In the tenth year of the Wujian Shuo era, mid-July, in the mountains stretching along the south of Jin territory, banners fluttered in the wind.

Northwest of Jinning Prefecture, at Yanhu Pass, the newly built stronghold was already half-consumed by flames. Along the southern wall that had been breached, soldiers poured into the city in dense columns, and beneath the forest of banners, fire flickered against their pale, grim faces.

Within the breached city, the killing raged on without pause. Yu Yulin led his troops in a desperate defense, relying on the fortifications within the city walls, refusing to retreat, while catapults and heavy crossbows fired again and again toward the breach in the wall. Bandaged from head to toe, Yu Yulin stood at the highest point of the city, directing the battle as the scorched air rose in shimmering waves toward the sky.

Since the wall had been breached, the fighting had continued for a day and a night without the defenders’ resistance showing any sign of slackening, so much so that even the attacking soldiers outside the pass had lost the sharp edge they’d had at the start. Yet regardless, the vastly superior and numerically overwhelming attacking army kept pouring more troops into the pass. East of Yanhu Pass, the mountains were thick with soldiers waiting to advance.

Since Tian Shi had been assassinated on the twenty-second day of the first month, by late February and early March, the pro-Jin faction led by Liao Yiren had effectively completed the carving up of Jin territory. In May, Weisheng fell, and by Lou Shuwan’s resolute order, the entire city was put to the torch. At this point, the western route army commanded by Wanyan Zonghan and Xiyin chose to march directly south, appointing the various factions led by the Liao family to take charge of exterminating the anti-Jin resistance forces in Jin territory.

Lou Shuwan and the others abandoned Weisheng and retreated westward and southward into the layered mountains, relying on increasingly rugged terrain and mountain passes for defense. Meanwhile, the factions that had just surrendered to the Jin state spared no effort in mustering heavy forces and pushing in this direction. On the eighth of July, after more than a month under siege, Yanhu Pass was torn open by the enemy when a company of soldiers defected.

West of Yanhu Pass, commoners unwilling to surrender to the Jin continued pouring in dense numbers into the mountains under Lou Shuwan’s control. Southeast of Yanhu Pass, Wang Juyun, leading the Bright King’s army in an attempt to relieve the siege, was intercepted by the surrendered general Chen Longzhou, who commanded over fifty thousand troops, and was drawn into fierce combat.

The dying sun bled crimson across the rugged mountains. You Hongzhuo swung his blade in the thick of the slaughter, his face twisted and savage, covered in blood, a ghastly wound stretching down from his shoulder. In this stretch of mountains, twelve men of the greenwood who had taken on the mission were escorting a scout toward Yanhu Pass, tasked with reporting to Yu Yulin the news that An Xifu was circling around with a small detachment. But along the way they had been spotted by scouts of the surrendered Jin army, and after a bout of fierce fighting, only five remained, You Hongzhuo among them.

A spear thrust toward him from the opposite side. You Hongzhuo let out a roar and threw himself forward, riding the momentum of the spear’s arc to close the distance, his long blade already slashing out. The enemy dodged, the spear shaft knocking aside the desperate You Hongzhuo, then the man drew back his weapon for another thrust. Already wounded and spent, You Hongzhuo’s body swayed unsteadily; he watched the spear point close in on him, unable to dodge in time. Just then, a figure appeared from the side — the spear shattered in midair section by section, and a massive silhouette snatched up the flying spear-tip and, in stride, drove it straight into the spearman’s throat.

“…That’s the Wang family’s spear style from Yannan — nimble enough, but lacking in inner substance. Good for battlefield fighting, but if your internal strength runs deep and your skill surpasses his, it’s nothing to fear… As for cannon-hammer techniques, the best practitioner these days is Chen Fan from the south — in the hands of these two, it’s practically an insult to real martial arts, clumsy amateurs… This blade-user originally trained in Tiger Form, but it’s all empty posturing, no real spirit. Watch the tiger in my hands…”

You Hongzhuo staggered, and the figure had already walked into the crowd, his pace unhurried. Yet as his voice carried, with each punch and kick his robe sleeves whipped and roared, a fierce wind like thunder radiating outward. The scouts charging in from ahead seemed to be caught in some violent battlefield gale, tumbling left and right in an instant. Later, when he unleashed his Tiger Form fist, a low tiger’s roar could faintly be heard in the air, and the figures blocking his path burst apart in sprays of blood as if they had exploded.

