Chapter 534: Preparing to Make a Move

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In this city of the Eastern Capital, if one asks whose days are hardest, it is surely the common folk at the very bottom.

But if one asks who is suffering the most, it is without doubt the former Military Governors of the Later Jin.

First they were forced to surrender to Yelu Deguang, and then they were herded along by the Khitans to the Eastern Capital.

Not only did they lose their military authority, but Yelu Deguang also treated them like fat sheep, summoning their entire families and placing them under house arrest.

It was only after Zhang Zhao swore his oath and entered Guanzhong that they gradually recovered some of their military authority.

But immediately afterward, they suffered a great defeat outside Yanshi. Had they not switched sides at the final moment, most of them would likely have died beyond any hope of dying again.

Although the Son of Heaven Zhang did not place them under house arrest and treat them like fat sheep the way Yelu Deguang had, he still did not permit them to leave the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture — which was little different from house arrest.

More importantly, this Son of Heaven Zhang had in his hands a complete, systematic body of officers and soldiers. Whether or not he used them, he could at the very least sustain a Zhou state occupying the line of the Yellow River.

Therefore, for them, the future was unknown. Even if they wished to curry favor with Zhang Zhao, they did not know where to begin, and for a time every man felt himself in danger.

Among these men, however, there were two who were not particularly alarmed.

One was the renowned veteran Daibei military official, An Shenqi — a man who could fight wars and govern the state, and who had wide-ranging connections.

Nine years earlier, when Zhang Zhao entered Guanzhong to put down the rebellion of the yabing officer He Chuan of the Zhangyi Army, An Shenqi had done Zhang Zhao a good turn.

Not only did he help the Son of Heaven Zhang extort several hundred thousand strings of cash from Li Congyan, but when Zhang Zhao departed he also sent grain and sent mules and horses. The land deeds Zhang Zhao privately issued in Jingzhou were also properly arranged with his help.

As for having surrendered to Yelu Deguang, such a matter could not affect An Shenqi in the slightest.

Not to mention that he had switched sides in the end. Even the surrender itself had not been his idea, and Zhang Zhao would not use such a matter to make trouble for An Shenqi.

Most crucially, among the Later Jin generals, only An Shenqi and the late Kang Fu had any real friendship with Zhang Zhao.

Thus An Shenqi had now almost become a weathervane. So long as Zhang Zhao did not intend to slaughter all the old Military Governors of the Jin state, he would not come after An Shenqi.

The second man who was unhurried and unflustered was Fu Yanqing — that historically renowned imperial father-in-law, a man most skilled at reading the times and the hearts of men.

He knew that a sovereign of Zhang Zhao's caliber killed men and used men always with a purpose, and would never act on personal whim.

Moreover, he, Fu Yanqing, together with Gao Xingzhou and Huangfu Yu, had been the three pillars of the Jin state's Hebei.

Now Huangfu Yu had given his life in loyalty to the Jin state, leaving only him and Gao Xingzhou in Hebei. So long as Zhang Zhao still wished to pacify the lands of Hebei, using them was inevitable.

Furthermore, Fu Yanqing had used his younger brothers Fu Yanlin and Fu Yanlun to prepare a great gift for Zhang Zhao.

That was this: although the lands of Hebei had now, in name, mostly gone over to Liu Zhiyuan, Beizhou was still in the hands of the Fu family, and Weizhou still held a great number of the Fu family's old associates.

The moment Zhang Zhao stabilized Henan and advanced his army into Hebei would be the moment he, Fu Yanqing, was once again put to important use.

And so Fu Yanqing treated his time in the Eastern Capital as a vacation, daily eating meat and drinking wine with the sons, nephews, and yabing officers around him, practicing martial arts, and enjoying himself immensely.

Oh, right! There was one more matter. Fu Yanqing, citing his contempt for Li Shouzhen's character, had called off the wedding between his fifteen-year-old eldest daughter and Li Shouzhen's eldest son, Li Chongxun.

Heh! But before this, Li Shouzhen had also brought ruin to the country and the people together with Du Chongwei. Even when they surrendered to the Khitans by the Hutuo River, Fu Yanqing had never demanded the wedding be canceled.

Yet the moment Zhang Zhao arrived, the wedding was canceled. Whether there was any thought behind it — that, no one could know.

