In the first month of the tenth year of Wu Jianshuo, the entire realm of the Wu Dynasty stood on the brink of collapse.

Against the backdrop of the Jin emperor Wuqimai’s stroke, the Jurchen generals Wanyan Zongfu and Wanyan Zonghan led their eastern and western armies south, more than ten years after the Jin state’s first southern campaign, beginning a push to sweep away what remained of the Wu Dynasty’s rule and settle the realm once and for all.

Faced with the might of the southward-marching Jurchen armies, the remaining anti-Jurchen forces scattered across the Central Plains rose up under the most desperate of circumstances. In the Jin region, under Tian Shi’s leadership, resistance began in earnest. After a brutal and difficult winter, the war on the western front of the Central Plains finally saw its first glimmer of hopeful dawn.

On the twenty-first of the first month, the leaders of the various resistance factions gathered at Fenyang for an alliance, formally recognizing the sacrifices and resolve the Prince of Jin’s faction had shown in this campaign against the Jurchens, and discussing the many tasks of resistance to come over the following year. The Jin region, mountainous and rugged, straddled a critical position along the Jurchen western army’s southward route — a place that could serve as a defensive stronghold amid its mountains while also threatening the main road of the Jurchen advance. Should the various factions unite and stand watch over one another, they could drive a heavy nail squarely into the path of Zonghan’s advancing army — even, potentially, drag out a long war of attrition against the Jurchen forces, whose supply lines stretched far too long to sustain indefinitely.

The Jurchens, for their part, had not taken the resistance lightly. As the Fenyang alliance meeting unfolded, forces along the northern front, which had gone quiet for a time, sprang back into motion, attempting sudden strikes to disrupt the gathering. And yet, though the leaders of every resistance faction were largely gathered at Fenyang, the arrangement of forces at the front had in fact been handled with an outward looseness masking inward readiness; thanks to preparations made well in advance, no disorder resulted.

During the meeting itself, within the great camp at Fenyang, an assassination plot orchestrated by the Jurchens was uncovered; several Jurchen death-warriors were captured in the process. After the alliance meeting concluded successfully on the twenty-first, the various leaders set off on their journeys home. On the twenty-second, the Prince of Jin Tian Shi’s carriage train departed, setting out on the road back to Weisheng after nearly half a year leading the campaign in person.

Though the Prince of Jin’s forces had suffered several defeats on the battlefield, and though the resolve to resist the Jurchens had caused enormous friction and division within his own faction, now that this brutal surgery was complete, the entire anti-Jurchen movement under the Prince of Jin had finally rid itself of its chronic ailment. Though still weak from the operation, the whole force now possessed far greater room to move forward. The previous year’s campaign, in which he had staked his very life, had at last begun to bear fruit.

Whether great lord or common man, an experience so close to death always leaves behind a profound realization. War, resistance against the Jurchens — this would be a long and violent upheaval, and having only just taken part in its opening chapter, Tian Shi already felt the full force of how harrowing it truly was. On the road home that day, Tian Shi looked out at the snow blanketing both sides of the carriage and understood, in his heart, that far harder times still lay ahead.

His mind was full of countless thoughts.

On the night of the twenty-second of the first month of the tenth year of Jianshuo, near the border of Weisheng, at Gusong Post Station, the Prince of Jin Tian Shi — four months after proclaiming his call to arms against the Jurchens — reached the final moment of his life.

He died by assassination.

…

Gusong Post Station, east of Fenyang, was not in fact as desolate as its name — “Solitary Pine” — might suggest. Sitting along the essential route connecting Fenyang and Weisheng, it had, with the growth of population and trade in the Jin region over the years, become a large and well-appointed station.

Tian Shi’s carriage train, traveling east, stopped here as evening drew near.

The alliance meeting at Fenyang had been a major event, and the Jurchens would certainly never wish to see it succeed without interference. Though it had by now concluded successfully, Yu Yulin, out of concern for security, continued to escort the party at the head of his personal guard the whole way. That night, Tian Shi and Yu Yulin met and spoke at length, recalling how Gusong Post Station had looked ten years earlier, with some feeling. Speaking of the campaign that had now come to an end, Tian Shi said:

“Only now do I realize — the decision to lead the army out in person last year turned out, against all odds, to be the only path that actually worked, and it worked only because we very nearly died in the attempt. Last year… if our resolve had wavered even slightly, if our luck had turned even slightly worse, you and I would already be cold bones in the ground.”

Yu Yulin answered him: “And that woman at Weisheng — she’d likely have been taken by force first and killed after… taken more than once.”

