Chapter 1 A Dream

The Wei Prince and Fourth Prince of the Great Jin Kingdom, Wanyan Wushu, had a dream in the night.

In his dream, he was the victor of the Huai River battle. Official Zhao fled Jiankang, abandoning the city and scurrying away like a rat. He followed closely behind, crossing the river and pursuing him relentlessly to Lin'an, Mingzhou, and even out to sea. Just as he was about to grasp the hem of the Song Emperor's robe, the man escaped once more! All that remained was Wushu, seasick and capsized in the ocean waves, sighing in despair... The intense unwillingness and defeat in the dream overwhelmed Wushu, causing him to sink deeper and deeper, down to the bottom of the sea. It even turned into despair.

Even in a fanciful dream, he couldn't catch him...

A force of weeping, like a sudden burst of sunlight, exploded across Wushu's scalp. His eyelids fluttered wildly, and he suddenly opened his eyes, realizing that he was ice-cold all over. His forehead and chest were drenched in sweat, and only his rough breathing filled the room.

Outside the dilapidated windows, the night was deep and black, moonless. Yet Wushu felt a stuffiness and anxiety in his heart, like a bottle of wine being tossed back and forth within him. For several nights in a row, he had been dreaming more and more often about that great standard, and upon waking, he could often hear the faint sobs of his personal guards. He had become a nervous wreck, as if, at any moment, the symbol of that Official Zhao would appear on the horizon, surrounded by his troops, surging towards him like a black and white tide, chasing him down and swallowing him whole.

Alas, even in his dream, he had successfully crossed the river at Huai, searching every mountain and sea, with a bright future ahead, yet he still couldn't catch that Official Zhao. It was as if... it was destined! His ambition to destroy the Southern Song was destined to be a mirage.

Thinking of this, Wushu couldn't help but shed tears. It seemed as if the cold wind outside was mourning with him. For a moment, even his buttocks felt a faint ache.

But he could never know how to express this inexplicable sense of heroic sorrow and desperation to anyone. In the depths of the night, Wushu held his head, feeling only a splitting headache and restlessness. He thought of how, since the Great Jin rose in arms, it had destroyed the Liao in ten years, and then the Song in two more years, successively capturing three generations of emperors as slaves and imprisoning them in underground cellars. A dignified great power, with a vast territory and a large population, how had the ever-victorious Jurchens become like this today? What was it about them that was inferior to the weak and faithless Song Dynasty?

Now, which step, which battle had he made a mistake?

Things shouldn't be like this, Wushu felt incomprehensibly in the darkness, and couldn't help but speculate that something must have happened...

That young Official Zhao.

Many years ago, when Wushu first saw the Kang Prince, who represented the Song Dynasty in peace talks, in the army of his second brother, Zongwang, outside the city of Bianjing, he felt that he didn't resemble the descendants of the Zhao family at all. Faced with the Jin army, the chancellor Zhang Bangchang had long been terrified and wept bitterly, but he remained calm and indifferent. His second brother, Zongwang, angrily said that the Song people were cunning and had probably sent a fake prince to deal with them.

And then, starting from the Huai River, this Official Zhao, who was unlike his father and brothers, had repeatedly opposed him, Wushu, resisting stubbornly in everything. He didn't seem to be named Zhao at all!

Thinking of the Official Zhao, who he had almost captured but slipped away a few years ago, now he had gone from a minor annoyance to a serious problem. But his Great Jin seemed to be cursed, its fortunes turned against it, and it had been declining rapidly ever since.

And where exactly had his Great Jin failed? How had it risen so quickly, and how would it decline so rapidly?

That night, Wushu covered his face in pain and anxiety. A cold starlight shone on the ground, but the darkness swallowed him. What was it about him, Wanyan Zongbi, that was inferior to that Official Zhao of the Song? Was his military strategy inferior to that frivolous man, or were his fierce generals and Iron Pagodas weaker than his? Was the unity of the Jurchen nobles not as good as the infighting of the imperial court, or was the reward of wealth and beautiful women to his subordinates insufficient?

In fact, during these days of fleeing in panic during the day and having difficulty sleeping at night, Wushu had been repeatedly looking around the court, pondering this question, but the more he pondered, the more he couldn't understand it. He could only comfort himself with "Since Heaven created Yu, why did it also create Liang?", that heroes are always defeated by other heroes.

