...steppes...a breeze blew through but not strong enough to disrupt the serenity...then some vibration on the soil...thousands of horses were galloping on the horizon with a huge dust behind...suddenly he felt near to them...nearer...nearer...and now one of the horseman was him. A teenager he was, but capable of riding horses that much. Arrows flying, swords clashing, blood spilling, people passing away...it felt as a trivial, common thing to Jiesheshuai, except that his father, Shibi, died at that raid and life started to be quite different...that time an arrow was about to hit his nose and he suddenly woke up in sweats.
This was the only remnant of Jiesheshuai's childhood. He does not want to remember those years anymore, and not forced to see this dream almost every night. Losing his father that time, he started to distance himself from everyone as things kept going on very smoothly, like nothing happened, even to his brother. Kinship, friendship faded gradually. The days started to pass by herding animals, hunting, training Parthian shot and with some survival necessities. He was growing, becoming stronger and firmer, maybe more dependable, but something was lacking, some subtle thing...
One eventual thing is that there was a growing interaction with Chinese, they looked weak and strong, oscillating between them. But they have a solid foundation of culture and every other thing, and a massive population. Once he daydreamed like having an army of 8 million Chinese warriors and conquering all the known world. Of course, there won't be anything like that. Still, China attracted him. He started to communicate with people who both know Chinese language and his Turkic language at that time and started to learn to speak in Chinese as well. Two language, two people, it occured to him that there are far more things to see and care in this world than only herding animals and killing people.
The fate created the opportunity. Emperor Taizong of China at that time was merciful and cosmopolitan, with sympathy against nomadic ways and culture, and of course utilizing these as much as he can so that his influence grows over Central Asia as well. Year 630 A.D. was the demolition of Jiesheshuai's khaganate, and his transfer to Tand Dynasty. With his calm and trustworthy manner, exceptional war talent and ability to see through people, as he was watching them afar for years, it did not take long to appoint him as military commander. Under this title, what was being done is continuously scheming and warring to push the boundaries to north and fight the nomadic people there. And he started to be center of attention, a thing that he never knew in Khaganate years and quite enjoyed here. Two years later, his brother Shibobi died on the way to Chinese capital, he did not do anything particular about this. But this was kept in mind of others...
Things were different here, unlike nomadic people, Chinese spoke much more and used much more words, sentences and meanings. At first, he found this ridiculous and meaningless. Later he started to be overwhelmed by their interaction speed volume of information exchanged in a given time. But finally, he started to become like them. He kept thinking, solving the mysteries, intricacies of the power dynamics in both his milieu and in palace. He slowly started to use these dynamics on his advantage, to make himself more influential. The people who he could not startle with his archery skill, got drawn to him by the knowledge they would like to know about their adversaries. Sometimes, Jiesheshuai also be amazed by some properties of other people, and he established his connection with them as well. As it was like a star collection, they started to do things all together. They would practice riding, archery, Parthian shot and even oratorship together, and they grew familiar with themselves, always trying to improve both themselves and each other. But Jiesheshuai found this insecure, getting more familiar might look a stranger cute and well but in the eyes of palace, the rivers would flow anti-gravitationally. So he started to put random people in his collective activities as well, in total he was always with more than 100 people whatever activity of merit he does. He realized that there were Chineses taking Parthian shot even better than him, and also some other were slightly better than him in the other ways. He left the pleasures of the life aside completely and started to train alone sometimes to surpass everyone. Yet this was no joke, being the best was not that easy anymore. Fortunately he still got the attention he seeks from the people so he did not need to feel bad about his distance to his ideal, or hold grudges against the people who is more talented.
This kind of connections did not actually make him more sociable or less alone, yet he filled a certain gap in his heart. He started to feel the warmth of comradeship. He was a realist, that with certain push everyone may change their attitudes 180 degree, so he never expected an unbreakable friendship or invincible loyalties.
And the calendar showed 639 A.D. At a palace ceremony, Emperor Taizong favored this people and that, but overlooked him completely. This, was speculated later as done due to Jiesheshuai blamed his late brother for treason. But at that instant, he barely kept his cool while his mind was entirely shaken. A few days passed and he found no way of return, he kept seeing the dream he was always seeing, with additional scenes of insolence from weak Chinese emperors, ministers and stuff. There is a visible interest loss on his trainings and activities as well. Without further ado, he found that with the people who he can still influence, he would take that Taizong hostage and put another person in his place so that the history will completely be overwritten in favor of him, among many other benefits on his side.
He knew that the longer you plan a rebellion, the less chance it will have for success. The quickest he can have as assitants in this undertaking seemed to be 40 people. Sometimes openly, sometimes with innuendos, he sway these people to his side. He planned to ambush palace Emperor Taizong resided after a prince, Li Zhi left it with his army. Days passed and still he did not left. And when they had a date for his depart, they put everything on that day and made preparations. Poor thing that there was not any farmer or knowledgable person among them on weathers, that day was messed with a storm, inceassant rain and hence prolonged stay of prince. Jiesheshuai still wanted to attack the palace as according to him was too late to change the plan. 20 of people found this extremely unpleasant and fled in many directions (whom the Chinese authority later would found and exile many of them, if not all), but giving chase to them was not an option for them. The remaining people take a look at themselves and found that none of them actually knows each other, another fluke of fate maybe, but they did not bother to delve it anyway.
They attacked the palace. Started to bring down guards one by one with arrows, swords, lances and the like. They could not pierce through as there was an army against, even though they held out much longer than expected. Some enter the stable and brought 20 bare horses, with that they fled to the north without thinking much of what will happen later. They kept dropping the numbers of followers but to no avail. There was the Wei River and constant rain, as if to bury them alive. But that did not happen, they valiantly fight to the point that no one knew which one was Jiesheshuai, but there are times numbers matter, and that was not an exception. A hopeless rebellion of Jiesheshuai and his comrades was torn to the pieces at that place.
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Originally Posted by NINE-lives
