Chapter 269: Iron Plate and Iron Hammer

Suzhou, which in later times would be the city of Jiuquan, with Suzhou City located roughly in what is now Suzhou District of Jiuquan.

During the Sui and Tang periods, Suzhou administered the two counties of Jiuquan and Fulu. According to figures from the first year of the Dali era of Emperor Daizong of Tang, it had 2,230 households and 8,476 people.

This seems a bit absurd, because the vast city of Jiuquan having only a little over eight thousand people makes no sense no matter how you think about it.

Aside from the sparse population of ancient times, there is one important reason: household registration statistics in the Tang dynasty were extremely chaotic.

It could not compare with the earlier Han dynasties or even the short-lived Sui, nor with the later Song dynasties, let alone the Ming and Qing.

Throughout the Tang dynasty, some statistics could still be compiled in the early period, but by the late Kaiyuan era of Emperor Xuanzong, household registration management had fallen into great disorder, and surveys and statistics were long neglected.

The saying went, "The dead are not struck from the registers, and the living are not entered into them" — each year they simply took the previous year's registers, made a rough estimate of population growth on paper, and submitted it.

Add a few people in good years, subtract a few in bad years — rather similar to certain periods in the Republic, when GDP was worked out by statistics bureau staff punching numbers into calculators.

Suzhou was actually not the most absurd case. The absurd one was Liangzhou. In the Tang dynasty, that city was not only the key border-defense stronghold of Longyou and Hexi, but also the most important commercial port of the Tang — bar none.

Its economic status approached that of Chang'an and the eastern capital Luoyang. It was moreover the metropolis of Hexi, girding the Western Tibetans and the kingdoms west of the Pamirs, with merchants and travelers coming and going without cease — a vital thoroughfare of the realm and a bulwark of the state.

Yet for such a crucial stronghold, the Tang court's recorded population of Liangzhou was only 120,000, and Liangzhou City itself only a little over 40,000. One wonders whether only the Han population was counted.

Moreover, the figure was 120,000 in the Tianbao era, and by the Dali era of Emperor Daizong, when Liangzhou was about to fall into Tibetan hands, the population on the official registers was still 120,000.

It must be said that the Li-Tang dynasty was extremely crude in certain aspects of governance. It was a dynasty whose flaws and strengths were both very clear.

The purpose of Zhang Zhao's journey was the Yumen Army garrison in Suzhou.

At this time, Suzhou was divided into two parts. Upper Suzhou, controlled by the Guiyi Army, consisted only of this small area around the Yumen Army.

Its specific location was a dozen or so kilometers northwest of later Yumen City, right at the foot of Duden Mountain, west of Jiayu Pass.

Lower Suzhou, controlled by the Ganzhou Uyghurs, occupied the vast majority of Suzhou. The county seats of both Jiuquan and Fulu counties were under Ganzhou Uyghur control.

And even Upper Suzhou, by Zhang Zhao's observation, apart from the several hundred garrison troops of the Yumen Army, had a surrounding population of no fewer than four thousand.

Furthermore, the ecology of the Hexi Corridor at this time had not yet suffered the large-scale destruction of the post-Song era. The land was still fairly fertile and not severely short of water — it was even somewhat more livable than Jiuquan in the Republic era.

Luo Tongda, as the Yumen Army Defense Commissioner, had arrived at the Yumen Army more than ten days before Zhang Zhao.

April was the season of spring plowing. The Ganzhou Uyghurs had swallowed their fury over the princess's murder and held back until now to send troops — clearly this was the result of careful calculation.

For although they had settled in Ganzhou and had long since begun learning to farm in the Han manner, as a people of the saddle, nomadism remained the primary means of livelihood for the Ganzhou Uyghurs.

By choosing to launch war during spring plowing, they sacrificed only a small amount of cattle and horse breeding time, yet could deal a massive blow to the Guiyi Army's production and livelihood.

But this time they had miscalculated. The Guiyi Army did not need to mobilize troops on a large scale at all, because Zhang Zhao had a full five thousand-plus men, almost all full-time soldiers who did not affect production in the slightest.

And this was still with more than a thousand of Zhang Zhao's men not yet arrived from Khotan and the Zhongyun Kingdom. The scale and course of this war completely exceeded the Ganzhou Uyghurs' expectations.

Zhang Zhao, however, was not without worries. Setting aside the thousand-plus younger-generation Guiyi Army men willing to follow him, the supply problem for his own four thousand men was extremely difficult to solve.

The Guiyi Army's population was only so large. Four thousand extra mouths that could eat and drink without restraint immediately strained the Guiyi Army's supplies.

People in this era ate solid food when busy and thin gruel when idle, but soldiers could not do that — they not only had to eat their fill, but had to eat somewhat better.

