Chapter 180: Just Call Him Little John Khan (Saturday Bonus Chapter)

Ali Dulaif collapsed to the ground like a dead dog. Less than ten li from the city of Ashibulai, he had been completely cut off.

And the ones who entangled him and killed most of his guards were none other than the holy warriors and Mustafas he had abandoned.

Thud! A bouncing, bloodied, mangled head was tossed in front of Ali Dulaif. The owner of this head was General Masudi, the man he had assigned to cover the rear.

The one who threw the head was a burly man with a trace of Scythian blood. His eyes flashed with excitement, like a hungry wolf that had spotted a Mongolian gazelle.

"Who are you? Who exactly are you?"

Dulaif, paralyzed on the ground, asked in a low voice, his eyes full of bewilderment. He truly had no idea which power could mobilize armored cavalry like this.

Li Ruotai had meant to say he was a general of the Khotan Golden Kingdom, but when the words reached his lips, he spoke on a strange impulse.

"Fine! I'll let you die knowing. I am the Prince of Wudu Commandery of the Great Tang...!"

Ali Dulaif let out a miserable shriek. The moment he heard "the Great Tang," he stopped listening. Titles like Prince of Wudu Commandery were all terribly awkward for Persians anyway, so hearing "the Great Tang" alone was enough.

And the Great Tang, to his ears, was even more terrifying — and what was more, it was actually a Tang prince who had come leading an army.

"The Great Tang! How could the Great Tang possibly return?" Ali Dulaif groaned in agony.

"Shut up!" Li Ruotai, whose display of family pedigree had been interrupted by the shrieking, was extremely displeased. He drew his zhang saber and walked toward Ali Dulaif. The head of a governor of an entire country would be the finest trophy of this battle!

Zhang Zhao did not go to watch Ali Dulaif being beheaded. He had no interest in it whatsoever.

But it was not because he was soft-hearted. In the eyes of the captured holy warriors and officers of the Mustafa army, this seemingly elegant infidel nobleman was more terrifying than a demon.

Because he was about to deliberately unleash them to plunder his own kin. In their view, Zhang Zhao and the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples were of the same stock.

"Here is the list of tribes I have compiled that are to be punished. How great their punishment should be, and what kind of punishment, is all noted one by one. I hope you will carry out exactly what I say.

Likewise, only after we receive the treasures, livestock, and other supplies you offer will we open the road back to Tashkent, and only then will you receive enough provisions to support your return to Tashkent."

The speaker was not Zhang Zhao, but Ma Yaozi. Only a face like his, which at a glance looked like a villain, could leave a deep impression on this rabble of defeated soldiers below.

"We still do not know the noble lord's name. Might you be willing to tell us, so that if anyone asks in the future, we will know whose hands we were defeated by."

The bearded officer who had first agreed to cooperate with Zhang Zhao made a strange request.

A playful smile flickered across Zhang Zhao's face, but in an instant it was replaced by an even more mischievous grin.

Because he suddenly thought of a formidable figure from history, a ruthless man who had been far more glorious than him in Balasagun.

A member of the Liao imperial clan, the Tianyou Emperor of the Western Liao, Yelu Dashi.

Wasn't Yelu Dashi's capital, Husiwordu, just Balasagun? And Yelu Dashi had also made his name at the Battle of Qatwan, destroying the Seljuk Empire, the great Islamic empire that ruled the former lands of the Nine Zhaowu Clans.

Although he, the Grand Duke Zhang, had only defeated Ali Dulaif, the mere governor of Tashkent under the Samanids of Persia — utterly incomparable to Yelu Dashi shattering the Seljuk Empire in one battle on the Qatwan Steppe — still, he, the Grand Duke Zhang, was very good at gilding his own face!

"Ahem!" Zhang Zhao cleared his throat twice. "So that you ignorant barbarians may know: this Khagan is the Gur Khan of the Empire of Taohuashi!"

Not only the captured Islamic holy warriors were stunned — even Yan Jin and the others behind Zhang Zhao were shocked!

Proclaiming himself Khagan! You really dare to say that out loud!

How can there be such a thing as a self-proclaimed Khagan? In the Central Plains, that would be declaring oneself Emperor! And not even an Emperor urged to the throne by his subordinates, but one who proclaimed himself Emperor on his own say-so.

But then again — Zhang Zhao had just crushed thirty thousand with two thousand and won a great victory. The armored soldiers of Hanshan Capital were the most trusted of his trusted men, so naturally no one would be tactless enough to criticize, and besides, this also served to intimidate these holy warriors.

Look at these holy warriors — the moment they heard that the Gur Khan of the Empire of Taohuashi had arrived, their faces turned pale with fright. Presumably they would not dare cause trouble on the road.

The thoroughly cowed holy warriors withdrew. Too terrifying — they had actually been fighting the Gur Khan of the legendary Empire of Taohuashi.

Although one empire could have many who claimed the title of khan, a Khagan from Taohuashi was still too terrifying. The five words "the Empire of Taohuashi" alone represented power.

"For this westward advance, Yin Yaozi will be in overall command, with Yan Jin, Li Ruotai, and Bai Congxin as his deputies. Hu Guang, Ashina Sili, Guo Guangsheng, and Guo Guangcheng will serve as great generals. Combine your forces into one army, lead five thousand men, and proclaim it twenty thousand.

But you must remember: under no circumstances cross Talas!

Our goal is not to seize territory, but to supervise these defeated troops in carrying out the established plan, while at the same time rallying back the tribes willing to return to the embrace of the Buddha and Alaha, thereby holding the land east of Talas and defending Balasagun.

