Chapter 807: The Tang's Legacy: The King of Kings of Persia

In the fifth year of Shaoming, 950 CE, in the sixth month, within the palace at Jiankang, large numbers of inner attendants, palace women, and guards were already preparing for the imperial departure.

Because matters between the Southern Tang and Wuyue were complicated, Zhang Zhao had ended up staying here for more than half a year. Counting the time spent going to Hexi and beyond the frontier, it had been nearly two years since he had returned to the Eastern Capital, and the moment to go back had indeed arrived.

Even Empress Cao Shijiu in the Zhaoming Palace could no longer hold back, and had sent Guo Wan'er and Saifeiye to bring Zhang Zhao back to the palace.

And along with Guo Wan'er and Saifeiye came a letter and a yellow-headed, green-eyed Persian.

The letter Guo Wan'er brought was written by Guo Tiance. In it, Guo Tiance asked Zhang Zhao to relieve him of the post of Commissioner of Military Affairs, expressed willingness to take responsibility for the Suyab affair, and requested punishment from Zhang Zhao.

From Suyab to the Eastern Capital was a full thirteen thousand li and more. At that distance, even a messenger traveling light and relaying messages by relay riders all the way needed more than a month and a half; for ordinary information to take over half a year was entirely normal.

Moreover, after Guo Guangyi's rebellion he had deliberately suppressed news of it, so Guo Tiance fundamentally did not clearly understand what had happened at Suyab. This was also why Zhang Zhao had agreed to let him send household officers and Brocade Guard personal troops to investigate together.

Now the results were out, and they gave Guo Tiance a great fright.

He had originally assumed that everything was Guo Guangyi forcibly marrying his aunt to the grandson of Li Guoshou, but as it turned out, those two muddle-headed uncles of his had actually been slightly involved as well.

Although in this era, an emperor's women were not as sensitive a matter as in later times.

Meng Chang's mother had originally been a consort of Emperor Zhuangzong of Tang, and was later bestowed upon Meng Zhixiang.

Guo Rong's aunt had also once been a low-ranking consort of Emperor Zhuangzong of Tang; otherwise she could never have accumulated so much wealth that giving half of it to Guo Rong's father still allowed the Chai family to become a wealthy household of Xingzhou.

But no matter how one put it, in those cases either the emperor bestowed them of his own accord, or they had been released from service. For someone like Guo Zhou'er, who had been promised as an offering to the emperor but in the end dared to break faith, the offense was still no small matter.

Therefore, once Guo Tiance learned the truth, he was so frightened that he hurriedly had Guo Wan'er help present a letter of self-accusation to Zhang Zhao, requesting Zhang Zhao's punishment.

Zhang Zhao sighed and had Zhou Xian bring out the joint battle report sent by Bai Congxin, Hu Guang, and Guo Guangsheng, as well as the secret memorials sent by Deputy Governor-General Old Zhang Zhong of Ningyuan and Chief Troop Commander Xue Shouli.

In truth, as for Guo Zhou'er, had this matter not occurred, Zhang Zhao would not have cared in the least.

By my side, Sage Zhang, to say nothing of others, the Lady of the Flower Calyx, Lady Fei, and the day-by-day maturing Zhou Xian alone are peerless beauties of the mortal world. However pretty Guo Zhou'er might be, she could not compare with these two.

Besides, if novelty was wanted, there were exotic sisters like Saifeiye and Pantaiya. If status was wanted, there was also a great-state empress like Xiao Sagezhi. There was no lack of one or two women.

At the time he had felt that Guo Zhou'er was somewhat too distant a relation, and that even if one had to choose, it should have been from among the Guo family members who had returned east with him. After all, it was only a matter of needing a prince to hold Suyab. And now, sure enough, a problem had arisen.

Still, it was not entirely without benefit. At least Zhang Zhao no longer needed to worry about the Guo family using the Church of the East to act as local tyrants in Suyab, because their foundation had been directly destroyed by Bai Congxin.

Guo Wan'er, meanwhile, was carefully reading Bai Congxin's battle report and Old Zhang Zhong's secret memorial. After finishing, this first-generation personal female secretary of Zhang Zhao's suddenly let out a long breath of relief.

"Lord Bai of Kucha and Hu Erlang have done my Guo family an enormous favor. If they return to the Eastern Capital in the future, I beg the Sage to grant Wan'er permission to personally host a banquet for them."

