Chapter One: The Commander of Datong

Blood and Iron in the Ming Dynasty

The sky was shrouded in heavy, ominous clouds.

Beneath the darkened heavens, a wild wind howled across the barren landscape, making the grass and trees shiver.

A dazzling bolt of lightning split the sky, illuminating the earth in stark relief.

Wang Pu tilted his head back, his face etched with unprecedented gravity. Damn this wretched heaven—was it really about to rain?

“Hurry, push the war wagons into position!”

“Secure those iron stakes properly!”

“Don’t you dare slack off—yes, you! Did you skip lunch or what?”

Curses and shouts rang out ceaselessly around him. Surveying the scene, Wang Pu saw twenty thousand Ming soldiers nervously forming ranks on the plain. Sturdy war wagons were being maneuvered to the flanks, archers were emotionlessly arranging arrows in their quivers, and gunners and artillerymen were hastily loading powder and shot into their muskets and cannons. Meanwhile, lines of pikemen sat on the ground with eyes closed, resting before battle. The air was thick with the tension that precedes a great conflict.

Suddenly, the piercing neigh of a horse echoed from afar.

Wang Pu snapped back to attention as another blinding flash of lightning revealed a lone rider atop a barren ridge in the distance.

The horseman’s armor and helmet gleamed bright yellow with bold red trim, a plume atop his helm as crimson as blood. He raised his saber high, and from behind him surged a tide of cavalry—thousands upon thousands, all in matching yellow armor with vivid red edges.

“It’s the Manchu invaders!”

“They’re coming!”

The warning cries swept through the Ming ranks. Archers, gunners, and artillerymen quickly took their places to prepare for volley fire. Pikemen scrambled to their feet and, under sharp commands from their officers, rushed behind the war wagons to form up. The angry shouts of officers, the labored breath of soldiers, and the clashing of weapons blended into a single cacophony. The cold, murderous atmosphere spread like a poisonous weed.

Suddenly, the mournful sound of horns rose from the distant ridge.

Amid the ancient, echoing call, the lead Manchu horseman pointed his saber forward, and the horde behind him surged forth like a breached dam, a relentless flood.

“Prepare the artillery!”

The Manchu cavalry charged with terrifying force, yet the Ming soldiers stood unflinching.

Just as the enemy entered cannon range and the Ming were about to light their fuses, a torrential downpour, mixed with hail, crashed down from the heavens. The rain drenched the fuses, snuffing out the slow matches in the soldiers’ hands. Now, the mighty red-barreled cannons were useless, and even the musketeers’ firearms became nothing more than sticks.

Heaven itself had abandoned the Ming.

Worse yet, the dim light and curtain of rain blinded the archers. Unable to see their commanders’ signals, they fired as best they could, but their arrows were battered by wind, rain, and hail, their power sapped. They could barely scratch the Manchu cavalry’s iron armor.

The sky trembled, the earth quaked.

With a thunderous roar, ten thousand Manchu cavalrymen stormed the Ming lines. Rather than charging the fortified war wagon array head-on, the cunning enemy circled the formation, loosing arrows and javelins at the exposed Ming soldiers behind the wagons. Lacking iron armor, the Ming men fell in rows.

A sharp, mournful whistle cut the air. An arrow pierced a Ming soldier’s throat; his thin body stiffened, then fell forward. Not far away, a tall Ming officer rushed over, catching the dying man in his arms, shouting hoarsely, “Xiao San, hold on! You have to hold on!”

But Xiao San’s gaze was already vacant, his voice silenced forever.

“Don’t die, Xiao San, you can’t die!” The officer shook his lifeless comrade, wailing, “Mother told me to bring you home to Datong, she did! Oh—!”

Xiao San’s body grew rigid. The officer finally realized his brother would never answer him again.

“Damn you Manchu devils! I’ll kill you all!”

The officer leapt to his feet, howling at the sky, then bounded onto a war wagon. Like a starving tiger, he hurled himself at a passing Manchu cavalryman.

There was a heavy thud as the two collided and tumbled to the ground, locked together. When they landed, the Manchu did not move again—before they even hit the earth, the Ming officer had bitten through his throat. Sitting up atop the corpse, the officer threw back his head and laughed, blood gleaming on his bared teeth, ferocious as a demon.

The labored breathing of a warhorse signaled another Manchu charging from behind. The spiked club he wielded—over a hundred pounds—crashed down on the officer’s back. The man shuddered, then fell like a felled tree.

For half an hour, the battle raged. At last, the Manchus broke the wagon array, surging through a dozen breaches to crush the Ming’s final resistance. The pikemen, prepared for this, swarmed forward, blocking the gaps with their bodies. This was the Western Liaoning Plain—without the protection of the wagons, the Ming would be lambs to the Manchu slaughter.

Horses screamed and soldiers roared. The battlefield seethed like a boiling cauldron.

Wang Pu, seated on a white horse, watched coldly. He was not of this world; an accident had brought him to this ancient time.

