Chapter 321: All Are Traitors; Where Are the Loyal Ministers?

Wu Guo'er had never imagined that, with his martial skills, he would actually be taken captive by Tibetans.

His family had lived for generations in Weizhou, Wuzhou, and other places. His ancestor had once been the adopted son of Li Maozhen, Prince of Qi, and had enjoyed a period of prestige; the Wu family could be counted among the hereditary military merit families within the Zhangyi Army.

Although Li Maozhen later fell into poverty and decline and had no choice but to surrender to the Later Tang, the Wu family ancestors were not implicated in any way. They withdrew unscathed and remained in Weizhou and the surrounding areas.

Wu Guo'er had trained in martial arts since childhood. His archery, spear, and staff skills made him the finest in the Weizhou garrison, and Troop Commander He Chuan greatly admired him.

During this recent mutiny, He Chuan had invited him to join the march on Chang'an, but the Wu family had put down roots in Weizhou for many years, and with all their kinsmen there they did not dare take the risk, so he had not gone.

Originally he had planned to wait about half a month, gather the spear-and-staff men of the garrison, and go out through Sanguan Pass to Yuanzhou to raid for forage and seize some fat sheep and fine horses.

He had never expected that the Yuanzhou Tangut would dare appear beneath the walls of Weizhou.

This was why, when Zhang Zhao had just arrived beneath Weizhou's walls with his army not yet in formation, and a great wave of troops surged out of Weizhou, Wu Guo'er had dared to charge out with his longbow and shoot down his mounted scouts.

The Weizhou army had mistaken the Guiyi Army appearing outside Sanguan Pass for the Yuanzhou Tangut.

This was, of course, a "beautiful" misunderstanding. Zhang Zhao did not know the situation outside Sanguan Pass; those Yuanzhou Tangut had actually been deliberately released by him.

When there was no trouble, they served as scouts; when there was trouble, they were cannon fodder. But he had never expected that the Weizhou army would mistake them for the enemy.

While Wu Guo'er was lost in these wild thoughts, a physician with a wrapped headcloth came to apply medicine to his wounds.

That iron mace blow from Murong Xinzhang had not been light. Had Wu Guo'er not been wearing a suit of ring-mail armor beneath his clothes, that blow would have knocked his internal organs out of place. As it was, he could not be this relaxed.

"Why is there no more syrup-filled steamed bun to eat? This black broomcorn millet is terribly coarse. If I eat it, my back will surely ache!"

Wu Guo'er smacked his lips twice and grabbed the cook who had come along with the physician to deliver the food, asking him.

These Hexi people had a kind of steamed bun in their army, filled with white syrup inside, exceptionally delicious. After eating it a few times, Wu Guo'er had grown extremely fond of it.

Young men are the most fond of good food. Now, seeing that there were no syrup-filled steamed buns and only black broomcorn millet (sorghum) to eat, even though he had been captured, he could not help asking.

"What's this? Your wounds are almost healed and you still want white-sugar steamed buns? Let me tell you, in our Guiyi Army, only the wounded get to eat them. If you want more, you'll have to let me hit you with my iron mace again!"

When enemies meet, their eyes blaze with hatred. The moment Wu Guo'er saw Murong Xinzhang grinning and mocking him, he immediately lost his composure.

"You Hexi slave! If it weren't for your fast horse, who would have struck whom with a mace is still uncertain!"

"Oh! So now you don't call me a Tibetan thief-slave anymore? If you want to fight again, I'm ready anytime. If you say mounted combat was only because my horse was fast, then once your wounds heal, we'll fight on foot! Right now the Military Governor has summoned you. Follow me!"

Fortunately, what Wu Guo'er had cursed was Murong Xinzhang. This young lord Murong came from the royal clan of the Tuyuhun Murong tribe, and his grandfather had been Prefect of Guazhou. He had felt a strong sense of superiority since childhood, so a phrase like "Tibetan thief-slave" did not bother him in the slightest.

Had this been directed at Zhang Liecheng, who came from an exceptionally humble background, Wu Guo'er would likely have received another good beating.

Beneath the walls of Weizhou, Zhang Zhao did not rush to attack. Instead, he spent several days pressing the laborers to hurriedly build more than ten hide-covered assault wagons capable of concealing troops, and only then began positioning the trebuchets.

Cao Shisi kept running back and forth among the trebuchets, recording data. The several bed crossbows on Weizhou's walls were also extremely crafty, firing very cautiously.

In the end, Zhang Zhao had no choice but to send the newly built assault wagons out on a risky sortie to lure the bed crossbows on Weizhou's walls into firing.

"Thud!" A tremendous sound rang out, and Cao Shisi heard it clearly. From the walls of Weizhou, several bed-crossbow bolts thicker than spear shafts shot forth, and one assault wagon covered in ten layers of oxhide with iron plates inside was struck directly.

