At Linzhou, as the hour of Yin gave way to the hour of Mao on the ninth of the second month, the city drifted in a haze of chaotic firelight.

Toward the wall, Shuliesu’s all-or-nothing assault had already been unleashed. The sound of massive stones striking the long wall could be heard clearly across more than half the city.

To the southwest, the resistance put up by Shen Wenjin’s men after entering the city had already caused a considerable stir; they had set fires, burning buildings within the walls. At the northeastern gate, a unit of surrendered soldiers no one had anticipated launched a surprise attempt to seize the gate itself, inflicting some casualties on nearby Huaxia Army defenders.

Word of all this reached Guan Sheng in rapid succession as he made his way swiftly through the tents of the camp, soldiers running past him on every side. Just as he reached the courtyard ahead, he caught sight of Xu Chunyi approaching from the other direction.

Aside from Yan Qing and a few others following behind him, the Huaxia Army had placed no restraints or shackles of any kind on Xu Chunyi, so on the surface, at least, his expression showed only a faint trace of gloom. He stopped and watched Guan Sheng approach at a brisk pace. Guan Sheng’s expression was stern, carrying its own natural authority; reaching Xu Chunyi’s side, he brushed some dust from the man’s shoulder.

“General Xu, come along with us.”

With that, Guan Sheng led Xu Chunyi and the several men behind him into the courtyard nearby.

Lamps burned inside the courtyard rooms. As Guan Sheng and the others entered, a number of garrison commanders under Xu Chunyi’s own command had already gathered there. Guan Sheng stepped forward and pressed both hands down on the table. “Everyone, sit.”

The assembled men glanced at Xu Chunyi, then gradually took their seats. Guan Sheng spread his hands, gesturing for Xu Chunyi to sit beside him, and began to speak.

“Time is short, so I’ll be brief. Someone betrayed us to the Jurchen dogs — we found out, and General Xu has already dealt with it. We’d originally hoped to turn the tables and lure a group of Jurchen dogs in to kill them, but Shuliesu proved too clever — the men he sent in were Han troops instead. Regardless, what you’re hearing right now is the sound of Shuliesu throwing everything he has into one last, desperate push.”

Guan Sheng’s gaze was stern; he paused briefly. “These past few days together, the Huaxia Army has fought alongside all of you, and there are things that can now be said plainly. The Jurchens have thirty thousand elite troops, with reinforcements that seem endless — holding Linzhou to the death simply cannot succeed. And given the current situation, who knows how many spineless cowards remain hidden within this city. Shuliesu wants a swift victory. So do we.”

“However formidable the opponent, the moment they make their move, there will be weaknesses to exploit. With so few of us facing so many, we can only fight with reckless resolve. The counterattack on Shuliesu will begin shortly.”

A sudden shift passed through the room. Officers within an army are, as a rule, no less skilled than ordinary people at reading the room; having already noted Xu Chunyi’s troubled expression, and the fact that those following him were not his usual trusted men, many present had already begun to suspect something. When Guan Sheng spoke of not knowing how many “spineless cowards” remained within the army, the implication only deepened everyone’s unease. And yet none of them had imagined that this force of barely ten thousand Huaxia Army men, on only the third day of the siege, was preparing to launch a counterattack against Shuliesu’s force of more than thirty thousand elite Jurchen troops.

Such a tactic seemed almost reckless to the point of madness. And yet, in all honesty, anyone with a clear head could see the deadlock Linzhou now found itself trapped within.

More than thirty thousand elite Jurchen troops, leading over thirty thousand collaborator troops besides — holding Linzhou for some time was certainly possible. But with Zonghan’s main force not far to the north, if Shuliesu failed to take Linzhou, would the remaining two hundred thousand-odd Jurchen main force really just stand by and watch?

And once the siege had begun, the option of retreat had, in truth, already vanished. With Tian Shi dead, the situation across the Jin region stood in peril, and the odds of reinforcements ever arriving were close to nil. Defending a city with no hope of aid from any side was itself a dead end; and once a prolonged battle of attrition had worn everyone down, any attempt at a breakout later would only meet the Jurchen cavalry riding them down — no one would escape at all.

Understood in this light, the choice being made here now took on a rather different, far more bold and daring character.

