Chapter 708: Recovering Our Ancestral Land of a Hundred Years

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From ancient times to the present, sending out troops has never been an easy matter, and sending troops beyond the frontier requires even greater care.

It is already mid-August, and after mid-October the grasslands will face the threat of cold waves, so when the great army goes beyond the frontier, at the very latest it must withdraw by the beginning of the eleventh month.

Otherwise it would no longer be a question of fighting a war, but rather that Emperor Zhang might find himself interacting with the emperor across time and space.

So as soon as Zhang Zhao's order to prepare for war went out, the entire war machine of the Zhang Zhou realm began spinning at high speed, striving to complete the expedition preparations as quickly as possible.

For this campaign, the main force was the thirty thousand infantry and cavalry that Sage Zhang prepared to send out directly from Hexi.

This was a good thing, because after twelve years of development, Hexi and Longyou lacked neither talent nor supplies, and high and low were united as one, which greatly aided early mobilization and logistical support.

On the other fronts, Shuofang would send only five thousand cavalry, of which three thousand were Khitan horsemen, requiring little in the way of supplies.

Hedong's eight thousand cavalry plus auxiliary troops and civilian laborers came to only fifteen or sixteen thousand men in all, even though Hedong had just experienced a major battle.

But three months earlier, Yan Jin had ordered Guo Congyi to break the last Tuyuhun strongholds in Shizhou and other places, and nearly all those who refused to convert to the Six Dharma Sect were put to death.

The remaining Tuyuhun light cavalry, now in the fervor of new converts, became the best source of auxiliary troops; they brought their own provisions to the campaign, so Hedong province alone could fully bear the burden of these ten thousand-odd men.

But for Murong Xin, even that name of the country of Wa left me with only a vague impression of surging waves; I truly could not have imagined that the ambitions of those two, father and son, were so enormous.

For such enormous merit, even rewarding it with Shenzhou would not be saying too much.

That could be seen from his lifespan; when Murong Xin was forced to kill himself, he was already over forty years old.

To let such a man take charge of a tottering regime would certainly not do.

The surrounding soldiers and officers all wore expressions of unbearable sorrow, and the Han people behind the old man were all weeping.

If Cao Yanlu hesitated out of concern that the Six Dharma Sect population was too large and the newly established court's military force still weak, then what would be delayed would be not only the strategy of the eastern expedition against Wa, but also the strategy Zhang Zhao had for him to continue sending ships east in search of the Americas after occupying Wa.

After finishing the rice wine, the old man saw that Cao Yanlu drank boldly, and at once had the daughter-in-law beside him pour another bowl from the earthenware jar at her feet.

It was already approaching late autumn, and the climate in Liaodong was at its most pleasant stage; within Gaoli City, golden waves of wheat rose and fell and fluttered with the breeze.

Zhang Zhao also personally issued orders, conveying the rendezvous point and date of the great army's assembly and departure to the three men Zhe Deyi, Yan Jin, and Fu Yanqing.

The soldiers all knew that this time, after reaching Liaoyang Prefecture and thoroughly bringing the Khitans under control, those without money could at the very least obtain more than ten strings of cash in goods and wealth; those with a wife would at the very least get one from among the Bohai, Khitan, Xi, and Dharma Sect women; and those wanting a house would naturally not be short of one either.

Now, in their eyes, it was as if Heaven above in its great mercy and compassion had permitted the Tuyuhun king to return and lead them to better days, so how would they dare not obey orders?

When the soldiers and officers saw the banner and staff of office approaching from afar, they mounted their horses one after another and stood solemnly on both sides; Cao Yanlu, too, amid the throng of soldiers and officers, hurriedly found an open space to receive the palace envoy.

But this candidate had to be suitable: able to keep Cao Yanlu in check, yet not making the boy think Zhang Zhao had grown wary of him, nor lording it over him as a confidant of the emperor and excessively interfering in the governance of the Zhang Si chieftain.

