Chapter 187: Is This the Heroes of Sui and Tang?

In the fourth year of Changxing of the Later Tang, the twenty-second year of Tongqing of Khotan, in the fifth month of 933 CE, Zhang Zhao, who had spent nearly a year in Suyab, led his army out of Suyab City.

During this nearly one-year period, Zhang Zhao first routed the Samanid Persian invaders and ascended to the Khagan throne of the Suyab Ju'er Khan.

He also established in Suyab City a political structure headed by Guo Xuanqing as Acting Military Governor of Suyab, along with a council of elders from the various Suyab tribes.

He further set up the Western Grand Protectorate, helping Suyab City regain control of the lands east of Talas.

And when Zhang Zhao, who had originally come to Suyab's aid with over two thousand men, departed this time, he took a full three thousand troops with him.

This was not simply a matter of gaining a thousand men, because apart from two hundred armored soldiers of the Khotan Palace Guard who remained stationed in Suyab, the other seven hundred or so had long since returned to Shule.

In other words, Zhang Zhao and the three thousand-plus troops were now entirely his own force.

The organization, however, remained unchanged. The army was still called the Fengtian Army, and the Fengtian Battalion had seen no major changes. Zhang Zhao had merely absorbed over two hundred brave men from the area around Suyab City into the Hanshan Du.

The Fengtian Army's other battalion, the Feng'en Battalion, was disbanded because Li Shengtian had recalled the Khotan Palace Guard.

Filling the gap left by that battalion was a new battalion Zhang Zhao formed and trained in Suyab, built mainly around the sons of the Guo family, called the Baoda Battalion. Its name came from the Baoda Army, the most famous army of the old Great Tang Suyab Garrison.

Yan Jin was smoothly promoted. Zhang Zhao assigned him to the Baoda Battalion as its battalion officer, Right Chief Inspector, while his former post as infantry colonel of the Hanshan Du was taken over by Fan Quan.

The Baoda Battalion was divided into the Flying Tiger Du and the Iron Horse Du. The former was mounted heavy infantry, composed mainly of the sons of the Guo family, but it was Yan Jin who served as its commander and personally controlled it.

The latter was called the Iron Horse Du, but in reality it was primarily horse archers. The heavy cavalry numbered only one hundred men, and even they were pseudo-heavy cavalry, with armored riders but unarmored horses, the men wearing only mail.

This du was commanded by Guo Xuanli's son Guo Guangcheng, which also fulfilled Zhang Zhao's promise. Although Guo Xuanli had been removed, Zhang Zhao did not strike at Guo Xuanli's son; instead, he continued to employ him in an important role.

And Guo Guangcheng, unlike Guo Guangsheng, whom Zhang Zhao had arranged to become a civil official under Wu Yuan'er, did not actually resent his father's fall from power. On the contrary, he had long disagreed somewhat with Guo Xuanli's ever-deepening Christianization of the Guo family.

At the same time, Zhang Zhao finally began to establish his own civil official system. Guo Tiance was appointed by Zhang Zhao as his advisor, and Wu Yuan'er and Zhu Qingquan also received this post.

The forty-odd men Yin Yaozi had trained at Talas were also incorporated into this system, with Secretary Guo Tiance as their head.

The post of advisor was not, in fact, an invention of later ages. This office had begun to be established in the mid-to-late Tang, and now many of the kings in the Central Plains who had transformed from Military Governors had also established this office.

Moreover, this "advisor" meant one who participates in planning and strategy, quite close in function to the later version, except that it was not limited to military affairs — they could also take part in civil decision-making.

"Great Khan! This is the Heroes' Chronicle of our dynasty, compiled according to the Great Khan's outline. May the Great Khan review it!"

Guo Tiance brought over a full chest of manuscript pages. These past days, this new-generation "thousand-li colt" of the Guo family had been utterly exhausted.

Because Zhang Zhao had given him a story outline and then handed the work of polishing it over to him.

And it was not simply a matter of writing it and being done. Every plot point had to be checked by Zhang Zhao, and if he was dissatisfied with the writing, Zhang Zhao would make him revise it. Over a month of repeated revisions had nearly driven Guo Tiance to collapse.

What was Zhang Zhao after? He was writing a novel!

This move had been the product of much racking of brains, and its origin lay in the lesson Guo Xuanli had taught him, which made Zhang Zhao realize that the work of pulling people back from Anxi and Transoxiana would be very difficult.

Because families like the Guo family, who had already achieved a certain standing locally, were very hard to pull back.

Although they still preserved their traditions, they were now almost indistinguishable from the local people.

The locals did not discriminate against them either. On the contrary, because the Han people were industrious, willing to work, and valued culture, once they stabilized, they would gradually climb into the local middle and upper strata.

This was inevitable. Contrary to later generations' impression that every people in Anxi and Transoxiana targeted the Tang people, they absolutely did not have the leisure to specifically target the Tang people.

