Under the dim starlight, outside Hanzhong City, soldiers slept in rows, fully clothed, with their swords and spears laid beside them, black banners waving in the breeze.

This was now battlefield territory, but apart from the occasional patrol soldier, the camp in the latter half of the night displayed a quiet atmosphere. Even those who woke from sleep rarely spoke. Some snored, sleeping without a care in the world.

After days of fierce fighting, the Huaxia Army soldiers were extremely tired, but under the pressure of possible attacks at any time, most of the soldiers would wake up from time to time even in their sleep. Sometimes it was because they heard the sounds of fighting or explosions in the distance, and sometimes it was because it was too quiet. The snoring would suddenly stop, and the soldiers would wake up, sensing the movement around them, before continuing to rest.

The attacks on the Jurchen camp not far away continued until dawn, occasionally stirring up a burst of lively waves. The sleeping soldiers woke up, thinking, "Chen Hai is a psychopath." Then they quietly went back to sleep.

The battles initiated by friendly forces ensured that they had a relatively safe space to rest. If Chen Hai's troops hadn't been harassing Xi Yin's camp all night, they might have been ambushed in the dark. Therefore, while Chen Hai and others were fighting all night, they had to seize the time to recover their strength to cope with the upcoming battle.

Even in the quietest moments, many things did not stop. Inside the city, Wanyan Yu Chi was dismantling a large number of iron cannons and ammunition, packing them into boxes, and transporting them out of the southeast gate in large carts, sending them to Xi Yin's camp in the south. Chen Hai, on the one hand, launched attacks on the camp in shifts, and on the other hand, also discovered this movement. He submitted a request for combat to the rear headquarters.

The headquarters rejected his relatively risky plan.

"...Chen Hai is a psychopath..."

In the southwestern corner of the Huaxia Army camp, the light in the tent burned all night. Qin Shaoqian and several staff officers, brigade, and regimental-level officers were still gathered here. The oil lamp in the tent was dim, and a simple battlefield map was placed on a wooden box. Most of the flags were inserted in a chaotic and disorderly manner. They were only guessing at the positions of the units represented by some of the flags and were not entirely sure.

"Chen Hai has less than a thousand men under his command, and since last night, he has proposed launching an all-out attack on Xi Yin twice. Is he thinking of sacrificing all thousand men to wear down Xi Yin's troops...?"

"Chen Hai has a very forward-looking mind. He has already seen that this decisive battle will be difficult to fight after dawn."

"A regimental commander should also be responsible for the soldiers under his command. It's not good to think of sacrificing himself at every turn."

Army Commander Qin Shaoqian, Brigade Commanders Hou Lietang, Xu Xiaohu, Staff Officer Lin Dongshan, and others gathered here. It was already late at night, and when talking about these things, everyone's tone was generally low. After replying to Chen Hai's request, everyone still gathered around the map and began to make the final strategic decisions.

"...In short, as soon as it dawns, Xi Yin's troops will try to launch a general attack on us. Inside Hanzhong City, they will drive out the people. Xi Yin wants to finish the battle in one fell swoop, and Zong Han is also rushing towards Hanzhong from the west. So, we can't fight a dumb battle. In the general direction, they want a decisive battle, and we can have a decisive battle. But tactically, we must focus on our key points..."

…

At the second quarter of Yin time (around 3:30 AM), even the stars in the sky seemed to have disappeared. The sound of explosions came from the east in the dark night. Liu Muxia gripped the scabbard at his side, suddenly opened his eyes, and then looked to the side. The squad leader was coming over, waking the soldiers up one by one.

"Keep quiet, change into black clothes, prepare to assemble and move out..."

They turned their uniforms inside out, revealing the black side, and then walked west under the guidance of the squad leader. The instructions were determined by word of mouth among the soldiers as they advanced.

