Chapter 31: The War Chief
"Got it! We won't forget!"
The children shouted back as they ran off. They thought Brother Jian was being silly—how could they possibly forget to cut grass and feed the piglets?
Chen Jian watched them go, thinking that when they finally built a proper scale, he would have to explain the principle of the lever to them. For a tribe whose abstract thinking was still developing, it was far better to demonstrate with a real object first and explain the theory later than the other way around.
He sat for a while longer, and the tribe members who had remained at the settlement gradually gathered around him.
"Jian," one asked, "how should we divide the food today? Grandma sent me to ask you."
He gestured toward the members of the Shi tribe sleeping under a thatched shelter. That was the real issue. Since the Huaihua people had chosen to integrate fully, Chen Jian's own tribe knew how to act. But they had never had to manage relations with an independent foreign tribe living alongside them.
"Go find Yu Qian'er. Have her distribute some dried fish to their tribe. Also, lend them two large clay pots and some smaller bowls. Tell her to write down how many catties everything is, so they can return it to us later."
"Lend? Return? Catties?"
The three words left the man utterly confused. They had always been one family, where everything was shared among the clan. Such concepts didn't exist.
After Chen Jian explained, the man quickly understood and ran off to find Yu Qian'er.
A few moments later, however, Yu Qian'er came running over. "Brother, what's the number after ninety-nine?"
"One hundred."
"And one more than that?"
"One hundred and... uh, one more than one hundred."
The concept of zero didn't exist yet, so addition was the only way to describe it. Muttering the new word "hundred" to herself, Yu Qian'er turned and went back to weighing the dried fish.
The principles of borrowing and repayment had to be established. If he treated the Shi tribe exactly the same as his own, the Huaihua people and others might start to have second thoughts. Since the Shi had chosen to maintain their own tribal identity, they had to accept the consequences that came with it.
***
That evening, the newcomers, having slept for a long time, finally woke up. The people of Chen Jian's tribe had already prepared dinner. A few of the more nimble children carried their bowls and chopsticks and knelt on the ground to eat under the thatched shelter.
The people of the Shi tribe had to cook for themselves, using the supplies Yu Qian'er had recorded on a slate. The loan included more than 100 catties of dried fish, 20 catties of fresh fish, 30 catties of cured meat, and 10 catties of salt. It was enough to last them two or three days; for the rest, they would have to rely on their own labor.
As a gesture of goodwill, Chen Jian intentionally invited the elders and children of the Shi tribe to eat with his people. This meal was a gift, not a loan.
The clan members knelt on the sandy soil to eat. A few had learned to use chopsticks, but the rest simply held their bowls and ate with their hands.
After dinner, seeing there was still plenty of daylight left, Chen Jian gathered the people of both tribes, saying he had something to discuss.
"You all know what happened with the Songhe tribe. What will we do if the Meteorite tribe comes? What if they try to steal our houses and our pots? You know we are not a tribe with nothing to our name."
"Jian, what do you propose?" someone asked.
"I think we need to be prepared. Even a wolf pack has a leader. Right now, our two tribes live together, and we each have our own patriarchs for daily matters. But when it comes to fighting, we need a single leader responsible for war."
A murmur went through the crowd. The tribespeople whispered among themselves, agreeing with his point. According to Song, the Meteorite tribe was numerous. Only by combining their strength could the two tribes hope to stand against them, and for that, they truly needed one war chief.
Chen Jian knocked on a clay basin to quiet everyone down. "I nominate myself to be the chief responsible for leading us in war. What do you think?"
His own people immediately cheered. "Of course! It has to be you, Jian!"
The members of the Shi tribe discussed it among themselves and came to a consensus. Although they had never encountered a situation where someone nominated themself, they agreed.
With his appointment as war chief approved, Chen Jian called the women of his tribe over and asked them to teach the Shi women how to weave wicker baskets and use them to catch fish. A few experienced women led them to the willow groves by the river to cut branches.
Then, Chen Jian summoned the men to the hills.
The able-bodied men from both tribes numbered nearly one hundred, a considerable force compared to other tribes in the region.
Inter-tribal warfare at this time was a simple, brutal affair where the side with more people usually won. However, Chen Jian knew that an organized force was far superior to a disorganized mob. In a simple brawl, the casualty ratio was nearly one-to-one, and since the Meteorite tribe had already started using weapons of meteoritic iron, a head-on clash would put them at a severe disadvantage.
He was no general and knew little of the art of war, so for now, he would have to improvise.
He called Langpi over and told him to select fifteen of their best archers. Unsurprisingly, all of them came from Chen Jian's original tribe. The former Huaihua people didn't know how to shoot, and the Shi tribe didn't even possess bows and arrows.
Chen Jian had the remaining eighty or so men stand in a line. He pointed to a large tree about 200 meters away. "When you hear me strike this tree, I want you to run toward it as fast as you can. We'll see who gets there first."
He walked over to the tree, picked up a sturdy branch, and struck the trunk hard. Across the field, the men took off in a frantic sprint.
Hunting usually relied on stamina, but a short-distance charge like this was a test of raw talent and explosive power. Over the 200-meter distance, the tight group quickly broke apart into a sparse, straggling line.
He watched the first thirty men who reached the tree and called them aside. The fifty-plus who arrived last were grouped together on the other side.
The men stood panting, staring at Chen Jian with a mixture of curiosity and confusion, wondering what he was up to. The first to finish were some of the strongest men, including Civet Cat and Squirrel. They seemed to recall the test on the mountaintop, and they exchanged knowing smiles.
Chen Jian addressed the two new groups. "Now, you will each elect your own leader. Choose someone you trust. In the future, your lives may be in their hands."
