1. The Campaign

"Isn't it time to teach those horse-people a lesson, Your Majesty?" Minister Xi'an's voice boomed over the heads of the other officials in Tianqi Hall. The minister was famous for speaking unnecessarily loud due to a hearing impairment he had suffered during the war against Xiandu in his youth. The Minister of Revenue Lan Shei, who was placed next to him, routinely covered the ear closest to Minister Xi'an. Xian never took offence.

A sympathetic murmur was heard in the hall after Minister Xi'an's little speech, and Emperor Ziming sat silently on his throne nodding. The throne was more of a lovely, but hard couch, adorned with carved wooden details and beautiful smooth cushions in shades of gold and bronze. In front of the sofa-like throne was a massive obsidian desk sculpted out of one huge block of stone. It had taken ten horses and a hundred men to get the huge and heavy desk into Tianqi's great hall. An achievement Emperor Ziming's grandfather, Emperor Zaitong, had endeavoured, or at least ordered.

Emperor Ziming started drumming his fingers on a corner of the desk that was not overloaded with various letters and memorials.

"What does our Grand Marshall say about the situation over in Xiandu?" The Emperor now turned to Grand Marshall Cui, the highest-ranking general in Northern Qi, as well as his closest friend. General Cui Baiyu stepped into the center aisle and bowed to his Emperor.

"Your Majesty, since two envoys have failed to successfully negotiate, it wouldn't hurt to scare them a little." The general looked up at Emperor Ziming with a meaningful smile. The two of them had already discussed what was about to happen.

"Well then. Who does Grand Marshall think we should send?"

Before the general could answer, two young men stepped out in the center aisle. One was dark-haired with elegant features, and the other was light-haired and powerful and he stood a head higher than everyone else in the Hall. The two young men bowed and said in unison:

"Your Majesty, we are at Your Majesty's disposal. We would be honored to serve the Empire".

Both men glanced stealthily at each other, as if they had pulled off some kind of coup. Tianqi Hall fell silent until the Emperor stood up and clapped his hands.

"Good. We see the next generation is hungry and ready to move." The Emperor made eye contact with General Cui, who nodded imperceptibly, before he continued.

"We hereby appoint Prince Ying as Envoy to Xiandu and Cui Wu Li as General of the fifth rank. Within ten days, you two will lead a campaign to Xiandu to intimidate the five tribes to the negotiating table. Understood?"

The two young men fell on their knees before their Emperor. "Yes, Your Majesty. Thank you, Your Majesty," followed by the whole assembly bowed and said:

"Your Majesty is wise. Long live Your Majesty".

Prince Ying and recently appointed General Wu Li looked at each other happily. They were going to celebrate tonight. At last, they would get their first actual assignment to lead soldiers. It was long overdue. The Empire had been way too peaceful for the taste of ambitious young men. At least, that's the way the two friends joked about it. They were well aware that war wasn´t childsplay.

Wu Li had always looked different from his dark-haired friends with his blonde hair and broad shoulders. His biological father was said to come from to a famous warrior tribe that lived so far west that the legend claimed it was where the sun rested at night. The blonde hair was an inheritance from his father, and no one in Northern Qi had ever seen such remarkable hair before. The General Residence's house monk, the venerable Taoist Cultivator Master Lin, suggested that the light color was due to the sun bleaching everyone's hair in that western warrior tribe, but no one believed that. No one except Wu Li himself.

Wu Li had his first memories of life living as a slave in a faraway land. General Cui was traveling the world after his beloved wife died, and happened to spot the boy's golden hair at a slave market among colorful spices and silk fabrics. Cui Baiyu immediately became curious and was surprised that the well-built boy was only six years old, he looked a lot older. The child was solid and sturdy, and the General envisioned a fully grown soldier who would surely impress friends and enemies alike, especially with that unique hair on his head.

When the General inquired about the quiet boy's background, he was told a story about mighty warriors traveling along rivers and across oceans in strange boats and about a Persian princess who had met these warriors. However, it was not the Persian princess who was the boy's mother. It was her maid, a young woman who needed money and out of desperation had sold her other child. The gods punished the woman by striking her dead with lightning soon after. At least, that was how the story was told. True or not, the now orphaned boy still ended up at the slave market after his mother's death.

The general was fascinated by both the story of the warriors and the boy's appearance, and he ended up purchasing the child and brought him back to Northern Qi.

