Chapter 815: The Good Son's Strategic Deception

Murong Xinzhang knew in his heart that what he had just weathered was the greatest crisis of his life.

Though Master Cixian was only a monk, in Andong, where the religious atmosphere was ten times thicker than in the Central Plains, the influence of a revered religious figure was enormous.

What was even more troubling was that, from Master Cixian's perspective, Murong Xinzhang and the great army under his command were the outsiders.

For this land of Andong, occupied by Balhae and the Khitan for several hundred years, could no longer be considered Han territory.

Had this been Han territory, a religious leader like Master Cixian, capable of swaying two or three hundred thousand people, would have been rooted out by the court long ago even if he influenced only ten thousand or so.

But under the former Khitan, Master Cixian was an eminent monk who could enter Shulu Ping's palace tent without being announced, whom Yelu Deguang often summoned to hear expound the Dharma, and whom even a brute like Yelu Lihu treated with courtesy.

Moreover, on the surface, Master Cixian had done Murong Xinzhang favors.

In the Jingzhao prefecture of Chang'an, he had saved the life of Murong Xinzhang's maternal grandfather Cao Yuanzhong, and he had helped Murong Xinzhang recruit the Tuyuhun of the Helian tribe to Andong.

He had also played a very important role in settling the people of Andong and in promoting cooperation between the old Khitan nobility and Murong Xinzhang.

A religious figure like this, with connections like these, who had not openly stirred up trouble, was extremely difficult to deal with.

Moreover, this old monk had close dealings with Yanshou, and the monk Yanshou was the sixth-generation patriarch of the Pure Land school. The White Lotus school, a perennial specialist in rebellion, had developed out of the Pure Land school; without absolute certainty, one simply could not make a move.

So although Murong Xinzhang did not fear Master Cixian, he still chose to endure, and he endured until he had several hundred thousand core subjects under his command and tens of thousands of elite troops in his grasp before he moved to resolve the problem of Master Cixian.

Because these several hundred thousand subjects under Murong Xinzhang had all migrated from the Central Plains and elsewhere; unlike the Khitan, who had not yet fully accepted the Six Dharma school, these several hundred thousand people were orthodox believers of the Six Dharma school and did not much fall for Master Cixian's line.

But now, the old monk seemed ready to concede defeat completely and had voluntarily come to the prince's residence to face the wall in seclusion.

In that case, Murong Xinzhang would not stand on ceremony; he could not let him go again no matter what. A religious leader like this could barely accomplish anything, but when it came to ruining things, he was far more dangerous.

Moreover, his father, Sage Zhang, had told Murong Xinzhang that he must keep Master Cixian under control, or else the Six Dharma school would never be able to penetrate fully into the vast pine forests north of Liaoyang.

Therefore Murong Xinzhang immediately ordered the Escort Officer of his personal guard, his uncle Murong Yanzheng, to lead one hundred armored soldiers to "guard" Master Cixian at close quarters.

At the same time, the old monk's willingness to go south with him amounted to a de facto surrender of religious authority.

And what Murong Xinzhang needed to do was to separate Master Cixian from his followers, then apply the full range of threats, bribes, and inducements to convert his disciples such as Fayan into eminent worthies of the Six Dharma school, making them capable assistants in Murong Xinzhang's rule over the old Silla territory and Wa.

In fact, what Zhang Zhao told Song Qiqiu—that Goryeo had not come to pay tribute—was inaccurate, or rather, it was outright slander.

Because Wang-dynasty Goryeo had already sent six or seven batches of envoys, but all of them had been intercepted by Murong Xinzhang.

As soon as the envoys who set out from Ganghwa Bay reached Dengzhou, they were seized by the local officials and sent to the great prison of the Brocade Guard, where threats and inducements were used to extract intelligence about Wang-dynasty Goryeo.

It was not that they refused to come pay tribute; it was that you had struck from the shadows.

By rights, after several batches of envoys failed to reach the Great Zhou, the whole of Wang-dynasty Goryeo should have grown wary, but in fact, Murong Xinzhang had played a rather brilliant game of information deception on them, leaving Wang-dynasty Goryeo utterly unable to grasp the situation in the Central Plains.

And the reason Murong Xinzhang could deceive Wang-dynasty Goryeo with information was that the territory of Wang-dynasty Goryeo at this time was not the same as the Korean map we picture in later ages.

At this time, the territory of Wang-dynasty Goryeo had not yet advanced to the banks of the Yalu River; they did not even share a border with the Khitan.

Because between Wang-dynasty Goryeo and the Khitan there was still a small state barely recorded in history: the Ding'an Kingdom.

