By the time man began to move out into the stars, establishing outposts on the moon and colonies on the red planet fourth from the sun, there were two major powers on the Earth, the Middle Kingdom and the Mexica Dominion. The two powers, never allies, had been frequent enemies, the only peace obtained between them in recent history being the brief span in which one assayed the role of conqueror and the other as conquered. Despite interactions stretching back over nearly a dozen generations, the two nations still did not understand one another, in any profound sense, as the beliefs and desires that motivated them were so different, so contrary even at the most fundamental level, that it was as difficult as a fish attempting to understand the world of a bird, or a bird to grasp the life beneath the waves. However much they might be exposed to one another, fish and fowl cannot share common ground as the very domains they call home, air and water, are so distinct in essential character. So it was with the Mexica and the Middle Kingdom.

The first contact between the Dragon Throne and the Mexica came during the last days of the Bright Dynasty, when the Shunzhi Emperor sent a Treasure Fleet across the broad ocean.

The fleet came ashore on the north continent, on the rocks and shoals where the Islamic colony of Khalifa would later be founded. And on the southern continent, where the coastal deserts and sentry mountains hid the abundant forests of Fusang. And on the isthmus that connected the two, where lived the people who called themselves the Mexica.

From his capital city of Place of the Stone Cactus, the Great Speaker of the Mexica ruled an empire that rivaled that of the Bright Dynasty itself, extending thousands of leagues to the north and the south, and reaching to the east and west until it reached the waters of two oceans.

In the days of the Clear Dynasty, when the Manchu rode down from the north and established the Aisin Gioro clan as the new imperial line, the armies of the Dragon Throne pacified the southern continent of Fusang. Some time before, the Treasure Fleets had transported followers of Mohammed to the newly-christened land of Khalifa, establishing a khalifate in honor of the Muslim admiral of the first Treasure Fleet to circumnavigate the Earth’s oceans. And already in those early days contact was established with the Briton colonies on the northern continent’s eastern shores, who would one day form the Commonwealth of Vinland, and later still, bend their knees to the Dragon Throne.

Plans were drawn up to mount an invasion of the Mexic Empire, and to establish dominion over the entirety of the western hemisphere, but the intelligencers of the Eastern Depot had determined that the Mexica were fierce warriors, and that the Mexic isthmus would not be a prize easily won. In the end, plans to invade the Mexic Empire were shelved, and the decision was made instead to establish loose trading ties with the fierce nation.

It was not until the days of the Guangxu emperor, that the decision was made to normalize relations. A formal embassy was to be established, and diplomatic channels opened. To that point, there had been no formal representative from the Dragon Throne to the Great Speaker of the Mexica since the last days of the Bright Dynasty.

An envoy was dispatched, with full authority to speak for the Dragon Throne, and after a long sea voyage and a somewhat arduous overland passage, the Middle Kingdom envoy was received by the Great Speaker in the Place of the Stone Castle. In the reception ceremony that followed, the envoy was asked to indicate which of his subordinates was most beloved to him. It was explained to the envoy that the Great Speaker wished to bestow special favor on the indicated individual, a token of goodwill. The envoy graciously singled out his nephew, the son of his sister, an attaché with the embassy.

The following day, a celebration was planned in honor of the Middle Kingdom envoy, and the nephew was invited to arrive in advance of the others. When the envoy arrived at the feast, he was greeted by the high priest of the Mexica, the man called Snake Woman, who wore the flayed skin of the envoy’s nephew as a suit of clothes.

To the Mexica, to be sacrificed to the glory of the Flayed Lord, Xipe Totec, was a great honor, the rite signifying the fact that the arrival of spring means that the Earth must coat herself with a new skin of vegetation and thereby be reborn. The Middle Kingdom envoy did not see the honor in the butchery of his sister’s son.

The envoy ordered his guards to kill the priest on the spot, but his subordinates dissuaded him, pointing out the inadvisability of angering their hosts while still within the heart of their great empire, surrounded by fierce warriors on all sides. Instead, the envoy snatched his nephew’s flayed skin back from the priest, to return it home for burial, and along with the surviving members of his company, left the Place of the Stone Cactus immediately.

The Great Speaker, outraged, ordered all Middle Kingdom subjects expelled from any Mexic Empire lands or satellite nations, whether envoys or traders, scholars or ship captains. The first war with the Mexica had begun.

The First Mexic War, as it was later known, was to last some six years, from Earth-Pig, the twenty-fourth year of the Guangxu Emperor’s reign, to Wood-Snake, the thirtieth. It was fought on land, by the Eight Banners and Green Standard troops of the Middle Kingdom and by the Jaguar Knights of the Mexica, and in the skies, by the aces of the Imperial Navy of the Air and by the fierce flying warriors of the Eagle Knights.

In the end, the Middle Kingdom was victorious, but at considerable cost, the best of an entire generation lost in the trenches of Tejas, or the no man’s land that stretched between Khalifa in the north and Mexica in the south. Still, however costly, it remained a victory, and when the Middle Kingdom governor-general took authority over the Mexic isthmus, the last power to oppose the emperor’s will had fallen. For a generation, the banner of the Dragon Throne flew over the nation of the Mexica, and for that brief span the emperor of the Middle Kingdom ruled the entire world, either by direct authority or through subservient monarchs and potentates who governed in his name.

After twenty-five years, the Mexica drove the Middle Kingdom out of the Mexic isthmus in a bloody revolt, and founded the new Mexic Dominion. More than a century of cold war followed, as the two powers raced each other to develop the technology necessary to conquer the heavens, and then raced to be the first to reach orbit, the moon, and the planets beyond.

In the year Metal-Monkey, the fortieth year of the Taikong Emperor, the Mexic Dominion attacked Middle Kingdom colonists on Fire Star, a bloody reprisal for the deaths of Mexic scientists who had been found on the red planet’s surface by the first Middle Kingdom forces to arrive. Whatever the reasons, though, whatever the provocations, one thing was certain.

The Second Mexic War had begun.

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PREVIOUS CHAPTER: Hexagram 5
Waiting
Below Heaven Above Water
Clouds rise up to Heaven. In the same way, the noble man takes this opportunity to enjoy himself in drinking and eating.

NEXT CHAPTER: Hexagram 7
The Army
Below Water Above Earth
The Earth holds water within itself. In the same way, the noble man cherishes the common folk and so brings increase to the masses.

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Chapter 6 of Three Unbroken by Chris Roberson. Copyright © 2007 Monkeybrain, Inc. For more action from the Celestial Empire don't miss The Dragon's Nine Sons.

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