Chapter 446: The Chiting Garrison

Even as the first great war between the Central Plains, the Liao, and the Jin was drawing to a close, Zhang Zhao's military campaign to annex the Gaochang Uyghurs was still underway.

In the eleventh month of the seventh year of Tianfu, Anxi at this time was far colder than the Central Plains.

Yet even in such a season, the great army of the Gaochang Uyghurs had no choice but to march.

For Jieli Pijia had received news that struck him like a thunderbolt from a clear sky.

Chen Huiyao, the Tingzhou Commander-in-Chief of the Gaochang Uyghur Khaganate, had led more than seventy thousand soldiers and civilians of Yinzhou in surrendering to the Liang Kingdom.

The Liang Kingdom made Chen Huiyao its vanguard, combined the troops of Yinzhou and Liang to a force of twenty thousand, and advanced westward, already capturing Puchang City.

At this moment Jieli Pijia was filled with immense regret — not regret over failing to take the title of Heavenly King, but regret over not having made up his mind earlier to transfer the Chen family of Yinzhou to another post.

In fact, ever since Zhang Zhao had unified Hexi and Longyou, and before Jieli Pijia's father, Khagan Wumuzhu, had fallen ill and died, the Gaochang Uyghur royal clan — that is, the kinsmen of the Pugu family — had been considering transferring the Chen family to another post.

For the Chen family were not only Han Chinese, but a Han family of distinguished lineage, and in their hearts they felt a strong sense of belonging to the Central Plains.

Historically, it was not until the Dazhong Xiangfu era of Emperor Zhenzong of Song, that is, after 1008 AD, that records of the Chen family ceased.

Most likely, either the family head died in battle in the religious wars between Gaochang and the Karakhanids, or the family was thoroughly assimilated.

This persistence was no simple matter, for this point in time was precisely the moment when the Han culture of Anxi and Hexi was utterly extinguished.

The Khotan Golden Kingdom was destroyed by the Karakhanid Khanate, and the Guiyi Army reached the period of its last Military Governor, Cao Xianshun, by which time power had already been completely seized by the Shazhou Uyghurs, and the region was about to be annexed by the Western Xia.

One must understand that the Chen family were not a regional power like the Khotan Golden Kingdom or the Guiyi Army; they were merely a family subordinate to the Gaochang Uyghur Khaganate, and to have held on until this moment was already no easy feat.

At least during the reign of Emperor Taizong of Song, they could still speak the Han tongue, wear Han dress, still preserve the imperial edicts of appointment bestowed by the Great Tang, and could still excitedly converse with envoys from the Central Plains court who came west — proof that they still remembered their own identity.

And it was this very persistence that lay at the root of the Pugu family's unease about the Chen family.

If, as in history, Zhang Zhao had never risen to power, this would not have mattered.

For the Gaochang Uyghurs themselves were Uyghurs deeply sinicized, and the Chen family did not stand out as overly alien among them.

But now things were quite different, for with Zhang Zhao — a true Han Heavenly King, compared to the Pugu family — at their side, no matter what, the Chen family would surely hope to defect to Zhang Zhao.

Yet transferring the Chen family's post was no easy matter, because the Gaochang Uyghur state was in reality a "joint-stock company."

Back then, Pugu Jun had not been able to drive the Tibetans out of Yinzhou, Beiting, and the other prefectures by his own strength alone.

He had relied on Zhang Yichao drawing a portion of troops from the Guiyi Army and funding him to conquer Yinzhou and Beiting.

The ancestors of the Chen family had been a great Han clan that had followed Zhang Yichao in raising troops, and it was precisely under Zhang Yichao's orders that the Chen family had supported and followed Pugu Jun in his westward campaigns.

And after Pugu Jun declared independence and came into conflict with the Guiyi Army, it was highly likely that the Chen family had received secret orders from the Tang court to remain among the Gaochang Uyghurs.

For at the time, no matter how one looked at it, the Chen family, having lived in Yinzhou for over a hundred years, had no reason not to follow Zhang Yichao and instead follow Pugu Jun, an Uyghur.

So the greatest possibility is that the Tang court, out of a desire to weaken the Guiyi Army, sent envoys to persuade the Chen family not to return to the Guiyi Army, but to remain among the Gaochang Uyghurs.

