The afternoon wind stirred the fallen leaves in the mountains, a keening sound like the singing of a dirge.
Even many years later, Wanyan Yuchi would still remember the sound of that wind blowing outside the city of Hanzhong that afternoon.
He had followed Wanyan Xiyin for many years, growing up alongside the rise of the Jurchen people, witnessing and taking part in countless victories and celebrations. Through the middle period of the Jin Kingdom’s ascendancy, even when they occasionally met with hardship or setbacks on the battlefield, he had always seen the pride and unyielding spirit buried deep in the bones of the Jin army. The soldiers who had followed Aguda in their breakout from Chuhedian had long ago carved that arrogance into the very depths of their hearts.
The Jurchen, though fewer than ten thousand, are invincible.
And so it was that this afternoon, for the first time, he witnessed a sight he had never seen before.
The closer he drew to the battlefield at Tuanshan, the more scattered Jin soldiers filled his view — men from Liaodong, Khitans, Xi people… even Jurchens, drifting apart in twos and threes like a receding tide.
Troops without officers had regrouped haphazardly; the wounded supported one another as they made their way toward Hanzhong. There were also stragglers who had lost their units, wandering aimlessly with weapons in hand, starting like frightened birds at the sight of anyone. Wanyan Yuchi tried to gather them up, but with time so pressing, he could not afford to spend much of it on this.
Some of the soldiers merged into his column and continued on toward Tuanshan.
Wanyan Yuchi questioned them about the situation at the Tuanshan battlefield, and about which units they belonged to and what they had experienced. At first he questioned troops from the relatively weaker outer formations, but before long, men from every unit began to appear. When core members of the Tushan Guard described the state of the battlefield to him, Wanyan Yuchi noticed that the tall, sturdy Tushan Guard soldier standing before him was trembling with fear even as he spoke.
“Those men of the Black Banner Army… they fight with no regard for their lives… if you meet them on the battlefield, never charge them head-on… they coordinate perfectly, and… even if there are only three or five of them, they’ll come at you like they don’t care if they die… they specifically target the officers. Our squad leader, Dalai Zuobo, was surrounded and killed by three Black Banner soldiers…”
“Zuobo?” Wanyan Yuchi asked. The Tushan Guard were the elite of the army, and most of its officers were Jurchen; Wanyan Yuchi knew many of them. This squad leader named Dalai Zuobo had fought with tremendous ferocity on the battlefield and had a bold, forthright temperament — Wanyan Yuchi already had an impression of him.
“Mm.” The soldier nodded, then continued describing his impressions of the Huaxia Army in battle.
Over the years, the Tushan Guard had built a brilliant record, and most of its soldiers were elite fighters. This soldier, even after being routed and scattered, was able to summarize his impressions clearly enough that he could have served as an officer in an ordinary unit. But what he described — though he tried his best to keep his tone calm — still carried an unmistakable weight of despair.
Combined with what he gathered from other scattered Tushan Guard survivors, a brutal picture soon began to take shape in his mind — and in the first instant that this picture formed, he refused to believe it.
The elite Tushan Guard led by Grand Marshal Zonghan had been utterly crushed in a head-on confrontation by the forces of the Huaxia Army.
The nearly one hundred thousand men the Grand Marshal had led to Hanzhong had, over the past five days, already gone through many small-scale skirmishes with mixed results. Though they had suffered many defeats, since no large-scale engagement had yet taken place, the bulk of the Jin Kingdom’s most elite and central forces still waited with hopeful hearts for a great decisive battle to unfold.
Xiyin’s reinforcement of Hanzhong, and the posture of decisive battle it presented, had lifted morale, allowing the Tushan Guard soldiers here to mount yet another offensive against the Huaxia Army. But the great battle that had unfolded at Tuanshan over the previous half-day had finally shattered these Jurchen warriors’ illusions head-on. The disparity in outcome on the battlefield was so stark and unmistakable that these Jurchen warriors directly felt themselves being crushed by an overwhelming force.
