THE TEN THOUSAND THINGS
Adventures and Misadventures on China's Silk RoadBy Brooks TenneyTrafford Publishing
Copyright © 2009 Brooks Tenney
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4269-1679-3Contents
Note to Readers; and Acknowledgements...........................vPrologue........................................................xiChapter 1 The Professor's Study................................3Chapter 2 Silk Road-The Eastern Terminus........................9Chapter 3 General Zheng's Vision................................13Chapter 4 PLAAF Headquarters-Beijing............................21Chapter 5 The Professor's Assistant.............................25Chapter 6 Planning a Train Ride?................................31Chapter 7 Chinese Hot Dogs......................................37Chapter 8 West From Dunhuang....................................43Chapter 9 A SECRET Report.......................................49Chapter 10 Curious Thoughts in Kuqa.............................55Chapter 11 Interview............................................61Chapter 12 Langley Air Force Base, Virginia.....................69Chapter 13 Jawboning............................................77Chapter 14 An Offer That's Hard to Refuse.......................81Chapter 15 China's UAV Advocates................................87Chapter 16 Yorktown, Virginia...................................91Chapter 17 Hatching the Dragon's Egg............................97Chapter 18 Setting Expectations.................................101Chapter 19 The Challenge........................................111Chapter 20 Clearing the Air.....................................117Chapter 21 Pentagon Weekend.....................................123Chapter 22 Armtwisting..........................................129Chapter 23 Planning the Loop....................................137Chapter 24 Weekend in Beijing...................................141Chapter 25 Problems With Translation............................147Chapter 26 Surprise!............................................153Chapter 27 Loose Ends-Chinese Travel............................159Chapter 28 Plot Changes.........................................163Chapter 29 Curious Coincidences in Xi'an........................167Chapter 30 Dog Meat.............................................175Chapter 31 Insight at Jiayuguan's Fort..........................179Chapter 32 Dunhuang to Urumqi...................................191Chapter 33 An Unforeseen Complication...........................195Chapter 34 Girl Talk............................................201Chapter 35 Kashgar..............................................209Chapter 36 A Night in the Desert................................213Chapter 37 Along the Desert's Edge..............................221Chapter 38 Khotan...............................................225Chapter 39 Hung Up in Khotan....................................229Chapter 40 A Visit with the PLAAF...............................237Chapter 41 Early Warning........................................243Chapter 42 Terrorists? Or hostage-takers?.......................249Chapter 43 Cleaning Up The Mess.................................257Chapter 44 Grasshopper Tales....................................263Chapter 45 Out of the Blue......................................271Chapter 46 Big, Big Surprise!...................................275Chapter 47 Back Home in the USA.................................281Chapter 48 Parting Shots........................................285Epilogue........................................................289Preview of Coming Attractions...................................293
Chapter One
The Professor's Study
Fully awake, newly-appointed full professor Walt Roberts of James Buchanan University sat up on the edge of the bed and reached for his prosthetic leg. On the other side of the bed, Tara, his former grad student, made a little movement that he interpreted to mean Fix your own breakfast.
His clothing was on the floor beside the bed, within arm's reach and he pulled on his dockers; then pulled up one pants leg to wrap the elastic bandage covering his stump.
Saturday. He would grab some OJ and an English muffin and then try to get in three or four miles before Tara got up and started moving. They had been up late last night, working on their travel schedule and she had seemed tired by the time they got to bed. This trip was likely to be more difficult than any of the ones they made so far, and he was trying to plan for a lot of contingencies. Not that it was likely that the trip could be scripted. But a solid plan gave him a point of departure, and also a point to which they might return when the inevitable contingencies arose.
It was ironic that his professional life seemed to be going smoothly even as the details of his personal life were unraveling. No! That wasn't right. In the ways that were most important, he was living a wonderful dream and most of it was probably due to Tara's involvement in his life.
Until his divorce was final, however, he was uncomfortable; and after discussion with Tara, he had decided to put the house he had bought with Flo on the market and move into the girl's apartment on a temporary basis. Then, after the split was final, the two of them would wipe the blackboard clean and make some decisions about the rest of their lives.
