Chapter 191: Revelry, Ambition, and Hunger

Ligdan Khan spoke, but his first matter was not the current campaign — it was a defection that had happened a few months earlier.

"The Aohan and Naiman tribes went over to the Jurchen in the east, but Hong Taiji refused to take them in."

"With no other choice, some fled south, and another five thousand or so came running back."

He gave a cold laugh, dripping with contempt.

"From among them, pick a hundred who still look the part and fill out my bodyguard. The rest, let the various tribes divide among themselves."

"Those who have betrayed once have no right to enter this khan's tent again!"

The assembled chiefs answered in unison.

Some of the petty tribal leaders were positively beaming.

A hundred or so men meant nothing to the great tribes, but they would hardly turn up their noses at them.

Ligdan Khan's gaze swept across the crowd once more, and a smug smile crept onto his face.

"When I first decided on the westward migration, many of you were afraid in your hearts, full of doubt. And now? How does it feel?"

Agula immediately rose and laughed heartily. "The Khan's wisdom is supreme! These western tribes are gentler than sheep! Their blades are dull, their arrows are soft — they can do nothing but wail and flee!"

"Right! I took only fifty men and plundered a tribe with over a thousand sheep!"

"They even had southern women in their tents!"

"The Tumed are far too soft — hahaha! I charged with three hundred riders, lost barely a dozen men, and over a thousand of them just ran!"

The chieftains in the tent chimed in one after another, vying to boast of their own spoils.

Guiyingqia also rushed forward and declared loudly, "Great Khan! The old emperor of the Southern Court is dead, and a green boy has taken his place — this is an opportunity sent by the Buddha!"

"I've heard Han storytellers say the world is a three-legged cauldron. The Jurchen hold one leg now, the Ming hold another, and we naturally hold the third!"

He looked around, his eyes glinting with greed and fanaticism.

"Let us first crush every last spineless wretch south of the Gobi, then go deal with those who refuse to submit north of the desert!"

"When the time comes, we shall sit here on the steppe, drinking kumiss, and watch the other two legs fight it out!"

"Once they've battered each other to stumps, Your Khan's iron cavalry will sweep south — and the great enterprise of Genghis Khan shall live again!"

These words were like a bucket of strong liquor hurled into a fire pit — the entire khan's tent boiled over.

"Unify the steppe!"

"Long live the Khan!"

Hearing the wild shouts of his men, Ligdan Khan finally burst into roaring laughter.

He rose to his feet, and the fire pit cast his shadow upon the tent wall, like a demon god.

"These past days, we have torn at Bushitu's flesh like a pack of wolves. The petty tribes under him — we have all but swept them away."

"Gift after gift has been delivered to the Tumed's tent. Can they endure it?"

"They won't endure it much longer!"

"The moment these soft creatures venture out of their stockade, we will fall upon them like wolves tearing into sheep and crush them utterly!"

"Once we take the Blue City, those mountains of grain, those seas of silk, and those grass-like masses of people and livestock — all of it will be ours!"

Ligdan Khan slashed his hand down heavily. "All of it!"

Greedy eyes fixed upon him one after another. Whether or not they had seized anything these past few days, everyone had seen with their own eyes how feeble the Tumed tribes were.

Compared to the Ming army and the Jurchen in Liaodong, they were far, far easier to fight!

This Khan — it seemed he truly had played a masterstroke this time.

No one knew who shouted it first: "Decisive battle!"

In moments, battle cries rose and fell in waves, nearly lifting the roof off the khan's tent.

"Decisive battle!"

"Decisive battle!"

But at that moment, Ligdan Khan slowly raised his hand and pressed it downward.

His gaze fell upon an old lama in a crimson robe seated in the front row — the Red Sect Living Buddha who had crowned him since his youth, the Khutuktu.

He gestured with his hand and said, "Grand Preceptor, read the omens of this battle for us."

The lama was gaunt and withered as a wind-dried branch, his face dark and lined with knife-carved wrinkles.

Without a word, he walked slowly to the fire pit at the center of the tent, drew a pure white sheep's shoulder blade from his robes, and cast it into the blazing cow-dung fire.

From the cow-dung fire, a tongue of green-blue flame eerily leapt up.

Everyone held their breath, watching this sacred sight with awe.

The flames licked the bone, which crackled and popped.

The lama chanted under his breath, his eyes fixed intently on the black cracks slowly emerging on the bone's surface.

After a long while, he lifted the searing shoulder blade with fire tongs, studied it for a moment, and then spoke in a hoarse, aged voice.

"The fire's light reveals: the clouds and mist shall part. Golden radiance shall illuminate the west; the eagle shall soar beneath the sun…"

At these words, the greed and excitement on the faces of those in the tent could no longer be contained, as if they already saw mountains of treasure and women piled before them.

The lama paid no heed to their reaction. His withered fingers traced the cracks on the bone, and his voice grew more wavering and unfathomable.

