Chapter 222: Bukhara, Pearl of Transoxiana

What is it like to personally order the death of one's own father? When Prince Hamid descended from the stone city, his steps were light and floating.

When he watched the blade pierce Nasr II's chest, he actually felt a thrill of vengeance finally achieved.

But immediately after, an indescribable feeling began to coil around his heart. Prince Hamid actually felt like crying, as if Nasr II had died a natural death.

"Elder Brother! Hamid, my elder brother, I am willing to serve you, to serve you forever and ever!"

The one wailing behind Prince Hamid was none other than Prince Sadiq, who had been gleefully waiting to become crown prince from Emir. 1

Just now, under Prince Hamid's coercion, he had ordered his officers to kill Emir Nasr II, thinking he could save his own life. He never expected to be dragged off to the mass grave that had already been dug.

Prince Hamid did not even listen to the wailing of his brothers behind him. He walked forward, one step deep and one step shallow, still not knowing what his own fate would be. Would he too be pushed into the mass grave?

After the bloody battle, only a little over three thousand of the Bukhara ghulams loyal to him remained. Of those, only a few hundred had died in battle; the remaining seven or eight thousand had all fled when they saw the tide turning.

And the Gur Khan? He had at least seven or eight thousand men. Even if Hamid had twenty thousand, he did not think he could defeat the Gur Khan's army. They were simply too terrifying!

And if he were the Gur Khan, he would never keep any promise. The best course would be to kill him too, then gather up the ghulams from all quarters and directly become the master of Bukhara. Would that not be better?

"Can you speak Uyghur?" Zhang Zhao asked in a deep voice, looking at the Samanid crown prince who had been dragged before him by the collar, held by Man Xiong.

This fellow really is a handsome middle-aged man! His face was as hard and sharp as if carved by blade and axe, paired with a sexy little mustache. Hmm, only slightly inferior to himself.

"Yes!" Prince Hamid also raised his head to look at the Gur Khan on horseback, and immediately revealed an expression of disbelief. This Gur Khan was far too young, wasn't he?

He looked to be only around twenty, his face suffused with a somewhat roguish air, completely different from the image he had imagined: a face full of beard, big yellow teeth, reeking of mutton all over, someone who would casually cut down a few people for amusement.

A cold wind whistled past. After Prince Hamid answered that one word, Zhang Zhao on horseback said nothing more, and the two fell into an awkward silence.

But Zhang Zhao sat on horseback with several dozen elite cavalry, while Prince Hamid was covered in blood and filth, and had been dragged over by Man Xiong.

Soon, Prince Hamid could not hold out any longer. Although this Gur Khan appeared refined and cultured, who knew whether that was merely a facade?

"Hamid, crown prince of the Samanids, pays respects to the Khagan of the superior kingdom, the great Khan of Khans, His Majesty the Gur Khan!"

Blood soaked through Prince Hamid's knees as he obediently knelt down.

The boy is teachable! Great Khan Zhang grinned widely. For some reason, he simply wanted to laugh.

A wave of comfort from the depths of his soul surged through his brain again and again, far more pleasurable than having Cao Yanmian and the little wildcat Guo Wan'er together at once.

Indeed, the feeling of conquest is the highest pleasure of a man, just as in later ages many men enjoy having their female companions kneel to serve them. That too is a form of conquest — the most primitive kind!

Accompanying Zhang Zhao's laughter was the howling, shrieking laughter of the armored soldiers around him.

Today, with casualties so negligible as to be almost unworthy of mention, they had routed an enemy army of over ten thousand, seized control of the crown prince of a nation with a population of millions, and were about to make a great fortune.

Bukhara alone held over two hundred thousand people. Every soldier would be able to fill his pockets.

"Prince Hamid, I must congratulate you. From this moment on, you are the master of Bukhara, the Emir of the Samanid Kingdom!" Zhang Zhao dismounted and helped Prince Hamid to his feet.

