Chapter 120: The Sweet Date Is Big, but the Meat Is Scarce

The Karakhanid cavalry withdrew, because if they had not withdrawn, they would not have been able to leave at all.

They had besieged Zhang Zhao's crude military stockade for three full days. Around this small earthen mound, the fifteen hundred cavalry had at first adopted a tactic of round-the-clock encirclement, cutting off water and reinforcements while adding intimidation.

But as luck would have it, heavy rain had fallen the day before, and the men held out on the rainwater they had collected!

Then the fifteen hundred cavalry dismounted, donned armor, and prepared to fight on foot, intending to give these thoroughly surrounded fellows a proper beating.

In the end, in less than two hours, they left behind seventy or eighty corpses and fled far away, tumbling and crawling.

If more than six thousand askars plus the holy warriors could not do it, then their fifteen hundred cavalry stood even less of a chance.

By the third day, Ithihad in the city once more led out the garrison troops, whose morale had recovered somewhat, to join the cavalry in surrounding Zhang Zhao from all sides and preparing for a fierce assault. Yet barely two hours after the two sides began fighting, the attackers hurriedly withdrew.

The remaining twelve or thirteen hundred cavalry headed north, apparently intending to go directly to Balasagun.

Ithihad's askars, having once again left behind over a hundred corpses, shrank back into Shule. This time, he ordered all the city gates blocked with boulders.

Less than two hours after they withdrew, the Khotan army arrived in force, flying the golden swastika banner and the banner of the human-bodied, rat-headed Rat King.

In thirteen days, Zhang Zhao had thwarted three large-scale attacks by the Shule garrison, killing or gravely wounding more than seven hundred Shule defenders and holy warriors, with countless more injured. Ithihad's "nail-pulling" operation had completely failed.

And during those thirteen days, Li Shengtian personally led thirty thousand troops in a relentless, casualty-defying assault on Askisa Fort, finally pulling out that most important nail outside Shule.

And with the fall of Askisa Fort, the fall of Yusuf Fort, which could no longer stand alone, was only a matter of time.

When Li Shengtian saw Zhang Zhao, Zhang Zhao and the men of his Hanshan Du and Youyi Army still wore bright, orderly armor.

They were mentally exhausted, yet their morale was high. Although everyone's lips had cracked and peeled badly from lack of water, as long as they were resupplied with water, they would still be a fierce lion capable of continuing the fight.

By contrast, of his five hundred palace guards, at least a third had fallen ill from drinking the collected rainwater.

As for the Buddhists and common folk from Yarkand and the vicinity of Shule, whom he had originally looked down on, at least half had begun falling ill one after another because of unclean food and drink.

Li Shengtian looked up and found Zhang Zhao watching him with gleaming eyes. After pausing for a brief moment, Li Shengtian waved over the Palace Reception Officer at his side.

"Send all these people to the Garuda Monastery at Yarkand, and have Monk Commander Zhou prepare medicine and treat them. They are all meritorious subjects of my Great Jin Kingdom, and should be given medicine and treatment, grain and rice, and be carefully cared for! From now on, they are all subjects of my Great Jin Kingdom!"

"How sagacious is the Son of Heaven!"

"We kowtow in thanks for the Son of Heaven's sacred grace!"

Waves of praise and adulation rose up. These burdens, who had endured the long march, dug trenches and built the stockade, then been forced to fight the Karakhanids, and finally been struck down in droves by the heavy rain and unsanitary food, frantically kowtowed and bowed to Li Shengtian, completely forgetting that not long ago they had still harbored resentment toward him.

But while Li Shengtian settled the matter of the burdens with a few casual words, the same would not do for Zhang Zhao.

The civil and military officials who had come with Li Shengtian had only to look at the grim scene below Shule's walls to imagine how enormous Zhang Zhao's contribution had been during those thirteen days.

Relying on more than ten thousand burdens who were basically a liability, with just over a hundred armored soldiers of his own, five hundred palace guards, and a few hundred miners, he had held out under the walls of Shule, with no terrain to defend, against wave after wave of attacks by over ten thousand Karakhanid regular soldiers and holy warriors.

It could be said that without Zhang Zhao's bloody battle beneath the walls of Shule, they would never have achieved the feat of taking Askisa Fort in just thirteen days.

"Erlang! Your uncle did not misjudge you! You are indeed a thousand-li colt of our house!"

Li Shengtian grasped Zhang Zhao's arms, tears already glistening in his eyes, his expression so agitated that he did not seem like a monarch at all. Zhang Zhao could not quite tell whether Li Shengtian was truly showing his feelings, or whether there was some element of performance in it.

While Zhang Zhao was guessing how much of Li Shengtian's excitement was real, the Khotan army officers around Li Shengtian were repeatedly savoring the phrase "a thousand-li colt of our house."

Coming from an uncle's mouth, well, it could be understood, but it seemed a little too intimate — so intimate that it could not help but stir some speculation.

One must know that the Crown Prince of the Great Jin Kingdom, Li Congde, was still studying in Dunhuang, and had not really resided in Khotan for six or seven years now.

