Chapter 556: Looking Nothing Like a Ruler

The Southern Tang's western capital, Jiangning, Deming Palace, Guitou Hall.

Since the time of Xu Wen, the Southern Tang had been building palaces in Jiangning, though not on the foundations of the old Taicheng of the Six Dynasties, but on the site of the former Jinling government offices.

The reason was simple: after the Sui destroyed the Chen, Emperor Wen of Sui felt that Jinling still possessed the aura of kingship, and actually issued an edict to have Jiankang City razed and plowed into farmland, utterly destroying it.

By the time of the Yang Wu period, Jiankang City, renamed Jiangning, had fallen into such ruin that a new imperial palace could only be built on the foundations of the old Jinling government offices.

By the time Li Bian took the throne, the Jiangning imperial city was essentially complete. The palace complex was called Deming Palace, grand and imposing in scale, far more magnificent than the hovel Zhang Zhao occupied in Kaifeng, the eastern capital.

Of course, to raise such a palace in such chaotic times, who knows how many bones of conscripted laborers lie buried beneath it.

Li Jing was in Guitou Hall when he received word of Liu Yanzhen's total annihilation. The news was so shocking that it left the lord of the Southern Tang utterly stunned.

Zhang Zhao often referred to this Southern Tang ruler as "that brat Li Jing," because Li Jing was indeed younger than him.

This gentleman was born in 916, making him exactly thirty this year — well, not even thirty yet, since the month hadn't arrived — while Zhang Zhao, born in 912, was already thirty-three and nearing thirty-four.

The name Guitou Hall was not some bit of crude humor, but came from a form in Chinese architecture — the baosha, referring to a small structure built attached to the side of an already completed main building.

Guitou Hall was just such a structure. After the main Southern Tang palace complex had long been completed, Li Jing, wanting a place to compose poetry and match couplets with his ministers, had a small palace built at the edge of the imperial city, far from the rear palace, where he could amuse himself with men like Han Xizai and Feng Yansi.

The scenery of Jiangnan is fine indeed! In this chaotic Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, it was practically a paradise apart from the world.

Since the Southern Tang's founder Yang Xingmi magnanimously ended the war with Qian Yue over Wuzhong, nearly fifty years had passed without any major warfare around Jiangning.

The long peace, combined with small-scale victories over Wang Min, Nanping, Ma Chu, and others, meant the Southern Tang had always been the victor. At the same time, the traditional head of the various states, the Central Plains dynasty, had actually been destroyed by the Khitan — which invisibly fed the Southern Tang's sense of possessing the Mandate of Heaven.

And this sense of the Mandate reached its peak when Hucile submitted, the Southern Tang came to possess all of the Huai River region, and immediately after, Du Chongwei surrendered with Songzhou.

A heavyweight like Du Chongwei — Zhang Zhao looked at him the way one looks at a pile of dog shit.

But in the eyes of the Southern Tang ruler and his ministers, Du Chongwei was also a heavyweight, though their "heavyweight" was not the same thing as Zhang Zhao's.

In the eyes of Li Jing and his court, Duke Wenhou Du was a veteran general of Daibei, the brother-in-law and uncle-by-marriage of the Son of Heaven of the Central Plains, and a man of outstanding talent who had nearly become Son of Heaven himself. Now that such a man had come over to them, what did it signify?

It signified that our Great Tang is invincible under heaven!

Yet at the very moment when our Great Tang was invincible under heaven, the army sent north to take over territory had been defeated — and not just defeated, but utterly annihilated!

This blow was simply too great.

In Li Jing's eyes, Liu Yanzhen — if not quite a Bai Qi, Han Xin, Wei Qing, or Huo Qubing — was at the very least on the level of the Flying General Li Guang!

How could such a famous general possibly die and have his army destroyed in a single battle?

Moreover, Liu Yanzhen's thirty thousand imperial guards were the Southern Tang's most elite troops, and Li Jing was very confident in their valor.

After all, he had destroyed the state of Wang Min with only fifteen thousand such imperial guards. Those lion-and-tiger-like warriors — he had seen them with his own eyes. How could they have failed so badly?

