Chapter 739: Chang'an Is Not a Place Any Tom, Dick, or Harry Can Come To

"Men die for wealth as birds die for food" — no one fits that saying better than Cao Renzun.

Did he not know the prestige of Zhang Zhao, that founding sovereign?

Did he not know that whether it was the stalwart warriors of Hexi and Longyou or the sworn followers of Guanzhong, all of them regarded the Emperor as though he were a god?

He knew. He knew it perfectly well!

That was precisely why he had people spread the stories of Sun Ce of the Three Kingdoms and Emperor Zhuangzong of the Later Tang far and wide until the whole realm knew them — he wanted to use that method to strip away part of the halo around the Emperor.

When others cursed Pei Yuan as a treacherous minister, it might be out of envy, or simply following the crowd — but when Cao Renzun cursed Pei Yuan as a treacherous minister, it came straight from the bottom of his heart.

As an elder of the Shazhou Cao clan and the actual head of the Sogdian Western Cao branch within the Shazhou Cao, Cao Renzun had long since established ties with Cao Wanjin of the Hexi Trading Company — or rather, their ties had never been broken.

Because Cao Wanjin's ancestor, Cao Wantongxi, had originally split off from this Dunhuang branch of the Sogdian Western Cao. They were originally one family.

At this time, the Sogdians were a commercial people even more outstanding than the Jews, and after Zhang Zhao opened the trade routes, the Hexi Corridor, which had been at its last gasp, immediately welcomed a great surge of development.

Especially after Zhang Zhao hoped to use Hexi white sugar and rock sugar to influence the Central Plains, and to use Hexi refined salt and tea bricks to influence the highlands, the steppes, and Transoxiana, the Hexi Trading Company came into being and grew to hold enormous weight.

To be honest, in the process of Zhang Zhao unifying the realm, the Hexi Trading Company contributed tremendous strength.

More than thirty percent of the military funds used for campaigns, and more than fifty percent of the costs of settling the personal army and the palace guard, came from it.

And of the goods and wealth Zhang Zhao bestowed upon his ministers in rewards great and small, more than sixty percent came from the contributions of the Hexi Trading Company.

At the same time, the Hexi Trading Company cooperated with court policy, using weapons such as salt, sugar, and tea, along with a certain degree of monopoly over the Hexi trade routes, to carry out precision-strike strategies against various regions — objectively accelerating the unification process of the Zhang Zhou dynasty.

Even the initial development of the Embroidered Guard's networks across the various regions had depended on the Hexi Trading Company.

But now, at this day when only the Southern Han still stubbornly resisted and the Southern Tang and Qian Yue were about to lose their ability to fight back, the drawbacks of the Hexi Trading Company began to show.

This large, semi-governmental commercial organization, which had existed for thirteen years, had now become a tyrant along the Hexi trade routes.

Forced buying and selling, buying low and selling high, hoarding and cornering goods, armed attacks on other merchant houses that refused to submit to their management — it had even reached the point where they no longer participated in the actual sale of goods at all, but simply sat in place collecting membership fees.

Once you left Guanzhong, even the Ministry of Revenue of the imperial court was not as effective as the Hexi Trading Company.

And within the Hexi Trading Company, the Sogdians occupied an extremely important position.

The company's leader, Cao Wanjin, was a man of the Sogdian Western Cao.

The person in charge of the enterprises producing key goods such as Hexi white sugar, rock sugar, and tea bricks was Kang Jinshan, a Sogdian of the Kang state.

Mi Guozhong, the Hexi Trading Company's representative in the Beiting province, who specially reviewed the sale of strategic goods such as sugar, tea, and iron to the nomadic peoples from the west of the desert to the Lake Yibo area, was likewise a Sogdian.

At the same time, Cao Wanjin's alluring third daughter, born of a concubine, was one of the two concubines of Murong Xinzhang, Prince of Liaoyang; his fifth daughter, also born of a concubine, was a concubine of Zhang Liecheng, Duke of Jiaocheng and Commander of the Embroidered Guard.

Kang Jinshan's eldest legitimate daughter had, under Zhang Zhao's own matchmaking, been married to Zhang Liecheng as his principal wife.

Mi Guozhong's legitimate daughter had married Fan Quan, Duke of Xinping and one of the most important personal generals by Zhang Zhao's side.

In the beginning, these relationships guaranteed the unity of the Hexi Trading Company and guaranteed that Zhang Zhao could command them as easily as moving his own arm — and for a time, it truly worked extremely well.

