Chapter 801: Power and the Human Heart

At Talas, though winter had already arrived and snowflakes were drifting down one after another, outside the city walls the scene was one of bustling, feverish activity, as tens of thousands of sturdy women, laborers, and even soldiers all worked together.

They carried firebricks, baked from clay dug from afar, one by one to the east side of the city, where craftsmen from Khotan were directing even more soldiers and laborers in personally building a temple that would occupy a broad expanse of ground.

The form of this temple was already completely different from the Buddhist temples of the Western Regions, which were full of Indian style. Flying eaves and bracket sets, a central-axis layout — at a glance it was clearly in the Chinese style.

"At that time the Supreme Heaven, in the Land of Ultimate Bliss, saw the suffering and hardship of all living beings." The long, drawn-out chanting of the Supreme Heaven Disaster-Dispelling and Hardship-Relieving True Sutra rang out.

The laborers captured from various places had no right at all to take part in the construction. Being allowed to haul the earth for firing bricks and the finished firebricks was already a reward for them.

Those building this temple were either soldiers and laborers from the steppe, the Central Plains, and Anxi, or loyal subjects and righteous men like Guo Tianfang and Chi Tian, who had never submitted to Guo Guangyi even at Suyab. Even someone like Luo Dingzhong, who had switched sides midway, was not qualified to take part.

Qu Jiegu was carrying a basket of heavy firebricks on his back, the kudzu-vine straps cutting deep into his flesh.

But Qu Jiegu did not feel the slightest discomfort. On the contrary, he was chanting loudly, as if what he carried on his back was not firebricks weighing sixty or seventy jin, but the weight of faith itself.

A six-story pagoda was completed in an extremely short time. Watching the feverish labor of the soldiers and laborers in the distance, several monks skilled at portraiture were hurrying to sketch the scene, while several other monks skilled at stonework were carving away at an enormous stone stele.

The eminent Mingyuan, looking at Qu Jiegu, who had exerted himself the most, smiled kindly and beckoned to him.

This eminent Mingyuan came from the Zhang family of Shazhou, and by reckoning he was a cousin of Sage Zhang, though the kinship had long since passed beyond the fifth degree of mourning.

In the present Six Dharma Sect, there were quite a number of eminent monks from the Zhang clan of Shazhou, because Shazhou and Dunhuang had originally been a Buddhist land, and the Zhang family had been devout Buddhists for generations.

When Zhang Yichao was in his twenties, on his way to Lhasa to pay court to the btsanpo and receive an official post, he had also gone to Rasa to study the scriptures.

Rasa was the predecessor of the Jokhang Temple, and later replaced Lhasa as the name of this city.

Of course, it was precisely on this journey to pay court to the Tibetan btsanpo that Zhang Yichao saw how, under the btsanpo's cruel rule, the nobles fought savagely among themselves and the common people lived as if in hell, which further strengthened his determination to return to his homeland.

And thanks to his ancestors' devout faith in the Buddha, from the very earliest embryonic stage of the Six Dharma Sect, quite a number of members of the Zhang family had taken part.

The Zhang family of Shazhou truly did not contribute much effort in Zhang Zhao's unification of the realm, but in the formation of the Six Dharma Sect and its propagation of the faith in all directions, their contribution was supreme.

For example, the elder brother of the eminent Mingyuan, the eminent Mingming, and his nephew Zhang Liesong, the Monk-Commander for Dharma Propagation on the Jian River, father and son, were all members of the Zhang family who had sacrificed their lives on the road of propagating the faith.

The reason the Kyrgyz people of the Tangnu Ulianghai region were able to come over so quickly was, behind the scenes, largely because Zhang Liesong, father and son, the Monk-Commander for Dharma Propagation on the Jian River, and the hundred or more monks under them, had spent ten years braving wind and snow to preach the faith.

