Chapter 422: Gaochang Uyghurs: Oh No! We've Become the Soft Persimmon

In Liangzhou, Minqin County, Lower White Horse Village, a grand wedding was underway.

The bride was Wang Erniang, beautiful as a flower.

She sat in a carriage drawn by two tall, powerful horses, and the carriage was filled with brilliantly colored brocade and fine, snow-white cotton cloth — all part of her dowry.

Upon her person she was covered in pearls and kingfisher ornaments, a dazzling display of glittering splendor that blinded the eyes from afar.

"Sister Wang Er, what's that on your head? It's so pretty!"

A flock of children chased after the carriage, running and laughing. Fortunately the bridal procession was not moving fast, so the children could keep up at a run.

Wang Erniang smugly touched the enormously heavy golden hairpin on her head. It was carved with coiling dragons and phoenixes, adorned with birds, beasts, and wondrous trees, glittering and radiant.

It was made of gold, pearls, and precious stones, and must have weighed a full jin. Wearing it on her head, Wang Erniang felt her neck was about to snap.

But this torment was also sweet. Even setting aside the craftsmanship, this was more than a jin of gold, pearls, and precious stones!

Well, actually, some of it was gilded brass.

But it was still extraordinarily precious, worth at least several thousand strings of cash on the market — more than an ordinary person could save in a lifetime.

She was marrying today, so no matter how uncomfortable it was, she had to wear it on her head and show it off.

"This? It's a golden dangling hairpin! After the Zhang family's eldest brother broke through the Dingnan Army's royal city, the Great King bestowed it as a reward!"

Wang Erniang had waited half the day, and finally someone had asked about the huge golden dangling hairpin on her head. She immediately shouted out the answer in her loudest voice, as if afraid no one would know.

The Zhang family's eldest brother was Zhang Xiaobiao, eldest son of the Zhang family's first son of Lower White Horse Village, and Wang Erniang was the daughter of that villager father-in-law, the burly Wang fellow.

Zhang Xiaobiao had won great merit first at the Battle of White Salt Lake and then at the Siege of Xiazhou. Especially during the Siege of Xiazhou, Zhang Xiaobiao had crouched atop a Lu Gong siege cart for four months and shot dead more than a hundred Dingnan Army soldiers with his divine-arm crossbow.

After the war, when merits were assessed, he was ranked first among all the united archers. Under the new system of the Liang state, he was awarded five promotions in the order of merit and granted the forty-seventh rank of the honorific offices, the ninth-grade Loyal and Illustrious Gentleman.

He was substantively appointed squad leader of the second squad, first company, third battalion, seventh regiment of the Left Yulin Guard, granted the title Valiant and Efficacious Divine Archer, and ordered to serve in the palace guard.

"Sister Wang Er is lying! A golden dangling hairpin isn't that big. My mother's is a real golden dangling hairpin, and it's only this big."

A somewhat older girl, maybe seven or eight years old, was a little indignant. She gestured the size of a normal golden dangling hairpin, trying to prove that Wang Erniang was telling a lie.

Girls generally mature a little earlier than boys. While the boys were still cheering and watching the bride, this little girl's heart was already turning a bit sour.

Wang Erniang tossed her head smugly, but she forgot the weight of the golden dangling hairpin on her head and nearly twisted her neck. Instantly a little displeased, she gave a soft snort.

"Your mother's golden dangling hairpin is just something forged by the blacksmith of the Wenbu family at the village entrance. My golden dangling hairpin was bestowed by the Great King.

It used to belong to... well, to some great noble anyway. This is a real golden dangling hairpin. You think just anyone can have one!"

As she spoke, Wang Erniang remembered that today was her wedding day and she ought to be happy, so she plastered a fake smile all over her face, paired with a haughty expression and a faintly contemptuous look — altogether as insufferable as could be.

The little girl, too young and inexperienced to withstand such a blow, felt sourness bubbling up and a sense of grievance nearly drowning her. Finally, unable to hold back any longer, she burst out crying with a loud wail.

"My mother's golden dangling hairpin was not made by the Wenbu family blacksmith! It was made by the Great Fortune Gold and Treasure Shop in Liangzhou City! When I marry in the future, I'll have a golden dangling hairpin like that too."

"But you don't have one now!" Wang Erniang added another stab at just the right moment.

"Waaah!"

At those words, the little girl instantly collapsed. She stopped watching the bride and ran home, wailing and crying.

In her young heart, she secretly swore that one day she too would marry a hero like the Zhang family's eldest brother, and that he would earn her a golden dangling hairpin like this one.

But the little girl did not know that this was no ordinary challenge.

Because the golden dangling hairpin on Wang Erniang's head had been pulled directly from the head of the mother of Li Yiyin, Military Governor of the Dingnan Army.