"I, the lone king, grew up under the care of my eldest sister. Now the son of my eldest sister has rendered me such great service. I, the lone king, have decided to rename Yarkand Prefecture as Fengtian Prefecture, and the city of Yarkand as Fengtian City.

I hereby enfeoff the Gentleman Attendant at the Yellow Gate and Commandant of the Fengtian Army, Zhang Zhao, as Duke of Fengtian Commandery, inheriting all the rights and interests of my eldest sister, Princess Fengtian, in the Great Jin Kingdom.

The Duke of Fengtian Commandery is permitted to use the surname Yuchi! All the regular taxes of Fengtian City shall belong to the Duke of Fengtian Commandery!"

Yuchi — to be precise, it should be called Vica, or Vijaya in Sanskrit — is a very ancient Indo-European word, and some hold that it derives from Sanskrit.

Its meaning is "victor" or "conqueror." Historically, many Hu peoples used this word as a surname.

For example, the "Bilge" in the Turkic Bilge Khagan is actually also this word Vica, and the root of the later English word "Victor," meaning victory, also comes from this word.

It must be said that Li Shengtian was truly very competent politically. Zhang Zhao was a Han Chinese, while Li Shengtian had half Scythian blood.

Zhang was a great surname of the Central Plains, and Zhang Zhao's Nanyang Zhang clan was a distinguished family of the Central Plains. The surname Yuchi, although it had begun to merge into Central Plains surnames as early as the Northern and Southern Dynasties, was still, when it came down to it, a Hu surname.

Therefore, Li Shengtian did not say he was "bestowing a surname," because if he had said that, it would not have been a reward but an insult. So by announcing that Zhang Zhao could use the surname Yuchi, he appeared very flexible.

On the one hand, it gave Zhang Zhao a status similar to that of the Khotan royal clan, letting others know Zhang Zhao's standing in his heart, while not appearing insulting.

On the other hand, Li Shengtian and his son had long since stopped using the surname Yuchi — one was called Li Shengtian, the other Li Congde.

But Zhang Zhao, precisely, could not be called Li Zhao, but could be called Yuchi Zhao. That very clearly distinguished Zhang Zhao from Li Congde.

In short, Zhang Zhao henceforth possessed a status similar to, or indeed that of, the Khotan royal house, yet was clearly distinguished from the other Khotan royals, especially the Crown Prince Li Congde, so as not to give certain ambitious men the wrong idea.

As for renaming Yarkand to Fengtian and granting Zhang Zhao the regular taxes of Yarkand, that was also an extremely clever move.

On the surface, the generosity of the reward and the height of the honor were unmatched in the age, but renaming Yarkand to Fengtian did not mean that Yarkand was enfeoffed to Zhang Zhao.

Khotan's taxes were divided into the regular tax, the cloth tax, corvée labor, and so on. The regular tax was roughly equivalent to the Han dynasty's "one-thirtieth tax," and in many places it could not be collected at all, or only in very small amounts.

Khotan's textile industry was highly developed, and the state's main tax revenue was actually the cloth tax. Not only did the textile industry have to pay the cloth tax, but the land tax was also converted into cloth tax before being submitted.

So the regular tax of Yarkand that Zhang Zhao received — hmm! It sounded like boundless imperial grace, but in a year it came to only about one or two hundred strings of cash. That was not a small sum, but it was by no means as grand as it sounded!

"All units prepare! Make camp and set up fortifications! That wretch Ithihad has been badly mauled by Erlang. We shall strike while he is sick and take his life — attack day and night, and take Shule!"

Li Shengtian pulled Zhang Zhao a few steps toward the walls of Shule, then turned around and declared loudly.

"Liu Zaisheng, your palace guards shall continue to fight alongside the Duke of Fengtian Commandery. As for the death and injury compensation and battle rewards from before, assist the Duke of Fengtian Commandery in compiling the registers and reporting them as soon as possible. I, the lone king, shall bestow generous rewards!"

"Your nephew, on behalf of the men of the Hanshan Du, Youyi Army, Shenji Du, and Fenjin Du, bows in thanks for the Son of Heaven's reward!" Zhang Zhao loudly gave thanks with great delight, and a look of mutual understanding flashed through both men's eyes.

These men under Zhang Zhao were not Li Shengtian's army, but Zhang Zhao's own private troops. By letting Zhang Zhao take charge of compiling the reward and merit registers, Li Shengtian was refraining from interfering in Zhang Zhao's sovereignty, and it was also a form of indirect reward and favor.

Zhang Zhao, seizing this opportunity, swallowed up in one gulp the Shenji Du and Fenjin Du, which had become military units but whose status had not yet been fixed.

The Fenjin Du now had eight or nine hundred miners, and the Shenji Du's Zhitong had four or five hundred men. Although Zhang Zhao could not take them all, after streamlining, keeping three hundred from each was still possible.

At this point, Zhang Zhao had finally assembled a full lower Zhechong Fu (eight hundred men) of military guards!

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