Chapter 109: The Lord of Light or the Buddha

"Oh! Who would have thought the fearless, invincible Zhang Erlang could be afraid too? Weren't you quite the brave one just now, when you were shouting and raging at me, your uncle?"

Perhaps because he had made his decision and no longer needed to weigh every option, Li Shengtian's mind suddenly grew nimble. He recalled how Zhang Zhao had just grabbed his sleeve and roared at him, and his face immediately showed a hint of embarrassment.

"Look how frightened you are. Rest easy — I only mean to borrow the ferocity of the armored soldiers under your command. All you need to do is gather the men I've given you and put on a show beneath the walls of Shule, as if a great army has already arrived."

"Uncle means to strike first at the Askisa Fortress and Yusuf Fort?" Zhang Zhao understood Li Shengtian's intent.

Askisa Fort and Yusuf Fort were two sturdy strongholds outside the city of Shule, built by Saktu over the past dozen or so years — fortresses in a strongly Persian style.

They and the city of Shule formed a mutual defensive triangle. To besiege Shule safely, those two forts absolutely had to be taken first.

Askisa Fort south of Shule in particular sat squarely on the key point between Shache and Shule. Unless it was taken, the Khotan army's supply lines would remain under constant threat.

Li Shengtian wanted Zhang Zhao to lead a mob of rabble disguised as the main force, frightening Itihad in Shule so he would not dare come out for a field battle, while Li Shengtian himself led the true main force to seize the two forts with lightning speed.

"Exactly. Those two forts are the two hands Shule has stretched out. They must be pulled out first!"

Li Shengtian nodded and gave Zhang Zhao an appreciative look. "I'm sending you to Shule first because you have a hundred elite armored soldiers under your command. If you can display their prowess beneath the walls of Shule, Itihad is certain to fall for it — for armored soldiers this fierce to have arrived, it must surely be the main force."

Zhang Zhao glanced at Li Shengtian, thoroughly speechless. Was this really his uncle? The man was gambling with his life!

If luck was good, or if Zhang Zhao handled it well, they might truly frighten Itihad in Shule. If luck was even a little short, it would be a deadly gamble.

Zhang Zhao did not fear bloody battle, but he had no desire to go play such a dangerous game.

Seeing Zhang Zhao hesitate, Li Shengtian could not help but let a bitter smile show at the corner of his mouth.

"Now Erlang understands how hard it is to be the ruler of a kingdom, doesn't he? If the stakes aren't great enough, you simply cannot drive the men beneath you to act. I could indeed send someone else, but they would never give it their all!"

Li Shengtian's words were the absolute truth. What did his Khotan Golden Kingdom lack now? Good generals, brave generals.

He could send others, but this was work that danced on the line between life and death, and none of his subordinates were suited to pull it off. There was an even more important reason: even if they could pull it off, they might not necessarily give it their all.

Because leading a mob of rabble while pretending to be an elite force — being found out was the norm, while success was the small probability. And even if one succeeded, the credit could not possibly exceed that of storming Askisa Fort. An ordinary officer had no need to stake his life on such a matter.

Only someone like Zhang Zhao — brave, resourceful, and burning with the desire to win merit and build a career — could do this well. Li Shengtian saw that very clearly.

Once the reasoning was laid out, Zhang Zhao knew this task was his and no one else's, so he performed a chashou salute.

"Yes! Your nephew will do his utmost to frighten Itihad into staying inside Shule, not daring to come out!"

"Not your utmost — you must do it well!" Li Shengtian fixed Zhang Zhao with a stern stare.

"Don't you want the Zhongyun Kingdom? If we can take Shule and occupy Ma'er Yinang, your uncle will send men to conquer the Zhongyun Kingdom and give it to you!"

This was a sweet date held out to him. Zhang Zhao understood — Li Shengtian could never support him in going to war with the Cao family. Giving him the Zhongyun Kingdom as a place to settle, plus some support in grain, fodder, armor, and weapons, was already the limit. So this promise showed that Li Shengtian was offering considerable sincerity.

In the city of Shule, the atmosphere of war grew thicker by the day. One could see it from the southern part of the city. Although that district was a mixed crowd, normally the Governor of Shule, Itihad, paid little attention to its affairs.

But starting the day before yesterday, the people of the southern city had likewise been driven by armored Askars, under the rule of one adult man per household, to go out and clear the moat, dig trenches, set pit traps, and haul in great stones, blocking the main northern gate of the city one boulder at a time, leaving only a few small gates for passage.

In just two or three days, nearly all the traveling merchants in Shule had left, and Shule had gone from being the de facto capital of the Karakhanid state to a grim military fortress.

Moreover, these past days the Askar troops had been continuously searching the city for people of unknown identity, and Fan Shun had nearly been exposed several times.

In the end, he had gotten through on the strength of a carefully crafted identity and fluent Uyghur speech — and of course, not without the cover provided by Li Qilang of the food shop and Huitong.

