Chapter 852: Is This Dali, or the Great Song?!

People generally look at their own problems without much clarity or objectivity.

But when it comes to other people's problems, they see with piercing insight.

So someone like Zhang Zhaojun (Ma Shacai), who can clearly recognize that the time to attack the Southern Han has not yet come, and who can restrain himself from the temptation of the great merit of destroying a kingdom and remain cautious, is truly, truly rare.

And generally speaking, one who possesses this ability can be said to possess the foundational qualities for becoming a famous general of his age.

Compared with Zhang Zhaojun, Liu Sheng, the ruler of Southern Han, could only see others clearly, but could not see himself clearly.

He clearly saw that Duan Sicong, the King of Dali, was already a skeleton in a grave, and that the Dali army was pinned down at Wumeng Mountain and the banks of the Lu River, unable to move; once the kingdom's money and grain were exhausted and popular discontent boiled over, Dali would be doomed.

Yet regarding the internal and external situation of Southern Han, he still harbored considerable misjudgment, or rather, wishful thinking.

This Liu Sheng was already somewhat schizophrenic, and now he had gone straight into a dead end.

He stubbornly believed that as long as he could successfully ask to marry a daughter of the Zhang clan, he would receive the same treatment as Qian Hongchu.

Not only could he preserve his ancestral temple, he could also gain the power to open his own administration, and he might even win Zhang Zhao's trust, allowing him to continue governing Lingnan.

And the reason Liu Sheng fell into such misjudgment, apart from his mind already beginning to malfunction, also has to be blamed on me, Sage Zhang.

Looking at the royal clans destroyed by Zhang Zhao over these years, apart from Yelu Deguang and Yelu Ruan, who died in battle, and Ma Xi'e, who brought about his own death and was beheaded, all the rest have lived quite well.

Among them, the most tactful, Qian Hongchu, became the Prince of Lu and even gained the right to open his own administration; Gao Baorong, the Prince of Jing, is also doing big business in the Eastern Capital and living an utterly carefree life.

And Li Jing, who hemmed and hawed, not only became the Prince of Wu, but Zhang Zhao also left him several hundred thousand strings of cash in property.

Now this old fellow has completely let himself go and become the Merry Prince of Kaifeng in the Eastern Capital, spending every day either listening to tunes in the pleasure quarters or hosting poetry and literary gatherings.

Although Queen Zhong was born beautiful and alluring, I, Sage Zhang, still restrained myself and did not stir up any trouble.

So after setting down the burden of state and dynasty, Li Jing's days have actually been quite happy.

Sometimes he even lets memories of his former days as a sovereign surge into his head, and then, once worked up, he stops being reasonable no matter what the matter is.

Whenever he has a verbal conflict with someone and cannot win the argument, he likes to settle it by physical means, and most people, mindful of his status, will choose to back down at that point.

But if you walk the night road long enough, you are bound to meet a ghost. Last month, Li Jing and Zhang Chengfu, the Duke of Nanyang Commandery and son of Zhang Huaiqing, "struck sparks" while arguing over whether the Younger Li and Du could compare with the Greater Li and Du.

Others might yield a little to Li Jing, but Zhang Chengfu, for one, considered himself also the son of an emperor, his bloodline and status no lower than Li Jing's, and on top of that his self-cultivation was lacking, so he did not know what yielding meant.

These two high-ranking nobles of the Zhang Zhou dynasty then came to blows outside the Xinzheng Gate, staging a Rakeshir ceremony in full public view.

Li Jing had lived in comfort and ease for so many years; how could he be a match for Zhang Chengfu, that crude northwestern fellow? He was beaten black and blue, blood streaming from his mouth and nose, and utterly disgraced himself.

In his fury, Zhang Zhao made Zhang Huaiqing personally give Zhang Chengfu twenty strokes of the plank, then banished him to the Jingzhao prefecture at Chang'an.

