Chapter 399: Hexi Is the Subject of the Son of Heaven in the Central Plains

After arranging the mission to the Khitan, Zhang Zhao left his trusted men Guo Tiance and Ma Yaozi to hold Xiazhou, and Luo Yu'er to hold Yinzhou.

He himself led the Tangut and Qiang chieftains with twenty thousand cavalry, plus fifteen thousand horse and foot soldiers from the Guiyi Army's Hanshan Capital and the five garrison commands, thirty-five thousand men in all, and began the march north.

Zhang Zhao's main purpose in going north this time was to personally handle the matter of how to bring the people of Yunzhou out.

The soldiers and civilians of Yunzhou, led by Wu Luan, Administrative Assistant of the Datong Army, had already resisted the Khitan for more than six months, and had long since given Yelu Deguang mortal offense.

This Yelu Deguang might perhaps spare the merchants and commoners of Yunzhou, at most making them pay money to buy their lives.

But for the officers and men of the Datong Army led by Wu Luan, there would certainly be no pardon. If he did not kill them on the spot, that alone would count as Yelu Deguang being magnanimous.

In that case, these several thousand soldiers of the Datong Army and their tens of thousands of family members would become enemies of the Khitan without any need for mobilization.

Historically, that was exactly what they were — most of them ultimately died on the front line of resistance against the Khitan during the Shi Chonggui period.

What excellent prospects for recruitment this was for Zhang Zhao!

They were natives of Yunzhou, and they bore a deep blood feud with the Khitan. When the day came to recover Yan-Yun, they would be the finest vanguard.

Moreover, Zhang Zhao had just taken Xiazhou, and his rule there was not yet secure. If he could move some of the Han people of Yunzhou and the sinicized tribes to settle in Xiazhou,

then he could use them to defend against Khitan raids on Xiazhou, and also use them to guard against the Tangut people of the Yin-Xia region — one move, many gains.

However, when Zhang Zhao marched north, he did not take the route from Yinzhou to Fuzhou.

Instead he crossed the Mu Us Desert, detoured by way of Dijin Marsh, and went directly to the area of East Shouxiang Fortress in Shengzhou on the banks of the Yellow River.

Zhang Zhao also made a side trip to Youzhou to calm the hearts of the various peoples there.

As for the reason he did not go by way of Fuzhou: first, the Zhe family of Fuzhou had in fact already cooperated with Zhang Zhao once, and one might even say one hand was already resting on the gunwale of Zhang Zhao's boat.

But the Zhe family of Fuzhou still had strong feelings for the central government. If Zhang Zhao led his army through Fuzhou,

whether Zhe Congyuan would agree was one issue, and second, pressing the Zhe family too hard might well produce the opposite effect.

The second reason was that Zhang Zhao still did not fully trust the Zhe family.

With the Li family of Pingxia gone, the Zhe family of Fuzhou was now the largest and most prestigious Tangut clan in the Yin-Xia-Fu-Lin region.

In particular, they held great influence over some of the Tangut tribes of Xiazhou and Yinzhou.

Who knew what the Zhe family really thought of Zhang Zhao?

Although Zhe Congyuan had exchanged letters with Zhang Zhao several times, each time showing the utmost courtesy, and Zhe Deyi also greatly respected Zhang Zhao,

when the future and fate of two clans and hundreds of thousands of people were at stake, such private feelings could be entirely disregarded.

One could say that until the Zhe family showed a willingness to cooperate with Zhang Zhao in substance, or until they took real action, Zhang Zhao could not get too close to them.

Sure enough, by the time Zhang Zhao reached East Shouxiang Fortress, Murong Xinzhang, Li Cunhui, and Chai Rong were all there with two thousand Guiyi Army cavalry.

But Zhe Deyi and the Zhe family's thousand-odd cavalry did not appear.

"My lord, Young Master Zhe asked me to report on his behalf: his father summoned him, and he had no choice but to return first."

Murong Xinzhang's face and hands were covered with frostbite. The crisscrossing cracks on his handsome face in particular made it clear he had endured considerable hardship.

"You have suffered! But your suffering was worth it. Every day the Khitan are delayed in taking Yunzhou is one more day of advantage for the growth of our Guiyi Army."

Between father and son there was naturally no need for polite formalities. One should know that when Zhang Zhao faced his two thousand trusted elite soldiers outside, he had praised them to the skies.