Guo Wan'er had always been this clear-headed. An ordinary person, knowing that Bai Congxin had killed seven or eight out of ten of the Guo family's people in Suyab,

and that Guo Tiance's two blood uncles, as well as Guo Guangbi, her own full brother who shared the same grandfather, had all been deliberately done to death by Hu Guang, would certainly have been filled with resentment.

But Guo Wan'er was not. Instead, she clearly realized that only the ruthlessness of Bai Congxin and Hu Guang had pulled the Guo family out of danger.

Otherwise, what could be done? Have her and Guo Tiance personally sacrifice their own kin for righteousness? That would have cost far too much, and might not even have quickly quelled the emperor's anger.

Zhang Zhao also fell silent for a moment. He had not expected Bai Congxin to be so ruthless, but it was true that the discontent and fury in his heart had diminished considerably because of those sixty or seventy thousand deaths.

"The Oghuz Yabghu, the queen mother, the queen, Inal Taribu, Governor Amir of the city of Shiguo, and the four Inal of the Nine Clans of Oghuz, and the traitor Guo Guangyi. Ho! Quite a number of people indeed."

Guo Wan'er slowly read through the list in Bai Congxin's memorial of the captured chieftains who were to be escorted to the Eastern Capital, several hundred people in all, every one of them a figure of standing in Transoxiana.

Guo Wan'er saw a satisfied expression appear on the emperor's face and quickly, carefully, said, "Sage, coming together with these captives and traitorous ministers is Guo Zhou'er."

Zhang Zhao knew what Guo Wan'er meant. She feared that Zhang Zhao would still want to kill Guo Zhou'er to vent his anger.

"Rest assured, We are not so petty. Guo Zhou'er is but a young woman, unable to decide her own fate."

"The Sage is wise and enlightened!" Guo Wan'er dropped to her knees with a thud. "That Li Guoshou was a filthy wretch to begin with, and his grandson is nothing but a barbarian bandit.

Anyone with a sound mind knows that even serving as a waiting maid by the Sage's side would be better than marrying Li Guoshou's grandson.

Zhou'er is truly ill-fated. Fortunately, Your Majesty is magnanimous and does not hold her crime against her."

Zhang Zhao smiled and pulled the kneeling Guo Wan'er to her feet. This young woman could also be counted among the earliest of his confidantes.

As for Guo Tiance, his merits were even greater. In all Zhang Zhao's years of campaigning north and south, in military logistics and staff planning, Guo Tiance's contributions were only slightly less than those of the late Zhang Xichong. Even for the sake of those two, Zhang Zhao would not kill Guo Zhou'er.

So Zhang Zhao was somewhat curious. Both of them were people close to Zhang Zhao, and surely knew that Zhang Zhao would not vent his anger on a young woman.

Especially when Bai Congxin, in punishing this rebellion, had already killed more than sixty thousand people together with Hu Guang.

Yet they were still so cautious. That made Zhang Zhao very curious as to why this Guo Zhou'er was worth such care from them.

"If We remember correctly, that Guo Guangbi who died in battle at Hushui City was your full paternal cousin, but Guo Zhou'er should be a sister of yours only within the five degrees of mourning, no?"

Guo Wan'er nodded. "Guo Zhou'er is indeed not very close to me, but she is not only Dalang's blood aunt, she is the aunt who carried Dalang on her back as he grew up.

Though aunt and nephew, they are in truth like father and daughter. He was, on the contrary, not very close to his two uncles."

So that was it. Zhang Zhao understood. The aunt had carried him on her back since childhood, but as for the uncles — back when the Guo family was struggling, Guo Tiance, a fatherless burden, had surely not been well treated by his two uncles, and very likely had faced some discrimination, leaving little affection between them.

Still, even if Guo Zhou'er was so close to Guo Tiance, Zhang Zhao would certainly not punish Guo Tiance for it.

But some penalty such as demotion was still necessary, or it would not satisfy public opinion. It seemed Guo Tiance truly could not continue as Commissioner of Military Affairs.

Zhang Zhao thought it over carefully. Had not Langjie Jiangcuo and Li Xiaojie and the others memorialized, requesting that the court send someone to Lhasa to take charge of the overall situation?

Zhang Zhao had already dispatched Li Cunhui with five thousand elite troops, plus five thousand levied knights from the He-Huang Valley and Dafeichuan, to reinforce Lhasa.

But Li Cunhui was passable in military matters; if asked to handle the complex affairs of the high plateau, he certainly lacked the ability.

