The world is rich and varied.

On the grandest scale, time moves forward like a fierce tide; generation after generation is born, grows old, and passes on; civilizations unfold in forms too numerous to count; dynasty after dynasty sweeps through and is gone; a people rises and falls, and the deaths of tens of millions congeal into a single punctuation mark in the pages of a history book.

But on the small scale, every single life is a vast epic unto itself. In every second that passes in this world, thousands upon thousands of people live out lives that may look insignificant, yet their thoughts and feelings are every bit as real and immense — some laugh with joy, some weep with sorrow, some rage in hysterics, some grieve in silence… These emotions are like hurricanes and tsunamis, driving ordinary bodies forward through their ordinary lives.

Every second of our world, viewed from a different angle, sliced along a different cross-section, would reveal itself as an epic poem, vast and true, again and again. Countless fates extend outward, cause and effect interweaving, colliding and parting. A severed thread will often, in some unnamed and distant place, give rise to a strange and unexpected fruit. Most of the time, these interwoven threads are chaotic yet evenly spread — but at certain moments, we see countless great threads converge and collide toward a single point.

On the twenty-third of April, in the first year of the Wuzhenxing era, the setting sun outside the city of Hanzhong seemed to have drunk its fill of gunpowder smoke, showing through the clouds a ghastly grey-black. The evening glow was not magnificent — it was merely its ordinary face, one it had worn countless times before in this world.

As the army gathered its forces rapidly beneath that setting sun, drawing the walled city into view, Xiyin sat astride his warhorse, the wind carrying the snap of banners mixed with the clamor of voices; the vast battlefield was gradually shifting from chaos into order, and the air carried the smell of horse dung and vomit.

The atmosphere of the battlefield grew steadily more familiar before his eyes, as it always did — decades of campaigning, review after review of troops on the field, spears and blades standing like a forest, the soldiers’ very breath carrying a grim and unyielding air. This was a battle formation both familiar and, by now, strangely unfamiliar to Wanyan Xiyin.

The speed with which the soldiers assembled, the spirit radiating from their ranks — these let Xiyin quickly grasp the true measure of the force before him. Under his own command, the Jurchen troops were seasoned and formidable; in forty years, once this army had cultivated such a spirit, it had never again met an equal. But as this war unfolded, what he found himself gradually recalling was a feeling from many years past:

Back then, Jurchen warriors had thrown themselves into battle with the mindset of men who might not see tomorrow — fierce and violent, yet on the battlefield, not yet capable of the kind of precise, effortless command they possessed today. Aguda, Zonghan, Loushi, Zongwang — in those days they had fought like men possessed, holding nothing back, treating every battle as the decisive one; they knew the fate of the Jurchen people hung in the balance ahead, but not yet mature enough to clearly read the shape of that fate, they could only give everything they had and leave the rest to the will of Heaven.

They had learned in battle, matured gradually, and come to see the direction of that fate ever more clearly. In the later stages of the war against Liao, their handling of armies had grown ever more skilled, fate held tightly in their grasp — they had come to see the whole shape of the world. Xiyin, who had once admired Han scholarship from the south and held the Wu dynasty in a certain respect, had gradually come to see clearly both the merits and flaws of Confucian learning — there were, admittedly, things within it worth honoring, but on the battlefield, Wu had already lost all power to resist the great tide of the age.

Time had brought them to today. The old men had been tempered mature in the fires of war, and the army still held its keen edge — but in the recent battles before him, Xiyin seemed once again to glimpse the trace of fate running loose, off its leash. He could still give everything he had, but something unknown loomed ahead. Of the outcome, he had already begun, faintly, to sense that it might slip beyond his grasp.

Only one thing was certain: the battle before him would once again become the most crucial battle of all — the fate of the Jurchen people lay just ahead!

“…The Huaxia Army’s position is five li ahead… near Reed Gate… The Grand Marshal’s forces are approaching from the west, and within the city now…”

As the troops advanced slowly after disembarking, the Jurchen officer Chala, summoned out from the city, walked alongside Xiyin, reporting the recent state of the fighting to him in as much detail as he could. Xiyin’s gaze was cold; he listened in silence.

Almost the instant he learned that fighting had broken out west of Hanzhong, Xiyin had decisively abandoned the siege of Qi Xinhan’s three-thousand-odd men near Xicheng County, and led his force of over ten thousand aboard ship, sailing swiftly west up the Han River. He understood well enough that, on the eve of the battle that would decide the Jurchens’ future, mopping up a mere three thousand men was not a matter of great importance.

