Chapter 721: Wishful Thinking

On the nineteenth day of the ninth month, the stone-carving at Yanran that had been agreed upon did not happen; Zhang Zhao merely held a simple ceremony, paying homage to the soldiers of the Great Tang who had garrisoned this place from the time of the Hanhai Area Command all the way through the Anbei Protectorate.

Afterward, Zhang Zhao took the Anbei Protectorate, which the Zubu people had turned into Woluduo City, and renamed it the Yanran Grand Area Command.

He appointed Bai Congxin as Grand Commander of Yanran and ordered him to move one thousand households of herders from the Yedugua tribe to this place to graze.

At the same time, he conscripted one thousand households of herders each from the Naiman, Yili, and Basmyl myriarchies among the four myriarchies west of the desert.

The Yanran Mountains have lush water and grass, and some river bends and mountain hollows can even support a season of farming, so moving tribes here to graze is an immense act of grace.

As for the original three Northern Zubu tribes, they suffered heavy casualties in the two surprise raids, and now only thirty or forty thousand of them remain as Zhou prisoners.

Zhang Zhao simply issued an order scattering these people and relocating them separately to three places: Ningyuan in Anxi, Fengzhou in the Hetao, and Liaoyang in Andong.

Although these places are even more prosperous than the Yanran Mountains where the Northern Zubu lived, these Zubu people were moved with their tribal structures broken apart.

Once they arrived, without their clansmen as a backer, they would basically all become second-class citizens, and it stands to reason that in future western expedition levies, they would certainly be a prime target for conscription.

As for Lu Zhen, Lu Sanlang, Zhang Zhao was quite happy that he was willing to go out and rule the Xia as a barbarian lord.

I, Sage Zhang, wish there were more and more people like him, but as for Lu Sanlang's idea of taking six or seven thousand households, thirty or forty thousand herders, and migrating west as a whole, Zhang Zhao rejected it outright.

What kind of joke is that? If you, Lu Sanlang, can just take nearly a whole myriarchy's worth of people and migrate west, then how much should everyone else get?

As for grazing in the Great Lake Basin, that was even more impossible.

Because that land had already been given by Zhang Zhao to his personal guard myriarchy, the Basmyl myriarchy, and to the Kyrgyz myriarchy that had come from afar to pay court.

The Basmyl personal guard myriarchy was the myriarchy Zhang Zhao could control best; its leader Ashina Duo had been with Zhang Zhao since just before the fall of Shule.

After Zhang Zhao's power grew, Ashina Duo also brought over his clansmen from the far-off Jin Mountains (Altai Mountains) and Green Grass Lake (Manas Lake) region.

In the early days of the founding of Zhang Zhou, the Basmyl light cavalry had always been the most capable roving scouts under Zhang Zhao's command.

Among the palace attendants and guards by Zhang Zhao's side, Basmyl people still account for more than one in ten to this day; with such a close relationship, the rich lands of the Great Lake Basin naturally had to go mostly to the Basmyl people.

As for the Kyrgyz people, their story is even more amusing. This tribe, having gotten information from who knows where, had always insisted that they were the descendants of the Han general Li Ling who remained among the Xiongnu.

During the Tang, they often used this reason to pay tribute, and because the Li Tang imperial house came from the Li clan of Longxi, they received quite a bit of favorable treatment.

Of course, it is also possible that their tribal leaders really were descendants of Li Ling.

Because back then Li Ling was sent by the Xiongnu to rule as king around the Yenisei River north of Tangnu Uriankhai, which also happened to be the grazing land of the Kyrgyz people, originally called the Jiankun.

After Zhang Zhao reorganized the steppe, the Kyrgyz heard that Zhang Zhao revered the Great Tang and quickly came to submit.

Among the four myriarchies west of the desert, the Kyrgyz were distant and strong, and Zhang Zhao had always thought they would be hard to subdue, but they turned out to be especially sensible, submitting even faster than the Naiman tribe.

