The Yunzhong Massacre of the fifth of July stirred up a wave of ripples across the vast, sprawling war raging throughout the realm. On the Yangzhou and Xiangyang fronts, it served for a time as a catalyst spurring on the Jurchen offensive, and over the following months, contributed to varying degrees to several more horrific massacres.
But that was simply the nature of war — even without the Yunzhong Massacre, no one could say for certain whether everything that followed would have unfolded the same way regardless. The Qi clan, which had once stirred up storms across the Wu Dynasty, died in obscurity that night in Yunzhong — indeed, from the moment Shi Yuanji’s corpse appeared, their fate had already ceased to matter to anyone.
A portion of the Qi family, led by Qi Yan, had at one point been trapped inside a wooden tower within their residence. As the chaos spread, the tower caught fire, and nearly everyone inside — old and young, women and children, grown men alike — was consumed by the blaze. Qi Yan, the great scholar who had once stirred the currents of the Central Plains for his whole life, hid in a water vat inside the tower along with two great-grandsons, but the fire grew too fierce, the tower collapsed, and they suffocated to death inside the vat while still alive — a fate as grim as the old sayings about dying in a great cauldron of boiling oil, though no one could know how much suffering they endured before the end.
The public verdict on the Yunzhong Massacre was settled clearly and swiftly not long after. Rather than emphasize the sabotage carried out by Wu Dynasty infiltrators, people were far more inclined to point to the conspiracy and mischief of the Black Banner Army lurking behind it all — externally, the two were presented as having acted hand in hand, with proclamations painting the once-proud legitimate Wu Dynasty as having knelt before the “demon lord of the southwest.”
Internally, however, undercurrents were surging.
On the night of the ninth of July, Yunzhong Prefecture delivered Dai Mo’s final surviving manuscript to Shi Li’ai’s desk. After reading it, Shi Li’ai burned it, declaring it a scheme by treacherous men to sow discord, and ordered the matter dropped, with no further investigation. But word of it gradually spread through the upper ranks of the Jurchen court all the same. True or false, the fact that the killing of Shi Li’ai’s grandson pointed toward Wanyan Zongfu made the whole affair complicated, strange, and deeply suggestive.
For a long time, the eastern and western Jurchen courts had checked and balanced each other while also depending on one another. While Aguda lived, his authority was, of course, beyond question; while Wuqimai’s health remained sound, all had likewise remained at ease. But broadly speaking, once the dynasty was established, Aguda’s direct bloodline formed one power bloc, centered in the eastern court, originally led by Aguda’s second son, Wanyan Zongwang. Below Zongwang, the third son Zongfu and fourth son Zongbi carried far less prestige and influence than Zongwang, who had essentially been groomed as heir apparent from the start.
In the west, meanwhile, war-god commanders like Wanyan Zonghan, Wanyan Xiyin, and once the undefeated war-god Wanyan Loushi had gathered together, forging the might of the western court. The Jurchens’ division into eastern and western factions was not truly born of any great conflict of interest — it was simply that the former Liao territory was too vast, and easier to govern with two mutually trusted centers of power. In earlier years, the fantasy that the eastern and western courts might one day clash, allowing outsiders to profit from their conflict, had been nothing more than the wishful imaginings of a bunch of Wu Dynasty scholars, judging noble men by petty standards.
Zongwang’s death widened the possibility of friction. Aguda’s third son, Zongfu, was relatively honest and unassuming, utterly lacking his elder brother’s commanding presence; Zongbi had plenty of dominance but little strategic depth, and as a child, his excessive arrogance and stubbornness had earned him more than a few beatings from Wanyan Xiyin. As Zongbi urged Zongfu to step into their late brother’s shoes, friction between the eastern and western factions gradually began to surface. But at the time, Wanyan Zonghan — a man who had spent his whole life scheming and campaigning, able to stand shoulder to shoulder with Aguda himself — still regarded the Zongfu-Zongbi brothers as nothing more than ignorant juniors.