“Ha, with that fierce look on her face, who would dare lay a hand on her…”

Speaking of the woman at Weisheng, Yu Yulin, thinking of Tian Shi’s return to Weisheng territory the next day, offered another word of caution. “The army has already been screened many times over, and though Miss Lou holds Weisheng secure, Your Highness should still not let his guard down upon returning. In truth, this whole journey — the Jurchens’ ambitions are far from dead, and tomorrow’s change of guard is exactly the kind of moment someone might try to exploit.”

These were truths Tian Shi already understood well enough, and he nodded in agreement. Just as they spoke, a commotion suddenly broke out in the darkness not far from the post station, and soon word came that several suspicious figures had been spotted; efforts to surround them were already underway, and two had already been captured.

The way of the assassin has always relied on catching the unprepared off guard; now that they had been discovered, there was little more to it. Once the fighting there had settled, Yu Yulin, having arranged for Tian Shi to be well guarded, went himself to see what had happened, and soon learned that these, too, were death-warriors from Liaodong, unwilling to give up — from the start of the alliance meeting to its conclusion, large and small assassination attempts of this kind had erupted six or seven times in all, some by Jurchen death-warriors, some by desperate Han collaborators from Liaodong — enough to show just how anxious the Jurchen side had grown.

He had his deputy drag the captured assassins off for interrogation and ordered the defenses at Gusong Post Station strengthened further. Before he had even finished giving these orders, a sudden, sharp, chaotic sound of screaming rose from the direction where Tian Shi was staying. Yu Yulin’s mind clenched, and he broke into a full run.

The wind was fierce, the fire fiercer still.

Torches swayed and roared in the wind, lighting up the snow-white ground on both sides of the path. The chill remained the dominant note of this whole world, but from the way the soldiers ahead were moving, Yu Yulin already sensed that something was wrong. He burst into the post station’s courtyard; ahead of him stood an ornamental rockery, the snow around it already swept clear, lanterns strung along the walls stretching into the distance. From beyond the rockery, the smell of blood drifted over.

Soldiers had already gathered; a physician had arrived as well. Beyond the rockery, a body lay on the ground, its throat slit open by a steel blade, blood pooling out. Tian Shi sat slumped against a pillar beneath the eaves not far off, a dagger buried in his chest, a pool of blood already spreading beneath him.

Tian Shi raised a hand toward Yu Yulin, who covered the distance in a few strides. Seeing the dead man on the ground, he already knew who it was. Lei Zeyuan — originally a steward at the Tianji Palace, a man of considerable ability who had long been trusted by Tian Shi. He had been called into the army during the campaign to assist, and at the end of the eleventh month, when Tian Shi’s forces had been scattered, Lei Zeyuan too had barely escaped with his life before rejoining the main force — a trusted aide who had, it seemed, already proven himself through hardship.

This, then, was one of the contingencies the Jurchens had planted. During the great rout at the end of the eleventh month, he had not been with Tian Shi; once the two sides regrouped, he made no move; before the alliance meeting, he made no move either. It was only after the alliance meeting had concluded successfully, as Yu Yulin escorted Tian Shi to the border of Weisheng — amid the backdrop of tens of thousands of troops feinting along the frontier and the several attempted assassinations by death-warriors — that he finally struck.

“Lei Zeyuan, Lei Zeyuan…” Tian Shi’s face was pale as paper, murmuring the name softly, though his expression carried the faint trace of a smile, as if he found the whole thing bitterly absurd. Yu Yulin turned to the physician nearby, whose face bore a look of helplessness, and Tian Shi spoke again: “Don’t waste your time. I’ve spent time in the army too, I know… General Yu…”

Tian Shi’s hand fell. His lips curved slightly, his gaze drifting toward the distance in the snowy night.

“In war, in killing — no method is beneath use, I should have expected it… The Prince of Jin’s faction has bowed beneath the Jurchens for ten years. Though it looked independent on the surface, in truth, with a talent as heaven-gifted as Xiyin’s, how could he have stopped at stirring up a few great clans in the Jin region? How many nails has he driven in, I wonder, and where…”

“Your Highness…”

“…I failed to guard against it, and so I accept the wager lost. General Yu, my heart is filled with regret… I once thought, after today, I would go on to accomplish something truly great. I kept thinking — how could I stand against the Jurchens, even defeat them, and contend with the heroes of this age? But — this, this is what it means to contend with the heroes of this age. Truly… what a terrible pity. I’d only just begun to walk this road… damn this heaven…”

He raised his hand slightly, as though trying to grasp at something, but finally let it fall. Yu Yulin knelt beside him and reached out; Tian Shi took hold of his arm.

