Chapter 591: Ou-Yue

In the thirty-third year of the First Emperor of Qin, in the first month of spring, the northern capital Xianyang still wavered between sudden warmth and lingering cold, its snow not yet fully melted. Yet thousands of li to the south, in the land of Western Ou, green life still flourished abundantly.

The mountains here were not tall but numerous, rising among rivers and lakes, ringed by dense forests. This was the domain of birds and beasts, and the hunting grounds of the Ou-Yue people.

Though the women of Ou-Yue held high status, hunting remained the exclusive domain of men. At the forest's edge, over a hundred Ou-Yue men of short stature, bare-headed and barefoot, gathered together. Some carried bows and arrows on their backs, some held bamboo spears, and some led native dogs on leashes.

Surrounded by them in the center was a hunter with a mallet-shaped topknot and tattooed face, stripped to the waist. He was personally slaughtering a piglet, an offering to the ancestral spirits to bless them with a bountiful hunt.

Short-haired and small in stature, young Adagu cradled his bow, gazing with adoration at his "Tebo"—his father, Yixusong, who was the chieftain of all the Ou-Yue tribes.

However, in times of peace with outsiders, the stockades and tribes were governed by the elderly "Dulao" council. As chieftain, Yixusong's sole duties were leading the men to hunt for meat and defending the village stockade.

The chieftainship passed down through generations. One day Yixusong would grow old, and Adagu would come of age and take up the bow from his hands!

But at least, not yet.

A Yue song, its words sounding sticky and elided, rose from Yixusong's lips.

"To hunt meat deep in the mountains, first light the torches. Let the flames never die along the way, and every man shall grow divine eyes; seek the tracks of prey, and upon entering the mountain you shall find them. Old tracks, new tracks, at a single glance you can tell them apart. Through the grass you shall see them, over the stone slabs you shall see them, climbing up the trees you shall see them, wading through the water you shall see them. No matter if it flies, it cannot escape my eyes."

"Swift in pursuit, as if flying with wings. True in aim when guarding the pass, the spirits guide the arrow. Every shot strikes true, every arrow pierces through. At home they boil water and wait, let no meal be missed. Whoever passes by and sees it shall have a share, only then is everyone's heart at ease."

"Whoever passes by and sees it shall have a share, only then is everyone's heart at ease!"

Over a hundred men loudly repeated this final line. Sharing—this was one reason Ou-Yue was revered by all Yue tribes, who often sought their chieftain to mediate disputes. Unlike the Southern Yue, who favored headhunting for blood sacrifices to their gods and even consumed human flesh, the gods of Ou-Yue were far gentler.

"Adagu."

Before entering the forest, Yixusong called his son over and entrusted to him a tight-lipped young man with cropped hair.

"You take care of A-Mozai."

A-Mozai was also a Yue person, but not of Ou-Yue. He came from the "Gui Kingdom" to the north. Under the oppression of the fearsome "Qin," that tribe had been shattered, its chieftain slain in battle. The Dulao had no choice but to abandon their ancestral land and lead the remnants to seek refuge with Ou-Yue.

The Dulao of Ou-Yue all believed they should not accept these panicked neighbors, who would deplete Ou-Yue's grain and hunting grounds. The shaman, through chicken-bone divination, also concluded that these people would bring disaster upon Ou-Yue.

But Yixusong overruled all objections.

"The Gui Kingdom is also a descendant of Buluotuo, one of the Twelve Kingdoms. Many years ago, when Ou-Yue suffered disaster, it was the Gui Kingdom that helped us. Just a few years ago, we swore a blood oath to aid one another. Now that the Gui Kingdom is in trouble, how can Ou-Yue stand by and do nothing?"

The "kingdom" here did not mean a state; it was merely the Yue language's term for a clan or tribe. But regardless, the chieftain's authority at critical moments was immense, and Ou-Yue ultimately accepted the remnants of the Gui Kingdom.

Yixusong hoped that Ou-Yue would treat the people of the Gui Kingdom as their own kin. He specifically instructed his son to look after A-Mozai, who had lost his father and his homeland.