He told them outright that they were heroes who had driven out the Khitan bandits and defended home and country, and that upon their return they would be richly rewarded.

"But the Khitan state is still far too powerful for us!

Your son went close to reconnoiter. The Khitan Pishi Army keeping watch around Yuanyang Lake is not only well equipped — their experience, fighting strength, and will are the elite of the elite. We have only three or four thousand such elite troops; they have at least thirty or forty thousand."

Murong Xinzhang said to Zhang Zhao with some emotion. He had not been idle these past months, having ridden nearly several thousand li in all.

He had gone not only to Yuanyang Lake but deep into the grasslands, and had even raided some scattered small camps of Khitan and Zubu people, capturing several hundred prisoners and several dozen horses.

Yuanyang Lake lay about two hundred thirty or forty li northwest of Yunzhou — it was the later Daihai Lake, the third-largest inland lake of Inner Mongolia.

From here to Datong, the Khitan Pishi Army had established a tight cordon of warning posts.

"So although I have brought thirty-five thousand troops here, I have not come to test myself against the Khitan, because we still cannot defeat them."

Zhang Zhao sighed as well, then looked at Murong Xinzhang and asked, "What do you think of the Zhe family of Fuzhou?"

At that moment, Zhang Zhao saw Li Cunhui approaching from a distance, and quickly beckoned him to sit down so he could ask both of them for their opinions.

"The Zhe family of Fuzhou does not have a large population. I asked Young Master Zhe, and I also went to Fuzhou with him to rest and refit for some days. I would estimate they number only a little over a hundred thousand people.

But their people are fierce and hardy, no less than our Hexi and Longyou. They can field around ten thousand elite soldiers. With sufficient money and grain, they could even recruit more.

But Fuzhou is a narrow land with poor people, unable to support so many warriors, so they can only survive by attaching themselves to a strong power."

Li Cunhui spoke at length; he had clearly come prepared. Zhang Zhao nodded encouragingly, because what Li Cunhui said was indeed correct.

The people of Fuzhou were fierce and hardy, but the land simply could not support so many fighting men. Historically, their role had always been to serve as hired muscle for the Central Plains court.

And under generation after generation of loyalist inspiration and the recognition of the Northern Song court, the Zhe family of Fuzhou had always been a remarkably loyal presence.

"It is only a pity that we are not yet the strong power in the Zhe family's eyes. Otherwise, Zhe Deyi's father, Governor Zhe, would now have come in person to pay his respects to you, my lord.

But they now face the Khitan threat, and they will soon face our threat as well.

If you, my lord, can show sufficient goodwill, and help them offset the Khitan's ambition to swallow them, then at the very least we can keep them neutral but leaning toward us. Perhaps in the future we can even pull them directly over to our side — who knows."

Murong Xinzhang also strongly agreed with Li Cunhui's words. The Zhe family of Fuzhou was indeed a good partner for cooperation.

But to recruit them now still seemed too early.

Besides, it was unlikely they would follow the Guiyi Army into the Central Plains or anything of the sort. They were more reliable as an ally or hired muscle against the Khitan.

Hearing both his sons speak this way, and considering the Zhe family's historical record, Zhang Zhao decided not to wait for the Zhe family any longer.

And he also remembered another issue: the Zhe family's ancestral home was Yunzhou, and there were many branch members of the Zhe family serving in the Datong Army.

If the Zhe family took part in the operation to rescue the Datong Army, then a large share of the gratitude would certainly be credited to Zhe Congyuan.

Then after Zhang Zhao returned to Hexi, would the Datong Army settled in Xiazhou merge with the Zhe family's Yong'an Army in Fuzhou?

Perhaps, Zhang Zhao thought, stroking his chin — Zhe Congyuan, who had always been so deferential in his letters, had this time so resolutely avoided meeting him and had even recalled Zhe Deyi. Could it be that he was deliberately avoiding giving Zhang Zhao any cause for misunderstanding?

The more Zhang Zhao thought about it, the more likely it seemed. For the Zhe family to have entrenched themselves in Fuzhou for several hundred years, they truly did have some skill.

Outside the city of Yunzhou, it was now nearly the end of the third month. The weather was warming rapidly, and Yelu Deguang's mood had improved considerably as well.

On one hand, he ordered Han Zhigu's eldest son, the Zhangwu Army yabing officer Han Kuangtu, to transfer the Zhangwu Army's eleven thousand men to Yunzhou, and he also conscripted several hundred craftsmen from Youzhou capable of making all kinds of siege equipment.

