In the first year of the Zhenxing era of the restored Zhou, on the eleventh day of the third month, the region around Lake Tai still lay steeped in the marks of raging war, not yet recovered.

Over the past half year, campaigns and massacres had swept back and forth across this land again and again. From Wuxi to Suzhou to Jiaxing, one prosperous and magnificent city after another had had its gates broken open time and again — the Jurchens ravaging it, the Zhou army reclaiming it, then the city changing hands once more. Massacre after massacre, plunder after plunder — from the final year of Jianshuo through the start of Zhenxing, it seemed the violence had never once let up.

Over a million Han people had died the previous winter, and an equal number of Jiangnan’s craftsmen, able-bodied laborers, and women of some beauty had been seized by the Jin army as spoils of war and dragged north.

Large-scale warfare and plunder had only ceased by the second month of this year — but even once the Jurchens, sated and satisfied, decided to march their armies home, the situation across Jiangnan had not eased at all. Great numbers of displaced refugees banded together into mountain bandits; great clans raised private armies; people staked out their own territories, seizing whatever remained for their own survival by whatever means necessary. Small, constant, endlessly recurring clashes and conflicts still broke out across every corner of this once-prosperous paradise on earth.

Forgive us for not lingering too long in any one place — through the long, unending night of this war, the suffering many people endured, day after day, exceeded what others might suffer across an entire lifetime in times of peace.

Over the more than two months he had spent following the fleeing refugees, He Wen had come to feel this seemingly endless night all too keenly. The unbearable hunger, the relentless sickness that offered no relief, people driven by despair to eat their own children or those of others, countless souls driven to madness, and always, behind them, the enemy still coming on in pursuit.

Amid this constant flight and upheaval, the organizational ability of the new emperor’s forces — who claimed to protect the people — had proven far from ideal. He Wen had seen no real hope of a solution; often, the price of any decisive action was paid in the ant-like deaths of the common people. Caught in the middle of it all, he had found himself utterly powerless.

Since leaving prison, one of his hands had gone entirely useless, capable of no strength at all, and his body too had broken down; of his once considerable martial skill, barely a tenth remained. Years earlier he had been a scholar-knight, accomplished in both letters and arms — he would not claim extraordinary insight, but he had once been a man of firm resolve. It was the corruption of the Zhou dynasty’s officials that had brought ruin upon his family; in his heart, he had never truly harbored much hatred. He had gone to kill Ning Yi and failed, and returning home, who was there to vouch for him? A clear conscience meant nothing in the face of reality — his wife lost, his son scattered — this had been his own failure, his own fault.

But on this road of flight, the torment of hunger and helplessness often wrung an unspeakable wail out of him as well — a pain that was neither momentary nor overwhelming in any single instant, but a ceaseless, grinding helplessness and rage, anger tearing at itself for want of any power to act. If he could stand back and analyze it all with cold objectivity, he would have to admit that the new emperor truly had made an enormous effort, that the army he led had, at the very least, done its best to stand between the people and the enemy. Circumstance was simply stronger than any man.

But swept along within the fleeing crowds, all he saw, every moment, was blood and wailing grief — people who, having eaten human flesh, seemed to have had their very souls scraped hollow, wandering in torment through despair. He watched a husband whose wife could no longer walk let out an animal-like cry; he watched a mother, after her child died of illness, shuffle forward like a walking corpse, only to collapse and curl into a ball the moment anyone touched her — the sound she made would echo through a person’s dreams for nights afterward, seizing the heart of anyone with a shred of conscience left, leaving them unable to find rest anywhere.

Was that enough?

Had they really done everything they could?

He would think, again and again, of everything he had seen in the southwest.

Life there was equally hard — people tightened their belts, endured hunger, practiced strict frugality — but afterward, there was a different look on people’s faces. That army named for Huaxia met war head-on when it came; they faced sacrifice and accepted it, and afterward, those who survived were allowed to enjoy the peace that followed.

He remembered the righteous indignation of so many people back in the southwest — himself included — as they had once confronted Ning Yi: “What did the common people do to deserve this! How can you expect every single person to understand the reasoning, to always make the right choice!” And he remembered Ning Yi’s answer, the one so widely condemned for its coldness: “Then they have to die.” He Wen had once felt he’d asked exactly the right question.

