Chapter 631: Will Guo Rong Become Chai Rong?

In the second year of Shaoming, the year 947, on the third day of the eighth month, after Sage Zhang had spun his tale, Shulu Ping still did not believe that Zhang Zhao would not covet the lands of Liaodong and Liaoxi, but she did come to accept, preliminarily, that Zhang Zhou had no ability to launch an attack beyond the frontier in the short term.

And in fact that was true — only Shulu Ping had underestimated Zhang Zhao's appetite.

Zhang Zhao did not merely want Liaodong and Liaoxi, the old Goguryeo lands in Shulu Ping's eyes; he wanted the peninsula, the Wa kingdom, Mobei, and the Tungusic wilderness as well.

But it did not matter that Shulu Ping did not believe Zhang Zhao, because the crowd of Khitan nobles she had brought with her did believe him — after all, this Sage Zhang's acting and directing skills had nearly reached perfection.

Moreover, under ordinary circumstances, arranging the near-mutiny-style self-directed drama that Zhang Zhao staged would have been extremely dangerous.

Even Yelu Abaoji, the founding lord of the Khitan, would not have dared play such a game back in his day — who could know whether someone might take the pretense for real?

Yet Zhang Zhao dared, precisely because his control over his subordinates was far beyond anything Yelu Abaoji could match.

And so these Khitan nobles, who had no wish to retreat to places like Jingbian City to eat snow, immediately swayed Shulu Ping's decision.

After the Shushan Army under Shulu Ping's direct command had been wiped out, this ever-dominating Empress Dowager of the Severed Wrist had no choice but to listen to the voices of her subordinates.

Likewise, Zhang Zhao made concessions on certain issues as well. For example, when it came to determining the Khitan ruler, Zhang Zhao raised not the slightest objection to Shulu Ping's unilateral proposal to make Yelu Lihu the Khitan ruler.

He did not even take away Yelu Ansage, who had been delivered right to his mouth, and he truly seemed to have no intention of going beyond the frontier.

What a joke — Sage Zhang was no fool. It was only that Shulu Ping had grown muddled with age, imagining that the younger son she doted on was a wise and formidable ruler.

But in truth everyone knew that Yelu Lihu was a fool who had everything except brains.

Even if the Khitan were still in the era of Yelu Deguang, having Yelu Lihu as ruler would have been enough to ruin the state, let alone now.

At this point, the Khitan interior had long since become a boiling pot of chaos, because it had only been a little over thirty years since Yelu Abaoji had forcibly unified the eight Khitan tribes.

Those within who refused to accept the Yelu Abaoji line's monopoly on the Khitan Khagan's throne were beyond counting, and the Bohai, Jurchen, and Shiwei peoples in the old forests of the northeast, and even the Wang clan's Goryeo south of the Yalu River, were none of them easy to deal with.

If Zhang Zhao had pressed them with a great army, they might very well have united to fight to the death, but with Zhang Zhao letting go like this, heaven only knew how great a mess would erupt.

With Shulu Ping now nearly seventy, a rare age in her waning years, and with a brainless Yelu Lihu beside her, Zhang Zhao strongly suspected that the mother and son, far from building up their strength, would have trouble even settling their own internal affairs.

And if Yelu Lihu did not take the throne and someone else did — even if it were Yelu Jing — Zhang Zhao would have been somewhat worried.

For this "Sleeping King" of the Great Liao was actually not bad at governing, and having not yet undergone the long suppression of the Yelu Ruan period that led to his psychological derangement, his ability far exceeded Yelu Lihu's.

Under these circumstances, Zhang Zhao quickly reached an agreement with Shulu Ping: the Khitan would discard the title of Great Liao, the ruler would abandon the title of Emperor and be renamed King of the Great Khitan, and Zhang Zhao recognized the King of the Great Khitan as Yelu Lihu.

The two sides set Chengde Prefecture as the northern border and Jinzhou as the eastern border, and opened Chengde Prefecture and Yu Pass in Pingzhou as mutual markets.

Zhang Zhao returned more than two thousand Khitan captives held as slave laborers in the Central Plains, and sent back the bodies or ashes of several dozen officers great and small, including Yelu Ruan, Yelu Wuzhi, and Xiao Han.

The Khitan returned more than eighteen thousand common people abducted from the lands of You and Yun.

