Chapter 754: A Mutiny with Five Dynasties Characteristics

The Sogdians have a long tradition of commerce. The histories record that when their boys turned five, they were made to learn writing; once they understood a little, they were sent to study trade, and the more profit they made, the better they were thought of.

Beyond this, the Sogdians also favored the patrilineal small-family model. That is to say, for the Sogdians, the bond between father and son — whether of blood or of cultural inheritance — was still very important.

But it only went back as far as the father's generation. The grandfather's generation was not so important.

This was the survival wisdom of the Sogdians, a people who had only ever built small city-states and lived squeezed among the great surrounding peoples.

They valued the father-son bond in order to preserve their tradition of skill in commerce; they did not trace back who their ancestors were, so that they could at any time blend into other powerful peoples.

And after the Sogdians had been assimilated into the Great Tang for many years, men like Cao Wanjin and Kang Jinshan — Sogdians born and raised on Han soil — had, apart from their mercantile habits, completely abandoned their surnames and adopted Han ones. Or perhaps they had never had surnames to begin with.

Once such fellows began compiling genealogies and building ancestral halls in imitation of the Han, they could no longer even be called Sogdians, and it became hard for them to maintain the Sogdian rule of weighing only profit between father and son.

So, looking at the gloomy look in his son-in-law Zhang Liecheng's eyes, Kang Jinshan was the first to yield.

He begged his fourth daughter, who was a concubine of Murong Xinzhang, to write a letter to Murong Xinzhang, but the reply contained only four words: "Fend for yourself."

And his proper son-in-law Zhang Liecheng was right before him, still waiting for him to save his life. However stirring wealth might be, it could never matter more than the lives of his daughter, son-in-law, and grandson.

Cao Wanjin still hesitated, because his family fortune was larger than Kang Jinshan's, and that concubine-born daughter of his was only one of Zhang Liecheng's many concubines.

Moreover, Zhang Liecheng was pressing him far too hard, demanding that he alone produce two million strings of cash.

That sum would not only force Cao Wanjin to disgorge everything he had skimmed from the Hexi Chamber of Commerce — his original family property would have to be thrown in as well.

Cao Wanjin did a rough calculation: in the end, what he himself could keep would probably be only thirty to fifty thousand strings for his old age.

But Zhang Liecheng no longer had the patience to wait. Yesterday he had met the palace eunuch who had come from Chengde Prefecture, and learned that Zhang Zhao wanted to send him to Xuzhou to take the blame.

This was a very bad sign. It meant Zhang Zhao's tolerance of him was nearly at its limit. If he could not even handle the cleanup of the Hexi Chamber of Commerce properly, then apart from keeping his life, he could forget about everything else.

Looking at Cao Wanjin's fat face, full of hesitation and heartache, Zhang Liecheng gave a cold snort, then dragged Kang Jinshan out the gate of Cao Wanjin's house.

Outside the gate, Li Xiaojie, Deputy Commander of the Brocade Guard, and Zhao Pu, Audit Secretary of the Zhangtai Office of the Secretariat, had already been waiting in the carriage for a long while.

Zhang Liecheng did not get into the carriage. Instead, standing outside, he gave Li Xiaojie and Zhao Pu a grand bow, bending at the waist until his hands touched the ground.

"Whether I, Zhang Dalang, can win my Imperial Father's forgiveness will depend on you two brothers' skill. If ever you have need of me, I will go through fire and water."

Li Xiaojie and Zhao Pu exchanged a glance. Both knew Zhang Liecheng was not entirely at ease about them; otherwise he would not have deliberately used the term "Imperial Father," a word he normally never used.

He was reminding the two of them that, however much he had erred, he had still been the Emperor's adopted eldest son for fifteen years.

The Emperor would punish him, but out of sentiment and regard for face, he would not cast him aside over a matter like this.

The two men jumped down from the carriage together, returned Zhang Liecheng a grand bow, and said in unison: "Rest assured, young lord. The matter of Cao Wanjin is on us."

Zhang Liecheng departed with profuse thanks. His figure had not yet vanished at the end of the street when a great number of warriors in brocade robes over chain mail surrounded Cao Wanjin's mansion.

Li Xiaojie and Zhao Pu walked into a darker spot. Liu Tao, Vice Commissioner of Military Affairs, stood there in a purple robe. Watching the two approach, he asked softly, "What did Zhang Liecheng offer?"

Zhao Pu cupped his hands. "Replying to the Vice Commissioner: the Duke of Jiaocheng gave twelve properties in the three cities of Chang'an, Shendu, and Dongjing, plus a large quantity of gold, silver, and silk, several shops in Liangzhou Prefecture, and the horse farms in Weizhou — altogether at least three hundred thousand strings."

