Chapter 200: Five Clans and Three Kings at Last United as One

The approximate location of Kesai City is near Namangan, the capital of Namangan Province in later Uzbekistan, at the very center of the Fergana Basin.

And the reason the Fergana Basin is so important is that it possesses the most self-sufficient agriculture in all of Transoxiana.

Because the basin plain is fed by snowmelt from the surrounding mountains, its water supply is especially abundant, and the conditions for crop farming are exceptionally favorable.

At the same time, the surrounding high mountains provide large expanses of lushly vegetated highland that can be used for raising cattle and sheep.

The Yaxartes River (Syr Darya), which runs across the basin, provides exceptionally convenient transport.

One must understand that in ancient times road-building was difficult, and transport relied overwhelmingly on waterways; only where water transport flourished could agriculture and commerce flourish.

Within the Fergana Basin, the Yaxartes is wide, deep, and moderate in current; with only a few water-control works to guard against sudden snowmelt floods, its conditions can be called uniquely blessed.

With these excellent conditions, the Fergana Basin gradually became the foundation of hegemony in Transoxiana. Whoever could hold it could march out to campaign in all directions, or withdraw and shut the passes in self-defense — it was simply the Guanzhong Plain of Transoxiana.

So this self-contained Fergana Basin was, in the Tsarist Russian era, deftly apportioned by the Tsarist government among three countries.

Namely the three stans of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

The purpose was to ensure that no one could monopolize this uniquely blessed land of abundance, and thus no strong state could arise to keep making trouble for Tsarist Russia.

And at this moment, this basin, already beginning to display the allure of a rich land, was likewise divided into three parts.

The northeastern part, just captured by Zhang Zhao: Andukang and its surroundings.

The central part, controlling the most fertile land but seemingly resigned to being beaten behind closed gates: Yusuf, the former governor of Fergana under the Karakhanids.

And the southwestern part, controlling the valley mouth around Khujand: Hakim Abdur of the Persian Samanid state.

Yang Tongyi, his son Yang Shouli, and the two men Xue Shouli and Zheng Shouli walked with eyes fixed straight ahead through rank after rank of elite armored soldiers in blue-black cotton armor, toward the center of the great camp.

From the fall of Andukang to the march all the way to a point thirty li outside Kesai City, the Great King Zhang who had sent Commander Ma to save their lives had still not summoned them, and this kept the hearts of Yang Tongyi and the other three perpetually suspended.

At first Yang Tongyi had assumed Great King Zhang would surely summon them at the first opportunity; after all, the three clans of New Kucha numbered more than seven thousand souls.

So many sons of Tang — not just in Anxi, but even in Hexi — were precious beyond measure. Having won their allegiance, would Great King Zhang not hasten to reassure them?

But after waiting more than a month with no reassurance forthcoming, the four could not help their hearts beating anxiously. Setting aside everything else, merely looking at the warriors of Great King Zhang's Fengtian Army, Fengtian Camp, was enough to shake them to the core.

For this powerful army no longer even bothered with iron lamellar armor; among them were at least four hundred sets of blue-black cotton armor.

This kind of armor Yang Shouli had seen before, on Commander Ma. Light, sturdy, and convenient, it was absolutely the finest armor he had ever seen.

Four hundred armored soldiers in cotton armor, each with three or more warhorses — in Anxi, that was a force capable of destroying a state.

If iron lamellar armor were counted as well, the entire Fengtian Camp of eleven hundred warriors had a full one hundred percent armor rate, and the eleven hundred warriors of the guard camp had an armor rate of over sixty percent.

These twenty-two hundred warriors included both cavalry and infantry; even the infantry were each assigned two horses, and every squad of ten men had a donkey and a camel to carry other supplies.

Though called a mixed force of horse and foot, in practice their mobility was not one bit inferior to those units composed entirely of light cavalry.

So even leaving aside the more than ten thousand elite troops of the Khotan Golden Kingdom under Great King Zhang's command, these twenty-two hundred men of the Fengtian Army alone were enough for Great King Zhang to rampage across the Western Regions. Whether or not he had the several hundred able-bodied men of their three clans of New Kucha truly mattered little.

"Elder Yang, please rise, quickly! Brothers, please rise, quickly!" Zhang Zhao naturally did not reveal that he had deliberately cold-shouldered Yang Tongyi and the others; on the contrary, he appeared especially moved.

And of course he ought to be moved. Great King Zhang did very much wish to see them, but the shadow of the Guo family still lingered, and he felt he should remain somewhat reserved; this would make them easier to manage in the future.