To many of the questions Ning Yi answered, He Wen had never been able to find a proper rebuttal. But this one, at least, seemed to lay bare Ning Yi’s own cold-bloodedness. He Wen had never admired that side of him, and had always believed that on this particular point, people were entitled to look down on Ning Yi — to refuse, at least, to stand with him.

But now, watching so many people hunted down, dying for the most desolate and meaningless of reasons, this very question came back to him.

They have to die.

Jiangnan had always been a land of great wealth, and even after more than half a year of war ravaging it again and again, most of the people now fleeing were not skin and bone — some of them, in fact, had once belonged to great households, had once lived comfortable lives, and had even possessed kind and gentle hearts. They fled, they wept, they died — and no one had spared them any special treatment for the goodness they carried within.

Even the Zhou army before him now had fought as hard as it possibly could. And yet — was that enough?

When the enemy’s blade comes down and you cannot block it, you die — and talking of hardship and reasons then means nothing at all.

—If Ning Yi had been standing beside him, that was perhaps the sort of thing, cold beyond all bearing, that he would have said. But it was out of fear of death that, all these years, the southwest had continued to strengthen itself, drawing on every ounce of strength from every single person, in hopes of surviving the war. And the common people born under the Zhou dynasty — however justified their weakness, however utterly powerless they truly were — still stirred a deep pity in him.

They died.

Ning Yi looked at him: “Then they have to die.”

One day in the first month, when the Jurchens struck, people scattered in every direction with no destination in mind. He Wen, though drained of strength, saw the right way to go, and shouted hoarsely to those around him — but no one listened, until at last he cried out: “I am a soldier of the Huaxia Army! I am a soldier of the Black Banner Army! Follow me!”

Those who heard him followed, and word spread from ten to a hundred; that day he led a good number of people to safety in the nearby mountains. As dusk approached, hunger settled over them once more; He Wen, gathering his strength, set some to searching the early-spring hillsides for whatever meager food could be found, while collecting a dozen or so weapons from the rest, intending to raid a nearby unit of surrendered Han troops trailing the Jurchens, in hopes of seizing their grain.

After this long flight, even those in the group who had once been strong and vigorous had by now been drained of nearly all their strength. What was more, the habit of not daring to advance had, after this long retreat, become deeply ingrained — yet there was no other road left to take. He Wen spoke to them of the Black Banner Army’s record of victories, and made a promise: “Just trust me, that’s all that’s needed!”

Leading a wary, uneasy group of a dozen or so men, he sought out a company of nearly a hundred surrendered Han troops, claiming he had come to report intelligence on the movements of Han Shizhong’s forces.

In that moment, He Wen — ragged, weak, gaunt, his crippled hand hanging even more uselessly at his side — appeared no threat at all, and the officer leading the company let his guard down, disarmed by the very weakness in He Wen’s hoarse voice.

Not long after, He Wen drew a small knife, and before the assembled ranks of the surrendered troops, slit the officer’s throat in a single stroke. Blood sprayed out in the firelight; he pulled out a black banner he had prepared in advance and raised it high. In the darkness of the surrounding hills, torches began flaring to life one after another, and shouts rose up on every side.

More than a hundred men laid down their arms then and there.

This was the beginning of the banner he had raised. If one sought his purest, original intention, He Wen had never truly wished to raise this black banner at all — he had not inherited the mantle of the Black Banner, and it had been nothing more than a cry of despair on his part. But once everyone had gathered under that name, it could never be shaken off again.

War raged everywhere, and wherever someone was willing to raise even a makeshift shelter, refugees would soon flock to it in great numbers. Clashes broke out constantly among the various militia bands, some of which would even attack surrendered Han forces still holding relatively ample supplies — those were the fiercest of all the militias, and it was exactly this kind of force that He Wen had raised. Drawing on what he remembered of the southwestern army’s training methods and organizational techniques, he organized the refugees who gathered to him — anyone who could hold a blade was made to hold one, formations once set were never to retreat, comradeship and mutual trust were cultivated deliberately, with regular meetings held to recount past suffering and denounce the Jurchens. Even the women and children were always given some collective task to perform.

