The Dudu's Decree of Annihilation
A savage wind swept across the desolate plain.
On a hilltop stood a towering man, arms crossed, his long thick hair falling over a body cloaked entirely in black fur.
Despite the biting cold, he wore nothing over his rough wool-woven coat but a single suit of leather armor.
This was Zhihui Biriherimdon.
As the right hand of Lee Man-ju, Dudu of the Jianzhou Guard, and the man known as Lee Man-ju's Whip, his notoriety was known to every soul in Jianzhou. Few who had laid eyes on him in the flesh ever lived to tell of it, and those who did refused to speak of what they had seen.
"Well now, Zhihui Biri."
A handsome man was climbing the hill.
His glossy face was flawless, without a single blemish. His beard and hair were meticulously groomed, and a faint smile curled at the corner of his mouth—the kind that quietly looked down on everyone around him.
This was Lee Go-nap-hap, eldest son of Lee Man-ju and the current Deputy Dudu of the Jianzhou Guard.
The tribesmen called him Kunaha, but his true epithet was "the greatest rake in the Jianzhou Guard," and in truth he was famously devoted to women.
Lee Go-nap-hap spoke.
"Looks like the first guest has arrived. That would be the chieftain of Tumut Village, I take it?"
Biriherimdon gave a curt nod.
"They will all be here soon. When everyone has gathered, we begin."
"Begin."
Lee Go-nap-hap seemed to be turning something over in his mind.
"Are you truly going to kill every last one of those Ban Village people? I mean—"
"That is the Dudu's will."
Biriherimdon's answer was brief.
Lee Go-nap-hap frowned.
"My father's—?"
"Everything belonging to Ban Village—from the people to the livestock to their very possessions—is to be annihilated from this land, every last scrap of it. That is the Dudu's will."
"If that is my father's will, then so be it."
Lee Go-nap-hap answered grudgingly.
Biriherimdon corrected him.
"The Dudu's will."
The Dudu's will, not my father's...
Lee Go-nap-hap bristled inwardly. It sounded as though Biriherimdon granted him no special standing whatsoever—and that was precisely the truth of it.
Biriherimdon was Lee Man-ju's loyal hound, a man who would not hesitate to commit any manner of filth on his behalf. But that loyalty belonged to Lee Man-ju alone, offered up to his charisma and his power.
Still, Biriherimdon's rank as Zhihui sat below the Deputy Dudu of the Jianzhou Guard, and the Deputy Dudu was, after all, Lee Go-nap-hap himself—so the man's manner remained outwardly respectful.
Yet every word and gesture made it abundantly clear that this courtesy presupposed mutual respect, and was in no way born of loyalty.
Biriherimdon, for his part, showed not the slightest intention of hiding it.
Biriherimdon... the day our old man dies, I will have to sweep him away along with everything else.
Lee Go-nap-hap ground his teeth inwardly, but let none of it show, only shrugging his shoulders.
"Well, yes, but... Zhihui Biri, just between you and me—isn't this rather a waste?"
Biriherimdon did not answer.
He simply looked down at Lee Go-nap-hap with an insolently calm expression.
Lee Go-nap-hap was no small man himself, but Biriherimdon stood a full head taller than he did.
This, too, was one of the reasons Lee Go-nap-hap found the man so galling.
"I don't understand why Father—no, why the Dudu insists on annihilating this Ban Village at all. Sahalcha is a reasonably prosperous region, is it not? Perhaps it can't match Hwangseongpyeong, granted."
Lee Go-nap-hap grinned.
The wealthiest place in the entire Jianzhou Guard was, without question, Hwangseongpyeong, which bordered Joseon. Goods of every kind flowed through it and dispersed to every corner of Jianzhou.
When his father had placed forty cavalrymen under his command and told him to build a force of his own, he had resolved without hesitation to bring Hwangseongpyeong under his sphere of influence.
"Ban Village may be small, but look—it keeps as much livestock as any respectable village. They even raise oxen for plowing the fields, I hear?"
Lee Go-nap-hap laid particular emphasis on the plowing oxen.
He himself had no interest whatsoever in farming—his attention belonged to hunting and women alone—but even he understood that anyone who wished to amass wealth and power needed farmers beneath him.
And the difference an ox made to a farm was enormous. A serviceable ox was a precious rarity among the Jurchens; a village with even one or two could call itself quite well-off, and things were little different even in Joseon, with all its comparative comfort.
Biriherimdon did not so much as twitch.
Lee Go-nap-hap pressed on.
"And instead of taking all that, we annihilate it? The way I see it, the Dudu may have gotten this one wrong."
