In Zizhou, the autumn wind swept up fallen leaves, sending them scattering in disarray. Stagnant water lingering in the marketplace gave off a foul stench; more than a few shops had shuttered their doors, and riders hurried anxiously through the streets. Along the way, shops selling off their stock at a loss reflected the pale, drawn faces of the merchants, keeping the whole city in a state of feverish unrest.
Merchant vessels were being evacuated through the night, and those preparing to leave the city, having packed up their belongings, had already begun setting out one after another. Zizhou, once counted among the great cities of the southwest, grew ever more chaotic as the disorder deepened.
Some of the scholars who had traveled here earlier were now beginning to withdraw. A portion had stayed behind in Chengdu, vowing to live or die together with the city, while in Zizhou, the indignation among the Confucian scholars still burned on.
“How dare this upstart go so far…”
“Does he truly not fear the judgment of the whole world—”
“The court must send out another great army…”
“Wolf-hearted, jackal-ambitioned — wolf-hearted, jackal-ambitioned—”
In the eighth month of the ninth year of Wu’s Jianshuo era, the pace of events suddenly quickened, like a board of chess turning white-hot. Each of the parties contesting this game made their moves in rapid succession. Currents that had once run beneath the surface now broke through as raging waves, jolting awake more than a few figures who had been riding those waters, dreaming pleasant dreams.
In this remote corner of the south, the Wuxiang Army, after careful preparation, had entered the Liangshan region only to meet with a crushing counterstrike. The hot-blooded Confucian scholars who had come to the southwest to push forward the campaign against the bandits had not yet finished savoring the thrill of shaping history when the sudden reversal of the war, together with a single proclamation, struck them all like a blow to the back of the head, shattering the illusion created by years of the Black Banner Army’s courteous treatment of scholars. In the early part of the eighth month, having crushed the Wuxiang Army and with Lu Qiaoshan missing, the Black Banner Army swept boldly out across the Sichuan-West Plain, denouncing the Wu Dynasty and openly declaring its intent to take over most of the Chuansi Circuit.
In its proclamation, the Chinese Army’s tone, while impassioned and fierce in denouncing the Wu Dynasty, treated the decision to take over the Chuansi Circuit with an almost offhand air of inevitability. And yet, given that the entire Wuxiang Army had already been crushed and absorbed, this attitude could hardly be dismissed as an idle boast.
Wolf-hearted ambition, the blade revealed once the map unrolled — however people chose to characterize the Chinese Army’s ensuing large-scale actions, however fiercely they condemned it in speech and writing, the series of moves that followed all showed the utmost seriousness of intent. In other words, no matter how the scholars debated the greater strategic picture, no matter how they spoke of reputation, prestige, or anything else that those in power ought to fear, the man known as the demon, the regicide, was, without question, going to march on Zizhou.
He even managed to appear, in his own way, almost innocent — as if provoked into it by the very people now condemning him.
Even as the scholars hurled curses, the Chinese Army had already, with meticulous precision, cleared out the garrisons of six counties and towns near Liangshan, and was systematically taking over the camps once held by the Wuxiang Army. After years lying low in Liangshan, the Chinese Army — skilled in intelligence work — had long since mapped out every detail of the surrounding area. Resistance, of course, arose here and there, but it could never coalesce into anything significant. This was merely the opening move in the sweep of the Sichuan-West Plain, and it seemed to already foretell what would come after.
For those with true insight, victory and defeat are often decided before the battle even begins; the sounding of the charge is, more often than not, merely the act of harvesting a victory already won.
At gathering places for the scholars such as Bansong Lodge and Xingu Hall, the assembled men debated anxiously, discussing countermeasures. Long Qifei moved among them, working to balance the mounting tensions, his mind drifting, unbidden, to something he had once heard Li Pin say back in the capital, an assessment of Ning Yi. He had never imagined that the hundred-thousand-strong Wuxiang Army could prove so utterly helpless before the Black Banner; his earlier estimate of the scale of Ning Yi’s ambition, and the ruthlessness of his methods, had been far too optimistic.
But by now, it was too late to say any of this.