When Wuqimai fell ill, the Jurchens launched their fourth southern campaign — an extremely restrained way of venting internal tensions outward. Everyone understood the principle of prioritizing the greater cause, and had already discerned which way the leadership was leaning. At such a time, even attempts to stir up conflict between the two factions — say, Zongfu striking at Xiyin, or Xiyin harming Zongfu — would have been easy for people to see through: the true beneficiaries would only be those in the south.
At bottom, the level of internal suspicion within the Jurchen state had not yet reached anything like what existed within the southern Wu court. The men who truly sat atop that court were still, after all, the founding generation who had ridden horseback across the steppes and pledged life and death over cups of wine.
Shi Li’ai’s position, however, was uniquely singular.
He came from a Han clan of deep and ancient standing, stationed in Yunzhong, holding down the rear of the western court, serving in the Jin state as Joint Manager of Affairs with the Secretariat-Chancellery — roughly equivalent to a chancellor overseeing state administration, as opposed to the Military Affairs Commissioner who oversaw military matters — while simultaneously commanding the Han armies. To anyone unfamiliar with the true intricacies of his position, he might appear to be Zonghan’s trusted confidant as head of the western court, but in truth, Shi Li’ai had originally been military advisor to Aguda’s second son, Zongwang — he had been personally sought out and recruited by Zongwang himself.
As Zongwang’s advisor, having resided for years within the western court, regarded as a friend by Wanyan Xiyin and relied upon heavily by Wanyan Zonghan, while also commanding his own clan power base — in some sense, he was the single most complexly positioned figure used to balance north and south. On the surface, he appeared loyal to the eastern court, and after Zongwang’s death, it would naturally follow that he was loyal to Zongfu. But then Zongfu had his grandson killed?
On the surface, of course, this couldn’t possibly be true. But if it were fabricated, who would stand to gain? Neither the Black Banner nor the Wu Dynasty would benefit from it. And if it were true, the implications were far too suggestive to ignore.
The moment the thread of the whole affair pointed, at its climax, toward Zongfu, Chen Wenjun at Gushen’s residence found herself momentarily dazed. She sat frowning, deep in thought, for a long while — this was still the deep night of the ninth of July. The next day, she made no move, and the whole of Yunzhong Prefecture seemed eerily quiet, without a sound. On the eleventh of July, under bright sunshine, Chen Wenjun found Tang Minjie in the back garden of a vegetable shop, tending to melons and greens. Her sudden appearance seemed to startle him badly — he let out a yelp and clapped a hand to his still-wounded face, eyes darting around nervously.
Chen Wenjun walked forward, right up beside him. “Why did you frame Zongfu?”
“Wh-wh-what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. I admit I underestimated you, but why Zongfu? You clearly knew Shi Li’ai belongs to Zongfu’s faction.”
Tang Minjie rubbed his chin, then spread his hands and stood there dumbfounded for a long while. “Uh… right… yeah… why, indeed?”
“What are you trying to imply? What other move haven’t you played yet?” Chen Wenjun frowned. “Has Shi Li’ai betrayed the eastern court? Is Zongfu trying to bring him to heel? Is Nianhan preparing to seize power and deliberately stirring up conflict between Zongfu and Shi Li’ai? Or are you trying to point the finger at someone else entirely…”
Chen Wenjun laid out her reasoning in a low voice. Tang Minjie stood beside her with an utterly innocent expression, and when her stern gaze finally turned on him, she snapped, “This isn’t a game! Don’t play the fool with me!” Only then did Tang Minjie press his lips together and nod frantically.
