Darkness at its deepest point unleashes a flood of memories and emotions, a suffocating tide.
Summer, a scorching image, a pond dotted with lotus blossoms.

Wu, the autumn of the third year of Jianshuo, began with the defeat of Ji Wen Kang's two hundred thousand troops of the puppet Qi by the Black Flag Army of China. The joint armies of the Jin and puppet Qi dynasties launched a prolonged three-year siege against Lüliang, Xiaocanghe, Yanzhou, and other places.

The flames of war in the Northwest have never ceased since then.

With the Jurchen's southern invasion not long finished, the initial offensive was primarily led by Liu Yu's regime. Urged by the Jurchen government, a second round of attacks and blockades was quickly organized. After the defeat of the two hundred thousand, an army of up to six hundred thousand, advancing step by step, pushed towards the border of Lüliang.

This time, nominally under Liu Yu's command, but in reality having surrendered to the Jurchens, large forces such as Tian Hu, Cao Xingnong, and Lü Zheng also joined the fray. That late autumn, a large number of troops, under the supervision of Jin supervisors, marched mightily towards Lüliang, the Northwest, and other places. As this first wave of the army advanced, reinforcements were still gathering and marching from all over the Central Plains. In the Northwest, under the command of the Jurchen general Ci Bushi, the Zhe family began to move, and other surrendered forces, such as Yan Zheng Guo, who had failed in their earlier attacks on the Northwest, also participated in this huge campaign, taking advantage of the momentum.

This mighty army advanced with the force of divine retribution. Although the Central Plains had already fallen into the hands of the Jurchens, there were still several resistance forces in the Northwest. However, either understanding the Jurchens' seriousness in avenging Wanyan Loushi or fearing the Chinese army's rebellious and regicidal identity, the only forces that truly resisted under this mighty force were the Chinese army and the Zhong family army, both of which were less than one hundred thousand men.

In the Northwest, the Zhong family army defended the cities, while in the mountains of Lüliang, Xiaocanghe, and other places, the Chinese army launched a fierce offensive against hundreds of thousands of troops.

Based on the continuous and treacherous mountain terrain and complex topography of these places, the Chinese army adopted a flexible and changeable offensive: ambushes, traps, hot air balloons flying in the sky, carefully arranged artillery formations targeting the terrain... At that time, winter had not yet arrived, and hundreds of thousands of troops entered the mountains in batches. After being hit head-on by the Black Flag Army, the puppet Qi troops were often blown off the mountain roads by the fierce artillery formations. The Black Flag Army, rushing up the mountain ridges, pushed down flaming oil and straw stacks. On the slopes and valleys, people pushed and fled in droves, and were burned and charred in large numbers as the fire spread.

The fierce fire attacks, night raids, especially the fierce attacks on the grain supply units entering the mountains under the difficult mountain road conditions, in the first month or so, tens of thousands of people died in those mountains almost as if they were being sent to their graves. The situation was so tragic that people could not bear to look at it directly.

Although all the troops participating in the attack at this time were Han Chinese troops, the Black Flag Army did not show any mercy - they could not show any mercy. And the Han Chinese troops were of no significance to the Jurchens. Liu Yu's regime continued to conscript troops in the Central Plains. A small number of Jurchen troops guarded the rear of the mountainous areas, urging the advancing troops to move forward. Because of the initial head-on attack, the invading troops began to adopt a more stable advance method. They dug up roads, cut down forests mountain by mountain, and strictly held together in groups with a ten-to-one advantage, advancing slowly.

In the spring of the fourth year of Jianshuo, the puppet Qi army first entered the outer perimeter of Qingmu Village, and the defense around Qingmu Village began. In the autumn of that year, with the increase of Jurchen reinforcements, the attacking army approached Xiaocanghe, and by winter, completed the encirclement and division of Qingmu Village and Xiaocanghe. As for the several cities controlled by the Zhong family army in the Northwest, they had already become bloody battlefields. The Zhong family army had successively lost control of Qingzhou, Baoanjun, Huanzhou, and other places, leaving only Yanzhou, struggling to support itself.

