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In April of the first year of Wu Zhenxing, the early summer season of the thirteenth year since Ning Yi angrily murdered the emperor and raised the banner of Huaxia, many common senses in this world were being drastically subverted.

The Jin Dynasty's fourth southern expedition, which had lasted for nearly two years, was coming to an end. During this period, the Southwest Campaign, which seemed marginalized but was actually watched by countless people across the world, was also about to end. The fall and collapse of the Wu Dynasty under the attack of the Jin Dynasty's eastern army, a tragedy that almost the entire world knelt before the Jin people, was painful and regrettable, but it was not unexpected by many.

Throughout the Jin-Wu war, the Wu Dynasty had made foolish moves and offered tragic resistance, but whether before or after the war, people clearly knew that the Wu Dynasty was the real underdog in this war. The failure of the underdog was lamentable and heartbreaking, but most people in the world had at least thought about such a scenario once or twice.

People were reluctant to focus on the Black Flag in the southwest for a long time. The people of the Wu Dynasty had more or less biased impressions of it. Even many forces that had long engaged in trade with the southwest found it difficult to give a very high evaluation to the mere hundreds of thousands of people who were once huddled in the Liangshan Mountains of the southwest—and the upper limit of this "very high" evaluation was at most on par with the Wu Dynasty.

Even in the Jin Dynasty, most people had not seriously considered the so-called "Black Flag" threat. Although the great battle in the northwest in those years had once caused the Jin Dynasty to lose two generals, it had ultimately ended with the Jin Dynasty's victory and the massacre of the northwest. Only Zong Han, Xi Yin, and other high-ranking officials of the Jin Dynasty truly saw the threat of the Black Flag, and their thinking remained at the point of "not too late." By the time of the fourth southern expedition, the eastern army was mainly attacking the Wu Dynasty, and the western army was targeting the southwest. With the attention of Zong Han and Xi Yin, others no longer worried about the hidden dangers of the Black Flag.

Zong Fu and Zong Bi attacking the southern Wu might still return defeated and without success, but the target of the western army—that group of Wu Dynasty bandits hiding in the mountains—basically had no chance of escaping.

People watched the vast Jin-Wu confrontation, watching the process of the southern Wu disintegrating and perishing. They generally held a relatively comfortable attitude towards the advance of the western army. If the war of the Wu Dynasty could support a series of exciting gambles, the development of the war in the southwest could only become a time-based bet for a long time: when would Zong Han break through Zi Prefecture, when would he break through Chengdu, when would he defeat the so-called Huaxia Fifth Army, when would he return triumphantly... By the beginning of this year, such gambles might be adjusted, but the general direction remained largely unchanged.

Until that heart demon in the southwest, like a magic master, flipped over the cards in his hand one by one.

No one expected that the Black Flag Army, which was entrenched in a remote corner and had only a few hundred thousand people for a long time, would contain such a grand force. In the second half of last year, when the western army entered Jiange, the cards in that heart demon's hand were still being flipped over calmly and slowly, and Zong Han's western army only thought they were facing a small pond as they went deeper.

But by this year, especially from February, the cards in the heart demon's hand began to become intense, even more intense than the previous ones. The small pond shook, and subterranean fire accumulated. Zong Han and others, who had already gone deep into it, saw what looked like a surge of magma coming towards them. The people who were preparing to fight against a small pond faced the eruption of a volcano.

From Wangyuan Bridge in February to the continuous pursuit in March, all common sense was shattered before their eyes. People originally thought that the Black Flag was just an unrestrained rebel within the Wu Dynasty—like Fang La, like Tian Hu, at most a more powerful and extreme Fang La and Tian Hu—but unexpectedly, the Black Flag was now showing a terrifying power that surpassed the rise of the Jurchens, "invincible with ten thousand."

The most terrifying thing was that such power had not yet bottomed out. If the firearms that appeared in the southwest between February and March were a temporary breakthrough based on ingenious skills, then by the Hanzhong decisive battle in April, where Zong Han pinned his last hope, people suddenly saw an astonishing scene that even surpassed the power of ingenious skills.

April 19th. In later records and summaries, this was the moment when the modern military system and army belief truly revealed their terrifying power. As the Seventh Army led by Qin Shaoqian charged forward, the Jurchen troops, who once carried the belief of "soldiers of sorrow" and still maintained the peak of individual quality in this era, were almost slammed to the ground in an unprepared manner. This was the performance of the Huaxia Army with 20,000 men facing the Jin Army with 90,000 men.

