Chapter 463: Another Niece?

At Qingzhou, seat of the Pinglu Military Governor, the careworn Yang Guangyuan stood atop the city wall and quietly let out a breath of relief, for after four months of siege, Li Shouzhen had finally withdrawn.

This, however, was not because he, Yang Guangyuan, had beaten Li Shouzhen back; Li Shouzhen had purely been starved into retreat.

For since the winter of last year, Qingzhou had likewise suffered flood and drought, and neighboring Zizhou had already been ravaged by Yang Guangyuan himself during last year's great war between the Later Jin and the Khitan.

Thus, after Li Shouzhen's thirty thousand troops had besieged the city for four months, they could not gather enough provisions and had no choice but to withdraw.

"Send elite riders at once, traveling day and night, and be sure to deliver this plea for aid into the hands of the Great Liao Emperor. The lives of you and me, father and son, depend on this!"

Yang Guangyuan thrust the letter he had written in his own hand into the hands of his eldest son Yang Chengzuo, ordering him to send men at once to deliver it to the Khitan.

The content of the letter was simple: it reported to Yelu Deguang that the Later Jin had suffered a terrible natural disaster, and urged Yelu Deguang to seize this opportunity to march south once more.

On the other side, Li Shouzhen's army reached Linzi, northwest of Qingzhou, and refused to go any farther, because what had sustained their four-month siege was the several hundred thousand strings of cash and goods Yang Guangyuan had plundered from the western capital Luoyang.

The soldiers had wallowed in mud and water for months without so much as a hair to show for it, and the farther they marched the angrier they grew. When they reached Linzi they simply exploded, and the men clamored for Li Shouzhen to hand out rewards.

Li Shouzhen was at his wits' end as well. He had expected his officers and men to be displeased, but he had not imagined the resentment would flare up so quickly.

He had originally planned to wait until they reached Qizhou (Jinan), and then find some way to have the court allocate money and grain, or else do a little plundering outside Qizhou's walls to soothe the men's grievances.

But they had only reached Linzi and the column could go no farther. If he did not think of something fast, there was no telling when a mutiny might break out.

Just as he was fretting, Li Shouzhen's trusted yabing officer strode in to report.

"It's Ma Huzi and his lot who started the trouble. Damn them, they've seen how prosperous Linzi is and want to sack it and split the spoils!"

Li Shouzhen listened and rubbed his chin. In truth, he rather wanted to plunder Linzi too.

After four months besieging Qingzhou, the troops below had gained nothing, and he, Li Shouzhen, had not gained much either.

"But Linzi has surely made preparations long since. Go and see whether it can be taken."

Knowing full well the character of these soldiers, the whole city of Linzi had long been prepared. Therefore, from the moment they learned Li Shouzhen was withdrawing, the Prefect of Linzi had merely sent three hundred shi of grain and fodder outside the walls, then shut all four gates tight.

"Supervisor, you absolutely must not!"

The trusted yabing officer was about to go down and investigate when Li Shouzhen's Secretary hurriedly spoke up to stop him.

"Supervisor, you broke the Khitan by the Yellow River and have won the Son of Heaven's deep trust. This is the perfect moment to seek a military governorship in the provinces. If you plunder Linzi, the court will likely regard you as a violent and cruel man — how would it be willing to grant you a provincial post?"

The Secretary's words struck straight into Li Shouzhen's heart.

His greatest dream at present was to be appointed Military Governor of a province. If he sacked Linzi, it might indeed make the court unwilling to send him out.

Seeing Li Shouzhen's reaction, the Secretary immediately pressed his case.

"Ma Huzi and his men have always been violent and cruel. If the Supervisor permits them to sack Linzi today, tomorrow they will want to sack Qizhou as well. What then?

Moreover, the reason we have been forced to withdraw this time is precisely that these men refused to fight to the death. Otherwise, with Yang Guangyuan's mere two or three thousand troops, how could he have held out for four months?

They fight poorly, yet still seek to coerce and bribe the Supervisor. Supervisor, you must on no account encourage such a trend!"

"These are words from the heart!" Li Shouzhen sighed deeply, forced to admit the Secretary's argument made sense.

But if he refused his officers' and soldiers' demands, they might well mutiny.

Then it would no longer be a question of whether he got a provincial post — it would be a question of whether he could keep his head.

"Your subordinate does have a plan. May the Supervisor hear it?"

