Chapter 817: The Steppe Warriors of the Supreme Heaven

On the October steppe, snowflakes had already begun falling regularly, and all between heaven and earth was a vast expanse of white.

In ordinary times, weather like this meant huddling in the tent, holding the sheep close for warmth.

If they still had any leisure, the men would carefully check the condition of every sheep, and the moment they found one too weak, they would slaughter it, lest it lose too much weight and become not worth keeping.

The women would go count what little grain remained, work out each day's ration, and hope this year's snow would not be too heavy — that it would never turn into a white disaster — and that spring would come early, or else the old and the children would starve to death.

As for the old and weak, they would generally press close together, moving as little as possible to reduce what they burned, shivering under the terrible power of nature.

As a rule, for the survival of the family or even the whole clan, the old and weak got little to eat in winter.

Because most of the grain and the small amount of meat had to go first to the able-bodied men and strong women; the strongest had to be kept strong and healthy so that when spring came, they could quickly return to production.

If they were starved weak, then even without a white disaster, even with an early spring, the old and weak would most likely not survive. That was how cruel nature was.

But this winter, the steppe was filled with laughter and cheerful voices.

Because the tribes that had followed Bai Congxin on the western campaign the year before had returned. Those fellows had made a fortune in Transoxiana and brought back great quantities of grain, salt, sugar, tea, and dried meat, and in an instant the steppe was rich in goods.

These steppe folk, still living in a pastoral society, retained something of the customs of primitive society: when a family struck it rich, they would generally take the initiative to share some of their wealth with their relatives.

For one thing, they could not eat it all in time and it would go to waste; for another, if they themselves fell into hardship later, they would need their relatives to help them out.

In the tent of Riluge, Left Wing Chiliarch of the Zubu Ten Thousand Households, great quantities of grain from Transoxiana were piled high — enough to fill four whole tents. His whole family, several dozen mouths, could not eat it all in a year, and there was even more salt, sugar, and tea besides.

Bursts of laughter drifted out. Riluge's four children gnawed on dried meat and tussled in a heap, his wife was brewing sweet tea, and his old mother was stroking bolt after bolt of silk cloth printed with exquisite patterns, her eyes narrowed with delight.

Riluge felt a warmth spreading through his chest. On a cold day like this, there was nothing that made a man feel more blessed than having enough food and enough warm clothing.

A shout carried on the wind. Riluge carefully lifted a corner of the tent and stepped out. In the distance, figures loomed dimly; judging by the voices, it should be the family of Jingangnu, who lived not far from him.

Ever since the Six Dharma Sect had begun to establish its standing, the people of the steppe had taken many more names like Jingangnu, Guanyinnu, and Mohe.

Riluge walked over for a look. Jingangnu and several of his brothers were driving a dozen or so oxen, hauling great quantities of timber, cloth, and even several iron pots, to say nothing of even more grain, dried mushrooms, and the like.

When Jingangnu saw Riluge coming over, he greeted him warmly. Riluge might be a chiliarch, but he had only just been enfeoffed with that title by the Heavenly Khagan.

His old brothers had not yet felt the change in Riluge's status, and Riluge himself was easygoing, so these men did not cringe and shrink back the way they usually did before men of rank.

"Bayan, here's something from the Han lands — called green bean cake or something. It's sweet! Take a few pieces back for the little ladies as a snack."

In ordinary times, even ordinary nobles could not afford such sweets, but now Jingangnu could fish several pieces out of his own clothes.

Riluge hesitated. He considered that Jingangnu had many children and his family was not well off, and was about to refuse, but then he suddenly saw that Jingangnu's expression was a little off, so he quickly accepted.

Only then did Jingangnu's face soften. "Bayan, you've always been Jingangnu's best brother. Don't you go thinking I'm poor. Look at all these fine things — just bought from the Dalidi family."

Riluge grinned. "Dalidi is heading west, then? He's given you his whole household's goods!"

Jingangnu nodded. "That ox-fucked Dalidi family has made it big. Not just these belongings — he sold me his pasture share too.

I hear his brother won great merit following Lu Sanlang Bayan on the western campaign, and Lu San Bayan rewarded their family with three hundred herding slaves and eighty farming slaves. Their pasture is nearly as large as our whole chiliarch's, and especially rich and lush.

Ox-fucked — in ten or twenty years, the Dalidi family will become the Dalidi Chiliarchy."

