Chapter 227: The Hindu Shahi Dynasty

The Shahi dynasty is generally divided into two eras, the Turk Shahi and the Hindu Shahi. The Turk Shahi came to an end in 870, about sixty years ago, and it was also known as the Kabul Shahi dynasty.

At that time, the Kabul Shahi dynasty was a powerful dynasty ruling the entire Indus River valley and most of Afghanistan, and its kings were said to be members of the Western Turkic khagan's house.

But that strength did not last long. Under constant attacks from Islamic powers such as the Persian Saffarid dynasty and later the Samanid Persians, and after sustained rebellions by Hindus within the country,

the last king of the Kabul Shahi dynasty was replaced by his minister Kallar, and the Hindu Shahi dynasty was subsequently established.

After this internal strife, the Shahi dynasty completely lost Kabul and other places, retaining only the Indus River valley and part of the Gandhara region.

Its rough extent is today's central and northwestern Pakistan, including Lahore, ***abad, Peshawar, and part of Kashmir.

In the decades that followed, however, after the Hindu Shahi dynasty had somewhat recovered its strength, it was in fact constantly contesting the Samanid dynasty for eastern Afghanistan, including Kabul.

Thirty years ago, they even briefly recovered most of the region, but after Nasr II of the Samanid dynasty set his realm in order, the Samanids established a governor at Kunduz north of Kabul, and ten years ago retook Kabul and other places.

This history absolutely exceeds most people's imagination. The Shahi dynasty actually seems to have had a fair amount of martial virtue.

The Indians attacking Kabul, pushing north in reverse through the Khyber Pass in a reverse conquest — just hearing about it is damn surreal!

But then again, strictly speaking, the present Hindu Shahi dynasty is not a dynasty of India, but rather should be a dynasty of Pakistan.

Here's a dark joke: India doesn't have the Indus River, because the Indus River is in Pakistan.

Tell me, weren't those thieving Brits sick in the head? They took India, which had been beaten into a pot of mush, and turned it from a geographical concept into a national concept.

Later, when they couldn't hold on, they just patted their backsides and ran off, leaving a huge mess of mud to disgust us. What kind of people were they!

After squatting in the void and venting a round of complaints about the later generations' smoke-belching, virtue-lacking Brits, Zhang Zhao actually found himself a little worried about the Hindu Shahi's martial strength.

To dare a reverse conquest, and to have succeeded at it — that deserves attention!

However, after the trembling city lord reported to Zhang Zhao on these famous brutal battles in the northeastern region of India, Zhang Zhao found that his impression had been correct.

The Indians were still the same old Indians. Even if one should call them Pakistanis now, that didn't change their utterly pathetic martial strength.

If one were to rank the Samanid Persians' military strength, it would go roughly like this: the Ark forbidden city guards > the Bukhara ghulam guards > the Herat and Samarkand ghulam guards > the regional Iltizam standing army > the holy warriors and Mustafa conscripts.

And what was garrisoned at Huwen City? In the entire area of Huwen City (Kabul), over a hundred li in circumference, there was only a single thousand-household unit of the Iltizam standing army, under the command of the Kunduz governor, and it was often understrength.

The rest were basically Mustafa conscripts levied from local iqta, along with some fanatical holy warriors.

The battles between the two sides often went like this: the Hindu Shahi dynasty would organize an expeditionary force of tens of thousands, then beat the local conscripts into a miserable state with heavy casualties.

The Samanid dynasty would rely on the Kunduz governor's thousand or so standing troops to stabilize the situation, then transfer ghulam guards from Bukhara, Samarkand, and other places, and with a round of savage hammering, drive the Shahi dynasty back into India.

Because there was no economic incentive, and because moving troops to Huwen City was highly uneconomical, the Samanid dynasty rarely charged into India.

After all, the Samanid dynasty's internal strife and the threats from the north and west were still considerable, so for the time being they couldn't spare the effort to go throw their weight around in India.

So the Hindu Shahi, after retreating back to their country in defeat, would lick their wounds while building up strength, preparing for the next reverse invasion.

