Chapter 268: Against the Current

The serf leader who stirred up the infighting was a woman named Buchi.

Buchi was a woman born to a hard fate, in the Sumang region.

The meaning of her name, much like the Han name Zhaodi, signified that she was the eldest daughter in the family, and also that her parents wished to have a son next.

Her parents were originally tralpa of the Sumang lord; when she was eight, the family could not repay the interest on their debts, so they gave her to the Sumang lord as a slave.

The Sumang lord was not too harsh to her — he gave her a flock of sheep to tend, and even built her a two-foot-high earthen wall in the sheepfold to block the wind.

Most people in the world have their own interests and hobbies, and the Sumang lord was no exception — he enjoyed managing his domain and breeding the population.

Sumang himself did not breed; to this day he had no son, but he liked making the slaves breed and multiply, to promote the prosperity of his domain.

He disliked monks also because monks hindered his domain's prosperity: first, the men would go off to become monks, reducing the labor force; second, the monks would also select Wisdom Consorts, further affecting the domain's population.

Over time, this artificially balanced the male-female ratio in the domain.

Sumang could not stop the monks from selecting Wisdom Consorts, but he could forbid his subjects from becoming monks.

This created a situation in the domain where men outnumbered women.

Buchi herded sheep for the Sumang lord for five years; because of the population issue, and since Buchi's name carried a good wish, the Sumang lord married her off to her first husband in the Longda area.

Her first husband was actually four brothers, all slaves. After the marriage, the four brothers took turns staying at home, while the other three went to perform ula labor for the noble lord. Their days were bitter and poor, and they could only maintain a very low standard of living.

The saving grace was that the five of them as husband and wives got along harmoniously, and life was more or less bearable.

But even just barely scraping by became a fantasy.

Because in the Sumang lord's eyes, Buchi's marriage was a bride exchange.

Sumang married off a woman, so Longda had to marry a woman over in return. Yet only three years into the marriage, Buchi had already borne two children for the Longda lord's slaves, with another in her belly, when the woman Longda had sent over fell ill and died.

The Sumang lord had taken a huge loss; utterly indignant and refusing to accept it, he wanted to gather men to fight the Longda lord and get Buchi back.

The Longda lord figured he wasn't the one losing out — Buchi had already borne two — so he simply sent her back to the Sumang domain.

And so, Buchi had a second husband in the Sumang domain, this time three brothers.

This time, Buchi was not so fortunate. The three brothers beat and cursed her at will; Buchi's life was a living hell, and she felt she would soon go to meet the Buddha.

Only she did not know whether she would be able to meet him.

Buchi also had two younger sisters and four younger brothers, whose circumstances were much like hers. The three sisters had fourteen husbands in total, while the four brothers had only one wife.

And in this Danbei Depon army conscripting slaves from all over, all seven of Buchi's former and current husbands were in the ranks.

Their family alone could form a full Dingpon squad.

Back in the day, when the Danbei lord first joined the army, the number of men under him was about the same as the men around Buchi now.

There were few women in the army; most of the women were human mules, serving as porters to carry the army's supplies.

Buchi did not do that. She was a shepherdess, and had once been ordered by her master to infiltrate the Danba estate to gather intelligence.

At the estate, she met a Danba slave, a young boy, wild and exhilarated, who grabbed her and kept pouring out his wishes, telling her how Master Basang was going to give the slaves land, let slaves be their own masters, and let the slave owners all starve to death.

It was just a pity that Buchi was not clever, at least not as clever as Basang; she would say anything.

She told her master everything she knew, down to the last detail.

So much so that her master's nephew was beside himself with rage. She led the Danba lord back into the domain, lured out that young slave, and in a cave...

Buchi had not meant to harm anyone. She had only thought, only hoped that her master would show a little kindness.

Perhaps if the Sumang lord showed a little kindness, he might waive the interest on her debt this year.

Perhaps her three husbands, if a little happier, might stop punching and kicking her.

But right before her eyes, that slave was subjected by the Danba lord to every form of torture she could imagine.

She was terrified. Whenever she closed her eyes, she would return to that deep, dark cave lit by flickering firelight.

In the cave, the Danba lord was exhausted, his eyes staring blankly, leaning against the wall and gasping for breath, the corners of his mouth turned up but his face stiff, gnashing his teeth as he cursed under his breath, cursing that slave for dying too soon.

The Danba lord pointed at the bloody figure with only half its skin left and said: believe those lies, and this is what you get.

After that day, Buchi was always searching for a sound.

She did not understand it. That day, so many horrifying images she would never forget in her lifetime had clearly occurred, yet the only thing she remembered clearly was the sound of the skinning knife slipping from the lord's hand.

The blade struck the stone, echoing through the cave, reverberating in her ears.

Buchi would always hear that sound.

Yesterday, when her husband beat her, she heard that sound again.

She knew her husband would be angry. Among her second husbands, the eldest brother was a man especially loyal to the Sumang lord, always believing he would gain recognition in this war.