What could he do about that? And their request to graze in the Great Lake Basin region was for no other reason than to better communicate with the Central Plains court, that is, with Zhang Zhao.

So Zhang Zhao marked out a small patch of land for them in the northern part of the Great Lake Basin, to serve as a forward post and stopping point for Kyrgyz envoys paying court.

But as for Lu Sanlang, Zhang Zhao could not let the man be too disheartened. Although this fellow was famously lacking in emotional intelligence, his merits were solid and real.

Without him "sleeping over" the leader of the Western Zubu, Lady Yulizi, the Zhou army could never have obtained such comprehensive information about the Dalimi and Northern Zubu tribes.

So after some thought, Zhang Zhao gave half of the Dalimi tribe's grazing land to the Western Zubu, and merged the remaining Dalimi people into the Western Zubu.

In the future, if Lu Zhen, Lu Sanlang, wanted to take people away, he could take the Western Zubu people mixed with a certain number of Dalimi, at most allowing him to take three thousand households, that is, a little over twenty thousand people. Of course, in terms of supplies, Zhang Zhao would give preferential treatment.

Having arranged all these matters, Zhang Zhao did not even tally the soldiers' military merits before immediately appointing Bai Congxin, still over a hundred li away, as Grand Commander of the Yanran Grand Area Command, to hold Yanran City.

And borrowing the name of the Lushan Area Command that the Great Tang had established nearby, Zhang Zhao also appointed Lu Zhen, Lu Sanlang, as Pacification Commissioner of the Two Lushan Tribes, ordering him to pacify the Western Zubu and Dalimi tribes.

At the same time, he enfeoffed the Western Zubu leader Yulizi as Lady of Lushan Commandery, and her son Luketu as Troop Commander of the Two Lushan Tribes, bestowing one hundred jin of Hexi white sugar, two hundred jin of refined salt, one hundred bolts of silk and satin, three hundred bolts of Khotan white cotton cloth, as well as gold, silver, pearls, and jade.

Afterward, Zhang Zhao personally led the Great Zhou Hanshan Division, the personal army, and the various brigades, guards, and garrisons of the imperial army, ten thousand infantry and cavalry, plus twenty-three thousand knights conscripted from Helong, and fifteen thousand cavalry from the various tribal retinues.

In total, forty-eight thousand infantry and cavalry, advancing in two columns straight for the Luqu River (Kherlen River) basin where the eight Dilie tribes dwelt.

Shulu Ping had aged considerably more compared to when she last met Zhang Zhao at Chengde Prefecture.

This Khitan Empress Dowager, at death's door, had refused to close her eyes, and the reason she still struggled on was that she could not let go.

In the old days, before Yelu Abaoji established the Khitan state, the leadership of the Khitan tribe was still produced by rotation, and in order to fix that throne permanently under the rear of Yelu Abaoji's line, Shulu Ping killed so many people that even she herself could not count them.

Many of them were close kin whom even Yelu Abaoji could not bring himself to strike down, but Shulu Ping still hardened her heart and slaughtered them all.

It could be said that if Yelu Abaoji had not had a wife like Shulu Ping, he could never have established a unified Khitan state.

Now her husband had long since passed away, two sons and one grandson had all been killed by the Zhou people, and everything she had painstakingly built was slipping away before her eyes in her old age.

With this kind of agony, how could Shulu Ping, who had always had ambitions higher than the heavens and ruthless methods, possibly close her eyes!

So after Yelu Lihu proved beyond redemption and insisted on going to Jinzhou to throw his life away, Shulu Ping, before Yelu Lihu could march, took away all of the two thousand-odd men he could still bring with him.

In Shulu Ping's plan, she would first rely on the Khitan's former prestige and the two thousand armored soldiers still in her hands to intimidate the eight Dilie tribes.

These eight tribes were relatively close to the Khitans, and some among them were distant relatives from her mother's family; with proper planning, they should be controllable.

