Chapter 664: Prelude to the Conquest of Shu

After finishing Gao Xingzhou's memorial, Zhang Zhao opened Murong Xinzhang's memorial.

His good eldest son had not reported much — only two matters, but both were extremely important.

The first was that the one hundred ten thousand Tuyuhun, Qingtang, Tangut, and other tribal peoples recruited from Hexi, Longyou, Shuofang, and Ningxia had already reached Pingzhou, Chengde Prefecture, and the grasslands north of the Yan Mountains.

Murong Xinzhang had selected seven thousand of the fittest as cavalry, equipped a certain number of them with iron armor, and had basically brought under control the pasturelands for several hundred li around.

Under their threat, the Khitan had abandoned the Central Capital of Dading Prefecture, which they had long managed, and withdrawn to the vicinity of Songshan Post. Shulu Ping and Yelu Lihu had withdrawn even farther, to the Supreme Capital of Linhuang Prefecture.

Songshan Post was what later generations called Chifeng in Inner Mongolia. It was still, in fact, fairly close to Beiping Prefecture, and given the Khitan's present condition, if Murong Xinzhang truly began to press them in earnest, they would not be able to hold Songshan Post.

But his good eldest son had been faithfully carrying out Zhang Zhao's strategy: before Zhang Zhou was unified and ready to sweep through all of Liao, he was to press the Khitan as little as possible, lest they flee into the bitterly cold Greater Khingan Mountains.

Of course, having fat meat dangling before one's mouth and not eating it was hard to bear.

Murong Xinzhang therefore petitioned Zhang Zhao, asking that when the strength of his Andong Grand Commandery field headquarters began to gain the advantage over the Khitan, Zhang Zhao would permit him to begin planned preliminary offensives.

The main aim would be to plunder the Khitan and the various peoples under their rule of population and livestock, in preparation for the complete destruction of the Khitan and of Wang-surnamed Goryeo.

Zhang Zhao considered for a moment, then approved Murong Xinzhang's request. He reckoned that Murong Xinzhang was coveting Jinzhou, which the Khitan held.

According to reports sent back by the Brocade Guard secret agents and the Bureau of the Northern Quarter of the Privy Council, the Tuyuhun light cavalry under Murong Xinzhang had already begun appearing frequently on the west bank of the Little Ling River.

Jinzhou truly was a great piece of fat meat!

It had originally been a fertile Khitan land, and now it had become the mutual market where the Khitan and the Central Plains traded. Traveling merchants from every corner of the realm bustled about — no wonder Murong Xinzhang coveted it.

The second matter, however, somewhat exceeded Zhang Zhao's expectations: it concerned the Hedong Tuyuhun.

Originally, before there had been any plan to send Murong Xinzhang off to Japan to be a great king, Zhang Zhao had feared that if the Hedong Tuyuhun were drawn in by Murong Xinzhang, it would bring certain troubles.

Even Murong Xinzhang himself had not dared to involve himself with the Hedong Tuyuhun.

To his surprise, these Tuyuhun had taken faith in the Buddha into their very bones. They regarded the Six Dharma Sect as heresy and resolutely refused to acknowledge that Zhang Zhao, the Supreme Heaven, was the Buddha's sole representative in the mortal world.

After word of the conversion spread, the Hedong Tuyuhun entrenched on the high mountains of Shizhou, Lanzhou, and other regions resisted the officials sent to relocate them with an attitude even more resolute than the one they had used against Liu Zhiyuan and the Khitan. Even among the Hedong Tuyuhun who had been moved to the vicinity of the Yan Mountains, large numbers fled.

By Murong Xinzhang's rough estimate, of the one hundred thirty thousand Hedong Tuyuhun, no more than thirty thousand had already accepted or were now prepared to accept the Six Dharma Sect.

Well now, these curs had suddenly grown a spine!

