Chapter 125: Treasure Is Nothing Compared to People

This sounds a bit fantastical!

From Li Qilang's excited, rambling account, Zhang Zhao learned a great secret.

It was this: back when Kucha fell to the Tibetans and the Great Tang's power in Anxi completely collapsed, the descendants of the Four Garrisons, together with the Han monk-officials of the Great Cloud Temple in Shule, secretly hid away the treasures, armor, and weapons that the Tibetans had not seized.

The descendants of the Four Garrisons and the dharma-heir disciples of the monk-officials each held a portion of the treasure map.

This treasure had been prepared for the day when the Central Plains' Great Tang would return to the Western Regions, because they all firmly believed that the Great Tang would surely come back — and even if the Great Tang were gone, a new dynasty of the Central Plains would certainly send troops to recover the Western Regions.

However, because Li Qilang was not a descendant of the Four Garrisons' upper-ranking officials, nor connected to the Han monk-officials of Shule, he only knew that such a treasure existed; he did not know where it was.

In fact, according to Li Qilang, even the Li clan elder who held a portion of the treasure map did not know what was in the treasure.

Because ever since the descendants of the Four Garrisons and the Great Cloud Temple's monk-officials had buried the treasure, it had never been opened again. Over the course of a hundred years, everyone knew there was a treasure, but no one knew what exactly was inside, or how much.

"Three years ago, a traitor appeared among us. Lu Erlang, for the sake of power, converted to the Arabs' Heavenly Square faith, and he revealed the secret of the Four Garrisons' treasure vault to Bughra Khan Satuq.

That barbarian Hu, in order to get the treasure, secretly instructed the holy warriors from Transoxiana and the Arab lands to burn down the Great Cloud Temple, and seized Master Daozhen, Senior Brother Huixing, and dozens of other monks."

When he spoke of this Lu Erlang, Li Qilang's face was full of grinding hatred.

"So it is not that I would not give the young lord news of the Four Garrisons' descendants, but after the Great Cloud Temple was destroyed, the descendants scattered across the regions gradually lost contact with one another for self-preservation. The only descendants of the Four Garrisons I can still reach now are just these dozen or so people in Shule city!"

Li Qilang wore an expression of having failed to help Zhang Zhao, but Zhang Zhao was already extremely excited.

Was there a treasure? How much was in it? He actually did not particularly care!

Because to Zhang Zhao, no matter how great the so-called Four Garrisons Loyalty Vault treasure was, could it exceed the treasure of Bughra Khan Satuq's khanate court right there in Shule city? Once Shule city was taken, what amount of treasure would he not have?

To him, the most precious thing was precisely people — the sons of Tang who still remembered the Great Tang.

According to Li Qilang, just their Li family and the Guo, Yang, Lu, and other families they could no longer contact had numbered several thousand able-bodied men ten years ago. Although no exact count of the total population had ever been made, the entire population could not be less than twenty to thirty thousand.

One must understand that in the Guiyi Army at present, not counting the sinicized Sogdians and Tuyuhun, the entire population of the great sons-of-Tang clans of Guazhou and Shazhou was no more than a hundred thousand.

These twenty or thirty thousand people in Anxi were of the utmost importance to the Guiyi Army, and indeed to all of Hexi, which suffered from a shortage of core ethnic population.

What does wealth matter! Without people, everything is in vain!

Liu Zaisheng crouched beside Zhang Zhao. From the look of him, Zhang Zhao could tell he seemed to wish he could charge in and dig it up himself.

This was already the ninth day since the floodwaters had swept through outside Shule city. Only today had the waters begun to recede, and the ground was still a sea of mud, yet Li Shengtian could no longer restrain himself from urging the army to attack the city.

At this very moment, crouching far from the city's north side, Zhang Zhao and Liu Zaisheng could both hear wave after wave of battle cries.

As Li Shengtian's trusted personal guard, Liu Zaisheng's loyalty was beyond question. Although the Liu family were Han, they had long ceased to be Han of the Great Tang.

For Liu Zaisheng's fifth-generation ancestor had been a founding elder who took part in the war to restore Khotan.

The Liu family's ancestral line had already been broken back when Khotan was conquered by the Tibetans.

During the period of Tibetan rule, the family had been reduced to slaves, and they only remembered that their ancestor was a son of Tang, an official surnamed Liu — but what exactly his name was, and where in the Great Tang he was from, had long been forgotten.

That their family had been able to escape slave status and attain today's wealth and honor came entirely from Khotan, from the Yuchi clan — it was earned by following the Yuchi clan in restoring the kingdom of Khotan.

