Compensation

Seventh Tumen, command tent.

As men and horses from the various tribes continued to gather, a series of problems arose.

The tribes were already riddled with conflicts, and they were especially hostile whenever they met.

They came to blows at the slightest disagreement. Two tribes clashed in the morning, another two fought in the afternoon, and another brawl broke out at night.

In just a few days, the internal fighting had left over a hundred more men wounded and even killed five unlucky fellows.

As commander, Tumen Commander Jeremiah spent most of his energy mediating disputes between the tribes.

There was no helping it. The tribal coalition had been assembled on short notice, and the tribes were not under his command, much less part of the khanate's regular army.

The khanate's military law applied only to those who had been conscripted into service, not to those who had volunteered to help.

Even if they could be governed, they would never let him govern them.

Power struggles on the grasslands were far more brutal than those in agrarian civilizations.

If the commander were truly given authority over the various tribes, the khanate might have a new master before the fighting at the front was even over.

When fighting broke out, the tribes dealt with it internally.

On the winning side, the chief would come over and offer a few token words of criticism, then send the men back to be "punished with three cups of wine."

It really was a punishment of three cups of wine. At the victory feast, the tribe's leaders personally poured the wine for them.

They were treated like heroes.

Only the losing side would be punished when they returned.

They would be full of pent-up anger, wanting nothing more than to win next time.

With such a ridiculous way of handling things, there was no chance of stopping the internal fighting.

"Tumen Commander, let the tribes camp farther apart!"

Knightley could not help suggesting.

Internal problems kept cropping up, giving not only the commander a headache but also keeping Knightley, the deputy tumen commander, constantly on his feet.

When he went to mediate a dispute, each side had its own story. He had not witnessed it himself, so who knew which one was telling the truth?

He could not even establish what had happened, so fairness was out of the question.

In the end, the disputes were mostly settled by papering over the differences to calm both sides.

It was manageable once or twice, but after it happened often enough, even Knightley could not help breaking down.

Reason told him that if they kept muddling through like this, the minor disputes would eventually build into a major conflict.

If a large-scale fight broke out one day, they would be finished.

After all, quite a few soldiers in the Seventh Tumen came from these tribes too.

If their tribes' very survival were at stake, these men would be drawn in as well.

If they failed to eliminate the enemy and instead destroyed their own forces, they would truly become a laughingstock in military history!

"Mm!"

"Then have each tribe move its camp another two li away. Three li between them should be enough of a buffer, shouldn't it?"

Tumen Commander Jeremiah rubbed his forehead as he spoke.

He had known beforehand that there were conflicts among the tribes and had made active preparations for them.

He had kept tribes with deep grudges against each other as far apart as possible, leaving a full li between each tribe's camp.

Under normal circumstances, that distance should have eased the tensions.

But no matter how far apart the camps were, they still ran into one another while grazing their livestock.

One tribe's cattle wandered onto another's land, and someone else's sheep wandered onto theirs...

Livestock could not hear military orders, so they were bound to stray.

More than half the fights had been sparked by demands for cattle and sheep.

Moving the camps farther apart again would treat the symptoms, not the root cause.

"Tumen Commander, the constant fighting in the army is mainly because everyone has too much time on their hands.

Once we reach the front, everyone's attention will be on the enemy, and the conflicts will drop by ninety percent.

The urgent task is to find a suitable place to set up camp and move the army to the front."

Knightley thought for a moment before speaking.

The best way to divert internal conflicts was to find a common enemy.

Looking back through history, the tribes of the Tuwu People had once gone their own ways, constantly fighting one another.

They had managed to unite not because their internal conflicts had disappeared, but because the Holy Glory Empire had risen in the south.

Before the rise of the Holy Glory Empire, there had been several states south of Dragon Spine Pass, and the two sides could trade freely.

If one state would not sell, the others would.

Cattle, sheep, and horses all fetched good prices, and the tribes lived fairly well.

When supplies ran short, it was also easy to raid south.

With the emergence of a unified dynasty, their trading partners had dwindled from several to one.

Border markets still existed, but the power to set prices had passed into the hands of the Holy Glory Empire's nobles.

At first, the two sides had done business in good faith, but those peaceful days were not destined to last.

The Tuwu People thought the northern frontier nobles were too greedy, offering ever lower prices for cattle, sheep, and horses while continually raising the prices of the goods they needed to buy.

The northern frontier nobles thought the Tuwu People had no sense of honor, raiding south every few days and treating the treaties the two sides had signed like toilet paper, with no respect for contracts whatsoever.

The conflict escalated into war, the trade routes were sealed off entirely, and the Tuwu People suffered defeat after defeat on the battlefield.

Large stretches of pasture near the Holy Glory Empire were abandoned, and they could only keep migrating farther away.

To survive, the Tuwu tribes had no choice but to band together. After a hundred years of working out their differences, the Golden Horde Khanate came into being.

"It's difficult!"

"According to the information provided by the local tribes, there are no rivers near the Dragonbone Mountains, and the few streams there can't possibly meet the army's needs.

Unless we split our forces and advance along several routes at once."

Tumen Commander Jeremiah spoke with some hesitation.

Their current camp was simply too far from the front. By the time the troops reached it from here, they would be exhausted.

Facing an elite force like the Third Army, he dared not take a group of exhausted soldiers onto the battlefield.

Splitting their forces to surround the enemy from several directions sounded good, but carrying it out was fraught with difficulty.

The central problem was that the tribes found it difficult to cooperate closely.

If allied forces were in danger, there was no question of lending them a hand. It would already count as putting the greater good first if they did not intercept and kill the soldiers sent to seek help.

"Word has come from the Black Wolf Tribe. They found a valley on the outskirts of the Dragonbone Mountains, covering several dozen square kilometers.

There's a deep pool in the valley, as large as a small or medium-sized lake, which can provide enough water for the army.

The valley is a precious place their tribe has guarded for generations. If the khanate wants to requisition it, they need compensation."

Knightley spoke with a helpless expression.

All that talk about guarding it for generations was pure bullshit.

The Black Wolf Tribe had only moved there two or three generations ago.

For all their embellishment, their real purpose was to demand compensation.

The Goshawk Tribe and the Cors Tribe had been wiped out, but the pastures they left behind remained.

The khanate could not take these ownerless lands and manage them itself, so it would eventually distribute them among the tribes below it.

The nearby tribes all had their eyes on that land.

According to the khanate's rules, whoever earned the most merit on the battlefield would have the first right to choose pastures.

"Tell the Black Wolf Tribe that if it really is as they say, I'll credit them with a major merit!"