In this realistic war game, only I understand the course of the battle.

As dawn broke, the routed soldiers emerged one after another from the willow grove. They hadn't woken up—they'd been awakened by the cold. In November in Huaibei, the morning frost was like a thin layer of salt sprinkled on the withered grass, and their breath condensed into mist around their mouths. Some wrapped their tent cloths around themselves as cloaks, while others, having lost one of their straw sandals in the retreat, walked barefoot on the frozen ground, their toes turning purple. Shen Du counted the men—from last night until now, he had gathered twenty-three routed soldiers along the riverbank, plus himself and Lao Wei, making twenty-five. Less than half of them could still wield weapons; the remaining half either had leg injuries or were delirious from fever. A young soldier squatted under the roots of a willow tree, coughing, each cough accompanied by a whistling wheeze, his cheeks flushed red. Lao Wei squatted beside him, pressed the back of his hand against his forehead, and shook his head at Shen Du.

"I soaked in the river for too long yesterday, and the cold air got into my lungs," Lao Wei said.

Shen Du knelt down in front of the young soldier and handed him the water pouch. The soldier took it and drank a mouthful, water leaking from the corner of his mouth and dripping onto his clothes, his hands trembling so much he could barely hold the pouch. He looked to be at most eighteen or nineteen years old, his lips dry and white, the light in his eyes already gone, exactly the same way he had seen at the foot of Dezhou City—the body was still breathing, but half of the soul had already left.

"What's your name?" Shen Du asked.

"Ah... Amu." The young soldier's voice was as soft as the wind blowing through reeds.

"Where are you from?"

"Guanzhong...west of Chang'an City."

Is anyone still at home?

"I...I have a younger sister." When Amu mentioned his sister, the light in his eyes flashed briefly before dimming again. "When she was conscripted last year...she had just learned to weave."

Shen Du shoved the water pouch back into Amu's hand, stood up, and walked to the edge of the willow grove. Old Wei followed and asked in a low voice, "Master Shen, Amu probably won't last much longer. We can't move fast with him in our hands."

"I know," Shen Du said.

"That--"

"Take it with you." Shen Du turned to look at Lao Wei, his voice low but his enunciation steady. "Go as far as you can. We'll talk when you can't go any further."

He walked to the center of the willow grove and gathered all the routed soldiers together. Twenty-odd pairs of eyes looked at him; some were blank, some were terrified, and some were as empty as two dry wells. Among them were Han Chinese, Di people, Qiang people, and two Xianbei people. Just yesterday, they were in different tents complaining about the poor food in languages ​​they couldn't understand; today, they had been swept into the same willow grove by the same defeat.

"Listen carefully, everyone." Shen Du stood before them, his voice not loud but clear to everyone. "We are currently on the south bank of the Fei River, slightly east, about twenty li from the nearest ferry. The north bank has been blocked by the Eastern Jin cavalry, and the west is the main direction the Northern Army is pursuing the fleeing troops—that's off-limits. To the south is a plain, with no cover; encountering cavalry means certain death. There's only one way to go—east. To the east is the Si River, with hills and dense forests along its banks, providing hiding places. Once we reach the Si River, we'll circle north along the river, bypassing the pursuers, and find a boat upstream to cross back to Huaibei. This process will take about three or four days. We might encounter pursuing Jin troops or scattered Qin soldiers along the way. If we encounter the Jin army, we shouldn't fight them head-on—we have no cavalry, no bows and arrows; a direct confrontation would be suicide. We can gather other fleeing troops, but there's one rule: those who disobey orders, those who steal from our own people, and those who cause trouble—do you understand?"

The routed soldiers responded sparsely. Shen Du didn't say anything more—he knew that these people were too panicked to listen to anything in their post-defeat panic; only by getting moving, surviving, and having enough to eat could their souls slowly return to their bodies.

