Chapter 2899: New Journey (5)

"Damn, you can do that?!"

"Why not?" Nangong Wudi produced a cigar. "Have one?"

"Suit yourself — I'm not fond of those things. Go on, then?"

Nangong Wudi didn't light his either; he tucked the cigar away again. "The Education Units are holding a good ten-odd thousand people right now. Go pick out a few hundred — all veteran soldiers. A little training and you'll have elites on your hands. These men have been scraping by in misery for decades; pay them in full and they'll work their hearts out for you."

"What a way to talk — whatever happened to Fubo Army consciousness? I'll pass on that kind of rice-bowl-soldier elite." Yang Ning curled his lip.

"Ha! Who knew you were so big on political work." Nangong Wudi threw back his head and laughed. "Come on — tonight we'll welcome you properly..."

That evening, Yang Ning's party lodged in the former Jeju governor's compound, and at night Feng Zongze played host, throwing Yang Ning a "welcome banquet." Tan Shuangxi and the rest were entertained separately: at the Zhongyi Trading Company on Jeju Island they were served a spread of "cold dishes," and the forty-eight little pickles in forty-eight different flavors left a deep impression on Tan Shuangxi. The two Germans' faces turned considerably darker.

"God, I'd rather drink that dreadful gruel..." Otto muttered. "At least it was hot! And it filled my belly!"

The slices of roast beef that came afterward redeemed the "banquet" — right up until the end, when they were each set down a bowl of "cold noodles" without a wisp of steam to its name.

When the banquet broke up, Tan Shuangxi felt pleasantly muddled: he remembered attending a banquet, but he could not have said whether he'd actually eaten his fill.

After a night's rest, the column pushed inland the next morning. The salty tang of the sea wind thinned from the air, giving way to something more complex — damp earth, dry grass, livestock dung, a ghost of sulfur. The road left the hardened flagstone of the wharf for packed earth, and the wagons raised faint plumes of dust as they rolled. On either side stretched rolling pasture and gentle slopes, broken here and there by low stone boundary walls and sparse stands of trees. Orchards lay scattered across the hillsides — Yang Ning pointed them out with his riding crop, saying they were citrus, planted in the promotion drive a few years back.

The deeper in they went, the rarer grew the villages, potato fields, and barley patches common on the coastal plain. The hills here ran gentle and open, and great swathes of withered yellow woven through deep green grass rippled in the autumn wind — rangeland by nature's own design.

"The Cavalry Training Squadron's camp sits on the southwestern foot of Hallasan." Yang Ning rode at the head of the column on a chestnut Mongolian horse, his tone carrying a proprietor's easy familiarity. "Open ground, living water, good grass — nowhere better for raising horses and training troops."

Tan Shuangxi rode along in the wagon, packed in with the others. He tried to picture the camp from the Chief's description, but all his mind could offer was a blurry impression borrowed from infantry barracks. Then the wagon crawled up a gentle rise, and the view before him straightened his back before he knew it.

A vast camp spread out along the mountain's easy slope. Far off, the dark-green silhouette of Hallasan ran along the horizon, its summit wreathed in a milky haze. Nearer, rows of trim barracks, storehouses, and stables followed the lie of the land, mostly timber and stone, roofed in dark tile or thick thatch. Most arresting of all was the broad field fenced in rough timber palings at the camp's edge — and the creatures dotting it, clustered here, scattered there, drifting in specks of motion. Horses.

So many horses.

Every horse Tan Shuangxi had laid eyes on in his whole life, counted together, would not have matched the herd before him. Coats of every kind — bay, chestnut, coal black, snow white, piebald... Some cropped the grass heads-down; some chased and roughhoused with their neighbors; some simply stood, lazily swishing their tails against the flies. Even at this distance you could feel the raw vitality of the place. The scents on the air grew stronger too: the clean sweetness of fresh fodder, the fullness of cured hay, the particular musk of horse.

"Here we are." Pride crept into Yang Ning's voice as he spurred toward the camp gate.

Sentries presented arms at the entrance. Inside, a tide of sound rolled over the party: the crisp clop of hooves on hard-packed dirt, the wet flutter of a horse blowing through its nostrils, commands laced with rank cursing, the crack of a whip cutting air, and beneath it all a deep, rhythmic thudding, as of some heavy thing hammering the earth over and over.

The party climbed down at squadron headquarters. Yang Ning directed the maidservants and the luggage to his quarters, sent the two German craftsmen off to the "smithy," and beckoned Tan Shuangxi to follow.

"First I'll show you the ground. Come have a look at your future unit."

They passed through a stretch of sheds stacked with saddlery and stores, and the world opened wide — an enormous training ground graded flat with rammed earth and gravel. What went on there was an education for infantryman Tan Shuangxi.

Close at hand, several dozen troopers drawn up in ranks were drilling basic equitation. Most sat bareback, working the rising trot, the sitting gait, and their rein control at the riding instructor's clipped commands. The motions looked simple enough, but Tan Shuangxi could see the tautness in the men's bodies, the fine-grained contest of strength between horse and rider. A chestnut suddenly threw up its head and jogged a few steps in impatience; its rider flailed in panic, only just catching a fistful of mane to keep from sliding off, and drew a bark from the drill sergeant: "Waist gone soft? Grip with your legs!"

