Chapter 774: Li Jing Can't Hold It Together Anymore

In the fourth year of Shaoming, 949 AD, the fifth day of the fifth month.

Zhang Zhao began dismissing in batches the thirty thousand infantry and cavalry he had levied from the Hexi and Longyou regions. Of these, only about six thousand were admitted into the personal army and the imperial guards, and only two hundred entered the Hanshan Capital Command.

However, Zhang Zhao bestowed lavish rewards upon them, amounting in copper cash to no less than seven hundred thousand strings.

Moreover, those among them who had killed five or more of the enemy, or slain a junior officer, all received the title of "Meritorious Official of the Restoration and Glorification of Martial Valor."

Bai Congxin, still leading the tribal chieftains of the steppe, returned to the grasslands.

Last month, Hu Guang sent back a military report from Anxi: he had already begun leading his troops across the Tianshan Mountains to raid Suyab, and it was estimated that by now it had been taken.

After this, Hu Guang would hold Suyab and await the support of the Central Plains army.

Zhang Zhao ordered Bai Congxin to return to the steppe precisely so that, when autumn came and the horses were fat, he would lead the Zubu Ten-Thousand Household, the Yedugua Ten-Thousand Household, and the four Ten-Thousand Households west of the desert, drawing thirty thousand cavalry, to go around Lake Yibo toward Talas and strike in coordination with Hu Guang from front and rear.

At the same time, the remaining six Ten-Thousand Households south and north of the desert were also to draw at least twenty thousand cavalry in autumn and follow Murong Xinzhang to attack the Wang clan's Goryeo.

I, the Heavenly Khagan Zhang, know very well the temperament of these steppe tribes. Since I have become their Great Khan, I cannot indulge them too much. When it is time to haul them out for hard labor, I must haul them out and work them hard. Of course, the benefits that ought to be given cannot be skimped either.

Only when you have worked them often will they truly regard you as their Great Khan.

On the sixth day of the fifth month, Zhang Zhao sent his second son Zhang Xianyu and his son-in-law Zhao Kuangzan to go in his place to Shazhou and Dunhuang.

The promise the Sage Zhang had originally made to personally bear Cao Yijin's coffin back to his homeland evidently could not be fully realized. He could only send his son and son-in-law, and after Cao Yijin's coffin arrived in Luoyang, he would personally bear the coffin to Bozhou.

On the tenth day of the fifth month, Zhang Zhao personally led ten thousand infantry and cavalry to Chanzhou on the south bank of the Yellow River.

He released back to their respective garrisons those troops in his ranks who had followed him beyond the frontier but were homesick, then led the six thousand infantry and cavalry willing to continue winning merit in battle southward to Caozhou.

Zhang Zhao did not return to the Eastern Capital, because there was still some finishing work that required Pei Yuan to continue playing the villain. If he went back, Pei Yuan would no longer be able to play that role.

So Zhang Zhao simply established the Southern Expedition Field Headquarters at Caozhou, summoning the Left and Right Jinwu Guards who had not gone beyond the frontier, the Left Baotao Guard, and the imperial guard units of the Hanhai, Yingyang, and Hanshan Capital Inner Commands to Caozhou for reorganization and joint training.

At the same time, the Duke of Tian, Liu Zaisheng, under Zhang Zhao's orders, led three thousand infantry and cavalry down the Ying River to Yingzhou (Fuyang, Anhui), northwest of Shouzhou, and began stockpiling grain, fodder, and supplies.

On the fifteenth day of the fifth month, Gao Huaide led two thousand cavalry of the Left Jinwu Guard into Haozhou and took over the fifteen thousand troops that Fu Zhaoxu commanded there.

The vanguard then moved south to patrol the area around Qingliu Pass, attempting to cut off the retreat route of the Qinghuai Army from Shouzhou to Jiangning Prefecture, and also to prevent the Southern Tang army from coming out of Qingliu Pass to reinforce Shouzhou.

