“That man before you, that group of people—in the most inopportune circumstances imaginable, they killed the Wu Dynasty’s emperor! They severed every path of retreat! They made an enemy of the entire realm! Facing an army a million strong, they begged mercy from no one! For more than ten years, they fought their way out, endured their way through! And still you haven’t seen it! They are what we once were—”
The rising firelight cast the old general’s silhouette like a great lion’s, his voice echoing through the wind and snow before the great tent.
The others stood solemn. The bonfire burned, the snow drifted down, and the camp fell silent for a long while.
Zonghan and the generals all stood there. By the time night had fully fallen and the fires scattered across the snow-swept camp burned brighter, he spoke again.
“These thirty-some years of campaigning, countless victories—but which of you dares say you’ve never once lost? I can’t say that. Loushi can’t say that. Even if Aguda came back to life, he wouldn’t dare say it. War is always a mix of victory and defeat. The defeat at Yushui Creek cost us something, but it was just one lost battle—some of you are frightened enough to want to blame others for it, but to my mind, it’s actually a good thing!”
“Good in what way? First, this battle at Yushui Creek let you see clearly, in careful detail, exactly what the Black Banner Army across from us is made of. Unbeatable at ten thousand strong? They held off a million-man siege at Small Barren River for three years—they can do that too! Geli Li was greedy for merit and overreached—that was his fault, and also not his fault! The battle at Yushui Creek had gone on two months. He seized a chance and led his personal guard forward—I’ve done that. So have you!”
“Geli Li fought alongside all of you for over thirty years. He was a warrior beyond compare, and he died at Yushui Creek still a warrior. Did he die from greed and recklessness? No.”
Zonghan shook his head. “His death came from failing to see the Black Banner as an opponent equal to himself. He treated them like the Liao, like the Wu Dynasty, and gambled everything on one strike—and lost in the end. Yet today, you still treat the Black Banner the same way—you think they used some trick, you think your own men held you back, and one day you too will die on the Black Banner’s blades. Zhenzhu, Baoshan—I mean you two! Kneel down—”
His gaze suddenly turned fierce and commanding, and at that roar, the brothers Wanyan Sheyema and Wanyan Xiebao by the fire froze for a moment before dropping to their knees on the ground.
“Don’t think I don’t know what the two of you have been saying these past few days! You’re generals who’ve fought a hundred battles together, and you dare slander a comrade who died alongside you! If you don’t understand your fault, this prince will kill you himself!”
“—A proud tiger dies easily. In the deep forest, it’s the wolves who run in packs that live longest.”
Among Zonghan’s sons, Sheyema and Xiebao had already been commanders in their own right during the assault on Bianliang. By now Xiebao was past thirty, and Sheyema nearly forty. In the past, Zonghan had scolded and struck these two often enough, but in recent years such scenes had become rare. He finished speaking, word by deliberate word, then turned and walked slowly to the woodpile, picking up a log.
The log was thick as a large bowl, and should have split cleanly in two, but this one hadn’t broken—only a single crack ran along it. Zonghan gripped it with both hands and pulled outward; the raw wood cracked apart in his hands with a snap, white frost scattering. He tossed the wood into the fire.
“Open your eyes wide. This is one benefit of the Yushui Creek battle. The second is this: it tested your measure!”
“It tested the measure it takes to win the realm, versus the measure it takes to hold it!”
“Conquering the realm with two thousand men has its own way of fighting; conquering it with twenty thousand has another! But by today, doesn’t the man across from you have more than twenty thousand behind him? We Jurchen possess hundreds of millions of subjects across the four seas! Only by ruling together with all the people of the realm can we endure!”
Zonghan paused. “Zongfu and Zongbi lacked foresight. In Jiangnan, they drove a million Han soldiers to besiege Jiangning, and the Wu Dynasty’s young crown prince staked his life on it, and that million-strong host collapsed like a flood breaking its banks, and Zongfu and Zongbi reaped the bitter fruit of their own mistake. At the start of the southwest campaign, Gushen taught all of you—we must endure alongside the Han army, be of one mind on the battlefield, only then can this war be fought to its end. Why? Because the Han people are about to become subjects of our Great Jin. They are to become your brothers! Without that breadth of heart, will you be fighting this same war twenty, thirty years from now? You won’t be able to hold this realm steady, and neither will your descendants!”
“The snow in the south falls thin.” He looked up at the wind and snow blowing past. “The Han people who grew up in the Central Plains, in Jiangnan, have known peace too long, and their fighting strength has withered—but is that really so? Push people to the point where they’d rather die, and you’ll get a Black Banner Army too, you’ll get a young crown prince fighting his way out of Jiangning. And if someone’s heart truly turns toward us Jurchen, then slowly, in time, they too will become like us.”