Although it was an election, Chen Jian's tribe had the advantage in numbers, so both leaders chosen were from his own people. The group of thirty chose Song, and the group of fifty chose Uncle. Both were familiar faces.
Chen Jian was satisfied with this outcome; he had anticipated it. He held up two fingers. "The second matter we must decide. What happens if we are in a fight and someone runs away? Or what if someone disobeys my orders?"
The elders, who had experience with such things, shouted, "Take away his eagle feathers and make him carry stones!"
Someone else yelled, "No, a deserter should be exiled from the tribe! Carrying stones is too light a punishment!"
The newcomers from the Shi tribe, unfamiliar with these customs, hurried to ask what "carrying stones" and "exile" meant.
Chen Jian nodded. "It is decided. Deserters will be exiled from the tribe. Anyone who disobeys a direct order will carry stones."
He knew that discipline wasn't built in a day. He started with the simplest rules to introduce the concept, intending to add more gradually. Even if he recited a long list of military regulations now, the tribesmen wouldn't remember them. It was better to take it one step at a time.
He called Langpi, Song, and Uncle over. "Tonight, your task is to memorize every man under your command. You cannot make a mistake."
"Is that all?" Langpi said, thinking it was simple. "The men with me have all hunted at my side. I could recognize them with my eyes closed."
Uncle, however, had a pained expression. Many of the fifty-plus men he now commanded were unfamiliar faces from the Shi tribe. It took him until moonrise to finally memorize them all. Chen Jian didn't explain his battle plans; once he confirmed the leaders knew their men, he sent everyone to bed.
***
The next day, Chen Jian intentionally mixed the members of the two tribes for the daily tasks of fishing, hunting, and gathering. It was a chance for them to interact and get to know one another.
Langpi took his fifteen archers out to hunt, while Chen Jian led the rest of the men to a fork in a tributary of the Caohe River to fish at the weir opening. Paddling their birch bark canoes, they scouted for suitable spots, leaving twenty or thirty men at each fork before the rest moved on.
Chen Jian instructed them to put the fish they caught into wicker baskets with lids and to keep the baskets submerged in the water. This would keep the fish alive longer; everyone was tired of the taste of dried fish.
When the dozen or so canoes returned, they counted the day's catch by the riverbank. It was over 400 catties, enough to feed the tribes for five or six days. After weighing the fish, they quickly tied ropes to the baskets and submerged them in the river. The baskets shook as the live fish flopped within.
The catch was divided proportionally based on the number of fishermen from each tribe. This was a task no one else could help with. Chen Jian calculated the amount owed to the Shi tribe based on their population and had Yu Qian'er record it. Although she didn't fully understand his method of division, she never questioned her brother's calculations. To her, he was always right.
The members of the Shi tribe didn't understand the math either, but they were dazzled by the sheer quantity of fish. Their share alone was enough to feed their tribe for a long time, a bounty they could never have imagined before.
In the afternoon, they continued weaving fish traps and baskets back at the settlement. With the abundant willow trees by the river, the elders were becoming faster and faster, and they were finally getting familiar with the newcomers.
In addition to the baskets, Chen Jian also had his tribe weave dozens of wicker shields. They would be useless against bronze or iron weapons, but against slings, stone-tipped spears, and stone axes, they were better than nothing. Later, when they acquired cowhide, the shields could be reinforced. For now, the goal was to get the men accustomed to them.
With their experience weaving baskets, making small shields was easy. They wove two layers of wicker together, reinforcing the edges with thicker branches. The finished shields were about a centimeter thick and a bit heavy, with woven rope handles on the back that allowed them to be held or hung on an arm, covering half the body.
Before sunset, Chen Jian called the men to the river beach. It took them nearly five minutes to sort themselves into the three messy piles assigned the day before. Next to Chen Jian was a pile of the new wicker shields, several cloth bags stuffed with grass, and a large heap of stone axes.
He had the grass-filled bags set up as targets in the distance. "Langpi," he ordered, "from now on, you and your men must hit the targets with sixty arrows every day before you can eat."
As Langpi and his archers paced out the distance and began their practice, the other men watched with envy.
Chen Jian gave the stone axes and shields to Song for his thirty men. He demonstrated how to wear the shield on the forearm, and the men learned quickly. They thought it was a marvelous invention; with it, they might not have to fear the arrows of Langpi's group. Several of them immediately started sparring, clashing their new axes against the shields.
"Stop messing around and watch!" Chen Jian shouted, strapping a shield to his own arm and gripping a stone axe.
He fixed his gaze on a small tree thirty to forty meters away. He shifted his shoulders, raised the shield to cover half his body, and held the stone axe high.
With a roar, he broke into a full sprint, charging the small tree. The tribesmen thought he was going to chop it down, but just as he reached it, he lowered his body, braced the shield with his shoulder, and slammed into the trunk sideways.
The impact shook the small tree, sending a few leaves fluttering down. Chen Jian's arm was slightly numb from the force.
Bows and arrows of this era had a limited range; they were only truly lethal within thirty to forty meters. Beyond that, hitting anything was a matter of luck.
They had no horses yet, so the thirty men he had chosen for their strength and speed would be trained as shock troops—shock axe-men. In a typical battle, launching three to five charges over a thirty- to forty-meter distance would be sufficient. A high-speed charge, using the impact of a shoulder-braced shield, could knock a man down and disrupt the enemy's formation.
Once the enemy line was broken, his warriors could create local advantages through effective coordination. The larger force following behind could then exploit the breach, expand their gains, and divide the enemy. Of course, these thirty men would also need to hone their individual fighting skills, which would require constant practice with each other.
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