The sound of explosions drifted faintly through the forest. Near the small county town, a scene of wartime bustle and chaos unfolded.

Soldiers came and went, leading horses and pushing supply carts into the dilapidated town; not far off, a unit was repairing the earthen wall with stones, while scouts on horseback came galloping back from the distance: “Jin dogs on all four sides…”

Qi Xinhan stood atop the city wall, watching all of this unfold.

This ruined, abandoned county town, with its crumbling walls, was called Chuanlin Fort, located in the mountains east of Xicheng County. In earlier years it had still been inhabited, but as the Jurchens pushed south and mountain bandits ran rampant, Xicheng County, under Dai Mengwei’s administration, had opened its gates to absorb the surrounding population, and this place had since been abandoned.

Though Dai Mengwei had shown tremendous sincerity in helping guide them toward Fancheng along the way, once his rallying cry brought Han troops flocking here to turn against the Jin, the force under Qi Xinhan’s command had not rushed straight in to join the festivities. Not putting all their eggs in one basket was a hard lesson learned in earlier, painful years.

Earlier, when Qi Xinhan’s three thousand men had been pursued relentlessly, Wang Zhainan had been among the first to arrive to rescue and support them — his troops weren’t strong, but at least they had numbers. Yet events had since proven that even the Chinese Army’s intelligence network had been partly deceived and manipulated under Dai Mengwei’s careful maneuvering. This time, with the Jurchens coming on so fiercely and the surrounding Han forces already closing in from a wide encirclement, Qi Xinhan had withdrawn his troops to Chuanlin Fort, momentarily uncertain whether to flee or risk a breakout.

With their intelligence network compromised and unreliable, attempting a breakout with just three thousand men would very likely mean being intercepted and cut off somewhere along the way. Once dragged into such a quagmire, the end result would likely be a humiliating, total annihilation.

This thousand-li raid on Xiangyang-Fancheng had, from the start, been an extraordinarily risky undertaking. But according to intelligence from the Bamboo Registry network, Dai and Wang’s movements had carried a certain degree of credibility, and moreover, even if the assault on Xiangyang-Fancheng failed, this joint strike with Dai and Wang would still serve to wake up many others still sitting on the fence. Who could have known that Dai Mengwei’s betrayal this time would come utterly without warning — the moment his position flipped, everyone was trapped in this killing ground. The Han troops who had originally intended to turn had been massacred, and the entire Han River region was now on edge, seeing enemies everywhere.

The greenwood fighters and Bamboo Registry intelligence operatives who had been active in this area were, at this very moment, likely also being hunted down without mercy.

Not far off, a group of men and horses was approaching, and upon drawing closer, was stopped by soldiers under Qi Xinhan’s command. Qi Xinhan waved and went forward to meet them. “General Wang, how is it?”

Wang Zhainan was a fierce-looking, middle-aged commander, square-jawed with a pockmarked face. He looked at Qi Xinhan now. “I’ve received word too. Over at Xicheng County, they’ve been all but wiped out.” He ground his teeth, lips trembling. “That old dog Dai — he’s sold every last one of us out.”

Qi Xinhan was silent for a moment. “Does General Wang know why Dai Mengwei turned on us this way? He must have realized that once the Jurchens leave, he won’t live long himself.”

“I don’t know… If I ever get the chance, I’ll tear him apart with my own hands!” Wang Zhainan growled under his breath, then looked at Qi Xinhan. “So what does General Qi plan to do next? Have you decided what to do with the rest of us?”

“We’ve fought side by side — there’s no question of what to ‘do’ with anyone.”

“It was that dog Dai and I together who lured you here — and you don’t suspect me?!” Wang Zhainan stared at Qi Xinhan, eyes wide.

Qi Xinhan looked back at him steadily. “Earlier intelligence made clear that you and Dai weren’t in any subordinate relationship — selling out this many people at once is the kind of thing where secrecy is hardest to maintain among many hands. Given how things stand now, I’m willing to bet General Wang knew nothing of this beforehand, and was used by Dai Mengwei just as we were… Though our earlier bet didn’t pay off, I hope this time General Wang won’t disappoint me.”

The evening sun was already sinking behind the mountains, the distant sound of fighting mingling with the clamor of voices nearby. Wang Zhainan stared hard at Qi Xinhan for a long moment with his fierce expression, then raised his hand and struck his own chest heavily. “For those words, from this day forward, my life and the lives of my twelve thousand-odd men belong to the Chinese Army. However you say we should do this — I’ll follow your lead.”