Large-scale charges could not generate any real power — forming ranks only turned them into targets, forcing them to advance scattered like fine sand instead; yet in small-unit coordination, the Huaxia Army surpassed them; in mutual efforts at decapitation strikes against enemy leaders, the other side was essentially unaffected; the tactics of old could find no purchase, and the whole battlefield became like a street brawl gone chaotic, with the Huaxia Army driving the Jurchen forces into utter disarray…
The nightmare that had once been only a vague possibility, one they could still hold out hope of avoiding, finally became reality on the Tuanshan battlefield that day. The Tushan Guard fought back with all their strength, and some of the Jurchen warriors launched repeated charges against the Huaxia Army, but once the officers leading them fell, such charges became nothing more than futile flailing. The Huaxia Army’s forces only appeared scattered — within a certain range, they could always form up into units large and small to coordinate, and any Jurchen troops who fell into their midst met with nothing but merciless slaughter.
Looking back on it later, Wanyan Yuchi still hadn’t fully processed all of this by the time his troops entered the inner perimeter of the great battle at Tuanshan. Under his command at that moment were three thousand men gathered from Hanzhong, more than half of whom were soldiers who had already experienced defeat or retreat in the fighting near Hanzhong over the previous few days. In the course of gathering these stragglers along the way, their morale had already begun to crumble.
Time did not allow him much room to think. The moment he reached the battlefield, the fighting on the distant hills had already reached a fever pitch. Grand Marshal Zonghan was personally leading his troops in a charge toward Qin Shaoqian’s position, while Shaba’s cavalry swept around to outflank Qin Shaoqian’s rear. Wanyan Yuchi was no incompetent — he immediately arranged his military discipline unit, then ordered the rest of his forces to charge toward the battlefield, with the cavalry held in reserve at the flank, poised and ready.
Facing these three thousand men head-on was roughly one battalion’s worth of Huaxia Army troops nearby, who had swiftly organized a defense atop a hill, with three cannons sealing off the approach. Wanyan Yuchi ordered his troops to charge and flatten this hill. Before the two sides had even fully engaged, chaos began to appear in the distant field of view.
On the twenty-fourth day of the fourth month, in the fifteenth year of the Tianhui era, at around the hour of Shen in the afternoon, Zonghan gave the order to break through the encirclement on the Tuanshan battlefield. Before this, he had already committed his entire force to the confrontation with Qin Shaoqian; at the most intense moment of the fighting, even he himself, along with his personal guard, had joined the ranks locked in single combat with Huaxia Army soldiers. His forces kept pushing forward, but with every step, this great beast bled more and more. The slaughter at the core of the battlefield was as though this god of war among the Jurchen were burning away his very soul. At the very least, in that moment, everyone believed he intended to see this all-or-nothing battle through to the very end — that he would bleed out his last drop, either killing Qin Shaoqian or being killed by him.
But in the end, Zonghan chose to break out.
Wanyan Yuchi witnessed the moment this vast chaos began — perhaps the very moment the entire Jin Kingdom began to collapse. On the battlefield, the flames still burned. Wanyan Shaba gave the order to charge; the cavalry under his command stopped, wheeled about, and began smashing into the Huaxia Army’s positions. This fierce collision was meant to buy Zonghan room to withdraw. Not long after, several units that had still appeared to retain fighting strength began to disintegrate under the slaughter.
Wanyan Yuchi raised his arm, and in that instant he led over a thousand cavalry to charge through the blockade, trying to open a path for Wanyan Zonghan.
Soon after, all manner of shouting rose up across the battlefield. The Huaxia Army roared: “The Jin dogs are beaten—”
“Nianhan wants to flee—”
“Kill Nianhan—”
Amid the sound of the charge horns, crimson signal flares rose over the battlefield — the sign of victory and pursuit — pointing again and again in the sky toward the direction Wanyan Zonghan had fled.
…
The crimson flares rose, like an extending, burning trail of blood.
At Qingyang Post Station, several li from Tuanshan, the soldiers who had earlier fought against Wanyan Yuchi began to muster upon seeing the distant crimson flares. Across their field of vision, the flares spread on and on through the sky.
Two li back, along the bank of a small river, three Huaxia Army soldiers in soaked clothing walking along the riverbank spotted the distant crimson signal in the sky. After a moment’s stunned pause, they exchanged words, jumping and cheering excitedly on the riverbank. Two of them leapt straight into the river; the third, somewhat reluctant, found a piece of wood, clutched it, and struggled awkwardly into the water to swim after them…
Beneath the sky, one column after another was converging on this place.
