The incense at the temple was so thick it made the throat burn. Dense smoke poured from the main hall, hanging over the shrine like a gray cloud. An old woman sobbed and shouted in the midst of the crowd, her voice piercing the evening sky.
“Divine Maiden! You are the Divine Maiden of Dayan, but you are also the Divine Maiden of our Qiang people! You can’t protect only the people of Dayan—you have to protect us too!”
Both of her sons had gone to the front. Her husband, already in his forties, could very well be dragged off to fill the trenches if the fighting went badly. Three grown men from their family—surely they couldn’t all be sacrificed to this war!
With all the men gone, wouldn’t the rest of the family be bullied to death?
Her wailing was scattered by the northwest wind into the ash-filled air. No one answered her, because every family kneeling there was in the same dire situation.
The wind chimes beneath the temple eaves rang out, their sound just like the bronze bells in the palace—fine, cold, and distant, like a sigh drifting from somewhere very far away.
No one knew what deity this temple had once enshrined, but that was all in the past. Now it housed a small statue of Yue Fuguang. Judging from the surrounding furnishings, the temple had evidently been chosen in haste.
On the day Shen Jian led the central army out of Pingchang City, dawn had barely broken.
Forty thousand infantry, eight thousand cavalry, and three thousand crossbowmen, along with the supply train and civilian laborers, stretched for more than twenty miles. The military banners snapped in the morning breeze, embroidered with Dayan’s emblem: a crescent moon cradling a long sword.
This was the symbol of Yue Fuguang, a design the officials and sovereign of Dayan had debated repeatedly before finally settling on it. The Dayan army had only recently begun using these banners.
On the lands of Western Qiang, the emblem represented two things: the Dayan army, and Yue Fuguang’s protection. When those two things became one, the people of Western Qiang found their will to resist subtly shaken. They no longer knew exactly whom they were fighting.
Shen Jian rode a tall, powerful horse in the middle of the column. His armor looked ordinary at first glance, no different from that of any other general, but a closer look revealed its distinctive features.
It was the latest creation of the Ministry of Works—what the Grand Preceptor called “cutting-edge technology.”
The army advanced westward along the Huangshui River valley. Scattered fields and villages dotted the slopes on either side, their barley already harvested at this time of year, leaving only knee-high stubble.
The poplars along the field paths had begun to shed their leaves, and golden foliage carpeted the roads. This was the finest season in Western Qiang: high skies, sparse clouds, clear river water, and distant snowcapped mountains gleaming white beneath the sun.
Yet the villages were deserted.
No one came out to watch the army pass. Doors were shut and windows closed. The only sound was the occasional bark from some courtyard, quickly muffled by a terrified owner.
Shen Jian ordered the messenger beside him, “Pass it down. No noise when we pass through the villages. Do not touch so much as a blade of grass belonging to the common people. Anyone who dares violate military discipline will be executed without mercy!”
The messenger accepted the order and hurried off to relay it.
News that all three armies had begun their advance reached Jincheng almost simultaneously. The northern Dayan army had set out from Gangu and crossed the Huanglian Mountain Pass; its vanguard had already reached Haoyuan.
The southern Dayan army had departed Dingyuan and was advancing west along the Tao River, closing in on Yongshi River.
The central army, Shen Jian’s main force, had already passed Wuyi and was less than two hundred and fifty miles from Jincheng.
The three armies converged like three pincers, closing from the east, north, and south. Jincheng was the walnut caught between them; no matter how hard its shell, it could not withstand pressure from three directions at once.
Xi Yan finally began to act like a king. At court, he announced three decisions.
First, he appointed Feng Yuan commander-in-chief and ordered him to lead fifty thousand troops from the defenders of Jincheng to meet the enemy outside the city and hold the narrowest point of the Huangshui Valley—the Jishi Gorge.
Second, he ordered the urgent conscription of troops from all the tribes of Western Qiang, requiring them to assemble in Jincheng within three days.
Third, he sent envoys west to seek aid from the Hua Qiang tribes, offering them large sums of money and land in return.
Each of the three decisions was sound, but every one of them had come too late. In fact, three months earlier, before Dayan had shown any clear intentions, Xi Yan and his chancellor, along with the other senior ministers, had already considered mobilizing the various tribes.
The idea itself was sound. But times had changed. If they had moved two years earlier, the troops could have been mobilized simply by issuing Xi Yan’s imperial decree.
But now… who would come and throw themselves into the pit for them?
The defensive fortifications at Jishi Gorge should have been built six months ago, yet they were only being reinforced now, with the Dayan army nearly at the gorge. The order to mobilize the tribal forces had been issued a month earlier, but Dayan’s three armies were already advancing from three directions, and those who had received the summons still had not moved. At the time, the factions advocating war and peace had still been arguing among themselves.
As for seeking aid from the Hua Qiang tribes in the west, it would take their riders at least five or six days to reach Jincheng. By then, the Dayan army would have surrounded the city. Besides, the Hua Qiang were fond of sweeping only their own doorstep clean, and even more fond of adding flowers to brocade—helping the strong rather than the desperate.
But not everyone could see that these decisions had come too late. Some officials at court breathed a sigh of relief, believing that since His Majesty was finally willing to fight, Western Qiang might yet be saved. More remained silent, already calculating the losses in their hearts.
After the court session, Feng Yuan summoned his subordinates to his home to discuss military affairs. This Western Qiang general, in his early forties, was broad-shouldered and powerfully built, with a full beard and a voice like a booming bell.
Among the nobles of Western Qiang, he was the best fighter after the Marquis of Changxin. Although he had ultimately been forced to retreat during the previous struggle for the three cities, he had caused the Dayan army considerable trouble. Shen Jian had mentioned him specifically in his battle report, describing him as “bold in the face of battle and well versed in military strategy.”
Yet at this moment, the situation shown on the sand table before Feng Yuan was undeniably grim.
“The central army of Dayan numbers roughly fifty thousand, all seasoned troops under Shen Jian,” his deputy said, pointing at the sand table. “The northern army has forty-five thousand men, commanded by He Yan, a surrendered general from Nan Zhao. They’ve reportedly crossed the Huanglian Mountain Pass already. The brothers defending Haoyuan probably won’t be able to hold out.”
He lowered his voice slightly. “As for the southern army, it numbers thirty thousand and is led by a general named Zhang Fang.”
“Oh? Tell me more.”
“According to the information we’ve gathered, he once served as the captain of the Goddess Yue’s guards.”
Feng Yuan glanced at him in surprise. Upon hearing that Zhang Fang had once been a guard captain, even he had to admit that the man clearly had a powerful patron.
He drew a deep breath and raised a hand to stop the deputy from continuing. Instead, he fixed his eyes on the sand table and stared at it for a long time.
