Chapter 689: The Emperor Returns to His Loyal Hexi and Longyou

What a fine book...

Zhang Xiancun had already met Li Congzhao's youngest daughter, and as expected, this young lady of the Li family was extremely beautiful.

Think about it — Li Congzhao's family had been a powerful clan for generations and had once ruled a region as feudal lords. After several generations of genetic refinement, it would be absurd if they still produced an ugly daughter.

But Zhang Xiancun was not very happy. On the surface, he felt the Li Congzhao family's status was too low and would be of too little help to him.

The boy completely overlooked the power of a team made up of experienced old farmers skilled in agriculture, plus barefoot doctors.

One must know that this combination, even in the early years of the later Republic, was still a sharp tool for the central government to support, manage, and — to put it bluntly — control poor, remote, and border regions. Yet now it was actually looked down upon by me, the great Imperial Prince Zhang.

But in reality, the true reason for Zhang Xiancun's unhappiness was dissatisfaction with his own prospects. He did not dare say so, however, so he used the Li Congzhao family's status as an excuse.

And the reason he had become dissatisfied with his own prospects was that the last time he had followed Pei Yuan to Chengdu Prefecture, and then gone on with Guo Rong to Nanxi Prefecture, what he actually saw on the ground chilled his heart through.

In Zhang Xiancun's original imagination, the Kingdom of Dali, during the time of the Great Dynasty, had once flourished, and there had even been the Kingdom of Nanzhao, which had dared to stand hard against the Great Dynasty.

After that, there had successively appeared the Dachanghe Kingdom established by the Han man Zheng Maisi, and the Dayining Kingdom established by the Han man Yang Ganzhen.

Even the current Duan clan Kingdom of Dali — its founding emperor Duan Siping was a Bai man, but the Bai are actually not very different from the Han.

They bear Han surnames. Their speech is nearly identical to Han speech, and could even be considered a dialect.

Their customs and practices are in many ways similar to those of the Han, and like the Han of this time, they mostly believe in Buddhism.

With this understanding, Zhang Xiancun's little head naturally conjured up an image of a regional great power only slightly inferior to the Kingdom of Shu.

He imagined that although the Dali capital Yangjumie City had a strange name, compared with Chengdu Prefecture it would not be much worse.

But when he actually arrived and looked, to say nothing of Yangjumie City two thousand li away, even Nanxi Prefecture, only five hundred li from Chengdu Prefecture, was a completely different world from Shu.

This little city of Nanxi Prefecture, with just over twenty thousand people, shattered Zhang Xiancun's illusions about the Kingdom of Dali.

Zhang Zhao looked at this son, whose mood was clearly not high, and felt a slight sense of disappointment in his heart.

The qualities Zhang Xiancun had originally displayed to him — whether in vision or in dealing with people, as well as being able to imitate Zhang Zhao's courteous treatment of the worthy in a passable manner, and to gather a group of people around him —

these had made Zhang Zhao feel that this eldest son of his was sufficient to bear the heavy responsibility of guarding a region, serving as the lord of a great state, and defending the southwestern border for the country.

But looking at it now, Zhang Zhao had overlooked Zhang Xiancun's background.

In particular, people of this era love to pride themselves on bloodline, which made these qualities of his — just like Zhang Zhao the keyboard warrior before his transmigration — all float in midair when looking at problems. Neither his thinking and understanding nor his experience had ever sunk down to the ground.

But this was not Zhang Xiancun's fault. The boy's mother was the queen of the Zhongyun Kingdom from the moment he was born. Although the entire Zhongyun Kingdom was only sixty or seventy thousand people, a king of sixty or seventy thousand people was still a sovereign.

By the time he understood things a little, his father Zhang Zhao, bearing the prestige that awed Anxi and Hezhong, returned like lightning and storm, riding on clouds of seven colors.

Then he first became the lord of Liangzhou, immediately afterward unified Hexi, then took Longyou, and now had become the Emperor of the Great Dynasty.

