The End of Reunion
It was not Jing who showed more courage than in our reunion, but me. And it was I who carried even more accumulated emotions.
“Have you seen much of the world?”
“…Well.”
“So you’re going to put off your answer again this time?”
An answer. Yes. I owed Jing an answer.
On the day we parted in Handan, she had left me with one final question. I still had not given her the reply to that question which had once caught in my throat and nearly choked me.
“Yes.”
But it was different from that time when I could not come up with a single logical argument. Unlike before, when I had merely postponed my answer with silence, I added a clue.
“But it won’t take long.”
“…You must have seen something in the allied army, then?”
“I did. And I felt it firsthand.”
“I don’t know what you saw or felt, but I’ll tell you this right now—it was all an illusion,” Jing said coldly. Not out of personal disappointment or anger, but as if simply declaring a cold, objective fact.
“The alliance was nothing more than a palace built on sand.”
For the first time, Jing looked not at me but at someone else.
“The feudal states uniting with one heart to stop Qin? Impossible. This was nothing but coincidence. It relied on the coincidence that that woman existed.”
There is no loyalty between nations. A consensus on righteousness? That was only possible because Lord Xinling had acted as the glue. It was hard to refute Jing’s bitter criticism, for the feudal states had shown exactly that kind of behavior all along.
Qin is strong? Who cares. There is immediate profit right before my eyes. That was how the states had fought among themselves. Qin had encouraged that very mindset, building up the power to swallow the world while the Central Plains fell into chaos.
Look. Even though they had formed an alliance, Qi had not participated. It had judged that remaining Qin’s ally would be more advantageous than joining the coalition. As a result, although we had won, five of the Seven Warring States that dominated the realm had gathered yet failed to match even a single unit of Qin’s strength.
Qin had mobilized four hundred thousand. In comparison, even if you added Li Mu’s forces from Taiyuan, the allied army had not reached three hundred thousand—barely two hundred and fifty thousand at most. Of course the states had not committed their full strength, but even so, how many more could they have mustered? Excluding Qi, at best six hundred thousand. And that was only if they had poured everything into the alliance while completely neglecting their own defenses.
On the other hand, Qin alone could field six hundred thousand. Just as King Zhaoxiang of Qin had done during the Battle of Changping—if they scraped together even the capital’s defense forces in Xianyang.
“Conversely, that also means that as long as there is a single focal point, Qin can be held back indefinitely.”
Gongsun Yan. Lord Mengchang. Su Qin. Lord Xinling. Whenever there existed someone capable of binding the feudal states into one, even Qin could not spread its wings. That was because, for now, the combined strength of the states still held a slight edge over Qin.
The canal that King Zhaoxiang had built would allow Qin to close even that narrow gap in the near future, but the states were not sitting idle either.
The enormous quantity of steel produced by water-powered bellows and the super-strong method can even block the flow of that canal.
If Qin tried to ride the waters of the canal into the Central Plains, I would pile up a dam of steel before them.
Why had steel come to rule the age? Why had the Bronze Age lost its hegemony to the Iron Age? Because iron was far more versatile. Iron was easy to process. Both casting and forging showed overwhelming efficiency compared to bronze. There were no bronze farming tools, but there were iron ones. An increase in production from the canal? Simply distribute iron farming tools and that would be the end of it. Qin’s powerful combat strength? Give the soldiers iron weapons and iron armor, and perhaps one soldier from the allied states could take on two from Qin.
Time was never on Qin’s side alone. Time was everyone’s ally, and at the same time everyone’s enemy. It could simply favor some a little more. I believed without a doubt that it favored our side.
And the time until the states finished their preparations to oppose Qin would be bought by Lord Xinling.
“Jing. The world is wide. Qin is not yet ready to embrace the world, nor does it have the capacity to do so.”
“I’d rather you didn’t declare everything based on a single victory.”
My bold claim made the corners of Jing’s eyes tremble faintly. I do not speak empty words. At least, I never had with her. To Jing, it must have looked as if I were hiding some secret move.
“Then let Dan help me.”
“What?”
“Come to my side. You say Qin’s preparations are lacking? Then teach me what is lacking. Its vessel is too small? Then let us create a new Qin together.”
Jing’s eyes were clear, without the slightest tremor. As if, if necessary, she could discard even the current Qin—which stood as the strongest nation under heaven—like a worn-out rag. She gazed at me with powerful conviction and longing.
“You promised. That you would stay by my side. So come back. The place where Dan belongs is not there, but…”
Though Jing spoke to me, her words also seemed directed at herself, and at the same time thrown toward Lord Xinling, who stood guarding my side right now.
After shooting Lord Xinling a sharp glance, Jing turned back to me.
