Chapter 29: Smoke and Fire Everywhere (Part I)

The former commander of the Southwestern Route, now a Meng'an of the Khitan forces, Yelü Huaiyi, swung down from his horse. Snowflakes atop his fox-fur cap dusted down beside Nianxike’s feet.

Beneath his outer garment, he wore a robe of purple silk—a gift from the Jin Empire. The jade-handled dagger hanging from his belt was an old prize, bestowed upon him three years ago by Aguda on the grasslands outside Xijing (Datong) in recognition of the imperial horse he had presented. He wore it constantly.

"I am late, Commander. I apologize for your shock. I shall order my men to pursue them at once!" Yelü Huaiyi bowed in the Jurchen fashion, his right hand pressed to his left chest. The gesture was standard, yet it carried an indescribable stiffness.

His personal guards immediately offered a leather skin filled with warm mare’s milk wine. The steam rising from the milky liquid was instantly shredded by the northern wind, accompanied by a roll of bandages soaked in strong spirits.

Nianxike glanced at the skin but did not take it. He said coldly in the Jurchen tongue, "Seeing your commander in such a wretched state, I fear you already harbor other thoughts in your heart, do you not?"

Yelü Huaiyi’s hand froze in mid-air, though a smile remained plastered on his face. "You jest, Commander. Since we have submitted to the Great Jin, we are naturally prepared to sacrifice our lives and shed our blood for the cause."

"Shed your blood?" Nianxike laughed for no reason. "I hope so!"

His throat moved as he swallowed, yet he never touched the skin. His eyes swept over the Khitan men’s humiliated, livid faces. If one looked closely, one could clearly see the icy disdain in his gaze. He turned and leaped onto his horse without even a word of thanks, leading his remaining troops to gather their dead and return to the rear camp.

The Wolf Flag fluttered in the wind and snow as the crowd moved away.

"A defeated general, what is he so arrogant about!" Yelü Shenduo exhaled with indignation. This Khitan noble, barely in his twenties, still wore the traditional Khitan shaved-head style, though the shaven patch on his crown lacked the gold-leaf ornaments that once symbolized nobility. "If we hadn't arrived so quickly, he would have long since become a ghost under the Southerners' spears! And he still dares to show us such a look!"

"Shut your mouth!" Yelü Huaiyi’s whip lashed out suddenly, striking his son’s back with a whistling sound.

Shenduo stumbled, turning back in disbelief. "Father! Was I wrong? That look of his—it was as if he were looking at a pack of lowly sheep! This is an insult to us!"

"If it were you and me lying in this snow today, would Nianxike’s horse hooves pause even for a second for a Khitan?"

*Crack!* Another strike, heavier than the last.

"Do you still not realize you are a man of a fallen nation?" Yelü Huaiyi’s voice trembled with rage. "The Great Liao is gone! Do you think this is still the time when the Emperor arrived at the Nabo and ten thousand tribes came to pay homage? Why should they look at you as an equal? What do you think you are?"

Shenduo retreated under the blows, yet he stuck out his neck and shouted, "So what if the nation has fallen? The blood of my Yelü clan is still cleaner than those wild, blood-drinking savages! The tides of fortune turn; who knows what tomorrow will bring!"

"You rebellious son!"

Yelü Huaiyi grabbed his son by the collar and hauled him off his horse. The ice shards in the snow bit into Shenduo’s skin, making him wince, but his father’s whip fell like raindrops. "I’ll teach you to be stubborn! I’ll teach you to remember your place!"

"Ah!" Shenduo rolled in the snow; his fur robe tore, leaving layer upon layer of bloodstains. Yet he refused to admit fault, instead roaring, "Was I wrong? The way Nianxike looked at us—it was like looking at breathing livestock! Is this the submission you wanted? Is this the life you wanted?"

The surrounding loyalists knelt to plead for mercy. "Master, please calm your anger!"

A white-bearded servant, born and raised in the household, threw himself over Shenduo and took a whip blow meant for him. "The young master is still young and ignorant, please do not hold it against him!"

"Ignorant?"

