The morning of the forty-fifth day after the start of the calculations was foggy. It was impossible to see the calculating formation, enveloped in mist, from the dais. Soldiers in the formation could see no farther than about five men.
But the calculating formation’s operation was designed to be unaffected by the fog and continued. Shouted orders and the hoofbeats of the light cavalry on the main communication line echoed in the haze.
However, those soldiers in the north of the calculating formation heard something else. At first, the noise came intermittently and seemed illusory, but soon the noise grew louder and formed a continuous boom, like thunder coming from the depths of the fog.
The noise came from the hooves of thousands of horses. A powerful division of cavalry approached the calculating formation from the north, and the banner of the state of Yan flew at their head. The riders moved slowly, forcing their horses to maintain ranks. They knew they had plenty of time.
Only when the riders were about a third of a mile from the edge of the calculating formation did they begin the charge. By the time the vanguard of the cavalry had torn into the calculating formation, the Qin soldiers didn’t even get a proper look at their enemies. In this initial charge, tens of thousands of Qin soldiers died just from being trampled under the hooves of the attacking riders.
What followed was not a battle at all, but a massacre. Before the battle, the Yan commanders already knew that they would not meet with meaningful resistance. In order to increase the efficiency of the slaughter, the riders abandoned the traditional cavalry weapons, long-handled lances and halberds, and instead equipped themselves with swords and morning stars. The several hundred thousand Yan heavy cavalry became a death-dealing cloud, and wherever they rode, the bodies of Qin soldiers carpeted the land.
In order to avoid giving warning to the core of the calculating formation, the Yan riders killed in silence, as though they were machines, not men. But the screams of the dying Qin soldiers, whether cut down or trampled, spread far and wide in the thick fog.
However, all the Qin soldiers in the calculating formation had been trained under threat of death to ignore outside interference and to devote themselves single-mindedly to the simple task of acting as calculating components. Combined with the disguise provided by the thick fog, the result was that most of the calculating formation did not realize the northern edge of the formation was already under attack. As the death-dealing region slowly and orderly ate through the formation, turning it into piles of corpses strewn over blood-soaked, muddy ground, the rest of the formation continued to calculate as before, even though more and more errors began to plague the system.
Behind the first wave of cavalry, more than a hundred thousand Yan archers loosened volleys from their long bows, aimed at the heart of the calculating formation. In a few moments, millions of arrows fell like a thunderstorm, and almost every arrow found a target.
Only then did the calculating formation start to fall apart. At the same time, information of the enemy attack began to spread, increasing the chaos. The light cavalry on the main communication line carried reports of the sudden attack, but as the situation deteriorated, the main passage became blocked, and the panicked riders began to trample through the densely packed phalanx. Countless Qin soldiers thus died under the hooves of friendly forces.
On the eastern, southern, and western edges of the calculating formation, which weren’t under attack, Qin soldiers began to retreat without any semblance of order. Amidst the utter lack of information and broken chain of command, the retreat was slow and confused. The calculating formation, now purposeless, became like a thick, concentrated bubble of ink that refused to dissolve in water, with only wispy tendrils leaving at the edges.
Those Qin soldiers running toward the east were soon stopped by the disciplined ranks of the Qi army. Instead of charging, the Qi commanders ordered the infantry and cavalry to form impregnable defensive lines to wait for the escaping Qin soldiers to enter the trap before surrounding them and beginning the slaughter.
The only direction left for the remainder of the hopeless Qin army, now without any will to fight, was toward the southwest. Hundreds of thousands of unarmed men poured over the plains like a dirty flood. But they soon encountered a third enemy force: unlike the disciplined armies from Yan and Qi, this third force consisted of the ferocious riders of the Huns. They tore into the Qin army like wolves into a flock of sheep and quickly overwhelmed them.
The slaughter continued until noon, when the strong breeze from the west lifted the fog, and the wide expanse of the battlefield was exposed to the glare of the midday sun.
The Yan, Qi, and Hun armies had combined in multiple places, surrounding what remained of the Qin army in small pockets. The cavalry of the three armies continued to charge the Qin soldiers, leaving the wounded and the few escapees to be mopped up by the infantry. Oxen formations, urged on by fire, and catapults were also put into operation to kill the remaining Qin men even more efficiently.
By evening, the sorrowful notes of battle horns echoed over a field covered with bodies and crisscrossed by rivulets of blood. The final survivors of the Qin army were now surrounded in three shrinking pockets.
The night that followed had a full moon. The pure, cold moon floated impassively over the slaughter below, bathing the mountains of corpses and seas of blood in its calm, liquid light. The killing continued throughout the night and wasn’t over until the next morning.
The army of the Qin Empire was entirely eliminated.
One month later, the allied forces of Qi and Yan entered Xianyang and captured King Zheng. The Qin Empire was over.
The day selected for the execution of King Zheng was another day when the sun and the moon appeared together. The moon floated in the azure sky like a snowflake.
The monument that had been intended for Jing Ke still hung in the air. King Zheng sat below it, waiting for the Yan executioner to cut the oxhide rope.
Jing Ke walked out of the crowd observing the execution, still dressed all in white. He came before King Zheng and bowed. “Your Majesty.”
“In your heart, you’ve always remained a Yan assassin,” the king said. He did not look up at Jing Ke.
“Yes. But I didn’t want to just kill you. I also needed to eliminate your army. If I had succeeded a few years ago in killing you, Qin would have remained powerful. Advised by brilliant strategists and led by veteran commanders, the million-strong Qin army would still have posed an unstoppable threat to Yan.”
King Zheng asked the last question of his life. “How could you have sent so many men so close to my army without my notice?”
“During the year when the calculating formation was being trained and operating, Yan and Qi focused on digging tunnels. Each tunnel was many miles long and wide enough to allow cavalry to pass through. It was my idea to use these tunnels to allow the allies to bypass your sentries and appear suddenly near the defenseless calculating formation.”
King Zheng nodded and said nothing more. He closed his eyes to wait to die. The supervising official gave the order, and an executioner began to climb up the platform, a knife held between his teeth.
King Zheng heard movements next to him. He opened his eyes and saw that Jing Ke was sitting next to him.
“Your Majesty, we’ll die together. When the heavy stone falls, it will become a monument to both of us. Our blood and flesh will mix together. Perhaps this will give you some comfort.”
“What is the point of this?” King Zheng asked coldly.