Chapter 765: A Just Cause Against the Southern Tang

The Eastern Capital of the Southern Tang, Jiangdu Prefecture.

But the people inside this city still preferred to call themselves Yangzhou folk.

"Yangzhou first, Yizhou second" — this was the city's most glorious moment, with a population of six or seven hundred thousand, the richest place under heaven.

The Southern Tang's Jiangdu Prefecture was actually not very large, less than a quarter of the original Yangzhou city. Especially after the Zhou army broke through it the year before last, the population of Yangzhou had fallen considerably.

Because without Huainan, and with only the Jianwu Army shielding it (Tianchang in Anhui), Jiangdu Prefecture's Yangzhou could basically be described as hanging alone north of the river. Who knew when the Zhou men would come and easily seize Jiangdu city?

In fact, it was not only Yangzhou — from north of the Yangtze up to the Huai River line, every large or small city of the Southern Tang had fallen into this same panic.

Last year alone, during Liu Renzhan's campaign in which he launched the Shouzhou Qinghuai Army against Sizhou and Haozhou, even though the Southern Tang was the attacker, more than three thousand people fled Yangzhou city, and it even stirred panic among the people of Runzhou across the river.

Under these circumstances, the Southern Tang's population north of the Yangtze was visibly shrinking year by year, which greatly weakened the Southern Tang's ability to mobilize for defense north of the river.

In the northeastern corner of Jiangdu city lay the original inner city of Great Tang Yangzhou — a moon-shaped fortification attached to Yangzhou city, serving as its defensive satellite, mainly functioning as a stronghold. Together with the bustling outer city of Yangzhou, it formed the whole of Yangzhou city.

Historically, a few years later, Yangzhou city would go through the Huainan War between the Southern Tang and the Later Zhou, and be breached twice.

By the time Zhou Shizong Guo Rong appointed Li Chongjin as Military Governor of Huainan, over a hundred thousand of Yangzhou's people were either dead or fled, and the city was so ruined it could no longer be inhabited.

So Guo Rong rebuilt Yangzhou city anew to the southeast of this small city, which people of the time called the Zhou Small City — the site of Yangzhou city during the later Song and Yuan periods.

But in this time and space, although Zhang Zhou had also seized Yangzhou city once, at that time it was Li Cunhui's thousand-li raid that suddenly captured the pass, and when they withdrew, the Southern Tang court paid ransom money, so it basically suffered no damage.

Sometimes the affairs of the human world seem to have some strange connection — now, in this small Yangzhou city later called the Zhou Small City, the people living there were, astonishingly, mostly surnamed Zhou.

And this Zhou-surnamed branch was no ordinary one. They were descendants of Zhou Ben, the famous Southern Wu general, one of Yang Xingmi's Thirty-Six Heroes, and the Southern Tang's Prince of Xiping.

Zhou Ben himself was a descendant of Zhou Yu of the Three Kingdoms, a rare general under Yang Xingmi who possessed both wisdom and valor. At the Battle of Xiangya Lake he defeated a hundred thousand with seven thousand, and when facing Wuyue he once staged an empty-city stratagem to drive off the enemy.

What was even more admirable was that Zhou Ben was a man of considerable loyalty. After Xu Zhigao — that is, Li Bian — usurped the throne, the one who openly opposed him was Zhou Ben, and he had even wanted to shelter Yang Xingmi's third son, Yang Meng.

After Li Bian usurped the throne, Zhou Ben refused to come out and serve in office. Heartsick and ashamed, he fell into depression and died — in the Five Dynasties, he could be counted as a rare loyal minister.

Yangzhou, the Zhou clan ancestral hall. Two groups of people were facing off.

The larger group was richly dressed and aggressive in speech, with servants holding great cudgels in a threatening manner.

The smaller group was clearly far more destitute. Though they still looked sturdy enough, they could no longer afford silk clothes, and their hands were covered with calluses — clearly from having to work the fields regularly.

"Elder Brother, why keep being so obstinate? It is not that I, your younger brother, am being heartless. This is in truth the order of Magistrate Sun of Jiangdu County. Who told those two worthless cousins of mine to dare to throw in with the Hexi rebels?

If Elder Brother will hand over these three hundred mu of clan land, I can still put in a few good words for you before Magistrate Sun. Otherwise, I fear even you, Elder Brother, will have to take a walk through the jail."

In the ancestral hall, a fat man dressed in silk sat on a round stool, with several servants holding great cudgels standing solemnly beside him, carrying quite an air of official authority.

