Southwest.
Time rewound to the fifth day of the first lunar month. Outside the walls of Zizhou, carts and horses filled the air with noise. Around the hour of chen, wounded soldiers pulled back from the front lines began entering the city.
The snow had only been hastily cleared away, the ground covered in mud, the pitted road winding off into the distant mountains, following the trail of people’s shadows. Traffic controllers wearing red armbands let the ox carts and the litters carrying the severely wounded go first, while the lightly wounded waited by the roadside.
The lightly wounded, bandages wrapped around their heads or bodies, stood along the road, their eyes still fixed on the direction from the northeast, few of them speaking, the mood tense and anxious. Some of the wounded were even trying to unwrap their own bandages, only to be stopped by the medics.
“My wound’s already healed. I don’t need to go into the city.”
The wounded man spoke slowly, one word at a time, and for a moment the medic couldn’t talk him out of it. A political officer came over and gave them a firm order: “Get into the city first. Those whose wounds have healed will receive orders after being reorganized. Are you refusing military orders now?”
In the Huaxia Army, military orders were like mountains—absolute, with no room for sentiment—so the wounded had no choice but to obey. Still, someone nearby gathered close and asked, “Do the higher-ups have a plan? What about Huangming County?”
The political officer said, “The First Division’s cavalry has already gone to relieve the siege. The Fourth Division is also moving to flank them. What’s wrong, don’t you trust our own men?”
“Our Second Division’s position—why couldn’t we hold it… I shouldn’t have stayed in the wounded camp…”
Some were resentful, some were full of regret—these were all wounded men pulled back from the Second Division’s front line. In truth, after more than two months of relentless, grinding battle, there was hardly a soldier left on the battlefield who didn’t carry some wound. Only the severely wounded made it into the wounded camp; it took a long time of recovery before a severe wound eased into a light one.
These men already counted as veterans. For this war against the Jin, the Huaxia Army’s political and propaganda work had been building for years, and everyone carried a pent-up breath of tension inside them. Over the past two months, Huangming County had been hammered into the ground like a nail, planted stubbornly in front of the Jurchens’ advance. No matter how great a Jurchen general’s past reputation, if he dared climb the walls, he was beaten to death right there on the ramparts.
This was a battle of fate and fortune against the Jurchens, who had swept away an entire realm beneath them, and to have driven the Jurchens to this state filled every soldier’s heart with enormous pride. Even wracked with pain, holding the wall day after day was brutally hard, but everyone carried an unquenchable fire in their hearts. They were certain that whatever hardship they felt would be reflected back tenfold, a hundredfold, onto the enemy across from them—that they would hold out until the other side collapsed. The Huaxia Army had never known fear.
This kind of pride rested on solid ground. Over the past two-plus months, Yushui Creek and Huangming County had been under attack at the same time, and of the two, Huangming County’s defense line had produced the better results. On the nineteenth of the twelfth month, news of the Yushui Creek battle’s outcome reached Huangming, and the men of the Second Division felt another surge of pent-up pride—in fact, amid the celebration, the officers had used it to rally morale further, saying that someday they’d post an even better result than Yushui Creek.
Who could have known that by the fourth day of the new year, it would be their own line that collapsed. The wounded men recovering in the rear camp were, for a moment, utterly stunned. As they were moved back and pieced things together, when they realized that a major reason the front had collapsed was the strain on manpower, some of the younger wounded men broke down and wept on the spot.
From the night of the third to the morning of the fourth, the fighting over Huangming County had been indescribably brutal. Pang Liu’an, who blamed himself most of all, led the cadre corps in six or seven charges up onto the walls, and by the time he was forcibly pulled back, his entire body was covered in blood. Only after receiving the rear’s order for a forced retreat did he finally agree to pull out of Huangming County.
By the fifth, command of the front-line fighting had passed to Han Jing of the First Division and Qu Zhengyan of the Fourth Division.
The Second Division’s commander Pang Liu’an and chief of staff Guo Chen, pulled back from the front, had not yet returned to Zizhou. The first wounded to enter the city belonged to the Second Division, and for the moment they hadn’t noticed anything unusual about the situation inside Zizhou’s walls—in fact, as they entered the city, Ning Yi was standing atop the wall, looking down the road off to the side. Many of the staff officers had also come up onto the ramparts for the time being.
Inside Zizhou, the city currently sat in a state of near emptiness. The First Division, originally held in reserve as a mobile relief force, had already pushed forward toward Huangming to cover the Second Division’s retreat, while Qu Zhengyan led a small elite force searching the rugged mountain terrain for a chance to stab the Jurchens in the back. On the Yushui Creek side, the Fifth Division still held the line for now, and quite a few new recruits had even been sent there, but Ning Yi wasn’t letting his guard down—on the fourth, he’d had Corps Commander He Zhicheng lead over five thousand of the city’s able troops to Yushui Creek.
The whole of Zizhou was under martial law, braced to fight at any moment.
