Chapter 398: How to Hoodwink Yelu Deguang

Zhang Zhao of course had no idea he could anger Shi Jingtang into vomiting blood; had he known, wouldn't he have been overjoyed?

He could hardly wait for Shi Jingtang to drop dead right now, and then for Yelu Deguang to march south at once.

That way, the gap in strength between him and the Khitan would be leveled out by Yelu Deguang's boneheaded moves.

What a fine thing that would be!

Unfortunately, Yelu Deguang was merely mediocre at military matters, but the man was no fool — not only no fool, but quite shrewd.

So after giving Yelu Deguang a hard knock by the Hun River, what Zhang Zhao had to do now was play the weakling and coax Yelu Deguang a little, to keep Yelu Deguang's

"Our Great Khitan is invincible under heaven!"

"The the the Shatuo can be Son of Heaven of China, so why can't the Khitan?"

— to keep those two airs going.

Otherwise, if Yelu Deguang did not enter the Central Plains but instead began harassing the Lingzhou and Xiazhou line, wanting first to beat down the now-threatening Zhang Zhao, that would be no fun at all.

So, uneasy, Zhang Zhao summoned Wu Da'er, who was preparing to go as envoy to the Khitan, and gave him instructions in person.

When he went to have an audience with Yelu Deguang, he must be extremely deferential in speech, and pay homage to Yelu Deguang as if he were the Son of Heaven of the Central Plains.

It's for making money — nothing shameful about it!

At this point in history, hadn't the Cao family's Guiyi Army gone fawning off to the Yingtian Empress Dowager Shulu Ping to congratulate her on her birthday, and even asked the Khitan to join them in attacking the Ganzhou Uyghurs?

Hmph! It was just fucking absurd — the Ganzhou Uyghurs went licking the Central Plains dynasty, licking so hard that Zhu Quanzhong specially helped the Uyghurs form the Left Camp Crossbowmen to deal with the Guiyi Army.

The Guiyi Army, for their part, went licking the Khitan, getting the Khitan to stand up for them, and the Khitan didn't hold back either — they directly entered the fray themselves.

They crossed more than three thousand li back and forth to hammer the Ganzhou Uyghurs several times, beating the rising Ganzhou Uyghurs alive into the mud.

So then, I, Great King Zhang, am also prepared to coax the Khitan a little — but his is a false coaxing; once Yelu Deguang is coaxed into taking the Central Plains, the great deed is done.

Thinking of this, Zhang Zhao also called in the monk Hui Xing, Yang He, and had him go as envoy to the Khitan together with Wu Da'er.

When the Khitan take up Buddhism, they go at it far harder than the Han.

He gritted his teeth again, and from the already nearly depleted Samanid Persian royal beauties he picked one, and from the Indian Shahi royal beauties he also picked one.

Adding a handwritten copy of the Mahavairocana Sutra by King Prasenajit obtained from Nalanda Monastery, along with rock sugar, tea bricks, and the like.

He put together a large, one might say lavish, gift, and had Wu Da'er and the others deliver it to Yelu Deguang's tent.

A great heap of odds and ends — Zhang Zhao attended to every detail, explaining everything thoroughly on all fronts.

Because right now he absolutely could not provoke the Khitan; if Yelu Deguang did not enter the Central Plains, given the current situation under heaven, Zhang Zhao might well end up as King Wen of Zhou, letting his son drive out the Khitan northward and unify the realm.

Nor could he let the Khitan look down too much on the Guiyi Army; if they thought it easy to bully, Yelu Deguang might come to contest Lingzhou.

While the two were discussing the details, a sound of weeping came from outside. Zhang Zhao hurried out to look, and a person in mourning clothes dropped to his knees before him with a thud.

"Great King, my father, Lord Yuande, passed away ten days ago — he has ridden the crane west!"

Only then did Zhang Zhao see clearly that this person in mourning clothes was none other than Cao Yuande's second son, Cao Yanjing's younger brother, Cao Yanming's elder brother — Cao Erlang, Cao Yanping.

"Father! Your unfilial son!"

Cao Yanjing and Cao Yanming also rushed over upon hearing the news, and the three brothers wept in each other's arms before Zhang Zhao.

Zhang Zhao rubbed his eyes hard twice, worked himself up, and at last got his eyes red, a few teardrops bursting out. He too ran over and wept together with the three Cao brothers.

"Cousin, I had said that once the Yongshou Palace in Liangzhou was repaired, I would bring you to Liangzhou to enjoy yourself — how could you leave so suddenly!"

