Chapter 605: A Return Spanning a Thousand Years

The Divine Capital Luoyang — after a year and a half of repairs, the palace city of Luoyang, the Purple Tenuity Palace, was still one great construction site, but the building of Luoyang city itself was essentially complete.

Though it no longer had the splendor of the Divine Capital Luoyang in the Wu Zhou period, the most flourishing city under heaven, neither was it the grand and glorious capital of old, open to the green wilds, that it had become after Huang Chao.

Unexpectedly, Li Shengtian's carriage was very simple. He had even left behind at Tong Pass the king-grade carriage that Zhang Zhao had ordered Cao Yuanzhong to prepare for him.

Apart from two thousand Khotanese warriors and several hundred accompanying royals, officials, and traveling merchants, he brought no carriages or yellow silk canopies at all.

The only striking thing was a full set of Khotan royal regalia that had once been bestowed upon Yuchi Yao by Emperor Suzong Li Heng of the Tang.

Of course, this set of regalia was not the original one from that year, but a replica made after Khotan was restored, and so it had omissions and various dubious elements mixed in.

Zhang Zhao led out all his civil and military officials, with the Left and Right Yulin Guard and the Left and Right Jinwu Guard as escorts — more than seven thousand people went north to Jinyong City to welcome Li Shengtian.

Setting aside his status as Zhang Zhao's maternal uncle, and setting aside the help he had given Zhang Zhao, this two-hundred-year loyalty of the Khotan Li family alone was enough to merit such a grand welcoming procession.

Just outside Jinyong City, several thousand Khotanese royals, civil and military officials, and warriors collectively donned the gaojian robes that signified readiness to obey orders, every man with a red headband bound around his brow, looking extraordinarily martial.

When Li Shengtian had still been disembarking at Mengjin, he had specially sent Li Cunhui as an envoy to notify Zhang Zhao that after he arrived, he need not perform the kneeling prostration.

But after they reached the outskirts of Jinyong City, Zhang Zhao led his civil and military officials forward to greet him. The moment he caught sight of the Khotanese procession, he saw Li Shengtian, dressed in the grand court robes of a prince of the blood, already kneeling at the very front of the column.

Zhang Zhao hurried over to help Li Shengtian up, but before he could reach him, Li Shengtian knocked his head to the ground in a kowtow. When he raised it again, his forehead was covered in yellow earth.

Zhang Zhao immediately slowed his pace and assumed the dignity befitting an emperor, because he could see that Li Shengtian was paying him obeisance in the capacity of a subject.

"Your subject, the King of Khotan, Yuchi Sengwubo, kowtows before His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Dynasty.

Since the second year of Zhide, when the Great Dynasty's Emperor Xuan the Great and Filial of the Su Temple commanded my sixth-generation ancestor, King Yao of Khotan, to guard Anxi and Khotan and hold the gate for the realm,

for one hundred and ninety years, though we fell under the Tibetans, we never lost our loyal hearts. It was our good fortune that the Great King of Nanta, relying on Emperor Ding of Huanzu, raised the banner of righteousness at Guazhou and Shazhou, drove out the Tibetans, and also linked up with the heroes of Khotan's various peoples to rise and recover Khotan.

Today, your subject the King of Khotan has at last brought Khotan's three governor-generalships, twenty-one prefectures, eighty-seven counties, four hundred seventy thousand households, and two million three hundred ten thousand people back to the nation.

The charge of the Great Dynasty's Emperor Xuan of the Su Temple in years past, and the dying command of my ancestors, have at last not been betrayed!"

Zhang Zhao was jolted. Now at last he understood why Li Shengtian had insisted on coming to the Central Plains, why he was so fixated on winning recognition from a Central Plains dynasty.

Because this was the spiritual home of their Khotan Li family — it was their choice on the level of civilization.

From the sixteenth year of Yongping in the Eastern Han, 73 CE, when Ban Dingyuan went to Khotan, killed the Xiongnu envoys, and helped restore Khotan, nearly nine hundred years had passed. Apart from a conflict with the Eastern Han court over the annexation of the kingdom of Yumi, Khotan had always been the Central Plains dynasty's most loyal subject and partner in the Western Regions.

