Chapter Ninety-Six: Commanding Ten Thousand Men in Battle

Thanks to An Chao and Brother Xuji for the generous tips again, and thanks to swsw123 as well. I said there would be extra updates, but these two chapters flow directly into each other, and I did not want to spoil everyone’s appetite, so I decided to post them together. The third chapter for today is coming right away. Please recommend and bookmark if you can. Many thanks to everyone.

At the hillside, with Wei Qing at the center, the Han cavalry unit stands ready under the setting sun.

Clang, clang, clang...

A string of crisp rings echoed out as Wei Qing, played by Deng Chao, rode along the flank of his cavalry column, galloping sideways. The long sword in his hand kept striking the lances of the first line of riders, even drawing sharp whinnies from the warhorses.

“Brothers!” At last he had finished racing the length of that long formation. Wei Qing cried out at the top of his voice. “From this day on, you are my brothers. Ahead of us are the Xiongnu; behind us is the Han. We have nowhere to retreat to! Would you watch your families be looted by them? Would you watch your brothers and sisters be violated by them? Never! In today’s battle, there is death and no survival! I, Wei Qing, will die with you all. I will lead you to your deaths!”

“Roar!”

A thunderous bellow rose up, and by then no one could really hear what anyone else was saying. There were simply too many men, and the wind was too fierce.

“Who says we have no armor? We will share the same robes. The king orders his armies into the field; mend my spears and halberds. We will share the same enmity...”

Deng Chao murmured the verses, and little by little all the riders began to sing along.

Clatter, clatter, clatter...

The cavalry began to move. At first it was slow, a gradual build-up of speed, because on a real battlefield horses had to be preserved; they could not be driven mad from a long way off.

Clatter, clatter, clatter...

The pace grew faster and faster. The spacing between the riders widened, and at last they could level their lances. The formation itself changed as well. The entire cavalry force, ten thousand strong, now looked like a great bird with its wings spread, sweeping straight toward the enemy line.

“Cut! Okay, that’s a wrap!”

Wu Xiang was holding a loudspeaker now, shouting toward the charging cavalry, because there was not a single enemy in front of them at all.

It was perfect. Perfect to the extreme.

Just now, Wu Xiang had felt his blood run hot all over. The spectacle was too overwhelming: ten thousand men, mounted on horses, thundering and crashing across this vast grassland, and under the glow of the setting sun it was as though they were about to swallow mountains and rivers whole.

At last Wu Xiang understood what it felt like to command ten thousand men in battle. It was enough to raise gooseflesh all over your body.

Taken a little further, it was no wonder people were so drawn to power. Power was like a feast of rare delicacies: ancient emperors, dictators in modern history, those men must all have tasted that ultimate flavor, one that could become addictive.

For this scene, the cavalry charge down the hillside was shot in a long take. That was partly influenced by Teacher Han Xiaolei. Wu Xiang felt long takes were especially suited to this scene, because there were no shifts in viewpoint in the middle of it, which made the immersion stronger and the image more beautiful.

A long take, strictly speaking, is any shot that lasts more than ten seconds. This downhill charge lasted at least half a minute. But Wu Xiang made several adjustments within that long take: he brought in a high-speed camera, laid track, used a crane arm, and even borrowed a helicopter. The high-speed camera made the transition from slow to fast even more graceful, while the aerial view from the helicopter gave the entire scene greater scale.

In other words, this was a composite of long takes. Each long take was like a fist, and Wu Xiang wanted to use this combination punch to daze the audience, to leave them stunned.

In any case, to achieve the effect he wanted, Wu Xiang threw caution to the wind. He stopped caring about budgets or costs. Let the money fly. Let the silver scatter.

Not all ten thousand riders could actually ride well, but with Wu Xiang’s little invention and the crew members who had already trained fairly well, everyone helped one another during rehearsals, and the mounted combat without stirrups posed no real problem.

Next there was another cavalry scene, also for the Han army. This time it was a unit led by Huo Qubing. There were fewer men in this cavalry force, but the downhill charge still had to be filmed once.

