“What if the rebels do not lay down their arms? What will you do then?”
Yesugei struck right at the weakest point of my thoughts. *What if a situation arises where it must be resolved by force rather than peace?*
“Mmm… then this is what I intend to do.”
I drew pictures in the sand with a stick and explained my ‘Plan B,’ which I had drawn up in my head, to him.
----- -----
“Take them down!”
As our cavalry charged over the desert sand dunes, the enemy suddenly began wheeling their horses around, visibly flustered like hunters who had been chasing a rabbit only to run into a tiger.
But it was already too late. The difference was stark between their horses—which had run at full speed for dozens of minutes to reach where our cavalry lay in ambush—and our horses, which had conserved their stamina and sprinted the moment they received the signal.
Shwick—!
An arrow that grazed past me lodged in the eye of a cavalryman chasing me and Yesugei, and as his corpse tumbled from its mount, the horse following behind trampled it to a pulp.
“After them! Two columns!”
Bwoo— Bwoo— Bwoo—
As the horn sounded its signal three times, the roughly one hundred cavalry split into two columns, as discussed beforehand, and began pursuing in reverse the enemy cavalry that had slowed from chasing me and then urgently changing direction.
“Quickly, to the fortre—!”
Before he could even finish, one took an arrow to the neck, toppled, and rolled from his horse; before even ten or so such men had fallen, some of our cavalry that had run ahead to seize the front below the sand dunes blocked the road in a wedge formation.
Soon, the curved swords of the cavalry who had formed up to bar the way gleamed; after a few screams and the sounds of clashing steel, a silent quiet descended below the sand dunes.
----- -----
“It seems we missed about ten or so, and the dead number around forty.”
Yesugei crossed between the corpses rolling about the parched desert and pointed with his hand toward those kneeling.
“And the captured number around thirty. What will you do?”
“They came in quite a crowd. I thought it looked like over fifty at a glance, but to think eighty had been chasing me….”
As I felt the heat of the sand scorched by the midday sun through my boots, the sight of those kneeling atop that burning desert, begging us for mercy, came into view.
“What happened to the general of the rebels who ordered them to chase me earlier?”
“He was captured as well, but we have him held separately.”
The soldiers brought the general forward in bonds—the one who had taken off his helmet to show me his scars to intimidate me, who had ordered them to chase me, who had said he would capture me to use me as leverage.
“Hmm… I see. Good.”
I slowly moved my steps and approached the general. His forehead had apparently been grazed by an arrow that had pierced through his helmet; his skin was torn and bleeding, and he glared straight at me with a bitter smile.
“So it was a trap set by you, you wench.”
“…I told you clearly. To set down your arms peacefully, without bloodshed… that is what I said—”
So it came to this in the end.
I could not tell whether I had muttered that in my heart, or if it was the excuse of a heart that stubbornly refused to admit Yesugei had been right.
But what was certain was that I had to show this man a clear message.
“Bring firewood. The night will be cold. And let us return to our camp.”
----- -----
Seeing the piled-high firewood reminded me of the campfire I had at elementary school in my previous life. I vividly recalled how we had formed a large circle around the campfire and spun round and round; I had been so afraid of the fire that I tried to get as far away from it as I could.
But today I am going to have a very special campfire, so I suppose I must not fear the flames as I did back then.
In the desert wrapped in dark night, a terrible chill biting enough to freeze one’s lungs swept in instead of the suffocating daytime heat, as if asking when it had ever been otherwise.
Naturally, the prisoners trembled and suffered from the cold as well. But it is fine. Soon, they will feel no more pain.
“Yesugei, all the prisoners are here without exception, correct? Including the general?”
The huddled mass of prisoners, and the general of Xixia kneeling alone, set apart from the mass.
One man and thirty men. From a composition that almost begged one to ask if I was going to weigh them on a scale like in one of Aesop’s fables, I approached the general.
“Pleased to see you again, General. I have something to say to you—”
I waved my hand at Yesugei to signal him to begin.
He nodded at me, then commanded the soldiers and began stacking the firewood loaded on horse-drawn carts around the prisoners, piece by piece.
As if roasting meat over a campfire, carefully surrounding each and every prisoner like a furnace.
So that when the fire caught, the dozens of kilograms of organic matter between the logs would burn very nicely.
“They will die soon. By the most painful method by which a person can die: sosal (燒殺, burning to death).”
Whether he fully comprehended my words or not, the general of Xixia, bit-gagged, thrashed about trying to rise, bloodshot eyes emitting a beastly howl from his throat. To the point that the soldiers holding him down began to struggle.
“Ah, do not think this too cruel. If it had not been for the choice you made, they might have lived to spend today with their families.”
Resisting struggles. His body thrashed, denying my words, but unfortunately, the grip of the soldiers pinning him down was stronger for now.
“Remember this well. You decided their fate. And soon, everyone in Karakoto will meet the same fate.”
