On the Divine Splendor River, along the stretch marking the boundary between Xiushui and Xunyang commanderies.
The bright moon hung high in the night sky like a silver platter. Its faintly chilly light spilled over the river, making dozens of li of water upstream and downstream glitter.
Another breeze swept past, setting the lake's surface shimmering with ripples spreading layer upon layer.
This should have been a wonderfully peaceful, tranquil scene, one that stirred the heart's longing.
Yet arrows swarmed over the river like locusts, war drums thundered, torches blazed by the thousands, and hundreds of great ships crisscrossed the water, shattering its peace.
Over six hundred great ships had gathered here, their sails woven thick across the river, arrows crossing through the air, gongs and drums clamoring to the heavens. Tens of thousands of warriors were locked in bitter combat aboard the ships, fighting valiantly in fierce clashes; flames soared over the river as more than a dozen ships burned, surrounded by countless pieces of broken timber and scattered corpses.
Beneath the surface, the war drums had frightened most of the fish into fleeing in every direction; some ferocious aquatic beasts and demons, however, had been drawn by the smell of blood and lurked underwater, waiting for food.
Ren Daoxing, Dragon Head of the Seventeen Linked Forts, stood on the uppermost deck of a great ship, gazing at the battlefield ahead.
This ship had originally been a five-fanged military warship, magnificent in build, with a hold rated at eighteen thousand liao. Condemned for being "old and in disrepair," it had been bought by the Seventeen Linked Forts and converted into a civilian vessel.
Now, however, this so-called "civilian vessel" bore no resemblance to one. Its twenty Scorpion Crossbows, ten Eight-Armed Giant Crossbows, and nearly three hundred crossbowmen poured an