Before leaving, Zhang Zhao secretly ordered Zhang Xibao to lead five hundred cavalry out of Yunzhou to Yu'er Lake, to notify Yelu Abaoji's youngest son Yelu Yaliguo, who had long been in secret communication with Zhang Zhou, to bring his tribe to settle in the Hetao region around Fengzhou.

For Zhang Zhao knew very well that Yelu Yaliguo's private camp, with more than ten thousand tribal members, would surely become the next best target of attack for Shulu Ping, who was desperate to restore her strength.

At the same time, Zhang Zhao appointed Yelu Yaliguo's eldest son — the very Yelu He who had escorted Yelu Abuli to Liangzhou back then — as Prefect of Fengzhou.

If Yelu Yaliguo was willing to lead his tribe south to Fengzhou, then the tribal members could only be handed over to Yelu He, while he himself would go to the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture, to live as a wealthy idler.

Of course, if Yelu Yaliguo was unwilling to come south, then one could only hope he could withstand Shulu Ping's schemes.

Afterward, Zhang Zhao established four of the planned new eight Khitan tribes first, and placed Yelu Sizhong and the others under Murong Xinzhang's command, leaving Murong Xinzhang in Pingzhou.

He appointed him Grand Commander of Andong, with full authority over the strategic compression work aimed at Liaoxi, and the Tuyuhun tribes of Hedong also began slowly gathering toward the Pingzhou and Chengde Prefecture area.

At the same time, Pei Yuan, Governor of Hexi Province, Jia Yanchang, Governor of Longyou Province, and Zhe Deyi, Governor of Shuofang Province, received orders to mobilize the Tuyuhun, Tangut, and other herders in their jurisdictions to prepare to migrate east.

The reason for moving these Tuyuhun and Tangut people first was that they were originally nomadic or semi-nomadic people, far easier to relocate than Han people — at least they would not arrive at their destination and then need to clear wasteland and such.

Wu Luan, Defense Commissioner of Ningxia Province, was also ordered to begin recruiting strong and fierce Hengshan Tangut men in the Hengshan region, and after basic training, transfer them to the Youzhou area. The famous Hengshan foot-runners, it seemed, were about to appear ahead of schedule.

Having arranged everything, Zhang Zhao led the great army back.

In the north, Yan Jin, Governor of Hedong Province; Gao Xingzhou, Military Governor of the Fanyang Army at Beiping Prefecture; Fu Yanqing, Military Governor of the Zhangde Army at Changshan Prefecture; and Murong Xinzhang, Grand Commander of Andong at Pingzhou, would form the Four Swordsmen of the North, responsible for suppressing the recalcitrant throughout the north and guarding against the Khitan.

And just as Zhang Zhao was leading his army back, Guo Wei was also bringing his family from Taiyuan Prefecture in Hedong back to his hometown of Yaoshan County in Xingzhou, Hebei — that is, the later Longyao County, Xingtai, Hebei Province.

As for the war between Hedong and the Zhou kingdom — how to put it — Guo Wei initially felt he had fought it in a rather stifled manner.

Because apart from Shi Hongzhao, who had already died in battle, his teammates such as Bai Zairong could be described as textbook pig teammates.

But when Guo Wei calmed down and carefully replayed the situation, he found that no matter how he worked it out, the Hedong army's great defeat was inevitable.

The only difference was whether it would be settled in one fell swoop, or slowly strangled to death in the siege of Taiyuan — either way, there was no chance of victory.

As for Liu Zhiyuan, Guo Wei could not say he had no feelings for him, because he truly had been raised up step by step by Liu Zhiyuan's own hand, but neither did he have feelings so deep that he would refuse to eat the grain of Zhou, and so on.

So after thinking it through, Guo Wei prepared to take the initiative and draw close to Zhang Zhao.

But he was very clear in his heart that a man like him, in his forties and once an enemy general holding great power over a region, would find it very hard to be given important responsibilities again.

Looking across the whole of Zhang Zhou, the former-dynasty old generals who could still receive important posts were only three: Gao Xingzhou, Fu Yanqing, and An Shenqi.

And of these three, two had married their daughters to Zhang Zhao, and the daughters were much favored. The other had placed his bet back when Zhang Zhao was still a nobody.

More importantly, these three all had fine reputations for loyal and brave service during the great war between Jin and Liao, which was what Zhang Zhao esteemed most, and the greatest reason the three of them could receive important posts.