The group set off through the morning mist. Shen Du led the way, a short sword tucked at his waist, a spear used as a walking stick. Every few steps, he would probe the ground ahead with the spear shaft—in winter, the ground in Huaibei was frozen solid, but the low-lying ponds were covered with a thin layer of ice, and stepping on them would leave you sinking into the mud. Old Wei brought up the rear, gathering those who had fallen behind. He gave his extra pair of straw sandals to a barefoot soldier who had fled, while he himself stood barefoot on the frozen ground, his lips turning blue from the cold, but he didn't utter a sound.

Around noon, they encountered their first trouble outside an abandoned fishing village on the west bank of the Si River. Not Jin soldiers—but routed troops.

The fleeing soldiers, numbering about thirty or forty, outnumbered Shen Du's main force. They occupied the few relatively intact shacks at the innermost part of the fishing village. Leading them was a burly Qiang centurion, his armor slung askew, a chipped battle axe in his hand. Standing at the village entrance, he roared at Shen Du in broken Mandarin, "This place is taken! Go somewhere else!"

Shen Du didn't argue with him. He took a few steps back, his gaze sweeping over the terrain surrounding the fishing village—to the east, the village bordered the Si River, with several dilapidated fishing boats moored upside down on the bank, their planks cracked by wind and sun. To the south lay a vast expanse of withered yellow reeds, densely packed and taller than a person, their fluff flying everywhere in the wind. His gaze lingered for a moment on the dilapidated fishing boats, then he turned and led his group around the village, disappearing into the reeds. Old Wei followed from behind, lowering his voice to ask, "Master Shen, are we just going to give in like this? Those guys don't look like good people, but they've taken over the fishing village, and we're left to starve in these reeds—"

"No need to rush." ​​Shen Du squatted in the reeds, drawing a few lines on the mud with his short knife. "That Qiang centurion has occupied the fishing village, but he hasn't discovered a more secluded place to the east of the village." He tapped the mud with the tip of his knife, marking the location representing the east side of the fishing village. "Those dilapidated fishing boats on the riverbank can be used as cover if overturned. There are piles of dry grass under the planks to start a fire. It's close to the water source and far from the main road, making it safer than the fishing village. He's occupied the houses; we'll occupy the riverbank."

After the group settled down beside the fishing boat, Shen Du led Lao Wei out to find supplies. To the east of the reeds lay an abandoned field, with remnants of unharvested bean stalks from the autumn harvest still clinging to the ridges. The bean pods were completely dry; shaking them revealed the sound of beans rolling inside. Lao Wei picked the pods one by one and put them into a cloth bag. Shen Du walked along the ridges, stopping beside a frozen irrigation ditch. In the mud beside the ditch lay a series of footprints—fresh, not the straw sandals of fleeing soldiers, but horse hoofprints. The hoofprints were small, the horseshoe marks neat, not those of the broad-hoofed horses of the grasslands, but those of ponies. Ponyties were usually used for carrying supplies, but the scouts of the Northern Army also preferred them—because ponies were not picky eaters, had good stamina, and were more agile than tall horses in the wetlands of Huaibei.

Shen Du squatted down and measured the depth of the hoofprints with his fingers—the soil wasn't completely frozen, the edges of the hoofprints were clear, and it hadn't been more than an hour. An hour ago, a troop of Jin scouts passed through here and headed east. To the east was the upper reaches of the Si River, where there was an abandoned ferry crossing.

"Old Wei," Shen Du stood up, "put the beans away and go back to the riverbank. Don't light a fire tonight."

"Not lighting a fire? It's so cold—"

"There's a scout." Shen Du glanced towards the woods to the east. "He just went there an hour ago. I wonder if he'll come back."

Old Wei stopped asking questions. He had followed Shen Du all this way and had learned not to question Shen Du when Shen Du said "there's something going on".

That night, they didn't light a fire. The routed soldiers huddled under the overturned, wrecked fishing boat, wrapping themselves in tent cloth and withered reeds. Amu coughed all night, until his voice was barely human, like a torn piece of paper. Shen Du leaned against the outside of the fishing boat's deck, not sleeping, a short knife clutched in his hand, his ears constantly listening to the sounds around him. Around midnight, a commotion came from the direction of the fishing village—shouting, the clash of weapons, the neighing of horses. Then, fires lit up the sky. Shen Du peeked out from behind the fishing boat's deck and saw the village's few shacks burning, orange flames licking the roofs in the night, sparks blown into the air by the wind. Dark figures moved about on horseback, their armor reflecting the afterglow of the firelight—Jin army scouts. They had circled back.