“By my side.”
During the brief silence that followed, I saw it. The faint anxiety and fear contained within Jing’s trembling eyes. Her appearance, bearing, and thoughts had changed greatly from before, but her heart remained almost the same as it had been then.
A child craving love. Yet also a coward who, fearing abandonment, raises blades against everyone around her.
“All right.”
“…Really?”
“In exchange, give up the world.”
The joy that had instantly colored Jing’s face froze solid in an instant.
“Follow not King Zhaoxiang, but King Xiaocheng. Choose peace over conquest, alliance over conflict. If you promise to be content with what is given and never harm anyone out of greed, then I will gladly stand by your side.”
Was this not the most ideal answer? Both she and I could obtain what we wanted. The position of Crown Prince of Yan? I did not regret it. From the beginning, seeking the crown prince’s seat had been merely a means to keep my promise, never the goal itself.
But for Jing, it was different.
“…That, I cannot do.”
Clenching her small fists and biting her lip, Jing showed clear reluctance.
“Why? Why can Dan do that? Don’t you hate them? Were the things Zhao did to us really so trivial?”
“Of course not.”
“Then! Is your promise with Lord Pingyuan that precious? If you had to choose between Dan and the world, which would it be? Between me and Lord Pingyuan, who is more important?”
No matter how early she had been forced to grow up, Jing was still only thirteen. Once her emotions slipped beyond control, she pressed me with childish self-affirmation. She raged and poured out her anger for a moment, then, as if she possessed a split personality, she instantly gathered her feelings and regained her composure.
“Fine. Let’s compromise. Just one. One thing is enough. Chu, Qi, Wei, Han, Yan… I won’t touch any of them. But Zhao—I cannot leave Zhao alone.”
Because she had been constantly threatened with death simply for being a princess of Qin, the hatred left in Jing’s young heart was far greater than I had imagined. The memories of hers that I did not know must have endlessly nurtured hostility and a desire for revenge against Zhao. To the point it could no longer be undone. To the point it had become one of the reasons for her very existence.
That was why I had to stop her even more firmly. If Jing conquered Zhao like this, would she truly stop? No. She would become the Ying Zheng I knew from history, and at the end of tyranny she would destroy everything and return the world to its starting point. In the original history that might have been the foundation for true unification, but I neither knew nor desired such a thing.
“Then I have no choice but to stop you.”
“Dan—!”
“It is not only for the sake of my promise with Lord Pingyuan. That is one reason, yes. But in truth it is nothing more than a secondary one.”
The promise I had made with Lord Pingyuan to protect Zhao. Yet I had already broken it once. For Jing’s sake. I had said I would not forget and that I would watch over the end of that promise, but the fact that I had once turned my back on Lord Pingyuan remained unchanged. Therefore, I had an even greater reason than that promise.
“I am here for your sake.”
“Huh?”
“You may be able to subjugate the world. You may be able to crush it beneath sword and spear. But if force is applied, an equal and opposite reaction must occur. The harder you press down, the harder it will rebound. And that direction, Jing, will be you.”
Assassination attempts would never cease. Just as Jing Ke had done, as Gao Jianli had done, as Yeo Hong-seong had done. Even if they were gone, in this vast world, would there not be at least one more righteous person like them? And that was not all. The feudal states would never accept becoming Qin’s slaves. They would continue to resist. Rebellions and uprisings would erupt across the realm, the people’s livelihood would fall into ruin, and the country would grow even more destitute. If the final outcome was to live in constant terror of assassination and fear of collapse, how tragic and empty would that be?
“The greatness of the one who unified the world would remain. But what waits afterward is only predetermined ruin and a future in which everything has been lost.”
Because I knew that, I had no choice but to stop it. The process of great unification. And Jing herself.
“I will not let you become a great tyrant.”
The moment those words left my mouth, rough voices erupted from all directions, loud enough to be heard even in the distant conference tent. Voices filled with anxiety and terror spread without distinction between Hangu Pass and the allied army, piercing through the tent of the meeting place.
When we left the negotiations behind and stepped outside, we immediately understood why both Qin and the allied forces had fallen into such chaos regardless of allegiance.
The conference that had begun at noon had not even lasted one full hour, yet the surroundings were growing dark. The sun was being obscured.
It was a solar eclipse.
“Dan.”
While even Lord Xinling and Meng Ao stood speechless, staring up at the sight of the sun being swallowed by shadow, Jing’s voice pierced my ears.
“It’s raining.”
Lonely, sorrowfully, Jing whispered softly.
“The night is falling like rain.”
At last the sun was completely covered, and the world sank into darkness.
It was the end of the war.
“See you again.”
And the end of our reunion.