Chapter 496: The Treatment a Traitor Deserves

Zhao Yanshou was on the move. He sought out the Commissioner of Military Affairs Li Song and asked him to speak to Yelu Deguang on his behalf, requesting that he be made crown prince.

Er! The reason such an absurd idea even occurred to him was that Zhao Yanshou had already lost so thoroughly he had gone numb.

Back before Zhao Dejun and his son Zhao Yanshou submitted to the Khitan, they had already been great warlords entrenched in Youzhou, surrounded by thousands of yabing guards and yabing officers of the Lulong Army, and their strength was not weak.

After that, in the contest with Shi Jingtang over who was more shameless, Zhao Dejun fell one move short and went down in defeat.

This was not because Zhao Dejun was not shameless enough, but because reality had tied his hands.

For by seniority, Shi Jingtang was indeed of the nephew generation to Yelu Deguang, while Zhao Dejun was of the same generation as Yelu Deguang.

Shi Jingtang could shamelessly call Yelu Deguang, who was over ten years his junior, "Imperial Father," but Zhao Dejun truly could not bring himself to say it, and so in the end he died in dejection on the grasslands beyond the frontier.

After Zhao Dejun died, however, the Lulong Army still had several thousand men, and to seek a way to survive under the Khitan, they chose to continue following Zhao Yanshou.

Yelu Deguang also needed someone like Zhao Yanshou to help him stabilize the situation in Youzhou. On top of that, Zhao Yanshou was handsome and very good at ingratiating himself, so Yelu Deguang enfeoffed Zhao Yanshou as Prince of Yan and grew increasingly close to him.

Once Shi Chonggui turned against the Khitan, hope rose in Zhao Yanshou's heart. He wished that, like Shi Jingtang, he could be enthroned by Yelu Deguang as Son of Heaven over the Central Plains, and the officers and men of the Lulong Army who followed him had made that their goal as well.

Therefore, in the Khitan's three southward campaigns, especially the first two, Zhao Yanshou's Lulong Army charged at the very front every time and suffered heavier losses than even the ordinary Khitan troops.

Yelu Deguang had also promised that once they entered the Central Plains, he would make Zhao Yanshou Son of Heaven, but now that they were here, Yelu Deguang had taken the title of Son of Heaven for himself.

Zhao Yanshou had lost men and officers and gained nothing, and his subordinates had long since become impossible to hold down.

Behind the several thousand soldiers of the Lulong Army stood several thousand households. Every family wore mourning, every home raised lament, and having gained nothing, their resentment was enormous.

If Zhao Yanshou could not obtain the position of Son of Heaven over the Central Plains, he would not have enough benefits with which to placate them.

In that case, without anyone else's help, these yabing guards and yabing officers alone would be enough to dispose of Zhao Yanshou.

One must understand that the Lulong Army was also a Five Dynasties yabing force. Killing Military Governors was a tradition with them, so Zhao Yanshou could only carry his shamelessness to the very end.

It was not that he truly wanted to become Yelu Deguang's crown prince, for that was impossible.

This was a statement of allegiance. By volunteering to become Yelu Deguang's son, he hoped Yelu Deguang would entrust all the military and state affairs of the southern court to him, which would amount to being Son of Heaven over the Central Plains in all but name.

And there was good reason for Zhao Yanshou to approach Li Song.

At the time, tens of thousands of Later Jin surrendered troops had followed the Khitan south, but the Khitan themselves did not have much grain, so naturally they had little to feed the Later Jin surrendered troops. Most of the surrendered soldiers followed the southward march in a state of near-starvation.

When they crossed the Yellow River, Yelu Deguang saw the Later Jin soldiers and officers numbering in the tens of thousands, stretching on for miles without end, and heard the complaints rising along the road.

Fearing that these troops would mutiny, he actually considered drowning all these Later Jin soldiers and officers in the Yellow River.

In the end, it was only after Zhao Yanshou pleaded bitterly that Yelu Deguang refrained from repeating the old affair of Changping.

Although Zhao Yanshou's original intent was to treat these Later Jin surrendered troops as his own soldiers, to bestow favor on them and win their support.

Objectively, however, Zhao Yanshou had still preserved the lives of these tens of thousands of men.

