The weather had already turned cool, and in the Jin capital of Datong, night fell bathed in brilliant lantern-light.
With the leaves nearly half fallen and the withered grasses already broken, the northern winter was fast approaching. But the chill in the air did nothing to cool the warmth of Datong’s prosperity, and even amid these days of increasingly severe security and martial vigilance, the number of lit lanterns showed no sign of dwindling. Carriages draped with banners and lanterns rolled through the city streets, occasionally passing columns of marching soldiers; when the curtains parted, they revealed faces marked by both aristocratic bearing and haughty pride. Battle-hardened veterans sat at the front of their carriages, cracking their whips high above. In shop after shop still lit against the night, men of privilege gathered together, laughing and talking with ease.
The great affairs of a nation lie in sacrifice and war. A new round of the southern campaign had already begun; with the eastern army of three hundred thousand already on the march, Datong, the western capital, had now become the focal point of attention for the Jin nobility. Countless threads of self-interest wove together and converged here. Ever since winning the realm from horseback, some among the Jin nobility had sent their own sons off to this new war, hoping to win further glory and rank, while others among the Jin elite and their offspring had set their sights instead on the countless avenues of profit that war could bring: the endless slaves yet to come, the wealthy fiefs awaiting them in the south, the treasures they hoped their soldiers would bring back from Wu, or simply the many loopholes to be exploited within the vast, sprawling machinery of military logistics as the great army mobilized.
Compared to the corrosion the Wu Dynasty had suffered over two hundred years, the newly risen Jin empire, faced with such vast potential gains, showed a rather different character. Zongfu and Zongbi had chosen to conquer the whole of southern Wu in order to build up strength enough to counterbalance Wanyan Zonghan. But beyond this, more than ten years of prosperity and indulgence had already begun to show their own particular power: men once poor, suddenly grown rich on the spoils of war, now indulged in every pleasure the world had to offer — but such indulgence could hardly be expected to last forever. After more than ten years of this cycle, as the benefits available to the nobility began to taper off, those who had already tasted the heights were unlikely to willingly return to poverty.
Let alone poverty — even the slightest step backward was, for most of them, something to be resisted at all costs.
For the old nobility, who had won the realm on horseback, the means of extracting further profit now were bound to be crude and simple: overpricing military supplies, passing off inferior goods as superior ones, using connections to divert army grain and then reselling it back into the market for profit… Greed, it seemed, could always find new ways to stretch the imagination to its limits.
As the nobles kept pouring into Datong, efforts to crack down on such corruption had likewise grown fierce throughout the region. In the past few days, even the sons of two dukes had been arrested, personally whipped by Wanyan Zonghan until gravely injured — a sign, perhaps, that the hardline old guard’s campaign to purge the decadence spreading among the younger generation of Jurchens had now reached its peak. Under the direct oversight of Wanyan Zonghan and Wanyan Xiyin, the Datong prefectural offices had taken drastic action, dealing in these recent days with a great many sons of the nobility — arresting them, subjecting them to punishment, and then throwing them into the ranks of the southern campaign army, using conscription in place of punishment.
Yet even this severity failed to stop nobles from continuing to flock, one after another, to Datong. In fact, with so many young men now thrown into the army, a number of old-guard nobles and even noble matrons had begun coming to the city to seek connections and plead for leniency, only adding further to the disorder both inside and outside the city.
Even so, this disorder was soon to reach its end.
“…A great tree withers, more often than not, because it has grown worms within it. The affairs of the world are troubled in much the same way, and matters of state are often no different.” On this bustling night, in the tower of Prince Chen’s estate, Wanyan Xiyin stood looking down over the night scene outside, speaking with the two young men beside him, already grown quite tall — his two sons by Chen Wenjun, the elder, Wanyan Dezhong, and the younger, Wanyan Youyi. As the most scholarly household within the circle of Jurchen nobility, Xiyin’s two sons had not disappointed his hopes. Wanyan Dezhong was tall and imposing, accomplished in both letters and arms; Wanyan Youyi, though rather slight of build, had already shown real aptitude in scholarship. Even if neither could quite match their father’s extraordinary brilliance, among the younger generation they were nonetheless counted among the finest.
