When Mongolia was being forged into one, Jamukha, the founder of the Mongol Empire, had to fight Temujin, with whom he had sworn the oath of anda, sworn brotherhood.
Jamukha of the Jadaran, the black-bone clan; Temujin of the Borjigin, the white-bone clan. The struggle surrounding the two Mongolias ended in Jamukha’s victory.
Temujin, who had once commanded forces great enough to threaten Jamukha, was struck by a stray arrow and died in battle.
After personally burying his sworn brother on the steppe of Karakorum, Jamukha subdued all the Mongol tribes and became the first khan of the unified Mongol Empire as the first Gur Khan, the Great Khan.
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“…Yet he lost his life to the schemes of those Jurchen bastards.”
At a gathering of the Mongol princes and nobles, the Khan spoke while gazing at the clear water in a wide, deep cup.
“But the great will and order of Heaven are ever steadfast. We Mongols have once again formed a single ulus and completed our vengeance against the Jurchen bastards. That is the law of Heaven.”
Genghis Khan, Temujin, the great Mongol figure who appeared in the textbooks of twenty-first-century South Korea where I had lived, had died in battle in this world. And his rival, Jamukha, had unified Mongolia in his place.
“In accordance with that law, the one who receives the golden tablet before me shall quell the Western Xia rebels who defy the rule of the steppe!”
Solely for my departure ceremony, and to symbolize the military authority the Khan himself had bestowed upon me, a golden tablet and a sword forged by a goldsmith were given to me.
“Take them. These are yours now.”
“I shall receive them with gratitude.”
As I carefully accepted them with both hands, the weight of the sword and the golden tablet hanging from its end felt quite heavy in the hands of a sixteen-year-old.
“Furthermore, I declare here and now: this child’s obok, her clan name, is Jadaran. There will be no one who objects to this decision!”
Jadaran. My mother’s clan name in my second life. Which meant… perhaps the maternal grandfather standing before me wanted to erase the very existence of my father.
“So tell me. What should I call you? Granddaughter, speak.”
He was telling me to state a new name to replace the name I had used in Goryeo until now—the surname Wang of the Goryeo royal house, and the given name Ye that my father and mother had chosen after much thought.
“…Solangtani. My name shall be Solangtani.”
“Is that so. Very well, then. From this day forth, you are—”
Jadaran Solangtani. It was a newly bestowed name, replacing the one my mother and father had called me by until the very moment we were dragged away to Mongolia together.
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“…I’m fairly sure you said the day before yesterday that you would be sending me with the western expeditionary army.”
“It is a decision His Khan made after much deliberation. You have scarcely any experience commanding soldiers, Commander of Ten Thousand, do you not?”
If he put it that way, well, I didn’t really have anything to say. In any case, I could see this as my first mission after being released from the inner palace—and as a tutorial, right?
“It would be difficult for you to shoulder the heavy burden of the western expeditionary army from the start, and there are those who doubt your abilities, Commander of Ten Thousand. As such, His Khan merely wishes to prove that his choice was not mistaken by having you punish the Western Xia rebels.”
“Yesugei, that’s all well and good, but… aren’t you somehow repeating Grandfather’s words a little too closely?”
“I am merely the adjutant to the Commander of Ten Thousand, sent by His Khan.”
As always, Yesugei explained things to me with a stiff, emotionless expression. If there was anything that played the greatest part in making my life in the inner palace the most boring and tedious one imaginable, “Yesugei’s doll-like reactions” might have been one of them.
“And that is not all. You have yet to meet the soldiers, have you not, Commander of Ten Thousand? They are soldiers who will fight alongside you in the harsh desert, so you must quickly become familiar with their faces and learn to handle them as if they were your own hands and feet.”
And there it was, another spoonful of nagging slipped in before I knew it. It was as if he meant to stick by my side like a mother-in-law and give me one-on-one lessons so I could become “an excellent Mongol commander.”
