"Ayi—le! Zhehei! Zhehei!"
"The waters of Ussuri Ula, ah, clear and cool; beneath them swims the backbone of the taimen. I lift my poplar pole and start to sing, and my song drifts past the wings of the white egrets at the river's heart!"
"The wind from the south, ah, stirs the leaves of the linden wood, while the Bear Spirit of the northern mountain sleeps inside its cave. I cast my willow net and ask the River God: can today's catch fill the hold?"
The northern autumn wind blew over the western waters of the Heilongjiang, while the tribute horse caravan that had come from the east looked out toward the Ussuri River in the south. Birch Bark Boats swayed on the river. The singing of the Jurchen tribesmen aboard drifted near and far, their fishing nets rising and falling in their hands, ignoring the groups of warriors and warhorses on the bank. River and shore were like two utterly different worlds; the cruel slaughter of the tribes within the Forest Sea was cut off by the tolerant Heilongjiang God. No matter how fierce cavalry were, they could not charge into the vast, surging river. And the hallmark of the Eastern Sea Jurchen tribes was that they used both boats and horses, relying on light, handy little boats even more than on horses.
"Ali, are these fishing tribes in fish-skin jackets, singing on their little boats, the Eastern Sea Jurchen?"
"Mm. They should be! But the Eastern Sea tribes are too many and too mixed. I can't tell which branch they are. Sahaliyan, you know this area best. Do you know which tribe this is?"
"Replying to Ezhen, they are unennobled Wildman tribes, scattered here and there, probably without a tribal name. If you really have to call them