The Jian River in later ages was called the Yenisei River. The Kyrgyz, who believed in Tengri and were brave and skilled in battle, were the ones who roamed this vast land.

Somehow, as the eminent Mingyuan watched this temple being built so quickly, his mind suddenly recalled the more than two hundred monks of every rank from the Zhang family and indeed the entire Six Dharma Sect who had died in propagating the faith over these years, and his eyes grew somewhat moist.

"Child, come here, and tell me your name!" The eminent Mingyuan slowly extended his hand toward Qu Jiegu.

Qu Jiegu hurriedly set down the basket on his back and trotted over to the eminent Mingyuan, bowing with palms pressed together, his head lowered to exactly the height where the eminent Mingyuan could place his hand upon his crown.

The eminent Mingyuan reached out his right hand and placed it lightly on the top of Qu Jiegu's head. "Child, may the Supreme Heaven bless you. Go over there, and leave your name, so that the Supreme Heaven may know of your merits."

Qu Jiegu was overjoyed, as if the bones in his body had lost all weight, and he walked as though treading on clouds.

It turned out that these stone-carving monks would collect the names of certain devout believers and carve them onto a stone stele, which would be erected within the temple — another use of the merit stele in the Six Dharma Sect.

Among the busy crowd, low exclamations of surprise arose, and everyone looked at Qu Jiegu with extreme envy.

They believed that as long as the monks carved their names onto this merit stele, the Supreme Heaven would know of their merits, and after death they could go to the Land of Ultimate Bliss and attain great liberation.

Bai Congxin and Lu Sanlang stood shoulder to shoulder in the distance. The two of them had also symbolically taken part in the labor, and now, seeing this scene, who knew what thoughts were passing through their minds.

Lu Sanlang in particular — before he had gone beyond the frontier, he had had no real sense of the power of the Six Dharma Sect.

Only after going beyond the frontier did he realize that the role of the Six Dharma Sect, at certain times, even surpassed the role of martial men like themselves.

Qu Jiegu watched with his own eyes as the craftsmen carved his name onto the merit stele, then walked down in a daze of elation.

The people around him surged forward, one after another reaching out to stroke his hands and chest, as if Qu Jiegu's body carried the blessings of the Supreme Heaven, and by touching him they could each share a little of it.

Lu Ketu, standing beside Lu Sanlang, saw this and, his eyes burning with envy, stripped off the splendid silk and satin clothes he was wearing, revealing the sheepskin jacket underneath, and walked straight into the crowd of people bustling back and forth. It seemed he too very much wanted to receive this treatment.

After a long while, Bai Congxin said to Lu Sanlang with a smile, "For tonight's great victory banquet, I have in mind to let Hu Erlang preside. What do you think?"

Lu Sanlang also smiled and said, "Hu Erlang is the Commander-in-Chief of the Western Expedition personally appointed by the Sage. Having him preside is entirely fitting and proper."

Hu Guang, upon receiving word, quickly galloped over. "The great merit of this campaign that shattered the Yabghu state was achieved by the Protector-General personally leading the men.

I failed to capture the city of Shiguo, and can barely be counted as a defeated general. How could I preside over the victory banquet?"

Bai Congxin smiled, walked up to Hu Guang, and handed him a bowl of steaming hot salted milk tea.

"What great merit, what defeated army? This time we came ten thousand li to punish the disloyal, recover the court's lost territory, and overawe the surrounding barbarians — all of it is great merit.

And for this victory banquet, you, Hu Erlang, are the most suitable person to preside."

Hu Guang understood Bai Congxin's meaning, and no longer declined.

In Hu Guang's life, he had encountered two people in Bai Congxin's kind of situation.

The first was Murong Xinzhang. At the time, Hu Guang had worried that he would be bought off by Shi Jingtang, and had even gone specially to warn him, but later Murong Xinzhang proved his loyalty to the Sage through his actions.

