Chapter 693: The Eight Kingdoms of the Western Mountains and the Continent of Pūrvavideha

The martial-ground trials outside Tianshui Prefecture lasted six days in all.

In those six days, Zhang Zhao recruited six fierce men of Fan Changgong's caliber — men who could fight as light-armored horse archers on horseback, serve as heavy cavalry in full armor (heavy cavalry between fully armored and light-armored), and dismount to become elite foot archers.

The other sharpshooters and heavy armored soldiers numbered more than two hundred.

These were no ordinary soldiers. With a bit more systematic training, using these two hundred men as the core fighting force, one could raise an army of about three thousand with fairly decent combat strength.

Zhang Xiancun watched, his mouth watering. In truth, those who had been eliminated were not lacking in excellence; rather, the court had no use for them at present, so the selection standards had been deliberately raised.

These days, apart from the first day when they had stayed by Zhang Zhao's side, Zhang Xiancun and Zhang Xianyu had been sent out to assist Zhebu Jiashi in running the martial-ground trials.

At Zhang Zhao's special request, the two boys ate from the same pot and rested in the same sheds as the clerks, and even the soldiers, craftsmen, and laborers of Tianshui Prefecture.

The two youngsters also visibly shed their naive restlessness at a speed the eye could see, and became somewhat more practical-minded.

This was not because my Sage Zhang's genes were superior to ordinary people's, but because the brothers Zhang Xiancun and Zhang Xianyu understood very clearly in their hearts what kind of life awaited them once they reached Zhang Zhao's standards.

It was this expectation for the future that powerfully drove them to grow step by step.

If you don't believe it, go to a later age and find any assembly-line worker. Tell him he only needs to tighten screws for three months, and once he has perfected the craft, this factory will be given to him — he will grow just as fast.

Now that the two boys had returned, Zhang Zhao first asked Zhang Xiancun on his left with a smile.

"I hear you recently took the initiative to go out on the streets with the constables to investigate the unlawful acts of people from various places. What are your thoughts?"

Zhang Xiancun tilted his head, looked at Zhang Zhao with his big round face, and said, "Your child has discovered that Father is truly wise and divinely mighty!"

Huh? What!

Zhang Zhao was taken aback. He sent you out to train, and you trained yourself into a flatterer? But he still patiently kept smiling and asked Zhang Xiancun, "Oh? How so?"

Zhang Xiancun did not notice the subtle change in Zhang Zhao's expression at all, and said very earnestly.

"Your child used to think that everyone under heaven ought to obey our words, that whatever we said, they had to carry out at the risk of their lives, and that one imperial edict from Father would make all within the four seas dare not disobey.

It was only this time that your child realized it is not like that at all.

The human heart is too complicated! Driving others to do things is not so easy.

Never mind the clerks and constables of Tianshui Prefecture, never mind all within the four seas daring not disobey — even a single laborer is not so easy to order around.

Even when your child held the prefectural office's token, they dared to slack off and cut corners, and even made up lies to deceive your child, mocking him behind his back as a foolish simpleton."

As Zhang Xiancun spoke, his eyes began to redden; clearly he had been angered badly at the time.

His son was about to cry, but Zhang Zhao laughed heartily, utterly heartless.

This eldest son of his was fine in every way, except that his overly high birth had made him too proud and willful. He naturally felt that others ought to obey his commands, that one word from him could make others abandon everything to carry it out.

To put it bluntly, this was being somewhat of a giant baby.

In an ordinary family, he would at most have become a brat, and then gone out into society to suffer repeated beatings. As the saying goes, if your parents don't teach you, society will — that is the principle.

But if a second-generation powerholder is this much of a giant baby, then it becomes terrifying. Emperor Yang of Sui was the classic example of this.

Just look at him and you will know how terrifying the destructive power is when a top-tier second-generation powerholder has no empathy and regards the common people as grass.

He never considered the endurance of the subjects under his rule, never thought that others also had parents, wives, and children, that others were also living people. He felt that because he was emperor, one word from him should make his subjects throw away their heads and spill their blood.

