Chapter 235: The Three Kingdoms Era of India

With the guiding idea settled, what remained was how to use this half year to extract even greater benefits from India, and to lay the foundation for the trade route from India to Chang'an.

India at this time abounded in rice, cotton, sugarcane, and all kinds of spices, but was relatively lacking in textiles, iron-smelting, and the like.

China at this time, however, had superb textile, iron-smelting, and ceramics industries, but was most lacking in cotton, sugarcane, and especially spices.

This was simply perfect complementarity! Central Plains merchants transported the Central Plains' high-end textiles, porcelain, and other goods to Khotan.

Khotan consumed a small portion of them, then shipped a large portion onward to India, and also carried its own white-fold cloth and fine cotton cloth to India.

Indian merchants, in turn, transported the crudest raw sugar made from sugarcane, along with pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, and bay leaves, to Khotan; Khotan consumed a portion, then continued eastward.

Once the goods reached the Liangzhou area, Zhang Zhao would use the yellow-mud decolorization method, or even the more advanced activated-carbon and sulfur-dioxide decolorization sugar-making methods, to turn the raw sugar into white sugar and sell it throughout the Central Plains, making it his most important emergency source of funds.

No! That's not right! Something was still missing. Zhang Zhao tapped his head. Brocade, satin, and porcelain alone were not enough.

Because porcelain suffered too much loss in overland transport, and relying on silk and satin alone could not achieve the goal of fleecing the Indian local tyrants of their wealth. One more thing had to be added.

Right! Tea! Zhang Zhao thought of another signature product of later China. He now had to cultivate the tea-drinking habit among the upper and middle classes of India.

Only with the three signature products of brocade and satin, tea, and porcelain could he truly bleed the Indian upper and middle classes and strengthen himself.

Speaking of tea, Zhang Zhao thought of the cup-rinsing little milk tea of his own time. How could such a clean and hygienic delicacy not be spread to India?

"Wu Yuan'er! Send someone back to Shule. Have Zhang Zhong tell the merchants to bring more of the tea bricks I had him prepare. They must arrive here by next spring."

"Tea bricks?" Wu Yuan'er was briefly stunned, then remembered what they were.

"Great King, when we left, Chief Clerk Zhang said they still hadn't completely figured it out. I wonder how it's going now?"

"Even without tea bricks, the tea leaves must still be brought. Go quickly!"

Tea bricks had actually appeared as early as the Taihe reign of Emperor Wenzong of Tang, though they were still rather rudimentary.

So Zhang Zhao had gathered a group of tea masters and improved the process based on his memories of later times. It was still in testing when they left. Presumably this was not some highly difficult technique, so it should be fine.

With the tea matter settled, what remained was the question of strategy toward India: whom to win over, whom to exploit, and whom to eliminate.

Zhang Zhao spread out the map in his hands, which had been found in the city of Peshawar.

At this time, after the collapse of the Harsha Empire, which had unified most of India, India had actually entered a period of three-way balance. Right! India also had its Three Kingdoms.

One of these three kingdoms was the Hindu Shahi dynasty, where Zhang Zhao currently was.

The Shahi dynasty occupied the upper reaches of the Indus River. Had Zhang Zhao not suddenly arrived, thirty years later, Jayapala, grandson of Mahipala, would have brought the Shahi dynasty to its peak, controlling the entire Indus River basin and Kashmir.

But the good times did not last. Just when the Hindu Shahi dynasty was at its most prosperous, the Muslim invaders from the north came.

The Battle of Peshawar directly smashed the Shahi dynasty into the mud. More than ten thousand elite soldiers died in battle, and Jayapala was captured alive, later dying by self-immolation in shame.

But at present, the Shahi dynasty's territory was not large, and among the current three kingdoms, its strength was only average.

The second of the three kingdoms was the Gurjara-Pratihara dynasty, also called the Parihara dynasty.

This was a great northern Indian power that had received the largest share of the inheritance after the collapse of the Harsha Empire. It was currently in a period of strength, though thirty years later it would enter a period of decline.