Zonghan had already appeared at Yushui Creek. To expect that taking Huangming County would satisfy him was far too naive. The Jurchens were wolves seasoned in a hundred battles, masters at taking risks and seizing the moment; the instant Yushui Creek showed the slightest opening, they would pounce, sink their teeth into its throat, and never let go.
The order to convene a meeting had already gone out, and staff officers were gathering one after another toward the gate tower. There weren’t many of them, so they assembled quickly. When Peng Yueyun came to report to Ning Yi, he found him standing by the wall, gazing off into the distance, humming something under his breath. Mr. Ning’s expression was solemn, yet the sound coming from his mouth was utterly careless.
“…Dear Mama and Papa… how are you. I’m already so very handsome now… mm mm mm mm…”
“…Everyone’s here.”
“Mn.”
Ning Yi turned around, hands tucked into his pockets, and walked toward the gate tower. Inside, several tables had been pushed together. Among the staff officers who’d arrived were more than a dozen people, including Chief of Staff Li Yi. Ning Yi greeted everyone, then sat down, his expression far from good.
“I’ll run the meeting. I know everyone’s busy today, with things on your hands. This urgent meeting has one topic—or you could say a few. As you all know, the Second Division’s men are pulling back. Pang Liu’an and Guo Chen may arrive this afternoon. On the matter of Huangming County’s defeat, what were the main causes, and as a first step, how do we handle this internally—I want to hear your thoughts…”
Those present were either senior heads of General Staff departments or personnel in key positions; when Huangming County’s situation had turned critical, they’d already been following developments. Once Ning Yi finished speaking, people took turns speaking up in order. Some brought up how formidable Balishu was in the use of troops; some brought up misjudgments made by front-line staff officers and by Pang Liu’an; some raised the strain on troop numbers. When it came to Peng Yueyun’s turn, he brought up an uprising among a unit of surrendered Han troops at Yushui Creek.
“…At Yushui Creek, the battle situation initially settled on the twentieth of the twelfth month. At the time, considering the problem of prisoners, we did some work on it, but there were simply too many prisoners. On one hand we had to treat our own wounded, and on the other we had to shore up the Yushui Creek defenses, so the prisoners weren’t fully broken up and dispersed right away. Then starting on the twenty-fourth, an uprising broke out behind our lines. At that point manpower was even more stretched, and then at Yushui Creek, on the second of this month, a rebellion actually broke out—timed to coincide with Zonghan’s arrival at Yushui Creek. There’s a real problem in all this…”
“…What I’m thinking now is that Wanyan Xiyin, who never reached the front line himself, in fact wasn’t entirely unprepared when it came to the question of Han troops within the Jurchen ranks. Once he realized these troops couldn’t be fully trusted, what could he do? On the surface, we saw him clearly set out rewards and punishments, handling things fairly to win the Han troops’ loyalty. But privately, I believe he’d very likely already selected a few of the most ‘trustworthy’ Han units and made preparations with them in secret…”
“…For instance, instructing these smaller Han units in advance that if a major collapse happened at the front, they should simply stop resisting, and instead take the opportunity to surrender to our side—that way they’d at least have a chance to strike a blow first. Look at the timeline: on the twentieth of the twelfth month, we suffered a crushing defeat at Yushui Creek; right after that, a rebellion broke out behind our lines; on the twenty-eighth, Zonghan gathered his men and called out that the Han troops should be treated well; on the thirtieth, Balishu launched his offensive; on the second, the rebellion at Yushui Creek broke out—and by then, Zonghan had already reached the front…”
Peng Yueyun went on: “…They were racing against time. Once the nearly twenty thousand surrendered Han troops were fully absorbed and digested by us, Zonghan and Xiyin’s arrangement would come to nothing. But this arrangement all erupted right after we won at Yushui Creek… We won at Yushui Creek, which pushed the traitors who’d still been sitting on the fence in the rear past their breaking point—they took the risk over the New Year holiday. We had to watch over twenty thousand prisoners, which already stretched us thin, and then the rebellion in the rear on top of the assault at Yushui Creek pulled our forces taut across the entire line. That’s why Balishu was able to mount his strongest assault yet at Huangming County—this, too, was really the fruit of the Jurchens’ overall scheme…”
Throughout the meeting, Ning Yi’s gaze had been stern, his hands clasped together on the table, not looking this way. Only when Peng Yueyun got to this point did his eyes finally shift. Beside him, Li Yi nodded. “Xiao Peng’s analysis is solid. So tell me, do you think Division Commander Pang and Chief of Staff Guo made mistakes in command?”
Peng Yueyun fell silent for a moment. “In the battle for Huangming County, the opportunity slipped away in an instant. I… personally feel the Second Division did all it could—it wasn’t their fault in the strategic sense. But… in the end, a battlefield is always judged by its results…”
Having said this much, he seemed rather conflicted. Ning Yi tapped the table and looked over, his tone gentle. “Say what needs saying.”