"But… at the cracks' end, a trace of shadow also appears. Winds from the high plateau will carry some dust and sand — perhaps enough to blind the eagle's eyes."

The moment the lama finished, the tent fell silent for an instant, then erupted in even louder jeering laughter. No one took it seriously in the slightest.

"Hah! Wind and sand? Which of us Mongol men wasn't raised in wind and sand!"

"An eagle afraid of wind and sand? What a joke!"

Ligdan Khan laughed all the harder, rocking back and forth. He snatched a golden cup from a serving girl, drained the kumiss in one gulp, and declared wildly,

"Well said! A little dust and sand is just the thing to hone my golden blade!"

He hurled the golden cup to the ground, swept his gaze over the assembly, his eyes blazing with unbridled pride.

"A true eagle sees the windblown sand as mere ornament as it beats its wings and soars!"

He paused, then laughed loudly.

"Tonight — meat and drink until the herds are bare, wine and kumiss until the skins run dry! Let us celebrate in advance the victory that is soon to be ours!"

"No one leaves until they're dead drunk!"

Amid mountain-shaking, sea-surging roars of assent, everyone raised their cups.

The great hall brimmed with nothing but hunger for victory.

That small warning from the lama was utterly drowned in the clamor.

They had said no one would leave until dead drunk — but after all, this was still wartime.

The company feasted for only a short while before Consort Suta stepped forward and urged a few words of restraint, and then each man took his leave and dispersed.

Guiyingqia's steps were a little unsteady too; he stumbled his way back to his own tent.

His tent, by the standards of the whole camp, could be counted as quite luxurious.

Thick carpets covered the ground; in the corners sat several pieces of gold and silver vessels plundered from the Central Plains; the brazier burned coal rather than the common herdsman's cow dung, making it warm as spring.

Yet this luxury, set beside Ligdan Khan's khan-tent — which was like a palace — seemed dim and faded, everywhere betraying the rules of "one grade lower" or even "two grades lower."

A young servant silently came forward to meet him, half-knelt on the ground, and prepared to remove his armor.

The wine had just gone to Guiyingqia's head; his body swayed, and his hand swung backward without thinking.

The servant had no time to dodge. The heavy vambrace slammed into his face with a bang.

The servant Bater let out a muffled grunt of pain; blood instantly gushed from his nose. Yet he clenched his teeth tightly, not daring to raise a hand to wipe it, only lowering his head further and continuing the work at hand, as if that face did not belong to him at all.

Guiyingqia's wife, Ligdan Khan's younger sister — Taisong Gulun — emerged from the inner tent.

She was broad of beam and thick of waist; her face, though not exactly ugly, had not the slightest connection to grace or beauty, yet between her brows sat an inborn arrogance.

In her hand she held a leg of mutton, gnawing at it idly.

"What took you so long to get back?"

At the sight of his wife, it was as if all the strength had been drained from Guiyingqia in an instant. He staggered and caught hold of the tent's central pillar, his eyes turning exceptionally bleary, and slurred thickly: "Taisong! My good Gulun! You've come at just the right moment!"

He waved his arms, spittle flying.

"Listen! We… we are about to take Qingcheng! Haha!"

"When that time comes, the Khan will be the one and only khan upon these steppes! The one and only!"

Guiyingqia's eyes looked somewhat fanatical in the firelight; he seemed to be speaking for Taisong to hear, and also seemed to be speaking for himself to hear.

"This realm under heaven, when the time comes, will be divided into three! The Khan is Liu Bei, the Jurchen are Cao Cao, and as for that Han Emperor down south — he is nothing but a rat of Jiangdong!"

"And I! I, Guiyingqia!" He puffed out his chest and thumped it heavily. "I am the Khan's Zhao Zilong of Changshan! I will fight my way in and out seven times for the Khan in Qingcheng!"

Taisong curled her lip; she had long since lost interest in Guiyingqia's talk.

In her eyes, her husband was simply the fiercest dog under her brother's command.

In any case, as long as it was a dog, there wasn't much difference.

If this one died, there'd be another one next.

"Blaaargh—"

Before the words had faded, a torrent of filth suddenly spewed from Guiyingqia's mouth, splashing across the gorgeous carpet; the sour stench instantly filled the air.

Taisong jumped backward like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, pinching her nose, her face full of undisguised disgust.

She could not even be bothered to glance at Guiyingqia; she kicked the terrified, frozen young servant directly with the toe of her boot and barked:

"What are you standing there gaping for? Drag him onto the bed!"

"Yes! Yes!"

Bater hurriedly ran over and, exerting every ounce of strength he had, dragged the dead-drunk, mud-like Guiyingqia onto the bed.

Taisong pointed at the filth on the ground and said to Bater again: "Clean it up before you leave."

With that, she casually tossed the mutton leg — gnawed down to scraps — at Bater's feet.

"This leg of mutton, I'm giving it to you."

