Sudden martial law brought heavy pressure down onto Lin’an, a city otherwise bustling with life, and the New Year atmosphere people had worked so hard to build now grew thin under the cold weight of anxiety. On the twenty-ninth of December, as her carriage passed through the market, Li Pin looked out through the gap in the curtain and saw the faint unease and confusion lingering in the eyes of the people walking the streets.

With the Imperial Guard’s lockdown, news of the leaflets had been contained immediately — but that containment only meant blocking it from spreading to the lower classes. Word that had already reached the eyes of the Imperial Academy’s students among the true upper-middle tier of the Wu Dynasty could not be suppressed.

The Guard’s stepped-up patrols afterward, the grim atmosphere settling over the capital, and the anxious stirrings among the upper and middle ranks of officials and various factions would inevitably filter down, layer by layer. Those who had not yet left the city were, even now, out buying their last New Year’s provisions, exchanging all manner of information without quite meaning to. The new year was close at hand, and the shadow had finally descended.

Sensing this strange discord, people always wanted to do something, yet the actions of the common folk carried little real weight in the end. In Lin’an, across this whole realm, countless people and countless affairs had already begun moving, or were moving even now.

Li Pin took in the scene on the street, his deep, melancholy gaze showing little reaction. He had followed Qin Shaohe in defending Taiyuan in his early years, later fought against Ning Yi in the northwest, and after that lived through the catastrophe of the Central Plains’ fall, walking the desperate road of flight south among the refugees. He had already seen far too much of this kind of thing.

The carriage wound through the streets and lanes, finally entering through the rear gate of the Princess Imperial’s estate, stopping in the courtyard behind. Li Pin climbed down, lifting the curtain to reveal a box-shaped object wrapped in black cloth inside; the driver and guards who had accompanied him, together with two of the estate’s own guards, carried the box down, and a steward of the estate then led Li Pin deeper into the residence.

Through the gaps of the winding corridors, he could already see that many people had gathered at the estate.

Li Pin and those carrying the box walked into the study at the heart of the residence. After a while, Zhou Pei arrived first, followed by Cheng Zhouhai leading in six men of varying ages, all with sharp, capable eyes. He introduced them one by one: “All trusted old friends.” Li Pin greeted each of the six in turn, several of whom he already knew from before.

Once tea had been brought in, Zhou Pei dismissed all attendants except her most trusted guards and had everyone take their seats. Li Pin sat for a moment, glancing around the room at the others, before standing again. “Most of us here know each other already, and time is short, so I won’t beat around the bush. I have, these past years, worked to establish schools and run a newspaper here in Lin’an — the schools achieved little, but the newspaper bore some fruit. Running a paper is, by its nature, about circulating news to everyone, and over time a great deal of information has naturally found its way to me. These past few years, in my spare time, I’ve organized and sorted through much of what seemed like useless information, analyzing what lay beneath it… Now that Wuzhu has come south, and the Jurchens’ various plans are either already in motion or about to be, it’s time to bring this out.”

As he spoke, everyone’s eyes turned to the black-cloth-wrapped box on the floor. Cheng Zhouhai went over and pulled back the cloth; Li Pin drew a key from inside his robe and handed it over, then produced a blue-bound notebook as well.

“A wind rises from the smallest ripple in duckweed, and a single thread can move the whole fabric… Everything in this world is connected — we’ve all understood that principle for a long time. But in these recent years, no one has wielded it with more mastery than the man now in the southwest, Ning Liheng. Whatever I could make sense of among the information in that box, I have recorded; the rest I entrust to all of you to analyze and study further. Among our great officials and clans in the Wu Dynasty, those already in contact with the Jurchens, those whose resolve has wavered, those already persuaded — every one we manage to find is one we can act on…”

