Chapter 473: The Master of Blame-Shifting, Yelu Deguang

At Lanzhou, Zhang Zhao's carriage had just arrived. Lanzhou Prefect Jia Yanchang, Ma Shacai, Chief Commander of the Wuwei Garrison defending Lanzhou, Lanzhou Administrative Assistant Wang Tinghan, Lan-Ling Water Transport Commissioner Su Lunluxin, and Lan-Shan Water Transport Commissioner Cao Renqing all came out of Lanzhou city to welcome Zhang Zhao.

In official rank, Jia Yanchang and Ma Shacai stood first among them, but the one standing slightly ahead of the rest was the Lan-Shan Water Transport Commissioner, Cao Renqing.

For Cao Renqing, fifty-one years old this year, was Zhang Zhao's own maternal uncle by marriage, and moreover the current elder of the Cao family of Shazhou.

This was another muddled account in terms of family ethics, because Cao Renqing was actually Cao Yijin's cousin. Cao Yijin had originally been named Cao Rengui, and only changed his name to Cao Yijin after seizing the great power of the Guiyi Army.

Thus Cao Renqing, who had married Zhang Zhao's youngest maternal aunt, could also be called Zhang Zhao's grand-uncle of the same clan.

The Guiyi Army's circle was too small; tens of thousands of Han people huddled together in Dunhuang, and tangled ethical jokes were simply standard equipment.

Lanzhou under Zhang Zhao's rule was no longer what it had been before. Historically, when it was in the hands of the Great Tang, the key cities of Hexi and Longyou were Liangzhou and Shanzhou; Lanzhou's status was in many periods not even equal to Shazhou's.

But under Zhang Zhao, Lanzhou's status had undergone a great change, and it had now surpassed Shanzhou to become the second-largest city of the Liang state.

Zhang Zhao also came to Lanzhou often, and the Huguo Temple outside Lanzhou city had almost become Zhang Zhao's traveling palace.

The reason such a great change had occurred was that Zhang Zhao had been pushing for water transport links among Hexi, Longyou, and Lingwu, as could be seen from Lanzhou's current power structure.

Water transport commissioners such as the Lan-Ling Water Transport Commissioner, who managed the water route from Lanzhou to Lingzhou, and the Lan-Shan Water Transport Commissioner, who managed the route from Shanzhou to Lanzhou, had all become major regional officials of Lanzhou city.

As China's most important river, the Yellow River, known as the Mother River, also held an extremely important position in Hexi and Longyou.

At this time, building post roads was difficult, and there was even less capability to construct tunnels, so convenient water transport became the most important condition for transportation.

Especially in Hexi and Longyou, this importance was unmatched by anything else.

At this time, the Yellow River, running through Hexi, Longyou, and Lingwu, had four extremely important water transport regions.

The first was the water route from Lanzhou to Lingzhou.

But after the wars and chaos of the late Tang and Five Dynasties, the only stretch still navigable now was from Lingzhou to Huizhou, that is, from the Lingwu area of Ningxia to Jingyuan in Gansu. The stretch from Huizhou to Lanzhou was already essentially impassable for large boats.

The last time Zhang Zhao raised a great army to attack the Li family of the Dingnan Army, he set out entirely from Liangzhou, traveling by land to Xinquan Army northwest of Huizhou before there was a water route to take.

The second route was even more important: the water route from Shanzhou, where the Longyou Military Governor's office was located, to Lanzhou.

This was the famous Huang River, later also called the Huangshui River. The starting point of this water route was Shancheng, from which one went downstream to Huangshui City and then to Lanzhou.

Shancheng was the later Xining in Qinghai, and Huangshui City was Ledu County in Qinghai. How important a water route connecting two provincial capitals, from Xining in Qinghai to Lanzhou in Gansu, was—there is no need to say more.

The third water route was the Li River, later called the Daxia River, likewise an important tributary of the Yellow River.

This waterway ran from Hezhou (Linxia in Gansu) to Lanzhou, and was of great significance for linking the two prefectures of He and Kuo, as well as for controlling the old Tuyuhun lands west of those two prefectures.

The fourth water route was the Tao River water route, the key waterway from Taozhou through Minzhou to Lanzhou, that is, the later line from Lintan and Minxian in Gansu to Lanzhou.