“Actually… it’s like this,” Tang Minjie said, weighing his words carefully. “Lady Wanyan, look — Dai Mo was a Wu Dynasty official. He’d been held captive here for nearly ten years, his wife dead, his daughter defiled — of course he had grievances, right? I found him, a man full of resentment, and I corrupted Wanyan Wenqin through him, heh heh… that part’s all on me, all my scheming. Then Dai Mo had a daughter, and the moment she was captured, she happened to be registered under Wanyan Zongfu’s name…”
He gestured with both hands. “So… what could I do about that? I’d have loved to have her registered under Marshal Zonghan’s name instead, but how long have I even been here? I didn’t think that far ahead — I just wanted to play some tricks and kill a few Jin noble brats. You clever people overthink things, it’s not good for you — look, you’ve already got white hair. Old Master Lu always told me you were beautiful and full of vigor…”
Chen Wenjun remained unmoved. “Even if that Dai girl really was registered under Zongfu, the choice of who to kill on the night of the fifth was still yours. That alone shows you deliberately targeted Shi Li’ai’s eldest grandson — a calculated manipulation on your part. You didn’t choose one of Zonghan’s nephews, and you didn’t choose one of my own children. You chose the Shi family… I need to know what your next move is. Turning Zongfu and Shi Li’ai against each other? Making people think Shi Li’ai has already picked a side, that he’s broken with Zongfu? Or are you planning to drag someone else into this next?”
“There’s really nothing else!” Tang Minjie insisted in a low voice, then hefted a crate of melons and set it down. “You clever people are impossible to deal with, always fussing and second-guessing everything. I’m no god, I just wanted to kill some people and vent my frustration. You think it was easy to get to Shi Li’ai’s grandson? I watched and waited for ages before the chance came — of course it ended up being him, uh… here we go again…”
He rambled on, and the blade came to rest against his neck once more. Furious, Tang Minjie shut his eyes, then after a moment opened them again with an entirely different expression. “Heh, what’s the benefit in killing one of Zonghan’s people? What’s the benefit in killing two of your own children, Lady Wanyan? The Jurchens chose to campaign south instead of fighting each other — that alone shows they’ve achieved ideological unity. Those Wu Dynasty scholars love to think stirring up discord all day is terribly clever, but let’s say it this way — even if I captured your own two children and killed them, with all the evidence pointing at Wanyan Zongfu, would you, or Lord Gushen, actually go seeking revenge against Zongfu?”
He spread his hands. “How could you possibly? Everyone would say it was the Huaxia Army, or the Wu Dynasty, obviously! Let me put it another way — even if Zongfu really did do it, you know perfectly well the two sides wouldn’t actually go to war over it. It would only hurt your own kin while delighting your enemies, my lady — you couldn’t let it come to that, and neither could Lord Gushen. Everyone beneath you would hold you and your husband back. This has to be pinned on some villain — even if Lord Gushen wanted revenge, it could never blow up into anything major. But still… Shi Li’ai’s grandson is dead, and it was Zongfu who did it, heh heh heh — how very strange indeed…”
As he spoke, he kept glancing with an odd expression at the female guard standing beside him with a blade drawn. That she was able to accompany Chen Wenjun meant she was surely a woman of considerable skill and firm resolve — yet even she found herself involuntarily easing the blade away. Tang Minjie went back to moving crates, lowering his voice further.
“What will people think, Lady Wanyan? You just saw it yourself, didn’t you? Clever people are always the most troublesome — always overthinking everything. But my teacher always says, in all things… ” He leaned toward Chen Wenjun’s ear with an exaggerated expression, “…fear overthinking.”
“Satisfied with that answer? Go ahead and puzzle over it all you like — really, there isn’t nearly as much to it as you think. It’s all coincidence. The wind was just so strong that night of the fifth — even I couldn’t have planned for that, right?” Tang Minjie went back to his work, then added, “You shouldn’t come here again, it’s dangerous. I told you, someone’s watching me — who knows when they’ll trace it back to me, and if they see you here, Lady Wanyan, by then even jumping into a pot of soup won’t wash you clean… mm, pot of soup… uh, won’t wash clean, hoo hoo hoo, hahahaha…”
He murmured this, seeming to find something amusing in it, and burst into uncontrollable laughter.
Chen Wenjun studied him, brow furrowed for a long moment, and finally said, “Shi Li’ai has long stood between the two factions, biding his time carefully for years — he won’t let any opportunity slip by. On the surface he’s suppressed the investigation, but behind the scenes he will certainly root out every possible enemy within Yunzhong Prefecture. The days ahead will be hard for your people. Be careful.”
