Miracle on the Yellow River
The crossing of the Yellow River concluded successfully. Though thirty thousand lives had been sacrificed as a desperate rearguard, the survival of the remaining one hundred and fifty thousand could only be called miraculous. Meng Ao had braced himself for as many as one hundred thousand additional casualties—fifty thousand holding back the allied army at the crossing, another fifty thousand annihilated while crushing the Han forces that sought to disrupt the operation. That the toll had been limited to thirty thousand felt like nothing short of divine intervention.
They say Heaven is impartial. In that moment, the words rang true. At Henei, Heaven had granted Lord Xinling a resounding victory that would echo through history. Now it turned its gaze upon Meng Ao, opening a path to survival where none had seemed possible.
Yet Meng Ao never forgot that while Heaven had provided the opportunity, it was human hands that had seized it. He had sent Zhang Tang forward as the vanguard and crossed with the main force himself, fulfilling the duty of supreme commander. By the time he reached the far bank, the Han army had already been driven back. He immediately sought out the commander of the relief force.
“Meng Wu! So it is you who has come this far…!”
The man who appeared was none other than Meng Ao’s own son and heir to the Meng clan. But the true surprise lay elsewhere.
“Father, I commanded the army, yet the one who moved the relief force is someone else.”
Unlike Meng Ao, who had wandered through many states before settling in Qin, Meng Wu had grown up under his father’s shadow and carried considerable pride. Once Meng Ao rose to Supreme General and Meng Wu himself became a deputy commander, the Meng family had been fully absorbed into Qin’s nobility. That pride had only grown. For such a man to show such deference now meant the person in question could only be one of two figures: Chancellor Lü Buwei, who stood second only to the king, or…
“Her Highness the Crown Princess has come all this way herself…”
The girl who appeared, her golden eyes gleaming with the unmistakable light of the Qin royal house, was only thirteen, yet her gaze was colder than any battlefield around her. Amid the madness of death and slaughter, she remained utterly composed. If anything, her presence here felt even more commanding than it had within the palace, drawing every eye of the Qin army.
“You have done well.”
Ying Zheng had been gazing across the river toward the allied encampment. Now she turned her attention to Meng Ao. Her voice was low for a girl her age, yet somehow it suited her perfectly. The sight of a child who had not yet reached the age of learning offering comfort to a grizzled Supreme General should have seemed unnatural, yet Ying Zheng’s even tone made it feel inevitable.
Even after enduring the lowest, most wretched existence in Zhao during her childhood, authority still radiated from her. It was the innate quality of a ruler born to stand above others.
Having made the hierarchy unmistakably clear with a single sentence, Ying Zheng received Meng Ao’s immediate bow.
“…I have lost half the troops you entrusted to me. Such praise is far too generous for a defeated commander and a criminal. Please, withdraw it.”
“No. I will not. Your opponent was Lord Xinling—the greatest gentleman in all the Central Plains.”
Ying Zheng knew Lord Xinling. Perhaps better than anyone else in the Qin army. She alone had stood face to face with Wei Wuji, spoken with her, shared thoughts. She understood perfectly how formidable and exceptional that woman was.
Yet when Ying Zheng’s eyes turned back across the river, it was not Lord Xinling she sought. As though drawn by some invisible force, her gaze found a single point—and there he was.
So you really are there, Dan.
Even at this distance, his presence was unmistakable. Beside the woman with blazing red hair who glared toward them stood the black-haired boy. Ying Zheng’s golden eyes drank in the sight of him, and in that moment she retraced every step that had brought her here.
It had begun with word that the Crown Prince of Yan marched with the allied army. Cai Ze, ever knowledgeable about Yan affairs, had come to her and confirmed that Ji Dan himself had taken the field—as though he had known the news would set her in motion. And he had been right.
Ying Zheng had gone to the ailing King of Qin. Even as he hovered between life and death, his thirst for vengeance against Zhao remained undiminished; he had granted her military authority. She then sought out Meng Wu, son of the current Supreme General Meng Ao, and brought him into her fold. Meng Wu, harboring his own grievances toward the father who had abandoned him, took her hand without hesitation. Gathering the garrison at Hangu Pass as well, she led thirty thousand troops, drove off the Han forces, and rescued the Qin army.
Even without her arrival, Meng Ao would likely have succeeded in crossing. But in doing so, half the Qin soldiers now alive would have perished—cut down by blades, drowned in the Yellow River, or left maimed and broken. No matter the justifications or hypotheticals, defeat was defeat. This Qin expedition had ended in failure. An army of two hundred and eighty thousand had been reduced to one hundred and fifty thousand. The allied forces, though not at their original two hundred thousand, still retained perhaps one hundred and seventy or one hundred and eighty thousand. If the Han troops joined them, the number could be even greater.
They would not be satisfied with this. They would harry the Qin army to the end, inflicting further losses, and seek to reclaim the territories Qin had seized. Defending the riverbank to prevent their crossing was one option, but Lord Xinling would surely devise some unthinkable countermeasure. Already several possibilities flashed through Ying Zheng’s mind. Among them, the most lethal was the prospect of the allies feigning a crossing to pin the Qin army here while secretly detaching a force to cut off Wang He’s retreat at Taiyuan. With the brilliant general Li Mu holding Taiyuan, even a modest reinforcement would be enough to annihilate Wang He’s army—the same Li Mu who had once wiped out over one hundred thousand Xiongnu. Thirteen thousand at Henei, twelve thousand at Taiyuan… twenty-five thousand dead. Even Qin would require more than a generation to recover.
Thus only one choice remained.
“We return.”
The time had come for Qin to yield the stage.
§
Watching the Qin army abandon its river defense and withdraw, Lord Xinling murmured with quiet regret.
“They are retreating.”
“As expected of Meng Ao… He knows precisely when to disengage.”
Tang Ju, Lord Xinling’s most trusted advisor, answered her.
“It is unfortunate that the boats from Daliang arrived late. Had they come in time, we might have completely sealed their crossing…”
Lord Xinling’s blockade had not relied solely on the Han army. The Yellow River was vast, with dozens of tributaries linking the Central Plains and Hebei. Daliang, capital of Wei, was itself a great city straddling those waterways—Huai River, Honggou River, Sui River. It was essentially a maritime hub. The very city that would one day become Kaifeng, capital of Song, already possessed this strategic advantage. Even without the Grand Canal of later dynasties, its position among the waterways made it the heart of river transport. Of course, that same geography left it vulnerable to flooding, yet the benefits had always outweighed the risk.
Still, the boats Lord Xinling had requested from Daliang had not arrived in time.
“If they have chosen retreat, then Wang He at Taiyuan will have begun withdrawing as well.”
“Then shall we withdraw?”
At Tang Ju’s question, Lord Xinling turned to Ji Dan.
“What does the Crown Prince think?”
Withdraw, or continue the advance?
Retreat carried no loss. The allied army had already achieved its purpose—halting Qin’s invasion of the Three Jin states—by annihilating one hundred and thirty thousand Qin soldiers. Yet the coalition still possessed the strength to press further. Lord Xinling, Ji Xin, Fang Nan, Xiang Yan, and Li Mu at Taiyuan… an all-star assembly of the era’s finest talents. Such a force might never be assembled again. More importantly, the experience of fighting together was irreplaceable.
“We must advance.”
At my answer, Lord Xinling smiled with satisfaction.
“That is my answer as well.”