Chapter 106: The Last Chance

In the royal city of Khotan, Zhang Zhao spurred his horse desperately, racing through the streets.

It was only because of the yellow banner of the royal house planted at his back that the guards did not seize him on the spot.

When he reached the gate of Taihua Palace, Zhang Zhao hastily reined in his horse, for this was no place to barge into — that would earn him a crossbow bolt.

"I am Zhang Zhao, Gentleman Attendant of the Yellow Gate, with urgent military affairs to report to the Son of Heaven!"

After the palace guards at the gate checked Zhang Zhao's token and saw the anxiety written all over the face of this nephew of the Great Sage Son of Heaven, they hurriedly let him in.

In Tonghe Hall, Li Shengtian stood with his hands clasped behind his back, staring raptly at a map.

On the map, the city of Shule was drawn in every detail, great and small — clearly the Khotan royal house had put real effort into studying the city of Shule.

"What brings you rushing in such a fluster to see your uncle? You've thrown the eastern city into chaos and frightened the merchants and passersby half to death!" Li Shengtian waved a hand behind his back at Zhang Zhao, signaling that he need not perform the formal greeting.

"Uncle, Son of Heaven! Your nephew dares to beg you to send out the troops at once — we cannot delay any longer!"

Urging Li Shengtian to march immediately — this was the reason Zhang Zhao had ridden without pause from Weitou Prefecture back to see Li Shengtian. He had not even had time to settle the Basmyl people, having dumped everything on his cousin Yin Yaozi.

"March now?" Li Shengtian finally turned around, frowning as he looked at Zhang Zhao in puzzlement.

Zhang Zhao knew the state of war preparations! This time Khotan was committing the troops of the entire realm — how could they march out casually before everything was ready?

Zhang Zhao understood this reasoning, but none of it outweighed the news he had just gathered. Wu Yuan'er and Ma Yaozi had captured a chief secretary of the governor of Shule, and from this man's mouth Zhang Zhao had obtained a shocking piece of intelligence.

It was this: Satuq Bughra Khan's journey to Balasagun this time was not, as they had first imagined, merely a simple show of force.

The intelligence originally gathered from Khotan, and the conjectures of Li Shengtian and Zhang Zhao, had held that Satuq Bughra Khan of the Karakhanid state had led his army to Balasagun in order to have his title of Bughra Khan (deputy khan) elevated to Arslan Khan (senior khan).

For Arslan Khan was the symbol of supreme leadership in the Karakhanid state, and because Satuq had in fact established his capital at Shule, the old nobles of Balasagun — to preserve Balasagun's standing and their own interests — had always refused to elect Satuq as Arslan Khan.

So by the original estimate, Satuq's march to Balasagun this time was very likely meant to intimidate the old nobles of the city into submission.

But in reality, the matter was far from so simple. Satuq had led his army to Balasagun not merely to pressure the old nobles into submission and place the cap of Arslan Khan on his own head — rather, an enormous rebellion had broken out in Balasagun.

In this world, apart from the East Asian Confucian civilization centered on the Han people, in every other civilization religious conflict is absolutely the sharpest and cruelest of all.

Moreover, the Buddhism of this age was not like the later Buddhism that had absorbed large amounts of Confucian and other Han civilization thought — the Buddhism of this age was in fact extremely violent as well.

These monks, first, loved amassing wealth, and second, loved maintaining private armed forces. The fat, burly monks Zhang Zhao had recently seen in Li Shengtian's royal palace were precisely the private army of the Buddhist establishment — warrior monks!

The warrior monks of this time were not the later image of men in monk's robes wielding crescent-bladed spades. Most of them were no different from the armies of ordinary states — fully equipped with swords, spears, halberds, bows, crossbows, and shields, and with a high rate of armor, because they had money.

And because they had money and did not need to farm, the Buddhist monk-soldiers were in fact true professional standing troops. Otherwise, in history Wu Zetian would not have built the Great Cloud Temple in Shule — that empress wished to use the vast Buddhist establishment of Anxi to resist the Tibetans and unite the various peoples of Anxi.

This strategy was highly successful, so much so that in later times, even though the Tibetans themselves came to believe in Buddhism, when they attacked the Four Garrisons of Anxi, the Buddhist establishment of Anxi stood on the side of the Tang dynasty and put up fierce resistance.