Several li from the Tuanshan battlefield, Wanyan Sheyema, braving wind and rain, led several thousand troops racing toward the area. Upon spotting the blood-red glow in the sky, he began driving his personal guard forward at a frantic pace.
…
With cavalry clearing the way, the Jurchen breakout surged forward like a storm, bursting out of the Tuanshan battlefield, with the Huaxia Army’s attacks crashing in like a tide behind them. Unit after unit of Jin forces was collapsing into rout, but since the Huaxia Army’s numbers were relatively few, they had trouble for the moment cutting off the core of the fleeing mass.
Qin Shaoqian rode his warhorse up a slope, watching small groups of Huaxia Army troops converge from every direction upon the fleeing Wanyan Zonghan, his expression rather complicated.
“If I ever get the chance, I really do want to ask Zonghan just what the hell was going through his head.”
Judging from the deployment of forces and the intensity of the offensive earlier, there was no doubting Wanyan Zonghan’s resolve to kill him at any cost. One more step, and the entire battlefield would have burned to its conclusion in the most intense clash imaginable. And yet, at the very moment when Zonghan had thrown even himself into the assault, he had, as though suddenly enlightened, abruptly chosen to break out instead.
A gambler at the table usually doesn’t choose to walk away at such a moment, because it’s already too late for that. And as a commander on the battlefield, he had already committed everything — this sudden abandonment seemed almost too early, and awkward besides. In all honesty, even Qin Shaoqian himself had, in that moment, come to believe that Zonghan’s aim was to fight to the death. That was precisely why this sudden breakout came as something of a surprise to their side as well.
But it was no more than a surprise.
Tens of thousands of Huaxia Army soldiers were converging from every direction under the command of the signal flares, launching wave after wave of interception against the fleeing Jin army. On the battlefield, some Jurchen commanders, unable to bear witnessing this scene of defeat, still led their troops in suicidal charges toward Qin Shaoqian’s position. Some soldiers seized captured warhorses and regrouped under orders, cutting through hills and plains to circle back toward Hanzhong.
“Cut off Nianhan! Capture him! Kill him!”
Qin Shaoqian gave the order even as he advanced. Under the afternoon sun, a calm wind blew across the plain; the sound of explosions rang out, and the whistle of projectiles sounded near his ears. After decades as the mightiest of the Jurchen, their greatest warrior was now fleeing with his troops. This era seemed to be speaking to him. He remembered an evening many years ago, when he had set out to war, prepared to die on the battlefield and have his body wrapped in horsehide for burial. He and Liheng had sat beneath that sunset — the sunset of the Wu Dynasty — when his father held the post of Right Chancellor, his elder brother served as prefect, and all of Bianliang was rich and resplendent.
He had been willing to give his life for all of it.
“The Wu Dynasty owes a debt,” Ning Yi had said to him back then.
He had asked, “How many lives can settle it?”
That prosperity, that splendor, had all been scattered by wind and rain; the magnificence had crumbled into ruin. His elder brother had died, his father had died, he himself had killed the emperor, he had lost his eyes. They had endured the hardships of the Small Cangshui River, the fighting in the northwest, the grief-stricken cries of countless people. His elder brother’s wife had fallen into Jin hands and suffered more than a decade of torment; her small child had, over those same years, even had his fingers hacked off like an animal.
How many lives could settle that debt?
“The Jin dogs are beaten—”
“—Kill Nianhan!!!”
He led his troops forward in a charge.
…
The flares rose like blood, and the news that Nianhan had been routed and was fleeing left many stunned and shaken — for most soldiers of the Huaxia Army, this had not been a foregone conclusion either.
The fighting these past few days had all been equally fierce; the clash at Tuanshan had not necessarily been expected to be the decisive battle. If Zonghan had chosen to break out and retreat, the Huaxia Army had also been mentally prepared to fight all the way to Hanzhong, and to make Hanzhong city the next battlefield.
People had hoped for victory, but at the same time, if victory did not come easily, the Huaxia Seventh Army had also been prepared to hold on to Zonghan and fight to the death — as long as I’m not dead yet, you’re not getting away!
Such a grim, all-or-nothing mental resolve was necessary for the battle at hand. Although the Huaxia Seventh Army had trained for years fueled by hatred, the Jurchen had rarely known defeat before this. If they had fought with mere optimism, without being ready to burn the boats behind them, then on a battlefield like this, it might well have been the Seventh Army that lost.