Pastureland now came in shares. Every herder could obtain a certificate from the Six Dharma Sect temple in his own chiliarch's territory, and this certificate represented how wide a range his family could roam and how many cattle, horses, and sheep they could keep.

Because the able-bodied men of the steppe tribes were now, barely, considered precious, and could not be allowed to be wasted killing one another.

Nor could the steppe be allowed to exceed its carrying capacity and raise a bunch of not particularly strong men for the Supreme Heaven.

To put it simply, the herders of the steppe now could only die — even in death — in the direction pointed out by the Supreme Heaven and the Heavenly Khagan.

Riluge could not help feeling a little envious. He was now a chiliarch, but he had no military merit, so his family still lived all together, and sometimes he still had to tend the herds himself.

As for farming slaves and herding slaves, he could forget even dreaming of them, because the men of the steppe were all children of the Supreme Heaven and warriors of the Heavenly Khagan — they could not be made into anyone's servants.

If you wanted servants, you had to obey the Heavenly Khagan's commands and go plunder in lands that did not belong to the Twelve Ten Thousand Households.

"Elder Brother, Elder Brother — wuwuwu!"

Riluge had only exchanged a few words with Jingangnu when he saw someone in the distance, weeping and shouting, spurring his horse toward them at a gallop. From the voice, it sounded like Riluge's younger brother Asige.

Riluge hurried forward to meet him, and Jingangnu quickly followed. Even his mother in the tent heard the wailing and came out to look.

Asige wore only a single layer of clothing, his hair disheveled, his eyes red, and the heavy smell of drink on him. The warhorse beneath him had long since been ridden to the point of foaming at the mouth.

Riluge quickly told his wife to lead the horse away and keep it warm. Meanwhile Asige, eyes bloodshot, came over and grabbed Riluge by the arm.

"Elder Brother, Luketu has gone too far — too far! I'll kill him! I'll kill him!"

Only then did Riluge remember: his younger brother Asige had gone at the invitation of Luketu, son of Lu Sanlang, to attend a drinking feast. Why had he suddenly come galloping back like a madman? Had they bullied Asige?

"Asige, my son, don't be afraid. No matter how much of a divine eagle of the Heavenly Khagan Luketu is, he still has to be reasonable."

The moment their mother heard that her most beloved youngest son had been bullied, an angry look appeared on her face.

"Mother, that Luketu has a beautiful consort. Her voice is as lovely as a nightingale's, her face fairer and more tender than milk, her eyes seem able to speak, and her figure surpasses every beauty on the steppe.

Your son is very fond of her, and Luketu said he would give her to me — but today he suddenly said he had never said any such thing. When I went to reason with him, he actually slipped away with the beauty in secret!

How could he do this? How could he do this? I never even got to touch her hand!"

Mother, Riluge, and Jingangnu were all stunned at the same time — and all let out a breath of relief at the same time. It was no great matter, just young men quarreling over a woman.

"I know that beauty. She's a princess of the Oghuz, and I hear she has blood of the Ashina clan."

Jingangnu's son of fourteen or fifteen suddenly stood up on the oxcart and shouted loudly. It seemed the beauty's fame had long since spread throughout the Yanran Mountains.

"Aiya! Luketu, you donkey-fucked —!" When Asige heard this, he was so miserable that his whole body ached.

Yesterday he had meant to ask for the beauty, but he had drunk too much.

By the time he woke in the morning, everything had changed. Now hearing that this beauty was not only lovely but of noble status, Asige felt as if he had lost a hundred million, and he rolled back and forth on the ground, howling.

In truth, it was not as extraordinary as Jingangnu made it sound. If she were truly both beautiful and nobly born, she would certainly have been sent to Emperor Zhang first.

This beauty was merely the daughter of a minor Oghuz inal. Beautiful she was, but her status was still a little low.

But then again, this "low" was relative. Low for Sage Zhang, but for these steppe herders, she was noble beyond compare.

Riluge's face instantly turned as red as Lord Guan's — not from anger, but from shame. He rushed forward and laid into his brother, who was rolling in the snow, with a flurry of punches and kicks.

"You fool! You fool! Have you no shame left? If you want a beauty, why don't you go seize one yourself?

Luketu has a beautiful consort because he won her by fighting bloody battles for the Heavenly Khagan.

What merits do you have? Do you hold even half an official rank? You dare ask a man for such a beauty — I'll beat you to death, you disgrace!"

Asige was beaten by Riluge until he howled in misery; the searing physical pain quickly drowned out the pain in his heart, and he scrambled to his feet and hid behind his mother.

