Treasure of Khan Read online

  Treasure of Khan

  Dedication

  For Kerry, with my love.

  D.E.C.

  Prologue

  The

  Emperor's

  Tempest

  August 10, 1281 A.D.

  Hakata Bay, Japan

  ARIK TEMUR PEERED into the darkness and tilted his head toward the side rail as the sound of oars dipping through the water grew louder. When the noise closed to within a few feet, he slouched back into the shadows, pulling his head down low. This time the intruders would be welcomed aboard warmly, he thought with grim anticipation. The slapping of the oars ceased, but a wooden clunk told him the small boat had pulled alongside the larger vessel's stern. The midnight moon was a slim crescent, but crystal clear skies amplified the starlight, bathing the ship in a cottony luminance. Temur knelt quietly as he watched a dark figure climb over the stern rail, followed by another, then another, until nearly a dozen men stood on the deck. The intruders wore brightly colored silk garments under tunics of layered leather armor that rustled as they moved. But it was the glint of their razor-sharp katanas, single-edged dueling swords, that caught his eye as they assembled.

  With the trap set and the bait taken, the Mongol commander turned to a boy at his side and nodded. The boy immediately began ringing a heavy bronze bell he cradled in his arms, the metallic clang shattering the still night air. The invaders froze in their tracks, startled by the sudden alarm. Then a hidden mass of thirty armed soldiers sprang silently from the shadows. Armed with iron-tipped spears, they flung themselves at the invaders, thrusting their weapons with deadly fury. Half of the boarders were killed instantly, struck by multiple spear tips that skewered their body armor. The remaining invaders wielded their swords and tried to fight back but were quickly overpowered by the mass of defenders. Within seconds, all of the boarders lay dead or dying on the ship's deck. All, that is, except a lone, standing dervish.

  Clad in an embroidered red silk robe with baggy trousers tucked into bearskin boots, he was clearly no peasant soldier. With devastating speed and accuracy, he surprised the attacking defenders by turning and running right into them, deflecting spear thrusts with quick waves of his sword. In an instant, he closed on a group of three of the ship's defenders and quickly dropped them all to the deck with a flash of his sword, nearly cutting one man in two with a single swipe of the blade.

  Watching the whirlwind decimate his soldiers, Temur jumped to his feet and unsheathed his own sword, then leaped forward. The swordsman saw Temur charge at him and deftly parried a spear thrust aside before whirling around and plunging his bloodied sword in the path of the oncoming warrior. The Mongol commander had killed more than twenty men in his lifetime and calmly sidestepped the swinging blade. The sword tip whisked by his chest, missing the skin by millimeters. As his opponent's sword passed, Temur raised his own blade and thrust it tip first into the attacker's side. The invader stiffened as the blade tore through his rib cage and bisected his heart. He bowed weakly at the Mongol as his eyes rolled back, then he fell over dead.

  The defenders let out a cheer that echoed across the harbor, letting the rest of the assembled Mongol invasion fleet know that the guerrilla attack this night had failed.

  "You fought bravely," Temur complimented his soldiers, mostly Chinese, who gathered around him. "Throw the bodies of the Japanese into the sea and let us wash their blood from our decks. We may sleep well and proud tonight." Amid another cheer, Temur knelt next to the samurai and pried away the bloodstained sword clasped in the dead man's hands. In the dim light of the ship's lanterns, he carefully studied the Japanese weapon, admiring its fine craftsmanship and razor-sharp edge, before sliding it into his own waist scabbard with a nod of satisfaction.

  As the dead were unceremoniously dumped over the side, Temur was approached by the ship's captain, a stern Korean named Yon.

  "A fine battle," Yon said without empathy, "but how many more attacks on my ship must I endure?"

  "The land offensive will regain momentum once the South of the Yangtze Fleet arrives. The enemy will soon be crushed and these raiding attacks will cease. Perhaps our entrapment of the enemy tonight will prove to be a deterrent."

  Yon grunted in skepticism. "My ship and crew were to have been back in Pusan by now. The invasion is turning into a debacle."