Qi Xinhan nodded. “Does General Wang know of Xia Village?”

Wang Zhainan nodded as well.

Qi Xinhan said, “Then let’s discuss how we’re going to fight this defensive battle…”

The men spread a map out atop the city wall as the sun set, the last rays of light glowing over the small mountain town. Everyone understood the situation was hopeless: Wanyan Xiyin had already arrived, and with Dai Mengwei’s betrayal, every potential ally within several hundred li had, in this single stroke, been swept up and neutralized. Without any foundation of allies to rely on, escape or maneuvering over any real distance had become impossible.

There was no path to heaven, no door into the earth.

But after all these years, everyone had already come to understand: no matter how loudly one might wail, it would do nothing to change what had already happened. So people could only face reality, and in this dead end, set about building whatever defenses they could. For they also understood that, hundreds of li away, someone was surely, at this very moment, striking against the Jurchens without pause, someone was surely doing everything possible to try to save them.

And they believed, too, that further still, the southwestern army was likewise surging like fire beneath the earth toward Jianmen Pass — and once they broke through that solid stopper, bursting forth like molten lava breaching the surface, there wouldn’t be much time left for the Jurchen western army.

The evening glow lingered long in the sky.

Across the vast expanse of sky, spanning hundreds of li of distance, at this very moment the Jin western army was spreading out from the mountain pass at Jiange toward Zhaohua, its vanguard already extending toward Hanzhong.

This army, along its march, presented a wretched sight — but driven by their longing for home and their grim awareness of what awaited them should they be defeated, they still maintained, under Zonghan’s leadership, a measure of fighting will. In fact, after more than a month of hardship, some of the soldiers had developed a savage edge, and on the battlefield fought with even greater ferocity and desperation. Though this did nothing to increase the army’s overall strength, it at least kept its fighting capacity from falling below a basic threshold.

In a certain sense, this too was a manifestation of the Jurchens’ decades-long pride burning itself out in one final flare.

The Jin troops withdrawing from the Jiange direction now numbered close to sixty thousand in total, while near Zhaohua, of the more than ten thousand men that Xiyin’s main force had originally taken with him, over ten thousand elite Tushan Guard soldiers had now been returned to Zonghan’s command. Beyond these seventy thousand-odd men, more than two hundred thousand Han troops remained scattered around the area, treated essentially as cannon fodder. These Han troops, having spent the past year sacking cities and looting the countryside, amassing enormous quantities of gold and silver, and having their hands stained deep with blood, had by now become relatively steadfast supporters of the Jin cause.

On their flank, Qin Shaoqian, leading the Chinese Army’s Seventh Army, had already launched several attacks throughout April — one attempting a frontal assault on Zonghan, one against Jiange, and one toward Hanzhong. Among these, Tushan Guard had clashed with them once and appeared, at one point, unable to hold its ground — but given that Zonghan still held the advantage in numbers, Qin Shaoqian’s attacks, though inflicting notable damage each time and striking considerable fear into the enemy, were ultimately all countered and neutralized by Zonghan with relative composure.

From Zhaohua toward Jiange, one could already see, from a great distance, columns of smoke rising among the mountains within that formidable pass. By now, a force of several thousand men under Sheyema’s command had already withdrawn from Jiange — he was the second-to-last of the senior Jurchen commanders to leave the pass, and the only high-ranking Jurchen commander still holding position within it now was Balisu.

Throughout the retreat from the southwest, Sheyema had frequently found himself active on the battlefields requiring rearguard action. His fierce fighting had bolstered Jurchen morale, and to a considerable degree, had also served as tremendous training for himself.

After the army left Huangming County, the intensity of the Chinese Army’s pursuit had diminished, leaving the defense of the Jiange pass as the key remaining piece of this campaign. Sheyema had originally volunteered to personally lead troops in holding Jiange, blocking the Chinese Army’s Fifth Army from breaking out through the pass — but this time, neither his father nor Balisu had agreed to this idea. His father had, in fact, sent down a strict order commanding him to catch up with the main army’s advance as quickly as possible, leaving Sheyema feeling somewhat disappointed.

Judging from the situation in the latter half of the retreat, the Chinese Army had already begun conserving use of its devastatingly powerful firearms — likely meaning the supply of such weapons had, as expected, run low. On the other hand, based on his own observations and calculations over this period, Sheyema had come to suspect that this Chinese Army in the southwest was very possibly facing other, more complicated troubles of its own. By the time he left Jiange today, Balisu’s own words had confirmed that Sheyema’s suspicions were indeed highly plausible.

