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Way back several millenniums ago. Malacca was a strong empire, not just as a small state as it is now. Yet the fame and the fortunes of that country is not of any valuable resources that it produced; not gold mine neither nor exotic products of its own. Its economical strength was TRADING. Malacca was geographically strategic for an interport (import-export) centre for seafarers around the globe. It’s is the midway for Chinese traders and those from Middle East also India to meet and exchange goods. The main attraction that gathered those traders to the Malay Archipelago was spices; variety of that stuff that was very important in that age – used widely for cooking, medical and food preserving purposes. Malacca was like the Wall Street of today.
Yes, spice was the main factor that sparked colonization of the Europeans in the orient much later on.

Now let’s get on to the story.

It’s about the Malacca’s legendary Hang Tuah; but I’m sure that none of you ever know the story from the perspective of my version. Hang Tuah’s father was a true visionary. From a very tender age Hang Tuah was sent to learn various disciplines; in the wide religious fields, trading, astronomy, seafaring and so many more that it is no point for me to list them all. Hang Tuah is said to be able to converse in 12 languages. The guy was a genius. But what Hang Tuah is so famous for was his warriorship.

He learnt martial art from many famous teachers of the time, but the most famous of all was Sang Adi Putra. He also learnt from Adi Putra’s brother, a Javanese sage named Sang Rajuna Tapa, but he chose not to enter the extreme field to be a sage that would seclude him from society and worldly matter
Together with Hang Tuah were his four close friends: Hang Jebat, Hang Kasturi, Hang Lekir and Hang Lekiu. Shortly after they were graduated and got blessing from Adi Putra, they went down Gunung Ledang back to their hometown Malacca.

One fine day while had nothing much to do, they discussed on how to make use of the skills that they possessed. They came upon an idea of going for trading trip to Sumatera.
Practically it’s not so good idea to do so, because they were so young and going there by a small boat only; where else the Straits of Malacca was notoriously infested by pirates. If they were your children, certainly you wouldn’t give the ‘green light’ for that. But not for Hang Tuah’s parents; and so did the parents of others as well. They trusted their children’s manhood.
So off they went.
Upon reaching near a small island somewhere, they simply just waited there. Then a pirate ship showed up. What did those kid do?... They shouted at those pirates, boo! Booo! … shaking their butts. Of course the pirates were furious. The chasing began.
It was within their judgment that they would reach the island before the pirate get near them. As they beached on the island, within seconds they ran disappear into the wood. There were around 20 gruesome pirates. All of them were slaughtered dead.
It wasn’t a heroic fight on the beach as portrayed by many, but by tricks and traps in the bush. It is called GUERILLA WARFARE.

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The boys stripped those dead pirates and took away all valuable items. After that they sailed back to Malacca, and opened a souvenir shop there at the busy market…. Ha ha ha!
Those Magnificent Five were instant celebrities.

A week after that, on a normal busy day at the street of Malacca; suddenly there were 3 crazy people ran amok killing everybody stood in their way. Guess who? Non other than pirate clan seek revenge for the death of their comrades.
Coincidently at that moment, Bendahara Tun Perak (The Prime Minister) was on the way to the Sultan’s castle. But upon seeing the mightiness of the amok, some of the guards fled for their lives. Suddenly, out of no where sprang out five kids holding the berserks from getting near the Bendahara. With such display of bravery and skills, the Bendahara was fascinated by their show down.

That was how those five made their way to the respected positions in the palace.
Trust me, there’s no coincidence in any part of this story, unless the boys deliberately planned and strategically predicted from the very beginning of this story.

-TO BE CONTINUED-

THE LEGACY (PART 2)