The full professorship had come earlier than he had expected. It had, he knew, come about in large measure because of some interactions between the university president and some person or persons unknown from the agency that had used him for covert activities in the Central Asian States. JBU's president had served four terms in Congress before resigning to head up the university that was the pride of his district.
James Buchanan University, where Walt was responsible for Central Asian Studies, provided much of the glue that held Mercersburg together. Walking up the main street at a steady pace, Walt paused to take in the storefronts that dated from an earlier century. Some of the cast iron columns had been manufactured locally back in the days when coal and iron in the ground spawned uncounted foundries that slowly yielded to efficiencies of scale in manufacturing.
Ninety minutes after he left his front door, Walt was back, sweaty and sticky, and ready for something a bit more substantial than OJ. Tara was up, and moving around in the kitchen, making something that appeared to be waffles.
"You're up."
"Thanks for letting me sleep. I don't know why I was so tired."
"Because we were up until after two. My god, Tara. You don't have on any pants."
She was wearing a shorty gown, and she had just bent to put something in the cabinet.
"Oh! Yeah! You noticed. I was hoping."
"My god, Tara. You are an anim ..."
"I missed it last night. Besides, it's Saturday and you don't have any classes. And the real estate lady isn't coming until two this afternoon. We've got all morning."
"How many of those things are you gonna make? I probably can't eat more than two."
"You think you can just change the subject that easy? Who do you think you're dealing with?"
"OK. Waffles. Then a quick shower. Then it's Tara time."
"No shower, sweat boy. Hold out your plate."
It was nearly noon when Walt and Tara, fully clad, sat down at the big work table that dominated his study. The table was piled high with books, maps and papers relating to their planned trip to China and Central Asia. In his job as a professor of Central Asian studies, Walt had made himself into an authority on the Silk Road. One of his signature accomplishments at JBU was the establishment of at least one annual visit to important stations on this historic route. To date, most of his trips had been to the western portion of the Silk Road; usually focusing on the cities and oases between Tashkent in Uzbekistan and Istanbul or Antalya in Turkey. The trips had proven to be extremely popular with students and with JBU's power structure. Now, he was eager to extend the trip so that it included the eastern portion of this complex web of trading arteries.
Before he could take students, however, he would have to make pilot runs-maybe two or more-to work out most of the kinks. He would need to line up-or confirm-local drivers, guides and contacts at hotels and suitable stopping places for a group of unpredictable young students. He was hoping to make contacts at several of the Chinese universities along his planned route.
Tara had once accompanied him on more than one of these trips. The most noteworthy of these excursions had been the one in which he was employed by a government agency to herd a group of selected analysts posing as faculty and alumni on a junket. Their purpose had been to investigate the flow of illicit drugs along the ancient trade route; and it had resulted in information leading to the takedown of a major international drug-running cartel.
Despite the fact that most of the work had been done by others, Walt had been the nominal leader of the bogus "tour" and he had reaped considerable benefit, both monetarily and in prestige at the university. Nevertheless, despite his good fortune regarding this unique trip, Walt felt that much of the recognition he had received was undeserved.
His study of Central Asia had provided him with a reputation, a comfortable income and lifestyle, and interests to last a lifetime. But it had wrecked his marriage to Flo, and now it was a factor in his decision to sell this comfortable house, the first he had ever tried to own. On the other hand there was Tara. That tilted the whole equation.
"Sit down for a minute, Tara. You know, I've been thinking about you."
"Me too. Thinking about you. That was very thorough."
"No, little girl. Not that way. I've been thinking about you. As a person. About you and me."
"Sure, why not? Me, too. All the time."
"No, my heart. You're still not listening. I may not know who you are. You don't seem like a real human girl to me. Like a real woman. You are more like a male fantasy. A dream girl." She laughed.
"I can live with that, you moron. Lean over and kiss me. Then we can go to work."
"Tara, do you remember that first night in Turkmenistan? When you told me that you had put a spell on me? I think, sometimes, you actually did it."
"That was the plan." Big smile.
"I see you're not gonna be serious."
