Chapter 557: A World Too Surreal

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The night was deep, and the candlelight in the Prefect's residence of Chuzhou still flickered unceasingly.

It was a bit odd, really — Zhang Zhao placed great importance on cavalry, and the Liangzhou region of Hexi also had a tradition of mounted archery; the great horses of Liangzhou had always been among the finest war mounts under heaven.

Yet ever since Zhang Zhao began his campaigns in Anxi, the cavalry under the Yongliang Army had never actually fought a long-distance raid.

What they had fought were almost all textbook cavalry operations screening a large army group — when they met the enemy, infantry and cavalry combined to smash them apart.

The only action that could truly be called a long-distance raid was the time Ma Shacai struck five hundred li from Liangzhou to Lanzhou.

So on this night, under the watchful eyes of a crowd of officers, Ma Shacai smugly shared his experience of the raid on Lanzhou.

But very quickly, everyone — including Ma Shacai himself — gradually came to feel that his experience could not be applied here.

Because Ma Shacai's raid had been a high-difficulty operation: crossing Hongchi Ridge in winter, enduring untold hardships, with more than a third of his men falling behind.

But this time, after Li Cunhui went out to take a look around, he found that although it was also nearly four hundred li from Chuzhou to Yangzhou, the road was simply too easy to travel!

The main artery between Chuzhou and Yangzhou was the Hangou section of the Grand Canal, built during the reign of Emperor Yang of Sui. Because it was an artificial canal, the Hangou had been dug perfectly straight.

Moreover, since it was the primary means of transport, both banks were extremely prosperous, and the Southern Tang court had even built a post road along both sides of the canal wide enough for three horse-drawn carts to run abreast.

Even more impressive, this post road was actually maintained, and its condition was excellent beyond compare.

Zhang Zhao personally rode out for over a dozen li and found that the smoothness of this post road — while not quite matching the cement roads of later ages — would probably qualify as an expressway in the land of the Three As.

At this thought, Zhang Zhao felt depressed on Li Jing's behalf for a while. This was the chaos of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, for crying out loud!

You built a post road this straight, this wide, this smooth, running from the frontier straight into your own heart — are you insane?!

It was practically telling everyone: come attack me along this road, it's very fast! You can knock me down very quickly.

No wonder in history, when Guo Rong sent the great general Han Lingkun on a raid against Yangzhou, Han Lingkun had already entered the city while the officials and commoners of Southern Tang still knew nothing.

Because it was so utterly surreal, Zhang Zhao even wondered for a time whether there was some trick in it.

But after a crowd of officers discussed it with him in the Prefect's residence of Chuzhou for half the night, the conclusion they all reached was that there was definitely no trick — the raid on Yangzhou really was this simple, and Southern Tang really was this easy to beat!

Very well! Since that was the case, Zhang Zhao would not stand on ceremony. He looked around the room at the new generation: Murong Xinzhang, Li Cunhui, Gao Huaide, Hu Guang.

The older generation: Bai Congxin, Ma Shacai, Qiong Reduojin, Huang Yingda, Yao Yuanfu.

And of course the even more tender young men: Zhao Yanjin, Zhao Kuangyin, Wang Shenqi, Hou Renbao, Feng Jiye.

"How goes the mobilization for selecting the elite cavalry?" Zhang Zhao asked.

Zhao Pu, who was in charge of the Wangyi Bureau, hurried forward and replied: "The soldiers are beside themselves with excitement at hearing there's a big mission. The vanguard bounty worth five strings of cash per man has been announced, and the quota of at least fifty rank-officer promotions has already been specified down to the banner (squad) level."

"Worth five strings of cash" did not mean giving five strings of cash, but rather giving "vouchers" worth five strings of cash. This was much better than giving money directly — it saved expenditures and also stimulated consumption.

Of course, the most important thing was still the rank-officer quota. In Zhang Zhou, everyone who lived by the blade knew the benefits of rank-officer status.

And now, rank-officer rewards were not something everyone got just for winning a battle — there was a quota.

Exactly how one performed, how many results one achieved, the difficulty of the battle formation, and so on — all had been concretely quantified.

To put it concretely: winning a battle meant everyone had merit, but not everyone could be awarded rank-officer status. The number of rank-officer promotions was roughly fixed before the battle.

To obtain rank-officer status, one had to work harder than others, because there were only so many to go around — if your ranking was too far back, your turn would never come and it would be gone.

However, in the Zhang Zhou army, rank-officer status could be awarded not only for victories but also for defeats.