Li Jing, for striking an elder, was also punished with three months of house confinement and forbidden from going out to carouse.

This was a minor episode, a topic of after-meal chatter for the common folk of the Eastern Capital, but it also revealed an essential truth.

That is, a man of a fallen kingdom like Li Jing is living truly well in the Eastern Capital; Zhang Zhao has not deliberately restricted his freedom, and Li Jing is not living in constant dread.

Because if it were not for an extremely relaxed political environment and absolute confidence in his own safety, how would Li Jing have the mood to go out carousing everywhere, and even dare to engage in physical debate with others?

And apart from Li Jing, a ruler who could at least be said to have offered up his land and is living well, the others — Meng Chang, who was purely captured; Ma Xiguang, who had no real power and was simply helped onto the throne; Shi Chonggui, rescued from the jungles of Andong — are all living well too.

This gave Liu Sheng an illusion: that he too could choose to decide at the very last moment whether to offer up his land, and that even if he were captured, he would still receive decent treatment.

So in his heart, he knew he could not possibly contend with the Great Zhou of the Central Plains, but he still wanted, before the final moment arrived, to fight for as many benefits for himself as possible — for example, marrying a daughter of the imperial clan.

Apart from these things, Liu Sheng did indeed also make some gestures of goodwill.

For instance, when the Great Zhou moved all its naval forces to Goryeo and Wa, to provide support for Murong Xinzhang's eastern expedition, the Southern Han, the only power in the world that still possessed a decent navy, did not choose to harass Jiangnan.

Liu Sheng even sent a memorial to Zhang Zhao, stating his intention not to do so, and received Zhang Zhao's praise.

Beyond that, when Zhang Zhao encountered resistance in promoting Champa rice in the two provinces of Jiangnan and Jiangxi, Liu Sheng took it all upon himself and proactively asked Zhang Zhao to allocate some Champa rice seedlings to Southern Han for trial planting.

Apart from the Pearl River Delta, Southern Han also has no shortage of sloping and dry land; Liu Sheng forcibly ordered the planting of over a hundred thousand mu at once, nearly more than the entire Jiangnan province had planted.

This provided considerable help to the Academy of Heavenly Works in further screening rice varieties and expanding the scope of experiments, and even now there are officials and students from the Ministry of Revenue's Agriculture and Forestry Department and the Academy of Heavenly Works within Southern Han territory.

As for other small gestures of taboo-avoidance, such as changing the Zhaoyang Hall to the Tongming Hall, they are too numerous to count.

This is Liu Sheng's confidence, and it is also the reason Zhang Zhaojun said the time to attack Southern Han had not yet come, and personally wrote a memorial to Zhang Zhao explaining the situation in detail.

Lingnan is far from the Central Plains to begin with, and naturally somewhat estranged from the people of the Central Plains; although the two kings of Southern Han, Liu and Liu Sheng, were cruel to the ruling class and their own relatives, they did not impose exorbitant taxes and levies on the common people.

On the contrary, because they employed large numbers of civil officials as Prefects and County Magistrates, the common people of Lingnan fared reasonably well in these chaotic times.

Now Liu Sheng is being extremely respectful, and Zhang Zhao himself has issued edicts praising him; if they were to attack without cause, it would easily provoke resentment among the people of Lingnan.

They would turn the Zhang Zhou unification of the realm into the Central Plains people bullying the Lingnan people, and since Liu Sheng is not without means, with a little organization he could turn this war into a quagmire.

Of course, this is not to say that Zhang Zhou has no way to deal with Southern Han; if they truly wanted to attack at all costs, with the elite troops and strong generals of the Zhang Zhou court, destroying Southern Han within a year or so would not be difficult.

But what about afterward? If the people's hearts are not won, the cost of governance will multiply, just as when Emperor Wu of Han destroyed Nanyue — the Nanyue kingdom was destroyed, but it could never be effectively governed.

