Chapter 304: Exterminate the Vast Power

Just as the last elite of the Three Jurchen Guards, filled with wild joy at the prospect of escape, marched toward the Yalu River.

What awaited them was a deadly trap, chillingly familiar.

The horrific slaughter beneath Ya Fu Pass unfolded once more at Qiu Qingyuan Settlement.

This time, the Jurchens numbered no more than a thousand weary, broken soldiers.

Qiu Qingyuan Settlement's terrain was narrow and elongated, lacking the open flatness beneath Wu Fu Pass; the thousand-plus Jurchen troops crowded in, dense and cramped.

Under these conditions, Jia Cong's meticulously trained hundreds of throwers maximized the destructive power of porcelain grenades.

Guided by the flickering torchlight in the Jurchens' hands and the intermittent moonlight above, they always hurled the grenades into the densest clusters of men.

The entire Jurchen column was engulfed in relentless, brutal explosions; lives vanished by the second.

Some cavalry at the rear tried to break out of Qiu Qingyuan Settlement, but the entrance was sealed by hundreds of firearm troops.

…

When both ends of Qiu Qingyuan Settlement were sealed by firearm troops, countless Jurchen soldiers fled toward the dense forests on either side.

This was a one-sided slaughter: under concentrated firearm fire, the other side had no means to fight back, only useless, desperate dodging.

In groups of fifty, muskets and porcelain grenades were alternated, advancing step by step against the fleeing Jurchens like merciless killing machines.

The first five or six cavalrymen were riddled with bullets, turning into blood-sieves; those behind instinctively retreated—only to face hurling porcelain grenades once distance was gained.

The Korean commander leading the force turned pale at the sight—this clearly meant the Zhou Army had sensed Korea's intentions.

Beneath the glow of bonfires, one commander's banner stood out prominently, bearing the words: "Zhou, Regional Commander of Liaodong, Jia."

On the opposite bank, Korean troops heard the deafening booms from the west bank, mixed with flashes of intermittent light; every heart trembled with dread.

Since being appointed Liaodong's Firearm Advisor, Jia Cong had systematically retrained the firearm battalion and subjected them to dozens of brutal field exercises.

As soon as they reached the forest's edge, a rain of bullets erupted from the dark, dense woods, killing every Jurchen who tried to flee into the trees.

At the other end of Qiu Qingyuan Settlement, leading toward the Yalu River, the same scene unfolded: dense gunfire and porcelain grenades cut off any attempt to reach the river.

For the Jurchens who entered Qiu Qingyuan Settlement, escape was nearly impossible.

As explosions erupted within Qiu Qingyuan Settlement, countless torches suddenly ignited along the west bank of the Yalu River; hundreds of Zhou cavalry galloped back and forth along the shore, stirring up clouds of dust.

Qiu Qingyuan Settlement's narrow, elongated terrain allowed Jia Cong to deploy over a thousand firearm troops into overlapping, impenetrable layers of firepower.

The entire Qiu Qingyuan Settlement became a sack sealed at both ends; the thousand elite Jurchens were visibly vanishing at a terrifying rate.

With heavy forces pre-positioned on the west bank to block Jurchen remnants from fleeing into Korea, the order from Prince Lin Yuan could no longer be carried out.

He therefore ordered all Korean forces on the east bank to stand ready and forbade any boats from entering the river.

Soon he saw several massive bonfires blazing on the opposite shore; beneath their bright glow, countless Zhou cavalry shadows flickered.

Their banners fluttered like clouds, their presence imposing, a fierce, martial aura seemingly rising to the heavens.

These firearm troops had mastered the coordinated use of various weapons to the point of instinct; facing a formidable enemy, they remained coldly calm and perfectly synchronized.

The Korean commander tasked with reinforcement gazed across the river and saw torches like stars, shouts and neighing, rolling dust—clearly, a large force had assembled on the other side.

If he acted rashly and provoked war between Zhou and Korea, he, a mere commander, could not bear the consequences.

As for the Jurchen remnants, let them fend for themselves.

This was Jia Cong's deception to deter Korean interference on the east bank; in truth, only five hundred cavalry operated on the west bank.

Yet in the darkness, the play of firelight and the dense, waving banners created the illusion of a vast army bearing down.

…

Standing on a high ridge in the dense forest, Jia Cong watched a porcelain grenade land precisely near Dong Shan, blasting the Jurchen Left Guard commander into shattered fragments.

The explosions within Qiu Qingyuan Settlement, roughly estimated, had sounded hundreds of times; the firearm troops had brought over a thousand porcelain grenades, and only half had been expended.

Neither Zhou nor Jurchen forces had engaged in large-scale close combat.

Firearm troops at both ends of Qiu Qingyuan Settlement advanced steadily toward the center; those hidden in the forests on either side emerged in formation, executing orderly volleys in three ranks as they moved forward.

The thousand elite Jurchens, subjected to saturation fire, were like a dense wheat field cut repeatedly by the sharpest scythe—more than half were already destroyed.

Yet the musket fire and grenade attacks showed no sign of stopping.

Standing on the forest ridge, Jia Cong gazed down at the thundering explosions and raging firelight—a one-sided massacre.