The crossbow bolt, carrying enormous kinetic energy, pierced straight through the assault wagon in an instant. Blood spurted out in several streams through the punctured oxhide.

The Yuanzhou Tangut inside the assault wagon howled in terror, scrambling and crawling out of the wagon in panic.

"Left side of the wall, crenel number two, distance three hundred fifty paces!" The observer on the tall pole immediately shouted. Those hiding bed crossbows had finally revealed themselves.

"Release stones! Three volleys of saturation fire!" Cao Shisi shouted excitedly. The signalman beside him raised a yellow flag, indicating the left side, and then two small red flags rose, indicating crenel number two.

Following Zhang Zhao's instructions, Cao Shisi had divided each wall face into twelve equal sections to determine approximate positions.

"Four hundred fifty paces! Release stones!"

"Four hundred fifty paces! Release stones!"

All twenty whirlwind catapults were mounted on the ground, and every squad leader shouted along.

In an instant, twenty head-sized stones came howling down on the spot where the bed crossbows had just fired, and in three consecutive volleys.

At once, dust flew up on the walls of Weizhou, and even Cao Shisi could hear faint screams.

Weizhou's three bed crossbows were finished.

"Carry earth and fill the moat! The whirlwind catapults strike men, not walls. The moment anyone shows themselves, bombard them!"

Zhang Zhao loudly issued his orders. With the bed crossbows on the walls gone, the work of filling in the moat could finally begin.

More importantly, he could also form strong archers to deliver suppressive fire against the walls and cover the work.

Weizhou's moat was not very wide. This was a problem common to all cities west of the pass, since water was not abundant anywhere in the region. Therefore the outer moat had become an important defensive tool.

The twenty whirlwind catapults fired at a rapid pace, and before long they had battered the archers on Weizhou's walls so badly they could not lift their heads.

Wang Shouye watched the dense mass of men below the walls and the stones flying through the air, his brows tightly furrowed.

The Guiyi Army actually had trebuchets, and they had actually been able to hold back from using them until after they had smashed the bed crossbows on the walls.

"Do not worry, Garrison Commander. Their trebuchets are too small. Although they can suppress us, they cannot batter down Weizhou's walls.

And they cannot keep up the bombardment forever. As long as we hold firm, merely filling in the moat will take them seven or eight days. By then Troop Commander He and the others will have returned."

Wang Shouye looked at the squad general Sun who was speaking, and nodded as if he quite agreed with him, but inwardly he gave a cold snort.

Squad General Sun's entire clan, dozens of people, had joined the mutiny with He Chuan's yabing guards, so of course he wanted to hold out to the death.

But Wang Shouye had no family members involved. Still, what Squad General Sun said was not without reason. He would wait and see. If the city could be held, of course he would hold it.

"Wu Guo'er of Weizhou pays his respects to the Minister of Works!"

Siege warfare of this kind was generally very time-consuming, to say nothing of the fact that Zhang Zhao, including auxiliary troops and laborers, had barely ten thousand men.

Attacking a strong city like Weizhou with so few troops would normally be measured in months at the very least. So after arranging the assault, Zhang Zhao returned to his main tent.

Wu Guo'er, who could now move freely but still could not exert himself, knelt before Zhang Zhao. He had completely lost the arrogance he had shown when captured, and the defiance he had shown when bickering with Murong Xinzhang was gone as well.

"Are the young lord Wu's wounds better?" Zhang Zhao asked with a smile.

Wu Guo'er pressed his head to the ground without raising it. "I thank the Minister of Works for his concern, for sending physicians and medicine. My wounds are no longer serious."

"From the way you speak, you seem to come from a good family. Have you read any books?"

Based on this level of conversation alone, Zhang Zhao thought more highly of Wu Guo'er, because given the literacy rate of this era, anyone who could speak such words was certainly not from an ordinary household.

"My grandfather was once the adopted son of the Loyal and Reverent Prince of Qi, and rose to be Prefect of Wuzhou. Therefore I have read some books and recognize a few characters." Wu Guo'er answered with a touch of pride.

Zhang Zhao was momentarily speechless — not because of Wu Guo'er's ancestral origins, but because the posthumous title "Loyal and Reverent" struck Zhang Zhao as truly darkly humorous.

A man who could utter such cutting words as "I know not where the imperial carriage has been driven, nor where it goes from here," who entered Chang'an several times to burn, kill, and plunder, and who forcibly married a beloved daughter of Emperor Zhaozong of Tang — and Li Cunxu, styling himself as a member of the Tang imperial clan, actually gave Li Maozhen the posthumous title "Loyal and Reverent."

Where is the loyalty? Where is the reverence? What immense irony!