As for the others, Gao Xingzhou was quite nervous. Although his eldest son, Gao Huaide, had shot Yelu Deguang in the rear at Xiaoyi Bridge, and in one leap had become the only one among the Later Jin generals to be given important duties by Zhang Zhao, promoted into the Hanshan Capital as a gilded existence.

Yet he had, unfortunately, married his daughter off to Du Chongwei's second son, Du Hongzhang.

And Du Chongwei had not only betrayed the country and earned the contempt of all under heaven, he had still not submitted.

It turned out that on that day, Du Chongwei had received Yelu Deguang's order and gleefully extorted fifty thousand shi of grain and fodder to send to the Eastern Capital, preparing to wait for Yelu Deguang to set him up as Son of Heaven.

But before the convoy had even reached the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture, Li Cunhui's vanguard had already reached Zhongmu, less than eighty li from Kaifeng.

Du Chongwei was scared out of his wits. After joining up with the barbarian general Yang Yan, who had fled Kaifeng Prefecture with more than a thousand men, he fled back to the territory of the Guide Army Military Governor at Songzhou.

After this Son of Heaven Zhang entered the Eastern Capital, no one knew what he was thinking, for he had neither raised troops to attack nor issued an edict summoning Du Chongwei to Kaifeng Prefecture.

And so Du Chongwei, convinced that Zhang Zhao could never spare him, had recently been secretly colluding with Hu Chile, and also harbored intentions of going over to the Southern Tang.

This delighted the Southern Tang ruler Li Jing beyond measure — he even favored two extra palace maids.

But in doing so, Du Chongwei had utterly ruined Gao Xingzhou, his in-law by marriage.

In his anxiety, Gao Xingzhou had even submitted a memorial once, urging Zhang Zhao to campaign against the Guide Army at Songzhou at the earliest opportunity, and not let the Southern Tang gain this territory, lest the situation collapse.

Zhang Zhao, for his part, read it and did not reply. Gao Xingzhou did not know what Zhang Zhao meant, and from then on developed a sickness of the heart, living at home in fear and unease.

As for Yao Yuanfu, he was even more of a luckless wretch.

He had originally gone over to Zhang Zhao in secret, but later, seeing how Hu Chile had gained so many benefits by leaping back and forth, he began to imitate that example.

But his misfortune lay in this: he had only just begun refusing to let the Brocade Guard envoys through his door, and had not yet reaped any benefits, when he was forced to submit to the Khitans.

With that, he was unwilling to fawn upon the Khitans, while his connection to Zhang Zhao's side had been severed.

By the time Zhang Zhao entered the Eastern Capital, his gloom could not have been greater.

Zhang Zhao held a letter in his hand. It was from Cao Shijiu Niang Yanxi. They were almost at Luoyang and expected to reach the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture, by the Lantern Festival without much difficulty.

Zhang Zhao immediately felt his pressure greatly lightened. As soon as Cao Yanxi and the others reached Kaifeng Prefecture, matters such as founding the state and ascending the throne could be put on the agenda.

Moreover, the work of continuing to bestow great favor and build up his image could be handed to Cao Yanxi and his two mothers. They were women, and coming out to handle such matters was, in fact, all the more appropriate.

After he finished reading the letter, He Ning came rushing in to report that Feng Dao had expressed a wish to enter the palace for an audience.

Zhang Zhao smiled coldly. What an old fox! The moment he had stabilized the situation, the man immediately began taking his work seriously, not slacking in the least.

Still, meeting him was fine. Zhang Zhao was bound not to make heavy use of an old-school figure like Feng Dao, but Feng Dao himself could be counted as the cynosure of the literary world at this time, and still carried great symbolic significance.

In the Chongde Hall, Zhang Zhao summoned Feng Dao before long.

But beyond Zhang Zhao's expectations, he had thought Feng Dao had come to flatter him, or to curry favor and seek office. He had not expected that Feng Dao would, with the utmost seriousness, discuss with Zhang Zhao the matter of establishing the ancestral temple.

At present, Zhang Zhao's accession to the throne was already an urgent matter. Only by becoming the Son of Heaven of the Central Plains could he properly and legitimately carry out the next stage of work.

And matters such as taking the throne and establishing the ancestral temple came with their own complex set of rites. Especially since Zhang Zhao was also operating under the banner of restoring the rites of Zhou, the ceremonies could not be neglected in the slightest.

