Chapter 268: The Last Night in Dunhuang

"My son has grown to be like this — what regret is there even in death!" Zhang Zhao never expected to hear from his own birth mother's mouth words so similar to what Consort Wang Gong had said to Zhu Changluo.

In a simple meditation room at Guanyin Temple in Dunhuang, Lady Song gripped Zhang Zhao's hand, the intense motherly love in her eyes so heavy it made one's heart sink, until Lady Song herself began to tremble.

Zhang Zhao looked at his mother. She and his legal mother, Princess Fengtian, were two completely different kinds of people.

Princess Fengtian had a sharp gaze, did things with drive and vigor, and could read the times and judge a situation — a standard strong woman of the royal clan.

But Lady Song was exactly the same as Zhang Zhao's impression of her from ten years ago, as though she had not changed at all in all that time.

Small in stature, with delicate little features, like a wary rabbit. Apart from that one sentence bursting out in extreme agitation, she fell silent again, just continuing to chant the Buddha's name under her breath.

Very well! Zhang Zhao accompanied his mother in reciting the Dharani Sutra once through. It was what a son ought to do, and Zhang Zhao took the chance to clear away the thoughts that had been troubling him lately.

"Would Mother like to come with your son to Liangzhou for a look? The Great Cloud Temple in Liangzhou is also a famous, distinguished temple!"

Zhang Zhao made the offer tentatively, but he guessed Lady Song would not agree.

Sure enough, Lady Song looked at Zhang Zhao twice with delight, clearly very pleased that her son had stayed by her side and finished reciting the Dharani Sutra.

"Go on, my son. No need to worry about me. It has been more than twenty years; your mother is long used to it. As long as you are safe and well, that is enough."

"Very well! Then your son will take his leave. Once I have found firm footing in Liangzhou, I will come and bring Mother to live with me!"

After Zhang Zhao finished speaking, he kowtowed, saluted, and left. Lady Song did not watch Zhang Zhao's departing back. Only after Zhang Zhao had gone far did she stand up, lean against the doorway of the meditation room, and let her tears pour down.

"Your mother still refuses to go with you?" Outside Guanyin Temple, Princess Fengtian waited with her full retinue of carriages and horses. After more than twenty years of constant Buddhist chanting, she had had enough and did not wish to continue.

"She refuses. She has grown used to these things, and besides, she is timid — she cannot face things as open-mindedly as Mother can!"

Zhang Zhao shook his head. "Mother" referred to Lady Song, and "Mother" referred to Princess Fengtian — the two were kept clearly distinct.

"Is Mother preparing to return to Khotan for a while?" Zhang Zhao was quiet for a moment, then asked Princess Fengtian.

Ever since Zhang Zhao's affairs had been settled and Cao Yuanzhong had formally taken power, Princess Fengtian had been showing signs of wanting to return to Khotan.

"I left home twenty years ago. My parents have both passed away, but fortunately there is still Erlang here. Once you leave Dunhuang, I will have nothing left to tie me here. I will go and live a few years of comfortable life — for all I know, I may not come back."

Princess Fengtian glanced at the scenery beyond the carriage window and let out a long sigh.

More than twenty years ago, as a girl in her teens, she had married into this place with wonderful hopes. Her husband came from a famous family, was a descendant of great heroes, handsome and eloquent, and moreover the ruler of a state — everything had looked so perfect.

But what happened afterward was like a nightmare: defeat after defeat, and then a coup.

Her own son died of dysentery, and her husband died of despair. Had it not been for Zhang Zhao, she did not know how she would have endured it.

"If I had known back then what would happen later, I would certainly have advised your father not to be so fond of grand achievements. A peaceful, safe life would have been fine too!"

"But Father would certainly not have agreed, would he?" Zhang Zhao sighed as well, with the same remembrance.

Zhang Chengfeng's greatest mistake was not that he did not know his own limits, but that he thought a decaying regime was still a vigorous, striving youth.

If all the men of the Guiyi Army had been like him, perhaps they would not have been defeated by the Ganzhou Uyghurs. Unfortunately, apart from him, the White-Clad Son of Heaven, the rest had long since lost their spirit.

"In this, you father and son really are alike — both of you are the sort who must keep stirring things up!"