The so-called Ding'an Kingdom was a Later Balhae state established by Balhae remnants after the fall of Balhae, who enthroned Da Guangxian, son of the last Balhae king Da Yinzhuan.

Seizing the opportunity of the fraternal struggle between Yelu Deguang and Yelu Bei, after Yelu Bei fled by sea to the Later Tang, they nearly restored the entire Balhae kingdom except for Huanglong Prefecture and Liaoyang Prefecture.

But then Yelu Deguang, having secured his position, mustered a great army and once more crushed the Balhae remnants, and the just-restored Balhae kingdom collapsed again in an instant.

However, just at that moment, Yelu Deguang suddenly received Shi Jingtang's groveling submission and gleefully rushed off to the Central Plains to invest the "son-emperor."

Thereby giving these fellows a precious breathing spell.

But they failed to make good use of the opportunity; after the Khitan army went off to rampage in the Central Plains, these Balhae people, instead of thinking of recovering lost territory, fell to internal strife.

Da Yinde, younger brother of Da Yinzhuan, joined forces with the powerful Lie and Wu clans and went to war against his nephew Da Guangxian over the question of the throne.

After more than a year of infighting, Da Guangxian was defeated and fled south to Goryeo.

But before Da Yinde could rejoice, before his backside had even warmed the seat, he discovered that the Camel War God had already finished investing the son-emperor and returned.

What kind of luck was that!

Afterward the Khitan troops stormed Longquan Prefecture (Mudanjiang) and slaughtered Da Yinde's entire family; the remaining Balhae remnants, the Lie and Wu clans, shrank back to both banks of the Yalu River to cling to life.

The Camel War God, Brother Guang, was just preparing to finish off these Balhae remnants when Yunzhou and Fuzhou among the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun refused to submit, so Brother Guang had to go to the Central Plains first, and after that he never returned here.

The Wu and Lie clans, who had narrowly escaped death, hunkered down once more. With the Lie clan patriarch Lie Zhoudao as their leader, they established the Ding'an Kingdom, stretching from Dandong in the west, through Ji'an and Tonghua in Jilin, to Hamgyong Province in later Korea in the east.

Historically, the Ding'an Kingdom went through dramas such as the Wu clan replacing the Lie and the Da clan restoring the state, and it repeatedly declared itself a vassal of the Northern Song, agreeing to jointly attack the Liao, holding out until around the year 1000, when the first Liao-Goryeo war broke out.

In this timeline, however, because Yelu Ruan, to build up strength to deal with Zhang Zhao together with Liu Zhiyuan, repeatedly sent troops to attack the Ding'an Kingdom, seizing their Tonghua and Ji'an and plundering large numbers of Balhae subjects and supplies.

But Yelu Ruan lacked the ability to destroy the Ding'an Kingdom completely, so now, between Liao and Goryeo lay a small state occupying the Yalu River.

Murong Xinzhang exploited this advantage, using the Ding'an Kingdom to send large quantities of false information southward, claiming that those who had replaced the Khitan were Tuyuhun people from the steppe.

The king of these Tuyuhun, it was said, had originally been the adopted son of the Great Zhou Son of Heaven in the Central Plains, but after taking control of the Khitan lands, he had rebelled and set himself up independently, and was now at war with the Great Zhou in the Central Plains.

This was a desperate gamble! Murong Xinzhang was already practically a law unto himself in Andong; if anyone actually believed such rumors, it would mean a great upheaval.

Fortunately, Zhang Zhao and Murong Xinzhang, father and son, had sufficient trust. These rumors, seven parts false and three parts true, were highly lethal, deceiving not only Wang-dynasty Goryeo but even many Jurchen and Balhae people.

And the person chosen to carry the message was also brilliantly selected: Gao Song, also known as Gao Mouhan, a Balhae man who had once been the son-in-law of Wang Geon, founding Great King of Goryeo, and had defected to the Khitan.

Gao Mouhan even told the current Great King of Goryeo, his former brother-in-law Wang So, that since the fall of the Khitan, the Tuyuhun Great King Murong was cruel and unvirtuous, and that if the Great King would take him in, he could bring fifty thousand Balhae subjects and two thousand elite warriors south with him once more.

But Wang So did not fall for Gao Song's trick—not because he did not want the vast northern territories, but because Wang-dynasty Goryeo itself was now very weak.

Wang-dynasty Goryeo, you see, was essentially a miniature Eastern Han.

In the years before the death of founding hero Wang Geon, the power of the consort clans, meritorious officials, and local strongmen in Wang-dynasty Goryeo had already swelled enormously.

