Ming Dynasty 1627

Chapter 188 Carnival Ambition and Hunger

When Lin Dan Khan spoke, the first thing he mentioned was not the current war, but the defection that had occurred a few months ago.

"The Aohan and Naiman tribes defected to the Jurchens in the east, but Huang Taiji refused to accept them."

"Some people had no choice but to go south, while more than 5,000 others came back."

He sneered, his expression full of disdain.

“From among them, pick a hundred that are decent enough to join my Baiya La. The rest can be distributed among the various tribes.”

"Those who have betrayed their country have no right to enter this Khan's tent again!"

Everyone responded in unison.

Some tribal leaders were even more delighted.

The larger tribes might look down on these hundred or so people, but they certainly wouldn't.

Lin Danhan's gaze swept over the crowd again, a smug smile appearing on his face:

"When I first decided to move west, many of you were afraid and doubtful. How do you feel now?"

Agula immediately stood up and laughed loudly, "The Great Khan is truly wise! These western tribes are even more docile than sheep! Their knives are dull, their arrows are soft, and all they know how to do is cry and run away!"

"That's right! I only brought fifty people, and I raided a tribe with over a thousand sheep!"

"They even have women from the south in their tent!"

"The Tumet people are too soft, hahaha! I charged in with three hundred cavalry, but only a dozen or so died, and more than a thousand people ran away!"

The leaders inside the tent echoed each other, vying to show off their victories.

Gui Yingqia also rushed out and shouted, "Great Khan! The old emperor of the Southern Dynasty is dead, and the new emperor is just a greenhorn. This is an opportunity given to us by Buddha!"

"I've heard Han storytellers say that the world is a three-legged pot. The Jurchens are one leg, the Ming people are another, and we are naturally another!"

He looked around, his eyes gleaming with greed and fanaticism.

"Let's crush these spineless cowards in the southern desert first, then we'll deal with those disobedient ones in the northern desert!"

"Then, we'll be right here on the grassland, drinking mare's milk wine and watching the other two legs fight!"

"Once they've fought until they're crippled, and your iron cavalry marches south, Genghis Khan's great achievements will be recreated!"

These words were like a bucket of strong liquor poured into a fire pit, causing the entire tent to boil over.

"Unify the grasslands!"

"Long live the Khan!"

Hearing the crowd's cheers, Lin Danhan finally burst into laughter.

He stood up, and the firelight cast his shadow on the tent, making him look like a demon.

“These past few days, we’ve been tearing at Bu Shi Tu’s flesh like a pack of wolves. We’ve almost wiped out his small tribes.”

"Gifts are being delivered to Tumet's accounts one after another. How can they tolerate this?"

"They won't last much longer!"

"Once these cowards emerge from their camp, we'll defeat them like wolves tearing apart a flock of sheep!"

"Once we take Qingcheng, all the wheat fields as high as mountains, the silk fields as vast as the sea, and the people and livestock as numerous as grass will all be ours!"

Lin Danhan waved his hand emphatically and said, "All of them!"

Greedy eyes were fixed on him. Regardless of whether he had managed to plunder anything in the past few days, the weakness of the Tumed tribes was something everyone had witnessed.

Compared to the Ming army and the Jurchens in Liaodong, they were much easier to defeat!
This Khan seems to have made a brilliant move this time.

Someone, I don't know who, was the first to shout out: "Final battle!"

Soon, shouts of "Let's fight!" rose and fell, almost lifting the roof off the Khan's tent.

"decisive battle!"

"decisive battle!"

……

At that moment, Lin Danhan slowly raised his hand and pressed it down.

His gaze fell upon an old lama in a red robe sitting in the front row. He was Hutuktu, the living Buddha of the Red Sect who had crowned him since his youth.

He gestured and said, "Grand Tutor, please show us the signs of this battle."

The lama was as thin as a dried tree branch, with a dark face covered in deep wrinkles.

Without saying a word, he slowly walked to the fire pit in the center of the tent, took out a piece of white sheep shoulder blade from his bosom, and threw it into the blazing cow dung fire.

A strange, bluish-green flame emerged from the cow dung fire.

Everyone held their breath, watching this sacred scene in awe.

Flames licked at the bones, crackling and popping.

The lama muttered incantations, his eyes fixed on the black cracks that were slowly appearing on the bone.

After a long while, he used tongs to pick up the burning hot shoulder blade, examined it for a moment, and then spoke in an old and hoarse voice.

"Firelight will appear, the clouds will disperse. Golden light will illuminate the west, and eagles will soar under the sun..."

Upon hearing this, the greed and excitement on the faces of the people in the tent could no longer be contained, as if they could already see mountains of treasure and women.