Where in this world is there such a good deal!

Seeing that Zhang Zhao did not comfort him but instead laughed aloud — in the past, Zhang Xiancun would probably have broken down long ago.

But now he understood that if he broke down, others would not immediately come to comfort him the way his mother would; instead, they would continue to laugh at his misfortune.

So although Zhang Xiancun's tears were about to roll out, he silently recited in his heart, "I'm not angry! I'm not angry!" and forcibly held it in.

Zhang Zhao laughed a few times, and seeing that although Zhang Xiancun was somewhat angry, he had actually held it in, immediately stopped laughing. Then he rubbed Zhang Xiancun's head and said happily.

"My son has indeed grown, no longer throwing childish tantrums. I hear Zhebu Jiashi said you did quite well. In the end, how did you win those people over?"

Zhang Xiancun thought to himself, that was close — he had almost fallen into Father's trap. If he had rushed over to seek comfort just now, he would certainly have been dealt with harshly.

"Your child ate and slept with them, shared benefits equally, looked after those with family difficulties as much as possible, gave extra rewards to those who worked hard, and severely punished those who slacked off. When someone challenged your child's authority, I directly knocked out four of his front teeth."

"This is exactly what a ruler should do!" Zhang Zhao could not help exclaiming. Zhang Xiancun had indeed not wasted his intelligence, and had quickly found the correct solution to the problem.

Having praised Zhang Xiancun, Zhang Zhao turned back to look at the second son, Zhang Xianyu. "Erlang, do you have any reflections?"

Zhang Xianyu thought for a moment and said in a low voice, "Your child has discovered that the common people below live far too bitterly. They toil all day long, and all they seek is merely food and warmth.

But our Great Zhou is already a great dynasty that has not given the people rest in two hundred years, and Father is a sage ruler and enlightened sovereign unmatched in three hundred years since the Taizong Wen Emperor of the former dynasty.

How bitterly must the common people of earlier times have suffered! After your child takes up his fief, he must treat the common people even better."

Compared to Zhang Xiancun, Zhang Xianyu's only strong point was that he was not as flighty as Zhang Xiancun, because he did not have Zhang Xiancun's background.

Zhang Xianyu's mother came from an ordinary Uyghur family, and because she had some beauty, by sheer luck she married the son of Li Guoshou.

But before she could become pregnant, her husband was killed by a Persian. Not long after, her father-in-law Li Guoshou gave her to Zhang Zhao as a gift, and she subsequently gave birth to Zhang Xianyu.

Before Zhang Zhao founded the state, Zhang Xianyu's mother was not even considered a concubine — she was merely a gift sent by someone, just lucky enough to have borne a son.

Correspondingly, Zhang Xianyu's mother Ayiguli was far less forceful than his little aunt Li Ruoliu.

His little aunt was someone who could stand up to Empress Cao Yanxi face to face. Give Ayiguli a hundred times the courage, and she still would not dare do such a thing.

So as a child, Zhang Xianyu was very timid and self-conscious, and naturally was not as high and mighty as Zhang Xiancun. He still knew something of the world below. Moreover, with the Li Guoshou family stirring up trouble in Talas, Zhang Xianyu had always been cautious.

Though he was the second prince, he was in fact polite even to the lowliest eunuchs in the palace. The truths Zhang Xiancun had only just understood, Zhang Xianyu had understood long ago.

So the focus of his attention was still on the poverty of the common people at the bottom.

The two sons had each gained something, and Zhang Xiancun's growth in particular made Zhang Zhao even more gratified.

Zhang Zhao had also seen that Zhang Xiancun's weakness lay in not having sunk down to the grassroots before. But precisely in a place like the Dali Kingdom, conquering it was not difficult; governing it, however, depended greatly on the great king being able to connect with the grassroots, and not being cut off by the Han local strongmen and minority chieftains in between.

So Zhang Zhao took the two brothers by the hand and led them to the southern wall of the traveling palace. Zhang Xiancun did not understand why, but when he reached the top of the southern wall, he was directly stunned by the sight before him.

