The struggle to resist the Jurchen’s fourth great southern campaign had, from beginning to end, lasted nearly two years. In the first half of that period, the various forces across Jin territory and Shandong had fought many battles worthy of song and legend against the Jin army; in the latter half, the wars in Jiangnan and the southwest had drawn the attention of nearly everyone in the realm. But beyond these theaters, the Central Plains region — north of the Yangtze and south of the Yellow River — naturally saw its own share of upheaval, great and small.

In the first half of the tenth year of the Jianshuo era, Xuzhou had, for a time, served as the last line of defense before the Jurchen launched their great campaign against Jiangnan — and the causes underlying this battlefield stretched back to the maneuvers of various parties before the great war even began. At that time, the Huaxia Army had orchestrated the kidnapping of the puppet Qi emperor Liu Yu in Bianliang, then shifted the blame for Liu Yu’s defection onto the Wu Dynasty. Meanwhile, Junwu, still crown prince at the time, secretly contacted the governor of Xuzhou, Li Anmao, offering large sums of money and supplies in exchange for the Huaxia Army’s military assistance — while at the same time using this maneuver to draw the Huaxia Army into the front lines of the war.

Though the two sides appeared, on the surface, to be shifting blame onto each other, both were in truth acting to resist the Jurchen. In response to this maneuver by Junwu, Ning Yi ordered Liu Chengzong to lead his force of over eight thousand men toward Xuzhou, to help Li Anmao defect and defend the city. By the tenth year of Jianshuo, when the Jin Kingdom’s Eastern Route Army reached Xuzhou, Liu Chengzong, together with his own troops and Li Anmao’s force of over fifty thousand, held the city under siege for three months before finally breaking out and heading north. Since Zongfu and Zongbi were not fully committed to fighting a major battle in this theater, the conflict here never escalated to particularly brutal extremes.

While defending the city together, the two sides could certainly fight shoulder to shoulder — but once it came to breaking out and continuing the fight elsewhere, some things inevitably had to be sorted out between them. Xuzhou’s governor Li Anmao had originally served under Liu Yu, but his heart remained loyal to the Wu Dynasty; at the outbreak of war, he had requested the Huaxia Army’s assistance for the sake of the greater good. But once Xuzhou fell, what he naturally wanted was to bring his own troops back south to Jiangnan.

— This, in itself, would not ordinarily have been a major issue; the Huaxia Army valued quality over quantity in its forces and had no designs on his fifty thousand-odd irregular troops. But before the fighting with the Jurchen even began, the two sides had already coexisted within Xuzhou for half a year, and to prevent these troops from becoming a liability, propaganda, infiltration, and absorption efforts had to be carried out. By the time of the withdrawal from Xuzhou, having witnessed the Huaxia Army’s fighting strength, a good number of mid- and lower-level officers among Li’s forces — after more than half a year of infiltration work — had already made up their minds to defect to the Huaxia Army. And so, as the withdrawal proceeded, Li Anmao was simply stripped of his authority outright, and his force of over fifty thousand men changed hands, now flying the Black Banner.

Once the initial absorption of the Xuzhou forces was complete, with the situation in Shandong growing critical, Liu Chengzong and the others turned north to support Zhu Biao and Wang Shanyue at Liangshan. But due to the plundering and devastation left in the wake of the Jurchen Eastern Route Army’s southward march, the Shandong region was littered with the corpses of famine victims for a thousand li. Though Liu Chengzong had troops under his command, supplies were scarce — and Liangshan’s own stores were equally depleted. In the end, it was only through the Zhu family’s trading network negotiating in Jin territory that a shipment of grain and provisions was borrowed, enabling Liu Chengzong’s several thousand men to cross the Yellow River and face Wanyan Chang in battle.

The tens of thousands of newly absorbed troops from Li Anmao’s former forces, meanwhile, had no choice but to remain on the southern bank of the Yellow River and fend for themselves.

To lead this force through its subsequent reorganization and struggle for survival, the team Liu Chengzong left behind consisted of some twenty-odd men skilled in political and organizational work, led by Deputy Chief of Staff Zou Xu. He was one of the standout young officers of the Huaxia Army, having distinguished himself in the fighting against Western Xia, after which he received personal instruction and mentorship from Ning Yi. Though he still held only the rank of divisional deputy chief of staff, he was efficient and capable, and had long since shown he could handle matters entirely on his own…

…

“Zou Xu — I remember that man well,” Qin Shaoqian said, as the night wind blew through the camp outside Hanzhong. “One of the most accomplished among your early disciples, I’d say. Fitting name, too — his conduct is a lot like yours. After the campaign against Western Xia, when the Jurchen came to show off, bringing along Manager Lu’s severed head, Zou Xu was one of the main men who received them — handled it with real composure, neither servile nor arrogant. You said back then that the man was worth using.”