The battle cries didn't last long. The Qiang centurion's routed troops couldn't mount any decent resistance. Most were awakened from their sleep by the trampling of horses' hooves, cut down in their huts before they could even touch their weapons. The few who escaped were caught up by cavalry on the village road and felled one by one with a spear. In the firelight, Shen Du saw a figure—a centurion with a large beard, charging out of the burning hut with a chipped battle axe, cleaving a Jin cavalryman's horse's leg in two with a single blow. The cavalryman fell from his horse, and the centurion raised his axe to strike a second time, but was simultaneously pierced through the chest from behind by two other cavalrymen. As he fell, the battle axe flew from his hand, bounced on the ground, and rolled into the firelight.

The fleeing soldiers behind Shen Du held their breath. Some were trembling, some were weeping silently, and some were biting their lip to stifle their cries. They all knew that if Shen Du had fought the centurion for the fishing village during the day, they would be the ones burning to death in the shacks now.

As dawn broke, Shen Du led his team away from the fishing boat camp. Passing the ruins of the fishing village, charred roofs still smoldered, and corpses lay scattered on the ground, their charred flesh and melted armor pieces indistinguishable. The bearded centurion's body lay supine in the middle of the village road, two fist-sized holes piercing his chest; the blood had drained away, leaving only a pool of dark red ice on the ground. His eyes were still open, gazing at the hazy sky. Shen Du paused as he passed his body, bent down to close the eyes, and continued onward.

He didn't speak. Neither did the fleeing soldiers behind him. They simply followed him silently through the still-smoking ruins, through the bean fields trampled by horses' hooves, and eastward along the Si River. Amu had been carried across this stretch of road by Old Wei and a fleeing Xianbei soldier, taking turns. His fever worsened, and he began to babble, incoherently calling out a name—"Azhi." That was his sister's name.

That day they traveled forty li (approximately 20 kilometers). Shen Du slowed his pace considerably—not because he couldn't walk fast, but because fewer and fewer people in the group could keep up. Each time they stopped to rest, several people sat down and couldn't stand up again. Shen Du didn't help those who couldn't stand—he knew they had no strength left to walk, and he didn't have enough food and water to share with them. He simply placed his share of dry biscuits beside them and turned to continue on his way. That day they passed an abandoned Qin army supply depot, finding several bags of millet half-burnt and a well-preserved sheepskin coat. They passed a frozen rice paddy, where several bundles of unharvested rice still stood, the ears of rice completely dry, but still yielding grains when rubbed. They passed a burned-out stone bridge; the stream beneath it was frozen, and on the ice lay the body of a captain in armor, his neck pierced by an arrow, the blood frozen into a dark red flower on the ice.

As dusk fell, Shen Du found a place to spend the night—an abandoned mountain god temple. The temple wasn't large; half the roof of the main hall had collapsed, but the side rooms were relatively intact, the walls plastered with rubble and mud, and the wooden bars on the windows still intact. There was a dry well in the courtyard, with a thin layer of water at the bottom. Most importantly, it was nestled in a bamboo grove halfway up the mountain, so the temple's firelight was invisible from below. Shen Du stood at the temple entrance for a while, mentally reviewing the surrounding terrain—a bamboo grove behind him, a dried-up stream in front, and a low earthen ridge on the opposite bank, a place where he could keep watch.

"We'll stay here tonight." Shen Du planted his spear in the ground. "Old Wei, divide the able-bodied men into three shifts. The first shift goes to the bamboo forest to cut bamboo and build planks, the second shift goes to the stream to collect stones to build a stove, and the third shift goes to the yard to clear a clean area for the wounded to lie down. Put all the beans in the pot and cook them until they're soft—the wounded will drink the bean soup, and the others will eat the bean dregs. Also, put a sentry on the earthen beam, and they'll rotate every hour. We can start a fire tonight."

