Like so many major events in their infancy, the six-month-long pig hunt began in an atmosphere of fun. It all started on the first afternoon of the National Day holiday, a sunshiny early winter day when the shoal was bathed in the fragrance of wild chrysanthemums mixed with the aroma of pine tar and the pleasant medicinal odor of mug-wort. Naturally, there were less pleasant smells as well. The prolonged period of peace had taken the edge off our tension.
So on one lovely day, when a dozen or more boats sailed up the river, red flags at the mast and a steel drum on the lead boat loudly announcing their arrival, none of us believed that a pig slaughter was about to commence. We thought it was just members of a delegation of Communist Youth Leaguers on an autumn outing.
Diao Xiaosan and I stood on a rise watching the boats draw up our shoal and seeing the passengers come ashore. In a soft voice I reported to Old Diao what I was seeing. He cocked his head and pricked up his ears to hear exactly what was going on. There must be a hundred of them, I said. Tourists, it appears. A series of whistles has them forming up on the shore, I said, as if someone has called a meeting. The whistles and bits of conversation came to us on the wind. Someone is having them line up, he said to me, repeating what he heard. Close together, like a net, and don’t fire your guns. We’ll drive them into the water. What? They’re got guns? I said, shocked by the news. They’re coming for us, Old Diao said. Give the signal. Muster the troops. Diao Xiaosan took three deep breaths, raised his head, and, with his mouth half open, released a shrill sound from deep in his throat, like an air-raid alarm. Tree branches shook, wild grass waved, as wild boars – big, little, young, and old – appeared beside us on the rise from all directions. Foxes were startled, so were badgers and wild hares; some fled in fright, some hid in burrows, and some just ran in circles.
Our pine-tar, yellow-sand armor made us look as if we were all dressed in brown uniforms. Heads raised, mouths open, fangs bared, and eyes blazing, those two hundred pigs were my army – most of them my relatives. They were biding their time, they were excited, they were jittery, and they were ready to go, grinding their teeth and stomping their feet.
“My children,” I said to them, “the war has come to us. They’re armed with guns, so our strategy will be to exploit our advantage by being evasive. Do not let them drive you to the east. Circle around behind them if you can.”
One of the more excitable young males jumped up and shouted:
“I oppose that strategy! We need to close up ranks and attack them straight on. Drive them into the river!”
This particular boar, whose real name was unknown, was called Split Ear. Weighing in at about 350 jin, he had a large head that was covered in pine tar armor and an ear that was nearly chewed off in his heroic confrontation with a fox. My most powerful warrior, he was one of the few animals who was not related to me. This leader of shoal forces was too young to have fought me way back then, but now he was all grown up, and though I’d made it clear that King of the Pigs was not a role I had sought, I was reluctant to pass it on to this particularly cruel specimen.
“Do what the king tells you to do!” Diao Xiaosan said to underscore my authority.
“So if the king says surrender, that’s what we do?” Split Ear grumbled.
His grumblings were echoed by several of his boar brethren, a development that was particularly troubling; I could see that this force would not be easy to lead, and I needed to overpower Split Ear or it could split into two factions. But with the enemy massing in front of us, there was no time to deal with internal squabbles.
“Carry out my orders!” I commanded. “Break ranks!”
As ordered, most of the boars immediately took positions amid the trees and in clumps of grass. But forty or more, Split Ear’s loyalists, went out to meet the humans under his leadership.
The human force formed a straight line from east to west and began their advance. Some wore straw hats, others had on canvas caps; others wore sunglasses, others had on reading glasses; some were in jackets, others were wearing suits; some had on leather shoes, others were in sneakers; some were beating gongs, others had firecrackers stuffed in their pockets; some were beating down the tall grass with clubs, others were armed with rifles and shouted as they moved forward. Not all were young and full of vigor; some were gray-haired, sharp-eyed, stoop-shouldered old-timers. A dozen or so young women filled out the mostly male ranks, a sort of rear eschelon.
Pow – pow! Double-kick firecrackers created clouds of yellow smoke when they exploded. Bong! A cracked gong rang out.
“Come out, come out now, or we’ll open fire!” someone carrying a club cried out.
This ragged force looked nothing like a team of hunters; instead they were reenacting the 1958 campaign against sparrows, wanting to shock us into submission. I saw there were workers from the Cotton Processing Plant Number Five among the advancing force. Know how? Because I spotted you, Lan Jiefang. By that time you were a full-time employee of the plant, in charge of quality control. Your wife, Huang Hezuo, was also kept on full-time as kitchen help. With your sleeves rolled up, I could see you were wearing a shiny wristwatch. Your wife was there that day too, probably planning on transporting some pork back to the plant to upgrade the workers’ standard of living. Besides you, there were people from the commune, from the coop, and from every village in Northeast Gaomi Township. The man in charge wore a whistle around his neck. Who was he? Ximen Jinlong. A case could be made for saying he was my son, which meant that this looming battle would be pitting father against son.
Birds nesting in the willows were frightened off by the shouts from the invaders; foxes driven out of their dens scampered into the tall grass. The cocky invaders advanced a thousand yards, closing the distance. Someone cried “Pig King!” The scattered troops closed up ranks, until no more than fifty yards separated them from the suicide squad, lined up like an old-time battle formation. Split Ear crouched at the head of his two dozen savage warriors. Ximen Jinlong stood before his human troops, a shotgun in one hand, a gray-green field glass that hung from his neck beside the whistle in the other. I knew that Split Ear’s hideous face, captured in the lens of his field glass, threw a shock into him. “Beat the gong!” I heard him shout. “Call to battle!” He planned to use the swallow tactic to frighten his enemy and send them fleeing, so he could drive them into the river.
The gong sounded, shouts rose into the air, but it was all bluster. No one dared attack. No humans, that is. With a battle cry, Split Ear led the charge against the humans. Jinlong was the only man who fired his weapon; the buckshot hit one of the willow trees, destroying a bird nest and wounding a pitiful bird inside. Not a single pellet struck a boar. All the others human invaders turned tail and ran. Huang Hezuo’s screams were shriller than all the others as she tripped and fell; Split Ear took a bite out of her rear end, turning her into a half-assed cripple for the rest of her life. The boars were on the offensive, and though they did not escape being struck by an assortment of weapons, nothing could penetrate their armor-protected hides. You showed your mettle by taking Hezuo out of harm’s way, earning you a reputation for bravery and a measure of my esteem.
The maverick Split Ear and his troops had to be considered the victors of this battle, to which the scattered shoes, hats, and abandoned weapons on the field of battle bore clear witness. They became the spoils of war, and that made him more arrogant than ever.
“Now what, Old Diao,” I asked him one moonlit night after sneaking into his cave following the battle. “Should I abdicate and let Split Ear be the new king?”