Ning Yi nodded. “Among the original group from the Small Cangshui River, quite a few turned out to have real talent — but by now, few of them remain; many fell in battle. Right now, Chen Tian holds the highest rank; he’s paired with Qu Zhengyan as chief of staff. Below Chen Tian is Zou Xu — his ability is considerable; he was long ago being groomed as a candidate for chief of staff, even division commander. Because he was, in a sense, someone I personally trained, I deliberately held back his advancement in that regard. He must have understood as much, which is probably why, this time at Xuzhou, Liu Chengzong gave him this chance to operate entirely on his own… I let my guard down a bit on this one too…”

Qin Shaoqian nodded, reading back over the report Ning Yi had handed him.

Zou Xu had taken over this force of nearly fifty thousand men in the autumn of the tenth year of Jianshuo. That was already nearly two years ago now.

…

By any measure, the task of absorbing and settling this force of tens of thousands, originally under Li Anmao’s command, had never been an easy one.

To begin with, after the establishment of the puppet Qi regime, Xuzhou had become the territory of the puppet emperor Liu Yu — the establishment of a puppet government having, from the start, been a means of draining the Central Plains dry. Li Anmao’s heart lay with the Wu Dynasty, and when the moment came, he sought to defect back — but the so-called army under his command had originally been a force with virtually no fighting capability at all, made up of puppet troops. After his defection, in an effort to expand its fighting strength, the methods used were equally reckless — conscripting able-bodied men indiscriminately, padding the ranks with unqualified men — leaving its combat effectiveness only marginally better than that of the Han armies in the late stages of the southwestern campaign.

Liu Chengzong, leading eight thousand men to help defend Xuzhou alongside him, had to seize command and control for the sake of caution — for although Li Anmao was full of fervor, his loyalty remained fixed on the Wu Dynasty. After three months of holding Xuzhou under siege, his intention had been to have everyone dig in and hold the city to the last man, in order to relieve as much pressure as possible on the Jiangnan defense line. Liu Chengzong could not go along with this; during a meeting, he simply knocked Li Anmao unconscious and seized power on the spot, transferring command.

While this accomplished the transfer of authority at the top, within the ranks of this motley army, people were far from psychologically prepared for the kind of thorough disruption and reorganization of the entire military structure that would follow. Once Liu Chengzong and the others decided to march north, what was left for Zou Xu’s working group was a force with insufficient provisions, no real combat effectiveness, and not even enough internal cohesion — nominally numbering close to fifty thousand, but in reality more like a ticking time bomb that could go off at any moment.

Of course, given the circumstances of the time, there was no faction anywhere in the realm that could claim an “easy” path to survival.

In Jin territory, there had already been the upheavals of Tian Hu’s death and Liao Yiren’s defection; Lou Shuwan and the others were likewise forced into hiding in the mountains, struggling simply to survive.

Zhu Biao and Wang Shanyue’s side had endured the brutal relief effort at Daming Prefecture, suffering heavy casualties, with countless comrades captured or killed; once Liangshan came under siege, food ran out on every side, and the defenders were reduced to enduring hunger and cold.

In Jiangnan, the great army of the Jurchen Eastern Route was already pounding at the gates, on the verge of overrunning everything.

And in the southwest, the main force of the Huaxia Army had to face the threat posed by Zonghan and Xiyin, commanding the single strongest army in the entire realm.

This force, then, could only be cast aside like an abandoned pawn, left to fend for itself far from home. Indeed, even at the time, Ning Yi had held no great optimism about the future of these fifty thousand men; he had offered Zou Xu’s working group, a thousand li away, some suggestions, while also granting them the greatest possible degree of autonomy. It was under these circumstances that Zou Xu undertook the arduous task of reorganizing the army.

On one hand, over the course of more than a year, Zou Xu reached out to local landlords and powerful clans, adopting a strategy of allying with one faction to strike another, using the war to sustain the war, extracting whatever external resources he could to keep the force alive.

On the other hand, lacking the backing of Liu Chengzong’s main Huaxia Army force, he undertook a massive restructuring and downsizing of the army — first, some men were eliminated through combat losses; more were lost during the long marches and transfers; and beyond that, he actively cut down the force’s size, keeping the core fighting strength at around twenty thousand men. Combined with two further splits along the way, by the winter of the eleventh year of Jianshuo, this army — having fought its way across a thousand li, battered and scarred — finally put down roots near Funiu Mountain, southwest of Luoyang.

