Zhu Ling was having an absolutely miserable day.
Most scholars spend their lives hating each other over the smallest disagreements. They argue about interpretations of texts, about ritual protocols, about whether a certain passage in the Spring and Autumn Annals meant one thing or the exact opposite. Lock two scholars in a room and they would find something to shout about before the tea even cooled.
But on one thing, every scholar in the realm agreed. Chang'an's walls were tall. Its moat was deep. Its defenses were absolute. Fifty feet of solid stone loomed over the northern plains like a giant raised middle finger daring anyone to come and try.
Because those walls rose so impossibly high, Zhu Ling hadn't lost a single wink of sleep over his dwindling numbers. Who needs an army when you have fifty feet of solid rock? How could anyone breach that without throwing fifty thousand men into a meat grinder? Besides, Chang'an's walls weren't just tall. They were insultingly tall. The kind of tall that made invading generals look up, do some quick mental math, and decide they had better things to do with their lives. Like getting stabbed somewhere else.
So when the enemy first showed up with barely ten thousand troops, most of them cavalry which is about as useful in a siege as a paper umbrella in a storm, Zhu Ling had leaned on the wall, pointed at them, and laughed. Actually laughed. "Bro, are you serious right now? Cavalry? In a siege? What are you gonna do, throw your horses at my walls?"
Then afternoon came.
A three-hundred-pound stone mortar, the exact kind of mundane tool peasant farmers used to crush grain in their backyards, tore through the sky like an angry meteor.
It slammed into the ramparts with devastating force.
The stonework did not merely crack. It detonated. Paved surface buckled inward. Dust blasted outward in a blinding cloud. Three men standing nearby went down flat. Not dead. Not bleeding. Just knocked completely senseless by the shockwave alone. Ears ringing. Eyes staring blankly. Brains scrambled.
As Zhu Ling wiped cold sweat from his forehead, a brutal realization hit him: Note to self. Do not celebrate too early, idiot.
He immediately dispatched a courier to report the incident and ordered his personal guards to clean up the crimson mess left behind. Unfortunately, the stone cylinder was wedged so deep into the floor that the masonry had crumpled around it like wet paper. It refused to budge.
The stone sat there like a three-hundred-pound paperweight. Every Cao soldier assigned to the sector stared at it, their brains automatically doing the gruesome physics: If that hits me on the head, I am nothing but paste.
Nobody said a word. But every man took two steps back from the edge. All in perfect unison. Like a dance nobody rehearsed. Nobody gave the order. Nobody needed to.
Zhong Yao arrived sooner than expected. He brushed past Zhu Ling's frantic warnings and climbed straight up to the ramparts, moving with the calm unhurried pace of a man strolling through his own garden. Either he had nerves of steel or he was too old to care anymore. Probably both.
He knelt. Ran his fingers over the shattered pavement. Touched the stone's edge. Traced the cracks spreading outward like spiderwebs. Tapped the surface twice with one knuckle. Listened to the dull heavy thud that came back.
"That stone flew all the way from their camp?" Zhong Yao asked, his eyebrows lifting. Not in fear. In curiosity. The look of a scholar who had just found a very strange beetle under a rock and was trying to figure out if it was a new species.
Zhu Ling waved both arms wildly, nearly smacking a guard square in the face. "It is sorcery, General Zhong! They call upon mountain spirits! I saw it with my own eyes! That rock came flying straight out of thin air! No normal catapult can throw something that heavy that far!"
"Sorcery," Zhong Yao repeated. Flat. Dry. He did not argue. He did not roll his eyes. He simply filed the word away under "things I will never speak of again." He had learned long ago that arguing with a panicked man was like arguing with a river. You just got wet and nothing changed.
He brushed dust from his knees and walked to the wall's edge. Looked out.
The enemy camp burned bright with orderly torchlight. Men moved in neat lines. No infantry rushing forward. No ladders being hauled. No towers rising in the dark. Only smoke curling upward from their fires. And the faint drifting scent of cooking rice riding the evening breeze.
They were making dinner. The bastards were actually sitting down for a hot meal.
One stone. One warning. And then supper. The day's fighting was done.
Zhu Ling stepped forward, clinging eagerly to his own hopeful theory. "It seems the sorcerer among them can only lift one great boulder each day! That is his limit! General Zhong, give me leave. I will lead three hundred men tonight. Fast. I will slip into their camp, find that mage, and chop his head off before the sun even thinks about rising!"
Zhong Yao turned and looked at him. He looked tired.