Princess Fengtian sighed at Zhang Zhao, because she did not think Zhang Zhao's going to Liangzhou was a good idea.

In truth, she wanted to persuade Zhang Zhao to return to Khotan with her — go west, beat up some weaklings, seize a great big territory, shut the gates, and be a Son of Heaven. Would that not be good?

"Going to Khotan is fine too. Then your son will leave Ayiguli with Mother! Ayiguli's son Xianyu is the designated King of Talas — it would be good for Mother to help me raise him.

Besides that, your son has a royal estate of four hundred thousand mu in Ningyuan, and I ask Mother to manage it on my behalf."

Zhang Zhao had already fixed the generational name sequence for his descendants: Xian, Neng, Chang, Ke, Qing; Hui, Zhi, Shi, Kan, Zong; Yang, Xing, Qi, Yuan, Ya. For good fortune, he had made up a full forty generations of generational names.

From now on, his sons would all be named Zhang Xian-something, and the crown prince, after ascending the throne, would change to a single-character name, to avoid the trouble of name taboos.

"You really know how to put people to work. Once Mother reaches Khotan, she will still have to manage a whole pile of affairs for you!" Princess Fengtian patted her forehead in mock reproach.

But Zhang Zhao could see that, with a daughter-in-law, a grandson, and affairs to manage, she was still quite happy.

"Mother, just think of this as your son's fallback. If Liangzhou cannot be taken, I can still return to Khotan to settle, can I not!"

Zhang Zhao said this with a grin, but Princess Fengtian nodded solemnly.

Having settled matters for his two mothers, Zhang Zhao had no choice but to return to the military reorganization. Since he was going to change the Fengtian Army into the Guiyi Army, he might as well change the Yucheng Army that Li Shengtian had given him as well.

Originally, Zhang Zhao's structure followed the pattern of garrison-army-battalion-captaincy-squad-fire team.

One fire team had ten men, commanded by a fire team leader.

Five fire teams made one squad, a standard fifty men, commanded by a squad leader.

Two squads made one company, a standard one hundred men, commanded by a company head.

Three companies made one captaincy, a standard three hundred men, commanded by a Captain.

Three captaincies made one battalion, a standard nine hundred men, commanded by a battalion Commander.

Three battalions made one army, plus one captaincy of personal guards, a standard three thousand men, commanded by an army Troop Commander.

A garrison had no fixed quota, generally starting at two armies, six thousand men, commanded by a Garrison Commander.

Now that Zhang Zhao was going to request appointment as Guiyi Army Commissioner, he naturally had to raise the rank of the "army" level.

So he swapped the garrison and army levels, making a garrison a standard three thousand men, and for its commander he simply borrowed a later-era title and called him a Garrison Regional Commander.

The army level became unfixed in size, commanded by an Army Commissioner. Both the Fengtian Army and the Yucheng Army were merged into the Guiyi Army.

The former Fengtian Army was renamed the Hanhai Garrison, with Yan Jin as Regional Commander; the Yucheng Army was demoted to the Yucheng Garrison, with Liu Zaisheng as Regional Commander.

The more than nine hundred elite men Zhang Zhao had obtained from within the Guiyi Army, together with his original Hanshan Captaincy personal guards, formed the new Hanshan Captaincy.

It was commanded personally by Zhang Zhao, serving as his own personal guard and as the decisive force on the battlefield.

At the same time, under his original Six Bureaus setup, he added a Horse Bureau, devoted solely to tending his horses.

These second-, third-, and fourth-generation Han-blood horses and fold-eared horses were extremely precious. Zhang Zhao planned to turn all six thousand-plus men of the Guiyi Army into cavalry.

They were divided into rangers, mainly for scouting, screening, and intelligence-gathering, as well as armored cavalry, horse archers, and mounted heavy infantry.

"Army Commissioner, Yin Yaozi is back!" Yin Yaozi was, for once, wearing a red formal robe, his face brimming with joy.

Zhang Zhao waved off his prostration. "Go on! First go see your little bride. We can talk tomorrow. Just send Liu Di to me."

Yin Yaozi left in high delight. For him, being able to marry Cao Yuanshen's daughter, Cao Shiliuniang, was an absolutely tremendous surprise.

What sort of status did he, Yin Yaozi, have? A bottom-tier nobody whose parents had died young, looked down on even within the Yin family itself.

