On the twenty-eighth of February, at noon, wind rolled the clouds across the southwestern sky.

Hot-air balloons rose from the foot of the mountains. The largest blocking battles were happening at two places called Xiukou and Shiling, where the assembled Huaxia Army soldiers, relying on artillery and mountain terrain, held off the two-pronged assault from Balishu’s and Shaba’s forces. The smoke and flame rising from the fighting were clearly visible for miles.

Ten li southeast of the Shiling battlefield, the terrain gave way to rolling hills but mostly flat ground, with a small river formed from a stream running through. Past this point after leaving Zizhou, once one crossed the stone bridge and entered the mountains, the road grew rugged. Merchants had, year after year, brought goods through Jianmen Pass into Zizhou and carried Sichuan’s own wares back out, and so the stone bridge over the river had come to be called Wangyuan — “Gazing Far.”

The two sides of the war had already gathered south of the stone bridge.

Ning Yi, leading only six thousand men, played no tricks, and so Xiebao, with thirty thousand men in hand, had to advance. His army had already formed ranks along the riverbank — thirty thousand men, three thousand cavalry, banners snapping fiercely in the wind. Looking up, one saw a rare clear sky for late February in the southwest.

On the hillside opposite, six thousand Huaxia Army soldiers stood close at hand, including that figure long spoken of — the Demon of the Heart, Ning Yi — also standing on the slope ahead. Wanyan Xiebao let out a breath. Thirty thousand against six thousand — he did not intend to leave this man any chance to flee.

“The grass around here looks fresh, doesn’t look like it’s been dug up — probably no landmines.” A deputy commander came over and said this. Xiebao nodded, recalling the intelligence he had gathered on Ning Yi over the years — the most outstanding figure among the Han people in nearly thirty years, not only skilled in strategy but also willing to stake his life on the battlefield, gambling for even a sliver of a chance at survival. Years earlier, at a gathering in the Jin state, Gushen had once remarked of him: “Looking at his inner substance, he resembles Baoshan.”

Six thousand men, staking their lives, gambling for a sliver of a chance… standing opposite such folly, Xiebao felt bewildered, yet also deeply insulted — he was not Yelu Yanxi.

Of course, that sense of insult also left him unusually calm. The correct way to deal with such a thing was not to grow angry, but to strike with the strongest possible blow, crushing the man to the dust before he could bring out any follow-up move. Kill him, slaughter his family, and afterward, spit on his skull!

Under Xiebao’s command at present were four senior generals. Xilie and Wanyan Gulu had originally been generals under the War God Loushi; since Loushi’s death, the Yanshan Guard had been built around these two. In addition, Nake and Wensa, both under Cibushi’s command, were survivors of the northwestern campaign of years past — Nake now commanded infantry, and Wensa commanded cavalry.

The army under him carried memories of humiliation and vengeance etched into every man’s bones; their banner was white, symbolizing their resolve never to retreat or surrender. Years of training existed for the sake of this moment — facing this contemptible rat Ning Yi and utterly burying the Huaxia Army.

That morning, as the generals came to realize that the confrontation was now at hand, they had brought out the ceremonial robes and caps of two former Jurchen marshals of old. The thirty thousand men bowed in silence before them, then tied white cloths across their brows before breaking camp and marching to the far bank opposite Wangyuan Bridge. Ning Yi refused to cross the river, wanting to fight the battle on this side — no matter, they would grant him this.

As noon arrived, this army with white cloths tied across every brow was no less imposing than the army that had fought at Hubudagang more than twenty years before.

The generals ran along the front ranks, but there was no shouting; most of the rest needs no further telling.

“So the most crucial thing — the most troublesome thing — is how to raise the children.”

“I think just hitting them works fine.”

“So you people… you don’t understand education, it’s a delicate matter. What if you hit them too hard? Children have self-respect too. What if it leaves psychological scars? What if they rebel and run away from home? You can’t just hit them however you like — it affects their whole future…”

“Mine turned out fine, both of them…”

“Same with mine.”

The wind blew gently down from the mountains. Having just received a message, Ning Yi was speaking quietly with Du Sha and the others beside him.

The atmosphere of the battlefield tends to make people tense, and over the past few days heated discussions had continued within the Huaxia Army, with people like Han Jing and Qu Zhengyan expressing certain doubts about the whole operation.

“Six thousand against thirty thousand — what if something goes wrong? You’re the backbone of the Huaxia Army. If we lose this, the Huaxia Army is finished.”

Or else:

“Even granting a certain chance of success, isn’t it something of a waste to spend it all on Wanyan Xiebao? Wouldn’t it be better to wait until Zonghan comes out fully and fight one decisive battle then? After all… there’s no guarantee we can wipe out Xiebao entirely, either.”

Two days earlier, when Zonghan had appeared within Balishu’s army, Qu Zhengyan had also raised the question of whether to revise the strategy. Ning Yi had thought it over for a while and rejected the idea each time. Zonghan’s appearance was precisely meant to draw Xiebao’s attention elsewhere; the one who would come charging to the front would still be Xiebao’s force. If he did not strike now, Zonghan would not offer up another ideal opportunity either.

