Shike, page 29
Most of the samurai were safely within the city wall. Inside the gate Moko was waiting with a lighted oil lamp. Jebu took it from him and went back to the bridge.
A Mongol raised Michihiko's head on the end of a spear. They shouted triumphantly, high-pitched war cries, as if killing this one man had been a great victory.
"They probably think he was our mightiest fighter," said Yukio. "They don't know he was just one samurai who thought today would be a good day to die."
Like the Zinja, the samurai had learned to see death as no evil, Jebu thought. But unlike the Zinja, some of them actually saw it as good. They rushed to embrace it.
Now the Mongols were galloping across the bridge, racing to stop the gates from being closed. "Stand back," Jebu said to Yukio.
Into the oil lamp's flame he plunged the end of a string that had been rubbed with the explosive black powder of the Chinese. A hissing spark ran down the string and branched out in several directions along the bridge. Jebu and Yukio darted behind the great wood and iron doors.
The instant the gates boomed shut there came a tremendous thunderclap. Too late, Yukio put his hands over his ears. Jebu, his own ears ringing, beckoned, and the two of them ran up the stone stairs leading to the parapet.
"Look what we've done," Jebu said.
A grey cloud of stinking smoke hung over Rong hu and Shan hu. The Green Belt Bridge, except for a few smouldering, blackened stumps of pilings, was entirely gone. The water was full of Mongols and their horses, many of them dead or badly wounded, a few struggling to swim to shore.
"That repays them," said Jebu.
"No, it doesn't," said Yukio. "They can lose all those men and not miss them. For us, to lose two hundred men is to lose one out of every five. And we've lost that many, I'm sure, in our very first battle." He laughed bitterly. "I ought to cut my belly open to make up for it."
Jebu said, "It was my suggestion to launch an immediate attack."
Yukio's large eyes were liquid with sadness. "I gave the order. And if you had not stopped our charge when you did, the Mongols would have annihilated us. You also suggested using the thunder-andlightning powder to destroy the bridge."
"Moko learned about the powder from the Chinese engineers." Jebu found that he had no regrets about the disastrous attack, but he wanted to help his friend. He put his hand on Yukio's armoured sleeve.
"We Zinja say that to act is within the power of every person. To guarantee the success of an act is not under anyone's control. So, if you are victorious, do not be elated. If you are defeated do not be downcast. A warrior who cares too much about winning or losing is worthless. I have thought several times today of your father and the last day of his uprising in Heian Kyo, when you were still a child. He was defeated and forced to retreat from the city, but he was not discouraged. He said that the falcon stops and sometimes comes up with empty claws, but flies on to hunt again. He was a joyous samurai."
Yukio smiled, showing the slightly protruding teeth that gave his face a boyish look. "I will try to be- a joyous samurai."
Chapter Five
Across the two lakes the Mongols set up their camp and their fortifications. In their numbers, energy and discipline they reminded Jebu of the fierce red ants that built their nests in the forest around the Waterfowl Temple and viciously attacked any trespassing creature, from insect to man. Once, as a child, he had unknowingly stepped on a red-ant hill. Instantly, his legs had been covered with a swarm of tiny, biting insects. He had run screaming to an elder monk who laughed and rescued him by throwing him into a horse trough.
Yukio summoned his men and called the roll. Their losses were as he had predicted, over two hundred. Yukio announced that he was keeping a written record of every battle. The slain would be listed carefully, and all meritorious deeds would be recorded. Eeats of sublime valour like that of Sakamoto Michihiko would be memorialized in full. Yukio promised that whatever befell them, even if they all died defending Kweilin, he would get the record of their deeds through to the Emperor's Court at Linan, and from there it would be sent to the Sacred Islands. Thus, their families would remember their heroism for ever. Had he promised his men riches and long life, he could not have done more to win their loyalty. To die was nothing to a samurai, but to die unnoticed would be a calamity.
Their cheers for Yukio echoed against the high limestone walls. If they had any doubts about his leadership, those doubts were resolved for the time being. The Chinese spectators, unable to understand the language of Ge-pen, as they called the Sunrise Land, wondered how the strange warriors could be so happy after such terrible losses.