After Wang Geon died in 943, Crown Prince Wang Mu succeeded to the throne, but he was sickly and weak and utterly unable to control the situation.

In 945, Wang Mu's younger brother Wang Yo launched a coup, killing the powerful ministers Park Sul-hui and Wang Gyu, starving the gravely ill Wang Mu to death, and setting himself up as king.

After Wang Yo took the throne, he had always wanted to escape the grip of the royal clan and consort clans, so he plotted to move the capital from Gaegyeong (Kaesong) to Seogyeong (Pyongyang), which aroused the extreme discontent of many vested interests.

In 949, his younger brother Wang So followed the same script, launching a palace coup, forcing his elder brother Wang Yo to take his own life, and setting himself up as king.

That is to say, in the short span of nine years, Wang-dynasty Goryeo had changed Great Kings four times, and two in a row had been killed in coups, which enormously weakened Goryeo's strength.

At this moment, Wang So himself had usurped the throne less than a year ago; his seat was not yet warm, and he had no strength to look north.

But it was precisely this situation that gave Murong Xinzhang's scheme its great success.

Wang So was wholly intent on stabilizing the country and utterly unwilling to pay attention to changes in the north. The moment he heard that it was the Tuyuhun who had replaced the Khitan, without carefully distinguishing truth from falsehood, he concluded that Liaodong and Liaoxi were in chaos—the perfect opportunity for him to consolidate internally.

He even thought of sending envoys to the Great Zhou, seeking investiture from the Great Zhou as a way to shore up the throne beneath his backside.

Therefore he made no defensive preparations at all, instead ceaselessly trying to send envoys to the Central Plains to seek investiture.

As early as last year, Jurchen, Balhae, and other commoners had already fled south to Goryeo, telling Wang Zhao that the King of Liao had stockpiled large quantities of supplies and military provisions at Hengzhou (Ji'an), and was likely to invade southward.

But Wang Zhao believed in his heart that the King of Liao was at war with the Great Zhou, and was utterly unwilling to believe what these barbarians said.

Moreover, he feared that if the news spread, ambitious men within his own country would seize the chance to seek aid from the King of Liao, stirring up a disaster of inviting the wolf into the house, so he suppressed the news.

At the same time, because Xiang Xun and Gao Song had sealed off the news, these Balhae and Jurchen petty chieftains fleeing south truly could not make out the relationship between Murong Xinzhang and Zhang Zhao, and even mistook the Prince of Liaoyang who had opened his own administration for the King of Liao.

On the other hand, these people, in order to obtain rewards from Wang Zhao, could not help exaggerating.

They said things like the King of Liao had a million-strong army, that they had slain tens of thousands of enemies to break through the blockade, and some even said the Great Zhou was going to cross the sea eastward to invade Goryeo, and so on.

Spittle flying everywhere, it was obviously nonsense at a single hearing, with hardly any truth in it, which made Wang Zhao even less willing to believe them.

Andong.

It was precisely under such successful deception that Murong Xinzhang ordered Xiang Xun, Gao Song, Murong Yanchao, and others to muster a great force and calmly, in rotation, attack the Ding'an Kingdom.

On one hand it was to clear the obstacles for attacking Wang-surnamed Goryeo, and on the other it allowed real combat to temper the army's fighting strength and the coordination among the various forces.

In early October, before the heavy snow sealed the mountains of Liaodong, the Palace General of the Prince of Liaoyang's overlord administration, the Marching Marshal Wang Jing, personally led the Right Chief Inspector Li Hanqiong, the Commander of the Qihuo Regiment Murong Yanchao, and other officers to storm the Lie clan mountain fortress below Changbai Mountain.

This was the last stronghold of the Ding'an Kingdom. In this battle, Wang Jing captured and killed dozens of Ding'an civil and military officials, including the King of Ding'an, Lie Zhoudao, while another real power-holder, Wu Xianji, surrendered with his entire clan of more than forty thousand people, and Ding'an was essentially destroyed as a state.

Murong Xinzhang was overjoyed at the news. He immediately left Li Hanqiong to hold the Lie clan mountain fortress, and gradually transported the supplies stockpiled at Hengzhou to various points around Changbai Mountain, conscripting tens of thousands of commoners from the various peoples together with Ding'an captives to open roads and build bridges, providing convenience for the main army's advance.

At the same time, Murong Xinzhang sent envoys galloping to the Eastern Capital, requesting that Zhang Zhao dispatch twenty thousand light cavalry from the forty thousand households of the northern and southern Gobi to Liaodong to assist in the campaign.

At the same time he requested that the thirty thousand naval troops of the Jiangbei and Jiaodong provinces cross the sea eastward no later than the fourth month of next year.

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