But the sea of fires finally came to an end. There was nothing but darkness before him, with not a single flame to relieve it. Hsing-te was completely exhausted and sat down on the grass. He felt the chill of the night dew on his hands and face. Just then he heard someone beside him panting heavily. He turned to see Wang-li looking at him, then he too sat down on the ground, breathing with difficulty.
Between gasps Wang-li tried to speak. Hsing-te, also gasping for breath, said nothing. For a while the two sat facing each other, listening to each other’s breathing.
The next day the tens of thousands of troops stationed outside the city moved to the enormous flat area in the east and lined up in their appointed positions. Troops filed out from the city and also formed up. From the walls the drums started to roll. A short distance from the troops thousands of horses were also in formation.
Yüan-hao began his review of the troops in the early morning. In contrast to the previous time, Wang-li’s unit was in the front line, and its inspection was soon over, but the men nevertheless had to remain there until all the troops had been reviewed.
This time, too, Hsing-te thought that Yüan-hao possessed great dignity, despite his five-foot frame. Although he had seen Yüan-hao riding with the Uighur woman, he felt no hatred or bitterness toward him. He felt that the two incidents were entirely separate.
When the inspection of the armies was completed, it was sunset. The crimson sun sank into the horizon beyond the western fields, and the blood-red clouds tinted the vast plains with their fire.
Yüan-hao had stepped up on a platform to speak. Idly, Hsing-te’s gaze wandered far behind the commander in chief; a solitary figure had appeared on the distant city wall.
For no particular reason, Hsing-te watched that small dot. He was curious to know what a person could be doing there at this time. Not only that, but if he did not focus on that small movement, he wouldn’t know how to curb his boredom.
Yüan-hao had started to address his men. He seemed to be giving them instructions, but his voice was barely audible. Every so often Hsing-te caught phrases of the speech, carried by the wind from various directions.
Then it happened. Hsing-te saw the black speck, which had stood motionless for a while on the wall, suddenly leap off. It dropped beside the wall, trailing a long tail behind it. It was over in a second. There was no reaction in the gathering; no one else seemed to have noticed.
Yüan-hao’s voice continued to reach Hsing-te sporadically.
After a final night’s rest, Hsing-te’s unit set off toward the west early the next morning. All day long Hsing-te rocked on his horse. He was covered by sand and dust.
That night the forces camped along the banks of a dry riverbed. Hsing-te was tired from his ride and slept soundly until he was awakened by someone shaking him roughly. Wang-li stood there. When he saw that Hsing-te was awake, he said briskly, “There’s no mistake this time.”
“What do you mean?” Hsing-te was annoyed.
“She died. She’s really dead.” Wang-li sank to a sitting position.
“I don’t trust you. Do you think I’d believe you?” Hsing-te cried.
“I’m not lying. She threw herself off the city wall yesterday. She finally did die.” As Wang-li spoke, Hsing-te vividly recalled the scene he had witnessed the day before. So the black speck had been the Uighur girl.
“Are you sure?” Hsing-te asked. His voice trembled.
“There’s no mistake. That’s why Yüan-hao delayed our departure a day. I heard it from someone who’s in a position to know,” Wang-li replied. His head was bowed. Silence fell between the two. Finally, Wang-li broke out, “I’ll tell you now. I loved that woman. I still love her. I had always thought of women as mere tools. But when you brought that woman into my life, I fell in love with her. I hate to admit it, but I couldn’t help myself.”
“Why didn’t you look after her as I asked?”
“She was taken away from me. Yüan-hao found out about her. That bastard finally killed her off!” As he spoke, Wang-li groaned and glared at a spot in front of him, as though Yüan-hao were there.
Hsing-te was so overwhelmed by this display of emotion from Wang-li that he had no time to reflect on his own feelings. Suddenly Wang-li stood up and, as if to shake off his rage, uttered a strange, mournful shout. He remained standing for a long while with his face lifted toward the sky.
Hsing-te had no knowledge of how Wang-li had treated the girl in his care and he was no longer interested in finding out. There was something more important to think about. Hsing-te recalled the girl’s look when they had met two days before; in it he had seen astonishment, embarrassment, joy, and sadness. And then she had run off on her horse, undoubtedly because she could not express her feelings in any other way.