“Yes, yes. I understand. But—”
Creeeak! Before I knew it, the inner palace where I had stayed all this time was being neatly cleared out, and the books and scribbles inside, along with all sorts of objects I had asked them to bring in because I had been bored to death, were being loaded onto carts and carried away.
“…Is there anything you wish to take with you?”
“No, nothing like that. It’s just that there are some things that might look a bit… awkward if others saw them.”
Yesugei studied my gaze, then, for the first time, gave a faint chuckle. He walked over to the cart and instructed the workers to cover it with cloth and tie it tightly with rope.
“At times like this, you are unmistakably a young girl, Commander of Ten Thousand. In any case, let us go.”
He spread out his hand and began guiding me, while I had absolutely no idea what part of that had made him show something called a “smile” for the first time.
Toward the ranks of soldiers that had already formed in orderly lines.
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“These are the soldiers who will accompany you in suppressing the Western Xia rebels. All of them were trained by His Khan, and they are excellent troops.”
When Yesugei gestured toward the soldiers, every gaze in the formation turned toward me.
Short stature, an unimpressive build, hair hanging all the way down to my waist, loose armor, and even a sword and golden tablet I seemed to be struggling to hold.
No matter how anyone looked at it, their faces clearly said, “How is this supposed to be our commander?” but it was painfully obvious that Yesugei was suppressing all of that with a single look.
Well, in the modern age where I’d lived, all they’d say was, “Your company commander is disappointed in you,” but in this uncivilized medieval era, if you violated military law your head would probably fly off at once, so I suppose it was only natural.
If it was going to be like this, why not just appoint Yesugei as the general and tell me to trot along after him and learn? Seriously, could we not do that?
“In any case, these eight hundred elite soldiers will aid you with all their strength, Commander of Ten Thousand. Please trust them and make use of them.”
“Eight hundred… Yesugei, there’s one thing I’m curious about.”
Yesugei nodded as if to say, “Ask anything you wish,” then, seeing me raise my hand to my mouth in a gesture that said I wanted to whisper in his ear, bent down and brought his ear closer.
“By any chance, how many enemies are there?”
“If the report we received is not mistaken, there are said to be roughly three to four thousand troops holding out in the fortress.”
As I stared up at Yesugei, blinking, he stared right back at me with an expression that seemed to ask what the problem was.
“Is something the matter?”
“…The rebels number three thousand? There is a way for me to win, right?”
Honestly, I wanted to shout it out loud: “Our soldiers only number eight hundred, and the enemy has three thousand men holding out in a fortress, so how exactly am I supposed to win?”
“Victory and defeat are determined by the quality of the troops and clever tactics, not purely by numbers. The maternal grandfather of the Commander of Ten Thousand… that is, His Khan, has a record of defeating a Jurchen army of three hundred thousand with roughly fifty thousand elite troops. Thirty thousand guarding Juyong Pass, exactly like now.”
So the only answer I got was that I should carefully consider what would happen to the soldiers’ morale if their commander said something so dispiriting, and that I should reflect on why the Khan had given the order to “defeat more than three thousand troops with eight hundred men.”
“Couldn’t you at least give me a hint or something?”
“That is a matter you must think through from now on, Commander of Ten Thousand. I can only say that I am here merely to assist you.”
As if it were only natural, Yesugei very kindly drew a firm line, saying, “That is something you must do.”
I suddenly really, really didn’t want to work. What should I do?
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“This is the one. A mare, and very gentle in temperament. She is not difficult to handle, does not tire easily, and is good to ride.”
The Khan’s golden tablet worked like an all-purpose pass anywhere. If the Khan’s own stable keeper openly opened the gates of the pasture and brought out a horse, that said everything.
The horse the stable keeper led over was small like a pony, but it must have been quite sturdy, because when I pressed it here and there with my fingers, I could feel firm muscles. I had once read online that the horses Mongols rode had excellent endurance. Was it because of that?