"The First Division of the Seventh Huaxia Army, all units of the Second Brigade, upon receiving the order, will immediately march northwest, arriving in the Xiaoyi area at Chen time (around 7:00-9:00 AM), and be prepared for attack and resistance. In the early stages of the operation, be sure to pay attention to concealment. The tasks of each regiment and battalion are as follows..."

A group of soldiers accepted the order. Before leaving the camp, there was some discussion.

"We're going northwest. We came from that way yesterday."

"What about Xi Yin if we leave?"

"The Third Brigade has also moved out. Are we abandoning this place?"

"No, the artillery regiment and the First Brigade are staying..."

After leaving the camp, the order to remain silent was issued, and everyone stopped talking.

One black figure after another left the camp outside the south gate of Hanzhong City under cover of night and began to disperse towards the northwest. More scouts and messengers were already running on the road.

…

As dawn broke, one stretcher after another was carried into the camp, and the doctors began to treat the wounded, causing a flurry of activity in the camp.

Chen Hai returned to the camp with a strong smell of blood on his body. He told some soldiers to find a place to rest, and he almost sat down on the ground and fell asleep. The next moment his eyes narrowed, he shuddered and stood up again, his eyes scanning the situation in the camp.

"What's going on?"

A staff officer came over and reported to him the decisions made by the headquarters in the early hours of this morning. Various thoughts turned on Chen Hai's face. Finally, he clenched his fist and waved it: "Good!"

He then said, "I need to rest for a while. Please tell the headquarters that my men will stay here and assist in resisting Wanyan Xi Yin."

The staff officer saluted and turned to leave. Chen Hai turned back to look east. In the Jurchen soldier camp that he had harassed all night, there were already signs of awakening...

…

Twenty-two *li* (approximately 11 kilometers) west of Hanzhong, near the small county town of Tuanshanji, in the main camp of Wanyan Zonghan, the soldiers had already gotten up and eaten breakfast, and the first team of men was breaking camp.

Wanyan Zonghan slept for two hours that night, replenishing his energy.

He had completely confirmed the situation near Hanzhong, including the Huaxia Army's occupation of the south gate and the confrontation with Xi Yin's troops. The decisive battle was at hand.

Over the past few days, nearly 100,000 troops had been scattered within a hundred *li* radius, but he still had nearly 30,000 men gathered under his command in organized formations. A large number of routed soldiers were also gathering towards Hanzhong.

Similar to his own situation, the more than 10,000 men of the Seventh Huaxia Army had also been scattered into pieces and were surging towards Hanzhong. Because the two armies had chosen the same route, more than a dozen battles and skirmishes of all sizes broke out last night.

Xi Yin had seized the opportunity as soon as he arrived, and Zong Han also recognized this opportunity. A large number of scouts had been sent out in the early hours of the morning. Their mission was to mobilize all the routed troops they could contact and gather them to the southeast for a decisive battle in Hanzhong!

And Ning Yi, who had broken through Jiange Pass, was at least three days away from here.

The Huaxia Army was also doing similar things. The orders carried by the Huaxia Army scouts were slightly different from those of Zong Han's scout troops in that they were not ordering all troops to gather in Hanzhong.

This morning, including the troops contacted by the scouts and the troops that had secretly set out westward from the south of Hanzhong City, a total of tens of thousands of people were converging on the road west of Hanzhong.

Wanyan Zonghan was rushing here.

…

"...Over the past few days, in order to avoid defeat in a large-scale decisive battle, Wanyan Zonghan has been using tricks, fighting attrition warfare, and adding fuel to the fire. He has sent nearly 100,000 men to grind us down in waves. It looks like they are all over the mountains and plains, but the combat power of each wave is worse than the previous one. Now, we are tired, but they have truly lost their morale..."

"...Wanyan Xi Yin is different. His more than 10,000 men have not yet been involved in battle, and their morale has not been lost. We are already very tired. Fighting a decisive battle with him is to attack the enemy's strengths with our weaknesses. So, to deal with this situation, we must look at it separately. To deal with Xi Yin, we will adopt a defensive posture and try to delay as much as possible. And with Hanzhong as a barrier, on the other side, we will launch a general offensive!"