Especially during the Sui and Tang, from the time the elder and younger Yuchi became famed throughout the Central Plains, the kingdom of Khotan and the Yuchi family became part of Central Plains culture. The court believed this, and the kingdom of Khotan believed it too.

As a people who had come from the west — very likely a Scythian people who had ultimately gained their foothold in Khotan with the help of Han armies — Khotan's cultural identity had always followed only two lines.

One was Buddhism, and one was Han culture.

And once Buddhism died out in the Indian regions and was gradually absorbed into Han culture, Khotan's roots were left with only the single line of Han culture.

One must understand that the true Khotanese, in the present Khotan Golden Kingdom, were already a relative minority — only three or four hundred thousand people.

To rule the later southern Xinjiang, all of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and one-third of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, plus a small part of Kazakhstan, could only be accomplished by becoming fully Han.

Only with the support of a Central Plains dynasty could they preserve the wealth and standing of the Khotanese while achieving complete cultural conversion.

Beyond that, Zhang Zhao also spotted in the crowd Guo Guangwei of the Suyab Guo family — the son of Guo Xuanqing, the current Governor of Suyab and a great worthy of the Church of the East.

To Guo Guangwei's left, a young man with an awkward expression — who else could it be but Li Tongqi, son of Li Guoshou, the Deputy Governor of Talas?

So when Li Shengtian spoke of three governor-generalships and claimed more than two million people, it was because he had persuaded the Suyab Guo family and the Talas Li family to come over as well.

Needless to say, the scene of that "persuasion" could not have been very harmonious.

Zhang Zhao strode quickly forward and helped Li Shengtian to his feet. Events happening in two different times seemed to interweave ceaselessly before his eyes.

In history, the kingdom of Khotan and the Khotan Li family were the last echo of Han culture on the vast land of Anxi.

Even counting the central court as the greatest common factor, after the fall of the Khotan Li family's kingdom, the central court's true recovery of the Western Regions would not come until the twenty-second year of Qianlong of the Qing, seven hundred years later (1757).

At that time, the Old Man of Ten Perfections sent Chenggunzhabu to utterly defeat the Dzungars. Three generations of the Manchu Qing — Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong — nearly emptied the entire state treasury, sent every banner family in Beijing into mourning, and wore out the Han Green Standard troops until they were useless, before the Western Regions were once again brought under control.

And the final stabilization of the Western Regions had to wait until Lord Zuo Wenxiang led the sons of Hunan to defeat the invader Yaqub Beg in the fourth year of Guangxu of the Qing, 1878 CE.

Only then was this ancient homeland of the Han people, a territory administered by Central Plains dynasties since time immemorial, confirmed within the borders of modern China.

And by then, eight hundred seventy-seven years had passed since the fall of Khotan in 1001. The people were no longer the same, nor were the things — to say nothing of Suyab, the Ili Valley, and Tannu Uriankhai, which could never be recovered.

Thinking of all this, Zhang Zhao clasped Li Shengtian's hand with deep emotion. "The loyalty and righteousness of Khotan's former kings is known to all the world. The people of Khotan, who have not forgotten their old country, deserve reward."

Having said this, Zhang Zhao turned to look at his civil and military officials. "Today we play the music of reunion. I myself will beat the drum, and all you ministers may dance in celebration!"

Attendants brought out drums and music. The civil officials and military officers all dismounted and stood. At the first beat of Zhang Zhao's drum, the several thousand Khotanese in their red gaojian robes, led by Li Shengtian, began to sing and dance in homage, and Zhang Zhao's own civil and military officials likewise danced in return.

The drums beat on and on, voices rose in unison, and in the end even the common people of Jinyong City joined in the cheering, singing, and dancing.

Zhang Zhao then invited Li Shengtian onto the imperial carriage and entered Luoyang city together with him, with tremendous pomp.

For this was not merely the matter of Li Shengtian coming to submit — one could say that half the credit belonged to Zhang Zhao.

The grander the welcome Li Shengtian received, the more luster it reflected on Zhang Zhao's face.

And Li Shengtian, who had always had a taste for extravagance and grand spectacles, was not about to miss this opportunity. The Khotanese merchants who had come with him were there for exactly this purpose.