“…Gushen never forced the Han army to the front. He made rewards and punishments clear, set down the rules—was he only trying to avoid repeating the disaster at Jiangning? No. He wanted the Han soldiers who understood the greater course of things to be the first to join our Great Jin’s ranks. Someone must always go first, and someone must follow after—that is the preparation needed to pacify the realm. It’s a pity most of you don’t understand Gushen’s intent. You’ve fought shoulder to shoulder with them, and still you treat them as outsiders! Even so, was Yushui Creek really only a story of Han soldiers surrendering?”
“The battle at Yushui Creek.” Zonghan spoke each word deliberately. “Among the remaining seven thousand-odd men, nearly two thousand were Han soldiers who never once surrendered, from beginning to end. The Han commander Qu Fangyan kept directing his men forward into battle. When some doubted him, he simply held his men back to hold one flank firm. After the battle ended, I heard that at Yushui Creek, some were saying the Han army couldn’t be trusted, calling for Qu Fangyan’s unit to be pulled back to the rear, or sent to the front to die. Whoever says such things is a fool beyond hope!”
His scolding carried out across the gathering; among the generals, Dalai’s brow furrowed, his face showing displeasure, and Yuyu and the others frowned somewhat as well. Zonghan drew a breath and waved a hand toward the rear. “Qu Fangyan, come forward.”
A moment after he spoke, an armored officer stepped out from the great tent. He walked up to Zonghan, his eyes faintly reddened, and dropped to his knees at once. Zonghan accepted his bow, then said, lowering his head, “Qu Fangyan, when we lost at Yushui Creek, why didn’t you rebel, why didn’t you surrender?”
“This humble officer… my father died at the hands of the Black Banner Army… my lord…”
Zonghan nodded, lifting the man’s hands and helping him to his feet. “I understand,” he said. “For the southwest campaign, this prince gives you his word—you will avenge your father. But you must give this prince your word as well.”
“Please—please instruct me, my lord…”
“This vengeance, you will claim with your own hands. From today, you are no longer a minor officer commanding a mere three thousand men. This prince will give you a worthy post—and not only in the southwest. The tides of the realm rise and fall, divide and unite. The Wu Dynasty’s fortune has run its course, and this realm now belongs to Great Jin. But in the future, the lands where the Han people live will also be governed by you, the Han people yourselves. This is this prince’s hope for you—remember it.”
Qu Fangyan spoke words of overflowing gratitude and made to bow again, but Zonghan caught hold of his arm. “A resolute man doesn’t carry on like some tearful girl. Go on inside.” He waved his arm toward the fire. “From this day forward, you stand among them as an equal!”
Qu Fangyan cupped his hands in salute and walked over to the group. He had once been a lowly officer among the Han troops, but everyone gathered here now was a hero who had campaigned across the realm; after a couple of steps he hesitated slightly, unsure where to stand, when Gao Qingyi waved his arm from over there. “Come.” And drew him over to stand at his side.
As he passed by Han Qixian, Han Qixian too reached out and patted his shoulder.
Zonghan nodded.
“In matters concerning the Han people, Shaba has done excellently, and I’m gratified by it. Officials Han Qixian and Gao Qingyi are also worthy examples. All of you—set aside that arrogance, and look at them, learn from them!”
“As for Yushui Creek—we lost because we underestimated the enemy, but that’s no great matter! In these thirty-some years sweeping across the realm, if every opponent had been nothing but chaff and clay chickens, this prince would have found it rather dull! In the southwest campaign, to meet an opponent like this—that’s a good thing.”
“I think all of you will come to feel the same.”
The snow kept falling.
On the subject of the Yushui Creek battle, Zonghan had spoken at great, flowing length, yet all of it concerned matters far loftier than the battlefield itself. As for the fact of the defeat, he’d summed it up in nothing more than two “good things,” and having said it all so calmly, more than a few in the crowd found a certain fighting spirit rising in their hearts unbidden.
Indeed—facing a minor defeat, facing a truly evenly matched foe, after thirty-some years of the Jin army looking down on the whole realm with contempt—what other feeling should there be besides “good”?
The snow kept drifting down, vast and unending. Before the roaring bonfire, after a while, Zonghan had Han Qixian announce the detailed rewards, punishments, and reassignments for a number of the generals.
Once the rewards, punishments, and transfers had all been announced, Zonghan waved his hand, dismissing everyone to return to their own posts, and turned back into the great tent. Only Wanyan Sheyema and Wanyan Xiebao remained kneeling there in the wind and snow before the fire; without his order, they didn’t dare rise.
After the gathering broke up, more generals came one after another to meet privately with Zonghan in the camp. Past midnight, both Wanyan Sheyema and Wanyan Xiebao had a layer of snow settled on their shoulders. Zonghan came out of the tent, sat on a wooden stake in front of his two sons for a while, then rose and sighed. “Come inside.”
