“Don’t be too impressed,” Yuchun yelled in her ear. “It’s just a light; it doesn’t do anything.”
“Then why is everyone so excited?” Zhu shouted back. But even in the face of Yuchun’s cynicism, she thought she could understand. The sight of Heaven’s power filled her with a wild energy that felt like the wind at her back as she ran as fast as she could towards the future.
The front line of the crowd crushed forwards, their hands straining for the red light. “Touch the light, get the blessing. They all die anyway, though. I’ve seen it.” A second figure strode onstage. “That’s the Prime Minister.”
As the Prime Minister approached, the Prince of Radiance extended his hand and sent flames arcing between them. The fire mantled on the Prime Minister’s shoulders, and when he raised his arms it spilled down onto the crowd like liquid. He cried, “Witness the Mandate of Heaven that ran in the blood of our last emperors. The light that will extinguish the darkness of the Hu—the light of the new era of the Prince of Radiance!” and the men laughed and cried hysterically in response. They were young men; they didn’t believe they could die. And as they stood there in that magical red light, for a moment it seemed impossible.
As Zhu watched the crowd rejoice, she found herself wondering. Presumably the Prince of Radiance’s Mandate meant that the Great Yuan would eventually fall. But Zhu was a monk; she had read the dynastic histories. History twisted and turned like a snake. When you were in the moment, how could you tell which way it would turn next? There was nothing about the Mandate that promised the rebels this particular victory—or indeed any victory at all.
And alone of all that crowd, Zhu knew exactly what they faced. Who they faced. Through that strange quiver of connection to the Yuan’s eunuch general, she had seen beneath that carved-jade mask to his shame and self-hate and anger. He had a wound for a heart, and that made him a more dangerous opponent than anyone here realized. He had just defeated the Red Turbans’ most experienced leader, and now he would be determined to do to the rebels what he had done to Wuhuang Monastery.
And that, Zhu thought grimly, would be inconvenient. In times like these the only path to greatness lay via an army, and the Red Turbans were the only army around. Without them, she would be nothing at all.
7
YAO RIVER
Zhu sat with the thief Yuchun at the small cooking fire in front of the tent she shared with the four other members of her squad. For once it wasn’t raining, which made it the first dry day in two straight weeks. First it had rained the whole weeklong march from Anfeng to the Yao River, and then it had rained for another miserable week while they waited at the Yao for the Yuan to arrive. Now that the Yuan had finally arrived on the other side of the Yao, Zhu wished they were still waiting. Despite all her puzzling over the upcoming engagement, she had yet to come up with a solution that would address both parts of her problem: her own immediate survival in the vanguard, and the likely annihilation of the Red Turbans at the hands of the Yuan’s eunuch general. Frustratingly, half measures were useless: to solve one part without the other would leave her either dead, or without an army and her path to greatness, which amounted to the same thing. There had to be a solution, but so far all her endless circling had yielded was a headache and a grim feeling of mounting dread.
Zhu stirred the bubbling pot of yellow beans on the fire. As the squad’s newest member she had been put in charge of turning their meager rations into something edible. Yuchun, who wasn’t a member of the Red Turbans and so didn’t receive rations, rented the squad the (presumably stolen) cooking pot in return for a bowl of whatever was cooked in it. Smoke and starchy beans: it was the smell of a life she thought she’d escaped forever. “All we need is a lizard,” she said, feeling ironic.
Yuchun gave her a look of disgust. “Ugh, why?”
“Ah, little brother, you must never have been very hungry. You’re lucky.”
“Luck, ha! I’m smart enough to avoid being in a situation where I’d have to eat a lizard to survive,” Yuchun said. “Don’t even tell me it tastes like chicken.”
“How would this monk know?” Zhu pointed out. “There aren’t any chickens in a famine, and monks are vegetarian.”
“Pork is better,” Yuchun said. “Don’t tell my ancestors I said that, though; they’re Hui.” The Hui people’s religious avoidance of pork made them an oddity in the pork-obsessed south. “You know, I think I could afford a pig or three. What do you think, lucky monk: When the Yuan kill you all tomorrow, should I take your horse to the coast and open a restaurant?”