At almost the same time, the Pingzhang of the Hubei Province, the Duke of Chen, Ma Zhaoyuan (Ma Yaozi), who garrisoned Jiangling, was appointed Commander of the Western Route Army, and led twenty thousand Jiangling naval troops to Yueyang Prefecture.

He began joint training with the Flying Tiger Army under Zhao Yanjin's command, preparing so that the moment orders came, they would advance from Yueyang Prefecture along the water route to attack the Southern Tang's Ezhou.

Liu Renzhan in Shouzhou was nearly frantic with urgency. He sent envoys to Jiangning Prefecture at the rate of one wave every three days to report the emergency.

First he requested Li Jing to send troops as reinforcement. After Li Jing ignored him, Liu Renzhan submitted another memorial requesting permission to abandon Shouzhou and withdraw the Qinghuai Army to the Qingliu Pass line at Hezhou, relying on the terrain there to form a mutual horn-and-support posture with the Military Governor of the Bao Xin Army at Luzhou, establishing a defensive system anchored on the Yangtze.

Liu Renzhan had already seen clearly that after the loss of Haozhou and Sizhou, Shouzhou hung isolated in Huainan and simply could not withstand the imperial army coming down the river. Only in the Qingliu Pass area, backed against the Yangtze, could effective defense be conducted.

This famous Southern Tang general, remembered in history for sacrificing family ties for righteousness and regarded for a thousand years as a paragon of loyalty, was beyond question in his devotion to the Southern Tang court. His abilities in drilling troops, governing the army, deploying formations on the march, and fighting to the death on the battlefield were all quite good.

But he lacked a pair of politically aware, far-sighted eyes. He only knew that every action he took was seizing every possible opportunity, and that his resistance plans were the most optimal.

Yet he could never understand Li Jing's hesitant state of mind at this moment, nor could he see clearly that after Zhang Zhao had unified the north, and the Hexi and Longyou regions alone could raise tens of thousands of elite troops, the fate of the various separatist states of the south was already sealed.

He mistook Zhang Zhao's practice of sending out only tens of thousands of men at a time and dragging out the pacification of the realm for the exhaustion of the Central Plains and a flaw in Zhang Zhao's character.

In Jiangning Prefecture, when Li Jing received Liu Renzhan's urgent report, he was immediately overwhelmed by this terrifying feeling.

He recalled again the last Huainan campaign, when Zhang Zhao personally led fifty thousand elite infantry and cavalry, fighting all the way from Chuzhou to Hezhou, defeating the elite forces of his entire Southern Tang state one by one, until Jiangning City itself was almost left without troops to defend it — that horrifying scene.

On the twenty-fifth day of the fifth month, Zhang Zhao, then in Caozhou, received Li Jing's entreaties. Li Jing sent Sun Cheng, Feng Yanlu, and Zhong Mo as envoys in succession, coming three separate times to plead with Zhang Zhao.

Li Jing declared that he was willing to send his younger brother, the Prince-Designate Li Jingsui, and his eldest son Li Hongji as hostages; to have the Southern Tang state call itself the Southern Wu state; to cease using court official titles and change them to those of a hegemonic establishment; and to change the Chancellor's title to Chief Clerk.

All meritorious officials of the Southern Tang state would be demoted one rank; the princely and ducal titles within the realm would be abolished; and he was willing to raise the annual tribute of four hundred thousand strings to seven hundred thousand strings, begging Zhang Zhao to halt his troops and not campaign south.

Zhang Zhao could not even be bothered to receive these Southern Tang ministers. What needed to be said, he had already said to Han Xizai last time.

Now I, the Sage Zhang, have not been home for over a year, and without even entering Kaifeng I am preparing to campaign south, my mood so urgent. The conditions Li Jing proposed held no attraction whatsoever for him. Once the Southern Tang is conquered, everything is mine.

On the third day of the sixth month, Zhang Zhao led the twenty thousand infantry and cavalry that had completed joint training to Bozhou, preparing to follow the Guo River south into Haozhou.

