More than a hundred guards escorted a carriage out of the Jizhou Army’s main camp, traveling along the official road toward a county town roughly twenty-some li away. The area could technically be considered the northern frontier of Dachu, though not the northern frontier people most commonly spoke of.
The northern frontier most familiar to common folk was northeast of Youzhou—particularly along the Jizhou line, a place of unceasing warfare year after year.
Xinzhou, Daizhou, Yizhou—this entire stretch lay south of the Yanshan Mountains, which served as a natural barrier separating the northern steppe from the Central Plains.
For steppe peoples seeking to pass through the border in this region, the preferred route was through Daizhou’s Dayanguan Pass. This made Daizhou home to the largest border market within Jizhou, where great numbers of steppe merchants came to trade goods.
By comparison, far fewer steppe merchants came through Xinzhou, as the road was difficult. Although there was a border pass allowing transit, the mountain gorge one had to traverse was narrow and rugged, frequently plagued by mountain bandits—no one wanted to risk it.
This time, when the Geoqin tribe from the steppe contacted Prince Wu about exchanging warhorses for provisions and grain, the reason they chose Xinzhou as their meeting place was precisely because few people traveled this route, making it easier to avoid detection.
The Geoqin tribe’s people did not want other tribes knowing they had fallen on hard times.
Long ago, Xu the Conqueror had driven the enemy beyond the Yanshan Mountains, securing decades of peace. But as the ruling power of the Dachu dynasty had grown increasingly weak, the many tribes of the steppe had in truth long since stopped heeding the Chu court’s commands and allocations.
Originally, a fixed number of warhorses were contributed to the court each year, and the court would then distribute them among the various garrison forces. When quantities fell short, the Chu court would purchase warhorses from the steppe at favorable prices.
Yet today, the Chu court’s decrees went unheeded even at the local level—the military governors of all thirteen provinces each pocketed the annual grain and tax revenues for themselves. What could the court do about it?
If the court couldn’t even control what was close at hand, it certainly couldn’t manage the vast steppe thousands of mountains and rivers away.
The most powerful tribe on the steppe today was called the Iron Crane tribe, whose mounted archers capable of going armored into battle numbered in the hundreds of thousands. After three consecutive years of warfare, they had annihilated more than a dozen tribes large and small, with all remaining tribes submitting beneath the Iron Crane tribe’s iron cavalry and blades.
The Geoqin tribe was among those who had submitted. Though its tribal strength was considerable—mustering a hundred thousand cavalry at full mobilization would pose no difficulty—it dared not confront the Iron Crane tribe head-on. Fortunately, the Iron Crane tribe, arrogant as they were, had not yet set their sights on conflict with Geoqin.
The Iron Crane tribe had no desire to attack powerful tribes. Their strategy was simple in the extreme: for small tribes—especially disobedient ones—destroy them; for large tribes that were difficult to fight, draw them in as allies.
The Iron Crane tribe had initiated the formation of the Steppe Tribal Alliance. As its founder and most powerful member, the Iron Crane tribe was the Alliance’s supreme tribe. The Geoqin tribe and the Fulu tribe, both slightly weaker, served as the Alliance’s co-deputy tribes.
The Iron Crane tribe’s war banner bore a red flying crane—the crane was their totem. The Geoqin tribe revered the Wolf God; their war banner displayed a wolf’s head. The Fulu tribe’s totem was the Five-Colored Divine Deer; their war banner bore a pair of deer antlers.
Beneath these three great tribes, more than a hundred smaller tribes each pledged their allegiance.
Thus this steppe tribal alliance came to be known as the Crane-Wolf-Deer.
Under normal circumstances, the Iron Crane tribe would not move against a major tribe like Geoqin without absolute confidence of victory—yet recently, Geoqin had suffered a natural disaster. A great fire had burned their grazing lands to ash. With no fodder to see their cattle and sheep through winter, if the problem went unsolved, the tribe would face utter destruction.
But that destruction would not come from starvation—even without fodder, the livestock would die before the people, who could at least survive the winter.
