Chapter 420: A Fate That Leaves One Speechless

In the Yongxun Palace, just after Murong Xinzhang left, Huang Fei, known as Yellow Antelope, walked in.

The Brocade Guard agents were still few in number, essentially led by Zhang Liecheng, with Huang Fei and Li Xiaojie as his deputies.

"Great King, the list of names in the Eastern Capital of Kaifeng that can be brought into the open is ready. Please review it, Great King."

Since ancient times, intelligence services have always needed both overt and covert hands, and in the collection of intelligence, the overt side can actually feed back far more information.

Intelligence is nowhere near as mysterious as people imagine. In the real world, every piece of intelligence has its price.

Whether bought with money, exchanged through mutual benefit, or even won over through righteous appeal, all of these are far more convenient and quicker than secretly doing it yourself.

A covert espionage system, to a greater degree, lies dormant for long periods, then plays its role at certain critical moments. It also focuses on investigating and analyzing the customs and conditions of the lower classes and the leanings of the people's hearts.

Therefore, having Murong Xinzhang establish an intelligence collection and distribution station for the Hexi Liang State in the Central Plains was very necessary.

And at present there was no better candidate than Murong Xinzhang. He had a network of connections in the Eastern Capital, held a special status in the Hexi Liang State, and was himself quite capable.

However, Huang Fei stepped forward and said to Zhang Zhao with some concern: "The Left Yulin General himself commands Your Majesty's personal guard, the Left Yulin Guard. Now he is also going to the Eastern Capital to take a hand in the Brocade Guard, and he is even to make contact with the Tuyuhun people of Daibei.

His reach is simply too broad. I request that we also secretly investigate the Left Yulin General's movements."

Zhang Zhao nodded. As Murong Xinzhang grew older and became ever more mature and capable, he was indeed managing more and more affairs, and they were growing more and more important.

Zhang Zhao finally understood that complex state of mind in history, where a ruler clearly could not keep using certain ministers, yet was forced to use them anyway.

It was simply because there were no other options. Send someone else, and the matter could not be accomplished. One could only choose the lesser of two evils.

For Zhang Zhao, Murong Xinzhang was capable and close to him, an extremely useful minister and son.

And he was not worried about what Murong Xinzhang might do, because this Hexi Liang State had been built entirely by his own hand. Militarily, Murong Xinzhang was not the one Zhang Zhao relied on most.

Most importantly, although he and Murong Xinzhang were father and son, in reality they were only seven years apart in age.

Moreover, the Anxi meritorious officials who had followed him back, as well as the founding-faction veterans who had first followed him to Anxi, were not particularly close to Murong Xinzhang.

So Zhang Zhao was not worried at all. But he did have one concern, and that was that he could not die too early.

If Zhang Zhao were to live only as long as Guo Rong, then Murong Xinzhang would become a true threat to his very core.

So some matters still had to be put on the agenda a little earlier. But Zhang Zhao did not want to show this too soon.

So Great King Zhang shook his head. "The Left Yulin Commander-in-Chief is someone I still trust. For now, it is unnecessary. You may withdraw. Pay attention to making contact with the Chen family, the garrison commander of Yinzhou under the Gaochang Uyghurs."

After Huang Fei saluted and left, Zhang Zhao also left the study. He went to the bedchamber of Cao Yanmian, the former queen of the Karakhanids, and then secretly summoned Zhang Liesi, known as Black Dog.

Back when Shule was breached, the three of them — Flower Cloth, Yellow Antelope, and Black Dog — had nearly been blown to death while blasting the west wall, and had rendered great service.

Of the three, Flower Cloth eventually married Zhang Zhong, and was now working with Zhang Zhong to manage Zhang Zhao's private estate of several hundred thousand mu in Ningyuan.

Yellow Antelope had entered the Adopted Sons Army and was now one of the leaders of Zhang Zhao's Brocade Guard agents.

And Black Dog had become the final covert line in Zhang Zhao's hand.

Because Black Dog had one advantage over Flower Cloth and Yellow Antelope: his features were Han Chinese in style, not as obvious as Zhang Liecheng's and Huang Fei's.

Moreover, he had been adopted into the family of Zhang Zhao, the first Hanshan Du warrior to die in battle, Fire-born Zhang Zhao — and that Zhang Zhao had been personally approved by Zhang Zhao for entry into the Longshe Zhang clan genealogy of Shazhou. Even the name "Zhao" was of the same kind as Zhang Zhao's own "Zhao."

