As the sun was about to set, lights came alive in Duxi Town, on the northern bank of the Yangtze.

Within the once tastefully antique compound of dark grey brick and stone, banners now stood raised; Jurchen commanders and elite Iron Pagoda troops moved in and out of the small town on every side. Along the town’s outskirts, an unbroken sprawl of military camps stretched all the way from the hills to the north to the riverbank to the south.

The leadership of the victorious, homeward-bound Jurchen Eastern Route Army was now stationed here, on this stretch of land north of the river, celebrating each day amid noise and revelry as they waited for the million enslaved Han people seized in this southern campaign to finish crossing the river. Only in the past few days had the festive atmosphere begun, at last, to cool somewhat.

The senior commanders, led by Zongfu and Zongbi, were now going over the intelligence from the southwest again and again, running through the battle repeatedly, adjusting their understanding as fuller reports arrived. Across the more than three thousand li separating them, this news had, for a time, left the triumphant commanders of the Eastern Route Army utterly unable to make sense of it.

Though the two Route Armies, and the two “courts” of east and west, had always stood in a state of direct or indirect rivalry, on hearing of the crushing setback Zonghan and the others had suffered in the southwest, the commanders of the Eastern Route Army could not help but feel a certain kinship in misfortune. Stronger still than that feeling was the bewilderment and unease stirred by something in the southwest that lay entirely beyond their grasp, beyond their understanding.

Even amid this state of rivalry, with its occasional friction and its share of mockery exchanged between the two sides, the Eastern Route commanders had always held a clear sense of just how formidable men like Zonghan and Xiyin truly were. Even Wuzhu — arrogant by temperament, always somehow deflated whenever he met with Xiyin — had never failed to acknowledge the strength of men like Zonghan and Xiyin; at most, he simply felt himself no less capable in his own right.

Wanyan Xiebao’s thirty thousand men, defeated at the hands of Ning Yi’s mere seven thousand, the entire force captured, Xiebao himself cut down before Zonghan’s very eyes — the sorcery, so to speak, that Ning Yi was said to have employed was almost unimaginable to these victors three thousand li away. Though the reports did describe the Huaxia Army’s new firearms, in the eyes of men like Zongfu and Zongbi, there was simply no believing that any weapon in this world could truly be invincible.

Of course, some new type of firearm might well exist — but at the same time, Wanyan Xiebao’s poor response, and the endless cunning schemes of that Heart Demon Ning Yi, must surely also bear much of the blame for the humiliating loss of an entire thirty-thousand-strong army — and beyond that, the blame must also fall on poor deployment on the part of Zonghan and Xiyin. This, they felt, was the most reasonable way to see it.

With Zonghan and Xiyin holding the field, the Jurchen Western Route Army was, without question, a force that had once swept unchallenged across the realm. But on the eastern side, aside from Zongfu and Zongbi, who commanded troops by virtue of their status as princes rather than seniority to match veterans like Zonghan and Xiyin, most of the men serving under them were old hands who had once campaigned alongside the Jurchen war-god Wanyan Zongwang himself. Respect and deference toward Zonghan and Xiyin in the past was one thing — but now that the other side had suffered defeat, these men, placing themselves in that position, did not necessarily believe they themselves would have failed under the same circumstances.

“…The total loss at Wangyuan Bridge owes more than anything to the Prince of Baoshan’s own reckless overreach!”

Over the past several days, there had been no shortage of analysis of the distant battle, and many of these views were sharp and pointed.

“…Fighting on unfamiliar ground against that cunning, treacherous Heart Demon renowned across the realm, Wanyan Xiebao chose to advance his entire force at once. Thirty thousand men gave up the advantage of terrain to cross the river, knowing full well that Ning Yi’s leisurely troop movements were meant to draw him in — and yet, confident in his numbers, he charged straight ahead regardless. He arrogantly accepted the very battlefield Ning Yi had carefully chosen for him, believing that numbers alone would win the day. Did he take Ning Yi for a fool…”

“…As for countering their firearms, we’ve had plenty of experience with that before — advancing during rainy weather, or using light cavalry to circle around and break their formation. I saw no sign the Prince of Baoshan made any such preparations. This defeat was entirely his own doing…”