And Li Yiyin's father was Li Renfu. His original name was Tuoba Sijing, and he had two elder brothers named Tuoba Sizhong and Tuoba Sigong.

This golden dangling hairpin had been bestowed by Zhu Quanzhong, Taizu of the Zhu Liang, when Li Renfu succeeded to the post of Military Governor of the Dingnan Army. It had been kept in the palace of the Later Liang court.

At the entrance of Lower White Horse Village, when they saw the Zhang family's eldest brother Zhang Xiaobiao returning with his bride, thunderous cheers erupted at once. And among the cheering crowd, one group was extremely conspicuous.

Damn it all — these people were actually wearing armor: one suit of padded armor, seven suits of iron lamellar armor, and more than twenty suits of mail and leather armor.

And look at the bridegroom Zhang Xiaobiao — he was not wearing the bright red official-style wedding robes, but a full suit of bright red padded armor.

The men of the Wang family of Upper White Horse Village escorting the bride were likewise uniformly in iron armor and leather armor.

Those in the know understood this was a bridal escort and a groom's procession. Those who didn't would have thought the two villages were about to start fighting.

This was now the most peculiar sight in the countryside of the Liang state. When arranging marriages and escorting brides, besides showing off the dowry and such, people also had to show off their martial strength.

If a girl married without relatives and friends wearing several suits of iron armor to escort her, then that family surely lacked strength and had no capable people. If the girl were bullied after marrying into the other family, no one would be able to do anything about it.

And the same went for the groom's side. If your family could not produce even a few capable armored warriors, that meant your family was surely bullied in the village, and the men of the household were all useless.

In the Liang state today, armored warriors with their own armor had almost become the equivalent of luxury wedding cars in later generations — the best display of real strength.

In these Upper and Lower White Horse Villages alone, with a mere two hundred-some households, there were four suits of padded armor, more than twenty suits of iron lamellar armor, and forty or fifty suits of other mail and leather armor.

These were all their own equipment, all bestowed by Zhang Zhao after they had won merit in battle.

Armor was the guarantee of combat strength. One could say that if enemies attacked at this moment, Upper and Lower White Horse Villages could immediately form a force of seventy or eighty armored warriors.

Among them were seven or eight divine marksmen, a dozen or so light cavalrymen, and several hundred sworn-follower elite riders and united archers who could shoot from horseback.

Because from children of ten or so to old men of forty-five, nearly everyone could ride and shoot.

A village like this — to say nothing of ordinary enemies, even a regular Khitan army would need several hundred or a thousand men to get through Upper and Lower White Horse Villages.

Of course, this many armored warriors were not always in the village. Moreover, Upper and Lower White Horse Villages were located in Minqin County, the capital region guarding Liangzhou, and had produced several capable men in succession, which was why they had such formidable martial strength. Other places did not have this.

But one could also see that the foundational martial strength of Zhang Zhao's Hexi Liang state had become very reliable. What Zhang Zhao lacked now was not warriors, but the money and grain to support large-scale warfare.

The Zhang family's eldest son was actually not entirely satisfied with this daughter-in-law.

Because back when he, as a fire leader of the assault troops, had led men charging into the Dingnan Army's shield formation and broken a gap through it, his company commander had promised to marry his daughter to his son.

Moreover, because of their great merit at White Salt Lake, the company commander had been promoted two ranks on the spot and become the regiment commander of the Datong Army.

The burly Wang fellow's merit at White Salt Lake had not been as great as Zhang Xiaobiao's — he had only risen from fire leader to squad deputy. No matter how you looked at it, he did not have as good prospects as a full regiment commander.

However, the Zhang family's eldest son could not prevail over his son Zhang Xiaobiao. The title "villager father-in-law" for the burly Wang fellow was not for nothing.

When Zhang Xiaobiao was twelve or thirteen and first awakening to love, he had secretly fallen for Wang Erniang. Five years had passed in a flash, and now that he could marry the girl of his heart, he would not give her up even for the daughter of a regiment commander, let alone the daughter of a garrison general.

The burly Wang fellow also knew that the Zhang family's eldest son was somewhat unwilling to marry into his family, so he not only had his sons and nephews all don armor to escort the bride, but also called back his own nephew, Wang Jiulang, from Liangzhou.

Wang Jiulang was different from the others. He wore no armor, only a blue short-sleeved robe, and on his head was a simple blue headwrap.

Only a jade pendant faintly visible at his waist revealed his uncommon status.

This jade pendant was the emblem of an official of the Liang state. Khotan produced jade in abundance, and the Liang state had close ties with the Khotan Golden Kingdom, so within Liang, jade pendants of specific shapes and patterns had become the mark of mid- and high-ranking officials.

