Chapter 413: Heavenly King, Heavenly Khagan, and Dharma King

Zhang Zhao had recently noticed something: the people under him walked with a spring in their step, looking thoroughly pleased with themselves.

Fan Quan, stationed in Shanzhou, also reported that Tibetans on the Qingtang Plateau had begun coming down the mountains in groups of several hundred per tribe to submit to the Liang Kingdom.

Even the Lun Zhangbomi family, a great Tibetan clan on the upper Huangshui River and by the Western Sea, had already sent envoys to Shanzhou to declare submission, and would soon arrive in Liangzhou.

Tibetan tribes had submitted before, but those had basically been tribal chieftains leading their clansmen down the mountains to seek resettlement.

The Lun Zhangbomi family, however, was different: they were an old-line Tibetan aristocratic house that came bringing their own territory.

With their family's submission, Zhang Zhao not only gained a vast stretch of land by the Western Sea and a large annual tribute of cattle and sheep — though he would of course have to bestow other goods in return —

he could also, through the Lun Zhangbomi family, extend his influence across the whole of eastern Qinghai and northern Sichuan.

In history, the Zongge monk Li Lizun, who had held Gusiluo hostage, had precisely obtained this family's support.

Together with the Zongmi family of the three eastern Shanzhou tribes and the Wenbu family of the three western Shanzhou tribes, they were the three local power brokers along the rich Huangshui River valley.

Of these, the first two families had long since submitted to Zhang Zhao; now that the Lun Zhangbomi family had submitted as well, Zhang Zhao not only controlled half of Qinghai, but could also use them to extend his reach to Songzhou and Weizhou in northern Sichuan — the later Songpan and Huanglong region.

As for the underlying reason, Zhang Zhao had to think about it for a long time before he understood.

When Zhang Yichao and the first generation of the Guiyi Army returned to the motherland, it had already been nearly sixty years since the fall of Hexi.

At that time in Hexi, apart from the great clans of a few places like Shazhou, fewer than half of the Han people could still speak the Han tongue or would speak it; the rest were almost indistinguishable from the various Tibetan slave tribes.

Yet these people still rose in revolt behind Zhang Yichao.

In fact, when Zhang Yichao raised his call to arms, besides the Han people of the Hexi Corridor, the Tuyuhun, the Tangut, the the the Shatuo, the various Qiang, the Wenmo, and even the Tibetans themselves also rose and followed Zhang Yichao in revolt.

The underlying reason was that the glory of being Tang subjects accounted for only a very small part of it.

Or rather, it existed only in the hearts of the great Dunhuang clans such as Zhang Yichao's, who had enjoyed the glory and splendor of the Tang.

Most people rose in revolt for one reason alone: the oppression of the Tibetan nobility was so crushing that they would rather die in battle than not rise up.

It must be said that the governing ability of the Tibetan aristocracy was simply too poor!

Zhang Zhao reckoned it was about on par with the Xia and Shang dynasties of the Central Plains: a harsh slave system, ruthless even to their own, let alone to other peoples, and it had also cut off the Silk Road, leaving everyone trapped in their walled cities, slowly dying in poverty.

Therefore, when the various peoples of Hexi rose in revolt with Zhang Yichao, it was because they could no longer bear the oppression of the Tibetan nobility, and because they hoped to restore the Silk Road, to change their days of poverty and misery, and to stop being slaves generation after generation.

And to cast off the oppression of a power as mighty as Tibet — at the time, no one imagined Tibet would collapse and never recover — there was only one choice: the Great Tang!

Although the Great Tang was itself riddled with contradictions and would soon enter its decline, compared with Tibet's brutal oppression, the Tang court still seemed benevolent and kind, and so returning to the motherland became the unanimous wish of the entire Guiyi Army, high and low.

And after they returned to the Tang, apart from the discord caused by the court's contest over Liangzhou, they did indeed gain real benefits.

The Silk Road was reopened, revitalizing the economy of the Hexi Corridor, and Hexi horses could be sold for good prices in the Central Plains.

Even if the various peoples of the Guiyi Army merely did resale trade, they could earn a fortune.

They gained tangible benefits, and it also satisfied the pride they felt in their hearts as sons of Tang.

One need only look at the attitude of the Gaochang and Ganzhou Uyghurs toward the Central Plains regimes to see how important the Central Plains and an open Silk Road were to Hexi.

By the time it fell to Zhang Zhao to advocate returning to the motherland, the land of Hexi had in fact sunk back into the conditions that had prevailed before Zhang Yichao raised his troops.

The Guiyi Army blocked the merchants of the Gaochang Uyghurs, refusing to let them share in the profits of the Silk Road.

The Ganzhou Uyghurs in turn blocked the Guiyi Army.

