For the senior officers of the British expeditionary force, Prince Senggelinqin's letter of "peace"—thick with a very transparent desire to survive—was already the herald of victory.
General Yili, commander-in-chief, had even begun contemplating a dignified manner of accepting the surrender and preparing a grand ceremonial entry for His Royal Highness.
Arthur Lionheart, however, merely smirked as he read the letter.
"General," he said, voice smooth as oiled steel, "do you truly imagine that a brute who yesterday swore to shred you limb from limb and throw you to the turtles shall, today, kneel in earnest reverence?"
Yili blinked. "Your Highness… you mean it is a feigned surrender?"
"Indeed. A mere delaying tactic."
A cold, omniscient light flickered in Arthur Lionheart's eyes.
"He is waiting for reinforcements from Beijing. Waiting to set further snares. He wishes to lure us into negotiations, and then—upon the strength of his so-called invincible land warfare—launch a sudden strike."
"This Tartar of the Mongolian plains still possesses the wild heart of his people," Yili muttered, shivering.
"Quite so," Arthur replied lightly. "He believes we dare fire our cannons only from the safety of our ships. He fancies that, once ashore, his 'Iron Cavalry of the Eight Banners' may ride unchecked and divine."
Arthur Lionheart's lips curved into a cold, wicked smile.
"Very well then. Since our host has so carefully arranged this little banquet, it would be unspeakably rude for us—foreign guests from afar—not to attend."
He rose with crisp purpose.
"Today we land. We go directly to him. And we will personally shatter his ridiculous delusion of terrestrial invincibility."
"By my order!"
The bridge of the Revenge Queen fell silent.
"All ships: load naval guns with high-explosive shells. Target every Qing fortification and forward emplacement along both banks of the Dagu Forts. I require thirty minutes of suppressive fire—suppressive, not destructive. I want every last enemy soldier diving for the nearest hole, too terrified to raise so much as an eyebrow."
"Simultaneously: fifteen hundred Royal Marines begin landing operations at once under full gunboat cover."
"And within three hours," Arthur Lionheart concluded, "I expect to see our British flag flying atop the highest point of the Dagu Forts."
"YES, YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS!"
Dawn clung faintly to the beaches of Dagu; the fog had not fully lifted.
Exactly as Arthur Lionheart had anticipated, Senggelinqin was frantically reinforcing his bridgehead defences, unaware that time had already expired.
Then, from the sea, the British fleet advanced once more—this time without parley, without courtesy, without warning.
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! —ROAR!"
The sky tore apart.
Hundreds of naval guns thundered in near-unison.
High-explosive shells shrieked across the sky like the meteors of doom, falling in dense sheets upon the Qing positions.
The earth convulsed.
Crude Qing fortifications were ploughed, shattered, and obliterated within minutes.
Terrified soldiers scrambled into bunkers, hands over their heads, trembling and whimpering, no longer daring even to look upward.
Thirty minutes later, the coastline was a flattened scar of smoking earth.
Dozens of steam gunboats surged forward like a pack of wolves.
Royal Marines poured ashore—not chaotically, but with deadly discipline.
At the sharp whistles of officers, they formed into compact three-talent squads of ten: one firing, one reloading, one watching the flanks.
Units advanced alternately, forming a dense, flexible net of fire—the very skirmish tactics Arthur Lionheart had adapted from Wellington and refined through his own military calculus.
The British had seized the beachhead—barely—when a monstrous roar tore across the battlefield.
"—KILL!!!"
From behind a burning ruin, Prince Senggelinqin rode forth on his warhorse, eyes bloodshot. Behind him thundered three thousand Mongolian cavalry of the Eight Banners, their faces carved with frenzied resolve.
"FOR THE GREAT QING! FOR THE EMPEROR! CHARGE!"
The ground quaked beneath them.
A black tide of hooves and steel surged toward the thin red line of Britain.
"Steady," cried the British commanders.
No fear flickered across their faces.
"First line—ready!"
"Aim!"
"Fire!"
"BANG! BANG! BANG—!"
The first volley of breech-loading rifles tore into the charging cavalry as though an invisible wall had materialised before them.
Horses collapsed.
Riders tumbled like dolls thrown from a child's hand.
The Mongols who survived vaulted over the fallen and continued their suicidal charge.
"Second line—FIRE!"
Another deadly wave of shots slammed into them.
Still they came.
Three hundred metres now—close enough for their horse bows to begin their deadly arc.
Senggelinqin's heart leapt—success!
He opened his mouth to shout—
—and then the true nightmare began.
On both British flanks, dozens of canvas-covered carriages were unveiled.
These were not repeating fire-lances.
They were Mitrailleuse field guns, newly forged under Arthur Lionheart's military reforms—designed explicitly to annihilate massed targets at close range.
Their barrels were short, their calibre wide.
Inside each round: hundreds of steel pellets the size of pigeon eggs.
"Mitrailleuse—volley fire!"
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
Death erupted.
A storm of steel scythed across the battlefield, a wide fan of invisible blades more than a hundred metres across.
Flesh burst.
Horses flipped backward.
Men were lifted from saddles as though ripped by a hurricane.
The "Iron Cavalry of the Eight Banners" — once gods of the steppe — were as fragile as paper dolls before Lionheart's engineered instruments of mechanised slaughter.
The first ranks were obliterated instantly.
Those who survived broke, screaming, turning their mounts in wild panic.
Senggelinqin's horse screamed as a steel pellet pierced its foreleg.
The beast collapsed, throwing the prince violently to the ground.
His leg snapped under him.
He lay in his own blood, staring blankly at the inferno—at the mitrailleuse guns still smoking like the breath of devils.
Only then did he finally comprehend the truth:
This was the monster he and the Great Qing were facing.
The age had already changed.
And he had not.
A British Royal Marine officer approached him.
Senggelinqin closed his eyes, awaiting the final blow.
It did not come.
Instead, a canteen of water was placed beside him.
In a halting but authentic Chinese tone, the officer says:
"By order of His Royal Highness Arthur Lionheart… your life is to be spared. You are to watch, with your own eyes, how we enter the city of Beijing."
Senggelinqin's eyes flew open.
The officer looked at him with pity—pity.
And in that moment, Prince Doroi felt an humiliation a thousand times worse than being killed outright.