A good subordinate is one who, after rejecting one proposal, can offer an alternative, and the Secretary at once had a countermeasure ready.

"Speak quickly!" Li Shouzhen waved him on impatiently.

"When Yang Guangyuan sees our army march far away, he is bound to relax his guard. Better for the Supervisor to continue on slowly with the main army, while secretly selecting picked troops to take a roundabout route and travel at double speed, suddenly appearing beneath the walls of Qingzhou. Then Qingzhou can be taken, and the spoils can be used to reward the soldiers."

"Good!" Li Shouzhen clapped his hands and laughed, then his face turned cold.

"Then let Ma Huzi and his men be the vanguard. If they fight poorly, they need not blame the blade in my hand for failing to recognize them!"

As the sky was just beginning to lighten, the tossing and turning Yang Guangyuan had barely managed to close his eyes. With death and the ruin of his family staring him in the face, it was indeed enough to keep a man awake.

The crisis was not yet over, for Yang Guangyuan did not know whether the Khitan could march south in time.

And there was another great problem: in the battle by the Yellow River, nearly all the fighting men of the Pinglu army had been lost.

Originally Yang Guangyuan had planned to collude with the Khitan to march south and have Yelu Deguang invest him as Son of Heaven over the Central Plains, but now that he had lost his strength, being allowed to continue guarding Qingzhou would already be a great favor.

In truth, if he could continue to hold a region, that would not be bad either — at least he could preserve his wealth and his family.

But Yang Guangyuan knew this was wishful thinking. The Khitan might tolerate him, but would the new emperor installed by Yelu Deguang tolerate him?

Just as he was about to fall asleep under this weight of worry, his second son Yang Chengxin suddenly burst in through the door.

Already uneasy at heart, Yang Guangyuan broke out in a cold sweat, sprang up like a carp, and even the scabs on his mangy scalp seemed to gleam with terror.

"Father, flee quickly — Li Shouzhen has come back to kill us!"

Yang Chengxin's expression was much the same as Yang Guangyuan's: his face was full of fear.

The scouts they had sent out to shadow Li Shouzhen's main army were still following it, while Li Shouzhen had already sent picked troops doubling back.

The Pinglu soldiers, exhausted after four months under siege and thinking Li Shouzhen had withdrawn all the way to Linzi, had posted no sentries at all.

As a result, Li Shouzhen's death squads climbed straight onto the wall. Only after the gates had been thrown open did the Pinglu soldiers realize the enemy had arrived.

The shouts of battle grew fainter and fainter. Once the enemy broke into the city, the Pinglu soldiers quickly scattered.

Yang Guangyuan could only disguise himself, his wife, and his two sons as commoners and try to escape through the south gate, where there were still few enemies.

But alas, they were soon recognized.

For Yang Guangyuan was tall and had a mangy scalp, and his wife had a slight limp.

Even on a street full of people fleeing for their lives, a man with a mangy scalp and a lame woman were still far too conspicuous.

Li Shouzhen came galloping over with wild laughter. Yang Guangyuan and his sons had plundered the western capital Luoyang so thoroughly that heaven and men alike were outraged, and had swallowed up Fan Yanguang's wealth as well. Though some had been spent winning over the Pinglu army, at least several hundred thousand strings remained.

As long as he could capture the father and sons and put them to harsh torture, he was certain to unearth this hoard of treasure.

"Li Shouzhen, you thieving slave! Why must you push people so hard?"

Yang Guangyuan's eyes nearly split with rage. One wonders whether he ever considered how, in years past, he had received great favor from Li Siyuan, yet in the end had ambushed and killed Zhang Jingda, whom Li Siyuan had sent to campaign against Shi Jingtang, becoming an accomplice to Shi Jingtang's treason.

Did the people he had allowed his troops to slaughter in Luoyang, Zizhou, and elsewhere ever feel that he had pushed them too hard?

But by this moment, Yang Guangyuan was still every bit the scoundrel. Amid Li Shouzhen's smug shouts of "Take him alive!", he raised a thick stack of silver notes.

Instantly, a look of terror appeared on Li Shouzhen's face.

Yang Guangyuan clenched his teeth. "You want my wealth? Dream on! I'd rather give it to Zhang Zhao in Hexi than to you!"

With that, under Li Shouzhen's heartbroken gaze, Yang Guangyuan doused himself with the tung oil he carried, and together with the silver notes he had so painstakingly extorted, burned in the roaring flames.

"You wretched slave! I'll slaughter your whole family!"

