Chapter 525: Liu Zhiyuan: So I Was a Loyal Subject All Along!

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Hedong, Taiyuan.

Liu Zhiyuan was truly furious. With a loud clang, he hurled the large bowl full of cheese in his hand hard onto the floor.

"Insolent! Since when does a whelp from Hexi get to dictate the affairs of the Central Plains?

I have followed the Martial Emperor in campaigns north and south since my youth. In thirty years, how many merits have I won for the state? How many traitors have I rooted out? Even I would not presume to call myself Son of Heaven — where does he get the face?

And he even issues edicts ordering me to recover the lands of Hebei. Hah! Since the Later dynasty, the Son of Heaven has only ever come from the Hedong and Daibei lands. A Hexi barbarian bandit like him — how could he ever be Son of Heaven?"

Seeing Liu Zhiyuan, usually so calm, dignified, and mindful of his image, lose his composure like this, Su Fengji hurriedly signaled to the nearby palace attendants with his eyes.

Once they had withdrawn, Su Fengji spoke to counsel him: "Great King, do not give way to anger. In my humble view, this Zhang Zhao setting himself up as the Son of Zhou is precisely the path to his own destruction."

Hm? Liu Zhiyuan's mood was utterly bleak, because Zhang Zhao's move had struck him right in his vital spot.

It had turned Liu Zhiyuan, who had not openly and unequivocally resisted the Khitan before, from one of the contenders qualified to vie for the realm into a subordinate.

Now hearing Su Fengji say this, Liu Zhiyuan's interest was immediately piqued. He took a deep breath, steadied his state of mind, then sat back down and called for a servant to come clean up the cheese on the floor.

"Why do you say that, Dalang? What is your reasoning?"

Su Fengji smiled faintly and took out the edict Zhang Zhao had sent to all the prefectures and counties under heaven, the one requesting discussion of "restraining the self and returning to propriety in order to achieve benevolence," and said to Liu Zhiyuan:

"When I say Zhang Zhao is courting death, this is why. In the realm today, those who don heavy armor, ride fierce horses, and do not flinch from bare blades to slay the enemy — those are the pillars of the state.

Yet Zhang Zhao wants to restrain the self and return to propriety, and even sets himself up as the Son of Zhou. What he seeks, under the pretext of restoring the rites of Zhou, is in truth to place a yoke on all the warriors of the realm, to bind them with ritual law and moral order.

May I ask, Great King — barely established and already thinking of taking the knife-handles from the warriors of the realm, something even the Emperor of the Ancestral Temple could not accomplish in his day — and Zhang Zhao is not even of Daibei military merit stock. Acting this way, is that not the path to his own destruction?"

Liu Zhiyuan pondered for a moment, then slowly shook his head. "What you say has reason, Dalang. But precisely because that whelp Zhang Zhao is not of Daibei military merit stock, he has far fewer concerns and fetters when he acts.

And with tens of thousands of Hexi elite cavalry under his command to rely on, even if he wants to strip the warriors of the realm of their power, it may not be impossible."

Su Fengji gave a derisive laugh. "The Great King overestimates the Hexi army. Could they be more loyal than the great Daibei host that followed the Emperor of the Ancestral Temple to defeat the Khitan, destroy the Yan of the usurpers, and enter Bianliang?

Back then, the Emperor of the Ancestral Temple was a god to the soldiers, yet in the end he still died at the Xingjiao Gate. I fear that given time, whether Zhang Zhao will have thirteen loyal guards to protect him atop the Zhuque Gate of the Eastern Capital is far from certain."

That made sense. Liu Zhiyuan could not help nodding.

As the most typical of Five Dynasties warlords, Liu Zhiyuan had a clear-eyed understanding of the conduct and strength of the Five Dynasties warriors, represented by the yabing officers and yabing guards.

Moreover, back in the day, was Liu Zhiyuan not himself one of the yabing officers who rebelled against Li Cunxu for using personal attendants and actors to seize military power from the warriors?

He had personally experienced how the Emperor of the Ancestral Temple, once worshipped by the warriors of the realm as an immortal, had died without a burial place.

"You speak reason, Dalang. That whelp Zhang Zhao has brought the entire Hexi army into the Central Plains. Although they were quite docile while in Hexi,

once those fierce frontier soldiers taste the exalted status of Central Plains warriors, they will never obey as they do now."

With that, Liu Zhiyuan sighed with deep feeling. "In that case, I shall swallow this anger for now, accept the edict, and watch how that whelp Zhang Zhao dies without a burial place in the days to come."

Su Fengji waved his hands repeatedly at this. "Great King, you must absolutely not accept this edict. The moment you accept it, your status as a subject is confirmed.

Today Zhang Zhao can order the Great King to march east and recover the prefectures of Hebei; tomorrow he can order the Great King to transfer to another command.