Prince Hamid trembled all over. It seemed the Gur Khan was willing to keep his promise and would not occupy Bukhara.

So now, his task was to quickly satisfy the Gur Khan's demands, send them on their way, and then he could shut the gates and be Emir. 1

"Of course, what you have promised must be fulfilled!" Zhang Zhao patted the shoulder of Prince Hamid, who had finally shown a look of joy.

"Rest assured, Your Majesty the Khagan, this humble king will certainly keep his promise!" Prince Hamid did not hesitate in the slightest. To him now, what did wealth matter!

"Good! But before that, this king needs at least two thousand young maidens. Can His Highness the Emir provide them?" Zhang Zhao took Prince Hamid's blood-soaked hand, and the two walked side by side toward the city of Bukhara.

"Two thousand?" Prince Hamid was shocked. Two thousand maidens — even given a year, he couldn't manage that, could he?

Zhang Zhao smiled faintly. Why was this Prince Hamid somewhat foolishly endearing?

"Does His Highness the Emir think that after taking such a large city, if there are no beauties, my warriors will not go find some themselves once they enter the city? And we won't take them for free — we will pay."

Prince Hamid was jolted with alarm and quickly nodded repeatedly. By the custom of Transoxiana, after taking a great city like Bukhara, three days without sheathing blades was the norm. Now they merely wanted some women — it was almost too merciful.

Only then did Zhang Zhao release Prince Hamid's hand. He waited until Ma Shacai and Guo Guangcheng had hemmed in Prince Hamid's mount from both sides before signaling him to mount.

Zhang Zhao had brought six thousand men. To hold the key areas of Bukhara, he needed at least four thousand on duty at all times.

Fewer than two thousand could be spared to relax and enjoy themselves. With a little rotation, two thousand young ladies would be more than enough, not less.

"Lads! Enter the city! Today I will take you to taste the flavor of Bukhara's young ladies!"

If one were to seek an ancient city of long history in Transoxiana — that is, Central Asia — Bukhara and Samarkand to its east could absolutely be called the twin pearls of Transoxiana's history.

Although these two cities were not particularly famous in later ages and had little influence in the world, that was because the five Central Asian nations as a whole carried little weight in the world.

But in this era, when the Silk Road still functioned and the world was dominated by land powers, Bukhara was a large city famous throughout the world.

Its population of over two hundred thousand alone shows that Damascus and Baghdad in this era were of the same scale.

This is a true stronghold of Transoxiana — that was Zhang Zhao's first impression of Bukhara.

He could not help feeling a pang of sympathy for Saman Khuda. The founder of the Samanid dynasty could never have imagined that such a strong city would be taken so easily.

But Zhang Zhao also knew that he had actually benefited from foreknowledge. Had he not made use of Prince Hamid, a strong city like Bukhara was something he would never have dared imagine taking. Even if he had brought all his tens of thousands of men, it was highly likely he still could not have taken Bukhara.

If one were to find a city in Chinese history to compare with Bukhara, it would be Xiangyang and Fancheng of the Southern Song.

At this time, Bukhara lay beside the delta of the Zeravshan River, which the Great Tang called the Nami River.

The Shahkud Canal, dug four hundred years earlier, ran through the city, dividing Bukhara into a southern city and a northern city.

To assault such a large and sturdy city, one needed not only siege engines on land, but even a naval force.

Therefore, had the Samanid dynasty not fallen into internal strife, such a strong city with thirty thousand defenders was something Zhang Zhao could never have taken, no matter what.

The fragrance of pomegranate blossoms spread throughout all of Bukhara, and bright petals carpeted the main avenues of the city. 1

As far as the eye could see, residents knelt in terror on both sides of the streets, not a single one daring to raise their head.

The residents here had not seen an army from the Great Tang in nearly three hundred years, so almost no one recognized the Three Stars Banner flying in the wind.

Three hundred years ago, this was the former territory of the An Kingdom of the Nine Zhaowu Clans, rich in pomegranates — the homeland of the pomegranate.

