Chapter 379: This Is a Fantastical Era

Changze City — this place would later become the seat of the Jiayong Military Commission of Youzhou under the Western Xia, the new Youzhou established after Li Yuanhao abolished the old Youzhou north of the Mu Us Desert.

Changze City was not large. Li Yiyin, who had fled here, left over a thousand men to hold the city, hoping to delay Zhang Zhao's pursuit. Zhang Zhao, in turn, released two thousand mine slaves from Jingtie Mountain.

These mine slaves, having experienced what a true hell was like at Jingtie Mountain, treasured beyond measure these days when they no longer had to go down into the mines.

Losing one's life was over in an instant; going down into the mines was eternal torment.

And so these mine slaves threw their lives away in ant-like swarms against the city walls. Two thousand united archers in light armor followed behind, and behind them came the heavy infantry of the various garrisons to drive the assault forward.

Under such relentless pressure, Changze City fell in barely two hours. More than a thousand soldiers of the Dingnan Army from the Pingxia tribe, along with several hundred officers above the rank of fire leader, were all put to death.

Zhang Zhao garrisoned his troops at Changze City and sent out cavalry to raid in every direction. Any tribe that refused to come to Changze City in person and submit was annihilated.

At this time, the lands of the Dingnan Army were inhabited almost entirely by Tangut tribes that had migrated east from the Shanzhou area in years past. Even the various Qiang of Hengshan had, in fact, gradually migrated there after that time.

Compared with the Central Plains, order here depended even more on military force.

In the Five Dynasties Central Plains, it was true that whoever had soldiers was a makeshift king, but there was still some semblance of order.

But in the Yin, Xia, You, and Sui prefectures of the Dingnan Army, people's logic for defining strong and weak was far more direct.

If this were the Central Plains, Zhang Zhao would at this moment need to expound on righteousness, restrain his soldiers, spread benevolence far and wide, so that heroes from all quarters would come to join him and the common people would feel at ease, avoiding the upheaval of whole families fleeing. Then the place would settle down and belong to him.

But if Zhang Zhao tried that here in Yin, Xia, You, and Sui — well... these Tangut and Qiang people would certainly think a fool had arrived.

They would take such conciliatory measures as a matter of course, believing you needed something from them — just like the Later Tang court that had come to attack Xiazhou five years earlier, regarded as outsiders destined to be worn down and driven away.

Back then, An Congjin and Yao Yanchou had not understood this principle. As a result, Li Yichao summoned Tangut and Qiang cavalry to cut off their rear, their provisions ran out, and they could only retreat in disgrace to Yanzhou.

But Zhang Zhao was not like them. The Guiyi Army had been trapped among the Tibetans for over a hundred years, and one could say that among the Han people today, they knew best how to deal with the Tangut, the Qiang, the Uyghurs, and other such peoples.

If you wanted to bestow favor, that was fine — but only after they knelt and begged you, and then you granted it as alms.

If you eagerly ran over to win them over from the start, they would only think you were a fool who did not understand how things worked.

So Zhang Zhao did not spread benevolence far and wide as he had when entering Guanzhong, nor did he gather up the corpses of refugees and hand out medicine and grain.

Instead, he directly released all his light and heavy cavalry, sweeping along the line from Changze City to Xiazhou, from the Hongliu River to the Mu Us Desert and on to the Helan Mountains, carrying out a carpet-style encirclement and suppression.

Tribes willing to surrender were told to have their chieftain himself, or his son, bring the tribe's warriors to Changze City and wait to serve.

For those unwilling to surrender, all adult males were put to death, women and children were escorted to Yanzhou, cattle, sheep, horses, and mules were seized wholesale, and the crops in the fields were taken if they could be carried away — and if not, set ablaze.

The effect was immediate. Within a few days, the tribes around the Green Salt Lake, Wuyan City, the Helan Mountains, and elsewhere could no longer sit still. They came in droves to Changze City to kneel and beg Great King Zhang to show mercy.

Only then did Zhang Zhao reluctantly accept their loyalty, bestowing brocade, sugar, and tea to soothe them, and summoning the tribes' fierce warriors to attend before his command tent. These tribes then obediently became Zhang Zhao's subordinates.

As for those Tangut who were deeply entangled with the Dingnan Army and still cherished the kindness of the Tuoba Sizhong and Tuoba Sigong brothers, they chose to lead their people north, gathering around Li Yiyin at Xiazhou.