Ten years earlier, when Zhang Zhao had gone to Khotan to join Li Shengtian, he had encountered Diluodagan Pugu Cheng ambushing him at Puchang Lake.

At that time, Chen Huiyao, who was not yet Commander-in-Chief of Yinzhou, had mobilized nearly a hundred armored soldiers when escorting Pugu Cheng away.

How could a Chen family with only a few tens of thousands of people under its rule, and a core following of only twenty or thirty thousand, possess over a hundred sets of lamellar armor?

There was only one possibility: these had been bestowed upon the Chen family by the Tang court after they had obeyed orders and remained among the Gaochang Uyghurs.

The Chen family were not merely left among the Gaochang Uyghurs by the Tang court to weaken the Guiyi Army; very likely they were also a nail driven in by the Tang court to exert influence over the Gaochang Uyghurs.

Therefore, although times had changed and the Tang court was no more, the Chen family could not simply be regarded as subordinates of the Pugu family — they should be considered shareholders in the Gaochang Uyghur Khaganate.

And such shareholders existed in great numbers throughout the Gaochang Uyghur Khaganate.

After all, Pugu Jun had not built up a force by his own ability to defeat the Tibetans and recover Yinzhou and Beiting; rather, he had integrated the Guiyi Army's western expedition force to carve out this state.

It was precisely for this reason that Jieli Pijia had to treat the Chen family with caution — and besides, the Chen family were not entirely without the ability to fight back.

It was just that the resolve and speed of Zhang Zhao's actions, and the firmness of the Chen family's defection, exceeded Jieli Pijia's expectations.

Puchang City was even more dilapidated than the traveling merchants said, for those merchants judged it by whether one could live there, while Feng Hui had to consider it from a military standpoint.

In Feng Hui's view, Puchang City was a city much favored by traveling merchants.

Because the surrounding walls had crumbled beyond recognition, yet the houses of the city's residents were relatively intact, and there were still quite a lot of people.

With more people, commerce was lively; buying and selling were both convenient, and lodging and food were also convenient and cheap.

Moreover, with so many breaches in the walls, evading taxes was easy too — one only had to slip out through some gap before the tax collectors were up, and that was that.

But for an army, this was dreadful: too many people, and clearing out the city's residents was a troublesome affair.

If they were not cleared out, who knew which side they favored? And with the walls breached everywhere, there was simply no way to defend the place.

So after arriving at Puchang City, Feng Hui and Chen Huiyao discussed it, and the two of them simply plundered the residents of Puchang City, demolished their houses, and transported the timber and stone to the former Great Tang Chiting Garrison City, five li to the northeast.

Although this garrison city was basically abandoned, its walls were still largely intact.

Moreover, within Chiting City there was also Chiting Peak, and on the peak was a well, dug in former years by the Great Tang's Anxi Army.

If their five thousand or so men used it sparingly, they would not need to worry about drinking water for at least a month or two.

Chiting City had an extremely broad field of vision; the Nanhu Gobi on which it stood stretched endlessly in all directions, and in the entire region, Chiting Peak, where Chiting City stood, was the only high point.

This was also the direct reason the Chiting Garrison had been established here in former years: no matter who tried to pass through these places where low shrubs grew, they could not escape the eyes of the soldiers on the city walls.

The population of the Gaochang Uyghurs was roughly over four hundred thousand, though as for the exact figure, probably even Jieli Pijia did not know.

Its territory comprised the former Great Tang prefectures of Tingzhou (around present-day Urumqi), Xizhou (Gaochang), and Yinzhou (Hami), plus the two royal domains of Yanqi and Kucha (Kuqa).

After the Chen family of Yinzhou switched allegiance, only Tingzhou, Xizhou, Yanqi, and Kucha remained.

Er — or one might say, Tingzhou too was now gone, only Jieli Pijia did not yet know that he had already been encircled.

Before Jieli Pijia reached Chiting City, several thousand Gaochang cavalry had already arrived outside Chiting City, and they had overestimated themselves by approaching to test the strength of the Liang army.

Feng Hui gave a cold laugh and directly deployed three thousand infantry outside the city to form battle lines.

The overjoyed Gaochang cavalry circled and attacked for a full two hours, and after leaving behind several hundred corpses of men and horses, fled in disarray. Even now they did not dare approach, only watching Feng Hui's force from a distance.

