Chapter 305: Liberating Slaves, State-owned Pastures
On this day, Deshichen led his tribesmen to the Yelijijin Tribe.
This was one of the more powerful clans in the Hongjila Tribe, originally with four or five thousand tribesmen, but now the young and strong herdsmen remaining were less than half.
Because most of them had died in battle or been captured at Burkhan Khaldun with Temüjin.
The Yelijijin Tribe leader received Deshichen in the yurt. Looking at Deshichen’s haggard face, he sighed and said, “Deshichen, it’s not that I don’t want to avenge the tribe’s young men.”
“It’s just that the Northern Frontier Army is too strong; we are no match for them at all.”
“Give up!”
“The more people who band together, the faster the Hongjila Tribe will be destroyed.”
“Better to think about preserving some bloodline for the Hongjila Tribe.”
The Yelijijin Tribe leader certainly wanted to avenge the dead tribesmen too.
But the scene of the Northern Frontier Army decisively crushing Temüjin’s alliance at Burkhan Khaldun had shocked the entire Northern Desert.
It also made all tribes face reality—the Northern Frontier People would inevitably become the new masters of this grassland.
They were just like the Turkic People back then, rising from the west near the Golden Mountain, rapidly growing strong, and ruling the entire grassland for a century.
And the Northern Frontier People’s strength surpassed even that of the Turkic People back then.
Enough to make all tribal leaders forget hatred and choose to lower their heads in surrender.
“Deshichen~”
The Yelijijin Tribe leader said gravely, “The masters of the grassland have changed one after another: Xiongnu People, Xianbei People, Rouran People, Turkic People, Khitan People, and now a group of Northern Frontier People.”
“They are all just passersby on the grassland. Only we are the true masters of this grassland.”
“No matter how many years pass, as long as our bloodline continues unbroken, the Hongjila Tribe will one day rise again.”
Clearly, the Yelijijin Tribe leader was prepared to endure temporarily, waiting for the chance for his descendants to rise again.
Deshichen fell silent. He understood this reasoning, but his heart was full of disappointment; in the end, he could not personally avenge his son-in-law, grandsons, and the young and strong who died in battle from his clan.
Not just the Hongjila Tribe—all tribes across the grassland had become scattered sand, terrified by the Northern Frontier People, with no one daring to resist easily again.
“Alright, thank you for your hospitality, brother-in-law.”
Deshichen spoke slowly, his voice thick with exhaustion.
“Tomorrow morning, I will lead my tribesmen away.”
“Where do you plan to go?” the Yelijijin Tribe leader asked.
“To hide inside the Greater Khingan Range. If that doesn’t work, then to Liaodong. The Northern Frontier People can’t pursue us onto the Jin Dynasty’s territory, right?”
There was a hint of uncertainty in Deshichen’s tone.
“The Jin Dynasty people are only more hateful than the Northern Frontier People,” the Yelijijin Tribe leader shook his head.
“If you take people onto the Jin Dynasty’s territory, I’m afraid half your cattle and sheep and women will be robbed.”
To make a living on someone else’s territory, without strong military force to subdue everyone, it’s best to find a powerful boss and pay enough protection money to barely stand in the area.
After all, prime pastures are scarce anywhere, and the fierce competition is no better than on the grassland.
Hearing this, Deshichen showed a bitter expression: “No choice. If I stay in Barghu, I’m afraid even my daughter won’t survive.”
The Yelijijin Tribe leader thought for a moment and said, “Your granddaughter has grown up. If you offer her to some important figure in the Northern Frontier, perhaps it can make the Northern Frontier forgive your tribe.”
“Also, there are Temüjin’s other concubines; he may already be dead in battle.”
“As his father-in-law, taking in your own daughter is enough. What reason do you have to keep raising his other women?”
“Hand them over to the Northern Frontier People to deal with; perhaps it can exchange a chance of survival for your tribe.”
Listening to this, Deshichen furrowed his brows, his heart a mix of emotions. He knew this was a helpless measure to protect the tribe, but at this point, he seemed to have no better choice.