Because the whole of Anxi and Transoxiana was, in fact, a great arena where all peoples met and mingled.

Here there were white people like the Scythians, and peoples like the Uyghurs and Karluks who had both yellow and white racial elements. There were Buddhists, Christians, worshippers of the Great God of Light, believers in primitive shamanism — every kind of person was here.

In other words, in the Anxi and Transoxiana of this era, ethnicity and appearance were not a crime. Weakness and the inability to protect oneself were the original sin.

Those who could weather this difficulty, like the Guo family, would gradually grow strong. If, during this time, a Central Plains dynasty could send a great army west to recover Anxi, it might still be possible to pull them back, and they would become the pillars of the Central Plains dynasty's control over Anxi and Transoxiana.

But if the Central Plains dynasty could not come, then after several decades or a century, their gradual and complete barbarization would be the inevitable result.

And families that could not survive this stage, like the Li family attached to the Great Cloud Temple of Shule, would gradually vanish into the long river of history.

This was the greatest difficulty Zhang Zhao faced. If he had a powerful state and army behind him like Ban Dingyuan, then families like the Guo family would have no choice but to cling to his coattails.

But he did not. His current strength was built entirely on his own divine valor, plus borrowing part of Li Shengtian's banner to stand himself up.

That was why Guo Xuanli believed he had done nothing wrong, and even felt that, out of consideration for their shared descent from Tang people, he had secured a rather good deal for Zhang Zhao.

Had it not been for stirring up the longing of Guo Tiance and others to return east upon entering the territory, and for exploiting Guo Xuanqing's dissatisfaction with Guo Xuanli and his ambition to dominate Suyab alone, this time might truly have been the end — unless Zhang Zhao was willing to launch a great army and slaughter Suyab City.

And this was also why Guo Xuanqing was willing to help Zhang Zhao scrape together eighty sets of iron lamellar armor and treasure worth over one hundred fifty thousand strings of cash, and to agree to Zhang Zhao taking away the captured armor, weapons, donkeys, horses, and other supplies from the Persian army.

Guo Xuanqing knew full well that Zhang Zhao had no real foundation. He was waiting for Zhang Zhao to leave so that he could monopolize power in Suyab.

Zhang Zhao, for his part, very straightforwardly took the elite troops and valuables, showing not the slightest greed for power in Suyab, nor any attempt to create a balance or leave behind trusted confidants.

What a joke. Suyab to Shule was over two thousand li, Shule to Dunhuang over four thousand li, Dunhuang to Chang'an over three thousand li — about as far as Suyab to Baghdad.

At such a distance, unless you could make shadow clones, leaving anything behind was useless.

What Zhang Zhao needed, and could take with him, was Suyab's armor, weapons, donkeys, horses, and treasures, along with the brave men willing to follow him, and also this title of Suyab Ju'er Khan that he valued so highly.

If Zhang Zhao could later march east from Longyou and pacify the realm, then without even needing an edict, Guo Xuanqing would come straight to Chang'an to pay tribute, giving whatever was asked.

If Zhang Zhao demanded he come to Chang'an as a hostage, the man might even feel the imperial grace was boundless, bestowing upon him a return to his homeland to live out his old age.

If the return east failed, then there was nothing more to say. In a world where strength is supreme, relations between people are just that plain and unadorned.

And the first step to a successful return east was to ensure that Zhang Zhao could obtain enough elite armored soldiers from Anxi to bring back to Dunhuang.

A small portion of that would depend on the support of Li Shengtian and Cao Yuanxin, but the greater part would depend on his own gathering.

Now, as analyzed earlier, large established families like the Guo family would not necessarily be willing to return east with him.

Li Qilang and Zheng Tong were willing, but they were almost entirely alone, with no followers to speak of.

What was even more worrying was that an unstable factor had always existed within the Fengtian Army: although they kept winning battles and were not short of money, the men below lacked offices, lacked power, and lacked land to settle down on.

On the surface, Zhang Zhao currently held no official position. The office Li Shengtian of Khotan had given him, he did not dare take too seriously, because he feared that if he treated the Khotan office as real, after years of hard work Li Shengtian could pluck the peach in one stroke.

Secondly, he could not use the title of Suyab Ju'er Khan either. If he used it, unless he was willing to settle his men in Suyab, he absolutely could not use it now.

As for the Guiyi Army, there was even less of a place for him there, and no Central Plains dynasty would think of enfeoffing such an unknown nobody as far as the Central Plains was concerned.

So Zhang Zhao now looked quite exalted — a Khagan, a Commandery Duke and Prefect, and a scion of a famous family — but he could not use any of it. One could say he effectively had nothing.

So how to maintain ideological unity in the ranks? How to let the descendants of the sons of Tang who wished to return east know of his existence amid the vast sea of people, and be willing to follow him?

