Occasionally, when they found commoners stuck in high places and unable to enter the city, Wu Du would extend his pole to help them climb over into their boat before taking them into the city.
Once through the city gates, they take a turn into a dark alleyway, and Duan Ling yells up both sides of the alley, “Anyone still here?! Can you hear me?”
An elderly voice reaches them from the end of the alley, and Duan Ling notices that it’s from an old woman sitting on a second floor balcony. This place is already close to the Jiangzhou lowlands, and the water has risen all the way to the second level, with only a small patch of floor left. The old woman is calling out to those below her with a trembling voice in a language the others can’t understand.
“Are you alright?” Duan Ling says to the old woman.
When Wu Du recognises the old woman, his eyebrows draw faintly together, and the old woman smiles back as she also recognises him. Wu Du leans the pole on something nearby and hops onto the balcony to carry her down to the boat. She is extremely grateful and reaches out to pat Duan Ling’s forehead, so Duan Ling looks down and lets her touch him. Mu Qing gives her a smile, and she reaches out to touch him on the forehead as well.
As it happens when they passed by the Best Noodles In the Realm earlier, the proprietor had taken some flour from the Black Armours and gave them a box of sticky rice cakes. Mu Qing opens the box now to share some of them with her.
“Her house is underwater,” Wu Du says, “we’ll have to ask the Black Armours to take her somewhere else to stay on higher ground. We shouldn’t take her with us.”
“You’re from Xianbei?” Duan Ling studies the old woman, and from the sounds of her speech he can vaguely make out that she’s speaking Xianbei. He only knows a little bit of Xianbei, including simple vocabulary like “thanks” and “come”, but he can’t really speak it.
Chang Liujun considers Duan Ling as though he doesn’t even know him. “How many languages do you speak anyway?”
“I used to run all over the world with my dad.” Duan Ling says with a smile, “Probably know a bit of all of them.”
As they turn back out onto a wider street, a sampan streaks across the water in front of them. The man standing on the sampan is tall and lean as he stands against the wind with a sword strapped to his back — it’s Lang Junxia.
Coming face to face with Lang Junxia without any warning has Duan Ling subsciously backing away, but Wu Du claps a hand over his shoulder to help him stand up straight.
“Wuluohou Mu!” Mu Qing calls out to him.
Lang Junxia salutes them at a distance, and after turning to say a few words to his subordinates, his sampan approaches theirs. Lang Junxia says something to Xianbei to the old woman, and a smile spreads across her face as she says something back to him from Duan Ling’s boat.
“What did he say?” Wu Du asks Duan Ling.
“I came to get you,” Duan Ling whispers. “We’ll find you another place to stay. Everything’s flooded.”
“Thank you very much,” Lang Junxia says with a face that betrays nothing, and stepping forward, he bends down and reaches out. The old woman nods at Duan Ling and the others in the boat before she takes Lang Junxia’s hand, and he puts her on his back, carrying her to the sampan. Before leaving, he turns around to glance at Duan Ling.
Their boat and the sampan separate, and they each go their own way. Duan Ling is suddenly beset by an ineffable feeling, but with Chang Liujun and Mu Qing around, he can’t exactly ask.
Soon, they arrive at the location where they’d arranged to meet the Black Armours. Everyone’s already distributed all of the rations, and though it wasn’t all that much, it’s at least enough to get them through the immediate needs of the day.
“Let’s part ways here.” Duan Ling says to Mu Qing, “Most of the money’s gone as well, so we’ll look around some more, and if we see anyone we can save we’ll save them.”
And so Mu Qing and Duan Ling arrange to meet for dinner in the estate later in the evening before Mu Qing boards another boat with Chang Liujun, and they part ways with Duan Ling. Wu Du and Duan Ling are now left to themselves, with Wu Du poling their boat through still water. By the time they come out of the city gates, the water inundating the city walls is no longer the silt-ridden, turbid yellow of what’s sitting in the city streets. Instead, it appears slightly greenish.
Only now does Duan Ling ask Wu Du, “Who was that grannie?”
“His clanswoman. From Xianbei. Look, there’s a dog over there. Are we going to save it?”