The yurt fell silent, and the sun outside grew lower.
Herdsmen and herdsman slaves drove their families’ cattle and sheep, stepping into the sunset’s glow toward the camp.
Zhang Liujin walked on foot, using a whip to drive the sheep flock, herding them one by one into the sheep pen. He shook his sore arms, looked up at the distant tribal camp, and suddenly showed surprise.
“Huh? Who are those people?”
Far away, he saw on the hill on the other side of the tribe a group of strangers busy setting up new yurts, which surprised him greatly.
“Which tribe are they from? Ba He, do you recognize them?” Zhang Liujin asked a slave nearby in awkward Grasslander language.
He was a Han person from Liaodong, in his twenties, with tattered clothes full of holes, his thin body seeming like it could be blown over by a gust of wind.
After the Jin Dynasty occupied the Central Plains, to bolster the northeast, they migrated large numbers of Han people beyond the pass.
But the northeast had many ethnic groups: Khitan People, Jurchen People, Shiwei People, and many Han people who had lived there since the Tang Dynasty.
Newcomers like Zhang Liujin did not fare well locally, squeezed and bullied everywhere.
Originally honest and simple, he could not tolerate the endless torment from a Jurchen minor official, so on a moonless night, he stole a kitchen knife and wiped out the entire family of that Jurchen minor official.
Then he fled west into the Greater Khingan Range, only to be unlucky and captured by Yelijijin Tribe people, turning from fugitive to herdsman slave.
It had already been his second year in the Yelijijin Tribe.
Ba He, who herded sheep with him, was also a herdsman slave, but had been there longer.
From his grandfather’s generation, his family had been slaves in the Yelijijin Tribe, hereditary slaves passed down through generations.
On the grassland, slaves were a very large group, comprising nearly forty percent of the total population.
These slaves came mainly from several sources: herdsmen defeated in war, plundered into slavery by enemy tribes.
Debt slaves, who, due to family bankruptcy, voluntarily became slaves for a bite to eat.
And then like Ba He, hereditary slaves whose ancestors had all been slaves.
Ba He grew up in the Yelijijin Tribe and was naturally more familiar with the other clans of the Hongjila Tribe.
He glanced far in the direction Zhang Liujin pointed, then carefully identified their clothes and flags.
He nodded affirmatively and said, “That should be the Bosi Hu’er Tribe.”
“Bosi Hu’er Tribe?”
A flash of curiosity in Zhang Liujin’s eyes: “What are they doing here? And with families in tow—it looks like they moved the entire tribe?”
He had been on the grassland for two years and knew that each pasture could only support a limited number of cattle and sheep; it was rare for two tribes to share one pasture.
So, the Bosi Hu’er Tribe’s migration of the entire clan to the Yelijijin Tribe filled Zhang Liujin with doubts.
Ba He vaguely knew some of the situation. He looked around and, seeing no herdsmen paying attention, said softly with slight uncertainty, “They must be here to take refuge!”
“Take refuge?”
Zhang Liujin was stunned and pressed, “Did a drought or locust plague hit the grassland?”
Clan-wide refuge was no small matter; in his understanding, only severe natural disasters would make a tribe abandon their homeland.
Ba He shook his head lightly, his voice even lower: “Not a natural disaster, a man-made calamity.”
“A few days ago, I heard those slaves handling supplies say Temüjin’s army was defeated, killed by many Northern Frontier People at Burkhan Khaldun, and even he himself was captured.”
He paused, then continued, “The Bosi Hu’er Tribe is closely related to Temüjin’s family by marriage, very tight-knit. They surely sent many people to fight with Temüjin this time.”
“Now that Temüjin is defeated, they’re probably afraid of Northern Frontier retaliation and hurried here to hide.”
Zhang Liujin, upon hearing this, was shocked.
Were the Northern Frontier People that formidable?
Even Temüjin defeated by them?
It was only after coming to the Hongjila Tribe that he learned of the Northern Frontier Army’s existence.
He heard from tribesmen that they were descendants of the Liao State, who came back from the west, with extremely strong combat strength.