“I think there should be some punishment, but it shouldn’t be too severe…”
Ning Yi nodded, then had several others speak in turn. Once everyone had finished, he nodded again and tapped his finger on the table.
“I won’t waste words. Over the past decade-plus, our Huaxia Army has been through many life-and-death battles. From Dongzhiyuan to the three years at Xiaocang River, you could say we’ve been through a hundred battles and more—that much we can claim. But fighting the Jurchens at this scale, in this kind of war—this is our first time.”
He waved a hand. “The three years at Xiaocang River don’t count. Even though the fighting there was brutal, its intensity and formality can’t compare to this. The so-called million-strong armies of the Central Plains had less fighting power than thirty thousand Jurchens. Back then we led our troops weaving through the mountains, fighting as we went, absorbing whatever forces would surrender to us. What mattered most was slipping through gaps and staying alive…”
“The Jurchens are different. For thirty years, they’ve fought proper, large-scale battles time and again; total mobilization on the scale of toppling entire kingdoms is routine for them. To put it plainly, thirty years of being winnowed down like sand in a great wave—the Jurchen generals who’ve survived to this day, men like Zonghan, Xiyin, Balishu, are, on the whole, far above us in ability. We only surpass them in training methods and organization. We’re using a general staff system to fight against the wisdom and instinct these commanders have honed over thirty-plus years; we’re using the quality of our soldiers to overwhelm their savagery. But when it comes to the actual use of troops, they are commanders who’d rank among the great generals of the past several thousand years. As for us—we simply haven’t been tempered enough yet.”
“And yet we let ourselves grow arrogant.”
Ning Yi slapped the table. “These past two-plus months, we really did fight with high spirits, and I felt it too—it was exhilarating. After the battle of Yushui Creek, that excitement reached its peak. It wasn’t just you—I let my guard down too. In the past, whenever we won a victory like this, I made a habit of cooling down and staying sober afterward. This time I thought, well, it’s the New Year, I won’t say anything unpleasant, let everyone enjoy themselves a few more days. As it turns out, that was my mistake—and all of ours. Father Jurchen has taught us a lesson.”
He paused briefly. “Over these years, of all the great battles we’ve fought, the worst, the largest in scale, was Xiaocang River. Back then, at Xiaocang River, over the course of three years, day after day we watched people we knew well fall right beside us. Pang Liu’an handled a great many frontal defenses, and everyone says he’s skilled at holding ground, but we’ve talked about it many times—watching comrades beside you fall wave after wave in an enemy assault is a hard thing to bear. He held Huangming County for over two months, his troop strength steadily dwindling the whole time…”
“As for Balishu, across from him—two months of pure frontal assault, without a single clever trick. He, too, simply watched Pang Liu’an quietly for two months. Whether through analysis or instinct, he found Division Commander Pang’s weak point—and that’s formidable. Commander Pang needs to reflect on this, and so do we, on our own fixed ways of thinking, our own psychological weaknesses.”
“There’s another point, a very interesting one. Pang Liu’an’s Second Division currently has the largest and finest artillery force under our command. Huangming County was given two lines of defense; although the first line was already riddled with holes before the New Year, at least the second line stood firm. We’d always believed Huangming County was the place with the greatest defensive advantage—and yet it was the first to become the enemy’s breakthrough point. What does that tell us? In our current state, we mustn’t put blind faith in superior equipment and weaponry. What matters most, above all else, is still the people!”
As Ning Yi spoke, his expression grew ever more solemn. He glanced at the recorder beside him. “Has all of this been written down?” Once he got a confirming answer, he nodded.
“Good. Taking this defeat as the occasion, every officer, from the corps commander on down, must conduct a full self-examination and reflection.” He took several sheets of paper from inside his robe. “This is my own self-criticism. Along with the minutes of this meeting, it’s to be copied and distributed to every department, down to the platoon level. Literate officers are to organize meetings to read it aloud and discuss it… I want this self-examination understood clearly, from the top down, by every single person. This is what you’re to carry out going forward. Is that clear?”
By this point, everyone understood, and they rose to accept the order.
Outside the city walls, the ground still lay under snow, and beneath the gloomy sky, a light rain had begun to drift down. Rain and snow mixed together, and the whole climate turned bitterly, shockingly cold. And over the half month that followed, the state of the war on Zizhou’s front grew as chaotic as a pot of ice and fire boiling together—icy rain, hot blood, flesh and bone, life and death… all thrown together in disorder, as both sides fought fiercely for the next point of advantage, even the Seventh Army, which had until now maintained its deterrent presence, was stirred into motion because of it.
And from the twentieth day onward, no balance like the standoffs at Huangming County or Yushui Creek ever formed again. Ning Yi did not dig in to defend Zizhou to the last; instead, an even more perilous war of maneuver, of contested ground and interlocking, crisscrossing slaughter, unfolded rapidly in the new year that had just begun…