Li Shouzhen had never imagined that Yang Guangyuan would actually be willing to convert his wealth into stacks of paper. Caught off guard, before he could even react, the silver notes had already turned to ash.

"Heaven-damned! Why did silver notes have to exist!"

Bank card credited: three hundred thousand strings of cash!

If such a thing existed in this era, Zhang Zhao's phone might have made just such a sound.

Busy with disaster relief in Qinzhou, he could never have imagined that Yang Guangyuan's year and a half of toil, which had stirred up universal resentment, would in the end all benefit himself.

With the silver notes gone and their holder dead, there was no note and no secret code, so no one could ever redeem the money.

A full three hundred thousand strings of cash now belonged to the money-house system Zhang Zhao had developed.

However, the money-house system had its own considerable problems, because Zhang Zhao's money-houses had not been built by him from scratch. Rather, he had borrowed the financial systems the temples across the regions already possessed and integrated them.

This was not just the dozen or so great temples of Hexi and Longyou, but all the temples of Hexi, Longyou, Shuofang, Guanzhong, Hezhong, Hedong, Henan, and Hebei linked together into one network.

At such a scale, even with Zhang Zhao's triple status as Khagan, Heavenly King, and Dharma King, he was far from able to have the final say on everything.

The money-house system could now be said to be in a period of wild growth. Zhang Zhao had done his utmost, but could only hold onto the right to issue silver notes. Beyond that, he was powerless. Perhaps in the future, once he entered the Central Plains, he could slowly carry out reforms.

Having borrowed the Buddhist establishment's power, Zhang Zhao certainly could not act as brutally and ruthlessly as Emperor Shizong of Zhou, Guo Rong, had in history when he suppressed Buddhism. He could only govern a great state as one cooks a small fish—slowly and with careful adjustment.

And he could not choose not to suppress Buddhism, because reality had already decided that for him.

After all, from the present situation, among the roughly ten million people of the Central Plains, the means of production had already been enormously destroyed.

The only groups that could provide resources for the nation's revival were the Buddhist temples, the military commanders, and the great local clans.

The military commanders were large in number and looked quite wealthy, but most of them did not engage in production, and the supplies in their hands could not quickly be converted into sustainably obtained wealth. They looked rich, but in truth had little fat to squeeze.

Moreover, they held the handle of the sword. In the foreseeable ten or twenty years, Zhang Zhao could only execute the worst of them, while winning over the majority.

The great local clans were even more untouchable. With the old aristocratic system destroyed, the clan system based on the civil examinations not yet grown, and the common people wailing in misery everywhere, they were the only remaining productive force in the countryside. Not only could they not be touched, they had to be protected.

That left the temple estates, which occupied vast productive resources while themselves not engaging in production and paying no taxes, as the only ones that could be slaughtered for meat.

Therefore, Zhang Zhao decided to let them enjoy themselves for a few more years, and once his own seat was secure, he would slowly, bit by bit, think of a way.

The migration of the disaster victims was actually not, as Zhang Zhao had imagined, something that required vast amounts of money and grain.

Because this was not the kind of hiking trip or spring outing of later ages—this was fleeing for one's life.

There was no need for delicious cream bread or instant noodles, no need for cola, and still less for all kinds of snacks.

The great mass of refugees needed only a single sorghum cake mixed with wild greens—so rough it scraped the throat going down—to walk ten or twenty li.

Under the pressure of survival, these refugees burst forth with an extraordinarily tenacious will.

Zhang Zhao stood beneath Dazhen Pass, watching the endless stream of refugees coming toward Hexi like ants in the distance, and felt an indescribable emotion in his heart.

The refugees coming from afar usually formed groups of several dozen, and the distance between each group was still fairly large—one could not be too careful of others!

The journey had not been peaceful. Although Zhang Zhao had set up porridge-distribution points along the way, most of the local officials in Guanzhong had taken Zhang Zhao's money and grain but had not actually distributed any porridge.

Those who did distribute porridge almost all just threw in a few handfuls of millet, added wild greens haphazardly, and the broth was so thin you could see your reflection in it—and that was considered done.

So these refugees suffered. The farthest, traveling from Huazhou to Qinzhou, covered a distance of nearly eight hundred li, eating up all the tree bark and grass roots along the way, struggling just to make it this far.

Zhang Zhao therefore personally went to the border between Qinzhou and Fengxiang Prefecture, and beneath Dazhen Pass he cooked thick millet porridge and baked flatbreads, trying his utmost to save the lives of these refugees.

