Chapter 171: Refusing Peace

"Listen to me finish," Han Tuozhou interrupted him, the fire in his eyes burning brighter than a wick. "You say the tiger from the north has come to claim lives, while the wolf from our south has only come to beg for food. Let me tell you, the reason I, Han Tuozhou, sit here today is because the Song Ren have had their food stolen for eighty years. The humiliation of Jingkang, the Two Sages taken north, half of Jiangshan fallen into enemy hands—these accounts cannot be wiped away with a single phrase of 'mutual destruction'."

He took a deep breath, his voice dropping from a roar to a low murmur, but that low murmur was more terrifying than the roar.

"Moreover, on what basis do you think the Song Ren can only be a wolf? That New Ming Party you Jin Ren fear, how many years have they existed? Two years! A regime of two years, and you fear them so much. My Song Ren has stood for over two hundred years, with hundreds of thousands of armored troops and a million bearing arms. In terms of foundation, talent, and wealth, which one cannot compare to a new rising star on the grasslands? You fear them; I do not. Once I recover the Central Plains, seize the natural barrier of the Huaihe, and integrate the resources and population north of the Huaihe—by then, I want to see who dares not fight whom."

Wanyan Honglie stood in place, his expression complex. Not anger, not fear, but something closer to sorrow. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but finally just slowly exhaled.

"Grand Preceptor Han," his voice suddenly became very soft, "you say we Jin Ren are only fit to be your whetstone. You say that once you recover the Central Plains and possess the natural barrier of the Huaihe, you will fear no one. But have you thought—"

He paused for a moment.

"How long will it take to recover the Central Plains? Two years? Three? During this time, your army must cross the Huaihe, capture cities and strongholds, divide troops to garrison, and pacify the people. For every step you move forward, your forces will be scattered a bit more. By the time your forces are sufficiently scattered, that colossal entity to the north may have already finished its integration. By then, what you face will not be the remnants of the Jin Ren as you imagine, but a war machine that has digested the entire grassland and Western Xia, possesses standardized firearms, and has an organizational capacity far beyond our comprehension. Do you think you will still have time to integrate the recovered Central Plains? Do you think your natural barrier of the Huaihe will still be useful in the face of firearms?"

He walked up to Han Tuozhou, with only a table separating the two. The lamp flame danced between them, stretching their shadows long and crooked.

"Every word you said, I cannot refute," Wanyan Honglie said. "The Jin Ren are indeed stalling for time. The northern border is indeed under severe pressure. I came to Lin'an indeed because I fear your northern expedition. All of this is true. But Grand Preceptor Han, have you considered that what we fear and what you fear might be the same thing?"

He paused again, lowering his voice to a level only the two of them could hear.

"I have told you so much today not for the sake of the Jin Ren. Or rather, not solely for the Jin Ren. I have stayed on the northern border for five years, watching with my own eyes that thing grow from an inconspicuous small force into the colossal entity it is today. I had countless opportunities to strangle it while it was weak. I asked the court for troops, for grain, for authorization, asking countless times, and each time received only one sentence in return: 'The Song Ren to the south are more dangerous.' By the time the court finally reacted, it had grown too large to strangle."

A sense of exhaustion appeared in his voice, something Han Tuozhou had not expected—a fatigue deep in the bones.

"You can curse me for anything; curse me for stalling, for bluffing, for the cunning of a Jin dog, it's all fine. But remember this—the reason that colossal entity to the north has not acted yet is because our Great Jin is still blocking the way in front of you. This wall of our Great Jin, no matter how you view it, is currently standing there in reality, blocking the wind blowing from the grasslands for you. Only when this wall falls will you discover what quality the wind behind it is."

Han Tuozhou fell silent.

It was not wavering, but weighing. He weighed how much of Wanyan Honglie's words was genuine feeling and how much was deception. Ultimately, his judgment remained the same as before—what Wanyan Honglie said might be true, but truth does not equate to harmlessness. True traps often use truth as bait.

He reached out, picked up the cup of cold mare's milk wine on the table, and drained it in one gulp. The sour liquid poured down his throat, choking him until his eyes turned red, yet he forced himself not to cough once. He slammed the cup heavily onto the table, the bottom striking the wood with a dull thud.

"Zhao Wang," he said, his voice hoarse but without hesitation, "I toast you for your bitter vigil on the northern border for five years, and for speaking so many truths with an open heart tonight. But you cannot persuade me."

Wanyan Honglie closed his eyes.

"The northern expedition is inevitable," Han Tuozhou stood up and straightened his robes. "The firearms, cavalry, and cannon fire you mentioned today, I have noted them here." He tapped his forehead. "I will send someone to verify. If it is true, I will intensify preparations after recovering the Central Plains to prepare for the threat from the north. But before that, the Great Jin must first spit out the ancestral lands of the Central Plains they have swallowed. This is the foundation of the Song Ren state, and it is also my bottom line."

He walked to the door, suddenly stopped, and did not turn around.

"Zhao Wang, you say that thing to the north is the enemy of all of us. Perhaps you are right. But between Jin and Song there is an eighty-year blood feud; until this knot is untied, whatever you say about fighting a common enemy is empty talk. Once the Song Ren take back what belongs to them, you and I can discuss cooperation. But before that—"

He pushed the door open. The cold wind of winter night rushed in with a whoosh, making the lamp flame on the table shrink violently, nearly extinguishing. Wanyan Honglie reached out to shield the flame; the fire struggled a few times in his palm before steadying itself again.

"The northern expedition will not be cancelled," Han Tuozhou's voice came from outside the door, torn and intermittent by the wind. "Zhao Wang, I appreciate your good intentions. Those who follow different paths cannot plan together."

The door remained open. The cold wind continued to pour in. Wanyan Honglie sat alone under the lamp, his hand still holding the posture of shielding the flame. He looked down at that faint flicker of fire, and a bitter smile slowly rose on the corner of his mouth.

"Different paths," he repeated those three words softly, as if savoring something.

Outside the window, the winter night of Lin'an was unnaturally quiet. The distant waters of Xihu shimmered with cold light in the darkness. The willow trees on Su Causeway had shed all their leaves, their bare branches swaying in the wind. In a few more months, when the spring breeze blows, those branches will sprout again, and the shores of Xihu will be crowded with tourists admiring the flowers. This city has operated this way for over a hundred years; war, peace treaties, northern expeditions, and annual tribute cannot change the blooming of flowers by Xihu in spring.

But this time is different.

Wanyan Honglie stood up and walked to the map, looking at the red area covering the grasslands and Western Xia. His finger moved slowly along the edge of the red, tracing from the grasslands to Western Xia, from Western Xia to the northern border of Jin, and then from the northern border of Jin to the Jianghuai front line of Southern Song. This line looked like a tightening noose, and inside the noose were the necks of everyone.

He suddenly remembered the words the old soldier from the northern border had told him: "Your Highness, that organization is different from us. We want land and gold; they want the entire world, and they want to reshape the entire world in their own image. Those who do not walk with them must either die or become like them. There is no third path."

Wanyan Honglie took out a token from his robe and placed it on the table. It was a troop deployment token of the northern border army, with a line of small characters carved on it: "Seeing the token is like seeing the commander."

He picked up a brush and wrote a few lines on a blank piece of silk. The recipient was the commander of the northern border army, Hetuoli Zhizhong. The content was very short, consisting of only one sentence: "Peace talks have failed; the southern front will open war. All armies of the northern border, take care of yourselves."

He rolled up the silk, sealed it with wax, and called for his attendant.

"Send it back to Zhongdu, six hundred li express."