But Adagu was somewhat reluctant. This A-Mozai had a pair of scrawny arms and probably couldn't even draw a bow, making him useless as a good helper. But since Tebo had given the order, he could only agree.

Before entering the forest, Adagu repeatedly warned A-Mozai: "Watch your step! You absolutely must not step on a frog!"

Seeing A-Mozai's face full of confusion, Adagu explained that stepping on frogs was forbidden because the frog was the god of Ou-Yue.

"Didn't the Dulao and shaman of the Gui Kingdom ever tell you the story of Buluotuo?"

A-Mozai looked a bit embarrassed. "They did, but I didn't listen carefully. I only remembered the matters of the Gui Kingdom and didn't learn about the other tribes."

A sense of superiority swelled in Adagu's heart. The hunting grounds deep in the forest were still far off, so he began to tell A-Mozai about the matter of the Yue people's "Twelve Kingdoms."

The Buluotuo is the epic of the Lingnan Yue people. "Bu" is an honorific for a highly respected elder; "Luo" means to know or understand; "Tuo" means many or to create. "Buluotuo" thus means "the First Ancestor," the earliest forefather of the Yue people.

Legend says that after the creation of heaven and earth, the universe was divided into three realms: upper, middle, and lower. The Thunder King ruled the upper realm, Buluotuo ruled the middle realm, and the Flood Dragon ruled the lower realm. Later, as all things on earth flourished and humanity prospered, Buluotuo consulted with the Thunder King and divided the world into twelve kingdoms.

"One kingdom, the dragon transformed into an ox; one kingdom, marked with wasp stripes; one kingdom, whose voice is like the frog; one kingdom, whose sound is like the goat; one kingdom, where the fish became a dragon..."

Adagu still remembered the Dulao's words. That kingdom "whose voice is like the frog" was Ou-Yue.

It was said that the frog was the son of the Thunder God, sent to the human world. Leaping among the wild grasses, it led the Ou-Yue people to find rice that could be cultivated. The frog also helped the Ou-Yue drive away pests, granting their rice paddies bountiful harvests and causing their population to grow ever larger.

Thus, Ou-Yue worshipped the frog. The great bronze drums they cast were often decorated with three-dimensional frog figures on their faces. One could say the frog was their totem...

"So that's how it is."

After he finished speaking, seeing A-Mozai, who was slightly younger than himself, looking at him with admiration, Adagu's pride swelled even more.

"The Ou-Yue people not only know how to hunt but are also very skilled at growing rice. My name, Dagu, means 'rice grain.' Your name, Mozai, what does it mean?"

"A" was a form of address for young males. Anyone not yet of age had "A" prefixed to their name. Moreover, different Yue tribes had many different local slang and sayings, so not all words were mutually understood.

A-Mozai explained that his name, Moz, meant "ox."

"The god of the Gui Kingdom is the ox, so we are also called the Ox Tribe."

A-Mozai's voice gradually lowered. Just as the Ou-Yue people could not step on frogs, the ox in their tribe could not be slaughtered. Yet when they fled in haste, they could only release their old oxen back into the deep mountains, not knowing if they could escape or survive.

But compared to those clansmen deceived by merchants or captured by Qin soldiers, even if the oxen died in the jaws of wolves, it would at least be a swift end.

"The Ox Tribe."

Adagu nodded. As far as he knew, among the Twelve Kingdoms, there was also a Water Buffalo Tribe south of Ou-Yue. Although still an independent tribe, they were willing to heed Ou-Yue in all matters, because Ou-Yue could help them resist the Luo-Yue and Southern Yue.

Among the Hundred Yue of Lingnan, the strongest in the past had been the Bird Clan, who called themselves the "Eldest Sons of the Thunder God"—that is, the Luo-Yue. Next were the Southern Yue, who worshipped the "Flood Dragon" and liked to tattoo their entire bodies with dragon scales.

But now, the Luo-Yue had declined, splitting off an "Elephant Tribe," and the Water Buffalo Tribe and Fish Tribe that had once submitted to them had also betrayed them. The Southern Yue were currently mired in internal division, with their various settlements engaging in mutual headhunting and blood feuds.

