Dear all, thank you for reading - thank you Lynn12, Sue4, Dragonheart3 for your kind comments. I hope you like this chapter; it promises more interesting things to come. Also, please be patient and bear with me for a bit - things will take a while coming together, but I assure you it definitely will. As I said earlier, the story picks up again 5 years later, with many events happening in between and we won't get wind of them yet; rather I'll be presenting characters who have lived through the 5 years and are changed because of that turbulent period. Historical nitty-gritties will be filled in and explained properly as we go along, no worries. ;-)
So now, we have a crumbling Middle Kingdom, the transition time between 2 Dynasties and the early unity that Emperor Wen (Or Wen Di, 'Di' simply meaning Emperor in Mandarin) had achieved was short-lived when his son Yang Di ascended the throne under suspicious circumstances. Yang Di was a slave to luxuries and the good life, building capitals in Luoyang and Changan (modern day Xi'An), and the price paid for these was probably the peace of China itself.
So we are back to the days of Hun threats, along with internal trouble.
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Chapter 1: The Decorations upon His Breast
China, Spring, A.D. 615
There was no cheering crowd, no raucous noise the way it was in the last few festivities, all of which he would now gladly welcome, for it was one of the few remaining things that out-thundered the disquiet within. The medal that was hung on his shoulder had been bestowed in near silence, under the most tragic of circumstances, on the deathbed of the previous Marshal, not during a roar of jubilation that normally accompanied it.
Marshal Li Shang - yet another step up from where he was previously - from Captain, to General and finally to Marshal, paced the barren ground on which the tents were pitched, finally swinging himself onto the upper ledge that was partially shielded by the willow trees, perching comfortably in an irregular shaped nook. It would have satisfied the most ambitious of soldiers, had they also experienced the same meteoric rise the way he had. He wondered if the Middle Kingdom was truly desperate for warrior leaders, in the hurried way that soldiers were thrown into the disarray of political troubles as keepers of the precarious peace that now seemed to be gradually but indisputably disintegrating.
He loved the peace that the night offered, even if the tranquillity was a mere façade. It was the only time that he guarded jealously as one would guard a beautiful wife; it offered the almost physical pleasures that accompanied the inconsistent spurts of memories and solemn meditations.
They had conferred upon the once ruddy and fresh-faced Captain Li Shang many honours for the military campaigns that the Sui Emperors had initiated, but he found that 5 years spent in unceasing warfare had made these honours merely hard stones, casting aside the medals carelessly that he once wore with pride. These medals commended nondescript soldiers who fought well, elevating them, rewarding them, but ate at and stole their souls with every ascension in rank.
That covetous prize and reward that had been bestowed upon him now slung, bundled over his shoulder concealed. The Emperor's sword which had the governing principles of the warrior's code: integrity, honour, loyalty, justice - superlatives describing excellence and nobility in all areas - all calligraphically engraved along its slender silver spoke of one of the greatest honour that a soldier may carry on himself - it brought great satisfaction and victory surely, to the one who thrust the tip of the sword deep inside an adversary, the repeated purification of the code of honour complete as blood seeps inside the intricate engravings, demanding perfection from the warrior just as those words were in themselves perfect. Surely that code was also the parameter that defined the moral psychology of the warrior, yet was also the frontier pushed back too hard that had also near cost him his sanity.
Yang di's command was no more than a joke; surely he only cared for the sustainability of his sybaritic lifestyle in Luoyang and Xi'an revelling in the past fatness of economic prosperity, his military orders since the failed invasion of Korea merely a formality to station his troops around the borders of his shrinking empire.
Chi Fu had been spitefully regular in his appointments, delivering order after order of the Emperor, the latest one bringing him out into the thawing ice and swelling rivers, into the lowland plains lying adjacent to the entrance of the infamously breachable Tung Shao Pass, the white capped mountains a mocking contrast to the great amount red blood spilt at its feet. Battle-weary when he was not yet thirty, Shang did not think it bode well. He swore softly at the moon rays that flitted gently through the slight canopy of the trees as a jagged peak pierced his vision and triggered a sudden memory 5 years ago, the way that peak was made to trigger off an avalanche.
Ping**. The flower vase. It was hardly any wonder that the child grew into his name and might even physically resemble one.
Captain Li, he had insisted weakly, through that alarmingly pale face of his, please, follow me no more. Let me make the rest of the journey home myself.
That strange and elusive boy-soldier who had bested him finally in the art of war despite the rare slight frame that rivalled the thinnest boy in the Middle Kingdom, and injured his side in that glorious moment as the ice rolled down. Yet with such bravery under his coat, that boy had cried bitterly as his wound festered, begging to go home, a request and plea that had both saddened and surprised him. Ping had never told him the exact name of the village in which he lived - Fa Zhou the war veteran had chosen to settle in obscurity and surround his remaining days with constructed serenity, what was possibly the perfect compensation after years of unrest.
Shang had watched motionless, as Ping's horse supported his owner's slight figure in its calming trot, disappearing into the passes of the mountains. Try as he might, he could not shrug off that singular memory the same way he easily shrugged off his outer coat. But that boy had never been -
Hurried footsteps wilted prematurely his blooming memories.
"Marshal!"
He turned, ears ready, body tensed.
"Villages 300 li of the Pass have been razed. The fortified borders have been torn. The Huns come."
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*Hua Ping/Fa Ping = Flower Vase in Mandarin