Chapter 186: New Suyab

By the shores of the Hot Lake, dozens upon dozens of palace tents stretched on and on, and great numbers of warriors in splendid robes chased one another on horseback.

This was the newly enthroned Gurkhan of Balasagun, Zhang Zhao, leading his men in a hunt for pleasure.

By the way, Great Khagan Zhang had also changed Balasagun's name to Suyab, while the old Suyab city, not yet completely abandoned, became Old Suyab.

Fan Quan, riding a white horse and peerless in archery, shot a large Mongolian gazelle and laid it across his saddle to show off to Zhang Zhao; Ma Yaozi, who loved eating fish and was skilled at preparing it, came carrying a big fish of over twenty jin on his shoulder, equally pleased with himself.

But Zhang Zhao did not dare eat the fish he made, because the most popular way to eat fish at this time was fish kuai — that is, raw sliced fish — and Zhang Zhao had to politely decline.

In later times he had not even dared eat raw salmon, for who knew whether it was actually freshwater rainbow trout? In this era he dared even less; if he got a bellyful of parasites, it could practically be called beyond the help of medicine.

So, under Ma Yaozi's resentful gaze, Zhang Zhao told him to take that enormous fish elsewhere and make his fish kuai.

And Zhang Zhao picked out a few larger Issyk-Kul minnows and prepared to make grilled fish.

Although there were no chili peppers, there was still plenty of dried zhuyu, and Zhang Zhao had also discovered a treasure here — onions.

He vaguely remembered that onions were supposed to have been introduced into China only in the twentieth century, seemingly from America; he wondered why, being so close, they still had to be introduced from America.

Zhang Zhao asked Guo Wan'er and Ayiguli about it, and learned that the Persians had brought the thing over, and that many people in the old lands of the Nine Zhaowu Clans were already growing it.

Could it be... Zhang Zhao rubbed his chin and looked at the onion in his hand, about the size of a mandarin orange. Could it be that the modern onion was selected and bred by Americans? This mandarin-sized onion really was very different from the later ones.

Never mind — from now on it would not be called "foreign onion" but "Hu onion," which could count as a rare contribution from Zhang Zhao's trip through time.

Onions were excellent for seasoning, and to a certain extent could kill parasites, making them very suitable for adding to the common people's table.

"Minnow" was a general term for a kind of small, spotted, mixed fish, widely distributed in China's rivers and lakes, generally at most about one jin; the Issyk-Kul minnow was somewhat larger, reaching one jin seven or eight liang, just right for grilling.

However, a group of Balasagun — no! — a group of Suyab nobles watched Zhang Zhao with some discomfort.

Because they actually did not eat the fish of Issyk-Kul; even in times of famine, if herders wanted to catch some to eat, the nobles would not permit it.

This was not because they begrudged the lake's fish; as a great lake of more than six thousand square kilometers, the fish within were as many as one could want, and even if all the tens of thousands of people around the lake came to eat, it could fully supply them.

Their not eating was actually out of a kind of awe. As the world's deepest alpine lake, over seven hundred meters at its deepest point, Issyk-Kul's surface was not actually all that beautiful; rather, because it was too deep, it appeared an unusually dark blue, with a dread-inducing sense of fear.

People with thalassophobia in particular easily felt fear of it, and easily associated it with monsters at the bottom of the water.

So the people around did not eat the fish of the Hot Lake, actually out of a fear of offending the lake god or the monsters in the lake.

Even the Tang monk Tripitaka, who passed through this place, had a special record of this lake. He said: "This lake's vast waves are immense, its startling billows surge and churn; dragons and fish dwell together, spirits and monsters rise among them. Therefore travelers passing to and fro pray for blessings; though the water creatures are many, none dare fish or catch them."

It seems this Master Tripitaka also felt, toward this lake, that sense of awe humans have before the grandeur of nature. That a great and virtuous eminent monk could record "spirits and monsters rise among them" is proof enough of the pressure this lake brought upon the surrounding people.