The method was essentially the same as for Wei Qing’s scene. Only the hillside changed, and the number of riders was reduced to five thousand. They would charge again.

Nothing much changed, except for the actor playing Huo Qubing, who had a few things worth saying.

Wu Xiang had searched for quite a while. Huo Qubing was no simple role: a teenage hero, dead young, and to be honest he did not have many scenes. Yet he was a very important character, no less significant than Wei Qing in the war against the Xiongnu. So who should play him?

The film academies and the drama schools were full of handsome young men, but Wu Xiang felt this role called for someone more masculine. In the end, he picked one person.

Ji Ta. That was the young man, a student from the class of 1999 at the Film Academy. Wu Xiang chose him partly because the boy had a very well-developed chest, and partly because, when he had still been working in television, he seemed to have heard that the boy’s cousin was Zhang Jiayi.

Whatever the case, they might as well make use of that connection. Besides, the boy had the build, the height, and that fierce look about him. He seemed well suited to playing Huo Qubing.

This scene was also filmed without incident, and afterward came a major battle formation sequence.

Not on horseback this time. It was infantry in formation, still ten thousand men strong.

In truth, the cavalry scene from earlier had been inspired by King Theoden’s charge in the third Lord of the Rings film. All right, that was a bit of imitation, but this was high-level imitation.

And besides, that film had not even been released yet. More importantly, the background and culture were entirely different.

So what about this infantry formation?

This time the infantry formation was mainly for arrow volleys. There were bows and crossbows among the props, and arrows of course, so this shot naturally...

All right, it was definitely inspired by Hero. Director Zhang Yimou’s handling of that scene was truly outstanding. But there was a problem: Hero had relied on computer effects, whereas Wu Xiang had already laid out such an enormous production that the budget simply did not allow for any serious digital effects. What was he supposed to do?

Use the high-speed camera again? That would not help.

As for the perspective from the arrowhead itself, Wu Xiang definitely could not shoot that. What he could shoot was the process of loosing the arrows, and the process of blocking them with shields.

Form ranks!

Ten thousand men arrayed themselves on a broad stretch of level grassland. It was a sea of heads and shoulders, stretching beyond sight. The formation had spear bearers and shield bearers in front, with bowmen and crossbowmen behind.

Wu Xiang first gave a wide establishing shot, then had Ning Hao take a handheld camera to the front of the ranks to capture close-ups of the soldiers.

“Raise!”

The armored messenger shouted.

Rustle!

In perfect unison, the bowmen and crossbowmen drew and nocked their arrows.

“Fire!”

With a bang, it was truly a thousand arrows launched at once.

Only the launch itself could be filmed; the arrows in flight were beyond them. Even so, it was no easy thing. Wu Xiang arranged cameras from three angles: helicopter, long shot, and medium close-up. That still was not enough. They had to shoot several more volleys for close-ups, so there would be plenty to cut into the final edit later.

What they were firing now were real arrows. They had to aim for realism. The bows were genuine props, but the crossbows could not be made in-house. They were too expensive, far too expensive, too expensive to even think about buying. So they were rented from prop houses, and not just one of them, but several. It could probably be said that at this moment, nearly all the imitation ancient bows and crossbows in the whole of China had converged on Bayan Nur for this one production. And that cost Wu Xiang more than three million yuan.

Whether those crossbows were truly representative of the Han era no longer concerned Wu Xiang. Besides, he believed the audience would not be that fussy. A coat of paint, a roughly correct color, and that was enough.

But they were not done yet. They still had to keep filming.

“Fifth Five-One Regiment, Sixth Company! On my command, march!”

“One-two-one! One-two-one!...”

“Fifth Five-One Regiment, Seventh Company! March!”

Those commands rang across the Bayan Nur grassland. The spear-bearing soldiers marched forward, and even a great many of the bowmen and crossbowmen in the rear were brought out as well.

What was this for? It was not over yet.

Change clothes!

