Chapter 495: Chang'an and Kaifeng

In Chang'an, after settling on the strategy of first Liao, then Shu, Zhang Zhao sent proclamations from Chang'an to all the states under heaven, likening Yelu Deguang's entry into the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture, to the Tibetans' breach of Chang'an in years past.

He called upon Meng Shu, Nanping, Ma Chu, Qian Yue, and the other states to jointly raise troops and drive out the Khitan.

He even sent men bearing letters of proclamation to that self-amusing Southern Han.

Among all the states under heaven, however, Zhang Zhao omitted only Wu Tang, for it was the one state left in the world that still possessed a measure of strength sufficient to contend with a Central Plains dynasty.

In history, in fact, certain literati had even confirmed Wu Tang as the legitimate successor to the Later Tang.

Now Li Jing sat as ruler of Wu Tang, having destroyed Min, pressed Qian Yue, and even preparing to destroy Ma Chu, his star unrivaled for a time. Zhang Zhao, having received He Ning's reminder, would not send a proclamation to Li Jing.

In truth, this proclamation was aimed solely at Shu. As for Nanping, the purpose of the proclamation was that Nanping and Shu were on relatively close terms; it was to lull Meng Chang that Zhang Zhao deliberately sent the proclamation to Gao Conghui.

Of the remaining three states, Ma Chu's brothers were embroiled in civil strife and could not look after themselves, and Qian Yue, separated from the Central Plains by Wu Tang, had no real capacity to send troops.

As for Southern Han, that degenerate Liu Cheng was about to slaughter all his brothers, then take all his nieces into the rear palace, while at the same time conducting human dissections and sending his navy to plunder maritime merchants — he had no time at all to pay Zhang Zhao any mind.

While sending out the proclamations, Zhang Zhao formally established the Yong state's system of government, changed Chang'an's name back from Jingzhao Prefecture, set up the hundred offices, fixed the rites and ceremonies, and promulgated the Great Yong Penal Code and Statutes as the basis for law enforcement.

Afterward, Zhang Zhao changed Weizhou in Guanzhong to Pingzhou, Yuanzhou to Yuanzhou, and Fengxiang Prefecture to Qizhou, thereby distinguishing them from the original Weizhou and Yuanzhou of the former Liang state.

He also summoned the Li Congyan family of Fengxiang Prefecture, along with the officials and representatives of the great local clans of the sixteen prefectures of Ping, Zhen, Jing, Yuan, Bin, Ning, Wu, Yan, Qi, Feng, Qin, Cheng, Tong, Yao, Hua, and Long, to Chang'an.

Once the officials of the sixteen Guanzhong prefectures had arrived, Zhang Zhao reassigned their posts based on their performance after the previous year's disaster refugees had passed through.

Those who had taken Zhang Zhao's money and grain and done nothing at all were all thrown into prison and their households confiscated; those who had barely done a little were examined and then employed; those who had done well were granted offices on the spot, along with their subordinate clerks.

After settling the officials of the various prefectures, Zhang Zhao proclaimed a general amnesty for Guanzhong.

At this time, because of the effects of flood and drought, bandits had risen everywhere in Guanzhong, but most of them were common people who could not survive, and there were even great clans who had fled into the mountains with their entire households to escape the disaster and become unregistered households.

Zhang Zhao issued a general amnesty, pardoning all the bandits and fugitive households of Guanzhong as well as the taxes they owed.

Except for hardened villains of many years with crimes piled high, all were pardoned, and fugitive households were encouraged to come down from the mountains and resume farming.

At this moment, the agricultural prospects in Guanzhong were rather grim. After the previous year's natural and man-made calamities, the completion rate for this year's spring planting was less than seventy percent.

That is to say, of the more than 1.3 million people in all of Guanzhong, at least four hundred thousand faced a grain shortfall.

For this, Zhang Zhao had no good solution either. He could only order, on the one hand, the continued migration of the people of Guanzhong to Ling, Xia, Su, and the other prefectures.

On the other hand, he ordered that traveling merchants coming from the west must each carry into Guanzhong a weight of grain equal to their own body weight, in order to offset part of their commercial taxes.

Finally, he declared a great rest for Guanzhong: from this year onward, all corvée labor in Guanzhong was exempted.

The labor needed for water conservancy works and reinforcing mountains and rivers would all be hired with grain paid out personally by Zhang Zhao, and the hiring targets were farmers whose spring planting had not been completed and who were unable to carry out agricultural production.

Although it was still much the same as performing corvée labor, with Zhang Zhao providing the grain, first, it relieved the financial pressure on the various levels of government.

