Chapter Twenty-Four: Under the World's Gaze (6)

Li Quanwu was still rambling on about the tales of Zhao Zilong, and Shi Meng’s simple-minded laughter blended into the wind and snow. Yet, in Li Xiao’s ears, another sound began to resonate: the sharp clash of metal, the frantic snorting of warhorses, and the thunderous roar of a thousand armies charging across the plains.

His vision blurred. The snow-capped mountains before him spun, and the snowflakes transformed into swirling sand and dust. Geng Gu’s anxious face and Shi Yong’s startled cries gradually faded, replaced by a weathered countenance with phoenix-like eyes and arched brows. Clad in white robes and wielding a silver spear, the figure reined in his horse atop a city wall, gazing down at the dense, swarming masses of rebel soldiers below.

"Home..."

An unfamiliar voice surged from his throat, carrying a scalding heat that pierced to his very marrow. "Is it to be ravaged by war once again...?"

It was the seventh year of the Guanghe era (184 AD) in Changshan Commandery, Jizhou. He saw himself as a youth, standing on the ridges of the fields in Changshan. The Yellow Turban rebels trampled the newly ripened wheat, and wild dogs dragged away the corpses of his fellow villagers.

"The world is in chaos; the Yellow Turbans know no righteousness." The drums of the county magistrate recruiting local volunteers made his heart tremble. He gripped that sharpened wooden spear, his mind filled with only one thought: Kill the thieves, protect his home, and bring an end to this chaotic age as soon as possible—to ensure that this chaos would never again devour a peaceful home.

Later, he followed Lord Xuande, crossing high mountains and traversing vast rivers.

Charging in and out of Changban Slope, he protected not just a child in his arms, but faced a million Cao troops at his back. Yet, he held only one conviction: he would not let this child taste the bitterness of a broken home again. By the Han River, defending an empty camp, the tip of his spear carried not just the banner of the Cao camp, but a persistent obsession: "Restore the Han Dynasty and return to the old capital."

He had believed that as long as he kept charging without pause, he would eventually see the day of peace.

But within the palace walls of Baidi City, the First Emperor’s hands trembled as he entrusted the heir to his care. He knelt on the ground, his forehead bleeding from his kowtows: "I shall do my utmost to protect the Great Han..."

And yet, in the end... in the end, he stood in the military tent of the Northern Expedition, his temples dusted with frost. The autumn winds of Wuzhang Plains chilled the Wei River. He stood before the empty tent, the Dragon-Gall spear in his hand weighing more than a thousand catties.

Lord Xuande’s ideals, the Prime Minister’s aspirations, and his own lifelong wish—they remained unfulfilled.

The world remained fractured; the people remained displaced. This chaotic era was a nightmare from which he could never wake. The wild fires had burned for a lifetime, yet never burned out.

He gazed toward Changshan beyond the Taihang Mountains, thinking of the wheat fields of his home, knowing he would never see them again.

A faint hope in a chaotic world had been extinguished.

"The northern barbarians... are coming to trample my home again..."

When he heard that the "Golden Tartars were coming to level Changshan," that obsession, buried for nearly a thousand years, suddenly broke through the soil. He had failed to protect the world at the end of the Han Dynasty; was he now to watch, with his own eyes, the iron hooves of foreigners crush the wheat fields of his home once more?

Grief and indignation roared in the depths of his heart—a sound carrying the heavy weight of a Hebei man, the hoarseness of a life on the battlefield, and a heart-wrenching pain. A millennium ago, he had left Changshan to pacify a chaotic world; a millennium later, was he to witness the barbarians turning their blades upon the elders of his homeland?

His fingers tightened around the reins until his knuckles turned white.

In his pupils, he no longer saw the wind and snow of Mount Yunzhong, but the blood-red sunset of Changban Slope, the shimmering waves of the Han River, and the familiar ridges and rising smoke of Changshan Commandery.

That was the home that haunted his dreams, the place he had vowed to protect in his youth. It must never be defiled by the iron hooves of the barbarians!

A raging fire exploded within his body, coursing through his veins and limbs.

It was the burning heat of an undying obsession—the courage of the warrior who charged through a million men to carve a path of blood; the sincerity of the man who, at seventy, still requested to lead the Northern Expedition; the red soul that had burned its entire life for the words "pacify the chaos."

"Ha..." A soft laugh escaped Li Xiao’s lips, tinged with endless desolation.

In his mind, the dream of galloping armies merged with reality. He suddenly reached for his armor and draped it over his shoulders; the clanging of iron plates startled everyone.

