Just as the Hour of the Monkey began, signs of slaughter appeared in the mountains west of Lueyang County.

Sharp, piercing whistling arrows rose from the forest, shattering the quiet of the afternoon. The Jin vanguard was marching through a mountain road several li away; their advancing pace halted for a moment as officers turned their gaze toward the source of the sound, and nearby scouts moved rapidly in that direction.

For any truly elite force capable of fighting across a battlefield, scouts had always been the key to war—soldiers who could be sent out, complete their mission, and make it back were prized within any unit. In the old Wu dynasty armies, scouting duty had usually fallen to a commander’s personal guards or retainers—few in number, well cared for, but unable to cover much distance, and once ambushed, largely helpless to fight back.

For the Jin forces, and even for units on the level of the Tushan Guard, it was standard for scouts to sweep one or two li ahead of the main force with no blind spots as the army advanced. Naturally, when armies of comparable caliber met, wars often began with a scout skirmish. During the Jin conquest of Liao, there had been more than a few instances where scout clashes escalated into calls for reinforcements and eventually a full-scale decisive battle.

Of course, with so many scouts sent out, false alarms were inevitable at times. After the first whistling arrow rose, the Jin general Pucha lifted his spyglass to observe the next development. Before long, a second whistling arrow flew up as well. This meant contact had indeed been made.

The forward scouts swept and converged toward that direction. For the Jurchens, this round they were the attacking side, holding superior numbers—once they caught the enemy, they could bite down and hold, with the rear echelon of mobile support troops flowing in steadily to reinforce. With Balishu holding Jiange, this advantage would remain constant.

So the formation of the troops on the road shifted, and they quickly readied themselves for battle.

…

Longswords clashed heavily in the air, steel striking sparks. Both sides charged without hesitation the instant their gazes crossed. The Huaxia soldier was slightly shorter, but already bore traces of blood on his body. The Jurchen scout, seasoned by hard combat, took three head-on blows, and seeing the other man not slow his advance at all, closing in to trade his life for his enemy’s, sidestepped slightly at the last moment—and the whistling heavy-backed blade came down in that same motion, severing one of his arms.

On a battlefield, victory and defeat can turn in the blink of an eye. The Jurchen scout, a hardened veteran, tried to roll away the instant his arm was severed—but in the next moment, his head went flying.

The last thing flashing through his mind was the “rank insignia” on the shoulder of that Huaxia soldier. This Huaxia soldier looked to be no more than twenty-something, young in appearance, even clean-shaven with no beard at all—but judging by his insignia, he was already a “regimental commander” within the Huaxia Army, equivalent on the Jurchen side to a meng’an commanding a thousand men.

Had he not glimpsed that insignia, the Jurchen scout would not have instinctively retreated on the fourth strike. In truth, had he faced a slightly weaker opponent, his arm would not have been severed, nor his head sent flying. He was, after all, a veteran of many years of battle.

The heavy-backed blade swung through the air, blood scattering across the ground, staining the grass and brush with speckles of red. Chen Hai tightened the red silk bound around his wrist. This bout of slaughter was nearing its end; more Jurchen scouts were approaching from a distance, and nearby comrades watched their surroundings warily while closing in.

“Move the wounded out first,” Chen Hai said, looking ahead. “We head south. Notify the two companies behind us not to close in too quickly—stay hidden. There are too many of them. Try to draw them to the Mudflat and mass our strength there for one concentrated clash.”

As he spoke, an observer who had ridden up to a high point on a nearby ridge came over as well: “Pucha has deployed his formation. Looks like he’s preparing to attack.”

“Just as the staff office predicted—the Jurchens’ urge to attack is strong. Everyone, string your crossbows. We fight and withdraw as we go.”

The scout unit gathered briefly, then crossed the ridge, turning toward the slopes to the south. The Jin scouts pursued, firing their strong bows at them—Jurchen sharpshooters had a maddening range, but at that distance it was hard to land a lethal hit, and once they entered mid-range, the Huaxia Army’s powerful crossbows would take a good toll on them in return.

Of course, exchanging long-range fire was never the main course for either side. To keep the pursuing Jurchen scouts from noticing the unit shifting toward the Mudflat, Chen Hai led his comrades in setting an ambush partway through, and after a round of fighting, they set off again.

The Mudflat was not too far for the Jurchen troops either. Before long, the pursuing scout force behind them had swelled to over two hundred men, and the number was likely still growing—partly in pursuit, partly probing for the location of the Huaxia Army’s main force.

For the Jin troops, though they had suffered heavily in the southwest, even losing the great general Yuyu who had led their scouts, the numbers and combat power of their elite scouts remained nothing to underestimate. Two hundred-odd scouts, or even more, sweeping in—if they ran into an ambush, they could withdraw; and in a roughly even head-on clash, they were not without a chance of victory.

