TUN-HUANG (10 page)

The Uighur mumbled under his breath that misfortunes rained upon him one after another. In the end he agreed to carry out the orders. Hsing-te took the old man to the girl’s shelter, and when they arrived, he again made him promise faithfully to carry out Wang-li’s orders.

After dismissing the old man, Hsing-te exchanged farewells with the girl. She made Hsing-te repeat his vow to return within a year. Then she said, “Now please leave quickly.”

As they parted, the girl took one of the two necklaces from around her neck and handed it silently to Hsing-te. Her smile was weak but infinitely tender. Hsing-te held her hand briefly, then left quickly. The iciness of the girl’s hand in his own rough one remained with Hsing-te. As he passed through the gate of the house, he encountered the old Uighur coming toward him with a full bucket of water.

“I’ll take care that no one sees me. Don’t worry.” The old man spoke reassuringly.

Hsing-te left the city at noon. At the gate he joined the ranks of about two hundred men preparing to leave. He had no idea what Wang-li had told the young commander about him, but Hsing-te felt that the commander held him in great respect.

It was June of 1028.

Hsing-te arrived in the Hsi-hsia capital of Hsing-ch’ing, after his first trip across the great expanse of desert from Liang-chou, and found the city jubilant over Hsi-hsia’s successful invasion of Kan-chou. It was difficult for Hsing-te, who had spent his time at the frontier, to understand why this victory over the Uighurs was important to the Hsi-hsia, but their success in Liang-chou, followed by their invasion of Kan-chou, meant that they had crossed their first major hurdle in gaining trading rights with the west.

Until then, rugs and jewels—indeed, all types of goods from the west—had first passed through Uighur hands, then entered China and Khitan in the east. The Uighurs alone had profited from the trade, but from now on Hsi-hsia would take over the business role of the Uighurs. The conquest of Liang-chou, which meant control of all the thoroughbred horses in the world, was primarily of military significance, but the economic gain to the newly-founded Hsi-hsia nation from its invasion of Kan-chou was incalculable. In the Wuliang territory, the only areas left to conquer were Kua-chou and Sha-chou, which were under Chinese rule. If Hsi-hsia overcame these two regions it would then border directly on Central Asia—the gateway to the countries of the west with their unlimited wealth.

As might be expected of the capital of Hsi-hsia, Hsing-ch’ing was completely different from Liang-chou and Kan-chou. Although the desert started a short distance away, Hsing-ch’ing itself was a city set in the center of a plain full of trees and greenery. In the distant west were the Ho-lan mountains, and about ten miles to the east was the Yellow River. Surrounding Hsing-ch’ing were rivers and swamps, neatly laid out irrigation ditches, and farms and orchards, which stretched away into the distance.

The walled city had six gates, and the turrets rose high above them. What first surprised Hsing-te when he entered the city were the signs posted at random on buildings and on reclaimed land. These were all in Hsi-hsia characters. Until Hsing-te grew accustomed to seeing them, he felt strange whenever he walked through the town, with its profusion of strange symbols written in yellow, blue, red, and other bright colors. He learned that the use of Chinese characters was prohibited and that it was compulsory to use the newly formed national writing system.

Such regulations did not apply to the writing alone; clothing, cosmetics, etiquette and everything else which had been influenced by the Chinese were forbidden, while things Hsi-hsia were strongly encouraged, testifying to the national pride and ambition of this rising country. There was a comical aspect to these efforts; and yet there was something more which could not be laughed off casually. Reflected in the eyes of the Hsi-hsia who walked about the town, Hsing-te saw unique qualities—a mixture of fearlessness, brutality, ignorance, and arrogance. This race was definitely superior to the Khitans and the Uighurs.