If Official Zhao were to hear Wushu's questions, he would probably laugh for a long time.

Zhao Jiu would tell Wushu that the answer was not in the court he looked around at, nor in the former "Emperor's Village" and now the Upper Capital, Huining Prefecture. The real answer was beneath Wushu's feet, on the land stained red and then black with blood, and on the white bones of the people in the ground. The answer lay in the anger that the Jurchens ignored, the anger soaked in blood from the massacred and war-torn millions of Han people, and in the roaring hatred of the suffering people.

What Wushu couldn't see was this invisible force of the people's hearts. In fact, not only Wushu, but most people in Zhao Jiu's court often couldn't see this weak force.

But Zhao Jiu knew deeply that it might be scattered again and again, turning into sorrow and tears, but it would not disappear. Instead, it would always grow in the lowliest mud, in the hearts of the weakest peasants. They too could hate, love, cry, and laugh. This force would stubbornly grow out of the damp and dry yellow and black earth every few years, decades, or centuries. Those above, like Wushu, like Zhao Jiu's ministers and nobles, might forget the blood, or might disdain to say that the common people can be fooled but not informed. But Zhao Jiu was different after all. He was not a Zhao family son raised by pampered women. He had also grown out of the mud.

But it would be ridiculous to ask Wushu such a question. Wushu was, after all, a noble born in a barbarian tribe. From birth until he was fifteen years old, when he followed his father, Aguda, to rebel against the Liao, what he saw was the tribe's shaman using human skulls as wine vessels. Wushu's name in the Jurchen language also meant head. In his world, people were either two-legged sheep slaves or wolf masters.

But wolves ultimately have to eat meat. Therefore, wolves can never see the meat.

That day, in the daytime, when Wushu hurriedly put the young ruler on horseback, he heard Hala drunkenly saying with tears streaming down his face, "Uncle, is the Great Jin going to perish..." He almost fell off his horse. Now, thinking about it in the middle of the night, it was even more chilling.

This was their ruler. He should have been Aguda's direct grandson, the proud son of the Heavenly Wolf, but he had actually said the words: "The Great Jin can no longer invade the South."

Wushu deeply regretted it. If he hadn't killed Zonghan in the first place, and the Great Jin God of War was still alive, how could they be in such a state of embarrassment today, and how could he allow the Han people to be so arrogant on the battlefield.

He sent a flying letter saying that he would offer 30,000 gold to reward the heads of Han Shizhong, Yue Fei, Wu Jie, and Zhang Jun. Who knew that when Yue Fei heard about it, he posted a notice saying, "Three strings of cash to buy the head of Jin Wushu." For a time, Wushu felt that everyone around him was looking at his neck, and he couldn't help but tighten his grip on his saber wherever he went.

The night was deep, and Wushu reluctantly closed his eyes again. In his dream, he vaguely saw himself declaring "The search of the mountains and seas is complete" in high spirits, burning the city of Hangzhou, and returning to Huining Prefecture with a full load of gold, silver, and treasures. However, the high spirits in the dream did not last long and quickly changed again, as if it had to reflect the bleak reality of defeat.

First, he dreamed of Han Shizhong chasing and killing him fiercely, and then the two Wus breaking through the Iron Pagodas in the Jingxiang area, and then Yue Fei... then, it was the repeated defeats at the hands of Yue Fei, from Yancheng to Yingchang, to Zhuxian Town... No matter how hard Wushu tried to maneuver with all his strength, he was defeated again and again, fighting again and again, and being defeated again and again. The unbearable suffering in reality seemed to penetrate the dream... Wushu opened his bronze bell-like eyes in horror. He suddenly sat up and put on his white robe. He subconsciously reached out to grab the saber beside him, but grabbed nothing.

Wushu couldn't help but be stunned, and then remembered that he had put the saber that the enemy Yue Fei had given him as an insult on the table before going to bed. He quickly stood up, reached out, picked it up, held it in his hand, and couldn't help but sit down again, placing the cold sword on his knees.

He sat restlessly for a long time before slowly drawing the sword. A tear suddenly fell from Wushu's pale face.

At dawn, on the distant horizon, a vast expanse of gray and black shadows appeared, like a silent tide, slowly rolling in with the morning glow.

A ray of sunlight broke through the dull night sky.