He believed he was fighting for Sumang's land, believed he too was a part of Sumang.

But what a slave is has never been for the slave to decide; it depends on what the master considers him to be.

When the Depon army reorganized into three divisions and sent them home, who was one of their own and who was untrustworthy suddenly became exceptionally clear.

Her husband was bound to be angry. The three brothers were not originally supposed to be assigned to this unit; they had a home, had family, and should have been thrown into the next battle by the lord as part of the main force.

But Buchi was here too, and that made them untrustworthy.

Originally, this was a small matter for Buchi, but it happened that her four former husbands in the same unit saw it. The seven men fought in a tangled brawl, and then seven brothers-in-law, two sons, and four nephews also joined the fray.

In Buchi's ears, the echo of the skinning knife striking the stone was continuous, the sound very loud, even accompanied by the voice of that skinned slave.

She must have been haunted by a ghost. The ghost repeated those excited, mad words, saying all slaves should be their own masters, that in Danba, slaves could be their own masters.

In this valley full of slaves, she knew over twenty men brawling with each other. Since men were so fond of fighting, why not be their own masters and go fight others?

Buchi did not want any of the men to be beaten to death, but she also did not know how to stop the men from fighting.

The solution delivered itself. The Rupon official who came to quell the disturbance had his throat slit by Buchi, the way she slaughtered sheep.

Blood sprayed all over her face, and even the ghost chattering in her ear was frightened silent by her, daring not to speak another word.

The men's fighting stopped.

Buchi pointed at her husbands, brothers-in-law, sons, and nephews, and told them: when the masters return, they will all be killed.

The husbands brandished their fists, but Buchi did not even dodge. Looking at the knife in her hand, the three brothers were at a complete loss.

Then she repeated the ghost's words, saying she would lead them to escape to the Danba territory, where slaves could be their own masters, receive land, and have a better life.

The ex-husbands clapped and laughed, joining her ranks. Ever since Lord Sumang snatched away their wives, the four brothers had been without women for a long time.

The Danba Depon had selected out these serfs most prone to rebellion, creating favorable conditions for Buchi. On one hand, the people had no ties or attachments; on the other, with no officers, this loose sand of slaves could hardly contend with the twenty-some men around Buchi.

Not to mention, this woman kept saying she heard some kind of voice... it was hair-raising.

Dai Daozi searched through his entire unit but found no one who understood the Western Barbarian tongue. He then asked among all the slaves, and likewise found none who understood Chinese.

But when dealing with such a special talent, the language barrier was no real problem.

A well-trained slave knows what to do from a single glance of the master's eye, let alone the fact that Dai Daozi still had his hands and feet.

Only his wish to set the grain and fodder ablaze came to nothing. Under Buchi's leadership, the large group of slaves worked through the night to transport the supplies out of the valley and sought rest elsewhere.

The next day, Dai Daozi ordered the Tangqi cavalry to escort the slaves by a roundabout route toward the Danba territory, while he himself took a few attendants and returned to the valley.

If he couldn't burn the grain, he had to burn something.

They set fire to the tents the Depon's troops had left in the valley and everything else that would burn.

Watching the black smoke billow into the sky, Dai Daozi was thoroughly satisfied. Word of the attack on the rear supply camp would soon reach the enemy forces on the front line. He hoped this could help Basang, Wailiangzi, and the others at Danba Manor.

On the other side of the Gaiqu River, a new day's slaughter began with the Danba Depon's order to withdraw.

Xie Erhu, who had been surveying the enemy lines since morning, found the enemy camp deserted. He immediately dispatched Mongol herder-scouts to investigate, then in wild delight launched a pursuit to track them down.

The Danba Depon knew that when the Mongol leader saw the enemy fleeing, he would certainly launch a fierce pursuit — and in a pursuit, the battlefield would be of their choosing, allowing them to counterattack whenever they wished.

His target was not the Mongols.

The Mongols came and went, victory or defeat, with no real impact on the nobles of Kham. Basang was his target.

With this man reclaiming land and distributing it to slaves, none of the nobles could sleep at night.

His plan was to see whether Basang would pursue. If he did, they would kill him directly outside the manor; if he did not, they would use heavy cavalry to rout the Mongol troops, sending them fleeing back to the manor in a "rolling-back-bead-curtain" collapse, thereby thoroughly crushing this entrenched slave army.

The biggest problem with this tactic was not routing the Mongol troops, but that the Depon did not know whether the Mongol army would pursue — though the likelihood of pursuit was high.

After all, these Mongol herder-soldiers looked rather poor.

Impoverished armies have a greater appetite for kicking a man when he's down. To put it bluntly, they are far more eager to seize the spoils of victory.

In truth, Xie Erhu's Mongol herder-soldiers were few in number, but their equipment ranked among the best of the Qinghai Mongols.

North of the lake, men like him could intimidate any Western Barbarian tribe, but not in Kham. Here, the great nobles who combined farming and herding could already mock their poverty.