“Good. With this much, there should be no discomfort in riding her. Let’s see…”
Yesugei skillfully stroked the horse’s mane and examined her condition as she snorted, then gave his own assessment.
Honestly, to me it felt no different from the simple inspection my mother used to do at the supermarket, tapping watermelons and listening to the sound to tell which one was good. I had no idea what he was judging by.
“You naturally know how to hold the reins. The soldiers who will go with you are all cavalry, so you too must learn how to command as a cavalryman from now on, Commander of Ten Thousand.”
Yesugei, who had now taken the reins, handed the mare’s reins to me and told me to hurry up and take them. But there was one problem.
“Yesugei, there’s a big problem.”
When I, after awkwardly taking the reins from Yesugei, looked at him with the pure expression of someone saying, “I have no idea,” his face seemed to sense something ominous, and deep wrinkles began to form between his brows.
“I don’t know how to ride a horse.”
Of course I didn’t. How many people in twenty-first-century South Korea rode horses around? Horseback riding was a sport enjoyed by rich people, and it wasn’t as if my job had been to be an equestrian. How was I supposed to know how to ride?
The only time I’d ever ridden a horse in my previous life was for about ten minutes during a field trip to Jeju Island with a youth group in elementary school! I barely even remember it now!
“…Commander of Ten Thousand, it seems you must learn how to ride a horse before you learn how to command soldiers.”
The stable keeper, who had been watching our conversation with an expression that seemed to ask whether a Mongol who could not ride a horse was not the same as a fish that could not swim, sighed and took the mare’s reins from my hands.
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“Khan, I heard you were looking for me.”
“Sit there.”
With a gesture, the Khan indicated a chair and offered a seat to the Jingjiao, Nestorian, priest who had just entered the ger.
“What is the matter?”
“Take a look at this.”
The Khan handed the Jingjiao priest the paper he had been holding and reading, which seemed to have a map of the Central Plains and Southern Song drawn on it. The priest realized that what was drawn on the paper was a map, and that the names of important cities and regions had been written in letters, but—
“…It is written in letters I have never seen before. Who made this map?”
He could not recognize at all the script he was seeing for the first time in his life. It seemed as though several particular symbols had been combined to form a single character, but it was certain that he could not read it at the moment.
“Look at this as well. What do you think?”
On the second sheet of paper the Khan handed him, the same map had been scribbled over with countless symbols and arrows. Arrows scattered chaotically along rivers, arrows following the borders of the Tubo region, and even arrows crossing the sea.
The arrows, divided into two kinds, red and blue, busily decorated the regions of the Central Plains and Southern Song.
“…Is this the result of a military strategy meeting? This looks like—”
As he was about to say that it seemed to depict the movements of soldiers on a map, the priest’s eyes caught sight of the red and blue lines crossing the sea.
If he was seeing correctly, the red lines indicated that as soon as the blue lines entered the Yangtze River of the Southern Song, they would block the mouth of the Yangtze.
Yes, there was no way that could be. Whatever these red lines meant, they absolutely did not represent the movements of the army of the Yeke Mongol Ulus, a nomadic people. Otherwise, there was no reason such lines would have been drawn over the sea.
“Yes, I understand your opinion well. Keep the existence of this map silent for the time being. It seems… it may be well worth examining closely.”
As he said so, the Khan personally folded the map carefully and began putting it away inside a box.
“Where did you obtain this map? Just who drew it?”
Mountains and rivers, rough terrain and plains that seemed to have been drawn from memory.
He did not know where such a map had come from, as if drawn by someone who had gone in and out of the Southern Song regions dozens, even hundreds of times, but the fact that the Khan had obtained it could fairly be called proof that Heaven aided him.
“It is a secret. Though you will know soon enough.”
The Khan nodded, the corners of his mouth bearing a smile that had not been seen for six years, as if he found something exceedingly amusing.
Perhaps, to him, coming across the private scribbles of his granddaughter—things others were not meant to see—was simply that enjoyable.