As he prepared to set out on campaign, speaking with his two sons, Chen Wenjun brought tea in from the next room for the three people who mattered most to her in the world. Though the Xiyin household kept strict standards, in his daily dealings with his children Xiyin was hardly the sort of father who put on airs, and so even these final words of guidance before departure came in an easy, relaxed manner.
“These years, I have often felt that the world changes too fast. Since the late Emperor rose up and swept across the realm as though it were nothing, laying the foundation of what we have now, in scarcely twenty years our Great Jin remains formidable, yet it is no longer unrivaled beneath heaven. Look closely, and you’ll see our Great Jin’s edge is fading, even as our adversaries grow ever fiercer — the Black Banner’s rampage a few years back stands as a clear example, and the rise of firearms, born of this new study of natural science, is likewise something we cannot afford to ignore. As Zuo Qiu once said: think of danger in times of peace, and being prepared, you need not fear. This southern campaign may, perhaps, settle the realm once and for all before these changes in weaponry go any further — but it will also be the last time your father rides with the army.”
Having spent a lifetime on campaign, north and south, Wanyan Xiyin’s face now showed its age, half his hair turned white. When he spoke like this, his dutiful sons naturally insisted he still looked full of vigor. Xiyin waved a hand and smiled easily. “Your father’s health is certainly still sound enough, but I can no longer be flattered so easily. Since I am to go to war, I should hold to a resolve to face death, and you two, as sons of Lord Gushen, must now begin standing on your own. I have some final words to leave with you… no need to say more, and no need to worry about whether the words are auspicious or not… Our Jurchen people rose from the land of the White Mountains and Black Waters. Your father’s own generation, in childhood, had neither food nor clothing to spare, living on raw meat and hides. Since we rose up following the great Emperor Aguda, we fought for years, defeating countless enemies! We destroyed the Liao state! We swallowed the Central Plains! And now, having come this far, your father holds noble rank, and you have known nothing but fine silks and rich food since childhood… all of it bought with blood.”
“Having come this far, what stays with your father most is not these pavilions and towers, these silks and delicacies before us now. Today the Jurchens sweep across the realm, and wherever they go, you see men swaggering with arrogance and pride on their faces. But the Jurchens your father remembers were not like this. Even now, what your father remembers most are the dead… Friends who grew up together from childhood, gone before anyone quite knew when; brothers-in-arms who fell in the middle of battle, their bodies left where they lay, with no one to gather them up, so that by the time you turned back, you could no longer even find them… Dezhong, Youyi — the life you live today has been built up on corpses and blood. Not only the blood of Jurchens, but of the Liao and the Han as well. You must remember that.”
As he spoke of the Han people, he reached out and took Chen Wenjun’s hand.
“The realm is nearly settled now. In this last campaign, your father’s generation will sweep this world clean and hand you this rich and prosperous realm, built upon a foundation of corpses. You may never need to fight a war again yourselves. So what should you learn instead? You should learn how to make sure the bloodshed doesn’t happen again — not the Jurchens’ blood, and, ideally, not the blood of the Han or the Liao either. Because, you see, if you make them bleed, they will make things difficult for you in turn. This… is your task now.”
In the tower, Wanyan Xiyin paused a moment. “And there is also the corruption of the human heart to consider — when life grows easy, people grow corrupt…”
He went on speaking for some time up there in the tower, the lights of the city outside blazing on in extravagant splendor. By the time he had finished delivering these final words of counsel, the hour had already grown late. The two young men took their leave, and Xiyin took hold of his wife’s hand, falling silent for a long while.
“You must not feel at ease in your heart… is that not so?” After a moment, it was Xiyin who finally spoke.
Chen Wenjun lowered her head slightly and said nothing.
“I am a Jurchen,” Xiyin said. “That will never change in this life. You are Han — there is no changing that either. For the Jurchens to live well… heh… surely no one wishes to live poorly. These years I have thought it over again and again — a war this long has to end somewhere. It ends either with the Jurchens defeated, the Jin no more, and I take you somewhere far from everyone else to live out our days, or with all that needs to be conquered finally conquered, and things settling into peace at last. As things stand now, the latter seems far more likely.”