Compared to the lingering wishful thinking still common among the general public, those scholars who, like Long Qifei, understood the situation from the inside felt far greater dread at the Black Banner’s advance. The rout of the hundred-thousand-strong Wuxiang Army marked the Black Banner Army’s first true demonstration of its strength in years, confirming that the combat power it had shown at Xiaocang River years before had not diminished — the earlier assumption that the Black Banner Army had been crushed by the Jurchens and had since languished, unable to recover, turned out to have been nothing but wishful fantasy. A Black Banner force with strength like this, declaring its intent to march on Zizhou, would surely not stop at Chengdu.
Pressed by the chaos of the situation, Long Qifei laid out the realities of the court’s position frankly before the assembled scholars: in the present world, the Jurchens were the strongest power, the Black Banner inferior to them but still formidable, and the Wu Dynasty, confined to its corner of the south, stood no chance whatsoever against the Jurchens — but against the Black Banner, there remained some chance of victory. Councilor Qin Hui at court had originally wanted to commit vast forces, throwing half the strength of the Wu Dynasty into first bringing down the Black Banner, and then using the Black Banner’s own ingenious techniques to strengthen the Wu Dynasty in turn, in hopes of finding some sliver of a chance against the Jurchens. But the political maneuvering at court had proven too difficult, with fools holding sway, and in the end only the Wuxiang Army, along with men like themselves, had been sent out. And now, with the demon Ning Yi seizing the opportunity to swallow the Chuansi region, the situation had turned critical.
“Our Wu Dynasty already lies confined south of the Yellow River, the Central Plains entirely lost. Now the Jurchens march south again, and with overwhelming force. The wealth and grain of the Chuansi Circuit are vital to our Wu Dynasty and must never be lost. And yet, how lamentable it is that so many high officials at court occupy their posts without doing their duty, blind and shortsighted — even now, they still dare not commit to a decisive gamble!” That day, in Bansong Lodge, provided by the wealthy Zizhou merchant family Jia, Long Qifei spoke of these matters to the assembled men, sighing under his breath.
“When I came west, I paid a visit to Lord Qin in the capital. Lord Qin entrusted me with a great responsibility, insisting this western campaign absolutely had to succeed. Alas… the Wuxiang Army proved utterly incompetent, a hundred thousand men crumbling at the first blow. I never anticipated this, and I have no wish to shirk responsibility for it. When the Black Banner comes, I, Long Qifei, am willing to face them directly here in Zizhou, and to live or die together with the soldiers of this city! But the crisis in the southwest is too grave to go unheeded in the capital. I no longer have the face to return there myself, but I have already written a letter in my own blood, asking my worthy brother Liu Zhengming to carry it to the capital and deliver it to Lord Qin…”
At these words, the assembled men erupted in an uproar. Long Qifei waved his hand firmly. “Gentlemen, do not try to dissuade me further! My mind is made up! In truth, a blessing in disguise may yet come of this misfortune — the reason the lords at court were unwilling to commit forces before was that they still harbored illusions about the limits of Ning Yi’s ambition. Now that Ning Yi has revealed his true intentions, the worthy men at court can no longer tolerate him. If only they can learn from this painful lesson and send a great army into Sichuan, there is still hope for this cause! You gentlemen still have your lives ahead of you to put to use — I ask that you go to the capital and persuade the worthy men and officials there. If this succeeds, I, Long Qifei, will offer my thanks from beneath the earth…”
His words were solemn and tragic, both a declaration of intent to die and a letter written in blood, and the assembled men fell into heated discussion among themselves. Once he had finished speaking, Long Qifei, ignoring their attempts to dissuade him, took his leave and departed. The others, moved by his resolute, tragic bearing, went to plead with him again the next day, and again the day after that. Liu Zhengming, who had been entrusted with the blood letter, was unwilling to undertake the mission himself, and joined the others in trying to talk Long Qifei out of it — but a snake cannot move without a head, and since Liu Zhengming had old ties with Lord Qin, he was the natural choice to lead the mission to the capital and plead their case, the one most likely to succeed. During this time, some also accused Long Qifei of courting fame and reputation, claiming the whole affair had been orchestrated by him from the start, and that he now wished to slip away under the pretense of righteous sacrifice. Long Qifei only refused all the more firmly, and the two factions of scholars argued back and forth day after day, until on the fifth day, Long Qifei’s confidante at the Yannan Tower, the celebrated courtesan Lu Guo’er, drugged him, and the others hauled him onto a carriage. This resourceful and devoted woman, Lu Guo’er, accompanied Long Qifei on the journey to the capital, and before long the story of their romance became something of a celebrated tale in the capital itself.