Even the author of the historical Journey to the West was influenced by it; it is said the Bibo Lake was modeled on this lake.

The Princess Wansheng and the Nine-Headed Insect were certainly no good creatures — was the image of the Nine-Headed Insect not precisely the monster in people's hearts?

The grilled fish was ready. Onions, tofu, celery, and zhuyu, passed through oil, were fragrant; the grilled fish itself was crisp outside and tender within. This was made by the new Great Khagan himself — who would dare not show face?

The surrounding Suyab nobles and religious leaders all hurried over, and even Master Titexigu, who had not yet left, came too.

But Zhang Zhao did not intend to let him eat. Although Buddhism at this time did not strictly abstain from meat, it very much abstained from strongly flavored foods such as onions and garlic.

Sweeping his gaze over the crowd, who looked somewhat unwilling to eat yet had no choice but to eat, Zhang Zhao put on a solemn face.

"From now on, you may all eat the fish of this lake, because last night I discussed the matter in a dream with the lake god of the Hot Lake. The lake god said that if he agreed, he would send a thunderclap rising from the lake bottom as a sign!"

These words made everyone look at one another in dismay. Believing in gods and worshipping gods was one thing; a god actually appearing before their eyes was another matter entirely.

Zhang Zhao, struggling to suppress a smile, turned around with an air of great pretension and waved toward the lake's surface. "God of the Hot Lake, this Khagan has arrived. It is time for you to keep your promise!"

"Boom!" Within a few breaths after Zhang Zhao waved, a muffled thunderclap sounded from the lake bottom, shaking people to the core.

Then a flash of fire swept across the lake bottom with the thunder, like lightning, and even the calm surface of the deep-blue Hot Lake seemed to churn, truly as if something were responding to Zhang Zhao.

"The god of the Hot Lake has answered the Khagan! From now on, the fish of the Hot Lake may all be enjoyed by the Khagan's subjects!"

"The Khagan is the true lord of Suyab! Only he has received the blessing of the Hot Lake's god! This is something even Qadir Khan never achieved!"

They had prepared in advance large packets of gunpowder hung with heavy iron weights, used fishing boats as cover, fitted the fuses into well-sealed oiled paper, then thrown them into the water and lit the fuses to detonate.

There was nothing special about it; one might even call it crude. But it was more than enough to frighten these tenth-century bumpkin tribal chieftains.

Under the strenuous performance of a group of plants selected from the Guo family, the Suyab tribal nobles, stunned by the gunpowder explosion, once again fell to their knees. They sang praises to Zhang Zhao the Great Khagan, even more devoutly than before.

Amid the cheers, Zhang Zhao looked with satisfaction at the people kneeling all over the ground. "Last night the god of the Hot Lake also told this Khagan in a dream that although Suyab's calamity has now been dispelled by the bloody valor of this Khagan and this Khagan's warriors,

far to the south in Shule, the Buddha's calamity is far from over.

Because the traitor Satuq has abandoned his ancestors, abandoned the Buddha, and defiled the Buddha's holy sites and relics.

Master Titexigu, I wonder whether the Burana Great Buddha Temple can undertake the weighty task of rebuilding the Great Cloud Temple of Shule and guarding the Buddha's relics?"

All this elaborate showmanship served, on the one hand, to increase Zhang Zhao's prestige among the nobles of Suyab's various tribes.

More importantly, it was about how to reasonably and justifiably get Titexigu and the monks of the Burana Great Buddha Temple to Shule.

Although Nestorian Christianity was the religion with the most adherents in Suyab, Buddhism's influence was by no means small.

If administrative force were used to drive Titexigu to Shule, it would clearly cause division or even conflict among Suyab's believers, which would not serve Zhang Zhao's interests.

