Song dynasty story

By Ethan Horowitz,

This is a shortened story about a man, a man who finds light in dark times, a man who always keeps his eyes open, and a man who isn't afraid to die. It all starts very near the Sung Dynasty in China. This man is in Mongolia, but is not a Mongolian himself. He was captured as a child. Every morning this man gets up, goes to the fields and works day to night, day after day after day. Every time a harvest comes he has to give up most of it for his price to pay his debt to what he. But it's never enough. Every time he hopes to leave to start a new life he gets put back and only has to give up more. For generations his family has been living this way. Always just almost able to leave. One day this certain man decides to sneak off away from everything that he knows to start a new life, out of debt and free. He sneaks out in the darkest of night away to China. It takes many days traveling by foot but as he walks he tries to think of what he can do to get up out of the dump.

When I first get to China I first is confused by all the strange looks I am getting. It takes me a while to figure why but eventually I figure out why. It is the close he is wearing, they are ragged and dirty from the life of a serf. At first I try to make off of trading at the silk road. One day at about my closing time when the sun was beginning to set and the last of the crowds were beginning to fade away to return to their families, a man approached me wearing hemp so I knew he wasn't to high with status. This man asked for a rare type of herb I started going through all of the things I had to offer like duck, tea, rice, and meat but of course I did not have it. So I soon sent the man on his way.

On my way to the tiny shed in the forest that I had cleaned up and called home I heard a sound off the almost deserted road. It was almost like a chirp but different, just barely noticeable but it was a lower pitch. I set down my bag and jogged off the road. As I got closer I slowed down to a crawl until I could barely hear myself. I peered into a nearby ditch that had been overgrown by weed and other plants. I saw a dying bird. Thats right a single dying bird. As I walked away I felt stupid to be spending my time doing something as useless as that. I scolded myself as I got to the road. I absent mindedly reached down to grab my bag and hit empty air, my bag with everything in it was gone. I scoured the ground around it and found nothing except a single yuan (worth only one american dollar). I went back to the shed to think about what to do with my life. I needed shelter and food.

The next morning I knew what to do. I had to join the military. Any other job would take lots of money to start and maintain, that he did not have. The military would supply food and

shelter. I marched off into the city to find any sort of recruitment place to join the army.

As I walked into the recruitment building I realized I was the only person there, besides the recruiter. I walked up to the recruiter and told him I was interested in joining. He asked some questions about myself and I was soon in the Navy Section of the army. I was excited to join this section of the army because it was the most powerful part of China.

After my training I was sent near the front lines of battle to fight the mongols. Because I was not effective enough to wield the recently invented crossbow. On my journey to the east china sea I saw many new things that I had not even known existed until then. One of these things was the canal lock. It made it so that the water was always flat. They could have the water level rise when you get to it then lower and take you down to the rest of the water, kind of like an elevator or stairs.

I went on many different battles and other military things but this is the one that changed me forever

This battle was against a group of bandits who were attempting to capture a town and make counterfeit money/yuans. We entered the city under the cover of darkness and attempted to get the bandits by surprise. We got close but were found out before we got to them. This battle went on like any other but me and a group of others were sent to flank them from behind.

By the time we managed to maneuver behind them unnoticed we were losing the battle. We attacked killing many and changing the tides of war slightly. The rest of my platoon was pushed back or killed but I hid in a building until they passed. I snuck out into the enemy unnoticed right up behind the leader. In the time that passed our general had exposed himself so that the enemy was moving towards his location. I was not sure what to do until I saw a glass bottle sitting nearby. I snuck near bandits location and threw the glass bottle just on the other side of them. As soon as they looked I lept into action killing many by surprise. Little did I know at the time but one of the people that I killed had poised himself directly above our generals hiding spot about to strike the final blow. We won that battle and confiscated 27 wood block printers, fake money and a stash of gunpowder that they were going to use to make a bomb of a sort. By the time that we were ready to leave the location and head back home we realized we could not find directions using the sun. We scoured the remains of the city only to find a single, rusted, compass. We used that and a map to find our way back to the ship.

Because I had saved the general's life I became a favorite of his, galloping up the ranks until I was second in command. Soon the general died honorably in battle and I was put in at general. I fought many battles and was catching the attention of the government. I soon learned this was a mistake however but by then it was too late. You see the government was afraid of successful generals because they could be a threat to them. I was soon executed in the capitol.

The End