Zhang Zhao was furious. He had not pursued their crime of following Liu Zhiyuan, and now, to top it off, they were climbing up his nose and onto his face.

Just at that moment, a memorial arrived from the Prefect of Datong and Datong Troop Supervisor, Zhang Zhao's adopted son Zhe Deyuan, concerning Yelu Abaoji's youngest son, Yelu Yaliguo.

This Khitan prince, who had been captured by the Later Tang and made to guard palace gates in the Central Plains for over a decade, had after returning to the grasslands secretly maintained contact with Zhang Zhao, and had played a certain role in Zhang Zhao's destruction of Yelu Ruan and Yelu Wuzhi.

After Zhang Zhao met with Shulu Ping at Chengde Prefecture, fearing that Yelu Yaliguo would be done away with by her, he had specially dispatched Zhang Xibao to urge Yelu Yaliguo to lead his tribe south to the Hetao region.

Yelu Yaliguo naturally knew his legal mother's methods, and so without the slightest hesitation he had immediately led his own tribe of more than thirty-seven thousand people south, relocating to pasture west of the Daqing Mountains in the Hetao region.

Zhang Zhao had originally intended to use Yelu Yaliguo's eldest son by a concubine, Yelu He, to take over control of this tribe from Yelu Yaliguo.

But because they were Khitan after all, and feared that Zhang Zhao might go back on his word, they remained somewhat fearful after migrating south, and Yelu He could not fully take control.

Zhang Zhao therefore agreed to let Yelu Yaliguo continue to hold control for a time.

Now, after more than half a year of getting along, these Khitan had set their minds at ease, and Yelu He was already able to fully control the tribe.

Yelu Yaliguo therefore submitted a memorial to Zhang Zhao, stating that he could hand the tribe over to Yelu He, but that he did not wish to go and reside in the Divine Capital of Luoyang, and hoped Zhang Zhao would permit him to take up long-term residence in Taiyuan Prefecture.

Zhang Zhao frowned. Clearly, Yelu He still had not fully grasped control of the situation, which was why Yelu Yaliguo wanted to stay in Taiyuan.

It was not that he harbored disloyalty — thirty or forty thousand people could hardly stir up any waves — but having thirty or forty thousand people at one's command was far better than going to the Divine Capital of Luoyang and living shut up behind gates as a rich old man.

"Denied! Send a palace envoy to tell Yelu Yaliguo to hurry south. Damn it all, every stray cat and dog now thinks it can bargain with me!"

Zhang Zhao rarely cursed, but this time he did — who could blame him, when he had been holding in his anger these past few days, and Yelu Yaliguo had walked right into his hands.

Back when the Later Tang's Emperor Zhuangzong had dumped this fellow in Taiyuan to watch the palace gates, he had not dared let out so much as a fart. Now that Zhang Zhao had given him so many benefits, he actually expected to keep controlling those tens of thousands of tribesmen and go on being his little Khitan king. The man had truly lost his mind.

A palace envoy was a messenger dispatched directly from the palace. In the past they had mostly been eunuchs; under Zhang Zhou they were mostly subordinate officials of the Secretariat.

The advantage of this arrangement was convenience — they could set out without going through discussion in the outer court.

Of course, their authority was not as great as that of a formal imperial envoy. Whether others listened or not still depended on the Emperor's control over them.

After thinking it over, Zhang Zhao summoned Wei Renpu, the Minister of War and Participant in Administrative Affairs who had accompanied him to Guanzhong.

On this entry into Guanzhong, Zhang Zhao had brought along the outer-court officials Feng Dao, Xue Juzheng, Wei Renpu, and others.

Once Wei Renpu arrived, Zhang Zhao set aside the anger on his face and, smiling amiably, discussed with him the matter of ordering Yan Jin to send troops to campaign against the Hedong Tuyuhun and move these fellows to the vicinity of the Yan Mountains, as well as the matter of preparing to establish the Andong Province.