As for Fu Yanqing, with his daughter in favor and himself serving in his home region, organizing five thousand elite cavalry from Hebei and ten thousand sworn followers from Jiaodong and Zhili was no problem at all for him.

At this time, the term "father-in-law" could refer either to a wife's father or be used respectfully for a virtuous elder; only after the early Northern Song would it come to refer exclusively to a wife's father.

According to the regulations of the Great Tang and the present Great Zhou, bamboo slips were used only when establishing an empress, a crown prince, or enfeoffing the various kings, and were called investiture documents.

But now, hearing such warm and affectionate address from Cao Yanlu, they finally felt some confidence in their hearts.

After much thought, Zhang Zhao found the most suitable candidate: this was none other than Cao Balang Murong Xin, who had just returned from Kucha.

In ancient times, for a person to live past forty was itself a remarkable ability.

Although the Zhang Si chieftain was a son of Tang, who said that when a son of Tang came to Liaodong, he would necessarily treat the sons of Tang well?

What made him uneasy was that Cao Yanlu already considered his own identity and status sensitive enough, and now he had been enfeoffed with Shenzhou, on ancestral land that had been occupied by the Khitans for a hundred years, and which was also the place where the royal house had risen.

As for the Beiting province, in the war that destroyed the Gaochang Uyghurs, Zhang Zhao himself could not control his fury and killed rather too many people; it had still not recovered even now, and simply could not supply the burden of twenty-eight thousand cavalry and seventy or eighty thousand mules and horses.

But to have him serve merely as a peacetime chief minister of a rising dynasty would absolutely be no problem.

The remaining and most numerous group, who had already mastered farming techniques and even spoke like Han people, were the Bohai remnants who had long since been tamed by the Khitans into something much like house dogs.

That was also necessary; the troops under Cao Yanlu were a tenth-century feudal army, not the People's Liberation Army. Even the People's Liberation Army had times when it treated the enemy as mercilessly as an autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves.

A portion of the Right Yulin Guard under Cao Yanlu's command, a portion of the Gao family's Fanyang Army, and the two battalions of the Andong Garrison of the imperial guard that Zhang Zhao permitted him to form, totaling ten thousand infantry and cavalry, were following right behind him.

"All Xi and Bohai peoples who can speak the Han tongue and know propriety and rites: able-bodied men shall have their land reduced by seventy mu, and women, children, the old and the weak by ten mu."

It was not a posthumous bestowal; this person was a close branch of the imperial family, indeed the emperor's own son, so there was no need to call him Grand Governor.

From this day forth, all Han people carried off by the barbarian bandits shall be released from servile status, and the fields they till shall all belong to you.

That Wang Jing Dharma Sect, after all, was a large country; records from later generations state that at the beginning of the seventeenth century the Wang Jing Dharma Sect had a population of roughly seven million eight hundred thousand or so.

As for the Tuyuhun, Tangut, and Hengshan Qiang contingents who did the dirty and exhausting work for the great army, their discipline was also remarkably good.

Having solved the problem of provisions and supplies, Zhang Zhao then ordered the troop supervisors of the Dunhuang and Zhangye prefectures each to send out seven hundred sworn follower elite cavalry as roving scouts, to go out onto the grasslands ahead of time and bring back some small tribes that had turned to the Three Wang clan to serve as guides.

The title of Grand Governor was rarely used even in the Great Tang period, because the Grand Governors of Youzhou and Yangzhou in Tang times were almost all posthumously bestowed.

The young general whom Princess Yongle personally brought forward to recruit for the Zhang Si chieftain knew what the Zhang Si chieftain intended to do; he understood that white-robed Zhang Si, renowned throughout the realm, all too well.

Although the formal investiture envoy had not yet arrived, the moment this investiture document, sent ahead of time, was read aloud, the whole of Gaoli City was set alight, and countless soldiers and officers cheered and leaped with joy.

