Songs of War: Earth -02-
The Ballad of the Mountain Tribe
(Alternate Titles: Song of the Hundred Shān-mín; Ode for the Battle of Yān Lǒu)
[Style:Yueh-fu]
[Author: Lao Bai]
[Origin: Earth Kingdom, circa Avatar Aang (disappearance of)]
At turn of dawn, 'pon Xū Mí Road,
dust-ground under iron wheels,
to Kǒu Pass their iron ranks thunder.
Lesser men showed their heels,
yet bravely stand, Shān-mín's men.
The mountain may shiver,
yet stand five-score men of Shān-mín, a wall,
to turn back that iron river.
From the western shore swept the horde.
Seized in ravening Fire,
Léifēng-shan and proud Te-ming fell.
The skull-faced host ne'er paused:
Jìngtǔ-shen razed and Huā-dū burned.
West and south, the sky bled red,
and stained the shoulders of ice-bound Yān Lǒu
as northward to Wò Ráo they turned.
Who would answer Wò Ráo's plea?
Behind jade walls sleeps our king,
To the West, the Avatar has fled, [一]
Gui swells with misfortun'd spring,
Captives of frail walls, children weep.
None shall come to Wò Ráo's aid.
Then! From the east - Shān-mín's men hurrying,
O'er the flood, to Wò Ráo's side!
Hearts, fear-beaten, now beat with hope,
and clamor the bronze watch-bell.
Yet, how few, those men of Shān-mín,
who now join the battle.
What hundred men can stem that dread tide?
With grim salute, they march
Ascending apace to Yān Lǒu's jagged crown,
quick'ning o'er Duàn-qiáo's arch.
Towering, the walls of Kǒu Pass,
winter's ice still clinging.
On iron feet nears the beast,
the stones with warning ringing.
"The mountain cries out in torment,"
proclaims Shān-mín's captain,
"by iron and Fire profaned. We answer her:
'No further will they gain!'"
Raise your stone shield, brace your shoulder -
War-drums shudder the bone.
On, on they come, the skull-faced host!
Shān-mín's men charge as one,
shattering that iron river,
rank upon rank cast down!
And yet: on, on, they come, the skull-faced host!
Trampling o'er their own.
Flames leap high o'er Yān Lǒu's crown
cast by wretched machine.
Unnatur'd Fire, their polluted art [二]
breached the wall of Shān-mín!
Oh, costly though, each Shān-mín death:
a score for every man.
Yet thousand-score swell that iron river;
no longer can they stand.
Consumed in Fire, Shān-mín men fall,
each inch of stone drowned in blood.
Aback Kǒu Pass falls their proud captain,
Onward, the iron flood!
There is none but Death waiting here,
Shān-mín's men do not turn.
In silence agreed, the men of Shān-mín,
their own lives spurn.
A handful yet stand to raise the wall,
too few against that tide.
The horde claims the pass - Shān-mín's men
in seem'd fear, draw aside.
Lunging forward, victorious,
the iron beast falters.
Silent fall their war drums and machines,
as Yān Lǒu's crown shatters.
Consumed in Fire, Yān Lǒu consumes
in roaring stone and ice -
the Mountain devours the Dragon.
Victr'y won at so high a price,
that one man to Wò Ráo returns,
speaks but one entreaty:
"Ne'er forget what Shān-mín gave for Wò Ráo's sake:
our lives, rendered freely."
With Shān-mín blood and Shān-mín lives
was our homeland ransomed.
Can we dare forget what they gave,
their valor ever fathom?
Give none to them, who slew Shān-mín,
who trample their honored graves – [三]
else we can ne'er from the dust our faces raise,
nothing more than wretched slaves.
Archivist's Notes: The Ballad of the Mountain Tribe is unique among songs originating in this most recent Century War, in that its author is well known, despite having produced a limited body of work, and that it related events that the author, at least indirectly, personally witnessed.
