In September, the city of Jiangning on the southern bank of the Yangtze had become a prison surrounded on all sides, utterly sealed off.

Dusk’s fiery glow burned across the horizon; beneath the sky, the city walls, once as towering as a small mountain, now showed signs of crumbling collapse and disrepair. Since the beginning of that year, Jiangning had endured nearly eight months of continuous assault; the walls bore breach after breach, twisted and warped in places, the ramparts stained red with blood before being blackened again by burning oil. Sandbags and rolling logs had been piled up to raise the moat’s defenses, and countless corpses lay strewn and rotting across the battlefield between the city walls and the Jurchen encampment.

The stench of decay hung heavy in the air; crows wheeled overhead in flocks, occasionally descending to the ground. At several heavily contested points along the southern and eastern walls, a few siege engines still listlessly hurled boulders across the endless stretch of corpses.

Atop the walls, the Wu Dynasty soldiers, weathered and gray as stone from a distance, continued to hold their ground.

Beyond the field of corpses outside the city, the forces still holding the front and second lines of the siege were primarily Zongfu’s core Jurchen troops, along with a portion of Central Plains Han soldiers who had grown resolute after tasting the spoils of plunder. From this core encampment outward, all manner of crude military camps spread across the land beneath the setting sun’s glow, pressing outward toward what seemed a boundless horizon.

The Wu Dynasty forces who had surrendered to the Jin, then driven to the outskirts of Jiangning, now numbered as many as a million. Half their weapons had already been confiscated, and they were now divided among numerous relatively isolated camps, separated by open ground, with Jurchen cavalry occasionally patrolling between them, killing anyone they encountered.

Each day, Zongfu selected several units and drove them to assault the city walls. To hasten Jiangning’s fall, Zongfu offered extraordinarily generous rewards to any unit that managed to breach the walls — yet over more than two months, not a single unit had ever claimed that so-called reward; only ever-mounting casualties, more and more with each passing day…

Fires crackled and popped, columns of smoke rising among the rows of dilapidated tents. Iron pots of porridge hung over the flames, cooks tossing in handfuls of gray-green wild greens, as a ragged, threadbare soldier walked past. “Can you even eat that stuff, looking like that!”

“Be grateful you’ve got something to eat at all.”

“Throw out the black bits, at least.”

“The stuff that can’t be eaten, I already threw out once! It won’t kill you!”

“Your mother’s—”

The gaunt, weak soldier, unwilling to argue further with the domineering cook, simply glared, eyes bulging, before turning and walking off in bitter resentment after a moment. The soldiers around him, faces normally blank and expressionless, now flickered briefly with a trace of grief and anger; the soot-streaked cook’s eyes reddened as well.

“If there were enough to go around, you think I’d feed you this pig slop? Go get us more grain then! It’s not even winter yet, and the grain’s only just been harvested… damn it… you want to boil me up instead, is that it?”

Smoke stung the cook’s eyes, and tears slid down, streaking through the black grime coating his face. Someone beside him tried to console him.

“All right, all right, there’s barely any meat left on you anyway, you fat lump…”

Amid the chatter in the clearing, the soldier who had walked off earlier suddenly came running back, his expression seething with unresolved fury, and charged straight at the wild greens in the cook’s hands. Someone blocked his path. “What are you doing!”

“That black stuff can’t be eaten—”

“Piss off, you looking for trouble?”

“Then kill me! Come on! Kill me!” Tears streamed from the soldier’s eyes as he tore open his shirt, revealing a chest wasted down to skin and bone. “The autumn harvest just came in, and I had land planted, damn it! And those Jurchen bastards took it all! And now we’re supposed to fight their war for them too! For what?! You cowards, too scared to even speak up! Kill me! Go tell the Jurchens on me, might as well, I’m dead either way! That stuff’s black, you can’t eat it—”

Amid his sobbing cries, the soldier who had first shoved him back had raised a fist to strike him, but gritted his teeth and instead pushed him further away. Someone in the crowd muttered, “…He’s lost his mind.”