That way, I fear we will not even last until the Eastern Capital falls into turmoil — we ourselves will be unable to hold on."

Liu Zhiyuan frowned. "If I do not accept the edict, I can only raise troops and declare independence. And if I declare independence now, would that not give the Hexi whelp even more of a pretext?

Then he would use the lure of destroying my Hedong command to unite the hearts of his soldiers, and we would be in grave danger."

Though he kept saying "Hexi whelp," in his heart Liu Zhiyuan was still deeply wary of Zhang Zhao's fifty thousand Hexi troops.

What a joke — an army that could destroy sixty thousand Khitan troops head-on and kill the Khitan ruler at the height of his power — how could that not make a man's heart tremble with fear?

Su Fengji looked at Liu Zhiyuan strangely. "Why does the Great King speak of declaring independence? The Great King does not need to declare independence at all!

When the Khitan ruler entered the Central Plains, in all the realm only the Great King, Hulale, and Jiao Jixun did not go to the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture, to pay homage. So the Great King is still a subject of the Jin!

Although the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture, has fallen, the Son of Heaven of the Great Jin still exists.

The Great King is a loyal subject of the Jin state. Leading troops to recover the Jin state's lands in Hebei — is that not perfectly just and proper?

If Zhang Zhao sends envoys, then let him welcome back the Jin sovereign. If the Jin sovereign is willing to submit, then we submit. If the Jin sovereign cannot be welcomed back, then we are the lone loyalists of the Great Jin!"

Liu Zhiyuan was embarrassed for a few seconds. Poor Shi Chonggui had just reached Huanglong Prefecture, and with Empress Dowager Li and Empress Feng had just begun farming to survive, when everyone started treating him as a dead man.

But after a few seconds of embarrassment, Liu Zhiyuan clapped his hands and laughed. "Dalang, you are truly my Zifang!

Right! I, Liu Zhiyuan, am a loyal subject of the Great Jin — a great, great loyal subject.

This Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture, and the lands of Henan are all Great Jin territory. That whelp Zhang Zhao is merely someone the Great Jin Son of Heaven invited to aid in the war. How dare he seize the magpie's nest and set himself up as Son of Heaven?"

Su Fengji also smiled smugly. This was a clever move he had racked his brains to come up with, to reverse Hedong's lack of moral legitimacy.

The Jin sovereign Shi Chonggui had been carried off captive, but he was not dead. As a loyal subject, the Prince of Beiping Commandery would not attach himself to Zhang Zhao, and swore to welcome back the Great Jin Son of Heaven — this was a loyal subject whose like had rarely been seen since ancient times! The moral high ground — that was firmly in hand.

"Father! Great news! Great news!" At just that moment, Liu Zhiyuan's son Liu Chengxun came running over in wild delight, not even waiting for the palace attendants to announce him.

Liu Chengxun, twenty-three this year, was nothing like the dark-skinned Liu Zhiyuan. He had perfectly inherited the good looks of his mother Li Sanniang — handsome in appearance, gentle in temperament, and greatly favored by Liu Zhiyuan.

Seeing Liu Chengxun run in so ecstatically, Liu Zhiyuan hurried over to him and asked, "My son so joyful — surely good news has come from Mengzhou."

Liu Chengxun nodded vigorously. "Commander Guo sent word, and I happened to meet the messenger outside the government office. The messenger says Commander Guo rode alone into the Liao camp to persuade them to surrender, and the Liao general Gao Song is willing to submit to our Hedong with six thousand iron cavalry."

"Hahahaha!" Liu Zhiyuan laughed to the heavens once more. Gao Song was a famed general of the Liao state, and the several thousand men under his command were also elite Liao iron cavalry. With their allegiance, his own strength would greatly increase.

At this thought, Liu Zhiyuan waved his hand. "Once Gao Song arrives, we can send him to persuade the Khitan garrison commander of Yunzhou to surrender. First let me win the great merit of recovering Yan-Yun, then split off twenty thousand troops to take the prefectures of Hebei and build up our strength."

Su Fengji seized the chance to interject: "I believe that as long as the Great King raises his banner, the Daibei and Hedong military men throughout the realm will surely come flocking to join him."

Hearing Su Fengji say this, Liu Zhiyuan's laughter grew even louder.

Just as Liu Zhiyuan was preparing to follow Zhang Zhao's example and play the loyal subject for once, Zhang Zhao was indeed facing a rather thorny matter.

Namely, now that they had entered the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng, how to reward the soldiers.

Although the Yong state, which had just been renamed the Zhou state, had long had a complete system of military ranks and merit.

But this was the great merit of destroying a state! And behind it was the great merit of urging him to take the throne. How could there not be additional rewards of wealth and goods?

