Chapter 177

He did not finish saying it, because it didn’t need to be finished.

Lu You sat on a chair, hands resting on his knees. His hands were thin, veins bulging, nails neatly trimmed—a pair of hands that had written poetry for decades. He stared at his hands and remained silent for a long time.

Xin Qiji assumed he was processing the information, reassessing the merits and drawbacks of northern expedition, painfully revising the belief he had held for eighty years. But when Lu You looked up, Xin Qiji saw no wavering, no hesitation, no pain. He saw eyes burning.

“You’an,” Lu You spoke, voice hoarse but each word as if quenched in fire, “you said the Jin fear not us, but the power to the north. You said the Jin and the north must fight. If we wait until they’ve finished, and the Jin are destroyed, that power will become an enemy ten times more terrifying than the Jin—is that right?”

“Yes.”

“That means now is our only window.”

Xin Qiji froze. He hadn’t expected this old man, over eighty, to approach it from this angle. He had spent half an hour analyzing every problem with the northern expedition; Lu You listened, absorbed it, then seized its core—that because a tiger lurked to the north, they must strike before it devoured the Jin. This was precisely Han Tuozhou’s logic.

“Brother Fangweng, the window does exist—but have you considered what if the northern expedition fails? What if we commit the entire nation’s strength, lose the battle, and exhaust our resources? When the northern tiger finishes devouring the Jin and turns south, what will we use to hold it back?”

Lu You slowly stood, walked to Xin Qiji’s side, and looked up at him. Lu You was nearly a head shorter, twenty years older, yet his presence now was like a veteran questioning a raw recruit.

“Of course the northern expedition may fail! But if it fails, the Song remains the Song—we still have the Huai River, the Yangtze, the southern half of the realm. But if we don’t launch it? You’an, if we don’t launch it, once the Jin are swallowed by the north, that colossal force will monopolize all central plains resources—population, granaries, iron mines, fortification systems. Then their cavalry, combined with the central plains’ grain, Guanzhong’s ironworks, Hebei’s people—how long do you think the southern half can hold? If we launch and fail, we can still retreat and defend. If we don’t launch, we won’t even have the chance to defend.”

Xin Qiji fell silent.

A rooster crowed outside. Unnoticed, a grayish line had appeared on the horizon. The candle in the study had long burned out; neither man rose to replace it. They sat facing each other in the brightening dawn. The poems on the desk stirred from a draft slipping through the window crack, whispering softly—as if the verses themselves were breathing.

“You’an,” Lu You spoke in the dim gray dawn, his voice no longer fierce, now soft, almost a whisper, “I am over eighty. I’ve seen everything. When the Jingkang Humiliation happened, I was still in my mother’s arms—but that shame followed me my whole life. I fought in Nanzheng, bled at Dasanguan, got drunk and cried and wrote poems cursing those who clung to safety through countless rainy nights. I’ve waited eighty years for the northern expedition. What does eighty years mean? How old are you? We both know—this may be the last time in our lives we see the banner of northern expedition.”

He lowered his head, staring at the age spots on the back of his hands.

“All the problems you mentioned—I heard them. Insufficient grain, poor equipment, incompetent commanders—I believe them. But I don’t care. Even if this army has only a thirty percent chance, I will write poems for them. Not because I’m blind, not because I don’t understand warfare, but because this is the only thing left in my life. I can’t enlist anymore, can’t ride a horse, can’t lift a sword. All I can do is write. My poems may not change the battle, but at least they let the men on the front lines know that behind them, an old man of eighty, by the Mirror Lake in Shanyin, beats the war drum for them day and night. That’s enough.”

Xin Qiji stood, turned his back to Lu You, and stared out the window. The morning mist over Mirror Lake had not yet lifted; a small fishing boat glided slowly across the water, the fisherman pole-pushing with motions as slow as a man from another age. He clasped his hands behind his back and stood for a long time, motionless, silent. Morning light fell on his broad back, clearly outlining the wrinkles of his old battle robe.

Then he waved his hand. Exactly the same gesture as last night—not affirmation, not denial, but a weariness seeping from his bones. It held respect for his old friend, an unspeakable pessimism, the complex emotion of a veteran toward all noble hopes—hopes he himself shared, yet knew better than anyone how wide the chasm between those hopes and reality truly was.

“Brother Fangweng,” his voice was rasped, as if ground by gravel, “keep writing your poems. Write well. But there’s one thing—you must help me.”

“Say it.”

“You just said, if the northern expedition fails, we can still retreat and defend the Yangtze; if the Jin are swallowed by the north and their iron cavalry come south, we won’t even have the chance to defend. These two points—you’re right. But have you considered a third possibility?”

He paused.

“Han Taishi’s northern expedition may not be defeated by the Jin—but by ourselves. Warlord fragmentation, court intrigue, disloyal commanders, interrupted grain supplies—every time the Song launches a northern expedition, what truly defeats us is betrayal from within. This time, I fear not the Jin, nor this Xinming Party to the north—I fear someone selling twenty thousand troops for his own advancement.”

Lu You froze: “You mean—”

Xin Qiji did not answer directly. He picked up the knife on the desk, strapped it to his waist, straightened his robes, and saluted Lu You with a military bow. The salute was formal, solemn—not the farewell of old friends, but a general bidding farewell to a revered elder before marching to war.

“Brother Fangweng, I’m returning to Zhenjiang. I’ll take your poems to the front and read them to the soldiers. Every word you write from behind the lines is my war drum on the battlefield. But,” he straightened, meeting Lu You’s eyes, “from now on, when you write poetry, you must carry one other thing in your heart.”

“What?”

“If,” Xin Qiji uttered the two words softly, slowly, “if the northern expedition fails, you must still keep writing. Not for the soldiers on the front, but for future generations. Tell them how this northern expedition failed. Tell them where the Song truly lost. Tell them—when the next red banner rises from the north, how to prepare.”

Lu You’s hand paused mid-brushstroke.

Xin Qiji walked to the door, pushed it open, and cold morning wind rushed in. He stood at the threshold for a moment, as if remembering something. He glanced back at the old military banner hanging on Lu You’s wall—the relic from Nanzheng’s front, faded, frayed, yet still there. Then he looked up at the gloomy winter sky over Shanyin, the leaden clouds pressing low, the Mirror Lake’s water glinting coldly.

He mounted his horse. The old steed snorted, trotting along the frozen earth. His attendants followed behind; their figures vanished quickly into the morning mist.

The hoofbeats faded into distance. Lu You stood at the door, staring at the direction Xin Qiji had disappeared for a long time. The morning wind tussled his white hair, lifting and dropping the hem of his old cotton robe. Then he slowly returned to the study, sat before the desk, picked up his brush, and wrote down the words Xin Qiji had spoken—“If the northern expedition fails, you must still keep writing. Write for future generations. Tell them how this northern expedition failed. Tell them where the Song truly lost.”

He stared at those lines for a long time, suddenly feeling that all ten thousand poems he had written in his life might weigh less than these few sentences. But he also knew—if that day truly came—he would write. Not because he was brave, but because in his life, he could do nothing else.

He folded the paper, pressed it beneath the inkstone, then laid out a fresh sheet. The ink was ground, the brush tip soaked. He lifted the brush, held it suspended above the paper, and held it there for a long time.