Even with Li Shouzhen's family property, Zhang Zhao had left half to Li Shouzhen's old mother and wife — it was said the Emperor did so in consideration of Li Shouzhen's great merit in being the first to strike the Khitan at the great battle of Baituanwei Village in Yangcheng.

And Guo Wei? At that time he had been loyally helping Liu Zhiyuan scheme to seize the throne of the Son of Heaven, and had never once thought of fighting the Khitan, so he had not even an inch of merit to his name.

Having thought all this through, Guo Wei basically held no hope of ever receiving important employment in Zhang Zhou.

But he could live on the remaining family property that Zhang Zhao had not fully confiscated, and live quite well at that.

Yet the younger generation of soldiers and officers who followed him, including his nephew Li Chongjin and his son-in-law Zhang Yongde, could not just scrape by in petty scheming for the rest of their lives!

Guo Rong at this time was also not at Zhang Zhao's side, because like Guo Wei, he had to move his family away from Taiyuan — only not back to his hometown in Xingzhou, but to the divine capital, Luoyang.

Because Guo Rong was now the Commander of the Left Leopard Taowei Guard of Zhang Zhou's personal army, he naturally had to settle his family in the divine capital Luoyang or the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture.

When Guo Wei saw that Guo Rong had come to take his leave, he pondered for a moment, then opened his mouth and asked: "I hear that in Taiyuan Prefecture the Sage called you Sanlang rather than Dalang?"

Guo Rong hesitated a moment, then gently nodded, because in terms of family ethics, Guo Rong was Guo Wei's adopted son, so Zhang Zhao ought to have called Guo Rong Dalang.

But if one counted Chai Rong as the son of Chai Shouli, then Chai Shouli had five sons, and Guo Rong ranked third — the ranking Sanlang was precisely Guo Rong's ranking in the Chai family.

Guo Wei gave a long sigh. "When I adopted you back then, it seemed on the surface that it was because I had no son of my own, and because your birth father Chai Shouli was dissolute and shiftless, and you were orphaned and young, so I gave you a place to stay.

But those were only the surface reasons. The main reason was that your mother could not bear children, and I feared that in her later years she would have no one to rely on, so I adopted Rong-ge'er to give Yingniang someone to depend on."

At this, tears glistened unbidden in Guo Wei's eyes. "Who could have known she would leave me so early."

"My lord, please restrain your grief. Your mother has ridden the crane westward and ascended early to the Pure Land; surely she is living most happily in the immortal realm above." Guo Rong, too, could not hold back his tears.

When he was two or three, his mother had abandoned him and run off; his father was a wastrel who paid him no mind at all, and little Guo Rong often did not know where his next meal was coming from.

Only after his aunt, Lady Chai, took him into the Guo household did he have a home, and so his feelings for this foster mother who was also his aunt ran all the deeper.

"Three years ago, it was we who harmed you! If we had not recalled you from the Hexi army that day, by now you would at least hold a position like Zhe Deyu, who guards Yunzhou, instead of still being a mere Chief Supervisor of the Guards."

Guo Rong at once prostrated himself. "There are no parents in this world who are in the wrong. Besides, had I not returned from Hexi, how could I have served at my mother's sickbed and seen her off on her final journey?"

"You are a good child." Guo Wei let out a long sigh. "But I cannot keep you any longer. From this day on, you shall change your surname back to Chai."

"Is my lord driving me from the household?" Guo Rong's voice had begun to tremble.

He had followed Guo Wei and Lady Chai since the age of ten; sixteen years had passed now, and he had long since come to regard the Guo family as his own. Though he had sensed this coming, for a moment he still found it hard to accept.

Guo Wei shook his head. "It is not that I wish to drive you away. It is that you now have a great future ahead of you, and there is no need to ruin that future for the sake of a decrepit old man like me."

Guo Rong knocked his head to the floor and said, choking slightly, "Never in this world has it been heard that a man would leave his father for the sake of rank and riches. That would be the height of unfiliality! If I were to act so, what face would I have left to live in this world?"

Seeing this, Guo Wei stamped his feet anxiously on the ground. "It is not that you must leave now — it is that this old man can no longer keep you, do you understand?

This old man already has sons of his own. I wish to pass all this family property to my own sons, and so I am driving you out. Do you understand?"