No one spoke. Guan Sheng, too, fell silent for a moment. “Our nation is broken, our homes destroyed,” he said. “Which road each of you chooses to walk from here — Guan believes that whatever you decide, it can be understood. But these past several days, the Huaxia Army has lived alongside all of you, opened our hearts to you every single day — surely you can see clearly enough what the men serving under you are thinking. No one wants to be a dog to someone else!”

“We’re about to go into battle. No one knows how today will end, or whether we’ll come back at all. I won’t waste more words on grand principles.” He clasped a hand on Xu Chunyi’s shoulder, looking at him. “But there are still civilians in this city. Not many, but I hope we can use this chance to help them flee south — at least fulfill our duty as soldiers in that much. As for the rest of you… if any of you can keep pace with us today in killing Shuliesu—”

A sharp light flashed in his eyes. “—then from this day forward, you’ll be brothers of the Huaxia Army. On behalf of every soldier in this army, I welcome you.”

With these words, Guan Sheng lifted his hand from Xu Chunyi’s shoulder and turned to walk toward the door. Just then, someone in the room rose to his feet — a formidable warrior who had originally served under Xu Chunyi, a man named Shi Guang’en, his expression likewise unfriendly. “Who do you think you’re talking down to!”

Guan Sheng turned his head to look at him. Shi Guang’en went on: “What’s all this about understanding or not understanding — anyone listening would think you were addressing a room full of cowards! Never mind killing Shuliesu — my men are already ready. However you want to fight, you speak up, Guan!”

Guan Sheng nodded and raised his fists in salute. By now, many in the room had already caught on to what was really happening — the matter of surrendering to the Jurchens was, after all, an extremely sensitive subject at present. With Tian Shi so recently dead, Xu Chunyi, though nominally in command of the army, could only conspire quietly with a handful of trusted confidants; had word of it spread too widely, with even one man unwilling to go along, it would surely have reached the ears of the Huaxia Army.

And so, regarding the change in Xu Chunyi’s loyalties, the men in the room had only had their suspicions until now — suspicions that, for some of them, only now truly settled into certainty. Some murmured quietly among themselves, a note of sudden understanding in their voices: “So… Xu really did turn traitor…” Others nodded, as if things now made sense. Another man rose and cupped his hands. “General Guan, this one named Lin wishes to join the Huaxia Army — please don’t leave behind the few hundred brothers under my command.”

At any other time, an entire army defecting to the Jurchens would hardly have been remarkable. But with the Huaxia Army holding the line here, and given how effective the past several days of rallies and shared combat had proven to be, the fighting spirit in these men’s chests had been well and truly stirred. And with Xu Chunyi’s own secret dealings having already collapsed in ruin, his hold over the army had, by this point, been entirely severed as well.

Guan Sheng said nothing more. He left several staff officers behind and strode out of the room. Firelight from the fighting atop the wall cast its glow over him; he took up his great blade, mounted his warhorse, glanced briefly up at the sky, then rode forward together with the men around him.

Above the city, the night remained as dark as spilled ink.

…

Outside the city, the assault of tens of thousands of troops had, in the darkness before dawn, merged into the grandest, most overwhelming sea of chaos yet — the roaring cries of tens of thousands of men, Jurchens and Han soldiers charging forward together, arrows streaking through the sky, massive burning stones, and the ceaseless roar of cannon fire from the wall all merged into a boiling wall of flame and light. Logs and stones were hauled up and hurled down from atop the wall by the defenders; spilled, burning oil spread into a terrifying curtain of fire.

Shuliesu’s most elite troops had already begun scaling the wall; to the southwest, Shen Wenjin’s own core forces launched an assault of their own in a desperate bid to save their commander.

Before this, the elite troops who had entered the city had already suffered devastating losses; some soldiers who had been “rotating shifts” atop the wall found themselves suddenly caught up in the ambush, and were forced to either leap from the wall or were cut down atop it, their deaths brutal and grim. Within the city, the sounds of cannon fire and explosions continued without pause.

Amid the fierce assault already underway outside, within Linzhou itself, groups of fighters continued to gather one after another — some from the Huaxia Army, some from Xu Chunyi’s original forces. In an age like this, though the realm lay in ruins — as Guan Sheng had put it, “our nation broken, our homes destroyed” — for many men who had spent half their lives suppressed and stifled, the chance to follow the Huaxia Army into an act as bold and glorious as this still carried real weight.