Now he could marry a daughter of a great house whom he had once only been able to gaze up at from a street corner — what could possibly delight him more than this?

Liu Di was the craftsman leader Zhang Zhao had captured in the city of Bukhara. His original name was Qadir, and his ancestors had been craftsmen taken prisoner at the Battle of Talas; for generations his family had built siege engines for the Persians.

Liu Di was especially skilled at building trebuchets of all sizes, and he was a high-level technical talent who had combined the strengths of both Chinese-style and Persian-Arab-style trebuchet technology.

"I need a small trebuchet that can be mounted on a camel's back — ideally operable by around fifteen men. Can you design one?" Zhang Zhao handed Liu Di a sketch he had imagined.

Liu Di's Chinese was still far from standard, but he could roughly communicate, which was a major reason he had become the craftsmen's leader.

He studied Zhang Zhao's imagined sketch carefully and felt it was somewhat unreliable.

"This camel is a two-humped one. I've rarely seen them before, so I don't know how strong they are or how much endurance they have. This kind of trebuchet weighs at least two hundred jin at the smallest, and a one-humped camel couldn't carry it at all.

And a two-hundred-jin trebuchet can only hurl fist-sized stones — it would be very hard to pose a threat to city walls."

Zhang Zhao rubbed his chin and thought it over. The difference between two-humped and one-humped camels was that two-humped camels were sturdier and stronger.

It was said they could carry up to four or five hundred jin, and could bear loads intermittently for about four days — exactly meeting Zhang Zhao's needs.

One-humped camels, by contrast, were faster and better suited as mounts for camel cavalry, which Zhang Zhao had no use for.

As for the difficulty of threatening city walls, that mattered even less, because what Zhang Zhao wanted to replicate was the mysterious Posi Army of Western Xia. This camel whirlwind catapult was meant for smashing heavy infantry squares, not for battering city walls.

"Two-humped camels are a specialty of Hexi; you needn't worry about their strength or endurance. Nor will I use these small trebuchets against city walls.

Go and gather the men to begin research and development! If you can design it, then from now on all the craftsmen will be under your management!"

Liu Di nodded, but before he could leave, Cao Sanniang came running in like a gust of wind. "Erlang, hurry to the Qingxi Palace — the lord has urgent business with you!"

Zhang Zhao's heart lurched. Could it be that Cao Yijin was failing? Without time to think further, he turned and ran out the door, following Cao Sanniang toward the Qingxi Palace.

Inside the Qingxi Palace, by the time Zhang Zhao arrived, the three Cao brothers and several members of the Cao family's third generation were already present. When Cao Yuanzhong saw Zhang Zhao enter, he quickly beckoned him over.

"His Excellency the Great King fainted again at noon today, and his breath is now as faint as a thread. The physician says he certainly won't last another twelve double-hours.

The Ganzhou Uyghur prince Yaoluoge Jingqiong has already led a great army to Suzhou. The military report is with Troop Commander Luo — go find him at once, and set out tonight!"

"Set out tonight?" Zhang Zhao asked in surprise.

On the surface, the campaign against the Ganzhou Uyghur army would be led by Luo Yingda, Troop Commander of the Military Governor's yabing guards, but in reality Zhang Zhao was the one coordinating the whole situation.

But at this moment, with Cao Yijin's time running out and the Ganzhou Uyghurs still not advancing west from Suzhou, why should he leave now?

Cao Yuanzhong sighed sorrowfully. "This was His Excellency the Great King's wish. He knew you were in urgent need of taking Liangzhou, and yesterday he specifically instructed that you should leave before he... passed, so as not to delay your great undertaking. It's only that your marriage to the Nineteenth Lady will likely have to be postponed!"

Zhang Zhao nodded and said nothing. He truly had no time to wait until Cao Yijin's funeral rites were completed.

A great upheaval in the Central Plains was imminent, and he had to take Liangzhou. If he missed this opportunity, it would be too late for everything.

"Yannai, you go with Zhang Erlang! This too was specifically instructed by His Excellency the Great King!"

Tears glistened in Cao Sanniang's eyes. Right there in the main council hall of the Qingxi Palace, she kowtowed once toward the chamber where Cao Yijin lay unconscious.

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