As someone who had personally witnessed Zhang Zhao's meteoric rise and his becoming a pride of the age, Zhang Xiancun naturally grew accustomed to grand scenes and grand patterns.

What he saw was the invincibility of his father and the entire Zhang-Zhou group; what he heard in his ears was all praise and flattery of his father and even of himself.

All the way from Hexi, no matter what background they had — great clans and powerful families, sons and grandsons of regional commanders — even the most dazzling young heroes, as long as they saw him, Zhang Xiancun, they all had to tuck their tails between their legs and curry favor with him.

In terms of ancestral bloodline, his sixth-generation ancestor Zhang Yichao was a great loyal minister and great hero who awed Anxi and Beiting, Hexi and Longyou, and whose name moved the whole world.

His tenth-generation maternal ancestor Yuchi Sheng was also a great loyal minister renowned throughout the world, and the Yuchi family had been a thousand-year great clan entrenched in Khotan since the Former Han.

His tenth-generation maternal grandmother was the granddaughter of Emperor Rang of the Great Dynasty. He, Zhang Xiancun, could be said to be one of the very few Great Dynasty imperial bloodlines with a complete chain of evidence, now that the Great Dynasty's bloodline had withered and its genealogies had been scattered.

With such an origin and such an environment, expecting a fifteen-year-old, at that proud and stubborn age of youth, to keep his feet on the ground — how could that be possible!

So the greater blame for this problem still lay with Zhang Zhao's lax discipline and Li Ruoliu's doting.

Thinking of this, Zhang Zhao decided to teach Zhang Xiancun and Zhang Xianyu a lesson.

The imperial carriage traveled from Fengxiang to Tianshui, and Zhang Zhao with great difficulty found a household that was not doing very well.

In the present Hexi and Longyou, almost every family had sons or nephews who had followed Zhang Zhao into the pass. Those who died in battle received high compensation; those who did not die basically all became honored men of the new dynasty, differing only in degree.

In addition, the equal-field land distribution in Hexi and Longyou had been carried out earliest and most thoroughly, and the agricultural scholars spread throughout the two provinces reached a density of almost one for every thirty households.

Per capita farmland reached as high as forty-some mu.

With so many agricultural scholars, and benefiting from the livestock industry of Hexi and Longyou, there was basically no shortage of large draft animals to help plow the fields.

For spring plowing and autumn harvest, the government would also coordinate and organize farm tools and labor, and irrigation facilities were basically spread through every township — all of this ensured that yields would not be low.

Every family had brothers, sons, or nephews out at war, and those at home all carried spears and bows. It was hard to find any soft persimmons among them, which put an end to harsh oppression from officials and local strongmen.

All of this combined made Hexi and Longyou, one could say, the heaven best suited for ordinary people to live in anywhere under heaven today.

To find a truly poor and suffering family here was genuinely not easy.

This was a thatched hut with mud walls and a roof of thatch mixed with branches.

In the household there were only an old man, an old woman, and two half-grown boys. The half-grown boys wore tattered trousers, though their upper garments were still fairly intact. Their eyes darted away when looking at people — something not very common in Hexi and Longyou.

After the old woman came out to offer greetings, she hid in the back courtyard. The old man, his body stooped, stood somewhat at a loss. What flashed across his face was not fear, but shame.

The reason for this — the reason such a poverty-stricken family could still appear in the outskirts of Tianshui Prefecture — lay with the old man's two sons, Wen Da and Wen Zhong.

It was not that these two sons were worthless; on the contrary, they were too accomplished.

In the great battle of Luoyang between Zhou and Liao, when Zhang Zhao was trapped at Yangqu by Yelu Wuzhi, Wen Da had come to the rescue following Murong Xinzhang. Alone with a divine-arm crossbow, he had shot dead six armored cavalrymen of the Khitan Iron Sparrowhawk Army on the spot.

He was one of the invincible warriors who followed Murong Xinzhang in charging first into the Khitan iron cavalry and, with thirty-some men, shattered two hundred riders of the Khitan Iron Sparrowhawk Army.