At this thought, Li Jing cast a bewildered look toward his chief ministers beside him, Feng Yansi, Wei Cen, and the others.

But these men were much the same as Li Jing — ordinarily full of grand talk, yet now, with the state's finest troops more than half destroyed in a single day, they were frightened out of their wits.

Li Jing then turned his gaze to Han Xizai, the Drafter of Edicts, seated farther away. Han Xizai had originally been an old retainer from Li Jing's days as crown prince, but because he was not fond of flattering Li Jing, he had recently fallen somewhat out of favor.

Seeing Li Jing look at him, this old retainer, who still had some ability and a clear head, quickly spoke to Li Jing.

"Commissioner of Military Affairs Chen Jue is encamped at Fuzhou with more than ten thousand elite troops still in hand. At this moment, Your Majesty should urgently order Chen Jue to return with his army.

The regions of Jianzhou, Jianzhou, and Tingzhou have fierce and hardy folk who produce many stout warriors. After the fall of Wang Min, large numbers of brave men, fearing punishment, have gone into hiding in these countrysides. Your Majesty should send trusted and capable ministers to recruit them, and you will surely gain more than ten thousand crack troops."

It turned out that after the Southern Tang conquered Wang Min, it had not obtained Wang Min's choicest territories, Fuzhou and Quanzhou, which left the Southern Tang court deeply dissatisfied.

Therefore, elite troops had been stationed in Jianzhou (Jian'ou, Fujian), Jianzhou (Nanping, Fujian), and Tingzhou (Changting, Fujian), all near Fuzhou and Quanzhou.

Furthermore, as Han Xizai said, the three regions of Jianzhou, Tingzhou, and Jianzhou were harsh places with extremely fierce local customs, and Wang Min's finest soldiers had mostly come from these areas.

And the fall of Wang Min had not been due to failure in battle, but because the Wang brothers and their subordinate generals had slaughtered one another, until finally the Southern Tang crushed them with sheer national strength.

So Han Xizai's proposal was quite correct. Li Jing was overjoyed and immediately acted on Han Xizai's suggestion.

On one hand, he prepared to send men to recall Chen Jue, the Commissioner of Military Affairs who was serving as Military Governor of Zhaowu Army in Fuzhou; on the other, he prepared to send Pan Chengyou, the Deputy Minister of the Court of the Imperial Insignia, as an imperial envoy to the Min region to recruit warriors.

This Pan Chengyou had originally been a minister of Wang Min, a native of Putian in Quanzhou, an upright official who dared to speak plainly, and a man of outstanding reputation in the Min region. Sending him to recruit warriors there could not have been more fitting.

Han Xizai then proposed several more strategies for organizing the defense of Huainan, and Li Jing adopted each one.

Meanwhile, Feng Yansi and Pan Cen, kneeling at Li Jing's lower left, exchanged a glance, unease showing in their eyes.

Han Xizai was an old retainer from the prince's household, a man who had been close to Li Jing for over ten years and possessed real talent and learning. They had only with great difficulty managed to suppress him. If he were to rise again, how could there possibly be any place left for them in the central government?

And Han Xizai at this time had not yet cultivated the slickness of his later years under Li Yu. Seeing Li Jing follow his every suggestion, he felt as though they had returned to the days of mutual understanding in the Eastern Palace, and actually began to speak further on the matter of Huainan.

"Your Majesty is wise. The court has lost its finest troops. Gaining these tens of thousands of warriors can only stabilize the situation for the moment.

But this affair was begun by our side. How would the Zhou state simply let it go? It may well invade southward.

If you wish to hold Huainan, abolishing the levies and the military-field harsh policies is imperative. Only by treating the people of Huainan generously can we stop the Zhou iron cavalry."

The moment Han Xizai's words left his mouth, a troubled expression appeared on Li Jing's face.

But the two schemers Feng Yansi and Pan Cen's eyes lit up. Pan Cen was the first to pounce, jabbing his finger at Han Xizai and cursing.

"You, Han Xizai! If you want to offer counsel, then offer counsel — how dare you slander the Sage and the court?

The levies and the military fields are the great plan for pacifying Huainan established by Emperor Liezu. You dare call them harsh policies?