For a time, Zhang Si simply could not take it all in, but the matter was urgent, and Zhang Zhao gave him no chance to think it over, directly handing him several Tang-era texts on the Three Han of the peninsula and the country of Wa, permitting him only one night's rest at home before setting out at once for Liaodong.

For any household whose able-bodied men hold less than forty mu, whose able-bodied women hold less than twenty mu, or whose old and weak hold less than twenty mu, the authorities shall make up the shortfall.

Only on the western route was Bai Congxin's supply situation somewhat difficult; the Basmyl, Ili, Naiman, and Kyrgyz four tumens were all penniless.

Now that the great dynasty has risen, the Sage has commanded me to recover the old lands of our Hebei Circuit; better to remain here in Liaodong, spread your branches and leaves here, and enjoy peace and happiness for generations to come.

The common people, who had just now understood what kind of decree Cao Yanlu had issued, were also too excited to contain themselves.

He had also married Li Shengtian's eldest daughter, the Grand Princess of Han, Li Zhen'er, whom Zhang Zhao regarded as his own younger sister.

Especially after the death of the last Tuyuhun Khagan, who was none other than Cao Yanlu's ancestor Wang Juefu, the Tuyuhun people became orphans, and their status within the Tibetan Empire was even lower than that of the Wenmo people.

The eastern expedition against Wa was, for Zhang Zhao, a transmigrator's basic operation.

Just then, Murong, who had been standing beside him all along, suddenly grabbed Cao Yanlu's hand.

Murong actually had one more thing he did not say: so many people had followed him, Cao Yanlu, for the sake of their future prospects; if he refused, what were all these people supposed to do?

"Great King, this is the Sage's investiture document; it is not something a subject may decline. Moreover, the Great King is the Sage's son, and was always meant to be a king!"

In addition, Zhang Zhao ordered the Chief Minister Feng Dao to select twenty thousand households of able-bodied Han men from the four provinces of Zhili, Jiaodong, Hubei, and Hebei, totaling one hundred eighty thousand people, to proceed in succession to Liaodong and settle in various places there, serving as the backbone of the garrison colonies.

Cao Yanlu, who had originally been somewhat uneasy about attacking the Wang Jing Dharma Sect, gradually grew very confident.

In addition, a portion of the Bureau of Military Affairs officials who had followed Zhang Zhao to Liangzhou immediately received orders and dispatched messengers to notify the troop supervisors and garrison commanders everywhere to prepare for the campaign, because this strike would in some places require the use of garrison troops and sworn follower able-bodied men under the Bureau of Military Affairs' jurisdiction.

Zhang Zhao had once established the Pingzhou Andong Lesser Protectorate in Pingzhou. Although it had since been changed to Andong Province, Cao Yanlu's title of Lesser Protector bearing the imperial tally had not been revoked, so everyone above was accustomed to calling him Lesser Protector.

Namely, to build up strength on the old territory of the Andong Protectorate, attract Khitan, Xi, and Jurchen tribes to submit, stockpile supplies, forge siege engines and warships, gather intelligence, and prepare for the attack on Wang Jing Fazong.

Cao Yanlu could not hold back a long sigh. He waved a hand and called out to a cavalry officer riding a white horse: "Liu Yingqi, this is your fellow townsman. Go and console your father-in-law's longing."

But correspondingly, the Bohai farmers, Xi people, and Khitan herders who had come along the way had all bled a little.

Bai Congxin had twenty-eight thousand men, but of these, twenty thousand heavy cavalry from the seventy thousand households west of the desert were basically 'gray livestock,' requiring little in the way of supplies. As long as Bai Congxin's three thousand elite riders brought from the Central Plains could be supplied, that was enough.

Originally Zhang Sishi had thought that Shenzhou would only be given to him after Wang Jing Fazong was crushed. He had not expected it to be granted now, which showed how deep the trust was.

In history, after the Guiyi Army had been papered over by Cao Yuanzhong, it passed into the hands of Murong Xin, and by then the rot was already too deep to reverse. Murong Xin lacked the ability to turn the tide and could only keep papering over it for nearly thirty more years.