Guo Rong raised his head and looked at Guo Wei once, his face streaked with tears, then calmly shook his head.

"It is true that Father wishes to drive me away, but not for that reason. And if it were a matter of family property, I can swear before Qingge and Yige that I will never covet a single coin of my lord's estate."

Guo Wei fell silent. For a long while he said nothing, and only after a good while did he sigh deeply. "But if you keep following this family and bearing the surname Guo, what is to be done about the Son of Heaven? You are only twenty-six, and all your abilities are to go to waste?"

Guo Rong also fell silent, but after a moment he shook his head firmly. "The Sage is broad-minded and governs by loyalty and filial piety. Perhaps he was only testing me with his words, but so long as I report the truth, the Sage will not raise the matter again.

It is rather you, my lord, who are the trusted confidant of Liu Zhiyuan. How many heroes in the Hedong army have received your patronage and favor?

If you are not restored to the Sage's service, those men will grow uneasy at heart, and should one or two of them fabricate slander, the danger will be real."

Guo Rong's words struck Guo Wei squarely in the chest. This was precisely what worried him most.

Given Guo Wei's standing in the Hedong army, if Liu Zhiyuan became emperor, that standing would be capital for soaring success.

But as things stood now, he feared many people were hoping he, Guo Wei, would die soon — so that they would not be cold-shouldered by the Emperor for having once received Guo Wei's favors.

If one or two treacherous, ungrateful wretches were to bring a false accusation, then, exactly as Guo Rong said, the danger would be real indeed.

"Then bring Jinge and the others. I hear the Sage has already set out southward; let us go to Beizhou and seek an audience."

Zhang Zhao had indeed entertained the idea of having Guo Rong restore the Chai surname, and had even considered whether to take Guo Rong as an adopted son as well.

But in the end, considering Guo Rong's lifespan and how far-reaching the implications would be, he let the matter drop.

What Zhang Zhao had not expected was that this small notion of his would stir up such great waves in the Guo household.

That very night, when Zhang Zhao halted at Beizhou, Guo Wei came with Guo Rong to seek an audience outside.

Guo Wei, of course, was not foolish enough to come and say outright that he was there to keep Guo Rong from changing his surname, nor that he had come seeking office to win Zhang Zhao's trust.

Guo Wei came under the pretext of recommending talent for the state.

Zhang Zhao did indeed feel a certain — well, one could not exactly call it wariness — toward Guo Wei, but at least until he had figured out Guo Wei's ways, he was somewhat reluctant to employ him.

Because a man like this, once employed, would have to be employed in a great capacity, placed in high office; it would be impossible to appoint Guo Wei to a post like Prefect, for that would be an insult.

As for personal like or dislike of Guo Wei, Zhang Zhao had none; he even understood Guo Wei's abilities very clearly.

In the art of governing, this Guo Que'er, who had been something of a scoundrel in his youth, was in fact highly capable — even more so than the hot-tempered Guo Rong, Guo Wei was a cut above in statecraft.

So Zhang Zhao merely did not wish to use Guo Wei for the time being, but he remained courteous to him. Hearing that Guo Wei sought an audience, he summoned him at once, late as the hour was.

Sovereign and subjects sat together in the Fu family residence, discussing affairs in the warmest of spirits.

In truth, from ancient times, the ceremonial distance between Chinese sovereign and subject was never as great as later generations imagined.

Before the Tang, people knelt and prostrated at the slightest occasion, but that was because they sat kneeling in the first place, so kneeling and prostrating were nothing remarkable and carried no special meaning.

In the Sui-Tang period, or rather from the Northern and Southern Dynasties onward, after tall stools came into common use, kneeling and prostration appeared only on the rarest of occasions.

In fact, kneeling at every turn came to be regarded as contrary to propriety — as rudeness itself. If a minister knelt recklessly during a court assembly, he would be punished.

Only in the Ming dynasty did sovereign-subject ceremony become deliberately elaborate and burdensome. By the Qing it reached its extreme: three kneelings and nine prostrations, attending to affairs on one's knees, became the norm.

Guo Wei sat on a slightly low brocade stool, while Guo Rong stood behind him with hands clasped.

Zhang Zhao sat on a broad folding couch. After the group exchanged a few pleasantries, Guo Wei said to Zhang Zhao with a smile:

"Your servant has long suffered from an ailment of the feet, and of late finds it even harder to walk. I fear it will be difficult for me to serve Your Majesty any further.