That such an outcome was achieved at all was a clear testament to Zou Xu’s leadership ability. By that time, the fighting in Jiangnan had already concluded, and the great war in the southwest was about to begin. Though this army, sustaining itself through continued fighting, had forged some genuinely elite troops in the process, its overall strength still fell far short of the Jurchen Western Route Army. Having fought without respite for over a year, its supplies exhausted and its own vitality already sapped, Ning Yi’s side ultimately decided not to commit it to the coming battle, but instead to let it rest and recover, intending to hold it in reserve as a key force for the future recapture of Luoyang, Bianliang, and other territories.

A violent internal split erupted this past January, when the original working group — by then reduced to just eight members — found themselves in direct confrontation, reportedly breaking out into a small-scale “mutiny,” which Zou Xu subsequently suppressed by force. Two members of the working group, along with several dozen wounded soldiers, fled the scene. At the time, Fang Chengye, who had just returned from the northern territories, happened to be under orders to head to the area near Luoyang; upon learning of the situation, he contacted the Zhu family’s network to initiate a formal investigation.

At that time, the war in the southwest was at its most intense, and Ning Yi was busy gathering strength in preparation for what would later become the Battle of Wangyuan Bridge. He had no way, in the moment, to judge what had actually happened near Funiu Mountain, and could only instruct such outside personnel as could still be spared to carry out the verification process as discreetly as possible. The entire investigation took time to corroborate through multiple sources, and it was only now, at the end of the fourth month, that the matter had finally been settled.

The investigation’s findings revealed that the Huaxia Army force now entrenched at Funiu Mountain had, by this point, been thoroughly transformed into Zou Xu’s personal fiefdom, run entirely on his own say-so. That, in itself, was not the greatest problem. The real problem was that, over the course of nearly a year, Zou Xu had become consumed by material desire and self-indulgence — near Ruzhou, he had reportedly killed a local landlord in order to seize his wives and concubines, and after arriving at Funiu Mountain, had entered into a mutually reinforcing relationship with the Luoyang governor Yin Zong and others, accepting large quantities of supplies — and even women — sent to him by Yin Zong.

According to the detailed findings of the investigation, after arriving at Funiu Mountain, local gentry in the nearby county towns had arranged several private residences for Zou Xu’s use. Within the army, Zou Xu maintained the appearance of normalcy, but he frequently slipped into town to indulge himself. At first, these activities were only vaguely noticed by others; since Zou Xu’s overall military discipline remained fairly strict, no one dared to speak up rashly about it. It was only this past January, as the situation in the southwest grew critical and news arrived that Huangming County had fallen, that the other members of the working group felt they could no longer simply watch the war unfold from the sidelines. Having caught their breath, they felt it was time to take further action, and the two sides finally clashed openly at a meeting, confronting each other head-on.

Zou Xu himself possessed considerable ability and authority, but the other members of the working group were no pushovers either. Once the matter was laid bare, the working group began formally impeaching Zou Xu for his misconduct. Of the eight members present at the time, only two remained on Zou Xu’s side. Zou Xu struck back — of the five who stood against him, three were subsequently killed, along with over a hundred Huaxia Army soldiers who died in this internal clash.

After Fang Chengye and his men intervened, Zou Xu had at one point even attempted to have everyone aware of the situation eliminated in one sweep, only abandoning the attempt once it became clear it would not succeed. He met once with Fang Chengye and the others, then had them expelled, offering no further explanation. Fang Chengye immediately sent word back, and it was only then that Ning Yi learned that, even as the fierce war in the southwest raged on, such a vile act of betrayal had already erupted to the north.

…

“What I have with me is only a summary,” Ning Yi said, as a soldier on patrol nearby approached and saluted him and Qin Shaoqian; Ning Yi returned the salute before continuing. “Fang Chengye’s investigation into the area is relatively thorough. After gaining control of the fifty thousand troops, since Liu Chengzong’s force had already departed, Zou Xu had no real means of enforcing strict control by force alone — within the army, he had to rely on manipulating the balance of power and playing the mid-level officers against one another to maintain the working group’s command. From a purely tactical standpoint, he actually handled it quite skillfully.”

“Externally, he understood he lacked the advantage of popular goodwill, so he consistently allied with one faction of local gentry to strike another; by keeping the fighting continuous, he was able to maintain external pressure and, in turn, relative internal stability. And in the course of that fighting, cutting down and streamlining the force was, in effect, similar to the methods the Jin Kingdom itself employed — if he had treated those fifty thousand irregulars all the same, a working group of just twenty-odd men would have found it very difficult to maintain stable control. So he drew circles, established degrees of closeness and distance, adjusting layer by layer, sorting the army itself into ranks and tiers. In the end, though only just over ten thousand core troops remained, the overall fighting strength of the force far exceeded what the original fifty thousand had possessed. That kind of strategic ability, if put to proper use, could accomplish great things.”

As Ning Yi reached this point, Qin Shaoqian smiled. “In some ways, it seems he really did inherit your mantle.”