If Zhang Zhao only wanted to be an old-style feudal emperor, he naturally would not need to care about these things; as long as he unified quickly, the rest could be slowly worked out with the locals.

But what Zhang Zhao wants to be is the next ruler after King Wu Ji Fa who is a sovereign of the Xia and a lord of the Yi peoples, and this requires him to restore the vitality of the Central Plains as quickly as possible and minimize internal attrition within the country.

Moreover, in the coming thousand years, the gradual southward shift of China's economic center of gravity is already the great trend of history, and in the future, the Southern Seas, including Jiaozhi, will become increasingly important.

If you had to choose some Chinese people to gradually develop the Southern Seas, apart from the people of Liangguang in Lingnan and their neighbors the Fujianese, who else could you count on?

Outward colonization is not just a matter of sending people over there.

Put it this way: if you wanted to send people from Hedong and Hebei to Jiaozhi or south of Jiaozhi, you would be asking for their lives; nine deaths out of ten would not be an exaggeration, because their constitutions and living habits simply cannot adapt.

But if it were people from Fujian and Liangguang going, three deaths out of ten and seven survivors can still be barely achieved; only with a survival rate can one speak of colonization.

Therefore, Zhang Zhao is unwilling to assault Southern Han by force, unwilling to reduce Southern Han to misery, and he is even unwilling to let the Han and non-Han people of Lingnan develop a rebellious mentality of being bullied.

Because they are all precious wealth of this nation; in war, just change the upper layer and migrate a batch of the middle layer, but the common people at the bottom must still be protected.

It can be said that Zhang Zhao's wars of unification along this entire path have basically followed this approach.

Southern Tang was because they recruited Hu Cile and Du Chongwei, and even came to attack on their own initiative.

Meng Shu even sent troops to attack Guanzhong while Zhang Zhao was still fighting a great battle against the Liao army.

Ma Chu was to help the rightful Great King Ma Xiguang suppress rebellion.

Jingnan was arranged through discussion with Gao Conghui and his son Gao Baorong; Wuyue was simply Qian Hongchu offering up his kingdom; and Liu Congxiao of the two prefectures of Zhang and Quan also voluntarily offered up his land.

In all the realm, the only ones truly attacked by Zhang Zhao without cause were these three: Dali, Goryeo, and Wa.

And of these three, when Dali is finally fought to the end, it will still have to conclude by forcing Duan Sicong to surrender. After all, the Bai people and the Han originally share the same roots, so there is no need to make things too ugly.

Therefore, the only ones truly attacked without cause and ruthlessly trampled are pure outsiders like Goryeo and Wa.

This domestic keynote was set by Zhang Zhao himself according to his needs, so he must abide by it and not mess around.

Otherwise, why would Zhang Zhao have deliberately humiliated the Southern Han envoy along with the Dali envoy when the latter last came?

He wanted to provoke Liu Sheng into doing something not quite rational, but the fellow turned out to be completely impervious, steady as a rock!

Thus, military action against Southern Han had to be slowed down. If Dali could be taken smoothly, using it as a warning to the monkey by killing the chicken might bring about some change in Liu Sheng and the Southern Han state.

The Wumeng Mountains, a vast range running through what later generations would call Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, with a terrain high in the northwest and slightly lower in the southeast.

The average elevation in the west is above two thousand meters, while the slightly lower southeast still reaches fifteen or sixteen hundred meters.

The entire Wumeng range is full of deep ravines and gorges with enormous drops. Rivers large and small — the Niulan, Pudu, Beipan, Nanpan, and others — cut freely through it, slicing the high mountains into gorges and basins of varying sizes.

One could say the Wumeng Mountains were the most important and final line of defense for the Kingdom of Dali at this time. Whenever the Central Plains court had come to attack, the natural barriers of the Wumeng Mountains alone were enough to give them a hard time.