That group of eunuchs had galloped hundreds of li a day from Liangzhou Prefecture, and by the time they reached this city of Goryeo, only this one could still hold himself upright.

Cao Yanlu took it readily and drained it in one gulp, then laughed three times. "Fine wine! But Father-in-law must pour no more. If I drink again, I may not make it to Goryeo City!"

If they did not know their place, Cao Yanlu could simply pack up the wealth and goods of Jinzhou and ship them back to Beiping Prefecture. That way, no matter what nobles they were, they would immediately go bankrupt and become herding slaves.

Establish Left and Right Chief Clerks, a Marshal, and ten Cao Adjutants to assist him."

Toward the state, the bond is that of lord and subject; in grace, it is that of father and son.

Therefore, when the old man heard Cao Yanlu address him as father-in-law, he immediately appeared overjoyed, and the people of the surrounding village burst into cheers.

Zhang Sishi raised the bamboo slip above his head and shouted: "Your child Xinchang bows and thanks Father for his great love!"

At that very moment, in the distance a red-plumed express courier arrived escorting a eunuch bearing a banner of office.

The Emperor commands the Andong Grand Protector, Duke of Yan, Cao Yanlu.

Such a relationship ensured both that he would cherish and protect Cao Yanlu, and that Cao Yanlu would not resent him.

Cao Yanlu immediately thought of all this. Instinctively, he wanted to decline. This was not yet the time to accept Shenzhou.

Everyone's faces were alight with excitement, because the decree in the eunuch's hands was written on bamboo slips.

Having dealt with those matters, Zhang Zhao began processing Cao Yanlu's memorial.

At the same time, expand the scope of Andong Province to encompass all the old territory of the former Andong Protectorate, and move the provincial seat to the Khitan eastern capital of Liaoyang Prefecture.

Hearing the call, Cao Yanlu hesitated a moment. As it happened, he was thirsty, so he simply dismounted, took the bowl of slightly sweet-and-sour rice wine, and drained it in one gulp.

The land of Liaodong, after several hundred years of development, had become very prosperous. Moreover, after the fall of Bohai, the Khitan had carried off large numbers of Bohai commoners to farm here, so there was no shortage of population. If the irrigation works were improved, it would be a wilderness of ten thousand li of fertile fields.

Murong Xin was Cao Yuanzhong's eldest legitimate son. Zhang Sishi's mother, Lady Cao Sanniang Yannai, was his full elder sister, and Zhang Zhao's empress, Cao Shisiniang Yanxi, was his full younger sister.

In the end he could hold on no longer. Amid internal strife, he was forced to his death by his nephew Cao Zongshou, who very likely carried a great deal of Shazhou Uyghur blood.

Er, of course there was also the fact that Cao Yanlu's power was simply too great, and a civil official had to be placed there to restrain him somewhat.

Loyal and brave in service of the state, wherever he goes he breaks the enemy, his achievements are manifest, he has recovered the old lands of the Great Dynasty north of the Yellow River, and extended the sacred might and martial glory of the Great Zhou.

"When did Father-in-law arrive here in Goryeo, and where is your immortal home?" Since he had dismounted, Zhang Sishi asked a few questions in passing.

The moment he saw Cao Yanlu and confirmed there was no mistake, he immediately raised the bamboo slip high and shouted: "There is an imperial decree!"

They were rich. Over the past dozen years the trade routes had been open, and those old men of the former Guiyi Army who controlled the key points of the trade routes had all made fortunes. Now it was time for them to bleed a little.

"I only remember that when my grandfather was alive, on the first day of the first month he would always bow toward the south and say, 'Your grandson is unfilial.' I imagine it was my grandfather, or my grandfather's father — some generation of my great-grandfathers — who was carried off. As for my hometown, it seems it was Xingtang County, Hengzhou, in Hebei Circuit."

