Chapter Fifteen: The Han and the Barbarians Cannot Coexist

Lu Qing noticed that only two of the Mongol bandits had escaped earlier. He thought to himself that, in their haste, they might have left some horses behind, so he instructed the Zhao brothers to go down the slope and have a look. If they could find any horses the Tatars had abandoned, the journey ahead would be much easier.

But Zhou Yunyi stopped the Zhao brothers, telling them there was no need to look, for it would be a wasted effort; those two Tatars would never leave their horses behind.

Seeing Lu Qing's confusion, Zhou Yunyi explained: in the eyes of the Mongols, the more horses a tribe possesses, the more people it can support. With more people, there would be more able-bodied men, and with enough strength, a small tribe could grow into a large one, perhaps even become the masters of the steppe and threaten Ming at any moment.

But if a tribe has few horses, it cannot grow strong. A weak tribe lacking in able-bodied men can hardly survive beyond the border; apart from becoming vassals to larger tribes, their only choice is to struggle on, waiting for the day of their extinction.

Thus, Tatars from small tribes value their horses more than life itself. Unlike the Han who farm within the borders, they live by herding, which requires constant movement. Without horses, how could they possibly herd? If they cannot herd, it is nothing but a dead end.

In reality, most Mongol tribes along the Xuanda and Liaodong frontier are such poor, horse-starved clans, each poorer than the last. Some have only a few dozen horses, barely enough to meet their herding needs. So, when Tatars sneak across the border, they cannot bring many horses. There is even an unspoken rule among them: if caught, leave men behind if you must, but never abandon a horse. As long as there is breath in their bodies, they will bring their horses home; otherwise, even if they return alive, their tribe will cast them out.

The logic is simple: if a man dies, he can be replaced and raised anew; if a horse is lost, not even the chance to sustain life remains.

Zhou Yunyi was a native of the Wanquan Right Guard. At fourteen, he had already marched with his elders, eating soldiers’ rations and slaying Tatars. Since becoming a Night Scout, he had ventured beyond the pass on patrols more times than he could count, and knew the affairs of the steppe tribes inside and out. Just two months ago, he had followed Captain Wu Daxiong and slaughtered every adult male of a small tribe, driving off all their horses, and left to the wails of their women.

He knew well how such a tribe would fare without horses, how the women and children would survive without their men. But Zhou Yunyi felt not a shred of pity, nor did he regret his actions, for he knew that unless these Tatars were destroyed, there would never be peace at the border, and the frontier army would bleed forever.

Han and Hu cannot coexist. Zhou Yunyi understood no grand theories, nor did he know why the imperial officials who occasionally visited the border always accused the frontier troops of savagery. All he knew was that if he did not kill the Tatars, sooner or later his own sons and grandsons would be killed by them—not paranoia, but the blood-soaked lesson of generations.

His great-grandfather was killed by the Tatars in the seventeenth year of Hongwu; his grandfather perished beyond the border in the eighteenth year of Yongle; his father was slain in the ninth year of Zhengtong by a raiding Oirat embassy; his only brother fell half a year ago to Tatar horse thieves who slipped across the border. The deaths of his kin, the blood-red lessons one after another, were enough to teach even an illiterate, unsophisticated man like Zhou Yunyi that he must kill Tatars—otherwise, he too would one day fall to their blades. And if he ever married and had a son, that boy would walk the same bloody path.

On the frontier, if you want to live, there’s no place for softness; it’s either you or me. He didn’t care what others wanted—he only knew he wanted to live, to have a better life.

To talk of benevolence and appeasement with these treacherous Tatars was sheer folly, a self-dug grave, and would cost the lives of countless Han.

...

Zhou Yunyi spoke with finality, and the Zhao brothers instantly lost all enthusiasm for searching for horses. Lu Qing, too, dismissed the idea. He realized Zhou Yunyi had left one thing unsaid: if these bandits had all been mounted, they wouldn’t have bothered with an ambush here at all—they would have charged straight in on horseback.

In this era, horses are like vehicles in later times—even bandits know to get a motorcycle for a daylight heist. Only the most desperate would attempt a robbery on foot; anyone else would seek another way.

Alas, even the landlords have no surplus grain; it's not easy being a robber, either...

Lu Qing sighed, his attention drawn to the Night Scouts leading horses over. Perhaps from long exposure to wind and sun, these four Night Scouts were as dark-skinned as Zhou Yunyi.

The one who had confronted Eunuch Guo earlier was a round-faced, burly man. Beside him was a bearded fellow whose thick whiskers looked like they hadn’t been trimmed in ages. Another, on closer inspection, had rather delicate features; if not for the severed head in his hand and the crossbow on his back, it would be hard to imagine him as one of the Night Scouts. The last one was turned away from Lu Qing, so he couldn’t see the man’s face, but from the abundant white hair beneath his felt cap, he seemed the oldest of the lot—though whether prematurely gray or truly aged was unclear.

Just as Lu Qing was about to ask Zhou Yunyi the names of his men, Zhao Er suddenly pointed at the horse led by the round-faced man, then squatted abruptly, burying his face in the grass and retching violently.

Puzzled, Lu Qing followed Zhao Er’s gesture and saw that the round-faced man’s horse had five or six human heads strung along its side with hemp rope.

The heads had clearly been freshly cut—no more than an hour ago. There was no blood dripping from the necks, but the congealed beads at the stumps were still fresh, and every face was frozen in a wide-eyed, unyielding stare. Among them were two heads that still bore the innocence of youth—not yet adults, by the look of them.

To have living heads set before him—if it had been when he first arrived, Lu Qing would surely have reacted just as Zhao Er did, vomiting uncontrollably. But after the butchery at Yanghe Pass yesterday, having seen so many dead, so many guts spilled onto the ground, so many limbs hacked off, so many brains smashed open, these mere severed heads no longer made him sick.

See enough, and you become numb.

Zhao Er was still dry-retching, but apart from sour bile, there was nothing left in his stomach. The sound of his retching was more grating than the sight of the heads.

Surprisingly, Zhao Da—ordinarily so stolid—showed no reaction at all. He merely glanced at the heads, then turned away. Seeing his brother retching so miserably, he hurried over to help him up and poured some water down his throat.

Noticing Lu Qing staring at the two youthful Tatar heads, Zhou Yunyi said expressionlessly, “Before we met you, we ran into an old Tatar who’d brought his sons and brothers to raid. Don’t be fooled by how young those boys look—they kill without hesitation. Before we caught up to them, they’d already robbed two groups, and even a newborn grandson in one family wasn’t spared—smashed to death on the spot.”