At this point, Li Yiyin did not even need to carry out a scorched-earth policy himself — Zhang Zhao had done it for him. From Changze City to Xiazhou City, along a road of several dozen li, there was scarcely a trace of human habitation.

Moreover, Li Yiyin would soon understand that scorched earth was useless against Zhang Zhao.

Five years earlier, when the Later Tang court had campaigned against them, scorched earth had succeeded for a reason.

That was because Yao Yanchou's fifty thousand troops had only three thousand cavalry, and the entire army's mules and horses numbered just over five thousand.

All provisions and military equipment had to be transported north from Ningzhou against the current of the Malian River, and from Fuzhou against the current of the Luo River — at extraordinary cost.

For every shi of grain transported from Guanzhong to the Xiazhou front, not counting the risks of attack, only one or two dou arrived. The Later Tang court simply could not bear such losses and had no choice but to withdraw.

But Zhang Zhao had come via Lanzhou. The closest prefecture to Yanzhou, Huizhou, was only six hundred li away, and he could travel more than three hundred li by water to Feng'an County — which in later times would be Zhongning County in Ningxia. The remaining three hundred-plus li was flat, open country.

Zhang Zhao's entire army, even the heavy infantry, were mounted infantry. He had fifty or sixty thousand mules and horses, and more than five hundred camels.

Not only did this make the Dingnan Army afraid to raid his supply lines, it also greatly facilitated transport. Using scorched earth against the Guiyi Army was pure wishful thinking.

Therefore, Zhang Zhao had no need to rush to the walls of Xiazhou. He would wait here until his fifteen thousand laborers, ten thousand sworn-follower elite cavalry, and thirty thousand shi of grain had all arrived, and then besiege Xiazhou with seventy thousand men and grind it down at leisure.

If, before that, Li Yiyin could not withstand the pressure and abandoned Xiazhou City of his own accord, that would be the best possible outcome.

And during this waiting period, Zhang Zhao was not idle. To swallow the Dingnan Army, there were still three places that needed to be dealt with.

First were the Military Governor of Zhangwu Army in Yanzhou and the Military Governor of Baoda Army in Fuzhou, both adjacent to Xiazhou. The remaining one was the Military Governor of Hedong and Defender of Beijing, Liu Zhiyuan.

Because if the Later Jin court wanted to intervene, its troops would certainly be drawn from these three places.

Among them, the Zhangwu Army of Yanzhou and the Baoda Army of Fuzhou lay south of Xiazhou, closest and fastest to arrive, but their strength was relatively weaker.

Taiyuan, where the Military Governor of Hedong was based, was only a little over three hundred li from Xiazhou, and it was a powerful province of the court.

If Shi Jingtang was determined not to let Zhang Zhao swallow the Dingnan Army, he would certainly order Liu Zhiyuan to march. So these three problems had to be resolved first.

Yanzhou — the revolutionary holy land of Yan'an in the Republic. The northern Shaanxi region of this era was completely different from its later ecological environment.

In later times, northern Shaanxi was often a vast expanse of yellow, wind blowing a mouthful of sand, poor and barren.

But at this time, the area of northern Shaanxi around Yanzhou, Fuzhou, and Xiazhou was actually still quite pleasant — lush and green, with convenient irrigation.

Fields crisscrossed the valleys, cattle and sheep covered the hillsides. It could not be called a land of fish and rice, but it could be said to be fairly prosperous — at least the output was quite good.

The Zhangwu Army of Yanzhou had its origins in the Baosai Army of the Weibei Military Governor during the Tang dynasty.

Later, the Weibei Military Governor was split up at the end of the Tang, gradually forming the present-day Zhangwu Army Military Governor of Yanzhou and Baoda Army Military Governor of Fuzhou.

The situation in Yanzhou at this time was very delicate. At first the Military Governor was Yang Hanzhang, who responded to the summons of the Last Emperor Li Congke and prepared to march his troops to aid the throne.

But no sooner had his force left Yanzhou City than Liu Jingyan, the Prefect of Fangzhou and a local strongman, seized the opportunity to incite the soldiers to mutiny, killing Yang Hanzhang and setting himself up in his place.

Liu Jingyan had assumed that by killing Yang Hanzhang, who was on his way to aid the throne, he had rendered a service to Shi Jingtang, and that the post of Military Governor of Zhangwu Army in Yanzhou would be his for the taking.

Instead, Shi Jingtang transferred Kang Chengxun, a Sogdian general from the three northern Dai tribes, to serve as Military Governor.