Of course, the obstinate ones may be exterminated outright — but you must not play the villain. Let the Persians do it."

As Zhang Zhao spoke, he glanced at Yin Yaozi, Yan Jin, and the others. This mission would be no easier than the great battle just fought.

First of all, this was the first time Zhang Zhao had committed an army of five thousand. Although four thousand of them had been drawn from the various Yabghus of Balasagun and the Nestorian herders of the Guo family, it still counted as the largest military operation since Zhang Zhao had raised his army.

Moreover, this westward advance was military in a supporting role and political in the main. Their primary task was to supervise the subjugated holy warriors, punish the tribes of the former Karakhanid state west of Ashibulai and east of Baishui Hu City, and use the butcher's blade of Islam to drive them back into the embrace of Buddhism and Nestorian Christianity.

To achieve this goal, the list of tribes to be punished and the severity of the punishment had been drawn up jointly by Master Titishgu and the three great Nestorian elders.

Whichever tribes had contributed the most to the eastward expansion of Islam and behaved the most abominably would receive the heaviest punishment.

And after these tribes were driven back, they would in turn be relied upon to hold the line east of Talas.

This had two advantages. First, it gave Balasagun sufficient buffer.

Second, it created enough deterrence against Samanid Persia to force them to pile resources back into Tashkent.

This would greatly reduce the difficulty of Zhang Zhao's attack on the Fergana Basin, and even later, when plundering India, he could use this to threaten Samanid Persia.

No sooner said than done. Yin Yaozi, Yan Jin, and the others, along with some Buddhist and Nestorian monks, began taking their leave of Zhang Zhao. Zhang Zhao himself was to return to Balasagun.

Li Shengtian had dumped this whole mess on him. Originally, before defeating Samanid Persia, Zhang Zhao had intended to stabilize the situation and leave, but now he suddenly found himself reluctant to go.

No matter what, this was territory won through bloody battle. What was more, the Yabghus, begs, and religious leaders of Balasagun truly needed a leader, and they were fairly convinced by him. Perhaps he could treat this as his own territory?

So Zhang Zhao handed the task of continuing to strike at Samanid Persia and the tribes around Talas to Yin Yaozi and the others, while he himself would return to Balasagun to arrange matters.

Then... what kind of political structure should he set up in Balasagun to ensure stability and his own interests?

Zhang Zhao stroked his chin in thought. He suddenly recalled another meaning of the term "Gur Khan."

"Gur Khan" is actually spelled Kulkhagan. The word "Kul" in Old Turkic means glory.

"Ju'er" is the Chinese phonetic rendering. Sometimes the term is also translated as "Gur Khan" or "Chuluo Khagan."

The key point is not that, but its pronunciation. Gur Khan, Gur Khan — if you say it quickly, what does it sound a bit like? Isn't it a bit like John?

This brings us to something utterly absurd. In Christian legend, there is a figure frequently mentioned: Prester John and his kingdom.

This was a kingdom imagined by Christians. It originated when the Seljuk Empire, slaughtering like pigs and dogs, destroyed the County of Edessa that the Crusaders had established in the eastern Mediterranean, and showed intent to expand further.

This caused extreme panic among the other small states established after the Crusades, such as the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Principality of Antioch.

And it was precisely at this time that Yelu Dashi, in one battle on the Qatwan Steppe, directly shattered the Seljuk Turkic Empire. Moreover, the Western Liao capital Husiwordu — that is, Balasagun — was the religious center of Nestorian Christianity.

On this matter, Hugues, the envoy of the Principality of Antioch who felt he had narrowly escaped death, boasted endlessly after returning to Europe, especially when he met Pope Eugene III.

He claimed that east of Armenia there was a very powerful Nestorian state ruled by someone called Prester John, and that it was most righteous.

Upon hearing that the Seljuk Turks were about to attack its Christian brother states, it had immediately led its army to defeat the Seljuk Turks, saving a great number of Christian states including the Principality of Antioch.

This fellow had somehow heard "Gurkhan" as "John," and the Battle of Qatwan became a war to save the Principality of Antioch and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which is why some later generations jokingly called Yelu Dashi "John the Khagan."

This feeling of a narrow escape, combined with the Christians' obsession with savior culture, and the fact that the Seljuk Turks had indeed bullied the Christian world terribly at the time, made the realm of Prester John directly become the most wondrous dream in the hearts of Christians.

These European bumpkins, who had always been thoroughly thrashed by the Islamic world, spent no small amount of effort thereafter searching for the realm of Prester John.

They were even still searching for it by the time of Genghis Khan, and for a while even mistook Genghis Khan for Prester John.

Although the legend of Prester John had not yet begun to spread among Europeans, and the Macedonian dynasty of the Eastern Roman Empire was still in its glorious heyday, he could still pick up this legend of Prester John and put it to use!

And since the Guo family had such a firm grasp of the Church of the East, it would be a shame not to use it!

Perhaps he should go ask Guo Xuanli whether he had a daughter or something, and leave behind a branch of people here.

That way he could use the identity of the Church of the East to go a bit further west, to the Volga and the Don, and take a turn around the lands of the Golden Horde.

After the Eastern Roman Empire collapsed in the future, perhaps he could even get a weak claim — the Nestorians were orthodox too, after all!

Could he also use the Nestorians to create a Yellow-Rus principality with Tang people above and Europeans below?

Claim to be the one true orthodox church, and then crusade against the Catholics of Western and Central Europe as heretics?

Right! If he had a son, he could even call him Little John the Khagan — who told that dead rat to always stand him up, and still be so smug about it!

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