Waking from a rare, deep sleep, she felt for a moment as though she had just had a distant dream.
On the morning of the twenty-third of the fourth month, when Zhou Pei rose, the sky had already begun to brighten. In this early-summer dawn, free of spring’s oppressive dampness, a light breeze moved through the courtyard, and heaven and earth felt washed clean and clear, just like the Jiangning of her childhood.
She sat for a while beneath the pavilion in the middle of the empty courtyard, beside flourishing flowers and vines. As the sky slowly lightened, the courtyard seemed sunk in a quiet grey stillness; far off stood the guards on watch, all silent. Zhou Pei clasped her hands together, and only in this moment could she feel how frail she truly was.
As a mere mortal, alone, wading into this vast and complicated world, pushing forward countless affairs, untangling ten thousand relationships—sometimes a single word could decide someone’s life or death, and sometimes she could not sleep soundly for days on end. Over time, one began to feel one was no longer oneself, as if wrapped in some enormous shell. But of course, all of this was illusion.
This year she turned thirty. In the eyes of the world, she was nothing more than a reclusive and ruthless woman who had placed her own husband under house arrest, and who, having seized power, had become someone people looked upon with dread. When officials came before her, most trembled—more afraid, in fact, than when facing Jun Wu. The reason was simple: Jun Wu was the crown prince, and no matter how iron-willed and fierce he might be, he would eventually have to take over the running of the country. Even where there were differing opinions, in the end there could be communication.
She was different. She stood behind Jun Wu, supporting her younger brother’s work with a woman’s frame, with no one beside her, her husband already confined. Though her words might sound gentle on the surface, once she turned her face away, there was nothing she would not do—or so the outside world, by and large, assumed of her.
In truth, how else was there to think of it?
She thought of Zhou Xuan and Kang Xian, both now dead.
When it had first been settled that she would inherit the properties of the Princess Chengguo’s household, she had still been a girl in her teens. With her marriage, the burden had settled onto her shoulders. At first she had not even noticed it; by the time she came to her senses, events had already been pushing her forward. Her teacher had rebelled, the state had fallen and the family ruined, and every day brought countless matters demanding attention—of course she could have cast it all aside and pretended not to see, but in the end she never did.
By the time she found her footing again, the weight of thirty years pressed down before her. Her husband had become an unforgivable villain, and her marriage was over. The happiness the ordinary world defined for a woman’s life had become something distant, beyond even sight.
When she settled her mind and thought back, the departures of Zhou Xuan and Kang Xian still felt as if they had happened only moments ago. A life could vanish in some imperceptible instant.
She picked up a tree branch from beside the pavilion and held it in her hand like a sword. More than ten years ago, after she had returned from Bian Liang, Zhou Xuan had once taught her sword dancing. Her great-aunt had been gentle in temperament before the family, but in holding the vast power and property of the Princess Chengguo’s household, she had also possessed her own severity and decisiveness. In the early days of Zhou Pei’s involvement with the household’s affairs, the old woman had once, in private, taught her to dance with a sword.
“A sword has two edges—one wounds others, one wounds oneself. Most matters in this world are the same… What makes the sword, and all worldly affairs, interesting lies precisely in that measure between wounding and not yet wounding…”
Zhou Pei’s physical aptitude had never been strong, and she had never truly mastered Zhou Xuan’s expansive sword dance. But the principle taught within that dance, she had grasped quickly enough. The measure between wounding and not-yet-wounding was precision itself; to wound others or oneself required resolve. Having understood the principle, she had never touched a sword again from that day on—yet remembering it now, she could not help the sorrow that welled up within her.
She recalled the scene from back then, and rising with the branch in hand, she slowly stepped forward and thrust it out, moving as the old woman, eight years dead now, had once moved her blade through the morning wind, shifting her steps… A sword has two edges, wounding others and oneself—the girl of more than ten years ago could no longer keep pace, and so she had become today’s Grand Princess.
Cheng Zhouhai came in from outside, then silently stepped back two paces at the courtyard gate. Zhou Pei practiced a few more strokes before stopping and looking toward the gate; only then did Cheng Zhouhai approach. “Your Highness is in fine spirits.”
“You’re up early, sir.”
“Waiting for news. I never went home last night.” Cheng Zhouhai smiled faintly. “Your Highness looks well.”
Zhou Pei set the branch aside. “I don’t know why, but last night I suddenly slept soundly, and only at dawn did I dream. Though I’ve forgotten what it was.”