For example, those who covered the retreat, those who held a lone city, those who fought against overwhelming odds to buy time for the main force — even if such actions ended in defeat, there were still rank-officer rewards, and the rewards were often very high.

Ah! Sage Zhang could not afford the Great Qin system of universal military merit nobility, so he created a scaled-down version — the military rank-officer system — to make the brave and fierce men of the realm fight to the death for him.

Still, for this raid on Yangzhou, giving only fifty rank-officer promotions to fifteen thousand men was a bit too few.

But this figure had been precisely calculated by the three parties — the Wangyi Bureau, the Ministry of War, and the Bureau of Military Affairs. A raid on Yangzhou was only worth this much.

Yet Zhang Zhao still felt somewhat uneasy in his heart. These fifteen thousand men were his very lifeblood; nothing could be allowed to go wrong because of insufficient morale among the soldiers.

"Add a bit more. By my grace, add one hundred rank-officer promotions. Let the men do a fine job. If they can destroy the main force of Southern Wu south of Yangzhou, add another hundred and fifty!"

Although the number of military rank-officer promotions was basically fixed before a battle, Zhang Zhao was the Emperor, and he could increase them through the method of imperial grace.

As Zhao Pu received the order, he imagined the cheers and jubilation of the rank-and-file officers and men below, and could not help silently giving the Emperor twenty-four thumbs-up.

Since the final years of the Great Tang, how many Sons of Heaven had pondered how to make their grace reach the soldiers past the Military Governors, and how to make the soldiers understand that if they wanted better days, they could not rely on their commanders but must rely on the Emperor.

Now this difficult problem had been solved by the Illustrious Heavenly Son with a single gracious addition of military rank-officer promotions.

The most important significance of the gracious addition was that grace came from above. It let the rank-and-file know whence the favor came, and it invisibly reduced the intensity of the Military Governors' ability to bestow favor on the soldiers.

After all, no matter how much money you gave, how could it compare to military rank-officer status — money for life, security for one's descendants (who could enter the civil and military official academies), no kneeling before officials, and a special channel to reach the imperial ear when wronged?

Zhang Zhao was indeed thinking along these lines. He also clearly knew that his descendants in later generations might well turn the military rank-officer system into a disaster zone of corruption.

But he could not concern himself with so much; first establish the rules of this state, and worry about the rest later.

Zhang Zhao was even considering whether to create the post of Inspector of the Inspection Bureau — an office that began under Emperor Zhuangzong of the Later Tang and later spread throughout the realm in the Ming dynasty.

To arrange for a considerable portion of retired military rank-officers to be posted to various regions.

To become petty overlords of the countryside, to catch bandits, suppress smuggling, train local militia, and especially to pacify places like Anxi, Hezhong, Lingnan, Annan, and Korea.

But for now, Sage Zhang was still somewhat hesitant. Petty overlords might be petty, but when it came to preying on the common people, they were not one bit inferior to civil officials — this required caution.

Amid a myriad of thoughts, Zhang Zhao quickly made his decision: Bai Congxin would be Rear Army Chief Commander, commanding five thousand cavalry as the reserve force.

Murong Xinzhang would be Front Army Chief Deployer, Li Cunhui the vanguard commander, with Ma Shacai and Yao Yuanfu as deputy vanguards. They would set out at the third watch of the night after next and strike straight for Yangzhou.

The reason for such urgency was that since there was such a thing as a post road along the river, it meant the speed at which news traveled was also very fast.

The news of Chuzhou's fall was probably already spreading southward by now.

And during this day, while the great army prepared to launch its surprise attack, Zhang Zhao still had another matter to attend to: dealing with the Southern Tang military-field problem in Chuzhou.

The common people in times of chaos truly did not ask for much. Zhang Zhao merely announced the abolition of the harsh levies and military-field policies, and he received their immense support.

As for the military fields left behind, even though some people's land had been seized less than ten years ago, no one dared come forward to claim it. As long as the government did not come to harm them, they were satisfied.

And the rough report Zhang Zhao received shocked him greatly. In just the four counties of Chuzhou, the military fields had reached the terrifying figure of over four hundred thousand mu.

One must know that in later ages, the arable land of Huai'an, where Chuzhou was located, was only a bit over five million mu. In this era, it was probably at most around one million mu, and very likely not even that.

This means that Southern Tang's military fields likely accounted for half of the arable land in Chuzhou, and possibly even more.

With so much land, how should it be handled? Return part of it to the common people? Use it to reward military merit? Or simply turn it into imperial estates?

How to maximize its utility is a matter requiring great care.

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