“If that’s your plan, you should be the one cooking,” Zhu said. She tasted a bean and made a face. “You think we’ll lose?”
“I hope you’ll lose,” Yuchun corrected. “The Yuan soldiers won’t care about taking your crappy stuff, so that means I get it. The other way round isn’t nearly as good.”
“Is that so,” Zhu said mildly. Despite the eager anticipation the Yuan’s arrival had produced in nearly everyone else in the Red Turban camp, she had only become even more certain of the outcome that awaited them if she didn’t intervene.
The Yao, running north–south, drained a large dammed lake system into the larger Huai River, which ran east–west. Together, the two rivers made a protective right angle across the northern and eastern approaches to Anfeng. A Tang-era stone arch bridge spanned the Yao directly downstream from the dam. Downstream from the bridge, the Yao spread and became a marshy delta where it joined the Huai. Since the Yao was too wide for an army to cross downstream, and the lake was upstream, the bridge was the Yuan’s only way across. The Red Turbans had arrived first and taken control of their bridgehead, so they had the advantage. But looking now at that dusky far shore, Zhu saw the pale smoke from the Yuan’s campfires standing up like lines of text on a tomb tablet. Somewhere out there was the eunuch general, perhaps looking back in her direction. And something told her that instead of anticipating the battle like the young Red Turbans, just like her he was feeling the cold certainty of how it would end in his favor.
“The beans will probably take another hour. Maybe you should keep an eye on them while this monk goes to pray,” Zhu said, using her usual excuse to wander out of camp to find some privacy for personal functions. In her last years in the monastery she’d had a room of her own, and she’d hardly had to think about her physical differences. Now, forced to find ways of keeping those differences hidden, she hated both the bother and the reminder of the fate that awaited her should she not achieve greatness.
Yuchun took the stirring stick grudgingly. Despite his perpetual presence in the squad, he considered himself a visitor and resented being given menial tasks. “If some Hu is praying for his arrow to hit you, and you’re praying equally hard for it not to, don’t you think they’ll cancel each other out?”
Zhu raised her eyebrows. “Then what happens?”
“You get hit by someone else’s arrow,” Yuchun said promptly.
“If that’s the case, then this monk will pray not to get hit by any arrows. Or swords. Or spears.” She paused. “What other ways are there to die in battle?”
“Ha, you think you can make a watertight argument to Heaven?” Yuchun said. “Can’t pray away your fate, monk.”
Zhu left, shaking off the darkness of Yuchun’s comment. She was Zhu Chongba, and she was going to achieve greatness, and the only thing she had to concern herself with right now was making that happen. She headed out of camp, relieved herself, then followed the riverbank towards the dam and hiked up to the lake.
From the vertiginous slope on the other side of the lake, a field of giant bodhisattva statues, each three times a man’s height, fixed her with their serene regard. Zhu thought uneasily: Heaven is watching. According to local legend, the statues had belonged to a long-ago temple that had slipped down the hillside and into the lake’s depths, where it had become a home to foxes and other inhuman spirits. Zhu, who had never seen a non-human spirit, had always had doubts about their existe
nce. But there was something about that dark, still surface that made the idea less implausible.
She sat cross-legged on the soggy ground and considered her problem yet again. The best solution would be one that prevented the two armies from meeting at all. Perhaps if she could destroy the bridge—but that was easier said than done. Nothing short of an earthquake could bring down a Tang stone bridge, and this one had already survived five centuries. What could she possibly do against it?
She gazed at the distant statues. For the first time she noticed they were leaning forwards, as if straining to impart some important message. Had they been that way yesterday? Even as she thought it, she became aware of something else new: a murmuring deep within the ground, so low it was more felt than heard, as if the bones of the earth were grinding together. And the moment she realized what that sound was, her circling mind fell quiet under the dreadful relief of having found the solution.
