Eleven years had passed since the Jin state destroyed Liao and the Jurchens first marched south. In the autumn of the ninth year of Wu’s Jianshuo era, the Jin state’s fourth invasion of Wu began, with three hundred thousand troops advancing south through the Central Plains along the eastern route. Compared to the fierce, spontaneous resistance people had organized during the Jurchens’ first southern campaign, and the brutal city-by-city slaughter that had followed it, after nearly ten years of rule and killing under the puppet Qi and the Jurchens, the resistance the Central Plains populace had managed to organize north of the Yellow River in the seventh month was all but silent. Perhaps this, too, signaled that the legitimacy of Wu rule in the Central Plains had sunk to its lowest point.

By the end of the seventh month, resistance truly organized and planned by major powers finally began to unfold. Compared to the more spontaneous, ocean-like resistance of the common people, the resistance now driven by a clear, deliberate will resembled something closer to calculated assassination — its clashes ferocious and violent, aimed at striking the enemy dead in the first instant and seizing momentum and advantage from the very start.

On the twenty-fourth of the seventh month, Wang Shanyue’s Guangwu Army took Daming.

On the twenty-sixth, Li Xizhi’s hundred and seventy thousand troops, already primed and ready, began marching south. At the same time, the Jurchen general Wuda led ten thousand troops originally garrisoned in the Central Plains southward in parallel, hurrying to the bank of the Yellow River to guard against the Liangshan navy under Wang Shanyue’s command striking at the crossing points used by the eastern army’s advance.

On the twenty-eighth, eleven thousand Black Banner troops suddenly converged and broke through Zengtou Market; after a single day’s rest, they marched south toward Daming Prefecture.

On the fourth of the eighth month, the hundred and seventy thousand troops gathered before Daming Prefecture, preparing to besiege the city. Inside, more than thirty-six thousand Guangwu Army troops, together with over three thousand righteous fighters from nearby strongholds who had come to reinforce them, stood ready. At this point, the Black Banner Army had already passed Gaotang, bearing straight down on Li Xizhi.

A chain reaction of resistance broke out across the region north of the Yellow River. The fiercest incidents included an ambush on a Jurchen supply column outside Zhending, and, within Zhending itself, an assault on Qi Yan’s residence; incidents of arson and assassination erupted at a sudden, accelerating pace. Leaflets appeared in large numbers at Hejian, Gaotang, and elsewhere — though many in the cities could not read, the effect was still enough to draw the entire mood and situation to its most urgent pitch. These continuous eruptions of unrest spread through the region like an urgent drumbeat, carrying the crisis outward.

It was not only the Jurchens marching south who could sense the full shape of events unfolding — Li Xizhi, who had spent years cultivating this territory from his base at Daming Prefecture, may well have been the very first to gather every thread of intelligence. His army’s preparations for war had already reached their most urgent pitch, poised and ready to besiege Daming Prefecture, but the fierce, sudden advance of the Black Banner forced him to turn his attention back. His staff officers argued endlessly, some anxious, some doubtful.

“The Black Banner means to throw everything into one decisive battle with us!”

“It must be a diversion! Even the Black Banner wouldn’t be this reckless!”

“General Wuda is still nearby — this Black Banner force at Liangshan is only a secondary detachment, not their main strength. If they get bogged down here, it’s suicide!”

“A diversion!”

“…Don’t forget Xiaocang River!”

“And don’t forget the vanguard of the Fourth Prince, Zongbi!”

The bickering among his staff grew tiresome, and Li Xizhi could only project an air of commanding calm, gradually tightening the siege on one hand while, on the other, redeploying the thirteen thousand garrison troops stationed between Daming Prefecture and Gaotang, and ordering his general Feng Qize to lead thirty thousand men to establish a defensive line at the mountain pass of Linhe Hollow along the route, standing ready. On the sixth of the eighth month, at the pass of Linhe Hollow, Feng Qize spotted the approaching Black Banner force. By then, above the pass at Linhe Hollow, iron cannon, archers, and every manner of defense stood arrayed and ready; within the pass were crowded forty-three thousand men. Across the way, from among the Black Banner’s ten-thousand-strong formation, “Great Blade” Guan Sheng rode out alone, his green-dragon crescent blade in hand, radiating a fierce, killing intent.

