Only four men stood on the high city walls of Liangzhou.
The wind howled across the battlements like it had a personal grudge against humanity. Dust flew into mouths, noses, and probably souls. Pei Xingjian and Su Dingfang stood slightly behind the others, hearts pounding, eyes locked on the horizon.
A strange convoy was crawling toward the city gates.
Neither man dared to blink. Blinking felt like it might jinx the whole thing.
Further down the stone walkway, Xue Rengui stood beside Li Jing. The space between the young protégé and the veteran commander was filled entirely by the sound of wind screaming through the arrow slits.
They had spent months together now. Xue Rengui was slowly learning how to read the legendary old general.
This was not easy. Li Jing was not exactly a chatty guy. The man communicated mostly through grunts, glares, and the occasional disappointed sigh.
Getting a full sentence out of him felt like winning a lottery.
Li Jing stood absolutely motionless. He did not speak a single word. Yet his posture gave him away. The deep rhythm in his breath cut straight through the noise of the gale.
The old god of war was anticipating the arrival of this specific convoy.
Xue Rengui asked himself a very simple question.
Why does the general look like a kid waiting for candy?
Then he remembered what kind of candy this was. The legendary Five Thunders Bureau.
Ah. Right. The kind of candy that blows up city blocks.
During their time isolated in Liangzhou, Li Jing had practically poured his entire lifetime of military knowledge directly into Xue Rengui's head.
The lessons were brutal and relentless.
The old man constantly hammered a single philosophy into his student's skull: Rengui, you must always remember, courage without intellect is not bravery, it is just suicide with extra steps.
Li Jing would pull examples from ancient, bloody campaigns. He would set up intricate sand tables in the command tent. He forced Xue Rengui to stand in the shoes of dead generals and solve impossible tactical nightmares.
During their rare moments of downtime, the lessons shifted to logistics.
Li Jing would pick up a random piece of battlefield trash. A broken spear shaft. A dented iron shield. He would then spend hours lecturing Xue Rengui on how the tiny variations in a piece of equipment completely altered the fate of a battlefield.
Xue Rengui suspected the old man could pick up a rock and lecture for 3 hours about its strategic significance.
Probably had a slide deck in his head.
It was during one of these intense lectures that Xue Rengui first heard the name. The Five Thunders Temple. A secretive institution founded entirely by Li Jing himself.
That was also the day Xue Rengui learned a terrifying new word.
Gunpowder.
He had never seen the substance with his own two eyes. He only had the old general's brief, clinical descriptions of its destructive power.
That alone was enough to make Xue Rengui sweat cold terror.
Now, the theoretical nightmare was rolling right up to the city gates.
Xue Rengui felt a burning heat building in his chest. He was finally going to see it.
The geography of the empire dictated everything. If you traveled west from the Guanzhong plains and headed into the wild western regions, you only had 3 major strongholds to keep you alive.
Liangzhou. Zhangye. Dunhuang.
Think of the Hexi Corridor as the outstretched right arm of the Great Tang Empire. Zhangye and Dunhuang were the grasping fingers. Liangzhou was the absolute shoulder joint. It was the anchor holding the limb attached to the body.
Liangzhou connected to the capital city of Chang'an in the east. It opened its jaws to the vast foreign nations in the west. Because of this prime location, the city was a chaotic mess of humanity. Wealthy foreign merchants rubbed shoulders with official tribute envoys. Turkic spies lurked in the taverns. Informants from the Tuyuhun kingdom hid in the alleyways.
Everyone passed through Liangzhou. Nobody stayed clean.
Li Jing knew exactly what kind of snake pit he had walked into. When he arrived to take command, he brought his most savage veterans. He immediately locked the city down. He filtered the population over and over again. He hunted the spies with ruthless efficiency.
The brutal crackdown yielded immediate results. Right now, a strict curfew was in effect. The bustling main streets of Liangzhou were completely abandoned. Not a single civilian dared to step outside their front door.
The foreign merchants and tribal spies huddled in the dark. They peeked through the tiny cracks in their wooden shutters. They cursed this new Tang general in their hearts. He was impossible to bribe. He was impossible to negotiate with.
They watched the heavily armed Tang soldiers march slowly down the empty avenues.
The troops made no sound. Their discipline was absolute. They radiated a terrifying aura of organized violence.