Amid all this debate and hesitation, one other matter had continued to weigh on Ning Yi’s mind. Since the twenty-third, contact with the front-line unit under Ning Ji had been temporarily lost. Though quite a few units had been temporarily cut off under the Jurchens’ first wave of infiltration, if Ning Ji happened to fall into enemy hands at such a critical moment, that really would be an absurdly tragic turn of events.

He had considered and calculated for many things, but had never imagined that at the crucial moment, this kind of critical loss of contact would occur. Only today had word finally come from the front — Ning Ji and his men had beheaded the Liaodong general Yin Han, rescued Mao Yishan’s unit, then spent the following days maneuvering through the mountains searching for opportunities to strike, and two days before had ambushed a Han army unit, at which point they had finally reestablished contact.

In the course of these few days of maneuvering, it was said that Ning Ji had shown a ruthless streak, killing two enemy generals one after another… this was truly infuriating and troubling news. What on earth had the family made of a thirteen-year-old child, training him into this?

They needed to end this war quickly, or else the family would end up producing a homicidal maniac…

His broader concerns had at least been set to rest for now. Tucking away the news that Ning Ji was safe, he let out a breath: “Well, that’s good, at least.” He looked up at the imposing thirty-thousand-strong army opposite, banners like a sea, “Even if I die here today, at the very least, the children back home will keep walking the path forward.”

“Our two kids — from the time they were small, we just hit them, hit them till they nearly died, and it’s still like that now. Look how well-behaved they turned out…”

“…You brute.”

The brief exchange ended amid Ning Yi’s helpless expression. He asked what time it was — the second quarter of the noon hour. Drums thundered to life. On the opposite formation, the first wave of the Jurchen army, tasked with probing, roughly five thousand men, began advancing — infantry in front, artillery to the side. On the other flank, three thousand elite cavalry began circling slowly toward the southern edge of the battlefield.

The main force behind them likewise began advancing steadily.

The movement of thirty thousand men made the earth rumble like thunder.

Ning Yi raised his hand and gave the order; the army advanced in unison.

At this moment, the distance between the two sides’ front lines was one thousand two hundred meters; the thirty-thousand-strong formation stretched back nearly a li in width as well.

The maximum range of a bow was two hundred meters, with effective lethal range compressed to within one hundred twenty meters; artillery’s range at present was roughly similar. At one hundred twenty meters, an adult sprinting would take no more than fifteen seconds to cover it.

There were also siege crossbows and specially made powerful bows built by the generals, capable of lethal range up to three hundred meters.

Conventionally speaking, a hundred zhang was the first line at which a great battle prepared to draw blood. Much of the calculation and tactics in warfare also fluctuated around this line — advancing slowly at first, then suddenly pressing hard, or else choosing to split forces or hold firm, forcing the enemy to react accordingly. But once the distance closed to within a hundred zhang, that was the moment the fighting truly began.

At a distance of roughly one kilometer, advancing in formation, both sides still had some time to make adjustments and preparations. The thirty-thousand-strong battle formation gradually grew larger in view. The Huaxia Army’s front line formed a long row ahead, three ranks deep, interlocking with one another, everyone holding long rifles. Those in the front row had bayonets fixed to their rifles; those without bayonets carried broadswords on their backs.

Those bearing rifles numbered over four thousand five hundred in all; interspersed among the ranks were also mounted artillery pieces moving alongside.

To the side of the formation, protected by a screen of riflemen advancing with it, was a unit flying the banner of the “First Huaxia Army Industrial Corps.” At the core of this unit were over a dozen boxlike four-wheeled carts; Lin Jingwei and Gongsun Sheng, currently serving as the chief engineers of the Huaxia Army’s technical division, were both among them.

Following along with this unit were technicians, soldiers, and workers as well. Many of them had strange yellow stains on their hands, bodies, and uniforms, and some even bore burns and signs of corrosion on their hands and faces.

The Huaxia Army’s First Industrial Works, the Rocket Engineering Research Institute, had received the greatest support from Ning Yi throughout the long and difficult days since the founding of the Huaxia Army — and, seen from another angle, was also the institution whose research direction he directly controlled and guided. Many of the technicians there were veteran soldiers.

Long ago, Ning Yi had begun transferring soldiers with strong hands-on ability and strong analytical minds toward this field. At present, when basic education was still insufficient and manpower was stretched thin, letting these soldiers who had taken part in the manufacturing process operate the equipment themselves could, to some degree, reduce the losses caused by training new recruits. Naturally, if the fighting grew intense, they too would be thrown further into the battle.

Ning Yi followed along with this group. At the eight-hundred-meter mark, the deputy chief engineer in charge specifically of the rockets — a purely technical man with messy curly hair, whose right side of his head had gone bald from burn scars caused by an explosion, nicknamed “Curly Baldy,” walking beside Lin Jingwei and Gongsun Sheng — turned around and said, “A-almost there.”

The carts came to a stop.