A more important reason was that Zhang Zhao had many armored soldiers but few commoner subjects. Once they returned to Hexi and these seven thousand-odd sons of Tang obtained a stable living environment, their population was bound to explode.

If they were allowed to keep banding together like this, then in a dozen or so years they would likely become a massive bloc of ennobled elites under Zhang Zhao's command.

So he wanted, at the very outset, to directly break up the pattern of the three clans of New Kucha uniting as one, and divide them.

"These two are the brothers Guo Guangsheng and Guo Guangcheng. In former years, Guo Dalang was their grandfather. This is Guo Tiance, a clan nephew of Guangsheng and Guangcheng."

After helping Yang Tongyi and the other three to their feet, Zhang Zhao introduced Guo Xuanli's two sons and Guo Tiance to Yang Tongyi and the others.

"By the ordering of us descendants of the Anxi Army, this old man would have to call the two of you uncle!" Yang Tongyi stroked his beard, his face carrying a trace of embarrassment.

Guo Guangsheng and Guo Guangcheng's father, Guo Xuanli, had been the posthumous son of Guo Dalang of former years.

And Guo Xuanli had also resolved his personal affairs late, with the result that Guo Guangsheng, in his forties, was actually the uncle of Yang Tongyi, a man in his fifties.

Guo Guangcheng went without saying; he was even younger, making him a genuine little uncle.

Of course, regardless of age, an elder was still an elder. And so a group of Anxi Army descendants set about ordering themselves by age and generation, while Zhang Zhao introduced them at the side, inwardly sighing with emotion.

Among the five clans and three kings of the Anxi Army in those years — the Lu family of the Shule Garrison Commander, the Pei family of the King of Shule, the Bai family of the King of Kucha, and the Li family of Li Yuanzhong, Military Governor of Beiting and Prince of Ningsai Commandery — their talents had withered; they could not even muster a hundred people.

Among them the Bai family was the most wretched: their descendants could no longer be found, and the line was nearly extinct. The Pei family still had a small branch line remaining.

The Li family had only nine people left, including Li Qilang, with merely two males. The Lu family might still have some descendants; at least that traitor Lu Sanlang was still alive.

But apart from these four miserable families, the Guo, Yang, and Zheng families, along with the Xue family of the Fergana royal house, had actually managed to hold on.

The Guo family was the largest, with a full five thousand and more; the Yang family was next, with over three thousand; the Zheng and Xue families each had between one and two thousand people.

Though there were regrets, at last nearly all the descendants of the Anxi Army had been found.

At the same time, Zhang Zhao's gains were not small. He had taken three hundred young men from the Guo family, among them more than thirty who were literate, and the Guo family had also recruited two hundred Nestorian Christian cavalrymen for him.

This was no small number, because the Guo family itself had only a thousand-odd able-bodied men, and Zhang Zhao had taken away roughly thirty percent in one stroke.

As for the Yang, Zheng, and Xue clans of New Kucha, it now appeared that nearly all of them would return east with him.

Quite good. Even if he returned to Dunhuang right now, Zhang Zhao would have nearly ten thousand commoner subjects, fifteen hundred armored soldiers, over six hundred elite light cavalry, and more than two hundred fully armored cavalry.

With these men, fighting the Ganzhou Uyghurs was not very realistic, but returning to Dunhuang to seize power should be enough.

"Ten thousand li, a lone city; everywhere white-haired soldiers. Born as children of the Han, dead as souls of the sons of Tang."

Zhang Zhao softly chanted two lines of verse. They did not rhyme well, nor did they display any literary talent, but they were the finest description of the heroic souls of the Great Tang who had held Anxi alone for over a hundred years.

Many people thought this was an ancient poem, but in fact it was not; it came from the UnionPay short film "The Last Transfer of Tang Mobei."

Guo Tiance, standing behind Zhang Zhao, clapped his hands, and a troop of armored soldiers carried in portrait after portrait. Yang Shouli looked up and saw, in order:

His Excellency Guo Xin, Grand Protector-General of Anxi of the Great Tang, Military Governor of the Four Garrisons, Prince of Wuwei Commandery.

His Excellency Li Yuanzhong, Grand Protector-General of Beiting of the Great Tang, Prince of Ningsai Commandery.

His Excellency Yang Xigu, Grand Protector-General of Beiting of the Great Tang.

His Excellency Zheng Ju, General of Martial Might of the Great Tang, Envoy of the Khotan Army, Garrison Commander of Khotan.

