Chapter 627: This Is What a Ruler of a Fallen State Looks Like

By the Yazi River, in the Ruisheng Military Prefecture, this place lies at the heart of the Songnen Plain and has always been a gathering region for the various minority peoples of the northeast.

The Yazi River is the section of the Songhua River that in later times flows through Jilin City; in the late Liao period it was also called the Huntong River. The records are sometimes erroneous, which has to do with the many peoples of the northeast never having unified their different names for it.

The northeast of this time was not quite the same as the northeast people of later generations imagine. At this time the northeast could not yet be called the Great Northern Granary, though of course it was not the Great Northern Wasteland either.

At this time the northeast was dense with primeval forest, but in the plains through which many rivers passed, there was farming on a certain scale.

How many fishing and hunting peoples lived deep in the mountains and old forests? Probably even the rulers of the Tang, Fuyu, Balhae, and Khitan never managed to figure that out.

Ruisheng Military Prefecture is near Wanjin Pagoda in present-day Nong'an County, Jilin Province. Under the Khitan system, administrative units were divided into capital prefectures, Shuaibin prefectures, military-governor prefectures, surveillance prefectures, defense prefectures, and prefect prefectures, with counties below them.

A thing like Ruisheng Military Prefecture, which sounds like a prefecture but is actually a military unit, was about the same as a county, or even inferior to one. Only decades later would it be promoted to Xiangzhou, and in one leap across several grades become a military-governor prefecture.

The soaring rise behind this was the prosperity of the entire Liao eastern capital at Huanglong Prefecture, because Ruisheng Military Prefecture lay just north of Huanglong Prefecture, at a distance of no more than twenty or thirty li.

When it comes to Huanglong Prefecture, most people know the place from Yue Wumu's line, "Drive straight to Huanglong Prefecture and drink deeply with you all." Later still, "striking straight at Huanglong" became a household idiom.

The reason Grandpa Yue wanted to strike straight at Huanglong was that our Daoist Lord Sage, the stone collector, the great painter and great calligrapher, the one man who should never have been emperor — Song Huizong — and his son Song Qinzong, were studying abroad at Huanglong Prefecture.

But in fact Yue Wumu got it wrong. The father and son were not at Huanglong Prefecture, or rather they had only passed through Huanglong Prefecture and rested there a few days.

Emperors Hui and Qin were imprisoned the whole time at Wuguo City, more than a thousand li from Huanglong Prefecture — that is, Yilan City in Heilongjiang Province, already nearly at Jiamusi.

And the reason for the mistake was the misleading influence of this "little brother" drawing water by the Yazi River.

Because ever since Shi Chonggui was captured and taken to the Khitan, the Central Plains had spread the story that he had been settled at Huanglong Prefecture, and from that people naturally assumed that Emperors Hui and Qin were also at Huanglong Prefecture.

But historically, even Shi Chonggui was not at Huanglong Prefecture.

Because Huanglong Prefecture was a first-rate great city among the Khitan. The histories record that Huanglong Prefecture was densely populated, with villages and hamlets thickly spread, and city walls within sight of one another.

Khitans, Balhae people, Han people, Jurchens, and also large numbers of Tieli, Wure, Turkic, and Tangut people gathered and lived there.

The customs of many states were mixed together. Wherever people gathered, if the languages of the various peoples could not be understood, they used Chinese to communicate and thereby make themselves clear.

Such a great city was certainly not suited to imprisoning a captured ruler of a fallen state.

So historically, Shi Chonggui and his party, after enduring countless hardships, had just reached Huanglong Prefecture when Shulu Ping ordered them to go to Huaizhou (Balin Right Banner) to pay their respects.

Before they had even reached Huaizhou, Shulu Ping had already been defeated in her struggle with Yelu Ruan, and the newly enthroned Liao Shizong Yelu Ruan ordered Shi Chonggui to go to the eastern capital at Liaoyang Prefecture.

In the end it still took Yelu Ruan's Han empress, Empress Zhen, putting in a few good words before Yelu Ruan allowed Shi Chonggui's family to go and live in remote Jianzhou, granting them fifty qing of land.

So Shi Chonggui, together with Empress Dowager Li, made a living by farming at Liaoyang. The Khitans did not kill them, but they often came deliberately to humiliate him.

Three of Shi Chonggui's favored consorts, Lady Zhao, Lady Nie, and another, and his youngest daughter were all carried off, their whereabouts unknown. Empress Feng was also frequently violated by Khitan nobles who came by, unable to live and unable to die.