Both of their legs had gone numb; they followed him in obediently and knelt again inside the great tent. Zonghan pointed to the chairs off to the side. “Find a chair and sit, stop kneeling. Both of you drink some hot tea, don’t ruin your knees.”
The two brothers stood again, sat down to the side, and took a few sips of hot water from the small table, then straightened themselves once more into a formal seated posture. Zonghan sat behind the table, and after a good while, finally spoke. “Do you know why your father disciplined you?”
Wanyan Sheyema lowered his head and cupped his hands. “Slandering a great general who had just died in battle was indeed improper. And after suffering such a defeat, if Father disciplines his own sons, it will have a deterrent effect on everyone else.”
“Shallow!” Zonghan’s gaze turned icy. “The battle at Yushui Creek shows that the Chinese army’s fighting strength is no longer inferior to ours. If you keep being so clever about it and grow careless in the future, in the southwest campaign, your father may truly have to bury his own black-haired son before his white hair is gone!”
“…Yes.” Wanyan Sheyema’s eyes shifted, and after a moment’s hesitation, he lowered his head again.
At this point, Wanyan Xiebao, seated to the side, rose and cupped his hands. “Father, there’s something I’d like to ask, though I don’t know if I should.”
“Speak.”
“Regarding the battle at Yushui Creek, the full details are known to many of the senior generals in the army. Men as clever as Gao Qingyi and Han Qixian surely already know where the real crux of this defeat lies. Though they’ve said nothing of it themselves, they’ve still let everyone in the army go on discussing the problems with the Han soldiers—because the Han army truly can’t fight. Now Father is trying to lift the Han army’s morale—could it be that you truly mean to let them… take part in this great war?”
Wanyan Xiebao asked with some hesitation, but what was in his mind had clearly been thought through carefully. Zonghan looked at him for a long while, then smiled approvingly.
“You seem reckless, but there’s a fineness beneath the roughness—that’s no bad thing. These past days you’ve been leading the talk in the army about Geli Li’s mistake—was that also something you’d already planned out?”
Xiebao said, “Reporting to Father—Geli Li led nearly a thousand personal guards against eight hundred Black Banner troops at Eagle Beak Cliff and failed to win, though the ones defending Eagle Beak Cliff were also among the fiercest units in the Black Banner Army. Still, it shows their fighting strength. Only Father speaking of it openly today could truly lift everyone’s spirits. Your son felt… someone had to take the blame—whether Geli Li, or the Han army, either was better than letting everyone believe the Black Banner is stronger than we are.”
“Then why did you choose to slander Geli Li, rather than call the Han army incompetent?”
Xiebao gave a faint, bitter smile. “Father already knows the answer and asks anyway. After the Yushui Creek battle, the Han troops at the front truly numbered less than two thousand. But counting Huangming County and all those funneled in along the way, the Han army now numbers nearly a hundred thousand. It took us two months to funnel them in. If we say now that they can’t fight, and pull them back out, then there’s no point fighting the southwest campaign at all.”
He paused. “Even so, your son still doesn’t understand why we should rely so heavily on the Han people—of course, rewarding Qu Fangyan generously for the future is certainly proper. But if it comes to dragging them onto the battlefield, your son still feels… the southwest is not a place they belong.”
Zonghan burst into laughter. Wanyan Xiebao’s features were rough-hewn, and everything he’d said before had sounded cautious—but that last line carried, faintly, a certain air of looking down upon the whole realm. Zonghan noticed it, and his old heart was greatly gladdened; he laughed for a long while before gradually settling down.
He sat in his chair in silence for a good while longer, until the great tent grew so quiet it seemed almost to ring in the ears, and only then did Sheyema and Xiebao hear his voice again.
“The matter of the Han army is Gushen’s strategy, and it has its own purpose. Since the two of you still have a measure of cleverness, in the days ahead, work to build good relations with the Han generals. And besides that—keep a close watch on Qu Fangyan for me!”
Hearing Gushen’s name, both of their minds settled somewhat, and they rose together to receive the order. Sheyema said, “Does Father suspect this Qu Fangyan of deceit?”
“Every Han soldier surrendered except him alone. With that man’s scheming mind, who can say for certain? It never hurts to guard against people.” Zonghan finished speaking and waved his hand.
“Go, both of you.”
The moonlight was hidden behind thick clouds, and wind and snow blew across the vast, ancient mountains.
From the Jin state, to the Central Plains, to Jiangnan, the heavy snow buried everything within sight. This was the year the Han people’s realm suffered most severely. Burned cities had not yet been rebuilt; refugees carrying their families collapsed in the howling wind and snow; starving people traded their children with one another and shared the flesh between them. Many who had lost their families soon after set out on the same road that would join them with their dead.
Hope remained only as a faint, distant spark.