The moment he disembarked, he had sent for the highest-ranking officer then in the city of Hanzhong, to learn how the situation had developed. But the whole state of affairs had already exceeded his expectations — Zonghan, leading ninety thousand men, had, before a mere twenty-thousand-strong charge, been all but reduced to an army of the doomed. Zonghan’s tactics might look imposing on the surface, but Xiyin understood: if Zonghan had truly possessed the confidence to win a decisive frontal battle, why would he have resorted to a wheel-tactic that burned through time and strength instead?

The two of them had fought side by side for nearly their whole lives; he understood exactly what kind of man Zonghan was — bold and wise in equal measure. If a real chance to press forward had existed, Zonghan would never have chosen to fall back. In other words, that an army capable of pinning Zonghan down like this, a man who had fought across battlefields for over forty years, spoke for itself as to just how formidable the Huaxia Army’s fighting strength truly was.

At the Jialing River, they had killed Pucha, and in the chaos of that battle had all but wiped out his meng’an, mouke, and every mid- and low-ranking officer beneath him.

That same night, with fewer than ten thousand men, they had launched a raid on Zonghan’s own main camp — and even after falling into the trap set for them, had forced their way back out, and gone on to break the courage of the pursuing troops besides.

Over four days, with barely twenty thousand men, they had held their own against Zonghan’s wheel tactics, and in the end it was Zonghan’s own forces that showed signs of defeat, with some of the routed men converging on Hanzhong — and yet the enemy had managed to seize the southern gate of Hanzhong with a force of only a few hundred. Such hunger for the attack, such astonishing decision-making even in small-scale engagements — what did that say?

“…How are they doing this?”

As his horse moved forward, Xiyin finally spoke.

“…Sir?”

“You’ve just come from the battlefield. You must have some thoughts about your enemy. What do you think… how are they managing this?”

“…This humble officer does not know… The Huaxia Army fights with reckless ferocity. I hear… they are all men who once retreated from the northwest, men who bear a deep and bitter hatred for us Jurchens. Perhaps that demon has bewitched them with some sorcery, made them fearless of death…”

“…” Xiyin did not look at him, said nothing for a while. Then: “How much iron cannon and ammunition remains within the city?”

“This humble officer… can only give a rough estimate…”

“Wanyan Yuchi.” Without waiting for a further report, Xiyin called out the name of one of his own disciples directly.

A middle-aged officer, just past forty, came up beside him. “This subordinate is here.”

“There are three matters I need you to handle on my behalf.”

“Understood.”

“First — take a thousand men into the city, assist the garrison there, and reinforce Hanzhong’s defenses. The Huaxia Army is pressing north from Reed Gate; deploy your men to hold every route and every stretch of wall. If any more gates are lost, you and Chala will share the blame equally.”

“Understood.”

“Second — take stock of every cannon, every store of ammunition, every bow and crossbow, every warhorse in the city. Aside from what is strictly necessary to defend Hanzhong, I want you to organize the personnel and have these supplies transported out to the battlefield before tomorrow’s sunrise. If you don’t have enough men for the task, come to me for more.”

“Understood.”

“Third…” Atop his horse, Xiyin paused — but then, sweeping his gaze across the pale expanse of sky and earth, he spoke on decisively. “Third — if you have enough men to spare, gather the residents and common people within Hanzhong, and drive them south toward the Huaxia Army’s position at Reed Gate. If they resist, you may kill them, you may burn their homes. Tomorrow at dawn, they will support the decisive battle outside the city, pressing forward against the Huaxia Army’s line. See to this yourself.”

Atop his horse, Wanyan Yuchi accepted the order: “Understood.” His eyes flickered with some hesitation, but he accepted the fact regardless. With Grand Marshal Zonghan having spent four days wearing the Huaxia Army down with ninety thousand men, Xiyin had now made the decision to meet them head-on in open battle. This decisive choice was, perhaps, also a response to the news that the man they called the demon — the leader of the Huaxia Army — had broken out through Jianmen Pass.

—If this dragged on for even a few more days until that demon arrived, matters would grow far livelier, and far more troublesome besides.

The two men accepted their orders and departed.

Ahead, the city walls stretched into view; beneath the setting sun, the black banners of the Huaxia Army came into sight. On the ground outside the walls, bloodstains and corpses lay scattered here and there, marking the fierce fighting that had erupted here not long before — and even now, the Huaxia Army’s line was contracting. On the far side, facing the Jin forces from a distance, Huaxia soldiers could be seen digging into the earth; most of them bore the bloodstains of recent combat, and some had bandages wrapped around their bodies.