“…Nearly half a year of fighting now, and this Chinese Army in the southwest has suffered no small casualties… Ning Yi’s manpower was already stretched thin to begin with, and over this past month or so, several tens of thousands of prisoners have been trapped in the mountains, unable to be moved out. The Chinese Army before us right now is like a great serpent that swallowed an elephant — even a slight movement now, and its own belly might burst. In truth, given the chance, I’d rather press forward again and take the gamble — who knows, this army might well collapse under its own weight…”

Balisu’s thinking filled in exactly what Sheyema himself had already suspected, and it truly proved the old saying — an old hand knows best. Sheyema had merely thought that cutting off Jiange would allow the main army to regroup and face Qin Shaoqian’s bold, isolated force at their leisure — perhaps even, right before Ning Yi’s very eyes, severing one arm of the Chinese Army entirely, leaving them to gaze helplessly at Jiange in frustration. He had never imagined that Balisu still harbored thoughts of pushing back into the southwest once more.

Such an action would be an all-or-nothing gamble, a nine-deaths-one-life proposition — but if it succeeded, at this very moment when the Chinese Army had let its guard down, what a magnificent feat of arms it would be. Unfortunately, in the current state of affairs following Xiebao’s death, he knew perfectly well that neither his father nor the army would allow him to take such a risk again.

That left him only one option: to go to the main camp and request permission from his father to join in the encirclement and annihilation of Qin Shaoqian’s Chinese Seventh Army.

The setting sun blazed across the sky, and the army’s banners stretched endlessly forward along the muddy road. The crushing defeat, the deaths of his brothers and comrades, still churned within him — but in this moment, he felt afraid of nothing at all.

Let our view now extend further to the southwest.

Beyond Jiange, the once winding, tortuous road was now piled high with all manner of supplies and equipment used to block the way. In some places the road had been blown apart; in others, it had been deliberately dug up. Along the rugged mountain ridges flanking the road, the blackened traces of spreading fires could be seen everywhere, and in some sections, flames still burned on.

Fifty li ahead of Jiange, near Huangming County and Yushui Creek, one camp after another had begun springing up across the mountainous terrain. The Chinese Army’s black banner, bearing the lone star, fluttered among the hills, its camps built along the road, sheltering vast numbers of prisoners. Across the winding mountain roads, columns of prisoners were being marched to the rear, the crowds packed tightly through the mountains, their pace slow.

Even in this territory now firmly under Chinese Army control, columns of smoke could still occasionally be seen rising in the nearby mountains. Every day, small-scale skirmishes continued to break out across this wild terrain. Though large numbers of Jurchen soldiers had already been taken prisoner during their disorderly flight, several thousand fierce Jin troops had still fled into the surrounding dense forests, and now, realizing they could no longer make it home, they responded to any engagement by setting fire after fire ablaze. The flames spread widely, and in many cases the men who set them ended up burning themselves alive — but they still caused the Chinese Army considerable trouble. Several of these fires had even spread to prisoner camps set up along the mountain roads; the Chinese Army had ordered prisoners to cut down trees to build firebreaks, and on one or two occasions, prisoners had tried to use the chaos of the fires to escape, with a number of them burning to death in the spreading flames.

As dusk fell, looking out from a wooden shelter on the hillside west of Huangming County, one could still see black smoke rising from the distant forests. Below the hillside, a long, narrow camp stretched along the road, holding several thousand Jurchen prisoners intermingled with Chinese Army units, extending several li through the valley.

This spacious shelter on the hillside served as the command post for this section of the army camp. Chinese Army soldiers moved back and forth within it, a steady murmur of activity filling the space. At a wooden table near the window, several newly arrived young men sat together with Ning Xi, who managed some of the affairs in this area, listening to him describe the problems they’d been running into lately.

“…The available manpower ran out long ago.” Ning Xi leaned against the long table as he spoke. “Right now there are still nearly thirty thousand prisoners being held in the mountains, and nearly half of them are wounded. A broken mountain road is hard enough to travel as it is, and the prisoners aren’t especially cooperative either — get them into a long column heading out and they can’t even manage ten-odd li in a day, and the road keeps jamming up along the way. Some try to escape, some fake illness, some want to die outright, and there are a few reckless ones in the forest who’ll start a fight at the slightest provocation…”

“…When fighting breaks out in the forest, someone sets a fire, and then the prisoners on the road start stirring restlessly again. They move slowly, and on top of that we have to keep them fed and watered — medicine and grain have to be hauled in from outside the mountains, which means half of an already broken road gets tied up just for that. Between the stopping and starting, it takes a whole month just to get them all out. And beyond that, patrolling fifty li of mountain road alone eats up a huge amount of manpower — we have to keep pulling people from other duties for patrol rotations, and we occasionally lose some too. We’re stretched painfully thin.”