Li Quanwu’s eyes widened as he watched the playboy youth vault onto his horse, even leading a spare mount—his posture clearly that of a man going to his death.

"Young Master! Have you lost your mind?" the old man’s raspy voice cracked.

Yuan Zhenhai grabbed his reins: "Brother Li! While there is life, there is hope..."

"Green hills bury the bones of war, the setting sun stains the banners red. The wind howls against cold iron armor, and hot blood drives the galloping hoofbeats!"

Li Xiao laughed aloud, his spear tip knocking Yuan Zhenhai’s hand away. He spurred his horse, which neighed and charged out, snow spraying three feet into the air.

Lu Feng-Hu’s eyes suddenly lit up: "Damn it! Now that’s guts! So Brother Li has this much backbone! I, Old Lu, am in!" With that, he snatched two horses and gave chase.

"You lot are truly..." The old man cursed as he leapt onto his horse, more agile than any of the youngsters. Yuan Zhenhai spat out a curse of "Lunatic!" and switched horses to follow.

The others, though willing, had no horses left and were forced to retreat southward.

Four riders and eight horses galloped across the snowy plains. Suddenly, a desolate, operatic melody from the Shu region pierced the cold wind.

"I stand upon the city tower~ gazing~ at the mountains~" Li Quanwu’s frost-covered beard trembled, his voice growing increasingly high-pitched, "Only to see~ ten thousand horses~ blood~ waves~ surging~~"

Lu Feng-Hu laughed upon hearing this, and his rough, Jin-style singing erupted like a thunderclap: "The Fen River sobs~ the banners tear~"

This was the "Ballad of the Fen River," passed down for centuries in the Jin lands, a heroic epic of the Tang soldiers who fought to the death to defend Jinyang against Turkic raids. "Sons of Jinyang~ bones like iron~" Each word felt like a clot of blood bursting from the chest, freezing into ice in the biting wind.

The four riders and eight horses sped like arrows released from a bow, soon catching up to the unit of Sun Yi, who was about to charge on horseback.

More than a hundred riders, seeing Li Xiao and the others returning to the fray, were stunned for a moment before their spirits were ignited by the interwoven melodies. Sun Yi laughed as he rode: "Brother Li arrives just in time! Listen to my old Shaanxi tune!"

He opened his throat, the Qin opera of the Guanzhong region crashing through the snow like a grand bell: "Golden moats are solid~ spirits and demons weep~" This was the "Ballad of the Expedition" from the Qin River plains, "Blood stains the armor~ the will remains unbroken~"

Li Xiao’s Shu-style singing responded with growing desolation: "Jimen Pass~ though ten thousand miles away~ loyal souls circle Hanzhong~ every night~~"

The chorus of over a hundred men billowed across the snowfield, drowning out the sound of the wind and snow.

At this moment, the Jin camp was clearly visible. Xie Li stood before a tent, laughing as he pulled back the curtain, saying to the Gegu Wulibu beside him: "Are these Southerners singing a funeral dirge to deliver themselves to their deaths?"

Gegu Wulibu was a hereditary Mouke who had rendered great service in the war to destroy the Liao Dynasty, only one step away from becoming a Meng'an.

He drew his curved saber, the blade’s glint reflecting his greedy eyes: "Good! I shall use their blood to dye my path to becoming a Meng'an red!"

He mounted his horse, and hundreds of Jurchen cavalry surged out of the camp like a black tide. Their longbows were pulled into full moons as they galloped, the arrowheads glinting with a cold, deathly light in the reflection of the snow.

Viewed from high above, two masses of moving shadows approached each other at astonishing speed. To the west was the snow dust raised by Li Xiao and his men; to the east was the Jurchen cavalry of Gegu Wulibu, like a rolling black tide.

The wind and snow tore between them, yet it could not block the sound of the approaching hooves. Two scorching irons were about to collide on the ice field, sparking a heaven-shaking conflagration.

The cries of alarm from the city wall were instantly swallowed by the clashing of iron and steel.

"Young General! Reinforcements! They are reinforcements!" A soldier, his face smeared with blood and filth, pointed to the north, his eyes flashing with ecstatic joy.

Wang Xun gripped his blood-stained long spear, squinting for a moment before kicking the battlement, causing frozen earth to crumble: "Dammit all! That handful of men isn't even enough to plug a gap!"

His roar made the nearby laborers shiver. "The Jin dogs are climbing the ladders again! Push the logs down!" The arc of his spear cut through the cold wind, striking a member of the Yisheng Army who had just crested the wall.