The third kingdom was the Pala dynasty. Even people unfamiliar with Indian history might well be familiar with this name.

Because this was the last great Buddhist empire in India. Nalanda Monastery and Vikramashila Monastery were on this dynasty's territory.

Among them, the esoteric Buddhism represented by Vikramashila Monastery had a very great influence on the later Tibetan Buddhism of China.

At present, the Pala dynasty was at the lowest point in its history. From a great empire that had nearly unified all of India eighty years earlier, it had shrunk into a small state huddled in the Ganges Delta.

And although this period was called India's Three Kingdoms era, these were not the only three kingdoms; South India also still had some strong states at this time.

It was just that these three kingdoms occupied the richest Indus and Ganges river basins of the Indian subcontinent and controlled a population of over forty million.

Compared with them, the other states seemed less important, especially culturally and economically.

Zhang Zhao reached out and tapped the Pala dynasty's territory. He quickly made his decision.

The ally he would support in India was the Pala dynasty!

Because among these three kingdoms, the Shahi dynasty and the Parihara dynasty were both Brahmanical dynasties; only the Pala dynasty was a Buddhist dynasty.

Undeniably, Zhang Zhao himself at this moment also bore deep Buddhist marks.

Whether it was the Guiyi Army of Dunhuang or the Khotan kingdom, both were states with an extremely strong Buddhist atmosphere. With such an advantage, it was very convenient for Zhang Zhao to package himself as a protector of Buddhism.

Hmm, he could even say that he was a believer of the Buddha from the north, who had come specifically to save the Pala dynasty.

Doing so had four benefits. First, he could integrate into Indian society at the fastest speed, avoiding a situation where everyone was hostile to him.

Second, he could quickly gain the friendship of the Pala dynasty. With the trust and help of this local power, Zhang Zhao could drain a large amount of wealth from India more quickly and cleanly.

Third, the Pala dynasty was farthest from Zhang Zhao. Great King Zhang was now in the upper Indus in northwestern India, while the Pala dynasty was in the Ganges Delta and Bengal to the east.

Even if Zhang Zhao wanted to plunder, he could not plunder the Pala dynasty's territory, so he might as well win them over.

The final benefit was that in the eyes of the Chinese of this time, India was the homeland of the Buddha and the birthplace of Buddhism, and still held something sacred.

By helping the Pala dynasty, Zhang Zhao could take away some of the things he wanted from here, such as precious Buddhist sutras and Buddha relics, and could also mythologize this experience to strengthen the Buddhist affinity upon Great King Zhang himself.

One must know that at this time, throughout the Hexi region, whether Han Chinese, Tibetans, Uyghurs, the Six Valley Tribes, or the Tangut people represented by the Li family of the Dingnan Army, all were extremely devout Buddhists. This Buddhist affinity could greatly reduce the difficulty of Zhang Zhao winning them over.

At the same time, if he was to use Hexi and Longyou to compete with others in the Central Plains, Zhang Zhao would also inevitably have to make a move against Buddhism.

Buddhism at this time occupied large amounts of good farmland, paid no taxes itself, and even possessed its own armed forces.

What was even more hateful was that these bald heads were always absorbing refugees and annexing land, acting like a state within a state, using religious authority to challenge imperial authority.

Zhang Zhao's conflict with Buddhism was, in the long run, almost inevitable.

But he had not yet fully unified the country, so his methods could not be too harsh. Thus this Buddhist affinity obtained from India would have a great buffering effect.

With the target for winning over and supporting settled, the target for plundering was quickly determined as well: of course it was the large and wealthy Parihara dynasty.

Although it was currently the strongest of the three kingdoms, this strength was relative to the local natives.

According to the information Zhang Zhao had gathered, the Parihara dynasty and the Shahi dynasty generally fought back and forth, and at times even suffered small losses.

On the whole, the two were almost on the same level, their strength subject to the excellent matchmaking mechanism of the India region.