The Wenmo held Liangzhou; they did not block anyone, but simply robbed them outright. Whoever went to the Central Plains to trade, whether they profited or lost, depended entirely on their own military strength.

Past Liangzhou, the Wenmo of Lanzhou, the various Qiang of Hezhou, and so on all operated the same way.

With the various peoples scattered — the largest numbering several thousand households, the smallest a hundred or so — with no unity left, constantly ambushing and killing one another, and the trade routes almost completely severed, many people began once more to long for the formation of a unified whole and the restoration of the Silk Road.

Zhang Zhao returned east at precisely this moment: favorable timing, favorable terrain, and favorable popular support all came together at once.

It could be said that Zhang Zhao's ability to unify Hexi in a short time was due not only to the golden finger of his broadened vision and the Guiyi Army's own prowess in battle, but also to this popular aspiration to restore unity and open up Hexi, which played an enormous driving role.

Without this surging popular sentiment, who knows how many people would have risen in rebellion while Zhang Zhao was on campaign, how many would have submitted and then rebelled again!

Zhang Zhao, to say nothing of leading his army on campaign, could not have even settled Hexi and Longyou in less than five or eight years.

But under the overall benefit the people of Hexi and Longyou derived from Zhang Zhao's Silk Road, and the peace and stability he brought,

the various peoples, having gained so much, rarely rebelled, and began truly to follow him as their sovereign.

Take Shanzhou, garrisoned by Fan Quan, for example. Although it lay on the fringe of the Silk Road, thanks to the improvement in the overall economy, as well as Zhang Zhao's road repairs, land reclamation, and promotion of agricultural techniques, the general standard of living had risen enormously.

This was the greatest reason why Zhang Zhao had only stationed a single battalion in Shanzhou, yet the nearly one hundred thousand people of the various tribes in Shanzhou and along the Huangshui River not only remained perfectly well-behaved, but even sent their sons to fight for Zhang Zhao.

Because in Zhang Zhao's unification of Hexi and Longyou, apart from a small number of aristocratic lords, most people were beneficiaries.

But then the problem immediately followed: after the eighteen prefectures returned to the motherland, the Great Tang was gone, and the Son of Heaven of the Central Plains court had turned out to be Shi Jingtang, who served the Khitan as a son serves a father.

What was that like? It was like being separated from your family as a child, but always remembering that your father was awesome — rich, a good fighter, and powerful.

So, holding onto the idea that once you got home you would never be bullied again, that someone would have your back and you would have status, you endured every hardship to find your way home — only to get home and see.

(Fuck my life)

The father you remembered as the baddest man alive is on his knees kowtowing to some thug with a thick gold chain, a big watch, a buzz cut, tattoos, and a beer belly — and while kowtowing, he's calling the other guy "Dad."

You went through every hardship and humiliation to get home, and now you have to call some gold-chain-wearing thug "Grandpa."

That was the greatest feeling of the vast majority of people in Hexi and Longyou after returning to the motherland.

Zhang Zhao knew the outcome in advance, and had thousands of years of mental preparation, so he did not feel particularly humiliated.

But to the people of this era, the disgrace was so great that they were ashamed to even call themselves Tang people.

In Hexi and Longyou, sons of Tang were after all a minority; those who truly considered themselves sons of Tang probably numbered only three or four hundred thousand.

Add in those who were deeply sinicized and those whom Zhang Zhao had forcibly stripped of their Wenmo identity, and the total was only a little over eight hundred thousand.

The remaining two million and more were Tuyuhun, Tangut, various Qiang, Uyghur, Tibetan, the the Shatuo, and Tatar people.

They had not sincerely followed Zhang Zhao in returning to the motherland, and their emotional attachment to Chinese culture had not yet been established.

Moreover, after the return, the Son of Heaven of the Central Plains was so utterly useless that, had there not been common interests holding them together, this Hexi-Longyou regime, so recently cobbled together, would probably have fallen apart.

Zhang Zhao sensed this undercurrent too, but had not thought it through clearly.

But ever since he had risked going to the Hun River and, through various maneuvers, sworn brotherhood with Yelu Deguang, these troubles had quickly vanished.

Everyone took pride in Zhang Zhao being the brother of Yelu Deguang, and only after their cohesion had greatly increased did Zhang Zhao come to understand the reason behind it.

This was the greatest reason Zhang Zhao called himself Heavenly King rather than King — Shi Jingtang's shamelessness and moral failings had already dealt a massive blow to the prestige of the Central Plains' heavenly dynasty.

As for why he did not directly proclaim himself Emperor, Zhang Zhao very much agreed with Fu Jian's view. In years past Fu Jian had said that since the realm was not yet unified, it was proper to call oneself Heavenly King rather than Emperor.

