The wind from the northern steppes blew bitter and cold against the blackened walls of Jinhai, carrying with it the stubborn stench of dried blood, smoke-soaked stone, and scorched leather. It had been merely two days since the last brutal barbarian assault, when once again the city's gates creaked open—not to let in another wave of invaders, but to welcome the most powerful man in the Empire: Luo Wen.
His imperial banners sliced through the wind like sharpened blades. Atop each spear, the golden-stitched black eagle — the symbol of the imperial will — fluttered defiantly against the gray sky. Behind him, his elite cavalry marched with mechanical precision — fifty thousand veterans, hardened by years of civil war and chaos, each step pounding like the pulse of a nation reclaiming its breath. Every hoofbeat was a declaration: the Empire was not yet broken.
General Shen Ruolin descended from the ramparts to meet him. His face was a map of exhaustion: leathery skin drawn tight over cheekbones, deep hollows under his eyes from sleepless nights, and a grim resolve carved into every line. For weeks he had held Jinhai with grit and fury — not with steel alone, but with peasants who had never touched a spear before this war. And yet, the city still stood.
"My lord," Ruolin said, voice like gravel and iron, "you arrive while the wind still howls, but here... the imperial banner still flies."
Luo Wen dismounted in silence. He needed no formalities, no ceremonial gestures. A single glance at the patched-up walls — reinforced with scrap wood and sandbags — and at the ragged militiamen training with crooked pikes, told him everything. This place had not survived by luck. It had survived by fire.
"General Shen," Luo Wen replied, tone quiet but firm, "you have done more than defend a city. You have kept the northern flame alive."
That night, beneath flickering torchlight in the command bastion, Luo Wen and Shen Ruolin convened with their officers in the war chamber. Spread out before them on a splintered wooden table was a map of the north — ash-stained, worn, and torn at the edges. Markings told a grim story: cities fallen, roads severed, villages scorched. The whole map bled with scars.
"We cannot afford another Baiyuan," Luo Wen said, jabbing his finger toward the deepest points of the enemy's advance. "This war is no longer about land. It's about the will of the Empire. If we don't strike soon, we won't look wounded — we'll look dead."
"I agree," Ruolin replied, his tone steady but laced with fatigue. "But we cannot afford another disaster either. My militiamen have given everything to hold these walls. But if I push them beyond the city, they'll shatter like wet clay in a furnace."
Luo Wen nodded slowly, the weight of command pressing against his shoulders like a millstone.
"Then you won't fight alone," he said. "I will leave you fifty thousand of my men — disciplined, seasoned troops drawn from the heart of the imperial army. With them, you will reclaim the occupied cities — one by one. Start with Nanshu. Move carefully, slowly, but never backwards. No ruin shall remain flagless. No enemy shall be left behind."
"And the other fifty thousand?" Ruolin asked, eyes narrowing slightly.
Luo Wen looked up toward the imperial banners hanging overhead, as if seeing beyond cloth and thread, into the soul of the nation.
"I will be the spear. With my elite cavalry, I'll ride northeast. I'll circle around the occupied zone and strike their rear. We'll sever their supply lines, seize their caravans, and burn their granaries to ash. The nomads don't fear death — but they fear hunger. And we'll starve their ambition."
"That's bold," Ruolin said, frowning. "If they turn and bring their full strength to bear, you may be caught alone, deep behind enemy lines."
"And if I don't," Luo Wen countered, "we'll be dragged into a war of attrition. And we don't have the time for that. The Empire is stretched to the brink. If this campaign drags on too long, the provinces will rise. The south, the east — they already watch us with suspicion. Not hope."
Ruolin remained quiet for a moment, the silence of a man who understood too well the weight of command.
"And what if the nomads retreat beyond our borders?" he asked.
"Then we will build a chain of fortresses across the frontier," Luo Wen replied without hesitation. "And when they return — and they will — they will find no villages to burn, no roads to follow. Only stone, iron, and starvation."
It was then, as his words still lingered in the dim chamber, that the heavy doors burst open. A guard rushed in, panting, followed by a younger man behind him — mud-caked to the waist, blood crusted on his torn sleeve, and a hastily wrapped bandage on his leg.
"From the east, my lords!" the guard shouted.
The youth collapsed to his knees. His robe still steamed from the cold, and smoke clung to his skin.
"My lord... I bring word from Fengling," the messenger gasped, his voice shaking.
Luo Wen's eyes narrowed. Fengling — a name that hadn't been uttered since the early days of the collapse. One of the first cities to fall after Baiyuan.
"Speak."
"It was not sacked," the youth stammered. "It was... occupied. The barbarians... they've crowned a captured imperial governor as king. They've hoisted banners. Opened markets. They've declared a... a kingdom. A realm of their own. Not nomadic. Not ours. They claim loyalty to the Khan... but speak with the voice of the Empire."
The chamber fell into a suffocating silence.
"A puppet state?" Ruolin muttered, barely believing the words.
"Exactly that," the messenger confirmed. "They collect taxes. They gather peasants. They call themselves heirs to the old order... but their sword points south."
Luo Wen stepped away from the table and approached the narrow window slit. Outside, the wind howled against the battered towers of Jinhai. Beyond that, only smoke and stars.
"They haven't just looted," he said softly, almost to himself. "They've planted."
He turned back to Ruolin, his gaze cold as steel left in frost.
"Then cutting their legs won't be enough. We must dig out their roots."
And so, beneath a night of silent stars and whispering wind, the Empire's war council shifted. What had begun as a counteroffensive to reclaim lost territory was now something deeper, darker — a campaign not just to reclaim land, but to destroy a future that had already begun to grow from the ashes.
The north was no longer just burning.
The north was learning to speak in another tongue.
And the Empire… would have to answer.