In fact, the pomegranate was originally called the Anshi pomegranate, and only later was the name shortened to pomegranate.

The An Kingdom of the Nine Zhaowu Clans also had a very close relationship with China.

The stepfather of that wretched An Lushan was a man of the Zhaowu An Kingdom, and An Lushan himself was a man of the Kang Kingdom, not far from here.

That An Zhongrong, the Military Governor of Chengde who so despised Shi Jingtang and cursed him for "degrading China to honor the barbarians, a shame for all ages," was also a descendant of the An Kingdom people of Bukhara.

The An surname in later generations ranked seventy-ninth in the Hundred Family Surnames, and at least half of them were descendants of the An people of the Nine Zhaowu Clans.

If you add the spread of the Kang, Shi, Shi, Mi and other surnames in the Central Plains, damn it, Bukhara and all of Transoxiana should be ours.

Bukhara, the Ark Citadel — Zhang Zhao unceremoniously stripped Prince Hamid of all his power directly.

No! Now he should be called Emir Hamid — all his authority gone, and Dunzhu and Ma Shacai were set to watch him tightly.

At the same time, Zhang Zhao drew off eight hundred armored soldiers and took control of the entire Ark Citadel, and all the males in the citadel were driven out.

Li Ruotai, Bai Congxin, and Ma Yaozi were sent out separately, the three of them respectively holding Bukhara's north gate, west gate, and the several iron-chain bridges and ferries directly linking the north and south cities for traffic.

The brothers Guo Guangsheng and Guo Guangcheng led men to seize Bukhara's treasury and the residence of the Grand Vizier.

Grand Vizier Balami had already been hacked into a pulp of minced flesh by Hamid personally, but the institution responsible for running Bukhara and the Samanid Kingdom consisted of more than just the Grand Vizier alone.

Zhang Zhao did not want Bukhara to fall into complete chaos, so he still wanted to keep them functioning.

After arranging all this, Zhang Zhao summoned in the Ark Citadel all the religious leaders and representatives of the nobles and wealthy merchants from both the north and south cities.

Looking at the crowd of Bukhara's elite kneeling before him, not daring to move, Zhang Zhao first gave three cold laughs.

Then he had one of them, a short fat man, dragged out, and without any reason at all had him hauled outside and beheaded; after that he tossed down the command token in his hand.

"Xue Shouli, take two hundred armored soldiers and go cut down every male in his household with a single stroke!"

There was no reason for it — the short fat man had not provoked Zhang Zhao. It was purely to establish authority, purely because he found him unpleasant to look at.

Damn it, everyone else had hurried to kneel the moment they came in; only this short fat man, relying on his status as a religious figure, knelt slowly and grudgingly, as if he were somewhat unwilling to submit.

The effect was immediate. The short fat man's head had just been brought in, and Xue Shouli, who had been ordered to kill the short fat man's whole family, had just gone out, when the Bukhara elite kneeling in the citadel began trembling and wailing.

Everyone cried out for the Great Khan, Your Majesty, to spare their lives. Gone was the look of feigned fear they had worn when they first entered, while each secretly harbored his own schemes. Now they all set their minds solely on begging for mercy — this was genuine terror, a desire to save their own lives.

"My demands are simple. In a while each of you will be assigned a district to govern. Whatever I want, whoever I need to find, you will do it at once. Whoever's district fails to deliver, whoever's district dares to comply outwardly while defying inwardly — hmph!"

Zhang Zhao laughed coldly again and stretched out his hand, pointing at the group of people on the ground.

"If a problem arises, you and your families, all the people in your district — how many survive will depend on whether my armored soldiers feel like sparing them! To put it simply, wherever the work is not done well, there the blades will not be sheathed for three days!"

"We dare not! We dare not! We will obey the Great Khan, Your Majesty's commands!"

Amid the howling and wailing of flattery, Zhang Zhao nodded with satisfaction. Now he could finally get a good night's sleep!

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