Though nausea churned in his gut, his face remained expressionless; he gave no order to cease fire.

The gunfire and explosions seemed endless, as if purging all filth and sin from the world…

The encircling firearm troops steadily tightened their ring; from afar, it resembled the dying pupil of a corpse, shrinking with suffocating pressure.

Outside the encirclement, hundreds of torches blazed, illuminating the interior as bright as day; only a few dozen Jurchens remained alive within, fewer than a hundred.

At this point, musket fire and grenade throws ceased—not because Jia Cong ordered it, but because the encirclement had become too tight.

Further fire or grenades would risk friendly casualties; many firearm troops had unfolded the folding steel blades on the front of their Lu Mi muskets and advanced step by step toward the surviving Jurchens.

Only then did Jia Cong signal to Through Ai Li beside him; her face already pale, she instantly wore a look of relief, quickly pulled out a flare, and fired it into the sky.

A cold, brilliant firework burst brilliantly overhead—the prearranged signal to cease fire.

The advance of the firearm troops toward the surviving Jurchens halted beneath the glow of the firework, yet the steel blades on their muskets still gleamed with icy light.

…

On the forest ridge, Through Ai Li could not help asking Jia Cong: "Must it be this way?"

Jia Cong stared down at the carnage of Qiu Qingyuan Settlement and suddenly recalled the four hundred elderly men slaughtered by the Jurchens in Pantu City, and the hundreds of Han civilians rescued along the way.

And the countless disasters wrought by the Jurchens' ferocious brutality…

His face grim, he said: "It must be this way. Only by breaking them, terrifying them, and exterminating every ambitious, cruel man will Liaodong know decades—even centuries—of peace.

Our soldiers won't have to bleed and die for it. Countless innocent border folk won't be slaughtered like pigs and dogs!"

Through Ai Li stared at Jia Cong for a long time, until he turned to look at her; his cold, still gaze gradually softened. She affirmed: "I believe in you!"

…

After tallying the results, after half a night of fierce battle, of the thousand elite Jurchens, only 132 survived—and more than half were wounded.

Dong Shan, hailed as the Jurchens' foremost warlord, a man of formidable strength and courage, never had a chance to engage Zhou troops in close combat; he was blown to pieces by a single porcelain grenade, dying a pitiful death.

Several blood relatives who fled with Dong Shan were all killed in the chaos; the Jurchen Left Guard's noble bloodline was thus extinguished.

After identification by Jurchen prisoners, of the three Jurchen Guards' seventy-two core officers, fifty-three were killed on the spot by gunfire and grenades; the rest were severely wounded.

Li Li Manzhu, commander of the Jurchen Guards, was the sole survivor among the three commanders—but his right hand had been severed by a porcelain grenade.

Jia Cong urgently ordered medical officers to bandage him, insisting he be kept alive; Li Li Manzhu was elderly, and whether he could survive such a wound remained uncertain.

But Jia Cong needed him alive—not out of mercy, but because such a decisive victory required a high-value prisoner.

Li Li Manzhu's son, Li Manqiu, was killed on the spot; his two grandsons died under trampling hooves; only one five-year-old granddaughter survived—the Jurchen Guard's bloodline was thus severed.

As for all surviving Jurchens, their fate was sealed: either execution on the gallows, or lifelong enslavement on the frontier.

All things in this world are fair: when the Jurchen army slaughtered across a thousand li, treating lives as worthless, they doomed themselves to be treated the same one day.

…

After clearing the battlefield, Jia Cong rejected the veteran cavalrymen's suggestion to build a cairn of skulls.

He had no interest in using countless lives as trophies, or piling skulls into towers to boast of valor—such desecration of life repulsed him.

The saddest bottom line of battle is killing to stop killing—not glorifying killing.

He even hoped this would be his last time on the battlefield; such mass slaughter brought him no bloody exhilaration or glory, only a heavy, inexpressible inner burden.

Jia Cong ordered soldiers to dig a massive pit beneath Qiu Qingyuan Mountain and bury the thousand Jurchen corpses together, leaving no mounds—only a large, unmarked green stone stele erected.

In the countless years to come, this unmarked stone would be both a seal of suppression and a warning.

In this battle, Jia Cong's right-wing army suffered only thirty-seven deaths—all from rare close combat; the casualty ratio was nothing short of miraculous.

Under Jia Cong's instructions, all fallen soldiers were cremated on-site; after a simple, solemn memorial, their ashes were carried home.

…

In the Battle of Qiu Qingyuan Settlement, Jia Cong perfectly accomplished the feat of exterminating Jurchen nobility and eradicating their bloodline.

Henceforth, the Jurchen threat that had plagued Liaodong for centuries would be utterly cut down.

Liaodong would enter at least a century of peace; Zhou's power would spread unimpeded across Liaodong.

The Zhou realm would take a great step toward the vast lands beyond the pass.

The military scribes hastily drafted the battle report; after Jia Cong's review, couriers rode ahead to Liaodong Command before the army returned.

After verifying the victory, Liaodong Command would send an eight-hundred-li urgent dispatch to the imperial capital.

Such a monumental achievement would shake the entire world…

(End of Chapter)