the trade routes running east and north. Under the condition that the Wuxiang Army surrenders in full, our side will take over garrison duties for all territories from Liangshan eastward and northward, up to the border at Zizhou…”
At this point, Yong Jinnian, standing beside him, looked up, his mouth falling open in astonishment…
…
At Daming Prefecture, Li Xizhi arrived beneath the city walls with his hundred and seventy thousand troops. At the same time, Zhu Biao, leading eleven thousand Chinese Army troops, crossed mountain after mountain, marching straight toward the bank of the Yellow River where Li Xizhi was stationed.
War drums thundered like rolling storms, banners stretched like an ocean — the massed ranks of a hundred and seventy thousand men gave an impression of unshakable, towering might. And yet a mere ten thousand men were already marching straight toward them.
“…The insolent little upstart, does he truly dare give battle against our army!”
Li Xizhi, who had been preparing his forces for the assault on the city, stood stunned for a long moment after confirming the enemy’s route. At that same moment, the vanguard of the three-hundred-thousand-strong Jurchen army had already crossed Zhending, still three hundred li from Daming Prefecture.
And on the very day the Jurchen army passed through Zhending, an attack struck their supply lines there. At the same time, an explosion rocked the old Qi family estate within Zhending, followed by a spreading fire, as men of the martial underworld clashed and killed within the compound. The assassination targeting Qi Yan had begun — but thanks to the extensive network of retainers and martial artists the Qi family had cultivated there over the years, this inside-and-out assassination attempt ultimately failed to kill him.
Two of Qi Yan’s sons, a grandson, and several other relatives died in the attack. After this large-scale assassination attempt, Qi Yan, taking with him a vast fortune and numerous relatives, fled north, arriving the following year to settle in Yunzhong Prefecture, under the control of the Jin generals Zonghan and Xiyin.
None of them ever returned to the Central Plains again…
…
“…Our army marches this time, first, to protect the interests of the Chinese Army’s trade routes from harm, and second, to deliver a small but pointed lesson to the many petty troublemakers of the Wu Dynasty. The Chinese Army will strictly uphold its long-standing military discipline, harming not a hair of any community loyal to the Chinese cause in every city and region, never disturbing the people, never tearing down homes, never destroying fields. Once this matter has passed, should the Wu Dynasty come to its senses, the Chinese Army will act with peace and goodwill, engaging in friendly negotiation over matters of compensation for damages, and — once the Wu Dynasty acknowledges the Chinese Army’s interests in the relevant territories — will discuss in good faith the matter of administering Zizhou and other cities and regions…”
“…Since its founding, the Chinese Army has conducted itself with discipline and treated its neighbors with goodwill, earning, all along, the support and assistance of many enlightened men. Men such as Li Chengmao (Li Xiannong) of Lingnan, who worked tirelessly, sparing no effort, to resolve the troubles caused by Langge of the Mangshan tribe and others — ah, I’ll add a few more names to that list later — simply because men of vision understand that with foreign insult at the gate and ruin close at hand, the survival of all the peoples of China is the great task of our age. Only by setting aside our differences and joining hands can the Chinese people defeat the Jurchens and reclaim the Central Plains, and see our land flourish once more… The Chinese people will not forget them; history will remember their names and be grateful to them. It is my hope, too, that the worthy men of the Wu Dynasty might take this as a mirror to reflect upon, and turn back from the brink while there is still time.”
“…And so, the Chinese Army hereby pledges that in all it does, it will hold the interests of the Chinese people above all else, and will never be the first to provoke conflict with the Wu Dynasty hereafter. It is our hope that this sincerity might persuade the Wu Dynasty to reconsider its course. At the same time, whoever harms the interests of the Chinese people shall be counted an enemy of the Chinese Army, and against our enemies, the Chinese Army will show neither indulgence nor mercy. It is my hope that no more incidents such as this — one that grieves those who love us and delights those who wish us ill — will occur again. If they do, let this affair stand as the warning that came before.”
Ning Yi paused, then added one final line.
“Let none say they were not warned.”
…
In early autumn’s eighth month, after years lying low and quiet in the southwest, the Black Banner marched out of Liangshan.
Along the bank of the Yellow River, a fierce and merciless battle against Li Xizhi’s hundred and seventy thousand troops broke out — the opening engagement in a whole series of blocking actions against the Jurchen army across the north. Within three days, the waters of the Yellow River ran red with blood, and the corpses piled up thick enough to choke its current.