At those words, Biriherimdon fixed Lee Go-nap-hap with a long, hard stare.
It was an expressionless mask utterly devoid of feeling.
Lee Go-nap-hap swallowed without meaning to.
"You have not gotten it wrong."
"N-no, of course not. Naturally."
Lee Go-nap-hap stammered—and at the same time, fury welled up inside him.
He knew perfectly well that almost no one in all of Jianzhou could withstand Biriherimdon's silent pressure, but that knowledge offered little comfort.
"I only meant that it seems a shame... There are quite a few fine-looking women there, from what I've seen."
In his flustered state, Lee Go-nap-hap let his true thoughts slip out.
Biriherimdon's eyes shifted to a look of open contempt.
Even at a time like this, all he thinks about is women.
"The Dudu ordered the annihilation for reasons that warrant it."
At that, Lee Go-nap-hap was quietly startled, and his temper soured.
"You... you know the reason, Zhihui?"
Biriherimdon did not answer.
Instead, he turned his gaze toward the distant horizon.
"The other chieftains appear to be arriving. Should the Little Dudu not go out and receive them himself?"
At the title Little Dudu, Lee Go-nap-hap's brow furrowed once more.
He did not care for that title. It never failed to remind him that he had yet to step out of his father's shadow—even though the Ming recognized him as a Dudu in his own right, and he commanded a retinue of a hundred men at that.
"Fine. So I shall."
Finding no pleasure in conversing with Biriherimdon, Lee Go-nap-hap agreed readily enough. Meeting the Sahalcha chieftains seemed a better way to shake off this sour mood.
He called for his trusted men.
"Olanggamokya, Irongha. Come."
"Yes, Dudu."
The two men waiting in attendance rose to their feet.
Both were imposing figures, and both had been handpicked by Lee Go-nap-hap himself.
Olanggamokya was a hard-featured man with a knife scar on his jaw, while Irongha was somewhat smaller—a sly-faced sort with a narrow forehead, narrow slitted eyes, and a distinctive set of protruding front teeth.
Irongha spoke first.
"How did it go?"
"No luck. Our old man means to burn Ban Village to the ground."
Lee Go-nap-hap grumbled.
Olanggamokya asked in his gravelly voice.
"All of it?"
"Yes. All of it."
"But—that Ban Village is a fairly prosperous settlement, and he means to annihilate the whole thing?"
"Who said otherwise?"
"It appears to be a matter of the Jianzhou Guard's authority being at stake."
Olanggamokya said. Unlike his companion, he had the look of a man who kept his mouth shut—and he was indeed that sort.
"Still... from what I saw, there were a few young, fresh-looking women among them. Are we really just going to kill those too?"
Irongha said it in a tone of sheer disbelief.
Olanggamokya did not answer.
"If our old man says so, who's going to stop him? I wouldn't do it that way, mind you, but still."
"Wisely spoken, Dudu."
"In any case—the chieftains are arriving. Let's go greet them."
Lee Go-nap-hap said, flicking his sleeve. Olanggamokya and Irongha both nodded.
"Yes, Dudu."
Arriving one by one, the chieftains of Sahalcha huddled together inside the tent, their spirits sunk in misery.
Chahar exchanged greetings with each of them in turn.
The matter at hand was, of course, Ban Village. Every one of them had dealings with the place. Some were bound by marriage ties; whenever there was a feast, they gathered to celebrate together, hunted together, and had long been close.
Now they had come to watch that village slaughtered before their eyes, and there could be no greater wretchedness than this.
"What on earth is going to become of us all?"
"Even if it is Lee Man-ju, would he truly butcher innocent people outright?"
Anxiety was written plainly across every chieftain's face. And small wonder—it was anything but someone else's problem.
Every village in Sahalcha had been struggling of late under the mounting demands for tribute. They had endured it, biting down hard, out of fear of Lee Man-ju. Ban Village had simply buckled a little sooner than the others, and its fate could readily have befallen any one of their own tribes.
"We never refused to pay the tribute—we only asked for a little consideration in our hardship."
"The Hurigai leave no other choice, that's all there is to it."
The chieftains muttered in low voices.
Chahar, who had been listening to their grievances in silence, gave them a warning.
"That is enough. There are ears listening. Would you curse the Hurigai to their faces?"
At that, the chieftains fell silent.
An older-looking chieftain spoke up.
"You are right, Chieftain. But then—what are we to do?"
At the chieftains' words, every gaze turned at once to Chahar.
"How should I know... but if the people of Ban Village are to die innocent, swallowed up by a mob, then surely it is a man's duty to stand in the way of it."