The traveling palace was built against the mountain, and outside the south gate was a large stretch of sloping grassland, unsuitable for a large army to camp, but very suitable for defense.

In the days when the Zhang Xiancun brothers were not by Zhang Zhao's side, a great number of common people had gathered outside the south gate of the traveling palace, having come from afar.

By the look of it, Han people were in the minority; the majority were commoners of the Tibetan, various Qiang, and other peoples. They had not come to seek an audience with Zhang Zhao, but simply to pray for the blessing of the Boundless Heaven.

Many among them had even come from Minzhou and Dangzhou, which were not close to Tianshui Prefecture. They pitched tents and, organized by monks of the Six Dharma Sect, chanted sutras all day long, day after day.

When Zhang Zhao arrived atop the south gate, suddenly a roar of cheers like mountains and tsunamis erupted. Then, led by the monks of the Six Dharma Sect, the common people prostrated themselves on the ground en masse, and solemn, reverent chanting rose once more.

From where Zhang Xiancun stood, what met his eyes was a mass of backs covering the entire hillside, as if they had suddenly sprouted from the earth, and the sound of sutra chanting echoed back and forth in his ears as if it had physical substance.

Zhang Zhao gave a light wave of his hand, and the southern gate of the traveling palace slowly opened. The monks pushed out several small carts loaded with great cauldrons, all filled with freshly brewed mare's milk wine.

Zhang Zhao led Zhang Xiancun and Zhang Xianyu down from the wall, picked up a great ladle, and gave each cauldron a symbolic stir. The crowd's eyes grew even more fervent at the sight of the cauldrons.

The crowd pressed forward around the monks of the Six Dharma Sect. At the very front was a burly Qiang man, and on his back he carried an old woman so gaunt she seemed barely alive.

When the man reached Zhang Zhao, he carefully bent down and slowly made himself into a chair. Several other Qiang men who had come with him helped steady the old woman on his back until she was seated securely.

Only then did Zhang Xiancun understand that the man had gone down on all fours and knelt on the ground so that the old woman would have a place to sit.

The old woman was already very advanced in years. Her whole body looked as if it might curl into a ball at any moment, and the arms and fingers she extended were little more than a layer of withered skin stretched over bone.

The moment the old woman was seated, she began fumbling about her body, and as she fumbled she asked the people beside her in a trembling voice, "Is the Bodhisattva truly before me?"

The Six Dharma Sect monk who had brought her bent down and whispered to her, "The dharma form of the Supreme Heaven is right in front of you."

At these words, the old woman struggled, and with the help of those around her, knelt upon the man's broad back. Facing Zhang Zhao, she bowed again and again, then raised up a dazzling white stone that even reflected the sun's rays, offering it to Zhang Zhao.

It was a piece of white quartz of the finest quality.

The Qiang people's own beliefs are much like those of the Han, with an extremely strong atmosphere of ancestor worship. Beyond that, they also believe all things have spirits, and they generally use white quartz as a symbol that a divine dharma form has passed by.

The old woman held up the white stone with all her strength, and her murky eyes suddenly opened wide as she looked toward Zhang Zhao's chest and asked.

"O Bodhisattva, why is the life of the Qiang people so bitter! Year after year the snow flies in the seventh month, freezing the cattle and sheep to death, freezing the old and weak to death. We believe devoutly in the Buddha, so why is there never any god or Buddha to protect us?"

The air around them suddenly turned cold. Zhang Zhao had originally intended to bring his two sons to broaden their horizons, and the Six Dharma Sect monks had also assumed the old woman's family had come to worship the Buddha devoutly. None of them had expected a situation like this.

This was the trouble with being a living god—you always ran into believers asking surreal questions like this. That was why the highest-level charlatans generally spoke very little and rarely had contact with believers.

And an ordinary old woman would never dare speak such words to him, the Supreme Heaven. An ordinary old woman seeing Zhang Zhao would wish she could ram her head into a hole in the ground to show respect.

