“You know you were the cause of my army entering into a waterless land, where there were those four evil streams, and yet my soldiers were not poisoned and came to no harm. Does it not seem to you like evidence of a superior protecting power? Why will you follow this misguided road and always be obstinate?”
Meng Huo replied, “My fathers have long held the Silver Pit Hills, and the three rivers and the two forests are their ramparts. If you can take that stronghold, then will I and my heirs for ever acknowledge your power and yield.” “I am going to liberate you once more,” said Zhuge Liang, “and you may put your army in order if you will and fight a decisive battle. But after that, if you are my prisoner and are still refractory and unsubmissive, I shall have to exterminate your whole family.”
Zhuge Liang ordered the lictors to loose the prisoner's bonds and let him go. After he had gone, the other two, Meng You and Duo Si, were led in and they also received their liberty. They were given wine and food. but they were confused and could not look Zhuge Liang in the face. They were given horses to travel on.
The next chapter will tell how Meng Huo reorganized his army and whose the victory was.
All the prisoners were released; and Yang Feng and his sons were rewarded with ranks, and his people were given presents. They expressed their gratitude and returned to their own, while Meng Huo and his brother hastened home to Silver Pit Hills.
Outside this ravine were three rivers — River Lu, River Gannan, and River Xicheng. These three streams united to form Three Rivers. Close to the ravine on the north was a wide and fruitful plain; on the west were salt wells. The River Lu flowed about seventy miles to the southwest, and due south was a valley called the Liangdu Ravine. There were hills in, as well as surrounding, the ravine, and in these they found silver; whence the name “Silver Pit.”
A palace complex had been built in the ravine, which the Mang kings had made their stronghold, and there was an ancestral temple, which they called “Family Spirits,” where they solemnized sacrifices of bulls and horses at the four seasons. They called these sacrifices “Inquiring of the Spirits.” Human sacrifices were offered also, humans of Shu or of their own people belonging to other villages. The sick swallowed no drugs, but prayed to a chief sorcerer, called “Drug Demon.” There was no legal code, the only punishment for every transgression being death.
When girls are grown and become women, they bathe in a stream. Men and women are kept separate, and they marry whom they will, the parents having no control in that particular. There was no formal vocational training. In good seasons the country produces grain, but if the harvest fails, they make soup out of serpents and eat boiled elephant flesh.
All over the country the head of the family of greatest local consideration is termed “King of the Ravine,” and the next in importance is called a “Notable.” A market is held in the city of Three Rivers, on the first day of every moon, and another on the fifteenth; goods are brought in and bartered.
In his own ravine, Meng Huo gathered his family and clan to the number of a thousand or more and addressed them: “I have been put to shame by the leaders of Shu many times, and I have sworn to take revenge for the insults. Has anyone any proposal to make?”
Thereupon a certain one replied, saying, “I can produce a man able to defeat Zhuge Liang.”
The assembly turned to the speaker, who was a brother of Meng Huo's wife. He was the head of eight tribes of the Southern Mangs, and was named Chief Dai Lai.
“Who is the man?” asked Meng Huo.
Chief Dai Lai replied, “He is Mu Lu, King of the Bana Ravine. He is a master of witchcraft who can call up the wind and invoke the rain. He rides upon an elephant and is attended by tigers, leopards, wolves, venomous snakes, and scorpions. Beside, he has under his hand thirty thousand superhuman soldiers. He is very bold. O King, write him a letter and send him presents, which I will deliver. If he will consent to lend his aid, what fear have we of Shu?”
Meng Huo was pleased with the scheme and ordered Dai Lai to draft a letter. Then he ordered Duo Si to defend Three Rivers and make the first line of defense.