Once, there was a tribe called the Naiman Tribe in the west, so powerful that even the Hongjila Tribe had to look up to them, yet such a tribe was destroyed by the Northern Frontier People.
Later, a minor tribal leader named Temüjin, overconfident, wanted to oppose the Northern Frontier People and personally came to the Yelijijin Tribe to convince the leader, borrowing several hundred young and strong herdsmen.
This small noble family where Zhang Liujin worked had two sons who went with Temüjin to Burkhan Khaldun—had they all died in battle?
No wonder these past two days he kept seeing that family with mournful faces, occasionally hearing women’s sobs; so that was the reason.
At this thought, Zhang Liujin’s heart tightened.
He asked nervously, “Will the Northern Frontier People come attack the Yelijijin Tribe?”
“Over half our tribe’s young and strong are gone; the rest are old, weak, women and children, or slaves. If the Northern Frontier Army really comes, what do we fight with?”
The more he thought, the more scared he got, his voice trembling: “Will the Northern Frontier People kill us all?”
Ba He’s face also paled. Having grown up on the grassland, he had heard too many brutal war stories, and especially of the Northern Frontier Army’s cruelty.
His lips moved, and he could only shake his head with feigned confidence: “It’s fine. If the Northern Frontier People really come, we surrender.”
“We’re slaves anyway; doesn’t matter who we serve.”
“The Northern Frontier People need us to herd sheep too.”
As they spoke, they finished all the work, ate two hard pieces of milk skin sent by the master, mixed with wild vegetables.
Barely half full, and this was why Zhang Liujin had never tried to escape.
He couldn’t go back to the Jin Dynasty; staying in the Hongjila Tribe at least meant not starving to death. Otherwise, wandering alone on the grassland would eventually get him killed as a sheep thief.
Then, Zhang Liujin and Ba He lay on the grass and fell asleep.
No one noticed that on the distant hill, several figures in White Armor stood for a long time before quietly leaving.
The next morning at dawn, Deshichen led his tribesmen to pack up and prepare to leave the Yelijijin Tribe.
At that moment, deafening sounds of hooves suddenly came from afar, like thunder rolling over the grassland.
The “thud thud thud” grew closer, the ground trembling slightly.
“What is that?”
Some herdsman looked up afar, then their expression turned terrified, as if seeing something horrifying.
Then came a panicked scream, “It’s the Northern Frontier Army! The Northern Frontier Army is coming!”
Everyone looked and saw a white flood appear on the distant horizon, iron cavalry rolling, dust blotting the sky—the Northern Frontier Army.
They came so fast, so suddenly, catching two tribes off guard.
The Yelijijin Tribe and Deshichen’s tribesmen instantly panicked, cries and screams rising everywhere.
The Yelijijin Tribe’s young and strong soldiers mounted in chaos, trying to grab weapons to resist.
But just as they charged out not far, dense arrows shot from the Northern Frontier Army formation, “whoosh whoosh” piercing the air endlessly.
The resisting tribesmen fell from horses one after another, screams ringing out.
“Kill~”
Da Hu wore white-based red-trimmed cloth armor, white plume on his helmet flying in the wind, waving a spear charging forward.
They had just broken through the previous Hongjila tribe and learned from captives that Deshichen’s tribe had left not long ago, perhaps already at the Yelijijin Tribe.
Thus, this raid happened.
“Spread out, don’t let one escape!” Da Hu roared.
Northern Frontier Cavalry instantly turned into a giant net, pouncing toward camps everywhere in the Yelijijin Tribe.
Facing the Northern Frontier Army’s fierce assault, only a few tribesmen dared to fight back; most were in chaos, mounting war horses and fleeing in all directions.
In the chaos, Temüjin’s wife Borte and her daughters were scared out of their wits.
Hoelun, experienced through storms, forced calm, grabbed Borte and shouted, “Quick! Take the children and go!”
“Temüjin is gone; don’t let his last children die before our eyes too.”
Temüjin’s sons by concubines were all quite young; the oldest were Borte’s two daughters.
The eldest daughter Hoqun Beki, and the third daughter Ala Hai Bieji.