Six years ago, Wang Pu had graduated from a third-rate university.

Unable to find a job, he became a drifter and a troublemaker. With the martial skills he’d honed since childhood and a ruthless streak, he soon made a name for himself among the city’s underworld, carving out his own territory.

Three days ago, everything changed.

That day, Wang Pu and his gang clashed with rivals. A steel bar struck his head, and he remembered nothing more.

When he awoke, he found himself lying on a verdant lawn, surrounded by soldiers in ancient armor, gazing at him as if he were the center of the universe. For a moment, he thought he’d died and gone to heaven.

Later, Wang Pu realized that he had indeed died in his old world, but his soul had crossed over to the fourteenth year of the Chongzhen Emperor’s reign at the end of the Ming dynasty, inhabiting a body that likely had just died as well.

This man, too, bore the surname Wang, and his given name, Pǔ, sounded much the same.

Wang Pu, age twenty-four, was the General-in-Chief of Datong for the Ming Empire.

Anyone who imagined that this Wang Pu was a prodigy from a military family, rising through merit and valor, would be sorely mistaken. In truth, the rank was bought with money; he was a pampered scion, more interested in self-preservation than glory.

His father, Wang Dayou, was a wealthy Shanxi merchant, who, having suffered at the hands of petty officials, spent a fortune to buy his second son Wang Hua a post as the Datong Prefectural Inspector—and his third son Wang Pu the rank of Cavalry Commander of Datong.

By sheer luck, Wang Pu’s fortune held.

Three years ago, in the autumn of the eleventh year of Chongzhen (1638), not long after Wang Pu became Cavalry Commander, Prince Dorgon of the Manchus led a hundred thousand troops through the passes, pillaging as they went. The emperor ordered the border garrisons to reinforce the capital. Though Wang Pu dreaded death, duty compelled him to march with Governor Lu Xiangsheng to the capital.

At the battle of Julu, Lu Xiangsheng was killed. Wang Pu, hiding in a ditch, survived by chance, and by bringing back a few Manchu braids, he gained a reputation for “bravery in battle.” The court praised him, and in a fit of imperial favor, the Chongzhen Emperor promoted him straight from Cavalry Commander to General-in-Chief of Datong.

Two months ago, trouble erupted in Liaodong. The emperor summoned the generals of Datong, Miyun, and Xuanfu for reinforcements.

Three days ago, as Wang Pu led twenty thousand troops toward Lianshan, a tiger burst from the roadside brush, wounding several men. His horse panicked, and together they plunged off a cliff. Wang Pu died—and lived again—but the soul that rose was no longer the original Wang Pu.

And thus it was that Wang Pu came to this world.

As for the current battle, it was the result of Wang Pu’s army, en route to Songshan, being ambushed by a large force of Manchu cavalry. The weather had rendered their firearms useless, and the Ming situation was dire.

“General!”

A desperate cry snapped Wang Pu back to the present.

Looking down, he saw Deputy General Zhao Wuzhu stumble to his horse, bloodied and grim. “Sir, the men can’t hold much longer.”

“They must,” Wang Pu replied coldly. “Tell them—if they want to live, they must fight for their lives!”

“Yes, sir!”

Zhao Wuzhu saluted sharply and hurried off.

At some point, the wind ceased, the rain stopped, and the clouds parted. Wang Pu scanned the field: the Ming were surrounded on all sides by Manchu cavalry, who attacked madly through the breaches. Though the Ming fought back with all their might, their lines were buckling.

“General, we should break out now!” his trusted retainer Xiao Qi urged. “If we wait until the enemy shatters our defenses, it’ll be too late!”

“Nonsense!” Wang Pu barked. “Right now, the men are holding on by sheer will. If we order a breakout, that spirit will collapse—and so will the army.”

“But if we keep this up, it’s a death sentence.”

“Not yet. We wait,” Wang Pu answered, his gaze fixed on the distant valley. “Our reinforcements should arrive soon.”

Songshan was just ahead. A battle of this scale couldn’t escape the notice of the Ming scouts. Hong Chengchou, the grand commander at Songshan, must have received word; if they could hold a little longer, help would come.

Sure enough, not long after, the blare of Ming horns rose from the distance.

Through the rolling call, a dark tide of Ming soldiers surged over the northern ridge, led by thousands of iron-armored cavalry. Their hooves thundered through the mud, sending clods flying skyward, shaking the heavens and earth. Both Ming and Manchu warriors paused mid-battle, turning north.

“Reinforcements!”

“It’s our army!”

“Brothers, our reinforcements are here! Kill them—slaughter every last Manchu devil!”

With the arrival of aid, Ming morale soared. The nearly shattered lines held firm once more. In several places, the Ming even counterattacked, driving the Manchu cavalry from their ranks. Realizing they could not prevail, the Manchu forces began to withdraw. By the time the Ming vanguard reached the field, the last of the Manchu cavalry had vanished over the southern ridge.

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