This old woman sat upright on the strong man's back, not like a believer come to seek an audience with the Supreme Heaven, but rather like—well, very much like someone come to question the Way. One could also call it picking a fight.

But none of this could stump me, Lord Buddha Zhang. He thought for a moment, then said to the old woman in a low voice: "If snow flies in the seventh month on the high mountains, then let the people come down and live on the flatlands.

The Qiang people's life is bitter, and so is the life of the Han and the Tibetans. That is because we have not yet completed the Buddha's trial."

The old woman was stunned, and the Six Dharma Sect monks and believers around them were all stunned too. Since when was there a trial from the Buddha? What did that mean?

Within Zhang Zhao's mind, lightning flashed several times, and then he said slowly: "In years past, when this seat was facing the wall in meditation on Vulture Peak, I was summoned by the Buddha to the Lotus Treasury World.

He said: In this age of great chaos, if you wish to bring peace and great blessings to all living beings and save them, you must seek out one true scripture and three treasures.

The true scripture is divided into two parts. The first part was already obtained by the Dharma Master Xuanzang, and it is the scriptures of the Central Plains. The second part was entrusted to this seat, and it is the canon of the Six Dharma Sect.

The three treasures were left by the Buddha in the Eastern Continent of Pūrvavideha."

At this point, Zhang Zhao pointed east with one hand and assumed a look of reminiscence. "The Buddha said: Go ninety-nine thousand nine hundred li from here, cross the boundless sea, and you will reach the Eastern Continent of Pūrvavideha.

If you find rice like pearls and jade hanging from trees, beans the size of fists buried in the earth, and eggplants red as fire surpassing winter persimmons—these three things—then the world will know hunger and bitterness no more."

Hearing Zhang Zhao speak thus, a surge of energy suddenly shot through the old woman's withered body. She struggled to keep her eyes open and looked at Zhang Zhao as she asked: "Ninety-nine thousand nine hundred li—how can a mortal cross such a distance?"

Zhang Zhao smiled faintly. He uttered a Buddhist invocation, then said: "Our Buddha is merciful, and long ago arranged the waters of the Vast Deep to aid us. If you follow the waters of the Vast Deep, the boundless sea that would take three hundred years to cross can be crossed in three months!"

The moment these words left Zhang Zhao's mouth, the Six Dharma Sect monks around him all stared at him in terror. Yes—terror.

If one asked who least believed that Zhang Zhao was the Buddha's final disciple, the Dharma King Bodhisattva of the Supreme Heaven, it was these very men.

The Six Dharma Sect was not so much founded by Zhang Zhao as founded by them under Zhang Zhao's banner. Everyone knew how the Six Dharma Sect had come about.

Some of them, in particular, had gone to India with Zhang Zhao and then retired to become Six Dharma Sect monks.

They knew all too well how this Dharma King Bodhisattva of the Supreme Heaven had "protected the dharma" in India!

Truly, if the Buddha had any spirit at all, seeing Lord Zhang the Dharma King's antics in India—a final disciple? He'd be lucky if the Buddha didn't break his legs.

So they were terrified. This Lord Zhang the Dharma King had spoken so absolutely—what if they ran into a few stubborn-minded people who actually dared to cross the boundless sea to look?

It was only three months, after all. When they got there and found no Eastern Continent of Pūrvavideha and no three treasures, the fun would really begin. The entire faith of the Six Dharma Sect might collapse!

A great worthy of the Six Dharma Sect from the Zhang family's "Cheng" generation—one of Zhang Zhao's uncles—was just about to speak up and warn Zhang Zhao, when he saw the expression on Zhang Zhao's face turn holy, as if he truly bore some semblance of the compassionate savior of all beings. For a moment his mind was shaken, and he found he could not bring himself to ask.

Just then, the old Qiang woman raised the white stone in her hand before Zhang Zhao once more.

"If the Buddha is compassionate, why did he not simply place these three treasures in the Divine Land?"

The moment Zhang Zhao heard this, he knew the old woman must be, like himself, a religious charlatan.

