Chapter 703: The Qingyuan Army and Champa Rice

The envoys from Qian Yue and the Southern Tang had arrived, and Zhang Zhao naturally knew they had come to offer congratulations to him, Sage Zhang, on his thirty-sixth birthday.

Not only had they come, but Liu Congxiao, the Military Governor of the Qingyuan Army who controlled Zhangzhou and Quanzhou, had also sent someone.

And the person who came was no ordinary envoy, but Liu Congxiao's adopted son, Liu Shaoji.

This was the reason Zhang Zhao had not allowed the Qian Yue and Southern Tang envoys into the city — Liu Congxiao was still nominally a subject of the Southern Tang.

Though even if Li Jing found out, in all likelihood he would not have the nerve to attack Liu Congxiao.

Liu Congxiao was no soft persimmon either, and might well withstand an assault, but better to avoid trouble where possible and not make difficulties for Liu Congxiao.

Those familiar with me, Sage Zhang, know that anyone who earns my concern is at the very least a famous figure with a good reputation in history, and Liu Congxiao was exactly such a man.

The History of Song says Liu Congxiao rose from humble origins, served his mother with renowned filial piety, was quite learned, loved the art of war, understood the people's hardships, and was diligent, frugal, and caring toward the people.

In the two prefectures he vigorously promoted culture and education, developed Quanzhou, rebuilt the city and its harbor, invited overseas merchants to trade, recruited vagrants to reclaim wasteland, used soldiers to farm military colonies, and built waterworks to develop agriculture.

In just two years, he restored Zhangzhou and Quanzhou — whose people had been left homeless when the Southern Tang destroyed Wang Min — to a flourishing state of full granaries and bountiful harvests, making an enormous contribution to the development of southern Fujian.

Thereafter, through the Song and Yuan periods, the flourishing maritime trade of Zhangzhou and especially Quanzhou was built on the foundation laid by Liu Congxiao, and in later ages Quanzhou still had temples offering sacrifices to him.

Liu Shaoji was only twenty this year and cut a fine, imposing figure. Though he was Liu Congxiao's adopted son, he was no different from a natural-born son.

For Liu Congxiao himself was incapable of siring children, and Liu Shaoji was not some outsider taken in, but the son of Liu Congxiao's elder brother, Liu Congyuan.

When Zhang Zhao had told Li Wan'er he would marry her off to Quanzhou, he had not actually been trying to frighten her.

Over the years Liu Congxiao had secretly submitted memorials more than ten times, with tribute money exceeding twenty thousand strings of cash. For the small Qingyuan Army, twenty thousand strings was no small sum — one could fairly say he sent tribute gifts at every season and festival.

And the reason Liu Congxiao worked so desperately to curry favor with Zhang Zhao, apart from borrowing his power, was the hope of securing for his adopted son Liu Shaoji a bride from a noble family of the great dynasty.

Most of my Sage Zhang's daughters were not yet grown, and Liu Congxiao had no such extravagant hope as daring to seek a daughter of Zhang Zhao himself, so his sights were set on the three families: the near lineage of the Zhang clan, the Cao family of Shazhou, and the Li family of Khotan.

What Liu Congxiao had in mind was this: if such a daughter-in-law resided in Quanzhou, even if Li Jing were given ten times the courage, he would not dare entertain designs on Quanzhou.

This was no mere daughter-in-law he was marrying — he was bringing home a bodhisattva!

"I have heard that your father even built a residence in Quanzhou for the two daughters of Wang Yanzheng, providing servants and provisions?"

Zhang Zhao looked over Liu Shaoji's appearance and found it quite passable, so while chatting idly with Liu Shaoji, he quietly sent Director Dong to notify Li Wan'er to come take a look.

After all, Liu Congxiao was a regional ruler in his own right; for his son to marry a daughter of the Cao family would be somewhat inappropriate.

Among the near branches of the Zhang family, Zhang Zhao had already married off nearly all of Zhang Huaiqing's dozen or so unmarried daughters — he had even married off two of the widowed ones — so there was truly no suitable match left.

As for the distant branches of the Zhang family, that was even less appropriate. The man had shown such deference; to marry him to a distant kinswoman would be something of an insult.

So, all things considered, a daughter of the Li family of Khotan was the most suitable. With Li Shengtian as their figurehead, the Li family was a first-rate imperial clan house of the Zhang Zhou.

Moreover, the Li family's power lay mostly in Anxi and Transoxiana; marrying a granddaughter to Liu Congxiao's son would not affect the balance of the court.

