Chapter 168: Playing a Role

Lin’an, Doutingyi.

Prince Wanyan Honglie’s envoy entered the city on the third day of the twelfth month.

The city entry ceremony had been meticulously arranged by the Jin. The envoy’s size was modest—only three hundred men—but each one had been personally selected by Wanyan Honglie from the northern frontier troops: all over eight feet tall, armor polished to a shine, sabers hanging at their saddles, not a single scratch on the scabbards. Their horses were not the common short-legged Mongol steeds of Jin, but superior Hequ horses seized from Xi Xia—tall shoulders, long legs, glossy coats, iron hooves striking Lin’an’s blue stone paving that sparked with every step.

Wanyan Honglie himself rode at the head of the column. He wore no princely ceremonial robes, but a suit of black iron armor, its plates faintly marked with old sword and blade scars. The straight saber at his waist had its leather-wrapped hilt worn smooth by years of grip.

This was no envoy come to negotiate—it was a leopard come to patrol its hunting ground.

Lin’an’s streets stood empty as the people crowded both sides, held back by imperial guards behind barriers, necks craned to gaze at the Jin cavalry. In storytellers’ tales, Jin soldiers were monsters with blue faces and fangs—but these riders had neither blue faces nor fangs. They were silent, orderly, their eyes cold as winter well water. That silence was more chilling than any roar.

Han Tuozhou did not come to greet them himself. He sent Minister of Rites Li Bi and Chief of the Privy Council Su Shidan to wait at the inn’s gate.

Wanyan Honglie dismounted with a fluid motion utterly unlike a pampered prince. He glanced at Li Bi, then at Su Shidan, and his lips curled slightly.

“Only the two of you?”

Li Bi’s face flushed crimson. By protocol, a Jin prince’s visit warranted at least a chancellor-level official to meet him. Han Tuozhou had sent only two vice ministers—this was blatant disrespect.

Wanyan Honglie did not wait for Li Bi’s reply. He walked straight into the inn. At the threshold, he suddenly stopped, turning to look south—toward the imperial palace.

“Tell Grand Tutor Han,” he said, voice low but each word clear, “I brought three things. One is the state letter. One is the garrison map of thirty thousand troops along the northern frontier. And the third—”

He tapped his waist saber.

“Is my blade. Which one does Grand Tutor Han wish to see first?”

When the news reached Han’s mansion, Han Tuozhou was feeding fish in his garden. After hearing Su Shidan’s report, he spilled half his fish food into the pond, where the koi surged wildly to fight for it.

“A blade?” Han Tuozhou laughed, a cold edge in his smile. “Interesting. Wanyan Honglie spent years fighting steppe nomads up north—he came back with the manners of a bandit chieftain.”

“Grand Tutor,” Su Shidan lowered his voice, “the three hundred guards Wanyan Honglie brought are all northern frontier elites. I examined them closely—their armor is not standard Jin design. It’s been modified specifically for cavalry charges: reinforced shoulder plates, higher neck guards, arrow quivers mounted on the right saddle for quick access, and short crossbows slung at the saddle. These are not ceremonial guards—they are combat troops.”

“I know,” Han Tuozhou tossed the rest of the fish food into the pond and clapped his hands. “He’s here to show off his strength. He brought his finest cavalry to Lin’an to make one thing clear—look well, this is the core of my Great Jin. How many of your northern expeditionary troops can stand against them?”

He paced twice by the pond, then halted.

“But the more he does this, the more it reveals one thing.”

“What?” Su Shidan asked.

“He’s afraid,” Han Tuozhou said, eyes narrowing. “If Jin truly had the strength to fight on two fronts, Wanyan Honglie wouldn’t need to come to Lin’an to intimidate me. His presence proves Jin lacks sufficient troops—so he’s using bluster to buy time.”

“Then what should we—”

“Stick to the original plan,” Han Tuozhou said, voice ironclad. “He plays his part. I play mine.”

News of Jin’s troop buildup along the northern frontier arrived in Lin’an almost simultaneously with Wanyan Honglie’s entry.

Spies on the Huai River front sent confirmed intelligence: Jin had deployed at least fifty thousand additional troops along the Yellow River north of Kaifeng, added palisades and arrow towers at every river crossing, requisitioned all merchant ships for military use, and erected temporary beacon towers every fifty paces along the river dike. More strikingly, a massive new camp had been erected outside Xuzhou—its banners blotting out the sky, the shouts of daily drills echoing ten miles away.

“We cannot estimate the strength of the Xuzhou camp,” Su Shidan reported at the military briefing, voice heavy. “The camp is enormous, its banners far exceeding normal regimental numbers, and daily troop rotations create the illusion of constant movement. This is tactical deception—using exaggerated camp size and banner counts to conceal true troop strength.”

“So we don’t know how many Jin troops are in Xuzhou?” asked Minister of War Xue Shusi.

“We don’t know. Could be thirty thousand. Could be a hundred thousand. Jin placed this camp in the most visible spot on the southern front precisely to make us overestimate.”

Han Tuozhou gave a cold smile. “More theater. The northern troop buildup is real. This Xuzhou camp? Pure show for us. They’ve moved troops from the north to the south just to put on a spectacle, scare us, then quietly shift them back to guard the north. This trick—Wanyan Honglie used it countless times against the steppe nomads. Now he thinks it’ll work on me?”

“Your analysis is sound, Grand Tutor,” Su Shidan hesitated, “but the problem is we can’t confirm it. If the Xuzhou camp truly holds a hundred thousand Jin troops—”

“It doesn’t,” Han Tuozhou cut him off. “If Jin had a hundred thousand troops stationed in Xuzhou, Wanyan Honglie wouldn’t need to come to Lin’an. He’d simply cross the Huai River with that army—no state letter needed. His presence proves the Xuzhou camp is a hollow shell—at least not fully manned.”

His logic was flawless; none in the hall could refute it. But Su Shidan’s brow remained furrowed. Something felt wrong—Wanyan Honglie had held his ground against the steppe nomads for years, never letting the Xinming Party gain an inch. Would such a man resort to a trick so transparent?

He said nothing more. Han Tuozhou had already decided; further words would only shake morale.

On the third day, Wanyan Honglie shut himself inside Doutingyi, refusing all banquets and visits. Li Bi arrived with gifts and was turned away at the gate; only a single message was sent back: “Prince Zhao says he came to discuss matters of state, not to drink wine.”