That spot of white on the river that seems to be floating one moment and sinking the next actually turns out to be a white dog flopping about endlessly. Duan Ling whistles in its direction and the dog swims towards them, then once it gets onto the boat it shakes its fur, throwing water all over them. Wu Du cusses something or other and makes as though he’s about to kick it back into the river, and the white dog hurriedly hides behind Duan Ling, staring at Wu Du with its tongue sticking out.
One drowning dog … Duan Ling pats it on the head, and the dog tactfully lies down on the deck, resting by Duan Ling’s side.
Several birds are perching on the boat, and at the corner of the deck there’s also a cat and two rabbits. These are all animals they saw on the way and decided to save, planning to bring back to the chancellor’s estate in the evening.
Wu Du sits down cross-legged, and says after a pause, “Her name is Mrs. Feilian, and her daughter used to be engaged to Wuluohou Mu. Years ago, General Zhao Kui sent some people to Wuluohou Mu’s hometown and asked around in the village for a long time, and finally they took her back with them.”
“I’ve never heard him mention her.”
“General Zhao used Mrs. Feilian as a hostage to coerce Wuluohou Mu.” Wu Du says to Duan Ling, “He asked him to go to Shangjing and bring back your head.”
Duan Ling recalls that moment in Shangjing, when Lang Junxia appeared.
“After that … Well, of course he didn’t manage to kill you,” Wu Du adds.
Duan Ling nods, murmuring, “So that’s what happened.”
Before Duan Ling has a chance to think about it in detail, someone is punting a boat towards them from afar, yelling, “Who are you?! Please help! Are either of you a doctor? Get us a doctor, quick!”
Wu Du and Duan Ling look up at the same time, and without waiting for Duan Ling to ask, Wu Du begins to steer their boat towards the other one.
That man seems to be a commoner who lives near Jiangzhou, and his boat is carrying a soldier dressed in the armour of the Northern Command. His armour is already all torn up and tattered, and leaning against the side of the boat, he looks rather ill.
“What’s the matter with him?” Duan Ling asks.
“He’s ill. Who are you?” The boatman asks Duan Ling.
Duan Ling steps into the boat to check the soldier’s pulse first, and finds out that he’s running a high fever and is delirious. According to the person who’d brought him here, this is a messenger who’d come from the north with an important message from the city of Ye that will need to be presented to the emperor. However, it seems he’s been wandering destitute his entire journey south, and after running into days of continuous rain in Jiangzhou he’s caught a cold that gave him a high fever, and finally fainted dead away.
The rain has stopped, and summer officially begins in Jiangzhou. Sunlight shines onto the silted, muddy flood waters accumulated on the street just outside the palace gates, and at some point the cicadas have started to call, jangling one’s nerves. A smell of dampness hangs in the Eastern Palace, refusing to go away, as though something in there is gradually decaying and growing mould.
“It’ll be impossible to kill him in Jiangzhou again.” Lang Junxia says, “Leaving aside whether we can do it without alerting Wu Du and Chang Liujun, you won’t be able to kill him either way. If we take this risk out of desperation, there’s no doubt that His Majesty will suspect something. That’s all I’ve got to say — and if you don’t believe me, you can try sending out the Shadow Guard. Once Wu Du’s killed enough of them to line the street with corpses and alert the imperial court, that’ll be just the thing to verify his identity.”
“Lang Junxia, you’re lying to me.”
Lang Junxia falls into silence, ignoring Cai Yan, and keeps drinking his tea.
“If you want to kill someone, there are far too many ways for you to do so. I refuse to believe that you’re at the end of your rope. You never wanted to kill him that night in the first place, am I correct?”
As before, Lang Junxia still doesn’t answer him.
“Say something!” Cai Yan is suddenly furious, and howls at him as though he’s on the edge of losing it.
“You’re correct,” Lang Junxia finally tells him.
Cai Yan gasps for breath like a dying fish exposed to the scorching sun. He says disjointedly, “Very good … you … I just knew … you’ve been lying to me all along …”
“If you want to put an end to all your troubles, there is only one solution. Feng Duo must have thought of it.”
All at once Cai Yan seems to have spied a shred of hope, and with a shaking voice he says, “What should I do? Tell me. What should I do?”