Kweilin lay along the west bank of the Kwei Kiang River, a wide, deep, swift-running stream bordered by blue hills riddled with caves and sinkholes and eroded into fantastic shapes. The river was not only a natural moat but also provided the city with an easy supply route and escape route. Any relief troops that might be needed could sail up the Kwei Kiang from Canton.
The besiegers pitched their camp on the west and south sides of the city. Every hill, all the way to the horizon, was covered by round grey felt tents arranged in regular rows. At night the campfires twinkled, as innumerable as the stars.
After several days of watching, Yukio estimated that there were seventy thousand fighting men in the army camped around Kweilin. Thirty thousand were Mongols, organized into three tumans, divisions of ten thousand. The rest were auxiliary troops drawn from the various peoples the Mongols had conquered, mostly Kin Tartars, northern Chinese, Turks and Nan Chaoans. Accompanying these warriors was a host of camp followers, women, servants and slaves.
The Mongols were far from being the ragtag horde of savages Jebu and Yukio had imagined. They were better organized and more carefully equipped than many armies of civilized nations. They wore leather helmets, sometimes topped with spikes or other ornaments, and trimmed with felt and fur. Their armour was of fire-dried, black-lacquered rawhide, which, Jebu knew, was as strong as steel. Each rider carried two bows and two quivers of arrows in saddle cases, a curved sabre in a scabbard slung across his back, a lance, an iron mace, and a round leather shield. Each warrior had at least six remounts-compact steppe ponies about the size of samurai horses, much smaller than those of the Chinese. The Mongol ponies had powerful necks, thick legs and dense coats. Their manes and tails hung almost to the ground. They foraged for themselves in huge herds in the hills near Kweilin.
Life in the city of felt domes seemed quiet and orderly, amazingly so, considering that these were supposedly barbarians whose only interests in life were conquest, killing, looting and rape. Jebu remembered what the Zen monk Eisen had said about the strict laws of the Mongols.
The head of Sakamato Michihiko remained on a pole at the spot where he had fallen, a trophy to be pecked at by birds, gradually changing from the head of a comrade to an anonymous skull. And close to the two lakes was an even more wretched sight. A huge corral had been built. Thousands of tattered, woebegone Chinese were penned within it, mostly men but with many women and even some children among them. They sat or lay on the ground without shelter from the hot sun and the frequent summer rains; the more energetic paced like caged animals. They were fed once a day. Every day parties of these prisoners, each herded by a single mounted warrior, would trudge out to the hills and return pulling cartloads of brush which they laid in a huge pile beside their stockade.
Jebu, Yukio and Moko spent hours every day watching the Mongols. In his few moments of leisure Jebu contemplated the play of light in the flashing depths of the Jewel of Life and Death. Even though he and his comrades had gone, seemingly, from certain death in their homeland to certain death in a foreign country, he felt calm and cheerful.
Across the moat from the city walls the besiegers built a wooden counterwall, with towers higher than those of the city. Behind it they deployed mobile towers, large and small catapults, giant crossbows, rams and the long-barrelled iron firethrowers the Chinese called hua pao.
Moko studied the many different kinds of siege machines, explained their uses to Yukio and suggested how they might be countered. "They will send miners to dig under the moat and try to blast our walls with the black powder," he said. "They have contingents of engineers among their auxiliary troops. We must have men constantly posted along the base of the walls listening for sounds of digging."
Kweilin had hua pao of its own, which Yukio ordered positioned on the city's towers, to be manned night and day by shifts of Chinese. Pots of oil were set up along the walls, to be ignited and dropped on the wooden Mongol machines. Within the city people gathered barrels of water on every street, buckets of water in every house. Fire was the worst enemy of a city under siege.
They were as ready as they could be, but there were certain aspects of their situation that mystified Yukio and Jebu.
Jebu said, "We know nothing of siege warfare, we know nothing of these fire-throwing tubes. We are ignorant of Mongol tactics. A wise man would have placed us under a Chinese general, so that we could learn and be used according to our skills. Instead we have been put in command of this city. The Chinese officers here resent us. Is Chia Ssu-tao a fool, that he would risk a city in this fashion?"