“If you’re not at ease, then bear with it a little longer. Once this campaign is over, the one thing your husband intends to do is see to it that the Han people live a little better. To bring the Jurchens, the Liao, and the Han… together, as one, as soon as possible. Perhaps I won’t live to see it in this lifetime, but I will certainly do everything in my power toward it. The great tides of the world rise and fall — if the Han live too well for too long, they are bound to fall for a time. There’s no helping that…”
Chen Wenjun said nothing.
Tears fell.
…
That same night, in that same city, Mandulu rode his horse like the wind, hurrying anxiously through the streets of Datong.
“Faster! Faster—”
He shouted these words as he cracked his whip with all his strength, the cavalry following behind him pressing forward with everything they had, the thunder of hooves surging through the streets and alleys like a flood.
Before long, this company reached, at the fastest possible speed, the gate of a great residence in the eastern part of the city. They sealed off the front and rear, then broke through the door and forced their way in.
Panic and shouting erupted within the compound. A guard rushed forward to stop them and was cut down with a single stroke. Mandulu pushed through the corridors and past the terrified servants, driving straight through to the inner courtyard, and upon spotting a middle-aged man there, at last shouted aloud: “Lord Jiang! Your crimes have come to light — surrender at once…”
This official surnamed Jiang held no small position at the Jurchen court, serving as a key subordinate under Shi Li’ai, and at this time held an important post within the logistics system responsible for grain and supply movements. The moment he heard these words, by the time Mandulu had burst in, the man was already drenched in sweat, his face deathly pale, a steel blade gripped in his hand — and before Mandulu could reach him, he turned the blade on himself and drove it into his own stomach.
“Damn you!” Mandulu rushed forward. The other man’s belly was already pierced through by the blade. Gritting his teeth, Mandulu seized hold of him, trying to stabilize the wound. “Lord Gushen ordered me to handle this matter personally — you think dying gets you out of it! Tell me who’s behind this! Give me one name — or I’ll see to it your entire family suffers a fate worse than death, and I mean every word of it—”
Mandulu had originally been recalled to Datong to hunt down the assassin who had struck at Wanyan Zonghan; later he had also been drawn into the affair of the Han-slave uprising, and once the army began mobilizing and the logistics apparatus swung into motion, he had been pulled into that as well. Over these past several months, Mandulu had cracked no small number of cases in Datong, but the case that had grown, in the end, into the largest of them all had emerged from clues he’d stumbled upon in this very investigation — a scheme in which certain Jurchen nobles, together with logistics officials, had been embezzling and diverting military supplies, lining their own pockets through substitution and fraud. This official surnamed Jiang was a key figure at the very center of it.
By the time Mandulu had traced this lead, the people behind it had already caught wind of him, and he had rushed here to make the arrest — but it seemed someone had gotten there first. This Lord Jiang, knowing there was no escape for him, had hesitated a long while before finally driving the blade into himself. Mandulu shouted threats at him, desperately trying to keep him conscious. Lord Jiang, his mind already growing hazy, had begun coughing up blood — but at last he managed to raise a hand and point a finger toward something.
“What! What is it! Speak clearly! Talk!” Mandulu struck him once across the face, then struck him again.
But the man had already stopped breathing.
“What… what is it!” Mandulu stood up and turned in a circle, looking toward where the man had pointed. After a moment, he froze.
Among a cluster of tables and chairs there lay a piece of black cloth.
“The Black Banner…” Mandulu understood at once. “That clown…”
Over these past several months of investigation, Mandulu had already crossed paths with this name before. During the Han-slave uprising, a Black Banner agent had taken advantage of the chaos to steal a register of names from Lord Gushen’s own residence, an incident that had thrown the entire western capital into an uproar. It was said that this register had later traveled south, implicating who knew how many people along the way. Lord Gushen himself had, in effect, crossed swords with this agent personally over the matter — using the list to force a number of wavering southerners to declare their loyalties openly, though this same move had also exposed, prematurely, a number of southerners who had otherwise submitted quietly to Jin rule. In a certain sense, it could be said that in this particular exchange, Lord Gushen himself had come out at something of a disadvantage.