Because although the concept of the four great continents—the Eastern Continent of Pūrvavideha, the Western Continent of Aparagodānīya, and so on—was recorded in the early Āgama sutras,

at this time the concept of the four great continents was not yet clearly defined, and even their names were not fully settled. The establishment of these four great continents in this time and space had been the work of the Six Dharma Sect, and even that was not yet fully designed.

Only a fellow practitioner in the religious circle would notice such terms, and would know that the Six Dharma Sect had designated the Central Plains, the highlands, and the grasslands as the Divine Land.

"The Buddha said: I observe a single drop of water, and within it are eighty-four thousand beings. Extending from this, how many living creatures there must be in all the lands of the world.

All these myriad beings have their own ways of survival. They all have their own joys and sorrows, their own greed, anger, ignorance, hatred, and love.

All of this belongs to living beings themselves, not to the Buddha. If everything waited for the Buddha to bestow it out of mercy, how would living beings survive? How would they awaken to the Great Perfection?"

"If that is so—if the seven emotions and six desires are all our own—then why do we worship the Buddha?" The old woman sank into a state of contemplation.

"We worship the Buddha to seek guidance, to awaken the self under great compassion. To save oneself is to reach the realm of Great Perfection; to save others is to bring all living beings to heaven."

As he spoke, the white stone in the old woman's hand had already been taken into Zhang Zhao's hand, and the old woman herself had once more sunk into a meditative stillness on the strong man's back.

After a long while, the old woman opened her eyes and asked.

"O Bodhisattva, does the Eastern Continent of Pūrvavideha truly exist? Will this old woman live to see that day?"

"It does!" Zhang Zhao nodded firmly. "Not only does the Eastern Continent of Pūrvavideha exist, but that great continent is guarded by yaksha barbarians. The yakshas hold mountains of gold and silver in their hands—all gifts the Buddha has given to the people of the Central Plains.

You will not see that day, but your children and grandchildren surely will."

"This old woman will see it." The old woman smiled as she spoke. "This old woman will see it all from heaven."

With that, she began pulling off the various ornaments hanging from her body and throwing them down.

"Since the Buddha and the Dharma King Bodhisattva of the Supreme Heaven are the true lords, then let Qujianmu Jiemu return to the earth along with this withered body of mine!"

With that, the old woman cast off every ornament on her body that carried religious meaning, leaving only a thin brown garment. Then, suddenly, she spoke in perfectly pure Heluo dialect.

"The remnant descendants of the Eight Kingdoms of the Western Mountains kneel and beg the Sage of the Great Dynasty to take us in once more.

From this day forward, the seventy thousand descendants of the Eight Kingdoms are the most devout followers of the Dharma King Bodhisattva, and we vow to follow him unto death."

"I also hope that under the protection of the Dharma King Bodhisattva, we may soon find the Eastern Videha Continent and the three treasures, and attain the Great Perfection."

"So you are the Qiang of the Western Mountains. Then you must be Duoji Jinzhu, I presume!" The eminent monk of the Cheng generation of the Six Dharma Sect, who had been about to counsel Zhang Zhao, suddenly cried out in surprise.

The so-called Eight Kingdoms of the Western Mountains were the eight Qiang tribes of old. Oppressed by the Tibetans during the reign of Emperor Dezong of the Tang, they had at last attached themselves to the Great Tang, and the Tang court officially named them the Eight Kingdoms of the Western Mountains.

But afterward the Tang continued to decline, and the descendants of some of the eight kingdoms were forced to submit to the Tibetans once more.

The world believed they had been absorbed into the Tibetan people, yet unexpectedly they had still preserved their own independence.

The one called Qujian Jiemu is one of the deities of the Bon faith, the mother of all things and the mother of all gods, held in the highest reverence.

Zhang Zhao had long since received reports that between Songpan Prefecture and Kangyanchuan (Chamdo) there was a large force that followed the Bon faith, and that it was the chief obstacle preventing the Six Dharma Sect from advancing onto the plateau.

The Six Dharma Sect had sacrificed many dharma-preaching monks here and had never been able to penetrate deeper. Who would have thought that today they would deliver themselves to his door.