"Can we start a fire now?" a defeated soldier asked timidly.

"That's fine," Shen Du said. "The mist on the mountainside can block the firelight, and the bamboo forest can block the smoke. The Jin army scouts won't be able to see us from below."

When the firelight blazed on, the entire dilapidated temple seemed to come alive. Water from the dry well was brought up and boiled, beans bubbled and steamed in the iron pot, the heat gradually driving away the chill from the side rooms. The wounded lay on bamboo beds, drinking bean soup. After Old Wei fed Amu half a bowl of hot bean soup, he finally stopped babbling and fell into a deep sleep. Shen Du sat beside the collapsed statue in the main hall, taking out the bamboo slips from his robes again to examine them by the firelight. The information on the bamboo slips was extremely detailed—the troop strength, distribution of provisions, and garrison positions of the various tribes of the Former Qin army, even including the coordinates of several hidden granaries. Even more remarkable was a section on the analysis of the conflicts between the tribal leaders.

"The Xianbei leader Murong Chui, with 30,000 troops, is stationed west of the Fei River. He has a long-standing feud with the Qiang leader Yao Chang. Murong Chui once sent envoys to secretly make peace with the Jin army..." Shen Du finished reading this line, turned the bamboo slip over to look at the back, where small characters marked the style of Murong Chui's banners and the layout of his camp. He continued flipping through the slips and found that they also recorded the conflicts between several Di generals, Fu Jian's suspicion of the tribal leaders, and the specific locations of several grain and fodder storage points. This intelligence was extremely detailed, with each scroll marked with a date and source, the most recent date being just a few days before the Battle of Fei River. The person who wrote this bamboo slip was definitely not an ordinary spy—someone who could access the troop movements and grain distribution of various tribes must have at least been at the level of a central military advisor or supply depot.

"Master Shen." Old Wei walked over with a bowl of bean soup and sat down next to Shen Du. "What are you looking at?"

"Intelligence." Shen Du turned to the last scroll of the bamboo slips. This scroll recorded the locations of several shallow beaches on the south bank of the Fei River where a large army could cross, as well as the approximate troop strength estimates of Xie Xuan's Northern Army units. "The person who wrote this had a deeper understanding of the internal situation of the Former Qin than Fu Jian's military advisor. But this bamboo slip had not yet been sent out—the person who wrote it had most likely already died in the chaos of war."

Old Wei was silent for a moment: "Is this thing useful to us?"

"It's useful." Shen Du rolled up the bamboo slip and put it back into his pocket. The firelight flickered on his face. "After the war, this intelligence can be exchanged for a lot of food, and maybe even a few lives."

The next morning, Shen Du led his team north. They found several abandoned fishing boats at a deserted ferry crossing upstream on the Si River. The boats had no oars, and several leaks in the planks, but the hulls were relatively intact. If only Zhao Laoliu were here—he would squat by the boat, tapping the planks with his pipe, pointing out which sections could be repaired and which couldn't, then rolling up his sleeves and starting to fix them. But Zhao Laoliu wasn't there. Shen Du stood by the ferry crossing for a while, then personally rolled up his sleeves and, together with Lao Wei, used rags and tree bark to plug the leaks in the hulls.

They crossed the Si River in fishing boats and continued north along the hilly terrain on the opposite bank. On the evening of the fourth day, they finally emerged from the Jin army scouts' range and entered the Huaibei Plain. Shen Du stood on the last mountain ridge and glanced back south. The sky above the Fei River was no longer filled with the smoke of battle, only low-hanging, hazy clouds. The battle was over. Of the 870,000 troops, less than half returned alive to Huaibei. And these twenty-odd men were probably the only remnant force in the entire Former Qin vanguard that hadn't scattered, hadn't trampled each other, and had returned intact across the battlefield to the north.

"Master Shen," Old Wei stood beside him, leaning on the spear, the blood on the tip already dried, "what do we do next?"

Shen Du switched the spear to his left hand and touched the bamboo slips in his robes with his right. He knew what to do next. But he didn't say it aloud; he only uttered two words.

"go home."