Chapter 186: Pause

Suzhou.

The June sun was like an inverted iron pot, smothering the Huaibei land in suffocating heat. Not a breath of wind stirred. The mud beneath the city had dried into cracked turtle-shell-like patterns, fissures filled with broken arrow shafts and dried blood clots. Flies outnumbered any living thing—black masses clustered on the corpses beneath the city walls, Song soldiers and Jin soldiers alike, piled there for nearly a month, unrecovered.

Guo Ni had lost a full circle of flesh. His armor straps had been tightened two notches; his eye sockets sank inward, his cheekbones jutted out. His horse was done too—the steed had been meticulously chosen from the Two Huai stables before crossing the Huaihe; now its ribs stood out like tally marks. The groom said if things continued, the horse wouldn't be fit for battle. He crouched beneath a half-dead locust tree, spreading the map across his knees, staring for half an hour, until his fingertip had worn a hole through the map at Suzhou's location.

The siege had lasted over twenty days. When Lingbi had just fallen, the entire army had believed Suzhou would be an easy take—Lingbi was conquered, so what was Suzhou? Guo Ni had even declared in the war council, "We'll take it in ten days." Tian Junmai had said nothing beside him. Now twenty days had passed, and the Jin banners still flew above Suzhou's walls.

After retreating from Lingbi, Heshilie Zhizhong withdrew to Suzhou with fewer than two hundred broken troops. Then Emperor Wanyan Jing's decree arrived: "In the Battle of Lingbi, you, with five thousand isolated troops, resisted tens of thousands of rebels, held firm for half a month, inflicted heavy losses on the enemy—this I greatly commend. I now appoint you as Defense Commissioner of Suzhou, commanding all troops in Suzhou and Xu Prefectures." Along with it came three thousand reinforcements. Not many, but combined with Suzhou's original garrison, total strength exceeded six thousand. More importantly, Heshilie Zhizhong had upgraded Lingbi's tactics. He dug ditches, built low walls, and planted caltrops outside Suzhou's walls—but added one more thing: twelve heavy crossbows mounted atop the city walls. These were heavy crossbows used exclusively by Jin's northern frontier troops—bolts as thick as spears, with ranges far exceeding Song army marching crossbows. Any siege ram approaching within three hundred paces of the wall would have its roof pierced by a bolt, one arrow, one hole. Three siege rams had already been destroyed.

Today's assault had failed again. Launched at Mao hour, ended at Chen hour. Over a hundred dead. Not even a ladder reached the wall. One company commander charged to the ditch's edge—his shield was pinned through by a crossbow bolt, him and shield both nailed to the ground. Soldiers behind him turned and fled in panic. Guo Ni beheaded one deserter on the spot, hanging his head at the camp gate—but morale kept sinking.

"Fifth." Guo Ni muttered, folding the map and tucking it into his robe. In less than a month, he had executed five deserters. When he reached the fifth, he suddenly realized something—not these men feared death, but he didn't know how to fight this war. Sizhou was taken by ambush in fog; Hongxian fell when trebuchets shattered the eastern wall; Lingbi was won by bloody, grinding, half-month-long assault. He thought Suzhou was just another Lingbi—siege warfare, after all: enough troops, bold generals, enough time, and it would fall. But Suzhou wasn't Lingbi. The Heshilie Zhizhong at Lingbi was isolated—no reinforcements, no crossbows, no outer ditch system. The Heshilie Zhizhong at Suzhou had everything. And his own troops were no longer the fierce, high-spirited army that crossed the Huaihe a month ago.

The camp reeked of sour rot. Not from corpses—those were buried beyond the camp—but from sweat, feces, spoiled rice, and festering wounds. June in Huaibei was stiflingly humid; tents felt like steamers. Soldiers squatted by tent flaps gnawing dried rations, flies buzzing around their faces, impossible to shoo away. Tian Junmai emerged from the infirmary, his face grim. He wasn't here for his own wound—the arrow wound on his arm had scabbed over. The problem was the infirmary. He'd walked through it just now and found something worse than arrow wounds: plague.

"How many?" Guo Ni called Tian Junmai into his tent, cutting straight to the point.

"Over three hundred showing symptoms," Tian Junmai whispered, voice low to avoid the guards outside. "Fever, vomiting, red blotches on the skin. The military physicians can't name the illness, but it spreads fast. One man falls ill in a tent, and within two days, the whole tent collapses." He paused. "Worst of all—the sick are all veterans. The new recruits aren't falling ill much."

Guo Ni understood. Veterans had spent too long in the south, never endured a Huaibei summer. The Huaihe summer wasn't like Jiangnan's—it wasn't damp heat, it was suffocating. Mosquitoes were three times larger; waterborne bacteria ten times more numerous. Veterans had spent decades adapting to southern soil and water; suddenly dragged into Huaibei's wilderness for over a month, their immune systems collapsed. New recruits were strong, but they couldn't fight like veterans. Now the fighters were falling ill; those still healthy couldn't fight.

"What did the physicians say?"

"They say isolate them—concentrate all sick soldiers in a separate camp, separate from healthy troops."

"Then isolate them."