The soldier shrieked as he fell, his corpse colliding with his comrades below, both tumbling into a pile of bodies.

Wang Xun spat out a mouthful of blood and turned to shoulder a log as thick as a bowl, roaring: "We are but a bone! Even if we break, we must stick in the throats of these Jin dogs!"

Below the wall, Geng Shouzhong was startled by the roar and looked up, his peripheral vision catching the commotion in the north.

His trusted aide lay in the snow, trembling as he tugged on Geng's pant leg: "Big Brother, it seems they really have reinforcements... should we retreat?"

Geng Shouzhong’s eyes were so red they seemed to bleed. He backhanded the man across the face: "Retreat? Retreat where? The Jurchen overseer is right behind us! To take one step back is death!" He pointed to the piles of corpses at the base of the wall, his voice hoarse. "See that? Only by attacking is there a path to survive!"

"Survive?" the aide repeated, watching the brothers falling from the ladders, before suddenly bursting into tears. "But the brothers are almost all dead!"

"Let them die!" Geng Shouzhong grabbed a blade and plunged it into the back of a retreating soldier. "Anyone who retreats again suffers this fate!" He dragged the corpse and threw it under the ladder. "All of you, look clearly! Either climb up, or be cut down by your own!"

The Yisheng soldiers, driven by this ruthlessness, fell into despair. The ladders creaked under the weight of the corpses; where they had snapped, the men simply climbed over the bodies of their comrades. The rain of arrows from the wall descended like a dark, heavy cloud; each volley wiped out a wave, yet the men behind surged forward like the tide.

Arrows flew like locusts between the wall and the ground. The Song army’s heavy crossbows emitted a dull hum, their iron bolts piercing three men at once and pinning them to the snow. The Yisheng archers crouched behind piles of corpses and returned fire, their arrowheads grazing the brickwork of the parapets.

Thud!

A siege engine rammed against the city gate, shaking the tower.

Wang Bin’s roar came from the city center, thunderous and clear: "Bring up the molten gold! Pour it on them!" The laborers tremblingly lifted the wooden barrels, the scalding liquid emitting white smoke and creating a mist in the cold wind.

"Pour!"

Following Wang Bin’s command, the molten metal cascaded down like a waterfall. The wooden planks of the siege engine instantly collapsed in a cloud of smoke, and the Yisheng soldiers below screamed like slaughtered pigs as their skin sloughed off like melting wax.

The slaughter on the ladders had lasted for two hours.

The corpses of the Yisheng soldiers formed a gentle slope beneath the wall; those who followed climbed over the remains of their comrades. The scalding liquid poured down from the battlements, skinning alive all it touched. One soldier, blinded by the heat, continued to climb until he was crushed into pulp by a falling stone.

Yin Shuke watched the tug-of-war on the walls. "Send two thousand more from the Han battalion!" Thousands of Han soldiers had died in recent days—as soon as one batch was wiped out, another was sent to replace them.

If they could take the city, all the better; if not, they would at least exhaust the city's supplies. The use of "fierce fire oil" had become increasingly rare, showing the Song defenders' reserves were running low.

Two thousand Yisheng soldiers were forced forward by the Jurchen overseers' blades, their feet crunching on the frozen piles of corpses.

The man in the front, staring at the molten metal flowing down the wall, crouched on the ground and wept: "I don't want to die! I want to go home alive."

"Stop your damn crying!" He was shoved from behind and stumbled forward.

"Charge! Charge up there, and maybe you'll have a chance to live!"

Geng Shouzhong’s voice was hollow; he couldn't even deceive himself. Of the brothers who had died beneath the wall these past few days, which of them hadn't climbed with the thought that "maybe I'll live"?

"Shoot! Anyone who hesitates, shoot them dead!" The Jurchen overseer’s roar sounded from behind, arrows whistling past the soldiers' scalps and pinning into the piles of corpses ahead.

They had no choice but to bite the bullet and charge. Some grabbed shields from the ground to cover their heads; others simply closed their eyes and climbed, cursing incessantly.

"Damn your mother, you Jin dogs! Treating us like pigs to be slaughtered!"

"This shitty world! I should have died in Jinzhou!"

"Zhang Xiaochun, you dog-begotten bastard! Just surrender! I don't want to die with you!"

Screams rose and fell. The newly arrived Yisheng soldiers climbed over the bodies of their predecessors. Some, just as they grabbed the ladder, had their palms skewered by long spears from above. Others, having climbed halfway, saw the pile of corpses beneath them collapse, sending man and ladder tumbling into the abyss.