And at Qinyuan County, where Dazhen Pass was located, Xue Shouli—serving as both County Magistrate of Qinyuan and Defender of Dazhen Pass—was not as moved as Zhang Zhao, because his own Xue family had once been in much the same situation.

So he felt not the slightest shock at the misery before him, only some sympathy.

At that moment he held a register in his hand, recording as he spoke to Zhang Zhao.

"Heavenly King, these are the statistics gathered from the refugees. From Huazhou to here, the Heavenly King has provided a total of forty-five thousand shi of grain, with an estimated one hundred thirty-seven porridge stations set up along the route.

But only forty-one were actually established. Of those, only three had porridge that was not clear broth and had someone maintaining order.

Nine could barely provide a little grain to eat. The remaining twenty-nine basically served nothing but water."

The military and civil officials throughout Guanzhong probably still did not know that the great fool Zhang the Heavenly King in their minds—the simpleton who in this year of great disaster had delivered grain and rice into their hands—had never expected them to bear much responsibility for disaster relief at all.

In truth, Zhang Zhao was using these fifty-five thousand shi of grain to conduct a thorough assessment of all the soldiers, officers, and officials in Guanzhong.

In a year of great disaster, grain was the most precious thing. Precisely because it was precious, it could not only probe people's hearts, but also reveal the abilities of local officials.

For example, the three places that did well—those officials were not merely conscientious, but also capable. Otherwise, they could never have suppressed the greedy underlings beneath them and actually used the grain for disaster relief.

Take Zhao Ying, the Military Governor of Zhenguo Army in Huazhou. As a Hanlin academician, he was competent enough, but he certainly could not serve as a regional chief official, because he could not keep the people under him in line, nor did he have the means required of a chief official.

"Record the names of the officials at these three places who did well at distributing porridge. Record even the clerks in the yellow register. When we take Guanzhong in the future, they should be given important posts.

The nine places that were barely acceptable—register them as well. In this chaotic age, anyone who can still perform like this is a talent.

Record the remaining twenty-nine places in the red register. After assessment, some may be given important posts.

As for the rest—those who took my Great Liang grain and did nothing—dispatch the Brocade Guard agents to investigate in secret. Any with a record of misconduct, every last one, shall be severely punished according to national law!"

My Great Liang now has national law. When Fan Zhi came to Hexi back then, he established a simplified version.

On this trip to Liangzhou, Fan Zhi brought his subordinate officials through most of Liang's prefectures and counties, and based on the laws of the Great Tang, compiled the Great Liang Criminal Code.

When Zhang the Heavenly King wants to bring a case against someone, he now acts according to law.

After giving a few more instructions, a young woman in coarse cloth, wearing no hairpins or bracelets, came over with quick little steps.

The girl was sixteen or seventeen. Though dressed very plainly, one could tell she had carefully groomed herself.

A slender waist, a small cherry mouth, a straight, delicate nose. Her features had a little less softness, but a bit more of the spirited beauty of a northern woman—a distinctive charm all her own.

Before she arrived, her voice came first, her lips, faintly touched with peach-blossom powder, slightly parted.

"Is Uncle thirsty? Your servant has some wine here, brewed exactly by the method Uncle described—sour and sweet, very refreshing."

With that, the girl took the wine jug from the maidservant behind her, poured Zhang Zhao a full bowl, and held it out to him.

Before Zhang Zhao could even reach out to take it, Zhang Liecheng beside him took one look and immediately made to slip away.

"Why is Big Brother leaving? I brought a bowl for you too."

This "Big Brother" was not the cloyingly sweet form of address of later ages, but an ordinary term of address.

Because among Zhang Zhao's five adopted sons, Zhang Liecheng ranked as the eldest.

And this northern girl, Yelu Abuli, habitually styled herself as a niece who was practically an adopted daughter, so naturally she called Zhang Liecheng "Big Brother."

Zhang Liecheng, however, knew perfectly well that this little minx's gentleness was all an act — her real temperament was thoroughly fiery.

On top of that, she was the Jade Maiden Treasure personally recognized by Zhang Zhao, and the monks in the country doted on her too; she was the most mischievous of them all.

Moreover, this little minx had a wish: she had always wanted to marry her "uncle," Heavenly King Zhang, and she often pestered Zhang Liecheng to come up with a plan for her.