"There's no space left," Tian Junmai said. "Our camp is packed too tight—fifty thousand men crammed into one area, tents only three feet apart. No room to build an isolation camp. To build one, we'd have to retreat ten li back, move all the sick to the rear. But the rear is Sizhou—Sizhou has no enough physicians or medicine."

Guo Ni's fingers tightened and loosened on his saber hilt, three times. He was a warrior—he feared no enemy, no walls, no crossbows—but he feared this. Plague was more terrifying than any weapon. In Cao Cao's defeat at Chibi, the annals recorded: "At the time, a great plague broke out; many soldiers died." That plague directly caused Cao Cao's collapse. He had read that passage—but never imagined he'd face the same fate.

"There's another way," Tian Junmai said. "Lift the siege."

Guo Ni snapped his head up: "Lift the siege? Suzhou is right before us—"

"Suzhou is right before us, but our men are rotting away day by day," Tian Junmai's voice hardened. "General, you are the commander—this decision must be yours. Either keep the siege, betting the Jin inside Suzhou break first—but they have walls for shade, wells for water, sufficient grain. Our men bake in the open, drown in mud, lie in swarms of flies. Another month, and the Jin won't break—we will."

Guo Ni fell silent. Outside the tent, the sun blazed white over the camp; from afar came muffled moans from the infirmary. A breeze lifted the tent flap—he saw the locust tree at the gate, its leaves wilted and limp, like the dying soldiers in the infirmary tents.

On the same day, a grain convoy was ambushed on the road thirty li south of Suzhou.

The raiders weren't Jin troops—they were starving locals. Huaibei had suffered years of drought; Jin rule here was already weak. With war, grain was seized by Jin soldiers or Song soldiers—civilians had nothing. Hundreds of starving men, eyes green with hunger, wielding hoes and carrying poles, drove off the escorting militia, seized thirty carts of grain. The militia dared not pursue—only fled back to report.

When Guo Zhuo heard the news, he smashed his cup in rage. He wasn't angry at the starving peasants—he was furious at the supply route. From Sizhou to Suzhou, there was only this one road. He'd traveled it for over a month—every town, every bridge, every ambush-prone bend—he'd scouted them all. But he couldn't spare troops to guard it. His men were all pressed against Suzhou's walls; the rear supply line was maintained by only one understrength militia commander. He didn't want to neglect the route—he simply had no troops to spare.

"If the Jin realize how fragile our supply line is, and send a light cavalry unit to circle behind and cut us off, we're finished," Guo Zhuo told Guo Ni.

Guo Ni said nothing. He knew—but he couldn't help it. This was his first campaign of national conquest. For the first time, he realized siege warfare wasn't just about storming a city—it meant managing hundreds of li of supply lines from the Huaihe to the front, feeding and watering fifty thousand men, controlling disease and plague, maintaining morale, suppressing deserters, guarding the rear where starving peasants could turn into bandits at any moment. None of these things were familiar to him. He was a battle general, not a commander-in-chief. He thought the northern expedition meant sharpening his blade and charging forward—slash, one city down; slash, another; all the way to Bianjing. At the fourth slash, his blade shattered—and only then did he realize the entire supply line behind him was trembling.

Two days later, a messenger from Lin'an brought worse news. He wasn't delivering victory reports—he carried a private letter. From Xin Qiji. Xin's letter was brief, tone restrained: "To General Guo: Hearing of your great victory at Lingbi, I, in Qianshan, send distant congratulations. But one matter I dare not withhold: recent spies report that Jin's northern elite forces remain unmoved; western defenses against the Xia have not been redeployed south. The Jin would rather watch the southern front collapse than pull a single soldier from the north. This is not cowardice—it is biding time. You on the front must assess the situation carefully—do not let temporary victory make you arrogant or reckless. Warfare is the ground of life and death, the path of survival and ruin—do not neglect it."

Guo Ni read the letter, placed it on the table, and looked up at the map. Suzhou was circled in vermilion ink—a red circle he'd stared at hundreds of times, could draw blindfolded. He understood what Xin Qiji meant. Xin didn't say it outright, but the meaning was clear—the Jin's elite were all in the north; the southern resistance was merely an appetizer. You can't even swallow the appetizer—how will you eat the main course?

But he couldn't retreat. Not because he didn't want to—but because he couldn't. He was commander of the eastern northern expeditionary force. Sizhou was his. Hongxian was his. Lingbi was his. Victory reports had streamed to Lin'an. Han Tuozhou had been promoted to Grand Preceptor and Chancellor of Military Affairs; the entire court shouted "Ten thousand years!"; Lu You wrote a poem every day in Shanyin. Everyone waited for the Suzhou victory. Retreat now? How? On what grounds? Plague? Grain shortages? Unstable rear? In Lin'an's jubilation, these reasons sounded like excuses.

Guo Ni folded Xin Qiji's letter, slipped it back into the envelope, and did not reply. He stepped out of the tent, stood beneath the half-dead locust tree, gazing at Suzhou in the distance. The setting sun dyed the walls a dark red; the Jin banners drifted slowly atop the battlements. He knew an one-eyed old general inside was watching him, just as he had watched the same man beneath Lingbi's walls a month ago.

This time, however, he was the one being worn down.