Moreover, Zhang Zhao's several thousand men had long since had their appetites spoiled by him in Anxi, Transoxiana, and India. Each man ate more than three ordinary peasants.

As soon as they returned, the large amounts of gold and silver they carried had already driven up prices. With supplies tightening as well, in just one month the grain price in Dunhuang had soared four times and was beginning to stir public resentment.

This also fully proved that the Guiyi Army could not possibly support Zhang Zhao's several thousand full-time armored soldiers.

"Commander, the Ganzhou Uyghur prince Jingqiong entered Suzhou five days ago at the head of two thousand cavalry. I hear Khagan Renyu has declared he will mobilize twenty thousand cavalry to wipe us out in one blow!" Zhang Zhao had just arrived when Luo Tongda, his hair and beard graying, came over to report.

"Hmph!" Zhang Zhao sneered. "Khagan Renyu's vision is still too narrow. Why doesn't he claim a hundred thousand iron cavalry?

If he really levied twenty thousand cavalry, Ganzhou City would have people starving to death next year. Elder Luo, how many men do you estimate they will actually send?"

Luo Tongda also gave a carefree laugh. The Guiyi Army and the Ganzhou Uyghurs had fought each other to the death for decades and knew each other extremely well by now.

"Based on past practice, Prince Jingqiong has already brought two thousand cavalry into Suzhou City in the first wave. If they conscript the Long family of Lower Suzhou to join the fight, it should come to around ten thousand!"

Ten thousand men. Zhang Zhao thought for a moment. If these were ten thousand Persians or ten thousand Karakhanid cavalry, he would have pounced and started fighting long ago. But the Ganzhou Uyghurs were different.

In recent years they had fought the Guiyi Army to the east, fought the various Wenmo tribes to the west, and sometimes even clashed with the Tibetans on the Qilian Mountains.

Though they had not fought many major battles, small skirmishes had been constant, and they had basically all ended in Ganzhou Uyghur victories.

So although it was only ten thousand men, they had to be treated as at least thirty thousand Persians.

Still, it seemed Khagan Renyu of the Ganzhou Uyghurs certainly did not know he had returned. Otherwise he would not have sent Prince Jingqiong with only two thousand cavalry and started blustering — at the very least he should have waited until the main army was fully assembled and commanded it in person.

"How are Suzhou's city defenses?"

Luo Tongda's eyes lit up. He was beginning to understand Zhang Zhao's intent, and he himself was a bold general fond of the unexpected.

"Ten years ago, I followed the Great King to storm Suzhou. As for Suzhou's defenses, the old city from before the Former Han has long been abandoned. The present Suzhou was built in the late Sui by Li Gui, the Great Liang King, and the Great Tang reinforced it several times. But in the early Dali era the Tibetans took Hexi and it was destroyed again.

After that, life in Hexi was hard, and Suzhou City was only ever patched and mended, built of rammed yellow earth, no more than three or four meters high. It cannot be called strong.

If three thousand armored soldiers attacked day and night, without even needing battering rams or assault wagons, it could be taken in ten days!"

"Good!" Zhang Zhao clapped his hands. "It would take ten days of attack to take it — not bad at all!

Elder Luo, muster the troops of the Yumen Army. I will give you three thousand more men. Go and surround Suzhou City. The show of force must be big, but do not attack the city with full strength. Prepare for a solid defense."

The Yumen Army had several hundred men, Cao Yuanzhong had conscripted about a thousand more, and with Zhang Zhao's three thousand, Luo Tongda could field around five thousand soldiers.

Suzhou City originally had only a few hundred Long family garrison troops, and with Prince Jingqiong's two thousand cavalry it was still under three thousand. Surrounding it with twice the force, as long as they did not attack desperately, would be more than enough.

Fortunately there was no Jiayu Pass yet, otherwise it would have been troublesome!

"Commander, you want us to pin ourselves beneath Suzhou City and wait for the Ganzhou Uyghur reinforcements to arrive?"

Luo Tongda thought for a while and voiced his guess.

According to Zhang Zhao's arrangement, his five thousand men appeared to be going to attack Suzhou City, but in reality they were to serve as an iron plate beneath Suzhou's walls, drawing the Ganzhou Uyghurs' follow-up reinforcements to crash against them.

When the Uyghurs had battered themselves bloody against it, Zhang Zhao, who possessed a certain number of fully armored cavalry, would suddenly strike and shatter them in one blow.

Hmm, it was not unworkable. There was some danger, but the main point was exploiting the fact that the Ganzhou Uyghurs did not know Zhang Zhao had returned from Anxi.

If the Ganzhou Uyghurs still fought their side as if they were the old Guiyi Army, they were very likely to suffer a major defeat.

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