Yukio shrugged. "Perhaps he was overly impressed by us. People are often respectful of the strange, and contemptuous of the familiar."
"Or perhaps he wants this city to fall," Jebu said.
"But he is of the war party at the Sung Emperor's Court. It was he who provoked the Mongols by breaking a treaty with them."
Jebu nodded. "What if the Mongols desired that provocation?"
Yukio's large eyes opened wider. "Are you suggesting that .Chia Ssu-tao is a traitor? And that we are being sacrificed to his designs?"
"All we can do now is play the game out," said Jebu. "We are learning more quickly than those who sent us here may have expected us to."
At the time of their meeting with Chia Ssu-tao, it had seemed like the beginning of days of good fortune. Eor ten days, longer than it took to cross the China Sea, they had sweltered aboard their galleys in the almost tropical heat of the southern Chinese capital, Linan. Chinese troops guarded them. Yukio gave a port official a flowery letter to the Chinese Son of Heaven, offering the services of one thousand samurai, to be used as His Imperial Majesty saw fit. The letter had been written at the Teak Blossom Temple with the help of the Zen monk Eisen. After a time Yukio began to despair of receiving an answer. They would have to choose between rotting aboard these ships, setting sail for some other land where they might be more welcome, or breaking out, to become outlaws in the Chinese countryside.
Then a reply came. A huge red and gold palanquin borne by a dozen men and accompanied by a squad of clanking Chinese soldiers was set on the stone quay beside Yukio's ship. A Chinese officer invited Yukio and three of his officers to ride in the palanquin to the palace of His Celestial Majesty's chief councillor, the venerable Chia Ssu-tao. Yukio gaped at the palanquin.
"Back home, only the Emperor would be allowed to ride in a conveyance like that."
"Things are different here," Jebu said. "Get your best kimono on and let us visit this venerable councillor."
Yukio, Jebu and two other samurai leaders rode in the palanquin. Linan seemed to them a city of giants. Its many-storeyed buildings towered over innumerable canals and elaborate stone bridges. Each city block seemed to hold as many people as all of Heian Kyo. The Zinja were taught to memorize landmarks, but before they had gone very far, Jebu realized he was completely lost. It was all too strange.
Chia Ssu-tao's residence did not cover as much ground as the Rokuhara or the Imperial Palace back in Heian Kyo. Land was obviously precious in Linan. But the buildings were bigger and heavier than those of the Sunrise Land. Chia Ssu-tao's palace was surrounded by vermilion columns resting on the heads of painted stone dragons. He was guarded by huge soldiers in silver armour. The halls of his palace were covered with heavy carpet, so that not a footfall could be heard.
Chia Ssu-tao received them seated on a throne painted with gold leaf. He was a man in his early forties, tall and lean with a large nose, a pointed chin and a small mouth. He wore a round hat topped by a ball of red coral, the mark of his high office. His welcoming smile was cold.
"Your command of Chinese is good," he began, "but you write in the style of over three hundred years ago."
Yukio blushed. "Eorgive my blundering efforts, Your Excellency.
There has been so little contact between your land and mine that we have not kept up with the progress in your manner of writing."
Chia Ssu-tao nodded. "The last official embassy from your Emperor visited our Son of Heaven near the end of the T'ang dynasty. I presume you have heard of the T'ang dynasty?"
"Of course, Your Excellency," said Yukio. "Our system of government is modelled on that of the T'ang. Our capital, Heian Kyo, is a copy of the T'ang capital of Changan."
"Your people have a gift for aping their betters," said Chia Ssu-tao with a patronizing smile. "However, it is time you visited us again to acquire a few new skills. The Central Kingdom is always pleased to aid the struggles of barbarian nations towards higher civilization."
Yukio was good at masking his feelings, but Jebu knew from the tightness around his mouth that he was furious. "It is to help protect your great civilization against the barbarian invaders that we have come here, Your Excellency."
Chia Ssu-tao nodded. "You show the virtue of filial piety, since our civilization is the father of yours. I shall ask the Ministry of War what role can be found for you. We will provide you and your men with quarters. By the way, do you hold cricket fights in your country?"
