Chapter 767: Terms Without Precedent

The scene outside the Zhou family ancestral hall in the inner city of Yangzhou spread across the entire Southern Tang realm at lightning speed, and to a certain extent even set off a nationwide debate within Southern Tang.

One reason this happened was that the news of Zhang Zhao carving stone on Yanran Mountain and even winning the title of Heavenly Khagan had begun to reach the lands of Southern Tang.

The Heavenly Khagan! Although this was originally just one of the steppe honorifics for a khagan, once its holder was the peerless Emperor Taizong of Tang, it took on extraordinary meaning both for the steppe tribes and for the Han people of the Central Plains.

For the steppe tribes, the Heavenly Khagan meant that a heroic Son of Heaven had once again arisen in the Central Plains; the common people of the steppe had only to follow this heroic Son of Heaven's will, honor him as Heavenly Khagan, and fight for him, and they would gain basic peace and abundant rewards.

For the Han people, the title Heavenly Khagan pulled that great realm that was growing ever more distant, even beginning to fade from memory, back into their recollection.

A unified realm under heaven, the golden chalice unbroken — this was a memory already engraved in the very bones of every Han person.

Even in the most chaotic times, no one doubted this truth; at most they sighed and lamented how long this age of chaos would last, but they never doubted that it would end.

And the title Heavenly Khagan was the clearest signal that the realm was about to be unified.

Secondly, Yangzhou held special significance during the period of north-south confrontation, because ever since Emperor Wen of Sui destroyed Jiankang, the prefecture of Jiangdu, Yangzhou, had been the symbol of Jiangnan.

It was the most representative city of all Jiangnan, the weathervane of the entire region; neither Southern Tang's western capital Jiangning Prefecture nor Qian Yue's western prefecture Hangzhou could compare with it, and whatever happened in Yangzhou was bound to spread at flying speed.

In Huaiyin Prefecture, the moment Li Cunhui received word that Guo Zhao's operation in Yangzhou had succeeded completely, he immediately issued an order.

He ordered the Right Feathered Forest Guard's Yingji Division, the imperial Pinglu Garrison, and the Huaiyin Left and Center Guards — fifteen thousand troops in all — with Pan Mei as overall commander and Huaiyin Prefecture Troop Supervisor Zhang Xiong as deputy commander, to advance west at once to Sizhou to support Fu Zhaoxu and prepare to attack Shouzhou.

Li Cunhui knew that his adoptive father Zhang Zhao was certain to strike Shouzhou first.

Zhang Zhao had long since decided that the war against Southern Tang must be fought primarily as a war for hearts and minds.

It was simple: in purely military terms, Great Zhou could already crush Southern Tang.

Destroying the Southern Tang state would require only three campaigns. The first would launch a great army from Huainan, one column striking west to take Shouzhou, another striking south to take Yangzhou, seizing all of Southern Tang's lands north of the Yangtze.

The second campaign could begin almost simultaneously with the first: Ma Zhaoyuan would lead Zhao Yanjin, Zhao Kuangyin, and others out from Jiangling and Yueyang, taking the Yangtze water route to strike first at the Wuchang Military Governor of Southern Tang's Ezhou, then descend on the Fenghua Military Governor at Jiangzhou (Jiujiang) and the Zhennan Military Governor at Hongzhou (Nanchang).

The third campaign would move on two routes at once, water and land driving straight for Jiangning Prefecture.

Given Zhang Zhou's current strength, these three campaigns had essentially no possibility of failure; at most there would be minor setbacks, and the destruction of Southern Tang was virtually a one hundred percent certainty.

But these three campaigns, so lightly described, would require at least three years or so to carry out, and the troops and civilian laborers mobilized would have to number at least two hundred fifty to three hundred thousand.

Among them, Shouzhou, Luzhou, Yangzhou, Ezhou, Jiangzhou, and others would likely see major battles, and as with the Later Zhou and Southern Tang in history, it was not impossible that Yangzhou would be beaten into complete ruin.