So Black Dog, renamed Zhang Liesi, was not Zhang Zhao's adopted son, but he carried a certain aura of the imperial clan. He had also been kept at Zhang Zhao's side all along, making him far more reliable than others, and he had no background entanglements to worry about.

"Pick a few men from among those Zhang Zhong has sent back from Ningyuan. Send one of them to the Eastern Capital to keep a record of the Left Yulin General's movements. Remember, the primary task is not to be discovered, not to carry out the mission.

Pick two more to investigate Huang Fei. That boy has been sticking his hand into rather too many things lately. See whether someone behind him is egging him on."

Once you started using a secret-police organization, it was very easy for it to become a nesting doll. To know whether the man above was loyal, you had to use the man below to investigate him.

Zhang Zhao now truly envied the Song and Ming dynasties, because although the civil-official factions of those two dynasties were powerful, the civil officials themselves, in their interpretation of Confucianism, were constantly binding and fettering themselves.

Using them to govern the state carried quite a few hidden dangers in domestic and foreign affairs.

But it also had one advantage: they basically would not rebel, and they had no legal or doctrinal basis for rebellion.

That was why the emperors of the Song and Ming dynasties, especially the Ming emperors, could make lavish use of eunuchs and secret-police agencies.

Because when facing an extraordinarily powerful civil-official bloc, the eunuchs and secret-police organizations simply could not turn on their master.

On the contrary, they had to rely constantly on the support of imperial power to obtain opportunities for growth, power, and wealth. In essence, they were merely the white gloves through which imperial power extended itself.

At this thought, Zhang Zhao was suddenly startled. Only after truly standing in the position of emperor did he realize that certain brainless actions of the Song and Ming dynasties all seemed to admit of a certain degree of explanation.

Because from the perspective of a founding emperor, and from the historical record, founding rulers were generally the most brilliant.

After establishing the state, what they considered most was how to ensure that this family empire would be passed down.

Setting aside the factor of foreign invasion, from the perspective of successive emperors, the growth of the civil-official bloc was in fact already the optimal choice.

Even if among one's descendants there appeared a soft-hearted good man like Emperor Xiaozong of Ming, at worst his descendants would just live somewhat stifled lives.

If there appeared a study-abroad student like Chuoluosi Qizhen, it still would not lead to collapse.

If there appeared an old schemer like the Big Flapping Moth, he could still stir up the civil officials to fight each other like dogs.

No matter how you looked at it, it was far better than the misery of the emperors at the end of the Han and Tang dynasties.

Zhang Zhao also suddenly understood that the conservative atmosphere and the rise of civil officials since the Song and Ming dynasties was not something that could be driven simply by Confucian Neo-Confucianism.

It was the result of the whole nation moving in unison after the horrors of the late Tang and Five Dynasties.

Emperors hoped thereby to obtain stable succession; civil officials hoped thereby to obtain a stable share of power.

Even the lowliest peasant household preferred that those holding power be scholars who could still be reasoned with, rather than soldiers who would draw their blades at the slightest word.

At the same time, the development of papermaking allowed culture to flourish on a large scale. The common people, who in the past could not even be counted among the humble gentry, now had a way to acquire knowledge.

They broadened their horizons and enriched their thinking, and they needed even more urgently to share power.

Thus, a system suited to internal operation, stable enough to let a portion of scholars share power while the majority felt they were qualified to share power —

a system of political stability, in which each could guarantee that their own base would not be eroded, a conservative system for living a small, comfortable life — was completed just like that.

Confucianism?

That was merely the torch everyone held aloft, a tool for rallying hearts and stabilizing order.

Whether the School of Qi or the School of Principle, both were later generations' constant reworking according to changing circumstances and needs. There was continuity, but the point of emphasis had shifted.

The more critical question was that Zhang Zhao had only given this a small amount of thought, and he actually found it very reasonable and very tempting, because he had seen the benefits with his own eyes.

The two Song dynasties lasted three hundred and nineteen years, the Ming two hundred and seventy-six — the key word in both was stability.

If the northern steppe fishing-and-hunting peoples had not come south, Zhang Zhao suspected they might have held on for at least several hundred more years.

It was only a pity that the Jurchen of the Jin state, the Mongols, the Tungusic peoples who were the Jurchens, and the Western powers would not follow the path those scholar-officials had laid out for them.

At that thought, Zhang Zhao felt his head throbbing with a dull ache.

Was he that idle? Why had he started thinking about this problem? Wouldn't it be better to stay muddle-headed?