And if the Wumeng Mountains still could not be held, the Dali ruler and his ministers could simply fall back to Shanshan Prefecture (Kunming) and use the thousand-li undulating Wumeng range to drain the Central Plains court's supplies, endlessly increasing the difficulty of transporting provisions, while the various tribes in the mountain forests could seize opportunities to raid.

Once that point was reached, often no real fighting was even needed — attrition alone could wear the court's great army away.

But times had changed. The opponent Dali faced this time was Guo Rong, a man of immense strategic vision and extreme cunning.

And the deputy Zhang Zhao had assigned to Guo Rong, Zhang Xiaobao — Zhang the Cripple, Zhang Fei — was a fellow quite skilled at scheming, sinister, and utterly unconcerned with face.

Most importantly, Zhang Fei's presence greatly compensated for Guo Rong's flaws of being quick to anger and prone to losing his head.

Other people's words Guo Rong could treat as wind past his ears, but not Zhang Fei's.

He had married the daughter of Meng Chang's elder brother Meng Yiye, and had once impersonated the uncle of the Son of Heaven's favored consort Zhao Rongniang — and now the pretense had become real, for when Zhao Rongniang saw Zhang Fei she would properly and respectfully say, "Your niece greets Uncle."

His elder brother Zhang Cheng was the Son of Heaven's most trusted general, and the first and only man in decades able to squeeze into the Sage's side from among the four known as the Four Hounds — Man Xiong, Dunzhu, Qiong Re Duojin, and Wang Tongxin.

With such a formidable background plus outstanding ability, even Guo Rong had to respect Zhang Fei's opinions, and thus the two achieved perfect complementarity.

With two such men stationed at Nanxi Prefecture (Yibin) for a full four years, how could Duan Sicong, a third-generation privileged heir fond of luxury and pleasure, possibly outmaneuver them?

So in those four years, Guo Rong succeeded in putting all the tribes north of the Wumeng Mountains at ease, then swept them all up in one net, and finally organized them — even Wumeng City (Zhaotong) was taken.

Therefore, what Dali could still defend now was not the entire Wumeng range, but only the small section of it near Shanshan Prefecture (Kunming).

Yet this section of the mountains was not a commanding strategic pass; the high ground was on the opposite side, and the advantage of terrain could be said to be almost entirely lost.

At this point, the Kingdom of Dali could only form a defensive system along the line of Shicheng Commandery (Qujing), Changcheng Commandery (Songming), and Shengma City (Xundian) — a string of valleys and basins that were not particularly formidable natural barriers.

And this time, they did not dare give up Shanshan Prefecture. Previously they could have stripped the countryside around Shanshan Prefecture, because the court's great army had great difficulty supplying itself through the Wumeng Mountains.

But now, twenty-one of the thirty-seven Black Cuan tribes of eastern Yunnan in the Wumeng Mountains had gone over to the court. If they gave up Shanshan Prefecture now, the enemy could simply march in and become a resident tiger — that would be trouble.

But this was not the most terrifying part. The most terrifying part was that once the Kingdom of Dali conscripted a great army and contracted its defense line along these three cities, it effectively handed over control of most of the Wumeng range.

They were in the cities, while the Zhou army was in the mountain forests. The Zhou army could easily look down from the heights upon the deployments of the three cities and observe the movements of the Dali army, so only a small force needed to be stationed in the forests to achieve perfect surveillance.

But the Dali army did not know the situation in the forests, did not know how many Zhou troops were actually outside the cities. If they withdrew their forces, then in case the Zhou army suddenly appeared, there would be no time to summon reinforcements.

This was why Liu Sheng said Duan Sicong was doomed. It looked as though the Dali army was holding the Zhou army back, preventing it from advancing a single step, but in reality the Zhou army was using a small force to pin the Dali army at the front, unable to move in the slightest.

It still seemed sustainable now because the Dali state treasury was keeping it alive, but the cost was enormous. Not only did they have to provide military grain, they also had to care for the families of these fifty or sixty thousand troops.