Second, the grain was to be given somewhat more generously, so that after a family's main laborer had performed the corvée service, he could still bring back a little something to support his wife, children, and aged parents.

And this sum of money was likewise no small amount. Although Zhang Zhao could use silver notes to cover a portion of it,

the source of the grain itself remained a great problem. Hexi and Longyou could not provide so much grain. Thus, Zhang Zhao could only go and fleece Meng Chang a little.

The Heavenly King Zhang specifically sought out that Wang Jiulang who had clung to Xieli Pijia's robes at Gaochang and refused to let go.

This lad, after being thrown into the Western Regions and sent as an envoy to the Kirghiz and the Oghuz and other places, had already been tempered.

His mission as envoy to Meng Shu was very simple: to tell Meng Chang that from this time onward, if Shu wanted to purchase Hexi's white sugar, rock sugar, spices, and other Western Regions goods, it could only use silver notes, and could no longer trade using Shu-minted coin.

Moreover, direct exchange of silver notes for Shu copper and iron coin would not be accepted. Shu merchants had to use brocade, silk, raw silk, and gauze, half and half with grain, to exchange for silver notes, and then use the silver notes to purchase Hexi goods.

This was extortion in a more concealed form. Although silver notes already accounted for nearly half of the current trade between the two states, and Shu was already being bled, completely banning Shu coinage was still a very large leap.

So Zhang Zhao had sought out Wang Jiulang. Compared to old-school envoys like Wu Da'er and Wu Yuan'er, a talent like Wang Jiulang, who had grown up under Zhang Zhao's intervention, could better understand Zhang Zhao's intent.

"The crux of this matter is that you must make Meng Chang believe that Guanzhong is desperately short of grain, and that is why I have resorted to this poor expedient. Otherwise, the whole of Shu will not accept such a sudden change."

Wang Jiulang looked at Zhang Zhao and said with great confidence: "Your servant understands. The crux of this matter is to arouse Meng Chang's greed.

Make him regard our obtaining grain from Shu as a helpless move born of our desperate shortage of military provisions.

Make him feel that, since before long he will obtain at least half of Guanzhong anyway, he will thus be assured in providing grain, in hopes that we will leave the passes soon and fight the Khitan to the death. However..."

Wang Jiulang hesitated a moment. "Great King, if grain from Shu is to be transported to Guanzhong, given the current roads, the efficiency of transshipment is too low. I suspect Shu may propose widening the plank roads or dredging the Xie Valley waterway to transport grain."

Zhang Zhao gave a cold laugh. Wang Jiulang's concern was well founded.

This was in fact also a major reason Zhang Zhao was certain Meng Chang would agree to transport grain: Shu could take the opportunity to clear the roads into Guanzhong, making it convenient for them to move troops into Guanzhong later.

"That brat Meng Chang, raised deep within the palace, knows nothing of the dangers of the world.

Shu has no good horses, and its cavalry is inferior even to Wu Tang's. Meng Shu's finest troops mostly come from the prefectures of Kui (Fengjie), Wan, Qian (Qianjiang), He (Hechuan), Lu, Rong (Yibin), and Ba (Bazhong). They are the best mountain troops, but unfortunately they are not practiced in cavalry warfare.

If Meng Chang dares to come, let him be drawn into the Guanzhong plain and let him taste the might of the Western Liang iron cavalry.

Do it this way. Go up and draft a memorandum, estimating in advance all the various possible situations.

I will also have Han Qiniangzi, the Assistant Commissioner of the Imperial Medical Office, cooperate with you. Still go through Han Baosheng's route — after you have figured out Meng Chang's temperament, apply the remedy to the illness."

At this point, Zhang Zhao glanced at the Imperial Medical Office's accompanying army physicians outside the door, who were brewing heat-relieving medicinal decoctions for the army's expedition. How was it that Zhao Jinfang had not died amid the chaos of battle back then?

If Zhao Jinfang were gone, he could take Han Qiniangzi as his own, and then he would truly be able to drive Han Baosheng, Meng Chang's favored minister, to work for him.

In the Imperial Medical Office, a certain Director of the Imperial Medical Office surnamed Zhao, who was painstakingly researching how to better treat spear and staff wounds, suddenly shivered involuntarily.

Just as Zhang Zhao was beginning to set Guanzhong in order, styling himself King of Yong, and preparing to march troops into the Central Plains to settle matters with the Khitan once and for all,

the Khitan ruler, my Heavenly King Zhang's sworn elder brother Yelu Deguang, also formally established his state in the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture.

