Chapter 203

The third day of the first month, Bianjing.

This city had not seen warfire in a long time. Since the Jin army breached the walls during the Jingkang era and captured the two emperors, Bianjing had enjoyed nearly eighty years of peace under Jin rule. The walls were still those built at the end of the Northern Song—rammed earth faced with brick, three zhang thick at the base, more than one zhang wide at the top, with thirteen gates opening on all four sides, and a moat outside fed by the Bian River. Eighty years ago, when the Jin army attacked this city, they used trebuchets, siege towers, and tunnels, and besieged it for a full month before taking it. For eighty years, the Jin had continuously reinforced it, believing this city would never again be attacked from outside. No one imagined that the next enemy to stand before its gates would have trebuchets already in museums.

Wanyan Jing arrived in Bianjing on the second day of the first month. He was not here to inspect—he was here to flee. When news of the Huai River line’s collapse reached Zhongdu, Wanyan Jing sat in the Daxing Hall all night. The next morning, he issued an edict: relocate the capital. These two words were easy to say, but their execution amounted to admitting that Jin’s rule in the Central Plains was crumbling. He had no time to deliberate—Sizhoucheng to Bianjing was only a few hundred li, and the Huai River line’s thirty thousand defenders had been crushed in less than two days; the vanguard of the Jiangnan forces could appear beneath Bianjing’s walls at any moment. He left Zhongdu in the hands of Wanyan Honglie, and with the Secretariat, the Ministry of Revenue, and dozens of carriages carrying the imperial harem, he entered Bianjing on the cold morning of the second day of the first month.

When Wanyan Kuang met the imperial carriage at the city gate, Wanyan Jing nearly failed to recognize him. This seasoned general, who had held Tangzhou for three years and fought the Song army to a standstill for months, now had sunken eye sockets, protruding cheekbones, and mud from the Huai River still caked on his armor. When Sizhoucheng fell, he broke out through the North Gate with his personal guard, riding three horses to death before arriving in Bianjing, his inner thighs raw and bloody from the saddle.

“Your Majesty,” Wanyan Kuang knelt on the ground, voice hoarse, “this guilty minister has lost his army and shamed the state. I beg Your Majesty to order my death.”

Wanyan Jing looked down at him and remained silent for a long time. The wind at the gate whipped sand against the imperial banner, crackling like fire. He did not punish Wanyan Kuang—not because he did not want to, but because he could not. The Jin now had few veteran generals left. Heshilie Zhizhong, before being surrounded in Suzhou, sent his final military report via personal guard: only ten characters—“I have done my utmost. Suzhou cannot be held. Bianjing must be defended urgently.” Wanyan Abao was shot through the chest during the retreat from Tangzhou, pulled from a pile of corpses by his guards, and still lay unconscious in the Dengzhou field hospital. The Jin had almost no veteran generals left. If he killed Wanyan Kuang, who would defend Bianjing?

“Stand up,” Wanyan Jing said. “You still have one city to defend.”

The fourth day of the first month, dawn. The mist had not yet lifted when the sentries on Bianjing’s southern wall heard a strange sound—not hooves, not horns, not battle cries, but a low, rhythmic hum, coming from above. The sentry looked up and saw a massive gray-white sphere drifting in the southern sky, beneath which hung a basket, with shadowy figures moving inside. He thought his eyes deceived him, rubbed them hard, and looked again—the sphere was still there, and closer. It drifted slowly over the southern city wall, like a silent giant bird, overlooking the capital that had known no war for eighty years. The Jin soldiers on the wall stared upward, dumbfounded.

Wanyan Kuang, on the southern gate tower, saw clearly through his telescope what was in the basket beneath the balloon—not weapons, but a man, holding a pen and notebook, calmly sketching something. Wanyan Kuang slowly lowered his telescope, voice dry: “They are drawing our city defenses.” He was half right. The balloon’s observer was not merely sketching—he held a wired telephone, its line dangling from the balloon, the other end connected to an artillery command post being set up on the high ground to the south. Every street, every arrow tower, every barracks within Bianjing was observed in real time and transmitted to the artillery battery’s firing tables.