With the troops stationed at the front, all the farm work back home fell to the old, weak, women, and children. If Duan Sicong did not provide money and grain subsidies or reduce land rents and taxes, the army might well mutiny.

How cunning were Guo Rong and Zhang Fei! Seeing this situation, they immediately ordered men to build mountain forts in the Wumeng range directly opposite the Dali army, first securing the defense.

Then on the high peaks they built wooden watchtowers to observe the three cities, and divided their fifteen thousand troops plus ten thousand tribal soldiers from the twenty-one eastern Yunnan tribes into four rotating groups for rest and refit.

This standoff lasted a full fourteen months. Although there was indeed the reason that their forces were too few to launch a frontal assault, the greater intent was to drain Dali's national strength.

Shanshan Prefecture, the office of the Tuodong Military Governor — here the King of Dali, Duan Sicong, had taken up residence.

Speaking of this Kingdom of Dali, it bore a tiny bit of resemblance to the Northern Song.

Its founding emperor, Duan Siping, could be seen as a southwestern Zhao Kuangyin: born into a military family, widely connected, peerless in martial prowess, skilled at winning hearts — worthy of being called a man of great talent and bold vision.

Before Duan Siping, ever since the Nanzhao king Geluofeng of the Five Dynasties era, real power in the Kingdom of Dali had always been held by Han people. At that time, the Qingping officials (chancellors) of Nanzhao were essentially all Han.

These Han people had either been captured and brought there, or had come to offer their services directly. Because of their outstanding abilities, they were entrusted with important posts by the Nanzhao royal house — though there was also the intent of using the Han as an outside force to suppress the native lords.

After more than a hundred years of development, the power of the Han Qingping officials within Nanzhao grew rapidly. From Zheng Maisi, who founded the Great Changhe Kingdom, to Zhao Shanzheng, who was enthroned in the Great Tianxing Kingdom, to Yang Ganzhen of the later Great Yining Kingdom — all were essentially from Han Qingping official families.

Under these circumstances, Duan Siping, of Bai ethnicity, offended King Yang Ganzhen and was relentlessly persecuted, leaving him no choice but to rebel.

During this period, Duan Siping assessed the situation and raised the slogan: "Halve your taxes and grain, lighten your corvée for three years." This successfully attracted the support of people on this land who had suffered greatly from war and turmoil.

Thus in less than eight years, Duan Siping successfully overthrew the Great Yining and restored the realm to the extent of Nanzhao at its height.

However, before Duan Siping could thoroughly resolve the country's internal problems, he suddenly passed away, just like Zhao Kuangyin. His son Duan Siying then succeeded to the throne.

But at this point, Dali's Zhao Guangyi — Duan Siliang — appeared. This second younger brother of Duan Siping swiftly drove his nephew from the throne and forced the nephew to shave his head and become a monk.

Poor Duan Siying — in total he was king for only eleven months before he could only retreat gloomily into the monastic life.

The current King of Dali, Duan Sicong, was the son of Dali's Zhao Guangyi, Duan Siliang. His own personality was practically possessed by Song Zhenzong.

Fond of luxury, fond of literature, fond of face, soft-eared, thick-skinned. When he wanted to attempt some scheming, he was also somewhat sentimental, so the things he ultimately did were truly hard to stomach.

To say he had no ability — well, he seemed to have a bit. To say he had ability — his actions were somewhat eye-searing.

To use Zhu Xi's assessment of Song Zhenzong — "Zhenzong made the eastern and western sacrifices, squandering incalculable sums, and accomplished not a single thing" — to describe Duan Sicong would be truly apt.

Now, this Dali Song Zhenzong, Duan Sicong, after the initial excitement had passed, was also beginning to feel that something was off.

Because in these fourteen months, he had traveled three times between Yangjumei City and Shanshan Prefecture, and the scenes he saw and the reports he heard showed that each time, gathering military grain was harder than the last, and the people's grievances were visibly rising.

