'A Goat In The Hand Is Worth Two In The Kush'

Or

'The Tibetans Plateaued'

The following is another passage from the diary of Dyfyd Llewllyn, the legendary Victorian explorer, who left Wales in 1871 on an expedition to survey the Silk Road routes of Central Asia and subsequently never returned to his native Dinas Powys:

21^st March 1873

The more I travel, the more I come to thinking that people the world over are much of a sameness. Take language for instance. Or at least, the funny little sayings we have. You know, proverbs and have you. Well, I was talking with Gerupta today, and he told me a local proverb that is so similar to our own British one that it set me thinking, it did. So here it is:

A Goat In The Hand Is Worth Two In The Kush

We got to talking about this and it turns out, would you believe, that there is a story to this proverb that by coincidence is very much related to my own journey. Well, in a way. You see, a few days ago I wrote about a great battle of the Hepthalites which took place where we had camped. This proverb, it seems, is derived from the story of another great battle fought by the same army, and lo and behold if we are not encamped in the midst of that very battlefield on this night, I’ll have you know!

 Gerupta Sing, who as you will remember is my trusty guide, was gracious enough to recount the story as we ate our evening meal. This then, is his telling of it:

As I had been telling you before, this is the ancient lands of the White Huns as conquered by their great leader Ganasha the Incredibly Handsome with the aid of his heroic brother Fagash the Wonderful. But the gaining of these lands was not an easy task, oh no, no, no. It was fraught with much danger and hardship.

Now it came to pass that Ganasha and Fagash the Heroic, after defeating the sneaky Sassanians were again stuck between a bloody hard place and a bloody big rock - the big rock being the Tibetan army that was invading The Kush. The Tibetan leader was a devious and evil old tyrant by the name of Zwayniwat The Lame. He had a mighty appetite for goats and oh by the many arms of Shiva he was famous for mounting his horse from the rear!

A great horde of Tibetan horsemen, clad in armour from head to toe, came down from their mountainous kingdom bringing with them a contingent of Burmese warriors. The Huns, still celebrating their last victory had invited their Nepalese and Zhing Zhang Nomad Allies to stay and enjoy their rewards, and the goats were finally recovering from the zealous administrations of their previous custodians.

The honourable Huns deployed their forces around the village of Guhdairohl. On their left, on a high vantage point the Zhing Zhang light horse surveyed the battle field. On the right, the Nepalese foot and cavalry faced off the marshlands. And in the centre, noble Ganasha sat with his faithful horse archers and elephants, backed by a multitude of the faithful.  The Tibetans were strung out on the other side of the marshes with the Burmese in the centre cowering behind their makeshift defences. The Tibetan heavy horse began facing the Zhing Zhang and their nomad cavalry on the opposite flank.

The Tibetans were totally flabber-ghasted. It is said that there was never a flabber as ghasted as the one on this day. They began the battle with very little enthusiasm (1). Ganasha, on the other hand, wanted blood. He sent his Nepalese foot into the marsh to attack the undefended Burmese flank, while their cavalry advanced on the right flank. Meanwhile, the light horse on the opposite flank probed the enemy defences.

The Tibetans moved across the field switching their knights and cavalry and the Burmese brought more auxiliaries to contest the marsh. The fight in the marsh was bloody and the Nepalese made little progress.

The Tibetans had moved with magnificent swiftness to dominate the flank opposite the Nepalese cavalry facing them. And, oh but goodness gracious me, this was exactly what the brilliant Ganasha had wanted. He sent his light horse with haste to support the Nepalese. And then by the grace of Shiva, the trap was sprung! 

Our most heroic Fagash the Timely arrived once more upon the flank of the Tibetans and he did smite upon them with most furious vengeance! (2)

Seeing that he had been hoodwinked and was trapped Zwayniwat The Lame (3), charged into the Nepalese cavalry hoping to ride them down. But it was to no avail. His nobles were panicked and failed to put up any meaningful resistance. And thus it was that Zwayniwat The Conductive himself was hacked from his saddle with such force that it was as if he had been struck by a bolt of lightning (4).  

Upon seeing this, the army wavered, all the more so because the Zwayniwat had sent his own force to march on the opposite flank which had mysteriously disappeared. Within a few moments the cowardly Burmese, realising that the commander was lost and the rest of his army had failed to reinforce them, turned tail and fled. (5)

It is known that Fagash the Wise had predicted this (6) and it is from here that we get the proverb, for the Tibetans trying to outflank the Huns had been beguiled by the temptation of many goats that had been tethered along the way. Upon learning this Ganasha is reported to have been saying, “A general on the field of battle is worth two that don’t show up”, whereas his brother Fagash the Witty replied, “Ah my noble brother, don’t you mean ‘a goat in the hand is worth two in The Kush’?”

Again, I was able to sit with Gerupta Singhand piece together some illustrations to accompany his tale. And so we sat in this serene valley enjoying a goat kebab - and very delicious it was too! The silence and beauty of the night was only punctuated by the occasional outburst of ‘A goat in the hand is worth two in The Kush’ and the laughter that followed it. As I listened, I pondered on the strange fascination the people of this land have with their sturdy mountain livestock…

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Notes:

1.     Wayne rolled very low pips.

2  I almost messed this up as I had not kept track of game turns or when the required dice roll drops

from 6 to 5. Fortunately, I checked just in time.

3.  Wayne broke his toe this week. Although after the battle, it still deserves a mention. 

4. Wayne also electrocuted himself this week. Tibetans are not to be trusted with DIY it seems!

5. This was an unusual turn of events. Following the death of the CiC and the subsequent loss of his command in the 7^th bound, the Tibetan flank march needed to arrive or be counted towards the total losses of the army. The command failed to arrive in the 8^th bound and thus they did not count as truly lost and still would have still had the chance to arrive, but their ME count was added to the army losses and this drove it over the ½ army total required to break the army.

6.    Actually, I had no idea this was coming.

A few words from the player:

This was a bit of a cat and mouse game for me. I really wanted to draw Wayne to the fight on my right flank. However, I was really worried about making this too obvious, hence the reluctance to reinforce the Nepalese cavalry with the light horse from the central command until he had committed. I was worried by how quickly he got his knights formed up and was very fortunate that Fagash the Reliable came on when he did.

The fight in the marsh went really badly for me. I hoped to roll up that flank of the Burmese as the only had Ax (i) there. In the end, the fights didn’t go my way and Wayne did a good job of reinforcing the position. It was a bit of a gamble and ended up a pip drain. It may have had the beneficial outcome of preventing the Burmese from advancing to my centre, though.

If Wayne’s flank march had not been distracted by goats, I would have had a difficult time of it. In fact, his plan was to repel my own flank march with one that was slightly larger and faster (LH f). – a very good idea! Fortunately, I made a conscious decision to ignore that hill as it was the obvious place for me to fight from and it paid off.

The end result 25-0 (the Huns only lost about 7 Me in total).

There was a slight error in my army list and it turns out I was 10 points in excess. However, under the circumstances, it had almost no impact on the outcome. Kudos to Wayne for being so understanding. 

Next, we are going for an Indian!