Chapter 196: Negotiating the Treaty

Zhongdu, Secretariat, deep night.

When Wanyan Honglie returned from the northern frontier, his entire body still carried the scent of desert sand from the border wall. He had spent forty full days there, personally inspecting nine of the twelve northern garrisons, checking the depth of ditches, the timber of arrow towers, and the tension of bed crossbows. Upon returning, he did not go home—he went straight to the Secretariat. Wanyan Anguo waited for him in the secret chamber; on the table lay a freshly drafted peace treaty, its ink still damp.

"The Song envoys' bottom line is lower than we expected," Wanyan Anguo said bluntly, pushing the draft forward. "Shi Miyuan's envoy said that aside from the title 'uncle-nephew states,' all other terms—annual tribute, territorial cession, reparations—can be negotiated. He even hinted that if we demand it, they are willing to increase the 'military assistance fee' by another one million taels."

Wanyan Honglie said nothing. He pulled up a chair, sat down, and read the draft from start to finish. Fifty thousand taels of silver, fifty thousand bolts of silk as annual tribute; a one-time "military assistance fee" of three million taels; cession of Tang and Deng prefectures; delivery of Han Tuozhou's severed head to Jin; the state letter to self-acknowledge "misgovernance and provocation." Every clause exceeded the highest demand Jin had ever made of Song in any previous peace treaty. This alone would satisfy any Jin minister—the southern wolf, which had raged for eighty years, had finally had its spine broken. Wanyan Honglie stared expressionlessly to the final page, then suddenly stopped. The draft contained a completely new clause—one never found in any historical Song-Jin peace agreement.

"If the steppe-Xia coalition launches a southern invasion against Jin, the Southern Song must supply grain, military pay, and open the Yangtze River waterways to assist Jin in establishing a second defensive line along the Huaihe–Qin Ling frontier."

Wanyan Honglie read this clause three times, then lifted his head and looked at Wanyan Anguo.

"Who proposed this clause?"

"I did," Wanyan Anguo said. "But the original idea came from Your Majesty."

Wanyan Honglie placed the draft back on the table and fell silent for a long time. The only sound in the secret chamber was the steady drip of the water clock. Outside, Zhongdu lay quiet beneath the night sky; a few lanterns glowed on the corner towers of the imperial palace, and the distant beat of night watch drums drifted faintly in.

"Anguo, do you understand what it means to write this clause into the treaty?" Wanyan Honglie finally spoke, his voice low, as if to himself.

"I understand," Wanyan Anguo said. "It means Jin admits it cannot hold back the steppe."

Wanyan Honglie nodded. This had never happened since Jin's founding—publicly acknowledging in a foreign treaty that it needed the aid of one foreign power to resist another. Eighty years ago, when Wanyan Aguda rose with only two thousand five hundred cavalry against the Liao, the Jurchens needed no allies. They destroyed the Liao, toppled the Northern Song, and forced the Xia into submission—all with their own iron horses and strong bows. Now, Jin must write into its treaty a line that, in plain speech, says: "If the northern power attacks, we may not hold out—we need Southern Song's logistical support." Shame was tolerable. What truly troubled Wanyan Honglie was not the shame, but the judgment behind the words: Jin's central court had already concluded that, alone, Jin had no chance against the steppe.

"What did Your Majesty say?" Wanyan Honglie asked.

"Your Majesty said that writing this line does damage Jin's face," Wanyan Anguo replied, his voice lowering. "But more than face, he cares whether Jin can still survive. He also said one more thing—if this line fails, no matter how noble Jin's face may appear, it will only be seen by future generations."

Wanyan Honglie slowly rose and walked to the large map on the wall. On it, Jin's territory stretched from the Anchu Hu river in the northeast to the Huaihe, dominating all of central China and Guan-Xi. But north and west of this vast domain, a thick vermilion line cut across the Mongolian Plateau, through the former Xia lands, and extended beyond the Qin Ling Mountains. The region was labeled: New Ming Party-controlled zone. Jin's territory resembled a man strangled by a red hand.

"I walked the northern border wall," Wanyan Honglie said, his back still turned to Wanyan Anguo, voice hushed. "I inspected nine of the twelve garrisons. The ditches are deep enough, the arrow towers dense enough, the bed crossbows numerous enough. But we lack men. A thousand-man unit is supposed to have eight hundred soldiers; in reality, fewer than four hundred. In some garrisons, one-third of the posts are vacant. The southern front has been fighting for months, yet no troops were moved from the north—because there were no troops to move. The north never had enough. It's not that Your Majesty refuses to send soldiers—it's that the entire empire has no more soldiers to spare. The able-bodied are all on the southern front; half the northern garrison are old or weak."

Wanyan Anguo remained silent. As Vice Secretary of the Secretariat, he knew better than anyone the empire's troop deployments. Jin's standing army was nominally four hundred thousand—but that was only on paper. Actual combat-ready forces: fewer than eighty thousand on the southern front, fifty to sixty thousand on the western front, and less than one hundred fifty thousand total on the northern frontier including border troops and mobile reserves. It sounds substantial, but spread across a thousand-li border wall, each garrison receives barely enough. If the New Ming Party launches a full-scale offensive, Jin must simultaneously defend the northern border wall, the western front against Xia, and the southern front against Song—its forces will be stretched beyond breaking point.