"This is what you call serious? And you, the professor? Maybe your credentials should be revoked. You sound like one of your sophomores."
"Tara, Tara ..."
"C'mon, professor. You didn't get a long enough nap. C'mon. Let's work until the real estate lady comes. Then we'll go get a burger or something and you can come back and catch up on your sleep."
She placed a folder in front of him. "C'mon. Let's do Xinjiang."
The real estate lady was late. For the next two hours the couple immersed themselves in travel books.
"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things."
Tao Te Ching Lao Tsu (translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English)
Chapter Two
Silk Road-The Eastern Terminus
Walt's vision for his program for the eastern portion of the Silk Road extended from Xi'an in central China to Almaty in Kazakhstan. In his preliminary plans for the initial trip he envisioned a flight into Beijing followed by a train ride to Xi'an. From Xi'an to the western reaches of China it should be easy to make train connections, but he pictured the trip in hired vehicles, or possibly a single bus. This would provide his group with flexibility to make excursions in any desired direction, subject to local conditions and limitations.
In his preliminary planning he had put together an itinerary that would begin the Silk Road portion of his program at Xi'an. From there, traveling westward, he envisioned stops in Lanzhou, Xining, Jiayuguan, Dunhuang, Turpan and Urumqi. After Urumqi, his group would cross China's border with Kazakhstan. From there it was only a few hundred miles to the capital at Almaty, a city where he had contacts and knew his way around. The problems to be solved had to do with travel in the western half of China, a locale where he had no experience and where his language skills would be of no use.
There were a lot of kinks to be ironed out and, in the beginning stages, he didn't even feel confident that he could ask all the right questions. The only solution would be to plunge in directly and see what difficulties would be encountered. As soon as he had gotten this far in his thinking, he laid out his views to Tara.
"Why am I not surprised?" she said. "This sounds like the way you tackle a lot of things."
"You wouldn't mind taking the plunge with me?"
"Are you kidding? Don't hurt my feelings. I can be packed before you."
"There are still a lot of loose ends. I'd like to start the teaching part of the trip at Xi'an. I'm looking at this as four-credit hours, and it ought to be popular with the kids whose folks can afford it. Xi'an was once the capital of the early empire. But it's easier and cheaper to fly into Beijing, and the train connections to Xi'an are good. It would give students a chance to get accustomed to the size and complexity of China. What do you think?"
"It would probably be worth an extra day or two to stay in Beijing. For a lot of these kids it could be their only visit to China and an exposure to Beijing's attractions would be worth the time."
"Yeah. You got there faster than I did. I was focused too much on the Silk Road and not enough on the mysterious east. So what would you prefer? Should we look for an agency that specializes in trips to Xi'an, or should we just plunge in. Make all the arrangements ourselves?"
"I'm with you, professor. Anyway you want to slice it, I'm in. You'll be the first to notice if I ever get unhappy." He thought about Florence, still, to his chagrin, his wife. By this point she would already be complaining about imagined deficiencies in Chinese toilet paper.
The flight to Beijing was uneventful. The pair departed from Chicago's O'Hare in a rainstorm but the weather was clear from Alaska. Unfortunately they had to endure a crying baby a few seats away. The infant cried for a full thirty minutes before it exhausted itself and a harassed mother was able to get it to sleep.
In Beijing they visited the standard tourist destinations; Tiananmen Square. The Forbidden City. Walt wanted to see the Chinese Military History Museum. They visited the Summer Palace and took a cruise on Kunming Lake.
On the evening of their second full day in Beijing, they boarded the westbound steam-powered train for Xi' an. Their sleeping compartment accommodated four people and their interpreter was in another compartment. The two occupants were young Chinese women in their late 20's or early thirties, two friends, apparently on an outing, also bound for Xi'an. That was about all the information they could exchange. After an hour or so communication was just too much trouble and, after their interpreter turned in, everyone prepared for sleep. Walt took the bottom bunk, but he was reluctant to unfasten his leg. Tara climbed into the top bunk, then dangled her bare legs down on either side of his head as he sat at the edge of the hard bunk.
