The Wolf Soldiers and the imperial forces were mustering at the same time—except that by the time the Wolf Soldiers had finished assembling and come pouring out, the imperial commanders were still running around trying to find their own men.
"Loose!"
Two battalions' worth of a thousand seasoned veterans charged at the front, with a thousand support troops and raw recruits behind them.
Half the Wolf Army was frontline combat strength, the other half logistics—but that hardly meant the logistics troops couldn't fight.
Everyone trained the same way. The support soldiers simply had less combat experience than the frontline men; it did not mean they couldn't take the field.
And when battle-hardened veterans were leading the charge, the support troops' killing power was nothing to scoff at.
At a single command, the bolts loosed by two thousand powerful crossbows converged into a great black dragon in the sky.
Nothing beneath that dragon could stand.
The imperial army's new armor could not stop steel crossbow bolts.
Never mind their budget-edition armor—even the Wolf Soldiers' own armor, at close range, could not stop their own bolts.
Did anyone think a crossbow was something to toy with?
The crossbow had written a chapter of history that the ordinary bow never could. Its arrival gave even a child the power to kill a fully armored soldier, and it reshaped the very nature of war—and, in doing so, brought about the rise of child soldiers as well.
Men fell to the ground one after another. A few of the braver souls loosed arrows back, but they might as well have been tickling the Wolf Army. Some unlucky imperial soldiers were struck by a dozen bolts at once and went flying clean off their horses.
Among this force of ten thousand, five thousand were cavalry—yet not one of them dared charge those two thousand Wolf Soldiers.
After only a few volleys of arrow-rain, before the Wolf cavalry had even closed to melee range, they broke.
They scattered and fled in every direction.
The Wolf cavalry did not pursue. Riding high on the momentum of victory, they wheeled and drove straight toward another imperial column.
That unit had watched their comrades' annihilation with their own eyes, and they collapsed even faster.
After routing two armies, the Wolf Soldiers did not give chase. Instead they rode to the walls of the New Capital, circled a few times, and withdrew.
This battle had served one purpose: to tell the other side, *you are not ready for this.*
Break the imperial army's spirit—that was enough. There was no need to wipe them out entirely.
Those soldiers still needed to be left alive to defend the riverfront against the Ming Emperor.
Longcheng did not love war.
Longcheng wanted peace under heaven.
Half a day later, the official who had stormed off in a huff just days before returned, his face ashen, his whole body trembling.
"We have reached a decision," he said. "We gratefully accept the New Capital's generous invitation and feel that, on reflection, the New Capital is really the ideal location for our bank."
"We will also waive our claims for battle losses and reparations. We have only one condition: grant us a plot of land for the bank. We wish to build a barbican!"
"Very well…"
Carving out a walled enclave inside someone else's capital city?
The audacity of the ask was breathtaking.
And yet His Highness the Prince of Fu agreed.
So the people of the New Capital watched, wide-eyed, as concrete walls rose up in the heart of their own imperial city, with four gates set at the four cardinal directions.
Inside the walls stood buildings of at least three stories, the tallest reaching six. The six-story structure was the bank itself—the New Capital branch of Taoyuan Bank.
The other buildings served every purpose imaginable: food, drink, entertainment, recreation, all transplanted wholesale from Longcheng. They were expected to house up to ten thousand people.
The larger outer wall was not left idle either. Construction was underway inside it as well, for a small city planned to hold thirty or forty thousand souls.
Even the name had been chosen: Wangjing Township—gazing across at the imperial New Capital from afar.
The New Capital was imperial territory, land with a master. Longcheng could not grow its own population there.
But Wangjing Township outside the walls was a different matter entirely—newly built, belonging to Longcheng, Longcheng's own ground.
Once it was finished, they would install a household registration terminal, hire people over from the New Capital, get them to live there for three months.
Then send them into the New Capital to work.
The New Capital had always been a prosperous prefectural city; now elevated to an imperial capital, its population was still growing. It presently stood at somewhere between two and three hundred thousand.