Without the levies, what would we use to pay the imperial guards in Huainan? Without the military fields, what would the soldiers of Huainan eat?"

Li Jing nodded in deep agreement. This muddle-headed emperor simply had no idea of the true situation in Huainan.

Deceived by Feng Yansi and his ilk, Li Jing, who had never understood farming or the people's livelihood, genuinely believed that the levies and military fields were meant to hold Huainan securely, and that these two measures were only a slight burden on the people of Huainan.

Han Xizai was so angry his face turned bright red. That Pan Cen could describe such harsh policies as a great plan for pacifying Huainan — the shamelessness once again surpassed anything he had known.

But before Han Xizai could retort, Feng Yansi burst out as well, speaking to Li Jing in a tone of deep sorrow.

"Your servant has heard it said that Han Shuyan often slanders the Sage in his own residence, saying that the Sage takes thirty thousand strings of cash from the inner treasury in Huainan every year, which is not the conduct of a true ruler.

Previously your servant thought this was merely rumor passing from mouth to mouth, but today he has openly and brazenly slandered the levies and military fields as harsh policies — proof enough that the rumors were true.

This Han Shuyan does not want to treat the people of Huainan generously — he wants to treat Your Majesty harshly!

Is Your Majesty, exalted as the lord of ten thousand chariots, worth less in Han Shuyan's eyes than a few common peasants?"

After Feng Yansi leapt out, the many officials who had profited from Huainan also came forward one after another to denounce Han Xizai, saying he slandered the Sage and harbored disloyal intentions.

Li Jing's expression changed drastically. Han Xizai wanted to say more, but Li Jing had already risen in fury and swept his sleeves as he departed.

Feng Yansi smiled smugly. He had Li Jing completely figured out. This Son of Heaven looked dignified, but in reality he was fierce in appearance and cowardly at heart — thoroughly weak, and easily swayed by whatever he heard last.

With a man like this, right and wrong were not determined by facts, but by whose voice was loudest and how many people were saying it.

Moreover, the thirty thousand strings of Inner Treasury cash that came from Huainan every year mattered a great deal to Li Jing.

Never mind that he was the Son of Heaven — there was no shortage of places to spend money. Banquets, the grand selection of palace ladies, alms to the temples, the building of palaces — which of these did not require money?

Lose those thirty thousand strings, and every year he would have thirty thousand strings less to spend.

Watching Li Jing sweep out in a huff, Feng Yansi did not even glance at the despondent Han Xizai, because he knew Han Xizai was finished yet again.

All he had to do was have a few trusted ministers submit memorials and put in a word, and the Sage would send this eyesore packing far away.

In Chuzhou, before the eyes of tens of thousands of common folk, Zhang Zhao rode a white horse, wearing his flashy golden armor. He set out no ceremonial guard at all, bringing only five thousand armored infantry and cavalry in white and five thousand in red, filing in through the north gate.

This was something Zhang Zhao had deliberately arranged. The Southern Tang was rich, and even its commoners had surely seen grand spectacles before — but ten thousand armored infantry and cavalry, that they had certainly never seen.

Sure enough, the moment Zhang Zhao made his entrance, he immediately awed the Huainan commoners who had come to watch. Their mouths fell open, and their faces showed shock and fear mingled together.

Among the Zhou cavalry, those warhorses standing over five chi at the shoulder, draped in iron armor, were little different from monsters. The soldiers, in red and white, looked for all the world like heavenly troops and heavenly generals.

At first they merely stood and watched. Then, no one knew who started it, but one after another the crowd knelt.

Seeing the surrounding commoners all overawed, Sage Zhang did as he always did: right there at the north gate of Chuzhou, he proclaimed the military discipline of the Zhou army — no rape, no looting, no wanton killing.

Most importantly, Zhang Zhao personally announced the abolition of the Tang state's harsh levies in Huainan — the requisition tax, the military land system, and all other oppressive measures.

In an instant, cheers thundered, and the people rushed to spread the word. So the rumors were true — the Zhou Son of Heaven really had come to abolish the requisition tax and the military land system.

Hm! If the abolition of harsh levies was real, then in the hearts of the Huainan people, the white turtle, the white dragon-fish, the white fox, and the white rat were real too.

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