The tent fell quiet.
"These are the people who rejoiced with us at our feasts, hunted beside us, and came to share our grief at our funerals. They are our neighbors, our friends, our kin—is that not so?"
The chieftains listened to Chahar with grief-stricken faces. It was the truth.
"Then—"
The old chieftain was just opening his mouth when a flippant voice cut across it.
"Ah, so everyone has arrived, have they?"
"Lord Kunaha."
Lee Go-nap-hap swaggered into view with a smirk. Chahar answered him, and the other chieftains shut their mouths as one.
"It should have been Lee Man-ju, the Dudu himself, who came out to meet you, but circumstances prevent it—so I, Kunaha, the Little Dudu, have come in his place. I trust you will receive me as though the Dudu himself had honored you with his presence."
"Of course, my lord. What else could we do?"
The chieftains mumbled their assent reluctantly. One wrong word, and they might be dragged out from their position as mere spectators and cut down as traitors.
Hong-wi, meanwhile, said not a single word, only watched Lee Go-nap-hap with careful attention.
This was the first time he had laid eyes on Lee Man-ju's eldest son in person.
Lee Go-nap-hap noticed the gaze and frowned.
"Who is that fellow? I don't know his face."
In truth, Lee Go-nap-hap had never had occasion to see Hong-wi before. Lee Man-ju, like the other powerful chieftains, had made his ceremonial visits to the Joseon court, but he had usually sent his second son, Lee Du-ri, instead.
Hong-wi had seen the man once himself—a flawlessly put-together sort.
Before Chahar could answer, Hong-wi bowed long and deep and spoke first.
"I am called Temusi'i, Lord Kunaha."
Hong-wi answered unprompted.
Lee Go-nap-hap looked him up and down with disdain.
"An insolent piece of work, aren't you. By your accent, you're from Hwangseongpyeong?"
"He is from Joseon—a merchant, come to our village as a guest to do business."
Chahar answered in his stead.
"Joseon? A merchant?"
Lee Go-nap-hap snorted. There was not one thing about the man that pleased him.
"Hm. And yet you carry a name in our fashion... You speak our tongue tolerably well, too, I'll grant. But what brings you here? Come to peddle your wares here as well, have you?"
"Such is a merchant's nature."
"Hah! Come to see what you can pluck from this punitive expedition, more like."
Lee Go-nap-hap sneered. He had already decided, without asking, that this merchant called Temusi'i had come sniffing after plunder or stolen goods from the coming campaign.
Too bad for him! He won't even get the broth off the pot.
"Well, bad luck, friend. There's nothing to be gained here today. Every last thing in Ban Village is to be burned to nothing—what exactly do you mean to snatch?"
"What did you say?"
At Lee Go-nap-hap's careless remark, Chahar and the chieftains all froze in shock.
Hong-wi's eyes widened slightly as well.
"Then... the people of Ban Village—"
"Annihilated."
Lee Go-nap-hap said flatly. He hardly agreed with his father's policy of extermination, but watching the chieftains recoil in stunned horror had its own small amusement.
The chieftains reeled.
The old chieftain murmured, "Annihilation—!"
"That is so. Not only the people, but the livestock, the houses, the property—nothing is to be left behind. Such is the Dudu's will."
"It cannot be..."
The chieftains were thrown into confusion. This was a measure beyond anything they had ever heard of or seen.
It would be a lie to say there were no wars between villages, and those conflicts did not always spring from rational causes. Among the Jurchens, when one's kin were harmed, revenge was certain even across distant generations; blood feuds that called forth more blood were far from rare.
And yet, to stamp out an entire village root and branch was another matter entirely. What grudge could Ban Village possibly hold against Lee Man-ju's line to deserve this?
Beyond that—people might be forgiven, but to burn the livestock and the property as well was sheer madness. Men were taken as slaves if they were taken at all; killing them outright was rare, and the livestock, precious wealth itself...
What in the world is he scheming?
Chahar could not make sense of it.
Lee Go-nap-hap shrugged at the bewildered chieftains.
"Don't look to me for answers. It's the Dudu's will. Do you imagine the likes of us could fathom his designs?"
Lee Go-nap-hap pouted his lips.
It was then that Hong-wi noticed something.
At the very least, Lee Go-nap-hap did not wholly endorse his own father's measure.
Hong-wi seized on that—a single thread of hope, glimpsed only moments ago, that might yet wrench the people of Ban Village free from the agonizing fate awaiting them.
Then a chieftain asked:
"What has become of Ban Da-hong?"