Then why not simply send Guo Tiance to Lhasa, to serve for a few years as Resident Commissioner of Tibet — ah, or according to the custom of this time, should it be called Grand Protector-General for the Pacification of Tibet?

This way, there would be a trusted person holding the plateau, while nominally and in practice completing Guo Tiance's punishment, without too greatly wounding Guo Tiance's face.

"Sage, the Duke of Kucha Commandery also requests that three thousand households be transferred from Ningyuan to the city of Shiguo.

He also wants, of the twenty thousand households he brought from south of the desert and the forty thousand households west of the desert, to leave thirty thousand of the hundred thousand herders at Shiguo City and the Talas area. And he requests that Lu Zhen temporarily hold Talas.

It is only that, if this is done, would the power in their hands not be somewhat too great?"

These requests of Bai Congxin's were, in principle, Zhang Zhao's private affair, because whether Ningyuan or the sixty thousand households of the grasslands, in name and in fact, were all Zhang Zhao's personal power.

At present they did not belong to the Zhang Zhou court, but rather to the Heavenly Khagan's encampment of Zhang Zhao's dual-system empire, and to the somewhat overlapping and ambiguous system of the Khotan Golden Kingdom.

That was why Guo Wan'er would speak of these things to Zhang Zhao, because they could barely be counted as private matters.

Zhang Zhao slowly shook his head. The reason Bai Congxin seemed to be asking with the appetite of a lion and building up his own power was already stated very clearly in his memorial.

At a time when the Central Plains court could not immediately produce eighty or a hundred thousand migrants to Transoxiana, the steppe peoples of the great desert, the Oghuz people around Transoxiana who worshipped Tengri, and a portion of the Karluks who followed Manichaeism were the best sources of population for Bai Congxin to draw upon.

Because behind these peoples there was no powerful civilization, while Zhang Zhou had the sharp weapon of the Six Laws Sect, and could offer southern raids as rewards, and therefore could quickly absorb and assimilate these Turkic-speaking nomads of Transoxiana.

But the Samanid Persians and the Sogdians who had long since converted to Islam were backed by Persia and the Arab Empire, two states that counted as ancient civilizations, and were further bound together by Islam as a link, so they were very difficult for Bai Congxin to assimilate.

Therefore, with the court unable to provide large-scale support, Bai Congxin's only choice was to hold high the banner of the Six Dharma Sect, fuse together the various Turkic-style peoples to the west, and use them to attack the Persians and the Islamized Sogdians.

And the tens of thousands of men he wanted were precisely the core base of believers in the Six Dharma Sect.

Without this core base, if Bai Congxin recruited a bunch of herders who believed in Manichaeism or some other faith, he might well end up being assimilated in reverse.

So Zhang Zhao shook his head. "Bai Congxin and I became friends in humble circumstances, fought side by side through mountains of corpses and seas of blood to survive, and I have always known what kind of man he is. He would never betray me.

Moreover, the court will be unable to support them on any large scale within ten years. Bai Congxin's position in Transoxiana is in truth perilous in the extreme. If we will not even give him these few men, then we are simply harming him."

Guo Wan'er's eyes shone with admiration. What she loved most about Zhang Zhao was precisely this breadth of spirit and magnanimity.

And by asking this question now, word of it would certainly reach Bai Congxin's ears in the future, which would count as repaying Bai Congxin a small favor.

Because by asking this, not only would she not cause Zhang Zhao to grow suspicious of Bai Congxin, she would actually strengthen Zhang Zhao's conviction.

But if some minister at court were the first to submit a memorial raising the matter, or even impeaching it, with so many voices and so much loose talk, no one could say in which direction things would develop.

Zhang Zhao did not notice Guo Wan'er's little scheme, because his mind was still occupied with more important matters.

According to the strategy Luo Dingzhong had proposed to Bai Congxin, the city of Shiguo was to serve as the anvil, drawing the Samanid Persians and even the holy warriors of Western Asia to come and grind themselves down upon it in an endless stream.

In that case, the prosperous lands around Shiguo would certainly be beaten into ruins, which meant grain would have to be brought up from Juzhanti and Talas. That was the first difficulty.

The second difficulty was that among Bai Congxin's true elite troops — or rather, troops who could endure months of siege without going mad, who could still maintain their fighting strength and fighting will, an army inured to bitter warfare — there were probably only the few hundred veteran yabing guards under Yao Yuanfu and Bai Congxin's own few hundred retainers.