Such profound internal power, martial skill honed to near-perfection — You Hongzhuo had only ever glimpsed something like it, faintly, in the Zhao couple of years past, and now in the Eight-Armed Dragon King beside the Female Chancellor. He was too badly wounded now, his vision already swimming. Before this master’s arrival, both sides had already fought fiercely; of the eleven or twelve men remaining on the other side, in no time at all they were cut down to a single spearman. The massive figure waved a hand behind him, summoning over a child who had been hiding beneath a tree.

“…As I told you before, in the martial world, when facing a spearman, remember — an inch longer, an inch stronger. How do you deal with him? Ping’an, draw your blade. Today he’s yours…”

The child behind him was small in stature, seemingly no more than five or six years old — naturally, You Hongzhuo could no longer recall that this was the very child he had once saved in Zezhou. This child, named Ping’an, trembled as he drew out a dagger at his master’s command, yet dared not step forward.

The man ahead only laughed heartily: “Ping’an, what did your master teach you? In the martial world, righteousness comes first. The realm is in chaos now — these treacherous scoundrels have surrendered to the Jin, bullying our Han homeland, betraying their own people — they deserve to die ten times over. Think of all the sights your master has shown you these past days, think of all those damned Jin soldiers you’ve seen, think of all those children just your age! Don’t be afraid! They deserve death! They deserve to be killed! They may be a few years older than you, taller than you, but their necks are just as soft! Today your master will back you up — go, see their blood—”

As he spoke, he reached out, seized the child by the collar, and flung him forward. The child’s small body spun through the air with a startled cry, and the last remaining spearman ahead couldn’t help but thrust his spear at him. The powerful, robed figure’s sleeves whipped and swung, and the child’s body landed against the spear shaft — a few clanging sounds rang out, and the small figure was sent flying to the ground. The spearman collapsed, then struggled back up, reaching for his own neck — blood sprayed out, splashing onto the face of the child who was just then climbing up from the ground. The spearman’s throat had already been slit by the dagger.

“Hahahaha, well done—” You Hongzhuo heard the deep, resonant laughter ring in his ears as the bloody sunset spread across the sky. “Ping’an! Well done! From this day on, you’re a real man, second to no one—”

The atmosphere of this chaotic age had changed; even a sight like this would, in time, likely become unremarkable. Smoke and haze rose into the sky as people killed and struggled beneath it.

At Liangshan’s marshes, small boats wound through the reed banks, the people aboard holding their breath as they saw corpses floating on the water ahead. Following the trail of bodies, the sounds of fighting grew steadily clearer, and then they broke through the reeds, converging toward the battlefield on the open water beyond.

Cannon fire roared like thunder, arrows filled the air, soldiers fought on boats, in the water, and beneath its surface. Aboard a large official vessel, gunpowder ignited — a massive explosion sent flames bursting from the hold, and the ship, wreathed in smoke, sank slowly beneath the water.

In the southwest, on the Chengdu Plain, the summer flood season had begun to ease. Having completed its flood-relief duties and secured the first year’s gains in expansion, the Fifth Huaxia Army had returned to the rhythm of training and battle preparation, and small-scale conscription was already proceeding in an orderly fashion. In theory, once this year’s autumn harvest was complete, the Huaxia Army in the southwest would be able to enter a new round of expansion.

At Zhang Village, the core of the Huaxia Army, the General Staff Headquarters had already been in a state of tense activity since June. On one hand, they gathered outside intelligence, studying the various weaknesses of the Jurchen army; on the other, based on information received earlier, they calculated and predicted how the war would develop. In fact, given the war that was bound to come, all manner of targeted preparations now had to be submitted as formal projects, logistics coordinated, and work begun in earnest.