Still, there was no need for Zhang Zhao to feel indignant on behalf of Emperor Zhaozong of Tang. The late-Tang emperors did plenty of reckless things themselves; Emperor Zhaozong, pitiable and lamentable as he was, had often brought it on himself.

"So now you no longer consider us Tibetan rebel slaves? Lift your head and speak." Zhang Zhao quickly tossed aside this internal grumbling and questioned Wu Guo'er.

Wu Guo'er finally raised his head, and then froze — because Zhang Zhao, having changed into casual clothes and still not having grown a beard,

and no longer having to campaign north and south under the blazing sun as he had in the Western Regions, had grown considerably fairer. He therefore looked especially young, appearing two or three years younger than his actual age.

"If the Tibetans still had the ability to send out several thousand armored soldiers, how could the prefectures west of the passes still hold? Nor would they treat a captive like me as kindly as the Minister of Works does!"

"Well said. It seems you are not an unreasonable man. Since you have had some schooling, why did you join the rebellion?" Zhang Zhao asked, narrowing his eyes.

"The present Son of Heaven is himself a rebellious subject, who borrowed the troops of the lowly Xi and groveled to achieve his great enterprise.

Looking only at how the Son of Heaven conducts himself — now, whoever holds troops in hand, who still keeps loyalty and righteousness in his heart?" Wu Guo'er stared blankly at Zhang Zhao as he spoke.

Zhang Zhao's cheek twitched. For a moment, he thought he had encountered someone extraordinarily eloquent, but then he looked at Wu Guo'er's eyes and realized that was not the case.

This was not eloquence at all — this young man before him simply thought that way.

With those thick brows and large eyes, looking every bit the loyal young officer, he actually harbored such thoughts in his heart!

Indeed, the minds of Five Dynasties warriors could not be judged by the standards of later ages.

And what he said made sense too! That fool Shi Jingtang was himself a rebellious subject, and had colluded with a foreign state to boot.

And this foreign state was the Khitan and the lowly Xi, whom everyone had always rather looked down upon.

If you, Shi Jingtang, could acknowledge the Xi as your father and enter Kaifeng to become Son of Heaven, then was it not perfectly normal for those below to hold cities and rebel, raise a great commotion, and gamble for wealth and rank?

Very well. After a few breaths of somewhat awkward silence, Zhang Zhao decisively abandoned this discussion.

"I have heard that He Chuan was Zhang Congbin's trusted yabing officer, and was not a man of Weizhou. About half of what was plundered this time was sent back into Weizhou city. Is that true?"

Now that was more like it! A look of understanding appeared on Wu Guo'er's face. Just now, when Zhang Zhao had asked him why he rebelled, he had been unbearably awkward.

He had felt as though Zhang Zhao had suddenly crawled out of some hole in the ground. Who still talked about loyalty and rebellion these days? Was it not simply that whoever was stronger was in the right?

But now, when Zhang Zhao asked about the wealth and goods of the rebel yabing guards in Weizhou city, it finally felt right.

Wu Guo'er nodded. "The wealth, the women, and the children are all in the city. However, Garrison Commander Wang, who holds the city, has considerable prestige. Moreover, because everyone fears that Troop Commander He and the others may win in the east, and that it would be hard to explain themselves later, they certainly will not dare open the gates to the Minister of Works."

"Then may I ask, young Master Wu, what does Garrison Commander Wang like? Troop Commander He followed Zhang Congbin in rebellion and killed the Sage's two sons in Kaifeng Prefecture — a deep and deadly enmity has already been formed.

The court will surely spare no coin or grain and will summon a great army to besiege them. I believe Zhang Congbin is doomed to defeat, and Troop Commander He and the others will likely never return to Weizhou."

Wu Guo'er rolled his eyes. "If the Minister of Works can promise Garrison Commander Wang thirty percent of the wealth and goods, it might be done."

Zhang Zhao feigned great delight and immediately helped Wu Guo'er up from the ground.

"If I gain Weizhou city, let alone thirty percent — forty percent would be acceptable. I will now release you to go back and report to Garrison Commander Wang. If an answer can be given within ten days, I will surely keep my word."

Wu Guo'er was stunned for a moment, perhaps not expecting such good fortune to come so quickly — that Zhang Zhao would let him go back so easily.

"Moreover, I can halt the attack to show my sincerity. If you persuade Garrison Commander Wang to open the city, I have also prepared precious armor and a fine horse to give to you, young master."

A flicker of secret delight passed through Wu Guo'er's heart. This Minister of Works Zhang, who spoke so erratically, was truly easy to fool.

Just after Wu Guo'er was led away, Zhang Zhao turned to Dunzhu beside him.

"Go and select brave and fierce men, a full five hundred, each wearing two layers of padded armor. When the troops in the city grow slack, divide the gold and use gunpowder to blast open the west gate. Then follow me as I charge in."

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