Jieli Pijia rode in a treasure-carriage inlaid with gold and set with jade, drawn by six pure-white fine horses, and on the carriage roof was a clumsy imitation of the Central Plains' yellow silk canopy, making for a ludicrous sight.

The composition of the Gaochang Uyghur army was also similar to that of the Khitan: its core was the Left and Right Divine Martial Army, numbering around ten thousand in total, equipped with a certain amount of iron armor and a great deal of leather armor.

They were akin to the Khitan's Left and Right Pishi Army, normally garrisoned at the capital of Gaochang, and it was also these cavalry who went to Tingzhou in summer to escape the heat.

Another portion consists of local troops like the Chen family of Yinzhou, stationed separately at Kucha, Yanqi, and Yinzhou, numbering around twenty thousand men.

Now that the Chen family is gone, there are still about fifteen or sixteen thousand of them.

The families controlling these local troops were all "shareholders" from back when Pugu Jun founded the Gaochang Uyghur Khaganate.

The final portion is the tribal army, vast in number but quite ordinary in armor, weapons, and fighting strength.

They are mostly the various nomadic peoples who once submitted to the Tibetans on the lands of the former Tang Yinzhou Beiting Military Governor, along with a small number of tribesmen the Tibetans brought down from the plateau.

These people belong entirely to the ruled class, though the rule of the Gaochang Uyghurs is ultimately far gentler than that of the Tibetans, who practiced a **** slave system, and so over the past few decades most of these tribes have essentially become Uyghurized.

They provide their own weapons, armor, and warhorses; the Pugu family's Khagan need only supply their daily fodder and provisions, with no pay, their profit coming basically from rewards and plunder after victories.

For this campaign, Jieli Pijia has summoned roughly fifteen thousand of these armed herders.

Xue Guizhong swiftly climbed the watchtower on Chiting Peak, continuously calling out figures while having Yang Guizhong below record them.

The Yang, Zheng, and Xue families of New Kucha still maintain their naming custom to this day.

The generation ranked with "gui" are the next generation after Yang Shouli and the others whom Zhang Zhao brought back back then.

Most of Yang Shouli's generation were constrained by the harsh environment, and whether in martial training or literary study, few stood out.

Most of them now serve as deputy officials and minor clerks in the various prefectures and counties of the Liang Kingdom; those who can become a County Magistrate in a county are considered to have done well.

It is the same in the army: the descendants of the three Anxi Army families of New Kucha are basically all junior officers, and not part of the elite units.

The only ones with relatively high military positions are, instead, the few who were trained as ghulams by the Karakhanid Khaganate together with Lu Sanlang and the others back then; they have developed quite well now.

But while the "shou" generation is unremarkable, the "gui" generation is quite good.

They have always been personally recruited and trained by Zhang Zhao, and sometimes Zhang Zhao would even personally teach them a few lessons.

Seventeen-year-old Xue Guizhong and Yang Guizhong are the outstanding ones among them; after the two finished tallying the data, they swiftly went to report to Feng Hui on the city wall.

Feng Hui looked at the two young men with approval; for a commander, counting troops is a very important skill.

"This Jieli Pijia really does think highly of us. Look, a full thirty thousand men have come!" Feng Hui said with a smile to Chen Huiyao beside him.

Chen Huiyao was also observing the distant military formation, speaking as he watched.

"In years past, when my father was alive, he once told me that of the four sons of Khagan Wumu Zhu, none had the bearing of a ruler; only the third son had some ability to judge men, yet he loved extravagance and pomp. Indeed, it is as he said!"

Feng Hui laughed heartily upon hearing this. "Your esteemed father truly had piercing insight. We have only just arrived here, and this Jieli Pijia, without even scouting us out clearly, has come with the entire strength of his nation.

And all along the way in brocade robes and fine horses — a mere barbarian chieftain of the Rong, yet his pomp is arrayed like the First Emperor on a royal progress."

Having said this, Feng Hui's face turned stern.

"Pass on my order: Guo Guangcheng and Chen Huiming each take five hundred cavalry as the left and right wings; Wu Jixing, Dunzhu, and Manxiong each take six hundred men as the central force. Don armor and leave the city — it is our turn to test the mettle of this Gaochang army."

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