All these years she had given everything to avoid Heaven’s notice, for fear of being found living Zhu Chongba’s life. Feeling safe had meant feeling hidden, as if she were a crab inside a borrowed shell. But that had been in the small, orderly world of the monastery. Now she saw—terribly—that achieving greatness in the outside world was beyond any person’s individual control. It would be impossible without Heaven’s will behind it. To succeed, she needed to call on Heaven and have it respond not to her, but to Zhu Chongba: the person destined for greatness.
She could hardly breathe. To deliberately attract Heaven’s attention risked everything. She had lived as Zhu Chongba for so long, trying her best not to acknowledge their differences even to herself, but now she would have to be him. She would have to believe it so deeply that when Heaven looked, it would see only one person. One fate.
It would be the biggest gamble of her life. But if she wanted greatness—she was going to have to stand up and claim it.
* * *
Heaven being far away, certain equipment was needed to catch its attention. Following Yuchun’s directions, Zhu led her horse to the far side of the camp where the more senior Red Turbans pitched their tents. In the end it was easy to find who she was looking for. Outside one tent an array of buckets had been set up so they dripped and dropped between themselves. To Zhu’s surprise, a box set over one of the buckets sprang open and spat out a bead that went scudding down a wire onto a pile of other beads. It was a water clock. Although she had read about such devices, she had never seen one before: it seemed magical.
The clock’s owner came outside and frowned at her. Jiao Yu, the Red Turbans’ engineer, had a Confucian scholar’s wispy beard and the belabored expression of someone who thought himself surrounded by fools. He said dourly, “Are you a real monk?”
“Why does everyone ask this monk that?”
“I suppose they assume monks took some kind of monastic oath against killing,” Jiao said. “You’re wearing a sword.” He shouldered past.
“It’s only that General Guo forced this monk to take it,” Zhu said, following Jiao as he went to rummage through a donkey cart piled with scraps of wood and metal. “He said if this monk didn’t, he’d put his head on the wall.”
“Sounds like General Guo,” Jiao grunted. “He’s done stupider things than behead a monk. Like: bringing us here for a head-on confrontation with a Hu army that’s twice the size and five times better.”
“Everyone else seems to think we’ll win tomorrow,” Zhu observed.
“Everyone else is a white-eyed idiot,” Jiao said succinctly. “Having the Mandate is all well and good, but when it comes to practical matters I’d rather place my trust in good generalship and a numerical advantage rather than the likelihood of a Heaven-sent miracle.”
Zhu laughed. “A pity we don’t have more practical thinkers in our ranks. Well, Engineer Jiao, if you’re concerned about tomorrow, I have an offer for you. Don’t you think your chances of survival would be better if you had a horse at hand? I presume you’ll be here in camp while useless rice buckets such as myself are out on the front line, but if the Yuan prevail—” Zhu lifted her eyebrows. “You’ll need an exit strategy.”
Jiao’s eyes sharpened. She’d read him correctly: he had no intention of being here tomorrow while it all came down around their ears. He glanced at the horse, then gave it a longer second look. “Where’d you find a Hu warhorse?”
“I’m sure it’ll be equally happy heading into or away from battle,” Zhu said. “I can’t ride. But it seems to me that you’re educated, and probably from a good family, so I’m sure you can. In return for it, though, I need you to make me something.”
When he heard Zhu’s specifications, he laughed darkly. “Just the kind of useless thing a monk would ask for. I can make it. But are you sure it’s what you want? If I were you, I’d want a weapon.”
“I already have a sword I can’t use,” Zhu said. She handed him the horse’s reins. “But if there’s one thing monks know how to do, it’s to pray so that Heaven hears.”
As she walked away, she heard Yuchun’s smug voice in her head: Can’t pray away your fate.
But maybe, she thought grimly, you could pray and claim another.
* * *
It was dark by the time Ouyang’s men finished making camp. He collected Esen from his ger, and together they rode down to the bridgehead to survey their opponents. On the opposite bank the Red Turbans’ campfires burned long lines across the hills like traces of wildfire. The light from both camps reflected off the clouds and silvered the tips of the rushing black water beneath the bridge.
