Sweeping epic battle episodes of Kingdom make great viewing, but they’re murder on my memory (and my notepad). So many faces, so many names, so many name readings. It almost seems like it should be illegal to introduce yet more characters at this point, but when you have six kingdoms at war with each other I guess there are going to be a lot of generals.
In the aftermath of last week’s events, Xin and the Fei Xin Force are in a melancholy way despite having achieved something great on the battlefield. I think this is to their credit, because the tragedy of Changping is something that should weigh on the mind of every Qin commander – even ones that weren’t born yet. But Bai is enough of a veteran to know that there’s no time for this sort of introspection at the moment, so he takes it on himself to break Xin out of his funk with some sake. And a kiss, which is kind of an anti-climactic way for that to finally happen – though this sequences does feature some excellent work by Kugimiya Rie.
Biao applies the term “firestarter” to Xin, and the meaning is clear enough even for the inexperienced Xin to understand. He’s out here to be the X-factor, the change the tenor and shape of battles by acting unpredictably. Meanwhile, Linwei’s First Army has been placed under the command of one of those new characters – Wa Lin (Tanaka Atsuko), at the head of the Second Army. Female generals were surely a rarity in warring states China, and they certainly are in Kingdom. She promptly kills Linwei’s adjutant, send his army back into the field with no commander and no support from her own, and does her best impression of an emperor during the fall of Rome.
For Wa Lin to be placed in this position it’s obvious that she must be brilliant. And her strategy is immediately grasped by Li Mu, though not most of his underlings. She sends a message to Li Mu that if he can turn this into a war of attrition for ten days, she can take the Hangu Pass. Just how isn’t explained yet, but the idea of a war of attrition makes a lot of sense. Qin may have home field advantage, meaning shorter supply lines, but the coalition has the edge in numbers. They can afford to lose thousands of men a day in meaningless skirmishes a lot more then Qin can.
As the old generals atop the wall commiserate over how much they hated the six great generals who overshadowed them, and muse over the virtues of not dying young, the attackers keep grinding for an entire week, before the next phase of the attack swings into motion. Cheng Hui and the Han army enter the fray, armed with poison-tipped arrows, and set their sights on Zhang Tang’s head. The defense of the pass and indeed the entire battle is about to enter a new phase, and the advantage is surely about ti swing to the attackers.