Li Song at the time was Commissioner of Military Affairs, and moreover had sons and nephews in the army, so Li Song owed Zhao Yanshou an enormous debt of gratitude and could only steel himself and go help plead his case before Yelu Deguang.

Zhao Kuangzan watched his father Zhao Yanshou's masterstroke with cold eyes and could not help speaking up.

"Father saved the lives of tens of thousands of Han soldiers and holds great merit and favor, but precisely because of that, the Emperor will only grow more guarded against you.

Now Father has sent the Commissioner of Military Affairs to plead on his behalf. Is that not pouring oil on the fire and making the Emperor even more wary?"

How could Zhao Yanshou believe it? Wuwuwu! How could my Khitan lord be on guard against me, a hardened turncoat and die-hard guide who has resolved to be a traitor to the Han?

Impossible! Absolutely impossible!

So Zhao Yanshou glared at Zhao Kuangzan, feeling that this son was becoming more and more displeasing to him, and snapped coldly.

"What does a brat like you know? His Majesty is an enlightened sovereign of boundless magnanimity. How could he be suspicious of me?"

But as it turned out, what Zhao Kuangzan said was more to the point. When Yelu Deguang heard Li Song's words, a beaming smile immediately appeared on his face, and just watching it made cold sweat pour down Li Song's back.

Seeing that Li Song understood the gravity of it, Yelu Deguang then spoke with a smile: "For the Prince of Yan, I would not begrudge even cutting off my own flesh, but the crown prince must be a son of the Son of Heaven. How could the Prince of Yan become that?"

Heh! When an emperor who prides himself on his wisdom and brilliance says "I would not begrudge even cutting off my own flesh," it is truly no longer a sign of favor.

At the very least, Li Song heard the thick stench of blood in Yelu Deguang's words.

The old fox feared being dragged down himself, and also felt that going back to Zhao Yanshou with this would be hard to explain. In his desperation, he thought of a good way to escape danger, and with a solemn expression he said to Yelu Deguang.

"What the Prince of Yan seeks is not the desire of one man alone. Moreover, in the realm today, Hedong has yet to come to court, and no word has yet arrived from the various military governors of Guanzhong. I pray the Emperor will consider this carefully."

The moment Yelu Deguang heard this, he immediately put away his beaming expression, because these words of Li Song were not what a lobbyist for Zhao Yanshou would say, but what a Commissioner of Military Affairs ought to say.

Liu Zhiyuan of Hedong had always kept his attitude ambiguous. He had said he would send envoys to pay court, but no Hedong envoy had ever been seen.

As for the silence from the various military governors of Guanzhong, that was even more frightening, because behind their collective lack of any word lay the possibility that Yelu Deguang's sworn younger brother, that Great Liang Heavenly King in Hexi, was very likely making a move.

Yelu Deguang lowered his head and thought for a moment. The military governors of the former Jin realm had all been effectively placed under house arrest by him, and had long harbored grievances.

The tens of thousands of Han troops around Kaifeng lived in hardship and nursed resentment, and had long since come to regard Zhao Yanshou, who had saved their lives, as their hope.

If at this moment Yelu Deguang made no gesture toward Zhao Yanshou and cut off their hopes, then unless he immediately killed these tens of thousands of Han troops, he would have to guard against mutiny.

Politically, Guang was quite competent, so he immediately summoned the Chief Minister Zhang Li.

Zhang Li had originally been the Secretary of Zhao Yanshou's father Zhao Dejun, and had submitted to the Khitan together with Zhao Yanshou. Before Yelu Deguang marched south, he had already risen to Hanlin Academician Recipient of Edicts and Minister of Personnel in the Liao state.

Yelu Deguang had Zhang Li draft an edict to enfeoff Zhao Yanshou. The crown prince could not be given, but he could continue to add offices to placate him. Zhang Li, however, said to Yelu Deguang.

"Now that the Great Liao has just gained the Central States, it should govern them with men of the Central States. It must not rely solely on men of the Khitan state and those close attendants around the throne. If government orders go astray, the hearts of the people will not submit, and though we have gained it, we will also lose it."

Yelu Deguang listened in silence. It was not that he did not know he should not be detaining the Military Governors of the various garrisons, and he knew even better that he should not let Xiao Han and other Khitan be out everywhere seizing grain and forage.

