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had learned for me earlier.
Baver could feel a tension in the crowd, a restlessness, an uncertainty.
I will tell you what my ambassadors have seen, Kaidu went on, before I tell
you what the emperor proposes, and what I
believe we should do. We have always known that China has a vast multitude of
people. The emperor s ambassador says thirty million, which is a thousand
thousands, and then thirty times that. More than all the Mongol people -- the
Buriat and Khalkhaz and Kalmuls -- and also their horses and cattle and sheep.
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Of that multitude of Chinese, more than six million are Goloks -- a thousand
thousands, six times. The Goloks are good soldiers; many of them are warriors.
They rule the empire, and the emperors have been Goloks from the beginning.
China has many towns, each with its garrison, each garrison with its troop of
Golok cavalry. And every town, every district, has young men who, at the
emperor s call, will put aside their work and muster with their swords and
bows, their halberds and spears. Also, the country is full of people growing
food and making all manner of things, including weapons and clothing and armor
for the soldiers.
Kaidu looked his audience over. Much of this
I told you before, but it is worse than I knew then. Couriers on swift horses
ride daily throughout the empire, and in many places there are signal towers
within sight of each other, with men who know how to speak with a flag on a
long pole. Also on these towers are men with far-seers, made with the hollow
stems of certain saplings, with wizard glass set in the ends, which make
distant things look near. Thus soldiers and other armed men can be gathered
quickly from whatever towns and districts the emperor wishes, into armies
small or large.
Beyond all this, the emperor has large and dangerous ogres who fight for him.
We had heard of them before, and doubted.
They sounded like stories told to naughty children, to frighten them, but they
are real. My ambassadors have seen them. They are far taller than men,
stronger than the bear, more savage than the tiger. And they wield their great
swords with the skill of masters.
I would not wish to fight the empire. Our forefathers fought and drove away
the armies of earlier kings and emperors, and we are not lesser men than our
forefathers. But the army of this emperor is far more dangerous than earlier
armies. Even in the depths of the
Yakut-Russ forest, I would not wish to fight the emperor s army.
A voice rose from the crowd then, a voice impatient and angry. What do you
wish to do then? What do you propose?
Kaidu took the gauntlet without a pause. In the empire are great districts
covered with leafy forest; land where the summers are long, with much rain,
and the winters short and soft. Land well suited to growing the food the
emperor s people eat. Every year his people clear more of those forests, and
it grows abundant food. The emperor does not care to possess our land, where
the soil is often bitter, and even in the memory of young men the winters have
grown longer.
He has conquered northward only to protect his out-lands from raiders. The
lands he wishes to possess are westward and
southward. What he wants of us -- Kaidu stopped a long five seconds, making
the people reach for what he had to say, then repeated slowly. What he wants
is that we be his allies. The lands he would conquer are mostly open lands,
without fixed towns, without forts of stone. They are lands much like our own,
but without the iron winters, and they go on forever, to the ends of the
Earth.
Up till then, Kaidu had not raised his strong voice, which traveled far
without shouting. Now though he spoke more loudly.
What the emperor wants is that we be his allies. That we make war westward.
That we spread consternation and confusion through the western lands, while
his own armies, vast and powerful, conquer and subjugate. Then, in the
conquered world, the Mongols, especially the Buriat, will have first choice of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
