Raise the guiding cord and the mesh spreads; settle the calculations and the troops march

The hall was filled with purple-and-scarlet robes, every head bowed.

Then a young man approached against the light.

"I, Wei Nisheng, Vice Director of the Selection Bureau in the Ministry of Personnel, have a memorial to present."

Clad in a scarlet robe, Wei Nisheng stood beneath the imperial steps, his expression calm. Not a drop of the storm raging through the hall had touched him.

"Your Highness." Wei Zi bowed toward the imperial throne. "I have just heard the reports of Song Ge and Kou Ge."

"Song Ge spoke of military affairs, and his words were true. Kou Ge spoke of finances, and his words were also true.

But I believe that if this Court hears only those two blades today, we will have lost half this war before it even begins."

"Why?" Jiang Heng asked at once.

"Because everyone in this Court is calculating how difficult this war will be," Wei Nisheng said slowly.

"Yet no one has first distinguished one thing..."

"What is truly a matter of life and death today?

"The Great Learning says: 'Things have roots and branches; affairs have beginnings and endings. Know what comes first and what comes after, and you will be close to the Way.'

I ask you all: thirty thousand Khitan cavalry have breached the frontier wall and are bearing straight down on Liaoyang.

Is this a fire singeing our eyebrows? Yes.

The Tanguts have massed troops at Hengshan but have not moved for months...

Is this a fire singeing our eyebrows? I believe it is not."

A buzz of agitation swept through the hall.

"Vice Director Wei!" From the ranks of the upright officials, someone sneered loudly.

"Tangut sabers hang over Hengshan, and you dare say this is not a matter of life and death?!"

"I dare," Wei Nisheng declared.