"Our children keep crickets in cages as pets, Your Excellency."
"Indeed your people are backward if they consider such a sublime sport a pastime for children. Here we pit crickets against each other. They strive together like tiny dragons. We place bets on the outcome. You must attend my next evening of cricket fights."
In the days that followed, Chia Ssu-tao introduced Jebu, Yukio and other high-ranking samurai to the aristocracy of Linan. They even had a brief audience with Sung Emperor Li-tsung, a stout, motionless figure seated on a jade throne. They attended several cricket fights, an obsession with Chia Ssu-tao that preoccupied him more than his duties as the Son of Heaven's chief councillor. On all these occasions Jebu felt that they were being paraded as curiosities, not taken seriously as fighting men.
So it was a surprise when, after a short stay in Linan, Yukio was given an Imperial appointment as military commander of Kweilin, the chief city of Kwangsi province on the western border of the Sung empire. The Mongols had invaded the independent kingdom of Nan Chao and taken its capital, Tali. Kweilin was their next likely target. If Kweilin fell, the nomads could move on to Changsha, the strongest city in the central region. The fall of Changsha would open the way to Linan. The Chinese rulers had given Yukio a crucial post.
After the Mongols had been camped outside the city's walls for, three days, they sent an unarmed officer across Lake Rong hu in a sampan. Yukio said, "Let's behead him in front of the gateway, where his countrymen can see it. That will encourage our people and teach the enemy that we are resolute."
Jebu, who had a strong distaste for unnecessary bloodshed despite his years of combat, was surprised at Yukio. "The governor of the city might want to decide how to deal with this envoy," he suggested mildly. "Let's not antagonize our Chinese friends further."
Governor Liu Mai-tse, an aged scholar, received Yukio, Jebu and the Mongol emissary in his marble hall of state. After bowing to the governor, who was seated on an ivory chair, Yukio addressed him in Chinese.
"I wanted to behead this Mongol at once, Your Excellency, without even hearing what he had to say. This weak-spirited monk who accompanies me persuaded me to bring the enemy to you instead. If it is your wish, though, I will gladly execute him now."
For the first time Yukio spoke in a language the envoy understood. He showed no fear, but glowered angrily. Despite his age-his hair and moustache were grey-he had the powerful build and quick movements of a young warrior.
Governor Liu smiled. "I am not familiar with the humour of Gepen, but I believe you are joking about this monk. I observed him from the wall the day you fought the Mongols, and he is anything but weak-spirited. His advice to you is wise. The Mongols consider the person of an ambassador to be sacred. To slay this man would be an unforgivable offence."
Yukio shook his head. "I'm sorry, Your Excellency. I was under the impression we had already offended the Mongols."
Liu raised a slender hand in admonition. "You will admit the possibility that they might eventually take this city?"
"With reluctance."
"Of course. If we had slain their ambassador they would assuredly put all the people of Kweilin to the sword. That is their custom. You do not have the right to condemn every person in this city to certain death. If we do not embark on a course that drives them to do their worst, there is hope. The Tao is infinite and infinitely surprising."
Now the grizzled officer turned to Jebu. "Are you a Mongol?" he demanded angrily in Chinese. "How can you serve the degenerate Chinese and fight against your own people?"
"I am not a Mongol, though my father was," said Jebu. "I was born of mixed parentage in the Sunrise Land and was raised there."
The Mongol looked surprised and curious. He squinted at Jebu closely and seemed about to ask another question when Liu interrupted.
"If you are through quizzing this monk, tell us who you are and what you have to say to us."
The Mongol drew himself up and addressed the governor. "I am Torluk, a tuman-bashi-a leader of ten thousand. I come from the corn mander of the army outside your gates. He does not wish to waste men or destroy a valuable city. Therefore he gives you an opportunity to surrender now. Open your gates to us and all will be spared-even the warriors from the Land of the Dwarfs."
Land of the Dwarfs. Jebu had heard that expression once before, when he had listened in secret to Arghun's conversation with Taitaro. Was it true that his people might be ridiculed for their stature? Perhaps it was so, for had he not always been the butt of jokes because of his height?