In this year, the progress of the Jin-Qi allied forces was summarized in war reports, perhaps simply. However, during the advance of the Jin army and the puppet Qi army, the resistance of the Black Flag Army was astonishing and even appalling. In the mountains near Qingmu Village and Xiaocanghe, the advancement of the attacking army was almost an inch of land and an inch of blood. During the advance, there were even several large-scale routs due to the beheading of the main general, surprise attacks on the camp at night, and exploding the camp. The troops of the puppet Qi were mostly a rabble. If the Jurchen troops guarding the rear had not successively beheaded tens of thousands of deserters, building a long, continuous forest of heads on the ground, this great battle would probably have been impossible to fight.

In March of the fourth year, before the flames of war surrounded Qingmu Village, as the puppet Qi advanced inch by inch, the Black Flag Army suddenly protruded from Xiaocanghe and launched a surprise attack on the allied forces of Yan Zhen Guo and the Zhe family at Sha Lang Ridge in the northwest, defeating Yan Zhen Guo and his personal guards in battle. At the same time, they defeated the Zhe family army, killing Zhe Ke Qiu and forcing him to flee for more than thirty miles. Several nephews of the Zhe family were killed by the Black Flag Army in this battle.

In June, a special force of about a thousand men sneaked north into the territory of the Jin Dynasty, breaking into Zhongling in Shuozhou. These thousand men captured the county seat, conquered a nearby horse farm guarded by Jin soldiers, seized hundreds of warhorses, set a fire, and left triumphantly. When the Jurchen army arrived, the horse farm and the county government had already been reduced to ashes in the raging fire, and all the Jurchen officials had been beheaded and their heads hung on the city wall as a warning.

The troops left Jurchen characters on a giant rock on the mountain road back to Lüliang: "Do not expect to return alive."

--Don't think you can come back alive.

This was an intensity that no one had imagined. For several years, the Jurchens had swept the world and had never met an opponent. During the army's attack on Xiaocanghe and the Northwest, although there was supervision by the Jurchen army, when it came to the Jurchen country, they were still digesting the gains of the third southward invasion. At this time, they were still like a lazy snake, and no one was willing to face the full-scale mobilization of the Jurchen regular army. However, the Black Flag Army had brazenly struck, taking a heavy knife out of the opponent.

Such an attack was not enough to cause the Jurchens pain, but the loss of face was a feeling that had not been felt for a long time.

With this action, more Jurchen troops began to move south one after another.

However, facing the fierce artillery attacks of the Black Flag Army, the Jurchen troops at this time still did not stand at the forefront, but used a large number of Han Chinese troops as cannon fodder, using them to test the power of the artillery, the power of gunpowder, and gradually seek ways to restrain them.

However, in September, the same army took advantage of a Black Flag Army attack to tear open the blockade line, break out of the eastern mountain area, and stirred up a round between the Jurchen garrison camps. If the Jurchen general Na Gu, who was guarding the eastern front, had not survived the attack, the offensive in front would probably have been dispersed by this surprise attack. However, with the rapid response of the Jurchen army, this thousand men suffered a tragic siege on the way back to Xiaocanghe, suffering heavy losses.

In the spring of the fifth year of Jianshuo, the Jurchen general Ci Bushi led 30,000 Jurchen troops south to the Northwest, stepped over the "Do not expect to return alive" monument, and Shu Lie Su led 30,000 troops into the Central Plains. In February, upon learning this news, half of the Xiaocanghe troops broke out of the encirclement and began a bloody battle that lasted for nearly a month. They stirred up chaos among the besieged troops in the mountains, and temporarily opened the surrounded situation. This was a fierce battle after the army's step-by-step advance. During the battle, senior officials such as the puppet Qi general Ji Wen Kang and Liu Yu's younger brother Liu Yi were all pinpointed and killed by the Black Flag Army.

