Chapter 658: Mobilization Ability Unrivaled in the Age

Good books...

The people of Chang'an were disappointed, because Sage Zhang had ultimately chosen the divine capital Luoyang as the capital of the Great Zhou, which left those who had always regarded themselves as the orthodox heirs of the Great Tang feeling rather upset.

But very soon, the people of Chang'an found something to console themselves with again.

For although the Great Zhou had established its capital at Luoyang, Chang'an's title of Jingzhao Prefecture still remained.

Everyone knew that Jingzhao Prefecture was the proper formal designation for the imperial capital, while "Divine Capital" was nothing but an ill-fitting name coined by that madwoman Zetian the Great Sage.

"Compared to our Jingzhao Prefecture in Chang'an, it is still a notch inferior!"

An old man with a crippled leg and a fearsome scar running from the corner of his left eye down to his left cheek was muttering to himself on Ba Bridge.

"The Sage's carriage is coming! The Sage's carriage is coming!" someone shouted, and the crowd at once stirred; the scar-faced old man also stood on tiptoe and peered into the distance.

In the distance, carriages, banners, and drums did indeed appear indistinctly, but before anyone could see clearly, more than ten riders in brocade uniforms came galloping over from afar.

The foremost rider, clad in a purple silk brocade robe, shouted loudly to the crowd waiting at Ba Bridge.

"The Sage will not enter Chang'an city today. He commands all civil and military officials, meritorious ministers, and noble kin to proceed to County Magistrate to appear before him."

The so-called County Magistrate was in fact the tomb of Zhang Yichao, located in Liquan County northwest of Xianyang—possibly the shabbiest imperial tomb of any dynasty.

Whenever a new dynasty was founded, if it posthumously honored its ancestors, even if no one knew where the ancestors were buried, it would certainly undertake grand construction of a mountain mausoleum. But Zhang Yichao did not.

His County Magistrate was not the mountain mausoleum common in the Tang, nor did it have a mausoleum park.

For when Zhang Yichao was buried, he was interred only according to the specifications of an ordinary official, and was not entitled to a mountain mausoleum, a mausoleum park, or an underground palace.

After Zhang Zhao established the new dynasty, he only added a sacrificial spirit hall, a spirit way, and stone beasts to Zhang Yichao's tomb. Even the tombstone still bore the inscription: "Grand Guardian of the Great Tang, Commander of the Left Divine Martial Army, Founding Duke of Nanyang, the late Lord Zhang, taboo name Yichao."

It did not match the name County Magistrate at all.

"Too crude! Too crude!" Gao Baorong beside Zhang Zhao said repeatedly. "Sage, the craftsmen who built the mountain mausoleum for Prince Wuxin in the former Jing domain are still there. I beg permission to send men back to Jiangling to summon them, so they may select a site and rebuild a mountain mausoleum for Huanzu."

After Gao Baorong made his statement, someone else immediately spoke up as well. When it came to flattery, how could Ma Xiguang be left out?

Although this fellow was somewhat stingy, this was no longer the days when Ma Chu still existed. To save his own life, Ma Xiguang was quite willing to spend.

He had first given Zhang Huaiqing betrothal gifts worth eight thousand strings of cash, and now he was eager to spend more of the hundred thousand strings Zhang Zhao had left him—spending wealth to ward off disaster, after all.

"I second the proposal. When I was in Changsha, I heard that there are fine great timbers deep in the mountains of Xi and Chen. I beg the Sage to permit the felling of trees on Wuling Mountain to build a mountain mausoleum for Bozu."

Zhang Zhao smiled and waved his hand. "The state is newly founded, and a hundred affairs await revival. The people of the realm have suffered two hundred years of war and have not yet had their fill of food and warmth. This is no time for grand construction.

I think we should simply build a mausoleum park here, enclose three li around with earthen walls, move twenty households here, exempt them from taxes, and let them sweep and tend the park. That will suffice."