Lang Junxia raises an eyebrow at Cai Yan. “It’s about time you go check on your people, Your Highness. I just came over from the main street and saw the heir of the empire outside with the chancellor’s heir, saving people all over the city, distributing food.”
Startled, Cai Yan stares blankly in front of him, and Lang Junxia gives him a refined, courteous nod. And yet, right at that moment, Zheng Yan shows up again.
“His Majesty would like the crown prince to come to the side palace hall for a meeting. There is an urgent military dispatch from the city of Ye.”
This is the third time Li Yanqiu sees “Wang Shan”.
The imperial physician is checking the soldier’s condition. The officials are having a clamorous conversation, and Li Yanqiu didn’t sleep well the night before, so all the noise is giving him a headache. Sunlight streams into the palace hall, forming a dazzling ray of light.
Duan Ling is standing under this ray of light behind Wu Du, looking all around him; it’s the first time he’s ever seen such an occasion — though not all of the court officials are present, nearly half of the six ministers are. Meanwhile, the imperial physician is performing acupuncture on the soldier while Wu Du stands nearby watching.
When they’d brought the soldier to the palace, he’d said something in his stupor, but Wu Du was busy looking for someone at the time, so Duan Ling is the only one who heard it. After Mu Kuangda was told this, he asked Duan Ling to stay as well, so that if the soldier can’t wake up he can be the one to pass on the message.
The court officials briefly quiet down as Cai Yan enters the hall.
“Go ahead,” says Li Yanqiu.
Duan Ling steps up and checks the soldier’s forehead — it’s scalding hot.
“Your Majesty, Your Highness,” Duan Ling says, “My Lords, he is a defender of Ye, come all the way from the north with an urgent military dispatch to report to the imperial court.”
Xie You asks, “What did it say?’
Duan Ling looks up and turns to the Cai Yan sitting next to the throne. Sunlight shining in illuminates Cai Yan’s features perfectly.
"He kept repeating the same words over and over earlier, and from them I conjecture that a month ago the Mongolians attacked various locations outside the city of Ye, and ambushed the local guards in the middle of the night. The guards lost the battle. General Hu died in the skirmish, Lord Lu was lost behind enemy ranks, and his whereabouts are currently unknown.”
Everyone thus begins to discuss this under their breath. Mu Kuangda meditates on this for a moment before saying to Li Yanqiu, “This must have something to do with the last diplomatic visit from Yuan. At the time, the Mongolians had suggested using the one hundred and twenty miles of territory south of Yubiguan to trade for the two cities of Ye and Hejian. It seems that after they returned without success, they’re moving on their notion of taking the cities by force.”
One elderly official takes one step forward. “Your Majesty, the main forces of the Northern Command garrison Yubiguan, so they don’t have the strength to transfer their forces to reinforce Ye and Hejian. Not to mention that a large-scale disarmament has been going on since the beginning of this year, and with the flooding happening in the Jiangnan area, we’ll need to strengthen the regional military.”
Cai Yan says, “Hejian and Ye are both strategic towns of Great Chen’s northern frontier, connecting Liao to the west and facing Yuan to the north. We mustn’t lose them. Such a major incident has occurred at our borders, and we’re only hearing about it now?!”
Everyone falls silent; Duan Ling glances at the elderly official, but Mu Kuangda is taking the initiative to speak. “Ögedei wasn’t planning to attack those two cities. Ye is a ways from the Great Wall, and though there’s not a lot of trade, it can support itself well enough. When we were cutting back on military spending at the beginning of the year, the Governor of Ye, Lu Zhi, sent a letter documenting his duties in the region, and at the time nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Most likely the Mongolians have changed their plans and only decided to send troops now in a bid to take the two cities in one go. Wang Shan, what else did the messenger say?”
Duan Ling shakes his head. “He didn’t say anything else after that. We’ll have to treat his illness first and get the details from him once he’s awake.”
Most of the court officials are smart people, and from his brief remarks they can already conjecture as well as reconstruct what happened — the Mongolian soldiers ambushed them without any warning, wishing to end and win the battle as soon as possible, attacking the city of Ye unawares. The governor and general of Ye chose to defend the city to the death, and in the end one of them bravely gave his life for the empire, while the other one has gone missing, presumably taken as a captive.
“How many men do we still have?” Li Yanqiu asks.