With Long Qifei and the others gone from Zizhou, another figure who had once been stirring the waters of the southwest, Li Xiannong, now found himself in an awkward position. Ever since his scheme at Small Liangshan had failed, and Ning Yi had turned the situation to his own advantage in resolving matters at the rear, Li Xiannong, having returned from a prisoner exchange with Lu Qiaoshan, had seemed listless ever since. It was only once the Chinese Army’s proclamation appeared, thanking him by name, that he grasped the malice hidden within it. In the first few days, people had still come to visit him frequently — most of the scholars in Zizhou could still see clearly enough through the Black Banner’s methods of striking at reputation — but after a few more days, some who had truly been swayed began throwing stones into his courtyard in the dead of night.
Long Qifei had spoken up twice in his defense, and for a time public opinion was suppressed — but once Long Qifei left, Li Xiannong began to notice the hostile eyes around him growing more numerous by the day. Feeling as though his heart had died within him, he set out one day to leave Zizhou, intending to go to Chengdu to meet his death. He had not gone far outside the city when he was intercepted by a group of men, some scholars, some constables. Some accused him of trying to flee; others claimed he meant to pass information to the Black Banner. Li Xiannong, sharp-tongued as ever, argued his case forcefully and with sound reasoning, but the constables said that however reasonable his words, his guilt had not yet been settled, and he could not simply be allowed to leave. The crowd closed in around him, beat him soundly, and dragged him back to the Zizhou prison in chains, to await a proper judgment once the truth had come to light.
What became of Li Xiannong afterward is difficult to recount in full. Meanwhile, the impassioned efforts of Long Qifei and the others once they reached the capital would become, in their own right, a stirring and touching tale of talented scholars and their beloved. As the larger picture came clearly into focus, the wanderings and struggles of individuals amounted to no more than small ripples against a great crashing wave. In the southwest, the Chinese Army, moving like a master strategist, cut straight across the Chuansi Circuit, while in the east, over eight thousand Black Banner elite troops continued their march toward Xuzhou. Once word of the Black Banner’s ambitions reached the court, calls to launch a full campaign against the southwest rose once more — but Crown Prince Jun Wu resisted the proposal, pushing forward instead with deploying armies such as those of Yue Fei and Han Shizhong to the Yangtze defense line. Enormous numbers of laborers were mobilized, supply lines stretching out in great columns, presenting an attitude of victory or death.
A chaotic age is like a blazing furnace, melting gold and corroding iron, boiling everyone down together in the same great pot.
On the north bank of the Yellow River, Li Xizhi now faced the first true crash of the wave that had long been building beneath the surface.
After the fall of Linhe Hollow, the full, furious scope of the Black Banner’s strategic intent revealed itself before this warlord who had ruled the eastern Central Plains for years. Beneath the walls of Daming Prefecture, Li Xizhi called off preparations for the siege and ordered his massive army to deploy in formation, readying itself to respond, while requesting that the Jurchen general Wuda bring his troops to counter the Black Banner’s sudden strike.
Wuda refused.
The three hundred thousand troops of Zongfu and Zongwang would arrive with their main force in only a few days. Once that army arrived, what would Daming Prefecture and the Black Banner even matter? What truly mattered were the docks and ships needed for the Jurchen army’s crossing of the Yellow River. As for Li Xizhi — if a man commanding a hundred and seventy thousand troops on his own territory was still afraid, then what use was he to the Jurchens at all?
In truth, Li Xizhi himself had not quite believed the enemy would really strike like this — not until the war actually broke out. It was as though he had built a great, solid dike, then stood before it, watching the sudden swell of the flood rise higher, and higher still…
On the morning of the eleventh of the eighth month, war broke out on the plains north of Daming Prefecture. As the Black Banner Army finally arrived, war drums sounded within Daming Prefecture, and the nearly forty-thousand-strong “Guangwu Army,” led by Wang Shanyue, Hu Sanniang, Xue Changgong, and the others, chose to strike first.
One force of ten thousand on one side, another of forty thousand on the other, caught Li Xizhi’s hundred and seventy thousand troops in a pincer. Even setting aside any underestimation of his own men’s quality, this was, on paper, roughly an evenly matched confrontation, and Li Xizhi faced this audacious battle with composure.
Then, just as the fighting began to reach its most intense pitch, the truly disastrous turn of events finally struck.