This price, if placed in history, would be nothing at all for destroying a great state like Southern Tang, but Zhang Zhao still did not want to bear it.

The Southern Tang realm — what fine territory! Even if only half of it were smashed and then had to be rebuilt, the lost manpower and resources would be astronomical.

If that wealth could be used for outward expansion instead, how fine that would be.

Right now Zhang Zhao had to fight the Wang clan's Goryeo in the northeast, the Duan clan's Dali in the southwest, the traitorous Guo and Li families at Suyab, and even the Saktu and Samanid Persia, and the territory of the Jinghai Army also had to be recovered.

Yet the population of the whole country, even adding Southern Han, even if all the hidden unregistered households and the "wild people" who had fled into the mountains and marshes were found, would probably not reach thirty million in total.

With so few people and so little national strength, how could they afford to slaughter one another.

Of course, the greatest capital Zhang Zhao had for launching this war for hearts and minds was that he had seen through the man Li Jing.

He had some ability, but not much of it was allotted to governing the state; he loved pleasure, loved luxury, loved hearing flattering words, and at the same time his mental endurance was not very good — he was easily knocked down by outside factors, a man who could be overwhelmed.

By contrast, the last ruler of Southern Tang in history, the Latter Lord Li, had no more ability than his father, but his will was far stronger.

At the very least, the Latter Lord Li dared to scrape three feet of earth from the common people to prepare supplies for a fight to the death with the Northern Song; his methods were just too crude and his ability lacking, but his determination was absolutely firm.

But Li Jing was not like that. Ever since being forced to submit to Zhang Zhao, this man would at one moment resolve to strive for strength, but often after making a beginning, seeing that the difficulty was too great and the resistance from all sides too much, he would grow discouraged and even want to give up.

Then he would desperately curry favor with the people around Zhang Zhao, hoping by this means to dispel Zhang Zhao's intention of annexing Southern Tang.

Before long, he might feel that mere flattery could not make Zhang Zhao stop, and so he would quickly try to strengthen the military again.

Back and forth, over and over, tormenting everyone above and below until they could hardly bear it — this was proof enough that Li Jing was not a man of strong mind.

So Zhang Zhao's countermeasure was simple: wage a war for hearts and minds against the entire Southern Tang court and Li Jing, then mass a great army to assault Shouzhou fiercely, make Liu Renzhan the chicken killed to warn the monkeys, and finally lead a great host to the Yangtze or simply drive to the walls of Jiangning and force Li Jing to surrender.

In Jiangning, in the Purple Myrtle Palace, Li Jing looked at the man before him — steady as a mountain, deep as a pool, with a resolute bearing — and could scarcely believe this was his fourth brother, Li Jingda.

He took Li Jingda's hand and saw it was covered with mottled marks left by wind and snow; the originally fair face had grown rough and sun-darkened.

By all reason, Li Jing should have felt Li Jingda had grown much uglier, but inexplicably, he felt this current appearance of Li Jingda had a certain charm all its own.

Queen Zhong looked at Li Jingda and sighed with deep feeling. "Fourth Brother has truly suffered — ten thousand li to war, crossing the great desert, and still having to fight those fierce barbarians. There is not a patch of good skin left on these hands."

Li Jing and Li Jingda were on very good terms. In former days when they were out enjoying themselves, Li Jing fell into the water, and Li Jingda, who originally could not swim, actually leaped from the small boat and miraculously pulled Li Jing out — a life-saving debt.

At the same time, Li Jingda's wife was the younger sister of Queen Zhong, so he was also extremely close to Queen Zhong.

Hearing his sister-in-law, who was also like an elder sister, Zhong, speak this way, Li Jingda grinned and quickly shook his head.

"The barbarians are fierce, yes, but they could not be ferocious. The great army marched out from Hexi beyond the frontier, fought dozens of battles great and small, and never suffered the slightest defeat.

The Sage personally led us across the Yanran Mountains, killing barbarians until their corpses lay strewn across the field. By the time we reached Kedun City of the Dilie tribe, the barbarians above and below had lost their nerve. Even a man like me, no brave warrior, took up a hengdao saber and cut down three men."