Riluge was still furious. Pointing at Asige, who was built like a bear, he roared, "Didn't you always boast that your arms had the strength of ten thousand catties, that you were the bravest warrior in our thousand-household?

Why not go seize the enemy's beautiful women yourself, instead of relying on others' charity?"

Riluge was of a rather short, small build. On the steppe, men of such build were lighter and made the finest mounted archers. His younger brother Asige was as stout as a man-bear, the finest heavy bowman and armored foot soldier.

By now Asige had taken his beating, and with the cold wind blowing over him, most of the drunkenness had left him. He was thoroughly ashamed. He was about to say something more when he heard the dense sound of hoofbeats in the distance.

Before long, everyone saw more than ten messengers galloping up at full speed, their backs bearing silver-white banners with golden swastikas and great silver-white banners of the red sun shining over all. One of the messengers was none other than the Chief Monastic Overseer of the thousand-household to which Riluge belonged.

The Chief Monastic Overseer leapt from his horse and solemnly handed Riluge a thin bamboo scroll.

"The Heavenly Khagan has issued an edict: the Left Wing thousand-household is to send forth three hundred light cavalry and fifty heavy armored troops. They are to assemble at Yanran City before the second month of next year. One day late, and it is execution!"

By this time, no fewer than three or four hundred riders had followed behind the messenger. They were all herders of the Left Wing thousand-household.

These men, having seen how those who went on the western campaign had won great wealth and goods, had long been hoping the Heavenly Khagan would summon them. The moment they heard the edict, earth-shaking cheers erupted.

Riluge dropped to one knee and received the bamboo recruitment scroll. Then he shouted loudly, "In ten days, all those who have reached sixteen years of age and are not yet thirty shall bring their own long sabers, great clubs, bows and arrows, and horses, and wait here to be chosen. The brave shall go; the cowardly may stay behind and drink the wind and eat the snow!"

The cheers shook the heavens once more!

By the banks of the Onon River, the conscription selection of the Merkit ten-thousand-household had already begun.

All told, only a little over two thousand households of Merkit people remained, and they had come dragging their families from all corners of the steppe and the pine wastes.

The examination mainly tested horsemanship, archery, and physical strength. After passing this basic selection, the next test was whether one could understand commands and execute tactics.

The light cavalry's common tactics — the hornet swarm, multi-pronged assault, back-and-forth skirmishing, flank hammering — all had to be tested.

Whenever someone was selected, the relatives behind him would burst into fierce cheers.

A man with arms as long as an ape's, wielding an oversized infantry bow, loosed five arrows in arcing fire from a hundred and ten paces and hit the mark five times out of five, instantly drawing cheers from the whole field.

His wife's face flushed red with excitement, and his young brother and half-grown sons cheered with boundless adoration, as though he were not going off to war but going off to take office.

The histories record that the Merkit people were tall and strong, and fond of great bows and long arrows.

In form, these bows approximated the English longbow — or rather, one could say that the English longbow had not yet taken shape at this time, and the Merkit were the tribe currently most fond of using such bows.

The former Merkit chieftain, Tuo Heda, did not cheer. He gazed silently into the distance.

The year before last, when the Heavenly Khagan was being acclaimed, he had at last brought the Merkit people to the gathering, preserving the Merkit ten-thousand-household as a unit — though only as a unit on paper, and all he himself had received was a deputy thousand-household commander's post.

After returning to the tribe, life for the Merkit people remained very hard. Had it not been for the eminent monks of the Supreme Heavenly Mandate Six Dharma Sect aiding them, the whole tribe would not even have the two thousand-odd households it now had. To have a thousand households left would have counted as good fortune.

And to maintain his authority, Tuo Heda had distributed all the grain the monastery provided fairly, his own family receiving the same share as everyone else.

Many of the tribe's elders had gradually died from lack of grain. Five days earlier, Tuo Heda had just buried his mother.

In the distance toward which he gazed, among those low, undulating mounds of earth, lay his mother's grave.

"Thousand-household commander, this is the Merkit people's last chance. You must seize it!"

After a low chant of a Buddhist invocation, a virtuous master of the Six Dharma Sect, dressed in close-fitting martial attire, appeared behind Tuo Heda.

Tuo Heda hastily bowed in salute, chanting the Buddhist invocation himself to show respect to the virtuous master.

"Rest assured, honored Virtuous Master Mingzhen. The Merkit people will surely prove their worth to the Supreme Heaven with their valor and loyalty!"

(End of Chapter)

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