But by now, the Zhang Zhou court's operations had begun to normalize, and it no longer needed to rely on the Hexi Trading Company's donations as it had before.

At the same time, since the lands of Meng Shu, Ma Chu, and Nanping had returned to the state, there was no longer any need for the Hexi Trading Company to assist the court in squeezing them by the throat.

Under these circumstances, the role of the Hexi Trading Company began to slide rapidly from positive to negative.

Within the company, corruption, graft, and even deceiving those above and hoodwinking those below began to appear with increasing frequency.

Within the Hexi Trading Company, there even formed a situation where thirty percent of the profits went to the Emperor, twenty percent served as operating funds, and the remaining fifty percent was divided among the various families.

And in all this, the person who played the greatest role in the rapid degeneration and corruption of the Hexi Trading Company was not Cao Wanjin, nor Kang Jinshan, and even less Mi Guozhong far away at the edge of the world — it was Cao Renzun.

After Cao Wanjin became the head of the Hexi Trading Company, Cao Renzun immediately entered the company with the nod of Empress Cao Yanxi.

Afterward, using the geographical advantage of Shazhou and Dunhuang and the local-strongman advantage of the old Guiyi Army faction headed by the Cao clan, he rapidly expanded his influence within the Hexi Trading Company.

The current model of the Hexi Trading Company sitting in place collecting money at the Chengtian Liangzhou prefecture and Dunhuang prefecture — the two gateways at the east and west ends of the Hexi Corridor — as well as the current profit-distribution model, were both established by Cao Renzun.

To be fair, the reason Cao Yanxi had agreed to let Cao Renzun enter the Hexi Trading Company in the first place was actually because Zhang Zhao had agreed to it.

Zhang Zhao's original arrangement had been to let old-timers of the previous generation of the Guiyi Army like Cao Renzun enter the Hexi Trading Company, so that they could enjoy the benefits brought by the Zhang Zhou unification without getting too deeply involved in political and military circles.

After all, although the older generation of the Guiyi Army was entirely a burden to Zhang Zhao, the younger generation and the generation after that were still useful to him — indeed, he had to draw them into his innermost circle.

Let these old fellows enjoy the dividends, use the semi-official advantages of the Hexi Trading Company to casually do a bit of resale trade, or just open some inns, mule-and-horse agencies, and money-exchange houses in Dunhuang, and easily earn a few tens of thousands of strings of cash a year — their lives would be more than comfortable.

But I, Sage Zhang, still far underestimated the greed of human nature. The old fellows headed by Cao Renzun did not even want to do this kind of business that was guaranteed to make money.

What they wanted to do was the even more effortless business of local strongmen — one that gave them a firmer grip on power.

In fact, Zhang Huaiqing had mentioned the matter of Cao Renzun and the others to Zhang Zhao. Although this old fellow of the grandfather generation of the Zhang family was not very capable, he had one virtue: as the only surviving nephew of Zhang Yichao, he truly regarded the Zhang Zhou dynasty as the family property of the Zhang clan.

So he would rather marry off his daughters and granddaughters for Zhang Zhao to use in political alliances, collecting a bride price of a hundred or two hundred thousand strings of cash along the way, than mess around with Cao Renzun and the others to rake in money.

During his tenure as the Defender of the Western Capital, Zhang Huaiqing had several times sent secret memorials to Zhang Zhao to lodge complaints.

But at that time Zhang Zhao was in a critical period, and had neither the energy nor the ability to immediately resolve this problem — he could only pretend to be deaf and dumb.

This frightened Zhang Huaiqing badly, and so he deliberately made a mess of things, and in the end successfully tossed this ticking bomb into Pei Yuan's hands.

As soon as Pei Yuan took over, he immediately began to attack Cao Renzun from every angle, and the relationship between the two could be said to be extremely bad.

If at this moment someone could have done an analysis for Cao Renzun, he would have discovered that what he faced was no once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The so-called possibility that the Emperor might not return, or that even if he returned it would be too late, simply could not happen.

The bright-looking future before him was in fact a gigantic trap — a trap that Emperor Zhang had planned before he had even set out from the Eastern Capital.

Because whether it was the old Guiyi Army or the Hexi Trading Company, no matter how recklessly they messed around, they were still members of the Emperor's innermost circle.

Even if Zhang Zhao wanted to deal with them, a small punishment and a large warning was possible, but mercilessly wiping them out to the last man was simply impossible — the relationships involved ran too deep.