"Hmph!" Liu Tao snorted coldly. "He certainly takes whatever comes his way! He nearly forgot who picked him up out of the desert wastes of Hezhong. In just a few short years, he has embezzled three hundred thousand strings.

But fortunately he has found his way back in time, and can still keep the merits he won through years of bloody battle.

Of these three hundred thousand strings, set aside fifty thousand for yourselves. Don't let the lads below work for nothing — but make them understand too: what can be taken, may be taken; what cannot be taken, whoever takes it dies."

The two men quickly bowed their heads in assent. Of the fifty thousand strings, at least ten thousand would go to Liu Tao; the two of them could each take five thousand, and the rest would be distributed to the men below.

Liu Tao himself was not very concerned about whether he received ten thousand strings.

He was the earliest Later Jin civil official to stake everything on Zhang Zhao. Father and sons, brothers — all were the Emperor's trusted confidants. Ten thousand strings more or less made little difference to him.

What Liu Tao was thinking about was that the Emperor was sure to overhaul the Brocade Guard. Zhang Liecheng's trusted men would likely fall in great numbers — sent either to Ningyuan in Anxi, or to the great marshes of Liaoxi.

The Hexi Chamber of Commerce would certainly be abolished outright, and its core caravans would go directly to the imperial house.

The function of using traveling merchants as spies would probably be merged into the Brocade Guard. The Hexi Chamber of Commerce's sugar refinery and tea-brick factory in Hexi would also partly go to the imperial house and partly to the court.

As for the next Commander of the Brocade Guard, he himself would likely oversee it for a period. Once he had completed the reform of the Hexi Chamber of Commerce and the Brocade Guard, Li Xiaojie would take over.

But Liu Tao's brow remained tightly furrowed. Zhang Liecheng had been in the Brocade Guard for many years and had a pack of claws and fangs under him. The Sage was now sending him to Xuzhou — apart from making him take the blame, it was also to guard against him doing something stupid if he failed to grasp the situation.

No! Liu Tao made up his mind. He had to go see Duke of Tianguo Liu Zaisheng and somehow request a squad of iron-armored soldiers for protection. If he capsized in a gutter, that would be an ugly sight.

In the city of Xuzhou, the atmosphere had grown extremely tense. With the fall of Xiaqiuye, Wang Jun, who had until then been constantly active in hopes of drawing An Shenqi into the affair, had fallen into complete despair.

Not only had the imagined Southern Tang army failed to show so much as a hair, but An Shenqi, as if "giving up on himself," had conscripted the entire army of Jiaodong and handed it over to Li Cunhui.

And five days earlier, under Wang Jun's strenuous urging, Xue Huairang and Li Yuanzai, Troop Commander of the Wuning Army, had scraped together five thousand men to attack Songzhou, which had been renamed Shangqiu Prefecture. But Xue Huairang had turned back before even reaching Shangqiu Prefecture.

This Daibei warrior, who had lost the fearless spirit of his younger days, retreated as soon as he heard that Duke of Tianguo Liu Zaisheng had entered Shangqiu Prefecture with five hundred cavalry. He did not even have the courage to fight.

Zhu Yuan came back swaggering, without the slightest concealment.

For this man was no ordinary officer. In the Wuning Army, he had long styled himself "a second Ju Meng" — a true hero, a leader-of-men type.

In a rage he could kill a man in the street; for loyalty he would take on another's burdens. He had served as Chief Inspector for several years yet had saved nothing, because he had given it all away to help his friends.

A man like this, if his superiors were incompetent, was the greatest danger in an army, because he too easily won the adoration of the common soldiers and thereby divided the authority of the commanders.

But in the hands of a commander of great prestige, such a man was the kind who doubled an army's fighting strength.

Zhang Zhao, for example, had no shortage of such figures under him. His fine eldest son Murong Xinzhang was the most outstanding of them all.

But Zhang Zhao could master them. He could use Murong Xinzhang's renown to make him a sharp blade for the whole army.

Likewise, Li Cunhui saw this too, which was why he intended to draw Zhu Yuan to his side, so that in the most desperate moment he could use him to charge a death formation.

But Li Yuanzai, Commander of the Wuning Army, had no such ability. Not only could he not master Zhu Yuan, he often targeted him. The main reason Zhu Yuan had fled was simply that he could not get along with Li Yuanzai.

This is also why, throughout history, many invincible warriors who charged enemy lines met disaster as soon as they came under a mediocre commander.

Either they were killed over some small offense, or deliberately sent to their deaths, or driven away to die in obscurity — these were the most important reasons.

So when Zhu Yuan returned, not only did no one report him to Li Yuanzai, but great numbers of Wuning Army soldiers cheered, and a steady stream of men came to talk and drink with him.