And beyond that, the possibility of joining the Huaxia Army in the future held its own considerable allure. With the Prince of Jin now gone, there seemed to be nowhere left in the Central Plains for the Han people to make their stand — but if they could truly come through this battle alive, the Huaxia Army’s reputation would surely shake the entire realm, and belonging to them would be something any man could be proud of.

There was no better path left, none that felt more truly human.

The wind roared, the fires blazed fierce. Shi Guang’en rallied his soldiers, shouting before them all:

“…I’ve always said it — when a man dies, his prick points at the sky, but if he doesn’t die, he lives ten thousand years… Kill Shuliesu today, join the Huaxia Army, and your ancestors eight generations back will glow with pride in their graves—”

The fighting of the previous day had been brutal, and the men had barely rested, most of them exhausted through and through — yet hearing the wild fervor in these words, gooseflesh rose on the skin of more than a few soldiers, blood surging hot through their veins…

More and more men gathered.

…

Atop the northern wall, the fighting had reached a white-hot pitch, spreading everywhere.

Stray arrows deflected off armor plating. Xu Ning drove a short spear into the chest of a Jurchen soldier; as the man let out a furious roar, Xu Ning drove a second short spear into his throat, then, seizing the moment, yanked the first spear free and drove it through the thigh of another Jurchen soldier nearby.

That soldier had been chasing down a Huaxia Army man whose shoulder was already soaked with blood; struck through the thigh now, he swung his blade around anyway. Xu Ning thrust and withdrew both spears in quick succession, killing him on the spot.

“Go—”

He lunged toward his wounded comrade. A Jurchen soldier rushed in from ahead and struck him across the back with a blade — the steel cut through his armor, though it failed to bite deep into flesh. Xu Ning stumbled forward a couple of steps, snatched up a shield, then spun and charged straight at the man.

Formidable in skill, he struck with such force that a thunderous crash rang out — the Jurchen soldier, along with another who had charged in from behind, both failed to dodge in time and were sent tumbling across the ground. More Jurchens pressed forward from ahead, while Huaxia Army soldiers formed up and surged in from behind; the two sides collided in fierce combat atop the wall.

A breach opened atop the wall, then was retaken by Xu Ning and his men, only for another section to be scaled soon after. Shuliesu’s elite troops, having suffered relatively little attrition the day before, fought with formidable strength; after two such exchanges, the wall lay strewn with bodies and blood, and Xu Ning, his eyes gone red with fury, took several wounds himself as he led his men in a fighting retreat.

As Xu Ning and his men gradually withdrew from the wall, this section was declared lost.

Jurchen soldiers pushed in through this breach, advancing toward Linzhou’s still-sealed northern gate. Before long, the sound of explosions erupted through the streets. Even as Xu Ning fought his desperate defense, the army’s engineering corps had already, along the necessary route toward the gate, buried gunpowder charges, doused the ground with oil, and even piled up stacks of timber. Now, a raging wall of fire cut the road off entirely.

Xu Ning set down the twin spears he’d used in close combat, shouldered the hooked, sickle-bladed golden spear that had first made his name, and led his men into a fresh wave of counterattack.

The streets and alleys had descended into utter chaos.

Near the southwestern gate, “Thunderbolt” Qin Ming, a wolf-tooth club in one hand, hauled Shen Wenjin up onto the wall with the other.

“Light the fires! Let them see clearly!”

The force besieging from outside consisted of Shen Wenjin’s nearly ten thousand remaining men — but with the elite core of three thousand either killed or captured within the city, the attack from outside had grown weak and listless, posing little real threat.

From the very start, the Huaxia Army here had prepared to receive the very best Jurchen troops; though Shen Wenjin and his soldiers had put up some resistance once inside, the Huaxia Army had still managed to resolve the fighting swiftly, pulling their strength back up onto the wall. Aside from the fires these last desperate defenders had set within the city, the Huaxia Army’s own losses on this side had been relatively light.

