The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 1

Day in and day out, day after day, the Qiantang River majestically winds through and around Ox Village, near the city of Lin’an, on its journey toward the sea. On the sh.o.r.es there stands thirty or so tallow trees, leaves red like the fire, yet another sign that it is now August. The wild weed and gra.s.s around the village has just started to turn yellow. The sun shines down sideways on the gra.s.s, adding even more to their bleakness. Under two giant pine trees there gathered a group of villagers, the crowd included both men and women along with more than 10 children. Every single one of them are listening to a thin old man, giving him their complete attention.

The old man is about fifty or so, the green robe that he is wearing has been washed to a blueish-gray. He banged two pieces of wood together a couple of times, and with the little bamboo stick in his left hand, he started to beat on a little drum to keep pace. He started to sing:

“The peach blossoms without fail, vast unused fields feeding the crows. After the soldiers by the well, families gather in sorrow.”

The old man banged together the two pieces of wood a couple of times more, then continued, “Old Yie had a wife, a son, and a daughter. They lost each other when the Jin invaded through. Finally, after much hardship and difficulty, they were able to get back together. They returned to their home to find that it was burned to the ground by the Jin soldiers. They had no choice but to head off to BianLiang (modern day Kaifeng, capitol of North Song). ‘The heavens have unexpected storms, people have unforseen misfortunes’. As soon as the four of them got to BianLiang, they ran into a line of Jin soldiers. The leader of the soldiers looked down, saw that Miss Yie was quite beautiful, jumped down from his horse, and grabbed her. With a laugh, he threw her onto his saddle and said, ‘Pretty little girl, you are going to go home with me.’ How could Miss Yie agree? She struggled with all her might. The leader yelled out, ‘If you don’t stop struggling, then your family will die!’ He picked up his wolf-fang-club and smashed it down on her brother’s head.

“‘The nether world gains a new ghost, the real world loses one more soul.'” Old Yie and his wife fell onto their son’s body and started to cry their heart out. That Jin soldier lifted up this wolf-fang-club twice more and took care of them. Miss Yie did not cry, she simply said, ‘Sir, please stop killing more people. I’ll go with you.’ This made the soldier extremely happy. Just as he let his guard down, Miss Yie suddenly grabbed the sabre around his waist, pulled it out, and thrusted at his heart. It looks like she was about to revenge her family’s death, but alas it was not to be. That soldier has had much experience on the battlefield, without thinking, he merely pushed forward very naturally, sending Miss Yie falling to the ground. He was just able to say, ‘Little *****!’ Miss Yie has already brought the blade to her neck. Poor her:

“‘With flower’s beauty and moon’s grace, such sweet soul dying sad so young.'”
He alternates between talking and singing. Every single one of the villagers by now are all sighing in sadness and rage.

That man continued, “Dear audience members, as the saying goes,
“‘Treat others with an honest heart, hold your head up on high in pride. If evil deeds go unpunished, only the evil will survive.’

“Jin soldiers has conquered half of our Great Sung, killing and burning, raping and pillaging, not an evil deed left undone. Yet no punishment whatsoever seems to be forth coming. Our Great Sung’s officials are responsible for this, China has plenty of healthy and available soldiers. Yet every time we go up against the Jin armies, all they do is turn around and run, leaving behind us peasants to suffer. There are stories like the one about Miss Yie and her family by the thousands north of the river. Living here south of the river, is truly like being in heaven on earth, only fearing the day the Jin soldiers come invading.

“‘Rather be a dog in peace, than a man in troubled times!’

“My name is Zhang Shiwu, thank you everyone for listening to the story of ‘Miss Yie, the Young Martyr’.” After banging the two pieces of wood together several more times, he held up a tray.

Many of the villagers placed a farthing or two in the pan, which quickly filled up. Zhang Shiwu thanked the villagers and gathered the 60 to 70 farthings into his traveling bag. He got up and started to walk off.

A young man of around two0 years of age walked out from among the villagers. He asked, “Mr. Zhang, did you just come from the north?” The young fellow was very tall and very built with big eyes and a pair of very busy eye brows. Zhang Shiwu answered, “Yes.” The young man answered, “Then let’s go get a couple of drinks. I’ll pay, what do you say?” Zhang Shiwu replied, “I dare not receive such a favor as a stranger.” The young fellow laughed and answered, “Once we had a couple of drinks, then we are no longer strangers are we? My surname is Guo, given name XiaoTian” Pointing at a clean, white faced fellow behind him, he continued, “This here is Yang Tiexin. The two of us were just listening to your story. As expected, it was a good story. But we still have several questions we wanted to ask.” Zhang Shiwu replied, “No problem, no problem. To run into the two of you today is probably fate doing its work.” Guo Xiaotian led Zhang Shiwu to one of the small wineshops in Ox Village and sat down at one of the tables.

{That whole pa.s.sage that Zhang Shiwu told was HARD as anything to translate. All the sayings, poems, and idioms just drove me up the wall! Excuse the poor excuse for poetry in the translation, but those were as good as I can get it. To think that there is plenty more where that comes from in LoCH is just great. On a completely different note, Guo Xiaotian looks a lot like Guo Jing, which seems to be obvious but they are almost identical in their description. I have never noticed that before until now.}

The owner of this little wineshop is a cripple. Supported by two crutches, he slowly brought out two kettles of wine, a plate of peas, a plate of salted peanuts, a plate of dried bean curd, and a plate with three salted eggs. Afterwards, he just sat down on the stool by the door and stared at the setting sun, not even glancing at the three men.

Guo Xiaotian poured the wine and made Zhang Shiwu down two shots before he began, “Here in the country, we only get to buy meat on the twond and the 16th, so we don’t have anything to go down with the wine. Please forgive us.” Zhang Shiwu replied, “At least we got wine, can’t complain about that. From your accents, seems like you two are from up north.” Yang Tiexin answered, “We are both from Shan Dong province. But we moved away three years ago because we can’t stand the Jins running loose there. When we arrived here, we fell in love with the people here and settled down. Just now you were saying that us living here south of the river is like living in heaven itself, fearing only an invasion by the Jin. Do you really think that the Jin will invade?”

Zhang Shiwu sighed, “The gold and silver could literally cover the ground and beautiful women every which way you look, such is the richness and enchantment of the south. There isn’t a day that pa.s.ses without the Jin thinking about invading. But the final decision over the invasion of the Jin is not made by the Jin, but is made by the Imperial Court of our Great Sung in Lin’an!” This took both Guo Xiaotian and Yang Tiexin by surprise as they asked as one, “Why do you say that?”