Volume One: The Law of the Jungle

Chapter One: Indelible Humiliation

"Sound the drums! Hurry, sound the drums! Smoke signals spotted in the distance, the Xiongnu are coming!"

The earth seemed to tremble. Endless Xiongnu cavalry, howling like ghosts and wolves, drove their warhorses straight toward Yanmen Pass. The thunderous sound of hooves seemed to foretell that another tragedy of nomads burning, killing, and pillaging the agrarian people was about to unfold...

‘Dong dong—dong dong—’ The urgent warning drums echoed throughout Yanmen Pass. In the northern frontier of the Han court, including Yanmen Commandery, Hexi Commandery, Dingnang Commandery, Dai Commandery, and Shanggu Commandery, all lit wolf smoke, signaling the enemy’s invasion.

Looking out beyond Yanmen Pass, beacon fires blazed at every border outpost. The simple fences could not stop the whistling Xiongnu iron cavalry. One after another, the great Han banners were chopped down by Xiongnu sabers, falling to the ground to be trampled by the iron cavalry. The Han soldiers stationed at the outposts fought to the last man. When the outposts fell, the Xiongnu cut off the heads of the fallen Han soldiers and stuck them on the wooden stakes of the fences.

The third year after Empress Jing of Emperor Jing’s Mausoleum (141 BC).

The current Han Emperor William Carter was ill, his condition worsening. At this critical moment, all of Han’s attention was focused on the emperor’s illness. Dissatisfied with the Han court’s recent lack of submission, the Xiongnu Chanyu Junchen once again raised troops to raid the border, and immediately, the northern frontier of Han was engulfed in war.

Because the current Han Emperor was gravely ill, the border troops in the northern commanderies were caught off guard. Also, due to the impact of the Rebellion of the Seven States three years before William Carter ascended the throne (154 BC), most of the border troops had been redeployed to monitor the unstable vassal kingdoms, resulting in insufficient forces to defend the frontier against the Xiongnu, and so beacon fires blazed everywhere in the border commanderies.

Many of the Han court’s border commanderies were breached, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the border regions fell into dire straits.

Now, the Xiongnu army was pressing hard against the key border stronghold of Yanmen Commandery. Most of the Han garrison in Yanmen had been redeployed to Guanzhong to monitor the unstable fief of the former King of Zhao, Henry Carter. The Yanmen Commandant happened to be patrolling the frontier and was killed in the first battle. With the commandant, who was in charge of the commandery’s military, dead, the heavy responsibility of defending the border fell to the Yanmen Governor, Edward Grant.

Too many coincidences, too many accidents, led to the most tragic year for the Chinese nation, and the most difficult year for the four northern commanderies. That year, months of invasions by nomadic tribes against the agrarian people caused the four northern commanderies to lose population rapidly, with over 100,000 soldiers and civilians killed or captured—about 40% of the combined population of Dingnang, Yanmen, Dai, and Shanggu commanderies at the time.

It was also in that year that the burning of Ganquan Palace, known by the Han imperial clan as the "Humiliation of Insult," shocked the entire Han nation. When the then Crown Prince, Han Wudi Charles Carter, heard of the Xiongnu, Wuheng, Yushen, and other foreign tribes invading the northern frontier and the burning of Ganquan Palace, he was about to hold his enthronement ceremony. Charles Carter swore: In this life, I will avenge this extraordinary humiliation!

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At Yanmen Pass, Han soldiers poured out of their barracks in single file. Dressed in red robes under black armor, they climbed the city walls with spears and halberds in hand, shouting their battle cries. Looking back at the fewer than two thousand Han soldiers standing atop the battlements, then at the approaching Xiongnu army, the civil official and Yanmen Governor Edward Grant raised his sword to the heavens. At that moment, the image of his young son Benjamin Grant flashed through his mind. He knew he would not survive this battle, and let out the last furious roar of his life:

"Fight bravely to the death! Men of the Great Han!" The resounding slogan was so desperate amid the sound of hooves.

At this time, Yanmen was still a small frontier commandery, and Yanmen Pass was merely a wall of yellow earth, straw, and stones, just over two zhang high (one zhang in the Han dynasty was 2.31 meters). Ever since Emperor Gaozu’s failed northern campaign, the Xiongnu had intensified their raids to the south. To strengthen the defenses of Chang’an and the prosperous Three Adjuncts, the Han court established border commanderies, stationed troops, and relocated people to the frontier. Yanmen Commandery only took shape during Emperor Wen’s reign, but still could not bear the heavy responsibility of stopping the northern barbarians from moving south.

Although the Xiongnu cavalry were not skilled at siege warfare, Yanmen had few soldiers and low walls. After two days of desperate defense, the pass fell. Yanmen Governor Edward Grant, a civil official acting as a general, died heroically in battle, his head cut off by the Xiongnu commander to claim credit.

The two thousand Han soldiers also gave their lives for their country. Their headless bodies were tied and hung beneath the battlements, their heads cut off by the Xiongnu soldiers to be taken back to the steppe and made into drinking cups, to boast of their achievements.

Within three days of Yanmen Pass falling, more than twenty thousand soldiers and civilians of Yanmen Commandery were killed or wounded. Most able-bodied men and women were driven by Xiongnu cavalry to the border settlements to await their fate.

A month later, the Xiongnu, having plundered and killed, assembled at the sound of the horn. The Xiongnu Chanyu Junchen was unwilling to continue southward—his goal had been achieved, and he did not want to risk losing too many troops and provoking Han. The Chanyu’s aim was to plunder the Han border commanderies at will, watch the Han people fight among themselves, and wait for the right moment.

The Xiongnu greatly enjoyed the Han court’s decades of submission. Whenever the Xiongnu raided the border, the Han court would always send beautiful princesses in marriage alliances and tribute gifts. This time, the Chanyu Junchen led his army south with another purpose: to use his hundred thousand iron cavalry to tell the Han Emperor—Great Xiongnu still lacks a Han imperial princess to be the Queen (Yanshi)!