Mandulu had wanted to catch this man ever since, but the agent had vanished without a trace in the time that followed, and Mandulu had gone on to handle other matters instead. In the clues he’d uncovered this time, there had been vague mention of a Han man serving as a go-between — apparently this very same clown. Mandulu had not been certain of it before, but now, having cut through the fog and understood the full shape of events, the dying man’s pointing hand had confirmed the man’s identity beyond doubt.
This official surnamed Jiang was already dead, and no small number of people would escape punishment because of it. But even what had already come to light implicated a shortfall of nearly thirty thousand shi of grain in total — and if the whole affair were dug up entirely, the true number would likely be far greater still.
“I will catch you…”
Mandulu stood up and, with one stroke of his blade, split the table before him in two. This Black Banner agent, known by the nickname “the Clown,” was someone Mandulu had wanted to capture from the very moment he returned to Datong. But time and again — whether because he hadn’t taken the matter seriously enough, or because he’d been busy with other affairs — the man had slipped from view again and again, and this had begun to gnaw at him more each time. Still, for now, there was more pressing work to attend to.
The western army was to swear its oath and set out on the march tomorrow.
Tonight, still more people would die…
…
Ten li south of Datong, at the western army’s main encampment, an endless expanse of torches and tents filled the entire field of view, stretching out as far as the eye could reach in every direction.
The supply convoy worked on through the night without pause, gathering and moving — it had not stopped since long before, and seemed as though it might never stop at all.
Two figures climbed a dark hillside and gazed out at this suffocating scene from a distance — a vast war machine, already in motion, soon to grind its way south.
“That fellow surnamed Jiang was being watched for a long time — he may already be exposed…”
“Doesn’t matter — the gains have already been divided up… Tell me…”
“Hm?”
“Tell me — everything we’re doing here — is any of it actually accomplishing anything?”
“Everyone does their part. Like the teacher said — doing it might not lead anywhere, but not doing it definitely won’t.”
Lu Mingfang and Tang Minjie stood there in the darkness, watching this vast scene unfold. After a moment, Lu Mingfang glanced at Tang Minjie, whose gaze had grown distant and heavy, and patted him on the shoulder. Tang Minjie turned his head suddenly, and heard Lu Mingfang say, “You’re wound too tight.”
“Am I?”
“What’s happening here… isn’t something you or I can finish on our own.” He smiled faintly. “I heard word the fighting’s already started in the east. Zhu Biao struck out from Zengtou Market, Wang Shanyue took Daming Prefecture, and afterward crushed Li Xizhi’s two-hundred-thousand-strong army along the bank of the Yellow River… It looks like Wang Shanyue means to hold Daming Prefecture to the death…”
Though separated by a thousand li, word from the south traveled quickly enough — Lu Mingfang had his own channels and could learn of intelligence passed within the Jurchen ranks. He spoke quietly of these events unfolding a thousand li away, while Tang Minjie closed his eyes, quietly taking in the surging waves rising across the whole realm, quietly bracing himself for the terrible things yet to come.
On the nineteenth of the eighth month, in the ninth year of the Jianshuo era, the Jurchen western army swore its oath at Datong and, under the command of the great general Wanyan Zonghan, set out on its fourth southern campaign.
South of Yanmen Pass, forces led by Wang Juyun, Tian Shi, Yu Yulin, Lou Shuwan, and others had already thrown up their defenses, standing ready in full readiness. In Datong, Xiyin bid farewell to Chen Wenjun and their two sons: “We will bring this realm back for the Jurchens.”
In the south, after a furious tirade in the golden hall rejecting his ministers’ proposal to commit heavy forces against the Chuansi region, Zhou Junwu set out for the northern front, telling the assembled officials of the court: “If I cannot drive back the Jurchens, I will not return.”
On the north bank of the Yellow River, Wang Shanyue declared: “I will hold Daming Prefecture and turn it into another Taiyuan.”
That night, having looked once more upon the Jurchen army lying in wait, weapons at the ready, Tang Minjie wiped his face and turned back toward Datong. “There has to be something more to do… there has to be something more…”
After that, the autumn rains came, unbroken, as war and beacon-fire pressed forward, the endless rain falling on every corner of this land. The great river surged on, its muddied waters roaring and churning, carrying with it a sound like thunder, the sound of slaughter, the sound of resistance, crashing against every great stone in its path.
Bursting open, again and again—