“…General Yu, when I was young, I once met… I once met a truly formidable man. That trip to Qingmu Stronghold — Ning, the Butcher of Men. He later walked into the golden hall and killed the wretched emperor of the Wu Dynasty — ah, truly formidable. When will I ever be like him… The Jurchens… the Jurchens are like dark clouds, pressing down upon this generation, and Liao, and the Wu Dynasty, none could stand against them — only he could. At Xiaocang River, that was truly something. After I became Prince of Jin, I could never let it go, I wanted so badly to accomplish something…”

“…I had thought, I had already… stood where he once stood…”

His breath was growing weaker. He paused here for a moment, then gathered a last thread of strength.

“…Brother Yu, I’ve only just realized — dying here, I’m leaving you all… leaving you with a mess to clean up. We had only just formed this alliance, and the Jurchens struck at once, playing both sides at their pleasure. Had I known I’d die, I should have just been a Prince of Jin in name only. What was the point of any of it… But, Brother Yu…”

He struggled weakly. “…Brother Yu, all of you… there’s no other way, however hard the road ahead… however hard the road ahead…”

He said this twice, as if trying to urge Yu Yulin and the others to hold on no matter how difficult things became, but in the end he could not find the words. His weakening gaze flickered a few times. “The road ahead is going to be hard… Brother Yu, you and Miss Lou… heh, speaking of Miss Lou today, heh — taken by force, then killed… Brother Yu, when I said Miss Lou was fierce and unlovely to look at, that wasn’t true. Look at Gusong Post Station — so much of this we owe to her. The Jin region owes so much to her… Whatever happened in her past, we won’t speak of it — but what her brother did to her, that was not the act of a human being!”

At this, Tian Shi’s gaze suddenly turned serious again, his voice rising as he looked at Yu Yulin: “The Jin region is going to fall into chaos, going to be lost, so many people… Brother Yu, we are men — we cannot let this happen again. Though… though ahead of us stands Wanyan Zonghan — it cannot happen again, cannot—”

His voice broke off here; blood welled up from his mouth. He stopped speaking, leaning against the pillar, his eyes wide open. He had, in this moment, already grasped the many tragedies the Jin region was about to suffer; only a moment before, he and Yu Yulin had still been joking about Lou Shuwan — and perhaps it wasn’t a joke any longer. That brutal reality, the countless tragedies across the Central Plains in the ten years since the Humiliation of Jingping. But such tragedy could not be quelled by outrage alone — to defeat Wanyan Zonghan, to defeat the Jurchens — but how? How could it be done?

His emotions surged within this violence, even as his life drained rapidly from him. Yu Yulin said, “I will never let these things happen…” though he did not know whether Tian Shi had even heard him. After a while, Tian Shi’s eyes closed, then opened again, staring vacantly at some point ahead.

His voice grew faint as he turned to other matters: “…My uncle looks like a hero of the age, unwilling to bow before the Jurchens, always saying that one day he’d rebel. But only today did I see — like a frog in slowly heating water, how could he ever truly rebel… I… I have finally done something worth doing, Brother Yu. The Tian family looks fearsome, but in truth… all bluster and no substance underneath. What I’ve done — does it count as something, at last?”

Tian Shi leaned there, a faint smile now on his face alongside a deep regret, his gaze seeming to look out toward the years to come — whether those years held struggle or peace, it had, in this moment, finally settled into stillness.

Within Yu Yulin’s heart was an immense sorrow — not, in this moment, sorrow for the brutal times ahead, nor for the suffering the world might yet endure, but simply for this man before him, who had once been raised up to the position of Prince of Jin. His road of resistance had only just begun, and already it had come to an end — and yet, in this moment, in Yu Yulin’s eyes, even Tian Hu, the old Tiger King who had once dominated the Jin region for more than a decade in his heyday, could not compare to even the smallest finger of the man before him now.

On the night of the twenty-second of the first month of the tenth year of Jianshuo, in the hour of Hai, the third quarter, the Prince of Jin, Tian Shi, leaning against that pillar beneath the eaves, quietly departed this world. Carrying his hopes and longing for the future, his eyes, in their final moment, still gazed ahead into the deep darkness of night.

The next day, when Lou Shuwan arrived at Gusong Post Station, she was already unsteady on her feet, her hair in complete disarray. Seeing Yu Yulin, she rushed forward and struck him across the face.

The death of the Prince of Jin, Tian Shi, was about to send a massive shockwave through the Central Plains.

On the night of the twenty-third, the Jurchen main camp.

Wanyan Xiyin sat bent over his desk in his tent, working by the warm yellow lamplight, attending to the day’s business.

Suddenly the wind blew through, and a scout entering from outside the tent confirmed the news of Tian Shi’s death.

Beyond the tent, the world lay under white, unmelted snow, and somewhere far off, unseen, there seemed to come the faint, rumbling sound of some vast iceberg cracking apart…