Zhenjiang, where the Yangtze River meets the Beijing–Hangzhou Grand Canal.
Water birds wheeled past the scattered white sails on the river’s surface. The bustling harbor lay bathed beneath the blazing sun, and as noon approached, people came and went, the city still humming along at its swift pace.
“Zhenjiang has been a flourishing city of importance for a hundred years now. When I was a child, my tutor at the estate called it the hinge between east and west, the artery linking north and south — I wasn’t entirely convinced at the time, and I asked him whether it could really be more impressive than Jiangning. He told me that unlike Jiangning, it had not only the Yangtze but the Grand Canal as well, and that with the Wu Dynasty’s trade flourishing as it did, this place was the most vital of all. I first came here when I was eight — back then, that whole outer ring of the city didn’t even exist yet.”
The blazing sun poured down, and at the edge of a stand of green zelkova trees on the hill west of the city, cool shade fell across the ground. When the wind blew over the hilltop, the leaves rustled softly. Beyond the zelkova grove lay a slope covered in wild grasses of every kind, and looking down from this slope, the bustling scene of Zhenjiang spread out below — the towering city walls encircling it, and beyond the walls, a residential district stretching on for several li, low houses connected to fishing villages along the canal, roads threading between the houses and radiating outward along the riverbank.
Higher still, on the hills above the forest, and further off along the riverbank, military camps were stationed here and there, along with watchtowers. Here at the edge of the zelkova grove, the man at the head of the group sat casually on a rock beneath the trees, with young attendants and bodyguards nearby, and in the distance, a carriage was climbing the slope with a party of people who had ridden up in it.
“In two hundred years of the Wu Dynasty, Zhenjiang has never looked as prosperous as it does right now — though only a few years ago, it was broken by the Jurchen… The second year of Wujian, the ‘Search the Mountains, Comb the Seas’ campaign — Ruhua, you remember that, don’t you? Shulisu led his troops straight for Yangzhou. I fled across the river from the other side, and that’s where I met your sister.”
The man seated on the rock still had refined, dignified features, though he now wore a beard beneath his chin, and was dressed in the plain clothes of an ordinary gentleman. His gaze, though gentle, still carried its own quiet authority. This was Zhou Junwu, Crown Prince of the Wu Dynasty. The young man sitting on the grass beside him had a pale face, and at these words, he trembled faintly and nodded.
The pale young man was named Shen Ruhua — the younger brother-in-law of the current Crown Prince, brother to Shen Ruxin, the Crown Prince’s third concubine. Compared to his sister Zhou Pei’s tangled and troubled marriage, Jun Wu, who had held lofty ambitions since childhood, had always regarded the matter of marriage with great indifference. He now had one wife and five concubines in his household, and aside from Shen Ruxin, the families of all the other five were great and powerful clans. Shen Ruxin, the fourth lady of the Crown Prince’s household, had been a companion Jun Wu had met in hardship, during the very flight of the “Search the Mountains, Comb the Seas” campaign years ago. It would not be an exaggeration to say that, whether or not she was his most doted-upon consort in daily life, she was certainly the most singular presence within his household.
But today, Shen Ruhua was clearly anything but at ease — indeed, his whole body trembled faintly, as though he stood at the very edge of collapse.
Jun Wu gazed at Zhenjiang before him and fell silent for a moment.
“The second year of Wujian — that was eight years ago now. I fled to Zhenjiang, and not long after, the Jurchen crossed the river and began their assault on the city. I fled just ahead of them. After the city fell, they didn’t sheathe their blades for ten days. Nearly fifty thousand people died. Your family, Ruhua — the prefect of Zhenjiang got them out ahead of time, and you survived. You remember that, don’t you? Fifty thousand people…”
Jun Wu, recalling that catastrophe of the past, raised his fingers slightly, his expression complicated for a long while, before at last breaking into an odd smile. “So… it really is strange. Fifty thousand people died, half the city burned to nothing — and eight years later, look at Zhenjiang, grown this prosperous. The walls can’t even contain it anymore; everyone lives outside them now. This year, according to the prefect’s rough count, the population of this district is somewhere around seven hundred and fifty thousand… it’s bizarre, isn’t it? Seven hundred and fifty thousand people. Before the Jurchen ever came, Bianliang itself only had a million. Some people are delighted to report the numbers upward — ‘many hardships forge a strong nation,’ they say. Ruhua, do you know why that is?”