Compared to the Ming army's light cavalry from the Three Frontiers of Shaanxi, the Bili riders, each wearing a single coat of mail, were not heavy at all — they were even lighter than light cavalry.

Yet for the Mongol horse troops, generally equipped with leather armor and especially reliant on bone and copper arrowheads, chainmail was heavy, solid to a terrifying degree.

On the high mountain grasslands northwest of the Gaiqu River, crossing a hillside, the Bili King's three hundred Dokham horse troops, with the momentum of a three-sided encirclement, launched a sudden assault on the pursuing Mongol horse troops.

Xie Erhu instantly realized the enemy had feigned retreat. He hurriedly wheeled his troops around and fled.

In yesterday's cavalry clash, Xie Erhu's four hundred riders, at the cost of thirty-two dead, twelve wounded, and twelve missing, had killed nineteen or twenty enemy riders, with wounded beyond counting.

"Beyond counting" here did not mean the wounded were too many to tally, but that they were unable to count the enemy's cavalry casualties.

And given their level of equipment, achieving such a result could already be called a brilliant victory. The price was that their mounted troops had exhausted the steel-forged arrowheads from Gulf Bay.

Without the advantage to control the battlefield, they could not seize spoils of war — they could not even retrieve the arrowheads they themselves had shot.

Today, they no longer dared to face the Dokham cavalry in a direct confrontation.

It was not that they were cowards; it was simply that productivity was merciless. Using iron arrowheads against iron armor — even if they were stripped to the waist, there would still be men daring enough to fight.

But using bone or even stone arrowheads against iron armor — if you can't win, you just can't win. Courage was untimely and utterly useless.

Xie Erhu's horse troops were driven apart into two groups, one northwest and one southeast, fleeing in rout toward Danba Manor to the northeast. Realizing it was a feigned retreat, there was no more fighting while retreating for them.

Wailiangzi was at the manor, studying a pipe he had picked up from yesterday's battlefield, when he suddenly saw the dust churned up by the Mongol horse troops in the distance. Sharply sensing that their flight was far too panicked, he hurried downstairs and called his comrades to sound the horns.

He saw the Bili Dokham cavalry behind the Mongol horse troops, and further still, a large force already formed up in battle array, casting off into a broad horizontal line and advancing toward the manor.

The Han soldiers swiftly entered defensive positions, while the slave army only slowly began to assemble, then was immediately terrified by the Mongol horse troops fleeing under pursuit, every man struck witless with fear.

Fortunately, Xie Erhu also had ample combat experience. He did not let his horse troops crash into his own lines. Racing ahead of the fleeing troops, he darted left and right, finally rallying his forces at a hundred paces from the manor, then led his horse troops in a dash from the manor's right flank toward its left.

The Mongol horse troops swept past the front of the manor, then immediately circled to the rear, hoping to bypass the trenches from the flank and rear without disrupting their own frontal slave encampment, and then reorganize their defense.

But the bulk of the Dokham horse troops did not pursue them further. Clamping their lances straight and true, they charged with undiminished momentum straight at the slave encampment.

The hastily assembled slaves could only set their long spears, but before the enemy riders even closed in, their calves began to tremble. The pounding hooves charging straight at them felt like the earth shaking and mountains swaying.

Scattered arrows flew in from thirty paces. The front-row riders dipped their heads slightly, assuming a charging posture, but in truth only gripped their reins, ready at any moment to wheel their horses away after ten paces.

But they won.

Their sheer force overwhelmed the maximum limit the slave infantry could bear. The square formation before the trench collapsed in an instant. Some threw down their spears and fled; more clung to their positions, but their morale had clearly been cut down a notch.

Some riders lifted their reins and leaped the trench, crashing into the small, three-pace gap left by the brief collapse. More horse soldiers wheeled toward the flanks, but after only a few steps they turned back again, preparing to join the next charge.

The battle formation was broken. The slave encampment, which had formed a pincer position, collapsed into rout, men throwing down their weapons and fleeing toward the manor. The "rolling-back-bead-curtain" collapse was now unstoppable.

At that very moment, the light and heavy firearms along the central front line erupted one after another in vast clouds of gunpowder smoke. A volley of shot, large and small, tore into the ranks of the charging cavalry that had broken the formation.

Just as the smoke was about to clear, a great unfurled banner burst through. Armored skirts swaying, a warrior in coiled-dragon-pattern cotton armor leaped over the trench, raising a high-crested helmet-spear with no tassel. His crooked, flat nose bridge wrinkling, he shook the flagpole, and the great crimson banner bearing the character "Liu" unfurled wide.

Behind him, one figure after another leaped and rallied from the smoke. Two hundred and forty Han soldiers formed a horizontal line amid the streaming rout on both flanks. With their backs to the trench, facing the surging tide of cavalry, they stepped forward and set their long spears.

"Lion Army, form ranks!"