The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 37 – Part 3

Guo Jing shot him a sidelong glance and thought, You say leading the little beggars doesn’t require reading military texts, yet you’ve got the words of this book down pat. Lu Youjiao said, “But if we pile sandbags on him again, the man will surely find a way out. This time we seek difference within similarity. No sandbags. We douse him with boiling water instead.” Guo Jing saw several dozen personal guards setting up over twenty large iron cauldrons outside the tent. They smashed blocks of frozen snow with axes and shovelled them into the pots. He said, “Won’t that scald him to death?” Lu Youjiao replied, “You made a pact with him, sir, that if he fell into your hands you would spare him three times. But if you scald him to death at once, that does not count as falling into your hands. There would be nothing to reprieve, and you could hardly be said to have broken your word.”

Before long the deep pit was ready. Its mouth was covered as before with felt, and a wooden chair set upon it. Outside the tent the guardsmen had lit fires beneath the cauldrons, melting the ice to water. But the cold was so fierce that a few pots, fed with firewood too slowly, froze over again in the blink of an eye, a thin skin of ice forming on the surface. Lu Youjiao kept urging them on. “Stoke it up, faster!”

Suddenly a figure flashed across the snow. Ouyang Feng raised his staff, flicked open the tent flap, and called out, “Foolish boy, if there’s another trap this time, your grandpa isn’t afraid of it!” With that he soared into the air and settled firmly into the wooden chair.

Elders Lu, Jian and Liang had not expected Ouyang Feng to arrive so swiftly. The ice in the cauldrons had barely melted. The pots held nothing but chill snow-water, cold enough to make a bath uncomfortable, let alone scald a man. They watched Ouyang Feng sit down and groaned in dismay again and again. Then came a sharp crack, and amid Ouyang Feng’s volley of abuse, man and chair tumbled into the pit once more.

They had not even sandbags to hand. With Ouyang Feng’s skill, leaping from so small a trap was child’s play. The three elders were at their wits’ end, fearing for Guo Jing’s safety, and cried in unison, “Sir, come out of the tent, quickly.”

Then from behind them someone gave a low, sharp command. “Pour the water!”

Lu Youjiao heard the order and, without a moment’s thought, obeyed at once. He bellowed, “Pour the water!” The guardsmen hoisted the great cauldrons and hurled their contents into the pit.

Ouyang Feng was just launching himself from the bottom when several cauldronfuls crashed down upon his head. Startled, he let slip the breath he had drawn up, and at once his body dropped. He drove his snake staff hard against the floor of the pit and surged upward a second time. This time he was prepared. Though the cold water cascading on him was copious, it could not beat him down. But the cold was so savage that the moment the water left the iron pots it began to freeze. Halfway up the pit, the water above his head and below his feet had already hardened into solid ice. His upward momentum was fierce, but the ice was harder than steel. He struck his head with a dull thud that sent pain shooting through his skull. He meant to drop back, gather his strength and charge again, but his feet were already locked fast in the ice, unable to move. The shock was grave indeed. With a great roar he summoned all his strength and struggled furiously, and had just worked his feet loose when his upper body was encased in ice as well. Fearing he could not break free, he flung his sleeves about his face, trapping a pocket of air. Even if the ice sealed over his head, that small space would let him breathe through the Turtle Breathing Skill¹ and hold on to life.

The guardsmen had rehearsed the water-pouring drill until it was second nature. Four men lifted a cauldron, emptied it, and stepped back. Four more took their place at once, relaying like the buckets of a water-wheel, swift beyond measure. Lest scalding water splash back upon them, each man had bound cloth about his hands and face. No one had imagined that the snow-water, never brought to the boil, would trap their foe all the same. In a matter of moments the twenty-odd cauldrons filled the pit and froze into a great pillar of ice, forty or fifty feet long and seven feet across.

They had blundered into it, yet it had worked at a single stroke, and everyone was astonished and delighted. The three elders directed the guardsmen to dig away the sand and earth around the ice pillar, lower thick ropes to bind it, and drive twenty horses yoked together to drag it free.

Word spread, and soldiers from all four camps flocked before the commander’s tent to see the marvel. Together they heaved the pillar upright. By torchlight they saw Ouyang Feng, teeth bared and eyes blazing, one arm raised, one foot kicking, locked fast inside the great column of ice, utterly unable to stir. The troops roared with triumph. Lu Youjiao, fearing that Ouyang Feng’s neigong was refined enough for him to melt the ice with his neili and burst out, ordered the guardsmen to keep pouring water and thicken the pillar further. Guo Jing said, “I made a pact with him that I would spare his life three times. Break the pillar and let him go!” The three elders thought it a pity, but every man of valour holds his word sacred, and they raised no objection.

Lu Youjiao raised an iron hammer to strike the pillar, but Elder Jian called out, “Wait!” He turned to Guo Jing and asked, “Sir, with neili like Ouyang Feng’s, how long can he last inside that pillar?” Guo Jing said, “One shichen,² I think. Beyond that, I fear for his life.” Elder Jian said, “Good. Then we let him out after one shichen. His life may be spared, but he must not be spared the suffering.” Guo Jing remembered the debt of his murdered shifus³ and nodded his assent.