These four river sections had all been connected during the Great Tang period. Later, during the Northern Song's Hehuang expansion, they were also connected, except that the Lanzhou-to-Lingzhou water route was not open.

One could say that only by connecting these four waterways could one truly control Hexi, Longyou, and Lingwu.

An important reason Zhang Zhao's Liang state regime had always had to keep its center of governance confined to Liangzhou, Lanzhou, Ganzhou, and the other prefectures was that these four water routes had not been connected in time.

For example, before the water route was open, it took seven days to travel from Shanzhou to Lanzhou, and that was without carrying large quantities of supplies; crossing mountains and ridges was extremely arduous.

But once the Huang River waterway was connected, from Shanzhou to Lanzhou one could travel on "great ships" carrying over three hundred tons, and it took only three days to arrive. Whether transporting supplies or moving troops, everything became far more convenient.

Therefore, over the past five years, Zhang Zhao had been constantly pressing for the dredging of the various water routes.

The reason he had come to Lanzhou today was that the Yellow River water route from Lanzhou to Huizhou, and the Huang River water route from Shanzhou to Lanzhou, had both been fully opened.

The Lan-Ling Water Transport Commissioner and Lan-Shan Water Transport Commissioner posts, established several years earlier, had finally become worthy of their names and could operate at full capacity.

From now on, from Lanzhou to Lingzhou, large boats of one to two hundred tons could pass. If Lingzhou raised an alarm, Lanzhou could send tens of thousands of troops to Lingzhou by large boat within fifteen days.

The Tuyuhun and Tibetan warriors of Shanzhou could also reach the front lines at Lingzhou from the Shanzhou highlands within twenty days.

One could say that with this, Zhang Zhao no longer had to worry about the Khitan breaking into Lingzhou through the Helan Mountains gap, and of course he feared even less any rebellion by the local powerful chieftains of Lingzhou.

However, while these two most important routes had been connected, the Tao River and Li River routes had not yet been.

And they could not continue the work, because connecting these two rivers had already nearly exhausted the civilian labor of Hexi.

It was not that grain supplies could not keep up; Zhang Zhao even had the financial means to pay reward silver to the commoners performing corvée labor. Though it was not much, it was already far better than making the people labor for nothing.

This "civilian labor could not bear it" meant that it had already exceeded the physical limits of these commoners.

Every day they ate only coarse grain, and could see meat or fish only once every half month. On such a diet, long-term heavy physical labor could cost lives.

Therefore it was necessary to work for a few months and rest for a few months. Moreover, although the Liang state's population was not small, its territory was too vast and the population too scattered, so even rotating the labor force was impossible.

Thus, after dredging the Huang River and the Lan-Hui waterway, it was no longer possible to organize large-scale construction and dredging again.

Faced with this situation, Zhang Zhao could only make a choice. Of the two waterways, the Tao River and the Li River, he could certainly choose only one.

Because the Khitan's third southward invasion and the war with the Later Jin could be said to be imminent, Zhang Zhao could not spend more civilian labor and financial resources on dredging river channels; he had to prepare for the coming war situation.

In that case, the importance of the Tao River water route rose, because through it one could directly reach south of Didao, thereby saving a great deal of transport capacity.

"First gather the refugees coming from Guanzhong in the Longxi and Xiangwu areas of Weizhou, organize them by battalion and company, and dispatch skilled workers who dredged the Huang River channel to train them.

By the end of this year, we must at least open the Tao River water route from Lanzhou to Didao."

Zhang Zhao gave instructions to Jia Yanchang while beginning to calculate in his mind.

Judging from the current situation of the Liang state, Lanzhou was the junction of these four waterways, and its economic status would soon catch up to, even surpass, Liangzhou.

In order to advance into Guanzhong and the Central Plains, the Liang state's center of governance shifting southward would also become an inevitable trend.

He was already considering moving the seat of the Longyou Circuit office from Shanzhou to Lanzhou, and then making Shanzhou the core city for future pacification of the Qingtang Plateau.

Of course, he could not act now, because aside from the bitter cold on the Qingtang Plateau, its current military strength was still maintained quite well, and the descendants of the various btsanpo still had some rallying power.