Having said this, Zhang Zhao glanced at Gao Baorong and Ma Xiguang, who were still somewhat uneasy. These two—how to put it—had certainly not surrendered their lands willingly; it was simply that their arms could not twist the thigh.

Now that they had already offered up their lands, they were constantly uneasy at heart, for from ancient times to the present, few rulers of fallen states such as themselves had met a good end.

The two wanted to put on a show of being so happy they forgot their old home, but their skill was insufficient; they lacked the thick skin of the Duke of Anle, so they could only think of how to curry favor with Zhang Zhao to preserve their families and lives.

In Zhang Zhao's view, Gao Baorong and Ma Xiguang were both somewhat timid men without much cunning, and it was hard for him to regard them as threats.

Moreover, the flattery these two sometimes offered was truly stiff; they felt awkward delivering it, and Zhang Zhao, on the receiving end, felt even more awkward.

At the same time, Zhang Zhao very much needed the exemplary role the two of them could play.

If the campaign against Shu went smoothly, then in all the realm there would remain only six states: Southern Tang, Qian Yue, Southern Han, the Qingyuan Army under Liu Congxiao, Dali, and the Jinghai Army.

Among them, Southern Han, Dali, and the Jinghai Army would certainly have to be fought.

The Liu family of Southern Han were a pack of degenerates; not fighting them would not be enough to appease the people's wrath.

Dali, where the Tonghai Army was located, had never even been fully conquered by the Great Tang, so it would inevitably have to be fought.

As for the Jinghai Army, ever since Wu Quan's death it had fallen into a state of fragmentation among the general Yang Shaohong and the Twelve Warlords, and it too would have to be cleared out by force.

But as for the remaining Southern Tang, Qian Yue, and the Qingyuan Army under Liu Congxiao, Zhang Zhao truly did not want to fight.

These three places were not only wealthy, but also territories with developed shipbuilding industries; it would truly be a pity to smash them to pieces.

Moreover, whether Li Jing, the ruler of Qian Yue, or Liu Congxiao, all could be won over by amnesty, and none had any record of wrongdoing. So Zhang Zhao very much needed Gao Baorong and Ma Xiguang to set an example for the rest.

Thus Zhang Zhao prepared to elevate them. He took Gao Baorong and Ma Xiguang by the hands and said to them:

"In his years in Hexi, Huanzu always pursued policies of diligent governance and love for the people. I imagine that building a grand mausoleum park and burdening the common people is something he would never have wished. If we can bestow favor upon the people, that would far surpass building a mountain mausoleum.

Today I shall contribute one thousand strings, and Dechang and Depi shall each contribute five hundred strings, to reward the old and young of Guanzhong. What say you?"

The two were deeply moved upon hearing this, and Gao Baorong even began to choke with emotion.

This was true elevation. Although the two held princely titles, without Zhang Zhao's permission they had no right to bestow such rewards.

It was also an added layer of protection for them, and moreover Zhang Zhao was signaling that he did not distrust them, nor did he have any intention of doing anything to them.

As noon approached, the civil and military officials and able-bodied men who had been summoned from all quarters began to gather outside County Magistrate.

Zhang Zhao looked out. Besides the imperial guards of the three garrisons—Huwei, Changguo, and Zhenguo—and the guard-post troops of the three Chang'an garrisons,

the patrol yabing guards, militia archers, long-spear sworn followers, and mounted sworn followers under the control of the seventeen patrol inspectorates north and east of Chang'an had all arrived.

Around County Magistrate alone there were probably no fewer than ten thousand men. Most wore hempen clothes; the few wearing padded cotton garments were the wealthier among the common people, and of course those with horses and armor were even fewer.

Zhang Zhou's regulation of armor was different from that of every previous dynasty.

In all previous dynasties, the control of civilian armor had been extremely strict. No matter who you were or how high your position, privately hoarding armor beyond a certain amount was a capital offense.

But Zhang Zhou was different. First, among the common people there were large numbers of meritorious soldiers who possessed imperially bestowed armor.