The two sides had been fighting like this since around 880, right up to the present. In fifty years, Huwen City changed hands twice, and the Hindu Shahi dynasty was brutally hammered three times.

This pair of strange opponents fought with great relish on this barren land of eastern Afghanistan.

Zhang Zhao could even sense that within the Shahi dynasty, retaking Huwen City had already become a kind of political performance.

They'd take a swing at it whenever they had nothing better to do. If any king didn't fight, then he surely wasn't strong enough and didn't want to reclaim his ancestors' old lands.

Damn it all. Great King Zhang expressed that he was too exhausted to even comment. Although war is the continuation of politics, isn't carrying on like this a bit too frivolous?

But then, after sniffing twice, Zhang Zhao suddenly had an idea.

He had asked the Samanid dynasty's local officials: it had already been ten years since the Hindu Shahi dynasty lost Huwen City.

It seemed they had been beaten rather badly last time, so badly that they hadn't recovered their senses in ten years.

But he himself could give the Shahi dynasty a shot in the arm, couldn't he!

Right! The Samanid Persians were in internal chaos: Crown Prince Hamid staged a coup, Emir Nasr II was killed, and the various princes of the realm were fighting each other for power.

Tell me, if the Hindu Shahi dynasty got this news, wouldn't they feel a surge of "I'm back in business" and "hit him while he's sick and take his life" excitement?

If the Shahi dynasty's king, Modapala, could organize an army of thirty or forty thousand and march north to deliver himself up on a platter, wouldn't that save a lot of trouble?

But before doing that, he absolutely had to make Prince Sadiq and the other local natives feel a powerful temptation.

After all, Prince Sadiq's wife's family was a powerful clan near Huwen City. Within their clan, there were over a hundred households holding iqta of several hundred mu each. To deceive the Shahi dynasty's rulers, their help would certainly be needed.

And the bait that could make Prince Sadiq and the powerful in-laws behind him drool was for Zhang Zhao to help them drive out the governor stationed at Kunduz — that is, the area around Kunduz in later Afghanistan — so that these local powerful clans could govern themselves.

Of course, Zhang Zhao actually had his own need to drive out the Kunduz governor.

In the future, when his own people from the Fergana Basin came south to raid, having a Samanid Persian governor stuck in the middle would be a problem.

Better to just drive him out, then establish a vassal state from Kunduz to Huwen City, and keep this passage to India firmly in his own hands.

No sooner said than done. This time, when Zhang Zhao came to Huwen City, he brought a total of twenty thousand troops: the Shunyi Left and Right Armies totaling sixteen thousand, two thousand Khotan palace guards, and two thousand Fengtian Army troops.

The remaining ten thousand troops were commanded by Yin Yaozi and were still occupying Samarkand, because the procurement in Samarkand was not yet complete, and also to give Hamid a bit of a warning.

Zhang Zhao thought it over. Sending someone else would be inappropriate, so he quickly sent off Liu Zaisheng, who had shamelessly tagged along hoping to earn some battle merit, ordering him to draw five thousand men from the Shunyi Right Army and return.

On one hand, he sent the valuables worth six million dinars, transported from Bukhara and Samarkand, to places like Kesek City, Shule, and Khotan according to plan.

On the other hand, he would drive out the Samanid Persians' governor at Kunduz, and by the way, clean out the small tribes along the route that were not particularly obedient.

Prince Sadiq's execution was quite good. Not long after Zhang Zhao gave the order, he used his father-in-law's family's influence to invite the great clans of places like Huwen City, Hexi'na City (Ghazni), and Luolan City (Bamiyan).

At this time, the religious composition of this region of eastern Afghanistan was still extremely complex.

For example, Bamiyan, where Luolan City was located, was a region where Buddhism flourished greatly. If the later Bamiyan Buddhas had not been deliberately destroyed, they would still be visible today.

And in 934, the Islamic forces had not yet completely controlled this region. One could say that here, Muslims and Buddhists were basically evenly matched.

This was also the basis for the Hindu Shahi dynasty's ability to keep attacking in this direction, and the reason the Samanid Persians had no energy to deal with the situation here: the religious conflicts were far too complex.