Apart from this thousand or so hard-bitten killers, very few of the steppe herders had nerves thick enough to keep a steady mind through this kind of grueling siege warfare.

After thinking it over, the first problem was merely troublesome, but the second was fatal.

Zhang Zhao calculated for a long while. There were quite a few Jin people and Han people in Anxi and Beiting, but their fighting strength and fighting will would be no better than the herders of the Four Tumen west of the desert — perhaps even worse. These people could be used to fill out the local population, but they could not serve as the vanguard of colonization and settlement.

As for the elite cavalry of Guazhou, Shazhou, Gansu, and Suzhou in Hexi, Zhang Zhao himself did not have enough of them.

And after Zhang Zhao's massive conscription, the population of these four prefectures had already become quite thin. Drawing any more would affect the security of the Silk Road.

After thinking for a long time, Zhang Zhao realized the only people he could mobilize were the Tibetans up on the plateau.

These fellows, who struggled year-round against the harsh plateau environment, had extremely tenacious willpower. And with the old foundations of the former Tibetan Empire still in place, though they were poor, they had rich stores of armor, and they also retained the tradition of practicing martial arts as a path to advancement.

If the combination of Guo Tiance and Li Cunhui could quickly pacify the entire plateau, then in about a year, Zhang Zhao would be able to draw out roughly three thousand Tibetan armored soldiers for Bai Congxin, and by then he should be able to gain a firm footing.

And in this way, the sixty thousand herder households and several thousand Tibetan armored soldiers under Bai Congxin would all be devout believers of the Six Dharma Sect, which would add another layer of insurance for Bai Congxin.

Men's hearts change. When a loophole can be plugged, one should still try to plug it as much as possible, lest Bai Congxin's head truly go wrong one day and make both sovereign and subject unable to step down without losing all face.

While Zhang Zhao was deep in thought, Saifeiye shot Guo Wan'er another meaningful glance.

This lady was now nearly twenty-eight years old, no longer that adorably explosive little Persian loli. What she had always kept in her heart was the desire to send her son back to seize the throne of the Samanid Persians.

Guo Wan'er gave a soft cough. She owed Saifeiye a favor, because Saifeiye had only two sons in all, and she had given her eldest, Zhang Xianxi, to Guo Wan'er as an adopted son.

And to ensure the bond between Guo Wan'er and Zhang Xianxi, Zhang Xianxi had been cared for by Guo Wan'er since before he was a full year old, while Saifeiye had forcibly suppressed her longing and rarely raised him with her own hands.

This favor was an enormous one, and Guo Tiance had also already told Guo Wan'er that he intended to arrange a marriage alliance between Guo Wan'er and Hu Guang.

In the end, Zhang Xianxi — born of Saifeiye and raised by the Guo family — would be sent to Suyab to become its lord.

Now Saifeiye was repeatedly glancing at Guo Wan'er, evidently wanting her to bring the matter up.

So Guo Wan'er waited until Zhang Zhao had finished his deliberations, then immediately pointed at the Persian standing with lowered head outside the hall doors and said, "Sage, this is a secret envoy sent by Emir Hamid of the Samanid Persians, who wishes to be granted an audience with the Sage."

Zhang Zhao looked up in surprise. He first glanced at Saifeiye, who nodded obediently. "This man is Aqimu, the younger brother of Abu, the palace steward my elder brother once trusted most."

"Great Shahanshah, your servant Aqimu, by the command of Emir Hamid Abu Muhammad Nuh ibn Nasr of the Samanid family, offers you the loyalty of the Samanid family."

This Persian called Aqimu was extremely deferential.

Zhang Zhao was just about to ask what loyalty Hamid still had when he had not come to pay tribute for five years, when the word "Shahanshah" flashed violently through his mind like lightning.

Shahanshah — this was no simple word. It was one of the many titles held by the emperors of the old Persian Empire, and in particular the most precious title held by the emperors of Sassanid Persia. Its original meaning was "King of Kings"!

"What did you just call me?" Zhang Zhao asked Aqimu with some shock. There was no real barrier to communication between the two of them.

Because in Transoxiana, the common language was neither Chinese nor Persian, nor Arabic, but Turkic spoken with all manner of accents.

As long as one learned Turkic, simple communication among the hundred-plus races and tribes of Transoxiana was not much of a problem. Zhang Zhao naturally knew Turkic, and he also had Pantaiya the interpreter at his side.