"Though Prince Wang was too harsh toward the people of Min, the Loyal and Benevolent Prince's grace extended to all the people of Min. My Liu ancestors followed the Loyal and Benevolent Prince into Min, and only thus survived the chaos of the age. How could I bear to watch his granddaughters freeze and starve?"

Wang Yanzheng was the last ruler of Wang Min, now held captive by Li Jing in Jiangning. The Loyal and Benevolent Prince referred to Wang Shenzhi, the Prince of Min.

After Wang Yanzheng was carried off by the Southern Tang, his two daughters fell into destitution among the common folk, with no food or clothing, and for a time survived by begging in the market streets. The people of Min, fearing Southern Tang reprisals, dared not give them aid.

It was only after Liu Congxiao took charge of Quanzhou that he built them a residence and provided them with food and provisions.

"Your father has done well. This is what a loyal and righteous man ought to do!"

Zhang Zhao praised him profusely, while inwardly holding Li Jing in utter contempt. After conquering an enemy state, he had not even bothered to carry off such important spoils as the enemy princesses — what great enterprise could such a man ever accomplish?

"Your servant thanks the Sage on behalf of my father." As he spoke, Liu Shaoji produced a secret letter and personally handed it to Zhang Zhao.

"Before the new year, the Sage commanded my father to seek high-yield rice in the kingdom of Champa in the Southern Sea. There is now some progress."

"Oh? Quanzhou already has sea merchants plying the Southern Sea?" Zhang Zhao was overjoyed and immediately took the memorial and read it carefully.

In the letter, Liu Congxiao said that in the twelfth month of last year he had dispatched his own nephew Liu Shaoquan, a naval Captain of the Qingyuan Army, with a hundred elite sailors, under the guidance of the great sea merchant Lin Aju, to go to Champa in search of rice seed.

In the fifth month, Liu Shaoquan returned by ship with a favorable wind, bringing back twenty shi of rice seed.

Although the rice planted when Liu Shaoji set out had not yet ripened, according to experienced old farmers, judging from the growth and the look of the ears, the yield should be higher than that of the rice varieties of Min.

Liu Congxiao at once ordered Liu Shaoquan to take elite sailors again and put to sea against the wind, by whatever means he could devise.

This time they planned to bring back fifty shi, to be trial-planted separately in first-rate paddy fields, middling irrigated fields, and lower-grade dry fields.

Once the per-mu yield data from the two plantings had been fully tabulated, he would immediately submit the cultivation method and the rice seed together to the court.

Zhang Zhao was overjoyed. His original expectation had been that if Liu Congxiao could simply obtain the Champa rice seed for him, that would be good enough — Zhang Zhao had planned to do the trial planting himself. He had not expected Liu Congxiao to be so thorough as to have already begun trial planting.

This being the case, the promotion of Champa rice could be pushed a great step further forward.

This was a time when everything lay in ruins awaiting reconstruction. The Great Tang at its height had a population of eighty million, yet now only twenty-one or twenty-two million remained. To make the Xia the rulers and the barbarians the subjects, and to expand living space, twenty-some million people were simply not enough — with so few people, even the homeland could not be filled.

Therefore the coming twenty or thirty years would surely be an era of explosive population growth in the homeland.

People of this age already regarded many sons and grandsons as a blessing, and with Zhang Zhao certain to vigorously promote population growth, a high-yield grain was urgently needed to bear the demands of a growing population.

At the present stage, the only choices were the drought-resistant Champa rice and the yellow-husk rice that could grow in marshland, of which Champa rice was by far the most important.

Thinking of all this, Zhang Zhao patted Liu Shaoji's shoulder with satisfaction. "Go back and tell your father not to feel burdened, and to do his work well.

Zhangzhou and Quanzhou are lands of the state, and in the future they will certainly be reclaimed. But your father is loyal, righteous, and grateful, diligent, frugal, and caring toward the people. In the future he will surely be a pillar of the court — even the post of Chief Minister is not impossible.

And if he finds it hard to leave his native soil, he may let his sons and grandsons serve as officials in Quanzhou!"

Liu Shaoji dropped to his knees with a thud. Zhang Zhao's words could be called utterly heartfelt, and he had even made the unprecedented concession of allowing the Liu family's descendants to continue serving as officials in Quanzhou in the future.

Though the position of regional ruler would be gone, the Liu family could still become the undisputed great house of Quanzhou.