The weather was now turning scorching hot, and there were still about three months before the army formally began fighting. Zhang Zhao prepared to give Li Jing one more chance.

He appointed the Assistant Administrator of Political Affairs Wang Pu as envoy to go to Jiangning Prefecture and issue an imperial edict to Li Jing, ordering him to arrest Liu Renzhan, Military Governor of the Qinghuai Army at Shouzhou, and deliver him to the court, and also ordering Li Jing himself to cross the river to the Southern Tang's eastern capital, Jiangdu Prefecture, to await disposition.

When Li Jing received the edict, he went numb. Although Liu Renzhan had caused trouble, he was the last banner of the Southern Tang resistance faction. If he were arrested, it would be no different from surrendering.

Already, after the several dozen Southern Tang imperial guards who had followed Zhang Zhao in sweeping across the northern desert returned home, Li Jing had been unable to stop them from spreading word of the court's virtues, causing the people's hearts to be lost.

If he also arrested Liu Renzhan, then even though the Southern Tang state still had dozens of prefectures and five million commoners, there would probably not be a single person still willing to resist.

As for ordering him to go to the eastern capital, Jiangdu Prefecture, to await disposition — that was absolutely out of the question.

Because Li Jing knew very well that the moment he left Jiangning Prefecture, someone would shut the gates of Jiangning City behind him and make him a homeless dog.

These two demands were each more absurd than the last. Agreeing to either one would formally declare the end of the Southern Tang.

In utter helplessness, Li Jing repeatedly summoned his civil and military officials to deliberate, but within the Southern Tang court, apart from Sun Cheng, Han Xizai, and a few others, virtually everyone had already lost the will to resist.

And even Sun Cheng and Han Xizai were merely carried along by the halo of loyalty upon them, thinking that since they could not bring themselves to surrender, they might as well protect Li Jing and die with the Southern Tang state. If actually asked to come up with a plan, they could produce nothing at all.

In the end, only the Supervising Secretary Tang Gao suggested that Li Jing could move the capital to Hongzhou (Nanchang). Tang Gao said that Hongzhou lay southwest of Lake Pengli, and not only had the natural barrier of the Yangtze, but also Lake Pengli and the surrounding marshes to block the Zhou army.

At the same time, east and south of Hongzhou, there were three places where troops could be stationed: the Zhaowu Army Military Governor at Fuzhou, the Baisheng Army Military Governor at Qianzhou (Ganzhou), and the Yong'an Army Military Governor at Jianzhou.

These three places were far from the Central Plains and had the Wuyi Mountains and other ranges to rely on; the Zhou army would find it very difficult to reach them.

Li Jing was quite tempted, but all the ministers remained silent, inwardly wishing they could give Tang Gao a few hard slaps.

Hongzhou, that is, Nanchang, had simply not developed yet at this time. The place had experienced a wave of major development during the Tang, and the "Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng" even called it "the new prefecture of Hongdu."

But after the end of the Tang, the western circuit of Jiangnan was wracked by wars, the Yangtze was occupied by several states, and Hongzhou's status as a transportation hub declined rapidly. Coupled with the wars, even the Pavilion of Prince Teng had twice been destroyed by war. By the time the Southern Tang was founded, the Hongzhou city it built was small and cramped, less than one-fifth the size of Jiangning Prefecture.

Moreover, Hongzhou was right next to Lake Pengli, that is, Poyang Lake. At this time, Poyang Lake was not what it would look like in later ages; the great Yunmeng Marsh had not yet completely disappeared.

Therefore the area around Lake Pengli was full of marshes, breeding mosquitoes and horseflies, with crocodiles in teeming groups. Transportation was extremely inconvenient; it was simply one great mud pit.

Going there, never mind resisting the Zhou — whether one could even survive was itself a question.

Tang Gao's proposal was probably approved by no one except Li Jing and Tang Gao themselves.

It was at this moment that Li Jingda threw himself forward. Cupping his hands to Li Jing, he said: "Elder Brother, since ancient times, no one who founded a state in Jiangnan has ever been heard to unify the realm.

