.
"Clop, clop, clop."
On the banks of the Heilongjiang, the great river rushed swiftly, and rolling hills stretched on and on, dark and deep as ink in the distance. The vast temperate mixed coniferous and broadleaf forest covered the wild earth like a black, bottomless sea. Tall, straight Korean Pine, spruces with fish-scale bark, graceful Birch Tree, Mongolian oaks, lush lindens, aspens, and elms together formed the Forest Sea of White Mountain and Black Water. A cavalry column of two hundred horses struggled through the dense shrubs and ferns beneath the trees, trampled across velvet-like reindeer moss, and searched for traces of human habitation that were almost impossible to find.
When Zuwaro lifted his head, he could not see the sky behind the canopy. All he could hear were the nearby yet indistinct cries of jays, and the distant yet clear roars of beasts and howls of wolves. In that moment, before such vigorous, savage vitality, even tribal warriors fierce as tigers had no choice but to sigh at their own smallness, and feel deep awe for this unconquered black forest, black water, and black soil.
"Fodo Mama! Grandmother Willow! Ana, have we reached Hushimen Guard?"
"Dabe. Ezhen, Hushimen Guard is up ahead! Right up ahead! They used to be by the river, but later the Wildmen harassed them endlessly, so they moved to the mountain to the west. It's safer there!"
Ana, the chieftain's son of Fushan Guard, was a capable and honest Tame Jurchen fellow, like a harmless "badger." Of course, this "honest" and "harmless" were only in comparison to their northern Wildman kin who had come south, and to the Wild Jurchen chief before him, who was like a savage beast, a fierce tiger. He looked nervously at Maha Aguda, first addressing him as "Da" (headman