And once the Zhangwu Army's eleven thousand men arrived, the Khitan forces outside Yunzhou reached a scale of sixty-five thousand.

Although twenty thousand men were deployed to guard the Hun River and the line from Yuanyang Lake to Yunzhou, the remaining forty thousand and more were still enough to surround Yunzhou completely.

At the same time, by his reckoning of time, Yelu Chage, who had gone to seek a second edict from Shi Jingtang, should also have obtained Shi Jingtang's decree abandoning Yunzhou and begun his return journey.

Yelu Deguang had never even considered the possibility that Shi Jingtang would dare not honor the agreement. If Shi Jingtang failed to honor it, he would dare to lead his great army straight to Yedu.

In any case, once Youzhou was in hand, the gateway to the Hebei lands would be thrown wide open. From Youzhou south to Yedu was flat, open country — far easier than attacking a strong city like Yunzhou, built against the mountains.

The mournful sound of horns blew. In the great Khitan camp, where the morning meal was being prepared, wisps of cooking smoke drifted up everywhere.

The forty thousand troops stretched along the Yu River, from White Deng Mountain northeast of Yunzhou city all the way down to the city walls.

The Guiyi Army's envoys had Wu Da'er as chief envoy, with Cao Yanjing and the monk Hui Xing, Yang He, as deputy envoys.

A party of fifty or sixty people, escorted by several hundred Khitan cavalry, arrived at Yelu Deguang's imperial tent.

Inside the imperial tent, Yelu Deguang stroked the sparse beard on his chin, fairly satisfied, because the Guiyi Army's envoys had shown him great deference.

Apart from the monk Hui Xing, Yang He, the chief envoy and the other deputy envoys all performed the grand ceremony of an outer vassal paying respects to the Son of Heaven of the superior state.

Had it not been for Xiao Shilu's crushing defeat at the Hun River at the hands of the Guiyi Army just a few months before, Yelu Deguang would have thought this Guiyi Army and that King Zhang of Han were the most loyal subjects of the Great Khitan state.

Unlike most Khitan nobles, who shaved their heads, Yelu Deguang was dressed in the manner of a Han Confucian scholar. Not only had he not shaved his head, he had even tied up his hair in a topknot and put on a rather fashionable net cap.

"Where does the envoy come from? By whose command are you sent?"

Yelu Deguang narrowed his eyes and began asking questions he already knew the answers to, his displeasure clearly showing.

"This outer subject comes from Xiazhou, sent by His Highness the King of Han of Hexi."

But Wu Da'er was quite composed, for he had seen many scenes like this.

The Guiyi Army received no favor from the Central Plains court, and its envoys were often given a hard time when on missions. As for being detained by the Uyghurs when passing through Ganzhou, or robbed by the Wenmo when passing through Liangzhou — those were simply everyday occurrences.

"Outer subject?" Yelu Deguang sneered. "Your lord the King of Han, by sending troops without authorization to attack the Dingnan Army, is no subject of the Jin state. By his reckless audacity at the Hun River, he is even less a subject of my Great Khitan. Where does this talk of an 'outer subject' come from?"

"My lord rose from Hexi. For five generations and a hundred and fifty years, his family has never forgotten the old country. He is a righteous man and a loyal subject!

The Dingnan Army does not respect the court's commands and has seized the court's ten great salt pools in Yanzhou. Sending troops to chastise them is precisely the way of a true subject!" Wu Da'er was fearless, and his words rang with conviction.

"So, the King of Han reveres the Son of Heaven of the Central Plains. Whoever is the Son of Heaven of the Central Plains, he is their loyal subject — is that right?"

Yelu Deguang narrowed his eyes and asked thoughtfully.

"Indeed!" Wu Da'er nodded firmly.

"My lord the King of Han and the million brave men of Hexi are loyal subjects guarding the border for the state, and should naturally revere the Son of Heaven of the Central Plains."

Yelu Deguang's mind instantly supplied a great many things on its own. For a moment his thoughts were in disarray, and he needed to sort them out, so he waved a hand at the attendant beside him.

The attendant nodded, stepped forward, and said to Wu Da'er and the others, "The Hexi envoys have had a tiring journey. His Majesty invites the envoys to rest for now; there will be an audience later."

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