He did not laugh. But the corners of his mouth twitched. One eye gave a tiny involuntary spasm. He had served on Cao Cao's staff at the Battle of Guandu. He had seen catapults in action. And he knew with absolute certainty that what had just smashed into this wall was no spell.
It was engineering. Terrifying, beautiful engineering. And whatever contraption could hurl three hundred pounds this far had to be larger and more powerful than anything he had ever seen at Guandu.
Much larger.
Much more powerful. How had they even built such a thing? Where did they find the timber? The iron?
Zhong Yao shook his head slowly. A thoughtful look settled over his face. The look of a man rearranging pieces on a board he thought he understood completely.
"There was no spell, General Zhu," Zhong Yao said. "That was merely a warning shot. A very, very loud warning shot."
He turned and fixed Zhu Ling with a steady gaze. The kind of gaze that made officers instinctively reach down and check whether their belts were properly fastened.
"Tomorrow, if Liu Bei's men come in full force, hold your ground. Defend these walls well. Do your duty." Zhong Yao paused, weighing every word like he was measuring rice. "But if stones begin falling in great numbers..."
Another pause. Longer this time. Zhong Yao's jaw tightened.
"If the stones rain down," he said, "do not throw your life away for this wall."
Zhu Ling blinked. "What?"
Zhong Yao nodded once. Turned. Walked steadily back down the steps. His footsteps were calm. Even. The gait of a man who had just given permission to survive and was not entirely sure he had done the right thing.
Zhu Ling watched him go. He thought of the Wugong River. Of the crossbow formations that had turned their army into butchered meat. Of the men who had drowned trapped in their own armor because someone had ordered them to hold the line at all costs.
"Do not die for the wall," Zhu Ling muttered. He rolled the words around his tongue. "Well then. That is easily the best order I have ever received."
---
What unfolded the next morning was something Zhu Ling would carry in his memory for the rest of his life. Assuming he survived the day, which was starting to look like a pretty big assumption.
And it was equally unforgettable for Huo Jun.
Huo Jun had braced himself for a proper siege. The kind with towers and ladders and men screaming and boiling oil and all the other glorious traditions of warfare that made poets weep and soldiers weep for entirely different reasons. He had strapped on his armor, slung his shield, and stood ready to lead the vanguard up the ladders himself. He was fully prepared to die gloriously for Liu Bei. He had even rehearsed his last words. Something about the Han dynasty and maybe a dramatic death stare toward the sun.
Instead, he stood in an open field staring at eight massive contraptions that looked like they had crawled straight out of a nightmare.
Each one was anchored to the earth with timber stakes thick as a man's arm. A towering frame held a long swinging arm. At one end hung a wooden box packed with thousands of pounds of rock. The other end tapered into a leather sling thick enough to wrap around a horse's neck.
Only yesterday, Huo Jun had watched one of these things throw a stone nearly four hundred pounds all the way to the ramparts. The kind of throw that made you question everything you knew about physics. And gravity. And the basic laws of the universe.
Now eight of them stood in a perfect line. Patient. Waiting. Like executioners waiting for the bell to toll.
Zhuge Liang stood on a raised platform, his white robes fluttering in the morning breeze like a banner of death. He raised his feather fan and pointed it at Chang'an. The gesture was calm. Casual. Like he was pointing out a particularly interesting bird.
"Load the engines!"
Strong men stepped forward. Settled great stones into each sling. The timber groaned. The ropes strained. A few of the ropes made sounds that suggested they were having serious doubts about their life choices.
Once all eight were ready, Zhuge Liang swept his fan downward.
"Launch!"
Beside each contraption, a man with a heavy axe swung in perfect unison. Ropes snapped. Hooks released with a sharp clack.
The counterweights dropped.
The arms whipped upward. The slings swung through their arc. And the stones flew.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The sound hit Huo Jun's chest before it reached his ears. A physical punch. His teeth rattled. His stomach did a little flip.
The crews didn't even pause to admire their work. Fresh teams rushed forward, grabbed the winches, and cranked them around with mechanical precision. The weights lowered. The arms reset. New stones loaded.
Within moments, the contraptions stood ready again.
Huo Jun watched them move. Smooth. Efficient. Terrifying. There was a horrible beauty to it all. Like watching something designed specifically to ruin someone else's day.
He had come here ready to die on a ladder. Instead, he was watching this. And he realized, with a cold clarity, that the age of dying on ladders was officially over.
---
Zhu Ling, meanwhile, had no time for philosophical revelations.
Eight stones flew through the sky like screaming dragons. All of them aimed at his wall.
CRASH.