One soldier, in the moment of his fall, spat out a final curse in the Liaodong dialect. His voice was quickly swallowed by a denser chorus of screams. The courage to face death drove them, temporarily suppressing their ideals, but such resolve was easily broken.

The north wind, carrying snow, whipped against their armor with a delicate, crackling sound.

The two waves of cavalry on the snowy plain closed the distance—two hundred paces, one hundred and eighty, one hundred and twenty. They were at the threshold of bowshot range.

Lu Feng-Hu suddenly opened his throat, his harsh Jin-style voice mixed with curses: "You dog bastards! Watch Grandpa shoot your balls off!"

Both sides drew their bows and nocked arrows, waiting to close the distance further.

Li Xiao, riding at the front, yanked his reins. His horse let out a startled neigh and swerved, heading straight for the city wall!

Sun Yi and the others were stunned for a moment, then gritted their teeth and followed. Their hooves plowed deep furrows into the snow, leaving Gegu Wulibu’s Jurchen cavalry to their side and rear.

"Coward! Where are you running!" Gegu Wulibu’s roar came with a volley of arrows. The crisp sound of his thumb ring snapping the bowstring had barely faded when an arrow pierced the chest of a Song cavalryman.

The rider didn't even moan; he slumped directly from his saddle, and a dark red flower instantly bloomed in the snow.

"Pursue! Leave none of them alive; use them to sacrifice to our warriors!" Gegu Wulibu grinned hideously, digging his heels into his horse’s flanks. The horse bolted like an arrow. His Jurchen riders behind him let out bloodthirsty howls, drawing their bows.

The Jurchen arrow rain poured down.

They held their bows in their left hands, and their right thumbs wore bone rings with blood grooves—the Han-style archery, with three fingers gripping the string, looked clumsy and inept before them.

In the sub-zero cold, the Jurchen bows remained elastic, the arrows cutting through the wind and snow with undiminished accuracy.

An arrow arched at a seventy-degree angle, whistling as it descended, piercing the iron armor of a Song rider. It entered the chest and exited the back, the fletching still buzzing as it vibrated.

"Five arrows in twenty breaths! How are these northern barbarians so fierce!" Yuan Zhenhai cursed, ducking his head. His armor was grazed by a stray arrow, sparks flying onto his frost-reddened face.

The Song soldiers fell like wheat being harvested, one after another, crashing from their saddles with screams.

The Jurchen arrows were cunning and ruthless, their whistling wind like the whispers of death.

Conversely, the Song soldiers' arrows, whether due to lack of strength or the interference of the wind and snow, skewed off the sides of the Jurchen riders, rarely finding their mark. The disparity in casualties widened sharply in just a few breaths.

"Huff... have you soft sheep not eaten? Your arrows are like a woman's embroidery needles!" Gegu Wulibu ducked an arrow and laughed loudly.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

The Jurchen cavalry beside him began to showcase their rapid-fire technique. Blood seeped from the grooves on their rings, but it didn't affect their speed; the arrows flew like a continuous swarm of locusts.

The Song cavalry fell one by one, their screams swallowed by the wind and snow, while only two men in the Jurchen ranks were hit, and only by grazing wounds.

Under the Jurchen’s overwhelming cavalry archery, the Song soldiers suffered heavy casualties, their numbers dwindling rapidly. Sun Yi’s eyes were bloodshot; watching his comrades fall one by one, he was about to draw his saber for a final, desperate melee charge.

"Laugh!" Li Xiao ducked a cold arrow and fired one back in reverse.

His "sweeping-back shot," though inferior to the Jurchen elite, was cunning and vicious, striking a laughing Jurchen rider square in the face.

The rider shrieked and fell from his horse.

"Who!!!"

Gegu Wulibu’s laughter froze instantly, turning into a furious roar! His sharp gaze locked onto the source of the arrow—it was that fellow riding in the lead!

Without hesitation, he drew and nocked an arrow with lightning speed, firing a fierce retaliatory shot at Li Xiao’s back!

Li Xiao seemed to have eyes in the back of his head; he suddenly leaned low, pressing against his horse’s neck! The sharp arrow whistled past his helmet!

"Good archery!" Lu Feng-Hu was stirred to a fever pitch and shot the enemy’s horse, sending the Jurchen rider flying as his mount collapsed beneath him!

Sun Yi and Yuan Zhenhai also claimed their own kills, and the remnants of the Song cavalry, fueled by this momentum, charged madly toward the Yisheng army besieging the city.