The lama ignored the crowd's reactions. His withered fingers traced the cracks in his bone, and his voice became even more ethereal and unpredictable.

"But... at the end of the crack, a shadow also appears. The wind from the plateau will bring some sand and dust, which may blind the eagle."

As soon as the lama finished speaking, there was a moment of silence in the tent, followed by an even louder burst of laughter, which no one paid any attention to.

"Haha, sandstorms? Which of us Mongolian men didn't grow up amidst sandstorms!"

"An eagle afraid of sandstorms? What a joke!"

Lindan Khan laughed so hard he almost fell over. He snatched a golden cup from a maid and drank the mare's milk wine in one gulp, saying wildly:

"Well said! A little bit of wind and sand is just what I need to sharpen my golden sword!"

He slammed the golden cup to the ground, looked around at everyone, and his eyes were filled with arrogant pride.

"A true eagle only sees the sandstorm as an embellishment when it soars high in the sky!"

He paused, then burst into laughter.

"Tonight, there will be plenty of beef and mutton, and all the drinks you can eat! Let's celebrate our upcoming victory in advance!"

"You won't come home until you're drunk!"

Amidst thunderous applause and cheers, everyone raised their glasses.

Inside the main hall, there was an overwhelming desire for victory.

The lama's small warning was completely drowned out by the clamor.

……

They said they wouldn't leave until they were drunk, but after all, it's still wartime.

After a short while of feasting, Su Tai's wife stepped forward and offered a few words of advice, after which everyone dispersed.

Gui Yingqia's steps were also somewhat unsteady, and he stumbled back to his tent.

His tent was considered quite luxurious in the entire camp.

Thick carpets covered the ground, and several gold and silver utensils looted from the Central Plains were placed in the corner. Coal, rather than cow dung from ordinary herdsmen, burned in the brazier, making it warm as spring.

However, this luxury paled in comparison to Ligdan Khan's palace-like tent, and everywhere it exuded a sense of "second-class" or even "second-class" decorum.

A servant quietly approached, knelt on one knee, and prepared to remove his armor.

Guiying was just getting tipsy when her body swayed and her hand unconsciously swung backward.

The servant couldn't dodge in time, and the heavy arm armor slammed into his face with a "bang".

The servant Batel let out a painful groan, blood gushing from his nose. He gritted his teeth, daring not to wipe it away, but simply buried his head even lower, continuing his work as if the face didn't belong to him. Guiyingqia's wife, Ligdan Khan's sister—Taison Guren—emerged from the inner tent.

She was broad-shouldered and thick-waisted. Her face, while not ugly, was by no means beautiful, but she had an innate arrogance between her brows.

She was holding a leg of lamb in her hand, casually munching on it.

"Why are you back so late?"

Upon seeing his wife, Guiying seemed to have all his strength drained away instantly. He staggered and grabbed a pillar in the tent for support, his eyes becoming extremely muddled. He slurred, "Tai Song! My good Gulun! You've come at the perfect time!"

He waved his arms, spitting everywhere.

"Listen up! We...we're about to take Qingcheng! Haha!"

"At that time, the Great Khan will be the only Khan on this grassland! The only one!"

Gui Yingqia's eyes appeared somewhat fanatical in the firelight; he seemed to be speaking to Tai Song, yet also to himself.

"The world will then be divided into three! The Great Khan will be Liu Bei, the Jurchens will be Cao Cao, and as for that Han emperor in the south, he's nothing but a rat from Jiangdong!"

"And I! I am Guiyingqia!" He puffed out his chest and patted it heavily, "I am Zhao Zilong of Changshan, the Great Khan! I will fight my way in and out of Qingcheng seven times for the Great Khan!"

Taisong curled his lip, having long since lost interest in Guiyingqia's words.

In her eyes, her husband was the fiercest dog under her brother's command.

Anyway, as long as they are dogs, there is no difference.

If one dies, there's always another.

"vomit--"

Before she could finish speaking, a stream of filth suddenly gushed from Guiying's mouth, splashing onto the beautiful carpet, and the sour stench instantly filled the air.

Taisong jumped back like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, pinching his nose, his face full of undisguised disgust.

She didn't even bother to glance at Guiyingqia, instead kicking the terrified servant with the tip of her boot and scolding him:
"What are you all standing there for? Drag him to the bed!"

"Yes Yes!"

Batel rushed over and, with all his might, dragged the completely drunk Guiying onto the bed.

Taisong pointed to the filth on the ground and said to Batel, "Clean it up before you leave."

After saying that, she casually tossed the half-eaten lamb leg in her hand to Batel's feet.

"This leg of lamb is yours."

Ignoring the blood on his face, Batel knelt down with a thud, kowtowed heavily, and gratefully picked up the bone, tucking it into his robes: "Thank you, Guren! Thank you, Guren!"