"Great Shahanshah, have you forgotten? Three hundred years ago, when Peroz, the last king of Sassanid Persia, had lost all hope of restoring his kingdom, he presented the title of Shahanshah to the Emperor of the Peach Blossom Stone."

Ah... uh! Zhang Zhao abruptly rose to his feet.

Right! Back then, after Sassanid Persia was destroyed by the Arabs, Peroz, the last king, and his son Narsieh first fled to the Great Tang to seek help, and afterward, with the Great Tang's support, returned to Persia and Tokharistan to continue resisting the Arabs.

But in the end, Heaven's mandate was gone. Peroz and his son Narsieh returned to the Great Tang from Tokharistan and Transoxiana one after the other, and both died in the Great Tang.

And before his death, Peroz did indeed present the title of King of Kings to Emperor Gaozong of Tang.

However, by that time Li Zhi had already begun calling himself the Heavenly Emperor, so how could he think much of this empty title of King of Kings? Thus neither the court nor the officials paid it much attention.

But for Zhang Zhao, who wanted to rule the Xia as sovereign and the Yi as subjects, was this not a ready-made, powerful claim?

Well, well — so I am the lord of Persia after all! Sage Zhang stood up, chest out and belly thrust forward. This title might yet prove very useful.

But then, all of a sudden, Zhang Zhao realized something. Even the Great Tang had paid this no attention, so how did a Samanid Persian — one from several hundred years later, whose very ethnicity had probably changed — know about it?

Without waiting for Zhang Zhao to ask, Aqimu raised the secret letter Hamid had written to Zhang Zhao high above his head with both hands. "The Emir says that once the Shahanshah reads this letter, he will understand."

The letter was written in Turkic script. Zhang Zhao found it somewhat difficult to read, so his pace was not fast. Yet after no more than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, Sage Zhang, who had always prided himself on remaining unruffled even if Mount Tai collapsed before him, was so shocked that his expression changed.

He raised his hand in disbelief and pointed at Saifeiye. "Saifeiye, did you know? Your ancestor Saman Khuda was actually a descendant of Narsieh!"

"Ah!" Saifeiye cried out in surprise, her small hands waving rapidly.

"I didn't know! This slave has never heard my father or brothers mention such a thing. They only said our Samanid family were descendants of the emperors of the Sassanid Empire, but they never said we were descendants of Narsieh!"

"Hahahaha!" Zhang Zhao burst into loud laughter. "Narsieh spent half his life campaigning through Transoxiana, only to return home in dejection at the end. Who would have thought that a hundred years later his descendants would succeed in restoring the kingdom in Transoxiana! Persia truly has been a tributary vassal of our great dynasty for several hundred years!"

Zhang Zhao could not help but be excited. In Narsieh's time, his title of Governor of the Persian Protectorate and King of Persia had both been conferred by the Tang court.

If the Samanid family were indeed descendants of Narsieh, then they had always been rightful vassals of the Central Plains dynasty.

"Sage, this slave has found it. The Ministry of Rites of the great dynasty has a record: in the fifth year of Tianbao (746), there was a state called Tabaristan that refused to submit to the Arabs. It lay by the Small Sea (the Caspian Sea). Its king, Khurshid, sent envoys to court and presented thousand-year dates (date palms), and was enfeoffed as the King of Guixin.

In the eighth year of Tianbao (749), the king again sent his second son to Chang'an to pay court. His Majesty enfeoffed the prince as a General of the Right Martial Guard, bestowed upon him a purple robe and a golden fish pouch, and ordered him to guard the palace."

Guo Wan'er decisively took up the work of a secretary and quickly found the record amid the vast sea of historical materials. It seemed she had not lost her original skills.

"Khan, that is a royal title. This man should be called Hulu, so is it possible that Hulu should actually be Huda?

Transliterations are easily corrupted in transmission — that is possible, and this Hulu Khan and Saman Huda were close in birth and death years."

Zhang Zhao murmured slowly to himself. There must be some discrepancy here; most likely the two were not the same person.

But now, since Hamid had personally written to acknowledge that the Saman family were descendants of Nini Shi, then Hulu Khan had to be Saman Huda, and the Saman family had to be descendants of Nini Shi.

