The Mandate of Heaven

  Hard to learn so much so late. That all he cared for now was not the name of Deng, or a moment’s fame, or wealth, or the praise of strangers. He longed for the touch of his mother’s hand and Father’s ambiguous presence, looking between him and Hsiung as they played in the overgrown courtyard.

  And there was another discovery: deeper than all others. He longed to touch Yun Shu’s hands, defying every decorum or restraint, and use his own to bring himself close to her so their lips brushed. Gently at first, then with urgency. How sick he had grown of propriety! Sick of misconceived denials! Of all the regrets in his life she seemed the greatest.

  Teng’s thoughts fell away into dark places where memory and speculation sweated feverishly.

  Twenty-nine

  The Noble Count of Lingling paced the mud and shingle beach, seemingly oblivious to rain slanting from a warm, overcast sky. It was dusk; dull fires glowed to the west. The sun sank behind distant mountains, barely discernible in the murky air. His heavy boots left patterns in the mud. Servants with umbrellas hovered a little way off, ready to shelter him, but he waved them away. Perhaps the rain would clear his intentions.

  These were best expressed by a fleet of eighty junks and warships at anchor near the small island where he had landed to get a little solid earth beneath his feet. This fleet, carrying over three thousand of his best troops, all veterans of harsh encounters with the Mongols, was a like a quiver of arrows waiting to be loosed. And his target, the Salt Pans, lay only a few hours to the south.

  Hsiung’s lips tightened as he imagined their attack. The monsoon was gradually raising the water level of the lake, as it did every year between spring and autumn. High waters meant increased manoeuvrability for his ships. A perfect time to assault the Salt Pans, protected as they were in winter and autumn by a maze of small islands and treacherous shallows.

  Even now, after months of reports that the Mongols were withdrawing, leaving only a skeleton garrison, Hsiung grappled with familiar doubts. Perhaps Chancellor Liu Shui was to blame for his uncomfortable feelings. From the outset, the fat man had questioned every scattered piece of intelligence, always smiling his Buddha-like smile as he advised caution and delay.

  It had been the spymasters, Chao and Hua, who were most bellicose. As he walked back and forth across the sticky, squelching mud their voices echoed in his mind: ‘Noble Count! We are assured by your servants in Chenglingji, the noble Zhong clan, that now is the time of the Salt Pans’ greatest weakness. We must not squander it, Your Highness!’

  Liu Shui, still smiling, had shaken his head slightly and Hsiung had sensed different counsel would prevail. Ever since his old friend and adviser had found him weeping and distraught in the Buddha’s caverns, cradling him in his arms until tears diminished into silence, he had possessed an unspoken power over Hsiung.

  ‘Noble Count,’ the fat man said, once Chao and Hua finished, ‘I advise the following bold actions. First, that you deploy only a third of your forces when you attack the Salt Pans.’

  ‘Sire!’ broke in Chao. ‘Is that wise? A total victory would secure mastery of Six-hundred-li Lake forever! Let every soldier be deployed.’

  ‘Ahem,’ replied Liu Shui, ‘a most interesting observation, but foolish. If nothing else, defeating one small force will not secure mastery of a large province – and certainly not forever, as Master Chao suggests. I counsel leaving the bulk of your forces in reserve. If the Mongols have stripped their garrison bare, as the Honoured Spymasters believe, a few thousand will be more than adequate.’

  ‘I shall consider it,’ said Hsiung, gloomily. His mood was often subdued since the Buddha’s caves.

  When the audience was over and they sat alone over tea, Liu Shui had sighed. ‘Will you follow my advice, Noble Count?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hsiung, ‘it is sensible. Three thousand picked men should easily crush a garrison a third that number. More would simply create problems in ferrying and feeding them.’

  Liu Shui had nodded thoughtfully. ‘Will you follow this counsel as well? Let Chao and Hua stay with me until your attack is successful. Above all, tell no one of the date you intend to sail. Not even your concubine.’

  This had been a harder concession. Ying-ge was all the pleasure he took from a grey world.

  ‘Very well,’ he said.

  ‘And one final thing, Your Highness,’ said Liu Shui, his eyes flashing. ‘May a new servant of mine accompany your entourage? His name is Shensi and I have instructed him to locate a certain slave in the Salt Pans … assuming the poor fellow still lives. For I have learned it is by no means likely Deng Teng perished when his ancestral home burned to the ground.’