Li Jing and Zhong cried out in unison; the old Li Jingda had never had such courage. Li Jing, his expression somewhat troubled, asked Li Jingda:

"Fourth Brother, you mean to say that from Hexi beyond the frontier, across ten thousand li of desert, the Shaoming Son of Heaven was with you the whole time?"

Li Jingda nodded. "Not only was he with us — the Sage even charged the enemy lines together with us. Sister-in-law says there is not a patch of good skin on my hands, but mine are actually still decent. The Sage's hands are worse than mine."

Li Jing was stunned. He had originally assumed Zhang Zhao had waited somewhere south of the desert for the army to crush the enemy and then gone to perform the feng and shan sacrifices. He had never imagined that he had followed the army out beyond the frontier from beginning to end — that as the supreme sovereign, he could make himself no different from an ordinary officer.

Thinking of his own luxurious pleasures in Jiangnan, Li Jing felt, for no apparent reason, a wave of shame. For the first time he sensed how enormous the gap between him and Zhang Zhao truly was.

Seeing Li Jing's spirit shaken, Li Jingda seized the moment and said: "Elder Brother, on this mission I saw with my own eyes the might of Great Zhou. In the Hexi and Longyou lands alone, a single command from the Sage can bring forth tens of thousands of elite cavalry. They regard the Sage as a god and are all willing to die for him.

The Sage is a heroic sovereign of an age, personally campaigning north of the desert with the supreme dignity of an emperor — something unprecedented since ancient times.

He rejoices when he hears of worthy talent, with the spirit of the Duke of Zhou who stopped mid-meal to receive visitors; when brave warriors achieve merit, he is willing to bestow even ten thousand bolts of silk and the most peerless beauties.

When he offered sacrifice below Yanran Mountain to the seventy thousand fierce Han warriors of old who were done to death by Li Guangli, even an outsider like me was moved to hot tears.

When he performed the feng and shan sacrifices at Wolf's Lair Mountain, tens of thousands of barbarians bowed their heads, regarding him as the incarnation of Tengri."

With that, Li Jingda kowtowed to the ground and, weeping before Li Jing, pleaded bitterly: "Elder Brother, while the great war has not yet begun, you can still call the Sage's birth mother 'Mother' and offer up the land in submission.

The Sage is magnanimous and generous; even Meng Chang and Shi Chonggui were able to live as wealthy commoners. He will certainly not treat our family shabbily.

When I, your younger brother, was heading south, the Sage personally said to me: if Elder Brother can obey Heaven and respond to the people, and offer up a state of a thousand chariots like Southern Tang,

the Sage can enfeoff you as King of Wu. All the gold, silver, and valuables in the Purple Myrtle Palace at Jiangning may be taken to Luoyang, and Father's spirit tablet may enter the temple of the emperors of the Great Tang at Chang'an to receive blood offerings.

He is also willing to make Qiying, the third daughter born of Consort Cao, a princess of the Wu state and marry her to Congjia. Our two families would thereby form the bond of brothers and the union of Qin and Jin."

Queen Zhong's eyes lit up. This treatment was, one could say, quite, quite excellent.

With the title of King of Wu, with over a million strings of cash and goods at her side, her son could even marry a princess of the great dynasty and become a Commandant of Consort Cavalry.

My Sage Zhang's reputation is still most outstanding. As Li Jingda said, if even men like Shi Chonggui and Meng Chang can live out their days in peace, then after the Li family offers up the Southern Tang realm, their wealth and rank will surely be guaranteed.

Only, Lady Zhong was somewhat puzzled. Her eldest son Li Hongji was valiant and decisive, her second son Li Hongmao was accomplished in both letters and arms — why had the Shao Ming Son of Heaven singled out her sixth son, Li Congjia, who was twelve this year and fond of calligraphy, painting, poetry, and prose?

This child — listless and dull, he doesn't look like anything special!

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