So as Li Shengtian followed Zhang Zhao through the just-about-repaired Vermilion Bird Gate, the Khotanese merchants, dressed in gorgeous silks, began buying freely throughout the construction site that was Luoyang.

From small items like the coarse cloth the common people wove themselves, to the purchase of an entire ward in the north of the city, to serve as a residence for Khotanese coming to Luoyang.

Then they began going door to door delivering gifts — and the gifts were nothing other than salted mutton carried all the way from the west.

In the Luoyang of today, nothing made a better gift than mutton.

Because after Zhang Zhao stabilized the Central Plains and the economy recovered swiftly, the countryside was still not very prosperous, but a great city like Luoyang had enriched a large number of people through contracts for state construction projects.

This had not only produced a host of wealthy merchants — even the common laborers had grown rich. They drew wages and food money every day, and if they knew a bit of carpentry or stonework, their earnings were even more considerable.

But once the people of Luoyang and other places had money, what followed was that their standard of living could not actually rise.

Eating one's fill was no great problem — after all, there was still millet rice with a bit of salt and sheep fat every day — but trying to upgrade beyond that was hard.

As for wine, after Zhang Zhao issued the official wine decree, the wine on the market was simply unaffordable.

The so-called official wine decree forbade private households from brewing. Brewing first had to be reported, and once brewed, it had to be sold through the government offices — a weakened version of prohibition.

Prohibition was unavoidable! The grain shortage in the Henan region had still not passed.

So wine was unaffordable, and as for mutton, the flocks had not yet multiplied after the great disaster.

At this time, the price of sheep in Luoyang was three times that of Guanzhong, and more than ten times that of Hexi.

Wang Sanlang held his own child and mingled with the crowd, cheering and celebrating.

Two years earlier, the Emperor had granted milk that saved his child's life, and had also graciously remitted a year's poll tax, and from that time on Wang Sanlang had become a loyal supporter of the Emperor.

So when he heard that Luoyang was short of people, he brought his whole family from the Eastern Capital to settle in Luoyang. Over the years his living conditions had gradually improved, and Wang Sanlang told everyone he met that it was all thanks to the Emperor's benevolence.

This time, when the Great King of Khotan entered the capital for an audience, he naturally wanted to go and help cheer for the Emperor. He waited until the Great King of Khotan had entered the palace, and only then did Wang Sanlang carry his child home.

But no sooner had he got home than he saw his wife at the doorway, tugging back and forth with a merchant dressed in fine clothes.

Wang Sanlang's heart seized up. His wife was rather good-looking, and on ordinary days she drew the attention of the local idlers. He worried about it every moment of every day, and now one of them had actually come to his door — how could he stand for that?

Carrying his child, Wang Sanlang practically flew to his front door. One look, and he was so furious he nearly ascended to heaven on the spot.

In the merchant's hand was a salted leg of mutton wrapped round with a strip of red cloth.

The leg was extremely plump — it must have weighed seven or eight jin — and its surface was thickly crusted with glittering coarse salt. Scraped off, that salt alone would feed the household for several days.

Both mutton and salt were the most sought-after goods in Luoyang at present.

"You're certainly generous, aren't you?" Wang Sanlang was frantic, on the verge of tears.

To give such a huge leg of mutton on the very first visit — what would come next?

He had to go out every day to earn a living; could his wife hold out against such temptation?

At the sound of his voice, the merchant in silk robes turned around, cupped his hands, and asked, "Is the master of the house back?"

When Wang Sanlang got a look at the merchant, he saw the man had the face of a foreigner, and he was so angry his lips began to tremble.

Truth be told, if his wife really did take a lover or two on the sly, he might even have been able to accept it — life had to go on, after all!

At his age, finding a wife who could keep the household in such good order was no easy thing.

But this was a foreigner! That absolutely would not do!

The merchant, seeing Wang Sanlang silent, assumed he was too overcome with joy to speak, and so cupped his hands once more.

"We of Khotan were lost to Anxi, and for two hundred years have not returned home to see our native elders. Today we return in glory. By the Great King's command, we must of course bring some gifts for our fellow townsmen. It is no extravagance, but we are certainly willing to give."

