A Wind Thick with Blood
The Emperor had dispatched watchers with his secret orders, and the Eight Great Families of the Empire—the very core of central politics—eyed the Dang Family askance, trying to take its measure.
The Sima Family was stunned by the Dang Family's latent power and kept its silence; the Dang Family, for its part, hid its sharpest dagger and offered the Eastern Depot nothing more than a false smile—a true den of demons.
Still, everyone sensed it, whether they admitted it or not.
The Dang Family's stride would never stop at Sichuan.
And with that, the delicate standoff among the martial world, the Imperial Court, and the Eight Great Families was bound to crack open into upheaval and transformation.
But from a quarter no one had anticipated, a wind thick with the smell of blood began to blow.
"Taishi, our grain will not last much longer."
West of the Central Plains, on the Mongol steppe.
Bahama, Taishi of the Choros tribe of the Oirat, wore a grim look at his subordinate's report.
"…How long can we hold out?"
"The millet we have left will not see us through the coming winter. Our sheep are insufficient as well."
"…We never should have clashed with those Chagatai bastards…"
Several years earlier, the locust plague had reached the Mongol plateau as well, at least in part.
It had not been as severe as in the Central Plains, where the swarms had migrated en masse, but remnants of those swarms had lingered on the steppe and left considerable scars.
A shortage of food inevitably breeds conflict among groups.
Having suffered the greater damage, the Oirat lacked grain and thus had no choice but to raid for it.
They judged, however, that stripping the Central Plains—where the locusts had gone—would be pointless.
So the Oirat, the confederation of four tribes, turned their horses from east to west and collided with the Chagatai Khanate, which at the time shared dominion of the steppe.
By their own lights it had been a sound decision. Who would have imagined that Sichuan in the Central Plains would hold back a locust plague by human effort alone?
There was also the fear that a difference in food supply would, in the long run, become a difference in population, and that a strengthened Chagatai would swallow the Oirat whole. That fear, too, had played its part.
So the Oirat picked a fight with Chagatai—and were thoroughly smashed.
Of the Choros, Dörbet, Torghut, and Khoshut tribal confederation, only the Choros and Khoshut remained now.
The Oirat, who had once shared the Mongol steppe with Chagatai, now numbered barely thirty thousand survivors.
But the nightmare was not over.
Chagatai would recover from the shock in time, then attack to annex the Oirat completely.
Taishi Bahama was being forced to choose.
Dig in where they stood, or take the remaining tribespeople and strike the Central Plains.
…In truth, the answer was already decided.
If they slaughtered their remaining sheep and horses and scraped through the winter, what then?
There was no tomorrow after that.
Save for a few still loyal to him, the other noyon would rather cut Bahama's throat and surrender to Chagatai than starve.
"…You must strike Yunnan, Taishi!"
Batu, Bahama's confidant and a warlike noyon, urged him earnestly.
"If we do not move now, those maggots who think otherwise will certainly show themselves!"
Bahama closed his eyes, thought a moment, then nodded.
"There are those who reek of it, then?"
"Yes."
"Kill them first, before we make our move. The charge… yes. Hold them responsible for exposing our line of march to Chagatai and bringing about our defeat in the war."
"Taishi!"
Batu's face lit up.
"At last you have made your decision. My brothers and I have all been waiting for those words."
"…If my death alone would settle it, that would be one thing. But it will not be so simple. I will not have brothers of the steppe killing one another."
If Bahama died, war would break out between the noyon who wished to submit and those who sought revenge for him, and the Oirat would split in half. That would truly be the end.
"If we strike Yunnan and recover our strength, there is hope."
"No. We will not strike Yunnan. We strike Sichuan instead."
"Sichuan?"
To Batu, who tilted his head, Bahama explained.
"Yes. Yunnan is the starting point of the Silk Road. We have brought a great deal of Central Plains grain through Yunnan as well. If our relations with Yunnan sour, we lose a trading partner from whom to buy when food runs short later."
"……"
"Sichuan, on the other hand, has nothing to do with us. All they sell is silk—a luxury good."
They did not know that Sichuan had become the rising granary of the Central Plains.