“Since Seventh of Seventh year before last,” Su Fa takes a step forward and bows, “The military expenditure at the frontier has been greatly reduced. By the beginning of this year, their salary could still support rations for three thousand men. Two thousand in Ye, one thousand in Hejian.”
After passing through what corruption and embezzlement that may exist, adding to the fact that all those retainers living in the Governor and General estates will have to be supported by this money as well, it would already be quite a challenge to keep two thousand people alive on the military expenditures for three thousand men. Last autumn, Li Yanqiu handed down a general amnesty, and in spring everyone was ordered to return to civilian life. The Northern Command, which housed fifty thousand men, had been cut by thirty thousand over just several months; so by now there’s no way they can spare any for reinforcements.
“Lu Zhi is probably not dead yet.” Li Yanqiu says in a rather indifferent tone, “If I were the Mongolians I wouldn’t kill him. It’s a good opportunity to shake the Ye military’s morale and torture him for classified information of the border defences.”
Everyone is quiet. Li Yanqiu adds, “Since this incident has already waited so many days, I’m sure if it waits another day the border wouldn’t simply fall. Let’s adjourn for now and discuss this later.”
Li Yanqiu rises, and the officials leave one after the other. Cai Yan doesn’t even give Duan Ling a second glance.
After all the military and civil officials are gone, Mu Kuangda and Xie You immediately head to the imperial study to decide on a plan with Li Yanqiu. Everyone has their own problems to attend to — it really does fit the idiom “internal conflict and external aggression”, as everything’s just happening at the same time. The only one left is the soldier still lying on the floor, running a high fever and struggling to breathe. Duan Ling can only ask Wu Du to carry the soldier on his back and take him out of the palace.
By rights they should hand him over to the Ministry of War, but with flooding in the city, the ministries can barely take care of themselves. Also, this soldier is so ill that if he’s left at the Ministry of War nobody will take care of him and he may end up dying.
“Can we take him home to treat his illness?” Duan Ling asks.
“It’s what we ought to do.” Wu Du carries the soldier onto the boat. The water has receded a little, and it’s no longer bearing down on the city as furiously as before.
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Occasionally, when they found commoners stuck in high places and unable to enter the city, Wu Du would extend his pole to help them climb over into their boat before taking them into the city.
Once through the city gates, they take a turn into a dark alleyway, and Duan Ling yells up both sides of the alley, “Anyone still here?! Can you hear me?”
An elderly voice reaches them from the end of the alley, and Duan Ling notices that it’s from an old woman sitting on a second floor balcony. This place is already close to the Jiangzhou lowlands, and the water has risen all the way to the second level, with only a small patch of floor left. The old woman is calling out to those below her with a trembling voice in a language the others can’t understand.
“Are you alright?” Duan Ling says to the old woman.
When Wu Du recognises the old woman, his eyebrows draw faintly together, and the old woman smiles back as she also recognises him. Wu Du leans the pole on something nearby and hops onto the balcony to carry her down to the boat. She is extremely grateful and reaches out to pat Duan Ling’s forehead, so Duan Ling looks down and lets her touch him. Mu Qing gives her a smile, and she reaches out to touch him on the forehead as well.
As it happens when they passed by the Best Noodles In the Realm earlier, the proprietor had taken some flour from the Black Armours and gave them a box of sticky rice cakes. Mu Qing opens the box now to share some of them with her.
“Her house is underwater,” Wu Du says, “we’ll have to ask the Black Armours to take her somewhere else to stay on higher ground. We shouldn’t take her with us.”
“You’re from Xianbei?” Duan Ling studies the old woman, and from the sounds of her speech he can vaguely make out that she’s speaking Xianbei. He only knows a little bit of Xianbei, including simple vocabulary like “thanks” and “come”, but he can’t really speak it.
Chang Liujun considers Duan Ling as though he doesn’t even know him. “How many languages do you speak anyway?”
“I used to run all over the world with my dad.” Duan Ling says with a smile, “Probably know a bit of all of them.”
As they turn back out onto a wider street, a sampan streaks across the water in front of them. The man standing on the sampan is tall and lean as he stands against the wind with a sword strapped to his back — it’s Lang Junxia.