And from the sound of Duoji Jinzhu's words, she intended to have all seventy thousand people of the Eight Kingdoms of the Western Mountains convert to the Six Dharma Sect, and to make them Zhang Zhao's private tribe.

The only condition, it seemed, was to verify the truth of what Zhang Zhao had said about the Eastern Videha Continent.

But was that difficult? It did not seem difficult at all, because everything Zhang Zhao had said was true.

Amid the solemn chanting of scriptures, the Qiang people who had followed the old woman threw away, one after another, the various objects on their bodies that symbolized the Bon faith.

Duoji Jinzhu lowered her head upon the strong man's back, stretched out her neck, and said devoutly: "Dong Jiniang, seventh-generation granddaughter of Dong Pi, King of the Weak Water Kingdom of the Western Mountains, has found her way back from error. I beg the supreme Dharma King Bodhisattva to enlighten me."

Zhang Zhao slowly extended his right hand and gently placed it on the crown of Dong Jiniang's head.

The moment his hand was firmly in place, an extremely clear click sounded. Dong Jiniang's mouth opened slightly, as though something had fled from her body.

Then the old woman, who called herself Duoji Jinzhu, tilted her head gently to one side and was gone, leaving only her seated posture, neck still outstretched.

Zhang Zhao was a little stunned. Surely he had not snapped the old woman's neck? But he had not used any strength!

"Duoji Jinzhu has received the enlightenment of the supreme heaven and has passed into nirvana!" the eminent monk of the Cheng generation suddenly shouted, then looked at Zhang Zhao with a face full of excitement.

The crowd fell to their knees with a great rustling sound. The strong man beneath the old woman did not dare rise, but wept loudly on the ground, crying "Grandmother."

Zhang Zhao caught the look in the Cheng-generation monk's eyes and understood at once.

He reached out and smoothed the hair on Dong Jiniang's forehead, then took a string of prayer beads from around his own neck and hung it around hers, saying softly: "I send your soul to the Great Thunderclap Monastery in the Western Paradise, to hear the Dharma every day and attain the Great Perfection!"

A moment later, a tiger's roar spread beyond the south gate. The great striped tiger, earlier captured by Li Zun, Fan Changgong, and the others, appeared inside a huge iron cage. The cage had wheels at its four corners and was being pulled along by a group of powerfully built warriors.

A palace attendant, his face drained of all color, said to Zhang Zhao in terror: "Sage, while we were inside the palace, we heard what seemed to be the sound of chanting scriptures outside. This tiger also grew restless and roared toward the south, as though it had a mind turned toward the Buddha."

Hearing this, Zhang Zhao walked slowly toward the iron cage. Strangely enough, before Zhang Zhao had even drawn near, the great tiger shrank into a corner of the cage as though it had seen something terrifying.

Zhang Zhao stretched out his hand, and the great tiger hurriedly pressed its head to the ground, as if performing a salute.

Zhang Zhao pointed at the tiger. "Though you are a beast and have committed the sin of taking life, Heaven has a love for living things. Since you know your error and can understand the Buddha's voice, then return to the mountain forests and roam free!"

The moment the words fell, the several-hundred-jin great tiger lost every trace of temper, as quiet and still as a docile little kitten.

The people of the various tribes who witnessed this prostrated themselves once more, shaken beyond measure.

Well! In truth, this was not strange at all, because ever since the great tiger had arrived at the temporary palace, whenever Zhang Zhao was absent, it ate its fill of great chunks of mutton.

But whenever Zhang Zhao came and pointed his finger, it either got a beating or went hungry.

Over time, this had formed a conditioned reflex in the tiger's mind. The moment Zhang Zhao appeared, it was frightened half to death, and did not dare show the slightest arrogance.

Yesterday my keratitis flared up. When I got up in the morning I could not even open my eyes, so I did not go to work, and of course I could not write either. My boss confiscated my phone and would not let me touch it, afraid the tiger would go blind, so I did not ask leave from my readers. Today I wrote a bit more, and tomorrow I will try to update more to make up for it.

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