Zhang Zhao's inner-court Secretariat and Phoenix Terrace, in military affairs, managed only the personal army and the palace guards. Yan Jin, as Chief Minister of Hedong Province, naturally had to submit to a certain degree to the management of the outer court.

Dispatching troops to campaign against the Tuyuhun in Shizhou, Lanzhou, and other places certainly could not involve only the palace guards, so an order from the Privy Council was required for it to conform to regulations. The outer-court procedures still had to be gone through.

Wei Renpu was not at all surprised by Zhang Zhao's beaming face. The Son of Heaven was like this — very particular about rules.

In matters within the authority of the Secretariat, he simply made the final decision himself. But in matters involving the outer court, he was still careful to attend to the powers and opinions of the court officials.

Naturally, with the Emperor in such a good temper, Wei Renpu would not oppose Zhang Zhao.

This was not the mid-to-late Ming, when civil officials dared to deliberately oppose the Emperor in order to win fame and a reputation for forthrightness. The civil officials of the Five Dynasties had no such courage.

Wei Renpu therefore immediately followed Zhang Zhao's instructions, at once leading his retinue back to the Eastern Capital of Kaifeng Prefecture to consult with the ministers left in charge about the campaign against the Hedong Tuyuhun and the establishment of the Andong Province.

On the seventeenth day of the second month of the third year of Shaoming of Zhang Zhou, 948 CE, after Zhang Zhao had remained in Guanzhong another half month, He Fujin, Vice Defense Commissioner of Hedong, arrived in Guanzhong leading three thousand men of the Changguo Garrison of the palace guards stationed south of Taiyuan, along with one battalion of the Hanhai Garrison dispatched by Yan Jin.

The Changguo Garrison had originally been formed from Guanzhong sworn followers. After Zhang Zhao had transferred three thousand men of the Changguo Garrison to garrison Jizhou and other places south of Taiyuan, he had re-established a new Changguo Garrison in Guanzhong.

As for the situation in Hedong, under Yan Jin's governance of leniency tempered with firmness, the territory had quickly become well ordered.

The only remaining discord was the unrest caused by the relocation of the Tuyuhun in Shizhou, Lanzhou, and other places.

But those fellows could be dealt with using only a small number of palace guards in coordination with Hedong's garrison troops and the sworn-follower stalwarts of the various prefectures and counties.

Therefore, keeping several thousand palace guards stationed for a long time in the prefectures and counties south of Taiyuan seemed entirely unnecessary.

Ordering He Fujin to Guanzhong was also something Zhang Zhao had thought through carefully, because he needed an experienced senior general to direct the attack on Hanzhong.

Zhang Zhao therefore renamed the Hedong Changguo Garrison palace guards that He Fujin had brought back as the Xingqing Garrison, naming them after Xingqing Palace, one of the three great palaces of the Tang.

On the nineteenth of the second month, the very day after He Fujin's arrival, Li Rong, Military Governor of the Zhaoyi Army at Shangdang Prefecture (Luzhou), arrived in Guanzhong with one thousand five hundred Zhaoyi Army yabing guards.

As one of the only four Military Governors remaining in Zhang Zhou, neither Li Rong nor Shangdang Prefecture could compare with Gao Xingzhou's Beiping Prefecture, Fu Yanqing's Changshan Prefecture, or An Shenqi's Beihai Prefecture.

The greatest reason Li Rong had managed to obtain a Military Governor post was still connected to the great merit he had won in the battle with Guo Wei at the mouth of Hezhang Valley.

At the time, Li Rong had falsely claimed the title of Military Governor of Zhaoyi Army in Luzhou, splitting off the Wujie Army of the Hedong fierce general Shi Hongzhao. His stab in the back turned a battle Guo Wei had been dominating at the Hezhang Valley mouth into a chaotic melee, and in the end nearly caused the entire army to collapse.