Hsing-te had not returned when the year was up. He had been at fault. There was nothing she could do but resign herself to fate. He couldn’t blame her for becoming Yüan-hao’s concubine or for anything else. In all likelihood she had flung herself from the wall to prove to Hsing-te the purity of her love for him. Now he was overcome with regret and infinite compassion for the girl. This display of her love touched him deeply.
If only he had stayed with her—if only he had kept his promise to return in a year, her fate might have been different. Though he could not be sure that she would have been happy, she might not have jumped off the wall.
Hsing-te regretted that he had not looked after the Uighur girl himself. She had to commit suicide, he firmly believed, to prove herself to him. His soul writhed in repentance.
The unit headed toward the Uighur capital of Su-chou, near Kan-chou. The distance from Kan-chou to Su-chou was one hundred and eighty miles, a journey of about ten days. The day after they had camped along the banks of the dry river, the troops crossed a gravelly plain and then entered the desert. They rode on and on, but the desert, devoid of any signs of vegetation, stretched as far as the horizon. To keep the horses’ hooves from sinking into the sand, wooden shoes were put on them, and the camels’ feet were covered with yak skins.
After three days of traveling through the desert, they came upon grasslands by the banks of a large river. They crossed the river and found themselves once more in the desert. Another three days’ journey through this arid wasteland brought them to the salt marshes. It was hard to judge how far the marshes extended, but the road along one edge was at least eighty miles long, and the banks appeared white as if frosted over, with a thick profusion of reeds.
When the marshes ended, barren wastelands continued until the men came in sight of snow-capped mountains in the distant southwest. From this point on, trees and houses could be seen here and there. Most of the trees were apricot; they swayed in the piercing cold winds.
Eight days after they had left Kan-chou, the troops entered Su-chou. They had naturally expected to fight some Turfans before they reached the garrison, but not a single Turfan soldier had been in sight. Su-chou was also a city fortified by high walls, but the majority of its residents were Uighurs, with a considerable number of Chinese as well, many of whom did not understand the Chinese language. This should have been the main base of the Uighurs who had lost Kan-chou, but every last Uighur soldier had retreated, and the Hsi-hsia army was able to enter Su-chou without suffering a single casualty.
From the wall, the snow-capped Ch’i-lien mountains were visible to the south, and the grayish yellow sea of the desert extended to the north. Within the city was a large spring brimming with clear, sweet water, and at its edge stood countless willow trees several hundred years old. Since the Han period, the spring water here had been used for wine, and it was said that “pearls gush forth from the spring, and its taste is akin to wine.”
Upon his arrival in Su-chou, Hsing-te realized that Kan-chou and Liang-chou, which he had considered to be frontier towns, were comparatively more civilized, with better living conditions than he had thought. One could live within the city of Su-chou itself, but just outside the walls the deadl
y sea of desertland stretched away; the saying, “flat plains for ten thousand miles, no sign of man or smoke” described this area exactly.
At Su-chou, Hsing-te was often overcome by homesickness, but he thought he had no right to feel this longing for China. In reading The History of the Former Han Dynasty and The History of the Later Han Dynasty, he had learned about Chang Ch’ien and Pan Ch’ao. A thousand years before, Pan Ch’ao had left the capital with only thirty-six followers, and the then far west, where he had fought the barbarians for half his lifetime, had been thousands of miles further west than Su-chou. In his later years, when Pan Ch’ao was over-come by homesickness, he had written his emperor, “Your subject does not hope to return to the command of Chiu-ch’üan, if I can only live long enough to reach the Yü-men Pass once more.” This pass was still two hundred and ninety miles west of Su-chou.
Since the encounter with the Uighur girl, Hsing-te had lost all desire to return to China. At times he suffered pangs of homesickness, but before he was aware of it he had vaguely resigned himself to the fact that he would throw his life away in this frontier country.
When the vanguard army was divided into two units and Wang-li was made commander of one of them, Hsing-te also rose in rank. Hsing-te’s position was that of Wang-li’s advisor, and in that capacity he gained much freedom and more free time than he knew what to do with during times of peace. Life was different when there was a battle. Wang-li and Hsing-te threw themselves into the fighting just like ordinary soldiers.