These were mostly military-rank officers who had rendered great service. The Bureau of Military Affairs had once roughly calculated that among the civilian population there were at least five thousand sets of cloth-faced iron armor, iron lamellar armor, ring-linked armor, and Central Asian mail.

So much armor had been bestowed in order to maintain the martial lineages of the meritorious, and also to prepare for future expansion abroad. After all, armored against unarmored would be one of the trump cards for Zhang Zhou's warriors going out into the world.

At the same time, among the common people, Zhang Zhou did not prohibit the possession of various leather and paper armors of three layers or fewer, so long as they were registered and recorded at the government office.

Therefore, the militia stalwarts and sworn followers among the people, so long as they had the means, would often choose to get themselves a set of leather armor.

This kind of three-layer leather armor certainly could not defend against long spears and great axes, and needless to say, crossbow bolts and stiff bows could also pierce it.

But it was still of some use in defending against horse and foot bows of under eight dou, hengdao sabers, and long and short daggers.

Of course, you could also modify it by embedding iron plates inside the leather armor, which would immediately double its defensive power. But by the same token, if you were caught, the light punishment was exile and the heavy punishment was beheading.

Also strictly prohibited were crossbows. The high-draw ones could pierce even cloth-faced iron armor and lamellar armor, so they had to be banned.

Amid the booming of gongs and drums, Zhang Zhao walked up onto the magpie platform of Zhang Yichao's County Magistrate. He ordered his brocade-clad personal guards to wave the banners, signaling the stalwarts and sworn followers of the various patrol inspectorates' riding clubs, archery clubs, and spear-and-staff clubs in the distance to come forward.

The inspectors of every inspection bureau, and the captains of every fine-horse, spear-and-staff, and archery society, saw the banners and at once formed up the stout lads and sworn followers under their command, bows slung and spears in hand, and advanced slowly.

These stout lads had no uniform dress, wearing mostly plain hemp robes in blue, white, and gray, so they did not look very orderly.

But on their foreheads, without any prior agreement, they all wore red headbands, and they advanced in formation beneath the great banners of their respective inspection bureaus, looking quite disciplined.

When they came within fifty or sixty paces of the magpie terrace where Zhang Zhao stood, the seven or eight thousand stout lads, at the sound of the bronze gong, shouted in unison, "Yulin! Yulin!" twice, then stood still.

Had any officials of Meng Shu or the Southern Tang been present at this moment, they would surely have been astonished, for the discipline displayed by these seven or eight thousand stout lads far surpassed that of many of their own regular armies.

Zhang Zhao was also very pleased. These years Zhang Zhou had been fighting without pause: first the bitter struggle against Liu Zhiyuan and the Khitan, which lasted until the ninth month before it truly ended, and then immediately the southern campaign against Nanping and Ma Chu, which only returned home just before New Year's Day.

Now, barely at the end of the first month, he was about to dispatch a great army against the state of Shu.

The frequency of war could not be called anything but intense. Even if the forces that defeated Liu Zhiyuan and the Khitan and the ones that pacified Nanping and Ma Chu were not the same men, still, the defeat of Liu Zhiyuan had been only four months past.

The exhaustion of the army's elite troops was inevitable, so Zhang Zhao needed to call up large numbers of auxiliary troops such as the United Bowmen and the sworn-follower light cavalry.

First, to use them for the dirty and exhausting work; second, to use them to spur the elite personal troops and the palace army to fight hard.

"Do not think yourselves irreplaceable. Whoever dares not give his all — there are plenty of men ready to step in and take his place."

So this large-scale mobilization of Guanzhong was a drill aimed at the military mobilization capacity below the county level in the Guanzhong region, and the result greatly satisfied Zhang Zhao.

Through the palace-army garrison posts spread through the countryside, the inspection bureaus everywhere controlling the fine-horse, spear-and-staff, and archery society men rotating on duty, and the martial-academy students — these three measures, with the various government offices cross-controlling the Guanzhong countryside, had produced a formidable mobilization capacity.