After the two young women appeared to be settled down, she pulled her legs up and hung her head down. "Can I umcay ownday?" she whispered. He recognized her quick morph into her now-familiar little bad girl persona.
"My god, Tara."
"I'll be good."
"Oh, yeah. I know how that works. We've been to that movie."
"Honest. Cross my heart."
"You are such a liar."
"Pleeeeeeze!"
"Good grief. OK! Come on! But try not to make a lot of noise."
The girl slipped over the side and quickly nestled in beside him. He raised the sheet and she snuggled up tight. He put his arm around her.
"I don't want you to compromise your principles," she said in the little pouty voice she occasionally used to drive him crazy. He couldn't help what was happening to him, but the leg was uncomfortable when he was lying on his side and he wished he had taken it off.
She turned her face to meet his and when he moved to put his mouth on hers, she bit him, very gently, on his top lip.
"You know we could, if you really wanted to," she whispered playfully. "Don't you want to do me on a moving train? In China? It would be a first for us. "
"But not good enough for the Guinness Book of Records," he answered.
"Just a little bit. Don't you want to? I wouldn't make any noise. I can be real quiet ... if you want me to."
Oh god, yes, you little witch. Right in the middle of this floor. Til you squeal. He was reasonably certain that the two Chinese women were not asleep; that they could hear their whispered conversation. Possibly-he couldn't rule it out-even guess at what they might be saying.
"You didn't get enough exercise today, did you? We should have walked more."
"That's what does it. All that walking. Come on, professor. You want to. I can tell."
"What am I going to do with you, Silkybritches?"
"And what's with this Silkybritches stuff? This is the second time you've called me that today. That's not a very dignified name for a professor to call his partner. What ever happened to 'kitten?'"
"Yeah, well, JBU ain't exactly Princeton, and I ain't exactly Woodrow Wilson. Although right about now I can empathize with some of his problems in Geneva. OK. You win. Slip 'em down."
This time when she turned her head she did not bite his lip but she held her lips against his until that first key task was completed with minimal squirming.
After that, it was more or less conventional stuff that many aficionados of train travel will understand.
Tara is a very determined young woman, clever and resourceful. Walt marveled at the good fortune that had allowed their paths to cross. As he was drifting off into dreamland it came to him that many of the members of the camel caravans that crossed the desert were probably women masquerading as men, in order accompany their chosen companions.
Xi'an looked almost exactly like the photographs they had studied.
"This year, Predator flight hours are expected to exceed 70,000 hours, more than triple the total in 2003. Combat pilots say they miss the feel of flying but say remote-control aircraft are here to stay. 'This is the future,' said Chad Miner, chief of weapons and tactics at Creech (Air Force Base, Nevada) a Predator trainer and an F-16 pilot."
Faster, deadlier pilotless plane bound for Afghanistan Tom Vanden Brook USA Today, August 28, 2007
Chapter Three
General Zheng's Vision
Zheng Ju-baio had summoned a meeting of several experts on unmanned aerial vehicles for a thorough briefing; to be followed by discussions and a question-and-answer session. The old general was interested in understanding the full range of potential missions and applications for aircraft that did not require a pilot in the cockpit. The idea had intrigued him for a long time, and he had been paying attention to developments around the world, notably in the US, Israel, Italy, France and England.
The old general was one of the few senior officers within the PLAAF's General Logistics Department who had spent time in the U.S. While there, he had been given a tour of one of the western air bases where the USAF had developed the Predator drone. He was not briefed on the Predator itself, but he knew that the base where he was given a tour was the site where the pilotless plane had been put through its paces. He was reluctant to come right out and ask his hosts about work on this plane, or on its next generation replacement.
The general, who had flown fighter jets against U.S. airmen in Vietnam, considered himself something of an expert on aerial warfare. And, in fact, he had been a good fighter pilot. But the thing that made him valuable was not his intelligence, which wasn't bad. It was his attitude toward information. He was a natural born learner, an avid reader, and he made it a point to try to think about things systematically. Despite his age, he was a true visionary.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from THE TEN THOUSAND THINGSby Brooks Tenney Copyright © 2009 by Brooks Tenney. Excerpted by permission.
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