Of course, for the Huaxia Seventh Army, the matter of scouts was an entirely different concept.

The scouts the Huaxia Seventh Army could deploy amounted, in most cases, to roughly half the entire army.

For men like Chen Hai, the years spent surviving at Dayang had been filled mostly with field survival drills, long-distance marches, and wilderness survival exercises both solo and in coordination. These training regimens naturally had different tiers—those who truly couldn’t endure it would be considered for transfer to ordinary units—but most made it through.

Because before entering Dayang, what they had gone through was the three years of grinding warfare at the Xiaocang River. And before Xiaocang River, a portion of the older men among them had lived through the great battle in the northwest against Loushi. Tracing back further still, a small few among them were survivors of Dongzhiyuan.

Chen Hai, the regimental commander, was thirty years old—young among his peers—but he had already been with the Huaxia Army for over ten years. He was a soldier who had taken part in the Battle of Xiacun.

As the unit crossed the ridges and grassy slopes and reached the low-lying ground known as the Mudflat, the light was still early, the air damp and pleasant. Chen Hai drew his blade and moved toward the edge where the land met a sparse stand of trees. “Prepare for battle,” he said. His face looked young, his tone young too—only his eyes were resolute and stern as winter. Those who knew him well knew that he never smiled.

The Huaxia Seventh Army lived year-round in harsh conditions; going about unkempt during field drills was entirely normal. But before setting out before dawn that morning, Chen Hai had still taken the time to clean himself up—shaved his beard, cut his hair. His men, glancing at him, almost thought their commander had turned into a young boy—except for those eyes, which did not match.

Only because, since he was a boy, he had already lost the eyes of a boy.

Over ten years ago, when the Jurchens first marched south, Chen Hai had likely been one of the most direct witnesses to that great war. Before that, the Wu dynasty had still known peace and prosperity; no one had ever imagined what it meant to be invaded. But the Jurchens tore into their village. Chen Hai’s father died. His mother hid him inside a stack of firewood. When he crawled out from the woodpile, he saw his mother’s naked corpse, her body stained black with mud from the waist down.

Not long after, he was rescued by the army. A hunter surnamed Zheng, over forty years old, took him along, and for many days they scouted out Jurchen movements around Moutuogang. The ice cracked open, and the hunter surnamed Zheng fell into the frozen water. Jurchen patrols were nearby, and the old hunter did not struggle in the water—and so the boy survived.

From that time on, he had cried a few times, but never laughed again.

There was no black mud on the Mudflat—the marshy ground here was yellow. In the April warmth of Hanzhong, there was no ice, and the air was not cold. But Chen Hai remembered that cold every single day; in some corner of his heart, it was all devouring mud.

—Chen Hai never smiled.

…

At a quarter past the Hour of the Monkey, ahead of the low-lying ground southwest of Lueyang County known as the Mudflat, the friction between the two sides’ scouts intensified further. More of the Huaxia Army’s scout units joined the fighting one after another, expanding the chaotic melee to a scale of over six hundred men. At the same moment, the Jin scouts discovered that the main force of the Huaxia Seventh Army’s First Division, having received word, was advancing from the Jialing River toward the Mudflat.

With the main force now revealed, Pucha simultaneously ordered his troops to push toward the Mudflat, while the scouts rapidly relayed the state of engagement back to Zonghan’s main camp in the rear.

They cared nothing for a war of attrition fed in piecemeal, nor for turning the fight into a messy brawl. For the attacking side, holding the numerical advantage, their only concern was that the enemy might scurry about like a desperate loach trying to escape. So the moment they made contact, biting down and holding was always the right move.

…

Qi Xinyi sat on his horse, watching a brigade under his command press forward in the afternoon sunlight, toward the Mudflat, where the smoke of battle was already rising.

“The Jurchens want to score a victory before Jiange falls. What we feared was that Xiyin-style cannon-fodder tactics. As it happens, this time works out well for everyone,” he said to the regimental commander under him. “Last year there was only one large-scale clash of this kind—the Jurchens still don’t have a clear read on our real strength. This chance needs to be used well. Next time they face us, they might well grow cautious…”

The regimental commander nodded.

“…Besides, if we fight well here, things will go easier for Xinhan over there too…”

…

The Jin vanguard crossed the ridge; at the Mudflat, the scouts were still locked in one skirmish after another, group by group. A commander of a thousand led Jin troops charging in; more Huaxia troops arrived as well, and then the Jin main body crested the ridge, gradually deploying into formation. The Huaxia Army’s main force halted at the foot of the mountain and formed ranks—they advanced no further toward the Mudflat.