He had to wait until Hexi Buddhism began to influence Qingtang before he could act.

And just as Zhang Zhao was beginning his preparations in Lanzhou, Yelu Deguang, who had already spent nearly three months by the Mandarin Duck Lakes on the northern steppe, finally set out southward.

However, he did not go to the Eastern Capital of Liaoyang Prefecture in western Liao, nor to the Central Capital of Dading Prefecture, but instead went to Tanzhou, north of the Southern Capital of Youdu Prefecture—that is, the later Miyun in Beijing.

To speak of this sworn elder brother of our Great King Zhang, militarily among the various Taizong emperors of past dynasties, he was indeed somewhat lacking, but in political skill and acumen, he absolutely counted as a figure of note.

After suffering such a crushing defeat, he first fled to the Mandarin Duck Lakes to ensure his own safety, and only then summoned the various domestic power-holders to the Mandarin Duck Lakes.

And he very quickly launched a grand scheme of blame-shifting, laying all the blame for this crushing defeat on those domestic power-holders other than his own ironclad confidants.

After Yelu Deguang shaped them into the sinners who had brought about the great defeat, he immediately had them beaten with clubs as punishment.

Thus, among the Khitan, the impression quickly took hold that this defeat was not His Majesty's fault, but rather the fault of his ministers who had misled the state.

After the beatings were done, he extracted himself from the image of a defeated man.

Once everyone was left uneasy and uncertain, not knowing what further punishment might come, and even beginning to think of banding together for self-protection, Yelu Deguang's attitude immediately turned amiable again. He was at Yuanyang Lake.

Before the assembled Khitan nobles, their buttocks and backs beaten raw, he announced that he would take responsibility for leadership, and therefore pardoned them all of their offenses and would pursue the matter no further.

Then he immediately ordered men to ransom back from the Later Jin the bodies of the Khitan soldiers and officers who had died, buried them one by one, and held solemn ceremonies.

Finally, in public, he denounced a series of treacherous acts by the Later Jin, and declared that he would surely exact revenge, once again directing the flames of hatred toward the Jin state.

At this point, although the great defeat had originally been caused by Yelu Deguang's own error in ordering the cavalry to dismount, he had instead managed to extract himself from blame, and had even fashioned for himself an image akin to Goujian or King Huai of Chu, stabilizing the situation.

Moreover, Yelu Deguang was very shrewd. The Empress Dowager Shulu Ping, the "Wrist-Severing Empress Dowager," who resided in Liaoyang Prefecture in the Eastern Capital, repeatedly asked Yelu Deguang to come to Liaoyang Prefecture to recuperate, but Yelu Deguang refused every time. Instead, he demanded that Shulu Ping transfer ten thousand tribal troops from Liaoyang Prefecture to Youdu Prefecture.

Heh! Shulu Ping had long stayed in Liaoyang, and the Wrist-Severing Empress Dowager's beloved son Yelu Lihu held twenty thousand troops. If Yelu Deguang really went there, what would happen was truly hard to say.

After Yelu Deguang had thus stabilized the powerful factions at home, he issued edict after edict in the name of the Emperor, putting enormous pressure on Shulu Ping, and especially on Yelu Lihu.

After several rounds of back-and-forth, Shulu Ping could not withstand Yelu Deguang's demands, and transferred ten thousand elite tribal troops to Youdu Prefecture.

At this point, Yelu Deguang's position was thoroughly stabilized. He then summoned the Han officials and generals stationed in Youdu Prefecture—Zhao Yanshou, Zhao Yanzhao, Han Kuangye, Han Kuangtu, Liu Yanzuo, and others—to Tanzhou.

This was Yelu Deguang's habit. He did not readily enter Youdu Prefecture, because he was still somewhat uneasy about the Han people of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun.

Tanzhou was a perfect location, sitting squarely on the main route between Youdu and the grasslands.

If there was trouble on the grasslands, he could quickly enter Youdu to prepare defenses; if there was trouble in Youdu, he could swiftly withdraw back to the grasslands.

And the important reason Yelu Deguang summoned these Han officials and generals to Tanzhou was that he was once again preparing to march south.

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