The Last Frontier

“General! What have you done?! Why did you let the enemies know our weaknesses?!” Lieutenant Lee angrily debated the General during the morning briefing before they’re going to war. “We need a new approach and reexamine our strategy, Lieutenant Lee,” the General replied calmly. It was very unusual for General Wang to behave so soft and polite since he is known as an iron fist and very temperamental. “But, general, we’ve been great! We’ve been knocking down new territories, we’ve been admired, and we’ve been feared! Look what you have done to the troops! They are loosing confidence!” said Lieutenant Lee again. His face reddens. He couldn’t sit still.

There has been some awkward moment lately during the morning briefings. Especially these past few weeks, the General seemed to have lost his mind. He looked as if he is having a mid life crisis, or probably because it has been too long for him to live in the middle of war far away from home. There was one last kingdom to be conquered by General Wang to build his great kingdom, the Wang Kingdom. Last month the general visited the enemy’s head quarter and requested to speak to the emperor himself. Emperor Chin.

Instead sending a threat letter and a dead-bloody-cow-head, he was sending gifts, beautiful stones, silver and gold, asking permission to see Emperor Chin. Emperor Chin, a great warrior himself, accepted the invitation.

They talk for hours over tea in the courtyard surrounded by beautiful garden and soft music in the background. They seemed to have known each other very well. May be it was because they share the same problems or may be even the same dreams. “You know, you are the last kingdom for me to conquer before I could have a one-world-one-country, completing my dream,” says General Wang. “However, lately, I have questioned my purpose,” the General says softly. “To me, it seems there’s something else greater that I still need to fulfill but I don’t know what.”

“General Wang,” says Emperor Chin. “You are a great warrior. You have proven yourself to the limit. No one have doubt your ability to win a war. Even I, myself, would have surrendered to you to avoid mass casualties,” says Emperor again. “Emperor Chin, you are too kind. But you only know what you have heard. You don’t know the real me. I am weak. I can only give order to my troops to fight and fight. But inside, I am trembling,” says the general.

Surprised with the sincere statement by the general, Emperor Chin didn’t have any clue what to say. A great warrior feared by all was literally crying in front him begging for mercy. The conversation ended with silence.

Month after month, year after year, the Chin Kingdom was waiting in fear from the General Wang’s aggression, but the attack didn’t realize until today. It was a decision made by General Wang to keep the world divided by two countries instead of one country like he has been dreaming of. It’s been thousands of years after the conversation between the two great warriors. The story has become legend. Some still wonder what make the General to unrealized his dream when it was only one step away. Some believe that he had gone crazy. Some believe that he was just afraid of the Emperor Chin’s war skills. Some believe it was only the general's way to keep his dream alive.