The real destruction would come from the Iron Crane tribe, who would never let such an opportunity pass. The current situation on the steppe was such that the Geoqin and Fulu tribes had grown quite close, their two tribes standing together against the Iron Crane.
However, ever since the disaster struck, word had spread that the Iron Crane tribe had been making inquiries about Geoqin’s losses and had been sending envoys to the Fulu tribe without cease. In all likelihood, the Iron Crane tribe was playing their same old game—negotiating with the Fulu tribe to jointly destroy Geoqin and split the spoils between them.
If the Fulu tribe took the bait, the Iron Crane tribe would have only one remaining rival worth calling their equal. What would there be left to worry about?
Geoqin’s chief, Aijin Zhetai, would never entrust his tribe’s fate to others. He could not place all his hopes on the Fulu tribe refusing the Iron Crane’s overtures.
So he had dispatched people to contact Prince Wu, intending to exchange large numbers of warhorses for provisions and grain. With supplies secured to weather this cold winter, come the following spring, the ash left by the great fire would nourish new pastureland into growing even more lush and abundant.
All along the road, Li Diudiu and Xiahou Zuo discussed the situation on the steppe—idle anyway, they chatted, and from the steppe their conversation drifted to the customs and character of the northern frontier region.
“In the Zhou dynasty, this place wasn’t even a border region. Jizhou was seized by northern tribes and occupied for over a hundred years—it was only after Dachu was founded that it was taken back.”
Xiahou Zuo gazed out beyond the carriage window, his voice carrying a note of feeling. “After Dachu was founded, they constructed the Nine Stars in a Line along this stretch of Xinzhou.”
Li Diudiu asked curiously: “What does ‘Nine Stars in a Line’ mean?”
Xiahou Zuo said: “Nine stars refers to nine county towns arranged in a single row, forming a line—this was Dachu’s frontier boundary. In those days, this area of Jizhou had been ravaged by war for years running; the people had been driven out, leaving nothing but wasteland in all directions.”
“Dachu’s founding emperor issued a decree summoning people from various regions to replenish the population of Jizhou. Those relocated here numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and through the generations that followed, they took root and multiplied—that is how Jizhou came to its present prosperity…”
Reaching the word “prosperity,” Xiahou Zuo let out a sigh.
Prosperity had become the past. Now there was nothing but ruin and desolation wherever the eye fell.
He paused, then continued: “Those nine county towns were named by the founding emperor according to the Chan Sect’s nine-character incantation: ‘Soldiers, array, combat, all, formation, line, advance’—each character became the name of one county.”
Li Diudiu thought that was incredibly cool.
Xiahou Zuo continued: “The place we’re heading to now is one of those Nine Stars in a Line county towns. Though the Nine Stars in a Line no longer exists… Before Grand General Xu the Conqueror pacified the northern rebellion, more than half of the nine county towns were breached by steppe cavalry. Of those nine counties, only four survive today.”
“When the towns fell, their people fled as refugees to the remaining counties. To be frank, the court was negligent—even with the nine counties incomplete, the court made no changes for a long time. Only in recent years did the court issue a decree officially merging the nine counties into the present four.”
Li Diudiu said: “I had no idea you were so learned.”
Xiahou Zuo smiled with satisfaction, pointing ahead: “The place we’re going to was originally called Lie County; later it was merged with a county called Qian. The county district is now named Qianlie County.”
Li Diudiu: “That’s a fine-sounding name—and I’m not sure why, but it has a bold, stirring feel to it.”
The twenty-some li journey took half a day, but there was no hurry. Prince Yu’s meaning was that there might be major developments at the military camp over the next two days—he worried some accident might occur, and if the Geoqin tribe suddenly changed their minds, a real fight might break out—so he had asked Xiahou Zuo to spend a few days over in Qianlie County.
Qianlie County was a sizable town, with a permanent population of tens of thousands. Close to the border, though not as prosperous as Daizhou, there were still some merchants from the steppe conducting trade here.
The most common things to be found were all manner of mountain goods—an array of dried fruits, a large portion of which Li Diudiu had never seen before, his eyes filling with curiosity at every turn.