Of course, in this time and space, Shi Chonggui did not go through so many twists and turns, because the Khitans lost even more disastrously than he did. Two emperors in a row were beaten to death, and they themselves were in a state of panic, so no one came to make him run back and forth.

Shi Chonggui's family, including serving women and eunuchs, more than three hundred people in all, were settled by the Yazi River. There they built reed huts and lived, reclaimed wasteland, and passed their days in utter misery, though at least they could manage to be half full.

In three years' time, Shi Chonggui, originally fair and plump, had turned into a little old man.

The cold wind from the Tungusic wilderness had cracked all his skin, and it would not heal all year round, so that it looked like the cracked bark of a dead tree, while the heavy manual labor had rapidly stripped away his weight.

The hard life had turned Shi Chonggui's hair completely gray. He looked at least fifty or older, but in fact Shi Chonggui was two years younger than Zhang Zhao.

At this moment, this lord of Jin, who three years ago had still been living in the utmost extravagance, dreaming of driving the Khitans north and making a sacrifice at Langjuxu, was fetching water from the riverbank.

The tool in his hand for drawing water was a waterskin sewn from animal hide. It could not hold much water at one time, so Shi Chonggui had to go back and forth between the Yazi River and his little village, again and again.

You ask why not just build the village right by the river?

Heh! If they did that, then some night the whole village might well be flooded by high water, or at some point wild men from who knows where might suddenly come rowing boats and slaughter everyone in the village.

So the village not only had to be a little way from the river, it absolutely had to be built on high ground.

First, to guard against the river flooding; second, it could at least serve some defensive purpose.

Shi Chonggui gazed toward a mound of earth north of the village, and the corners of his eyes suddenly grew moist. Buried there were his birth mother, Consort Dowager An, and his third daughter, the young lady Yi.

One night a year ago, a band of wild men from who knows where attacked the village Shi Chonggui had built on a broad stretch by the river, killing more than thirty people and carrying off more than ten. If Shi Chonggui had not run fast, he would long since have been hacked to death.

That band of wild-man bandits carried off all the young women they seized. His birth mother, Consort Dowager An, an old woman of about fifty, was violated and then killed like a wild dog.

His daughter, the young lady Yi, resisted a little too fiercely, and the wild men smashed her directly into pulp with stone clubs.

At the cost of their lives, they taught Shi Chonggui the crucial lesson of survival in this wilderness.

Shi Chonggui still remembered the helpless wailing of his third daughter, the young lady Yi, as she was beaten to death — those cries of "Daddy, save me" that still echoed in his ears to this day.

Then Empress Feng taught Shi Chonggui another lesson.

After daybreak, Shi Chonggui went weeping and wailing to Huanglong Prefecture to pour out his grief to the Khitans about being robbed, and the Khitan garrison commander of Huanglong Prefecture, the Chief Overseer, came rushing over with several hundred men.

They had certainly not come to investigate who had attacked Shi Chonggui. Rather, they seized the chance to strip Shi Chonggui clean of everything he owned.

The Chief Overseer and his subordinate officers laughed wildly as they violated all of Shi Chonggui's consorts except Empress Dowager Li, one after another. Even Empress Feng did not escape.

They taught Shi Chonggui that as the ruler of a fallen state, not only did the top Khitan nobles not take him seriously, even mid-ranking Khitan officers could humiliate him at will.

The sound of hoofbeats rose in waves. Shi Chonggui's face changed drastically. He hesitated a moment, then with a pang of regret flung away the waterskin in his hand and sprinted desperately toward the village entrance.

Inside the village there was already a panic of terrified shrieks. The former Later Jin palace women, who could fairly be called barely clothed, fled in alarm toward the hill behind the village.

Twenty or thirty eunuchs who could still be counted as able-bodied gripped wooden spears, despairingly preparing to resist.

Shi Chonggui's adoptive mother, Empress Dowager Li, the principal wife of Shi Jingtang, wrapped in animal hides, grabbed a handful of mud from the ground and desperately smeared it on the face of Shi Chonggui's youngest daughter, Wan Niang.

The fourteen-year-old Wan Niang shut her mouth tight in terror, and even began quickly smearing mud on herself, making her already thin and small frame look even filthier.

Empress Feng, by contrast, was extremely composed. She wore a brocade long skirt that had long since lost all color, and with a mocking smile watched the women running about, though her eyes were full of bitterness and misery.

"Why haven't you gone to hide? What are you doing wandering around here?" Shi Chonggui shouted anxiously at Empress Feng.

Empress Feng looked at Shi Chonggui with sorrow. "The caitiffs are like fierce hawks circling in the high sky; I am like a wild pheasant standing in the open field. There is nowhere to hide, so why hide?"

