The rhythm of the frontier army had changed. The change was subtle, a shift in the hum of the camp, but to Lin Wei, it was as clear as a drumbeat. The suspicious glances were gone.
Now, soldiers nodded to his medics as they passed. The new normal was one of quiet efficiency. Latrines were dug deep and downwind. Water was boiled without complaint. A soldier with a gash from training would present it to the nearest medic without hesitation, knowing a few precise stitches and a clean bandage would have him back to duty in days, not weeks.
Commander Xin observed this from the command tent, his expression unreadable but his mind calculating. The gamble on the convict had paid dividends that were not glorious, but tangible. His army was healthier. Morale was higher. The constant drain of sickness had slowed to a trickle. The 1st Field Medical Corps was no longer an experiment; it was the sturdy spine of his force.
The scout who burst into the tent, caked in dust and breathing hard, shattered the morning's calm. "Commander! A Jin supply convoy. Heavy guard. They're moving along the Serpent's Tail Valley, two days' march north. Wagons are laden deep."
A map was unrolled. The Serpent's Tail was a narrow, winding gorge. A perfect ambush site, but also a death trap if the enemy was prepared.
Xin's officers leaned in, their faces grim.
"Their guard is at least two full battalions," a captain muttered. "It will be a bloody fight."
"Bloody," Xin agreed, his finger tracing the valley on the map. "But necessary. Cut that supply line, and we strangle the Jin offensive at Blackwater Fort. We strike with everything we have." His gaze swept the room, landing on Lin Wei, who stood quietly near the rear. "Surgeon-General. This will not be a skirmish. It will be a butcher's bill. Can your corps handle a battle of this scale?"
All eyes turned to Lin Wei. He didn't flinch. The system in his mind was already running projections, but his answer came from certainty, not calculation. "The forward aid stations are pre-positioned. The evacuation routes are planned and marked. We will maximize the number of men who see tomorrow, Commander." It was not a boast. It was a statement of fact.
Two days later, the Song army struck from the high ground of the Serpent's Tail. The Jin guard, professional and disciplined, reacted instantly. The gorge exploded into chaos. The air filled with the roar of men and the scream of metal. It was a battle of grinding attrition, shield walls slamming together, arrows darkening the sky.
In the midst of the carnage, the difference between the two armies became a matter of life and death.
On the Jin side, a standard-bearer took an arrow in the shoulder. He bellowed in pain, stumbling back. Two comrades dragged him behind the lines, where a camp follower with a dirty knife dug the arrowhead out roughly and packed the wound with moss. The man was left propped against a rock, his fate left to chance and his own constitution, already shivering with the onset of fever.
On the Song side, a young spearman screamed as a Jin blade opened a gash on his thigh. The man next to him didn't pause; he slammed his shield forward, creating space, then hauled the wounded man back. A whistle blast cut through the din. A two-man medic team, identifiable by the red bands on their arms, was there in moments.
A tourniquet was applied, the wound was cleaned with a splash of strong liquor, and a pressure bandage was tied. Within sixty seconds, the spearman was being carried down a pre-marked trail to the rear, his life saved, his fighting days potentially preserved.
Lin Wei worked at the main dressing station, a chaotic but organized hub set up in a sheltered gully. The wounded arrived in a steady stream. His system provided a constant, cold stream of data, but his hands were warm, moving with practiced efficiency.
He directed traffic with a calm voice. "Priority one! Chest wound, here! Priority two, arm fracture, to the left!" His medics, trained through relentless drilling, moved with purpose, their actions saving precious seconds, and with them, lives.
The battle raged for hours. The Song line, bolstered by the knowledge that a wound was not a death sentence, held with a resilience the Jin could not match. The Jin guard, seeing their own wounded piling up, their cries of agony sapping the will of the living, began to falter. The shield wall cracked. The Song forces, sensing the shift, pressed forward with a final, desperate surge.
The convoy was overrun, its supplies put to the torch.
Victory, when it came, was a hollow, exhausted feeling.
Days later, in the command tent, Commander Xin reviewed the after-action report. The numbers were stark, telling a story of brutal efficiency. The Song losses were severe—two hundred and ten men killed, with another four hundred and fifty-five wounded.
But within that grim tally was the evidence of Lin Wei's revolution: of those wounded, three hundred and twenty were expected to return to duty. The army's effective permanent loss was three hundred and forty-five men.
The estimated Jin losses, pieced together from scout reports, painted a different picture.
They had suffered heavier losses in the initial fighting, with around two hundred and eighty killed. But the true devastation was among their wounded, which numbered over four hundred.
Without a proper medical corps, their mortality rate was catastrophic, estimated at seven out of every ten men. This meant their effective permanent loss was nearly five hundred and sixty soldiers.
Xin set the report down. The Song had won a tactical victory, but the strategic victory was in the numbers. He had destroyed a key Jin convoy and, thanks to Lin Wei, had inflicted significantly more permanent casualties on the enemy. His army could absorb the blow and fight again another day. The Jin force was crippled.
Commissioner Meng, a senior officer from Regional Command who had observed the campaign, let out a low whistle. He was a political creature, his mind always on advancement. "These numbers... they are extraordinary, Xin. Your return-to-duty rate is... unheard of. How is this possible?"
Xin didn't smile. He gestured out the tent flap, towards the field hospital where Lin Wei's medics were still tending to the last of the wounded. "It is possible because we value our soldiers' lives beyond the moment they fall," he said flatly. "That man, the convict, has not just saved lives. He has increased the fighting strength of my entire command by twenty percent. He is a force multiplier, as critical as any new weapon."
Commissioner Meng's eyes gleamed with ambition. This was not just a battle report; it was a ticket to prominence. An innovation that could change the entire war effort. And he would be the one to report it.
"I will be including a full account of this... medical corps... in my dispatch to the Generalissimo's headquarters," Meng said, his voice dripping with self-importance. "This is precisely the kind of innovation the Supreme Commander encourages. This could be significant for the entire war."
Xin gave a curt nod, his face impassive. As Meng swept out, already composing his report in his head, Xin allowed himself a rare, private thought. The die was cast. The report would go up the chain, through the bureaucracy, until it landed on the desk of the one man whose opinion truly mattered: the Generalissimo, Yue Fei.
The proving ground was over. Lin Wei had proven his worth not in a sick tent, but on a field that shaped the fate of the frontier. And now, the eyes of a legend would turn his way.