Xiao Feng’s intervention in the Jurchen-Khitan clash turns a bear hunt into an armed confrontation, then uses his formidable skill not to destroy either side but to force a retreat. The episode places his personal loyalties under immediate pressure: the Jurchens have welcomed him as a friend, while the Khitans are his own people. He resolves the crisis by seizing their commander and making the two forces’ survival depend on his restraint.

Background and the hunt

The clash begins during a spring bear hunt in the northern mountains. Wanyan Aguda invites Xiao Feng to join a party of Jurchen hunters, explaining that a bear provides valuable fur, fat, meat, and gall used in treating injuries. Xiao Feng accepts after seeing that A'Zi’s condition has improved enough for him to leave her in the care of others. The party follows a bear’s deep tracks out of muddy woodland and onto open grassland.

The Jurchen setting is already one of hospitality and mutual regard. Earlier, the chief HeLiBu had received Xiao Feng as an honoured guest despite knowing he was Khitan, because the Jurchens admired worthy fighters and Aguda had praised him. At the hunt, that welcome becomes a personal obligation: Aguda and his companions are not simply people caught in a battle, but friends whom Xiao Feng believes he must protect.

The clash and divided allegiance

As the hunters move across the plain, they hear horns and see a large mounted force pursuing the bear. The force numbers roughly seventy or eighty riders, armed with spears and bows. Aguda recognizes them as Khitans, sees that his party is outnumbered, and calls for a retreat. Xiao Feng, however, remains where he is. He feels an intimate connection to the Khitans as his own people and pauses, uncertain which side he should support.

The uncertainty becomes sharper when the Khitans shoot at the Jurchens without first establishing who they are. Xiao Feng plucks away arrows aimed at him, but an old Jurchen hunter is struck and dies. Aguda’s party takes cover on a slope and returns fire, while the Khitan force keeps advancing. Xiao Feng knocks down two Khitan riders who charge him with spears, but does not kill them; he has intervened to stop their attack without turning his strength into a campaign against his own people.

A red-robed commander directs the Khitan advance. His men spread into two wings, cutting off the Jurchens’ route of escape, and their arrows bring down more hunters. The Jurchens shoot back, killing ten Khitan riders, but they are too heavily outnumbered to hold their ground. By then, only Aguda and five young men remain with Xiao Feng. The others from the hunting party have been killed, and the open grassland offers nowhere to hide.

Capturing the commander

Xiao Feng concludes that simply killing his way through the Khitans would mean slaughtering many of his own people. To stop both sides from inflicting further losses, he chooses instead to capture the commander and make him order a withdrawal. He calls out in Khitan, warning the troops to retreat, but they respond with thrown spears. He then charges toward the red-robed man through their weapons.

As he advances, Xiao Feng catches a spear and breaks it, using part of it to deflect weapons aimed at him. Near the commander, he catches two javelins and sends them back, knocking the man’s guards from their horses. He redirects a third javelin into the commander’s horse, then seizes the commander as he dismounts and escapes the spears closing behind him. Mounted on another rider’s horse, Xiao Feng holds the commander and demands that he tell his men to stop fighting.

The Khitans surround him rather than immediately withdrawing, so Xiao Feng keeps the commander as leverage. When they are ordered to move back, they do not leave the field. Recognizing that the flat, open ground would let them resume pursuit if he released their leader, Xiao Feng demands eight horses for Aguda’s party. He then orders the Khitan troops to kill the horses they are riding, depriving them of the mounts needed to follow. The commander gives both orders; his soldiers obey, demonstrating the authority he exercises over them.

Xiao Feng further threatens consequences if anyone pursues. The commander, despite his anger at being held, orders his troops to return. When he adds an order to assemble the men and horses and destroy the Jurchen settlements, Xiao Feng does not release him at once. He waits for Aguda and the five survivors to mount the eight horses and ride east, back along their route. Only after seeing that the Khitans have not pursued does he move to another mount and allow the commander to ride independently.

Outcome and significance

Aguda and the surviving hunters reach their camp and report the encounter to HeLiBu: the Khitans attacked them, Xiao Feng rescued them, and they brought back the enemy’s commander. Xiao Feng’s action has prevented the surviving Jurchens from being overtaken, but the encounter is not presented as a bloodless rescue: the old hunter and other Jurchen companions have died, and ten Khitan riders were shot by the hunters. The withdrawal ends the immediate fighting rather than undoing its costs.

The episode’s central choice is to act across an ethnic division without pretending that the division has disappeared. Xiao Feng does not join the Khitan force merely because he recognizes them as his own people, nor does he answer their attack by killing indiscriminately. He protects the Jurchens who have shown him hospitality while limiting harm to the Khitans through capture and coercion of their commander. His restraint is practical as well as ethical: a hostage, orders, and the destruction of pursuit mounts achieve what a killing spree could not. In that balance between allegiance and obligation, the clash anticipates the larger pressure of border warfare, where collective labels can place neighbours and communities on opposing sides even when an individual refuses to reduce every person to an enemy.