Blood flowed like a river, and corpses piled up like mountains.

In March, Yanzhou fell. Zhong Lie resisted to the end in Yanzhou City and died in battle. From then on, there was no more Zhong family army.

In June, with the participation of Shu Lie Su's troops in the attack, Xiaocanghe, after more than half a year of encirclement, breached the dam. The troops of Qingmu Village and Xiaocanghe broke out of the encirclement, and the mountains were in chaos. Ning Yi led a force of more than 20,000 men to raid Yanzhou. Ci Bushi led a large army to confront him, and the Black Flag Army sneaked into Yanzhou City through the secret passages previously dug by the Zhong family army, breaking the city from the inside out. The Jurchen general Ci Bushi was captured in the chaotic battle and was subsequently beheaded by the Black Flag Army on the city wall.

Qin Shaoqian led another Black Flag Army to go south and east, breaking into the Central Plains and taking several cities in succession, eventually breaking into the vicinity of Taiyuan. It is said that Qin Shaoqian paid tribute to his deceased brother under the city of Taiyuan. Soon after, he broke back to the west.

At this time, the western and northwestern parts of the Central Plains, where the Black Flag Army roamed, had completely turned into a chaotic killing field.

Whether it was the west, the south, or the north, people watched this great battle. At first, perhaps they had not spent too much thought on it, but at this point, its emergence and progress could no longer be ignored by anyone. In the second year of the great battle, the Central Plains had mobilized almost all of its forces to invest in it. Liu Yu's regime's exorbitant taxes increased sharply, the Han Chinese people fled south, the people were in dire straits, and the uprising troops rose again.

The Jurchens also spent a lot of troops suppressing them. On the way from the Central Plains to Xiaocanghe, Liu Yu's army and Tian Hu's army blockaded all the routes, and this blockade was only briefly broken until Qin Shaoqian led his team out.

No one knows how desperate the people involved in the war were. The Black Flag Army soldiers captured on the battlefield were cruelly tortured to death. The Han Chinese troops forced to the front lines had long been broken. Sometimes, there were even timid people kneeling in front of the army formation, begging the Black Flag Army to surrender, and begging the Black Flag Army to die quickly—they could not see the possibility of survival for the Black Flag Army, so they did not dare to throw themselves into death. The Black Flag Army did not show them mercy either.

By the second half of the fifth year of Jianshuo, the Jurchens' artillery had gradually begun to be put into use in the army. The Jurchen elite troops mixed into the army would launch a surprise attack on the Black Flag Army after the artillery stopped—at this time, the Black Flag Army's gunpowder was running low, but the Jurchens, relying on a constant supply, still had a large amount of gunpowder to squander.

The intelligence sent to the south always seemed simple, but every conflict in these mountains was probably so tragic that people could not breathe. There were small-scale confrontations in large-scale battles. There were small teams of Black Flag Army soldiers who were trapped in the mountains and starved to death. There were those who were ambushed by the army and fought to the last man in desperate situations. People would find black flags still standing among the mountains of corpses. In the harshest environments and the most desperate death grounds, every charge of the Black Flag Army soldiers was chilling...

How could anyone who has not experienced it imagine it?

In such times, Jiangnan stabilized the situation and continued to develop. With the refugees fleeing from the north, large and small workshops had an abundant supply of manpower. They had no permanent property and begged to have enough to eat. The merchants in Jiangnan had a large amount of cheap labor. The officials began to praise their virtues in the court, believing that it was the reason for their painful reflection and the symbol of the rise of the Wu Dynasty. As for the war in the north, no one said anything, no one dared to say anything, and no one could say anything.