Since the deaths of Kang Xian and Zhou Xuan, Zhou Pei had come to rely on Cheng Zhouhai more than anyone—teacher and friend both, each familiar with the other’s circumstances. As the pressures upon her had grown, Zhou Pei had often suffered from insomnia, unable to sleep; many physicians had examined her, to little effect. Once the Jurchen forces came, Zhou Pei’s anxiety had deepened, and staying up through the night had become routine. She was not yet thirty; on the surface she still held up, but those around her often worried on her behalf. Hearing now that she had slept well, Cheng Zhouhai found himself momentarily stunned.
“Your Highness is composed and at ease—it has the air of Xie An about it,” he said, cupping his hands in flattery, then added, “…Perhaps it is a good omen.”
He had said earlier that he was “waiting for news”; in truth, these past few days, many people throughout the city of Lin’an had been waiting for news. On the eighteenth of the fourth month, the army under Xiyin, originally aimed at Changzhou, had turned and made a high-speed dash toward Zhenjiang. On the same day, Aluba’s army had likewise coordinated, adopting a posture of an all-out assault on Zhenjiang, though for the time being few could say for certain whether this was genuine or a feint.
At present in Jiangnan, Jiangning to the west and Zhenjiang to the east were the two pillars holding the Yangtze’s defensive line. As long as these two points held, they could keep Zonggan’s great army pinned down, unable to advance south with any confidence.
Now, Jiangning had become the core battlefield. Zhenjiang was held by Jun Wu, responsible for facing the army led by Xiyin and Yinshuke. For months the two sides had fought a desperate, unyielding struggle, neither giving ground; Jun Wu hoped to crush Xiyin as quickly as possible—even if it meant grinding him down through sheer weight of numbers.
For Xiyin’s side, there were, strategically, two directions open to them. First: to disregard the strain on supply lines and continue pushing south along the wealthy Lake Tai region, taking cities and living off the land as they went. In this stretch, the four hundred li between Zhenjiang and Lin’an were lined with prosperous cities, and within Lin’an itself sentiment was unsettled and circumstances complicated. If Xiyin could drive this most elite Jurchen force through those four hundred li to reach Lin’an, and coordinate with Wushu’s forces, the morale of the entire Wu Dynasty might collapse at any moment.
Second: to coordinate with Zongfu in breaking the Yangtze defensive line, which naturally included the option of attacking Zhenjiang. Indeed, between the second and fourth months, Xiyin’s forces had on several occasions adopted just such a posture, threatening to take Zhenjiang and kill Zhou Jun Wu, putting the Wu Dynasty’s army on high alert—only to withdraw again each time, given the tightness of the Wu defenses.
But war was like this—deception and counter-deception traded back and forth—and each time carried the possibility of becoming real. By the eighteenth of the fourth month, when Xiyin turned once more toward Zhenjiang, the Wu Dynasty’s military again had to face several possibilities: if they drew their lines in at once and concentrated on defending Zhenjiang, Xiyin’s forces might simply turn south instead and take Changzhou. And if Xiyin truly intended an all-out assault on Zhenjiang, then the signal within that choice would be deeply unsettling and frightening indeed.
Facing Xiyin’s reversal, the Zhenjiang front had already braced itself, while here in Lin’an, everyone waited for fresh word—perhaps at any moment news would come that Xiyin had turned to attack Changzhou or Danyang instead, or that this was merely meant to divert attention from the great battle at Jiangning.
That news was already racing down the road southward, and before long, it would set the entire city of Lin’an on edge.
At Zhenjiang, soldiers filed up onto the city walls in ranks, the morning wind sharp and grim, banners snapping. On the open ground beyond the walls, countless corpses lay scattered among craters left by explosions—the Jurchen army had driven captured Han prisoners through the minefields outside Zhenjiang the previous night, clearing them with the most efficient and merciless methods.
Trebuchets were being raised one after another. Ever since Ning Yi’s rebellion, the assembly-line methods, standardization, and modular construction techniques he had introduced had, in certain respects, been adopted by the Jurchens with even greater thoroughness.
Hot air balloons rose slowly in the morning wind; along Zhenjiang’s walls, balloon after balloon lifted off, carrying soldiers armed with crossbows into their baskets.
Jun Wu sat in his tent, eating breakfast with meticulous care. Beside him was Shen Ruxin, fourth consort of the crown prince’s household.
Shen Ruxin was originally from Zhenjiang. Last year, before war broke out with the Jurchens, her younger brother Shen Ruhua had been imprisoned and executed; Shen Ruxin had collapsed from shock and illness in Jiangning, but had ultimately pulled through. Early this year, as Jiangning came under threat, Jun Wu had moved his wives, concubines, and children to safety—bringing only Shen Ruxin with him to Zhenjiang.