Titexigu glanced at Zhang Zhao. He certainly did not want to go to Shule; the Buddhists there had almost all been slaughtered or scattered by Satuq, and rebuilding a following would be very difficult.

And the fine-sounding talk of rebuilding the Great Cloud Temple was even more absurd, because the Great Cloud Temple had been destroyed to the point that only mounds of earth remained. Who knew whether this Great Sage Son of Heaven of the Golden Kingdom really intended to rebuild the Great Cloud Temple, and how much grain and money he could allocate?

If he did not go — Titexigu's heart stirred — if he did not want to go, now might be his only chance.

Titexigu did not care at all about any god of the Hot Lake. I am a Tripitaka master; I recite the fundamental mantra of Shakyamuni's Extinction of Delight!

But then he glanced again at the several hundred elite cavalry kneeling by the lakeside around him. He knew how formidable these men were.

Thirty thousand Persian troops had come, and a few charges by these men had shattered them; they had even fought one against ten beneath the walls of Polu Prefecture and smashed Satuq's Ghulam guards.

Very well! At this thought, Titexigu suddenly felt that going to Shule to rebuild the Great Cloud Temple was not so hard to accept after all.

"This humble monk Titexigu is willing to lead the monks of the Burana Great Buddha Temple to Shule. The Great Cloud Temple was once the Buddhist kingdom of Anxi, built by imperial decree of His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Tang, and it holds the relics of Shakyamuni Buddha. To receive the trust of the Khagan and the Great Sage Son of Heaven of the Golden Kingdom is this humble monk's honor."

Titexigu swallowed this bitter fruit with difficulty. What he did not know was that without Zhang Zhao, at this point in history, he would not even have had the qualifications to swallow a bitter fruit.

Historically, Satuq besieged the city for five months and could never take Balasagun, so he could only retreat, half in earnest and half in pretense.

In the end, Titexigu and Pugu Naluo had probably drunk too much and thought Satuq was a spent force, and just as in this timeline they had led troops to bloody battle with the Muslims at Julan, they gathered twenty thousand men and set out in pursuit of the retreating enemy.

The overjoyed Satuq promptly turned his army around, and in a great battle by the Hot Lake, the Balasagun pursuers were annihilated to the last man. Pugu Naluo immediately knelt and declared his willingness to convert.

Then he entered Balasagun, where Saktu destroyed the great Brahma Buddhist Temple and carried the monk Titixigu and the other monks off to Shule. He did not kill him, however, only kept him confined until he died.

More than forty years later, Titixigu's disciple's disciple, Nuogute Rexiti, became the Buddhist leader of the city of Shule.

With his support from within, Li Shengtian's son Li Congde led a combined Khotan-Gaochang army to capture Shule in 969, dealing the Karakhanid state a near-fatal blow and almost shattering it. It was only a pity that in the end they could not hold on to the fruits of victory.

This Titixigu, it must be said, was simply fated to be connected with Shule.

When Guo Xuanqing heard Titixigu say this, he immediately let out a long breath of relief. As long as the monks of Brahma Temple moved away, he was confident he could absorb the remaining Buddhists.

If the cross is no good, are there not still pastures, fields, and such things?

This was the benefit of becoming Acting Military Governor of Suyab. Once Great Khagan Zhang left, he would be the greatest leader in Suyab.

Guo Xuanqing squeezed the roster in his hand, preparing to go back and add more of the Guo family's sons to it.

This was also part of his agreement with Zhang Zhao: a very large portion of the Guo family's sons who could read and ride and shoot would follow Zhang Zhao east on his return.

There would be no fewer than five hundred of them, and at the same time Guo Xuanqing would also help Zhang Zhao recruit two hundred Nestorian knights.

As compensation, Zhang Zhao agreed to add one thousand households of the Basmyl tribe to Guo Xuanqing's command. From then on, the political structure of Suyab would be set: the strength of the Guo family plus the Nestorians would be enough for Guo Xuanqing to control the place.

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