So in Zhang Zhao's eyes, the Parihara dynasty's strength was not real strength; it was bloated weakness.

Moreover, the Parihara dynasty had been established for nearly two hundred years. Having occupied most of the Ganges basin while sustainably draining the pond to catch the fish, how much treasure they had accumulated they themselves probably did not even know. It was just right for Great King Zhang to come and "take inventory" for them.

What remained in the end was the Xiaxi Dynasty, which was destined to be destroyed.

Zhang Zhao still had to stay here for more than half a year. Leaving Modaboluo and the Xiaxi royal house around was not a good idea — there is a saying that one may be a thief for a thousand days, but one cannot guard against thieves for a thousand days. It was time to clean them out.

"Tiance, go and call Bahamoke over!" Since he had decided to do away with Modaboluo, Bahamoke was the best choice for a running dog.

Originally Jia'ermoke would have been the most suitable, but Zhang Zhao now somewhat distrusted that old fox.

Bahamoke was thirty-three this year. As Jia'ermoke's eldest son, he had once been the object of his father's high hopes.

But after all that cultivation, Bahamoke had not learned much skill. His administrative ability could not manage a town, and his military ability could only lead eighty to a hundred men.

The only thing he had learned was a set of schemes and tricks that Jia'ermoke regarded as mere theatrics.

And so he was gradually abandoned by his father Jia'ermoke. Now Jia'ermo was focusing on cultivating his younger half-brother by a different mother.

With his father's disregard, Bahamoke's standing in the family plummeted. Resentment toward his father and jealousy of his younger brother filled this man's heart.

Still, he was not without merits. Zhang Zhao had keenly noticed that this man did possess a certain low cunning, and along with it a matching flexibility of moral bottom line and a clear-eyed awareness of his own situation.

In short, he was a shameless little schemer who knew exactly how much he could handle. Wasn't a man like that perfectly suited to be a running dog?

"I intend to put Modaboluo to death. What do you think?"

Without the slightest hesitation, Bahamoke knelt before Zhang Zhao. Zhang Zhao sat there with his legs spread wide and did not tell him to rise, and without any courtesy he unleashed his ultimate move.

Bahamoke suddenly raised his head. He stared at Zhang Zhao in shock, then under Zhang Zhao's pressing gaze, slowly lowered his head again.

"Modaboluo is the Great Khan's captive, so of course he is at the Great Khan's disposal."

"And what if I want you to kill Modaboluo with your own hands?" Zhang Zhao pressed on, his expression half-smiling, half-not.

Only now did Bahamoke realize that surrendering was no easy matter. Defecting to a foreign enemy was already looked down upon, and if he also killed his own sovereign, he would be utterly and irredeemably disgraced — the sort who could never show his face again.

Zhang Zhao unhurriedly picked at the lint balls on his clothes. This cotton cloth he had brought along pilled far too easily.

"It seems you still don't want to be king."

"Be king?" Bahamoke raised his head in shock for the second time. His mind was now in complete turmoil.

If killing King Modaboluo was a disaster even for a man like him, then before the temptation of becoming king, killing his own king did not seem so unacceptable after all.

After all, if the old king did not die, there would be no place for a successor.

"Great Khan! Could someone like me truly become king?" After thinking for less than half a minute, Bahamoke made his decision. He only wanted to hear a definite answer from Zhang Zhao.

Zhang Zhao said nothing, only nodded, then stood up directly and beckoned to Guo Tiance.

Because what Zhang Zhao wanted Bahamoke to do was not only to kill King Modaboluo, but also to kill his father Jia'ermoke. Of the more than a thousand captured Kshatriyas, at least half would have to be dealt with as well.

Only after Bahamoke had finished all this and handed over the treasures of these several hundred Kshatriya households would he get a chance to become king.

Of course, this matter was contrary to human ethics, and Zhang Zhao would not discuss it with him. That was why Guo Tiance came in to take Zhang Zhao's place and explain it to him.

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