Wang Sanlang suddenly understood. His face flushed, and the tension in his heart melted away at once.

At the same time, he faintly began to feel that these Khotanese with their foreign faces really did seem like his own townsmen who had gone far away to Anxi.

By now the neighbors had all arrived. Everyone had been notified by the ward head, and every household had salted mutton to collect, so naturally they had all turned up in good order.

After the ward head arrived, the crowd, surrounding the Khotanese in their midst, cupped their hands in unison and first performed a bow of greeting.

The elders gave a slight cupped-hand salute, those of the same generation bowed from the waist, and the children bowed past the knees.

After the first bow, everyone stepped back together. This time the elders bowed from the waist, those of the same generation bowed past the knees, and the children prostrated themselves on the ground.

This was called the two-bow rite, a grand folk ceremony for paying respects to parents and elders, and to kinsmen returning from a long journey far away.

"May we ask our honored kin: is all well in Anxi? Was the journey home smooth? Do you still remember the place of your native home?" The ward elder, speaking for the crowd, greeted the Khotanese who had come from afar.

The Khotanese merchant then performed the two-bow rite before the neighbors, just as before, and stepped forward to answer.

"We thank the elder for his kind inquiry. All is well in Anxi, and the journey home was smooth. Now that we have returned to our native place, we know at last that home is here!"

When the elder heard this, his face broke into a smile. He raised a bowl of wine high and offered it to the Khotanese merchant. "Please drink this wine of welcome, that it may wash away the dust of the road and keep all misfortune from you."

With that, the rite of greeting was complete. The neighbors all wore smiles, and the children ran about everywhere after the Khotanese. No one any longer muttered insults under their breath calling them thieving foreigners. These Khotanese were as if they had truly come home.

And in the great hall atop the Vermilion Bird Gate tower, a similar ceremony was taking place.

In the main hall, Zhang Zhao's legal mother, Li Shengtian's full elder sister, the Empress Dowager Ciyou, looked at Li Shengtian with tears in her eyes and personally offered him a cup of welcome wine.

Li Shengtian wept freely before his elder sister and, bringing Cao Yuanxin and his seven children, performed the two-bow rite of a son returning from afar to see his parents.

Then the Empress Dowager Ciyou withdrew to one side, and Li Shengtian, Cao Yuanxin, and their children performed the four-bow rite of a subject before his sovereign in front of Zhang Zhao.

Li Shengtian declared, "Your vassal, Yuchi Sengwupo, King of the Golden Country of Khotan, prostrates himself before His Majesty, Emperor of the Great Dynasty. Today I return the golden seal, the precious register, the banners and standards bestowed by Emperor Xuan of the Su Temple of the Great Tang, and beg the Great Dynasty to grant a new enfiefment and bestow new honors."

Li Shengtian could only call himself Yuchi Sengwupo, because the surname Li and the name Shengtian were both ones he had taken for himself, without recognition from the central court.

After that, the Khotanese Yellow Gate attendant began to chant the list of Li Shengtian's tribute gifts to the Son of Heaven: one hundred pearls, three thousand blocks of jade, two war elephants, two male lions, thirty thousand bolts of Khotanese brocade, and countless other treasures and vessels, worth in total more than one hundred thousand strings of cash.

Setting everything else aside, the royal Li family of Khotan had profited from the reopening of the Silk Road, and Khotan itself produced cloth and other export goods, so the whole kingdom of Khotan had made money hand over fist.

Zhang Zhao sat calmly upon the imperial throne. After receiving the four bows of Li Shengtian and Cao Yuanxin, he immediately issued an order: the surname Li was granted to Yuchi, and the original name Shengtian was bestowed as well.

The King of Khotan, Li Shengtian, was promoted to Great King of the Golden Country. The rank of Great King stood above all princes of the blood and commandery princes. He was made a vassal of the court and a tributary kingdom was established, with the Golden Domain situated within two hundred li around the city of Kangju (Samarkand).

At the same time, the Great King of the Golden Country, Li Shengtian, was additionally appointed Administrator of the Anxi Province, Surveillance Commissioner of the Anxi Province, Defense Commissioner of the Anxi Province, Military Governor of the Four Garrisons of Anxi, and Observation and Pacification Commissioner over the foreign tribes of the two prefectures of Suyab and Talas.

