Chapter 861: The Great Expert of Flip-Flopping

Zhang Zhao keenly realized that Liu Sheng's problem had to be handled with great care.

If the man had ultimately been captured in the palace of Xingwang Prefecture, then Zhang Zhao would very likely have given him the full "Disobedient Marquis" treatment, using harsh punishment to answer his act of resisting the imperial army.

But now, Liu Sheng had settled the matter with the desperate act of killing his entire family, so Zhang Zhao instead had to placate him as much as possible.

Faced with such a gruesome death that wiped out a whole family, no one could help feeling compassion.

Especially since Liu Sheng, though hardly a wise or benevolent ruler, had still given the people of Southern Han more than ten years of stability — in a chaotic age like the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, that was already no small achievement.

Therefore, when Zhang Zhaojun galloped in with the Southern Han battle report and news of Liu Sheng's suicide, Zhang Zhao immediately issued an edict ordering the rescued Vice Minister of Rites of the Left, Wang Jiu, to go to Guilin Prefecture to recuperate, and not to jab at the sore spot of the Lingnan people for the time being.

He then ordered Zhang Yuan, Vice Minister of Rites of the Right, who was tasked with posthumously honoring and holding memorial rites for Lady Xian, to proceed to Xingwang Prefecture and preside over a ceremony gathering the former Southern Han officials to mourn Liu Sheng.

After receiving the order, Zhang Yuan first organized the former Southern Han officials in Xingwang Prefecture to deliberate on a posthumous name for Liu Sheng, making clear that the court would posthumously confer on Liu Sheng the title of Lord of Southern Han, and decided to bury him in the Kang Mausoleum of his father, Liu Yan.

Liu Yan's Kang Mausoleum was located in the area of present-day Beiting Village, Panyu District, Guangzhou; a burial chamber had originally been left there to inter Liu Sheng's mother, but the old lady had not yet died, while Liu Sheng had already killed his whole family and then taken his own life.

At the same time, Liu Sheng's own mountain mausoleum was still only in the initial stages of construction, and the court could not possibly spend several hundred thousand strings of cash to continue building a mountain mausoleum for Liu Sheng, so this burial chamber happened to serve perfectly.

In the eighth year of Shaoming of the Great Zhou, 954 CE, in the seventh month, Zhang Zhaojun and Zhang Yuan, following Zhang Zhao's instructions, buried Liu Sheng and the three sons he had killed all together in Liu Yan's Kang Mausoleum.

Liu Sheng was posthumously granted the title of Lord of Southern Han, with the posthumous name Ai — taking the meaning "when virtue is not established, it is called Ai" and "when one suffers calamity to the extreme, it is called Ai" — and in history he is called the Last Lord of Southern Han or the Mournful Lord of Southern Han.

At the same time, Zhang Zhao enfeoffed Liu Hongzheng, Prince of Tong and the only younger brother Liu Sheng had not killed, as Count of Gaoyao, granting him eighty rooms of a residence in the Divine Capital, and in addition to the count's annual salary, gave him a fief of three hundred households, so that he could support Liu Sheng's mother and his own mother.

At the same time, Zhang Zhao also handed Liu Chongxing, Liu Sheng's infant youngest son, over to Zhang Zhaojun to raise, until the child was somewhat healthier, at which point he would be sent back to the Divine Capital, Luoyang, to be raised at court expense.

This was actually a small trick on Zhang Zhao's part: Liu Chongxing was still young, and if he were sent north immediately, he might well fail to acclimatize and die, and then certain "kind-hearted people" would surely pin the blame on me, Sage Zhang.

Better to let Zhang Zhaojun raise him for a year or so, and send him to Luoyang once the heat had died down — that way, even if Liu Chongxing still failed to acclimatize and died, not many people would pay attention, would they?

On the tenth day of the seventh month, Liu Sheng's funeral affairs were concluded, and the Southern Han imperial clan, of whom Liu Yan and Liu Sheng had killed all but a few, set out for the Divine Capital, Luoyang.

Zhang Zhaojun also returned the bodies of Ji Yan-Yun, who had died fighting for the country, and of Lu Guangtu, Shao Tingquan, Xie Guan, and other loyal Southern Han ministers who had died by their own hand for the country, to their families, reported the matter to the court, and granted them pensions at half the rate for officials and generals of equivalent rank in the Great Zhou.

From this point on, the hearts of the Southern Han people were greatly settled.

A few days later, good news arrived: upon learning that Xingwang Prefecture had fallen and Liu Sheng had taken his own life, the Jianwu Military Governor of Yongzhou in Southern Han, along with Gong Chengshu and others who had fled there, opened the city gates and surrendered, and the entire territory of Southern Han was recovered.