Back when they had searched every mountain and sea for him, Jun Wu had fled from place to place, and the two of them had come together through mutual dependence in adversity; now, once again, they found themselves in a similar state of clinging to one another for survival.
During breakfast, a soldier came in to report that all units had completed their rotation of defenses. Jun Wu nodded to show he understood. Not long after, having finished eating, he stood as Shen Ruxin came to straighten his robes and cap, and the couple went out together. The sky was strewn with soft, cottony clouds drifting one by one past this great city on the Yangtze’s edge.
Preparations and mobilization for the coming battle had been completed the day before; a strange atmosphere now hung over the camp. Xiyin’s all-out assault on Zhenjiang was the most reckless move of the entire campaign, and also the one most likely to decide its outcome. Eight years of cultivation had gone into it; a hundred thousand troops held Zhenjiang, no weak force by any measure. At this moment, with Jun Wu determined to wear Xiyin’s forces down to nothing, for the enemy to instead turn and throw everything into an assault on Zhenjiang was, strategically, an all-or-nothing gamble.
If Zhenjiang held, Xiyin’s forces might find themselves surrounded on all sides by converging Wu Dynasty troops, and Jun Wu would achieve his goal of destroying the Mountain-Razing Guard; the Jurchens’ fourth southern campaign would collapse as a result.
But given Xiyin’s reputation for strategy and his formidable renown, that he would make such a choice likely meant that in the maneuvering of these past months, some flaw had already been found and seized upon by the enemy.
“If I defeat Wanyan Xiyin, I may be able to bring peace to this realm…” the night before, Jun Wu had held his wife’s hand and said this. “But if I cannot win, then very likely… you and I will die here together.”
In my heart, honestly, I am afraid…
On a morning when even the temperature and sunlight seemed gentle, Jun Wu and his wife walked along the road through the camp, soldiers saluting as they passed. He closed his eyes, imagining the enemy beyond the walls—men who had ridden across the realm, who had killed and fought on the battlefield for decades, who had clawed their way up from the weakest beginnings without ever yielding. Wanyan Xiyin, Yinshuke… he pictured that world-spanning spirit. And now, he himself stood before men such as these.
He thought too of his teacher back in Jiangning, of the choices the man had made in accomplishing one great deed after another. A person in this world will meet with tigers… I lay my life on the line, and then we are the same… the people of this land do not submit to foreign powers… don’t even think of going back alive…
How solemn, how present he seems—who says the Han are already lost… He had once joked with Wenren Buer, saying he truly wished his teacher would gift him that piece of calligraphy…
I lay my life on the line.
He thought.
I will not retreat…
…
Outside Zhenjiang’s walls, an enormous hot air balloon floated toward the city, and soon after, showered down great drifts of leaflets. At the same time, an envoy bearing the mission of urging surrender and declaring war approached Zhenjiang’s gates.
At the fourth quarter of the hour of Si, the envoy reached Zhenjiang’s main camp and delivered his call for surrender before Jun Wu and the assembled generals: “…Over these past months, envoys under Lord Gushen’s command have already persuaded and turned several of the generals among you toward surrender. We have also mobilized the support of numerous officials and men of standing throughout Lin’an and the whole of the Wu Dynasty. Lord Gushen will take Zhenjiang with the utmost speed—Zhenjiang cannot be held. To make the true state of affairs clear to you all, and to avoid needless bloodshed, Lord Gushen has ordered me to bring a partial list of names and evidence of officials who have already declared their allegiance. He has also ordered me to inform you all that once this great battle begins, regardless of who wins or loses, every one of you who takes part will be marked for certain death by our Jin state! Not even your nine generations of kin will be spared…”
As he spoke, the envoy presented before Jun Wu a thick stack of names and evidence documenting those who had “surrendered to the Jin.” Within the tent, several generals were already itching to rush forward and kill this envoy who sought to sow confusion. Jun Wu looked at the stack of papers on the table, then waved someone in, had the envoy’s tongue cut out, and threw the documents into the brazier.
“This is nothing but a rehash of Ning Yi’s old scheme for wiping out the Liangshan bandits—stolen borrowed tricks, and Gushen is no more than that… I had intended to spare your life, but having brought this scheme, you must understand you were never going to leave here alive.”
The envoy, his mouth full of blood, grinned savagely on the ground…
At noon, the envoy’s severed head was hung above the city gate. Wanyan Xiyin, outside the walls, watched it all with an expressionless face. On the afternoon of the twenty-second of the fourth month, the Battle of Zhenjiang began.