This old Di brother was a fervent devotee of Huaxia orthodoxy, and felt he had not yet reached the standard of uniting the six directions and bringing succor to all living beings.

So he did not call himself Emperor, but instead dug the title Heavenly King — once used by the Zhou Son of Heaven — out of the dusty archives, showing it to be one rank above King, yet one rank below Emperor.

Only this title seemed somewhat inauspicious. After Fu Jian called himself Heavenly King, he was defeated by the Eastern Jin at the Battle of Fei River, and could not even preserve his state.

In the end he was captured by Yao Chang, who pressed him for the whereabouts of the Imperial Heirloom Seal. Fu Jian insisted he had already sent the seal to the Eastern Jin and refused to hand it over to the Qiang man Yao Chang, after which he was strangled to death in Xingping Temple.

By the era Zhang Zhao lived in, the linguistic environment around "Heavenly King" had changed somewhat. The greatest change was that it could now be interchanged with several other terms.

Among the Han, it could be Heavenly King; among the nomads, it could be called Heavenly Khagan. The Gaochang Uyghur Jieli Pijia had called himself Heavenly King, which was also Heavenly Khagan.

In the Tangut tongue, it could also be translated as Wuzu. Among the various Qiang and Tibetans, Heavenly King was equivalent to Zhang Zhao's title of Dharma King.

At this time in Hexi, many peoples stood side by side, Hu and Han lived mixed together, and the Hu actually outnumbered the Han. To draw them in, unite them, and assimilate them, he needed a title they could understand.

The title King of Liang would have worked too, but unfortunately the current Son of Heaven of the Central Plains was Shi Jingtang, so Heavenly King was the most fitting.

Zhang Zhao planned that after some time passed, he would humble himself and make contact with the Central Plains, expressing willingness to once again accept investiture from Shi Chonggui.

In this way he could successfully turn Shi Chonggui's gaze toward the Khitan.

As for the Later Jin's investiture, Zhang Zhao did not want to accept it, so he would first stall for a while and see whether Shi Chonggui could hold firm.

If Shi Chonggui got finished off by the Khitan before the investiture could be carried out, then no one could blame me, Heavenly King Zhang.

If Shi Chonggui held firm, then Zhang Zhao would accept the Later Jin's investiture.

Among the Tang people he would call himself King of Liang; among the Tangut he would be called Wuzu; among the Uyghurs and Tatars he would be called Heavenly Khagan; among the Tibetans, the various Qiang, and the Tuyuhun he would be called the Supreme Heaven Great Compassion Dharma King Bodhisattva.

Once he entered the Central Plains, he would then use the title Emperor, and in one stroke place all those titles — Heavenly Khagan, Wuzu, Dharma King equal to the Tsenpo — beneath the Huaxia Emperor.

How splendid!

And there was another benefit: after the Gaochang Uyghurs were crushed, the title Gur Khan could be done away with.

Because back when the various tribes of Suyab honored Zhang Zhao as Gur Khan, they had established with Li Shengtian the rule that the Son of Heaven stood above and the Khan below.

That is to say, in the four lands of the present Great Jin Kingdom of Khotan — Khotan, Shule, Suyab, and Ningyuan — the position of Gur Khan stood beneath the Son of Heaven of the Great Jin Kingdom of Khotan.

Toward Li Shengtian, who had given him such enormous help, Zhang Zhao was deeply respectful. One could say that without Li Shengtian there would be no Zhang Zhao of today, and Zhang Zhao had no intention of changing the current state of Khotan.

Because Khotan was more than three thousand li from Dunhuang, with the Taklamakan Desert in between — what would he even do if he took it back?

Send officials over to govern it?

That would be utterly useless. Any officials sent there would either be unable to carry on, or would quickly set themselves up as kings on their own. The root cause was simply that it was too far away.

Now the Li family of Khotan and Zhang Zhao were so deeply entangled — the two were uncle and nephew, the second generation were in-laws, and the third generation would at the very least contract several marriages.

The Fengtian Queen Dowager of Liang was the Fengtian Eldest Princess of Khotan. With ties that strong, what could be better than the Yuchi Li family continuing to rule Khotan?

Only, the remaining problem at present was that Li Shengtian's standing in Anxi and Hexi was higher than Zhang Zhao's.

So by leveraging the victory over the Gaochang Uyghurs, Zhang Zhao could change the honorific Gur Khan into Heavenly Khagan, and then bestow upon Li Shengtian the title of Maternal Uncle Heavenly Khagan, or Maternal Uncle Dharma King.

After Li Shengtian passed away, the status of the King of Khotan's line would naturally fall beneath Zhang Zhao.

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