Coming face to face with Lang Junxia without any warning has Duan Ling subsciously backing away, but Wu Du claps a hand over his shoulder to help him stand up straight.
“Wuluohou Mu!” Mu Qing calls out to him.
Lang Junxia salutes them at a distance, and after turning to say a few words to his subordinates, his sampan approaches theirs. Lang Junxia says something to Xianbei to the old woman, and a smile spreads across her face as she says something back to him from Duan Ling’s boat.
“What did he say?” Wu Du asks Duan Ling.
“I came to get you,” Duan Ling whispers. “We’ll find you another place to stay. Everything’s flooded.”
“Thank you very much,” Lang Junxia says with a face that betrays nothing, and stepping forward, he bends down and reaches out. The old woman nods at Duan Ling and the others in the boat before she takes Lang Junxia’s hand, and he puts her on his back, carrying her to the sampan. Before leaving, he turns around to glance at Duan Ling.
Their boat and the sampan separate, and they each go their own way. Duan Ling is suddenly beset by an ineffable feeling, but with Chang Liujun and Mu Qing around, he can’t exactly ask.
Soon, they arrive at the location where they’d arranged to meet the Black Armours. Everyone’s already distributed all of the rations, and though it wasn’t all that much, it’s at least enough to get them through the immediate needs of the day.
“Let’s part ways here.” Duan Ling says to Mu Qing, “Most of the money’s gone as well, so we’ll look around some more, and if we see anyone we can save we’ll save them.”
And so Mu Qing and Duan Ling arrange to meet for dinner in the estate later in the evening before Mu Qing boards another boat with Chang Liujun, and they part ways with Duan Ling. Wu Du and Duan Ling are now left to themselves, with Wu Du poling their boat through still water. By the time they come out of the city gates, the water inundating the city walls is no longer the silt-ridden, turbid yellow of what’s sitting in the city streets. Instead, it appears slightly greenish.
Only now does Duan Ling ask Wu Du, “Who was that grannie?”
“His clanswoman. From Xianbei. Look, there’s a dog over there. Are we going to save it?”
That spot of white on the river that seems to be floating one moment and sinking the next actually turns out to be a white dog flopping about endlessly. Duan Ling whistles in its direction and the dog swims towards them, then once it gets onto the boat it shakes its fur, throwing water all over them. Wu Du cusses something or other and makes as though he’s about to kick it back into the river, and the white dog hurriedly hides behind Duan Ling, staring at Wu Du with its tongue sticking out.
One drowning dog … Duan Ling pats it on the head, and the dog tactfully lies down on the deck, resting by Duan Ling’s side.
Several birds are perching on the boat, and at the corner of the deck there’s also a cat and two rabbits. These are all animals they saw on the way and decided to save, planning to bring back to the chancellor’s estate in the evening.
Wu Du sits down cross-legged, and says after a pause, “Her name is Mrs. Feilian, and her daughter used to be engaged to Wuluohou Mu. Years ago, General Zhao Kui sent some people to Wuluohou Mu’s hometown and asked around in the village for a long time, and finally they took her back with them.”
“I’ve never heard him mention her.”
“General Zhao used Mrs. Feilian as a hostage to coerce Wuluohou Mu.” Wu Du says to Duan Ling, “He asked him to go to Shangjing and bring back your head.”
Duan Ling recalls that moment in Shangjing, when Lang Junxia appeared.
“After that … Well, of course he didn’t manage to kill you,” Wu Du adds.
Duan Ling nods, murmuring, “So that’s what happened.”
Before Duan Ling has a chance to think about it in detail, someone is punting a boat towards them from afar, yelling, “Who are you?! Please help! Are either of you a doctor? Get us a doctor, quick!”
Wu Du and Duan Ling look up at the same time, and without waiting for Duan Ling to ask, Wu Du begins to steer their boat towards the other one.
That man seems to be a commoner who lives near Jiangzhou, and his boat is carrying a soldier dressed in the armour of the Northern Command. His armour is already all torn up and tattered, and leaning against the side of the boat, he looks rather ill.
“What’s the matter with him?” Duan Ling asks.
“He’s ill. Who are you?” The boatman asks Duan Ling.
