Chapter 28: The Band Takes Shape

"Since that is so — wild geese without a leader cannot form a line, and men without a head cannot form an army. If you are all willing to heed my orders and accomplish great things, then let us go before the image of the Bodhisattva Guanyin and swear an oath: to share hardship and share wealth together!"

Seeing that everyone's spirits had risen, Zhang Zhao seized the moment and proposed that they go swear an oath before the image of the Bodhisattva Guanyin behind the stone tower.

At this time the whole Hexi Corridor believed in Han-transmitted Esoteric Buddhism, and Guanyin, known as one of the Thirty-Three Guanyins, was a deity the Han Esoteric tradition greatly revered. Swearing an oath beneath an image of Guanyin was a most solemn matter, and its binding force was quite strong.

Lady Cao Sanniang naturally would not sit with a crowd of stinking men to eat meat and drink wine — and "stinking men" here was no figure of speech, but men who genuinely stank.

Zhang Zhao was forcing himself to endure it because he wanted to win these men over, but Lady Cao Sanniang had no desire to recruit anyone for her own use, so she naturally saw no need to torment herself.

Attended by several women of the Qixiahu stockade, she had a table of dishes laid out alone on the second floor of the stone tower, and warmed a rare pot of millet wine — quite at her ease.

But very soon, she was drawn in by the map Zhang Zhao had brought out. While the crowd swarmed off to the Guanyin temple, Lady Cao Sanniang dashed down from the second floor in a few quick steps, not caring in the least about the bearing expected of a woman from an official household.

For in this age, a map was simply too important a thing. At such a time, the greatest way to show one's loyalty was to present the local maps and registers, and maps of mountains and rivers were even more important than household registers.

"Yizhou and Beiting are actually so far apart! Yanqi really is southwest of Gaochang — and it even marks Balasagun and Talas!"

The more Lady Cao Sanniang looked, the more astonished she became. Although this map marked only cities and not the mountains and rivers, judging by the distances between the large and small cities of the four prefectures of Gua, Sha, Gan, and Su, it was still quite accurate — which meant its markings of Gaochang, Beiting, and Yanqi were credible.

This age was not like later times, when one could simply open Gaode Maps or Baidu Maps to look at a map. In this age, maps were highly classified political and military secrets.

Take the present Guiyi Army Military Governor's office, for example: all they held were the maps and registers of the eleven prefectures of Gua, Sha, Gan, Su, Liang, and the rest — and those had been obtained back when Zhang Yichao submitted to the Hexi authorities.

As for the lands further west — Zhongyun, Khotan, the Karakhanids, that is, the former Protectorate-General of the Western Regions and the Beiting Protectorate-General — they knew very little indeed.

"Ahem!" Lady Cao Sanniang coughed lightly. The woman Shanniang, whom Zhang Zhao had taken for a bean sprout, actually pulled out a piece of silk and began copying the map at flying speed.

Where had this young lord gotten maps of the Protectorate-General of the Western Regions and the Beiting Protectorate-General? Lady Cao Sanniang's brows furrowed, and she raised Zhang Zhao another notch in her estimation. Could it be that the White-Clad Son of Heaven had left some secret storehouse for his descendants?

By the time this young lord was born, the state name of Jinshan had already been abolished. Unless the White-Clad Son of Heaven had secretly left him something, the young lord could never have drawn a map of the Western Regions — he probably could not even have made sense of the two prefectures of Gua and Sha.

At that thought, Lady Cao Sanniang gave another dry cough and signaled the two women beside her to go out with her. She wanted to go to the Guanyin temple and see what new tricks this young lord would come up with.

In the Guanyin temple behind the stone tower, more than thirty people knelt inside, and the rest knelt outside the temple.

The oath-taking had just ended. Zhang Zhao had not expected that a map drawn from memory could make Lady Cao Sanniang speculate so wildly. He was immersed in the excitement of being about to have his own force.

"On this journey west, you are all following me to win merit and build a career, so you can no longer think of yourselves as horse bandits. We must have our own rules!" Zhang Zhao waved a hand.