The room’s lamplight was somewhat dim; Li Pin spoke calmly, though his face looked rather pale. He went on: “Wuzhu’s fifty thousand men cannot break Lin’an by force alone — what he pursues is a strategy of subverting hearts and minds. These methods were once the specialty of the demon in the heart himself; in recent years, Xiyin and others in the north have followed the same model and often achieved results. This is precisely because the methods the demon in the heart employs mix open scheming with hidden plots in turn — once such momentum builds, it becomes very hard to resist, and the Jurchens have already held that momentum for ten years now. In these ten years the demon in the heart struggled bitterly just to survive; the Jurchens, riding their advantage, find that persuasion and subversion achieve twice the result for half the effort…”

At this, one man in the room spoke up: “But with this box of Li Pin’s materials, holding Lin’an already carries several points more certainty. Xiyin, clever as he is, is after all born of a barbarian people — schemes and cunning may win temporary advantage, but they cannot overturn the natural order entirely. We have just discussed this among ourselves and reached the same conclusion as Li Pin: Wuzhu’s fifty thousand lightly-equipped cavalry cannot possibly break Lin’an. So long as we secure the rear, His Highness the Crown Prince will surely find a way to counterattack.”

Li Pin shook his head gently, glanced at the man, then sighed and nodded. “That may well be true… I hope it is so. But we cannot afford to be careless. In reviewing thirty years of recorded events from the north, I’ve found that the Jurchen people, from the very start of their uprising, have always been ferociously brave — it’s said abroad that ten thousand of them cannot be defeated, and that much is certainly beyond dispute. But what fewer people know is that in the course of destroying Liao, the Jurchens were, at first, not at all skilled in the use of siege equipment or the study of tactics. Even so, they took Liao’s upper capital, Linhuang Prefecture, in a mere half day — no doubt there was a good deal of luck and coincidence involved, but much about it still deserves careful thought.”

“…After destroying Liao, the Jurchens captured large numbers of Liao craftsmen, and it was only then that they gradually grew familiar with siege engines. By the time of their southern invasion, their siege methods had rapidly matured — especially through the fall of the Central Plains, during which the Jin state came to place the highest value on captured craftsmen among all prisoners. Much about this lines up closely with Ning Yi’s own thinking… The rise of the Jin state has rested entirely in the hands of this one generation — Aguda, Wuqimai, Zonghan, Xiyin. Though born into a rough and uncultivated people, they carry no fixed prejudices in their hearts; whatever proves useful, they learn quickly. In this regard, our own ministers of the Wu Dynasty fall short of them.”

His gaze swept the room, and the others’ expressions had already turned grave. “After the great battle in the northwest, both Loushi and Cibushi were cut down on the battlefield by the Black Banner; Zonghan and the others have since come to regard the Black Banner with even greater wariness than our own dynasty does. Xiyin has built his Grand Workshop, with the whole strength of the Jin state behind it, while our Crown Prince champions the study of natural science only to be met with cold indifference from everyone else, all of them assuming that once the Jurchens are defeated, such frivolous novelties can simply be discarded. These past few years, not only has the Jin state’s Grand Workshop flourished, but Xiyin has secretly modeled teams after the southwest’s example, sending them continually to persuade and make promises to our own dynasty’s people, using both soft and hard means…”

He sighed. “…Consider how bitterly Tian Shi fought against the Jin in the Jin region, how brutally he purged the corruption within his own ranks — and in the end, still fell to a single assassination arranged by Xiyin, the whole board lost in one stroke. This time, with the Jurchens marching south, they mean to take our dynasty for certain — the eastern and western armies have set aside their old rivalries for now. If Wuzhu is willing to take such a risk marching south, then Xiyin’s scheming against Lin’an surely runs deeper than what lies before us now. All of you must not fail to look closely…”

Having said this much, Li Pin cupped his hands in a bow, and the others responded in kind, nodding solemnly. After a while, as the others began analyzing the information Li Pin had brought, Li Pin himself went with Cheng Zhouhai and Zhou Pei into an adjoining room to discuss another, more urgent matter.