The one the fat man called Elder Brother was a sturdy man with some graying hair, but though his body was strong, his expression was rather fearful.

The three words "Hexi rebels" struck his chest like a heavy hammer.

Because those two younger brothers of his, who had been in the Dragon Martial Army and last year followed the Prince of Yan to the Central Plains on a court visit, had somehow betrayed the state and gone over to the Zhou state of the Central Plains. This was a capital crime!

Seeing that he had frightened the man, the fat man could not help showing a smug expression. These three hundred mu of paddy fields were near the canal, extremely convenient for irrigation, with very high yields, and moreover they were all in one contiguous block.

That the Zhou family could possess such fine three hundred mu of top-grade land in Yangzhou was thanks to their grandfather Zhou Ben. This land had originally been granted to Zhou Ben by King Wu, Yang Xingmi.

Zhou Ben had two sons: the eldest, Zhou Ye, and the second, Zhou Hongzuo. Before Zhou Ben died, he left these three hundred mu of land and a manor to his eldest son, Zhou Ye.

Because although the eldest son Zhou Ye was brave and skilled in battle, he was simple by nature and rough-tempered, and under his father's influence he remained loyal to the Yang clan and resented the Li clan's usurpation of power.

Zhou Ben feared that after his death, Zhou Ye would not be tolerated by Li Bian, so he left most of the family property to him, letting him farm in the outskirts of Yangzhou, to avoid bringing a fatal disaster upon himself.

As for the second son, Zhou Hongzuo, he had a considerable literary reputation and had followed Li Bian from early on, so Zhou Ben was not worried about him.

But Zhou Ben had underestimated Li Bian's breadth of mind. This man was no petty miser like his son Li Jing.

After Zhou Ben died, Li Bian not only did not punish Zhou Ye, who often voiced complaints, but treated him with considerable tolerance.

Zhou Ye later came to appreciate Li Bian's magnanimity and loyally guarded the localities for the Southern Tang, rising to the rank of Military Governor.

But Zhou Ben's arrangement had created a considerable rift between the descendants of his two sons.

Especially after Zhou Ye, who never accumulated family property, died of illness at his post eight years ago — his descendants immediately declined, and by now they had to live off these few hundred mu of land.

With land this good, how could it possibly be kept without power in hand? It had long been coveted by others.

And although the second son Zhou Hongzuo's official career was passable, he had many sons and grandsons, and they did not live very comfortably either. Naturally, some of them had their eyes on the three hundred mu of top-grade paddy land that they thought should have been split half and half in the first place.

"Elder Brother, just sign this contract. As long as you sign it, I guarantee that the matter of Erlang and Sanlang throwing in with the Hexi rebels can immediately be suppressed.

And don't count on those two ever coming back — that means going beyond the frontier! A great feat like striking straight at Dragon City is the kind of achievement only Wei Qing, Huo Qubing, or the Great Dynasty's Duke Li of Wei could accomplish. What makes those Hexi rebels think they can pull it off?"

The fat man grew more and more pleased with himself as he spoke, but he did not expect that the gate of the Zhou ancestral hall would be pushed open with a boom.

The Zhou family members looked toward the sound. Without knowing when, the outside of the ancestral hall had become a sea of people.

The Zhou ancestral hall was built outside the inner city, right next to the official canal. On ordinary days it was bustling with traffic, but a scene like today's, with the outside packed full of people and dense heads visible from the doorway alone, was still rare.

What was even stranger was that with so many people gathered around, hardly any made a sound. Everyone looked with some alarm and fear at the few people who had pushed open the ancestral hall gate.

The fat man raised his eyes to look. Among these few people, the one in the lead seemed — seemed to be his cousin, and also the younger brother of this gray-haired man: Zhou Erlang, Zhou Fengyi, and Zhou Sanlang, Zhou Fengquan.

"Erlang, Sanlang, y-you've come back." The fat man struggled to force a smile onto his face.

Of Zhou Ben's two sons, the eldest, Zhou Ye, was extraordinarily brave and had once on the battlefield killed dozens of men with a spear single-handedly to rescue Zhou Ben.

The second son, Zhou Hongzuo, had studied letters and could not fight anyone.

The fat man was the third son of Zhou Ben's second son, Zhou Hongzuo, and naturally, like his father, had no martial ability to speak of.