  "While the arrival of the two fleets should have been better coordinated, there is no question as to the ultimate outcome. Conquest shall be ours," Temur replied testily.

  As the captain walked away shaking his head, Temur cursed under his breath. Reliant on a Korean ship and crew and an army of Chinese foot soldiers with which to do battle was like having his hands tied behind his back. Land a division of Mongol cavalry, he knew, and the island nation would be subdued in a week.

  Wishing would not make it so, and he begrudgingly considered the validity of the captain's words. The invasion had in fact started off on a shaky footing, and, if he was superstitious, he might even think there was a curse on them. When Kublai, emperor of China and khan of khan's of the Mongol Empire, had requested tribute from Japan and been rebuffed, it was only natural to send an invasion fleet to subdue their insolence. But the invasion fleet sent in 1274 was much too small. Before a secure beachhead could be established, a severe gale battered the Mongol fleet, decimating the warships as they stood out at sea.

  Now, seven years later, the same mistake would not be made. Kublai Khan called for a massive invasion force, combining elements of the Korean Eastern Fleet with the main battle group from China, the South of the Yangtze Fleet. Over one hundred fifty thousand Chinese and Mongol soldiers would converge on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu to overrun the ragtag warlords defending the country. But the invasion force had yet to be consolidated. The Eastern Fleet sailing from Korea had arrived first. Pining for glory, they tried landing forces north of Hakata Bay but quickly ground down. In the face of a spirited Japanese defense, they were forced to pull back and wait for the second fleet to arrive.

  With growing confidence, the Japanese warriors began taking the fight to the Mongol Fleet. Brazen raiding parties on small boats would sneak into the harbor at night and assault the Mongol ships at anchor. The gruesome discovery of decapitated bodies told the story of yet another attack by samurai warriors, who took the heads of their slain victims home as war trophies. After several guerrilla strikes, the invasion fleet began tying their ships together for protective safety. Temur's entrapment ploy of mooring his ship alone at the edge of the bay had worked as anticipated, enticing a Japanese boarding party to their death.

  Though the late-night attacks caused little strategic harm, they dampened the fading morale of the invading forces. The soldiers were still stationed aboard the cramped Korean ships nearly three months after departing Pusan. Provisions were low, the ships were rotting, and dysentery outbreaks were cropping up across the fleet. But Temur knew that the arrival of the South of the Yangtze ships would turn the tables. The experienced and disciplined force from China would easily defeat the lightly organized samurai warriors, once they were landed in mass. If only they would arrive.

  The next morning broke sunny and clear, with a stiff breeze blowing from the south. On the stern of his mugun support ship, Captain Yon surveyed the crowded confines of Hakata Bay. The fleet of Korean ships was an impressive sight in its own right. Nearly nine hundred vessels stretched across the bay in an assortment of shapes and sizes. Most were wide and sturdy junks, some as small as twenty feet, others like Yon's stretching nearly eighty feet long. Almost all had been constructed purposely for the invasion. But the Eastern Fleet, as it was known, would be dwarfed by the forces to come.

  At half past three in the afternoon, a call rang out from a lookout, and soon excited cries
and the sound of banging drums thundered across the harbor. Out to sea, the first dots of the southern invasion force appeared on the horizon crawling toward the Japanese coast. Hour by hour, the dots multiplied and grew larger until the entire sea seemed to be a mass of dark wooden ships with blood red sails. More than three thousand ships carrying one hundred thousand additional soldiers emerged from the Korea Strait, comprising an invasion fleet the likes of which would not be seen again until the invasion of Normandy almost seven hundred years later.

  The red silk sails of the war fleet flapped across the horizon like a crimson squall. All night and well into the following day, squadron after squadron of Chinese junks approached the coast, assembling in and around Hakata Bay as the military commanders calculated a landing strike. Signal flags rose high on the flagship, where Mongol and Chinese generals planned a renewed invasion.

  Behind the defenses of their stone seawall, the Japanese looked on in horror at the massive fleet. The overwhelming odds seemed to heighten the determination in some of the defenders. Others looked on in despair and desperately prayed for the gods to help through heavenly intervention. Even the most fearless samurai recognized that there was little likelihood they would survive the assault.