"After your servant returns, I will relay the Sage's words to my father without missing a single word. The entire Liu clan and the people of the Qingyuan Army's two prefectures and fourteen counties yearn day and night to hear the Sage's voice."

Zhang Zhao personally helped Liu Shaoji to his feet. "I have never been stingy with high office and rich rewards for meritorious subjects.

The people take food as heaven. Champa rice bears upon the livelihood of all under heaven, and it must be treated as the most important undertaking of the entire Qingyuan Army. When it succeeds, I and the people of the realm will all owe a debt of gratitude to your Liu family."

Hearing Zhang Zhao say this, Liu Shaoji, who had just been helped to his feet, dropped to his knees again with a thud.

This debt of gratitude was more than the Liu family could bear to accept, because the whole matter had been raised by the Emperor first — they were merely the executors.

To dare claim the Emperor's achievement as your own — was that not courting death?

So Liu Shaoji, still on the ground, answered rapidly: "That Champa rice was found ten thousand li away is truly the discovery of the Sage's discerning eye.

The Qingyuan Army lies on the eastern sea and is prone to early drought. If it obtains Champa rice to resist early drought, it can save countless lives."

"Therefore this is no achievement of my Liu clan, but a great boon the Sage has bestowed upon the people of Qingyuan Army and all the common folk under heaven."

These words suited my Sage Zhang's heart exactly. Unable to restrain himself, he laughed aloud three times, and grew quite pleased with Liu Shaoji as well.

But behind the curtain, Li Wan'er was simply paralyzed with fright.

Although this Liu Shaoji did seem a man of fine bearing, his father the lord of two prefectures and a military governor of a whole region.

But Qingyuan Army was simply too far from Hexi! The customs and the ways of the people were all different, and she did not wish to be married off so far away.

So, while Zhang Zhao had not yet noticed her, Li Wan'er hastily slipped away.

Still, one may dodge the first of the month, but not the fifteenth. Li Wan'er thought it over — at this moment only her grandfather, who doted on her, could save her life. She turned and ran off in another direction to seek help from Li Shengtian.

Li Shengtian had just returned from a hunt. Zhang Zhao had given over to Li Shengtian the Yongshou Palace where his legal mother, Empress Dowager Ciyou, had once lived. After the couple arrived at Chengtian in Liangzhou, they no longer kept company with Zhang Zhao.

Instead, they gathered a band of young nobles of Liangzhou on their own, and every day either drank and made merry, or went hunting at Mount Tianti south of the city or even farther into the Qilian Mountains, or sailed and fished on Baiting Lake to the north.

They were having the time of their lives!

Zhang Zhao did not ask many questions, and even sent Li Shengtian large sums of silver, guards, serving maids, and cooks, all so that Li Shengtian could enjoy himself even more.

His uncle should have arrived in Shazhou by the end of last year, and then returned to Khotan at the start of spring this year.

But Zhang Zhao dawdled, and so did he, until they had come to Liangzhou together with Zhang Zhao, and in all these days he had not once mentioned setting out.

This Yuchi clan, it seemed, had carved their love for the Central Plains into their very bones.

Whoever bore the surname Yuchi, once they reached the Central Plains, no longer wished to return. The elder and younger Yuchi were alike in this, Yuchi Sheng was so, and now Li Shengtian was the same.

Moreover, a few days earlier Li Shengtian had privately confided to Zhang Zhao that he no longer wished to be called a man of Khotan, and suggested that Zhang Zhao should henceforth have his subjects call the Yuchi clan of Khotan the Xianbei Yuchi clan.

Zhang Zhao found this both laughable and exasperating. Among the Saka people of Khotan from whom Li Shengtian's ancestors descended, there had indeed been a branch that followed Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei into the Central Plains.

The famed Yuchi Gong, the elder and younger Yuchi, and the rest all belonged to this Saka tribe known as the Xianbei Yuchi division.

But after thinking it over, Zhang Zhao declined. Now, after the efforts of Emperor Xiaowen, the Gao house of Northern Qi, the Yuwen house of Northern Zhou, and even the emperors of the Great Tang, the Xianbei had at last become indistinguishable from the Han.

There was no need now to split out the Xianbei Yuwen, Yuchi, Murong, Duan, and other tribes again — that would only be inviting trouble.

Li Shengtian had probably realized at the time that there were problems with this, but in his heart he still could not bear to have his family continue to be called people of Khotan.