In past dynasties, even when the northern court had no sage ruler, the southern court, strong as it was under Emperor Wu of Song, Liu Jinu, still could not march north to unify the realm. Emperor Xuan of Chen's Taijian northern expedition likewise ended in failure at the brink of success.

Now Elder Brother's governance of the state falls far short of Liu Jinu's, and even Chen Xu far surpasses Elder Brother."

Look instead at the Central Plains: the Son of Heaven, Shaoming, is sage in civil governance and divine in martial prowess, far surpassing not only Emperor Mingyuan of Northern Wei, Tuoba Si, but also Emperor Wen of Sui, who schemed to seize the estate of his own daughter's son.

And among the generals of our realm, is there any who can even follow in the dust of Wang Zhen'e, Tan Daoji, or Wu Mingche? Liu Renzhan fancies himself a famous general, but he is only fit to carry these three men's shoes.

Can our Jiangnan, with men like Liu Renzhan and Yao Feng, stand against such commanders as Ma Zhaoyuan, Murong Baipao, Li Cunhui, Yang Jiye, and Zhao Kuangyin?"

Li Jingda's words made Li Jing's head spin with rage, and he nearly lost his breath on the spot.

What infuriated him even more was that the civil officials he had always treated as his trusted confidants—Feng Yanlu, Zhong Mo, Li Deming, and the rest—now vied with one another to echo Li Jingda.

Of course, there were also opponents: Sun Cheng, Han Xizai, and others fell into a furious shouting match with Zhong Mo and his faction, and the court descended into utter chaos.

Seeing the situation turning critical, Li Jingda rolled up his sleeves, knocked Sun Cheng—who was in the middle of grandly proclaiming the Yangtze a natural moat—to the ground with a single punch, then seized Li Jing by the sleeve and pleaded bitterly.

"Elder Brother, do not believe the words of Sun Cheng, Han Xizai, and their sort! They appear loyal, but in truth they have not the slightest shred of devotion.

They want to use you, Elder Brother—use the lives of the several hundred members of our Li and Xu clans—to display their own names as loyal ministers before all under Heaven!"

With the court on the verge of breaking into outright brawling, Li Jing felt his headache growing unbearable. His resolve had never been strong to begin with, and under such pressure he actually shook off Li Jingda's hand and fled in panic toward the inner palace.

But he had taken only a few steps into the inner palace when he heard the sound of sobbing. There he saw Queen Zhong, Consort Ling, and the others gathered together in tears.

Zhong and the other ladies of the inner palace did not know what was happening outside. They assumed the imperial armies had once again stormed Jiangdu Prefecture and reached the north bank of the Yangtze. In their terror, they opened their mouths and urged Li Jing to surrender.

Li Jing finally snapped. His mind collapsing, he pointed at Zhong and the others and roared, "What do base women know? I am the lord of the Great Tang—I would rather die than surrender! I will not surrender! I will not!"

With that, Li Jing fled at a run. Consort Ling and the others looked at Zhong. Zhong and Li Jing had always been deeply affectionate; he had never spoken a harsh word to her in all their days. Now, having been cursed at so viciously, she could not hold back her streaming tears.

"If the king is resolved on this, then we women of the inner palace shall die with him—let us be martyrs for this Southern Tang!"

Consort Ling and the others were neither much favored nor queens, and naturally had no wish to die. So they wept and begged Zhong in unison.

"The king is only speaking in anger right now. The Queen is on good terms with the Sage Son of Heaven's birth mother, the Compassionate Sage Empress Dowager. Why not send someone with a letter to plead with her, and ask the Compassionate Sage Empress Dowager to stand guarantor and write to persuade the king?"

Though Zhong's mouth spoke of seeking death, in her heart she had no wish to die. After making a show of refusing a few times, she nodded in agreement. Right there in the little pavilion, she wrote a letter to the Compassionate Sage Empress Dowager, and ordered her own younger brother to cross the Yangtze northward at once and seek help from Zhang Zhao's birth mother, Lady Song.

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