"Bai Congxin!" Zhang Zhao shouted.

"Young lord!" Bai Congxin hurried out of line and gave Zhang Zhao a chashou salute.

"I intend to divide our brothers into three squads. You will command your original thirty-seven men as the First Squad, with you as squad leader. Below that, divide them into three fires. The squad deputy and fire leaders will be nominated by you."

"Yes! I would die for the young lord!" Bai Congxin sang out a hearty acknowledgment, quite satisfied. First Squad — that sounded like the main force.

"Qiong Reduojin!"

Qiong Reduojin, his face full of expectation, also hurried forward.

"You will command your original twenty-nine men as the Second Squad. The squad deputy and three fire leaders will also be nominated by you!"

"Yes! I swear to follow the young lord to the death!"

"Yin Yaozi!"

"Young lord, Yaozi is here!" Yin Yaozi, usually a man of few words, stepped forward.

"I order you to command Dunzhu and the other fifteen men as the Third Squad. Later I will also recruit a dozen or so men skilled in bow and horse from Shazhou. Cousin, help me take up this post of squad leader for now!"

"Yes!" Yin Yaozi said nothing more, only nodded steadily, but Zhang Zhao knew he was trustworthy.

For Yin Yaozi's grandfather was the maternal uncle of Zhang Zhao's father, Zhang Chengfeng — which is to say, Zhang Zhao's grandmother was Yin Yaozi's grand-aunt. This was also the greatest reason Yin Yaozi had always protected Zhang Zhao along with Zhang Zhong.

"Old Zhong! I now appoint you quartermaster, in charge of our money, grain, and equipment! Fan Quan and Fan Shun will be my personal guards."

The old servant Zhang Zhong also received his appointment, but Zhang Zhao was not about to let him manage anything else — who knew whether he would pull off some other "great matter."

Still, Zhang Zhong was trustworthy; at least he would not betray Zhang Zhao. Moreover, the fellow knew a few characters, and with a handful of sticks he could just barely manage addition and subtraction within a hundred. He counted as the literate man of Zhang Zhao's little group, and was perfectly suited to managing logistics.

Having assigned everyone else their posts, Zhang Zhao began to grant himself an office.

"Although at present we number only eighty-seven men, once we reach the Kingdom of Jin and I gain the support of the Son of Heaven's maternal uncle, I will at the very least take in the guards of a lower-grade Zhechong garrison. From this day forward, you may address me as Commandant!"

"Yes! We greet the Commandant!" The crowd roared their assent, and the atmosphere grew even more heated. No one thought Zhang Zhao was being the least bit thick-skinned.

The Zhechong garrison was the military unit of the Tang fubing system, divided into upper, middle, and lower grades: an upper garrison had 1,500 soldiers, a middle garrison 1,000, and a lower garrison 800.

Below the Zhechong garrison was the regiment, fixed at 300 men; below the regiment was the squad, fixed at 50 men; below the squad was the fire, fixed at 10 men.

Yet Zhang Zhao, counting himself, had only eighty-seven men in all — not even enough for two squads of soldiers — and he dared call himself a Zhechong Commandant. If he had eight hundred men, would he not be calling himself a General of the Gentlemen of the Household?

By the time Lady Cao Sanniang reached the Guanyin temple, Zhang Zhao had already brazenly finished styling himself Guoyi Commandant.

Lady Cao Sanniang narrowed her eyes at Zhang Zhao. Zhang Zhao himself thought nothing of this move, but Lady Cao Sanniang saw something different in it.

It seemed this young lord Zhang did not regard himself as a member of the Cao family's Guiyi Army. Of course, by now there was no way for him to become a member of the Cao family's Guiyi Army anyway.

"Gathering followers, dividing them into left and right, presuming to set up offices, and with fewer than a hundred men ambitiously setting out to win merit and build a career — are all the Zhangs so recklessly bold?" murmured a lady whose face betrayed neither joy nor anger.

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