Someone grabbed hold of him. “Just get out of here, get far away — don’t drag the rest of us down with you…”

“What else can we do, you want to start a rebellion…”

Voices rose and fell in a growing clamor. The cook clenched his teeth and, with trembling hands, pulled out yet more of the already meager wild greens. Before long, the earlier soldier was dragged away, and someone’s voice rang out: “I’m dying anyway, one way or another! That’s the end of it! If anyone goes and tells on this, I’ll drag him down to hell with me even in death!”

Behind a nearby dilapidated tent, Tie Tianying stood hunched over, quietly watching the whole scene unfold, then turned and left.

The orange glow of the setting sun poured down from the sky. Amid the chaotic-looking camp, the listless soldiers were gathering to eat their meal. He followed after the soldier who had stirred up the confrontation earlier, cutting through crowd after crowd.

Ever since Jun Wu’s forces had broken into Jiangning back in June, whether Wanyan Zongfu or the various onlooking factions, everyone had been waiting for what seemed like the final extinguishing flicker of the Wu Dynasty’s light. Through July, wave after wave of human-sea tactics had begun grinding forward. Zongfu had mixed his own elite troops among the surrendered forces sent to storm the walls, trying to break the deadlock, and Jiangning’s ramparts had been breached several times over — only to be retaken again before long. In several of these engagements, it was even said the Wu Dynasty’s own crown prince had personally taken to the field, leading the counterattacks himself.

By mid-August, people had begun growing numb to this relentless assault; some even felt a certain grudging respect for the mere two hundred thousand troops within the city holding out with such stubborn resolve.

And yet none of this, in truth, did anything to improve the overall situation.

Zhou Yong’s flight had dealt a devastating blow to the morale of the entire Wu Dynasty; entire armies surrendered in wave after wave, gradually building into a massive avalanche of collapse. Some commanders genuinely surrendered, while others believed they were merely playing along, biding their time for an opportunity to eventually turn back and fight for the right cause — but upon reaching the outskirts of Jiangning, their supplies and provisions were seized entirely by the Jurchens, even most of their weapons confiscated, only handed out again — of inferior quality — when it came time to storm the walls.

At this stage, the decision to surrender had become, more than anything, a choice made by individual commanders; the rank-and-file soldiers still could not fully grasp the reality that the Wu Dynasty had already begun to die. In the course of advancing on Jiangning, some soldiers still harbored hopes of switching sides on the battlefield, joining the crown prince’s forces within Jiangning to help fight the enemy. But what awaited them instead were the pained, unwilling gazes and unyielding blades and spears of the soldiers atop the walls.

Throughout the entire course of the assault, Wanyan Zongfu had already issued random orders to certain units to feign surrender. Given the circumstances, the defenders within Jiangning had no room whatsoever to accept, isolate, or distinguish friend from foe among those approaching. With as many as a million Han troops massed outside the city, if the defenders, already at a severe disadvantage, accepted every unit that called out claiming they wished to switch sides, these forces would very quickly become an uncontrollable powder keg within Jiangning itself.

People soon discovered that the more than two hundred thousand defenders within Jiangning would accept no one attempting to switch sides at all. The morale of the Han troops driven onto the battlefield was already dismal to begin with; unable to match the defenders atop the walls, and with no path of surrender open to them either, some soldiers, driven to their last flicker of desperate courage, charged instead toward the Jurchen encampments behind them — only to meet with an entirely unsurprising fate.

Over the course of more than two months, the camps of the surrendered Han troops experienced several mutinies; Jurchen cavalry slaughtered large numbers of those attempting to flee, while the supplies of the mutinying camps were divided up among the surrounding Han troops who had helped suppress them, and Wu Dynasty officers who had failed to properly guard or cooperate were dragged out by the Jurchens and publicly beheaded as a warning. And so, by August and September, though the atmosphere hanging over the camps grew ever more despairing, actual resistance had grown increasingly rare — some officers and soldiers had even begun hoping for Jiangning’s fall to come as quickly as possible.