Ala Hai Bieji was the prototype of Hua Zhen; during Temüjin’s western expedition, she had been given the heavy responsibility of regent.
About sixteen or seventeen, with a nimble figure like a fawn, cheeks still baby-fat, now biting her lip, eyes full of fear and shock.
Yet pretending strength, holding a saber, she said to her family, “Run to the dense forest east; many trees there, cavalry can’t catch up.”
They rode desperately forward, but a Northern Frontier Cavalry unit was already galloping after, iron hooves on the grass like death knells.
Soon, another cavalry unit circled ahead, directly forming an encirclement.
A Northern Frontier soldier from the Kereit Tribe shouted excitedly, “We’ve caught Temüjin’s wife and concubines.”
“Roar roar roar~”
“Hahaha~”
This Northern Frontier Army unit rode horses circling them nonstop, mouths emitting “roar roar roar” roars, like toying with prey.
Borte and her daughters circled in the middle, trembling in fear, faces pale as paper, without even strength to cry, only huddling together tightly, despairingly watching everything.
Soon after, the war ended.
Zhang Liujin, like the others, squatted on the ground, terrified, watching the Northern Frontier soldiers riding around.
All prisoners of war were divided into two groups, men and women separate; any movement brought distant arrows from the Northern Frontier Army.
Whether former slaves or past grassland nobles, all now trembled like livestock.
“Done for, my crow mouth—I shouldn’t have said those words yesterday,” Zhang Liujin muttered tearfully to Ba He.
Ba He also looked scared, muttering, “The Northern Frontier People won’t kill us.”
“They need us to herd sheep.”
“If they kill us all, who watches the cattle and sheep on the pasture? If wolves come…”
But at that instant, a sharp whistle rang out; an arrow fell from the sky, landing between their feet.
The two panicked, collapsing to the ground, watching the trembling arrow, cold sweat pouring.
Zhang Liujin cautiously lifted his head, looking afar.
He saw a young general in White Armor holding a large bow, raising it to shoot into the air; the arrow arced down, landing right by Zhang Liujin’s feet.
Then, another leader in White Armor waved at him.
“You, yes, you—take the arrow and come over.”
Zhang Liujin pointed at his nose, tearfully.
With a tragic look at Ba He, he resolutely took the arrow and stood.
“Brother, if brother dies, remember to collect my corpse!”
“No sky burial like you Grasslanders; dig a deep pit and bury me…
“Brother hasn’t tasted a woman yet. If chance comes, find a young pretty female corpse to bury with brother.”
Ignoring if Ba He agreed, Zhang Liujin held the arrow and came outside the crowd.
At this time, the Northern Frontier captain from the Kereit Tribe flattered Da Hu: “Commander divine shot; all three arrows missed people.”
Da Hu shook his head indifferently: “They were lucky; heaven helped them.”
Da Hu’s three arrows were to select three people for a task.
Whoever it landed by was chosen; if it hit someone, tough luck.
After all, in this era, lives were like weeds.
A slave’s life was worth even less than the arrow Da Hu shot.
Moreover, who were these people?
Northern Frontier Army’s prisoners of war, without human rights.
“The rest is yours,” Da Hu said to the captain.
“Rest assured, Commander. I will find every noble in this tribe, not one missing,” the captain said excitedly.
He was originally a Kereit Tribe prisoner of war, promoted to Northern Frontier captain through military merit.
And in this Northern Desert battle, he earned great merit again.
Da Hu had decided to promote him to militia deputy chiliarch.
Then he waved Zhang Liujin and the other two over, ordering: “Go pick out all the noyans among these prisoners of war.”
“Regardless of men, women, old, or young—as long as from a noyan family, not one must be missed.”
“If I find even one missed, wait for five-horse dismemberment.”
Hearing this, Zhang Liujin and the other two breathed heavy sighs of relief.
Though only here two years, he at least knew who in the tribe were nobles, commoners, or slaves.
So the three nodded: “Yes yes yes~”
Soon, nobles were picked out one by one, men, women, old, and young all included.
