Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

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