But the truth was that the army had no provisions. If he did not feed the various Khitan tribal officers and men until they were full, he could not command their obedience, so he had no choice but to indulge them, and the time to stop the seizing of grain and forage had not yet come.

So after a while, Yelu Deguang said to Zhang Li: "Go and draft the edict. I have my own calculations in this matter."

Zhang Li gave a long sigh and could only withdraw to draft the edict.

Before long, Zhang Li's draft edict was delivered before Yelu Deguang, proposing to promote Zhao Yanshou to Keeper of the Central Capital, Grand Chancellor, Overseer of the Secretariat, and Commander-in-Chief of All Armies at Home and Abroad.

Good heavens. Just looking at it made Yelu Deguang's eyelids twitch violently. Had Yelu Deguang not known Zhang Li's character, he would have suspected him of colluding with Zhao Yanshou.

After thinking it over again and again and agonizing for a long while, Yelu Deguang picked up his brush and struck out the words "Commander-in-Chief of All Armies at Home and Abroad."

For Guang, this was already an enormous concession. In history, he had struck out "Overseer of the Secretariat" as well.

The next day, when Zhao Yanshou received Yelu Deguang's enfeoffment, he was instantly wild with joy.

Although the item "Commander-in-Chief of All Armies at Home and Abroad" was missing, with this enfeoffment he, Zhao Yanshou, was now the foremost Han in the Liao state.

Tokyo was scorching hot, and summer was approaching. The Emperor would sooner or later return north to escape the heat — and then wouldn't he be the real controller of the Southern Dynasty? When that time came, heh heh...

The smug Zhao Yanshou was showing off everywhere, while Zhao Kuangzan frowned and said to Zhao Xian beside him.

"The Khitan lord has richly rewarded you, Father — I fear he has grown suspicious of Second Brother. We must send word at once and have Second Brother march his army east. We cannot wait for the Khitans to finish their dispositions."

This "Second Brother" was not the later meaning of "second brother." At this time, ge could mean elder brother or father; taken together, it was a respectful term for an older close male relative.

Mm. Though not yet married, Zhao Kuangzan was already beginning to regard himself as a son-in-law.

On the tenth day of the fourth month, Du Chongwei and Li Shouzhen — who had been cursed as worthless wretches by the people of Tokyo, and who had sold out the country yet gained not a single benefit — went to find Yelu Deguang and pleaded bitterly before Brother Guang.

"We surrendered a hundred thousand Han troops to the Emperor. We have rendered great service, yet now we cannot even be excused from the court-congratulation money. Our hearts truly cannot accept this."

So Yelu Deguang laughed loudly and said to these two shameless wretches, "You two have rendered great service. I shall remit these twenty million in court-congratulation money, to reward your merit."

This was the treatment deserved by a running dog and traitor after being squeezed dry of all usefulness and turned into a disposable consumable.

The reward these two received for surrendering a battle-hardened army — the very army that had beaten Yelu Deguang into fleeing as the Donkey-Cart War God — was to be excused from one million cash each, that is, ten thousand strings of extortion.

On the fifteenth of the fourth month, after Xiao Han and the others had foraged for grain, they returned to Tokyo with several hundred carts laden with gold, silver, silk, and women. The area around Tokyo was nearly ruined.

Afterward, Xiao Han heard that the newly built Zide Palace of Shi Chonggui held fifty palace women of beauty and skill in song and dance, so he immediately led troops to seize them.

The eunuch Zhang Huan who guarded Zide Palace refused to hand them over. Xiao Han personally branded Zhang Huan's belly with a hot iron, and Zhang Huan's intestines burst through his ruined belly and he died. The Zide Palace that Shi Chonggui had built through extortionate levies — from its palace women to its treasures — all fell to the Khitans.

Xiao Han even set a fire in Zide Palace. The flames spread to nearby commoners' homes, burning more than two hundred houses, and over a hundred people perished in the sea of fire.

At the end of the fourth month, Yelu Deguang appointed the traitors Geng Chongmei, Gao Tangying, and Cui Tingxun — who had followed the Liao state south — as commissioners, and again led Khitans to the various prefectures to forage for grain, intending to scrape together the three months' provisions the great army required.

Because word that Zhang Zhao had entered Guanzhong had finally begun to arrive in a steady stream.

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