Facing Wanyan Xiyin’s banner, most of them merely glanced this way once. Through the spyglass, there was no fear in their bearing — only the calm readiness of men prepared to meet whatever battle came.

There were countless people across this realm who bore blood feuds against the Jurchens. But never before had any of them faced a Jin army with a bearing like this.

They had already endured four days of ceaseless fighting — and had even torn Zonghan’s own army to pieces in the process.

How had they managed it?

Did they still have anything left?

Xiyin turned all this over in his mind.

For decades, they had walked through battlefield after battlefield, drawing lessons and experience from each, taking in everything this world had to offer, into their eyes and into their hearts; every battle, every survival, had made them stronger still. In this moment, Xiyin found himself recalling countless plumes of battlefield smoke — Aguda gone, Wuqimai on his deathbed, Zongwang, Loushi, Cibushi, Yinshuke, Balishu… one general after another had passed out of their lives. Yet in this very moment, Zonghan, and Xiyin himself, stood at what was truly their strongest state on any battlefield.

Decades had passed, and even now, all he could do was give everything he had, and leave the unknown outcome in the hands of Heaven above.

The walls of Hanzhong were nothing grand or imposing either — an ordinary wall of earth and stone. Beyond it, the fields stretched out in patches of green and yellow, the soldiers dressed mostly in earthen tones with touches of green mixed in, and the smell of blood remained, as ever, unpleasant to the nose.

Liu Muxia had arrived outside Hanzhong toward evening. Once his company had arrived, he was assigned, along with the others, to a position; someone pointed east and told the men: “Wanyan Xiyin has arrived. If it comes to a fight, you’d best dig some horse-traps out front.”

“Just dig horse-traps, that’s it?” the squad leader asked the company commander for instructions.

“Tonight you’re on digging duty. Conserve your strength, get what rest you can. Whether we sleep or not depends on what the other side decides.”

Fatigue and pain were gathering within his body, but within tolerable limits. As his comrades spoke of the Fifth Army’s breakthrough at Jianmen Pass, Liu Muxia looked up to glance toward the east, where the Jin forces could be seen. Though he was only an ordinary soldier of the Huaxia Seventh Army, he knew well enough that the decisive battle was drawing near.

So after dinner, he began quietly digging his pit.

He did not fear Wanyan Zonghan. Nor did he fear Wanyan Xiyin.

He was a man of the northwest, where life had always been harsh and unforgiving; because of this, he had grown up from childhood in a world thick with murderers, bandits, and swindlers.

His family had died long ago. He had never felt much for them — such circumstances were never anything rare in the northwest. When the Huaxia Army came to the northwest and won its first victory against the Western Xia, he had made his way to the Xiaocang River and joined the so-called vicious and depraved Black Banner Army, just to “scrape together a meal.”

The world within the Huaxia Army turned out to be nothing like what outsiders imagined. He wasn’t sure exactly when he had been won over — perhaps it was the second day after joining the Black Banner, when he collapsed from the brutal, excessive training, and his squad leader brought him a bowl of noodles late that night.

Or perhaps it was in the countless patrols and drills where they had learned to work together.

Or perhaps it was during the three years of fighting at Xiaocang River, which he had never anticipated — the comrades who had brought him bowls of noodles, who had covered his back time after time in training, and who had, in the end, given their lives.

“…I was originally… from Bianliang. My family’s village was by the Yellow River. I had a wife, a daughter… my parents were still alive back then… When the Jurchens came… there was nothing left…”

He would sometimes recall the beautiful vision of the Central Plains that the comrades around him had described to him.

In truth, none of it moved him. The first ten-odd years of his life had been spent entirely in the chaos and precariousness of the northwest frontier. His family had died, and he hadn’t even known what to mourn them for. Was there really something as beautiful as that Central Plains people spoke of? He didn’t know.

He simply loved the life he’d had at Xiaocang River — fighting shoulder to shoulder in the valley, driving back wave after wave of supposedly vicious enemies from atop the dam, cheering together afterward. Their survival there had carried a warmth at its core; these people, who had each come from wildly different, chaotic lives, had become his comrades, had become his family.

They were all dead now.

He would find himself remembering the words Ning Yi often spoke to people during those final days of the three-year war at Xiaocang River, when bidding farewell to the fallen.