After some consideration, Zhang Zhao suggested that before long, when the surnames of the realm were recompiled, the Yuchi clan, like the Murong clan, should be directly added to the Han surnames, and moreover the Yuchi clan would be ranked near the front. Only then was Li Shengtian satisfied.

When Li Wan'er found Li Shengtian, he had just shot a plump muntjac and was excitedly massaging the flesh and bones of the muntjac, which had attained the sleep of an infant.

Li Wan'er did not immediately begin to pour out her woes, but crouched down to help her grandfather give the muntjac a "massage."

And indeed, though this little girl was somewhat willful, her skill was truly excellent, far better than Li Shengtian's own.

Li Shengtian could see that Li Wan'er truly had something on her mind, but he held back and did not ask.

Until Li Wan'er could no longer contain herself, and wailing, she blurted out that the Sage — she did not know whether to call him cousin-uncle or grand-cousin-uncle — wanted to marry her off to Quanzhou in Jiangnan East Circuit, and by the way squeezed out a few strings of pear-blossom tears.

Cao Yuanxin, dressed in men's attire, hurriedly drove the surrounding guards and serving maids far away. Of course, the cunning Cao Yuanxin deliberately left behind a few of the eunuchs Zhang Zhao had sent to serve them.

And these eunuchs had not been sent by Zhang Zhao on his own initiative — she had insisted on them.

Cao Yuanxin understood one principle very well: Li Shengtian could be unrestrained with Zhang Zhao, because that was what Li Shengtian deserved.

But the people around Li Shengtian should not imagine they could enjoy the same treatment, or serious trouble would come of it later.

Li Shengtian slowly brushed oil onto the venison that Li Wan'er had cleaned and cut, preparing to roast it, and asked as he did so, "And this Liu Shaoji — how does he look? Is he at least pleasing to the eye?"

Li Wan'er only wanted to roll her eyes at her grandfather. So he had not listened to a single word she had just said! But she did not dare.

"He is rather handsome and dignified, but Grandfather, Wan'er does not want to marry into Qingyuan Army. If I go to that remote and desolate place, I will never see you again."

Li Shengtian pushed her head, which had leaned close, a little farther away with distaste. "Qingyuan Army is indeed a bit far, but he is still lord of two prefectures and thirteen counties, master of several hundred thousand people. What more could you be dissatisfied with?"

Hearing this, Li Wan'er thought, This is the end! And hurriedly launched into another fit of coquettish pleading.

At this, Li Shengtian could no longer hold out, and could only spread his hands. "In that case, then come back to Khotan with your grandfather, and I will find you a good husband there."

Hearing this, Li Wan'er was immediately at a loss.

She disliked how far away Quanzhou was, but she did not want to return to Khotan either. The little girl was now utterly enchanted by the bustle of Liangzhou, Luoyang, and the Eastern Capital, and did not want to go back at all.

"See! You say you cannot bear to part with Grandfather, but the moment I mention returning to Khotan, you refuse!" Li Shengtian teased Li Wan'er a few times, then suddenly burst into loud laughter.

"You truly are of my Yuchi house! Once you come to the Central Plains, you never want to go back."

The sound of hoofbeats rose in the distance. Cao Yuanxin stood up to look, then said to Li Shengtian, "This nephew of yours is truly attentive. Fearing that you, his uncle, might be angry, he has sent someone over at once."

Li Shengtian snorted. "Naturally. This old man is no Zhang Huaiqing.

But we must not give him too good a face either. This Sage nephew of mine is most skilled at pushing his luck.

If you indulge him, he will dare to take full charge of the marriages of our granddaughters, just as he did with Zhang Huaiqing's daughters."

Cao Yuanxin, recalling how Zhang Zhao had married off all of Zhang Huaiqing's dozen or so daughters and granddaughters, nodded with deep sympathy.

Beside them, Li Wan'er, seeing that her grandfather and grandmother had already reached a consensus, was now so anxious that real tears came streaming down.

Cao Yuanxin could not help casting a sidelong glance at this granddaughter who looked clever but was in fact rather foolish.

"Your grandmother has been shrewd all her life — how did I end up with a silly granddaughter like you? Do you think the Emperor would let you go to Quanzhou?

If you went to Quanzhou, Liu Congxiao, who is still obedient now, would gain a source of outside support, and who knows whether he might change his heart.

Just wait — the Emperor will certainly keep Liu Shaoji at court in an official post, and only after the great matter is basically settled will he send Liu Shaoji back and have Liu Congxiao exchanged for him."

(End of Chapter)

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