“…The most troublesome issue, though, is disease prevention. It’s already summer now, and when men die in the mountains, their bodies rot — if we’re not careful, it could set off a plague. If a real epidemic broke out, the consequences would be unthinkable. Only now do I understand why Wu Anjun, Bai Qi, buried alive over four hundred thousand men back in his day. We can’t do mass burial like that — just look outside, I wouldn’t even be surprised if those prisoners suddenly rioted and charged up here right now…”

Ning Xi rubbed his temples, then suddenly laughed. “…Good thing you all are here, though — every one of you, no escaping it now. You’re here to help me with this.”

“That’s exactly why we came,” someone replied.

The several young men gathered here all came from military families as well. If Yuwen Feidu, Xiao Hei, and the others represented the first generation of young talent that Ning Yi had cultivated through the Bamboo Registry and the Chinese Army, and Hou Yuanyong, Peng Yueyun, Zuo Wenhuai, and the rest of their generation counted as the second, then Ning Xi, Min Chuyi, and this current group could be considered the third generation.

They had all known each other for a long time. At the start of the great campaign, these young men, only just having come of age, had been assigned throughout various parts of the army to familiarize themselves with different kinds of work; now, with the fighting winding down, they had been reassigned here to Ning Xi’s team to organize a small operational unit. The one behind this arrangement was not Ning Yi himself, but rather Su Tan’er, far away in Chengdu, along with several senior veteran officials led by Su Wenfang and Su Wending of the Su family — though Ning Yi, for his part, had no particular objection to the arrangement.

The immediate task at hand was assigning and organizing duties among them. The young men gathered here all had ambitions toward the battlefield, and when asked about the situation ahead at Jiange, Ning Xi fell briefly silent. “The mountain road is difficult to travel, and the obstacles and damage the Jurchens left behind can all be gotten past, but the rearguard forces are proving hard to break through without resorting to the Diyi rockets. Balisu’s resolve in covering the retreat is extremely firm — he’s stationed what amount to ‘suicide squads’ along the road, ordering them to hold their ground to the death. Even with Division Commander Qu personally leading the advance, we’ve taken no small casualties.”

The others exchanged glances. “The Jurchens’ savage nature is still very much alive, and after all these years, many of them still have families waiting back in the north. If Balisu is using that as leverage, it really will be difficult to easily push our way to the pass at Jiange.”

“…The Jurchens can’t hold Jiange forever, though. Once their main force retreats past it, the pass will eventually be ours regardless.”

“But that means their main force outside the pass has already swollen to nearly a hundred thousand. General Qin, with just over twenty thousand men, can’t overpower Zonghan and Xiyin combined — and might even risk being swallowed up by Zonghan instead. Only by breaking through Jiange at the fastest possible speed can we regain the strategic initiative.”

Amid this discussion, Ning Ji came in through the shelter’s door, looked over at the group, fell silent for a moment, and then asked, “Brother, Chuyi wants to know — will you be having rice or steamed buns for dinner tonight?”

Ning Xi, in the middle of talking with the others, felt his face flush slightly at the question. He never went in for any special treatment within the army, but perhaps because Min Chuyi had come along with everyone today and wanted to bring him his meal, hence the question. He answered, face reddening, “Whatever everyone else is having, I’ll have. What’s there to even ask about that?”

Ning Ji, impatiently: “Tonight the mess hall made both rice and steamed buns!”

Ning Xi waved a hand. “Fine, fine. Whatever you’re having, I’ll have.”

Ning Ji looked at him. “…I’m having shit.”

The wooden shelter fell silent for a moment, and then someone drinking water couldn’t help but spit it out. The young men all burst out laughing, and even the people scattered throughout the command post nearby had to hold back their own laughter. Ning Xi took a deep breath. “…Just tell Chuyi, whatever’s fine.”

“Chuyi wanted to bring you your meal out of kindness, and you’re treating good intentions like they were nothing at all.”

Having said this flatly, Ning Ji turned and walked out, and only then did everyone in the room burst into laughter, some laughing so hard they fell off their stools, while others asked, “What’s gotten into Little Ji? Is he in a bad mood?”

