Not far from the city of Girin there is the ancient town of Uldagai. More than a thousand years ago, this entire region, called Shu-zhou, belonged to the kingdom of Bohai, which extended east to the sea; then Ulagai moved to the Khitan kingdom of Liao, and then to the Nu-ren kingdom of Jin.
When the Ming dynasty in China was already declining, and the great Taizu Gao Huang-di (Nurhatsi), the founder of the sacred Da-qing dynasty, was already building the building of the Manchu Empire and running postal routes, a postal station was set up right near the present Ulagai, called the “Border Tower Station” (Bian-tai-i-zhan).
At the beginning of the “sacred” dynasty, Ulagai was surrounded by an earthen wall, which is still visible today and is called gu-chen (“ancient city”).
A long time ago, in this city there lived a wonderful girl named Bai-hua (White Flower). She was the daughter of a Manchu gusai (in Chinese - tut-lin, colonel), and from an early age she was not at all like other girls in character. She was not interested in dolls, dresses and girlish games; she only played with the boys at being robbers and at war, and the boys themselves always chose her as their leader.
The girl grew up, got older, but didn’t want to hear about marriage. And when her father reproached her for being more like a soldier than a woman, she asked her father to make her a soldier rather than marry her.
The father thought: so that his daughter would not talk in vain - let her actually learn about the life of a soldier, all the need and severity of military service, and perhaps wean herself off everything that does not suit her gender.
“Okay,” he said to his daughter, “but you must be a simple soldier, bear the brunt of the service, go to war when necessary, and never let anyone know that you are a girl and my daughter!” Bai-hua happily agreed.
A few days later, a young warrior in a shishak, thick cotton quilted clothing with steel plaques sewn on it (which replaced armor among the Manchus), rode out of the back gate of the Gusai-dai house on a hot horse, with a curved sword at his belt, a sadak over his shoulders and a quiver full of arrows. It was Bai-hua, sent by her father to a distant garrison.
The war soon began. Troops flocked south from all over Manchuria, and with them the young soldier left his homeland for a long time.
Several years have passed. Bai-huau's father no longer wanted to see his daughter, when suddenly one day he was informed that the newly appointed gusai-da of the neighboring gum (banner, regiment) wanted to see him. The old man went out to receive the guest - and saw that it was his own daughter, who, thanks to her courage and military talents, quickly rose to the rank of gusai-da.
A little more time passed, and Bai-hua distinguished herself so much in wars that the emperor subordinated all the troops to her and bestowed the title “gusabe kadala-ra amban”, thus Bai-hua, who no longer hid her gender, became the boss of her father...
She settled in Ulagai. Nowhere was there such order in the troops and nowhere were they so well trained, because the soldiers had no time to idle. In the very middle of the earthen town, Bai-hua built a square tower out of clay. From the top of this tower she daily watched the soldiers training, and woe was the lazy or inept!
Since she undoubtedly received special protection from the god of war Guan-di (Lao-e), she built a large temple in honor of this god in the south of the city wall; and to this temple, called Lao-e Miao, she often went to pray and make sacrifices.
Bai-hua grew old and died a maiden. Many years passed, but the people continued to especially honor the temple she built, and on the day of the temple festival, people gathered here in crowds from all the surrounding places.
It happened that during the reign of the divine Wan-tsung Xiang-huang-di, a formidable uprising broke out in the south of China.
The uprising spread widely throughout the Celestial Empire, and rebels also appeared on the soil of Manchuria. Their gangs grew quickly, because they captured all the healthy men who did not have time to escape from them and forced them to serve in their troops. Crowds of them slowly and inevitably, like a tide, moved towards Girin.
The troops in Girin were then commanded by Jiang-jun, surnamed De, a good man, but a bad strategist. He gathered as many soldiers as he could and, without thoroughly finding out about the enemy’s forces, moved towards him.
Not far from Ulagai, the opponents met and the battle began. The soldiers fought bravely; but the superiority of the enemy forces turned out to be so great that after a whole day of battle, victory apparently began to lean towards the side of the rebels.
Countless Jiang-jun soldiers were killed... And when the rebels bypassed the government detachment from the sides and hit the flank, the soldiers could not stand it and ran. Jiang-jun himself also fled through Ulagai.
But the rebels had already engulfed the city from three sides, and Jiang-jun saw that there was no salvation for him: no one would have mercy on him! Then he rushed to the Lao-e temple, surrounded by a brick wall, and hid with several of his associates in the most distant building of the temple - in the sanctuary itself.
He fell on the cold floor in front of the giant statue of Guan Di, dispassionately sitting on a throne under a canopy, and began to fervently pray for salvation to the great god of war, the patron of the dynasty and the spirit of the courageous Bai-hua da-jiang, the builder of the temple...
For the first and last time in his life, De Jiang-jun prayed like this, but, apparently, in vain... The rebels were already on the trail and surrounded the temple with a dense ring. There was no salvation: if not by attack, the enemies would starve them out. Can there be a lot of food supplies in the temple?
Suddenly noise, screams and groans among the rebels attracted the attention of the besieged. Jiang-jun climbed the wall and saw that something incomprehensible and extraordinary was happening among the rebels: their horses were going crazy, crushing their own people, warriors rushed at each other, killing them, many tried to escape, but immediately fell...
Soon there was not a single enemy left in the enemy camp capable of resisting. Then Jiang-jun and his men came out of the temple fence and began to interrogate several wounded rebels who were trembling with fear, what happened to them?
They all agreed on the following. Just as the besiegers were about to attack the temple, they suddenly saw that the main gate of the temple fence had suddenly opened wide. From them, countless tall, scary warriors rode into the quarry on very large horses, all wearing armor and helmets, each with a large sword and spear in their hands. And in front - on a huge horse - a terrifying woman with flowing hair... These people, like a whirlwind, flew into the astonished rebels, and a terrible beating began, because the rebels could neither run away from the terrible enemies nor defend themselves. Only a few of them, who were on the sidelines, fled and scattered in all directions.
Thus, Bai-hua da-jiang protected those who turned to her for help, and punished the daring robbers who dared to disrupt order in her domain.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru