Traveling back to the Northern Song Dynasty: Picking up a princess as my wife

The autumn winds of the northern desert, carrying the stench of blood, swept across the banks of the Onon River. Wan Hanzhong stood beneath the Third Prince's silver wolf-head banner, his fingers unconsciously stroking the gilded abacus at his waist. Twenty years ago, when he disguised himself as a tea merchant and stepped into this grassland, this abacus only had twelve jade beads; now it was adorned with silver totem plaques from various tribes.

“Mr. Wan, Father Khan’s coffin will arrive in Ulaanbaatar in three days.” The Third Prince Batu tore open a leather wine flask, and amber-colored mare’s milk wine was poured into the sacrificial fire, sending up plumes of smoke. “My eldest brother’s falconers have already taken control of the Golden Tent, and my second brother’s Western Xia Iron Falcons crossed the Helan Mountains yesterday.”

Wan Hanzhong gazed at the undulating waves of grass in the distance, while the Chagan Nuoer Salt Lake, thirty miles away, shimmered with an eerie silver light in the twilight. There lay buried the net he had woven over twenty years—a map of the pastoral routes obtained in exchange for three hundred cartloads of silk from Jiangnan, thirty-six tribal leaders fed with five thousand catties of salt, and a radio transmitter hidden among the shamanic implements during last year's Aobao sacrifice.

"Your Highness, do you remember last year during the White Disaster, when I asked you to distribute canned goods to the various ministries?" He suddenly turned around, his black cloak fluttering in the wind. In the instant Batu was stunned, three green signal flares suddenly lit up in the northwest sky, like the eerie green pupils of a vicious wolf piercing the night.

The earth began to tremble, not with the roar of a thousand horses galloping, but with the muffled sound of metal tracks crushing grass roots. Seven T-34/85 tanks tore through the night, the Big Dipper flag on the commander's hatch covered in Gobi dust. In the command vehicle at the forefront, Yue Ying stared at the panicked Western Xia heavy cavalry in his infrared night vision goggles, a cold smile playing on his lips: "Full-band electromagnetic interference, give these tin cans some modern music."

The bugle call from the walls of Ulaanbaatar suddenly changed tone, and the defenders watched in horror as the steel behemoth spewed flames. The cold-forged armor that the Western Xia was so proud of was as flimsy as paper in front of the 85mm armor-piercing shells, and the armored warhorses were lifted into the air by the blast wave of the high-explosive shells.

Wan Hanzhong took out his pocket watch. On the inside of the watch cover, a yellowed photograph showed him at twenty years old, making a blood oath with the young Third Prince in front of an ovoo (a sacred cairn).

"Report! The left-wing crew has encountered the Golden Horde!" The communications soldier's voice was punctuated by static.

Yue Ying grabbed the microphone, about to give the order, when he suddenly noticed an unusual heat source on the screen—hundreds of mad bulls strapped with gunpowder canisters were charging from the flank. His pupils constricted; this was the Crown Prince's last resort.

"Team 02 launches incendiary bombs, Team 05 releases smoke screen!" The steel torrent instantly changed formation, the crimson barrage building a wall of fire in front of the bulls. Explosions echoed through the thick smoke, charred flesh and blood slamming into the tank armor. The Crown Prince, watching from the city walls, staggered backward; his meticulously prepared "fire bull formation" had become a sacrifice for the steel behemoths.

As the first rays of dawn illuminated the dome of the Khan's golden tent, Yue Ying's military boots shattered the seven-jeweled glazed tiles on the threshold. Batu, covered in blood, raised the Suluding inlaid with pearls, and the thirty-six surviving tribal leaders outside the tent knelt in a blood-red ripple.

Wan Hanzhong stood atop the armored command vehicle, watching the casualty figures scrolling across the communication screen: zero casualties, defeating a 20,000-strong tribal coalition—a number that should be enough for His Majesty of Anyang Prefecture to celebrate for us.

No one could have imagined that after the death of Nazar Khan of the Mongol Khanate, the one who finally succeeded to the throne was the third prince, who had always been timid and submissive. Wan Hanzhong, the strategist of the Khanate, was also appointed as the Grand Preceptor of the Mongol Khanate because he fully supported the third prince's ascension to the throne.

The chilly wind of early spring swept across the golden-topped royal tent, and the nine-colored prayer flags fluttered in the night. Batu could clearly sense the surging murderous intent outside the tent. The shadows of three torches flickered outside the tent; those were the guards sent by his two elder brothers to keep watch, their scimitars already half-drawn from their sheaths.