With that, she turned and left, Tang Minjie behind her indifferently continuing to move his crates.
Autumn had come by now, golden leaves falling. Amid the ruins of the Qi family estate, constables were clearing the site. Manduldalu stood beside the burned-out courtyard, lost in thought.
His deputy approached from the side. “My lord, what is it?”
“That night was too chaotic. Some things still don’t add up.” Manduldalu pointed toward the ruins ahead. “Part of the Qi family, including the old master, ended up burned alive right here. Too few made it out… I found the door panel that burned — look, someone tried to force it open… In the end, who was it that locked the door?”
“Uh, my lord…” His deputy hesitated slightly. “Lord Shi has already spoken on this matter — shouldn’t we just… Besides, that night was chaos itself, our own people mixed in with the eastern faction, the southern faction, the southwestern faction… none of them were idle, I’d wager. If it turns out to be the southern faction, that’s one thing, but if we start pulling up radishes and dragging mud along with them, my lord…”
“Yes. Let it be.” Manduldalu frowned.
His deputy fell into step beside him. “And besides — framing this on the Third Prince, targeting Lord Shi’s own line — I’ve always thought there was something off about that, something very strange. It doesn’t feel like the work of the Wu Dynasty or the Black Banner at all… I keep feeling there’s more to come…”
The scattered speculation dissolved into the autumn wind. In mid-July, Shi Li’ai personally stepped in to secure the surviving wealth of the Qi family and returned it to the survivors of the massacre. By then Qi Yan was dead, and the middle-aged men who might have served as pillars of the family had either died or been injured that fateful night. The trembling Qi descendants, in an attempt to seek protection, tried to send a great store of treasures, land deeds, and heirlooms to the Shi household — partly also as an apology for the death of Shi Li’ai’s eldest grandson within their own home.
Shi Li’ai accepted not a single coin. He simply offered, on behalf of the Jin court, his condolences to the Qi family for the tragedy they had suffered, and let it be known: “Let it be seen — who from now on dares touch so much as a blade of grass belonging to the Qi family within our great Jin state! Even if they be royalty themselves, our great Jin will show no mercy!”
With that, the Yunzhong Massacre was officially settled — beyond condemnation of the Wu Dynasty and the Black Banner Army, no one dared voice any further opinion on the matter. During this time, word of it had already reached the front lines. Stationed at Nanyang, Xiyin read through all the reports and slammed a fist onto his desk, immediately sending word to Zonghan’s army in the rear to press forward with all speed.
If this battle alone could settle the war decisively, then whatever clowns emerged afterward would pose no real threat and could be dealt with at leisure. But if this campaign went poorly, with enemies already working to undermine the very foundations of the Jin state from within, then the tensions that the eastern and western factions had suppressed in tacit agreement during the southern campaign might well erupt in full.
By August, the political climate within Jin territory had begun to turn strange, though this strangeness did not, in the short term, register in the eyes of the wider world — least of all the people of the Wu Dynasty. Aside from the Huaxia Army’s leadership, who had kept a constant eye on the situation in the north, most others would only come to notice, years later, the shifting sentiments that had begun stirring within the Jin state during this period.
Though many Jurchen nobles had already begun positioning themselves for the future ever since Wuqimai fell ill, the massive scale of the southern campaign had kept most of these tensions suppressed. In hindsight, however, it was clear that the gradual deterioration of internal conditions within the Jin state — with all its faint, half-visible ripples of consequence — had truly begun with the Yunzhong Massacre.
During this same period, Shi Li’ai, stationed in Yunzhong, carried out a massive purge of suspected elements among the local Han slaves, leaving the entire city awash in blood. On one hand, cloaked in the grief of losing his own kin, no one dared provoke the old man’s wrath as he expanded his family’s power, a necessary response to the violation he’d suffered. On the other hand, this old man — who had weathered a lifetime of shifting fortunes through the transitions of Liao and Jin politics — seemed also to have dimly sensed the danger lurking behind the conspiracy.