Just like the decrees of the Jingping Emperor, who was locked up in the north like pigs and dogs, and his praises to the Jin Emperor every year, the royal family was also constantly blocking news of the war in the Northwest. The high-level officials who knew about these things could not speak. Zhou Pei had no way to say or think about it. She only received item after item of cruel news about the north, scolding her younger brother Jun Wu for his emotions being expressed on the outside. For those messages that made her palpitate, she tried to quietly suppress them.

These feelings, when suppressed for a long time, became a natural reaction. So, she no longer had too much shock at those tragic messages—anyway, every one of them was tragic—in the calm and prosperous atmosphere of Jiangnan, sometimes she would suddenly feel that those were all fake. She quietly read them, quietly filed them, quietly… only in the most relaxed moments of midnight dreams would nightmares suddenly come and remind her of the mountain-like corpses, the river-like blood, the fluttering flags, and the most fierce resistance and shouts.

In the context of the Jurchens' southward invasion, where tens of millions and even hundreds of millions of people could not resist, it was the rebellious traitor who had angrily assassinated the emperor who stubbornly nailed himself to the desperate ground where it was impossible to gain a foothold in the most difficult environment. Facing the overwhelming attacks, he firmly strangled the throat of the almost invincible strong enemy, and did not waver in the three years of fierce fighting.

In this situation of heavenly collapse, no one had ever achieved such a degree.

In the three years, Zhou Pei could understand her brother's feelings. She could even imagine what kind of mood generals like Yue Fei, who had dealt with that devil before, would be in after receiving those messages, after receiving the news that Zhong Lie had died in Yanzhou, that the Black Flag Army had beheaded Ci Bushi on the city wall, and that Qin Shaoqian had charged across Taiyuan.

Not only these high-level officials, but also among the scholars who could access high-level information, news about the great war in the Northwest would be a high-level topic of conversation. People would scold the regicidal devil on the one hand, and talk about these things on the other hand, with extremely subtle emotions in their hearts. Zhou Pei understood these things in her heart, but she was… unable to waver.

In the sixth year of Jianshuo, the war continued to rage. The Jurchen army continued to arrive one after another, and the Northwest became an increasingly tragic war situation. The people on the land had almost been wiped out. The Central Plains became more and more impoverished. The losses of the Black Flag Army also became greater and greater—Zhou Pei found it difficult to know how they had survived on that land. But… perhaps if it was him, there would be more ways.

After all, that regicidal devil… was a truly chilling devil.

Jiangnan became more and more stable, and she was almost getting used to these things.

When will you fall? She had also thought about it, but each time, she could not continue to think about it.

On the eighth day of June in the sixth year of Jianshuo of the Wu Dynasty, the Jin and puppet Qi allied forces besieged the main force of the Black Flag Army at Huang Tou Slope in the Northwest. On the thirteenth, they beheaded Ning Yi, the leader of the Black Flag Army, and countless bandits. After the military personnel confirmed Ning Yi's body, they dismembered him into tens of thousands of pieces, and his head was sent north to be offered before the throne of the Jin Emperor.

That was a scene that had never appeared in even her deepest nightmares for many years…

That giant, starting from the slightest beginning, had gradually grown in the time she watched him. She had seen his elegance, his humor, his tenacity, his ferocity… They had no fate. She still remembered the reunion in the courtyard at the age of fifteen, the stars that night, and the wind that night. She thought that she had suddenly grown up that night, but she didn't know why, even though they had never met, he would always appear in her life, making her gaze unable to look elsewhere.

She had too many emotions in her heart, too many fantasies, but she had never thought that one day, he would fall.

How could it be? He killed the emperor. He even killed the emperor. Didn't he want to save this world…

In the courtyard, the heat was like a prison. All the prosperity and peace were like illusions.

Fake… she thought.

In the Northwest, the chaotic flames of war were still burning in the end. Not long before this, that devil who had stirred up huge chaos, dragged every place that was affected into hell, and made every enemy taste great bitterness, seemed… to have finally fallen…