Liu Jingyan was naturally unwilling to accept this, so he once again stirred up the soldiers of the Zhangwu Army to mutiny. Kang Chengxun could not suppress it and fled to Fuzhou.

Shi Jingtang had no choice but to appoint Liu Jingyan as Military Governor of Zhangwu Army in Yanzhou.

But the matter did not end there. Having obtained the Military Governorship he had dreamed of, Liu Jingyan immediately sent his trusted aide Xiong Jiao to the court to express gratitude.

Who could have known that this Xiong Jiao was actually a loyal minister who never forgot his sovereign and aspired to serve the state? Not only was the man skilled at poetry, he was also highly perceptive.

After gaining an audience with Shi Jingtang, he promptly told Shi Jingtang the truth about Yanzhou. Only then did Shi Jingtang learn that both mutinies in Yanzhou had been engineered by Liu Jingyan.

Xiong Jiao fully expected that once Shi Jingtang knew, the court would certainly send troops to punish Liu Jingyan. But that wretch Shi Jingtang only wanted peace and quiet, to sit firmly on the imperial throne, and had no desire to launch a punitive campaign.

This put Xiong Jiao in a terrible bind. This fellow, who went by the sobriquet Hermit of Mount Jiuhua, had no choice but to conceal his identity and flee to avoid being killed by Liu Jingyan.

This actually had something to do with Zhang Zhao as well. At the time, Zhang Zhao had just brought down Li Congyan, and Shi Jingtang, fearing that Zhang Zhao would linger in Guanzhong and refuse to leave, had hastily appointed Liu Jingyan as Military Governor of Binning.

He also promised that as long as Liu Jingyan obeyed the arrangement, past offenses would not be pursued. Liu Jingyan, fearing the court would send a punitive expedition, took the face-saving way out and agreed.

However, though Liu Jingyan obeyed and left, he was still not entirely comfortable in his heart. So before departing, he made a point of marrying his granddaughter to Gao Yunquan of the Gao family, the greatest local magnate clan.

The Gao family had been military officers for generations. Since the end of the Tang, the family had served as yabing officers of Yanzhou.

Gao Yunquan's uncle Gao Wanxing had, under both the Later Liang and the Later Tang, risen to Honorary Grand Preceptor and Secretariat Director, concurrently serving as Military Governor of both the Zhangwu Army of Yanzhou and the Baoda Army of Fuzhou, and was enfeoffed as Prince of Beiping. He was a magnate among local magnates.

It was only that after Gao Wanxing's death, his descendants had proven somewhat lackluster, and the family had temporarily declined.

Once Liu Jingyan allied with them by marriage, one side had influence and the other had troops, and they ran Yanzhou so tightly that not even air could pass through.

At this time, the newly appointed Military Governor of the Zhangwu Army of Yanzhou, Ding Shenqi, arrived at his post. One look, and he was stunned.

Good heavens — the entire Zhangwu Army, high and low, acknowledged only the departed Liu Jingyan; the yamen clerks and local magnates acknowledged only the Gao family. The benefits of both the military and civil administration had been completely devoured by them.

Still, one could say the people of Yanzhou were unlucky. Had they gotten an ordinary Military Governor, he would have accepted his fate, muddled through a few years, and been transferred away.

But this Ding Shenqi was no good sort to begin with. Known for cruelty and arrogance, how could he possibly endure this?

The Zhangwu Army, high and low, wouldn't give him the time of day, right? Ding Shenqi steeled his heart, spent his own money, recruited more than a thousand old subordinates and desperadoes, armored them all, and simply fucking went at it.

A Military Governor leading his private troops to fight his own court-authorized regular army — this, too, was a distinctive feature of the times.

When Cao Yanjing arrived at Yanzhou with several dozen armored soldiers, he was instantly stunned by the scene before him.

Ding Shenqi's private troops held the western city; the Zhangwu Army's yabing guards held the eastern city. Between the two, a trench more than two meters deep had been dug clear across the city, with timber walls erected along its sides.

Yanzhou normally opened only one small gate each on the east and west sides. Most of the city's residents had fled. The two opposing sides used strong bows and heavy crossbows to shoot at each other from atop the timber walls — a small fight every three days, a big one every five.

Outside Yanzhou, every district had local militia bands defending themselves, for the two sides facing off inside the city each had their own supporters outside, and they would frequently come out to raid the supporters of the other.

Cao Yanjing's eyes bulged. This was truly fucking surreal! That the Zhangwu Army and Governor Ding were at odds was nothing strange, but to be openly brawling inside Yanzhou city itself — that was unique under heaven.

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