His Excellency Yang Riyou, Garrison Commander of Yanqi of the Great Tang, Prefect of the subordinate city of Shule, Acting Governor-General of Yanqi.

The Great Tang Defense Commissioner of Shule, Lord Lu, taboo name Yang.

The Great Tang's loyal vassal, King of Kucha, Lord Bai, taboo name Huan.

King of Shule, Lord Pei, taboo name Lengling.

King of Ferghana, Lord Xue, taboo name Cheng.

Only now did Yang Shouli understand why Ma Yaozi, the troop commander, had come to him a few days earlier asking for portraits of the three ancestral clans of New Kucha — Great King Zhang needed them here.

"Though I am not a descendant of the Anxi Army, ever since I can remember, I have heard from my elders of the lonely Anxi garrison and of the Iron-Blood Prince, Lord Guo.

In years past, my great-grandfather the Grand Guardian wished more than once to send troops to their rescue, but he could never make the journey, and let a petty man like Pugu Jun seize the opening.

But today, Heaven has blessed us sons of Tang, and I can still lead twenty thousand lions here, and still find the descendants of those heroes.

Before finding you all, I, Zhang Erlang, recovered our homeland in the battle of Shule; in the battle of Poluzhou, Satuq fled for his life; in the battle of Suyab, the Persians quailed. Now that I have come outside the walls of Kesan, this battle too shall be settled in a single stroke!

For once this battle is done, my mission in Anxi is complete, and the time will have come for us to carry our ancestors' heroic spirits eastward together, and let their souls rest at last in the homeland they yearned for in their dreams!

From this day forward, there are no three clans of New Kucha here, no Guo family of Suyab, no remnant of the Great Cloud Temple. Here there is but one name: the surviving subjects of the Great Tang!

Today I have brought the spirit tablets of your ancestors to this place so that they may see with their own eyes how we, their descendants, inherit their valor, slaughter the barbarians until not a scrap of armor remains, and restore the Great Tang's glory!"

Zhang Zhao delivered his speech with fervor, and the people in the room were stirred beyond measure. But Yang Tongyi and his son Yang Shouli exchanged a glance. Great King Zhang had made it very clear: from now on there would be no three houses of New Kucha, only the surviving subjects of the Great Tang.

And so, as leaders of the three clans of New Kucha, the Yang family's strength on the surface was bound to suffer.

For if they agreed, they would inevitably lose leadership over the other two families. Though the Zheng and Xue clans would remain close to them, they would no longer be one body.

Yang Shouli wore a faint smile, but his eyes had slid to the corners, watching Zheng Shouli and Xue Shouli beside him.

Zheng Shouli's sidelong glance happened to sweep across Yang Shouli's face. The two froze in embarrassment, then quickly looked away.

Xue Shouli did not even glance at Yang Shouli. His face instead glowed with the excitement of one who had at last found his people.

Yang Shouli looked at the spirit image of his ancestor, Defense Commissioner of Yanqi Yang Riyou, then at the brothers beside him, and scenes of the past rose in his mind.

In the twenty-odd years since he could remember, the Karakhanid Bughra Khan Satuq, the governor of Ferghana Yusuf, and the Samanid Persian Hakim—

all of them had treated the three clans of New Kucha as cattle and sheep born in the wild, oppressing them at will, even seizing, beating, and killing them.

The root of it all was that they had no one to rely on; they had lost their mighty motherland.

"Great King! The descendants of Defense Commissioner of Yanqi Lord Yang, taboo name Riyou, are willing to obey your commands. Though it be climbing a mountain of blades or plunging into a sea of fire, we will have no complaint!"

After exchanging a glance with his father Yang Tongyi, Yang Shouli was the first to step forward. He no longer spoke in the name of the three clans of New Kucha, but used the name of the Yang family alone.

"Great King! The descendants of Defense Commissioner of Khotan Lord Zheng, taboo name Ju, and the descendants of King of Ferghana Lord Xue, taboo name Cheng, are likewise willing to follow you to smash the Persian mongrel curs and escort our ancestors' heroic spirits eastward!"

Zheng Shouli and Xue Shouli let out long breaths of relief and stepped forward at the same time.

The Guo family, the Li family, and the monk-soldiers of the Great Cloud Temple also came forward in a steady stream. Zhang Zhao nodded with satisfaction.

The descendants of the Anxi Army — the five clans and three royal houses — after sixty years of separation, were at last reunited in his hands.

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