Once the city fell, at least everyone would finally be free of this agonizing, impossible bind between life and death.

More than a decade had passed, and these wavering, drifting people had, in the end, unavoidably arrived at a dead end with no possible choice left to make.

At the end of April, Tie Tianying had been severely wounded during the assassination attempt against the Jurchen envoy; then, in May, Lin’an had fallen. Though he had, by sheer luck, managed to survive, his escape and flight had been agonizingly difficult, and his wounds had worsened further along the way. By the time his injuries finally healed in August, he had made his way quietly to the outskirts of Jiangning, and what he found there was nothing but this same desperate, hopeless situation.

Across the realm, many factions still nominally supported the Wu Dynasty, yet none dared charge toward Jiangning to face the Jurchen spearhead directly. Within Jiangning, the defenders — reorganized from the Beiwei Army, the Zhenhai Army, the original Zhenjiang garrison, the Jiangning garrison, and other forces — numbered over two hundred thousand in total. But even with the crown prince’s stubborn, unyielding support, though the city had held firm against the daily assaults of the surrendered Wu Dynasty forces for months on end, just how dire conditions had truly become within the city over these two-plus months, even Tie Tianying could not clearly discern.

In late August, word arrived by boat that Zhou Yong, having fled out to sea, had transferred the throne to Jun Wu, and this news spread rapidly across the realm. This meant that, in the eyes of anyone willing to believe it, the crown prince within Jiangning was now, formally, the legitimate emperor of the Wu Dynasty. But among the camps of surrendered troops outside Jiangning’s walls, this news barely stirred any ripple at all. Even as emperor, he now stood trapped within a grinding millstone of a situation with no way out.

Witnessing such a state of affairs, even Tie Tianying, hardened by years of weathering storms, could not help but shed tears — had this decision come even half a year earlier, the current state of the realm would, in all likelihood, have looked entirely different.

He had considered risking entry into Jiangning to join forces with the crown prince and the others; he had also considered blending in among the soldiers, waiting for a chance to assassinate Wanyan Zongfu. He turned over numerous other ideas as well, but before long, drawing on years of hard-won experience, he began to notice, even amid this hopeless situation, a handful of figures who seemed oddly out of place — figures still quietly at work.

On the fifth of September, he followed behind the gaunt soldier’s retreating figure, but before he could reach the man’s hidden contact point, the figure ahead suddenly slowed his pace, his gaze turning north.

At the far edge of his northern field of view stood that towering, battered wall, still enduring the relentless bombardment of siege engines. In that moment, lit by the setting sun, an enormous white banner slowly descended atop the city walls — even from several li away, that pale streak of white was unmistakably clear to anyone watching.

Doubt flickered through Tie Tianying’s mind; in that instant, his own footsteps grew weak and unsteady beneath him. He did not yet know what had happened — the thought that first flashed through his mind was that the crown prince had met his end.

Whispers spread like a rising tide through camp after camp, but before long, as the Jurchens raised the bounty on Zhou Jun Wu’s head, people learned that it was Zhou Yong who had died, and thus the understanding that the Jianshuo reign had already come to its end began to take shape in everyone’s minds.

Some could not help but weep.

But what did it matter, in the end?

In circumstances as hopeless as these, no matter how stubbornly, how brilliantly the former crown prince might hold out… his death, too, was now merely a matter of time.

A humming murmur spread across the land outside Jiangning’s walls, and within the city itself, it rose in waves as well.

As the sky filled with the shifting tides of sunset color, Jun Wu, dressed entirely in white mourning garb, stepped out from his chamber. Shen Ruxin, likewise dressed in white, waited for him beneath the eaves. He glanced at the setting sun and walked toward the front hall. “Look at that sunset glow — it’s just like the state of our Wu Dynasty right now…”

“…Your Majesty, please take care of yourself…”

Jun Wu pressed a hand against the sword at his waist. He still had little real sense of himself as a sovereign. Traces of freshly wiped tears remained on his face, alongside the hint of a smile. “Night is coming — but no matter how long the night, the sun will rise again.”