Of course, since Yelu Deguang had earlier, in order to get Zhao Yanshou and Du Chongwei to exert themselves, strung these two along, promising both of them that they would become Son of Heaven of the Central Plains, Yelu Deguang could not very well say directly that he would take the throne himself. So he played a little trick.

On the first day of the fourth month, Yelu Deguang, using the regalia of a Central Plains emperor, received the court's congratulations from the assembled officials in the Chongyuan Hall of the Daning Palace.

Among the Military Governors of the realm, apart from Liu Zhiyuan, Military Governor of Hedong; Hu Cile, Military Governor of the Wuning Army of Xuzhou; and Jiao Jixun, Defense Commissioner of Xiangyang, even An Shenqi, Gao Xingzhou, Fu Yanqing, and others all came in person to the Eastern Capital to pay homage.

When the three prostrations were complete, Yelu Deguang suddenly proposed that the Central Plains was without a ruler, and that an emperor should be enthroned to settle the realm, and bade the assembled officials offer their support.

Note, my Brother Guang played a trick here: what he said was to enthrone an emperor, not to enthrone a Son of Heaven.

Although these two terms are close in meaning, at this time, there was a distinction between them.

The greatest distinction was that he, Yelu Deguang, did style himself emperor, but Shi Jingtang, in his diplomatic dealings with the Khitan, had never once called himself emperor, but had always called himself Son of Heaven of the Central Plains.

Thus, with Yelu Deguang standing upon the throne in Chongyuan Hall and bidding the assembled officials to offer their support for an emperor, who would still dare to offer support for Zhao Yanshou and Du Chongwei?

Do you have a death wish? Even Zhao Yanshou himself instantly turned pale.

Sure enough, the assembled officials unanimously offered their support, urging Yelu Deguang to ascend the imperial throne.

Yelu Deguang was overjoyed and readily accepted the unanimous support of both Hu and Han officials.

The Imperial Observatory determined that four days later would be an auspicious day, so Brother Guang ordered all officials to prepare the enthronement rites.

On the fifth day of the fourth month, Yelu Deguang donned the Heaven-Piercing Crown and crimson gauze robe, ascended the main hall of the Eastern Capital's imperial palace, and received the homage of the hundred Hu and Han officials.

He proclaimed a general amnesty for the civil and military officials of Jin who had resisted the Khitan during the great Liao-Jin war, and issued an edict changing the Khitan state name to the Great Liao, and changing the eighth year of Huitong to the first year of Datong.

He also enfeoffed his ministers generously, making Zhang Li Chief Minister, Li Song Commissioner of Military Affairs, Feng Dao Grand Tutor, Liu Xu Hanlin Academician, and Feng Yu Grand Guardian of the Heir Apparent.

He also moved the Central Capital of Linhuang Prefecture to Zhenzhou, and began to style himself as the Emperor of the Central Plains.

However, Yelu Deguang's position as Emperor of the Central Plains was not an easy one.

Because before he entered the Central Plains, Henan and Hebei in the state of Jin had already suffered two years of flood, drought, and locust disasters, plus man-made calamities, and the grain stored in the Eastern Capital of Kaifeng Prefecture was actually less than ten thousand shi.

This was a problem. Not counting the surrendered Jin troops, the Khitan themselves had more than seventy thousand soldiers.

Moreover, according to Khitan custom, they never brought military provisions on campaign, nor did they have any military pay.

Yelu Deguang had originally wanted to put on the act of a benevolent ruler, but with no military provisions, and since he had promised the various Khitan tribes when urging them south that they would be rewarded with the wealth of the Central Plains, if he did not deliver, he feared he would not be able to keep them in check.

So our Brother Guang dropped the act and laid his cards on the table: we Khitan lords have come precisely to plunder you southern barbarians.

He ordered that the Military Governors of the Later Jin's various provinces be detained and not allowed to return to their territories, and dispatched Khitan generals and tribal chieftains with troops to each prefecture.

This was dacaogu — indiscriminate, direct plunder. Compared to Shi Chonggui sending men to each prefecture to press for taxes and grain, it was more than ten times as brutal.

The prefectures of Henan and Hebei instantly fell into the great terror brought by the Khitan. Whether officials, gentry, great clans, or common folk, all were plundered and slaughtered by the Khitan without distinction.

Even the Military Governors of the various provinces who had come to the Eastern Capital of Kaifeng Prefecture to pay court could not escape. Even "great meritorious officials" like Du Chongwei and Li Shouzhen were ordered to pay ten thousand strings of cash as congratulatory money.

In that moment, the people of the Central Plains, from the highest — Chief Ministers like Feng Dao and the military governors of the provinces — down to the lowest commoners, truly came to understand what it meant that those not of our kind must have different hearts!

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