He was granted royal robes and insignia, a royal great banner, banners and standards, command tallies, and a golden register.

He was ordered to bear the ceremonial axe, and by imperial command was made Commander-in-Chief of all military affairs in Anxi.

Cao Yuanxin was enfeoffed as Grand Princess of the State of Wei, with a stipend fief of five thousand households, of which two hundred households in Shazhou were her actual fief. She was permitted the robes and regalia of an empress.

Li Shengtian's eldest son, Li Congde, was enfeoffed as Crown Prince of the Golden Country and Deputy Military Governor of the Four Garrisons of Anxi.

Li Shengtian's second son, Li Congyu, was enfeoffed as Prince of Yanqi and Commissioner of Yanqi, permitted the robes and regalia of a prince of the blood.

Li Shengtian's second daughter, wife of Cao Yanming, was enfeoffed as Grand Princess of Shache, with a stipend fief of one thousand households, of which fifty households in Khotan were her actual fief.

These rewards had been discussed with Li Shengtian in advance. Li Shengtian also understood Zhang Zhao's stance on bringing the Four Garrisons of Anxi back under state control, and so magnanimously gave up the entire kingdom of Khotan.

Zhang Zhao, for his part, chose to enfeoff the Golden Country at Kangju. From now on, Li Congde would go to Samarkand, where Kangju was located, to rule as king.

Of course, Zhang Zhao had only taken back the Four Garrisons of Anxi — that is, the greater part of the present territory of the kingdom of Khotan.

The wealth of the Li family still belonged to them, and any ministers willing to follow them could still go to the lands of the Golden Country.

At the same time, Ningyuan (the Fergana Valley), Suyab, and Talas, which Khotan currently controlled, were also to be handed over.

These three places would be enfeoffed to a batch of second- and third-generation members of the Li and Zhang families to rule as kings.

Ningyuan in particular, now extremely prosperous, would become the rear base for the court's westward advance to conquer the entire Transoxiana and Persia.

As for the Guo family of Suyab, if Guo Xuanqing did not cause trouble, the Guo family could keep Suyab, and might even produce a few more enfeoffed kings and dukes.

The Li Guoshou family of Talas, however, was completely finished. They had been too arrogant and had forgotten their roots, and once Zhang Zhao had a free hand, he would thoroughly punish them.

Cao Yuanxin had obtained the title she had long dreamed of: Grand Princess of the State of Wei.

In the Zhang Zhou dynasty, the Emperor's paternal aunt was a Grand Princess, his sisters were enfeoffed as Princesses, and his daughters were Princesses.

This was, on the legal level, an acknowledgment that Cao Yuanxin was a maternal aunt to Zhang Zhao, like a mother's sister.

At the same time, the Cao family of Shazhou claimed descent from the Cao clan of Qiao Commandery, and the Cao clan of Qiao Commandery were in turn descendants of Emperor Wu of Wei, Cao Cao. Enfeoffing Cao Yuanxin as Grand Princess of Wei was, in effect, granting her an ancestral title.

With the rewards bestowed, everyone was delighted. Zhang Zhao summoned the court painters, led by Gu Hongzhong, to first draft the base sketch for "The Great King of the Golden Country of Khotan Paying Homage to His Majesty the Emperor."

In the draft, the Emperor sat upon the imperial throne, tall and imposing, while the Great King of the Golden Country, wearing royal ceremonial robes, was in the act of paying homage.

Afterward, Zhang Zhao withdrew behind the scenes, changed out of his imperial court robes into everyday household attire, and then ordered the painters to draft a base sketch of "Uncle and Nephew Enjoying Themselves Together."

In this painting, Zhang Zhao's figure was much smaller, and the uncle and nephew were playing a game together, their status more equal.

And the even grander scrolls, "The Great King of the Golden Country Returning Home from Anxi" and "The Heroes Returning Home from Khotan," were still in the process of being painted.

Hmm, having images painted of every occasion was Zhang Zhao's favorite thing.

Because such paintings were the most precious legacy the people of this era could leave to their descendants, allowing them, a thousand years later, to glimpse the look of those times.

(End of Chapter)

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