Flesh and Blood, Brothers

“No one fires.”

The Commander pressed down on Shuisheng’s gun barrel. “If they curse at us, don’t answer. If they strike us, don’t strike back. We are only passing through—we did not come here to fight.”

The mountain mist had not lifted. Behind every rock, there were men.

Seventeen-year-old Shuisheng didn’t quite understand. A lead ball from a matchlock whizzed past his ear; iron shot struck his puttees—puff, puff. Spears thrust out from the woods, row upon row, like grass bowing before the rain. He remembered what the squad leader had said before they set out: The Yi people have swallowed bitterness for hundreds of years. When they see Han troops with guns, their eyes go red—and you can’t blame them. Swallow your anger today, and from now on we will be one family.

“No one fires,” the Commander said again. This time the words were for his own men—and for all those eyes hidden behind the rocks.

Emu crouched behind a boulder, palms slick with sweat. His grandmother’s words rang in his head: Han troops have come before. They led off our cattle, burned our houses, stole our salt. The fires in our village burned for three days and three nights. It was that year his grandfather died. He gripped his spear tighter. Yet these few soldiers below the cliff were strange ones—surrounded, they didn’t run, didn’t curse, didn’t fire a shot, and let themselves be stripped bare.

Jacket, puttees, rice bags—taken away, piece by piece. It was May, but the mountain nights were still cold. Shuisheng hugged his arms, teeth chattering, and still he smiled: “Take the jacket, friend. The weather’s about to turn in these mountains. We’re truly just borrowing a road, heading north to fight those who bully people.”

Emu knew what he saw in those eyes. His second brother, after drinking, wore that same look—not hatred, but heat.

On the third day, a paper was pasted on the rocks at the crossroads. A soldier who could read stood on high ground and read it out, word by word, to the crowd that gathered. When he reached one line, the valley fell silent:

“All Yi and Han common people are flesh and blood—brothers.”

The reader slowed; the listeners made no sound. The headman stood at the back of the crowd. His scouts had watched for three days: this troop slept in the rain under the trees, never entering the village; when their things were taken, they didn’t chase or protest; stripped of their clothes, they smiled the next day all the same and talked reason with the people.

The headman ran through every troop he had ever seen. Soldiers passing through. Soldiers collecting taxes. Soldiers who had burned villages. He compared them, again and again, and arrived at a single sentence: They are not like the Han armies of before.

He said it first in his own heart, then by the hearth, and finally before the whole village.

The twenty-second of May, by the lake.

“Hai zi”—“son of the sea”—was what mountain folk called it: really a lake of still water, blue as freshly quenched iron.

There was no wine, but the ritual could not be skipped. The Commander had someone ladle up a bowl of lake water, then slaughter a great red rooster, letting its blood drip into the bowl, blooming red flower after red flower across the surface.

The Commander took the bowl and drank first. The headman received it and recited the oath handed down from his ancestors, his voice deep: “Today we become brothers. If I betray this bond, may my fate be as this rooster’s.”

The Commander laughed. “Good. From this day on, Yi and Han are one family.”

One hand clasped another. On the rocks above and below, hundreds of eyes watched, and when someone raised the first shout, the whole mountain rang with answering cries.

A flag was placed in the headman’s hands. There were words on it—when read aloud, they carried the name of his clan, and two characters more: “Red Army.” The Commander said, from now on you too are part of the troops; we entrust the affairs of these mountains to you. The headman was not a man of many words. He only wound the corner of the flag around his fingers three times and tucked it against his chest.

Early the next morning, the headman rode at the front, the village’s men lined along the road. The troop emerged from the mist. A journey of seven days and seven nights was walked in one day and one night, without a single shot fired.

Shuisheng came to the mouth of the rocks and saw a familiar figure—the young man who had stripped off his jacket, eyes bright. Emu came over holding the jacket, folded square, sweat streaming down his face the whole way.

Shuisheng recognized him and smiled first: “The wind is fierce on the passes. Keep it for yourself.”

Emu didn’t take it. He stuffed the jacket into his waistband, walked to the end of the column, and stood straight the way the others did: “I’m going with you. To fight those who bully people.”

At those words, Shuisheng froze for a beat. They were his own words, spoken days before in the mist, his arms bare and crossed against the cold.

That day, more than one man shed his sheepskin jacket and put on a uniform.

They were escorted dozens of li, until the lake could be seen no longer. The Commander swung down from his horse: “Brother, any farther and you’ve come too far.”

The headman dismounted as well. Neither spoke first; their hands clasped first, and clasped for a long while, as if to place their names, their clans, and all the days to come into each other’s palms.

Shuisheng slipped off his rations bag and pushed it into Emu’s hands, then thought a moment and tightened the drawstring a little more. Emu grinned, white teeth showing. The bugle sounded, and the column turned north. The headman reined in his horse and stood where he was, watching that small patch of flag-color fade bit by bit into the mountain pass.

The wind came from the lake, carrying its damp. He looked back: the water glittered in the hollow of the mountains, like someone carrying a bowl of water held perfectly level, afraid to spill a drop.

The blood had long since settled to the bottom of that bowl. The water was still clear.

(This story is adapted from real events; all names are pseudonyms.)