A carriage rolled through the city streets toward the palace. Qin Hui sat within, holding the message that had just arrived, his hand trembling faintly. His mind was racing, thoughts spinning through every possibility—the tension that always came with great events—so much so that it was only after the driver outside had called to him several times that he came back to himself and realized they had already arrived.
Passing through the long corridors between the palace’s many halls, Qin Hui found Zhou Yong in the sitting room beside the imperial study. The emperor wore a loose robe, his hair disheveled, his sash untied, sitting on the edge of his bed with several sheets of paper in hand, looking haggard and utterly lost. Long after Qin Hui entered to pay his respects, Zhou Yong finally came to his senses.
“The… the news—you know of it?” Zhou Yong stared, wide-eyed.
“…Reporting to Your Majesty, I know of it.”
“Xiyin has gone for Zhenjiang, Xiyin is attacking Zhenjiang… why would Xiyin attack Zhenjiang… everyone said Zhenjiang was a dead end, why attack Zhenjiang.” Zhou Yong waved the papers in his hand. “Qin, tell me—you tell me…”
“I… I cannot say for certain either…” Qin Hui hesitated a moment, then dropped to his knees. “This subject is at fault…”
Zhou Yong froze, then flung the papers about in his hand. “What fault do you have! Speak to me! Why is Xiyin attacking Zhenjiang, they, they all said Zhenjiang was a dead road! They said Xiyin attacking Zhenjiang would get him pinned down there. Why would Xiyin attack, Qin, you mentioned this to me before, don’t play the fool with me, tell me…”
“I… I dare not speak recklessly…”
Zhou Yong roared: “Speak—”
“Perhaps it is…” Qin Hui knelt there, forcing the words out with difficulty, “…that Xiyin has some assurance of certain victory…”
The room fell silent. Zhou Yong stood frozen for a long moment. “I knew it, I knew it… they’re finally making their move… those beasts, those traitors to the Han… they… the Wu Dynasty fed them for two hundred years, and they… they’re going to sell out my son, sell out me… If I find out who did this, I will exterminate their nine generations… their ten generations… their… eleven generations…”
He muttered on like this for a while, then turned to Qin Hui. “Qin, what can be done? To save my son, what can be done? Around Zhenjiang, Changzhou has troops… how many can be sent there, can the navy from Jiangning be dispatched, those men… can they be trusted, Qin, you must help me, nothing must happen to my son… get up, get up!”
Qin Hui remained kneeling. “Your Majesty, there is no need to panic. The situation on the battlefield changes by the instant. The crown prince is brilliant and will surely have a plan. Perhaps troops from Changzhou and Jiangning are already on the way, or perhaps Xiyin has some scheme, but it will be seen through by the crown prince, in which case Zhenjiang will become the place of Xiyin’s ruin. As for us here… we are separated by great distance, and it truly… would not be wise to interfere…”
“I know exactly what kind of creatures those people are! I know their true nature! I know it!” Zhou Yong roared. “I know! Just look how many high officials at court are still waiting to sell me out! Look at how spineless they all were during the Jingping era! My son! Out there on the front lines! And they still try to hold him back! And that Black Banner! I already extended goodwill! And how did they respond! All they know is killing, killing! Purging traitors! Jun Wu is his own disciple! Send troops, send troops! Just as you said yourself, Qin! The Black Banner too, only out to build its own reputation! Waiting to kill me— who will help Jun Wu—”
Zhou Yong grew hysterical, his roaring shaking the entire hall, until at last a look of desolate grief crossed his face, foam gathering at the corners of his mouth. Qin Hui rose and stood bowed to one side as Zhou Yong paced the hall, his arms trembling, murmuring to himself now and then, his voice dropping low: “Qin, you’re right too, there’s always a way, there’s always a way… perhaps they’ve already seen through Xiyin’s scheme up there, there’s a way… there’s no use panicking, no use panicking…”
He comforted himself like this for a long while, then fell silent for a long while more. Qin Hui straightened himself. “As things stand, we can only wait for word from the front.”
His voice no longer carried its earlier alarm; instead, it held something quietly reassuring. Zhou Yong nodded, and after a moment sat down on the edge of the bed.
“I want Jun Wu to be safe…” he said, looking at Qin Hui. “My son must come to no harm. Jun Wu is a good crown prince, he will surely be a good emperor one day. Qin, he must not be harmed… those beasts…”
Sunlight slanted in through the windows and doorway, a cool breeze stirring the thin gauze curtains within the hall, carrying the emperor’s weak and helpless murmuring off into the afternoon wind.
In the southwest, in a corner of the Chengdu plain, in Ox Head County—known to outsiders as Old Ox Head.
