Chapter 802: The Divine Kingdom of the Plateau

On the Qingtang Plateau in September, sparse snowflakes occasionally drifted down, but most of the time the weather was still fine.

Because of the high altitude, you could even feel the sun's scorching heat in the chilly air — a strange sensation where the temperature was not high, yet it could burn your skin raw.

After crossing over the Tanggula Mountains, one arrived at the territory of the four northern tribes: Naqu, Yangbajain, Bangcang, and Langru.

Among these four tribes, the Naqu tribe was the most powerful.

At this time, the Naqu tribe was called the Black Water tribe, following the custom of the Tang people, because the Naqu River (the upper reaches of the Salween River) from which the tribe took its name was then called the Black Water, so the Naqu tribe naturally came to be called the Black Water tribe.

A force whose soldiers were all wrapped in silver battle robes, carrying banners of the Six Dharma Sect — silver-white with golden swastikas — the silver-white banners with golden sun and moon of the Zhang-Zhou imperial house, the silver-white banner with a golden sun shining over all representing Zhang Zhao's own identity as the Unborn Heaven, and a silver-white banner with the Three Celestial Bodies symbolizing the Great Zhou dynasty, was slowly passing through the Black Water tribe's territory.

Advancing together with the force were also large numbers of monks wearing silver-white haiqing robes.

Their hands and feet were thick and large; they held prayer beads, pellet drums, and the like. Although they did not ride horses, they could keep up with the marching speed of the force on their iron feet alone.

As they marched, these monks would from time to time chant sutras and songs, and many of the soldiers and officers in the force would often dismount to sing in response, so that they looked less like a great army coming to conquer and more like a procession spreading the Dharma.

The Black Water tribe's chieftain was called Napoda, meaning Black Tiger. The Black Water tribe accepted the rule of the Lhasa royal line's Tsenpo, Tri Wangchuk Tsan, and Tri Wangchuk Tsan's fifth-generation ancestor was none other than Langdarma, the last Tsenpo of the Tibetan Empire who had persecuted Buddhism.

Seeing this strange force approaching, Napoda hurriedly led fifteen hundred soldiers out to block them, but very soon he was so shocked that he could not speak.

Not only because the opposing soldiers numbered well over ten thousand, but also because the opposing soldiers were uniformly dressed in silver-white long robes, and the black lamellar armor underneath was clearly of very high quality at a glance.

For how many years had it been? Napoda knew only from the oral traditions of his forebears that in the empire's most glorious days, the Tsenpo had commanded such iron-armored lions of war.

Napoda glanced at his own somewhat worn lamellar armor, and a wave of inferiority suddenly rose in his heart, as if the other side were proud and noble snow lions, while he was nothing but a wild dog that had rolled in a mud pit.

"What fine armor! What magnificent warhorses! If I could possess such warhorses and precious armor, I could certainly go to Lhasa and show those detestable Lhasa nobles what true nobility really is."

Napoda's youngest son was muttering beside him. The last time this lad had gone to Lhasa, he had taken a fancy to a noble family's daughter and had been thoroughly scorned, and he had been nursing a grudge ever since.

"Father, let us move aside here. We cannot stop them — even the Black Water itself could not stop these godlike warriors.

I have heard they are the chastising knights of the Living Buddha, the Dharma King of the Unborn Heaven. Their blades and spears have all been blessed by the Unborn Heaven, and the souls of those slain by them will suffer forever in the Avici Hell."

Napoda knew his eldest son would say this, because this strapping eldest son of his was known to outsiders as the Gelong by the Black Water.

Gelong in the Tibetan tongue means "one who lives purely on alms," and clearly it is a Buddhist term.

Moreover, the reason his eldest son was called the Gelong by the Black Water was that he supported a revered teacher and his disciples within the tribe.

This "revered teacher" was not the Han meaning of the term; in Tibetan it was pronounced "lama," meaning one who possesses supreme loving-kindness.

Although because of their ancestors' persecution of Buddhism, the descendants of Langdarma of the Lhasa line had always enforced policies suppressing Buddhism, by now this prohibition was showing more and more signs of loosening.