“There’s going to be a fight! You little upstarts, don’t you understand that yet!” Guan Sheng’s shout carried up to the walls, arrogant and contemptuous of all before him. “Surrender at once, you clay chickens and tile dogs! Or else you’ll die!”

“My walls are strong, my cannon fierce, and I outnumber you four to one! You rats have lost your minds coming here to throw your lives away — good, that only adds to my accomplishments!”

“That four-to-one of yours has clearly never been to Xiaocang River!”

“Ha! Let’s see who runs off with their tail between their legs in the end!” Feng Qize, sharp-tongued and unwilling to back down, gave as good as he got. Below the walls, Guan Sheng laughed heartily, then swung his blade once. “Then go and die, you monkeys!” With that, he wheeled his horse and rode back.

Feng Qize had expected the other side to keep talking, hoping to overawe them with words, and had not anticipated they would simply leave. He forced himself to settle down. It was not yet afternoon; he seated himself atop the wall and ordered his soldiers and the military police to remain fully alert, never relaxing their guard, and to await the Black Banner’s assault. In the years spent guarding against the Black Banner, the men of the north had come to associate it above all with the terrifying capacity for infiltration it had shown after the retreat from Xiaocang River. Because of this, Li Xizhi’s army had carried out several internal purges over the years, and Feng Qize had likewise tightened mutual surveillance among the soldiers on the wall. As for the Black Banner’s actual battlefield strength beyond infiltration, that could only be settled by meeting force with force, head-on.

On the position across the way, the Black Banner’s war drums rolled on, wave after wave, without pause. This was a simple tactic to wear down the defenders through exhaustion, and Feng Qize was not moved by it. By the afternoon, a thought struck him, and he said to his deputy: “I suspect the Black Banner’s intent is neither to take Linhe Hollow nor to strike Marshal Li’s main force. The Black Banner is led by that demon of a man, full of cunning schemes — they wouldn’t waste effort on a direct assault against a fortified position without some other purpose in mind.”

His deputy said, “The general sees clearly. What should we do, then?”

“No need to do anything.” Feng Qize shook his head. “Daming Prefecture is Marshal Li’s responsibility now. If the Black Banner tries to go around Linhe Hollow to relieve Daming, our forty thousand men will move out and catch them in a pincer — even the Black Banner wouldn’t dare take such a risk. If their goal isn’t Daming, then let them make trouble for a few days; once the main Jurchen force arrives, this small band of Black Banner troops won’t have anywhere to run.”

Even so, the defenses atop the wall showed no sign of slackening as night fell. Once darkness came, torches were lit on both sides, and the drumming across the way continued still, on through the deep hours of that night. At the second quarter of the hour of Zi, the drums finally stopped.

The torchlight surged forward, and a single rider came out ahead of the rest, clad in armor, a dark red spear in hand, raising one hand before the assembled ranks.

Both sides fell into a suffocating silence that lingered for a moment.

“Brothers of the Black Banner, the Jurchens have come!”

The voice rang out.

“Eleven years ago, when the Jurchens first marched south, Zhu Biao followed Master Ning and crushed the Jurchen assault head-on beneath the walls of Bianliang, holding the city! The Jurchens crushed a million-strong army at Bianliang — but they did not crush us!”

“Eleven years, from Bianliang to Xiaocang River, to Liangshan, and now to here. I have watched the Jurchens crush countless armies, watched them slaughter countless Han people, kill our fathers and mothers and seize our land! Many people knelt down — the men across from us tonight knelt down! We — we have never knelt!”

“This morning, the men up there shouted proudly at us, ha, four times our number, ha, with strong walls and fine cannon, ha ha ha ha—”

In the darkness, laughter rose from countless throats, spreading through the ranks.

“What are men who kneel, in the end? Let the restless ghosts beneath the walls of Bianliang tell them! How many soldiers did it take the Jurchens to defeat a million men at Bianliang! Let the mountains and valleys of corpses at Xiaocang River tell them what a million men amount to without the Jurchens’ help! And the Jurchens never defeated us — in the northwest, we killed their war god, Wanyan Loushi, with our own hands; atop the walls of Yanzhou, we cut off Cibushi’s head with our own blades!”