Though the forces I currently lead are insufficient, I will somehow bring reinforcements and make absolutely sure of it.
With those final words, as the soldiers held the general of Xixia and turned his face to look straight at the prisoners—
I took the torch from Yesugei and threw it straight onto the pile of firewood surrounding them.
----- -----
“There is something I wish to ask. Why did you hide only one hundred men in ambush?”
“It will be a bit long to explain. Is that alright?”
In the morning as the sun rose, trying to get down the pork porridge made by boiling borts (a traditional Mongolian preserved meat) to appease my empty stomach had been a wretched experience.
And as I had ordered, to heat the water for boiling the morning pork porridge, the soldiers had built a fire “somewhat larger” than usual so that the black smoke could be seen even from beyond the desert.
“I thought that amount would be appropriate.”
I should just eat and be rid of this tasteless pork porridge. After swallowing all of it in one go, I opened my mouth as I watched a hawk released by one of our soldiers circle the sky before returning to him.
“You said it. You asked what I would do if everything went wrong. So I thought about it. The Xixia rebels holding out in the fortress number around three thousand; if everything went wrong, how few a number would I need to show them for them to underestimate us and rush out of the fortress of their own accord.”
“Then what was the point of burning the prisoners?”
“They say there are many causes for human stupidity. I think among them, ‘anger’ and ‘desperation’ make people the most prone to becoming foolish.”
So I burned the prisoners in front of the Xixia general.
By incinerating the soldiers he had painstakingly raised while evading the Mongols’ strict surveillance—all to protect his compatriots from Mongol oppression—I planted fury within him.
And I showed him exactly one hundred men resisting his pursuit force, gave him a taste of the fact that if I sensed even a small threat I could flee at any moment, and the implication that I could call in yet more reinforcements, making him feel urgency.
“Fortunately,” due to the aftereffects of the previous day’s battle and flight, I had set up camp not very far from Karakoto and was “taking a brief rest.”
At a distance where the Xixia rebels could easily catch up, if they came to their senses and pursued in earnest.
“Manhojang! Sangcheon Hojang!”
Manhojang is me, and Sangcheon Hojang is the position referring to Yesugei; the fact that both of us were called means there is something both of us need to know urgently. And most likely?
“The Xixia rebels have sent a pursuit force after us. They say it numbers around fifteen hundred!”
Bingo.
----- -----
The general of Xixia had returned to the fortress and immediately gathered every man capable of giving chase, then set out from the fortress.
Reinforcements, and a force still unable to resist. Considering these two factors, he had to kill that wretch, the Khan’s granddaughter, right now.
Perhaps he could buy time to continue the great cause. Even if it meant abandoning this Karakoto, if he could cut off her reinforcements and draw in compatriots still groaning under the Mongols’ iron-fisted rule, he could keep the embers alive.
To that end, he first had to stop that golden plaque from leaving this Xixia desert.
“General! Smoke is visible over there! It seems they stayed there overnight!”
Smoke flowing and rising high into the heavens. Mongol tents and a camp already full of traces of overnight stay.
Heaven had not yet abandoned him. For whatever reason, that empty-headed Khan’s granddaughter had undoubtedly spent the night there, exhausted from fleeing.
He tightened his grip on the spear in his hand and recalled the final moments of the soldiers who had died before his eyes.
Surely, he would avenge that grudge.
The moment he thought that, a hawk’s cry echoed across the desert.
----- -----
“Are you still looking?”
For quite a while, I looked at the four corpses lying inside the ger.
The four corpses whose faces were covered with white cloth, making it impossible to see their faces riddled with scars and arrow holes.
Those who had died by my choice, because of my choice.
“Manhojang.”
“I know, Yesugei. They—”
“They did not die in vain. You need not blame yourself.”
Before I knew it, Yesugei had lifted the white cloth and was personally closing the eyes of a soldier who had died without managing to close them.
“—if the Manhojang achieves an overwhelming victory over them, that is.”
He said it while looking straight at me, his words sounding cold.
The moment I heard those words, I sprang up from my chair, lifted the ger cloth, and began going outside.
“The sun has risen, has it not? Let us go, Yesugei. To win overwhelmingly.”
If I must do it that way, so that those who died because of my complacent choice will not feel it was unjust.
To have something to say to them, I must win overwhelmingly.
----- -----
The desert was soaked in blood once more.
The Xixia people, chasing without knowing anything; Mongol cavalry pressuring them from eight directions in inverted triangle formations of a hundred each.
Swarm tactics loosing arrows while controlling distance, and encirclement tactics forming a siege and spinning around to make the enemy’s breakthrough difficult.
Finding and digging into the enemy’s weakest point when the opportunity was spotted, and even close-quarters combat where they leaped in at once and mowed down countless soldiers with curved swords.
That day, the soldiers following me fed their blades blood until each was satisfied.