Yelü Huaiyi’s whip hung in mid-air. Snow settled on his graying temples, instantly melting into water. "If he remains ignorant, he will lose his head!"

"If you want to die, go crawl to the grasslands! Do not drag the whole clan to the grave with you!" He pointed toward the direction where Nianxike had vanished. "Why do you think he didn't kill you? It is not because he is merciful, but because we are still useful! The day the Khitans become useless, he will slaughter us like sheep!"

Shenduo stopped crying, lying prone in the snow, his shoulders shaking violently.

The gathered guards swallowed hard, their turbid tears freezing upon their furrowed faces. They were generational dependents of the Yelü family, their veins running with the water of the Songmo River, yet they could only watch helplessly as their master’s pride was whipped into dust by the cold reality.

The wind and snow battered Yelü Huaiyi’s sunken eye sockets. "Wake up... descendants of the White Horse and the Green Ox." The words were squeezed with difficulty from his cracked lips, stained with specks of blood. "That is the bloodline of the Heavenly God and the Earthly Goddess... You and I, people of a fallen nation, are no longer worthy to worship at the ancestral tombs beneath Mount Muye, nor worthy to look up at the portraits of the Founding Emperor..."

The Heavenly God rode a white horse to shatter the nine heavens, and the Earthly Goddess drove a green ox to plow the earth of ten thousand years!

This sentence was like a needle, silencing everyone present. Shenduo lay in the snow, his shoulders trembling. He remembered when he was seven, and his father took him to pay respects at the Founding Emperor’s tomb. He had been dressed in fine furs, riding a white camel, listening to the shaman chant the legend of the "White Horse and Green Ox"—the ancestors of the Khitans, the Heavenly God and the Earthly Goddess, whose descendants were meant to be the proudest eagles of the grasslands.

But now, they lacked even the courage to look up at the Jurchens.

Yelü Huaiyi suddenly pointed to the northwest, his finger trembling with agitation. "Go! Go to Kedun City! Go to that remaining island of the Khitans! There, you are still a noble of the royal clan, still a proud sun of the grasslands that no one dares look at directly! Ride horses, sing loudly, drink wine, and shoot eagles; the winds of the eight Khitan tribes still blow there! Go! The infamy of being a turncoat and a traitor—I, Yelü Huaiyi, will bear it alone!"

"I know... I know the Great Liao is gone..." The son’s voice was choked with sobs, carrying the unique despair of a youth. "But I just cannot swallow this indignation! When the Founding Emperor Abaoji held his blade and rode his horse, who dared look down on the Khitans? And now... now we have to hold the stirrups and lead the horses for these low-born savages..."

He seemed to see the palaces of Shangjing stretching out like clouds; he saw the dust of ten thousand riders sweeping across the sea of grass during the Nabo hunt; he saw the Founding Emperor astride a fiery steed, hoisting the White Wolf Flag. Those glories were like flickering afterimages in the shadow of the whip; with every lash, a layer shattered.

"The Founding Emperor? Are we even worthy to speak his name!" Yelü Huaiyi’s whip dropped to the ground.

He recalled that snowy night in the sixth year of Tianfu (1122). The walls of Xijing were crumbling under the fierce assault of the Jin army. He had knelt before Yelü Yanxi, his forehead bleeding from kowtowing: "Your Majesty! As long as you stay, I am willing to lead the army and the people of the city to fight to the death! Even if every last man in the city perishes, we cannot abandon the dignity and pride of the Khitans!"

But that foolish monarch could think of nothing but escape. Before leaving, he did not forget to display his shameful state, exhausting the dignity of the royal family. The foolish emperor in his carriage only panicked and urged the driver, the wheels ruthlessly grinding over the streets... drowned in the despairing wails of the city.

The bloodless face of the foolish monarch as he pulled back the carriage curtain during his flight had finally crushed the last of the Khitan nobles' spines. Everyone realized that the descendants of the Founding Emperor Abaoji were merely cowards, lacking even the courage to face the enemy, which chilled the blood of the Khitan heroes who had been willing to fight.

Defeated before the battle! Hearts dead before the fight!