A force organized in such haste was inevitably rigid and unpolished, but against the nearby surrendered Han troops, it proved more than sufficient. And it was precisely this manner of conduct that made people all the more convinced He Wen truly was a member of that legendary army — within little more than a month, the number gathering to him kept growing steadily. People remained hungry, but as spring brought new life to everything around them, and as He Wen led by example within this ragtag band, upholding a principle of fair distribution, the hungry, at least, were spared the horror of having to trade and eat each other’s children.

Cheng Zhouhai, one of the new emperor’s key men, once sought out He Wen, explaining to him the unavoidable circumstances behind Zhou Junwu’s departure and the determination behind the Zhou restoration, and speaking with him at length about the southwest as well — He Wen showed no gratitude for any of it. In truth, Cheng Zhouhai never understood that He Wen did not, in his heart, hate the new Zhou emperor either; in many ways, the man had done all he could — the sheer valor of his last stand outside Jiangning had, after all, battered Zongfu’s besieging army into disarray. And yet, doing one’s best was simply not enough.

At the same time, He Wen had little wish to dwell too much on the matter of the southwest, especially in front of another man who understood the situation there. He knew, in his own heart, that he was not truly a soldier of the Huaxia Army at all.

By the third month, this refugee army marching under the black banner had gained a name throughout all of Jiangnan, and even a fair number of local bandit strongholds had reached out to make contact with him. Wenren Buer came once to deliver supplies, and, along with extending goodwill, spoke with He Wen about Ning Yi as well — like Cheng Zhouhai before him, he failed to grasp the knot in He Wen’s heart, and in the end came away with nothing to show for it either.

On the eighth and ninth of the third month, word of the southwest’s victory had, in real terms, already begun spreading throughout Jiangnan, and the militia flying the black banner grew all the more renowned. Soon after, Wu Qimei’s essay from the court in Lin’an began circulating among the great clans in every region, and word of its talk of tyranny, of equality, soon reached a great many ears besides.

He Wen received the news from Lin’an while on the march north; traveling day and night with a handful of companions, he made his way along the roads near Lake Tai, heading toward Zhenjiang, and picked up word of it from local refugees near Suzhou. Among his companions was a swordsman named Huangfu Qing, a well-read man in his own right; after reading Wu Qimei’s essay, he grew excited. “Master He… is the southwest really such a place of equality?”

“…He did indeed once speak of the principle that all people are equal.”

Having read through Wu Qimei’s essay, He Wen understood at once the old dog’s malicious intent. Its account of conditions in the southwest was pure speculation, hardly worth mentioning — but at the mention of the word “equality,” He Wen hesitated slightly, and offered no further comment.

His identity as a member of the Peace and Order Bureau had already been exposed by the time Ning Yi returned to the southwest, and word of the Central Plains’ “Hungry Ghosts” had reached him, back at his own level, through some of the discussions among the staff officers. Ning Yi had offered advice to Wang Shitong, but Wang Shitong had refused to listen, and in the end the group of raiders living off plunder had swelled without check, drawing in a million lives before it was through.

How different, really, were the conditions in Jiangnan, his own circumstances, from those of the Hungry Ghosts?

Once the Jurchens had struck camp and departed, supplies across Jiangnan had run nearly to nothing, and the only path left to many was to turn blade against blade, devouring one another. Refugees, mountain bandits, righteous militias, and surrendered Han troops were all locked in struggle against each other — and he himself, waving his black banner, had watched his own ranks swell continuously, then turned that growing force against the Han army, growing larger still with each attack.

—In the end, this could only consume itself into oblivion.

He offered no further judgment on Wu Qimei’s essay, walking on in silence, turning the matter over in his mind, until by the afternoon of the eleventh they had reached a spot roughly a hundred li south of Zhenjiang.

The Jin army’s encampments stretched along both banks of the Yangtze, along with the million enslaved Han people they were driving northward — a column of people crossing the river that stretched on and on without end. Around its outer edges, units of surrendered Han troops patrolled as well. He Wen and his companions crept carefully closer to this, the most dangerous stretch of ground.

Toward evening, they rested for a while in the hills; the small party, not daring to light a fire, ate their meager rations in silence. He Wen sat on the grass, watching the setting sun — his clothes worn and tattered, his body still weak — and yet there was a certain strength within his silence that made the others reluctant to approach and disturb him.