“…In this world, hundreds of thousands, millions of people have died. Before they died, every one of them had a life of their own. What grieves me most is that… their whole lives will simply be forgotten by others… The people here today — they resisted. They wanted to live like human beings. They died. Their resistance, their whole lives, will be forgotten by others. Everything they did, everything they remembered, will vanish from this world without a trace, as though… it had never happened at all…”

As though it had never happened at all…

Because of this, Liu Muxia often found himself thinking of that village by the Yellow River outside Bianliang, of the elders in his comrade’s family, of his wife and daughter — his comrade was dead too now, and those memories seemed as though they had never happened at all. Including the bowl of noodles his squad leader had brought him. Including all the times they had fought side by side. One day, all of it would seem as though it had never happened at all…

There was pain in his body, and exhaustion too, but it didn’t matter — all of it could be endured. He dug his horse-trap in silence.

The sun was gradually setting, as it did every day. On the second day after he had joined the Black Banner Army, he had failed to finish his training drills before sundown, and his squad leader had forced him to keep running in the darkness that followed. He had told himself, in his heart, not to lose his temper — he could wait until tomorrow to steal something and leave… That night he had gone to bed hungry, and his squad leader had brought him a bowl of noodles, with even a good, tasty egg in it.

That had been Xiaocang River, many years ago now — the valley hadn’t even been fully built up yet; sometimes they’d had to level the training ground by hand, and the dam was still being built, step by step. And today, Xiaocang River was nothing but a stretch of wild, abandoned hills — every trace of their having existed there had been wiped away.

His squad leader had swung that blade at the Jurchens.

And the Jurchens didn’t even know it had happened.

…

This isn’t right.

Night gradually fell. The starlight was sparse, and the moon rose into the sky like a blade, slashing across the heavens above the banks of the Han River.

On the plain west of Hanzhong, cannon fire had begun to thunder densely at some point, unseen; soldiers clashed and charged amid the glow of fire.

The Jurchen forces converging on Hanzhong and the Huaxia Army units crisscrossed each other in the darkness, fighting scattered across the land.

Great numbers of Jurchen troops were scattered blindly across the plain, and Huaxia units too found themselves locked in hard fighting through the night.

Thousands upon thousands locked in slaughter — thousands upon thousands of lives, thousands upon thousands of stories.

On the twenty-first of April, Wanyan Shaba had once led his cavalry in a fierce, life-for-life charge against the Huaxia Army; wounded, he had managed to flee, and was now, at this moment, leading his forces in a retreat toward Hanzhong. He was Zonghan’s nephew, having fought at his side for some thirty years. Compared to men like Yinshuke and Balishu, his natural gifts were lesser, but he had always been a faithful executor of Zonghan’s plans.

The Jurchens had clawed their way, with great difficulty, out of such a harsh environment to survive; he had followed his hero into battle, and in this moment, he was not unwilling to die for that hero as well.

Zonghan had by now joined forces with Gao Qingyi, and was trying to mobilize his vast army to converge on Hanzhong. Having campaigned across battlefields for decades, he could clearly sense that the strength of his entire army was rapidly draining away after the fighting so far; as the fighting spread from the plain toward Hanzhong, some of the regathered forces collapsed swiftly under Huaxia infiltration. This night, only Xiyin’s arrival offered him some measure of comfort.

After four days of fighting, his own troops were exhausted, and the Huaxia Army was exhausted too — but that meant Xiyin, arriving fresh, would have the most favorable opportunity of all.

Balishu was already dead. But Ning Yi still hadn’t arrived.

That night, gazing up at the moonlit sky, Zonghan poured out the strong liquor he carried, spilling it onto the earth in mourning for Balishu.

Such a long life of campaigning — how many men had died along the way…

That night, great numbers of troops were fighting their way forward along the roads, risking everything. Wanyan Sheyema, in the darkness, tried to rally and lift the spirits of his men — this wolf of the ice fields, gradually come into his own, was unwilling to miss the battle soon to unfold beneath the walls of Hanzhong.

His whole life, he had longed to become a hero like the generation before him; only after his brother’s death had he gradually come to understand what qualities such heroism required. In this moment, the strength of the Huaxia Army left him utterly stunned — and it also, truly, set his blood on fire. Without an enemy like this, how could his own name ever hope to leave a mark on history?

Some men’s stories leave a trace in history. But when it comes to a life lived, no story ranks above another.

A Jurchen soldier who had campaigned alongside his commanders for over twenty years found himself, beneath this blade-sharp moonlight, thinking of the wife and children waiting at home. Khitan, Liaodong, and Xi men who had followed the Jin army south, hoping to win glory in this final campaign, felt fear and helplessness creeping in amid their exhaustion; they had marched south with the mindset that fortune favors those who take risks, fighting bravely — but now the southwest had become a wretched quagmire, the gold and silver they had plundered could not be carried home, and the joy of their earlier looting and slaughter had curdled into regret. They too had pasts they longed for, even families they missed, even warm memories to hold onto — who doesn’t have such things?

