Battle of Dakan Plains & Hi Shin Unit Formation

Shin enlists in the Qin army as an infantry foot soldier and fights his first formal battles in the war against the state of Wei, distinguishing himself enough to be granted command of his own one-hundred-man unit — the Hi Shin Unit — under Great General Wang Yi.

Where the opening arc was a personal political thriller, the Battle of Dakan Plains arc is the series' first proper war manga. Shin enlists in the Qin army as the lowest possible foot soldier and fights through a campaign against Wei that introduces the entire vocabulary of [Kingdom](/manga-series/kingdom)'s military fiction: the formal unit hierarchy from five-man squads up to thousand-man divisions, the role of strategists in shaping the geometry of the battlefield, the specific tactical signatures of named generals on both sides, and the way that personal heroism on the frontline can shift the course of an engagement that contains tens of thousands of men. The arc introduces the cast of supporting characters who will remain central for decades. Mou Ten and Ou Hon, two young noble-born sons of legendary generals, fight alongside Shin as rival peers from privileged backgrounds. Strategist Kaine, the elder Bi Hei, and the survivors of the original village squad form the nucleus of what will become the Hi Shin Unit. Above them, Hara introduces the Six Great Generals — the legendary Qin commanders of the previous generation, of whom only General Ouki survives — and frames the entire series' martial cosmology as a question of who among the new generation will inherit their place. The arc's climax comes with the formal recognition of Shin's leadership. Having distinguished himself in the campaign through deeds that even battle-hardened veterans recognize as exceptional, Shin is granted command of his own hundred-man unit and the right to name it. He chooses Hi Shin Unit, after his fallen brother Hyou. The arc closes with the Hi Shin Unit standing for the first time as a discrete military formation — the unit through which the rest of the series' battles will be told.