It was Ou-Yue, with the frog as their totem and rice as their main crop, that had risen to prominence and become the most powerful.

So Adagu could confidently beat his chest and boast to A-Mozai, saying that now that the Ox Tribe had sought refuge with Ou-Yue, his own Tebo would surely be able to protect their safety.

But these words, far from cheering A-Mozai up, instead brought a worried look to his face, as if he were recalling the experiences and sights from before and after their flight.

"But the Dulao said that even if you add up all the Yue tribes from all the great mountains, all the forests, and all the settlements, they are still not as powerful as Qin!"

The whooping calls gradually faded, and birds descended back into the forest. The hunt had ended smoothly. Perhaps thanks to Yixusong's hunting songs, the Ou-Yue hunters returned with a full load. Several large wild boars were carried on bamboo poles, making the hunters grin from ear to ear.

Adagu hadn't done badly either. Though young, he was strong and had shot dead two masked palm civets. What surprised him even more was A-Mozai. Though poor with a bow, he had trained a skillful hand with the blowgun. But he could only shoot ten paces and had to ensure a silent approach.

"Still not accurate enough."

After using this skill to take down a few birds and three rabbits, A-Mozai showed no happiness at all and muttered, "The darts I blow out can't even pierce the scales of the Qin people."

"Scales like a flood dragon's"—this was A-Mozai's term for Qin armor, for the Yue people wore no armor, even in battle, going bare-chested.

In Lingnan, bronze was extremely precious. It was either used to cast bronze drums for ancestral sacrifices or reserved for the tribe's finest warriors. A minor like him, with an "A" before his name, had no such right and could only whittle his own bamboo arrows.

After two days of hunting, the two youths had grown familiar with each other, but the experiences A-Mozai recounted left Adagu shocked.

A-Mozai said that their tribe lived near the Qin border passes—those towering structures built of earth and stone.

At first, only the occasional Qin merchant came to trade, bringing goods from the Central Plains in exchange for local specialties, and relations between the two sides were fairly amicable.

But gradually, the merchants lost interest in ordinary goods. They began to urge the Gui Kingdom to help them raid the people of neighboring tribes, which the merchants would buy at high prices.

The chieftain and council elders of the Gui Kingdom did not agree, but in the settlements below, there were minor chieftains greedy for Qin goods who were quietly doing this.

"I know."

Adagu nodded. That must have been two or three years ago. A few Gui Kingdom settlements went too far, raiding all the way into Ouyue territory. After receiving reports from the surrounding small settlements, Yixusong personally led over a thousand warriors there and drove off the attackers.

He then met with the Gui Kingdom's chieftain and council elders at the river marking the boundary between the two groups, where they swore a blood oath, became brothers, and vowed never again to raid and kill each other, and that if one side faced trouble, the other would come to its aid.

But after that, the Qin people's oppression of the Yue grew more frequent by the day. The merchants no longer entered the territory in groups of a few, but brought dozens or even a hundred soldiers armed to the teeth. They advanced along the rivers, exploring the mountains south of Changsha Commandery, attacking tribes unwilling to submit and pay tribute to Qin. They either laid traps to lure and capture them, or seized them by force; wherever they met resistance, they slaughtered.

Over the course of a few years, the Yue tribes in the plains of Changsha Commandery were either captured nearly to the last person, fled into the mountain forests, or came to seek refuge with Ouyue and Nanyue.

Once the Yue within Changsha Commandery became hard to capture, the Qin people's gaze turned once more toward the Gui Kingdom. They sent envoys to force the Gui Kingdom, like the smaller Yue tribes further north, to submit to Qin.

The Gui Kingdom agreed. They bowed and declared themselves vassals, and even sent Amobi's elder brother to the border pass as a hostage. Every year, they presented tribute of chicken feathers, large bamboo, and the like to the Qin people, which was not too heavy a burden.

But later, the Qin officials grew ever more demanding and began to demand people from the Gui Kingdom, ordering them to go for labor service. Yet those who went in the first year never returned...

"Aren't the Qin people many? Why do they still need people?"

Adagu still could not understand. According to what Amobi said, just one small border town held more Qin people than the entire Gui tribe.