Judging from fragments of writing he left behind in his final days, Shi Li’ai’s ruthless measures against the Han population of Yunzhong during this period were also, in part, an attempt to root out the suspected force of that “demon of the southwest” hidden in the shadows behind it all. But the shadow lurking behind Yunzhong Prefecture remained quietly silent — offering no further countermove related to the affair, instead turning the whole matter into an open question, disavowing any connection, and letting it ferment in people’s minds.
That, however, is a matter for later.
In the autumn of the tenth year of Wujian Shuo, our gaze leaves Yunzhong and turns south. As if the news of the Yunzhong Massacre had, to some degree, spurred on the Jurchen offensive, by July both Yangzhou and Xiangyang had fallen into blazing, white-hot warfare.
At Yangzhou, Han Shizhong arrayed his forces defensively, relying on the city’s terrain to hold the line, but the Jurchen assault came on fiercely — many veteran Jin soldiers still carried the ferocity of years past, and the Khitan, Xi, and Liaodong troops who had joined the southern campaign were eager to prove themselves in this great battle, driving the entire army forward with extraordinary aggression.
In August, Han Shizhong feigned abandoning Yangzhou and fleeing south. Wushu, overjoyed, led his main force in pursuit, intent on beheading Han Shizhong to make an example before the realm — only to fall into an ambush and counterattack by Han Shizhong’s forces. Atop the walls of Yangzhou, Wushu had unleashed a barrage of siege engines and seemed to hold the advantage, but by battle’s end, Han Shizhong had surrounded and slaughtered over three thousand Jurchen soldiers, while Wushu himself was struck by cannon fire and thrown from his horse, narrowly escaping capture.
This battle became the single most dazzling victory of the entire eastern front. Yet at the same time, across the greater Yangzhou battlefield, of the more than 1.5 million troops engaged in total — nine hundred thousand of them from the Wu Dynasty, divided among twelve separate armies — roughly half had already been routed in their very first engagement. After their defeat, these routed forces poured a litany of grievances upon the Zhenjiang command — some claiming their supplies had been skimmed, others blaming allied units for failing to support them, still others complaining they hadn’t even been properly armed with blades and spears… It left Jun Wu with a splitting headache, cursing under his breath again and again.
Still, compared to the situation over a decade earlier during the first defense of Bianliang — when a mere hundred thousand Jurchen troops had routed over a million Wu Dynasty relief forces outside the city walls — the fact that so many units north of the Yangtze could now trade blows evenly with the enemy already represented enormous improvement.
The routed troops were gathered back up and reorganized into new formations. Soldiers who had already tasted battle were gradually funneled into elite units. Stationed at Zhenjiang, Jun Wu reviewed the front-line reports daily, constantly reshuffling and promoting officers, feeding capable fighters into the ranks under commanders like Han Shizhong. Many of the soldiers on the Jiangnan battlefield had never experienced serious bloodshed before, and could only be refined and filtered through exactly this kind of trial by fire.
By September, the Yangzhou defensive line finally collapsed, the front gradually pushed back to the edge of the Yangtze, and troops steadily withdrew south across the river, regrouping around the navy and the Zhenjiang garrison as the new core of defense.
By October, some parts of the region north of the Yangtze that had not yet suffered direct Jurchen assault were still holding out stubbornly, but the bulk of the forces under Han Shizhong and others had already withdrawn south of the river. From Jiangning to Zhenjiang, from Zhenjiang to Jiangyin, a hundred thousand naval vessels stood poised along the river, watching closely for Jurchen movements, waiting for the enemy’s advance.
That day, in the city of Lin’an, Zhou Yong once again summoned his daughter into the palace to ask about the state of the war — where the Jurchen forces were, when they might attack, whether Jun Wu ought to be withdrawing from Zhenjiang, whether there was any real hope of victory, and so on.