Wanyan Jing heard the balloon’s report in the Bianjing imperial palace. He did not go to the wall to see it—not because he feared it, but because it was meaningless. He sat behind his imperial desk, before him lay the Secretariat’s draft defense plan. The plan was thorough—crossbows mounted on the walls, three inner defensive lines, reserve troops concentrated in the palace, ready for street-to-street fighting if necessary. He read every word, but he knew this plan would never be used. The Jiangnan forces would not fight street by street—they did not need to enter the city. Their artillery could fire shells into any building from outside the walls.

The sixth day of the first month, the siege began.

The Jiangnan forces’ advance surpassed every Jin general’s wildest expectations. The vanguard reached the southern suburbs of Bianjing on the night of the fifth day; the main force arrived in full by dawn on the sixth. A continuous line of cannons was positioned on the southern high ground, their barrels slowly rising through the morning mist like silent steel fingers aimed at Bianjing. The Jin had originally established several outer defensive lines beyond the city walls—the wengcheng outside Nanxun Gate, earthen ramparts beyond Chenzhou Gate, ditches and sharpened stakes beyond Dailou Gate—but fewer than half of the outer defenders had retreated back into the city; the rest lay dead on the southern plains. The outer defenses were cleared in less than half a day. The cannons did not begin by shelling the city walls—they targeted the flanking bastions and arrow towers. These protruding structures had served as the primary positions from which defenders rained crossbow fire upon attackers, but under direct cannon fire, they became the most conspicuous targets.

The bastions on either side of Nanxun Gate, each less than two zhang square, housed over twenty crossbowmen and two bed crossbows. One high-explosive shell pierced through a firing slit, detonated inside the enclosed space, and the shockwave, mixed with shattered bricks and bloody flesh, erupted back out the same slit like a volcanic blast. Jin soldiers on the wall who witnessed this began to vomit.

Wanyan Kuang commanded the defense from the Nanxun Gate tower. He crouched behind the parapet, barking hoarse orders to shift reserve troops into the gaps, but he knew it was only delaying, not stopping. Every soldier sent onto the wall would not survive half an hour. He was not afraid of death—he was afraid of dying without seeing any hope of victory.

The eleventh day of the first month, Nanxun Gate collapsed.

The bombardment lasted three full days. During those days, the defenders on the wall were replaced three times; each new group suffered over half casualties within hours. Soldiers began refusing to climb the wall—not through mutiny, but by sitting motionless in their barracks, even when officers placed blades at their throats. One old veteran sat on the ground, looked up at his officer, and said something that left the officer speechless: “You cut me down, I die. You make me climb the wall, I die. Cut me now—I’ll die in the barracks, at least I’ll keep my body whole.”

The thirteenth day of the first month, the eighth day of the assault. Wanyan Jing summoned the last group of ministers he could still find to the imperial palace. No lamps were lit; the firelight outside flickered across his face, casting shifting shadows. Jiagu Heng stood before him—the veteran minister who had led the Ministry of Revenue for twenty years, a three-emperor elder, his beard and hair now white. After the southern collapse, he had retreated from Dengzhou, following the imperial court all the way to Bianjing, witnessing along the way fleeing soldiers, refugees, burning villages, and red banners stretching across the hills. His only advice to Wanyan Jing was this: “Your Majesty, leave. Bianjing cannot be held. But Jin still has Hebei, Guanxi, and Liaodong.”

Wanyan Jing stared at Jiagu Heng’s wrinkled face and remained silent for a long time. Jiagu Heng was no coward—he had organized logistics in Dengzhou, secured the front-line supply lines, worked day and night until his eyes nearly failed. When he said, “Your Majesty, leave,” it was not because he feared death, but because he knew that if Wanyan Jing died in Bianjing, Jin would truly be finished. As long as the emperor lived, the court lived, Jin still had a name. With a name, they could still recruit soldiers, gather grain, and fight again.

“How is the northern border?” Wanyan Jing asked.

“The Zhao Wang still holds the border wall,” Jiagu Heng replied. “He sent a secret letter with only one sentence—‘The border wall stands, I stand. Your Majesty, do not think of me—think of the state.’”

