Chapter 155: Memorial and Inheritance

Lower Atush — oh no! Now it should be called Pulu City. Even the Boguz River that flows through Lower Atush has been renamed the Pulu River.

The reason it is not called Pohu City is that Li Shengtian himself has a great deal of Scythian blood, and strictly speaking is also a Hu person, so the Golden Kingdom of Khotan does not use the derogatory term Hu'er, generally using Xianyu or Lu instead.

Li Shengtian had already gone back, because he still had to busy himself with winning over the various tribes around Shule, and more importantly, he still had to go control the sectarian killings and conflicts that had already begun spreading to places like Shache and Jiashi.

By the Pulu River, which was where Zhang Zhao had originally set up his layered formation, the high platform Li Shengtian had built nearby had already been dismantled, and the place had been restored to its original appearance.

Seven days had passed, and the black-purple stains soaked in blood had still not completely faded. Broken remnants of all kinds of swords, spears, halberds, and arrows still covered the entire battlefield.

"Return, O souls! Return, O souls!"

The seventh-day memorial is an extremely important date after death for Chinese people, so Zhang Zhao chose this time to pay homage to the souls of the fallen.

The familiar Ksitigarbha Fundamental Vow Sutra rang out, and Zhang Zhao took the lead in chanting it together with the others. Beside him stood two monks who at a glance were clearly eminent monks.

One was the abbot of the King of Khotan's temple, with a gaunt face but piercing light shining from his eyes — Li Shengtian's royal uncle, the Tripitaka Master Sangharama.

The other was an old monk, tall and long-limbed but looking extremely frail. That was the last abbot of Shule's Great Cloud Temple, whom Li Qilang and the others had always wanted to rescue — the only living direct disciple of the Great Tang's last Anxi Monk Controller, Master Daozhen.

When the sutra chanting and deliverance rites were complete, Zhang Zhao personally placed the ashes of each fallen Hanshandu armored soldier into containers one by one, and then recorded each one.

As for the fallen Khotan palace guards and the sworn followers of the Three Teachings, they would be buried in the ground according to the customs of Khotan and Shule.

All the armored soldiers of the Hanshandu had come, even Wang Tongxin, who had stayed in Shule to recover from wounds and had nearly become ashes himself. On the Khotan palace guard side, Liu Zaisheng, who had just barely escaped disaster, was also carried over by his men.

Behind these people, there was also a group standing far away, desperately suppressing the sound of their weeping, dressed in all kinds of coarse clothing. These people were the relatives of the civilian laborers who had died in battle.

In this one battle, more than four hundred civilian laborers responsible for transporting supplies for the Fengtian Army had died, the vast majority of whom had been half-coerced by Zhang Zhao into being urged to the front lines, and then killed by the two crucial waves of arrow fire.

For these people, Zhang Zhao felt deeply uneasy in his heart. The deaths of the Fengtian Army, including the Hanshandu armored soldiers, could be said to be their fate, their duty. As professional soldiers, when they went to the battlefield, they had long been mentally prepared.

But these civilian laborers did not have to die. If Zhang Zhao had not refused to let them leave, if Zhang Zhao had not urged them on, they would never have died here.

After paying his respects to the fallen Hanshandu armored soldiers, Zhang Zhao slowly walked over. In the puzzled eyes of everyone present, he slowly knelt on one knee before the relatives of these civilian laborers.

"The Prefect need not do this!"

"Young Lord Erlang, what are you doing?"

Astonished cries came from all around. In the eyes of people of this era, for someone of Zhang Zhao's status to kneel to these mud-legged peasants was absolutely unacceptable. Even allowing them to come here and join in the memorial was already considered extremely merciful.

In fact, Zhang Zhao did have considerations on this point as well. No matter what action one took, it was still better not to exceed the bounds of propriety of the current era, so he only knelt on one knee, not both.

But this one kneel not only greatly shocked the people around him — the objects of his one-kneed kneel were even more frightened into something like terror!

These thousand-plus poor farmers and herders who had come from Khotan and Shule, old and young alike, were so frightened that they dropped to their knees with a thud and kowtowed frantically to Zhang Zhao. They were terrified, not knowing what Zhang Zhao intended to do.

"I am not ignorant of the hierarchy of high and low, nor do they deserve this kneel from me. What I am truly kneeling to are the comrades who fought alongside us in blood seven days ago.

Although they were civilian laborers, they fought in blood together with us, and that makes them comrades. In winning this battle, the bloody fighting of all of you was of critical importance, but the several hundred civilian laborers who died here also made indispensable contributions!