Farther out lay a sight that put a knot in Tan Shuangxi's chest: a dozen riders driving their horses over a row of wooden obstacles of staggered heights. Under their riders' urgings the horses gathered speed, rose, and cleared them in fine style, hooves striking the ground with heavy muffled thuds and kicking up little bursts of dust. Every clean jump drew a scatter of cheers from the rail.

"That's the jumping drill," Yang Ning said, following his gaze and explaining in passing. "It schools horse and rider into one. Cavalry, cavalry — take away the horse and you're nothing. Maneuver, scouting, pursuit — it all rides on the horse's mobility."

Just then an even shriller, more urgent clamor rose from the far side of the ground. A small squad of troopers was running what they called "cutting" practice — no live blades, but cloth-wrapped wooden staves standing in for sabers, slashed and thrust at straw dummies posted along the line of ride. The horses broke into a gallop, and with the momentum of speed behind them every stroke landed with tremendous authority; the straw targets rocked under the blows, chaff flying. Tan Shuangxi's hand drifted unbidden to the bayonet grip at his waist, and suddenly he was back at the Battle of Chengmai, watching the Ming cavalry come on — that wave of killing intent rolling toward the line had turned a raw recruit's calves to jelly.

But that day there had been the earthen embankment to hold, shooting down from the height, which took some of the terror out of standing against horse. Later, in the bandit-suppression campaigns across the Two Guangs, he had met small bodies of horsemen too, and their impact was nothing by comparison — little real threat to infantry holding formation.

Yang Ning seemed to read the thought on him. "That's only elementary shock practice," he said mildly. "A real charge on the battlefield is all formation, timing, and horse working with foot — there's deep learning in it. You'll pick it up in time."

From the training ground Yang Ning led him to the far side of the camp — the stable lines. The animal smell ran thicker here, yet the longer you breathed it the less it bit, until it wove with hay, bean feed, and leather into something unmistakable: the smell of an army stud farm.

The stables were long linked sheds, well aired, and — to Tan Shuangxi's surprise — clean. Dry litter lay on the floors; row upon row of horses stood tied in their stalls, some quietly chewing at the mangers, some craning their heads out to size up the newcomers. Stablemen were busy at work: one curry-combed a hide with an iron scraper; another mucked out dung and soiled bedding; a third knelt on one knee with a hoof cradled to his chest, patiently picking the grit from the cleft of the hoof with a small blade.

"'No horse fattens without its night feed' — a war horse is dearer than a man." Yang Ning walked to a manger, scooped up a handful of the bean-cake-and-oats mix, and rubbed it thoughtfully in his palm, studying it. "Three feeds a day, mixed to formula. Grooming, exercise, hoof care, every single day — no room for carelessness. The least slip in their diet and they sicken."

In the next stall Tan Shuangxi spotted a young soldier gently wiping the muzzle of a black horse with white-stockinged legs. The horse stood with head meekly lowered, snorting now and again, and the boy's face wore a concentration that bordered on devotion. Something in the sight stirred him.

Then they came to the breaking pen. The air here was nothing like the training ground's — tauter, harder to watch. In the ring a thick-muscled sergeant was working to saddle a fine horse in a sleek gray coat, its eye anything but tame. The animal, plainly unaccustomed to restraint, kept tossing its head and stamping, even rearing with a threatening scream. The sergeant never hurried. He kept up a low, steady "easy... easy," the veins standing out along his arms, soothing with one breath and firmly asserting control with the next, swimming deftly around the horse's strength.

"Fresh-replenished Mongolian stock. Most of ours are range-raised — they rough it well on coarse feed and shrug off sickness, but they come with plenty of wild in them." Yang Ning stood with arms crossed, watching with real enjoyment. "Breaking a horse is a science in itself. Every horse has its own temper. First order of business is learning what kind you've got."

Tan Shuangxi watched with his breath held. When the gray finally deigned to accept the saddle — still snorting, still fretting, but allowing the sergeant's hand on its neck — he let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding, and the word "cavalry" took on flesh for him: cavalry was man and horse fused into a multiplier of force, and that fusion could only be forged by endless rubbing and tempering, one against the other.

A horse can't speak, so the burden of understanding falls on the man. There was deep water in this, no doubt of it.

The sun tipped west, gilding Hallasan and the whole camp in red gold. The troopers came in from their drills by twos and threes, horses were led back to the stables, the dust of the training ground slowly settled, and the smell of rice and mess cooking drifted over from the kitchens.

Yang Ning walked him to a row of barracks set somewhat apart from the rest. "Get settled first. Bunk's in the third room over, with the other candidate officers of this cycle. Bright and early tomorrow, someone will come take you out to training." He paused, taking in the awe still undimmed in Tan Shuangxi's eyes, and one corner of his mouth lifted. "Your first lesson starts with the care of horses. Dirty work, tiring work. The first thing you learn here is not how to command men — it is how to care for and understand your future comrades-in-arms—"

He raised a hand and pointed toward the stables.

"Them."

(End of chapter)