But the brothers Zhou Fengyi and Zhou Fengquan opposite him were the very image of their father Zhou Ye, who slaughtered men like grass on the battlefield at the slightest provocation — both were powerfully built killers.

Yet the unease that had just risen in his heart was instantly dispelled by the four strong men with great cudgels beside him.

Moreover, this time he had not only brought brave men bearing great cudgels, but had also obtained the support of the Jiangdu County Magistrate, and had a hold over the Zhou Fengyi brothers' defection to the Zhou state.

He was just about to say a couple of words to recover from the timidity he had just shown, when he heard a faint, icy voice.

"Was it you, you dog-slave, who just said 'Hexi rebels'? In your next life, remember to cut out your tongue the moment you're born, so you don't bring a fatal disaster on yourself again!"

Next life? Fatal disaster? The fat man was puzzled for a moment, then suddenly saw the person who had spoken.

As if struck by lightning, he shuddered, then raised his hand, but the words "Zhou men" simply would not come out of his mouth.

The silver-white flying-fish robe — this was the mark of Zhang Zhou's Brocade Guard personal troops. And the reason Zhang Zhao had sent several Brocade Guards south with the Zhou Fengyi brothers was precisely to slap Li Jing in the face and, along the way, shatter this Southern Tang ruler's illusions.

Thus, no sooner had the words left the mouth of this Brocade Guard captain in the silver-white flying-fish robe than he had already closed in. Before the four thugs behind the fat man could react, the meteor hammer in the Brocade Guard captain's hand shot out.

The fat man let out an 'ah' of agony, and his chubby face instantly turned into a mass of mangled flesh.

A thug holding a great club was just about to make his move when — thwip! — a crossbow bolt shot through the air, and a jet of blood spurted straight from the thug's neck.

The Yangzhou commoners outside the gate were stunned. It wasn't that they had never seen killing before, but for the Zhou state's Brocade Guard to come directly onto Southern Tang territory and start killing people at the slightest disagreement was simply too overbearing.

People of this era still had a strong attachment to their native soil. Although the fat man who had been beaten unconscious was not well liked, and was not even of the same social class as the ordinary people of Yangzhou, the commoners outside the Zhou family ancestral hall still felt deeply humiliated.

They did not yet have the courage to rush forward, but they pressed tightly around the Zhou family ancestral hall without dispersing, their eyes flashing with indignation.

Guo Zhao looked at the Yangzhou people before him without the slightest fear; instead, he leapt up onto a stone pedestal.

As a Brocade Guard Captain, he of course knew exactly what he was doing. All of this had been planned long in advance.

If he were beaten to death by these Yangzhou people right now, his family would be cared for by the Emperor. If he succeeded in this matter, he would at least leave a mark in the annals of history.

"Since the first year of Shaoming, there has been no Tang state — only the Great Zhou's vassal kingdom of the Southern Tang King. This Southern Tang is a subject of the Great Zhou, and the people of Southern Tang are still the people of the Great Zhou's Sage.

This man spoke wildly, daring to revile the reigning sovereign with the name of the Hexi rebels — that is a capital crime.

I will not only kill him, but if any of you dare speak such words again, I will kill you all the same!"

The people of Yangzhou grew even angrier. In their view, their ruler had changed the state's name from Tang to Southern Tang only because he was bullied by the Zhou sovereign and had no choice but to comply — and the Southern Tang court had always propagated it that way.

This made everyone in Southern Tang, high and low, feel utterly aggrieved, and now Guo Zhao's words were simply pouring oil on the fire.

Several sturdy men of Southern Tang cracked their knuckles loudly. They glared at Guo Zhao with hatred, as if they would rush up and beat him savagely the very next second.

The rest of the commoners were also seething with fury. They shouted and cursed loudly, and the atmosphere finally grew heated. At this point, only the tiniest spark was needed to set it ablaze.

But at this moment, Guo Zhao's gaze was not on the furious, roaring Southern Tang commoners before him, but on a small two-story tavern in the distance.

He had long since scouted it out: the County Magistrate of Jiangdu County, Jiangdu Prefecture, the eastern capital of Southern Tang, was in that very tavern.

If he came, then Guo Zhao would win great merit and leave his name in the annals of history.

If he did not come, and Guo Zhao was beaten to death by the Southern Tang people, then the great army would have a pretext to march south.

Li Jing had said that Liu Renzhan of Shouzhou was an overbearing military governor he could not control, but now that the court's own guards had been beaten to death in Jiangdu Prefecture, let's see how you explain that!

(End of Chapter)

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