News from the eastern and western fronts was compiled daily at Zhang Village, and every day there was roughly an hour set aside for everyone to gather for group analysis and discussion, after which various tasks would be assigned to each person — for instance, analyzing the strategic thinking and behavioral tendencies of Jurchen commanders such as Zonghan, Xiyin, Zongfu, and Zongbi based on confirmed battle developments, then building rough logical frameworks from psychological analysis of each individual to predict what decisions they might make next.

Though it might look like armchair strategizing, the predictions of the behavior of certain simpler-minded commanders had already proven fairly accurate.

In recent days, what had drawn the most admiration in the General Staff Headquarters was the tactical movement of Yue Fei on the western front. He had long been entrenched in Xiangyang, and with the arrival of the Jurchens, he had been the first to strike, laying siege to Dengzhou in order to draw out reinforcements.

The Jurchen general Aligua had originally been stationed in Bianliang, and through plundering the Central Plains, had amassed over ten thousand heavy cavalry. The Iron Pagoda heavy cavalry had, for a time, been a direction the Jurchens were eager to develop, but later, as elm-wood cannons and gunpowder saw increasingly heavy use, and especially after the advent of iron cannons, Xiyin’s faction had come to recognize the limitations of heavy cavalry and gradually phased it out. Still, large-scale armored heavy cavalry remained a force impossible to ignore on the battlefield. Aligua had taken over part of the original Jin Iron Pagoda cavalry, then further reinforced it heavily in the Central Plains, expanding the Iron Pagoda force to a reckless near ten thousand strong. Seeing Yue Fei attack Dengzhou, he charged in with furious haste.

Yue Fei’s Beiwei Army completed its battlefield selection and deployment in an extremely short time, twenty li north of Dengzhou. Once the two sides clashed at close quarters, fierce fighting broke out. Yue Fei skillfully constructed several lines of iron cannon defenses; Aligua tried to use his heavy cavalry to smash through the cannon formation head-on, and after breaking through two lines of the Beiwei Army’s positions in succession, was drawn into a large-scale iron cannon encirclement, where he met fierce counterattack.

This brutal battle cost both sides dearly. The Beiwei Army suffered several thousand casualties and lost over a hundred iron cannons destroyed. Aligua’s side tasted early success in its reckless advance, but later became mired and unable to extricate itself — of the massive heavy cavalry force committed, nearly a thousand were lost outright in the field, over three thousand mounted troops lost combat effectiveness due to severely wounded horses, and the infantry suffered over two thousand losses. By the time a stunned Aligua withdrew his troops, the Beiwei Army pulled back and, beneath the walls of Dengzhou, crushed the reinforcing army from Xinye, beheading nearly three thousand — delivering a decisive blow just before Xiyin’s arrival.

By the time Xiyin reached Nanyang, the Beiwei Army had already calmly retreated to Xiangyang. Furious, Xiyin promptly stripped Aligua of his command, demoting him to vanguard, and thereafter the main army regrouped and ceased its advance — an implicit acknowledgment of the fighting strength of Yue Fei’s Beiwei Army.

As for Yangzhou, Wushu had been bombarding the city relentlessly for several days now. With Zongfu’s main force pressing up from the rear, a standoff had formed against the hundred-thousand-strong relief force under Fu Dingkang, and the vanguards had already begun clashing. Fierce fighting also continued unabated in the direction of Gaoyou. At present, most of the participating forces were already in position, but it would still take several more days for the outcome to become clear.

On the eleventh of July, the staff gathered for a meeting at headquarters. A junior staff officer named Peng Yueyun submitted a tactical analysis suggesting that Han Shizhong might already be setting up some kind of underhanded scheme. As everyone discussed this tactic, Ning Yi arrived as well, and after a moment of discussion, new intelligence came in. Ning Yi read the first report and, smiling, passed it to the others.