The difference lay only… in who would live to see it.

His gaze turned grim and severe; whatever words remained in his heart, he did not continue speaking them. News of Zhou Yong’s death had reached the city the night before, and by now, certain decisions had already been made. Throughout the city, white mourning garb hung everywhere; over at the front hall, several hundred officers, dressed in coarse mourning cloth with white sashes tied at their heads, stood quietly waiting for his arrival.

This might well be the Wu Dynasty’s final sovereign. His ascension had come far too late, with no path forward left open around them — yet it was precisely in circumstances such as these that people felt, all the more keenly, a sense of tragic, sorrowful grandeur.

“Officers and soldiers, all of you!”

As the setting sun gradually sank away, flames roaring and blazing, Jun Wu stood upon the steps before the hall and let his voice carry out.

“Today we have learned that my father, the emperor, passed away at sea seven days ago. This means that the Jianshuo era of our Wu Dynasty… has come to an end. Since childhood, I was told our Wu Dynasty’s mandate had endured for over two hundred years, its blessings flowing on without end. But today, here, before all of you, I say to you — none of that matters anymore—”

Amid the rising flames, he drew his sword.

“Today, I stand here with all of you, defending this city of Jiangning. Before us lie the Jurchens and the million-strong host of those who have surrendered to them. Every one of us knows we have nowhere left to go! Behind me stands this entire city, yet our realm has already been invaded and trampled by the Jurchens. Our families, our loved ones, have died in the very homes that were once theirs, have died along the roads of flight, have suffered every imaginable humiliation. Ahead of us, there is no path forward. I am not the crown prince, nor am I the emperor of the Wu Dynasty. Officers and soldiers, here, before you… I am simply a man who feels shame. Our realm has fallen, and I am powerless to stop it. I would rather die here—”

He swung the long sword in his hand once. Looking down from the night sky above, only scattered points of firelight dotted the plaza below. Afterward, the solemn, mournful sounds of a vigil rang out through the city, echoing through an entire night and day.

The news spread and fermented through the camps both inside and outside the city.

On the seventh of September, clear skies.

A massive dragon banner rose atop the walls of Jiangning, ringed by white mourning flags. An hour later, accompanied by the mournful sound of war horns, Jiangning’s gates opened. This was the first time, after more than two months of stubborn defense against the encircling million-strong host, that Jiangning’s gates had opened at all — and everyone was instantly alarmed by it. People’s first assumption was that the crown prince intended to break through the siege.

But that was not what happened.

The vast, sprawling army, clad entirely in mourning white, led by Jun Wu — now the emperor of the Wu Dynasty — surged forward toward Wanyan Zongfu’s encampment to the west of the city. The Zhenhai Army struck straight from the front; the Beiwei Army swept around from the south; other units, each under their own commanders, poured out through different gates, charging forward to meet the million-strong host arrayed before them.

“Here… I am simply a man who feels shame. Our realm has fallen, and I am powerless to stop it. I would rather die here—”

“…I shall die alongside all of you!”

In this moment, with the boats burned and the cauldrons smashed, a grieving army was destined for victory. After more than two months of bitter struggle, the Jiangning forces capable of taking the field now numbered barely a hundred and twenty thousand — yet not a single one retreated in this moment. The consequences of retreat or surrender had already been demonstrated, in exhaustive detail, by the million-strong host outside the walls over these past two months. They charged straight into the surging masses before them.

“Today we all die here together — as sons of Han, join me in slaying these Jin dogs, in flaying Wanyan Zongfu alive—”

The soldiers and officers who charged out through the gates roared with fury amid the slaughter, and before long, outside the walls of Jiangning, the million-strong host was thrown into a churning, reversing tide, like a great sea folding back upon itself…