Duan Ling steps into the boat to check the soldier’s pulse first, and finds out that he’s running a high fever and is delirious. According to the person who’d brought him here, this is a messenger who’d come from the north with an important message from the city of Ye that will need to be presented to the emperor. However, it seems he’s been wandering destitute his entire journey south, and after running into days of continuous rain in Jiangzhou he’s caught a cold that gave him a high fever, and finally fainted dead away.
The rain has stopped, and summer officially begins in Jiangzhou. Sunlight shines onto the silted, muddy flood waters accumulated on the street just outside the palace gates, and at some point the cicadas have started to call, jangling one’s nerves. A smell of dampness hangs in the Eastern Palace, refusing to go away, as though something in there is gradually decaying and growing mould.
“It’ll be impossible to kill him in Jiangzhou again.” Lang Junxia says, “Leaving aside whether we can do it without alerting Wu Du and Chang Liujun, you won’t be able to kill him either way. If we take this risk out of desperation, there’s no doubt that His Majesty will suspect something. That’s all I’ve got to say — and if you don’t believe me, you can try sending out the Shadow Guard. Once Wu Du’s killed enough of them to line the street with corpses and alert the imperial court, that’ll be just the thing to verify his identity.”
“Lang Junxia, you’re lying to me.”
Lang Junxia falls into silence, ignoring Cai Yan, and keeps drinking his tea.
“If you want to kill someone, there are far too many ways for you to do so. I refuse to believe that you’re at the end of your rope. You never wanted to kill him that night in the first place, am I correct?”
As before, Lang Junxia still doesn’t answer him.
“Say something!” Cai Yan is suddenly furious, and howls at him as though he’s on the edge of losing it.
“You’re correct,” Lang Junxia finally tells him.
Cai Yan gasps for breath like a dying fish exposed to the scorching sun. He says disjointedly, “Very good … you … I just knew … you’ve been lying to me all along …”
“If you want to put an end to all your troubles, there is only one solution. Feng Duo must have thought of it.”
All at once Cai Yan seems to have spied a shred of hope, and with a shaking voice he says, “What should I do? Tell me. What should I do?”
Lang Junxia raises an eyebrow at Cai Yan. “It’s about time you go check on your people, Your Highness. I just came over from the main street and saw the heir of the empire outside with the chancellor’s heir, saving people all over the city, distributing food.”
Startled, Cai Yan stares blankly in front of him, and Lang Junxia gives him a refined, courteous nod. And yet, right at that moment, Zheng Yan shows up again.
“His Majesty would like the crown prince to come to the side palace hall for a meeting. There is an urgent military dispatch from the city of Ye.”
This is the third time Li Yanqiu sees “Wang Shan”.
The imperial physician is checking the soldier’s condition. The officials are having a clamorous conversation, and Li Yanqiu didn’t sleep well the night before, so all the noise is giving him a headache. Sunlight streams into the palace hall, forming a dazzling ray of light.
Duan Ling is standing under this ray of light behind Wu Du, looking all around him; it’s the first time he’s ever seen such an occasion — though not all of the court officials are present, nearly half of the six ministers are. Meanwhile, the imperial physician is performing acupuncture on the soldier while Wu Du stands nearby watching.
When they’d brought the soldier to the palace, he’d said something in his stupor, but Wu Du was busy looking for someone at the time, so Duan Ling is the only one who heard it. After Mu Kuangda was told this, he asked Duan Ling to stay as well, so that if the soldier can’t wake up he can be the one to pass on the message.
The court officials briefly quiet down as Cai Yan enters the hall.
“Go ahead,” says Li Yanqiu.
Duan Ling steps up and checks the soldier’s forehead — it’s scalding hot.
“Your Majesty, Your Highness,” Duan Ling says, “My Lords, he is a defender of Ye, come all the way from the north with an urgent military dispatch to report to the imperial court.”
Xie You asks, “What did it say?’
Duan Ling looks up and turns to the Cai Yan sitting next to the throne. Sunlight shining in illuminates Cai Yan’s features perfectly.
"He kept repeating the same words over and over earlier, and from them I conjecture that a month ago the Mongolians attacked various locations outside the city of Ye, and ambushed the local guards in the middle of the night. The guards lost the battle. General Hu died in the skirmish, Lord Lu was lost behind enemy ranks, and his whereabouts are currently unknown.”
