Shen Ruolin's great offensive surged across the vast northern plain like an iron tide, steady and resolute as fate itself. From Jinhai, his imperial column stretched for miles, threading through spring's damp earth and beneath gray skies that felt as heavy as they weighed on the men's shoulders. Beneath the twin-headed dragon banners, stitched in gold and black, one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers marched in lockstep to the beats of war drums, their deep resonance seeming to vibrate with the earth itself.
This was an army unseen in years—not merely in strength, but in purpose. Shen Ruolin did not lead ordinary soldiers. He led survivors: veterans of Jinhai's defense, recruits hardened by fear, peasants transformed into militiamen out of necessity and duty. In their eyes burned the reflection of smoke from homesteads razed by the northern hordes. Every step was a response to that fire.
The first weeks of the march were exhaustive. Though the terrain lay open, it brimmed with hazards: broken roads, poisoned fields, abandoned villages hiding bodies and traps, ravaged woods offering neither shelter nor solace. The enemy had passed here before, turning it into ghost land.
Yet the advance never slowed.
As the troops entered liberated hamlets, imperial soldiers were greeted by gaunt, frightened peasants emerging from hiding, clutching tattered imperial banners like amulets of hope. Shen Ruolin ordered rations distributed and intelligence gathered. Each freed village became a forward post, and the old names of towns were spoken again—restored with reverence.
Nanshu fell in just six days. There, local traitors were tried swiftly. Surviving collaborators were hanged in the plaza before the temple, their shadows cast long across cracked stones—both warning and promise. Then, an imperial flag was raised over the bell tower and the bell rung once more—this time, a herald of redemption.
Further west, Fengling lasted only a single night. Its walls remained intact, but its nobility crumbled. They feigned fealty until they felt abandoned and then opened the gates. Shen Ruolin granted no mercy. Puppet nobles were executed openly, and all forged documents of the false "Empire of the North" were consigned to roaring flames. Yet he treated peasants forced into submission with compassion—recognizing that under occupation, not all were enemies.
As the march pressed onward, the northern air grew thinner with tension. Villages grew rarer, roads narrower, ambushes more frequent. Smoke columns flickered in the distance. Scouts returned increasingly late. Birds ceased to sing. Only the wind remained constant.
When, atop a rocky hill, scouts finally spied Baiyuan's blackened ramparts, the land itself seemed to hold its breath.
Awaiting them was not a deserted city or makeshift garrison.
It was a trap meticulously woven.
Eighty thousand mounted nomads, clad in hardened leather armor and brandishing curved bows and winter-sharp lances, encircled the city like a dark cloud of predators. They were the Khan's light cavalry—swift, lethal. They did not ride to die with honor, but to kill without mercy. Their strategy was attrition, not conquest. Their aim was confusion, disruption, and despair.
Within Baiyuan's walls stood thirty thousand soldiers of the puppet regime—a makeshift army of desperate peasants and disgraced officers. They were clumsy in formation, but their confidence grew daily, buoyed by barbarian support. They had weapons, food, orders. They had foothold.
And there, the true battle began.
The battlefield turned into a stagnant mire—not of water, but of impossibly complex maneuvers and costly decisions. Shen Ruolin could not besiege the walls without exposing his flanks—and if he shifted his troops to chase off the riders, he lost position before the city. It was like advancing with bound feet, as an invisible enemy severed your toes one by one.
Yet he refused to relent.
He ordered defensive ditches dug, double stockades erected, makeshift watch towers raised. He reorganized his army into three flexible corps for rapid reinforcement of supply lines. His camp became a fortified war city, governed by strict codes and swift justice. Barbarian strikes were met with flaming arrows; losses mitigated by disciplined structure.
"We will not win in days," he declared one storm-lashed night, his cloak dripping with mud and blood."But if we hold—if we hold with firmness and discipline—they will crack first."
He believed it.
But he also knew time was a blade cutting both ways.
There was only one edge that might change everything: Luo Wen's cavalry striking their rear.
Because if the enemy bled in the heart while still fighting at the gates…
Then Baiyuan would not just fall.
It would collapse like a rotten tower: sudden. Complete. Irrevocable.