“…To lose thirty thousand men before Ning Yi is certainly enough to shake morale, but does that mean the war cannot be fought at all? Look at what this report actually says — pure boasting! I’ll say just one thing — if Ning Yi’s firearms truly had the power to raze heaven and earth, the mountain paths beyond Jiange wind on and on; he could simply hold the pass and slaughter anyone who came through. If I had such a weapon in my own hands, what would our Jin state care for anything — we’d be marching on Yunzhong Prefecture by next year—”

“If you ask me… we could finish pacifying Yunzhong by the second half of this year alone…”

“The road is long, the journey exhausting — with a weapon capable of razing heaven and earth in hand, why would we still need to march our troops so far to campaign? Might as well take our time and enjoy the scenery along the way… or wait until next year — who knows, they might surrender before we even arrive…”

Among the assembled commanders, some mocked the news from the southwest, others grew angry over it — but what was truly beginning to take shape beneath this news lay hidden beneath the public chatter.

An undercurrent was building beneath what looked, on the surface, like an ordinary stretch of calm water.

Through the window of a riverside pavilion, Wanyan Zongbi gazed out at the darkening surface of the Yangtze, watching great ships still moving across the water not far off. The scantily clad women of the Zhou dynasty, forced to sing and dance for entertainment, had been sent away; his elder brother Zongfu sat silent at the dining table.

“…The news these past two days — I still find it… hard to believe. Baoshan cut down on the battlefield, and Marshal Zonghan himself… beginning to turn and retreat. Fourth brother, this isn’t like him at all — when have you ever known Nian Han to act this way? He is a hero, cut from the same cloth as our eldest brother himself.”

Zongbi looked out the window. “…He has grown old.”

“…When I saw him before, I never sensed anything of the sort. I had thought, in this war in the southwest, he had already resolved to fight to the death, without pause…”

“He has grown old,” Zongbi repeated. “Old, and so he now seeks safety above all. If this had been only a minor setback, I think he would still press forward without hesitation. But he has met an opponent who can truly match him — Ning Yi defeated Baoshan, and killed him face to face. After losing his son, Zonghan seems, instead, to have concluded… that we Jurchens have finally met a true and formidable enemy. He believes he is cutting his losses to preserve what strength remains, and wishes only to withdraw north with it intact. Brother — that, right there, is what it means to have grown old.”

“That may well be.” Zongfu considered this, then nodded. “When Father first rose against the Liao, whatever enemy he faced, however formidable, he simply charged forward without hesitation — and eldest brother too… in those early years, when did either of them ever face a battle they were certain to win? Nian Han has campaigned his whole life; it’s not impossible that, grown old, he’s come to think this way now… ah, I had thought Gushen would talk him out of it — how did it come to this…”

“Gushen, indeed!” Zongbi turned back, his eyes flashing with anger. “I gave him thirty thousand cavalry — if he doesn’t bring them back to me, he’ll see what I do to him!”

In Zongfu’s heart, men like Zonghan and Xiyin still commanded considerable authority, and he made no comment on the word “do.” Zongbi thought quietly for a moment, then spoke again. “Brother, these past few years there have been more and more civil officials at court, and some talk circulating — I wonder if you’ve heard any of it.”

“Aren’t the civil officials mostly on close terms with Gushen and Elder Shi…”

“Xiyin admires Han scholarship, but Han scholarship hardly holds him in the same regard.” Zongbi gave a cold laugh. “Our great Jin state won the realm from horseback, but that does not mean we can govern the realm from horseback as well. To govern properly, we need to cultivate civil administration. In the past, people said Xiyin’s grasp of Han learning ran deep — but that was only because, among all our brothers and uncles, he happened to have read a bit more than the rest. Now that our great Jin holds the realm, with officials submitting to us from every direction, Xiyin… hmph. Among those who understand Han scholarship, he’s simply the best fighter of the lot!”

“…” Zongfu listened, and nodded.

“They say the realm may be won from horseback but cannot be governed from horseback — what does that really mean? Our great Jin’s old ways will, little by little, become outdated. Zonghan, Xiyin, even you and I, brother… all these years of campaigning and slaughter — our numbers have grown, our weapons have improved, and yet against a mere Zhou dynasty, the campaign has dragged on even longer than our war against the Liao. Why?” He paused. “The methods of Zonghan and Xiyin — they too, little by little, are becoming outdated…”

Zongbi’s brow furrowed.