Zhang Zhao had only issued the edict ordering Guanzhong to mobilize when he reached Huayin County, and in just eight short days, six thousand United Bowmen, four thousand long-spear sworn followers, and two thousand five hundred sworn-follower light cavalry had been raised.

Judging from their present condition, these men could be thrown into battle almost immediately, and their fighting strength might even surpass the yabing guards of the various garrisons of Meng Shu, because they had a visible path of promotion to boost their morale.

Zhang Zhao believed that if the time were extended to a month, he could mobilize an army of one hundred thousand from Guanzhong's population of 1.7 million.

Add the more than two million people of Hexi and Longyou, and the northwestern half alone could provide him at least three hundred fifty thousand troops.

Although Zhang Zhao could not produce enough grain, supplies, and rewards for such an extreme mobilization, as things now stood, raising thirty to fifty thousand men was still possible, and their fighting strength was quite good. The troops for the Shu campaign had suddenly become abundant.

Beneath banner after banner of the inspection bureaus were pairs of shining eyes full of adoration and admiration, and especially the inspectors standing at the very front — nearly all of them were Zhang Zhao's old acquaintances.

Sage Zhang stepped down from the platform, and the scar-faced man at the head of the line struck him as extraordinarily familiar.

Before Zhang Zhao could speak, the scar-faced man let out a choked sob and dropped to one knee on the ground. His grizzled, large head lifted, and he was already bawling.

"Sage! Your servant is Zhao Bazi of Feng'an Town!" After he had bawled this out, Zhao Bazi seemed to remember himself, and with great show shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Your subject Zhao Yan, Inspector of the Zhaoling Ford Inspection Bureau, kowtows to the Sage Son of Heaven!"

With that, Zhao Bazi was about to prostrate himself, but Zhang Zhao quickly grabbed his arm and pulled him up, then unceremoniously kicked his lame leg with his foot.

This fellow was a yabing guard of the Zhangwu Army whom Zhang Zhao had recruited in Weizhou when he first entered Guanzhong. After being wounded in the leg in the great battle at Yanshi, he had retired with the rank of Zhongyi Lang of the forty-eighth grade and become an inspector.

"Zhao Bazi, you rascal, how did you get so old so fast? Did you do nothing but chase women after you left the army?"

When facing grassroots military men of merit like this, Zhang Zhao always put on a rough, crude manner, completely different from when he was with civil officials like Sun Guangxian and Lu Yan.

Hearing the Emperor speak to him so intimately, Zhao Bazi was so excited he wanted to leap three feet into the air. His face flushed red as he looked at Zhang Zhao and laughed loudly in defense.

"Sage, Zhao Bazi hasn't found few women — that's all thanks to the Sage's grace, rewarding Bazi with three hundred strings of gold and silver. Of course it should be used to take a few more wives.

But rest assured, Sage, though Bazi's own leg is lame, he has trained several brave warriors for the Sage."

With that, Zhao Bazi scrambled up, pulled a man from behind him, and stood before Zhang Zhao.

"This is Han Huzi of Zhaoling Village. He can stay in the saddle three days without sleep, shoot from either side, and with a hard bow of eight dou or more, loose fifteen arrows without pausing for breath. This year he is only seventeen."

The ability to keep drawing a bow is roughly equivalent to the magazine capacity of a firearm in later ages — a very important indicator for an archer.

Firing fifteen arrows in succession from a hard bow of eight dou or more is a terrifying standard. Men like this usually have superb accuracy as well; fifteen arrows can bring down at least eight or nine men.

And that is against elite troops. Against common soldiers, he might bring down twelve or thirteen.

If an army has fifty or sixty elite archers like this, they can nearly shoot two or three thousand common soldiers into not daring to advance — or even shoot them into outright collapse.

And Han Huzi is only seventeen, so his prospects are truly boundless!

Zhang Zhao looked him up and down a few times, then laughed aloud in satisfaction. He glanced at the Secretariat's Luantai attendant behind him, a man specifically assigned to serve as Zhang Zhao's personal military secretary.