In the government office, standing to Duan Sicong's left was the Qingping official Gao Fang, a veteran who had risen together with Duan Siping. The Gao clan was also the foremost great clan of the Bai people.

With the added weight of seniority and power, and since Duan Sicong did not much involve himself in governance, political power had in fact fallen into Gao Fang's hands.

Gao Fang was no muddle-headed man, so he had realized that the Zhou army intended to drag Dali to ruin.

But what the Zhou army was using was an open stratagem, and for the moment Gao Fang had no good way to counter it.

He could only choose to slightly reduce the front-line forces, sending some of the conscripts from the various tribes back to their tribes, to slow the consumption of supplies.

Gao Fang presented the memorial he had drafted to Duan Sicong. "Sage, your ministers have gathered officials of all ranks from the Three Supports and Six Boards and made precise calculations. We need only keep forty thousand men at the front.

Of these, the most critical Changcheng Commandery (Qujing) should keep fifteen thousand, Shicheng Commandery and Shengma seven thousand each, and the remaining ten thousand or so should stay in Shanshan Prefecture as reserves. This would greatly reduce the supply of military grain and materiel."

Duan Sicong nodded. Although he did not know exactly how much army grain could be saved, the reduction of twenty thousand men was certain.

Those twenty thousand able-bodied men would eat five or six hundred shi in a single day, and with transport costs, even fifteen hundred shi would not be enough to sustain them.

He was about to agree when he heard a cold snort beside him. Dong Sankuo, the Grand Army General standing on his right, suddenly spoke:

"The Qingping Official makes it sound easy. Dispatching a great army is simple, but calling it up again is hard. If the Zhou army suddenly attacks now, can forty thousand men hold the three cities of Changcheng, Shicheng, and Shengma, along with all the forts large and small?"

"Even if they can hold, with forty thousand troops out in the field for long, how much longer can we sustain them?"

"Right now the Zhou army is still campaigning against Goryeo, and their main force has not arrived. If we keep holding and wait until the Zhou sovereign brings the whole nation's troops, who can withstand them?"

"Your subject believes we should take advantage of this moment, while our great army is assembled, to strike first, retake Wumeng City, and win back the twenty-one tribes of the Black Cuan. Otherwise, a major problem is bound to arise sooner or later."

Dong Sankuo's father, Dong Jialuo, had been Duan Siping's State Preceptor, a man of exalted status who rendered immense service in the founding of the Dali Kingdom. The Dong clan was the foremost great house in Dali beneath the Duan clan itself.

But during the process by which Zhao Guangyi of Dali, Duan Siliang, usurped his nephew's throne, Dong Jialuo did not support him. Thus after Duan Siliang took power, the Gao clan, which had backed his usurpation, received lavish rewards, while the once-flourishing Dong clan was suppressed.

Therefore, the Gao and Dong clans were thoroughly at odds. Whatever the Gao clan agreed to, the Dong clan was certain to oppose. At present their infighting was fierce.

Hearing Dong Sankuo speak this way, Duan Sicong felt it also seemed to make some sense. The Zhou army had only a detached force in the Wumeng Mountains, and they were not even attacking them now. Once the Zhou sovereign dispatched a great army, what chance would the Dali Kingdom still have?

Gao Fang's eyes seemed about to spew fire. He jabbed his finger at Dong Sankuo and roared:

"The Zhou army holds the favorable terrain, with strong armor and sharp weapons, and forts large and small commanding the strategic passes. The twenty-one tribes of the Black Cuan have already been turned to their use. If we abandon our strong cities and attack against the grain, how can we win?"

Duan Sicong thought it over again. This also made a great deal of sense!

But if attacking was unfavorable and defending was unworkable, then how was this war to be fought?

I have been away on business all this time. Yesterday my superior dragged me out drinking, and I truly could not find the time. My apologies.

(End of Chapter)

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