After the battle, since a fierce general was needed to control Shangdang Prefecture (Luzhou) — and of course to reward Li Rong's great merit — Zhang Zhao actually enfeoffed Li Rong as Military Governor of Zhaoyi Army in Shangdang Prefecture.

Li Rong himself naturally knew that he could not compare with men like Gao Xingzhou, who held Hebei and Shandong for Zhang Zhao.

Therefore, after Gao Xingzhou and the other two had successively submitted memorials requesting the abolition of the Military Governor posts, he too immediately submitted a memorial requesting to resign from the post of Military Governor of Zhaoyi Army in Shangdang Prefecture.

Zhang Zhao was quite satisfied with Li Rong's tact. Over the past year, Li Rong had certainly not skimped on lining his pockets in Shangdang Prefecture — he had almost reached eighty percent of what Zhang Zhao could tolerate. Now that he was petitioning to relinquish the Military Governor title himself, it proved Li Rong still knew when to advance and when to retreat.

After formally deciding to abolish the Military Governor post of Zhaoyi Army in Shangdang Prefecture, Zhang Zhao ordered Li Rong to handpick the yabing guards of the Zhaoyi Army. Those who had already lined their pockets enough and wished to return home to live out their days were discharged; those of average fighting ability were converted on the spot into garrison troops through land allocation.

The remaining fifteen hundred men were all sturdy fellows, willing to keep fighting blade for blade to seek further wealth and honor, so Zhang Zhao ordered Li Rong to bring them to Guanzhong.

After summoning Li Rong for an audience, Zhang Zhao found that although this man was somewhat greedy for money and his vision did not seem particularly far-sighted, he was still quite capable at leading troops in battle.

And he was also quite loyal. Well, of course — in history, this was the man who, after Zhao Kuangyin usurped the throne, still hung up Guo Wei's portrait and wept bitterly before it.

So Zhang Zhao selected one hundred sworn-follower elite cavalry, one hundred militia archers, and three hundred sworn-follower pikemen from the Guanzhong auxiliary troops that had been mobilized, and incorporated them into Li Rong's Zhaoyi Army. He redesignated the Zhaoyi Army as the Zhaoyi Garrison of the imperial army, preparing them to remain stationed in Hanzhong after the conquest of Shu succeeded.

On the twenty-second day of the second month, Ma Zhaoyuan — Commissioner Bearing the Staff, Commander-in-Chief of Military Affairs for the prefectures and counties of Hubei, and General Who Pacifies Shu — sent a memorial to Guanzhong, reporting that the twenty-two thousand water and land troops for the Shu campaign at Jiangling Prefecture had completed their rest and reorganization, and were ready at any time to send warships upriver to attack the Ningjiang Army at Kuizhou in the state of Shu.

Immediately after, Erzhu Jing, Governor of Xiangyang Prefecture and Deputy General Who Pacifies Shu, also sent a man to report.

The seven thousand troops of the Feng'an Garrison of the imperial army and the Xiangyang Guard garrison troops stationed at Xiangyang Prefecture had already entered Ankang Prefecture (Jinzhou), and could at any time advance upriver from Ankang Prefecture to attack Yuanzhou (Yang County, Shaanxi), the eastern gateway to Hanzhong in the state of Shu.

The messenger Ma Zhaoyuan sent was a tall, thin young officer. Zhang Zhao noticed he was somewhat gaunt, and since he was not very old, did not pay him much attention.

When it came time for the report, this young officer surnamed Cao laid out Ma Zhaoyuan's military dispositions at Jiangling Prefecture and Yichang Prefecture (Xiazhou) with the fluency of one enumerating his family treasures, marking and explaining each point on the map cleanly and crisply.

His presentation was clear and well-organized, his understanding of each unit's situation thorough, and his explanation of the advantages and disadvantages of advancing upriver from Yichang Prefecture was lucid. He showed not the slightest stage fright, and even faintly bore the air of a great general.