Word went out, and soldiers from other camps came streaming in to see. Guo Jing said to the three elders, “The ancients said, a scholar may be killed but not dishonoured. This man is wicked, true, yet he is a grandmaster of the martial arts. Shall we let men mock and jeer at him?” He ordered the soldiers to screen the ice pillar with tent-cloth and set a guard, so that not even princes or great commanders might lift the flap to look.

After one shichen the three elders shattered the pillar and released Ouyang Feng. Though he had survived by breathing through the small air-pocket frozen before his mouth and nose, his vital energy was grievously spent. He sat cross-legged on the ground, circulated his neili for a long while, vomited three mouthfuls of black blood, and left, seething with hatred. Guo Jing and the three elders saw that after a full shichen trapped in ice, though his bearing was haggard, he moved again with ease before long. They could not help but admire him.

Throughout that shichen Guo Jing had been restless and distracted. At the time he had put it down to Ouyang Feng’s proximity, which kept him on edge. But even after the ice was broken and the man freed, he could not find peace inside the tent. He sat down to cultivate, stilling his spirit. After the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, all thoughts fell silent and his mind grew clear. Then, suddenly, he understood what had been troubling him. Just before Lu Youjiao gave the order to pour, he had distinctly heard someone give the low command, “Pour the water!” The voice was uncannily familiar, eight or nine parts Huang Rong’s. At the time Ouyang Feng had been falling into the trap and events were too urgent to attend to it, but since then those two words had lingered at the edge of his hearing, and he could not grasp them.

He sprang to his feet and blurted out, “So Rong-er is in the army after all. If I muster every man and leave out not a single one, how can I fail to find her?” But then he thought again, If she will not see me, why should I force her? He unrolled the painting and stared at the maiden in the image, grief and joy mingling in his heart.

In the stillness of night he heard swift hoofbeats from afar, followed by the challenge of the personal guard. Presently a messenger entered the tent and presented a written order from Genghis Khan.⁴ The Mongol armies had advanced along separate routes, winning victory after victory. A few hundred li⁵ farther west lay Samarkand,⁶ the famed city of Khwarezm.⁷ Genghis Khan’s scouts reported that Khwarezm had once made its capital at the great city of Gurganj,⁸ but when Samarkand was built had moved the capital there, massing over a hundred thousand troops to defend it. Its soldiers were picked men, its grain was plentiful, its defences were complete, and its walls were said to be the stoutest under heaven. Expecting it could not be taken swiftly, Genghis Khan had ordered all four armies to converge and assault it together.

At dawn the next day Guo Jing led his forces south along the Nami River. After ten days’ march they reached the walls of Samarkand. Seeing the Mongol force small, the defenders sallied forth in strength. Guo Jing deployed the Wind Raising and Cloud Descending formations,⁹ and in half a day killed and wounded over five thousand of the enemy. The Khwarezmian army’s spirit was broken, and they fled back behind their walls.

On the third day Genghis Khan’s main host, and the armies of Jochi¹⁰ and Chagatai,¹¹ arrived in succession. Over a hundred thousand men attacked from every quarter, but Samarkand’s walls were thick and its defences rigorous. Day after day the Mongols stormed the city and lost no few men, yet it would not fall.

Another day passed. Chagatai’s eldest son Motugen,¹² eager to claim glory, charged the walls with desperate valour. An arrow from the battlements pierced his skull and killed him. Genghis Khan had always doted on this grandson. When he saw him fall, grief and fury were beyond measure. The guards bore the prince’s body to him. Tears streamed down the Khan’s face. He took the body in his arms and wrenched the long arrow from the dead boy’s head. The arrow had a wolf-tooth head and eagle-feather fletching, its shaft was sheathed in gold, and engraved with four characters: “Great Jin, Prince of Zhao.”¹³ Those among his attendants who could read the Jin script translated, and Genghis Khan roared, “So it was Wanyan Honglie,¹⁴ that treacherous villain!” He leapt into the saddle and sent down the order: “Hear me, all officers and men: whoever summons the courage to mount first, breach the wall and seize Wanyan Honglie to avenge my grandson, shall have all the women, jade and silk in this city for his reward.”

A hundred guardsmen stood up on their horses’ backs and shouted the Great Khan’s command across the host. The entire army was fired with zeal. Arrows flew like locusts, and the battle-cries shook the sky. Men heaped earth to scale the walls, raised scaling-ladders, cast grappling-hooks and climbed, or drove great beams against the gates. But the defenders within countered every stratagem. By nightfall the Mongols had lost over four thousand men, and Samarkand still stood as immovable as a mountain. Since the campaign into Khwarezm began, Genghis Khan had never suffered so grave a reverse. That night in his tent he mourned his grandson’s death, and his rage was like thunder.