For example, the order of sacrifices, the rite of the Great Sacrifice, and posthumous enfeoffments all had to be arranged according to Zhang Zhao's surname, ancestors, and the like.

It must be said that in this line of work, Feng Dao was exceedingly professional — at least more professional than any of Zhang Zhao's current advisers.

But in truth, Zhang Zhao understood in his heart that this work was not necessarily beyond He Ning and Fan Zhi. They had, however, for certain purposes of their own, been avoiding it all along, seemingly wishing to leave the matter for Feng Dao to handle.

Seeing Zhang Zhao's expression and tone, He Ning sensed that Zhang Zhao might be somewhat uncomfortable with this matter, so he hurried over to explain.

He took out the draft manuscript of the memorial Feng Dao had originally submitted to Shi Chonggui and said to Zhang Zhao.

"Does the Sage know that the idea of inviting the Yong-Liang army into the Central Plains was precisely Feng Kedao's suggestion? I merely happened to be present at the time."

Zhang Zhao did not bother to examine closely what He Ning presented. Since He Ning dared to say this, it was basically credible.

Hmm, being able to obtain Shi Chonggui's invitation and enter Guanzhong directly without being treated as an invader had saved Zhang Zhao a great deal of trouble.

Thereupon, Zhang Zhao asked Feng Dao with a genial expression, "Since Lord Kedao rendered such service earlier, why did you not say so sooner?"

Feng Dao lowered his head, put on a trembling, fearful manner, and replied, "When I petitioned the Sage to lead his army through the pass, it was not to claim merit. It was truly because the Sage is the one man without equal who can rescue the people of the realm from their hanging-upside-down peril.

If I sought reward for this, would it not make the Sage's entry into the Central Plains seem a lesser undertaking?

Therefore I beg the Sage, from this day forward, not to reward me or Secretary He for this service. This is no subject's merit, but truly the Sage's benevolence and righteousness."

Old fox! Zhang Zhao cursed with a laugh in his heart, though the flattery was truly satisfying, and not at all vulgar.

Fine enough. At least by saying this, Feng Dao was signaling he wanted to come out and work.

For the present, he still needed these men to help stabilize the situation.

"Since that is so, then Lord Youdao shall continue to handle the affairs of the Bureau of Military Affairs well on my behalf!"

Feng Dao was overjoyed at these words. After Zhang Zhao's arrival, the Bureau of Military Affairs' authority had essentially lain idle.

Because Sage Zhang concerned himself only with the four places of Hezhong, Shanzhou, Luoyang, and the Eastern Capital, there was no need at all for the Bureau of Military Affairs to exercise any authority.

Now that Zhang Zhao spoke thus, it was not merely a signal that he intended to keep using him, but a mark that the central government was to begin functioning again.

"Since the Sage wishes me to handle the Bureau of Military Affairs' affairs well, then the various Military Governors have now been in the capital for a long time, and the people in their provinces are growing restless. Judging by the present situation, they still need to return to their respective garrisons to hold the land, pacify the people, and suppress the bandits!"

Zhang Zhao watched Feng Dao's cautious manner. It seemed these words had been held in for a long time — something he had perhaps long wanted to say but had not dared to.

"The Commissioner of Military Affairs speaks reason. However, this matter still requires some thought on my part. Tomorrow, first present the detailed situation of each garrison, and then I shall decide."

Zhang Zhao's refusal to let these Military Governors leave was not because he intended to begin stripping the Military Governors of their power at this time — the time was not yet ripe.

Even the Song dynasty, with its civil officials so powerful, did not strip the Military Governors of their authority all at once, let alone now.

Zhang Zhao was, in truth, uneasy about letting these men leave.

If they did not leave, the prefectures and counties might be occupied, but Zhang Zhao had the Yong-Liang army as his imperial guard. Whenever he wished to retake territory, he could send these former Military Governors out, and it would be done quickly.

But if he released them now, they would likely either defect to Liu Zhiyuan or to the Southern Tang. Once they reached their territories, there would certainly be many fence-sitters. Better not to release them at all.

However, after he proclaimed himself emperor, he would still have to send them out.

Moreover, Du Chongwei had been stirring up trouble in Songzhou for a long time, and Sage Zhang was also preparing to teach that shameless wretch a lesson.

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