And now Cao Yanlu had achieved such great merit, perfectly executing Zhang Zhao's strategy, using the smallest cost to get a grip on the Khitan and preventing them from escaping back into the mountains and forests.

Rather, Zhang Zhao had one worry: that Cao Yanlu might hesitate over the imminent attack on Wang Jing Fazong.

Zhang Zhao's name and mission — Cao Yanlu would certainly make good use of that.

But if they violated military discipline, not only would they have nothing, they might well lose their lives.

Especially the Tuyuhun, who were the most numerous. Most of them had come down from the Qingtang Plateau, which had always been the domain of the Wangjue family. The Wangjue family had always been their kings.

"Grand Protector! Please drink this bowl of watered wine!" An elder with gray beard and hair, supported by his grandson, stood by the roadside and raised a bowl of cloudy wine high.

It was simply too fitting! He was Zhang Sishi's own maternal uncle, and at the same time the maternal uncle of the Empress's legitimate son Zhang Xianjing, and also Zhang Zhao's own brother-in-law.

On the fourteenth day of the fourth month, Zhang Zhao issued an edict from the Western Capital Chengtian Liangzhou Prefecture, promoting Duke of Yan Cao Yanlu to Prince of Liaoyang Commandery, ordering him to open a princely establishment, appointing Left and Right Chief Clerks, a Marshal, ten Cao Adjutants, and other officials, and granting him authority over the affairs of the Khitan, Jurchen, Tieli, and Shiwei tribes.

The soldiers had long since received Cao Yanlu's strict order forbidding them to set foot in the wheat fields. From Jinzhou westward, the Zhou army had not killed a single person wantonly, nor plundered a single household, displaying a discipline that could be called absolutely unparalleled.

All along the way, the scenery was like this.

"Enter."

At the same time, he would not help Cao Yanlu rebel, because there was no need.

At the same time, Zhang Zhao also decreed that a portion of the Tuyuhun, Hengshan Qiang, and Ningxia Tangut tribes already under Cao Yanlu's jurisdiction — altogether thirty thousand households, seven hundred thousand people — should advance east with Cao Yanlu.

Zhang Sishi was also very happy. As far as the eye could see, village after village was set amid field after field. Along both sides of the road, the Han people who had been carried off to Liaodong shouted excitedly. Everywhere, Han elders led large crowds, bearing food and drink in the manner of welcoming the royal army.

Zhang Sishi was both happy and uneasy. He was happy because he knew how casually his stepfather, who was about to implement the policy of Xia rulers over Yi subjects, regarded the granting of Shenzhou.

Those three tribes all believed in the Three Wangs, and they revered Zhang Sishi, a true son of the Buddha, to an extraordinary degree.

But it was not in the manner of a subject receiving a ruler's investiture. Rather, it was more like a son receiving a letter of praise from his father.

This was not because Zhang Zhao had any suspicion of Cao Yanlu. If he truly suspected him, Zhang Zhao would never have granted such great power.

Cao Yanlu also suddenly came to his senses. He immediately had his armor removed, changed into ordinary clothes, and only then came forward and knelt to receive the investiture document.

Promoted to Prince of Liaoyang Commandery, ordered to open a princely establishment, to oversee the affairs of the Great Dynasty's Andong Protectorate, and to pacify the Khitan, Xi, Bohai, Jurchen, Shiwei, and other tribes.

Now that the military victory had been won and their wealth was in hand, the Khitan had no other road to choose but surrender.

So saying, Cao Yanlu mounted his horse again and, using the high ground, called out to all the commoners: "You have lingered in Liaodong for generations, for over a hundred years. Your hometowns, it must be said, have changed beyond recognition.

Murong and the others wore rather strange expressions, because before this, Cao Yanlu had always referred to the Emperor as 'Your Majesty,' and only rarely used 'Father,' the more intimate colloquial term.

It was just that this was still some seventy years before the founding of the Northern Song, and the term 'father-in-law' was only gradually beginning to be used specifically for a wife's father. If a person of high status called an older person of lower status 'father-in-law,' it was to show closeness, just as a later-era leader might call you 'brother' by name.