"Your Highness, it's past 3:45 AM." The Imperial Advisor, Wan Hanzhong, lifted the tent flap, his Han-style Taoist robe glistening with night dew. This strategist from the Central Plains always carried an astrolabe, and the Purple Palace (Ziwei Yuan) was faintly glowing in his sleeve. "The envoys from the Tiele, Kereit, and Naiman tribes have all arrived and are waiting at the ovoo (a sacred cairn) thirty li away."

Batu slowly slipped his father's golden wolf-head ring onto his thumb, and a flame suddenly burst from the bronze candlestick. He recalled the time when he was seven years old, accompanying his father on a hunt, and a poisonous snake was stuffed into his quiver—the work of his elder brother, Urig. Outside the tent came the restless neighing of horses, and the air was filled with the acrid smell of burning wolfsbane, a harbinger of the purge of political enemies on the steppe.

“Tell the Tiele tribe that my position as their principal wife is vacant; promise the Kereit tribe the right of passage for their caravans next spring; as for the Naiman tribe…” Batu, dipping his brush in mare’s milk, drew a map of the tribes on the table, “grant them the pastures along the Onon River.” The sheepskin map, stained with the wine, resembled a winding river, like a coiled venomous python.

Wan Hanzhong suddenly pressed down on the astrolabe, the bronze knobs of the Twenty-Eight Mansions making a soft clanging sound: "The Second Prince Temur has taken three hundred eagle riders southwest, probably to contact Uyghur merchants to buy firearms." His Chinese was tinged with a Youzhou accent, and his fingertip pointed to the position of Orion, "We must obtain the Tiger Tally of the Left Wise King tonight."

As the morning star rose, Batu's dark cloak was already frosted with white. Behind him followed twelve young guards, each with a different colored ribbon around their neck—the insignia of the twelve tribes that had formed marriage alliances within the past seven days. In the open space before the golden-topped royal tent, nine thousand heavily armored cavalrymen were silently assembling, their chainmail still bearing the bluish-gray of the Chechen foundry.

“Not enough.” Batu stroked the newly forged scimitar, the sapphire inlaid on the hilt reflecting the cold light in his eyes. “Send someone to tell the savage tribe in Vulture Valley that anyone who comes to surrender with the head of an enemy will be exchanged for three sheep.”

The cawing of crows echoed through the morning mist, and the Imperial Advisor's astrolabe suddenly began to spin wildly, with the Greedy Wolf Star pointing southeast towards the Burial Horse Slope.

On the seventh day at dusk, when Urge's vanguard broke through the thin ice of Chagan Lake, they saw a military flag embroidered with a nine-tailed white fox—the Chechen tribe's ancestral battle flag, which had remained untouched for a century.

Batu stood atop the modified wagon, watching his elder brother's Azure Wolf Banner burn in the rain of fire. He had specially chosen arrows soaked in Western Region oil, which emitted a ghostly blue glow when burning.

"Spare his life." Batu raised his hand to stop the archers' volley, watching as Urig's red-maned horse plunged into the horse trap. The bone spikes stuck upside down at the bottom of the pit came from the bones of animals shot during last year's winter hunt; this was a formation that Wan Hanzhong had learned from a military book given to him by Bu Liang.

As the guards dragged his blood-covered elder brother before him, Batu took off his own fox fur coat and draped it over his shoulders: "Brother, do you remember? When I was ten, you pushed me into the ice cave, and you used this very coat."

The following morning, Batu stood before the blood-stained altar and broke his two elder brothers' swords in two with his own hands, carving deep marks on the ground with the tips of the blades: "With the Onon River as the boundary, your bloodline shall never cross westward." The floating ice on the river collided with each other, making a crisp sound like jade shattering.

The prison cart that transported his elder brother to the Han Kingdom was specially made, with a sandalwood frame lined with brocade and windows woven from Xiangfei bamboo. Wan Hanzhong deliberately chose to depart on the Qingming Festival so that Emperor Li Zhen of the Han Kingdom would receive this "gift" during his sacrificial ceremony to Heaven.

"Does Your Majesty know how Emperor Gaozu of Han treated kings of different surnames?" Wan Hanzhong suddenly asked in perfect Chang'an Mandarin, his fingertip tracing the constellation Wei on the astrolabe. Batu, gazing at the southern sky, tossed a broken arrow into the brazier: "Sir, don't forget, we on the grasslands never use the slow-acting medicines of the Central Plains to treat sick horses."