The foreigners in the western regions were deeply confused. Why did the Tang imperial court suddenly deploy their greatest living commander to Liangzhou? Why did he bring such a huge army?
The rumors spread like wildfire in the dark.
Some spies guessed the Tang Empire was preparing to completely annihilate the Tuyuhun kingdom. They thought Li Jing wanted to eliminate the threat on their southern flank once and for all.
But the logic was flawed. Illig Qaghan of the Turks had only been living as a captive in Chang'an for a little over 1 year. The Tang Empire had just finished a huge war. Surely they lacked the financial strength to launch another invasion so soon.
Furthermore, everyone in the western deserts knew the military doctrine of the Tuyuhun. They were masters of running away. Defeating them in a skirmish was easy. Forcing them into a decisive slaughter was nearly impossible.
The most popular theory eventually won out.
The foreign spies concluded that the Tang imperial court simply wanted to flex its muscles. They believed Li Jing was here to clean up the bandits and secure the trade routes of the Hexi Corridor.
Nothing more.
Li Jing was perfectly aware of the rumors. He knew exactly what the foreigners were whispering in the dark. He did absolutely nothing to correct them. In fact, he actively fueled their false assumptions. He ordered his cavalry units to constantly patrol the empty desert between Zhangye and Liangzhou. He made a huge show of guarding the roads.
The western spies watched the patrols and felt incredibly smart.
They fell right into the trap.
Down below the wall, the strange convoy from the Five Thunders Bureau finally cleared the city gates. The bulk of the carts headed straight for the heavily guarded northern military camp.
Li Jing turned away from the edge of the wall.
"If you intend to command soldiers, you must understand their weapons. Follow me."
Xue Rengui felt a jolt of pure adrenaline. His entire body practically hummed with excitement.
He noticed that a very small detachment from the convoy had stayed behind outside the city walls. He combined that observation with the old general's words. The math was incredibly simple.
The legendary gunpowder weapons were going to be tested today. Right now.
A few paces away, Pei Xingjian and Su Dingfang saw the old general waving at them. They practically tripped over themselves running to catch up.
You absolutely could not test military explosives right outside the gates of a crowded city. That was just common sense. Even Pei Xingjian knew that, and Pei Xingjian once tried to argue with a rock.
Li Jing walked down the stone stairs. He approached the waiting detachment. He did not pull rank. He patiently handed over his official golden waist token. He allowed the heavily armed guards of the Five Thunders Bureau to inspect his credentials thoroughly.
Once his identity was verified, Li Jing swung up onto his warhorse. He took the lead. The small procession rode hard toward the barren lands east of Liangzhou.
They rode for a very long time. The city vanished behind them. The landscape turned into a desolate wasteland of rock and scrub brush. After covering a distance of roughly 30 miles, Li Jing finally raised his fist.
The column halted.
He pointed a finger toward a structure in the distance.
"We will use that old beacon tower as our target."
The northern borders had suffered through centuries of endless warfare. The territory lines between the Han Chinese and the nomadic tribes shifted back and forth like the ocean tide. Because of this, the desert was littered with ancient, abandoned military outposts.
This particular beacon tower was a relic from a bygone era. It was constructed entirely from rammed earth. The dirt was pounded so tightly it possessed the density of solid rock. It had endured 100 years of screaming desert winds and violent sandstorms. Yet the main walls of the tower still stood tall and defiant.
Basically the ancient equivalent of a stubborn old man who refused to die.
Pei Xingjian could never keep his mouth shut.
"Test what, exactly?" The boy tilted his head. "General, are you going to ask the four of us to charge that solid dirt wall on horseback? We will break our necks."
He said it the way a child might point out that the emperor was not wearing clothes. Calm. Reasonable. Absolutely certain he was right.
Su Dingfang shot out a hand. He missed grabbing the boy's jaw by a fraction of an inch.
Pei Xingjian was not actually disrespecting his master. He was 11 years old. He simply lacked a mental filter. He had already memorized more military scrolls than most officers three times his age. He spent entirely too much time in the Hongwen Pavilion, reading ancient campaigns while other children played with wooden swords.
He knew historians were absolute liars.
When ancient scribes described a weapon possessing the "wrath of heaven," it usually just meant the blacksmith figured out how to make a slightly sharper spearhead.
In Pei Xingjian's mind, this secretive Five Thunders Bureau was nothing special. They probably just forged a better grade of steel. What else could it be? Could they actually reach up into the sky and pull down lightning?
