Horse and Liquor for 300 Soldiers, also called Uma Shuhei San-hyaku, is the second of four-side story one-shots written by Yasuhisa Hara before he began the official story and serialization for Kingdom. It was collected alongside "Kongo" in the first volume of the Kingdom Omnibus books.
It focuses on the history of Duke Boku Kou of Qin and his interactions with the Mountain Tribes and the State of Jin before the Horse and Liquor War cemented his alliance to the tribes with the Horse & Liquor Force's arrival.
Summary[]
The story begins with Duke Boku Kou and his army returning to Qin from a successful campaign against a hostile neighboring kingdom. While resting their horses after a long march, a group of Mountain tribesmen emerge from the forest from traveling. While both sides' interpreters cannot understand each other's language, they negotiate with hand sign language to share the forest clearing as a resting point.
While resting, some of the Qin soldiers notice an attractive woman among the tribesmen and one tries to hand-gesture to a tribesman to ask for her name. Unfortunately, his pointing and sign language gesture for talking was misinterpreted as a sign that the tribesmen can eat the Qin Army's horses (which were standing behind her and were thought to be physically ill by the tribesmen). The tribesmen immediately bow down in thanks to the soldiers before shouting to their fellows to butcher the horses for feasting.
Back at Boku Kou's tent, Mou Ten (Chinese: Meng Tian), Boku Kou's chief general, is enraged and demands that the tribesmen be slain for their insolence. Boku Kou is cheerfully nonchalant and asks his retainers to provide the tribesmen wine to drink as well. However, Boku Kou is immediately enraged when Mou Ten tells him that the Duke's own favorite horses, Qun and Lun, have been butchered as well. Enraged, he almost kills Mou Ten before being told that the tribal group's leader wishes to meet him. They are introduced to a robed person wearing a giant mask and are shocked to see that it is same woman from earlier once she removes her mask. While they and their interpreter are still not fully able to understand each other, the woman, as the tribal chief's daughter, expresses gratitude, and despite not being gifted with wealth, swore that they would repay Qin's kindness one day. Meanwhile, the interpreter misunderstood her speech and gestures to be an apology and an offer to repay the Duke by offering her body. The Duke forgives her and both sides have a festive night before the tribe disappears in the morning (though the Duke winds up highly intoxicated and unable to follow on the imagined tryst with the chief's daughter).
Two years later, Qin's neighboring kingdom of Jin suffers a famine and Boku Kou orders sends food aid to be sent to Jin despite Duke Hui still not repaying Qin with five cities for helping him reclaim his throne during the Li Ji Unrest. One year later however, the famine has moved west to Qin and Duke Hui takes advantage by sending Jin soldiers to invade Qin. Enraged, Boku Kou led Qin's soldiers to confront Jin at Hanyuan. At first, Qin fought Jin to a standstill, but starvation eventually weakened Qin to the point that Jin General, Han Jian, was able to surround Boku Kou's personal guard. Han Jian taunts Boku Kou by demanding five Qin cities in exchange for a quick death. Before Mou can slay Boku Kou at the latter's request as a mercy-killing, three hundred mountain tribesmen appear and immediately slaughter the Jin Army.
After slaying Han Jian, the chief's daughter unmasks and tells Boku Kou in his language that they have returned to repay the debt from three years ago. Shocked, Boku Kou and Mou can only watch as the tribal force destroy Duke Hui's headquarters and capture him alive. Having realized that their loss of horses three years ago was offset by the gain in allied warriors, the two sides happily feasted into the night (complete with a drunken Boku Kou dancing in only an open robe around the campfire).
Trivia[]
- This one-shot is the second work written by Yasuhisa Hara. It was officially published alongside another in the first volume of the Kingdom Omnibus, the other being called Kongo that served as a prototype to Kingdom. Both of them preceded another pair of one-shots released in the second volume of the Kingdom Omnibus: these being Li Mu and Hai Yin and Meng Wu and Chu Zi.
- It was first published as a standalone one-shot in January 2004 inside Volume 37 of the Young Jump Zōkan Mankaku magazine. It was later published within Volume 1 of the Kingdom Omnibus in June 2012.
- Hara mentioned that the tribal chief's daughter can be considered Yo Tan Wa's ancestor from 400 years before the main series occurred. Coincidentally, she bears a similar resemblance to her descendant and also wields two saber swords in battle.
- While the Boku Kou's chief general shared the name, Mou Ten (Meng Tian), with the Mou Ten in the main story, it is a coincidence as they are different characters separated 400 years chronologically.