This place sat at the border between territory governed by the Huaxia Army and territory under Wu Dynasty rule; the terrain was complex and the population considerable, but since the previous year, thanks to the diligent efforts of the veteran cadres and Huaxia Army members stationed here, the region had won the enthusiastic support of several nearby villages and counties. Huaxia Army members had provided free assistance to many local residents nearby, offering medicine and treatment without charge, and had opened free village schools for children in the area. By this spring, the reclamation and cultivation of new land, along with the local population’s enthusiasm for the Huaxia Army, had grown substantially—in a later age, this might have been called something like a “model county for learning from Lei Feng.”
Ning Yi had come here to commend the outstanding personnel stationed in the region, and in the afternoon he was giving a lecture to some of the young officers and cadres gathered in Ox Head County.
“…Sometimes, certain things are quite interesting when you think about them… Our greatest adversary today, the Jurchens, rose with extraordinary speed. A generation born into hardship tends to have very strong capacity and willingness to learn from the outside world. I’ve told you all before—when they first attacked the Liao, their siege techniques were still quite weak, but through the process of destroying Liao, those techniques improved rapidly, and by the time they came to attack the Wu Dynasty, they had gathered large numbers of craftsmen and kept refining their methods, until the people of Wu could no longer keep pace…”
“…But at the same time, once conditions grow comfortable, their second and third generations decay very quickly. The staff officers joke among themselves that if not for our years of hard fighting at Xiaocang River, which gave the Jurchen leadership a jolt of alarm, the current state of the great battle in Jiangnan might look entirely different… The Jurchens only stopped once they had conquered Liao and swept nearly the whole realm. Back when Fang La rose in rebellion, preaching that the Dharma makes all equal without distinction of high or low, they slowed far more quickly—no sooner had they taken Hangzhou than the leadership began indulging in pleasure…”
“…No need to laugh, everyone—we in the Huaxia Army face this same problem… In this process, what determines whether they keep advancing? It is culture and spirit. In their earliest days, the Jurchens endured great suffering, and that gave them a powerful sense of urgency; this consciousness of crisis ran through the whole of their spirit, and their capacity to learn was extraordinarily fast. But once things grew peaceful, they stopped—until our rise gave them a sense of unease once more. Yet should peace ever truly settle over the realm, they are bound to slide down a steep and rapid curve…”
“…We must take this seriously. We too could slide into such a curve. The struggle at Xiaocang River, the hardship of the northwest—these are already years behind us now. We have taken the Chengdu plain, and the Wu Dynasty is in utter disarray… we may even be starting to grow blindly optimistic…”
As he spoke in the lecture hall, Juan’er appeared at the door, standing there to signal to him. Ning Yi stepped outside and saw the urgent dispatch that had arrived.
“…Xiyin is attacking Zhenjiang, the situation may be quite complicated. General Staff is asking whether to head back immediately…”
Ning Yi folded up the message, his gaze turning toward the small county town outside. “Too far to help even if we rushed—what good would going back do… We have more important matters here.”
Juan’er nodded and was about to leave when Ning Yi reached out and touched her arm. “Send word that we set out tomorrow morning.”
“Yes.”
…
More than eighty li from Old Ox Head, Xigua led a group of riders galloping hard into Zhang Village.
The mounted party swept in like a whirlwind, halting before the courtyard where the family currently resided. Xigua swung down from her horse; Wenwen, who had been playing by the gate, ran up to greet her. “Auntie Gua, you’re back?”
“Wenwen, Auntie Gua has business—next time I’ll bring you something good to eat…” Xigua’s words trailed off in the air as her figure had already sprinted more than ten zhang ahead, straight into the courtyard, rushing into the study where only Su Tan’er was sorting through things. “Xigua?”
“Where’s my husband? Where did he go?”
“He… he’s been away two days, it’s about that… the model commendation thing…”
“He went to Old Ox Head?”
“Mm.” Su Tan’er nodded, her expression growing serious. “What’s wrong? Is there a problem?”
“When did he leave?”
“Noon before last—so by last night he should have arrived. Old Ox Head is right on the border, and at a time like this, are the Wu Dynasty forces making a move? There are troops stationed there…”
“That’s exactly what I mean…” Xigua said in a low voice. Su Tan’er started slightly. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not certain either, I hope… I’m just overthinking it.” Xigua’s gaze wavered for a moment, then in the next instant she vanished from the room like the wind. “I’ll head there right away… don’t worry.”
…
Old Ox Head.
The lecture finished, a river ran along a path down from the hillside through the county town. The sun was about to set, the shoals lying pale and clear beneath it. Ning Yi stood by the river for a while.
After that, the visitor arrived…