The Yong-Liang army, compared to the Central Plains yabing guards of this time, was indeed considerably better in discipline and still had a measure of ideals, but it was still a feudal army. Men became soldiers and fought at the risk of death precisely for wealth and office.

But the people of the Eastern Capital, and indeed the people of the entire Central Plains, had long since been reduced to paupers by the Khitan. Unless they were driven to death, there was probably not much to squeeze out of them.

And Zhang Zhao couldn't do that anyway. If he really did, how would he be any different from the Khitans? Liu Zhiyuan would probably laugh himself awake in his dreams.

To rally hearts and restore the economy, not only could he not squeeze them — he even had to provide relief to the people of the Eastern Capital.

Zhang Zhao had originally counted on the confiscated Khitan supplies to tide things over, but once an inventory was taken he realized that while the Khitans had left behind a fair amount of grain, fodder, armor, and weapons, there wasn't much in the way of money and valuables.

Some of it the Khitans had hidden away at random and never been found, some had been burned in the fighting, some the Khitans had discarded and couldn't be recovered, and still more had been privately stashed away by the Yongliang officers and men.

The law cannot punish the many. Even in the armies of the early Republic, privately keeping spoils of war was hardly rare — let alone in an army of this era.

Zhang Zhao had no way to punish everyone. He could only make an example of the few whose hauls were truly enormous — kill the chicken to warn the monkeys.

But after all that, relying solely on confiscated Khitan spoils was nowhere near enough to comfort the people of the Eastern Capital, let alone the common folk of the Henan prefectures — it wasn't even enough to pay rewards to his own troops.

Just as Zhang Zhao was racking his brains, the long, drawn-out tolling of the bell at Grand Minister Temple suddenly drifted in from outside.

The great monks had lately been both delighted and somewhat anxious.

They were delighted that those heaven-cursed Khitans had finally been driven off, and anxious because the one who had driven them off was Zhang Zhao.

And Zhang Zhao bore Buddhist titles such as Wheel-Turning Dharma King and Supreme Heaven Great Compassion Dharma King, and behind him stood the Hexi Buddhist establishment, whose doctrines differed greatly from their own.

Now that the realm belonged to the Zhou, who knew whether this Zhang, the Son of Heaven of Zhou with the hilt of the sword in his hand, would still honor their earlier tacit understanding? Would he want to spread Hexi Buddhism throughout the Central Plains?

As for the matter of their having accepted the Khitans' extortion and exchanged fifty thousand strings of the Khitans' Great Liao silver notes, the masters had never given it a second thought.

But Zhang Zhao, already lodged in the Daning Palace, had now risen onto his tiptoes. He gazed at the faint, indistinct outline of Grand Minister Temple in the distance, as if looking at a gigantic gold ingot gleaming with light.

These monks were rich — and not just ordinarily rich!

Although Zhang Zhao could not extort the monasteries the way Yelu Deguang had, Zhang Zhao had a clever scheme of his own.

So you dared to accept the Khitans' silver notes, did you? You probably don't know what a bank run is — or what it means to disrupt the financial markets!

"Cheng'er, go to Feng Yu's residence and deliver an edict. Have him track down every single craftsman who originally drew and engraved the Liao silver notes — not one is to be missed." Zhang Zhao at once gave his orders to Zhang Liecheng.

The Great Son of Heaven Zhang could hardly keep from laughing aloud. So you dared to take the Khitans' silver notes, did you? I'll counterfeit a million strings' worth and see whether you can swallow them all!

If you can swallow them, I'll print another million strings. If you can't, then your credit is bankrupt — and you can wait to be squeezed dry!

At that moment, the Virtuous Consort Wang, Hua Jianxiu, who was busy helping Zhang Zhao settle the rear palace, passed by him. After exchanging greetings, she looked at him with some puzzlement at the greedy, sly gleam in his eyes.

"What is Your Majesty looking at? That seems to be Grand Minister Temple over there."

"Haha!" Zhang Zhao was in excellent spirits. He turned and swept Hua Jianxiu into his arms. To show that he shared the soldiers' hardships, he had been eating vegetarian for months — today he would finally play a round of cards with his beauty.

Hua Jianxiu felt as though she were riding the clouds and mist, and the next second she had been roughly hoisted onto Zhang Zhao's shoulder.

Though she had long been prepared for this, in broad daylight she still found it somewhat hard to accept.

Hua Jianxiu twisted her soft, supple body on Zhang Zhao's shoulder, whimpering in a low moan that sounded almost like weeping.

"Your Majesty, you must not fornicate in broad daylight! Your Majesty, you must not fornicate in broad daylight!"

Zhang Zhao brought his hand down hard on her plump, pert rear. The feel was indeed superb — his fingers nearly sank right in.

"Shut the door and draw the curtains, and it's night, isn't it!"

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