"Besides, thirty-three years ago Sichuan was invaded and reduced to ash by the fanatics of the Naran Sar-un Shütən—the Sun-Moon Divine Cult—founded by remnants of the Zoroastrian faith of the Kingdom of Persia. Some time has passed, but the native forces there should still be weak."
"Taishi, but Sichuan's terrain is not friendly to us."
Another noyon advised,
"Sichuan is a natural fortress ringed by countless mountains and valleys. Geographically, it is far too poor for our cavalry to range freely."
"We are not trying to conquer Sichuan. If we only raid a few outlying cities for grain, there is a way."
Bahama pointed at the map.
"We strike Aba County on the northwestern fringe of Sichuan Province. We will have to wind somewhat among the mountains, but there is no stretch where we must actually cross a range. Cavalry can advance without difficulty."
His fingertip traced the map.
"Once we take Aba County, we can hit neighboring Xiaojin County as well. After we strip those places clean, while Sichuan's government troops scramble over the rugged mountains toward us, we return to the steppe at our leisure."
"…Ohh!"
"This winter—if we only get through this winter, some way will open up."
Bahama ground his teeth.
Chagatai would certainly attack, and though the Oirat's odds were poor, they would still have to fight.
Sichuan Province was nothing more than a sacrificial offering for that purpose.
The fact that he simply did not know what kind of den of monsters Sichuan was becoming would not, in itself, prove him incompetent.
"Issue orders to the entire tribe. We ride to raid."
"Yes! Taishi!"
And so the Oirat began to move.
"Er… let's see. 'In use, aim toward the enemy position, and employ the numbers engraved on the copper plate marked on the side for the firing angle. If the advance is one hundred paces ahead, zero; if two hundred paces ahead, twenty; if three hundred paces ahead…'"
The chief of the Da'an Mountain Outpost, Aba County Branch of the Green Mountain Road Traffic Safety Corporation, was studying the operating manual for the Type-A Dabal-shinginjeon that the Sichuan Dang Family had newly provided to headquarters.
His deputy watched him and said,
"Why are you studying that hard, Boss? The people from the Dang Family already did all the aiming. When the enemy comes pouring in and gathers down below, all you have to do is light the fuse—they even finished adjusting the angles. Why mess with it further…"
"Hey! I told you not to call me Boss!"
"What does it matter? There's only us here."
"A leaky gourd leaks outside too! We've become new men and made a fresh start—we have to be careful about the little things!"
At the chief's words, the deputy snickered.
"Ahh… so you've been putting all that effort into one of the village girls lately… Boss, don't tell me?"
"Hey! Village girl, nothing—she's going to be your sister-in-law."
"Wahahaha! For real? Wow, the world really has gotten better. Even the Boss is thinking about getting married."
"You want to die? I keep looking the other way and looking the other way, and this is what I get."
When the chief lifted his spiked wolf-tooth mace, the deputy quickly waved his hands.
"Whoa?! Big. Bro. Ordinary civilians don't use gruesome weapons like that—you look like a bandit!"
"Urgh… this bastard, if he can't keep his mouth shut…"
"But seriously, no joke—has the world really changed that much? Until last year I never would have imagined we'd be able to trade jokes like this."
Kid sure knows how to change the subject.
The chief glared at the deputy's obvious dodge, but in the end he had no choice but to nod.
"Yeah. It's something I never would have imagined."
A life lived in a village, not a mountain stronghold.
Days when you saw smiling faces instead of fearful looks and hostile eyes; when you could walk into a tavern without shame and order rice soup and cloudy wine; when you could even trade coy glances with the older unmarried woman next door. He had never dreamed such days would come.
"…It's all thanks to the Dang Family."
"That Young Clan Head of theirs seems to be the real deal. At first, when I heard they were going to bore through mountains and lay roads, I thought, what kind of madman… but then they actually did it."
"Right. He's no ordinary man, that's for sure. So stop the idle talk and do your job properly. That's how you save money and get married, isn't it?"
"Ah… but isn't the marriage market going to be brutal? Not just the guys from our old stronghold—the uncles from other outfits are out with bloodshot eyes hunting for girls of age."
"A bunch of able-bodied men suddenly showing up in a country village—of course they are."
That was when it happened.
At the end of their aimless chatter, a bell began to ring from some distance away.
—Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang—
Both men's faces hardened.
"More than seven strikes? That's the emergency signal."