"And," Wanyan Honglie's finger moved westward on the map, settling on the former Xia lands, his voice growing heavier, "the New Ming Party no longer has only cavalry. Latest intelligence says the He Lanshan ironworks are no longer just forging metal—they are casting cannons." Wanyan Anguo's brow snapped tight. Wanyan Honglie turned around and withdrew a crumpled silk scroll from his robe. This was intelligence sent by a border spy a month ago; he received a copy en route, while the original remained in the north—he had carried the copy with him ever since.

"This report says the New Ming Party has built an entire complex of arms workshops—not the small forges of our northern frontier, where one smith works with two apprentices, but dozens of interconnected factories. They use Xia iron, plus tungsten, manganese, and copper allegedly transported from even farther west, producing weapons far superior to before." He unrolled the scroll and read each line aloud, his tone flat, as if reciting a supply list—but each item whitened Wanyan Anguo's face further.

"They can now independently produce mortar tubes. According to the spy's description, these are short-barreled weapons loaded from the muzzle, firing in curved trajectories. Their range is limited, but they arc over walls and strike directly inside cities. Their shells are much lighter than our stone projectiles, yet far more destructive. Northern city walls were never designed to withstand such weapons."

"They are also building a weapon called a 'heavy machine gun.' The spy says that during the destruction of the Kerait tribe, the enemy used handheld firearms that felled entire ranks of cavalry at several hundred paces. Now this new weapon is not handheld—it's mounted on the ground, with faster rate of fire and more powerful bullets. Supposedly, one such weapon placed at the front can seal an entire charge route. Heavy cavalry armor is as flimsy as paper against this firepower."

"Also, they have already re-equipped the Xia's Iron Eagle cavalry division with new rifles—not the old matchlocks that took minutes to reload, but long weapons capable of continuous fire, with improved range and accuracy. The Iron Eagles were already the empire's elite heavy cavalry; now, armed with these new weapons—they fire volleys at close range, then draw swords and charge. The tactic alone sends chills down the spine." Wanyan Honglie handed the scroll to Wanyan Anguo, paused, then delivered the final piece of intelligence.

"There are traces of familiar faces in the south." Wanyan Anguo's head snapped up.

"Yes," Wanyan Honglie said. "Within the New Ming Party, a group of people speaking southern dialects have appeared. Not Lin'an court Mandarin—softer, sweeter. The spy's description matches the dialect of Jiangnan East Road. These men do not wear uniforms; they wear short brown tunics of workshop workers—but their status is extremely high, always escorted by armed guards, and personally accompanied by the New Ming Party's chief of military production during inspections of ironworks and arms factories. They stayed at He Lanshan for two months. What they left behind, the spy does not know. But after they departed, production at the He Lanshan ironworks doubled—and then doubled again. A workshop that previously only reloaded matchlock cartridges suddenly began independently manufacturing complete rifles."

The air in the secret chamber suddenly felt drained, suffocating. Wanyan Anguo's fingers tapped unconsciously on the table, rhythm accelerating, then abruptly halted. Southern dialect technical advisors, precision machine tools, molds, cannon steel, transition from reloading to full-scale manufacturing—individually, these terms were not fatal. Together, they painted a picture that chilled his marrow.

"Southern dialect," Wanyan Anguo murmured, "not the Song Chaoting. The Song Chaoting would rather lock gunpowder formulas deep in the palace and never let anyone touch them—much less send people to the steppe to teach barbarians how to make guns and cannons. These are not court officials."

"Correct," Wanyan Honglie said. "Not court officials. But they have technology, organization, and wealth. That they can build a complete arms industry on the steppe proves their industrial capacity, at least in some regions, already exceeds any state-run workshop under Song Chaoting's control. Who are they? I don't know. But I know one thing—the New Ming Party is not an isolated steppe regime. Behind it runs an invisible thread, one that may stretch all the way to Jiangnan."

He paused, his tone growing heavier. "Anguo, this war has not yet begun. But the outcome has already been decided in the ironworks. We dig ditches, reinforce crossbows, stockpile grain—all our preparations are for defense. But what they are doing beneath He Lanshan is offense—they build cannons, machine guns, rifles capable of continuous fire. Every new weapon is designed for attack. Defense only delays time; offense decides victory. When did Jin become, from an offensive dynasty, a realm that can only defend? From the moment we realized that the red banner on the north was no ordinary tribal flag."

He walked back to the map, his gaze slowly tracing the border between Song and Jin.

"Therefore," Wanyan Honglie finally broke the silence, his voice regaining its usual steadiness, edged with coldness, "the Southern Song is no longer our enemy. It is our rear. Han Tuozhou did not understand this—that is why he is dead. Shi Miyuan understands—or rather, he fears deeply enough to sign these terms. Shi Miyuan is willing to open the Yangtze waterways to us as a second defensive line not out of loyalty, but out of terror. He knows that if Jin is swallowed by the steppe, the red banner will fly over Lin'an. That strait cannot stop a regime that commands both steppe cavalry and Jiangnan technology." He turned to face Wanyan Anguo.

"Write this clause into the treaty. Not just write it—write it in as much detail as possible. The tribute they offer, we take all of it; the land they cede, we take every city—these are for the war faction and the imperial clan to see, for face. But what truly saves us is this clause—joint defense against the steppe. This clause is the substance."