Having said this, Cao Yanlu looked at the old man who was excitedly talking with Liu Yingqi and shouted: "Whoever oppresses you, I will make him pay with corporal punishment. Whoever has beaten or killed anyone, I will make him pay with his life!"

For Zhang Sishi, this was the great cause he and his father Zhang Zhao would strive for together.

"Aye!" Under Cao Yanlu's lead, the armored soldiers struck their chests with their fists, and those without armor knelt on one knee. Cao Yanlu, being in armor, performed the empty-bow salute.

So the only reason the army under Cao Yanlu maintained such excellent discipline was this: every man could see the rewards that came after maintaining discipline.

And that was only the official count. The actual population was surely larger. It was still some hundred and seventy or eighty years before the seventeenth century, so the number of commoners must have been much smaller, but one to one and a half million there should have been. Otherwise they could not have held out against the Khitan Liao state.

At these words, the Later Han people behind him burst into thunderous cheers, and the nearby commoners who knew what was happening came over one after another to ask.

At the same time, the Brocade Guard also moved out in force, contacting the informants below the grasslands to gather back as much detailed geographical information as possible.

The situation was not yet fully clear, but Cao Yanlu had smashed the Khitan vanguard in a single battle, killed Yelu Lihu, and even seized the entire fortunes of the Khitan nobles, great and small.

There was a way: Zhang Zhao could only write to his maternal grandfather Song Tongyi, asking him to take out his own burial money first, and then go persuade the relatives of Zhang Zhao's grandmother's maiden family, the Yin clan, and his great-grandmother's maiden family, the Chen clan, to pool some money together.

That essentially handed over the former-life Northeast's eight provinces, the eastern Inner Mongolia cities of Chifeng and Tongliao, the Hebei cities of Chengde, Tangshan, Qinhuangdao, and so on, plus Russia's Far East region — all of it — to Cao Yanlu.

That is far too sensitive, and very dangerous!

The old man's turbid tears immediately fell from his eyes. "When did it arrive? Even now it is still not clear."

Before that, although many frustrated men had already pledged themselves to the young lord, they were all small fish and shrimp; he absolutely needed a civil official to oversee governance for him.

Liaodong, Goryeo — that is, the former-life city of Shenyang in Liaoning Province — at this time the Khitan political and military center, the Eastern Capital, was not in Goryeo, but in Liaoyang south of Zhang Si.

Zhang Zhao decided to immediately order Cao Yanlu to advance eastward across all of Liao, utterly destroying the Khitan regime that should have collapsed long ago, and to carry out the first step of the eight-part eastern expedition against Wa that he and Zhang Sishizhang had agreed upon in Beiping Prefecture.

As the eleventh Military Governor of the Guiyi Army in history and the seventh head of the Cao clan of Shazhou, Murong Xin's ability was actually not particularly strong.

Therefore, assigning a suitable civil official to go and supervise was necessary.

After Murong Xin was summoned by Zhang Zhao, his jaw immediately dropped in astonishment, because since he was to be sent to Liaoyang to supervise Cao Yanlu, Zhang Zhao naturally had to explain the plan to him.

In total, just over ten thousand men; the court would not even need to allocate large amounts of money and grain from the Eastern Capital — the Revenue Transfer Commissioner of Hebei alone could arrange the support.

After all the orders had been issued, Zhang Zhao thought it over again. Zhang Sishizhang was a man of all-around talent, skilled in war and very capable in governing the land, but after all, his Liaoyang Commandery Prince's headquarters had few talented men.

So Zhang Zhao immediately summoned Murong Xin, who had just returned from Kucha and had not yet enjoyed more than a few days of leisure.

"Great King! Great King! Great King!" Someone shouted at the top of his lungs, and the atmosphere instantly reached its peak.

The young lord held the Khitan nobles' property as "hostages" in his hands, so he had no fear at all that they would refuse to fall in line.