This was also the reason Li Shengtian was quite at ease letting him partner with Zhang Zhao. And after learning something of Liu Zaisheng's family background, Zhang Zhao very wisely dropped any thought of recruiting him.

To put it by analogy: what Zhang Zhao was looking for now were overseas Chinese who shared his own mindset, willing to go back and rebuild their old homeland.

But the Liu Zaisheng family were like those later-generation Chinese who had completely assimilated locally and could barely even speak Chinese anymore. They would not leave with Zhang Zhao, and Zhang Zhao was not foolish enough to try to recruit them.

"Lord! We can't dig any further ahead. This city must have been rebuilt by a master from the Central Plains — there are enormous stone blocks buried beneath the wall. There's simply no way to dig through!"

Shi Chongmin was helped over to Zhang Zhao. Before he had even steadied himself, he let out a miserable groan and began to pour out his woes.

These past days, the men of the Gold-Splitting Division had finally gotten a taste of Zhang Zhao's hellish methods. More than seven hundred men were divided into ten shifts, digging day and night without rest. Whoever did not give their all would get their fill of suffering.

Under such intense pressure, they had at last carefully dug their way to within a short distance of the city wall — only to be blocked by a section of massive stone.

The moment Liu Zaisheng heard Shi Chongmin's wailing, he bristled!

He sprang to his feet, about to explode in anger, but seeing that Zhang Zhao had not yet spoken, he forcibly swallowed back the curses that had surged to his lips.

"Young lord, I have gone to look. Captain Shi is not lying. There are indeed great stones blocking the way — not only in Tunnel A, but in Tunnel B as well!"

Wu Yuan'er walked over. These men who had followed Zhang Zhao from Shazhou still habitually called him young lord.

Zhang Zhao drew a deep breath and tried his best to calm himself. He had to think of a solution, because time was running short, and digging another tunnel would certainly be too late. There was also no word from Fan Shun in the city or from Li Qilang's senior brother Huitong and the others — most likely they too had run into these great stones.

"Can you tell how thick the great stones are? Is the stone a single block, or many blocks? Roughly how many zhang from the city wall?"

Zhang Zhao thought for a moment, then asked. If the stone was not too thick, he might as well stuff all the gunpowder in and set it off. After all, they were not far from the city wall now; as long as they could blast open a small breach, that would do — they would just have to pay for it in lives.

Wu Yuan'er recalled for a moment before answering. "I can't tell how thick the great stones are. I just measured with a rope, and we should still be two zhang five chi from the city wall — about eight meters.

The great stones look like dressed stone blocks, not one solid piece, but many blocks fitted together. But the gaps between them are too small for our men to squeeze through — unless it were a child."

What kind of freak built this? Zhang Zhao felt his head swell. Though from the technique, it was hard to say — it might indeed have been built with assistance during the Great Tang's golden age.

Because this method of laying dressed stone foundations to prevent the enemy from digging tunnels was precisely a hallmark of the Central Plains.

"Wu Erlang, are you certain a child could squeeze through?" Li Qilang, who had been listening at the side, suddenly asked.

Wu Yuan'er nodded. "Certain. I had the thinnest miner in the Gold-Splitting Division try — he could get partway in. If it were a child, it would definitely be possible."

"Then all is well! Young lord, please allow me to go to the rear camp and pick out a few people!" Li Qilang said excitedly, cupping his hands to Zhang Zhao.

The so-called rear camp was where the old and young cannon fodder of Shule city whom Zhang Zhao had rescued were staying.

They were all residents of Shule city. With war and chaos everywhere, they had nowhere to go, and seeing that Zhang Zhao seemed a good man, many of them had stayed in his rear camp and not left.

With Zhang Zhao, though they could not eat their fill, they would not starve to death either. What mattered was that their safety was assured.

"You mean to pick some children from the rear camp to crawl in and place the fire-thunder?" Zhang Zhao thought it over — that was right! All the men under his command were adults, but among the cannon fodder in the rear camp, there were quite a few children.

But then Zhang Zhao shook his head with some worry. In a tunnel a hundred meters long, a child would have to squeeze through an extremely narrow gap in the stones, then place packets of gunpowder weighing over ten jin each. With lack of oxygen, lack of light, plus fear and terror, could a child of only a few years properly complete the task?

Li Qilang saw Zhang Zhao's misgivings and smiled confidently. "Does the young lord think that those who could still find a way out of the city at the final hour would be any kind of good people?

They are nothing but unlucky city foxes and gutter rats like myself. They have received the young lord's great grace in saving their lives — this is exactly the chance for them to repay it with their deaths!"

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