Torches blazed to life. Qin Ming dragged Shen Wenjin toward the gate tower. Shen Wenjin’s hands and feet were bound, his face already ashen, his whole body trembling. “I surrender, I surrender, brothers of the Huaxia Army! I surrender! Grandfather! I surrender, I’ll help you call the men outside to surrender too, I’ll fight the Jurchens for you—”

He shrieked these words, but Qin Ming only sneered coldly — such a thing was, of course, no longer possible. After surrendering to the Jurchens, whether at Shen Wenjin’s own side or out among the ranks beyond, Jurchen supervising officers had been embedded throughout; the moment Shen Wenjin was captured, effective command of his army had already, for all practical purposes, been stripped from him.

“Scream all you like out here!”

Qin Ming looped a rope noose around Shen Wenjin’s neck, kicked him toward the parapet, glanced once outside the city, then turned and headed back into it.

Most of this Huaxia Army detachment’s cavalry, led by Qin Ming, had already gathered in the streets nearby. Six hundred elite riders stood ready, poised to charge out of the city at any moment and cut a swath of destruction.

Qin Ming mounted his warhorse, the traces of blood on his heavy wolf-tooth club not yet dried by the night wind.

Atop the wall, Shen Wenjin, the rope noose around his neck, screamed hysterically under the threatening presence of two Huaxia Army soldiers. Among the besieging troops outside, Jurchen officers forced their men steadily forward; a Jurchen marksman, hidden among the ranks, crept closer to the wall and began firing arrows at Shen Wenjin.

The night wind was strong, and the two Huaxia Army soldiers atop the wall, wary of the danger to Shen Wenjin, fired back several arrows of their own — some missed entirely, others struck harmlessly against shields. Before another volley could follow, the gate ahead swung open.

“Run for it—” Shen Wenjin’s frantic scream cut through the surrounding noise with startling clarity.

…

Along the northern wall, section after section had already fallen — though thanks to the Huaxia Army’s deliberate sabotage, sheets of spilled, burning oil roared fiercely across several stretches. Even where paths through the wall had been forced open, the areas beyond, deeper within the city, remained chaotic and deadlocked.

Shuliesu watched the state of the battlefield with a grim expression. Soldiers swarmed like ants up the wall from several points at once; at the site of the first breach, a substantial force had already pushed into the city and was working to secure its footing, preparing to seize the northern gate. The Huaxia Army continued to resist fiercely, but by this point in the fighting, it could fairly be said that the city had already fallen.

He had witnessed the Huaxia Army’s caliber firsthand at Xiaocang River; against a force like this, even street-by-street fighting through the city could likely drag on stubbornly for a long while yet. But his own advantage now was overwhelming — and once the Huaxia Army’s forces were divided and scattered, losing any unified command, whether they chose to keep fighting or to flee, he would swallow them up one by one regardless.

Because of shifting wind conditions, the hot-air balloons had not been sent up again — but before long, a Jurchen goshawk soaring overhead brought an ominous piece of news. Cavalry had broken out from the southwestern gate; Shen Wenjin’s forces had already collapsed into large-scale rout.

“Relay orders to Alibai,” Shuliesu commanded. “If he lets the Black Banner escape through the southwest with his five thousand men, tell him to bring me his own head.”

The messenger departed at once. By now it was already a little past the first quarter of the hour of Mao; a signal flare shot up into the sky and burst with a thunderous crack. Linzhou’s three remaining gates, at the northeast, northwest, and west, all swung open at this moment, charging horns sounding from every direction as a black tide surged out toward the Jurchen flanks.

Across this battlefield of tens of thousands, on Shuliesu’s side alone, some men fought outside the city, some within, some struggled atop the wall itself, some were breaking into rout, others fought to hold that rout back. As the gates opened, wave met wave, and with unified command behind them, the Huaxia Army and the accompanying forces under Xu Chunyi’s banner gained something of an edge.

To the southwest, Qin Ming led six hundred cavalry, driving the routed remnants of Shen Wenjin’s forces before him as he swung around toward Shuliesu’s own central position.

Outside the northwestern gate, a regiment of fifteen hundred men carved a bloody path through the besieging ranks. The regimental commander leading them was named Nie Shan — one of the old hands who had followed Ning Yi from the earliest days, once a minor chieftain at Liangshan, a man who had killed without number. He had later trained at the Zhu family manor’s training camp, receiving guidance in martial skill from Lu Hongti, and had walked a path of penance and austerity ever since.