“Just between us — early on, he really did resemble me in some ways. First in appearance — he’s rather handsome, isn’t he?” Ning Yi said, and the two of them both burst out laughing. “And then in his methods. That early generation of people I trained, the emphasis was always on getting things done — the methods I taught them were quite aggressive, some even willing to use any means necessary. But Zou Xu’s approach, beyond just being effective, was also, in many respects, rather magnanimous and measured — that’s something I genuinely admired in him.”

Ning Yi paused. “And, on a personal level — back in the early days, when resources were scarce, Zou Xu could endure hardship well, but at the same time, he had a real talent for finding joy amid hardship — figuring out how to scrounge up something good to eat even with limited resources, indulging his appetite where it did no real harm… That’s actually quite similar to me too. Thinking back on it now, that’s one of my own weaknesses.”

Qin Shaoqian said, “When there’s nothing to eat, going hungry is only natural — once the world gets better, I don’t really see anything wrong with indulging a bit.” He too had grown up as a pampered young noble in more prosperous times, having already enjoyed what there was to enjoy in his youth, and saw nothing particularly objectionable in it.

Ning Yi sighed softly, then patted him on the shoulder, saying nothing more on the matter.

“That stretch of the Central Plains is genuinely impoverished, no question about it — but there are still people managing to survive. Zou Xu, playing one faction against another all across the region, had frequent dealings with various great clans and landlords. Last autumn, at Ruzhou, seems to have marked a turning point — a concubine in one household, who should by rights have been the daughter of an official family, ended up entangled with him, and the affair was eventually exposed. It may have been the first time Zou Xu ever had to deal with something so personal — he had the entire family killed and then dressed it up under some pretext… sigh…”

“And then, moving on toward Luoyang… In truth, whatever families still survive in the Central Plains have, by now, been reduced to the barest of fighting strength — petty landowners, scattered bands of bandits, nothing more. Zou Xu, leading this Huaxia Army force in that region just to survive, fought back and forth, but always kept his reputation for reliability intact — playing one side against another, but never turning on his own patrons. So for these people, paying protection money to Zou Xu, in the midst of such chaos, wasn’t really that hard to bear…”

Qin Shaoqian smiled. “Rather than pay someone protection money, wouldn’t it be better to just pull them over to your own side?”

Ning Yi nodded. “Exactly. What happened at Ruzhou is now nearly impossible to trace fully — it’s hard to say whether it was Yin Zong and the others in Luoyang who deliberately set out to corrupt Zou Xu, or whether he simply arrived at this point on his own. But overall, Zou Xu has already shown his hand to Fang Chengye — he will not accept being brought back into the Huaxia Army only to face trial. That leaves him no choice but to commit fully, joining forces with some of the Central Plains’ fallen households to become a warlord in his own right. Zou Xu genuinely has ability when it comes to military discipline — he understands the Huaxia Army’s regulations, its system of rewards and punishments, and all manner of internal affairs perfectly well. If Yin Zong and the others keep feeding him resources, and he isn’t sidelined or undermined, then over the next few years, he really could turn into… a weakened, diminished version of the Huaxia Army.”

“…What do you plan to do?”

“At this point, there’s no possibility of forgiving him.” Ning Yi shook his head. “If I hadn’t already sent Tang Minjie off to the Jin Kingdom, I’d honestly consider sending him to Funiu Mountain to go head-to-head with Zou Xu. For now… hand it over to Fang Chengye first, have him probe the surrounding situation. If it can be resolved cleanly, all the better. If not, then in a few years, we’ll go and clear him out along with everything else. The realm is vast enough — there are already plenty of others crowding in to make trouble, one more won’t matter.”

The two continued walking through the camp. Qin Shaoqian nodded, thinking it over for a long while. “Now I finally understand why you were so worried earlier.”

“A whole year, unsupervised — and whatever was going to rot, rotted… This is going to be one of the most serious problems we face for years to come.”

“Understood… more meetings, more lectures ahead.”

“Comrade Shaoqian… that’s a rather elevated level of awareness you’ve reached there…”

The river of stars stretched across the night sky as the two men walked on, talking and laughing together in the camp. Though what they discussed was serious — even matters that would decide the future of the entire realm — every now and then, they still found themselves throwing an arm around each other’s shoulders.

South of the camp, the Han River flowed on. A great battle that had shaken the realm had finally come to rest. Across the vast expanse of this land, stretching ten thousand li in every direction, countless people were still quietly listening to the wind, while the ripples of what had just happened were only beginning to spread through the crowd — ripples that would soon gather into a great wave, sweeping over and washing through everything in its path.

Fourteen years had now passed since the Jurchen’s first southern invasion. The land, torn and fractured beyond recognition, had seen banner after banner rise and fall over its city walls. And now, at this very moment, a new change was about to begin.