Bater had no time to wipe the bloodstains from his face; he dropped to his knees with a thud, kowtowed heavily, and, overwhelmed with gratitude, picked up the bone and tucked it into his bosom: "Many thanks, Gulun! Many thanks, Gulun!"

He swiftly cleaned the floor, then bowed and withdrew from the tent.

On the bed, Guiyingqia let out heavy snores. He turned over and mumbled indistinctly: "Water… I want water…"

"I know! I know! So noisy!"

Taisong answered impatiently, turned and took a leather waterskin from the rack, walked to the bedside, and, without even looking, simply dropped it onto Guiyingqia's body.

She turned and sat before the bronze mirror on the dressing table, picking through the few pieces of jewelry that had been sent back today.

But what good goods could a petty tribe possibly have?

Before long, Taisong lost interest, turned and came to the bedside, and lay down heavily.

Soon, thunderous snores rose up.

Inside the tent, for a time, there remained only the faint crackling of the coal burning in the brazier.

No one knows how much later, in the darkness, Guiyingqia slowly opened his eyes.

Those eyes held not the slightest trace of drunkenness.

He stared quietly at the tent roof, his face utterly expressionless.

Still echoing in his ears, it seemed, were the clamor of the feast — the flattery, sincere or feigned, of those tribal chieftains; Ligdan Khan's proud and complacent smile; and his own wife's undisguised arrogance.

He, Guiyingqia, was a tribal chieftain, had married the Khan's own sister — yet he still lived in a tent "one grade lower," used vessels "one grade lower," and even his own wife looked down on him.

By what right?

By what right must he live beneath another man?

In the darkness, his fist slowly clenched tight, his nails digging deep into his palm.

He remembered those Han merchants who had dealings with him, always wagging their heads and reciting words he could not understand but felt were profoundly true.

One of those sayings, once he had grasped its meaning, he could never forget.

— Are kings and lords, generals and ministers born to their kind?

That line spread through his heart like a wildfire across the steppe, raging unchecked.

Only after a long while did he close his eyes again, his breathing growing even and deep, and this time, he truly sank into heavy sleep.

When Bater crept back into his own tent, stooping low like a shadow, what greeted him was a darkness so cold it nearly froze a man solid.

His home was less a tent than a jumble of worn-out felt and wooden poles, drafty from every side.

Inside were crammed his wife and three children; the air was thick with a faint sour-milk smell and the clinging stench of poverty.

No candle, not even a single oil lamp.

"Back? Have you eaten?" His wife made him out. "Shall I go milk a mare for you?"

Bater shook his head, a trace of mysterious delight on his face.

Carefully, he drew something from his bosom. In the moonlight, it was a sheep bone, still clinging with a few shreds of meat.

"Today the Gurun was merciful, and bestowed a leftover leg bone."

Before the adults could speak, the three older children had already pounced like wolf cubs, crowding around the bone, gnawing and tearing at it greedily, making satisfied whimpering sounds.

They bit down so hard that the bone ground against their teeth with a crunching noise.

Bater and his wife did not move, only watched the children in the moonlight, smiling.

The remaining meat was so little; the children gnawed for a moment, licking even the meat from the crevices until nothing more could be teased out.

The eldest, a child of about seven or eight, simply held out the bare bone toward Bater.

"Aba, we want what's inside!" Temur tilted his head up, looking at his father, his eyes startlingly bright in the darkness.

Bater took the bone, braced it against his knee, gripped both ends, and with a sudden surge of strength — Crack! — the hard sheep bone snapped clean in two.

"Oh-ho!"

The children burst into cheers and crowded around at once, each taking a piece and carefully sucking out the rich marrow inside.

Only when the last trace of oil had been savored dry did the children reluctantly stop.

One by one they nestled into Bater's arms, like a flock of gentle lambs, cuddling softly.

"Aba, want more tomorrow," Temur murmured, rubbing against his chest.

"You want more," Bater said, holding the children, breathing in the faint milky scent on them. The wound throbbing on his face seemed to hurt a little less. "Then tend the sheep well, and practice your bow until your aim is true. When the time comes, Aba will lead you to raid other tribes, and there will be mutton enough to eat forever!"

"I want to raid the Ming!" Temur suddenly lifted his head, his eyes shining. "Ama says they're like lambs in a pen, fat and tender!"

Bater started slightly, then burst into loud laughter, rubbing his son's head roughly.

"Good, good! My Temur, when you grow up, you will surely become a true warrior! Then Aba will lead you to raid the Ming!"

"I've heard that the Ming don't drink mare's milk, but eat the rice grains that only lords eat here. Is that true?" Temur asked, tilting his head up.

"That's right. Aba will tell you, the Ming have everything there, not just rice grains, but also..."

Beneath the moonlight, the tall grass was silent.

The Eternal Blue Heaven merely watched everything unfolding on this steppe, yet altered nothing, and would alter nothing.

After all — the Eternal Blue Heaven had not even intervened in its own passing.