Astonishing fighting will, excellent battlefield coordination, and an extremely high degree of organization. What was reflected in the field battle was almost a force comparison like a steel knife cutting tofu. On the afternoon of April 19th, the vanguard led by Pu Cha was like encountering a huge grinding wheel, and irresistibly collapsed in the unexpectedly large-scale decapitation tactics.

Before the battle, in this era, they were also an army as tenacious as steel, but the steel was crushed alive. Wan Yan Saba, who arrived later, seemed to be able to hear the crisp shattering sound.

The fierce fighting continued that night.

In many years to come, evaluations of the Jin people's performance in this Hanzhong battle would often tend towards two directions.

One view was that the Jurchen army was already on the decline, especially after experiencing the defeat in the southwest, its army's morale had collapsed miserably. Therefore, the fighting power displayed by the Huaxia Seventh Army should also be measured with some discounts. In Qin Shaoqian's words at the time, it was probably eating a cold meal left over from the Fifth Army.

The other view was that, compared to the peak fighting power based on the modern military system displayed by the Huaxia Army here, the Jin soldiers, under the leadership of Zong Han and others, also unleashed the peak power of the feudal army to a certain extent. This was the pride residue of the Jurchen army's dominance for more than thirty years. After experiencing the defeat in the southwest, with the difficult march on the way back north, the repeated setbacks in the Battle of Hanzhong finally stimulated a certain determination of soldiers of sorrow—when escaping in the southwest, the awareness of soldiers of sorrow was probably only in the minds of a very small number of middle and high-level nobles such as Ba Lisu. By the time they reached Hanzhong, the middle and lower levels gradually felt the fear of possibly not being able to return.

This thought of soldiers of sorrow stimulated their fighting power to a certain extent. Among the high-level officials of the army, the performance of several generals was actually unusually bright. It even seemed like they were burning themselves to emit light. For example, Wan Yan Saba, after failing to rescue Pu Cha, immediately chose to consolidate his position and shrink back to defend, and on the second day, in the desperate raid of the cavalry, he once caused no small trouble to the Huaxia Army.

Perhaps the most intense reaction was Wan Yan Zong Han's response that night. Not long after receiving the news from Saba's guards, the Jurchen veteran, who had fought all over the world for more than forty years, silently mobilized his troops and prepared for a defensive night attack or even an ambush counterattack. At this time, Gao Qingyi was confronting the Second Division of the Huaxia Seventh Army more than thirty miles away. The fighting there was fierce, and the mountains were even set ablaze in patches, but it was later proven that it was a feint by the Huaxia Army.

Qin Shaoqian led the main force of the Second Division, detouring dozens of miles along the mountain road that night, and launched an attack on Zong Han's camp at dawn on April 20, when people were most tired and sleepy. Zong Han's response that night was as accurate as a beast's. He himself stayed up all night and ordered the soldiers in the camp to prepare for battle. The Huaxia Army's attack subsequently fell into a trap. This was the most beautiful scene for the Jin soldiers in the Battle of Hanzhong.

However, the military quality of the Huaxia Army was also extremely amazing. A company responsible for the forward attack first noticed something was wrong and began to split up to scout, which prevented the Jin soldiers' ambush from surrounding the Huaxia Army's main force. In the first quarter of an hour after the battle began, the vanguard of the Huaxia Army was once at a disadvantage due to artillery and fire attacks, but then launched a tenacious resistance and breakout.

In the subsequent operations, both sides showed amazing fighting will. Zong Han and Han Qixian stepped forward to the front line to supervise the battle. When they discovered the enemy's leaders, some Huaxia Army companies and platoons in the semi-encirclement even launched a raid towards the opponent's core. This cost some sacrifices and did not yield any results. As the Huaxia Army retreated, the Jin soldiers launched a high-spirited pursuit, but were soon met with a counter-charge from the Huaxia Army, and thousands of Jin soldiers were defeated in the night.

Compared to the losses suffered by the Huaxia Army after falling into the ambush, the subsequent battle actually caused more casualties to the Jin soldiers. Zong Han already understood the terrifying combat power of this Huaxia Army, and then built up heavy defenses.

This night's battle seemed to confirm Ning Yi's previous statement. Although the Huaxia Army already had amazing combat qualities and had concentrated the wisdom of everyone through the staff department, it was still not as good as the Jin generals who had fought for decades and survived countless tests in terms of on-the-spot command and tactical application in war. Pang Liuan lost Huangming County for this reason, and Qin Shaoqian's failed sneak attack that night was also due to this.

