Chapter 436: So It Was an Old Acquaintance After All

In the city of Tingzhou, it was indeed Saktu who had arrived.

This descendant of Pang Tegin actually looked very Han in appearance, except for an aquiline nose rarely seen among the Han.

Saktu was already forty-one this year, only about eleven years older than Zhang Zhao.

But in their faces, the two looked at least twenty years apart.

Zhang Zhao wore a neatly trimmed, distinctive little mustache and could still pass for a handsome young man.

Saktu, however, had a face full of deep furrows, his dark complexion tinged with red, and his hands bore the marks of wind and snow erosion, giving him a thoroughly weather-beaten look.

And in truth it was so. Ever since his suddenly rising great enterprise had been cut short by Zhang Zhao, Saktu had not had an easy time these past ten years.

The fall of Shule back then had cost him not only his queen and two sons and a daughter, but also his precious base of power.

In the great battle outside Poluzhou, he had led more than twenty thousand elite cavalry and still failed to take Zhang Zhao's motley force of just over seven thousand.

One must understand that of Saktu's twenty thousand-plus men, at least fifteen thousand were highly combat-effective, while Zhang Zhao's truly battle-worthy troops numbered no more than three thousand.

That battle completely shattered the prestige Saktu had painstakingly built over more than ten years. Even his fifteen-year-old eldest son, Bayitash, had died in the fighting, and he could only flee to the Sayram Lake region under the protection of a few hundred trusted followers.

Still, Saktu did not lose heart. Exploiting the conflicts among the various Karluk tribes of the Seven Rivers region, he re-established himself as Bughra Khan and became capable of mustering tens of thousands of troops to return to Shule.

But this time it was even worse — he was actually defeated by Li Shengtian!

The blow of this defeat was far greater than the blow his defeat outside Poluzhou had dealt to Zhang Zhao.

For everyone knew that Li Shengtian was no warrior-king. Now that even he could easily defeat Saktu, it was plain that Heaven's mandate no longer rested upon Saktu.

Sure enough, after returning to the Seven Rivers region in defeat, the tribes under him began to turn against Saktu.

Again he could only leave with a few hundred trusted followers, fleeing westward all the way to the shores of the Khwarezm Sea (the Aral Sea), where he finally gained a foothold in the territory of the Oghuz.

But just when everyone thought that Saktu Bughra Khan was about to become history, Saktu, after two years of recruiting, unexpectedly returned to the Seven Rivers region with tens of thousands of followers and several thousand cavalry.

This time Saktu had learned his lesson. He abandoned the airs of the former Karakhanid Bughra Khan and began to regard himself only as a great khan of the Karluks.

To that end he renounced Islam and returned to the embrace of Manichaeism, and no longer treated the inhabitants of the former Karakhanid realm as his subjects.

Having cast off these burdens, the first thing Saktu did was lead the Karluks south to plunder everywhere — targeting the very Uyghurs who had once been his subjects and some of whom had even hoped for his return.

The effect of this was striking. Although Saktu lost the support of his former subjects, he succeeded in winning the support of the Karluks.

So much so that Xieli Pijia of the Gaochang Uyghurs, to avoid being raided by Saktu, was willing to form a marriage alliance with him and give him a daughter in marriage.

But do you think Saktu came this time to rescue the Gaochang Uyghurs?

Wrong! He came to reap benefits.

Although Zhang Zhao and he shared a blood feud — his queen, Lady Cao, had even borne Zhang Zhao two daughters, and his own daughter might well have been... —

Saktu had not the slightest intention of seeking revenge on Zhang Zhao.

With what would he take revenge?

In the days of the Karakhanid state, Saktu could still afford several hundred armored cavalry, because Shule and Yanqi had a solid iron-smelting foundation.

But in the Seven Rivers region, let alone forging iron armor, even a broken iron knife was precious beyond measure.

The ironworking ability of the Karluk tribes was limited to patching and mending.

Digging out ore and smelting it — one could not say it did not exist, but it likely matched only a single small iron workshop in Han territory.

With equipment like that, on what grounds could he seek revenge on Zhang Zhao?

What Saktu was thinking now was simply to grab whatever benefits he could, and keep strengthening himself.

His greatest wish was still to recover Shule and rebuild the Karakhanid state, so that he could secure a stable source of iron.

If his lifespan proved long enough, he might in his fifties or sixties establish a great khanate.

Therefore, in leading thirty thousand Karluk cavalry east this time, Saktu had never even considered honestly coming to the rescue of the Gaochang Uyghurs.

Reap benefits from the Gaochang Uyghurs, bring them back to the Seven Rivers region, build up more strength, and then attack that loose Oghuz confederation and become the Yabghu of the Oghuz.

Finally, using his dual status as Yabghu of the Oghuz and Khan of the Karluks, he would reach out to the Persians.

By helping the Persians against the Li family state at Talas, he would obtain large quantities of Persian iron, and if possible, take over Samanid Persia — that was Saktu's career plan for himself.

"Great Khan! Two hundred-man squads from the Gray Fang tribe that went north on patrol have not returned. It has been more than two hours!"

