IRON BLOODED HEART (Book 1 of Legend Of The Condor Heroes)

Boundless Desert Part 5

Back when Temujin was still a boy, he was once captured by the Taijiuts, who placed him in a wooden neck collar. The many tribes of the Taijiuts gathered at the Onon River to celebrate by drinking and whipping him at the same time. After the gatherers were sufficiently drunk, Temujin knocked his guard unconscious with his collar and escaped into the nearby woods.

The Taijiuts conducted a massive search trying to find him. It was then that he met a young man named Tchila'un who, in spite of the enormous danger, took him into his house. It was Tchila'un who smashed the collar off of him and threw it in the fire; and it was also Tchila'un who hid him in a cart of fleece. When the Taijiut scouts came around and searched Tchila'un's house, they came upon the cart of fleece and began to take it off layer by layer.

Just as Temujin's feet were going to be revealed, Tchila'un's father suddenly interrupted: "Such a hot day, how could anyone hide in a pile of fleece? If he did he's probably roasted to death by now."

It was dead in the middle of summer and everyone was sweating profusely. The scouts thought what he said made sense and didn't look any further. Temujin's life was filled with dangerous moments and close calls, but this was the most dangerous and closest call of them all.

After he ran away, Temujin lived a squalid existence along with his mother and brother and they were forced to rely on captured prairie squirrels and marmots to survive. One day, the eight white horses that Temujin had were stolen by a small group of thieves from the Taijiut tribe. As Temujin rode after them all by himself, he ran into another young man who was milking his horse. When Temujin stopped to inquire about the thieves, he learned that the young man's name was Bogurchi.

"Our lives are full of the same hardships," Bogurchi said, "let's be friends."

The two of them rode off together. It was three days before they finally caught up to the thieving tribe. The two of them, by themselves, took on a couple hundred foes and took back those eight horses. Temujin offered to split the horses with him and asked him how many he wanted.

"I did this as a friend, so I won't take a single one." was Bogurchi's answer.

From that day forth, the two of them worked together and Temujin continued to insist on calling him his good friend. Theirs was a true friendship forged in times of trouble.

Bogurchi and Tchila'un, together with Muqali and Boroqul were the four foremost founding generals of the Mongolian Empire.