***
Just two months later, the somber news was announced of the death of the great emperor. Kublai Khan had finally succumbed to the ravages of age and alcoholism. An elaborate farewell ceremony to honor the emperor's life was held in Ta-tu, the city he had selected to be his primary capital. An altar would later be constructed in his honor south of the city, now known as Beijing, which still stands today. After the public services, a funeral caravan left the city toting the coffin of the Great Khan in an ornate carriage. Followed by a thousand horses and soldiers, the solemn procession marched slowly north into Mongolia and the homeland of Kublai. At a secret spot in the Khentii Mountains, the tomb of Kublai Khan was laid to rest with a cortege of animals, concubines, and valued riches from the across the empire. To ensure a peaceful afterlife, the burial region was trampled with horses to disguise the site. Construction laborers tasked with digging the tomb were executed outright and the procession commanders sworn to secrecy under penalty of death. In a few short years, the burial site of the Mongol leader was lost to history, and the memory of Kublai Khan cast to the winds that whip tirelessly down the slopes of the green-forested mountain range.
***
A thousand miles to the south, a large Chinese junk slipped out of its dock at Shanghai before dawn and silently drifted down the Yellow River toward the Pacific Ocean. One of just a handful of oceangoing trade ships in the emperor's fleet, the massive junk stood over two hundred feet long, carrying a dozen sails on four tall masts. With the Yuan Empire still in mourning, the vessel didn't fly its usual state banners, and, in fact, carried no identifying flags at all.
Few people on shore wondered much about the early departure of the large ship, which normally set sail with great fanfare. Only a handful of onlookers noted that the vessel was manned with half its normal crew. And fewer still noticed the odd sight at the ship's helm. An old dark-skinned man with flowing white hair stood next to the captain pointing to the clouds and rising sun. In a strange tongue, he directed the path of the majestic vessel as it departed civilization and entered the waters of the vast blue ocean for a distant and uncharted destination.
The muffled booms in the distance echoed with the pall of a tribal war drum. First a subtle pop would waft through the air, followed by an inevitable jarring thud a few seconds later. The lazy pause between each beat led to a false hope that the acoustic barrage had finally come to an end. Then another quiet pop would ring through the air, unnerving all within earshot as they waited for the impact to follow.
Leigh Hunt stood up from a freshly dug earthen trench and stretched his arms skyward before carefully setting a hand trowel atop a nearby mud-brick wall. The Oxford-educated field archaeologist for the British Museum was dressed for the part, clad in long khaki pants and matching dual-pocket shirt, both of which were coated in a fine layer of dust and sweat. Instead of the classic pith helmet, he wore a battered fedora to shield his head from the rays of the summer sun. Through tired hazel eyes, he peered east down a wide valley toward the source of the thundering noise. For the first time, small puffs of smoke could be seen on the horizon through the shimmering heat of the morning sun.
"Tsendyn, it would appear that the artillery is moving closer," he spoke nonchalantly in the direction of the trench.
A short man wearing a thin woolen shirt with a red sash tied around his waist climbed quietly out of the pit. Beyond him in the trench, a crew of Chinese laborers continued digging through the dry soil with heavy spades and hand trowels. Unlike the Chinese workers, the small but broad-shouldered man had slightly rounded eyes, which were imbedded in a face of dark leathery skin. They were features that the local Chinese knew at a glance belonged to a Mongolian.
"Peking is falling. Already the refugees are fleeing," he said, pointing toward a small dirt road a mile away. Rolling through the dust, a half dozen ox-drawn carts toted the life possessions of several Chinese families escaping to the west. "We must abandon the excavation, sir, before the Japanese are upon us."
Hunt instinctively felt for the .455 caliber Webley Fosbery automatic revolver holstered at his hip. Two nights before, he had shot at a small gang of marauding bandits that attempted to steal a crate of excavated artifacts. In the environment of China's collapsing infrastructure, bands of thieves seemed to roam everywhere, but most were unarmed and unsophisticated. Fighting his way past the Japanese Imperial Army would be an entirely different matter.
China was rapidly imploding under the juggernaut of the Japanese military might. Ever since the renegade Japanese Kwantung Army had seized Manchuria in 1931, Japan's military leaders had set their sights on colonizing China in the manner of Korea. Six years of thrusts and parries and staged incidents finally erupted in the summer of 1937 when the Japanese Imperial Army invaded northern China, in fear that the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek were growing too strong.
Though the Chinese forces vastly outnumbered the Japanese Army, they were no match for the superior equipment, training, and discipline that the Japanese forces brought to the field. Utilizing his resources as best he could, Chiang Kai-shek battled the Japanese by day, then retreated at night, in an attempt to slow the Japanese advance in a war of attrition.
Hunt listened to the crack of the approaching Japanese artillery that now signaled the loss of Peking and he knew that the Chinese were in trouble. The capital city of Nanking would be next, resulting in yet a further pullback to the west of Chiang Kai-shek's army. With an impending sense of his own defeat, he glanced at his wristwatch then spoke to Tsendyn.
"Have the coolies cease all excavations at noon. We'll secure the artifacts and complete final documentation of the site this afternoon, then join in the growing caravan heading west." Glancing at the road, he noted a ragtag band of Chinese Nationalist soldiers filtering into the evacuation route.
"You will be leaving on the aircraft to Nanking tomorrow?" Tsendyn asked.
"Assuming the plane shows up. But there's no sense in flying to Nanking under these hostile conditions. I intend to take the most important artifacts and fly north to Ulaanbaatar. You'll have to manage the remaining items, equipment, and supplies with the packtrain, I'm afraid. You should be able to catch up with me in Ulaanbaatar in a few weeks. I'll wait for you there before catching the Trans-Siberian railway west."
"A wise move. It is evident that the local resistance is failing."
"Inner Mongolia offers little strategic value to the Japanese. They are likely just chasing the remnants of the defensive forces out of Peking," he said, waving an arm toward the distant artillery barrage. "I suspect they will pull back shortly and enjoy a few days or even weeks pillaging Peking before renewing the offensive. Plenty of time for us to be on our way."
"It is unfortunate that we must leave now. We are nearly finished with the excavation of the Pavilion of Great Harmony," Tsendyn said, surveying a maze of excavated trenches that stretched around them like a World War I battlefield.
"It's a bloody shame," Hunt said, shaking his head in anger, "though we've proven that the site has already been well-ransacked."
Hunt kicked at some excavated fragments of marble and stone piled near his feet and watched as the dust settled over the remnants that had once constituted an imposing imperial structure. While most of his archaeological contemporaries in China were chasing prehistoric burial tombs loaded with bronze artifacts, Hunt's focus was on the more recent Yuan Dynasty. This was his third summer on the grounds of Shang-tu, excavating the remains of the royal summer palace built in 1260. Staring at a barren hillside dotted with mounds of fresh dirt, it was difficult to imagine the former grandeur of the palace and grounds that would have stood before him nearly eight hundred years earlier.