Three hit the battlements. The stonework didn't crack. It evaporated. Men standing nearby didn't even have time to scream. One moment they were there. The next moment, they were a fine red mist and a vague memory.
Five sailed clean over the wall. Over the defenders. Into the city.
The destruction inside was worse. Much worse.
One stone tore through the roofs of four houses in a row. Through walls. Through a courtyard where a family had been eating breakfast. The impact sent shards flying everywhere like shrapnel. The sound wasn't a crash. It was a scream.
Another hit a tree so thick two men couldn't wrap their arms around it. The trunk snapped like a twig. The stone kept rolling and burst through a mansion gate while the tree fell in slow, terrible motion, crushing the entrance flat.
Every man on the wall saw it. Every man felt it. The vibration in the stone. The dust in their teeth. The smell of crushed rock.
"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!" a guard screamed.
"HERE THEY COME AGAIN!"
Zhu Ling looked up. His heart stopped. Actually stopped. Just for a second.
Eight more shapes arced overhead. One of them was getting bigger. And bigger. And bigger. It was coming straight for him.
"HOLY SHIT—DODGE!"
He threw himself sideways. Scrambled across the stones. His hands slipped on dust. His knees hit the parapet. His armor made a sound like a dying cat.
The stone hit the outer edge three paces away.
The wall exploded. Fragments flew everywhere like arrows. Dozens of men fell. Screaming. Not screaming. A piece no bigger than a fist caught Zhu Ling square on the helmet.
"FUUUUUCK!"
The world went white. Then grey. Then nothing. A great ringing filled his ears. He saw mouths moving. Men running. Dust billowing in slow motion.
He hit the stonework. Hard. His skull bounced.
Through the haze, he saw men fleeing down the stairs. Dropping spears. Running for their lives.
He tried to scream at them. To order them back.
"GET BACK HERE YOU COWARDS! HOLD THE—"
His mouth opened. No sound came out.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
---
When Zhu Ling woke, the first thing he noticed was that something heavy was crushing his chest. He couldn't breathe. Could barely think.
He lay still, waiting for feeling to crawl back into his limbs. With a groan that sounded more animal than human, he pushed aside broken stone. Rubble. A shattered spear shaft.
And the dead body of a young soldier lying across his legs.
Zhu Ling stared at the face. Nineteen, maybe. Eyes open. Staring at nothing.
He had seen enough dead faces to know there was nothing to say. He shoved the body aside gently and rose unsteadily to his feet. His helmet was gone. His head felt wrong. Light. Like it belonged to someone else.
He shoved the body aside gently and rose unsteadily to his feet. His helmet was gone. His head felt wrong. Light. Like it belonged to someone else.
He brushed dust from his face and looked out.
Night had fallen. The sky was black and still. The air smelled of crushed stone and something sharp and metallic. Something he didn't want to identify.
He stumbled to the outer edge of the wall and peered toward the enemy camp.
Their fires were few and dim. No army stood ready to storm the gates. No ladders. No towers. Just scattered watch fires burning low. Like an army that had finished its work for the day and gone to sleep.
A wild, desperate hope surged in his chest. Did we hold them? Did we actually hold?
Then bitter reality crashed in. How could we have held? If their camp is dark and still, it means only one thing. The fighting is over. Chang'an fell while I was unconscious, didn't it?
He turned and limped to the inner parapet. Looked down at the city.
Chang'an blazed with light. Thousands of torches burned in the streets and squares. Far more than the night before. The city glowed warm and golden. Alive.
Zhu Ling's knees went weak. He gripped the stonework to stay upright.
They're already inside. Walking the streets. Lighting the lamps. Making themselves at home in my city.
He started pacing. Back and forth along the shattered ramparts. What should he do? Strip off his armor and blend in with the refugees? Walk down and surrender? Or die here alone on a broken wall?
In the middle of his indecision, something caught his eye.
Far off in the west.
He stopped. Leaned out over the stone. Squinted hard. His vision was blurry. His head still rang with every heartbeat. But there. Out there.
A winding ribbon of fire. Creeping steadily across the dark plain. A river of flame. Torches. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands.
Zhu Ling stared. His breath caught. His hands tightened until his knuckles went white.
He knew exactly what that meant. A column of soldiers. Marching through the night. Marching straight here.
Hope exploded in his chest like a match struck in total darkness. He counted the days in his head. The distances. The mountain passes. Who could possibly be arriving now.
"By the timetable..." he whispered, his voice cracking. "It has to be him. It has to be him." He counted again, just to be sure. The days matched. The distance matched. "General Xiahou Yuan broke through the valley! He's coming! He's actually coming!"