Everyone thus begins to discuss this under their breath. Mu Kuangda meditates on this for a moment before saying to Li Yanqiu, “This must have something to do with the last diplomatic visit from Yuan. At the time, the Mongolians had suggested using the one hundred and twenty miles of territory south of Yubiguan to trade for the two cities of Ye and Hejian. It seems that after they returned without success, they’re moving on their notion of taking the cities by force.”
One elderly official takes one step forward. “Your Majesty, the main forces of the Northern Command garrison Yubiguan, so they don’t have the strength to transfer their forces to reinforce Ye and Hejian. Not to mention that a large-scale disarmament has been going on since the beginning of this year, and with the flooding happening in the Jiangnan area, we’ll need to strengthen the regional military.”
Cai Yan says, “Hejian and Ye are both strategic towns of Great Chen’s northern frontier, connecting Liao to the west and facing Yuan to the north. We mustn’t lose them. Such a major incident has occurred at our borders, and we’re only hearing about it now?!”
Everyone falls silent; Duan Ling glances at the elderly official, but Mu Kuangda is taking the initiative to speak. “Ögedei wasn’t planning to attack those two cities. Ye is a ways from the Great Wall, and though there’s not a lot of trade, it can support itself well enough. When we were cutting back on military spending at the beginning of the year, the Governor of Ye, Lu Zhi, sent a letter documenting his duties in the region, and at the time nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Most likely the Mongolians have changed their plans and only decided to send troops now in a bid to take the two cities in one go. Wang Shan, what else did the messenger say?”
Duan Ling shakes his head. “He didn’t say anything else after that. We’ll have to treat his illness first and get the details from him once he’s awake.”
Most of the court officials are smart people, and from his brief remarks they can already conjecture as well as reconstruct what happened — the Mongolian soldiers ambushed them without any warning, wishing to end and win the battle as soon as possible, attacking the city of Ye unawares. The governor and general of Ye chose to defend the city to the death, and in the end one of them bravely gave his life for the empire, while the other one has gone missing, presumably taken as a captive.
“How many men do we still have?” Li Yanqiu asks.
“Since Seventh of Seventh year before last,” Su Fa takes a step forward and bows, “The military expenditure at the frontier has been greatly reduced. By the beginning of this year, their salary could still support rations for three thousand men. Two thousand in Ye, one thousand in Hejian.”
After passing through what corruption and embezzlement that may exist, adding to the fact that all those retainers living in the Governor and General estates will have to be supported by this money as well, it would already be quite a challenge to keep two thousand people alive on the military expenditures for three thousand men. Last autumn, Li Yanqiu handed down a general amnesty, and in spring everyone was ordered to return to civilian life. The Northern Command, which housed fifty thousand men, had been cut by thirty thousand over just several months; so by now there’s no way they can spare any for reinforcements.
“Lu Zhi is probably not dead yet.” Li Yanqiu says in a rather indifferent tone, “If I were the Mongolians I wouldn’t kill him. It’s a good opportunity to shake the Ye military’s morale and torture him for classified information of the border defences.”
Everyone is quiet. Li Yanqiu adds, “Since this incident has already waited so many days, I’m sure if it waits another day the border wouldn’t simply fall. Let’s adjourn for now and discuss this later.”
Li Yanqiu rises, and the officials leave one after the other. Cai Yan doesn’t even give Duan Ling a second glance.
After all the military and civil officials are gone, Mu Kuangda and Xie You immediately head to the imperial study to decide on a plan with Li Yanqiu. Everyone has their own problems to attend to — it really does fit the idiom “internal conflict and external aggression”, as everything’s just happening at the same time. The only one left is the soldier still lying on the floor, running a high fever and struggling to breathe. Duan Ling can only ask Wu Du to carry the soldier on his back and take him out of the palace.
By rights they should hand him over to the Ministry of War, but with flooding in the city, the ministries can barely take care of themselves. Also, this soldier is so ill that if he’s left at the Ministry of War nobody will take care of him and he may end up dying.
“Can we take him home to treat his illness?” Duan Ling asks.
“It’s what we ought to do.” Wu Du carries the soldier onto the boat. The water has receded a little, and it’s no longer bearing down on the city as furiously as before.
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