"Sounds like it came from the outer watch post… Should I gather the boys?"
"Yeah. Tell them to grab their weapons and assemble. And…"
The chief's eyes turned to the several Dabal-shinginjeon mounted at the outpost.
"These… let's not use them if we can help it. The road we worked so hard to lay would be wrecked."
At the sound of a bell from somewhere, Tatai, a noyon of the Oirat Choros, clicked his tongue.
"There was a watchtower? Looks like we've been spotted. Taishi, what do we do?"
"Hmm…"
Taishi Bahama surveyed their surroundings.
They were advancing along the valley between the mountains.
Of the thirty thousand Oirat people, the warriors—excluding women, the elderly, and children—numbered roughly eight thousand.
Of those, a vanguard of three thousand had been committed to this operation.
Three thousand cavalry was by no means a small force, and on Sichuan's narrow paths even that number was tight to maneuver.
But the moment they crossed the border of Sichuan Province, what greeted them was a road suspiciously well-kept and broad.
Underfoot lay not dirt, but a wide, sturdy Roman-style road paved in stone.
"Anyone who toys with a roadbed like this is bound to have a fortress at the end of it."
A veteran of a hundred battles, Bahama reached a decision after only a brief consideration.
"Before the enemy can bar the gates and dig in, we hit them like the wind and punch through the gate. Form a wedge and force a breakthrough at full power! Tatai! I entrust you with the van! Take one thousand cavalry and strike the enemy first!"
"Yes, sir!"
At the order, the Oirat's valiant horsemen began to run.
Clatter clatter clatter!
Hundreds of hooves hammered the stone-paved road, and a roar as if to shake heaven and earth rolled out.
The road had been laid for carts and wagons, so it was excellent for the Oirat's fine mounts.
The cavalry accelerated in an instant.
The trouble was that the path wound along the valley between mountains, twisting and turning, so the enemy fortress was still hidden behind the slopes and out of sight.
Only after rounding a wide bend did they finally discover the fortress in question.
And yet—
"That's not a fortress?"
An uphill grade.
Atop a slope that looked to be about thirty degrees, a small square stone house was visible on the hill.
And something was blocking the approach that led up that rise.
"Silver rose vines?!"
"Chevaux de frise!!"
Across the middle of the broad road, chevaux de frise painted black had been set to bar the way.
And where the chevaux de frise did not stand, things that looked like silver rose vines of unknown make sealed the path.
However strong and swift the Oirat's fine mounts, vaulting chevaux de frise head-on was no easy feat.
Noyon Tatai decided to swing around the chevaux de frise and leap the rose vines.
"Scatter! Avoid the chevaux de frise!"
"Hii—yah!"
The cavalry broke at once from their wedge formation, spreading in every direction toward gaps without the stakes.
The silver rose vines were coiled into circles and hung from stakes in two and three layers, spaced so that even if a rider cleared one wall he would snag on a second wall set at a narrow interval—multiple barriers laid out like successive walls.
Unless Lü Bu returned on Red Hare, clearing every wall in a single leap looked impossible.
But in the end, they were only rose vines, weren't they?
Tatai, riding at the front, gathered his internal energy.
Internal energy was not the exclusive property of the Central Plains.
There were groups like the Thunder Sound Temple of Tibet and the Potala Palace, and the Demonic Cult itself had its roots in the Zoroastrian faith of Tibet, did it not?
Naturally the Oirat, while they lacked the finely developed martial arts of the Central Plains' murim, still knew how to accumulate and employ internal energy.
As Tatai's blade drank his inner power and began to hum and thrum,
he struck the rose vines with all his strength.
—Kakakakakak!!!—
Kakakak, of all things?!
His sword, charged with internal energy, cut through the vines with fine momentum—but the moment the tightly coiled mass was severed, it sprang open like a released spring and wrapped around him and his horse.
And that was the last thought he ever had in this world.
The speed at which the horse had been running drove him and his mount straight into the coiled barbed wire.
Crunch!!
His body, already carrying that acceleration, had to take the full force of the impact. The wire's barbs punched through him from head to toe, flinging scraps of flesh in every direction, and the concertina wire that had driven into his throat snapped his neck bones like a biscuit. He died on the spot.
And his death was only the beginning of the Oirat's tragedy.