Now that he had thought of it, he had to find a reform plan — even if it was only a surface-level reform, it still had to be carried out.

Otherwise the Chinese people would surely keep sliding into the great pit of conservatism.

"Is Great King's head aching? Let me massage it for you!" Cao Yanmian glanced at Zhang Zhao, doing her best to conceal the stirring in her heart.

Ever since giving birth to two daughters, Cao Yanmian had wanted a son more and more. Great King had finally come to visit, and now he had a headache — wasn't this just getting in the way of things?

In Hedong, at Jinyang, Guo Wei returned home and, looking at the gifts filling the room, let out a long sigh.

Seeing him come back, his wife Lady Chai, looking somewhat haggard, smiled gently and came over in person to brush the dust from Guo Wei's clothes.

"Why does Dalang sigh? These days Hexi white sugar and rock sugar can be used directly as money, and the Hexi Zhe'er horses are famed throughout the realm — who doesn't want them?

The King of Liang sent twenty fine horses, fifty jin of white sugar, and twenty jin of rock sugar in a single gift — more than five years of your salary. You ought to be beaming with joy!"

The moment Guo Wei saw Lady Chai coming to brush off the dust, he caught her hand and pulled her down to sit beside him.

"I told you to rest inside, yet you insisted on coming out to greet me. What is there to greet? I would come see you myself. Taking good care of your health is what truly matters."

"It's nothing serious — an old ailment! Dalang now holds high office; how could there be no one at home to welcome him back?"

Lady Chai had been ill ever since Guo Rong left, on and off for nearly a year, never really recovering. But because it was not very serious, she had never paid it much mind.

Hearing Lady Chai say he held high office, Guo Wei was in truth deeply moved.

Back then his family had fallen into decline, and he could only serve as a common soldier to scrape by. Passing a post station, he had been singled out by Lady Chai at a glance, who said he would surely achieve great things one day.

For Guo Wei at that time, being chosen by such a gentle, beautiful, virtuous, and wealthy Lady Chai was nothing short of a heaven-sent match.

Now he had risen to Chief Commander of the Hedong young lord's cavalry and infantry — second only to Military Governor Liu Zhiyuan. Looking back on his former days, he was all the more moved by Lady Chai's favor.

"Dalang, tell me — is Rong really worth the Great King Zhang of Liangzhou sending such lavish gifts just to keep him by his side? And why is Rong so set on him?"

Just as parents find it hard to believe their own child possesses world-shaking talent, Lady Chai, who had raised Guo Rong, found it hard to believe that Guo Rong was so outstanding that the Great King Zhang, far away in Hexi, would insist on keeping him after only a few meetings.

At the same time, Lady Chai harbored a small, quiet resentment toward Guo Rong.

When she had adopted Guo Rong, it was partly out of anger at her own brother Chai Shouli for squandering the family fortune and constantly coming to sponge off his elder sister.

But to a greater degree, Guo Rong was a safeguard for her own position.

One had to understand that Guo Tong, the son of the concubine she had arranged for Guo Wei to take, was already nearly fifteen. Although by ritual law she was Guo Tong's mother,

in actual daily life, Guo Tong had his own mother. If Guo Wei were gone, how filial he would be to her, his legal mother, was far from certain.

Guo Wei gave a bitter smile and handed the letter in his hand to Lady Chai.

"More than that — the King of Liang has also written to the Grand Tutor, offering ten suits of iron armor in exchange for Rong coming to serve in Hexi."

As he spoke, Guo Wei passed over another letter. "This is a letter in Rong's own hand. He wants to bring his wife, Lady Liu, and Yige to Liangzhou as well."

Yige was Guo Rong's eldest son, and Lady Liu was his first wife. In history they had been killed by Liu Chengyou, the Hidden Emperor of the Later Han, but at this moment they were still alive and well.

Lady Chai could not bear to hear this. A flush rose to her face, and she staggered two steps, about to fall to the ground. Guo Wei hurriedly caught her in his arms.

Lady Chai's tears streamed down. In the end, she was only a woman of the inner chambers.

If Guo Rong was her support, then Guo Yige was her very life. How could she bear to let him go to Liangzhou?

"Dalang, write back and say that I am gravely ill and not long for this world, and tell Rong to come home at once."

But Lady Chai, weeping on the ground, could never have imagined that when it came to omens, the bad ones came true while the good ones did not. She was afraid she was about to speak her own fate into being.

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