Saktu was just preparing to rest when a subordinate army commander came in to report new information.

Saktu thought for a moment, then asked: "When they went on patrol, did they have locals as guides?"

The army commander nodded. "There were guides, and the guides have not returned either."

"Understood. Stay on strict alert. Before dawn tomorrow, send extra men to search. Any developments must be reported!"

Saktu had no better options either, because with this kind of tribal army, one simply could not expect good discipline.

If these two hundred-man squads had been gone for a long time, either they had robbed some nearby small tribe and gone off to enjoy themselves, or they had robbed some traveling merchants and hidden away to divide the spoils.

Tingzhou, as the summer capital of the Gaochang Uyghurs, was still considered prosperous compared to the Seven Rivers region.

Because after arriving at Tingzhou, the tribal cavalry under Saktu could no longer restrain themselves — robbery, rape, and even murder were not uncommon.

Saktu only punished some tribes when things went too far.

In his view, plunder had always been the surest way to maintain an army's fighting strength; as long as they did not focus solely on plunder, there was no problem.

Of course, Saktu had also considered whether an army might have come from somewhere and ambushed those two hundred-man squads.

But after thinking it over, Saktu rejected the idea. To silently ambush two hundred-man cavalry squads, one would need five times their number.

No! Even with five times the troops, one could not take them all without a single escape — unless one had more than five times the force and overwhelming combat superiority.

The Tingzhou cavalry captured by Li Cunhui and Murong Yanzhao numbered fewer than a hundred, because the other hundred-plus had all been killed by them.

This kind of ambush to take prisoners relied on a storm-like, crushing assault.

With sturdy Hexi fold-ear horses and every man equipped with horn crossbows and ring-mail armor, the ambushed Tingzhou cavalry barely had time to react.

Zhang Zhao had not expected his guess to be right on the mark — it really was Saktu who had come with the Karluks.

Now that he knew who the enemy was, everything became much easier to handle.

Interrogation revealed that of Saketu's thirty thousand cavalry, fifteen thousand were stationed at Tingzhou, ten thousand were stationed in the surrounding area around Shenxian Town slightly to the south, and the remaining five thousand were positioned a bit further to the southwest.

The more than one thousand Gaochang Uyghur cavalry in the city, including the Gaochang Tingzhou Commander who had come to welcome Saketu, had all been placed under Saketu's control.

As for why thirty thousand men were so dispersed — it was because the area around Tingzhou bordered on desert, which simply could not sustain tens of thousands of men stationed there long-term, so the forces had to be spread out.

This could be seen from Zhang Zhao's own situation: his thirteen thousand men had already drunk the waters of Xianquan down to a visibly lower level.

"Great King, the Karluks have always been cunning and faithless. Though their warriors are fierce, their equipment and discipline are both poor, and they are greedy beyond measure.

Why don't we have men disguise themselves as traveling merchants tomorrow, lure the Karluks out of Tingzhou to plunder, and then strike them from both sides?"

Once it was clear who the enemy was, Qiongre Duojin seemed very excited — it had been a long time since he had fought such a satisfying cavalry duel.

Moreover, fighting the Karluks was even more invigorating than fighting the Tanguts; there was always a feeling of expanding the realm.

"Great King, the Karluks crossed a thousand li of the the the Shatuo Desert to get here, and so far they have rested for only eight days.

And they are dispersed in their encampments — just over ten thousand men. Even if the cavalry support from Shenxian Town arrives quickly, that is only twenty-five thousand.

With the fighting strength of our thirteen thousand elite cavalry, we can completely rout them. Better to openly surround Tingzhou with great fanfare and destroy them in a fair and open battle."

Li Cunhui, however, held a different opinion. He felt that all this disguising and luring was too much trouble, and that it was better to simply prevail by force.

"Old Bai, you tell us what you think!" Zhang Zhao turned his head and asked Bai Congxin behind him.

Bai Congxin had long grown accustomed to Zhang Zhao's strange forms of address, and he answered without hesitation.

"Tingzhou lies on the edge of the the the Shatuo Desert, and there is little forest around it in which to hide troops.

If we insist on hiding, we can only wait temporarily in the barren desert, and it would take at least a quarter of an hour to charge out — that is very dangerous for the comrades serving as bait.

Therefore, your servant agrees with Commander Li's opinion. We should march the entire army directly to the walls of Tingzhou, leaving only one road westward through the the the Shatuo Desert, and force the Karluks to come out and fight a decisive battle.

If they do not come out, then with these barbarians' skill at defending cities, they will only die faster."

"Commander Bai is right. Back in the day, we brothers routed Saketu's twenty thousand iron cavalry with only three thousand men. Are we now afraid of these few light cavalry of his, who don't even have much armor?

Duojin, in a while the two of us will charge at the very front and bring back another queen for the Great King from Saketu!"

Li Ruotai was indeed a mixed-blood descendant of the Khotan royal clan and the Great Tang imperial house; his high emotional intelligence made his words pleasing, and in one breath he cheered up Qiongre Duojin, whose suggestion had just been rejected.

"My elder brother speaks rightly! Please give the order, Great King! This time, we must not let that swine Saketu escape!"

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