A red maple leaf drifted down and came to rest upon a shoe.
Su Yan halted, bent to pick it up, and toyed with it in his fingers, sighing: “In the blink of an eye, it’s autumn again.”
Time passed quickly, slipping away like fish in water with the busyness of daily official duties; yet at the same time, it also seemed to crawl, so very, very slow.
When he gazed toward the capital in the direction of sunrise, drafting memorials and private letters, or when he caught sight of a Middle Eastern–style longsword at a Hu merchant’s stall and lost himself for a moment, time seemed to congeal like solidified ejiao—hard to endure.
At such times, he could only rely on letter after letter to get through the long nights of Shaanxi.
He gave the letters nicknames, sorting them into different boxes.
The emperor’s rescripts mostly began with talk of the weather, then turned to state affairs—who among the court’s heroes had accomplished what feats—and occasionally poked a little fun at one or two dim-witted officials, before ending with questions about whether he faced any difficulties or had any needs. On the surface the letters looked utterly proper, spotless—no court historian, however prying, could find fault.
But Su Yan could see the feeling hidden between the lines: the more it was deliberately muted, the more it burned like strong wine—
“In the sweltering season, longing leaves one parched; drinking more water brings little relief.”
“At Mid-Autumn in two places, does the moon look different?”
“The whole hall of ministers reeks of thick incense—this Son of Heaven has long missed the fragrance of clarity…”
Such words made him run his fingertips over the strokes, as if trying to touch the sleeve of a dragon robe through the page.
Shen Qi’s letters were like family notes, speaking little of official matters and much of household life, carrying a passion of reunion more fervent than a new marriage. He handled affairs Su Yan had no time for in the capital—including expanding the residence, knocking through the small house into the large next door, and fully renovating it.
Because of this, Ruan Hongjiao moved out, renting a quiet courtyard of her own—only to discover the landlord was Gao Shuo. The coincidence made her suspicious, while Su Yan could only smile wryly.
Shen Qi sent him homemade wine, tried writing love poems in reply—though not a single line fit the proper form, Su Yan cherished them, reciting them several times before bed.
Sometimes he vaguely felt that this tranquil façade of Shen Qi’s life was covering something, even felt a sudden jolt of alarm—but when he gathered his thoughts again, he told himself it was overthinking. Qilang’s violent edge was slowly fading; that was a good thing. What was there to be uneasy about?
The Crown Prince’s letters came most frequently, and most chaotically—whatever he saw or thought, he wrote. Sometimes he came to Su Yan with problems, seeking solutions. But one thing was always indispensable: his endless tongue-twisters of affection—
“This young master misses you! Do you miss this young master?”
“If this young master misses you, and at that moment you are also missing this young master, does that mean our hearts are linked?”
“Too perfunctory! Last time I wrote the word ‘miss’ twenty-eight times, but you only wrote it five. Outrageous! Next time you’d better make it up, or you’ll owe double!”
These childish, looping words made Su Yan laugh, but he also realized Zhu Helin was deliberately playing the fool to cheer him up—and that made him a little moved.
In the seventh month, the Crown Prince’s letters suddenly stopped for half a month. Just as Su Yan was growing worried, a new letter arrived, looking no different from before. Little Zhu was still the same—ardent, spirited, fiery. Relieved, Su Yan advised that if official duties kept him busy, he should write less often.
The Crown Prince ignored the advice—his letters only grew more frequent.
The last box was… Yu Wang’s letters. Few in number, but each the longest. At first Su Yan opened them with wariness, half afraid they’d be shameless sm*t again, even hesitating whether to throw them away. But when he did open one, it turned out to be a perfectly serious official document. He was taken aback, then let out a breath of relief.
Yu Wang mostly chatted with him about the Heavenly Works Academy:
In mid-March, the government posted notices officially recruiting men of talent across the realm, devoted to the study of “gewu.”
According to Su Yan’s earlier divisions—geomancy, physics, chemistry, medicine, light industry, mechanics—how many had been recruited for each.
Who had entered with their own theories or inventions, and what sparks of thought flew when they collided with others.
Reading this made Su Yan itch with eagerness; he couldn’t resist writing back a long letter. Though the whole exchange was about the Academy, Yu Wang became as excited as if he had been injected with chicken blood.
Su Yan mentioned rubber products, suggesting that if possible, Jiaozhi should be made to tribute raw rubber. Yu Wang agreed readily.
True to his style of swift, forceful action, Yu Wang not only hurried the tribute to arrive earlier by fast couriers, but also gathered students and craftsmen at the Institute to work—based on Su Yan’s hints—on making vulcanized rubber. They tried filtering, letting it settle naturally to remove impurities, then heating and pressing it with sulfur.
The procedure wasn’t complex, but the ratios and temperature were hard to master. They experimented again and again, learning from failure, until at last they produced a decent roll of vulcanized rubber. Fastened to a wooden wagon wheel’s outer rim, it was already a prototype of the tire.
Su Yan was delighted, and pushed further: solid rubber tires were too noisy and had poor shock absorption—why not try hollow ones?
And so, in the courtyard of the Light Industry division of the Institute, these pioneers of science in this era began a new round of trial and improvement.
Su Yan used the shallow scraps of knowledge he had gathered from the internet in his past life to offer hints, but the actual work relied entirely on these folk masters and craftsmen, so the process was full of twists and turns.
As one of the Institute’s founders, Yu Wang now burst forth with unprecedented responsibility. Their letters grew more and more like correspondence between kindred spirits.