Even Tsenpo Tri Wangchuk Tsan's grand-uncle, Nyiwa Gön, had been expelled for his faith in the Buddha and had lost his right of succession to the Tsenpo's throne.

But if even the descendants of Tsenpo Langdarma had come to this, one could well imagine the situation below.

Still, Napoda was not prepared to withdraw. The pontoon bridge over the Black Water had already been dismantled by him, and all the nearby ferry boats were in the hands of the Black Water tribe, so for the moment there was no danger.

With such a natural barrier in his hands, how could he possibly give it up for nothing? The other side was surely headed for Lhasa, and they generally would not slaughter a tribe like the Black Water.

And Napoda knew in his heart that his eldest son Gelong, because of his faith in the Buddha, had always been suppressed by him. If he withdrew into the Black Water tribe's territory and let these cavalry pass,

then when word came from Lhasa some days later that the Tsenpo had once again embraced Buddhism, the supporters behind his eldest son — his eldest son's maternal relatives — would come looking for trouble with him, and Napoda might well be driven from power.

Therefore, he would not leave. He wanted to see whether the other side would be willing to offer some terms.

Sure enough, when they saw that the Black Water tribe's cavalry had not left, a man emerged from the opposing formation, dressed in a Tang-style white robe but wearing a Tibetan snow-leopard-skin hat.

Behind him followed several men dressed much like Napoda.

"The moon has already hung upon the treetops; the great eagle has long since returned to the mountainside. What keeps the young men of the Black Water from returning to their felt tents?"

The white-robed man sang out loudly, in a standard Lhasa accent.

This was characteristic of all peoples of this age: such meetings usually began in the form of song.

The Han people had once done the same; it is said that the three hundred poems of the Book of Songs were for the most part used in scenes like this.

Napoda felt inferior again, because he had a thick accent of the four northern tribes, and he had not quite learned the ornate phrases and elegant accents of the Lhasa tongue.

But it was impossible not to answer, so he could only force himself to sing: "The moon is a spirit of the heavens, so it may hang upon the treetops.

The great eagle has the freest of souls, so it can fly back to the mountainside.

The poor people of the Black Water! They are the Tsenpo's great mastiffs, who must guard the felt tents and cannot sleep."

The moment Napoda's words fell, the three Tibetan men who had been standing behind the white-robed man suddenly shouted in unison.

"The loyal mastiff is brave and fierce in battle; to guard the felt tents, it has never feared jackals, wolves, tigers, or leopards.

But the Tsenpo in Lhasa is not a generous master, and has not properly managed this household.

Only the Rinpoche who has come down from the mountains brings the compassionate Dharma."

There was nothing special in these words, but Napoda suddenly widened his eyes, because the three men singing loudly across the river were the headmen of the Yangbajain, Bangcang, and Langru tribes.

They were relatives of the Black Water tribe through generations of intermarriage, and together were known as the four northern tribes.

In his extreme shock, Napoda could not even bother to sing a reply. He hurried to the riverbank, and after making sure that they really were the headmen of the other three tribes, he cried out in disbelief: "The Tsenpo is not a good master, but he is still a Tibetan!"

"Jiamusa came from the Han lands, but she is still a bodhisattva of the Tibetans.

Was not the mother of the Dharma King Tsenpo Trisong Detsen also a princess who came from the Han lands?

Brave warriors of the Black Water, do you recognize this banner?" The white-robed man was none other than Lun Boren, and the banner he raised was the great standard bearing the clan emblem of the Gar family, to which their ancestor, the great Tibetan Grand Minister Gar Tongtsen Yulsung of old, had belonged.

Napoda was greatly shaken. Although the Gar family had been gone from the plateau for several hundred years, the legends of their family had never ceased.

After all, Gar Tongtsen's significance to the Tibetans at times even surpassed that of Songtsen Gampo; at the very least, he was a heroic ancestor who could be mentioned in the same breath.

Seeing that Napoda was overawed, Lun Boren spoke again: "The physical body of the Unborn Heaven was born in Shazhou, Dunhuang, and grew up in Dunhuang. Among six generations of his father's line, many served as Jie'er of Shazhou. Why do you claim the physical body of the Unborn Heaven has nothing to do with the Tibetans?