Only once the sunset had deepened into a fierce red did he call Huangfu Qing and the others over.

“…When Master Ning was in the southwest, he did indeed speak, many times, of the idea that all people are equal. He said it was, beyond question, the ultimate and highest pursuit of human society. That however this world might change and change again, in the end, it must inevitably move in that direction.”

Some of those gathered around did not quite follow; others understood part of it. By now most of them wore solemn expressions. He Wen recalled, and went on. “Once, while I was in the southwest, I came across a certain piece of writing — I remember it clearly even now, it went something like this… From the fundamental principles of natural philosophy, and from observation of the world and society in which humankind lives, this basic rule may be discerned: within any society in which human beings live, every conscious and influenceable change arises from the actions of each individual who makes up that society. Guided by this basic rule, in pursuit of the fairness and justice that human society may genuinely and jointly attain, we hold that every person is born possessing the following legitimate and lawful rights: first, the right to life…”

He Wen spoke these words there in the sunset, and the others, to varying degrees, looked puzzled — until He Wen paused, and went on:

“Do you know why Wu Qimei of Lin’an wrote that essay? Because the very foundation of his court rests entirely on the great clans and gentry — and what those clans and gentry fear more than anything, ordinarily, is exactly this idea of equality… If everyone really were equal, by what right would they dine on fine food and silk while the rest of us go hungry? By what right does the landlord’s household hold vast fertile fields while you spend your whole life a tenant farmer? That old dog Wu Qimei believes that if he speaks of the Huaxia Army to these clans and gentry in these terms, they will grow afraid of the Huaxia Army, and rise up to strike it down.”

He swept his hand out, flinging away the pages of Wu Qimei’s essay and the others’, the sheets scattering in the light of the setting sun, and his voice grew hard and resolute. “…And what they fear — that is exactly what we ought to do! They fear equality — then we shall have equality! Once this venture succeeds, we will step forward, and tell everyone this idea of equality ourselves!”

“My friends,” He Wen said, “this world has already fallen! How many families have been shattered, how many wives and children scattered! And those great clans — while the Zhou dynasty stood, they lived off it, living better than anyone, doing nothing of real substance, holding office while accomplishing nothing! Taking a bit here, seizing a bit there, until they’d ruined the Zhou dynasty entirely — and then, having sold out the dynasty, having sold out people like us, they went right on living their comfortable lives! And why? Because they take and seize more than the rest of us — because a commoner’s life is worth nothing to them, treated like cattle and horses in times of peace, like ants once war comes! This cannot go on any longer. From this day forward, we will not let such people stand above us any longer!”

He Wen raised his fist. His mind had always worked quickly, and in his years in the southwest he had, in fact, come into contact with a great deal of the Huaxia Army’s internal culture and information — including a great many “doctrines,” whether fully developed or not, all of which the Huaxia Army had always encouraged people to discuss and debate freely. Now, even as he spoke, recalling all of it, he finally reached his decision.

“…How many great clans and gentry can there really be in this world? Those whose families have been shattered are the great majority now! We have all been exploited by the gentry, driven like pigs and sheep by the Jurchens — all because the vast majority of people in this world have always been treated as a faceless mob. But from now on, it will not be this way. We will explain the reasoning to them, make them understand — by what right are we unworthy of being treated as human beings! We will make them awaken, make them unite! And from this day forward, we shall be called—”

He paused, then finally, calm and resolute, struck the ground once with his hand: “—The Fairness Party!”

Excitement showed on every face; someone made to rise and cheer, but was stopped by the man beside him. He Wen looked at them, and in the light of the setting sun, saw within them the man he himself had once been, years ago in the southwest, and Ning Yi as well. He recalled the things Ning Yi had once said — “study first, take the examination after.” He recalled, too, the preconditions Ning Yi had once laid down for equality. And he recalled the complicated look on Ning Yi’s face whenever he had spoken of “overthrowing the local tyrants and dividing the land.” So many of these methods, in truth, had already been laid out before them all along.

The affairs of this world are forever driven onward by wind and rain.

We no longer have that luxury of time, do we?

Since they are so afraid of it.

Since there is no road left ahead of us.

Then let us overthrow the local tyrants, and divide the land.