If Zhang Zhao dared to strike at them ruthlessly, the entire old Guiyi Army faction, and even most of the East-Returning faction and the Original Followers faction, would be dragged in. That would be destroying his own foundation.

Unless... unless someone jumped out on their own and committed an act of great treason.

So Zhang Zhao took the risk of setting up such a scheme: the Emperor directly took away the empire's core military force and went charging off for seven or eight months without a word of news.

Pei Yuan, for his part, went mad — on the surface he appeared to be disciplining the Buddhist establishment and the nobles of the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture, but in reality he was wielding a great club and constantly striking it over the heads of the Hexi Trading Company and the old Guiyi Army.

Cao Renzun and the others already had an extremely bad relationship with Pei Yuan, and once they were pressured like this, and with the Emperor indeed seeming to have vanished, the ambition in their hearts could no longer be suppressed — and this great upheaval came into being.

This was still Cao Renzun's shallowness of vision! Although this gentleman was quite skilled at doing business and manipulating power, it was all petty cleverness.

He never looked at how, ever since the Emperor had gone beyond the frontier, such shrewd figures as Ma Xiguang, Gao Baorong, Fu Yanqing, An Shenqi, She Congyuan, and Guo Wei had become as silent as cicadas in the cold.

What was Pei Yuan's role? From helping the Emperor enter Liangzhou, to going to the Central Plains to hoodwink Shi Jingtang on the Emperor's behalf, to going to Shuofang as the Emperor's inside man to turn Zhang Xichong — he had always been the "black glove" at the Emperor's side, doing the Emperor's dirty work!

The moment everyone else saw Pei Yuan's power overshadow the court, they immediately knew to tuck their tails between their legs and behave.

Even a fool like Shi Chonggui, after being tricked by Pei Yuan once, was so terrified by Pei Yuan's swaggering, menacing manner that he left his gates wide open every day, dragged out a folding bed, and lay in his doorway all day long, letting everyone see every detail of his daily life.

Yet Cao Renzun, without the slightest hesitation, swallowed this bait in one gulp, and even dragged the old men of the Hexi Merchant Guild into staking their entire fortunes.

Inside Great Xingshan Temple, Cao Renzun was pacing in frantic circles, because he had already held Cao Yuanzhong in confinement for three full days.

Cao Yuanzhong was no ordinary man. Setting aside his status as the Emperor's father-in-law, his position alone as Guanzhong Province Chief Minister and concurrent Guanzhong Province Defense Commissioner meant that going unseen for more than three days would draw considerable attention.

During these three days, although the younger members of the Cao clan he had sent out, along with his accomplices serving as officials in the Guanzhong provincial offices, had covered for him, this could not be concealed for long.

He felt he could hold out for two more days at most. If Cao Yancun and Luo Yu'er at Tong Pass did not send troops to take control of Chang'an's city defenses, he would not be able to hold on.

Still, Cao Renzun was not entirely without men to use. He opened the door of the meditation chamber, and outside stood five or six burly, broad-shouldered men with scarred faces.

Although these men wore monks' black robes, their entire bearing exuded a ruthless, vicious air. The leader among them even wore a small suit of inner armor, the kind refashioned from cloth-faced iron armor, enough to protect the upper body from saber, arrow, and spear wounds.

Seeing Cao Renzun emerge, the scar-faced brawny man, deliberately wearing his inner armor on the outside, gave a mirthless smile and lowered his posture just the slightest bit.

"Old Ren, our Great Liang and Master Shanfa request that you come over for a visit. Waiting around like this is no solution. Better that you find a way to have Ba Bridge opened, and let our men come into the city."

Cao Renzun's face turned cold. He knew these men had already smuggled quite a number of desperadoes into Guanzhong.

But Guanzhong — especially the many patrol inspectors around Chang'an and the soldiers and constables of the patrol offices — were no pushovers. Without the Hexi Merchant Guild's cover, they could never have gotten into Chang'an.

Cao Renzun was just about to answer when he heard the sound of footsteps outside, and then the door was suddenly slammed open!

A man black as charcoal, but with a build as mighty as a tiger, stood there holding a pair of wrought-copper maces. He looked at the scar-faced monk wearing inner armor and said lazily:

"You field slave, you think you can get into Chang'an? Kneel and kowtow right now, and your old man might spare your life!"

(End of Chapter)

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