  At this Hsiung gasped. ‘Then he is suffering as I did! A slave in the Salt Pans! Of course this Shensi must seek out Teng. Of course!’

  So exciting had been this news that Hsiung could not help sharing it with Ying-ge, reminding her how she had won his heart by comforting him when he was grieving for an old friend. ‘Well, it seems he may not be dead after all and that I may have the power to save him!’

  Naturally, he had resisted her curious exclamations and questions for a little while. Had he not promised to reveal nothing? But Ying-ge was an exception. He hated to disappoint her. Never before had a lady, and so captivating a lady at that, cared for him deeply, with no advantage to herself – for she often longed to return to Hou-ming where her family dwelt. It was a notable sacrifice on her part, a proof of love that she condescended to remain in a dull hole like Lingling …

  Those conversations had taken place weeks before. Now Hsiung ceased pacing on the muddy shore and turned to his servants.

  ‘Order the senior officers to assemble on my ship in an hour,’ he commanded.

  After the conference where the plan of battle was agreed, he lay on a narrow cot, awaiting dawn.

  It was odd to feel afraid. Not that he feared a stray blow or arrow might end all he had won, Hsiung derided such threats, even welcomed them in a way he could not explain. No, it was a Salt Pans long gone that frightened him, as an adult recalls his childish terror of bogeymen like Big Voice Yang or shadows on a wall at night. A Salt Pans where demons wore human forms, their faces contorted with a cruelty he had found unimaginable after the kindness and urbanity of his boyhood in Deng Mansions. Foremost among those demons was Overseer Pi-tou, his pock-marked features smiling as he raised the whip, smiling when angry, always angry, even when he dragged Hsiung into the deep ditch where the abandoned brine hole bubbled like a foul well and he had been ordered to remove his clothes and kneel. A repulsion akin to nausea gripped Hsiung and he rose from his cot, startling the bodyguard outside.

  Returning to his blankets, the Noble Count curled like a dry leaf, hugging himself. All that was gone! Perhaps it never really happened. Yet as he repeated that old mantra of denial a realisation grew, one so simple it amazed him he had never glimpsed it before. There had been no dark lights until Overseer Pi-tou. Pi-tou was their monstrous father. Then Hsiung remembered the tortured faces of the sinners in hell and sensed the possibility of a terrible revenge.

  He fell into an uneasy slumber. It was fortunate that, when he woke, he could recall nothing of his dreams – or what he did in them – except a vague, uneasy excitement.

  Not content with shedding more rain, the clouds darkened, threatening a storm. Still Hsiung ordered the fleet forward, led by sailors with experience of this coastline. An hour later, their progress slowed by a slack breeze, warning cries arose from lookouts stationed on mastheads.

  ‘Small boats ahead! A line of them!’

  Hsiung, who stood with General P’ao – the former sergeant having gained yet another promotion – waited expectantly.

  ‘They’ve seen us!’ shouted the lookout. ‘Some are heading east, others west. Some flee back to the Salt Pans.’

  Hsiung turned to his old friend. ‘What does this mean?’

  ‘That they’re looking out for us,’ replied P’ao. ‘Perhaps we’re expected.’

 
‘Perhaps,’ muttered Hsiung. ‘It is a chance we must take.’

  Soon low-lying islands of mud, rock and water-loving plants rose on the horizon. None were bigger than a large field, most much smaller. Between them flowed channels lined by reeds: a perfect place to conceal small boats for an ambush. The rain fell ceaselessly so that the muddy brown water shimmered and danced.

  ‘Go cautiously now!’ urged the captain to the tillerman. There was no other way to advance unless one risked being stuck on a mud-bank. But the main channels were deep and wide enough for their largest vessels to sail two abreast. Still they saw no trace of the enemy, just occasional flocks of birds startled by the creak of bamboo masts and sails.

  ‘The Salt Pans!’ cried General P’ao from the prow. ‘Noble Count, I see them!’