However, the Jin generals were good at tactics, while the Huaxia Army's strength was reflected in strategy. Ning Yi was good at planning, and the modern military discipline plus brutal training had already made the quality of the Seventh Army enough to smooth out some tactical flaws. Even if a thousand people surrounded five hundred people, the five hundred people only needed to turn around and defeat the thousand people.

After that night, Qin Shaoqian divided half of his troops and rushed north to cooperate with the First Division's attack to jointly attack Wan Yan Saba. Saba勉力 (Mian Li) stabilized his position and tried to drag the situation into a large-scale group defensive battle by taking advantage of the artillery. At the same time, Gao Qingyi and Zong Han拔营 (ba ying) moved north, and Qin Shaoqian led his troops to strike at the middle. Zong Han mobilized a large number of middle and lower-level generals and launched round after round of fierce and protracted offensives against the Huaxia Army.

In the face of the Huaxia Army's already revealed astonishing combat power, Zong Han did not choose to retreat. At this time, retreating was a real dead end. Even though the Huaxia Seventh Army was already extremely powerful, it was only 20,000 men in total. The Jurchen veteran knew that the only way out was to grit his teeth and fight to the death.

He, Han Qixian, Gao Qingyi, and others did their best to maintain the organization of the army, cutting the relatively large army into small-scale pieces, and launching continuous and frequent attacks on the Huaxia Army round after round—at this time, they were already losing more than winning in local battles, but as long as they did not engage in large-scale decisive battles like the護步達崗 (Hu Bu Da Gang), Zong Han had already decided to exhaust this Huaxia Army even with the advantage in numbers.

Within a range of hundreds of miles, the two armies were chaotically intertwined, with both sides fighting for one point at a time, one mountain at a time. The Huaxia Army was tenacious, but the Jurchens were densely deployed and reacted quickly under the control of Zong Han, Gao Qingyi, and others. Every time they defeated one of their units, the opponent would mobilize two units to come over. After defeating two units, there must be two units waiting for battle in the rear... The Jurchens' fighting style had always been crude. For forty years, they had solved most of the enemies in the world with just one wave of encouragement and one wave of charge. But after forty years of controlling the army, Wan Yan Zong Han had to face another test. No one expected him to cope with this test in such a way.

He cut the army of tens of thousands of people into units of about a hundred people, and Zong Han threw these troops everywhere like playing chess. Some troops were given death orders, while others were given relatively flexible orders. Every 猛安 (Meng An) and 謀克 (Mou Ke) in the army received relatively specific instructions in front of him. The transmission of information on the battlefield was inherently delayed, but Zong Han and others predicted the trend of the battlefield based on their years of battlefield experience and the reaction of other middle and high-level generals.

Some arrangements failed, but the major operational directions were almost predicted by the old man in advance. In several high-intensity operational areas, the Jurchens' reinforcements were endless, which made the Huaxia Army feel tired.

According to records several years later, in the first few days of the start of the decisive battle in Hanzhong, a Jurchen soldier testified that Wan Yan Zong Han "had not slept for three days, his eyes were bloodshot, and his beard and hair were all white." The old man, who bore half of the hopes of the Jin Dynasty, exhausted himself to the extreme.

After the initial failed sneak attack, the Huaxia Army changed to a more organized and more calm mode of operation. Although the intensity of the battle was extremely high, and the attacks, operations, splitting up, and transfers were also extremely frequent, the planning of the staff department was not flustered. The 20,000 people maintained their mutual response and integrity in the major directions. Every attack strived to defeat the opponent at the smallest cost—since Wan Yan Zong Han had shown a cautious response and could not drill into the loophole of directly assassinating the king, the Huaxia Army simply turned into countless small mouths and gnawed the opponent to mental breakdown through one local victory after another.

In the vicinity of Hanzhong, more than a million "Han troops"—or just their leaders—were watching this crazy and fierce battle with bated breath. But the changes in the news were even faster than their ability to understand reality. From April 19 to the morning of the 23rd, people watching from the outside could not see how the flames of war west of Hanzhong were burning. At most, they could only know that the veteran generals of the Jin people were burning themselves with all their strength, trying to burn out the terrifying enemy in front of them, while the Huaxia Army's attacks were like heavy hammers smashing down one after another, trying to extinguish the great fire of the Jin Dynasty. The fighting between the two had exceeded the common sense of the past...

On the same day at noon, a battalion of the Huaxia Seventh Army, after disguising themselves, pretended to be defeated Jurchen troops and forcibly seized the south gate of Hanzhong. That afternoon, the focus of the two armies' struggle shifted here. The flames of war that were originally entangled west of Hanzhong seemed to suddenly spread, and in an instant, the entire Hanzhong was turned into a sea of fire—

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