Yongshou Palace was the palace of the Former Liang's Zhang clan, though by this time it was already quite dilapidated — but its significance was extraordinary, because Zhang Gui's surname was Zhang, and Zhang Zhao's surname was also Zhang.

Moreover, they even had a bit of kinship — both were descendants of Zhang Er, King Jing of Zhao, who had once been a retainer of Lord Xinling and an idol of Emperor Gaozu of Han.

Of course, the Zhang Gui family line was very likely genuine, while Zhang Zhao's family had probably attached themselves to it.

Because Zhang Zhao's ancestor Zhang Xiaosong had awed the Western Regions with a motley army, toppling more than ten kingdoms in the Western Regions, and still ended up imprisoned after being denounced for corruption.

If he'd had a solid pedigree, how could he have ended up so wretched?

Besides, Zhang Xiaosong's birth and death years are both unknown — most likely he came from a poor family, and his descendants attached themselves to the Zhang Gui line.

Actually, saying "attached" isn't quite accurate either, because the other Zhang clan in Shazhou were indeed Zhang Gui's descendants.

And the two Zhang families had merged their lineages decades ago, so Zhang Zhao saying now that he shared an ancestor with Zhang Gui was not exactly wrong.

So in Liangzhou he had restored a great number of the Former Liang Zhang clan's palaces.

On one hand he posed as a loyal minister of the state; on the other, using the grounds that the Zhang family had been the royal house of Hexi and Longyou for several hundred years, he began winning people's hearts.

The four wept in each other's arms for a short while, then went inside.

With Cao Yuande dead, Cao Yanjing and Cao Yanming, who were with the army, would certainly have to go back to mourn.

But at that moment, Zhang Zhao suddenly thought of a fine way to hoodwink Yelu Deguang.

In the late years of Cao Yijin's rule, the Cao family's Guiyi Army had already had contact with the Khitan.

Of course, in the original history, it was not until the time of Zhang Zhao's father-in-law Cao Yuanzhong, after the Guiyi Army had completely lost the ability to stand against the Ganzhou Uyghurs, that they went to cling to the Khitan's thigh.

But they had made contact now as well; there was a bit of old incense-burning friendship there.

This Cao Yuande was Cao Yijin's eldest son, while the Zhang family's Guiyi Army had long since lost power for decades.

By ordinary understanding, Zhang Zhao ought to have had an extremely severe conflict with the Cao family, merely kept hidden.

Only they would never have dreamed that Cao Yijin was the last generation of true Guiyi Army men, one who longed to return to his homeland, a fox dying with its head toward its den.

Nor would they have dreamed that Zhang Zhao, with tremendous forbearance and patience, had made peace with the older generation of Guiyi Army men who had overthrown his father.

And by moving far away to Liangzhou, he had avoided a bloody internal struggle.

So if at this moment Cao Yanjing could go before Yelu Deguang and tearfully complain that the Cao family was being oppressed by Zhang Zhao, and beg the Khitan to posthumously honor Cao Yuande as a way of backing them, Yelu Deguang would surely fall for it.

As long as Yelu Deguang concluded that the Guiyi Army was internally unstable and that the Cao family still had strength, and that he could use the Cao family to check Zhang Zhao, his wariness would greatly diminish.

Zhang Zhao pulled Cao Yanjing to his feet and looked at him with tears in his eyes.

"Eldest brother, now that we hold all of Hexi, Longyou, and Shuofang, problems have come with it — the Son of Heaven of the Central Plains cannot possibly watch us grow strong.

At this moment, to our north and east is the mighty Khitan, and to our south is the court. If both sides send great armies against us, we will surely be unable to cope."

To hold this foundation and let us descendants of the Grand Guardian enjoy this land's wealth forever, we must first placate the Khitan, whose iron cavalry number a hundred thousand."

Though Cao Yanjing did not understand why Zhang Zhao was telling him all this, he still nodded in agreement.

Zhang Yichao's line had withered; of the direct bloodline only Zhang Zhao remained. The maternal line consisted of three families — the Cao, the Li, and the Suo.

Cao Yanjing's grandmother was Suo-shi, a granddaughter of Zhang Yichao through his daughter. Suo-shi bore Cao Yuande and Cao Yuanshen, so these two eldest sons of Cao Yijin were in fact Zhang Zhao's maternal cousins.

This was also why Zhang Zhao could only marry Cao Shijiu and Lady Cao Sanniang — because their father Cao Yuanzhong was not born of Suo-shi, which spared Zhang Zhao from taking blood-related nieces as wives.

So in terms of kinship, Cao Yanjing was both Zhang Zhao's cousin-nephew and his elder brother-in-law.