Guo Jing returned to his tent and pored over Wumu’s Art of War,¹⁵ seeking a method for taking a walled city. But Samarkand’s defences differed utterly from those of the Middle Kingdom, and every stratagem in the book was useless.

He considered their plight: the army pinned beneath impregnable walls, grain for men and horses dwindling by the day. They had counted on taking supplies from the enemy, but after days of unsuccessful assault, if the defenders sallied forth to fight, the Mongol horsemen would rout them as easily as breaking dry wood. Yet the enemy stayed behind their walls, refusing battle when battle was desired. On top of everything, the bitter cold wore at the troops’ morale. It was beginning to look as though the whole army might be lost, and for all his heroism his spirit sank.

Guo Jing summoned Lu Youjiao to consult, knowing the elder would go seek Huang Rong’s counsel. When Lu Youjiao took his leave, Guo Jing followed at a discreet distance. But Lu Youjiao had Beggars’ Guild¹⁶ members posted before and behind, and the moment they caught sight of Guo Jing they loudly called the order to salute. Guo Jing thought, Ah, this is Rong-er’s scheming again, of course. She always has a way of keeping out of my reach. My every move is foreseen by her.

After more than one shichen Lu Youjiao returned and reported, “This great city cannot be taken in a hurry, and I can think of no clever plan either. Let us wait a few days and see whether the enemy shows a weakness, then take counsel anew.” Guo Jing nodded without speaking.

When he had first left the Mongol camps and ridden south, he was still a muddled, honest, slow-spoken youth. But a year of hardship and peril had sharpened his understanding. That night in his tent he pondered afresh the two poems inscribed upon the painting, and felt the tenderness in them overcome him. He thought, Rong-er cannot be without feeling for me. She is waiting for me to make amends. But I was born a fool, and truly do not know how to correct my faults to her satisfaction. The thought vexed him endlessly.

He lay in his tent that night, tossing and turning over the matter, until past the third watch he finally drifted into a doze. In his dream he met Huang Rong, and at once asked her how he should make amends. He heard her whisper several words in his ear. Guo Jing was overjoyed and woke, but could not recall what she had said. He strained to remember and could not call back a single word. He tried to sleep again so that he might meet Huang Rong once more in dreams, but sleep would not come. Frantic and miserable, he kept knocking his own head, until suddenly inspiration struck and he thought, If I can’t remember, why can’t I just ask her again? He called out, “Quickly, ask Elder Lu to come to my tent.”

Lu Youjiao, imagining some urgent military matter, came running barefoot, a sheepskin thrown over his shoulders. Guo Jing said, “Elder Lu, by tomorrow night I must see Miss Huang, no matter what. Whether you devise the plan yourself or go and consult someone else, I give you until the hour of Wu¹⁷ tomorrow to find me a scheme.” Lu Youjiao was taken aback. He said, “Guild Chief Huang is not here. How can you see her, sir?” Guo Jing said, “Your strategies are beyond reckoning. You will surely have a plan. If you have not worked one out by the hour of Wu tomorrow, you will answer to military law.” He knew the words were high-handed, and could not help smiling to himself.

Footnotes

1. 龟息功 — guīxī gōng. Literally turtle-breath skill. A neigong method that slows the breath to a near standstill. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 时辰 — shíchén. Traditional Chinese unit of time equal to two hours; the day was divided into twelve shichen. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 师父 — shīfù. Teacher responsible for technical instruction and moral guidance. Shī means teacher. Fù means father. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 成吉思汗 — Chéngjísī Hán. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 里 — lǐ. A traditional unit of distance, about 500 metres or one-third of a mile. ↩

6. 撒麻尔罕 — Sāmá’ěrhǎn. Samarkand, one of the oldest cities of Central Asia and a great centre of the Silk Road. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 花剌子模国 — Huālàzǐmó Guó. Central Asian empire destroyed by Genghis Khan in 1220, spanning modern Iran/Uzbekistan. See Wikipedia. ↩

8. 玉龙杰赤 — Yùlóng jiéchì. The capital of Khwarazm, today Konye-Urgench in Turkmenistan. See Wikipedia. ↩

9. 风扬、云垂阵 — fēngyáng, yúnchuí zhèn. Literally wind raising and cloud hanging formations. Two of the eight battle formations of classical Chinese military lore. ↩

10. 朮赤 — Shùchì. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 察合台 — Cháhétái. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 莫图根 — Mòtúgēn. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 大金赵王 — Dà Jīn Zhào Wáng. Literally Prince of Zhao of the Great Jin. ↩

14. 完颜洪烈 — Wányán Hóngliè. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 武穆遗书 — Wǔmù Yíshū. The military treatise left by Yue Fei (1103—1142), the Song general posthumously titled Wumu. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 丐帮 — Gàibāng. Literally beggars’ guild. The largest band in the jianghu, with members throughout the realm. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 午时 — wǔshí. The hour of Wu, about 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., the seventh of the twelve shichen. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