"Record it: Han Huzi of the Zhaoling Ford Inspection Bureau is an excellent archer!" Having said this, Zhang Zhao patted Han Huzi on the shoulder.

"Fight bravely and kill the enemy. After you pass the provincial military examination, We will promote you to the Hanshan Unit."

Han Huzi was so excited that his whole body trembled uncontrollably. He gazed ardently at Zhang Zhao, his mouth making choked sounds but unable to utter a single word. Seeing Zhang Zhao show such favor, Zhao Bazi was even more overcome.

"Sage! Your subject also has brave warriors under his command." In the distance, a burly man, burning with envy, howled out.

Zhang Zhao patted Zhao Bazi's shoulder and walked forward.

This burly man, Zhang Zhao was very familiar with — he was of the Shen family of the Liugu tribe in Liangzhou, named Shen Zhixun.

He had been a brave warrior of the Left Yulin Guard, with boundless prospects, but unfortunately, during the attack on Du Chongwei at Songzhou, a stray arrow struck his shoulder. The wound became inflamed, and in the end he could only save his life by losing the arm.

Call it luck, and he was as unlucky as Zhang Xiaobao — a valiant general with boundless prospects forced to retire in obscurity.

Call it misfortune, and given the medicine of this age, not one man in thirty could survive the amputation of an arm.

"Your subject Shen Zhixun, Inspector of the Hanbei Ford Inspection Bureau in Hu County, kowtows to the Sage!"

"Get up, quickly! Quickly!" Zhang Zhao hurriedly helped Shen Zhixun to his feet, touching his empty left sleeve, and very naturally his eyes reddened.

"You are one of Our brave warriors! Without your left hand, is life still manageable?"

A burly man like Shen Zhixun was reduced to tears streaming down like rain by that single sentence from Zhang Zhao.

"Your subject will find it hard to serve the Sage again in this life. In the next life, I will be the Sage's claws and fangs once more.

Losing a left hand is nothing. Your subject has one wife and one concubine, and fifteen tenant households. Whether in daily life or in plowing the fields, I need not lift a hand myself."

"Good, then! Good, then!" Zhang Zhao said repeatedly in relief, his large head bobbing up and down like a chicken pecking at grain.

"Gongsun Nian! Come and pay your respects to the Sage at once!" Shen Zhixun roared, and a burly man emerged from the ranks of the Hanbei Ford Inspection Bureau.

Zhang Zhao looked him over. He was a big man of roughly the same build as Qiong Reduojin — not as massive as the Savage Bear, but more agile-looking, though his walk had something of the dragon's stride and tiger's gait about it, a sense that the very ground shook.

"This is Gongsun Nian of Hu County. His two hands have the strength of a thousand jin. He once overturned a bull at the ford by its horns. He can also leap and dart through the mountains as if flying, and often enters Mount Niushou to catch apes with his bare hands. Once in the mountain forests, he is a match for several hundred soldiers."

Good heavens — a man who can seize a bull by the horns and throw it, and catch apes in the mountains — this is a war machine! The mountain roads into Shu are steep and treacherous; a man like this is exactly what is needed.

"Record this too: Gongsun Nian of Hanbei Ford is matchlessly brave — to be given important duties in the future!"

When Zhang Zhao finished speaking, Shen Zhixun and Gongsun Nian roared with joy.

At the same time, the other patrol offices grew even more excited. They waved their banners and, as if competing, pushed their bravest warriors to the very front.

Zhang Zhao went down the line, and the Luantai attendant recorded more than a hundred brave warriors.

There were men of immense strength, crack marksmen, and riders without equal. There were also men skilled in water warfare, men skilled in mountain warfare — all kinds of people.

By the way, the best app for listening to audiobooks right now is the source-switching app; install the latest version.

After the review was complete, Zhang Zhao rewarded every able-bodied man and sworn follower present with a bolt of white cotton cloth each, and then held a great banquet outside the Xian Mausoleum, drinking freely with these most basic fighting men.

They would be the key members of the campaign against Shu.