  Hsiung also peered through the rain, his heartbeat quickening. The same dismal place of his nightmares, only smaller than he remembered. Then it had seemed to cover the earth. Hundreds of pagoda-shaped wooden derricks rose above the level of the vast marsh, each denoting a borehole. A thousand angry demon eyes from the gas flames. Over there the squat lines of the ramparts and menacing ugliness of the fortress.

  Where was the opposition he expected? The fleet of small boats he knew were stationed here had not issued out to delay them, though they must have received warning of the attack.

  ‘Make straight for the piers and jetties!’ he commanded. ‘While they’re still napping!’

  Even here their luck held. Only a few hundred of the enemy gathered to contest their landing. Flights of arrows and small thunderclap bombs hurled by whirling tiger catapults from the warships’ decks soon sent them scurrying back towards dry land and the safety of their fortress. Steam billowed up from hundreds of boiling pans, obscuring the scores of guards who ran to and fro on the fortress battlements.

  Hsiung understood why it was so easy. The spymasters’ reports were entirely correct! The Mongols had diminished their garrison to a size where it was only capable of oppressing the slaves and indentured labourers working the Salt Pans. Yet this realisation brought no exultation. Hsiung could not forget his first glimpse of this hell when he arrived as a boy.

  Still the rain fell, turning the ground to mud. He stepped onto the wooden pier, a hand on his sword hilt. All around him armoured men climbed ashore, streaming down the wooden planks of the jetties to take up position on the foreshore. It was a manoeuvre they had practised many times on the wharfs of Port Yulan. Hsiung turned to General P’ao, whose expression was thoughtful. Perhaps he, too, experienced unpleasant recollections of this dismal place.

  ‘I want it done quickly,’ said Hsiung.

  General P’ao bowed. ‘As you say, Noble Count! The sooner we’re home in Lingling the better.’

  He strode off to form the troops into a phalanx, ready to attack.

  A no man’s land of about three li climbed from the jetties and piers to the fortress, a wide strip of dry ground rising from the marsh. To the left of this strip lay the channels and walkways and tiny islands of the salt workings, a maze of boiling pans and derricks: no place for heavily armoured men unless they wished to sink up to their waists in mud. To the right of the strip rose earthen ramparts, leading all the way to the fortress.

  Hsiung realised he must enter trapped ground: marsh on one side, high walls on the other. General P’ao evidently shared his misgivings, for he whispered: ‘What do you think?’

  Hsiung glowered up at the battlements of the fortress: the defences had collapsed in places and there wasn’t even a proper ditch. Few troops seemed to be manning the place.

  ‘We have come too far to hesitate,’ he said. ‘Order the attack.’

  Flags waved. Drums echoed. The three thousand strong columns of rebels advanced across the sticky ground, weaving around thatched huts. Behind them came special teams with a hundred siege ladders. Hsiung’s disquiet increased: the terrain reminded him of somewhere else, though he could not think where.

  Then they were through the huts and were only two li from the fortress gates. At once the echo of huge kettledrums rose from behind the battlements. Hsiung raised his hand and flags fluttered to order a halt.

  As though in response to his signal the wide doors of the fortress opened and a column, a dozen men wide, poured out. Hsiung peered at them through the rain: banners, signal drums, above all they wore the armour of trained guardsmen. The hole in his stomach became a pit. Doorways high up in the fortress walls that led onto the earthen ramparts of the Salt Pans had also opened, emitting a stream of archers. Their intention was obvious, to pour arrows down on the dense ranks of Yueh Fei rebels.

  Hsiung reacted instantly.

  ‘Captain Jin! Clear those ramparts, whatever the cost. General P’ao, forward at double speed! We must drive them back into the fortress before they deploy their full force!’

  A terrible urge to charge forward at the head of his men had to be mastered. Liu Shui had cautioned him against risking his life – if he perished in battle their army would become leaderless and thousands would die unnecessarily. So he hung back as the rebels surged forward, clashing with the Mongol forces. Arrows and crossbow bolts arched down from the fortress, blending with the rain.

  ‘Your Highness!’ shouted his standard bearer. ‘Look to our left!’

  Hsiung turned, just as an arrow rushed at his helmet, bouncing off the wet metal. He did not need the help of his standard bearer’s pointing finger. Hundreds of lightly armoured troops had appeared from hidden places amidst the derricks and boiling pans, some attacking from the raised earthen walkways, others in small boats. Their aim was obvious: to harry the rebel flank. Hsiung realised they now faced enemies on three sides: and already the casualties from the flights of arrows were severe. As he watched, more and more of the heavily armoured Uighur guardsmen jogged out of the fortress gates.