Wu Li was put into school right away, consisting of physical military training and classical education. The general's childhood teacher had been Taoist Master Lin, who had conveyed the importance of giving soldiers a solid education in language, history, and arithmetic. Knowledge created better soldiers, he said, and after many years of experience, the general was inclined to agree. That's why Master Lin was put in charge of the boy's education.

The boy impressed both Master Lin and the general in most of his endeavours, and after a few years, Wu Li became like a son in the house. The general's wife had died young of a feverish illness, and it was his great sorrow that she had left him only three daughters. Wu Li was considered so excellent that he ended up being formally adopted at the age of ten, taking the family surname Cui as his own, and being entered into the family register as the future head of the Cui family and heir to the Duke title.

This was an arrangement that the general's two younger brothers were not particularly happy with, as it meant that their sons would no longer receive any part of the inheritance. Still, there was little they could do about it, especially since the Emperor himself had approved the adoption.

All this meant that Wu Li had three sisters who loved him and a herd of male uncles and cousins who hated him. In other words, he experienced the same thing as most other young lords in Northern Qi.

Inheritance laws in Northern Qi were strict and old-fashioned, letting the eldest son inherit everything. This was the biggest reason why the two younger sisters loved him. They would become entirely financially dependent on him if something happened to the general or if they remained unmarried. His eldest sister, Cui Xia Sheng, lived alone and supported herself through her chain of stationery shops, The Four Treasures. She was very successful, and also the sibling Wu Li got on best with.

The young Wu Li was still completely unaware of all this. He lived his days with mornings spent training at the military camp outside the city walls, and afternoons studying together with Master Lin. The subjects varied from military strategy and command to philosophy and calligraphy, and it had always moral values, virtue and leadership based on the Confucian tradition in focus.

By the time Wu Li was twelve, he could recite the entire 'Art of War' from memory, and by the age of fifteen, he had mastered all the Confucian classics as well as Tao Te Ching, played the dizi well enough, and was an excellent archer. However, his unusually massive body seemed to be an obstacle when it came to swordsmanship. The traditional sword techniques didn't seem compatible with his long limbs and heavy physique. Besides the bow and arrow, the spear and staff became his weapons of choice, those techniques fit his mighty frame better.

At the young age of fifteen, Wu Li was undefeated in the military camp when it came to wrestling. Apart from his father, no one managed to beat him in the sand pit.

This year Wu Li was about to turn nineteen, and even Cui Baiyu had lost interest in practicing wrestling with his son. His 192 cm inspired fear in the bravest soldier and officer. There were few, apart from the cousins, who still considered Wu Li unworthy of his position as heir to the Cui fortune and the Duke title. As for the military title of Grand Marshall, it was still under debate.

General Cui Baiyu's ancestors had earned the title of Duke, a title that the general never spoke about. In his mind, he was a man of the people, on the same page as all his soldiers. "No soldier would follow a Duke," he used to say when anyone complained about him refusing to be called Duke of Tansu. But he had used 'Tansu' as the name for his army, something the Emperor used to tease him about, saying he liked to be a Duke in secret.

According to Wu Li, there was only one thing missing from his life, and that was experiencing a real war. Northern Qi had been at peace with its neighbors and vassal states for sixteen years, and that was primarily due to General Cui. The effective ruthlessness shown by the Tansu army in the past had served as a good deterrent for many years.

Recently, the Kingdom of Yongzen got a new king, and in the former vassal state of Xiandu, some of the horse-trading tribes of the grasslands were causing problems. It was time for a new generation to claim leadership in the fringe of the empire, and with the ignorance of youth came the desire to make a name for themselves. Hence, the drums on both the northwestern and southwestern borders had began to rumble.

The Emperor mobilized five thousand men at General Wu Li and Prince Ying's disposal on their march west. The primary aim of the campaign was to make a statement and force Xiandu to fall in line, not to wage war, but there was still the challenge of leading many soldiers. Since Wu Li was inexperienced as a leader and general, his father ordered Master Lin to accompany him as a military advisor and strategist. Master Lin and Wu Li appreciated this as they enjoyed each other's company and could continue their usual educational conversations about war, the arts, and literature. Wu Li was also wise enough, despite his young age, to realize that leading an army was no child's play and that he would benefit greatly from Master Lin's presence.