What audacity!"

Jie'er was the name of a Tibetan official post, roughly equivalent to a Prefect of the Great Tang. Among Zhang Zhao's ancestors, there had indeed been men who served as Jie'er of Shazhou.

And back then, in order to keep the sons of Tang in Hexi from fiercely resisting his rule, the Tibetan Tsenpo Trisong Detsen had always insisted that his birth mother was Princess Jincheng — and now the Six Dharma Sect had seized on exactly this point to claim that Han and Tibetans were originally one family.

And this was precisely Zhang Zhao's advantage: no emperor of any dynasty had ever had such close ties to the Tibetans as he did.

Moreover, because of the deeds of the Zhang family, especially those of Zhang Yichao, Zhang Zhao could flexibly adjust the direction of his propaganda.

Normally, Zhang Yichao was of course the great hero who never forgot his homeland and swore his heart to return to the Tang.

But on the Tibetan side, he could also be portrayed as a local power-holder who rose in arms out of dissatisfaction with the oppression of the Tsenpo's family. In any case, when Zhang Yichao rose in revolt back then, large numbers of Tibetans had taken part under his command.

As for Zhang Yichao having killed large numbers of Tibetan nobles and officials, and in the end returning to the Great Tang — in the eyes of the Tibetans, that hardly counted for anything at all.

Because just a hundred years earlier, around the time Zhang Yichao rose in revolt, a massive commoner uprising had broken out in Tibet. They dug open the tombs of successive btsanpos, and slaughtered great numbers of the btsanpo clan's descendants and nobles.

To be honest, the rising in Shazhou at that time was smaller in scale than the great commoner uprising at Lhasa. Na Poda's ancestors had made their start precisely on the back of that upheaval.

And so, hearing Lun Boren speak this way, the last trace of discomfort in Na Poda's heart vanished at once. Right there by the riverbank, he prostrated himself in the full five-points-touching-the-ground obeisance toward the monks of the Six Dharma Sect in the distance.

"Your servant has long heard that the Buddha's light shines beyond the mountains. To behold it today is a heaven-sent destiny. May the Rinpoche wait but a moment — I shall at once build a bridge and send boats to receive you."

Having spoken, Na Poda hurriedly ordered his youngest son to see to the bridge-building and the rest. Toward his eldest son, Gelong, his manner changed completely.

"My son was right. The Blackwater tribe should long ago have knelt to welcome the compassionate light of the Supreme Heaven. Go quickly and bring the tribe's revered teacher here. All of us — every one — shall take faith in the Buddha."

Naqu was the northern gateway to Lhasa. With the Blackwater tribe's submission, the allied force of over ten thousand — drawn from the Six Tribes of Dafeichuan and the thirty-one Dongdai of Songpan Prefecture — swiftly crossed the natural barrier of the Naqu River and began its advance on Lhasa.

At the same time, once past Naqu, they entered the relatively densely settled heartland of the plateau.

All along the way, with the big mouths of the four northern tribes spreading the word, the news that the compassionate light of the Supreme Heaven was about to descend upon Lhasa traveled as fast as the cold winds of the ninth month, reaching every corner.

Very soon, the Buddhist communities of the plateau, suppressed for over a hundred years, began to stir awake. Countless Rinpoches, lamas, and gelongs, like marmots roused from hibernation, crawled out of their well-hidden burrows and fell in behind the column.

Even in the biting wind, pious commoners kept coming out in droves, whole families at a time, to greet them by the roadside.

They held up whatever food they had, hoping this Dharma-bearing host from beyond the mountains would accept their offerings.

Even more numerous were the long-oppressed Buddhist faithful, who picked up wooden spears and broken knives and marched along with the host toward Lhasa.

When Lun Boren and the others crossed the Naqu, they had numbered only ten thousand horse and foot. By the time they passed Damxung, they were nearly thirty thousand strong. By the time they reached the outskirts of Lhasa, banners blotted out the sky and the host stretched on and on — at least fifty or sixty thousand riders.

This was also a major reason Lun Boren and the others decided to rush straight at Lhasa in one push. Originally he had intended to camp at the Naqu and wait until spring of the following year before advancing to do battle with the btsanpo's main army.