Empress Dowager Li could not stand Empress Feng, believing that it was this shameless woman who had bewitched Shi Chonggui.

"If the lowly wretch will not hide, why not die quickly?"

"If I could obtain two cups of poisoned wine, I would beg to die together with His Majesty, and leave this sea of bitterness soon."

Empress Feng had completely stopped caring, because her status as empress drew the covetous attention of many Khitan nobles.

In earlier years, members of the Khitan imperial clan had even traveled several thousand li to Huanglong Prefecture just to violate her.

Only in the past year had it lessened; it was said that many had gone out on campaign and not returned. In days like these, what difference did it make whether one was dead or alive?

But just as the crowd was in utter chaos and terror, the several dozen riders galloping toward them did not burst in to rape and pillage — instead they halted at the gate.

A tall Khitan came forward and barked, "Who is the Lord of Jin?"

Shi Chonggui trembled as the eunuchs and Feng Yu behind him shoved him to the front.

Fallen to such a state, he could no longer expect those around him to treat him as the Son of Heaven; they were even hoping he would die soon, so the Khitans would stop keeping the rest of them detained here.

Shi Chonggui was practically pushed out of the crowd, grief-stricken and terrified. Before he could speak, the tall Khitan shouted at him, "By order of the Holy Mother Empress Dowager, the Lord of Jin and his party are to proceed at once to the Central Capital, Dading Prefecture."

The Central Capital, Dading Prefecture, lay south of the later Chifeng, while Huanglong Prefecture was near Changchun — a journey of at least twelve hundred li. Shi Chonggui let out a wail at these words, and the people behind him were stunned.

This year they had finally managed to plant a little black millet, and by weaving cloth they had traded with the surrounding tribes for some salted fish and dried meat. Life had just barely become bearable — but if they left now, the grain they had planted would all be ruined.

Before the words begging for mercy could leave his mouth, the Khitans were already directing the Iron Li tribe Mohe men, who had come poling log boats, to begin looting and setting fires.

Shi Chonggui and his people wept to the heavens as the Khitans bound them with ropes and, leading them like oxen and horses, immediately began the relocation.

Meanwhile, in the Khitan Central Capital, Dading Prefecture, Li Gu's eyes glinted with mockery as he looked at Shulu Ping.

Shulu Ping, sixty-eight years old this year, sat on a lavish throne made of white tiger skin, looking at Li Gu, utterly helpless.

This time Li Gu had ridden out through Gubeikou with a hundred-odd horsemen and had nearly failed to find Shulu Ping and her son.

It turned out the Wrist-Severing Empress Dowager was far more ruthless than Yelu Ruan. The moment Zhang Zhao entered Youzhou, she had immediately taken Yelu Lihu and left the Eastern Capital, Liaoyang Prefecture, terrified that Zhang Zhao would launch a thousand-li surprise attack on her.

The mother and son fled all the way to the Supreme Capital, Linhuang Prefecture — the area around Bairin Left Banner — and hid there, only daring to come out after confirming that Li Gu had come as an envoy.

But once she emerged, Shulu Ping actually still hoped to extort some advantage, insisting that Zhang Zhao must come out beyond the passes to the Supreme Capital Circuit to see her before she would agree to meet him.

So Li Gu simply stopped negotiating, saying only that he needed to inform Zhang Zhao.

Immediately after, word came that the Zhou army had begun moving out beyond the passes — not to see Shulu Ping, but to begin sweeping through the Khitan tribes in all directions.

The brutal reality sobered Shulu Ping at once. She finally recognized that the Khitan were no longer the Khitan of old, and the Central Plains were no longer the Central Plains of old. She did not hold many bargaining chips.

Shulu Ping forcibly suppressed the urge to have Li Gu killed and, gritting her teeth, said in a low, harsh voice, "Then go back and tell your master: this old woman on the verge of death will wait for him at the Central Capital, Dading Prefecture."

Li Gu smiled coldly. "The Sage says he has been very busy lately and has no time to come to the Central Capital, Dading Prefecture. He asks that Auntie make the effort to meet him at Bei'an Prefecture."

The Khitan Bei'an Prefecture lay near the later Chengde, already very close to Youzhou. If Zhang Zhao wished, he could dispatch troops at once and destroy her. Shulu Ping rejected it immediately.

"The Han folk bully us beyond all endurance! My son and I might as well hand the Great Khitan State over to you!"

Li Gu laughed heartily. "If the Empress Dowager can be so wise and righteous, I could ask for nothing more.

But if these are words spoken in anger, then they are entirely unnecessary. If these several hundred thousand Khitans north of the passes wish to stay alive, it is impossible without showing some sincerity."