“Any confidence in this?” Ning Yi, looking ahead through binoculars, could not help but ask with some concern.

“We-well, the tests haven’t really been sufficient. Ac-according to what you said, Teacher Ning, in theory, there’s still a chance something could go wrong. Teacher Ning, please st-stand a bit farther back. If… if the worst-case scenario happens, one in a hundred chance, this whole thing suddenly bl-bl-blows up…”

“All right, stop, I get it.”

Ning Yi’s expression was wooden, his hand pressing down in the air. Someone nearby even laughed, while most others went about their work methodically.

Five of the four-wheeled carts were disassembled; every two wheels were fitted with a grid-shaped iron frame, propped up at an angle on the ground ahead, workers using iron poles to prop and fix them in place. From another five carts, three-meter-long iron tubes were carried out one by one and set into launch frames fitted with several grooves.

The battle formation continued to advance. Ning Yi rode his horse forward, surrounded by many familiar faces from the Huaxia Army.

For this battle, Ning Yi had spent more than ten years preparing, and had also suffered through more than ten years in the process. Over that decade-plus, so very many people like the Huaxia Army soldiers currently around him had already died. From Xia Village, through the three years at Xiaocang River, and up to now, he had buried more heroes than he could count who should have lived on.

As someone who came from a better world, someone smarter and more capable, he should by rights have felt more of a sense of superiority. But in fact, it was only in front of these people that he possessed almost none of it. Over these ten-plus years, many people, Li Pin among them, had thought him arrogant — capable, yet unwilling to save more people. And yet those around him, the ones he had tried his utmost to save, had, in the end, died one after another all the same.

At Xiaocang River, he had buried countless comrades-in-arms. In the southwest, many people had gone hungry so that their fat could be sent to the research institute to refine what little glycerin could be extracted. Soldiers had died at the front, and at the rear, in the research institute, people had also died and been maimed in explosions — no small number of them; some had died of chronic poisoning, and even more had had their skin eaten away by corrosive substances.

In one explosion accident, a soldier had both legs blown off, lying in a pool of blood, the skin gone from his face. His last words were: “That’ll show them…” He meant the Jurchens. This soldier’s entire family, old and young, had already died at the hands of the Jurchens’ blades.

Now everyone was quietly loading these fruits of their labor onto the racks.

In the course of pushing the research forward, the first thing Ning Yi had wanted to break through was nitroglycerin. After succeeding in laboratory synthesis, when it came to industrial mass production, the basic groundwork simply could not be achieved, and it had even caused a fair number of accidents. Later, the direction chosen had been picric acid, but even now, the road to large-scale industrial production had not been paved.

The overall scale, the manpower, was still simply too small.

There was nothing for it but to slowly refine and explore manual production methods. Once produced, he chose to apply it to rocket-propelled shells. In fact, the basic design concept for rocket shells had already existed back in the Wu Dynasty; in another timeline of history, the Song Dynasty’s rockets had made their way, via twists and turns, to India, and were later improved upon by Europeans to become the Congreve rocket. Ning Yi’s own approach to improvement was, in fact, similar in nature: better explosives, longer range, more accurate trajectories.

Over these years, up to this day of confrontation at Wangyuan Bridge with Wanyan Xiebao, this iron rocket fitted with a three-meter balance rod had reached a total production of six hundred seventeen units — some filled with TNT explosive, others with picric acid. The finished product, Ning Yi had named “Dijiang.”

With the two sides’ vanguards seven hundred meters apart, Wanyan Xiebao raised his binoculars and saw the racks set up ahead: “I knew he had some scheme…” But whatever the scheme was, however formidable the thing might be, at this moment the only choice left to him was to crush the enemy under the weight of thirty thousand men.

At that same moment, the entire thirty thousand Jurchen soldiers on the battlefield had already, completely, come within range.

The Jurchen front line advanced into the five-hundred-meter mark; the main body of the thirty thousand entered a range of roughly six hundred meters. The Huaxia Army had already come to a halt, formed up in three ranks. The soldiers in the front rank rubbed their hands and feet — men who had, in truth, all been through many battles, yet this was the first time any of them had used rifles on such a large scale in actual combat. Though there had been much training, whether it could produce a decisive result was something they still were not entirely certain of.

Thin white clouds drifted across the sky. At Wangyuan Bridge, on the twenty-eighth, at the third quarter of the noon hour, some heard behind them the sound of wind whipped up, an inspiriting shriek, and light streaked across the sky from the side. Red tail-flames trailing thick black smoke shot up into the sky.

Each of the grid-shaped launch frames had five launch grooves, but to avoid any mishap, the men had chosen a comparatively conservative launch strategy. Twenty streaks of light flew off in different directions. The instant he saw that light, Wanyan Xiebao’s scalp went numb, and at the very same moment, in the foremost formation of five thousand men, a general brought his blade down.

“Charge—”

Two of the streaks of light fell into that formation. The main charge of the explosive was freshly manufactured picric acid. The instant the tail-flame plunged into the crowd, a thunderous explosion, carrying flames of over three thousand degrees, poured out into the mass of men…