"The Tatar tribe?" Song Qingshu's heart stirred. He recalled Zhao Min mentioning that during the Mongol Empire's rise, there had been two great enemy tribes. One was the Merkit tribe. Temujin's father had stolen the Merkit leader's fiancée, while the Merkit later stole Temujin's wife, not only cuckolding him but making Temujin's first child Merkit blood. The two tribes could truly be said to have loved and hated each other in equal measure.
However, the Merkit tribe had ultimately been destroyed by Temujin's tribe. Empress Hulan, for instance, had been a Merkit princess taken into Temujin's harem as a war trophy.
Besides the Merkit, the strongest at the time had been the Tatar tribe. Temujin had only defeated the Tatar tribe by joining forces with the Jin Dynasty and Ong Khan of the Kereyid tribe. The Yesui sisters were daughters of a Tatar leader, while Haemish was descended from another Tatar leader.
Yesui had secretly helped clean up the aftermath this time, presumably because of that connection.
Haemish put away her usual fake smile, and her tone no longer carried its former respectful address. "So you still remember the Tatar tribe. Seeing how devotedly you've served the Great Khan all these years, I thought you'd forgotten."
Empress Yesui frowned. "From the sound of it, you still harbor hatred for the Tatar tribe's destruction? Could it be that everything you've done was for our former tribe? Let me advise you: the Tatar tribe has been gone for decades. What you're doing is meaningless."
Haemish gave a light laugh. "The Third Empress watched the husband she had once been inseparable from get killed, yet she still served the man who murdered him without complaint and never thought of revenge. Why would I avenge a tribe that has already vanished?"
As she spoke,