  But a thousand miles to the south, another force was at work, more powerful even than the invasion fleet of Kublai Khan. A percolating mix of wind and sea and rain was brewing together, welding into a wicked mass of energy. The storm had formed as most typhoons do, in the warm waters of the western Pacific near the Philippines. An isolated thunderstorm set off its birth, upsetting the surrounding high-pressure front by causing warm air to converge with cold. Funneling warm air off the ocean's surface, the churning winds gradually blew into a tempest. Moving unabated across the sea, the storm grew in intensity, exuding a devastating force of wind. Surface winds raged higher and higher, until exceeding one hundred sixty miles per hour. The "super typhoon," as they are now branded, crept almost straight north before curiously shifting directions to the northeast. Directly in its path were the southern islands of Japan and the Mongol Fleet.

  Standing off Kyushu, the assembled invasion force was focused only on conquest. Oblivious to the approaching tempest, the joint fleets assembled for a combined invasion.

  "We are ordered to join the deployments to the south," Captain Yon reported to Temur after signal flags were exchanged within his squadron. "Preliminary ground forces have landed and secured a harbor for unloading the troops. We are to follow portions of the Yangtze Fleet out of Hakata Bay and prepare to land our soldiers as reinforcements."

  "It will be a relief to have my soldiers on dry land again," Temur replied. Like all Mongols, Temur was a land warrior used to fighting on horseback. Attacking from the sea was a relatively novel concept for the Mongols, adopted only in recent years by the emperor as a necessary means of subjugating Korea and South China.

  "You shall have your chance to land and fight soon enough," Yon replied as he oversaw the retrieval of his ship's stone anchor.

  Following the main body of the fleet out of Hakata Bay and along the coastline to the south, Yon looked uncomfortably at the skies as they blackened on the horizon. A single cloud seemed to grow larger and larger until it shaded the entire sky. As darkness fell, the wind and seas began to seethe, while sprays of rain slapped hard against the ship's surface. Many of the Korean captains recognized the signs of an approaching squall and repositioned their ships farther offshore. The Chinese sailors, not as experienced in open-water conditions, foolishly held their positions close to the landing site.

  Unable to sleep in his rollicking bunk, Temur climbed above deck to find eight of his men clinging to the rail, seasick from the turbulence. The pitch-black night was broken by dozens of tiny lights that danced above the waves, small candlelit lanterns that marked other vessels of the fleet. Many of the ships were still tied together, and Temur watched as small clusters of candlelight rose and fell as one on the rolling swells.

  "I will be unable to land your troops ashore," Yon shouted to Temur over the howling winds. "The storm is still building. We must move out to sea in order to avoid being crushed on the rocks."

  Temur made no effort to protest and simply nodded his head. Though he wanted nothing more than to get his soldiers and himself off the pitching ship, he knew an attempt to do so would be foolhardy. Yon was right. As miserable as the prospect sounded, there was nothing to do but ride out the storm.

  Yon ordered the lugsail on the foremast raised and maneuvered the ship's bow to the west. Tossing roughly through the growing waves, the sturdy vessel slowly began fighting its way away from the coastline.

  Around Yon's vessel, confusion reigned with the rest of the fleet. Several of the Chinese ships attempted to put troops ashore in the maelstrom, though most remained at anchor a short distance away. A scattering of vessels, mostly from the Eastern Fleet, followed Yon's lead and began repositioning themselves offshore. Few seemed to believe that yet another typhoon could strike and damage the fleet as in 1274. But the doubters were soon to be proven wrong.

  The super typhoon gathered force and rolled closer, bringing with it a torrent of wind and rain. Soon after dawn the sky turned black and the storm reared up with its full might. Torrential rains blew horizontally, the water pellets bursting with enough force to shred the sails of the bobbing fleet. Waves crashed to shore in thunderous blows that could be heard miles away. With screeching winds that exceeded a Category 4 hurricane, the super typhoon finally crashed into Kyushu.