In the great battle of Mengzhuze, where the Southern Tang's Liu Yanzhen was defeated, Wen Zhong was the first to leap into the Bian River, leading ten-some men to seize more than ten Southern Tang warships in succession. Wielding a heavy sword, he cut down more than ten armored Southern Tang officers and countless soldiers — even more fearless in the face of death than his superior Murong Yanzhao, who was renowned for bravery.

And then, the glory of these two brothers ended there.

First, while clearing the battlefield, the two colluded with others to conceal spoils of war, and were investigated and punished by the military judge.

After being punished and allowed to atone through merit, they then accepted bribes from local strongmen in Yangzhou City, helping these strongmen seize other people's property. They themselves also had misdeeds such as robbing merchants and forcibly taking other men's wives and daughters.

After the matter came to light, Zhang Zhao was truly in a difficult position! He finally experienced the feeling of Marquis Zhuge Wu weeping as he executed Ma Su.

Wen Da and Wen Zhong were rare warriors in Zhang Zhao's army. Wen Da, at the edge of Yangqu, had even rendered the merit of rescuing the sovereign. But military law is merciless.

Zhang Zhao, enduring the pain, issued the order to handle the matter according to military law. The military judge then sentenced Wen Zhong to twenty strokes and five years of hard labor, while Wen Da was directly beheaded.

In the end, Murong Xinzhang knelt before Zhang Zhao for a long time without rising, and used his own rank and title as guarantee to win the two brothers a qualification for delayed punishment.

Then, in that same year, in the great battle with Guo Wei at the Hezhang Valley mouth, Wen Da charged Guo Wei's personal guard with the posture of one seeking death, fighting so hard that Guo Wei was forced to retreat back to the north bank of the Zhang River, and finally died a heroic death.

This qualification was something Murong Xinzhang had begged for him. The good eldest son could not bear to see Wen Da, who had followed him for ten years, be cut down with one stroke by the military judge, and instead let him die gloriously on the battlefield.

Wen Zhongze survived. His family spent everything they had to buy his way out of punishment, and now he follows Murong Xinzhang, eating wind and drinking snow by the Daling River in Jinzhou.

Because the two brothers had been punished for violating military law, the family's equal-field land and all other benefits were stripped away. Wen the Elder's wife, unable to bear the neighbors' pointing and whispering, abandoned her son and ran off.

Old man Wen and his wife had it even harder in Longyou. Materially that was secondary; the main thing was being looked down on by their neighbors, and the clan struck their names from the rolls. The officials of the prefecture, district, and county, along with the local strongmen, all seized the chance to squeeze the soft persimmon.

Within a few years the whole family had fallen into dire straits.

Zhang Zhao motioned for Zhang Xiancun, Zhang Xianyu, Guo Rong, and the others to sit down.

It happened to be noon. Though people of this time did not eat a midday meal—generally one meal at ten in the morning and another at four or five in the afternoon, with wealthy households having an extra late-night snack in the evening.

But Zhang Zhao could not do without it; when twelve o'clock came, he had to eat. Those around him all knew Zhang Zhao's rules. The attendant from the Palace Provisions Bureau was just about to prepare a grand meal, but Zhang Zhao waved his hand and said to old man Wen.

"Since we have come to your home today, we shall follow the host's convenience. Whatever you ordinarily eat, serve us the same."

Old man Wen glanced fearfully at Zhang Zhao, then shook his head violently. "What we eat is base fare, not worthy to be offered to the Sage."

By "base" he did not mean lowly in status, but that the food was too simple and coarse.

But Zhang Zhao happened to want his two sons to see the real world of men, and what he wanted was precisely this simple, coarse food.

So he smiled and said to old man Wen, "In all the world, the most precious thing is the grain that can keep people alive. It has no distinction of noble or base. I, Zhang Zhao, have also gone hungry. If you can eat it, then I certainly can eat it too."