Ridiculous.
His skepticism deepened when he watched the soldiers unload a large object from a reinforced wagon. It was a bronze cylinder. It was thick enough to wrap around Su Dingfang's thigh.
Pei Xingjian felt smug.
See? Just a metal tube. What was the big deal?
Then he noticed the soldiers pulling out strange leather pouches. They started carefully mixing a bizarre gray powder.
Wait. Hold on. What are you people doing with that dirt?
These soldiers operated entirely differently from regular infantry. They moved with the slow precision of master jewelers. They handled the gray powder and the bronze cylinder with religious reverence. They treated the strange items like delicate glass artifacts worth a kingdom in gold.
Pei Xingjian's curiosity finally overpowered his ego. He snapped his mouth shut. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Su Dingfang and Xue Rengui. The three of them watched the soldiers work in absolute stillness.
They did not have to wait very long.
A squad of towering, muscled soldiers stepped forward to the firing line. Pei Xingjian nearly burst out laughing. These terrifying giants were all wearing woven bamboo baskets on their backs.
It looked silly.
Inside the baskets were rows of odd clay pots. The pots were small and round with little handles. A thin hemp rope was threaded through the handles and tied in a tight knot.
Pei Xingjian lost his battle with his own mouth.
"Are those clay pots supposed to be weapons?" He squinted at them. "They look exactly like little fat tadpoles."
Su Dingfang looked at the pots. He had to admit the kid was right.
They did look exactly like tadpoles.
Li Jing slowly turned his head. He delivered a glare so cold it could freeze the desert sun. Pei Xingjian slapped both hands over his mouth. His eyes went wide. He promised himself he would not speak again.
The giant soldiers completely ignored the peanut gallery. They reached into their bamboo baskets. They each pulled out a single clay tadpole. They moved in perfect synchronization.
They pulled out small fire starters. They struck sparks against the short fuses protruding from the tails of the pots. The fuses caught instantly. Thick, acrid smoke began to hiss from the clay.
The soldiers did not panic. They grabbed the hemp ropes. They spun the smoking clay pots in wide circles alongside their bodies. They built up kinetic energy. They looked exactly like ancient shepherds winding up leather slings.
With a unified grunt, they released the ropes. The smoking pots sailed through the air in high arcs. They flew straight toward the ancient beacon tower.
A fraction of a second later, Pei Xingjian was violently ejected from his saddle.
The volume of the noise defied human comprehension. It was a physical blow. It struck Pei Xingjian straight in the chest, shattering his equilibrium. His vision whited out.
The warhorses panicked instantly. They screamed in terror and kicked their front legs into the sky. Pei Xingjian tumbled backward through the air.
Su Dingfang operated on pure instinct. He crushed his knees against his horse's ribs, forcing the animal back down to the earth. He reached down with one huge arm, grabbed Pei Xingjian by the collar in mid-air, and hauled him back up onto the saddle.
If Su Dingfang had been a second slower, the panicked hooves would have crushed the boy's skull into paste.
Pei Xingjian clung to the older man. His face was pale. The smug smile was gone. His ears were ringing with a high-pitched scream. He stared at the cloud of smoke rolling over the desert.
He mumbled incoherently.
"Su Lie! You said it exceeded the wrath of ghosts and gods. You lied. That is the literal wrath of heaven. You wildly understated the situation!"
Su Dingfang ignored him. The veteran general had lost the ability to speak. He sat high on his horse and stared through the settling dust.
The clay pots had detonated on impact. The explosion sent a shockwave of dirt and smoke into the sky. But Su Dingfang was not looking at the smoke. He was looking at the ancient rammed-earth wall.
The blast had pulverized the clay pots. Razor-sharp fragments of ceramic shrapnel were now deeply embedded into the rock-hard dirt wall.
Su Dingfang did the tactical math in his head.
That wall was harder than wood. If those clay pots exploded in the middle of a tightly packed infantry formation… flesh and bone would simply shred. It would be a slaughterhouse.
Just possessing those clay grenades made this entire trip worthwhile.
Su Dingfang was already satisfied.
But the Five Thunders Bureau was not finished.
Next, the soldiers demonstrated thin bamboo tubes. These were packed with low-grade powder. When ignited, they did not explode with concussive force. Instead, they violently expelled blinding sparks and a choking cloud of thick white smoke.