Yet many civil and military heroes who once followed me still remain, and so I wish to recommend these men of talent to Your Majesty, that they may lend Your Majesty the strength of claws and fangs."

At this time the examination system was not yet fully formed, and recommendation was an extremely important channel for seeking talent. A man of Guo Wei's standing did indeed have the right to recommend capable men to Zhang Zhao.

Zhang Zhao was greatly pleased to hear this. He still did not wish to use Guo Wei himself for the time being, but he was very interested in the talents Guo Wei's discerning eye had gathered.

"These are words spoken for the sake of the state. What sort of talents are they, to have won your favor?"

Guo Wei cupped his hands from his stool. "In former years, my Secretary Lu Yan came from a family of officials for generations. His nature is bright and keen, his discourse broad and profound; in ordinary service he is worthy to honor his lord, and his excellent plans for sheltering the people suffice to order the state. I beg Your Majesty to employ him.

Pan Mei, styled Zhongxun, of Daming, was my personal attendant. He is handsome in bearing, thoroughly versed in military texts, and possessed of strategy; he is loyal, brave, and principled. His name is not widely known only because he has had no stage on which to display himself. Should he meet a King Zhaoyan of Yan, he could be a Yue Yi.

Shi Yanchao of Yunzhou is brave, fierce, swift, and agile; he is resolute and magnanimous, and can make his soldiers fight to the death. He can serve as a vanguard general.

My son-in-law Zhang Yongde of Bingzhou is peerless in valor, yet also versed in poetry, letters, astronomy, and geography. He treats others with humility and can serve as a commander of a front."

Zhang Zhao's eyes lit up. Of the four men Guo Wei recommended, two were ones Zhang Zhao admired greatly: Lu Yan and Pan Mei.

Lu Yan was profoundly learned and had the talent of a chief minister; whether governing a region or presiding over the central court, he would be a renowned official of his generation.

Pan Mei went without saying — an absolute master general. Had the Northern Song's stage not been so small, Pan Mei's fame in history would have been even greater.

More importantly, these two could be said to be the only ones among the Later Zhou court in history who still possessed a shred of conscience.

In history, after Zhao Kuangyin was draped in the yellow robe at Chen Bridge, the soldiers and officers who had rebelled with him, along with Zhao Pu and others, gauged Zhao Kuangyin's mind and concluded that among Guo Rong's sons, Chai Zongxun of course could not be killed.

But if the remaining children of a few years old were to die, surely no one would pay attention — and they would serve perfectly to intimidate others.

So they seized Chai Rong's sons by concubines, the Prince of Ji and the Prince of Qi, intending to kill them.

The two children were terrified out of their wits, their weeping shaking the ground, a sight of utter wretchedness.

Yet to save their own skins, even men like Fan Zhi and Wang Pu, who had received such great favor from Chai Rong, went against their consciences and dared not speak a word of remonstrance.

Only Lu Yan and Pan Mei could not bear it and risked their lives to remonstrate. Lu Yan shouted to Zhao Kuangyin, "When Yao and Shun passed on the throne, they did not destroy their sons Danzhu and Shangjun. Now that you have received the abdication of Zhou, how can you not preserve its descendants?"

Zhao Kuangyin hesitated, then asked Pan Mei, the general he trusted most. Pan Mei did not dare defy Zhao Kuangyin, but he truly could not bear to kill those two little children. After a long silence, he answered, "How would I dare say it cannot be done? But in principle, it sits uneasily."

With Lu Yan and Pan Mei both opposed, Zhao Kuangyin in the end could not bring himself to do it. Seeing Zhao Kuangyin hesitate, Pan Mei quickly carried off the young Prince of Ji, while Lu Yan carried off the young Prince of Qi, and each went home.

Later records say Pan Mei adopted the Prince of Ji, Chai Xijin. This may be false.

But Lu Yan, to protect the Prince of Qi, Chai Xihui, resigned from office and returned to his hometown, adopted Chai Xihui, and renamed him Lu Xuan. When the boy came of age, Lu Yan married his own daughter Lu Jin to him, preserving the bloodline of Zhou Shizong Guo Rong. This is likely true.