The Cao and Zhang families were deeply bound together, with profound shared interests — which was also the direct reason Cao Yanjing was willing to come out and work for Zhang Zhao.

"I must ask you, Dalang, for the sake of our Guiyi Army's growth, to endure the pain of giving up returning to Dunhuang for the funeral.

Because I need you to go outside Yunzhou to pay respects to Yelu Deguang — to deceive this Khitan sovereign.

Once there, first seek a posthumous title for Cousin Yuande from the Khitan court, then hint to the Khitan, high and low, that I, Zhang Zhao, am oppressing the Cao family; that the Cao family holds only Shazhou and Suzhou, powerless to resist, and begs the Great Khitan Emperor to back the Cao family."

China has always placed great weight on filial piety, and even more on the rites for the dead. Preventing a close kinsman from returning home for a funeral was something hard to accept — not only in the late Tang and Five Dynasties, but even in the later republic. So Zhang Zhao had to explain himself clearly to Cao Yanjing.

Cao Yanjing stared blankly at Zhang Zhao for a moment. Not being able to return for the funeral in time he could grit his teeth and endure — but he had thought of something else, and so he spoke to Zhang Zhao with some bitterness.

"Great King, Yelu Deguang is a brilliant ruler of his generation. If we want the Khitan, high and low, to believe the Cao family and Zhang Zhao are not on good terms, it must at the very least be half real and half false.

I risk my life to report to you, Great King: not everyone in the Cao family is resigned to losing power, and not every one of those elders who once forced the White-Clad Son of Heaven to abdicate is free of worry that you, Great King, will settle accounts after the fact.

If I accept your order, Great King, and later trouble breaks out in Dunhuang that cannot be contained, what then?

We are kin — break the bone and the sinew still connects!"

Zhang Zhao knew whom Cao Yanjing meant: his second uncle, Zhang Zhao's second cousin, Cao Yijin's second son — Cao Yuanshen, the third-generation Military Governor of the Cao family's Guiyi Army in history.

If one asked who in Dunhuang was most dissatisfied with Zhang Zhao, it was surely Cao Yuanshen.

Cao Yuande was somewhat better; his failing health had made him accept his fate.

But Cao Yuanshen's heart soared higher than heaven while his fate was thinner than paper. He still craved wealth and power, and had never stopped brooding.

After Zhang Zhao seized power, the line of Cao Yuande and Cao Yuanshen was certain to be suppressed.

Nor did Cao Yuanshen, unlike Cao Yuande, have many sons who could come out and work to make up the loss — especially since Cao Yanming was one of the trusted pillars who had helped Zhang Zhao rise.

Cao Yuanshen had only one son, whose health was poor and who was honest by nature, and his most beloved daughter had been married off by Zhang Zhao to Yin Yaozi, a man he looked down on.

So he spent his days in Dunhuang voicing resentful words. Had Zhang Zhao not been magnanimous, he would have died eight hundred times over.

Now that Zhang Zhao wanted Cao Yanjing to go to the Khitan and seek a title for Cao Yuande, Cao Yuanshen — blind to the situation and long since discontented — might well seize the chance to stir up a major incident.

Zhang Zhao looked at Cao Yanjing with approval, and his appreciation of him only grew.

If Cao Yanjing had ignored this second uncle Cao Yuanshen and simply followed Zhang Zhao's orders,

he could first win great merit by fooling the Khitan, and then win more by denouncing Cao Yuanshen in righteous sacrifice of family ties — would high office and rich rewards not come pouring in?

But now he was willing to risk speaking of these things to Zhang Zhao, which showed he was still a man of feeling and loyalty, a talent who could see the larger picture.

At this thought, Zhang Zhao took Cao Yanjing's hand and said: "Dalang, set your mind at ease. There are no outsiders here, and I can give you my word!

No matter who it is, so long as they do not slaughter the innocent or bring Khitan troops into the city, I will hold only the chief culprit to account and not pursue the rest.

Even the chief culprit — at most he will be moved to the Yongshou Palace in Liangzhou and placed under house arrest."

Zhang Zhao still left himself a patch. A man like Cao Yuanshen he would not kill; at most he would confine him.

But if those leftover elders in Dunhuang did anything out of line, he would not mind using the chance to clean house a little, lest they keep Dunhuang in a foul haze and corrupt the young.

"In that case! I will make ready at once and set out for the Khitan together with Wu Da'er and the others!"

Hearing Zhang Zhao's assurance that nothing would be done to his second uncle Cao Yuanshen, Cao Yanjing immediately gritted his teeth and agreed.

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