Fan Shun had now also figured out who Huitong and Li Qilang were. They were indeed descendants of the old Anxi Tang army. But beyond that, the monk Huitong refused to say a word, saying only that he would tell everything once he met the young lord.

Why had they come from Kucha to Shule? Why, with Khotan so close, had they not gone to seek refuge there? Where were the rest of them? How many were they in all? Everything still awaited revelation.

Lost in thought, Fan Shun quickly slipped into the food shop. The traveling merchants were all gone, and most of the men had been conscripted to build the city's defenses, so the shop's business looked bleak.

No — perhaps one should say there was no business at all!

Li Qilang sat behind the table, listless and half-asleep. But when Fan Shun slipped in, his eyelids visibly twitched sharply, though he did not open them.

In the monk Huitong's secret chamber, the room was now full of people. A fellow in a gray robe, his whole body hidden in darkness, a cross hanging at his chest, stood beside Huitong.

This was a Nestorian elder, and behind this Nestorian elder stood several burly, powerful men — except for the crosses exposed at their chests, they were no different from any other commoners in the city.

Beside the Nestorian elder was a gaunt old man. He looked at Fan Shun and shaped his hands into the form of a flame.

This was a Manichaean. Fan Shun nodded to the old man. They were likely the ones who hated Saktu Bughra Khan the most.

Because the Karakhanid state contained a great many Uyghurs, and the Uyghurs were the largest source of Manichaean believers in the east.

At this time, the Gaochang Uyghurs were still dominated by Manichaeism. Saktu's half-coerced conversion of his subjects to the Heavenly Square faith had naturally dealt a tremendous blow to Manichaeism's standing in the Karakhanid state. To say they had suffered the greatest harm was no exaggeration at all.

As for the one standing before Huitong, he was a monk with fair skin, a high nose, and deep-set eyes, looking like a Scythian.

His expression was calm and gentle, unlike the Nestorian and Manichaean elders beside him, who were full of resentment. There was even always a trace of a smile on his face, making him look like a great master.

"This humble monk is Norexiti! Huitong tells me that your honored master possesses a method to breach the walls of Shule. We have come to see it for ourselves."

This foreign monk actually spoke Chinese. Fan Shun hurriedly returned the monk's salute.

"From the master's words, if my master truly has a way to break open the city of Shule, then you would support us, is that right?"

When negotiating terms, one must first clarify the other side's conditions. These past two days, the moment the monk Huitong heard that his master, the young lord Zhang Erlang, also relied mainly on Khotan, he immediately lost interest, and to this day had told Fan Shun not a word of truth. This meeting had only come about through Fan Shun's utmost efforts.

And now, it seemed it was not only Huitong — even these Nestorian, Manichaean, and Buddhist foreign monks in the secret chamber were all of the same mind.

Fan Shun suddenly understood: this Li family of Khotan must have burned these people badly in the previous attacks on Shule.

Norexiti looked at Fan Shun, and a few traces of a bitter smile could not help but surface on his face. If it were not that they truly had no other choice — that Saktu Bughra Khan was leaving them no way to live — they really did not want to answer the Khotanese call again.

"Master, please look!" Fan Shun carefully drew from his bosom a wooden tube the thickness of a thumb, then poured the gunpowder from the tube onto a table.

Crack! Boom! Like a bolt of lightning flashing through the dark secret chamber, Norexiti and the elders of the other faiths were badly startled. That flash had been so dazzling that Norexiti almost thought it was some kind of sorcery.

Fan Shun smiled smugly. What eminent monks, what elders — when it came to playing immortal arts, one still had to look to the young lord.

"This thing is called the Divine Fire Thunder. Just now was less than five qian of it. In my master's hands, there are three hundred jin!"

"Namo Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva! This must be the Buddhist thunder-sound dharma!"

"Praise the Great God of Light, who has sent light into the world! This thing bursts forth with boundless radiance — it surely has deep ties to the Lord of Light!"

"The True God brings redemption and holy light, just as we have seen today!"

Well now! These three holy frauds. Huitong shook his head inwardly, then cupped his hands toward Fan Shun.

"At the hour of hai tonight, we will escort Brother Fan out of the city. Please, Brother Fan, you must report to your honored master: the people of Shule whose hearts turn toward the Golden Kingdom are in mortal danger. You absolutely must not return empty-handed again!"

"No! I'm not leaving. Have Li Qilang take the Great Tang Jianzhong copper coins and go find my master to report the situation. I will stay with all of you — working from within and without!"

Fan Shun said calmly to Huitong. He had absolute faith that Zhang Zhao would blow open Shule, and since success was certain, staying inside the city would naturally bring greater merit!

"Good! Brother Fan is a man of honor! I will remember this!" Huitong gave Fan Shun a deep look. He suddenly felt some anticipation toward this Zhang Erlang from Dunhuang — a man who could command such a hero must surely be a remarkable figure.

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