Zhang Zhao was astonished for a moment. A talent like this should not be a nobody! So he asked with a smile, "What is your current office? When did you enter the ranks?"

Well now! Sage Zhang had not paid the slightest attention to what this young officer had said earlier — only after realizing he was a talent did he think to ask in detail.

The young officer saw that behind Zhang Zhao stood the Secretariat Drafter, and naturally knew the Emperor had a precedent of recording talented men in the registers and then promoting them. So, his cheeks flushing with excitement, he bowed to Zhang Zhao with hands clasped and replied.

"This humble officer is Cao Bin, squad general of the Right Leopard Strategy Guard. I entered the ranks in the winter of the second year of Shaoming!"

"What did you say your name was?" Zhang Zhao's eyes suddenly widened. He might not be familiar with other names, but the name Cao Bin — that one he knew all too well.

The foremost military merit of the founding of the Northern Song, practically the only commander of the Northern Song who could be mentioned in the same breath as the great founding generals of the Han and Tang dynasties — though in the end, ruined by the Northern Song's bizarre institutions, his later reputation was not preserved.

"This humble officer is Cao Bin!" Cao Bin was somewhat bewildered. Surely his name should not be enough to startle the Sage like this? Could it be that someone in the Cao family of Shazhou had this name?

"What relation is Guo Wei, Chief Minister of the Hunan Province, to you?" Zhang Zhao decided to confirm once more.

Cao Bin answered somewhat uneasily, "Grand Commandant Guo is this humble officer's maternal uncle by marriage."

Then there was no mistake. In history, the reason Cao Bin had been able to rise so quickly — apart from his own ability — was that his maternal aunt, Lady Zhang, was Guo Wei's third wife.

"Hahaha!" Zhang Zhao laughed heartily. "Would you be willing to come to my side as a personal attendant?"

Cao Bin was so delighted he nearly jumped. Personal attendants by the Emperor's side — apart from the Brocade Guard, there was only the Hanshan Capital Guard.

A military officer like him would not go to the Brocade Guard, so it must certainly be entry into the Hanshan Capital Guard.

Hearing such wonderful news, Cao Bin was overjoyed. He bowed deeply from the waist to the ground. "This humble officer is willing! I would go through fire and water for the Sage!"

On the twenty-seventh day of the second month, Zhe Deyuan, Chief Minister of Shuofang Province, personally led the Yong'an Garrison of the imperial army — a force of three thousand built around the Zhe family's Yong'an Army — and arrived at Chang'an. With this, the entire army for the Shu campaign was assembled.

Zhang Zhao immediately convened a military council and began discussing the specific strategy for the conquest of Shu.

At the same time, Zhang Zhao ordered Zhebu Jiashi, Governor of Tianshui Prefecture and Commander of the Xiongwu Garrison, and Luo Yu'er, Defense Commissioner of Guanzhong, to immediately seal the roads leading into Shu territory.

Then he ordered Li Xiaojie to activate the Brocade Guard spies planted in Shu territory, to begin whipping up a great clamor and spreading false information everywhere.

One moment it was said that the Son of Heaven of the Zhou state was personally leading a hundred thousand troops on campaign, intent on taking Hanzhong.

The next moment it was said that Murong Xinzhang, practically the foremost military man of the Zhang Zhou, was personally commanding troops setting out from Tianshui Prefecture, marching south by the Qishan Road to strike straight into the heart of Shu.

Zhang Zhao's reason for doing this was to muddy the waters. Since the news of the Shu campaign could not possibly be kept secret, better to fish in troubled waters and see whether the state of Shu would expose a weakness.

Although the natural defenses of Shu were matchless, with easy-to-defend, hard-to-attack terrain everywhere, the more natural defenses there were, the more places there were to defend.

The Meng Shu regular army numbered no more than fifty or sixty thousand, and could not possibly defend everywhere. Let them fall into confusion first, and perhaps an opportunity would present itself.

Related