This was a prime place to draw in people.
Ideally, they would turn the better half of its population into Longcheng residents.
Then rotate those people back to Longcheng proper and pad Longcheng's population numbers.
It was a satisfying plan.
Over at the Ming Emperor's Liujing as well, Longcheng had dispatched two battalions and a large contingent of settlers, and was building its own walled compound outside that city too.
The Ming Emperor had not been pleased about it either, and had considered sending troops to show his displeasure.
But when news arrived of what had happened at the New Capital, he chose to let the matter go. If they want to build, let them build—call it a new neighbor.
Longcheng people had always been reasonable. As long as you did not provoke them first, they rarely started trouble on their own. What was it they called themselves? That was right—civilized people.
*Never pick a quarrel with civilized people.*
"Come to think of it," the Ming Emperor mused, "I truly am the Son of Heaven, chosen by destiny."
"A man of humble origins—a mat-weaver, a sandal-peddler—and I have driven an entire dynasty from its throne."
"Last time, when I sought to assassinate the Longcheng chief, the barbarians struck first and took the blow meant for me."
"And now the southern dynasty has once again taken a blow on my behalf."
"These past days, the northern barbarians have come under attack from the red-haired foreigners and have their hands full."
"The southern dynasty has split in two once more."
"And I? I have silver arriving from overseas traders on the eastern coast, and now Longcheng people bringing me wealth as well."
"I truly am the Son of Heaven, blessed by fate itself."
"Indeed, Your Majesty speaks most truly." The eunuch standing beside him secretly rolled his eyes. *What a gift for consoling oneself.*
…
An automobile pulled up outside Wangjing Township.
Two young women stepped out, dressed in outfits at once fashionable and refined, and looked around with measured approval.
Most of the township's buildings were completed now, windows and doors all fitted—glass panes shipped over from Longcheng, furniture purchased from the New Capital—ready to move straight in.
The two women were Jinyi and Jinyan. They were about the same age as Jinwen, both fourteen now, and after years of seasoning they had grown into capable young women who could shoulder real responsibilities.
Jinyi had come to Wangjing Township as its mayor—a high-configuration posting, ranked one grade above standard, at Level Eight.
Jinyan had come to manage the bank and commerce operations inside the New Capital itself.
Both had volunteered for these posts. They felt they were old enough now, and that it was time they shared some of the burden their master carried.
The Zhao family's people all had the freedom to choose their own path.
Politics, military affairs, commerce, the life of comfortable idleness—they could develop however they wished.
Jinyi greatly admired their eldest sister Jinyi—the two shared a name but not their ambitions—and so had always wanted to work in governance.
Jinyan was a strikingly beautiful young woman who had long envied Sister Jinxiu's life and work, and had stayed under Jinxiu's wing ever since.
There were now many branch banks operating across the land, and apart from the Longcheng headquarters, the most important were naturally the branches in the capitals of the three great powers.
Those cities had large and wealthy populations with enormous economic weight, and so they were the priority above all priorities—handled, as a matter of course, by members of the Zhao family.
"Sister Jinyi, the bank inside the New Capital is still being built, so I suppose I'll be staying here for a while."
"What are you telling me for? This is our family's ground—live wherever you like."
"Even once you start working, you can come back here to sleep at night. We have our own car, after all—ten li is nothing, just put your foot down."
"Come on, let's go look at the township office. Since you have no work for the next few days, help me lighten the load. We need to get the population numbers up as quickly as possible."
"This place isn't like Longcheng. We can't do what we do back home—recruiting farmers to work the land and build things. The people here are relatively well-off. I'll have to figure out my own approach to filling this place with people."
"It's going to be a hard road."
"Hard or not, it has to be done."
"For our master's sake—so he can go on lounging in comfort!"
"Right! So our master can keep living his life of blissful idleness!"
"Let's go!"
"Let's go!"