Relying on these, after long, weary days of toil, Su Yan endured countless lonely nights, nights full of longing and remembrance.
Until September, when a letter arrived from Shen Qi by carrier pigeon of the Embroidered Uniform Guard’s hidden sentries, making him abruptly alert.
Shen Qi wrote: the Tatars and the Oirats are about to make a major move. Along the Nine Borders, from Xuanfu to Ningxia, war may soon break out. With Yulin and Ningxia towns on Shaanxi’s northern frontier, bordering the Hetao where the Oirats most often invade, Qinghe you cannot linger—return at once! Return at once!
After reading the letter, Su Yan was still puzzled.
Just a few months ago, when he heard that Aletan had returned safely to the Oirats, he had been overjoyed and relieved, thinking there was hope for a turning point between the Oirats and the Ming. In recent months, the skirmishes caused by Oirat raids along the frontier had even lessened. Why had things suddenly worsened?
Shen Qi’s letter gave no explanation. Perhaps because the Northern Surveillance Bureau’s intelligence was more focused on the court and domestic affairs, while its foreign espionage was comparatively thin.
Su Yan knew Shen Qi was not the sort to mistake rumor for fact; he must have gotten hold of some definite clues from the Ministry of War before sending this warning.
He hesitated. Returning to the capital—of course he wanted to, but here in Shaanxi his position and responsibilities had yet to be handed over. Without an official transfer order, he could not simply abandon everything and leave.
But before he could hesitate for even a day or two, the imperial edict, carried by a six-hundred-li urgent courier, was delivered into his hands.
It was a personal decree from Emperor Jinglong, commanding him to return to the capital at once. The court had already dispatched another censor to take charge of horse administration in Shaanxi; all matters at hand could be left aside, no need for a face-to-face handover.
Another censor sent for the handover—that was a plan set long before, nothing unusual in that. But with both sides urging such haste, Su Yan’s heart grew heavy with foreboding. He suspected war was imminent.
Not the usual petty raids of dozens or hundreds of Tatar horsemen, nor the mobilization of several thousand frontier troops to guard passes, but a national war—one fought with tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of soldiers!
…Did such a war exist in history? Su Yan racked his brains, but his memory was clouded, he could not recall at all.
As far as he remembered, the Tatars and the Oirats had never truly joined forces. These two old enemies were like wild beasts trapped in the same cage: while gnawing at the cage door, they were also gnawing at each other.
For centuries, the Great Ming’s borders had been harassed again and again, yet there were always short “honeymoon” periods, sometimes with the Tatars, sometimes with the Oirats. Much depended on which side was weaker—Ming would then lend it a hand, happy to sit back and watch tigers fight.
But now… the two beasts had joined forces? If they tore at the cage door together, how long could it still hold?
Thinking too hard gave Su Yan a headache.
I should have realized long ago—back in my past life I was just a scatterbrained, shallow student. He mocked himself mercilessly. Perhaps this is a parallel world; the history I know is not only useless but misleading, blinding me to the real crisis.
Either way, he could not defy the imperial command. Staying in Shaanxi would make no difference to the battle. Better to return to the capital and learn the situation in detail.
Su Yan swiftly packed his belongings, preparing to set out for the capital.
Even so, the return journey would take more than half a month at best, and the road led through Shanxi.
Su Yan thought Shanxi was likely more dangerous than Shaanxi, because the two major frontier garrisons of Xuanfu and Great Tong were far too close to the capital.
—Would it not be more secure to send Yu Wang back to guard Great Tong? The thought flashed across his mind.
Meanwhile, a “Ye Bu Shou” unit from Xuanfu, under Commander Lou Yexue and Squad Leader Huo Dun, had already slipped into the northern steppe. Their target was the small town of Hastah, lying at the border between the Tatars and the Oirats.
This was the agreed site for their alliance meeting.
Tatar Grand Master Tuo Huotai was leading troops galloping across the desert beyond the Great Wall. He had just fought the new Great Tong general Li Ziyang without gaining the upper hand, and, unwilling to withdraw empty-handed, left the alliance ceremony to his son, Wuhalang.
Wuhalang, though despised among the steppe tribes for his debauchery and vile character, was the son of Tuo Huotai’s most favored woman, and deeply loved by him. Entrusting him with this mission was equivalent to handing his son a great merit, ensuring him a place in Tatar politics.
As for the nominal Tatar khan, he was merely an eight- or nine-year-old child, who would hide in his Mother’s arms when frightened. Tuo Huotai paid no mind to the widow and orphan, and even Wuhalang treated the boy with no courtesy, tossing him onto a horse and bringing him along as a proper “background prop.”
On the Oirat side came Khan Hu Kuoli, Great Prince Aletan, and the Great Elder Heiduo.
It was clear both sides, at least on the surface, placed great weight on this alliance. After months of back-and-forth negotiation, the appearance of both khans made it nearly certain that the pact would be sealed.
Upon receiving the scouts’ report, Lou Yexue said regretfully, “Give me thirty thousand men, and I could grind Hastah into powder and wipe out both their leaders in one stroke.”
Huo Dun objected immediately: “Impossible! Both sides have brought their most elite steppe cavalry, and this is their familiar terrain. Not thirty thousand, even a hundred thousand might not be enough!”
Lou Yexue glared: “Are you looking down on me?”
Huo Dun froze, then shook his head quickly: “No, no! I mean… we only have seventeen men. With you, eighteen.”
Lou Yexue’s thin lips curved into a sharp, vicious arc. His tone was venomous: “Eighteen or not, Wuhalang will die without question!”