Shen Ruhua’s face had fallen into despair, looking as though he might burst into tears at any moment. Jun Wu looked at him for a moment, then stood up.
“I’ll tell you why. Because the people fleeing down from the north — the first place they reach is this stretch of the south of the river. Zhenjiang is the hinge between north and south, so everyone gathered here… Of course, not everyone could make it all the way to Zhenjiang. At first, people could still go further south than this, but eventually too many people were heading further south, and the great clans down there wouldn’t have it — they said southerners should stay south and northerners should stay north. There were incidents, outbreaks of banditry, and a good many deaths. Of Zhenjiang’s seven hundred and fifty thousand people, six hundred thousand are refugees who fled here from the north — families broken, homes lost, dragging what was left of their kin behind them.”
He gestured toward the scene before them. “In these eight years, who knows how many have died. Of the six hundred thousand who remain, they live here like beggars — all those densely packed houses out there were all built up over these years. They have no land, no fields, no possessions of their own. Six or seven years ago, forget paying them wages — even just handing them a bit of thin gruel to keep them alive, and working them like livestock, would have counted as an act of great charity. They’ve held on until now — the ones who couldn’t hold on died, and the ones who did have found houses inside and outside the city, though no land, just some hard labor to do, or else they’ve gone to sell their lives as soldiers… that’s how it’s gone for a great many of them.”
“…A little better than livestock.” Jun Wu smiled faintly toward Shen Ruhua. “I’ve gone in secret to see a good many of them. A little better than livestock, and that’s enough for them to keep going. All they hope for is a few more years of peace. From Jiangning to Zhenjiang, from Zhenjiang to Lin’an — several million people living this kind of life. Give them some path to survive. As for the wealthy — let them go work, and if a family has land, let them hire these people to farm it…”
He drew a breath, his right hand curling into a fist at his side, trembling faintly without his noticing, and paused. “The Jurchen have come south three times now, and carried off Han Chinese from the Central Plains by the millions each time. Those people became slaves in the Jin state — the Jin people truly do treat them like livestock, kept alive to feed the meat-eating class of Jin society. And the Wu Dynasty — in the ten years since we lost the Central Plains, several million, even over ten million families have been broken and lost everything. We treat them like livestock too — hand them a little food, put them to work, farming the land — and just like that, trade in every region has flourished all at once. Lin’an’s prosperity right now is unmatched anywhere. Some people say that our dynasty, having lost the Central Plains, has learned from its suffering, and that’s why many hardships have forged a strong nation. That’s the real reason, Ruhua. We gained the livestock of the entire Central Plains.”
Jun Wu’s gaze fixed on Shen Ruhua. “All these years, these people — they used to have proper lives, proper families of their own, wives and children and parents. After the Jurchen struck the Central Plains, the lucky ones who managed to move their whole family south still lost everything they owned. Those who suffered a bit more hardship on the road lost their elderly parents. Worse still, some lost their parents, wives, and children all at once… and some lost their parents, while their wives and children were carried off to the Jin state, leaving them alone. Ruhua, do you know what it feels like for these people to go on living? Just one person left, still alive and well, while everyone else is dead — or worse, still alive somewhere in the north, suffering a life not fit for a pig or a dog… There are people just like this in Zhenjiang too, families broken beyond repair. Ruhua, do you know how they feel?”
“Worse than death…” Jun Wu pressed his fist against his chest, and there was the faint glint of tears in his eyes. “The prosperity of the Wu Dynasty is built on the ruin of these people’s families…”
“Brother-in-law…” Shen Ruhua began to weep as well.
“But they’re still not satisfied. They’re afraid these starving, threadbare beggars will disturb the good life down south, so they say southerners stay south and northerners stay north. Honestly, there’s nothing so strange about it, Ruhua. It sounds infuriating, but it’s actually quite ordinary. These people, treated as beggars, treated as livestock — as long as they don’t disturb anyone else’s good life, all they want is a few more years, a decade or so, of peace and quiet, squeezed into places like Zhenjiang, just trying to get by… but there won’t be any peace left.”
He fell silent at these words, and after a moment, went on.