The second was his father, Hu Cile. Hu Guang had always believed that his father would not go to the point of no return, yet in the end it came to the situation in Xuzhou where both his parents died.

Therefore, Hu Guang was still very worried about Bai Congxin. Although this man was one of the highest-ranking generals of the Founding Followers faction and one of the Sage's most trusted ministers, the human heart is complicated.

Hu Guang had once thought Murong Xinzhang would turn traitor, because at the time what Shi Jingtang could offer was a hundred times what the Sage could, but in the end the facts proved that Murong Xinzhang was indeed the Sage's good son.

He had thought that a man as clever as his father would not be without a bottom line, yet it was only on that night in Xuzhou that Hu Guang learned that his father Hu Cile's bottom line was low to the point of being infinitely close to zero.

Power is a demon more terrible than all demons — this was a lesson Hu Guang had learned personally through blood and tears.

However, from the present situation, Bai Congxin had not yet fallen into this abyss of power, and the Six Dharma Sect could still serve as an excellent check and balance on Bai Congxin, keeping him from forgetting his roots.

As for Lu Sanlang, he was actually the most secure of all, because even if he had the inclination, he did not have the nerve.

If Lu Sanlang truly dared to betray the Sage, his adopted son — the one laboring over there, the most devout believer in the Six Dharma Sect — could smash his brains out with a single thrust of a lance.

The scale of the victory banquet was extremely grand. The soldiers who had toiled for a year could finally enjoy themselves properly.

For from the middle of the tenth month onward, there would be at least three months of heavy snow here, and this period was just right for rest and recuperation.

Bai Congxin and Lu Sanlang indeed did not take part in the rewards of the victory banquet. Only Hu Guang, with the assistance of Li Chongju, Zhang Mei, and others from the Zhaowu Academy, reported the great victory from afar and submitted the soldiers' merits to the court.

Among these, rewards of gold, silver, and goods were to be paid out now, while accumulated merit promotions, military rank promotions, and even noble titles all required the court's reply before an imperial envoy could be sent to bestow them.

In the banquet grounds where cattle and sheep were being slaughtered, only Bai Congxin and Lu Sanlang were somewhat uneasy. After all, how many men the Sage would allow them to keep here, and how the one hundred or two hundred thousand captured tribal people would be distributed, all had to be decided by the Sage.

And amid the wind and snow filling the sky, in the forbidden city of Bukhara, the young Salih Hajib also received two completely different letters.

One was from Talas: the Great Protector-General of the Zhou had sent a letter demanding that Emir Hamid hand over Amir, the governor of Shiguo City, who had killed the soldiers of the Great Zhou.

The other was written personally by Amir. In the letter, he not only expressed deep repentance for his previous disrespect toward the Emir, but also declared that from now on he would unconditionally obey the Emir's commands.

He also explained in detail that the Zhou people intended to seize the city of Shiguo and open a passage from Baishui City to Juzhanti, hoping Salih could understand the danger and send troops to help.

The men below were arguing in a circle. Some said the Zhou people had come from afar and could not hold the city of Shiguo, that the villain Amir was absolutely not to be trusted, and that it would be better to let the Zhou people take Shiguo City first and then go clean up the mess.

Others said the Zhou people's ambitions were enormous, and that compared to Amir, that disgusting wild dog, they should be more worried about the Zhou people, those greedy, vicious wolves, and that they absolutely had to support Amir in holding Shiguo City.

Listening to all this, Salih felt his head swell to twice its size; it seemed everyone's words had some merit.

For a moment, he suddenly felt he had somewhat underestimated that Emir father lying on the sickbed. Picking the right answer from so many options was truly not easy!

Tomorrow a friend is getting married, and I have to help with fetching the bride, so I estimate I may not have quite enough time, plus I've been a bit stuck on the writing lately. If I can find the time, I'll update with a chapter of about five thousand characters; if not, I'll have to ask everyone for a day off, but I'll try my best to keep updating.

(End of Chapter)

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