And so, as the flares rose and the scouts riding to spread word raced toward Hanzhong, when the order came down the line that Nianhan was fleeing and every unit along the way should intercept and cut him down with everything they had, many who received the news felt as though caught in a dreamlike, overwhelming joy.
Liu Muxia found himself briefly dazed by it, countless thoughts flashing through his mind in that moment, before his squad leader led them charging toward their assigned line of defense.
Scouts continued fighting their way through the hills and plains. Nianhan’s fleeing troops pressed onward, with some already-routed soldiers converging along the way. This force moved like a storm sweeping across the plain, sometimes pausing for a moment, sometimes veering off the road. Unit after unit of the Huaxia Army converged from nearby and charged in, and cavalry columns tangled with one another in the running fight.
The angle of the sunlight showed that it was still afternoon; over the plains of Hanzhong, Zonghan knew the evening glow was coming.
He led his troops onward in flight, fleeing the direction where the sun was setting. At times he lost himself for a moment — the fierce fighting still seemed to hang before his eyes. In what felt like the blink of an eye, this old Jurchen general seemed to have gone entirely white-haired. His hand no longer held a blade.
Earlier, near those hills, before Qin Shaoqian’s lines, it had been the first time in over a decade that he had taken up a blade and gone into battle himself. A long-forgotten sensation rose in his chest; memories from many years past grew vivid in his heart once more. He knew how to fight, knew how to kill, knew how to lay down this life of his… many years ago, facing the Liao, he had thrown his life on the line countless times, crushing his enemies beneath his fangs.
This day, he had taken the field once more, ready to lay down his life, just as he had forty years ago — to carve out a path through this world in a place that seemed to offer no way forward. He had fought hand-to-hand against two Huaxia Army soldiers in succession. Forty years had passed, and in the fighting of that moment, he finally came to understand just what kind of force this Huaxia Army truly was. That understanding became real to him the instant their blades crossed. He was the sharpest-eyed hunter among the Jurchen, and in that moment, he saw clearly, through the wind and snow, the outline of the great beast before him.
He gave up the charge and turned to leave.
At the very least, in that moment, he already understood what the consequences of charging forward would be.
Not now…
“…The Huaxia Army’s gunpowder keeps growing stronger — the wars to come will be unlike anything in the past thousand years… Ning Yi’s words made a great deal of sense; this must be passed on to the entire Great Works Academy… not only the Academy… if we want our soldiers under arms to be able to hold together even when their formations break apart on the battlefield, we must prepare for it before the war begins… but most crucial of all is to push hard for papermaking, so that our soldiers can learn to read… no, it’s not even that simple…”
As his warhorse pressed onward, Zonghan spoke these words to Han Qixian and the others riding beside him — words that sounded, to some ears, almost like an ominous deathbed charge. When someone tried to interrupt him, he shouted them down loudly: “Listen closely to this! Remember it! The Huaxia Army will not stop until one side is dead — if you and I cannot make it back, then someone in our great Jin must understand these truths! This world has already changed; the future will be nothing like the past! We cannot learn what Ning Yi has built — our Great Jin’s fortunes will be hard to preserve… what a pity, Gushen and I have grown old…”
Even as he spoke thus, someone came to report that the Huaxia Army was closing in, and then word came that Sheyema was leading his personal guard from the northeast to come to their rescue. Zonghan bellowed: “Order him to turn at once and reinforce Hanzhong! This king needs no rescue!”
Not long after, columns of Huaxia Army soldiers struck from the flank, and Sheyema, arriving at full speed, cut diagonally into the chaos of the retreat.
“Who dares harm my father the Marshal—”
He led his men into the fighting, valiant and fierce.
Zonghan sent word back: “Tell him to get lost—”
The setting sun spread across the sky as several thousand Jurchen fled amid the fighting, with the Huaxia Army pursuing all the way. Scattered pursuers rushed in, summoning their last reserves of strength, trying to sink their teeth into this dying beast.
Liu Muxia followed the main body, fighting his way forward. His squad leader, drenched in blood, shouted from ahead: “Kill Nianhan! Cut him to pieces—” They tore their way toward the distant command banner. All around was chaos; small bands of cavalry charged past, and the soldiers searched their bodies for grenades — most of them were already spent. Someone scavenged two fire-bombs from a Jurchen corpse and, as cavalry bore down, hurled them; a rider tumbled from his horse, and chaos erupted all around once more.
