KnightofTempest
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BES: Chapter 5
🕑 Added 2025-06-25 08:43:17 +0000 UTCI woke bright and early for lessons with my brother Dorji under the tutelage of the Hokkien Shipwright Liau Yong Cho. I dressed lightly for the occasion, as I was led to believe we would be taking lessons in his workshop, which had a forge in it, among other things. I wore blue cotton trousers, a yellow sash, and a blue vest with white and yellow highlights, forgoing the heavy terlig in case the heat was too sweltering. I also grabbed my rudimentary sketches for the Hwacha and tucked the papers into my sash. Hopefully, the famed shipwright and carpenter we would be learning from could help me to realize this weapon. It would definitely prove a boon in the upcoming war with Goryeo, since to truly win it, we would need to take Gwangmu Island. Once I had everything I thought I might need, I nodded to myself and headed out of my rooms to meet Dorji for breakfast.
Dorji, by contrast, seemed to have gone his usual route of peacocking in Han Chinese Fashion. My brother was dressed in a brightly dyed silk shanku in green and yellow. Thankfully, he seemed to have opted for the shuhe style of shanku, which was primarily worn by soldiers, peasants, and martial artists as everyday wear. It was shorter and allowed for freedom of movement. The effect, however, was spoiled by the material and color, which likely cost a year's pay for a journeyman craftsman. It wasn't as if we couldn't afford it, being the blood of Chinggis, but still. There was no way that wasn't going to get ruined. The Workshop needed clothing that wouldn't get burned, stained, or caught in various sharp instruments. My brother may have been heavily into assimilating with the Han, but that didn't mean I wanted him to get the collar of his robes caught on some machine and be strangled to death or some such thing. Still, I of course mentioned this to him in my typical joking manner, not that Dorji ever seemed to appreciate it.
"Dressing like a Peacock today, brother? We're going to a workshop to learn about siege engines. I fear your finely made clothes will not survive." I greeted, piling my plate high with hard-boiled duck eggs and lap cheong sausage.
"It isn't like we cannot afford it even if it does get ruined. We are the blood of Chinggis, nephews to the Great Khan himself." Pointed out Dorji, grabbing a pair of Baozi and some vegetable fried rice with bean sprouts and bok choy.
"Sure, but that doesn't make it not a waste." I grumbled, grabbing a small bowl of steamed white rice and heading to a table.
The Great Dining Hall of our father's palace was mostly full of Courtiers and other such nobles going about their day this morning. I spotted delegations from various places who had entered the palace on missions to trade or speak to our Father. While he wasn't the Great Khan yet, with our Uncle Mongke still alive, he was considered the most likely frontrunner, even if our other uncle Ariq Boke was considered to be close enough behind our father in terms of popularity that the Kurultai when our Uncle Mongke died would be more than a mere formality but an actual contest. Accordingly, people who could not see the Great Khan himself sometimes visited our Father to seek redress for their various petitions. At the moment, a small party of Uighur Nobles from Beshbalik seeking redress of a grudge with a nearby Dzungar Clan, and a Party of Spice Merchants from the Mithila Kingdom of King Ramasimhadeva in Northeast Asia seeking to open trade with the Empire were sitting down in the Dining Hall and having breakfast while our father got ready for court for the day. Neither were considered important enough to bother the Great Khan with, but our Father gladly would take the meetings and thus prove that he was the better choice for the next Great Khan than Ariq Boke, who sat on his steppe hawking, riding, and hunting instead of administering.
Unfortunately, I knew many of the Mongol Nobility would prefer such activities to administration, and thus would be likely to not see Ariq Boke as being lazy. That would contribute to the civil war that I knew had happened the first time around on Uncle Mongke's death. Hopefully, that could be avoided this time around, but I had my doubts. The Mongol Nobility was a fairly fractious lot, after all, as many would-be Great Khans would learn, some much later than our father would, and thus be too late to do anything about it.
Regardless, Gorji and I ate in silence for a while, as I relished my meal of protein and white rice. I would have loved to have had fried rice, but I needed to eat healthy to build the sort of body that would withstand the battlefields to come. Dorji, as someone who was primarily going down the Administrator and Scholar's Path, could afford less healthy meals more consistently. It was something I was a bit jealous of, though Dorji at least never rubbed it in when he had something non-healthy that I couldn't eat on the day in question, though that was likely due to it being considered improper Confucian behavior rather than anything else. Eventually, though, we finished our breakfast and headed to Liau Yong Cho's workshop in one of the palace outbuildings. The interior was a place filled with all sorts of odds and ends. There was a forge, yes, but also a woodworking station, a drawing board, a set of alchemical glassware and bottled reagents, various charts and maps, several scroll cases piled high with treatises, three different abacuses, and even a set of acupuncture needles. The man seemed to be the definition of a Renaissance man, and it wasn't even thirteen hundred yet!