The Wu Dynasty’s new sovereign—once the crown prince—was leading his army and refugees south. Farther south along the coast, the Princess Imperial had come ashore near Putian, made contact with the nearby forces, and was working to seize Fuzhou.
On New Year’s Eve, Mao Yishan and his wife brought their children home, tidied the stove, pasted up the character for fortune, and put together a hurried but warm and lively New Year’s Eve dinner.
At Liangshan, to mark the turn of the year, Zhu Biao, Liu Chengzong, and the others issued rations three times the usual amount to everyone in the army, and a stage was set up in the camp for performances that evening. Zhu Biao ate and drank with the others while discussing the great war in the southwest, gossiping about Ning Yi and everyone in the southwest, and a group of thin men laughed themselves half to pieces, carefree and unguarded.
Wang Shanyue and his wife, their faces already disfigured, whom Zhu Biao called “heaven-maimed, earth-lacking,” came by and sat for a while that day too. “The great southwest war has gone on two months now—who knows if that fellow Ning Yi can still hold out.” Speaking of such things, Wang Shanyue said, “Maybe he’s already dead at Zonghan’s hands, his head kicked around like a ball by now. Saving this realm—it’ll have to be us, the Wu Dynasty, in the end.”
“Ever since his face got ruined, that face doesn’t look like his own anymore,” Zhu Biao teased him along with the others around them. “Dying sissy, giving up on himself, haha…”
The Chinese Army and the Bright Martial Army at Liangshan fought side by side, but nominally still belonged to two different camps; by now, both sides had grown used to it. Wang Shanyue would occasionally speak ill of Ning Yi, calling him a madman and a lunatic; Zhu Biao would from time to time say that the Wu Dynasty’s fortune had run out, that Zhou Zhe was a rotten-assed hermaphrodite—both sides had settled into this pattern by now.
Who could be bothered arguing with an idiot anyway—both sides thought so.
In the land of Jin, Lou Shuwan and the others organized a simple yet still dignified evening banquet.
Ever since Liao Yiren’s repeated defeats and even the surrender of Weisheng, bandits and righteous armies from all over the land of Jin had come one after another to pledge allegiance, some in groups of dozens, some in the hundreds, all coming to pay homage to this legendary female chancellor.
On the advice of the Chinese Army and men like Shi Jin, Lou Shuwan had purged a number of bandit groups with serious records of wrongdoing. Those willing to join who were relatively clean were required to be broken up and placed unconditionally under the army’s command structure—though those with genuine leadership ability would retain their posts, reassigned accordingly.
Even after such a strict culling, the year-end banquet still opened to a scene of allegiance pouring in from all directions; some even began to regard the female chancellor and Yu Yulin as something like future sovereigns.
Of course, after so many years of upheaval, Lou Shuwan was not one to let this go to her head. Even if Liao Yiren were truly and completely eliminated, and she held half the Central Plains in her grasp, the possibility of utter catastrophe still waited ahead of them. Setting everything else aside, the return of the western army led by Zonghan and Xiyin—win or lose in the southwest—would still be a brutal trial for the land of Jin.
She did not hide this from anyone, but shared this outlook candidly with everyone present.
“…I was once the pampered daughter of a wealthy merchant family in Hangzhou. Since my twenties—since Fang La broke through Hangzhou—I’ve often felt as though I were living in a nightmare I couldn’t wake from.”
At the banquet, raising her wine cup, she spoke thus to everyone gathered.
“When I was young and read history, I often came across accounts of chaos spanning centuries, upheavals lasting decades or even a hundred years at a time, bodies of the starved littering the roads, families trading children to eat. In the past, these things were only words in books, a hundred years passed over lightly in a sentence or two… But now that I’ve witnessed such things myself, I often think about it and still can’t quite understand—how can people endure decades of this?”
Her words carried a solemn weight, and the crowd fell somewhat silent. At this point, Lou Shuwan ran her tongue lightly over her lips and laughed. “I’m only a woman, prone to sentiment—forgive me for making you all laugh. This realm has fought for over ten years, and there may be another ten years yet before it ends. I don’t know. But aside from enduring it—unless we endure it, I can think of no other road forward. All of you are heroes; you must understand this truth as well as I do.”
“This year’s turn of the new year has been a little easier. Next year, there is still a great war ahead. So—whether for ourselves, or for our children and grandchildren—let us stand together, and endure it through… and fight our way through!”
All her words up to this point had been spoken calmly, but only when she raised her cup at the very end and added, “let’s fight our way through,” did a bright smile finally appear on her face. She lowered her head slightly, and in that instant her smile was like that of a young girl.
Across the hall, Yu Yulin, Wang Juyun, An Xifu, Shi Jin, Zhan Wu… and all the other officials and generals present raised their cups with smiles of their own, joyfully.