The military controlled the government of Hsi-hsia, but all domestic affairs were conducted through government offices modeled after the Sung system. Hsing-te was sent to a large Buddhist temple that was used as a school in the northwestern district of the town. There were no students as such, but about thirty soldiers sent from different areas to learn to write Hsi-hsia lived there. With the exception of Hsing-te, they were all young Hsi-hsia, though the ten or so instructors were all Chinese. Hsing-te was given a room in the temple, and found it convenient in many ways to have so many Chinese at hand. At first he was given unimportant tasks to do while he learned Hsi-hsia, but as his scholarship became recognized, he was given special work. He wrote pamphlets, or helped copy the definitions of Chinese characters. At long last, Hsing-te was able to return to working with words. He spent from fall until the following spring learning Hsi-hsia. Winter in Hsing-ch’ing was from October to March. In November the irrigation ditches leading from the Yellow River froze, and it hailed every day. Around April when the ice on the Yellow River began to melt, Hsing-te started work on a Hsi-hsia—Chinese dictionary. It was an extremely difficult task. In summer the winds were north-westerly, but the heat was intense, and fine desert dust blew over the city walls and covered the town. Because of these dust storms there were moments when the day became as dark as night. Even when there was no dust, there were terrible thunderstorms.

When Hsing-te began the dictionary, he lost himself in his work. There were over six thousand Hsi-hsia characters. The inventor of the writing system had been Chinese, but he had died. If he had still been alive, selecting the proper Chinese character for each Hsi-hsia word would have been easy, but since the originator was dead, it was very difficult to choose the proper Chinese character from the countless others with similar meanings.

In the fall of 1029 the dictionary was finally completed. Almost a year and a half had slipped by since Hsing-te had come to Hsing-ch’ing in June of the previous year. It wasn’t that he had forgotten the Uighur princess and Wang-li, but after his arrival in Hsing-ch’ing, their existence had taken on a remote quality.

The fierce battles he had fought under Wang-li, and the hard life of the frontier—all these memories now appeared part of a nightmare. And he thought he would never again return to Liang-chou and Kan-chou, where he had once lived; they now seemed unreal and insubstantial. After living in Hsing-ch’ing, he decided he couldn’t possibly return to the frontier unit. His memories of the Uighur princess had also faded. At first Hsing-te had been very sad whenever he thought of her, and could almost feel the icy hands he held when they parted. As time passed, however, his memories of her grew weaker. He began to wonder whether he really had made love to her. Had it been a dream? Hsing-te no longer had any desire to return to Kan-chou for the girl.

After he had completed the dictionary, Hsing-te became confused as to what to do. Originally he had come to this distant frontier to explore that peculiar quality of the Hsi-hsia, but the years had flown by almost without him being aware of it. Now he had lost the incentive to learn about the Hsi-hsia, which had started him on his travels. He could find nothing in Hsing-ch’ing to give him that emotion he had felt from the naked woman at the K’ai-feng marketplace. Formerly, the Hsi-hsia might have had that fierceness which lent them a primitive appeal, but they now lacked this quality. They were subjects of a new country and were becoming nationalistic, united by such outstanding leaders as Te-ming and Yüan-hao. The men were courageous and had no fear of death, and the women had a hard life and did without many things, waiting for years for their absent husbands to return. Their patriotism had made them somber, completely devoid of fun and laughter.

In his dream of long ago, Hsing-te had defended Ho Liang’s frontier policy to the emperor, but he would certainly express a slightly different point of view now. Hsi-hsia was a much more powerful nation and its people superior to what any Sung leader might have imagined. The Hsi-hsia were now preoccupied with warfare and had no time for culture, but after they had conquered their neighbors and begun to develop their own culture, it would probably be too late for China to do anything. If China wanted to be rid of this great threat to her future, it should attack Hsi-hsia at once with its whole force. Now was the time to act. It had already been a grave error for China to have stood idle while Hsi-hsia captured Liang-chou and Kan-chou.

Hsing-te no longer had reason to stay in Hsi-hsia. He had learned to read and write Hsi-hsia and had lived in the largest of the Hsi-hsia cities, Hsing-ch’ing, for a year and a half.

If he wanted to return to China there were ways in which it could be achieved. China and Hsi-hsia had not severed diplomatic relations, but it was not possible now to travel openly between the two countries, as he had done when he first came to the city. The delicate balance of power among Hsi-hsia, China, and Khitan barely kept the two countries from open hostility. However, Hsing-te had learned, after he lived awhile in Hsing-ch’ing, that civilians did travel secretly between Hsi-hsia and China regardless of these conditions. Thus, if he decided to return to China, it was still possible. But he did not really want to go back. Even though he had no desire to return to Kan-chou, the thought of Wang-li and the Uighur woman somehow troubled him.