The Uighur girl’s death had also changed Hsing-te in another respect. He was beginning to be drawn to Buddhism. Needless to say, while he had been in K’ai-feng and during his two years in Hsing-ch’ing, he had taken no interest in Buddhism. He had felt only contempt for the priests with their shaved heads and purple robes. They had never even bothered to read a single page from The Analects of Confucius or The Discourses of Mencius, and he had been impatient with their talk of nirvana, holding it as nothing but empty words. After he came to Su-chou, Hsing-te found himself gradually seeking Absolute Being. He was filled with the desire to prostrate himself before the supreme being. Hsing-te himself found it difficult to believe this change in his frame of mind; the only thing that was clear was that his process was somehow related to the Uighur princess’s death.
As long as he was in frontier country, death was always at hand. Hsing-te had seen men die almost every day. Some died suddenly after only one night of illness. Whenever he walked around town, he saw at least one or two dying people, and just outside the city, human bones lay exposed on the sand.
As the days went by, human beings appeared less significant and their activities began to seem meaningless to Hsing-te. He became interested in religion, which endeavored to find some significance in man and the apparent futility of his life. He began to take an interest in the Buddhist sutras when he heard a Chinese monk lecture on the Lotus Sutra to a large audience gathered near a temple in Su-chou. Hsing-te, at the back of the crowd, listened to the sermon. He could not see the priest, but his voice carried well. After a time the priest began to chant:
Raise up bell towers and abbeys,
Offer precious incense morn and eve;
Happy-omened clouds will cross the heavens,
And auspicious portents will appear.
Devas will provide their blessed protection,
Sages and saints will attend salvation.
The Buddhas will give us encouragement.
Ah, the brilliance of the light from Buddha’s forehead!
In gratitude we receive the Blessed Light.
Our desire for Enlightenment grows ever stronger.
Some day the Truth of Buddha’s teachings will be heard,
And then only will man escape the wheel of transmigration.
When the chanting had ended, the sermon resumed. The monk said a king had sent out an announcement to the effect that he would not mind becoming a slave to anyone who could interpret the Lotus Sutra for him. In reply, a hermit appeared. The king gave up his throne and followed the hermit into the mountains. After many trials and tribulations, the king reached the state of Enlightenment. Formerly, Hsing-te would not have listened to such a commonplace sermon, but he now felt drawn to it.
Some time later, Hsing-te borrowed a volume of the Lotus Sutra from the temple, and after he had finished it, he borrowed another until he had read all seven volumes. At some time, without realizing it, Hsing-te had become ready to accept religion. After he had finished the Lotus Sutra, he began the Diamond Sutra. He was told that if he wished to study these sutras in depth he should read the Sastra of Great Wisdom, the annotated version of the Diamond Sutra, so he borrowed several volumes at a time and read them. Hsing-te gradually felt himself drawn to the teachings of Buddha, which were completely different from Confucianism. Feverishly he borrowed the hundred volumes of the Sastra of Great Wisdom one after another, and read them in a corner of the frontier barracks.
In March 1031, four months after the unit had entered Su-chou, a message arrived, reporting a large army of Turfans coming to attack. The Hsi-hsia army left the city to meet the enemy.
From Su-chou, the army began to trek east, and on the following day they came in contact with the vanguard of the Turfan army near the salt-encrusted marshes. In contrast to the Hsi-hsia army, which used Wang-li’s and the other Chinese units as vanguard, the Turfan vanguard was made up of their own people.
For Wang-li as well as for Hsing-te, this was the first all-out battle with the Turfans. Unlike the Hsi-hsia army, which advanced in a sashlike, long and straight formation, the Turfans came forward untidily over the area as though they had been randomly dispersed. Turfan soldiers, like little moving dots, covered the plains as far as you could see. There were cavalry and infantry forces, and they seemed to be equal in number.
The battle developed in a manner completely different from what the Hsi-hsia were accustomed to. The cavalry troops led by Wang-li thrust through the heart of the enemy and raced on, without breaking formation. The Turfans all used their bows. In the plains scattered with the Turfan troops, the long Chinese formation raced on, undulating like a snake. The formation became curved, then straight, then elliptical, then reversed, then intersected, turned westward, then stretched to the east.