“Beat them back, capture Nianhan—” the squad leader shouted amid the fighting. He bore a blood feud against the Jurchen for the destruction of his family, and seeing the Jin command banner draw near and then far again, he had worked himself into a frenzy of bloodlust. It was hardly surprising — ever since the Jurchen had come south, how many families had been shattered and wiped out? A chance to close this near with a blade to Nianhan came perhaps only once in a lifetime.
“I’ll kill every one of you! You dog of a Han—”
Dust billowed all around; among this group of enemies were Jurchen officers as well, and the personal guards around them were also skilled fighters. Liu Muxia, blade in one hand and shield in the other, cut down one man amid the enemy’s shouts, then pressed forward together with a comrade beside him. He was an old soldier of the Seventh Army, one who had never taken an officer’s post simply because he disliked giving orders, but his skill at battlefield coordination was among the very best in the entire battalion, even the regiment. Even as he fought, he was managing his strength and watching over his comrades.
The two comrades he brought with him charged forward alongside him with a shout; three shields formed a small barrier that knocked a Jurchen soldier flying. From nearby came the squad leader’s cry — “Kill Nianhan, forward—” — but the voice had gone wrong somehow. Liu Muxia turned his head and saw his squad leader run through the belly by an armored Jurchen officer, the long blade twisted and yanked free.
“Die, you Han dog! Someone tell my father the Prince to flee at once! Never mind me — he carries the hope of the Jurchen people, I can die, but he must live—”
Blood sprayed across Wanyan Sheyema’s armor as he swung his steel blade with one hand and shouted orders to his guards with the other. Seeing a Huaxia Army soldier lunge at his flank, he turned and met the attack with everything he had!
On the battlefield beyond, Zonghan, seeing Sheyema enter the fray, gave orders of his own and began leading his troops to push toward that spot, to link up with Sheyema’s forces.
“Go tell him! Order him to withdraw! This is a command — if he doesn’t leave, he is no son of mine—”
Liu Muxia and the Huaxia Army soldier beside him charged at Wanyan Sheyema; several Jurchen guards lunged in as well. Liu Muxia cut down one of them, then struck Sheyema with his shield. Sheyema staggered back two steps and swung his blade down in a fierce arc; Liu Muxia let go of his shield, dove low, and drove his blade into the back of Sheyema’s knee. Sheyema stumbled, hacked aside a charging Huaxia Army soldier, and had just turned back around when Liu Muxia swung his great blade down from above with all his strength — a resounding clang, sparks flying — the blow landing on Sheyema’s helmet like a blunt club to the skull.
A ringing filled Sheyema’s head; he struck back with his blade. In the next instant, Liu Muxia swung his blade sideways and struck him hard across the back of the head. The Huaxia Army’s steel blade was heavy; Sheyema tasted blood in his mouth, his long blade flailing wildly in return.
Guards lunged in from all sides, and more Huaxia Army soldiers rushed forward as well. Liu Muxia traded two more blows with Sheyema, then slammed into him with a charge that drove him back two or three steps. Sheyema tripped over rocks behind him; Liu Muxia pressed forward, swinging his blade with all his strength. Sheyema’s mind was already in chaos; relying on his armor, he clambered back up from the ground and swung once more toward the front. Liu Muxia kept hacking at his shoulder and neck without pause — by the fourth blow, Sheyema had only managed to raise half his body when the armor split open and blood sprayed out beneath the blade’s edge.
Liu Muxia’s blade fell once more. Sheyema swayed, staggered a step upright, then collapsed to his knees again. He still tried to swing his blade backward. Ahead, Zonghan’s command banner was drawing closer. Liu Muxia widened the gash in his body, and then struck once more.
Beneath the setting sun, Zonghan watched as his son’s body was hacked apart, blow after blow, by that Huaxia Army soldier amid the chaos of battle…
“Aaaaaaaaaaah—”
A howl like a wounded tiger’s roar rose across the plain, the old man’s face twisted, his eyes wild and terrible — and the Huaxia Army soldiers rushed at him with the same ferocity in their eyes—
(End of Chapter)