  On shore, the Japanese defenders were subject to a ten-foot wall of storm surge that pounded over the shoreline, inundating homes, villages, and defense works while drowning hundreds. Ravaging winds uprooted ancient trees and sent loose debris flying through the air like missiles. A continuous deluge of rain dumped a foot of water an hour on inland areas, flooding valleys and overflowing rivers in a deadly barrage. Flash floods and mud slides killed untold more, burying whole towns and villages in seconds.

  But the maelstrom on shore paled in comparison to the fury felt by the Mongol Fleet at sea. In addition to the explosive winds and piercing rains came mammoth waves, blown high by the storm's wrath. Rolling mountains of water belted the invasion fleet, capsizing many vessels while smashing others to bits. Ships anchored close to shore were swiftly blown into the rocky shoals, where they were battered into small pieces. Timbers buckled and beams splintered from the force of the waves, causing dozens of ships to simply disintegrate in the boiling seas. In Hakata Bay, groups of ships still lashed together were battered mercilessly. As one vessel foundered, it would pull the other ships to the bottom like a string of dominoes. Trapped inside the fast-sinking ships, the crew and soldiers died a quick death. Those escaping to the violent surface waters drowned a short time later, as few knew how to swim.

  Aboard the Korean mugun, Temur and his men clung desperately to the ship as it was tossed like a cork in a washing machine. Yon expertly guided the vessel through the teeth of the storm, fighting to keep his bow to the waves. Several times, the wooden ship heeled so far over that Temur thought she would capsize. Yet there was Yon standing tall at the rudder as the ship righted itself, a determined grin on his face as he did battle with the elements. It wasn't until a monster forty-foot wave suddenly appeared out of the gloom that the salty captain turned pale.

  The huge wall of water bore down on them with a thunderous roar. The cresting wave swept onto the ship like an avalanche, burying the vessel in a froth of sea and foam. For several seconds, the Korean ship disappeared completely under the raging sea. Men belowdecks felt their stomachs drop from the force of the plunge and oddly noted the howl of the wind vanish as everything went black. By all rights, the wooden ship should have broken to pieces by the wave's pounding. But the tough little vessel held together. As the giant wave rolled past, the ship rose like an apparition from the deep and regained her position on the frenzied sea.

  Temur was tossed across the deck during the submersion and barely clu
ng to a ladder rung as the ship flooded. He gasped for air as the vessel resurfaced and was distraught to see that the masts had been torn off the ship. Behind him, a sharp cry rang out in the water off the stern. Glancing about the deck, he realized with horror that Yon and five Korean seamen, along with a handful of his own men, had been swept off the ship. A chorus of panicked cries pierced the air momentarily before it was washed out by the howl of the wind. Temur caught sight of the captain and men struggling nearby in the water. He could only watch helplessly as a large wave carried them from his sight.

  Without masts and crew, the ship was now at the complete mercy of the storm. Pitching and wallowing feebly in the seas, pounded and flooded by the high waves, the ship had a thousand opportunities to founder. But the simple yet robust construction of the Korean ship kept her afloat while around her scores of Chinese ships vanished into the depths.

  After several intense, buffeting hours, the winds slowly died down and the pelting rains ceased. For a brief moment, the sun broke clear, and Temur thought the storm had ended. But it was just the eye of the typhoon passing over, offering a brief reprieve before the assault would continue again. Belowdecks, Temur found two Korean sailors still aboard and forced them to help man the ship. As the winds picked up and the rains returned, Temur and the sailors took turns tying themselves to the rudder and battling the deadly waves.

  Lost as to position or even the direction they sailed, the men bravely focused on keeping the ship afloat. Unaware that they were now absorbing the counterclockwise winds that swirled from the north, they were pushed rapidly through open water to the south. The brunt of the typhoon's energy had been expended as it struck Kyushu, so the battering was less intense than before. But gusts over ninety miles per hour still buffeted the vessel, blasting it roughly through the seas. Blinded by the pelting rain, Temur had little clue to their path. Several times the ship nearly approached landfall, inching by islands, rocks, and shoals that went unseen in the gloom of the storm. Miraculously, the ship blew clear, the men aboard never realizing how close they came to death.