“My own advisors once spoke to me of this very matter — why should we even concern ourselves with this so-called Western Court, they said, a decrepit relic bound to melt away like old snow sooner or later. Even in this southern campaign, when Zonghan and Xiyin adopted such a ferocious posture before it began, you and I ought to have noticed something in it. They spoke of settling the realm in one decisive battle — but was that not, in a way, itself a sign that they sensed something? This world is simply too vast; force alone, campaign after campaign, is gradually becoming untenable. Zonghan and Xiyin — this is fear, brother.”

Zongfu frowned as well. “But warfare and slaughter still require raw courage, in the end.”

“They require courage, yes, but of a different kind than before.” Zongbi said. “When you and I were young, we still played in the snow up in the mountains, surrounded by Jurchen men who had nothing to their names, who went hungry through the winter. In those days, a single wave of the hand and men went out to fight without hesitation — that’s how our people earned the name that once terrified all who faced us: ‘unmatched, ten thousand strong or more.’ But after decades of campaigning, after conquering the Liao, men now have households of their own, ties that bind them — and when the call to battle comes now, and the arm rises to wave men forward, fewer are truly willing to throw their lives away without a second thought.”

Zongbi laughed coldly. “Zonghan, Xiyin and the rest treat this as a mortal crisis threatening our entire Jurchen people — they believe that once we lose that reckless, nothing-to-lose ferocity, our great Jin’s foundation itself teeters on the edge of ruin. But all of this is simply the natural course of things — once we’ve come this far, this is simply what this stage looks like; how could it be otherwise? They believe that without the recklessness born of having nothing to lose, we have nothing left at all — but I don’t see it that way. The Liao lasted several hundred years, the Zhou dynasty several hundred years as well — how did they manage it?”

“The realm may be won from horseback but cannot be governed from horseback — that is exactly the principle at work here! We Jurchens may no longer have the same reckless, unattached men we had twenty years ago, but does that mean battlefield courage can only come from men with nothing to lose? On the battlefield there is military law, there is incentive, there is training, and once a nation grows large enough, there is also that thing called… the civilizing effect of proper governance. Whether men are willing to charge into battle for our great Jin depends on whether we can find the right way to train and cultivate them for it.”

“Zonghan and Xiyin only know how to press forward. They’ve grown old, and having met a truly formidable enemy, their hearts simply couldn’t bear it — they took it as an existential threat to the Jin state itself. But as people outside have rightly pointed out these past few days — had Baoshan not been so reckless and lacking in strategy, handing every advantage of timing and terrain to Ning Yi, how could Ning Yi possibly have won so cleanly! Had he simply chosen a different position, not backed his force against an isolated bridge, even thirty thousand men could have made their escape!”

“…Brother, it’s only now that I’ve truly worked all this through. In the past, whenever the thought crossed my mind, I refused to admit it even to myself.” Zongbi went on. “But look at the record these past years, brother — Loushi fell to the Black Banner, Cibushi fell to the Black Banner, Yinshuke fell to the Black Banner, and now Zonghan has suffered a crushing defeat in the southwest, his own son killed… these were formidable generals, each one more capable than the last under Zonghan’s command — and yet, the more capable a man is, the more convinced he becomes that his old methods of warfare could never be wrong.”

“Relying on sheer raw courage and pressing ever forward, rigid and unyielding to the utmost — this defeated the Liao, and it defeated the Zhou dynasty too. But against an opponent like Ning Yi, who tempers hardness with flexibility, they’ve fallen, one after another, into defeat after defeat. In truth, I think, in the end, it’s simply that the times are changing, and they refuse to change with them — and so, little by little, they’ve walked their road to its very end. Twenty years ago, they waved a hand and said, charge forward, and everyone charged forward and fought to the death. Twenty years later, they still wave a hand and say the same thing — but fewer men are willing to throw their lives away now, and there’s nothing to be done about that.”

Ordinarily arrogant by nature, Zongbi spoke these words now with his hands clasped behind his back, his tone strikingly calm. The room fell into a somewhat desolate quiet; after a moment, Zongfu let out a sigh. “These past few days, I’ve heard others speak of this privately as well, and it does seem to carry some truth to it… but fourth brother, we are, after all, more than three thousand li away — it’s hard to say for certain what the true circumstances behind it all really are.”