“…The news Master Li sent over yesterday — we’d already picked up on it ourselves. The plan is set; we were only waiting for you to come and go over the final details…”

On the twenty-ninth of December, Lin’an lay under a thin blanket of snow, the Princess Imperial’s estate a hive of activity. As night fell, more and more people continued arriving. Among them, a travel-worn guest in a straw rain-cape entered the estate grounds deep in the night; removing his cape and conical hat, the firelight revealed hair streaked with gray, though his bearing remained mountain-solid, his gaze commanding. This was the former chief investigator of the Six Doors, now head of the Grand Canal Gang — Tie Tianying.

His gaze swept the corridors in the deep night; not far off, someone he recognized was already calling out a greeting from beneath a doorway…

…

That same twenty-ninth of December, at the Xiangyang-Fancheng defense line.

Trebuchets hurled massive stones, the towering city walls shuddering under thunderous impacts as the siege continued as it always had.

Through December, Zonghan’s army had steadily and methodically cleared out every fortress and stronghold around Xiangyang and Fancheng; his main force, together with several hundred thousand surrendered Han troops, had surrounded Fancheng while launching a large-scale offensive to seize control of the Han River. The naval forces at Xiangyang had fought several major engagements against them, emerging victorious each time, yet unable to break the enemy’s core strength; some Jurchen troops had already begun crossing the river upstream and downstream, and a complete encirclement of the Xiangyang-Fancheng region looked set to become reality within the month of January.

Goose-feather snow drifted from the sky. On the drill ground, tens of thousands of soldiers gradually assembled, and Yue Fei stepped forward onto the platform, addressed the assembled troops, then took up a cup of strong liquor and poured it out onto the ground as an offering.

On the night of the thirtieth of December, before dawn, two hundred li east of Xiangyang-Fancheng, Xiyin, already leading sixty thousand troops eastward, received urgent intelligence from Xiangyang.

Late on the night of the twenty-ninth, Yue Fei had led forty thousand elite Beiya troops out of the city and abandoned it: one force of over thirty thousand moved south along the Han River by ship, while another, cavalry, rode out overland — both slipping past before Zonghan’s encirclement could close, racing south to Wu’an to briefly regroup and rest.

Xiyin tapped his finger on the map, a faint smile crossing his stern face.

The fighting back and forth at Xiangyang and Fancheng had gone on for nearly five months; though the Wu Dynasty’s forces had held out thanks to the advantage of terrain, for Zonghan’s army, having staked everything on this offensive, it had likewise been an agonizingly long campaign. Over those five months, both sides had come to know each other well, and in the minds of both Zonghan and Xiyin, a rough picture had formed of the young general who had held Xiangyang and Fancheng.

The two cities of Xiangyang and Fancheng mattered enormously, serving as a crucial pillar blocking the Jurchen western army from wiping out the Wu Dynasty — but the true center of gravity in this campaign did not lie here, particularly given that the Jurchens’ underlying goal was the total destruction of the Wu Dynasty; even breaking through at Xiangyang would still leave a thousand li of Wu Dynasty territory to the south.

And yet here, half the military strength of the entire Wu Dynasty had gathered.

Zonghan had sought to strip away the surrounding support around Xiangyang and Fancheng bit by bit, relying primarily on Jurchen forces supplemented by large numbers of Han troops from the Central Plains, aiming to seal Xiangyang off completely — even if breaking the city was not the immediate goal, strangling this strongpoint was. At the same time, he had dispatched elite troops to drive deep into the Wu Dynasty’s interior, widening the overall chaos.

But clearly, the enemy had chosen to abandon Xiangyang and Fancheng.

Without this young Yue Pengju, without the core Beiya Army, the siege of Xiangyang and Fancheng would only be a matter of time. But just as Zonghan’s encirclement forces were closing in, grinding down what remained of the Wu Dynasty’s naval strength, the enemy had broken out with their elite troops instead.

This portion of the Wu Dynasty’s naval force on the Han River still held the advantage for now; heading south into the Yangtze, then downriver, they would eventually reach Zhenjiang — and it went without saying that the other force, the ten thousand cavalry assembled at the cost of the entire nation’s resources, would likewise be heading toward the brutal battlefield forming between Zhenjiang and Lin’an.

“Well then…”

In the flickering light, Xiyin said this softly.