The Northern Frontier Army ignored this, only class mattered.
Slaves were to be freed, commoners incorporated for use, nobles had to be toppled.
Because these people once controlled most production resources in the tribe, ruling almost all slaves, holding great prestige among commoners.
So, these nobles had to be thoroughly destroyed to establish the Northern Frontier’s new order of rule.
As these nobles were picked out, the Northern Frontier Army also told other slaves and commoners: if any nobles still hidden were found, report secretly.
Rewards given.
This made Zhang Liujin and the other two even more panicked, fearing they missed someone and others would report, leading to their five-horse dismemberment.
“Let me go, help~”
“Spare me, I surrender, I am willing to submit to Tengger Khan.”
“We have no relation to Temüjin; we were forced by them~”
…
From the Yelijijin Tribe and Deshichen’s tribe, over a thousand nobles were picked out in total.
Only over two hundred men; the rest were their wives, concubines, and children.
The strong had more mating rights and survival resources, while slaves like Zhang Liujin had nothing.
This was commonplace, just not very fair.
The Northern Frontier Army was now here to resolve this unfairness.
“I am the Yelijijin Tribe leader. I demand to see your general. I am willing to lead my tribe in submitting to Tengger Khan.”
The Yelijijin Tribe leader also shouted nervously.
Before, he thought the Northern Frontier People, to stabilize rule over the grassland, would surely show mercy to nobles like them.
But now, something seemed off!
“Brother-in-law, the Northern Frontier People seem to want to kill us!” Deshichen said shocked.
The Northern Frontier Army separated all these nobles by gender, regardless of age, breeding an ominous premonition in his heart.
Sure enough, next moment, an arrow rain came; screams rose from the noble men’s group.
“Aaaah~”
“The Northern Frontier People will kill us all—warriors, fight them!”
“Kill~”
“Ah, my eyes~”
The Yelijijin Tribe leader watched stunned as these nobles were slaughtered—his brothers and relatives, now falling one by one before him.
His body went ice-cold, blood as if frozen.
Never imagining the Northern Frontier Army could be so ruthless.
Wanting to kill all these nobles.
“Northern Frontier People, wantonly killing grassland nobles—you will face Eternal Blue Sky’s retribution.”
“You demons wait; the grassland will soon be in chaos, your rule over the grassland won’t…”
Amid the Yelijijin Tribe leader’s angry curses, an arrow directly hit his chest; his body heavily fell into a pool of blood.
Soon, the screams gradually faded.
Distant herdsmen and slaves watched the bloody scene trembling; some even wet their pants in fear.
And this was the effect Da Hu wanted.
Kill the chicken to warn the monkey.
Only by letting them see firsthand the fate of opposing the Northern Frontier would they obey obediently later, daring no trouble.
At this time, Da Hu rode to them, behind him pools of blood and corpses; his cold gaze swept over the herdsmen and slaves.
All lowered heads, not daring to look at him.
“The Hongjila Tribe was Temüjin’s ally, always opposing my Northern Frontier,” Da Hu shouted loudly, with the translator rendering into Grasslander language beside.
“Should have exterminated the entire Hongjila Tribe.”
“But my Northern Frontier distinguishes grievances clearly.”
“This commander knows all faults were committed by these noyans; you merely followed orders.”
“Thus, this commander decides: execute only the main culprits, spare you ordinary herdsmen and slaves.”
“From now on, all pastures in Barghu Grassland are public grazing districts of my Northern Frontier.”
“And you, whether commoners or slaves, from now on have only one identity.”
“That is, commoners of my Northern Frontier.”
“You will herd sheep and horses for my Northern Frontier on this grassland, receiving pay.”
“Later, if you save enough money, you can rent pastures from my Northern Frontier to herd yourselves…”
Da Hu simply introduced the Northern Frontier’s policy to the herdsmen and slaves.
Zhang Liujin and others listened with bright eyes—they were free?
No more slavery, and no worry about starving.
Could work for Northern Frontier People, earn wages.
Most importantly, Zhang Liujin felt Da Hu’s accent very familiar!