"...Over the past few days, Wanyan Zonghan has been exhausting his 100,000 men, and it doesn't look like he has been truly defeated yet. With his arrogance, once the decisive battle in Hanzhong begins, his main force will inevitably converge here at full speed. Then we will mobilize all the troops in this area that can be mobilized and fight a decisive battle west of Hanzhong! Before their 'God of Grain' Xi Yin can react, we will forcibly eat Wanyan Zonghan—"

"In this decision, the most difficult thing will be the troops that remain in Hanzhong to resist Wanyan Xi Yin..."

…

April 24th.

Dewdrops hung on the leaves of the wild grass by the river. The sky began to show a fish-belly white color, and then the wind swept away the clouds, and sunlight gradually rose from the mountains in the east. In the camps on both sides, the cooks had prepared breakfast, and the smell of meat filled the morning breeze.

The soldiers under Chen Hai were still sleeping.

Wanyan Xi Yin watched as one iron cannon after another was loaded and then pushed to the front of the battlefield. The Jurchen soldiers under his command had been harassed by Chen Hai's attacks all night, and many people's eyes were bloodshot. This made their killing intent soar, and they couldn't wait to rush over and slaughter all the Black Flag Army soldiers on the opposite positions. Available morale was also a good thing.

Banners waved in the wind, and the army spread out its formation and began to gradually move forward. On the opposite positions, the Huaxia Army soldiers stood behind the earthen mounds they had built and silently watched all of this. Xi Yin rode on his warhorse, listening to the morning breeze blowing past his ears. The Han River came from the distance and flowed meanderingly. He suddenly had an impulse to talk to the opposing general.

After the defeat at Wangyuan Bridge in Southwest Shiling, Zong Han and Ning Yi had had an exchange, the content of which Zong Han had told him through letters, regarding the development of *Gewu* (roughly translated as "investigation of things/natural philosophy"). He had thought a lot about it. If he had been there at the time, he might have been able to say something different.

The battle before him was also a key one. He had some things he wanted to say to the other party, some questions he wanted to ask. Unfortunately, the person on the other side was not that "Ning the Butcher."

He had experienced countless battles in his life, and this was the first time he had the idea of "talking". But it was just an idea. The cruel battlefield was, after all, not the romance in the storyteller's mouth. He let that thought remain in his mind.

The prelude to war, perhaps because of the accumulation of pressure, always made people feel unusually solemn and silent. Soon after, Xi Yin waved his hand and gave the order, and the cannons rumbled forward, and then the artillery fire submerged the opposite positions...

Chen Hai woke up from his sleep, squinted his eyes, looked around, then folded his arms across his chest and fell back to sleep.

"Attack—"

The shouting tore through the earth—

…

Near Tuanshan, Wanyan Zonghan's army advanced several *li* in the morning breeze. The scouts at the forefront of the army discovered traces of the Huaxia Army.

Perhaps they were scattered troops gathering in Hanzhong.

——That was his first thought at the time.

If the army led by Wanyan Zonghan was still like a giant beast at this time, the Huaxia Army's troops were more like a seemingly chaotic ant colony. They were divided into several groups, large and small, converging from different directions on Wanyan Zonghan's inevitable route to Hanzhong.

At the second quarter of Chen time, Wanyan Zonghan discovered traces of the Huaxia Army staying in three surrounding directions.

After successively confirming several pieces of information, the Jurchen veteran, who had fought all his life, was not surprised. He was silent for a moment, and then he understood everything.

"...Prepare for battle,"

He said.

…

Thousands upon thousands of Huaxia Army soldiers were crossing the plains, traversing the mountains, and entering their combat positions.

…

The Jurchens had weathered forty years of changing fortunes.

Before them, the attack had come.