Wanyan Jing closed his eyes. Wanyan Honglie had held the border wall for six years, since Mingchang Fifth Year until now, facing enemy after enemy—from steppe cavalry to the Xinming Party. Wanyan Jing had never given him enough troops or grain, yet he had never complained. Every military report he sent back to Zhongdu was brief—“No incident today,” “The northern border is quiet,” “The border wall is secure.” Everyone knew the northern border could never be quiet, the wall could never be secure. He simply did not want to burden the court. Now, that man still stood on the border wall.

Wanyan Jing rose and walked to the palace gate. On the thirteenth night of the first month, Bianjing was engulfed in flames. The firelight from Nanxun Gate was brightest, thick smoke rolling, obscuring half the sky. The cannon fire continued, one blast after another, like the heartbeat of the earth. He stood there, watching the capital about to fall, and suddenly remembered something—eighty years ago, his ancestor Wanyan Zongwang had breached Bianjing, and Emperor Huizong of Song had stood at his palace gate, watching the city burn. History had turned a full circle, and returned to its origin.

He turned to Jiagu Heng and said: “Issue the edict. Tonight, we break out. Exit through the North Gate, cross the Yellow River, return to Hebei.”

Jiagu Heng knelt and bowed his head: “I obey.”

Preparations for the breakout were conducted in utmost secrecy. Wanyan Jing personally selected the escape route—not the main North Gate, but the water gate in the northwest corner. The water gate led to the Huimin River, connecting the Bian River to the Yellow River. The channel was narrow, flanked by houses and warehouses, its terrain complex and unsuitable for large forces, but also hard to detect. The escort was reduced to the bare minimum—the imperial harem took only the Empress and two princes; all others remained in Bianjing, cared for by palace maids and eunuchs. Wanyan Jing told the Empress: “I owe them a debt. But the Empress of Jin cannot remain in Bianjing as a prisoner.”

The hardest decision was who to leave behind. Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians still held the walls. If the emperor fled, who would defend the city? Wanyan Jing gave this task to Wanyan Kuang. He summoned Wanyan Kuang to a side hall, where only the two of them remained. Wanyan Kuang knelt on the ground, his armor still caked with dust and broken bricks from the Nanxun Gate tower.

“Wanyan Kuang,” Wanyan Jing’s voice was quiet, “I entrust Bianjing to you—not to hold it, but to delay. Delay one day, and I gain one more day to retreat to Hebei. Delay three days, and I can reposition along the Yellow River. Delay five days, and the Zhao Wang may spare troops from the northern border.”

Wanyan Kuang looked up at the emperor, his eyes free of fear, free of hesitation—only resignation. This general, who had held Tangzhou for three years and fought the Song army for months beneath Dengzhou, had long known his fate lay on the battlefield. He said: “I lost one city at Lingbi, another at Sizhou. This time, I will not lose it. I will not leave.”

Wanyan Jing rose and helped Wanyan Kuang to his feet. Neither spoke. The firelight outside the window flickered across their faces, one bright, one dark.

At the third watch, the iron grating of the water gate was quietly raised. The Huimin River glowed faintly in the night, its surface dotted with thin ice. First to depart were the officials of the Secretariat and Ministry of Revenue, rowing small boats out through the water gate, heading north along the river. Then came the Empress’s carriage—not a horse-drawn cart, but a covered litter, its curtains tightly shrouded in black cloth. Finally, Wanyan Jing himself. He changed into the uniform of a common cavalryman, mounted a black horse. Before leaving, he turned to look back at Bianjing—the firelight painted half the sky red; cannon fire still rumbled; distant shouts of battle drifted from the south. He whispered a thought to himself, unheard. Then he spurred his horse through the water gate, vanishing into the darkness at the end of the channel.

An hour later, Wanyan Kuang walked alone to the top of Nanxun Gate. The gate had been shattered, its debris piled into a small mountain. He stood beside the breach, gazing at the Jiangnan forces’ campfires stretching for miles, like a river of fire. He drew his sword and plunged it into the broken bricks before him, gripping the hilt with both hands, standing like a statue. The campfires lit his face—the scar across his cheek, his skin blackened by smoke, yet his eyes still burned. He knew no reinforcements would come. But it no longer mattered. What mattered was that he stood here—so the gate remained closed. He stood here—so Jin still had a Bianjing.