Sage Zhang had indeed gone hungry. Without this body's self-destructive fasting in the Buddha cave, refusing food while chanting sutras, where would his transmigration have come from?

When old man Wen said the food they ate was base, he was not being modest in the slightest.

A bowl of black millet—that is, sorghum rice—yet it showed a strange green color, presumably because a great deal of wild greens had been mixed in.

A bowl of blackish pickled vegetables, pickled who knew how long. Zhang Zhao could not even tell what sauce and what vegetables had been used in the pickling.

Apart from this salted vegetable, the only other dish to go with the rice was a bowl of vegetable soup that old man Wen brought out.

In the soup were a few strips of white meat of unclear origin. Presumably old woman Wen had just gone to make this bowl of soup, and those few small strips of white meat were probably something they ordinarily could not afford to eat.

Then an even more horrifying sight appeared. Old man Wen, as if just remembering something—perhaps afraid the soup lacked flavor—took out a small strip of purple-black vinegar cloth, wadded it into a ball, and dipped it into an equally blackened clay pot, coating it with a sauce that looked like shit.

Watching the black unknown substance still dripping from the vinegar cloth, the old man smiled with satisfaction, then deftly stirred it all into the soup, adding an unexpected black swirl to that bowl of green, earthy-smelling vegetable soup.

Beside him, Director Dong's cry rose to his throat; he nearly shouted that someone was trying to poison them, and could only hold it in, his face red as he coughed repeatedly.

Damn! He'd spoken too soon.

Zhang Zhao's stomach churned. He had originally intended to teach his two sons a lesson, but he had not expected that he himself had still overestimated the lives of commoners in this era.

Looking at the large bowl of rice and the salted vegetables before him, he felt that if he ate it, he might very well throw up.

So I, Sage Zhang, turned my gaze to Director Dong beside me, and gave a light cough.

The meaning was obvious: this food offered by a criminal's household—shouldn't you, my trusted director, come share your lord's burden? Ah, no! Shouldn't you come test whether it's poisoned?

Director Dong saw the Emperor's look and felt his whole body go numb, a wave of regret surging through him.

If he'd known, he would have brought a few more young eunuchs along. Ah! But who told him to always serve the Emperor personally, for fear of others rising in favor?

Director Dong begged an old cracked clay bowl from old man Wen. He had wanted a full set of tableware, but the Wen household truly had none—only this broken clay bowl. As for chopsticks, they were just two twigs that young Wen had gone to fetch.

Coarse! When the sorghum rice went down, it was like a steel blade scraping his throat.

Stinking! That bowl of pickled vegetables—heaven knew when they had been pickled. Apart from a faint saltiness, the stronger taste was a strange stench within the saltiness.

Fishy! Director Dong could barely resist grabbing old man Wen by the neck and shaking him hard, demanding to ask this plague-stricken wretch what vegetables in the world he had used to boil this broken soup.

You damn well served it up like a treasure, but it stank of fish like dirt straight from the field.

Zhang Xiancun and Zhang Xianyu were both stunned. The two of them stared blankly at Director Dong, whose face was turning green and whose body was twitching.

Was it really that bad? Eating a meal could make you like this?

And besides, they'd only asked him to try a bit to test for poison—just a formality. How could he have eaten almost all of it? Then what would Father Emperor eat?

Full of doubt, the two boys and the little black bear picked up their bowls together.

Before it even reached his mouth, Zhang Xiancun, whose mind was extremely quick, immediately sensed something was wrong.

Because his bowl of rice was right before his eyes, but his eyes and nose were telling him very clearly: this was not food, and it should be thrown away at once.

Zhang Xianyu's mind did not turn as fast as Zhang Xiancun's. While Zhang Xiancun hesitated, he had already put two mouthfuls of rice and a large chunk of pickled vegetable into his mouth.

Then—"Blaaargh!" Zhang Xiancun heard his younger brother beside him let out a vomit from the depths of his soul.