Liau Yong Cho himself stood in the center of this absolute chaos, fiddling with a wooden model of a ship, some sort of Chinese-style Junk with a sail plan that seemed to include more Lateen sails. That was smart, since it seemed like it might counter the weakness of a Junk-Rigged Sail Plan, which was that a full junk rig was slow to sail upwind, while lateen sails were quite fast at sailing upwind. This half-and-half style rig might actually manage to fix that fairly major deficiency. I felt the whole thing could go even further, adding a more European hull shape, though that wouldn't be something I could bring up at the moment. If this hybridized Junk-Carrack that I was thinking of could be built properly, though, it would ensure that the Great Khan's Fleet would be the most powerful fleet on any sea, something that would be sorely needed if the invasions of Korea, Southeast Asia, and Japan were going to occur on Schedule
Regardless, when Dorji and I entered, Liau Yong Cho looked up startled, as if he hadn't expected us to arrive so quickly. His craftsman's smock was dirty, and his face was smudged with soot as he blinked at our arrival. Then he looked over at a piece of clockwork on the wall that could have been a clock if it hadn't stopped ticking and let out a strangled sigh as he saw that it had stopped working.
"The springs must have worn down again. I thought I had at least another hour before you both arrived. Apologies for the state of my workshop and dress." Bowed Liau Yong Cho.
"It is of no consequence. We are here to learn." I responded.
"Though you may want to wipe the soot from your face before it sets in." Hedged Dorji.
"I might at that." Affirmed Liau Yong Cho with a grin, as he grabbed a cloth and wet it in a basin before wiping down his face. I was more curious about the ship model he'd been working on.
"What kind of ship is that?" I asked. Liau Yong Cho looked at the model, then back at me, and grinned like he was pleased one of his Princely Pupils had some level of interest in his recent pet project.
"That would be my life's work if I could ever get it to work correctly. See, junks are a great ship used well for thousands of years, but they are cumbersome, heavy in the water, and prone to being outmaneuvered by the war dhows of nations like Melayu or Champa. This is because they're slow and awkward to sail upwind with a fairly large draft. I've been trying various combinations of Junk and Dhow hull and rigging to try and cover for that weakness." He announced.
That was interesting and confirmed for me that if he figured it out, it could prove vital against Korea, Japan, Majapahit, and various Southeast Asian Nations. I told him as much, and he bowed at my praise, his grin widening on his face even as his recently soot-free face blushed red at it all.
"Young Master praises me too much. The design is still far from finished." He insisted.
"Still, I am certain that it will be worth it once it is finished." I assured.
"Indeed, with ships such as that, King Gojong would be unable to hide on his island for long. He would need to acquiesce to the Great Khan's demands." Agreed Dorji.
"Well, perhaps once I finish the design, you can convince your Uncle to produce a fleet for such a purpose. For now, though, you are here to learn. We will begin with a simple, but vital piece of machinery." Nodded Liau Yong Cho.
He turned back to one of the various desks and grabbed a sheet-covered parcel. When he turned around, he placed the parcel on a table in front of us and took off the sheet, revealing a bronze and wood repeating crossbow. The Chu Ku Nu was known to me, though it had its problems with penetration. Some armies had since learned to cope with that by smearing the heads of each bolt with poison so that even a scratch could be lethal. It still wasn't the most effective weapon against armored opponents, however, something the Jin learned too late when my Great-Grandfather conquered Northern China.
"The repeating crossbow, known in Han as the Chu Ku Nu, has been a vital weapon for centuries. Many dynasties have come and gone since its invention, and even now, with the rise of black powder weapons, it is still commonly found in the hands of garrison troops throughout both the Empire and the Song. Today, you will learn about the mechanisms that allow this weapon to work." Finished Liau Yong Cho.
He then launched into his lesson, and it was fascinating. He had a way of breaking down complex subjects like the mechanics of draw weight and the gearing into easy-to-understand terms. He even got a bit into the chemistry behind how the poison for the bolts was prepared. I was so enraptured that I didn't even know that hours were passing. By the end of the day, I felt I had at least some of the basics down, if not all of them. I'd probably have them with a few more lessons! As Dorji and I left Liau Yong Cho's workshop, I was enthused by the prospect of more of those types of lessons. It wasn't until I was halfway back to my chambers that I realized I'd forgotten to show him the Hwacha plans!
"Son of a bitch!" I hissed. Oh well, there was always next week. Next week, however, would prove to be tedious, as I had my first run-in with a man who would become my rival. Gongsun Ping, the heir to the Gongsun Clan, had heard of my altercation with his family in the streets.
And he would eventually demand satisfaction from me for that, something which would cause quite a stir at court. . .
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AN: So here we have the first lesson with Liau Yong Cho. The man is a bit of a scatterbrained inventor, but is fairly brilliant when it comes to such contraptions. He's clearly more than just a simple shipwright and carpenter, and I tried to make him more of a Leonardo Da Vinci of the Yuan Dynasty. Hopefully, that shines through here. Also, at this point, we have had multiple chapters of Dalai and Dorji interacting. Hopefully, it shines through that these brothers are two very different people, because that is a thing that is going to continue going forward.
At any rate, the next chapter will involve a summons from Khublai Khan to deal with the Gongsun's Challenge. Dalai will be determined to fight it out with Gonsun Ping, and that in turn will start something of a rivalry between the two kids. Gotta have a rival in a Chinese Epic, after all.
Stay tuned. . .