Zhou Pei once again explained the situation on the northern front. Though the fighting north of the Yangtze had not gone well, the retreat south of the river had, in the end, been something they’d mentally prepared for from the start. The Wu Dynasty’s forces still could not match the Jurchens’ seasoned experience in battle — but between the earlier campaigns against Liao and against the Wu Dynasty itself, and the years of fighting the Black Banner since, though some veterans had retired, there remained a substantial core of elite troops capable of holding the army together. After years of hard fighting, and with the greater privileges granted to soldiers in recent years along with stricter training, things were already far better than they had been under the Jinghan reign. What lay ahead now was the tempering process — and that tempering would have to be forged with blood.
Over three months of fierce fighting north of the Yangtze, there had been both victories and defeats, but a considerable number of soldiers who had truly seen bloodshed had survived. If the Jurchens wished to cross the river and fight, they would lose the advantage of terrain. Jun Wu and the others had already anticipated this — if the enemy’s first wave proved overwhelming, they would use the north of the river to train troops and reserve the decisive battle for the south. As for the Zhenjiang garrison, layered in defense with roads and waterways running in every direction, with Jun Wu stationed there personally, there was naturally no cause for concern.
Zhou Yong nodded again and again. “Ah, well, if you all have a clear grasp of the situation, that’s certainly for the best. But… but…”
The emperor, who had seemed increasingly haggard of late, paced about the room. Words caught in his throat; he hesitated for a long while. “But…”
“Father, if there’s something on your mind, please speak freely. In this war against the Jurchens, there’s no retreat left to take — your daughter and you, our whole family, will stand together, without question.”
She placed particular weight on the phrase “no retreat left to take,” trying to remind her father of something. Zhou Yong’s face broke into a smile, and he nodded repeatedly, looking at her. “Mm, yes, there is one thing — your father heard something from someone else. Don’t take it the wrong way, daughter, it’s a good thing, it’s just… it’s just…”
“…” Zhou Pei tilted her head politely, staring at him, her gaze sharp and alert.
“Your father heard that you’d previously sent people to the southwest…” Zhou Yong finished the sentence, then waved both hands. “Daughter, don’t be angry, your father means nothing by it, it’s a good… uh, whatever you choose to do is entirely your own business, your father will never interfere, never interfere — it’s just that your father has been thinking lately, if there’s ever something… where your father’s cooperation might be needed, just say the word… your father would like to know, so he’s prepared, daughter, you…”
Zhou Yong, still smiling, gestured toward her, cautious and uneasy. Zhou Pei stood there, looking at the middle-aged man before her. After ten years as emperor, streaks of white now scattered through his hair, and he looked visibly aged. He was her father — as an emperor, he fell short in many ways, and more often than not resembled simply a doting father. In fact, in earlier years, he had resembled neither an emperor nor a doting father — back in Jiangning, he had been nothing more than a dissolute, ill-disciplined wastrel of a prince. When had his transformation begun?
In the second year of Jianshuo, when the Jurchens came south, he had been chased out to sea, drifting for half a year. After returning, he had gradually taken on the manner of a doting father — whether from guilt toward Jun Wu, or from finally understanding the value of family, no one could say for certain. Zhou Pei and Jun Wu had gradually come to accept a father like this — even seated upon the throne, what more could one reasonably ask of him?
But for some reason, at this very moment, Zhou Pei suddenly felt a wave of revulsion rise within her — an emotion she had never before experienced. Even if this father had proven unworthy of the throne, he had at least still been, in some fashion, a loving father.
But at this moment, the war had already been raging for nearly four months.
Lin’an still appeared at peace on the surface; the Jurchens had not yet crossed the Yangtze. But only Zhou Pei understood just how many families, laden with belongings, had already taken to the roads south from the riverbank in recent days, how many people north of the Yangtze had already lost family members — or their very lives — and what a tense, grim atmosphere now hung over the region south of the river.
And in this very moment, Zhou Pei suddenly recognized, with total clarity, the two words hidden behind the smiling gaze of the doting father before her. For years, the meaning of those two words had lingered in her father’s eyes, and she had always thought nothing of it — only now did she suddenly grasp their full meaning, and in an instant, a chill ran down her spine, every hair on her body standing on end.
Those two words were —
fear.