But many, many people of the Central Plains, of the northwest, no longer had families left at all — and even their memories had begun to lose their warmth.

That night, one Huaxia unit after another continued arriving outside Reed Gate at Hanzhong. They had already endured wave after wave of fighting, and most of the soldiers bore wounds, light or severe — but the rout of the Jurchens gave them boundless strength. Some units even attempted raids on the western or northern walls, though naturally, without easy success.

The units that reached the Hanzhong battlefield were ordered by the staff office to rest for the time being, while a small number of units infiltrated northward through the city, trying to break through the street barricades and strike at more critical points within Hanzhong.

After nightfall, Chen Hai went to the staff headquarters and reported to Brigade Commander Hou Lietang: “The Jurchen troops here are all northerners. Wanyan Xiyin has already arrived at the battlefield, but he isn’t attacking — I don’t think it’s that he doesn’t want to, I think he can’t. We’re in the middle of the flood season now; they came upriver by boat, and there must have been rough water — a lot of them will be seasick, so they can only launch their attack tomorrow… I think we shouldn’t let them sleep well tonight. I request permission for a night raid.”

“We’ve already considered the seasickness angle. But do you really think a man like Xiyin wouldn’t guard against a midnight raid from you?”

“Even so, we can still keep them from sleeping well. I can rotate my three battalions through, one after another, make a lot of noise — the point is, don’t let them rest.”

“…That’s fair. General Qin is out doing rounds tonight — I’ll report it to him when he’s back. Get yourself ready.”

“Understood.” Chen Hai saluted.

Stepping out of the makeshift headquarters, the moon looked as though it might fall from the sky. Chen Hai did not smile; his eyes still carried the wind and snow that had begun over ten years before. Ten-odd years ago, when he was still young, Mister Ning had once wanted him to become a storyteller.

“The continuation of civilization does not rely on bloodline.”

“When the Jurchens came, many people died. Whole family lines vanished entirely. Zheng Yiquan’s bloodline left nothing behind — but you were there, at the end, and you carried him forward. Try, as best you can, to carry the story forward…”

That was what Mister Ning had said to him, back when he was still young — but in truth, over these years, how many more than just one Zheng Yiquan had died at his side? And today, he had a better, more powerful way to carry their will forward.

In this world, there are certain special moments when countless threads converge upon a single person — that person grows thin, and grows important, all at once. Some threads snap; others are taken up by those who witnessed them, and carried onward. The continuation of bloodlines, the succession of peoples, the rise and fall of nations, the endless struggle of all things — it has always been this way.

Liu Muxia finished digging his horse-trap, and quietly sharpened his blade.

Someone was counting fire-bombs and grenades, passing them along.

Chen Hai, leading a battalion of men, slipped quietly out from one side of the camp.

The watch changed; some men found a moment’s rest, lying down in their clothes, spears at hand.

“I can’t quite sleep…”

someone said quietly.

“Let me tell you something — I still remember, over ten years ago, the Central Plains…”

The Central Plains, over ten years ago… From that moment to this, how many had wept, how many had cried out, how many had fought their way forward through heartrending pain, drenched in blood, before finally reaching this point…

Every person’s story is an ordinary one; a single death, among the deaths of countless millions, seems so insignificant. And yet whose life and memory is not, in its own way, an epic of rises and falls?

Fire and torment had been colliding violently beneath the surface of the earth for many years now, and countless, immense threads were converging in this very moment.

Magma was erupting outward—

…

Chen Hai launched his night raid, clashing with the scouts and ambush troops Xiyin had posted along the banks of the Han River, the sound of shouting and killing shaking the heavens, wave after wave, unceasing.

Within the camp, Jurchen soldiers were repeatedly jolted awake by the noise, anger and anxiety gathering.

Deep in the night, Xiyin climbed up onto the city wall. The garrison commander inside the city was reporting to him about the fires of battle continuously flaring up on the plain to the west — Huaxia units infiltrating from northwest to southeast, Zonghan’s forces moving from west to east, fighting breaking out here and there without pause. And it wasn’t only the fighting on the western plain — the small-scale skirmishes within Hanzhong itself hadn’t stopped either. In other words, fighting was happening in every place he could see, and in every place he couldn’t.

Xiyin leaned against the city wall, silent for a long while.

“…Don’t they need to sleep?”

he murmured with a quiet sigh.

The Huaxia Army they faced numbered only twenty thousand men.