It was the same in Balasagun. Satuq's forceful promotion of the spread of the Heavenly Faith had long since infuriated the Buddhist establishment.

Under this enormous threat, the Manichaeans and the Nestorians also united with the Buddhists, and together they joined forces with the old nobles of Balasagun and other places, preparing to elect a new Arslan Khan.

This was cutting off Satuq's very lifeline!

So this Islamized Karakhanid lord, the Camel Khan, could not endure it any longer. He brought thirty thousand troops not to intimidate — the two sides had formally gone to war.

That secretary said that Satuq Khan had only recently transferred another three thousand men and a large quantity of supplies from Shule. According to men returned from the front, the two sides at Balasagun had already been locked in bloody battle for four months; corpses were piled like mountains beneath the walls, both sides had turned savage, and the fighting was exceptionally fierce.

This was a once-in-a-thousand-years opportunity! Satuq's main force was bogged down at Balasagun, and in Shule there were only about seven thousand men left, most of them troops of ordinary fighting quality like the Askars. Heaven's timing, the terrain's advantage, and the people's support were all in their favor.

But if they kept to the current preparations and waited several more months, and Satuq Khan happened to take Balasagun, then there would be trouble.

Satuq Bughra Khan would not only gain large quantities of supplies, but also obtain the title of Arslan Khan.

With that title, Satuq could mobilize the people of the Land of the Seven Rivers — that is, the Karluks and Oghuz of the region around today's Ili River valley.

This place was the fertile heartland of Anxi, home to a full seventy to eighty thousand households of Karluks, Oghuz, Uyghurs, and other peoples. Satuq could easily draw forty to fifty thousand cavalry from there.

With that cavalry, added to Satuq's own tens of thousands of troops, how could Khotan — which could only field thirty thousand men in total, mostly infantry, and whose cavalry was mostly heavy armored cavalry — possibly attack Shule?

Wouldn't that be just like the army of my Great Song — able to win but unable to pursue, unable to win and unable to flee!

In fact, Zhang Zhao did not know that he had, unintentionally, chosen an extraordinarily good moment.

In history, the kingdom of Khotan and Li Shengtian simply did not know Satuq's true purpose in going north to Balasagun, and thus let this finest of opportunities slip away in vain.

By the time Li Shengtian came to his senses, Satuq had already taken Balasagun and settled accounts with the last Buddhists of any strength in the Karakhanid state.

And riding on that prestige, he successfully converted the seventy to eighty thousand households of the Land of the Seven Rivers to the Heavenly Faith.

Once this whole stack of buffs was applied, the Karakhanid state stood in an invincible position against Khotan.

In history, in the fighting between Khotan and the Karakhanid state, Khotan had always won more than it lost, and its victories were mostly great victories.

They twice captured Shule, and once killed the reigning Karakhanid great khan Ali Arslan, and later killed the so-called Four Imams, sending the holy warriors to their deaths like an avalanche.

Yet these brilliant victories were utterly powerless to turn the tide!

Because Khotan, even combined with the Tibetan tribes on the Kunlun Mountains, had a population of six hundred to seven hundred thousand at its peak.

Even with the support of the Gaochang Uyghurs, the Ganzhou Uyghurs, and the Guiyi Army, they could still only muster an army of no more than fifty or sixty thousand.

But the Karakhanid state, having thoroughly purged the Buddhists of Balasagun and possessing the Land of the Seven Rivers and Fergana, had a population approaching two million at its height.

It could moreover continuously recruit holy warriors from Persia, the Arab lands, and even the Fatimid dynasty on the African continent. Under the rallying banner of religion, the Karakhanids had an almost inexhaustible supply of reinforcements.

Therefore, if Khotan was to hold out against the Karakhanid state, Satuq could not be allowed to settle matters with the Buddhists and old nobles of Balasagun.

For as long as Balasagun remained as a thorn — this city stuck on the vital route between Anxi and Persia — Satuq could not easily obtain holy warriors from the west.

As long as Balasagun did not fall, the seventy to eighty thousand households — more than four hundred thousand people — of the Land of the Seven Rivers would not be used by Satuq, and everything could still be salvaged.

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