Xiahou Zuo was generous: whenever Li Diudiu showed signs of puzzlement over something, he would have someone buy a little to try.
Besides the abundant dried fruits were pelts of various wild beasts—the Yanshan Mountains teemed with wildlife, and many hunters made their living from it.
However, Xiahou Zuo warned that those whole pelts which looked so precious were in many cases actually stitched together from pieces. Sellers would fool whoever they could.
The fruit vendors were the same. They’d quote you a nice cheap price, but their scales ran short—if you bought a jin of dried fruit and ended up with six liang in hand, you were getting off well.
And it wasn’t only dead goods for sale. There was also a live animal market—an entire section of Qianlie County dedicated to live creatures, where mountain beasts Li Diudiu had never laid eyes on could be seen in great abundance.
“What’s this?”
Li Diudiu pointed curiously at a bird in one of the cages.
The merchant, seeing customers arrive, hurried to his feet. “Good sir, this fierce bird is called a falcon. This is a young falcon. A remarkable creature—it soars through the highest heavens. Don’t let the size fool you; nothing can stand against it. Ferocious beyond compare.”
Li Diudiu looked to Xiahou Zuo, who studied the bird carefully before nodding. “Looks like a falcon to me—though I’ve never actually seen one either, only heard of them.”
The merchant said: “A hunter spent more than ten days lying in wait in the mountains to catch this one. He was aiming for the large one but missed—the adult died. He didn’t expect to find two chicks in the nest; one of those died too, leaving only this one. If you like it, young sir, I’ll sell it cheap.”
Li Diudiu rather liked it, and glanced over at Xiahou Zuo, who shook his head. “Chicks like this almost never survive in captivity. Even if you raised it to adulthood, it would have lost its wild nature and never learn to hunt. Useless to buy.”
Li Diudiu nodded—and yet he was drawn to it. The little creature looked somewhat soft and helpless, but that was deceptive. Behind those eyes lurked a wariness, a ferocity—the ferocity that only a born hunter possesses.
“How much?”
Li Diudiu asked.
The merchant hurried to answer: “Only twenty taels. You have a bond with it, good sir—I’ll sell it to you cheap.”
Li Diudiu just smiled.
Xiahou Zuo snorted: “Keep it for yourself, then.”
The merchant, feeling indignant, put on a perfectly serious expression and said: “You think no one else will buy this? I simply don’t wish to undercut its value. This is a gyrfalcon—selling it cheap would be an insult to the name gyrfalcon!”
Li Diudiu said: “You make a fair point, but I can’t afford it.”
Xiahou Zuo said: “I’m not the same—I can afford it, I just don’t want to buy it.”
The merchant stopped bothering to argue. He thought to himself: these two have no eye for quality. This is just a young gyrfalcon; if it were a full-grown one, brought to a major city like the Jizhou capital or the imperial capital, it would be worth a thousand taels and more.
Li Diudiu had already walked a few paces away when he turned back. “Can we negotiate the price a little?”
The merchant eagerly replied: “The price is always open to discussion. I’d be no merchant if I named a fixed price and refused to budge. How much do you think you could offer, young sir?”
Li Diudiu held up one finger. The merchant shook his head. “Ten taels is too low. Can’t do it.”
Li Diudiu gave an awkward smile: “I was going to say one tael.”
The merchant’s eyes went wide: “Are you joking?!”
Xiahou Zuo lowered his voice and said to Li Diudiu: “He can’t afford to keep feeding it himself—it needs fresh meat every day, and he doesn’t have the time to manage it. If you genuinely want it, he’d probably take fifteen taels. I’ll buy it and give it to you.”
Li Diudiu shook his head. “Fifteen taels for that? Think of how much meat you could buy with fifteen taels!”
Xiahou Zuo sighed: “You think raising it is easy? That creature’s monthly expenses run higher than what twenty ordinary households spend to live on.”
Li Diudiu’s jaw dropped, his face a picture of astonishment. “Raise it? I’m not thinking about raising it—I’m thinking about eating it…”
Xiahou Zuo’s mouth twitched.
“Get lost!”
—