It was all going so swimmingly there for a while, wasn’t it? But I suppose they don’t call Li Mu one of the three greats for nothing. If he’s not a step ahead of everyone else he loses his mystique as a character. Yet he does make mistakes, we’ve seen it. The winning side writes history, and the protagonists of Kingdom are who they are. But for now Li Mu remains the baddest man in the whole damned town, and the greatest thorn in Qin’s side. This was all about proving it.

It’s pretty clear what Wang Jian was saving the Fei Xin for, and what he intended for them to do. With the largely fresh and unscathed Le Hua army bearing down on one side and the Ma Kuang army on the other, Ji Hui is in deep shit and he knows it. Ma Cheng is up against it himself, and Ji Hui refuses to call on him for reinforcements. And that’s before Xin and his completely rested 800 riders shoot the gap between the other two Qin forces and head straight for Ji Hui’s headquarters. At this point it looks like the only question is which commanders will arrive first and claim his head.

A small band of cavalry from Liu Dong’s army, hungry for revenge for their fallen general, heads out to meet the Fei Xin. And that’s a harsh moment for Qian Lei, who has profoundly emotional memories of her time behind enemy lines in Heiyong. But they’re outnumbered 4-1, and up against one of the fiercest foes Qin can throw at them. They’re a speed bump, more or less, and the end appears to be nigh for Ji Hui. But he knows something the others don’t, and that’s about to change in very dramatic fashion.

This, it seems, is a tactic Li Mu has used before with great success. But that was against the Xiongnu in the north. As such Wang Jian has never seen it, and while it may be too early to say definitively, it looks as if he’s played right into Li Mu’s hands. The greed to claim esteemed heads – like Ji Hui’s – has drawn out the likes Ma Kuang. As if appearing from the ether, Li Mu and his his elite “one kill” squadron – even smaller than Xin’s – take the field. And with shocking ease and alacrity, Li Mu claims the head of Ma Kuang. So the tables are turned in brutal fashion, and it’s the Qin army that loses one of its leading generals.

Ma Kuang was important. He was Wang Jian’s most trusted aide, and his seasoned force the backbone of the left flank army. Li Hui knew this was coming, and he makes sure both sides are quickly made aware that Ma Kuang has fallen. The morale on both sides turns on a dime, and the forces of Zhao start to sweep the field. Li Mu turns to flee, his mission accomplished. But Xin – as always flying in the face of logic and cool-headedness – flies off in pursuit, forcing the Fei Xin to follow.

This is another of those dramatic conceit moments that Kingdom does superbly. Obviously as scalps go, they don’t get any bigger than Li Mu. The war is, as Diao says, effectively over if they can claim it. The Zhao horses are faster, but Li Mu hangs back to converse with his pursuer. One would be tempted to say “taunt”, but that’s not Li Mu’s style by a long shot. He respects Xin – who he’s known since he was a teenager – and speaks respectfully to him. But he also makes it clear that Xin’s blade can never reach him. Does his facade crack when Xin announces that it’s Wang Yi’s poleaxe he carries? You bet – Li Mu seems to see an ominous vision at this moment. But the outcome of this skirmish is still clear, and for now he and Xin do more than talk.

As battle-hardened as they are, it’s hard to believe Ma Kuang’s lieutenants would so utterly crack in the moment. But they do, and it’s left to the young guns to try and salvage something from this first day. The Le Hua and the Fei Xin link up. Each young man leads an elite force that’s largely intact, and only they can prevent Ma Kuang’s army from being wiped out. This is the sort of moment that Meng Tian specializes in more than Xin, obviously. He’s soon the one calling the shots, and even Xin defers to the logic of that. His overall strategy is TBD, but the first part of it is disinformation. He calls for the lie that Ma Kuang lives to be trumpeted across the field, loud enough for both sides to hear it. Victory is off the table, but survival is still an achievable goal.