“The hundreds of thousands of troops gathered around Yangzhou and Zhenjiang — they’ve all been readied for this war. Zongfu and Zongbi have come, and soon they’ll be here. Ruhua, war has never been a game. Fighting it carelessly, relying on luck — that will lose you the battle. This time, the Jurchen mean to take the Wu Dynasty for good. If we lose, everything that has happened before will happen again — only this time, of Zhenjiang’s six hundred thousand people, how many will still be alive to see the next age of peace…”
“To make it possible for the army to fight this battle, over these years, I’ve made a great many enemies… don’t think that being Crown Prince means I’ve been spared from making enemies — no one dares to say it, but it’s true. When the army rises, the ones meddling with orders in the court have to step back. The civil officials lose their say in things, and behind them, the great clans aren’t happy either. When the great clans aren’t happy, the officials aren’t happy. So when it comes to getting things done, they drag their feet — everyone drags their feet a little, and everything ends up slower for it… And the army isn’t free of trouble either. Sons of great families join the ranks hoping for favors for their households, hoping I’ll look out for their family’s interests. I won’t allow it, and so they go along with it on the surface while working against it behind my back. If there’s no benefit in it, no one in this world is willing to lift a finger…”
Jun Wu smiled at Shen Ruhua and sat down in the shade of the trees, rambling on for a while about the difficulties weighing on him. A bird flew past overhead, over the treetops.
“These past years… military law has dealt with a great many people — exile for those who deserved exile, execution for those who deserved execution. My men are all a band of lonely, unyielding souls, estranged from everyone else. People outside say the imperial family favors such men — solitary and rebellious. Actually, I don’t. I prefer people with some warmth to them, some human feeling… it’s just a pity the Jurchen have none of that…” He paused. “None, at least, for us.”
Jun Wu clasped his hands together, sitting there, and lowered his head. Shen Ruhua’s body trembled, tears already streaming down his face for a long while. “Sis— Brother-in-law… I’m willing to go serve in the army…”
“Send you off to the army with a show of it, then quietly pull you out again after a while, so you can go on living?”
“I— I wouldn’t do that…”
Jun Wu looked at him and cut him off. “They think you would. That’s what they’ll say.”
“I— I only took seven hundred taels of silver, no more than that. They… they all…”
“Seven hundred taels is still a capital offense!” Jun Wu pointed toward the direction of Zhenjiang. “Seven hundred taels could let a man live comfortably for the rest of his life. Seven hundred taels could keep ten thousand people alive for a while longer. Seven hundred taels could pay a year’s wages for seventy soldiers… Yes, seven hundred taels isn’t much. If this had happened ten-odd years ago, forget seven hundred taels — your sister married the Crown Prince, and if someone had handed you seventy thousand taels, you could have taken it without a second thought. But today, the seven hundred taels in your hand is worth either your life, or seven million taels. The evidence is solid. Someone means to bring you down precisely because they mean to strike at me. These past years, the Crown Prince’s household has executed too many people. There are others locked in prison right now, awaiting execution. If I don’t execute you, I won’t be able to execute them either.”
“Shen Ruhua, war is never that simple — you can’t afford even the smallest lapse…” Jun Wu turned his gaze elsewhere. “If I let you off today, my own men will start to doubt me. I could spare my own brother-in-law — Yue Fei could spare his brother-in-law too, then, and Han Shizhong could show leniency to his own children as well. Everyone around me has people they’re close to, one way or another. The ones in the army who oppose me — they’ll spread word of this, and more people will believe it. On the battlefield, more men will want to flee, more will waver, more will be tempted to embezzle, and everything will move that much slower. Add it all up, bit by bit, and it becomes an enormous number of people. So — I cannot spare you.”
There seemed to be tears welling in his eyes, but by the time he turned back, no trace of them remained. “I have one wife and five concubines, and with your sister, things have always been the simplest between us. Your sister’s health has never been good — after this happens, I don’t know how I’ll be able to face her again. Your sister once told me you’ve had a simple, honest heart since you were young, that you’re a good boy, and asked me to look after you. I’ve failed her. Your family line has only one heir left in your generation, but fortunately, the young woman you care for is already carrying your child. When the child is born, I’ll bring him into the household myself… and raise him as though he were my own. You may… go in peace.”
When Jun Wu had begun speaking of his brother-in-law’s sister, his words had still carried some hesitation, but by the end, they had grown resolute and unshakable. Having said all this, he no longer looked at Shen Ruhua, but placed his hands on his knees and rose to his feet.
Over these years, despite all he had done that seemed so ruthless and unyielding, Jun Wu, this very year, had only just turned twenty-seven. He was not by nature a man of harsh, iron-fisted authority — far more, he had simply been forced by circumstance into commanding things this way, with no other choice. Shen Ruxin had asked him to look after her brother, but Jun Wu himself was, in truth, in the position of a younger sibling too — he had no real experience in how to guide a young brother-in-law. Only now, thinking back on it, did he truly feel the sorrow of it.