Of course, those fifty or sixty thousand riders had only come along with them. If it truly came to fighting, victory or defeat would still be decided by that ten thousand horse and foot.

As for the other forty or fifty thousand riders — though many among them were Buddhist faithful or even monks — the great majority of them were the sort who side with whoever wins.

Inside Lhasa, the btsanpo Chiwang Xuzan conferred with his ministers in terror. This truly was a disaster out of nowhere!

One must understand that the Lhasa royal line had survived to this day entirely because the feudal noble clans — the Lu, the Ba, the Re, and others — had propped them up as btsanpos in name only. Their power did not extend beyond the Potala Palace.

Could it be that now even this pittance of power was to be snatched away?

Once outside Lhasa, Lun Boren deliberately made camp without provoking anyone, leaving the terrified btsanpo and Tibetan nobles inside the city utterly unable to guess what they had come for.

They waited a full two days. In this strange atmosphere, the Tibetans gathered outside Lhasa swelled to nearly a hundred thousand — a vast sea of people who had come to watch the spectacle.

Only then did Lun Boren send men forward to issue a challenge, and outside the city walls he enumerated the btsanpo clan's crimes in destroying the Buddha and the cruel oppression of their rule.

This was a strategy prepared long in advance, when they set out, by the Great Zhou's Zhaowu Academy of Scholars and the Lun family's own strategists.

Had it truly come to battle — although the btsanpo clan had long since split apart, and the Lhasa royal line held little real power —

Lhasa, as the heartland of the plateau, still had a surrounding population of several hundred thousand, and their fighting strength was by no means low. Add to that the natural defenses and the climate, among several other factors.

With border scraps like the Six Tribes of Dafeichuan and the thirty-one Dongdai of Songpan, even with the locals united in purpose, defeat was the most likely outcome.

But now, by playing it this way, they had instantly turned what was originally a power grab into a revival of the plateau's Buddhist communities and the return of the Gar clan for vengeance.

Now that made things lively. The plateau had not seen a spectacle this grand in several hundred years.

Since it was, after all, an internal struggle that concerned no outsiders, many tribal warriors and commoners came with their whole families to watch — livelier even than the Yasang Festival, the forerunner of the Tibetan New Year.

Lun Boren was overjoyed at the sight. He at once ordered his soldiers to slaughter cattle and sheep, to brew both salted and sweetened milk tea, to prepare delicious barley tsampa, and even to bring out wine from Khotan — the fragrance of which set the tribal warriors drooling.

At this time, the Qingtang Plateau, having lost the produce of the Huangshui Valley and northern India, was still living in considerable hardship.

Sugar and salt — white sugar especially — were extremely precious on the plateau. Ordinary households could scarcely ever taste them. As for Khotan wine, there was no need to say more: even the btsanpo could drink only one small cup a day.

At this point, the master manipulator of hearts hidden within the host stepped forward — Li Xiaojie, Deputy Commander of the Brocade Guard.

He ordered the monks of the Six Dharma Sect to preach the Dharma on the left side. All who were willing to listen to the monks preach, and who could chant the Buddha-name of the Six Dharma Sect along with them, were given tsampa and small pieces of beef and mutton. Children also received white-sugar lard cakes from the Central Plains.

He also ordered Lun Boren and the others to set up an arena on the right side, inviting Tibetan warriors onto the platform to compete. Winners drank fine Khotan wine and ate great chunks of beef and mutton.

Even the losers received a steaming bowl of milk tea to drink, and tsampa to eat.

This was simply too enticing. Under Li Xiaojie's orchestration, the area outside Lhasa truly became a sea of people — it had not been this lively in years.

The old and the young listened to the Dharma and prostrated themselves in worship. The men settled scores on the arena platform and the horse grounds, making friends through martial contests. The women, dressed in bright clothes, sang and danced everywhere, greedily drinking sweet milk tea.

Some small tribes and herders even brought their wives and daughters along on purpose, to exchange bloodlines with these people from beyond the mountains, lest their tribes produce nothing but fools.

The btsanpo and nobles inside the city were dumbfounded. What the hell — have you come to fight a war, or to visit relatives?

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