He quickly cleaned the ground and then bowed as he left the tent.

On the bed, Guiying was snoring heavily. He turned over and mumbled indistinctly, "Water...I want to drink water..."

"Okay, okay! You're so noisy!"

Taisong responded impatiently, turned around, took a leather water bag from the shelf, walked to the bedside, and without even looking at it, threw it directly onto Guiyingqia.

She turned and sat down in front of the bronze mirror on the dressing table, picking and choosing among the pieces of jewelry that had been returned that day.

But what good stuff could a small tribe possibly have?

Before long, Taisong lost interest, turned around, went to the bedside, and lay down heavily.

Soon, thunderous snoring filled the air.

Inside the tent, the only sound for a moment was the soft crackling of coal burning in the brazier.

After an unknown amount of time, Guiying slowly opened her eyes in the darkness.

There was clearly no trace of drunkenness in those eyes.

He stared silently at the top of the tent, his face expressionless.

The clamor of the banquet still seemed to echo in his ears: the sincere or insincere flattery of the tribal chiefs, Lindan Khan's smug smile, and his wife's undisguised arrogance.

He Guiyingqia, as the tribal chief, married the Khan's sister, yet he still lived in a "second-class" tent and used "second-class" utensils, and even his own wife looked down on him.

Why?
Why should he have to be subservient to others?

In the darkness, his fist slowly clenched, his nails digging deep into his palm.

He thought of the Han Chinese merchants he associated with, who always swayed their heads and recited things he couldn't understand but found very reasonable.

One sentence in particular, once he understood its meaning, he could never forget.

Are kings and nobles born with a special destiny?
These words, like wildfire on the prairie, grew wildly in his heart.

After a long while, he closed his eyes again, his breathing became even and long, and this time, he truly fell into a deep sleep.

……

When Batel hunched over and slipped back to his tent like a shadow, he was greeted by darkness that almost froze him to death.

His home was less a tent and more a collection of tattered felt and sticks, and it was drafty everywhere.

His wife and three children were crammed into the tent, and the air was filled with a faint smell of yogurt and an inescapable sense of poverty.

There were no candles, not even an oil lamp.

"You're back? Have you eaten?" His wife recognized him and asked, "Should I go and milk some mare's milk?"

Batel shook his head, but a mysterious smile appeared on his face.

He carefully took something out of his pocket; by the moonlight, it was a lamb bone with some meat still attached.

"Today, the Guren was merciful and rewarded me with a leftover leg."

Before the adults could speak, the three older children pounced on the sheep bone like wolf cubs, greedily gnawing and tearing at it, making satisfied "woofing" sounds.

They were using so much force that their teeth and bones made a creaking sound.

Batel and his wife did not move, but simply smiled and looked at their children by the moonlight.

There was so little meat left that the children gnawed on it for a while, even licking the meat out of the bones, but they couldn't find anything else.

The oldest child, about seven or eight years old, simply took the bare bone and handed it to Batel.

"Abu, we want to eat from inside!!" Timur looked up at his father, his eyes shining brightly in the darkness.

Batel took the bone, braced it with his knee, grabbed both ends with his hands, and with a sudden burst of strength, the hard sheep bone snapped with a "crack".

"Oh!"

The children cheered and immediately crowded around, each taking a piece and carefully sucking out the oily marrow.

The children only stopped when they had savored every last drop of oil.

They nestled into Batel's arms one by one, like a flock of docile lambs, cuddling softly against him.

"Abu, I want to eat it again tomorrow," Timur whispered, snuggling against him.

"You want to eat?" Batel held the children, smelling the faint milky scent on them. The throbbing wounds on his face seemed to hurt less. "If you want to eat, then herd sheep well and practice your archery until you're accurate. Then, Abu will take you to raid other tribes, and you'll have an endless supply of mutton!"

"I'm going to rob the Ming people!" Timur suddenly raised his head, his eyes sparkling. "Mother said they're like lambs in the pen, plump and tender!"

Batel paused for a moment, then burst into laughter, vigorously rubbing his son's head.

"Good, good, good! My Timur, when you grow up, you will definitely become a true warrior! When that time comes, Abu will take you to rob the Ming people!"

"I heard that the Ming people don't drink mare's milk, but instead eat rice, the kind that men eat. Is that true?" Timur asked, tilting his head back.

“Yes, Abu told you, the Ming people have everything, not just rice, but also…”

Under the moonlight, the tall grass stands silent.

The Eternal Heaven simply watched everything that happened on this grassland, but could not and would not change anything.

After all, the Eternal Heaven did not even interfere with its own demise.

(End of this chapter)