In April, Hanzhong saw the sun set relatively late. Around the Hour of the Rooster, the Jin vanguard main force launched its attack against the Han troops below the mountain. Their transport capacity was ample, so they had brought iron cannons—but the cannons were only slowly being deployed among the hills.

On one side of the Mudflat battlefield, Chen Hai had already pinpointed the enemy’s command position clearly. By this point, the Jin troops gathered at the Mudflat numbered roughly fourteen hundred. The regiment under Chen Hai—over nine hundred men—had also finished assembling. They had already completed their task of luring the enemy in for the main force.

“We’re set on this side. Close the net. Signal the charge,” he ordered.

Three whistling signal arrows trailing smoke shot up into the sky in rapid succession, the smoke blood-red.

Chen Hai drew his blade.

“Kill—”

“Kill—”

“Kill—”

A roar erupted across the battlefield like a sudden spring thunderclap, nine hundred voices merging into one. Across the entire field, the soldiers under Chen Hai’s command automatically converged into six clusters, charging toward the four core points they had scouted beforehand.

The Jin commander of a thousand who had come down from the mountainside, clad in armor, stood beneath the great banner. Suddenly he saw three columns of troops charging toward him from different directions—in that instant his scalp went numb, but what followed on its heels was the pride and blazing fervor of a Jurchen commander.

“Loose arrows—follow me and kill the enemy—”

He raised his longsword and swung it. Beneath the pale evening sun, he sat astride his horse, blade held level.

The Huaxia Army threw its first volley of grenades; then the skirmish lines met. The charging Huaxia soldiers fixed their eyes first and foremost on the officers within the Jurchen ranks.

Chen Hai swung his heavy blade and charged toward the tall, powerfully built Jurchen officer on horseback. Around him, soldiers surged like two opposing tides, devouring each other amid the roaring. The Jurchen officer’s eyes were twisted with bloodlust, terrifying to behold, but Chen Hai paid it no mind—in his own eyes there was only the howling wind and snow, and the devouring abyss.

The Jurchen officer led his personal guard charging up—

…

At the second quarter of the Hour of the Rooster, Pucha, leading his troops in a fierce charge, punched through the center of the Huaxia Army’s main force. This left him somewhat puzzled. But he quickly realized: in the fighting just moments before, the Huaxia Army had deliberately spread out to both flanks, letting them through toward the rear—a rear that was now close to the Jialing River.

After only a moment’s thought, Pucha understood: in this battle, both sides had, remarkably, chosen the very same tactical intent. He was leading his troops toward the Huaxia Army’s rear in order to cut off their retreat, so that once reinforcements arrived, victory would naturally follow. But the Huaxia Army had made the very same choice—did they mean to place themselves in the pocket formed with the Jialing River, and fight a battle of annihilation?

Having triumphed in the southwest, the Huaxia Army had grown arrogant indeed.

Anger rose in his chest.

At this moment, the reinforcement force led by Shaba should already be on the road, arriving. At the latest, by nightfall, they should reach here.

Pucha commanded ten thousand men in total. At present, fifteen hundred were at the Mudflat, twenty-five hundred formed the rear position on the ridge opposite, and he himself had led nearly six thousand men to charge here. The unit on the other side, flying the banner of the Huaxia Seventh Army’s First Division, likewise numbered no more than about six thousand.

This was the first engagement. The enemy was certainly arrogant, but on his own side, he had to bear in mind the lesson of Wangyuan Bridge. Going forward, he could afford to fight more conservatively—order the units in the hills to advance slowly, supported by the iron cannons. Fight until dark, then finish off these Han dogs.

He had already worked out his plan in his mind. But at that very moment, a blood-soaked scout came rushing up: the battle at the Mudflat had been lost. The meng’an Pulu had been beheaded by the Han. In hardly any time at all, three mouke had died in battle, and morale among over a thousand men had already collapsed—they were scattering in flight in every direction.

…

With a wet thud, a Huaxia soldier hacked the head off the now-dead Jurchen officer beneath the fallen banner.

“Commander, is this head any use?”

“Toss it to feed the dogs.”

Chen Hai, half his body covered in blood, walked across that field of Jurchen corpses, spyglass in hand, gazing toward the Jin positions on the ridge opposite. The cannon battery was aimed at the Huaxia main force below the mountain, slowly taking shape.

“The Jin main force has been cut off. Assemble the troops—we take the cannon battery before nightfall… it’ll make the next round easier.”

So Chen Hai said.

Chen Hai never smiled.

…

Before nightfall, Wanyan Shaba’s forces drew near the Jialing River.

He heard the piercing sound of the charging horns…