He turned his head and saw Zhang Xianyu throw down his bowl and sprint off with lightning speed to vomit violently to the side.

As for the little black bear, he was baring his teeth, his face red, eating in great mouthfuls with great... uh, it probably shouldn't be called relish.

Zhang Xiancun looked down and saw that the little black bear's father, the barbarian bear Zhang Zhaozhong, was stepping on the little black bear's foot with his big foot, and it looked very forceful.

Zhang Xiancun understood everything. Although he had not yet eaten, this trial was clearly not going to be easy.

Because after the second son Zhang Xianyu vomited, he was immediately dragged back by two guards and pressed down hard in front of the "dining table."

Zhang Xiancun was just about to ask Father Emperor whether he could skip eating, when he saw Father Emperor, Sage Zhang, already lift his bowl, his face unusually stern, and swallow mouthful after mouthful without the slightest expression.

Zhang Xiancun had no choice. He also suddenly understood why Director Dong had eaten so much in one go just now.

What a ruthless man! Zhang Xiancun inwardly gave Director Dong a thumbs-up. He'd eaten so much in one go, and only grimaced—he hadn't even vomited.

With his thoughts racing, Zhang Xiancun took a deep breath, first carefully picked up a piece of pickled vegetable, and shoved it hard into his mouth.

Instantly, a strange stench shot from his mouth straight to the crown of his head. Zhang Xiancun could not resist at all. With a wail of misery, he sprinted off in the same direction his younger brother Zhang Xianyu had just run.

In barely five minutes, Zhang Xiancun had vomited once, Zhang Xianyu had vomited twice, and the little black bear's eyes showed a pleading look.

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Zhang Zhao then set down his chopsticks and called over the Wen family's half-grown boy.

When young Wen arrived, Zhang Zhao personally filled a large bowl of rice for him, picked up a big chopstick-full of pickled vegetables, then poured a full bowl of vegetable soup over it.

Young Wen froze for a moment. Once he understood that Zhang Zhao truly meant for him to eat it, he immediately took it and devoured it like a whirlwind sweeping away clouds.

That food which in the eyes of Zhang Xiancun, Zhang Xianyu, the little black bear, and even Zhang Zhao was utterly revolting and hard to swallow, young Wen finished completely in less than half the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.

Not only did he finish it all, he even seemed to want more. The chopsticks were hard to use, so he simply used his fingers to scrape the black millet rice mixed with soup from the edge of the bowl into his mouth, then licked the bowl completely clean.

Zhang Zhao looked seriously at Zhang Xiancun and Zhang Xianyu for a moment, then said nothing more, picked up his bowl, and began eating again.

This time the two boys also said nothing, summoned their courage, and ate mouthful by mouthful.

To be honest, after throwing up once or twice, it didn't feel quite so hard to swallow anymore.

For the time it took to drink a cup of tea, no one spoke. After finishing the food, Zhang Zhao pointed at the Wen family boy, whose trousers were in tatters, and said to Supervisor Dong.

"Reward this boy with a bolt of cloth so he can make himself some clothes. He shouldn't be going about so ragged."

Unexpectedly, before Supervisor Dong could speak, the Wen boy suddenly dropped to his knees and began kowtowing repeatedly. "Sage, I don't want cloth. I want a warhorse!"

Supervisor Dong laughed. "You little rascal, you're sharp. A warhorse is worth far more than a bolt of cloth."

But the Wen boy pressed his head to the ground and shouted, "My family is poor and can't afford a good warhorse. Without a good warhorse I can't train my riding well, and without that I can't go out to war, and my grandparents will go on suffering in this place!"

"I beg the Sage to grant me a warhorse! I'm willing to throw away my life to kill for the Sage!"

The words were a little rough, but very real.

"What a fine child! Do you hate your father?" Zhang Zhao sighed.

One could imagine what kind of discrimination a child like this would suffer in Tianshui Prefecture, where everyone took pride in fighting for the country, after his father and uncle broke military law and their family was stripped of everything.