“Might be right on the mark. It looks like Han Shizhong really might abandon Yangzhou to lure Zongbi in. Keep the people, lose the land; if both people and land are kept, all is preserved — keep the land, lose the people, and both are lost. This report is about refugee evacuation news coming from Jiangnan — it looks like the young crown prince’s side has already made up its mind to give up everything north of the Yangtze, with the decisive battle to be fought south of the river instead… Of course, pulling that off properly will take time. Let’s see when Han Shizhong actually gives up Yangzhou… hm…”

As Ning Yi spoke, he was already reading the second report, and at this point his brow furrowed slightly, an expression of complicated amusement crossing his face. Everyone turned to look at him. Ning Yi was silent for a moment, then handed the report around, his expression somewhat conflicted.

“How in the world did this guy pull this off…”

Everyone read the report — first frowning, then realizing, then growing excited, and finally their expressions turned complicated as well, exchanging glances with one another.

“It’s Little Tang…”

“This… this guy’s too ruthless…”

“Should we have an extra dish at dinner tonight?”

“The Jurchens are going to lose their minds — is this good or bad…”

“Uh, everyone, tell me — this news… do we find out before the Jurchen’s eastern and western armies do, or after…”

“…Do they even know it was us?”

“Hahaha… I don’t know why, but I’m suddenly not too keen on being associated with that guy — should we get ahead of it and issue a statement saying this has nothing to do with us?”

“Should we put out the disclaimer before the Jurchens go berserk?” Amid the discussion, Ning Yi glanced around at everyone. “That way it’ll look more convincing, hahahaha…”

He said this, and couldn’t help laughing himself.

The report concerned what would come to be known as the Yunzhong Massacre.

On the fifth of July, a group of anti-Jin bandits entered Yunzhong, originally intending to raid the residence of the great scholar Qi Yan, capture the entire Qi clan, and withdraw. But things went wrong in the execution — first, the Qi household’s servants put up fierce resistance, throwing the bandits’ plan into disarray. Then Shi Yuanji, eldest grandson of Shi Li’ai, was inexplicably drawn into the incident and had his throat slit, sending the entire affair spiraling completely out of control.

Shi Li’ai was one of the most prominent Han figures in the north. When the Jin destroyed the Liao, he had already been serving as an official under the Liao state. At the time, the Wu Dynasty had summoned him several times, but Shi Li’ai, believing the Wu Dynasty to be corrupt and decadent, declined to serve, and sternly warned the entire family against taking office there.

Later, once the Jin state unified the north, Shi Li’ai pledged allegiance to the Jin and was greatly favored. By now, he stood as the foremost Han official under Zonghan’s command, indeed within the entire Jurchen court — enfeoffed as Duke of the State, and serving as Overseer of Military Affairs. With Zonghan’s southern campaign underway, it was Shi Li’ai who presided over all major and minor affairs of Yunzhong Prefecture.

In terms of actual power, even several Jurchen dukes or princes combined probably could not match Shi Li’ai’s current standing. On this night, had it been some other Jurchen noble caught up in the Qi family affair, it likely would not have escalated into such a disaster — but the first to die was Shi Li’ai’s own eldest grandson.

Not long after Shi Yuanji went missing that evening, the Shi family already sensed something was wrong. Yunzhong Prefecture was placed under citywide lockdown, and the bandits who had entered the Qi residence found themselves with nowhere to flee. Faced with the corpse of Shi Li’ai’s grandson, they descended into a spiral of increasingly frenzied actions.

That night, the several hundred bandits who had entered the city rampaged through Yunzhong Prefecture, fighting for their lives and setting fires indiscriminately. It was the height of autumn, dry and windless conditions prevailing — yet for some reason certain locations had stores of oil stockpiled — and that night, driven by a strong wind, the fires spread throughout Yunzhong Prefecture, consuming countless homes, with several thousand people ultimately perishing in the chaos and flames. In the course of the bandits’ desperate struggle to survive, more than a dozen Jurchen noble youths who had been taken hostage also lost their lives, in gruesome fashion.

And amid this immense chaos, agents of the Black Banner Army seized the opportunity to infiltrate the Grand Manufacturing Court, which had nearly been engulfed by the fire, and carried out a round of sabotage there.

Time rewinds to the evening of the fifth of July.

Within the Qi residence, the instant Wanyan Wenqin laid eyes on Shi Yuanji’s corpse, his mind went completely blank…