“So this is what their new general likes,” Esen said. “A direct confrontation. All or nothing.” His mouth never moved much when he smiled, but tiny crescents appeared on either side. For some reason Ouyang always noticed them. “A man after my own heart.”
“Don’t insult yourself,” said Ouyang, who had already received the intelligence on the person in question. “His main qualification is being the son of their so-called Right Minister. His name is Guo Tianxu; he’s twenty-two; and by all accounts he’s a raging fool.”
“Ah well, in that case,” Esen said, laughing. “But he has enough brains to have picked this spot for the engagement. It’s a good position for them. By forcing us across the bridge, we’ll lose our advantages of numbers and cavalry. We won’t overwhelm them in a day, that’s for sure.”
“We’d win, even if we did it that way,” Ouyang said. In front of them the bridge’s pale stone arches seemed to float in the darkness, giving the illusion that it went on forever. Even a practically minded person like Ouyang could appreciate it as one of the greatest accomplishments of a native dynasty long ended. A slow crawl went up and down his spine. Perhaps his Nanren blood recognized the history of this place. He wondered if he had walked across it in a past life, or even built it with his own hands. It was tempting to think his past lives must have been better than this one, but he supposed that couldn’t be true; he must have done something in them to have earned this life and fate.
“So you’ll go ahead with the other way?”
“If my lord agrees.” Thinking about the bridge had made Ouyang lose the last of his lukewarm enthusiasm for the kind of drawn-out engagement the rebels wanted. “The scouts found a firm section of riverbank about a dozen li downstream. It should be able handle a couple of battalions without turning into a bog.”
The Red Turbans clearly considered the Yao uncrossable downstream. It was wide, and as deep as a man’s height in the middle. But the rebels were Nanren; they came from sedentary stock. Had they Mongols amongst their number they would have known that any river was crossable with enough determination. Or sufficient lack of care for how many conscripts might be expended in the effort.
“Conditions aren’t ideal,” Esen said, referring to the rains that had made the river run high and fast. “How long will it take to get the flanking force across and into position?”
Ouyang considered. If not for the rain, he would have sent the force across at night. A
s it was—“I’ll have them start crossing at first light, otherwise the casualties won’t be worth it. They can be in place by the beginning of the Snake hour.” Halfway between dawn and midday. “By then we’ll already be underway with the engagement, but it won’t have been going for too long.”
“You know I don’t mind a bit of hand-to-hand,” Esen said. It was an understatement: he loved battle. His eyes crinkled. “We’ll just play until the flanking force has finished crossing, then finish it. Ah, it’s almost a shame it’ll be done so quickly! We’d better enjoy every moment.”
For all that Esen’s features were as smooth and regular as a statue’s, his passions ran too high for serenity. Ouyang always felt a twist to see him like this: bright with anticipated pleasure, the blood of his steppe warrior ancestors pumping through him. There was a touching pureness to it that Ouyang envied. He had never been able to inhabit a moment of pleasure as simply and purely as Esen did. Just knowing that it was transient—that any moment would be drained of its sweetness and vividness once it became memory—made it bittersweet to him even as it was happening.
Feeling a stab under his breastbone, he said, “Yes, my lord.”
* * *
The commanders woke Zhu and the rest of the Red Turbans before dawn with the order to move into position at the bridgehead. The boy Yuchun had already vanished without a word of farewell, and Zhu assumed Jiao had done the same. For all the men’s faith in the Prince of Radiance and his Mandate, the previous day’s excitement had muted into anxious anticipation. In front of them the arch of the bridge rose up over the black water and fell away into darkness.
Zhu waited, the clouds of her breath trembling before her. The pale winter light crept into the sky above the high lake and drew back the darkness on the other side of the bridge. The far bridgehead appeared, and behind it row upon row of soldiers. With each moment of increasing light another row emerged behind the last. Back and back, until the whole shore was revealed, cloaked in identical lines of dark-armored men.
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