Wang Jiulang was an oddity among the people of Upper and Lower Baima Village. Originally he had been much like Zhang Xiaobiao and the others—by his teens he was riding, shooting, brawling, and could not recognize a single character.

But in the four or five years since Zhang Zhao reopened the Liangzhou prefectural school, Wang Jiulang, who only began learning to read at thirteen, had progressed at astonishing speed and soon cleared the hurdle of basic literacy.

By now, he had just passed Great King Zhang's imperial examination, placing in the Mathematics Section.

Moreover, his original teacher had been a member of the Guo family of Suyab, so after passing the examination he was directly transferred by Grand Academician Guo Tiance of the Qionglin Academy to serve there as a Marching Scholar, responsible for the tallying and allocation of provisions.

He was the sort of close attendant who could see Great King Zhang every day, and so in Upper and Lower Baima Village he was the only man who could be mentioned in the same breath as Zhang Xiaobiao, who was allowed to stand night guard in the forbidden palace.

At this moment, these eminent figures had also shed their armor and gathered in a circle to converse loftily, though their topics were a bit too elevated for the surrounding villagers to follow.

But most people, to show that they too belonged to this circle, nodded along in pretense even though they were utterly baffled by the various offices and political currents, and had no idea where the Jin state, the Shu state, or the Khitan even were.

Fortunately, it was not long before the conversation turned to something everyone could understand: the Great King was very likely about to go to war.

At the mention of this, the crowd began to stir with excitement. Going to war was a fine thing! Only by going to war could one make a fortune, return home, and marry a lovely wife!

And when this topic came up, Wang Jiulang instantly became the center of attention, for he understood the Great King's mind best of all here. Lowering his voice, Wang Jiulang spoke with a touch of mystery.

"I may very soon be going to Gaochang with Military Adjutant Wu of the Ministry of Rites. The Great King intends to send us as envoys to the Gaochang Uyghurs."

Everyone's hearts stirred at these words. Zhang Xiaobiao had also heard rumors of the recent unrest, and he spoke up directly.

"If you go to Gaochang, Jiulang, don't give that false khan of the Pugu clan any good face. Best if you can anger them so much they lose their minds and come provoke us—then we'll go fight the bastards."

To Zhang Xiaobiao and the armored men of Upper and Lower Baima Village, the Gaochang Uyghurs were a genuinely soft persimmon.

Around Liangzhou now, only three powers remained: the Khitan, the Jin state, and the Gaochang Uyghurs.

The Khitan were far away and not so easy to fight. The Jin state's Guanzhong had already been thoroughly infiltrated by the Great King, so a war there was unlikely.

Even if it came to war, it would surely be fought mainly by the Xiongwu Garrison of Qinzhou and the Dingbian Garrison of Qingzhou.

Only fighting the Gaochang Uyghurs offered rich spoils with weak fighting strength—one bite and the mouth was full of meat. So what they longed for day and night was the moment to strike at the Gaochang Uyghurs.

Wang Jiulang chuckled. "Rest easy. The Great King sent Military Adjutant Wu precisely to order Jieli Pijia of the Gaochang Uyghurs to renounce the title of Heavenly King."

Zhang Xiaobiao flared up at once. "What? That false khan of the Gaochang Uyghurs dares call himself Heavenly King? He's rebelling against heaven itself!

His ancestors were already traitors to our Great Liang—and his descendants still dare to be so insolent?"

The whole group immediately joined in cursing. In their eyes, what right did the Gaochang Uyghurs, with a mere few tens of thousands of cavalry, have to call themselves Heavenly King?

"But what if Jieli Pijia agrees to renounce the title of Heavenly King?"

Zhang Dalang, as the father, also joined the discussion, asking with some concern.

Wang Jiulang gave a cold laugh, a sinister look spreading across his face.

"Military Adjutant Wu has already received the Great King's hint, and we've worked it out. If Jieli Pijia is willing to renounce the title of Heavenly King himself, then we'll demand he send a prince to Liangzhou as a hostage and immediately convert to the Buddha. If he's even willing to do that—"

At this, Wang Jiulang clenched his fist and rapped it on the table.

"—then we'll demand that Jieli Pijia marry his princess to the Great King as a Ruren, with Yinzhou as her dowry!"

When the crowd heard this, they were overjoyed. Zhang Xiaobiao clapped both hands together, beaming with delight.

"Then it's settled. The Gaochang Uyghurs will certainly never agree."

Ruren was the lowest rank of consort in Zhang Zhao's harem. A princess of the Gaochang Uyghurs would naturally refuse to demean herself so.

As for giving Yinzhou as dowry, they would agree even less.

As long as they refused, the pretext and justification for war would be secured.

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