Shulu Ping was furious. Her face ashen, she turned and left. But Li Gu did not care in the least.

Because he knew Shulu Ping had no choice at all. It was simply a matter of whether she went, or Yelu Lihu went — those two options and nothing more.

Pingzhou, Lulong City. After waiting for some time with no word from Li Gu, and with the Brocade Guard personal troops also failing to track down any sign of Shulu Ping and her son, Zhang Zhao immediately chose to use military action to remind the Khitans that the situation now was nothing like before.

And so Zhang Zhao personally led the great army out through Gubeikou and advanced on Pingzhou. The Khitans garrisoned in Pingzhou fled at the mere rumor of his approach, and by the time Zhang Zhao's great army reached the prefectural seat of Lulong, there was not a single Khitan left in Pingzhou.

Pingzhou's specific location corresponds roughly to the later Hebei cities of Tangshan and Qinhuangdao.

And judging from later experience, it was impossible to build a Yan Mountains defense line centered on Youzhou without taking Pingzhou — for Yuguan, that is, Shanhai Pass, lay right there.

So after taking Pingzhou, Zhang Zhao immediately restored the Yuguan garrison post that the Khitans had abandoned, and transferred Zhang Xibao there, ordering him to oversee the building of fortifications.

Gao Huaide, meanwhile, immediately struck out eastward, taking in succession the Khitan-held Xizhou (Suizhong), Xingcheng, and other places along the Bohai coast, his vanguard pointing straight at the Khitan stronghold of Jinzhou.

To the Khitans, Jinzhou was their most important fortress in western Liaoning. The name Jinzhou itself had been given by Yelu Abaoji.

To build this city, Yelu Abaoji had conscripted nearly one hundred fifty thousand Han laborers alone — for the Khitan, this was a very considerable undertaking.

Gao Huaide probed Jinzhou with an attack, and finding that the Khitans in the city did not collapse at the first touch, began pretending to build siege engines in order to pressure the city.

Sure enough, word that Jinzhou was besieged quickly reached Shulu Ping in the Central Capital, Dading Prefecture. This was also why Li Gu dared to act with such fearless confidence — because he knew Zhang Zhao would certainly strike out and pressure the Khitans.

While Shulu Ping grieved over the decline of Khitan national strength, Zhang Zhao was out sightseeing.

He personally went to Jieshi Mountain, where Cao Cao in years past, on his campaign against Liaodong, had faced east from the Jieshi rocks to gaze upon the blue sea. He laid out offerings to pay his respects to this old ancestor of the Qiao Commandery Cao clan.

Zhang Zhao naturally had to come — not only because he shared the same tastes as Emperor Wu of Wei, but also because the Cao family of Shazhou claimed descent from the Cao clan of Qiao Commandery. In a sense, Cao Cao was also the ancestor of Zhang Zhao's descendants.

However, after everyone recited Cao Cao's "Gazing at the Blue Sea" and hoped that Sage Zhang would also be struck by poetic inspiration, they were thoroughly disappointed. Zhang Zhao said he would critique the poems composed by his civil officials, but left behind no famous piece of his own.

What a joke — when Sage Zhang composed poetry, it was always critical — er, no! It always had to be recalled and prepared in advance.

At Jieshi Mountain, all he could remember was one line from the Red Dynasty's founding father: "fishing boats beyond Qinhuangdao." What was he supposed to compose with that?

But Zhang Zhao had not come merely to sightsee. At the foot of Jieshi Mountain, he completed the enfeoffment and promotion of his Hebei meritorious followers.

He tossed out a great pile of prefectural and county offices, waiting only for the sons of the Hebei local magnates to pass the imperial examinations before granting them posts.

At the same time, Murong Xinzhang was promoted from Duke of Qinghai Commandery to Duke of Yan, Gao Xingzhou received the title of Marquis of Huairou, his son Gao Huaide was enfeoffed as Marquis of Changping, and Zhang Xibao finally obtained the title of Count of Pingzhou.

Afterward, Zhang Zhao transferred his Khitan Eight Tribe chieftains — Yelu Sizhong, Yelu Sixin, Yelu Sixiao, and others — to Pingzhou, appointing Yelu Sizhong as Prefect of Pingzhou.

He ordered him to follow the example of Zhao Dejun and Zhao Yanshou, father and son, in years past, and recruit the various tribes of western Liaoning, eastern Liaoning, and the steppe to form the Silver-Saddle Khitan Guard, the Silver-Saddle Jurchen Guard, and the like.

Sage Zhang had no intention of storming a strong city like Jinzhou. He intended to break the Khitan apart from within.

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