As for Shen Ruhua — he was only eighteen this year. His family upbringing had been decent enough, and even after becoming a relative of the imperial family, he had never been ostentatious. Over their few encounters, Jun Wu had come to like him well enough. But young men fall for pretty faces, and Shen Ruhua had fallen in love with a woman at a pleasure house. His family had never had much money, and those around him had seen the opening — through repeated dealings, they had coaxed Shen Ruhua into accepting silver worth seven hundred taels, meant to buy the woman’s freedom. Before the matter could be completed, it was exposed. Though it had not yet spread among the common people, it had already made its way through the upper ranks of the military and political establishment.
No one had spoken out on the matter — no one had even tried to spread rumors unfavorable to the Crown Prince among the populace — and yet Jun Wu’s scalp still crawled at the thought of it. This had happened at a critical moment in war preparations. To ensure the entire system kept functioning, the military law office had been working at full tilt to root out the corrupt elements within — embezzlers in the rear supply chains, unscrupulous merchants passing off shoddy goods as quality ones, officers at the front skimming military pay and reselling army supplies — a great many of them had already been purged. Naturally, among them were sons of various great clans and noble families.
If Shen Ruhua were spared — and worse, if others helped cover it up on top of that — then from then on, everyone, more or less, would be bound together by the precedent. Similar matters had arisen more than once over the years, but none of them had left him this troubled.
He raised his hand slightly. The world’s countless affairs would, it seemed, go on turning just as they had before. And yet the eyes of the dead were watching him, and he knew — the moment every soldier stood on the battlefield to face the enemy, something would be different because of this.
He rose to leave, and even as Shen Ruhua begged for mercy again and again, he paid it no mind. But after a few steps, the young man behind him no longer spoke to plead — instead came the sound of weeping, and then the sound of Shen Ruhua kneeling and knocking his head against the ground. Jun Wu closed his eyes.
“The realm has fallen into ruin…” he said, with difficulty. “When it comes down to it… this was originally my own Zhou family’s fault. The Zhou family failed to govern well, and let the realm suffer for it… I have failed to command the army well, and so I am harsh with you… Of course, in this world, there are men who embezzle hundreds of thousands of taels and never face death, and men who take seven hundred taels and are shown no mercy at all, and there are also men who never once, in their whole lives, laid eyes on seven hundred taels. It is hard to make sense of it all. Today… today I will only make you this one promise…”
He paused for a long while. “I only promise you this: when the Jurchen come and I stand upon the battlefield… I will shed my last drop of blood against them, no matter what my station may be. I will never live on in shameless cowardice.”
Jun Wu did not raise his voice for emphasis — he simply said these words, plainly, and let them stand. Shen Ruhua wailed aloud. Jun Wu climbed into the carriage, never looking back, and gave the order for it to head toward the military camp.
This day was the seventh of June, in the tenth year of Wujian. The Jurchen eastern army had already finished regrouping at Xuzhou. Beyond their original core force of nearly three hundred thousand, they had gathered together nearly three hundred and fifty thousand troops of the former puppet-Qi Han Chinese forces from across the Central Plains. On one hand, they were pursuing and encircling Liu Chengzong’s westward-moving column; on the other, they had begun massing in the direction of Yangzhou.
At this time, around Zhenjiang and Yangzhou and the surrounding region, Han Shizhong’s main force had already spent several years preparing defenses making use of the waterways of the south. Though Zongfu and Zongbi still carried the confidence of their earlier “Search the Mountains, Comb the Seas” campaign, after breaking through Xuzhou they still did not advance rashly, instead attempting to make use of the existing naval forces of the puppet-Qi troops to support their offensive. Though the Central Plains Han Chinese forces varied greatly in quality and moved sluggishly, formal war between the Jin and Wu states was now imminent — at the shortest, within three to five days; at most, within a month, the two sides would inevitably clash on a massive scale.
In these nights before the great battle began, the lamps of Zhenjiang still burned bright through the darkness. Jun Wu sometimes stood alone by the pitch-black riverside, gazing at that solitary city, and some nights he could not sleep at all, not for the entire night.
The daytime hours were full of business — mostly official matters, though naturally there were private ones too, like that of Shen Ruhua. The date set for Shen Ruhua’s execution was the tenth of June. On the evening of the eighth, Zhou Pei, who should have been holding the fort at Lin’an, arrived in haste from the capital.