"Hate him! I hate him to death! I'll never be like him!"

The Wen boy knelt on the ground, wailing loudly, and another, smaller boy beside him began crying too. These were the two sons Wen Da had left behind.

Zhang Zhao suddenly turned and roared at the crowd behind him. "Wen Zhong, you cursed wretch! Come out here and look! Come see who is suffering because you broke military law!"

From among Zhang Zhao's guards, at his shout, a man in a black robe with two knife scars on his face immediately rolled out — it was Wen Zhong, whom Zhang Zhao had transferred back from the Andong Grand Protector's headquarters.

After rolling out, Wen Zhong knelt prostrate before his father, wailing loudly, not daring to rise.

The old man of the Wen family froze for a moment, then let out a beast-like howl, turned, grabbed a bamboo switch as thick as a finger, and lashed Wen Zhong wildly, beating him until his skin split and flesh gaped.

Wen Zhong neither dodged nor cried out in pain, only lay on the ground sobbing loudly.

After the old man had struck him more than ten times, the old woman of the Wen family suddenly rushed out of the house, shoved the old man aside, threw herself to the ground, and embraced her son, wailing loudly too.

Zhang Zhao watched all this in silence. When they had all cried themselves out and the whole family prostrated themselves before Zhang Zhao, he let out a long sigh, pointed at Zhang Xiancun, and said.

"You certainly can't stay in Tianshui any longer. Go to Nanxi Prefecture with the Marquis of Shanshan!"

With that, Zhang Zhao gave Wen Zhong a hard kick. "How the hell could you not keep that thing between your legs under control?"

"Look how badly you've hurt your parents, and I still had to interfere with military law to get you back. If you dare break the law again after going to the Kingdom of Dali, you can end yourself!"

Wen Zhong was sent flying several steps by the kick, and cried even harder — not from pain, of course, but from being moved. "Your servant knows his fault and will never dare do it again!"

Zhang Zhao took a deep breath, accepted a black pottery jar from the Hanshan Guard behind him, and solemnly placed it on the rickety table where they had just eaten.

At the sight of it, the old couple of the Wen family wailed even louder, and the two boys seemed to understand something too, crying beside them in shuddering sobs.

Zhang Zhao then pulled a wine flask from Manxiong's waist, poured a full bowl of wine, and tipped it out before the Wen family's door.

By now, the common folk who had heard the news had surrounded the Wen family's little house in layer upon layer.

The wine was clear as spring water, but Sage Zhang suddenly felt a dryness in his throat, and two streams of tears fell. He raised the empty bowl high and shouted toward the earthenware funerary urn.

"Wen Da, I've brought you and your brother home. I pardoned his crime so he could care for your old mother and raise your bloodline."

"By the Yangqu Canal you risked your life to save me. When you broke military law, it was I who personally ordered you to your death."

"Today I've brought you home. We're even now!"

As Zhang Zhao finished shouting, a tidal roar of "Long live!" rose from all around. Countless men craning their necks prostrated themselves, and cries of "The Sage is righteous!" came wave after wave.

Under the gaze of the multitude, Zhang Zhao took from the pouch Supervisor Dong handed him a silver ingot of the sort he used for rewarding people, placed it beside Wen Da's funerary urn, and left without looking back.

Next, Manxiong Zhang Zhaozhong walked over, fished out a handful of gold-backed coins, and placed them beside Wen Da's urn as well, sighing in a muffled voice, "Ah! Such a fine man — why did he have to break military law!"

Guo Rong hefted the copper coins in his hand, reckoned they were a few fewer than what Manxiong had put down, and likewise placed the coins on the table.

"I do this not out of pity, but out of respect for how you risked your life by the Yangqu Canal!"

After that, Zhang Cheng, Zhang Zhaojie, and the surrounding officers and soldiers all took out a little money one after another.

It wasn't much — just a token.

Wen Zhong knew that the Emperor was raising travel funds for his journey south. He scrambled to his feet and shouted to the officers and soldiers who kept placing money on the table.