“This is a place for grown men to fight, a place where it’s kill or be killed! I told them so, but they wouldn’t listen. Brothers, these spineless men have carelessly gotten in our way.”

The air had already drawn taut, the silence settling. Zhu Biao turned his head, casting his gaze up at the wall — and then the drums thundered out.

“Everyone —”

Boom—

“— trample them to death!!!”

The battle cry surged forward like an ocean tide. Atop the wall, Feng Qize watched the scene unfold, eyes wide.

“They’ve gone mad…”

Then he turned away. Hysteria.

“Defend the wall—”

Cannon fire boomed through the night, exploding one after another in the darkness. Arrows rained down from above, and countless flames rose up in return from below. Ladders were raised against the walls, and grappling hooks flew up, launched by great crossbows. Feng Qize drew his blade, shouting “Defend the wall!” as he walked, muttering under his breath, “Madmen.” “Damned lunatics.” He toured the wall for a moment, then suddenly turned, alert, looking back — the guards following him gave a start, but Feng Qize only glanced at them twice before pressing forward again, teeth clenched.

“Send word to Lu Ming to watch every critical point on the wall closely — anyone acting suspiciously, kill without mercy! All military police, stay sharp!”

“There must be treachery, there must be treachery — this must be an inside job…”

“…Second brother, take men to Lu Ming’s position, protect him… watch him closely!”

The assault reached a fever pitch in the first instant. Feng Qize toured the wall, constantly recalculating where he might have miscalculated. But the true pressure fell on the front line of the defense — at this moment, the soldiers atop the wall felt an assault every bit as ferocious as the Jurchens’ own attack on Bianliang. In the darkness, the Chinese Army’s vanguard scrambled madly up the grappling lines. The soldiers on the wall, having endured half a day of tension, drumbeat harassment, and the military police’s suspicious, high-pressure scrutiny, had not yet managed a second rotation of the guard before, in less than a quarter hour of assault, three Black Banner vanguard fighters had already scaled the southern section of the wall.

These vanguard fighters, veterans of the bloody battles at Xiaocang River, carried shields and swung their blades as they cut into the defenders. In the darkness, these killers who had scaled the wall were drenched head to toe in blood, and within moments two more had climbed up the ladders behind them. Feng Qize led men to reinforce the position, but before he could reach it, the wall ahead was already choked with soldiers, fire-arrows still rising from below. Feng Qize roared, “Push forward, drive them back!”

Someone else shouted, “No retreating! Anyone who retreats dies!”

This section held, barely — but at the other end, Zhu Biao and Guan Sheng had already scaled the wall. As the current leaders of the Black Banner force, the “City-Burning Spear’s” ascent stood out sharply among the rest. Countless arrows flew past him; Zhu Biao held his spear in one hand and a great shield in the other, driving forward with ferocious force, while Guan Sheng seized every opening to charge through, his blade swinging, blood misting the air. Before long, more vanguard fighters from behind had caught up.

The boiling slaughter spread along both ends of the breached wall and pressed inward toward the center. Feng Qize, half-hysterical, kept swinging his blade to rally the men, but the soldiers below the wall were being cut down too fast to reinforce the top. Amid the occasional roar of cannon fire, past midnight, the wall at Linhe Hollow finally changed hands, and the ferocious slaughter continued to press forward.

In the thirteenth year of the Jinghan era of Wu — that is, eleven years before — when the Jurchens first marched south, Li Xizhi’s forces had held back and not engaged; by the second southern campaign he had defected to the Jurchens. During the great battle at Xiaocang River, positioned in the east, Li Xizhi had focused on expanding his own power and had sent out the fewest troops of anyone. Whether veteran or new recruit, the men under Feng Qize’s command, though they had seen combat before — even taking part in the campaign against Dulong Ridge — had never once faced a full-strength assault from Jurchen or Black Banner elite troops.

On the seventh of the eighth month, the pass at Linhe Hollow fell, and tens of thousands of routed troops fled toward Daming Prefecture. That morning, Li Xizhi received the news that made his scalp crawl.

The madmen of the Black Banner were charging forward without any regard for their own lives.