"Draft an edict: order the Sichuan Branch Secretariat Administrator, Duke of Zheng, Yin Zhengqi, to immediately dispatch elite cavalry to escort the descendants of Li Xun, Li Derun, to the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture." Zhang Zhao swiftly issued the order, because Nini Shi still had descendants in the Central Plains.

This Li Xun, Li Derun, was a famous poet, man of letters, and physician of the Five Dynasties. His younger sister Li Shunxian was a Zhaoyi consort of Wang Yan of the Former Shu, and also a famous female poet of the Five Dynasties.

These two siblings were the descendants Nini Shi had left in the Central Plains — genuine, unmistakable Persian royal blood.

What did it mean to have deep foundations? This was what it meant!

Item after item, case after case, all verifiable in historical records, evidence linked link by link — to dwell in the Central Plains and yet hold a suzerain claim over Persia twenty thousand li away: that was deep foundations.

Zhang Zhao was in excellent spirits now, and even Hamid began to look agreeable to him. He said to Saifeiye, "So it turns out We wronged your elder brother.

Five years ago he suffered a stroke and could no longer attend to affairs. All power in the realm has been seized by his treacherous son Salih and the court villains such as Yusuf, which is why he has not come to pay tribute.

It seems that We, as suzerain, must uphold justice for Our loyal vassal and put down the rebels."

Saifeiye had not been home in over a decade. When she left, she had indeed bitterly hated Hamid, but after all these years her anger had long faded.

Now, hearing that her elder brother was so gravely ill and was being oppressed by treacherous ministers, she could not help but weep like rain. Prostrating herself on the ground, she pleaded, "Your servant beseeches the Sage to send forth Heaven's soldiers and rescue her elder brother from fire and water!"

Guo Wan'er, on this side, had also by now figured out the whole story. Her eyes darted about a few times; gritting her teeth, she too prostrated herself and said, "Sage, since Hamid has been unable to attend to affairs for five years, the realm has presumably long been controlled by his treacherous son Salih and the rest.

It would not be difficult for us to put down the disloyal rebels, but the Saman realm is vast — it holds not only the lands of the Nine Zhaowu Clans in Transoxiana, but also Khorasan and Tokharistan. Separated by ten thousand li, it would be truly hard to control in the short term.

Moreover, Hamid cannot attend to affairs, and his son Mansur is only six years old. Even if we put down the rebels, father and son would still be unable to control the situation, and unrest would inevitably rise again.

Therefore your servant ventures to suggest: Guo Zhou'er was born in Transoxiana and grew up in Transoxiana. She knows the geography, customs, and ways of the people, and she is quick-witted, adaptable, resolute, and tenacious.

After the treacherous son Salih is put down, could Guo Zhou'er be sent, in the capacity of a titled lady of the Great Dynasty, to Bukhara to raise Mansur and await the court's disposition?"

"Hah!" Zhang Zhao drew a deep breath. Guo Wan'er's proposal was actually feasible.

Right now the Great Zhou could not control a great state like Samanid Persia — but what about ten years from now?

By then the Six Dharma Sects would have fully mastered the steppe and the highlands, and the Central Plains would have grown strong as well, with ample population and abundant supplies. Then it would certainly be able to control Samanid Persia.

If, during this period, Bai Congxin, Hu Guang, and Lu Sanlang were present as military support, Guo Zhou'er could indeed enter Bukhara, raise Mansur, and indirectly hold the reins of Samanid Persia's government.

Even if Guo Zhou'er's abilities fell short, she could still be given assistants from the Central Plains.

For instance, that Lu Duoxun who had run off to Suyab, Li Jixun under Hu Guang's command, and Li Chongju, Dang Jin, and others under Bai Congxin's command.

In fact — Zhang Zhao drew another sharp breath — this was probably what Guo Wan'er was implying between the lines.

Perhaps Zhang Zhao could even swallow his pride and be a little more ruthless. Since he could never accept Guo Zhou'er anyway, he might as well bestow Guo Zhou'er upon Hamid as his principal wife.

That way, even if the stroke-paralyzed Hamid soon died of illness, Guo Zhou'er could still raise Mansur in the capacity of his mother and hold the great power of Samanid Persia. As long as they held out for ten years, the great enterprise would be accomplished!

"Go at once to find Zhang Lieming. Have him send the Brocade Guard personal troops out through the Jade Gate Pass to receive Guo Zhou'er. See to it that she suffers no harm whatsoever.

If this woman truly has the ability you say she does, We can give her a chance!"

(End of Chapter)

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