But how would Zhang Liecheng dare meddle in such a matter? So he had always done his best to avoid her. He gulped down the wine she handed him in two or three mouthfuls, turned, and slipped away.

Zhang Zhao was also a little embarrassed, because Yelu Abuli had originally been a hidden chess piece he had placed.

But at the time, he had overestimated the Khitan's strength, and then he had not expected his own rise to go so smoothly, nor that he would become sworn brothers with Yelu Abaoji — with the result that Yelu Abuli had become his niece.

What the hell, Zhang Zhao thought with some bafflement — why was it that after transmigrating here, of the five or six women in his harem, apart from Guo Wan'er and a few others, basically all of them could be tied to him through some ethical-relation joke?

If they weren't aunts, they were nieces. This was driving him numb. Really!

If there were some benefit in it, then a niece with no blood relation like this — if she was kept, she was kept; what did it matter?

But as things stood, taking Yelu Abuli as a consort seemed to bring no benefit, and it would also needlessly lower him a generation below Yelu Abaoji, so Zhang Zhao was somewhat disinclined.

But even if he was unwilling, Yelu Abuli was not. Zhang Zhao thought the little Khitan girl before him was a kitten.

In reality, what stood before him was a thorny rose with an extreme lust for power.

Perhaps stimulated by the loss of her father Yelu Ruan's power, Yelu Abuli placed tremendous importance on authority and influence.

And she was not alone. Those who had followed her to the State of Liang included her cousin Yelu He and loyal ministers of the Dongdan Kingdom such as Mu Shunyi.

After Yelu Ruan was killed, Yelu Ruan's son Yelu Bei and others were placed under house arrest by Shi Jingtang at Yelu Deguang's instigation, while the remaining Dongdan soldiers and officers fled one after another to the State of Liang — by now there were already more than two hundred of them.

Although Zhang Zhao had incorporated them into Hanhai Garrison and allotted them a place to station themselves, he did not trust them, and he never brought them onto the battlefield.

These Dongdan soldiers and officers were much like the fighting men of the Central Plains — coarse fellows who only knew how to draw a blade and hack at people. With no chance to go to war, and no rewards or pay, they naturally lived in bitter hardship.

Now they were all pinning their hopes on Yelu Abuli being taken into Zhang Zhao's harem, so that they might thereby gain his trust, become Zhang Zhao's trusted confidants, and win merit and renown.

Thus, recently in Liangzhou, there had appeared the rare spectacle of a sixteen-year-old niece pursuing her thirty-one-year-old uncle — and the key point was that the proper queen, Cao Shijiu Niang Yanxi, was not the least bit annoyed by it.

Because in her view, ever since Yelu Abuli, at just nine years old, had been abducted and brought to Liangzhou, it had been inevitable that she would end up in Zhang Zhao's bed.

How could the Jade Maiden Treasure of a Wheel-Turning Sage King fail to serve the Sage King and instead go off and marry someone else?

Yelu Abuli was secretly delighted. Hadn't she followed all the way from Liangzhou to Dazhen Pass precisely to find a chance to be alone with Zhang Zhao, so she could "make her move"?

Ordinarily, Heavenly King Zhang was extremely busy, and even getting a single meeting with him was not easy.

Therefore, Yelu Abuli unceremoniously pressed herself close to Zhang Zhao's side, blinking her large, sparkling eyes, with the air of one offering herself up for tasting.

"Will Uncle be staying at Dazhen Pass today? This humble one has seen that Uncle has been toiling ceaselessly, so I have prepared a few small dishes. Later, I hope Uncle will deign to sample them."

Zhang Zhao was just about to answer when suddenly, in the distance, dust rose in all directions. Several couriers with small red triangular pennants strapped to their backs came riding from afar. Seeing this, Zhang Zhao seized the chance to head down from the pass.

Watching the cooked duck fly away yet again, Yelu Abuli behind him was on the verge of tears. Such a fine opportunity, and before she had even gotten two sentences out, he was gone again.

"August Aunt, I don't think it needs to be so complicated. Why not go straight to the Heavenly King's tent tonight and request an audience? Once summoned, just strip off your clothes and slip under the covers. This slave refuses to believe the Heavenly King could resist!"

The maidservant behind her had also come from the Dongdan Kingdom, and her tactics for dealing with men were somewhat crude, but Yelu Abuli took them to heart.

Holding back tears and gritting her teeth, she resolved to stop pretending to be some little lamb and just go for it directly.

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