"To make slaves."

Amozai said, "Some who fled here to escape disaster say that after the Qin people capture Yue people, they take them inland to plant black sweet-bamboo. That sweet-bamboo grows everywhere and produces red roots, sweeter than honey. The Qin merchants then use these red sweet roots to trick gluttonous Yue people into the cities, and then turn them into slaves!"

"Sweet-bamboo? Red roots?"

Adagu could not imagine what those things were.

"The council elders say it is watered with human blood, which is why the red is so deep."

Amozai gestured at Adagu's big toe with his bamboo spear again. "To keep the Yue from running away, the Qin people also cut off their left big toe. It doesn't stop them from working, but they can never run fast again."

In just a few short years, across the entire south — Changsha, Yuzhang, Kuaiji — the Yue slaves the Qin people seized from various places numbered in the tens of thousands, even a hundred thousand!

Fearing that after agreeing to the Qin people's demands, all his tribespeople would become slaves, Amozai's father, the chieftain of the Gui Kingdom, refused this demand and drove the Qin people out.

They had thought their settlement, deep in the mountains and cut off by great rivers, was safe. But what followed was a large-scale punitive expedition by the Qin army, declaring the Gui Kingdom to be in "rebellion." Guided by several chieftains who had surrendered to Qin, they struck straight at their main settlement.

As he spoke of these things, Amozai's teeth chattered. The fighting was brutal, but the Yue people's arrows could not pierce the thick scales on the Qin soldiers' bodies, while the Qin weapons, sharp as the fangs and claws of a flood dragon, tore through the bodies of Yue warriors with ease.

In the end, a great fire engulfed the settlement. Amozai's father stayed behind to cover the retreat, while the council elder led the surviving tribespeople deep into the mountains, migrating south...

That was the story of the Gui Tribe's destruction.

Adagu listened, stunned. And just at that moment, the group emerging from the forest heard the deep, resonant sound of bronze drums!

Ouyue, or rather Western Ou, was in truth merely a tribal alliance. All the tribes founded by the descendants who worshipped the Frog God called themselves Ou, scattered across hundreds of li. They had no cities, only settlements, and the largest settlement — which was also the place for worshipping the ancestral spirits and the Frog God — was this area called "Bandagu."

Dagu meant rice, and Ban meant field. This vast settlement, home to several thousand people, was shielded on the outside by mountains and dense forests, while its surroundings had been cleared into expansive rice paddies. The women worked in the fields, and the men were responsible for hunting.

Upon hearing the bronze drums, everyone stopped their work and gazed toward the settlement's wooden stockade. The bronze drum was a sacred artifact. Whenever it was struck, it meant either a sacrifice was being held, or the council elder was convening a meeting to discuss important matters.

Yixusong immediately called out to Adagu and the others, telling him, the swift-footed one, to jog back to the tribe and see what had happened.

Adagu was barefoot, yet he flew like the wind along the paddy paths. Amozai followed close behind, the crickets in the grass startled into wild leaps by their passing.

When the two drew near the gate of the settlement's wooden stockade, they saw a shocking scene.

Jiejun, who was in charge of guarding the stockade gate, had already mobilized several hundred men. Armed with wooden spears and bows, they were aimed at a group of uninvited guests.

It appeared to be a Qin merchant caravan, but unlike before, this time the caravan included many soldiers wearing armor. At their head was an official dressed in black robes with very long sleeves, constantly wiping sweat from his forehead.

As the Qin official swept his gaze over the bare-skinned Yue people, his eyes were full of contempt. He was also speaking loudly in the Qin tongue.

With every sentence he spoke, a Yue man beside him, who seemed to be an interpreter, translated: "The Great Qin Governor of Changsha, Lord Tu, has sent this official to see the Lord of Western Ou!"

"It's an envoy of the Qin people!"

The moment he saw those people, Amozai's footsteps behind him halted. Adagu could hear the fear mingled with fury in his voice, like a fawn that had just escaped death spotting a relentless wolf pursuing it in the forest!

"The Qin people have come to capture us!"

PS: There was more material to research than I expected, so today there's only one big chapter of four thousand characters.

(End of chapter)