A great number of Turfan soldiers were crushed by the Hsi-hsia horses, but at the same time the Hsi-hsia army also suffered many casualties. Since they were grouped together, they were constant targets for Turfan arrows. Hsing-te could not tell whether the Hsi-hsia or the Turfans were killing off more of their enemy. Now and then Hsing-te heard Wang-li, who followed right behind him, shout something, but he could not make out what it was.
Gradually Hsing-te began to wonder whether the Hsi-hsia army was getting itself into an unfavorable position. They could not keep riding around the enemy camp forever. But it was obvious that if they stopped, they would instantly be hit by the arrows. Seizing an opportunity, Hsing-te brought his horse beside Wang-li’s and advised him to retreat. It wouldn’t be hard to do. All that was necessary was to turn their leading horses away from the battlefield and that would finish the matter.
Wang-li’s already flushed face deepened in color, and he looked very annoyed. “Isn’t there some way we can win?” he asked, and then quickly added, “All right. We’ll retreat for now, but we’ll come back again.”
Whenever Wang-li made a decision, he was quick to act on it. Soon after the messenger left the ranks with the orders, the leader of the Hsi-hsia cavalry changed direction. Then the long formation left the battlefield.
Some distance from the battle, the group stopped. And after a short rest, Wang-li ordered his men to attack again. Like a long chain, Wang-li and Hsing-te charged the enemy base, and the death struggle began once more.
This kind of fighting was repeated over and over until the sun set and it grew dark. Night had fallen on the battlefield. In the pale moonlight, the salt plains had a smooth, enamel-like appearance, bluish in cast. The
night air was as bitter as in the depths of winter.
The tide of battle turned in favor of the Hsi-hsia. As it became dark, the Turfan arrows lost half their accuracy. Wang-li changed strategy and divided his army into several units, sending them alternately into the battlefield. This tactic gave no respite to the enemy, and at the same time kept his own men from exhaustion. The Turfans tried many times to gather their soldiers together, but each time Wang-li’s cavalry troops dispersed them.
The fighting continued deep into the night. Toward dawn, Wang-li called an end to the attacks and assembled his army. The Turfan vanguard had lost most of its men and had finally disappeared. Now the Hsi-hsia main army, stationed in the rear, set out to attack Turfan headquarters approximately seven miles away.
Wang-li led his men back to Su-chou. It began to snow. The next afternoon, the Hsi-hsia main army returned through deep snow victorious from its attack.
Within ten days of their victory, Ts’ao Yen-hui, governor of Kua-chou, leading one thousand cavalry, came to surrender to Hsi-hsia. This was a complete surprise. It meant that Hsi-hsia would control Kua-chou without further fighting.
Kua-chou and Sha-chou were then under nominal Chinese rule. In the past, Regional Commander Chang and his family had held the reins of government, but now power lay with the Ts’ao family. Governor Ts’ao Hsien-shun ruled Sha-chou, while his younger brother, Ts’ao Yen-hui, administered Kua-chou. Of the two, Kua-chou, which was situated close to Su-chou, had especially feared a Hsi-hsia invasion and so had voluntarily declared vassalage.
At some time or another Hsi-hsia would have to send troops to both these garrison towns, which for long had served as the gateway to the west. However, the situation regarding these two walled towns was extremely complex. Unlike the natives of Liang-chou, Kan-chou, or Su-chou, the people of Sha-chou and Kua-chou were neither Turfans, Uighurs, nor related tribesmen, but were legally Chinese citizens. At present, they were no longer under direct control of their mother country, China, and appeared independent, but they had not completely cut off ties with the Sung dynasty either. Even now, the ruler Ts’ao received his title of regional commander of Sha-chou from China, although this was a mere formality. If other tribes had not settled between this territory and China, it would naturally have remained a part of China. It had been cut off, in fact, by the encroachment of other tribes, and was a small Chinese island forced by circumstances to form an independent government. Although it was small, it was west of the Wu-liang area and was literally the gateway to the west; all western culture passed from here to various countries in the east, and all types of western goods also came on camels through this narrow corridor.
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