  ‘It is a trap!’ he shouted, turning to his standard bearer. But the man was on his knees, an arrow in his chest, eyes bulging as he struggled to keep the flag showing. Others seized it as he fell face forward into the mud. ‘Drummers!’ bellowed Hsiung. ‘Order a retreat to the ships! No, halt! Do not sound a retreat, damn you!’

  He had realised the extent of the Mongols’ cunning. An examination of his fleet revealed scores of small enemy boats packed with marines, appearing from hiding places in the maze of islands out on the lake. It would take all his navy’s strength to repulse them, let alone sail in and out of the jetties for an orderly embarkation of the rebel troops. Meanwhile the assault against them could only intensify.

  A sudden stillness entered Hsiung’s soul: the din and roar of battle seemed to die away. He noticed Jebe Khoja watching from the battlements of the fortress and, quite dispassionately, Hsiung comprehended the Mongol general’s revenge. The sweet, delicious irony of it all. For Jebe Khoja had merely tempted and trapped him, as he had tricked the Mongol to advance too far into Fourth Hell Gorge eight years before. In that moment of stillness he saw more enemy troops gathering, an endless supply, and realised the Red Turbans were not only trapped but outnumbered. Hsiung felt no grief at this realisation. Or despair. He possessed a single ambition: not to fall with dishonour. Ignoring all Liu Shui’s admonishments, Hsiung swept out his long sword.

  ‘Beat the drums for a new attack!’ he ordered.

  Followed by his bodyguard, Hsiung strode to the front rank of the rebel Guards where his men were wavering.

  ‘Yueh Fei!’ he bellowed. ‘For justice and the Buddha Maitreya!’

  With this rallying cry the rebels renewed their assault, hacking and trampling scores of Mongol infantry. Always there were more, always another hundred to replace those killed. And though Captain Jin had succeeded in clearing the ramparts to their right of archers, still arrows and crossbow bolts fell from the fortress walls in front of the rebel army.

  Hsiung cut a way through to General P’ao who had come within a li of the gates and could advance no nearer.

  ‘Hsiung!’ he called. ‘We must retreat in an
orderly way while we still can!’ But the Noble Count raged with pride at the three Mongol warriors he had dispatched. ‘We must retreat to the jetties!’ repeated P’ao. ‘With luck we might hold them off until our ships are ready to start embarking the men. That way at least some of us might escape.’

  Hsiung’s joy died away. Jebe Khoja remained visible on the battlements, tantalisingly near.

  ‘Damn you!’ he said, bitterly. ‘Order it then!’

  Soon the rebel signal drums were beating and they withdrew, somehow still fighting and in good order, back towards the piers. Halfway there, Hsiung squinted up at the sky in surprise. Something had changed. He laughed. For the first time in days the rain had stopped. In that new silence another noise arose, one that forced all those on the battlefield, rebel or warrior loyal to the Great Khan, to look round in alarm.

  Perhaps the name of Yueh Fei inspired the new noise. Perhaps long-simmering outrage reached boiling point at the sight of the rebels – who were, after all, the salt workers’ one hope of liberation. Perhaps it was the desperation of men driven to any fate rather than famine and perpetual abuse.

  It began in a small way. A group of Uighur footsoldiers, beaten back from the rebel flanks, chanced upon a work gang hiding near a derrick. Frustrated by their retreat from the battle, the Uighurs found easier meat, cutting down a dozen slaves and indentured labourers. The surprise came when the barefoot, dirt-encrusted wretches fought back. After the Uighurs had been overwhelmed by sheer numbers, the foreman, terrified of reprisals, seized a metal hammer and began to beat the side of the bubbling iron pan. Six feet across, it resounded like an enormous gong. Deng … deng … deng. The sound drifted across marsh and borehole and bamboo derrick. Deng … deng … deng. Now another work gang joined in, catching the rhythm. Like a hot wind the clanging spread from work gang to work gang, stirring memories of failed revolts. Only this time they were not alone against the Mongol troops.