Zhu Yuan did not hide anything either. After drinking freely with the crowd, he secretly summoned the thirty-odd low-ranking officers he trusted and told them, in full detail, the terms offered by Li Cunhui, Duke of Weiguo.

The squad generals, company commanders, and deputy company commanders listened, and every face showed delight.

Clearly this rebellion was doomed to fail, and to have a chance at amnesty even after failure — how could that not stir the heart?

But Zhu Yuan shook his head at those with delighted faces. "The times have changed. The present Sage is no Son of Heaven like the emperors of the fallen dynasty, still less a Son of Heaven like the Shi family of the false Jin. The Sage is the reincarnation of Emperor Taizong the Civil!

Such a sovereign will not lightly forgive us. Besides, in all the realm today, only our Wuning military province is still playing this game of yabing guards mutiny. We will surely be made an example of."

The men looked at one another. A squad general, his face full of disbelief, said, "The Sage's words are golden and his mouth is jade—this was set down in an imperial edict. How could it not count?"

That was what he said, but even the squad general's own voice had dropped low.

Another captain glanced at Zhu Yuan and asked tentatively, "Brother, how do you know the Son of Heaven won't spare us?"

Zhu Yuan pulled his clothes tighter around him. "Because I saw Zhang Liecheng, Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Personal Guard, arrive. If the Son of Heaven truly meant to pardon us, he would never have sent Zhang Liecheng."

Despair seized the whole group in an instant. An atmosphere of agitation and dejection began to spread through the room. A squad general suddenly shot to his feet.

"Since the Son of Heaven wants us dead, then we'll die fighting for him to see! Kill one and we break even—kill two and we profit."

"You donkey-fucked bastard!" Zhu Yuan also sprang to his feet and gave the squad general a thorough beating, blows raining down on his head and face.

"You donkey-fucked bastard! Your old mother's past sixty and can't even walk. If you die, that's nothing—but what becomes of her?"

The squad general did not dare strike back. He only hugged his head and crouched on the ground. Before long he was beaten until blood streamed from his nose, yet through his sobs he cried, "Then what does Brother say we do? The Son of Heaven wants us dead—can we still live?"

Zhu Yuan stopped, panting with rage. He pointed at the crowd of low-ranking officers in the room and cursed them as iron that would not become steel.

"I told you long ago: that fellow Li Yuanzai is nothing but a slave-girl's whelp—no ability at all, nothing but money in his eyes. You wouldn't listen, and you had to go stir up trouble with him."

Hearing this tone from Zhu Yuan, as if he had a way out, the men at once clamored to plead with him. "We all know we were wrong! We're willing to follow Brother's orders. Please, Brother, save our worthless lives!"

Only then did Zhu Yuan reveal the purpose of his coming. "It's not that there's no way—otherwise I wouldn't have risked death to come back into this city of Xuzhou. But it will take you following me and staking your lives on it.

Whoever gets taken by the King of Hell, the rest will help look after his parents, wife, and children. Whoever doesn't get taken—then you donkey-fucked bastards are just lucky."

Hearing Zhu Yuan speak thus, all thirty-some men in the room rose to their feet and saluted in unison with folded hands. "Aye! We'll follow Brother's call—up a mountain of knives or into a cauldron of boiling oil."

Zhu Yuan nodded, then leaped up onto the table before him. "The Sage's son-in-law, the Commandant-escort and Duke of Yuyang, is in Li Yuanzai's hands. The Duke of Wei has said that whoever can rescue the Duke of Yuyang will have his death sentence pardoned—his whole household banished to Liaodong instead.

The Prince of Liaoyang has opened up a million mu of land in Liaodong and is short of people to farm it. Once we get there, each family gets a few hundred mu. Those with strength and courage can keep serving in the Prince of Liaoyang's household."

Light returned to the men's eyes. If Zhu Yuan had begun by speaking of Liaodong, they would certainly have been bitterly disappointed. But now, to get banishment to Liaodong was already quite good.

At once, one after another, they beat their chests and swore they would absolutely follow Zhu Yuan. Seeing that their hearts could be put to use, Zhu Yuan immediately raised the stakes further.

"The Duke of Wei also said: of the officers in Xuzhou city from Chief Supervisor upward, not one is to be spared. We'll cut off the heads of those thieving wretches who led us down this dead-end road, and trade them for cotton cloth and grain for our wives, children, and old folk to use on the road."

"We'll do exactly as Brother says! Just tell us when to strike and we'll strike. We ought to chop that donkey-fucked Li Yuanzai and his whole family into meat paste!"

Hmm! Quite distinctive—yabing guards kill the military governor, and yabing guards are born, naturally, to kill yabing officers.

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