Over the years, the ranks of these original ascetic penitents within the Huaxia Army had steadily thinned, but those who remained still fought with a ferocity that inspired dread in anyone who witnessed it. Nearing fifty, Nie Shan was a hulking man, his face marked with scars, wielding a heavy nine-ringed broadsword with brutal, unyielding force. Among the hundred-odd men leading his charge, all had shaved their heads in the manner of ascetic monks, wielding long blades, iron spears, and heavy hammers capable of shattering bone with ease.

The forces attacking this section were half Han troops, half Jurchens; within moments, large numbers of them were fleeing in retreat, and behind these charging monks, a long trail of corpses and blood marked their advance.

Huyan Zhuo and Li Jiakai each led a thousand men out through the east and northeast respectively, while nearly ten thousand troops under Shi Guang’en and others charged out through various gates as well — all converging on the same single target: Shuliesu.

The Jurchen general Suotuohu was among Shuliesu’s most trusted and valued subordinates; he had led some four thousand elite troops in the first breach of the city, pushing into Linzhou and holding firm despite constant harassment from Xu Ning and others. Sensing the disturbance now spreading through Linzhou, he only just began to realize something was gravely wrong — and at that very moment, a great mass of what had once been Xu Chunyi’s forces surged toward the northern wall as well.

Outside the city, the main Jurchen encampment fell into a brief moment of confusion at the sudden Huaxia Army counterattack, but before long the situation stabilized once more. Shuliesu, gripping his long blade, understood at once the Black Banner Army’s intent. He laughed atop his warhorse, then began issuing orders one after another, directing his various units to draw together and fight with calm, disciplined resolve.

With more than thirty thousand core troops at his back, in attack or defense, holding position or striking with surprise, whom did he have left to fear? So long as his forces held firm and mounted a single counterattack, this Huaxia Army force at Linzhou would cease to exist.

He gave no less attention to the still-unbreached northern gate, nor to the possible arrival of Wang Juyun’s Prince of Ming forces.

At that moment, from the rear on the northeastern flank, an urgent report arrived: another force was about to break into the battlefield.

Shuliesu raised his blade astride his horse and, leading more than four thousand men, rode out personally to meet it.

By dawn, the burning city and the clash of nearly a hundred thousand men had merged into a single surging, chaotic flood — or perhaps more like some vast, madly turning millstone. Where Zhu Biao and his men broke into the battlefield, a poorly disciplined Han unit had only just finished assembling; given the hastiness of the whole siege, neither the Jurchen nor the Han camps had ever managed to establish any real defensive perimeter. After scattering this scattered rabble, they soon encountered far more formidable opposition.

Across the Black Banner Army as a whole, nearly twenty thousand men in a combined surprise assault pressed inward from different directions toward the center, while Jurchen soldiers along the way put up stubborn resistance. At one edge of the battlefield, Lu Junyi gathered some twenty men under his command and, keeping to the margins with careful caution, slipped into the fighting, hoping to exploit the vast confusion to their advantage.

This small band, like an unremarkable drop of water, dissolved into the chaos in an instant and vanished from sight…

Before long, morning light began to break. Guan Sheng and Xu Ning brought their remaining main forces into the grinding chaos as well; the fighting continued without pause, comrades falling in blood on every side as the Huaxia Army broke through layer after layer of resistance, only to be met each time by fresh waves of Jurchen troops surging in from the flanks. An hour after daybreak, Wang Juyun arrived at the battlefield, leading more than twenty thousand Prince of Ming troops.

By this point, the Jurchen forces under Shuliesu had already gained the upper hand in the grinding combat; the Huaxia Army, driven to the point of utter exhaustion, clung on grimly against the more than thirty thousand Jurchen troops, mounting one desperate rallying charge after another. Shuliesu, never having anticipated just how fanatically the Huaxia Army would fight, found himself leading several thousand men in constant repositioning across the field.

The battlefield spread wider and wider as a result, and by the time the Prince of Ming forces arrived, large numbers of Jurchen troops had already lost clear contact with their main formation. They could only gather together in whatever groups they could and press on, hunting down any Huaxia Army soldiers still visible — men now stretched to the very limits of their strength — though far more common by this point were the routed Han collaborator troops scattered across every hillside and field. Before long, these scattered forces, too, collided with the newly arrived Prince of Ming army in a chaotic, tangled melee.

The smoke and fire of war spread on, without end.