Outside the tent stretched countless rows of military encampments, the goose-feather snow drifting down endlessly; a hundred-odd li away on the Han River, the Beiya Army’s fleet pressed onward through the driving snow and wind, toward a future more than two thousand li distant…

…

In the moment before the possibility of ruin descended, armies beyond counting were gathering — from court ministers, soldiers and generals, down to heroes of the greenwood and common hawkers and peddlers alike. Around Lin’an, some were leaving, and others were arriving…

New Year’s Eve approaching, Tie Tianying stood at a high point within the city of Lin’an, secretly watching the movements of one particular household through a spyglass. This was but one of many operations underway throughout Lin’an; Tie Tianying had returned as a professional to help hold things steady. Once merely the chief investigator of the Six Doors, a mid-level clerical post that could never catch the eye of the truly powerful, over the years he had followed Li Pin, worked against Ning Yi, and later led the Grand Canal Gang in passing along a great deal of intelligence, earning himself a standing and reputation far beyond what he’d once held.

Cheng Zhouhai walked in from outside. “How’s it going?”

“Thirty-some men, desperate types looking to gamble their lives for a fortune. There are traces of gunpowder charges buried outside the courtyard — if they put up a real fight, it’ll get loud…”

“If it doesn’t work, have the Guard drag artillery over and flatten the place first.”

“Mm, Lord Cheng’s point isn’t without merit. But my men already have something arranged — let’s let them try first.”

There seemed to be some friction between the words; both fell silent for a moment. In truth, when Qin Siyuan had fallen those years ago, Tie Tianying had been among those who kicked a man while he was down, confronting Li Pin and Qin Shaoqian to their faces — and naturally there had been unpleasantness with Cheng Zhouhai as well. Over the years Tie Tianying had come to follow Li Pin’s lead, having found some reconciliation through their shared time in the northwest, but between him and Cheng Zhouhai, things had never grown quite so smooth.

But by now, many of those between whom things had once been less than smooth had all gathered together here. Within the Princess Imperial’s estate at this moment were people with whom Tie Tianying had old grudges, and former colleagues besides — all of them grown old now, and at a moment like this, much no longer needed to be held in the heart.

“Back then you followed Li Pin to the northwest,” Cheng Zhouhai said, after a silence.

“Mm.”

“While still in the capital, you also once kept an eye on Ning Liheng. What did you make of him?”

“Back then I saw him as a nobody — we crossed paths chasing down Fang Baihua and Fang Qifo, and I always meant to kill him when I got the chance… Later, of course, I realized how laughable that was.” Tie Tianying, aged himself by now, gave a faint smile as he spoke of it. “These years traveling the realm, when it comes to the man surnamed Ning, I certainly wish him dead, cleanly and completely — but there are, after all, some things he’s said that were right.”

“Oh? What things?”

“When I first started out in the martial world, and later served at the Six Doors — after the shame of Jingping, I grew disheartened and left the Six Doors, went back to wandering the world, drifting through ups and downs. Sometimes out of foolishness, sometimes wanting to flee, sometimes, like the common folk of old Bian Liang, cursing the Jurchens, cursing the Black Banner Army — and now, in the end, I’ve come back to Lin’an, doing the things that should have been done all along… There’s only one thing I’ve come to understand clearly.” The old man turned and gave a smile, a smile carrying weariness, a kind of resignation, and a simplicity and purity that comes only after complexity has become unbearable. Outside the half-closed window, throughout the whole city of Lin’an, countless people were on the move.

…

“In this life, they can only… fight their own way through, on their own…”

…

Gloom, and a leaden gray.

Across the boundless sky and earth, heavy snow fell without end.

Countless shadowy figures clashed beneath this sky — Wuzhu’s cavalry bearing down on Lin’an, Tie Tianying walking toward the enemy, countless others walking toward their own enemies, ship sails cutting through the snow, mounted troops ranging far and wide across the checkered fields, explosions bursting into flame and rising skyward.

In the southwest, the crouching beast stirred, and began to move…