Conn Iggulden - Conqueror (2011)

‘We are the tumans of Mongke Khan,’ Kublai said. ‘We move, we strike and we move on again. Mount up. Let us leave these Sung fools behind.’

There was laughter in the ranks as the news spread and Kublai’s words were repeated hundreds of times. The tumans surged forward into a trot and the Sung regiments less than a mile away watched in confusion as they swung clear of the battlefield, leaving only dust, manure and cropped grass in their wake.

General Salsanan had not expected it to be such a task when he volunteered to leave the khan’s tumans and come south. Though he did not know exactly where Kublai was, he expected to track him down by following a trail of burnt towns and cities. Instead, the Sung countryside seemed hardly to have been affected by the passage of armies. It was true that there were few animals grazing and the peasants ran to hide from his soldiers as they searched for anything they could eat. Even so, it was a far cry from the trail of devastation he had thought to see.

His eighty thousand had not even brought the usual supplies. Each man had only two spare mounts, and as they pushed on, Salsanan’s tumans lost a few ponies each day to lameness. Unable to keep up, the mounts were quickly butchered, providing enough meat to give two hundred men a hot meal. The tumans left only bones and often split those for the rich marrow before moving on.

After a month of searching, Salsanan would spend much of each day wishing Mongke Khan was still alive. The land was wide and the endless stream of small towns tempted him to stop and loot. Only his sense of duty kept him going. His men were disciplined, but he was beginning to wonder where Kublai had gone. It seemed impossible to lose a hundred thousand men, even in the vastness of Sung territories. He questioned every village leader and town official who trembled before him, but it was not until he reached the city of Shaoyang that the prefect gave him a solid lead. As he rode, Salsanan reminded himself that the man he went to fetch home could be the next khan. He would have to tread carefully with the scholar prince.

On the road east, Salsanan’s scouts had him riding up ahead of the tumans to confirm the strange sight they reported. Hundreds of heavy cannon lay overturned in the road, their draught animals slaughtered. The carcases had been expertly butchered, with most of the meat taken. In many cases, flies swarmed over just a head and hooves and bloody ground. There were dead men with them, unarmed peasants with dead hands still clutching at whips and reins. Salsanan smiled to see it, recognising the work of his own people.

Just a few miles further on, he found the first remnants of a shattered army, bodies lying in the dusty road. Over the crest of a hill, the corpses grew thicker, as if a stand had been made on that spot. Salsanan walked his mount slowly through them, then reined in as the full battle site was revealed. Dead men lay everywhere, scattered in heaps like shrivelled insects.

Salsanan saw distant figures walking amongst the dead, stopping and staring in terror as his warriors came into sight. He knew some men always survive a battle. In the chaos of fighting, they are knocked unconscious, or pass out from a wound. There will always be a few to rise the following day, limping home while armies and the war move on without them. As he rode further through the field of the dead, Salsanan watched battered Sung survivors raise their hands, their faces slack as his men began to round them up.

He nodded in fascination as he read the battle that had taken place. It had been hard. There were many Mongol bodies and he could discern the pattern of their charges in the corpses and broken lances. Kublai’s tumans had been beaten back more than once, he could see, perhaps almost flanked. The Sung commander had known their tactics and answered them without panic.

Salsanan picked up a broken arrow and scratched his head with the tip. He would speak to the bruised and battered survivors, but first he walked the field, learning from the bloody script the sort of man who might one day rule the nation.

He found a place where the grass had been churned into mud, just a short way from the main battle lines. A tuman had been rallied there and sent back in. Salsanan could almost see the line of their attack in his mind’s eye. He frowned as he walked through the echoes of the battle, revising his opinion of Mongke Khan’s brother. The charge had been tight, discipline excellent. The Sung lines had bowed back and Salsanan could see the broken and bloody spears where they had tried to stand. His years of training made him look right and left for the second charge that he would have sent in at the right moment. There. He led his horse by the reins over the corpses, moving carefully as they slid and shifted under his boots.

He found the spot where the battle had been decided. Crossbow bolts and pitted iron balls littered the ground and there was still a taste of gunpowder in the air. Kublai’s men had ridden through heavy fire to circle out and back at full gallop. Salsanan could read their confidence and he nodded, satisfied. There had been no hesitation, no doubts from the man who commanded them.

One of Salsanan’s men signalled and he mounted to ride over to another section.

‘What is it?’ he said as he rode up.

His man gestured to the bodies that lay all around them. The smell of spilt guts was appalling and flies buzzed into Salsanan’s face, making him wave them off. Even so, he bent to look.

‘They are so old ,’ the scout said.

Salsanan stared around him, confirming it. All the faces were lined and the dead men closest to him looked thin and wasted.

‘Why would the Sung go to battle with such elderly soldiers?’ he muttered. His foot was on a yellow banner and he reached down and picked up the torn cloth. Part of a painted symbol was revealed, but Salsanan did not recognise it. He let the crumpled cloth fall.

‘Whoever they were, they should not have fought against us.’

His gaze fell on the centre of the dead, a corpse with short-cropped grey hair surrounded by a ring of many others, as if they had died trying to protect him. A much younger man lay almost across the body, the only youthful face Salsanan could see. Arrow and sword wounds marked them all, the shafts themselves wrenched out from their flesh.

Salsanan shrugged, letting the small mystery go. ‘We cannot be far behind them now. Tell the men to make a good pace. And make sure the scouts show themselves early. I do not want to be attacked by my own people.’

Salsanan caught up with Kublai’s tumans on the outskirts of Changsha city. Like wolves entering another’s territory, both sides were cautious at first. The outer scouts overlapped and raced back with messages for those who led them on both sides. The armies halted far enough away for there to be no sense of threat. Kublai rode out with Bayar and Uriang-Khadai, breaking off his negotiations with the prefect of Changsha almost in mid-sentence when he heard.

He and General Salsanan met on a spring afternoon, with just a few mare’s tails of cloud in the sky above and a warm breeze blowing. Between them, sixteen tumans faced each other. On Kublai’s side, they were veterans, fierce and grubby with old blood and dirt. On the other, they were fresh, their armour shining. Both forces looked at the other side in astonishment and there were many jeering calls.

Kublai was flushed with pleasure at the sight of so many tumans of the nation. He let Salsanan dismount first and bow before he climbed down from his horse.

‘You do not know how welcome you are,’ Kublai said.

‘My lord, it seems to have fallen to me to bring the worst news,’ Salsanan said.

Kublai’s smile vanished. ‘I already know my brother is dead. Yam riders found me, two of them.’