To accomplish that was no easy thing! At the Yellow Robe ceremony, he staked the lives of his entire family to save two little children whom everyone thought deserved to die. The two men's sense of gratitude and righteousness, and their inherent kindness, can be clearly seen.

"I wonder if Lu Yan and Pan Mei are in Beizhou?"

Talents like these — Zhang Zhao naturally wanted as many as possible. His mood immediately improved considerably, and along with it, his opinion of Guo Wei also improved a good deal.

Guo Wei nodded. "When I came to Beizhou, I brought them along. They are now waiting outside the traveling palace for an audience."

Zhang Zhao was overjoyed. "Summon Lu Yan, Pan Mei, Shi Yanchao, and Zhang Yongde to an audience."

Having said this, Zhang Zhao suddenly seemed to remember something. He looked at Guo Wei and said with a chuckle:

"Lord Guo recommended his son-in-law Zhang Yongde without shying from nepotism. But I have heard that Lord Guo's nephew Li Chongjin is also brave and resolute. Why did you not recommend him?"

Guo Wei looked at Zhang Zhao and answered, "My nephew Li Chongjin is indeed brave and decisive. It is a pity that he is rash by nature and does not care for study. He can only be a brave general, not a talent for the left side of the throne. Therefore I did not recommend him."

Had it been any other emperor, he would surely have suspected Guo Wei of holding something back. But Zhang Zhao knew Guo Wei was telling the truth.

Historically, after Zhao Kuangyin usurped the throne, Zhang Yongde survived by being all things to all men, and lived quite well. But Li Chongjin, in Huainan, misjudged people and lost his footing, and could only die with his whole family for the Later Zhou.

But this also shows that although Li Chongjin's ability was somewhat inferior to Zhang Yongde's, he was more straightforward by nature.

So Zhang Zhao said to Guo Wei, "Even if he is only a brave general, he is still a talent of the Great Zhou! Send word — let Li Chongjin also enter the palace for an audience."

When Guo Wei heard that Zhang Zhao not only had not the slightest suspicion, but had even summoned Li Chongjin as well, his impression of Zhang Zhao immediately changed greatly for the better.

After the five men entered, Zhang Zhao questioned them one by one. Lu Yan was indeed broadly learned, erudite, and full of insight. Pan Mei was not only handsome and upright in bearing, but his responses were also perfectly proper.

Zhang Yongde had the talent to command a front. Shi Yanchao and Li Chongjin were at least brave generals comparable to Zhao Yanjin and Wang Quanbin.

Zhang Zhao's heroic spirit surged. He immediately promoted Lu Yan to Drafter of Edicts in the Secretariat, appointed Pan Mei to the Hanshan Capital as a squad leader attending at his side, sent Zhang Yongde out as Prefect of Cangzhou, and placed Shi Yanchao and Li Chongjin in the Left and Right Longxiang Guards as squad leaders.

Seeing Zhang Zhao so magnanimous, Guo Wei — who of course did not know that Zhang Zhao knew these men's reputations from history — assumed Zhang Zhao was doing it to give him face, and was immediately moved to the point of choking up.

"In the past, when I followed Liu Zhiyuan, I did not recognize the times and often contended with the Sage. I never imagined the Sage would be so magnanimous. Your Majesty is truly a heaven-sent sovereign of genius. Liu Zhiyuan is far inferior to Your Majesty!"

Zhang Zhao laughed heartily. If Guo Wei could truly serve him, that would actually be rather good. At the very least, he would be useful when Zhang Zhao prepared to take Ma Chu and Nanping, and then invade Shu on three fronts.

Because Zhang Zhao was preparing to transfer Ma Yaoyuan (Ma Yaozi), the Administrator of the Jianghuai Province and Military Governor of Wuning Army in Xuzhou Prefecture, to serve as the front commander of the southern expedition.

It would be just right to have Guo Wei garrison Xuzhou — to assess his ability on one hand, and to see whether he had truly submitted on the other.

At that very moment, the Chief Minister in the Eastern Capital, Zhang Xichong, sent an urgent messenger. It turned out that Ma Xiguang could no longer sit still and wanted to return to the Chu kingdom.

Zhang Zhao immediately gave the order for Guo Wei to accompany the imperial procession to the Eastern Capital, and for the army to accelerate its advance.

The matter of Ma Chu had been laid out for over half a year. The time had come to draw in the net.

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