They were simply unfortunate people conscripted into service. They did not have to die here, they could have gone home and reunited with their families. But because of me they fought in blood here and died here, and that makes them the comrade-brothers of Zhang Erlang. Therefore I ought to kneel once to their heroic spirits!"

After finishing his kneel, Zhang Zhao stood up and looked at the two masters and the several dozen Hanshandu armored soldiers behind him, and spoke loudly.

This was not a performance, but his true feelings. The situation had been critical at the time. If he had not half-coerced and half-deceived these civilian laborers into coming forward, then those two waves of arrow fire plus the armored cavalry charge might well have broken through his layered formation.

So it was not wrong for him to say these civilian laborers had rendered meritorious service. Although if time were reversed, Zhang Zhao would certainly still do the same thing, the guilt in his heart, the knot tangled in his chest, still needed to be untied somehow.

Although kneeling and monetary compensation cannot bring back lost lives, they can still make the living — whether Zhang Zhao or the relatives of these civilian laborers before him — feel somewhat better.

"Zhongweng, Wu Yuan'er, come here. According to what I promised at the time, the reward for each fallen man is three handfuls of silver coins. Distribute them according to the registered roster!"

"Thank you, Great Master!"

"Thank you, Beg Lord!"

After Zhang Zhao said these words, the terror on the faces of the relatives of the civilian laborers, who had been kneeling on the ground trembling and not knowing what fate awaited them, finally began to fade. Some even showed smiles.

Three handfuls of silver coins amounted to at least thirty or forty strings of cash, roughly equivalent to four or five hundred thousand in later times — for an ordinary family, that was a very large sum of property.

"Cousin, look and see if there are any orphans left behind by the fallen civilian laborers. Find all those under twelve years old. I will raise them myself. If they can grow into capable people in the future, that will be enough to comfort the heroic spirits!"

Yin Yaozi nodded. Zhang Zhao had mentioned this plan to him before — taking in orphans, training them into capable people, and then making them his own trusted confidants. This was a common basic operation in the Five Dynasties era.

"Heigou'er, come here!" Zhang Zhao took the memorial tablet of Huosheng'er, the first Hanshandu armored soldier to fall in battle, into his hands, and beckoned to Heigou'er.

"This is one of the bravest warriors in my Hanshandu. Are you willing to inherit his incense and his unfulfilled will?"

The reason he chose Heigou'er and not Huangyang was that Heigou'er had the appearance of a Han person, while Huangyang had the typical features of a Uyghur.

Although Huosheng'er Zhang Zhao himself did not know whether he was Han, Tibetan, Tuyuhun, or something else.

But for Zhang Zhao, he definitely had to find an adopted son with Han features for Huosheng'er — this was political correctness.

"Heigou'er is willing. From now on, he is my father! My surname is Zhang!"

Of course Heigou'er was willing. This crafty little fellow understood very well that at his age, without adults, surviving would be extremely difficult. But here with Zhang Zhao, not only would someone raise him, he might very well rise to prominence in the future.

Zhang Zhao nodded and placed the memorial tablet into Heigou'er's hands.

"Then from now on you are a son of the Zhang clan of Nanyang. I give you the name Zhang Zheng'an. Zheng is the generational character of the next generation of my Nanyang Zhang clan. An means I hope you can grow up safely and live up to your father's heroic name!"

Heigou'er immediately knelt and respectfully kowtowed three times to Zhang Zhao. From now on, he was no longer an orphan without father or mother, but the son of a brave warrior of the elite Hanshandu under the command of the Duke of Fengtian Commandery — a son of a meritorious official's family with the right to inherit his father's glory.

"Excellent! True to his word, not forgetting old comrades, extending righteousness to continue the incense — this is a great good!

The Duke's benevolence accords well with our Buddha. When the Duke can find the time, he must visit Samora Temple in Khotan City. This humble monk, together with the Buddha's disciples of the Anxi lands, will richly thank the Duke!"

The Tripitaka Master Sangharama pressed his palms together and sighed in praise. Zhang Zhao nodded to him in return.

Since Shule had been breached and the greatest threat facing Khotan Buddhism had been eliminated, then Sangharama's original promise — that monk army and the recognition of Zhang Zhao as a guardian of the faith — was now due to be fulfilled.

"As soon as matters here are concluded, this believer will go at once to Samora Temple to hear the Master's teachings!"

All chapters have been cached for you. Download the APP to view them.