The soldiers explained the tactical application. The tubes were cheap. They were meant to be thrown away after a single use. Every frontline infantryman could easily carry 2 of them tucked into his belt. Right before two armies clashed, a thousand soldiers could light these tubes and hurl them into the enemy ranks.
The blinding smoke and sudden fire would cause enemy warhorses to completely panic and trample their own riders.
It was brilliant. It was cruel.
Then came the grand finale.
The soldiers wheeled forward the heavy bronze cylinder.
Su Dingfang watched closely. The soldiers used shovels to dig a deep trench in the hard desert floor. They lowered the heavy tail end of the bronze tube down into the pit, packing dirt tightly around it to secure the weapon in place. The open mouth of the cylinder aimed diagonally upward toward the beacon tower.
Next, two men hauled over a spherical stone. The rock had been polished smooth. They dropped the heavy stone ball directly down the throat of the bronze beast.
Finally, a soldier approached the rear of the tube. He held a lit torch. He carefully ignited a thick fuse protruding from a small hole near the base. The fuse was the thickness of a man's pinky finger. It sparked violently.
The moment the fuse caught fire, every single soldier from the Five Thunders Bureau turned and sprinted away as fast as their legs could carry them.
Su Dingfang did not know exactly what was about to happen. But his survival instincts were screaming. He yanked hard on his reins. He forced his horse to back up 20 paces.
It was the smartest decision he made all year.
The resulting explosion made the clay grenades sound like children clapping their hands.
The volume of the blast was apocalyptic. A huge tongue of blinding fire erupted from the mouth of the bronze tube. A cloud of black smoke exploded outward, 50 times denser than anything they had seen before.
The force of the detonation transferred straight down into the desert floor. Su Dingfang felt the earth physically shudder beneath his horse's hooves.
The stone ball crossed the distance in the blink of an eye. It slammed directly into the center of the ancient beacon tower.
When the huge cloud of dust and debris finally cleared, the four men stared in utter disbelief.
The rock-hard rammed-earth wall was broken. The cannonball had punched a jagged hole straight through the center of the structure. The gap was so large you could comfortably ride a horse straight through it without ducking your head.
Pei Xingjian slowly slid off the back of the horse and hit the dirt.
Again.
Out of everyone present, Li Jing was the only man who looked unbothered by the catastrophic noise.
The former master of the Five Thunders Temple sat on his horse, a look of profound joy painted across his face. He understood exactly what it took to achieve this result.
The clay grenades and the bamboo smoke tubes were actually quite simple to manufacture. The bronze cannon, however, was a nightmare of engineering.
It was a paradox. The concept was easy. He had seen visions of a "cultural relic" cannon in that mysterious future screen. He simply ordered his men to copy the basic shape. They tried over and over again. After nearly 1 year of endless failure, they finally figured out the basic mechanics.
But the metallurgy was a disaster. Choosing between bronze and iron determined the size of the weapon, the explosive payload it could handle, and a dozen other variables they barely understood.
Months ago, the imperial blacksmiths had confidently forged a prototype out of refined iron. They dragged it out for a test fire. The first shot fired successfully. However, a microscopic crack formed deep inside the iron barrel.
The blacksmiths did not notice. They loaded the weapon a second time. They lit the fuse.
The iron cannon detonated like a huge bomb. The barrel shattered into a thousand pieces of lethal shrapnel. If Li Jing had not ordered the crew to stand behind thick wooden barricades, the entire engineering team would have been instantly ripped to shreds.
The catastrophic failure taught them a vital lesson. Iron was too brittle. Bronze was safer. It would stretch and bulge before it catastrophically failed. That was why they only brought this single bronze cannon to Liangzhou today.
It was a primitive weapon. It was dangerous to the user. But looking at the huge hole blown through the ancient fortress wall, Li Jing knew it was enough.
It was more than enough.
The old general felt the blood rushing through his veins. He felt 30 years younger. He was absolutely starving for the next war to begin.
Far away, separated by an unimaginable gulf of time and space, a man named Wen Mang sat at his computer desk.
He was staring at his website. A glowing exclamation mark suddenly popped up in the upper right corner of his screen.
He clicked on the notification with a confused frown. He read the text aloud.
[Congratulations on achieving a Major Historical Turning Point!!!]
Wen Mang blinked.
"Huh... Did he just break history by accident?"