Ning Xi covered his forehead with his hand. “He wants to go to the front lines as an army medic, but Father won’t allow it, and put me in charge of keeping an eye on him, giving him some made-up excuse about protecting me personally. Of course his mood’s terrible… I’m the unlucky one here…”

Amid the chatter and laughter that followed, in the glow of the setting sun, someone noticed another column of smoke rising in the distance, and everyone stood up to look, knowing that beyond that mountain, another skirmish had surely just broken out. The mood within the camp turned strange and uneasy as well, with many of the prisoners below gazing off toward that rising smoke.

Though there had been some laughter just moments before, the atmosphere both inside and outside the mountains was, in truth, stretched taut as a bowstring. Everyone understood that amid such tension, all sorts of unexpected incidents could occur at any moment. Defeat was never easy to bear, but even after victory, what still lay ahead was a wire growing ever thinner underfoot. Only now did everyone feel more keenly just how unforgiving this world could be. Ning Xi’s gaze lingered on the column of smoke for a while, then turned toward the northeast, and in a low voice, he said to the others:

“The assault on Jiange will happen within the next few days…”

……

Not far now from Jiange, at Shili Ji.

Troops who had already taken this position and spent half a day making repairs bathed in the evening sun amid the ruins.

Mao Yishan, having just finished cremating a fallen comrade’s body, allowed the army physician to tend to his wound once more. Someone brought over dinner, and as he chewed his food from a tin container, the taste of blood still lingered in his mouth.

Every survival was worth celebrating, but every survival, without fail, came paired with the loss of some familiar comrade — and so there was not much joy left in his heart.

Eating quietly, he turned his gaze toward the northeast. From the corner of his eye, he saw Qu Zhengyan approaching along with two other regimental commanders skilled in siege warfare. As they drew near, they asked after his condition. “You doing alright?”

“Still fit to fight.”

“Just got word from outside the mountains — thought I’d fill you all in first,” Qu Zhengyan said. “By the Han River, Dai Mengwei, who had joined forces with us earlier, has betrayed us…”

Under the setting sun, Qu Zhengyan calmly recounted to the men what was happening a thousand li away, describing the contact between the two sides, then pointed toward Jiange. “From here, it’s still ten li. Within three days, I intend to take Jiange from Balisu’s hands. This battle will come at considerable cost — prepare yourselves.”

Mao Yishan snapped to attention and saluted.

……

Atop the walls of Jiange, at this very moment, Balisu was likewise watching the burning sunset spreading over from beyond the mountains.

What he had told Sheyema had been only a partial truth.

He was a seasoned Jurchen veteran, having spent his entire life rolling through the fires of war, and precisely because of this, he understood, more keenly than almost anyone, just how vital this chokepoint of Jiange truly was. If the Chinese Army took Jiange, they would link up their Fifth and Seventh Armies in mutual support, seizing the strategic initiative outright. But if Jiange could not be taken, then even the victory the Chinese Army had won in the southwest might suffer a sudden and devastating reversal.

More than five months of war had passed, and the Chinese Army’s manpower had, in truth, grown painfully thin. But given Ning Yi’s capability and vision — and above all, that particular temperament of his, the kind that would never yield an inch when cornered in a narrow pass — after killing Xiebao right in front of Zonghan, no matter the cost, he would surely move with the greatest possible speed and the most ferocious possible methods to try to seize Jiange.

Having witnessed the outcome of the Battle of Wangyuan Bridge, Balisu understood, deep in his heart, that this chokepoint before him would be one of the most difficult battles he would ever face in his entire life. If he failed, he would die here. If he succeeded, he would return as a hero, having salvaged Great Jin’s fate.

What brought him some measure of comfort was that this choice, in the end, was not a difficult one to make. The outcome he would face was equally clear.

He would hold this formidable pass, and would not let the Chinese Army advance a single step further.

……

At this moment, from the banks of the Han River, to Jiange, and on to Zizhou — across this vast expanse of a thousand li — the entire land had drawn taut as a single, tightly strung wire. Even as Dai Mengwei was beheading tens of thousands at Xicheng County, Qi Xinhan was holding Chuanlin Fort to the death; Qin Shaoqian and Zonghan’s great armies maneuvered and clashed west of Hanzhong; and the Chinese Fifth Army, having already stretched itself to the very limit in stabilizing the rear, now had to summon everything it had to force its way out through the pass at Jiange. The war was drawing near its end, and it seemed as though people were burning through sheer willpower to set both sky and earth ablaze.

The great fire was about to come surging forth—