“Turmoil”: Battle for the Han Empire sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne
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Cai Yan was, like her father, possessed of a quick and intelligent mind, but that meant nothing to the
man that had abducted her, ordered the slaughter of her mother and siblings and taken her for a concubine;
to Liu Bao, she was a beautiful girl that would do chores and bear him strong children, and nothing more.
Cai Yan approached her husband mechanically and handed her fur-wrapped, gurgling baby to him.
“A son…! A son…!” Yufuluo croaked. “Strong… strong…!”
“We will all be strong,” Huchuquan vowed. “Today, no more division: all of us shall
come together, and live here in this region together. Today, I lead, but one day, your son, and
then his son. Heaven demands it.”
Yufuluo started to cough feebly, and a Xiongnu physician ordered everyone to give him space; Liu Bao
handed his son back to Cai Yan, who stared at her child with lifeless, weary eyes.
“How long…?” Liu Bao asked of the physician.
“…Soon,” Huchuquan said as he stared at his brother. “Why ask, Nephew…?
It is obvious that… it will be soon. Days, weeks… a few months, perhaps, if he tries to
fight… but it is all ‘soon’.”
Liu Bao looked to the physician, who said, “His Highness is correct, Prince Bao.”
“…I will have many sons!” Liu Bao proclaimed. “Father, I will be a
great king! I will give you many grandsons, and they will be great kings too! I will not disappoint
you! Father, your spirit will know happiness! Father…!”
Yufuluo was still coughing, but he extended his hand to reach out to his son; Liu Bao extended his own
hand, briefly held his father’s hand, and then drew back as Yufuluo’s strength failed
and the outstretched arm fell to his side.
“I will not leave! I will give him strength to fight!” Liu Bao insisted.
“Women, go! I will stay!”
Cai Yan and the other two women - one Chinese, one Xiongnu - did as they were told and retreated mechanically.
“I will be great… and you will be known to all men in the world!” Liu Bao promised
as his father’s eyes slowly closed. “Your descendants will rule the world…! Father,
you are strong, you have always been strong… why will you not fight???”
Yufuluo tried to smile at his son’s comforting words, but he lacked the strength to do anything:
he had lost the will to fight his ailments, and he would soon lose the will to live altogether.
“Soon… and then we will be one again,” Huchuquan murmured.
Yufuluo’s eventual demise would, as Huchuquan said, mark an end to division of the Southern Xiongnu. Yufuluo’s son Liu Bao would be Huchuquan’s heir as Chanyu of all of the tribes, and until that day, Bao would be a king with control over five tribes and answer to none but his uncle. The possibility of a Southern Xiongnu consolidation worried some, but to others it meant a possible return to the days when the settlers would provide horses and cavalrymen to the Han army in exchange for permission to live as they chose. There would be one long-term consequence of Liu Bao and his descendants - who had, from marriage alliances, Han Imperial blood flowing in their veins - becoming the future Chanyus, but history would have China and its succession of rulers wait for over a century before it learned of - and suffered - that consequence. In the meantime, a new peace could be dreamed of between the empire and its settlers: but at the same time that one enemy to the empire melted away, another was ready to announce its return.