“I’m only speculating myself.” Zongbi gave a slight smile. “There may well be other factors at play too, who’s to say. Ah, well — the distance is simply too great, and the setback in the southwest, in the end, lies beyond our reach either way. All these matters will have to wait until we’re back home to discuss properly. Whatever the case, you and I, at least, have not disgraced our mission on this campaign. When the time comes, we’ll see how Zonghan and Xiyin explain all this to the rest of us — and to His Majesty.”

Having said this, Zongfu could not help but smile as well, then shook his head with a chuckle. “Let’s eat.”

In truth, though Zongfu and Zongbi appeared outwardly anxious about the situation with Zonghan’s forces, and the senior commanders continued to debate and replay the battle among themselves, bringing the victory celebrations to a temporary halt, in private the festive mood among the men had not actually died down at all — they had simply taken to summoning women into their quarters for private revelry instead of gathering openly to celebrate.

The two brothers exchanged their thoughts, then sat down together to drink and enjoy themselves. By now it was already the night of the fourteenth of the third month; darkness had swallowed the last light of day, and in the distance, scattered lights spread across the surface of the Yangtze, every ship carrying home the fruits of their triumphant campaign. But deep in the night, a small messenger boat came racing toward Duxi, and someone woke Zongbi from his sleep.

Trouble had broken out south of the Yangtze.

A militia flying the black banner had infiltrated the camp of surrendered Han troops outside Zhenjiang, killed a Han officer named Niu Tusong, and thrown the camp into chaos; the gates of a nearby prison camp holding close to twenty thousand captured craftsmen had been thrown open, and the enslaved Han people had scattered into the night in every direction.

“The Black Banner?” On hearing the name, Zongbi could not help but pause for a moment, startled.

Ever since the Jurchens had ravaged Jiangnan, with families shattered across every region, militias flying banners of resistance against the Jin had sprung up in great numbers — but almost none had ever truly dared to strike at the Jurchens directly, let alone succeed at it through any real degree of organization. Zongbi had, of course, been aware that in the first month, a group had begun gathering refugees under the name of the Black Banner in Jiangnan — but that they would now come charging in to rescue captives, and stir up such chaos in the process…

…could this Black Banner truly be the real thing?

A moment later, furious at himself for that brief hesitation, he snapped: “Send the order to muster the troops! Since there are still men here with no fear of death, I shall grant them their wish—”

By the time dawn approached, the order to wipe out this band of bandits and the escaped captives had already reached the land south of the Yangtze, and the Jin forces still waiting to cross the river at Zhenjiang stirred once more into motion.

In the middle and latter part of the third month, word spread throughout Jiangnan that He Wen’s Huaxia militia had struck into the Jurchen camp and rescued nearly eight thousand captured Han civilians. The Jurchens responded with a fresh wave of slaughter. And soon after, amid the bloodshed and violence that followed, the name of the Fairness Party entered into people’s awareness.

At that very same moment, a true feast of blood and fire, in all its ferocity, was unfolding deep in the mountains of the southwest. Even as our gaze turns now toward every corner of the realm, the fierce clashing and countering of armies had not paused, not for a single moment, along that stretch of mountain road running on for a hundred li.

To decide the fate of the Jin state’s rise, to eliminate the last great threat to its future, over these past several months Wanyan Zonghan’s great army had charged fiercely into these mountains — and now, in pursuit of that very same goal, they were fighting their way back out along that same narrow, winding mountain road. Fierce and eager on the way in, on the way out they remained no less ferocious as beasts — only now, drenched in far more blood, and touched, in certain respects, with something almost tragic enough to move the heart.

However lightly people thousands of li away might speak of it, what was unfolding at this moment in the mountains of the southwest could truly be called the struggle of this era’s mightiest.

“…Meow, meow, meow.”

At the very moment he received the mocking essay sent from Lin’an, firelight from the “Dijiang” streaked across the night sky. Beside him, Hongti turned her head, looking toward Ning Yi, who had raised the letter and let out an odd sound.

“Huh?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re joking… savage, cunning, mad, tyrannical… since when am I any of those things?”

Not far off, flames burst open with a roar along the mountain road beneath the night sky, blazing wild.

“…Bastard, slandering me like that…”