"That damn fool of an emperor!" Shenduo suddenly roared, his voice thick with tears. "If he hadn't only known how to run, how could we have ended up in this state? He ruined the Great Liao! He ruined all of us!"

"He deserves to die; he should have smashed his head against the tomb of the Founding Emperor!"

Yelü Huaiyi shuddered. Indeed, that emperor who knew only how to hunt, drink, and favor sycophants was the primary culprit who destroyed the Great Liao. There was nothing he and the others could do to turn the tide.

"Fa... Father..." The young man let out a wounded moan, lunging forward to embrace Yelü Huaiyi’s cold boots. "Son was wrong! Son was foolish!"

He pressed his cheek tightly against the cold leather. "From now on, son is a subject of the Great Jin... just... just an eagle-dog tied to a hitching post, to be driven and whipped by the Jurchen nobles."

He crouched down and touched his son’s bleeding back. "Apply medicine." He did not look at his son on the ground again.

His gaze turned toward the gray silhouette of Taiyuan City in the south. Snowflakes struck his face, and the melted ice water slid into the corners of his mouth, as bitter as bile.

His throat moved with difficulty, and a silent roar collided within his chest: *Fight, O Emperor of the Southern Dynasty! Let your people stand tall! Let me, a slave of a fallen nation, see—whether the spirit of the Han people can endure longer than a Khitan bow! Let us know, in the end, who truly is the Middle Kingdom!*

...

Wind and snow howled outside the Marshal’s tent. Nianxike sat squarely in the seat of honor, covered by an entire black bear skin. No joy or anger could be discerned on his iron-cast face.

Inside the tent, the animal-fat lamps flickered, casting thick, murky smoke and illuminating the faces of the core figures of the Western Route Army who had arrived one after another: the fierce and brutal Tuhesuo, the steady and mountain-like Wanyan Loushi, Wanyan Xiyin (Gushen) with his eyes as deep as an ancient well, and the livid-faced Nianxike, who, despite his defeat, remained qualified to attend as a founding general.

The tent flaps were tightly sealed, shutting out the cold wind, yet failing to shut out the lingering scent of blood and the gloom of failure.

Nianxike’s gaze swept over the crowd, finally resting on Nianxike’s face. His voice was as low as rolling stones. "Three thousand elites, all lost. Nianxike, you have let the White Wolf Flag bestowed upon you by the Emperor gather dust."

Nianxike suddenly looked up, his eyes bloodshot. He was about to speak, but Nianxike raised a hand to stop him.

"By the old rules." Nianxike stood up, his deep voice brooks no argument. "River-bathing council! Wash your brains clean before you speak!"

The generals in the tent turned solemn. This was a custom passed down from the White Mountains and Black Waters, where tribal nobles would bathe and swim in rivers to deliberate on matters.

The old nomadic customs lacked formal rites; the ruler and the people bathed in the same river, their shoulders brushing on the path.

*Records of Songmo* states: "When a chieftain handles affairs, he must bathe and shave, entering the tent naked to show he conceals no weapons."

There was also a practice equivalent to "When the state has great matters, go to the wilderness, sit in a circle, and draw in the ashes to discuss," meaning when encountering major state issues, everyone would go to the wild to sit in a circle and discuss in the dirt, keeping the content of the discussion secret.

A dozen personal guards stepped forward, leading the Marshal and the generals toward a stream behind the tent that had not yet completely frozen over. The cold was piercing, the icy water mixed with shards of ice.

The frigid river water instantly enveloped their naked bodies. Even the battle-hardened generals could not help but gasp.

Nianxike was the first to submerge, the icy water flowing over the old scars on his knotted muscles. Tuhesuo followed, the cold stimulation drawing a low roar from him. Nianxike gritted his teeth; the ice water stung his rib injury, causing his muscles to twitch, but he did not make a sound, burying his head into the water. Loushi’s expression remained calm, his movements steady as he slowly immersed himself. Wanyan Xiyin was the last to enter the water. He closed his eyes, as if feeling the current, or perhaps organizing his thoughts. Under the stimulation of the icy water, all differences in status and position seemed to momentarily vanish.