At the same time, in the west, Shulu Ping deliberately ruined the reputation of the Six Dharma Sect, then threw out the banner of opposing the Six Dharma Sect to attract powerful men of the steppe to contend for it, and sure enough, it drew out Hulubashi of the Merkits and Duosage of the Northern Zubu one after another.

And once this banner of resisting the Six Dharma Sect was raised, putting it down again would not be easy.

With them drawing fire, Shulu Ping could free up time to continue consolidating the Wugu tribe west of the Great Xianbei Mountains, the various Shiwei and Tieli tribes to the east, and the Tuzhala and other tribes further north.

Shulu Ping slowly pondered with a mind that was far less sharp than in her youth: as long as Duosage of the Zubu and Hulubashi of the Merkits could hold out until the year after next, her strategy of consolidating the tribes would succeed.

By then, she figured, Duosage and the others would probably have been beaten badly by the Zhou army and would be fleeing toward the Northern Sea.

At that moment, she, Shulu Ping, would appear with a coalition of the tribes east of Langjuxu Mountain, drive back the Zhou army, and surely restore the Khitan people's prestige.

After that, it would be time to summon the Khitans of Liaodong and Liaoxi back to their ancestral homeland. In this way, even if the Khitan state could not be restored, they could still become a steppe power like the Uyghurs.

As for whether Duosage and the others could hold out until then, the Empress Dowager of the Severed Wrist thought there was little problem.

It was already the ninth month now, and she figured the Zhou army could not possibly march beyond the frontier.

One must understand that whether in the mighty Han or the glorious Tang, whenever Han armies marched beyond the frontier, it required massive preparation: guides, provisions, auxiliary troops, nothing could be lacking.

As for the kind of situation where one could drive tens of thousands of steppe households, with tens of thousands of elite cavalry ready to move at any time, with more mules and horses than could be counted, and with eight or ten years of stored provisions ready to be drawn upon at any moment—

that was probably only possible in the days when the Heavenly Khagan was alive.

So if the Zhou army could not march beyond the frontier this year, then once they reacted next year they would still need to make all sorts of preparations; setting out in the seventh or eighth month would already be good, and after another month or more on the road, it would be the ninth month.

They could not possibly find and crush the Zubu people the moment they arrived; dragging on until the tenth month when the cold winds rose, the Zhou army would have no choice but to return south.

When they came again in the sixth or seventh month of the third year—heh heh! A trace of a smile finally appeared on Shulu Ping's face. By then, they would see a Great Khitan state reborn from the ashes!

"Clang!"

Just as Shulu Ping was entering her fantasy time, the door was suddenly shoved open.

A blast of cold wind swept in, and Shulu Ping involuntarily tightened her robes, glaring angrily toward the doorway — who would dare be so bold?

Then she saw Yelu Dilian, his face streaming with tears, and Shulu Ping grew even more displeased.

Among the Khitan, many used Dilian as a given name or courtesy name — around her there were Yelu Yaliguo, Yelu Wuzhi, and now this Yelu Dilian before her.

By comparison, Shulu Ping found herself rather disliking this Yelu Dilian in front of her. Why did he have to be like that traitor Yaliguo, weeping at the slightest trouble?

"Holy Mother, word has come from Mount Langjuxu. The Zhou army launched a surprise attack on the Northern Zubu's Woluoduo City several days ago. It is said that the Northern Zubu's Irkin Duosage has been slain by the Zhou troops!"

"What!" Shulu Ping shot to her feet, feeling the world spin around her.

Never in her dreams had she imagined that while she regarded the grasslands as her lifeline, in Zhang Zhao's eyes the grassland tribes were also soft persimmons!

I, Sage Zhang, have long had the intention of sweeping the grasslands. These people have low combat strength, far easier to fight than the Southern Tang who hold fast behind strong fortresses, and after defeating them I can gain immense prestige — how could I possibly not strike!

(End of Chapter)

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