How to turn the return east to the motherland into something filled with glory?

With material security in place, spiritual needs had to be addressed as well.

So the esteemed man of culture, Great Khagan Zhang, was preparing to publish a book — two books at once, in fact.

The first was titled *Complete Biographies of the Great Tang Heroes*, essentially an adaptation based on the *Complete Tales of the Tang*, as edited by the Mandarin Duck Lake Fisherman of the Qing dynasty.

The reason he chose this book was that Zhang Zhao was extremely familiar with its storyline.

With little entertainment in his childhood, the *Tales of the Tang* and the *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* had been the most treasured spiritual and cultural nourishment for Zhang Zhao — from his childhood playmates all the way up to his parents and grandparents.

Things like the rankings of the Eighteen and Thirty-Six Heroes of the Sui and Tang.

Li Yuanba, who hurled hammers at the sky; Yuwen Chengdu, the official's son; Pei Yuanqing, who rode the Jade Lion of Illumination.

Luo Cheng's horse sinking into the Muddy River, Qin Qiong selling his horse, Cheng Yaojin's three axe strokes, Shan Xiongxin's Gathering of Worthies Manor, and so on.

These figures were deeply etched into Zhang Zhao's heart, so he only needed to lay out a detailed outline and have someone polish and refine it.

The novel as an art form did not fully mature until the mid-to-late Qing dynasty, so in the present day it was a superweapon — no less stunning than Zhang Zhao's first encounter with *Jurassic Park* and *Star Wars*.

And the effect was indeed remarkable. Zhang Zhao first had Wu Yuan'er try telling a section to Yan Jin, Ma Yaozi, and the others, and it immediately seized their hearts.

Wu Yuan'er now dared not appear alone before them — the moment she showed up she would be caught, and there was no getting away until she talked herself hoarse.

Apart from *Complete Biographies of the Great Tang Heroes*, a novel with exaggerated elements, the second book was documentary literature leaning toward historical fact, which Zhang Zhao titled *Biographies of the Heroes of Han and Tang*.

The book began with the Yellow Emperor, but the greatest space was devoted to the famous ministers and generals of the Han and Great Tang dynasties — especially those connected to the Western Regions — with each person given a short biographical tale.

It included the Han dynasty's Wei Qing, Huo Qubing, Dou Gu, Dou Xian, Ban Chao, Chen Tang, and Geng Gong, who fed on the flesh of the barbarians.

As well as the Great Tang's Li Jing, Xue Rengui, Su Dingfang, Ashina She'er, Guo Xiaoke, and Zhang Zhao's own ancestor — that Zhang Xiaosong who led ten thousand rabble and sent the Arabs fleeing like wolves and scurrying rats.

In the carriage, Zhang Zhao carefully read through Guo Tiance's manuscript of the first ten and last ten chapters, and finally nodded with satisfaction.

*Complete Biographies of the Great Tang Heroes* ran one hundred thirty chapters in all, totaling six hundred fifty thousand characters — in this age, absolutely a pinnacle work of entertainment literature.

Zhang Zhao merely imagined the horror of writing six hundred fifty thousand characters with a brush on soft, flimsy paper, and his scalp went numb.

In later ages, web novels ran to millions of characters, but that was built on typing at a computer. Writing directly by hand was truly a terrifying thing.

"Good! Keep this book safe. When we reach Shule, first find several dozen literate men to copy out ten sets into books, then train a batch of literate men according to my requirements. Can it be done in a month?"

Zhang Zhao handed the chest back to Guo Tiance and asked. Guo Tiance pondered for a moment.

"The Khagan has given his command; your servant will spare no effort. But I do not know whether Shule has enough yellow hemp paper, nor whether there are literate men who can write a fine hand."

Zhang Zhao sighed. This was the difficulty of writing and publishing books in ancient times — even when the text was finished, turning it into a book was a very hard matter.

Especially in Anxi, where printing was practically nonexistent and movable type had not yet been invented, so copying became the great difficulty.

In Anxi there were not even many people who could write Chinese characters, let alone write them well. Ten sets of a six-hundred-fifty-thousand-character book would require an astronomical amount of yellow hemp paper.

Ah! It seemed he would still have to ask Li Shengtian for help, to see whether there was any to be had in the city of Khotan.

"On this matter, I will discuss it with the Great Sage Son of Heaven, to see whether some can be transferred from Khotan.

You do your work well. If it can be completed within a month, then for this book, I can have your name, Guo Tiance, listed among the authors.

And from now on, do not call me Khagan. Call me Lord of the Commandery, or Zhang Erlang, either is fine."

Guo Tiance was instantly energized. Could a mere ghostwriter also have authorship rights? This was a magnificent work of six hundred fifty thousand characters! Enough to leave his name in the annals of history.

"Rest assured, Lord of the Commandery. Your servant will exert himself to the utmost to complete it within the month."

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