"Well done, Prince Sadiq. You have the potential to become an excellent king!"

Looking at the local magnates kneeling all over the ground before him, Zhang Zhao first praised Prince Sadiq.

This was the truth, because Zhang Zhao came from Khotan and Dunhuang, both places where the Dharma flourished, and Zhang Zhao inevitably bore the mark of a Buddhist.

One could tell just by looking at the soldiers under him: toward those who believed in Buddhism they were all smiles and kindness; toward those who believed in Islam they found fault with everything.

If Prince Sadiq had not come forward, these local Muslims would certainly have fled into the mountains, leaving Zhang Zhao unable to find anyone, and the moment he left, they would crawl back out to oppose him.

Now that Prince Sadiq had managed to bring them here, that alone was already a major step toward success.

"First, let me share some good news with everyone: the Governor of Khunduz, from Bukhara, has been driven off by me!

From this day forward, here, Buddhists no longer need to pay the burdensome poll tax, and followers of the Heavenly Creed no longer need to send large numbers of men to Khunduz City every year for corvée labor."

No sooner had everyone sat down, and the grand ceremony of the local magnates paying homage to the Juer Khan just ended, than Zhang Zhao announced the good news.

It was indeed good news. Samanid Persian rule over this region had been extremely harsh: Buddhists had to pay an additional poll tax roughly equal to a tithe, while followers of the Heavenly Creed had to provide men for corvée labor.

"Our Buddha is merciful! Heaven has sent a Khagan to save us!"

The faces of the Buddhist magnates immediately lit up with joy. This tithe was something not even commoners could escape, let alone magnates like themselves.

"Hmm? What's this? You who follow the Heavenly Creed—do you not feel grateful for my benevolence?"

Zhang Zhao slowly turned his head, letting out a soft, questioning snort from his nostrils, his expression already deeply displeased.

The group of Heavenly Creed magnates had just risen to their feet, but now hurriedly knelt back down. Prince Sadiq's father-in-law, Sheikh, had some inkling of what was on Zhang Zhao's mind.

"Noble Khagan, we are all deeply grateful for the Khagan's benevolence. It is only that they are uncertain whether the Khagan intends to levy a tithe upon followers of the Heavenly Creed?"

"A tithe? Hmph!" Zhang Zhao gave a cold snort. Without the slightest courtesy, he pointed at the crude clothing of the Heavenly Creed magnates and put on a look of utter disdain.

"You paupers can't even afford cotton cloth—even if I collected a tithe from you, how much would it amount to?

When I, the Khagan, want money, I go straight to Bukhara and collect it from the Emir. If it's not worth a million dinars, the trip isn't worth making. Would I collect a tithe from the likes of you?"

This was truly a bit of Versailles-style boasting, but it wasn't wrong either. In later times this place would be so poor that even the rats would weep, and it wasn't much better now.

"Guo Tiance, come in and let these bumpkins broaden their horizons!" Having said that, Zhang Zhao beckoned to Guo Tiance.

Before long, several dozen gorgeously dressed maidservants walked in, each carrying a wooden tray, and on every tray lay the finest silks and Shu brocade from the Jiangnan East Circuit.

The magnates' gazes were instantly captured. Whether it was the silk and Shu brocade on the trays—goods worth more than gold in this region—or the lovely, alluring maidservants, all of it was beyond their wildest dreams, making them look utterly provincial by comparison. Some of the younger ones, thin-skinned, had already lowered their heads in shame.

"These rewards on the trays—one share per person. With the value of this brocade alone, how many years of tithes would you have to pay? His Majesty the Khagan encompasses the entire world—does he need to scrape money from the likes of you?"

Guo Tiance was even more swaggering, strutting about as if he had descended from the heavens.

This tactic was called paving the way with money. Having handed out rewards with great largesse, the group of bumpkin magnates immediately relaxed their guard considerably.

This was a bolt of brocade for each person. A Khagan with such generosity could hardly have his eye on the paltry scraps in their households.

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