"I, Wen Erlang, will remember the great kindness of my comrades all my life. Do not follow my example!"

At some point, the Hanshan Guard and the Right Jinwu Guard personal troops on escort duty began lightly tapping the metal of their armor with their hands, making a rhythmic huffing sound with their mouths.

On the flat ground and hillsides in the distance, riders kept galloping back and forth.

The men rode the strongest horses their households owned, performing all sorts of daring stunts to show their valor, while the young women, dressed in their brightest finery, sang and danced.

People kept passing on what had happened up ahead to those arriving behind, and the story grew more exaggerated with each telling.

In the end, they embellished the virtuous deeds of emperors past to a degree that made even Zhang Zhao blush, and then attributed them all to him — and the key thing was, the common people believed it, and loved hearing it all the more.

Amid the roaring tide, more and more people gathered around Tianshui Prefecture. Countless folk held up the most precious things in their homes as gifts, wanting to present them to the Emperor, and still more kept coming from afar.

Zhang Zhaozhong and Zhang Cheng were drenched in anxious sweat. They had never expected so many people to come; they had underestimated the Emperor's standing in the hearts of the people of Longyou.

In particular, the Emperor's act today of bringing Wen Da and Wen Zhong home had struck these people's hearts with perfect accuracy.

Wen Da and Wen Zhong were guilty, to be sure, but they were the Emperor's warriors — especially Wen Da, who had fought for the Emperor for ten years and twice protected him in danger.

Guilt must be punished; that is a matter of law. But if Zhang Zhao had simply washed his hands of it, letting Wen Zhong die on the frontier and Wen Da's ashes never return home, that would have been cold-hearted.

But today, the Emperor had shown them a side that both upheld the law and was rich in human feeling — perfectly matching the image of an emperor in their hearts. How could these people not be moved and excited?

In truth, there was some reason when Liu Zhiyuan, Meng Chang, Li Jing, and the rest cursed Zhang Zhao as a barbarian bandit.

Take Tianshui Prefecture, for instance. Although it was the birthplace of Fuxi, foremost of the Three Sovereigns, and had always been under court control.

In reality, ever since the Great Tang declined and the Tibetans even stormed Chang'an, Longyou, where Tianshui lies, had begun rapidly Tibetanizing.

The Han, Qiang, Tangut, and other peoples living here had all come under the enormous influence of Tibetan culture.

For example, right now, the ten thousand and more Tianshui men who had gathered all rode horses, constantly trying to draw near and toss the gifts in their hands onto the Emperor's carriage.

Young women appeared from who knew where, singing and dancing to display their beauty and grace before the Emperor.

In Han lands like Henan and Hebei, this would surely be taken as an assassination attempt on the sovereign.

But in Tianshui Prefecture, everyone thought it perfectly normal, because this was their most direct way of showing loyalty.

The atmosphere had reached this point, so Zhang Zhao could only have the carriage stopped and let all manner of gifts be heaped into his six-white-horse imperial carriage.

Then came the return gifts: he personally announced in a loud voice that each of the brave men who had come today would be rewarded with one bolt of silk cloth.

He also took off several small ornaments from his person and bestowed them upon the dozen or so young ladies whose voices were the sweetest and whose dancing was the most graceful today.

Finally, amid heaven-shaking cheers from the multitude, the Emperor abandoned his carriage and instead mounted a spirited Ferghana horse, then shot out ahead of everyone at full gallop.

The Emperor's personal guard regiment hurried to follow, then came the cavalry of the Hanshan Unit and the Right Jinwu Guard, and after them the common folk of Tianshui Prefecture — a full ten thousand riders and more.

The crowd galloped furiously along the Ji River, a tributary of the Wei River, toward Tianshui Prefecture, their cheers surging like mountains and seas.

Amid the thunderous pounding of hooves, Zhang Zhao truly seemed like the king of the horse herds on the high plateau, leading his subjects away into the distance, racing toward the horizon.