If he were to return to Kan-chou, it would mean wasting his life in the Hsi-hsia vanguard; and he could never hope to leave again. He could not possibly consider going to such a remote spot unless he were willing to throw his life away. And he had no idea of what might have befallen the Uighur girl he had rescued. Whether she had met with misfortune, or whether she had been fortunate enough to join her family in the west, was beyond Hsing-te’s conjecture. In his present state of mind, he wanted neither to return to Kan-chou nor to China.

Hsing-te greeted another year: 1030. When spring came to Hsing-ch’ing, the town gradually began to bustle. Troop movements to and from the garrison increased noticeably. It was persistently rumored that new military operations were to start against the Turfans. Chüeh-ssu-lo, the Turfan leader, had rallied the former Liang-chou troops routed by the Hsi-hsia, had gained tens of thousands of Uighurs who had fled from Kan-chou, and was steadily gathering the necessary strength to oppose Hsi-hsia. In order to invade Kua-chou and Sha-chou, Hsi-hsia had to dispose of the Turfans in the area between Hsi-hsia and the two garrisons.

Spring came and went in these unsettled conditions, and summer was approaching. One day Hsing-te was strolling in a shopping area near the South Gate. As he walked his whole body suddenly became wet with perspiration. Just as he left the main shopping area and was about to enter the corner marketplace, he saw a woman approaching, and before he could stop himself, he cried out, “It’s that woman!” He was sure it was the Hsi-hsia woman he rescued at the marketplace in K’ai-feng: her appearance and expression were identical. Without thinking, he went up to her.

“Do you remember me?” he asked. The woman stared hard at him with a strange expression on her face, and then replied, “No, I don’t.”

“You’ve been to K’ai-feng, haven’t you?”

“No.” The woman shook her head forcefully, then broke out into peals of laughter. As soon as Hsing-te saw her face as she laughed, he knew he had made a mistake. She looked very much like the other woman, but it was not her.

Hsing-te walked away. It was then he noticed that many women around him resembled that Hsi-hsia woman. They all had thick eyebrows, dark eyes, and lustrous skin.

For the first time in ages, he thought of the woman at the K’ai-feng marketplace who had been instrumental in bringing him to his present fate. The figure of the completely naked, sullen woman lying on the board came to his mind’s eye. The emotional impact he had felt on that long-gone day had not faded; it still had the power to move him. Deeply affected by the idea that he had possibly forgotten something very vital, he continued his walk through the streets of Hsing-ch’ing.

By chance Hsing-te heard about Wang-li when he returned to his lodgings that day. He learned of Wang-li’s recent activities from a Hsi-hsia soldier transferred from Kan-chou. According to this man, Wang-li had been appointed to guard a valley fortress eighty miles west of Kan-chou, and he had already been stationed there with three thousand troops for half a year. When Hsing-te heard this, he recalled Wang-li’s blazing eyes. As commander of three thousand men, Wang-li must be eagerly looking forward to an all-out battle. No doubt he had volunteered to defend this frontier base in search of a savage fight. Considering the man’s past, of which he had heard rumors some time before, Hsing-te felt he could somehow understand why this Chinese warrior, now assigned to the vanguard in a foreign country, sought such violence.

Unexpectedly, a desire to return to the front line awoke in Hsing-te. He had not once felt so strongly about it before. He remembered his promise to Wang-li, and his vow to the girl. The year’s limit had already passed, yet he felt obliged to keep his word. Wang-li and the Uighur girl might be waiting for him. For the first time since his arrival in Hsing-ch’ing, Hsing-te’s eyes shone with life.

Ten days later Hsing-te joined some troops on their way to the front and set off for Kan-chou for the second time. He had traveled on this road before; this time he was going the other way.

When they entered Liang-chou, the troops stopped for five days. Hsing-te also spent those days in the city, which had changed completely in the past three years. Before it had the look of a frontier outpost, but now there were rows of shops and tree-lined streets neatly laid out. Here, too, Hsi-hsia signs were everywhere. As it was the rainy season, the men had to stay indoors the whole time.

Ten days after leaving Liang-chou, the troops reached Kan-chou. Here they were not allowed to enter the walled city. From outside it was hard to tell what was going on within, but numerous troops constantly came and went, and Kan-chou seemed to have become a special military head-quarters, completely changed since Hsing-te had lived there.