Lao Bai, the scion of the wealthy and influential merchant clan from the Huai Province in the northwest Earth Kingdom, was nine years old years old when Fire Lord Sozin began his conquest of what the Fire Nation would appropriate as the Luo Territory. The city of Wò Ráo, situated at the base of Yān Lǒu, commanded the intersection of crossroads that linked the western Luo peninsula with the rest of Huai Province. The most important of these, insofar as the Fire Army was concerned, was the ancient Xū Mí highway, constructed under the direction of King Yùdi in the Era of Earth Tribes. The Kǒu Pass was the only feasible eastward route for the Fire Army to take and, after a two-year nearly unbroken string of victories in the peninsula, no city was willing to send troops to help Wò Ráo block the pass.
But, as Lao Bai dramatically recounts, a group of warriors from the Shān-mín tribe of the Tong-bai Mountains northeast of Wò Ráo rallied to the pass at very nearly the last minute. The relations between the nomadic Shān-mín and the rural and urban population of Huai had by this time reached a state of mutual non-aggression, but hardly one of mutual guarantees of protection against enemies.
See: A Study of the Curious Customs of the Barbaric Eastern Mountain Tribes; Man; Earth Kingdom; Avatar Kyoshi; Anthropology; Author: Gong Yuan (Dean, Ba Sing Se University).
Suffice it to say, it is likely poetic license for Lao Bai to claim that they came for "Wò Ráo's sake," though I have no doubt that what the last Shān-mín warrior's message in the poem captures the gist of that survivor's sentiments.
Lao Bai composed The Ballad of the Mountain Tribe fifteen years after the fact, in response to negotiations between the provincial government of Huai and the Fire Nation to submit to a Fire Nation protectorate. His anger at the surrender clearly resonated with the people, both noble and common, in Huai and beyond, otherwise the ballad would not have survived the Dai Li purge that claimed Lao Bai's life two years after its publication.
Notes on passages:
[一] To the West, the Avatar has fled, - Accusing the Earth King of abandoning Huai Province alone was likely enough to sentence Lao Bai to death, but this passage, outwardly a lament of Avatar Roku's (presumed) death, subtly accused him of betraying the Earth Kingdom to his known friend, Fire Lord Sozin.
The Dai Li declared that such a charge, leveled at anyAvatar, was a deadly insult to their founder, Avatar Kyoshi, and heretical speech, thus justifying their execution of the poet.
See: Fa Shu Shi: Upon which Basis the Secretariat of the Dai Li Takes Action for the Protection of the Earth Kingdom, Volume 56 – "On Heretical Speech and Incorrect Thought"; Man; Earth Kingdom; Avatar Roku; Law; Legalism; Government; Author: Shang Dong (Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se).
[二] Unnatur'd Fire, their polluted art- This passage reflects Lao Bai's studies into the new weapons of the Fire Army, which negated the Earth Kingdom's inherent advantage in any land war. The discovery of the Fire Army's use of distilled oil-and-tar incendiaries, which, when mixed with sulfur, niter, and/or quicklime, could burn through leather armor and could not be doused with water, frightened and disgusted him. His letters on the topic clearly state his opinion that the Fire Nation had gone down a path that was tearing them away from the harmonious spirit of the world, and that their perversions of fire and iron into machines of war would lead to the destruction of the world if they were not stopped.
See: Sojourn Far from Willow Valley; Man; Second Upheaval [sic] (Avatar Aang, disappearance of); Letters; Poetry; Essays, Critical; Sciences, Chemical; Sciences, Engineering; Author: Lao Bai.
[三] Give none to them, who slew Shān-mín, who trample their honored graves – Lao Bai speaks of the Fire Army's blasting of the sealed Kǒu Pass and the desecration of the graves of fallen warriors while alluding to contemporaneous events. Much as they eliminated the Air Nomads, the Fire Nation hunted down and massacred the Tong-bai Mountain tribes, who, unlike their distant relatives in the southern reaches of the Continent, did not agree to a non-aggression treaty and continued to fight the Fire Army until their annihilation.
A/N: Inspiration for the song (and tune) is The Foggy Dew, performed by Sinead O'Connor & the Chieftains.