The remaining bowmen and crossbowmen began to change costume, and very quickly they became Xiongnu soldiers.

“Loose!”

Another order rang out. This time it was not a thousand arrows at once. There were not enough men for that now. Only several thousand remained, and their arrowheads had also been replaced, most of them white, like bone.

Bang! Bang!...

The bowstrings gave off low, muffled sounds. This time Wu Xiang shot only medium close-ups, without any helicopter panoramas.

Then those infantrymen who had marched out arrived on a stretch of grass where there was nothing at all. The destination of the arrows earlier was not here, but now the soldiers raised their shields.

“Raise!”

“Fire!”

At last the “Xiongnu soldiers” began to shoot. At last they had targets.

Ding ding ding, clang clang clang...

The sound was very pleasing to the ear. This shot showed the Han troops being pelted by Xiongnu arrows, though in reality the arrows had all been fired by the “comrades” who had just been fighting alongside them.

Of course, the arrows fired this time were fake, very light, with little force behind them.

The war scenes were all set at dusk. Wu Xiang felt that the light at that hour was especially suitable for filming battle scenes: slightly dim, yet tinged with red. Combined with color grading, it could convey the grim and murderous air of a battlefield and bring an invisible pressure to bear on the viewer. It also made post-production editing easier, much like the way each mentor on a certain singing show wore the same clothes every episode.

Though he said dusk, in fact they could also shoot at daybreak, because dawn light and sunset light were not all that different. So the main working hours for the crew of The Great Emperor Wu of Han were early morning and evening.

What about all the time in between? Of course they could not sit idle. For example, after the arrow volleys, there had to be reactions. Was anyone wounded? Surely there had to be a few arrows stuck in the shields. And at the very least, some people had to fall.

Those were close-ups, and they required a bit of sleight of hand. The arrows that were shot into people were fake, extremely light, but the ones lodged in shields had to be real.

To be honest, that was practically a special-effects shot. Wu Xiang and the others were not yet up to the job, and at the very least they had no experience at all. But a living man cannot be strangled by a puddle of urine.

Wu Xiang discussed it with several teachers who had worked on the filming of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Back then, the arrow shots in that drama had looked terribly fake, not because they did not want them to look real, but because they simply did not have the technology.

Wu Xiang understood as well that the breathtaking shots seen in later years all depended on high-tech visual effects and computer animation.

But what could he do now? They did not have the money for that.

Go from the specific to the general.

First, set up a tent to block the harsh sun. Then shoot close-ups of a few people, still using the high-speed camera. After filming those shots, they could be inserted during editing, and the result would be excellent.

Whoosh!

Bang!

An arrowhead slammed hard into a shield, still trembling faintly from the force.

First one person. Wu Xiang even found an archery athlete to help with the shoot. They had rehearsed several times before, so the safety margin should be enough. Then they shot a few more people, and all those shots would be cut together in post-production. That would do the job.

That was the shield-versus-arrow shot. What about arrows striking bodies?

That was even easier to film, and much safer. The arrow shafts were very long. One person would hold the tail of the arrow and thrust it forcefully into a warrior’s armor. The armor had already been tampered with in advance, so once the arrow went in, blood would start to spurt from it. In this way they could thrust several more in without any trouble.

They just stabbed at one another, really. It was rather amusing.

The quivering arrows, the beads of blood scattering through the air, all of it looked so real, so brilliant, under the high-speed camera. And by adjusting the focus to blur the other soldiers gathered around watching, it gave the impression that they were blurred out because they were doing nothing but standing there as spectators. As long as these shots were later inserted in post-production, the entire battle scene would be flawless.

Everything in the shoot was carried out according to the best possible plan, at the fastest speed and highest efficiency. Yet there was something rather funny about it, because the ten thousand men Wu Xiang was commanding were, in effect, beating up their own people.

But in practice, the filming moved far more slowly than that, because changing clothes, changing weapons, and changing formations all took time. On top of that, the weather kept changing too, so some days they could only shoot a tiny fragment of the scene.