In the early eighth month, the court's edict arrived: Zhang Zhao took Guangxin Prefecture, the ancient capital of Lingnan — present-day Wuzhou — as the boundary.

West of Wuzhou, Liuzhou, Yongzhou, Qinzhou, Guizhou, and Lianzhou, including Wuzhou itself, were divided off as the Guangxi Circuit of Lingnan.

East of Wuzhou, including Hainan Island, became the Guangdong Circuit of Lingnan, and Xingwang Prefecture was restored to its old name of Guangzhou.

Chenzhou, which had belonged to Southern Han, was assigned to the Hunan Circuit.

Guilin Prefecture was separately established as the Guilin Directorate, directly subordinate to the court; its chief officer was not called Prefect but Director, with the full title of Director Supervising Guilin Prefecture and All Matters of Funds, Grain, Troops, Horses, and Waterworks of the Ling Canal, appointed personally by the Emperor.

The deputy post was Vice Commissioner of Waterworks of the Ling Canal, filled by professional personnel transferred from the Directorate of Waterways of the Ministry of Works. Militarily, the Twelve Guards of the personal army took turns garrisoning the area, with the Three Guards of Guilin as support.

The purpose of this arrangement was that Lingnan was still unstable, and the court personally controlled Guilin Prefecture and the Ling Canal to guard against any contingency.

Zhang Zhaojun was promoted to Duke of Han, specially granted the staff of authority to oversee all fiscal, military, and administrative affairs of the two Guang circuits of Lingnan — equivalent to a later Viceroy of the Two Guangs — and concurrently held the posts of Chief Administrator and Defense Commissioner of the Guangdong Circuit of Lingnan.

Yuan Heng, formerly the foremost of the Eighteen Scholars of Ma Chu, was transferred to serve as Chief Administrator and Civil Governor of the Guangxi Circuit of Lingnan. Qu Yanqing temporarily assumed the post of Defense Commissioner of Guangxi, charged with pacifying the various Li and Liao peoples of Guangxi in Lingnan.

Hanlin Academician Lu Yan was appointed Director of Guilin Prefecture, and the Right Jinwu Guard of the personal army that Wang Shenqi had brought with him returned to Guilin Prefecture to be stationed there first.

As for the remaining armies, apart from Fan Shun's force, which was to return to Jiangxi, the troops under Lin Renzhao were also to return to Fujian, but Lin Renzhao himself and the five thousand sailors who had come from Fujian were to remain.

At the same time, Lin Renzhao was also responsible for integrating the navies of Southern Han and Fujian, making final preparations for the recovery of the Jinghai Army.

Almost at the same time, after more than ten straight days of heavy drinking with the chieftain of the Abo tribe and Nong Minfu, and just when Nong Minfu's younger sister was batting her watery eyes and practically draping herself over Zhang Xiancun, the news that Yongzhou had come under court control finally reached Zhang Xiancun's ears.

Of course, it did not reach only Zhang Xiancun's ears; Nong Minfu also received the news very quickly.

Now, his several hundred thousand Nong, Sha, and Liao tribespeople were truly squeezed in the middle with no room to move. Although it might not be too easy for the court to destroy him — after all, one could simply vanish into the Hundred Thousand Mountains —

but vanishing into the Hundred Thousand Mountains meant abandoning everything one had now and returning to slash-and-burn farming, and no one could be that resolute unless the family was ruined and there was no other way out.

The more Nong Minfu drank, the more uneasy he grew; seeing that Zhang Xiancun never made a move, he could only take the initiative and attach himself to him.

Nong Minfu brought the chieftain of the Abo tribe to find Zhang Xiancun, and on his own initiative admitted that they had channels to communicate with Duan Sizhong and the powerful chiefs of the Wuman tribe, and could persuade them to come down from the mountains and accept the court's punishment.

Zhang Xiancun's nerves, in truth, were also stretched taut. In his Chu fiefdom, there were indeed no major rebellions, but minor uprisings never stopped; just a few days earlier, mountain folk had attacked the Inspection Commissioner he had appointed.

At present, within the Chu fiefdom, apart from the twenty thousand men of the Tonghai Commandery and Zhang Xiancun's own three thousand Northern Prefecture Army guards, all the remaining troops had been dispatched to various places to suppress unrest and to escort meritorious officials to their posts.

Of the more than one million people in the entire country, at least two hundred thousand were, in the most literal sense, beating each other into one piece.

From this, one could also see that Zhang Xiancun was indeed a qualified ruler.

To be able, under such circumstances, to sit drinking in this little Sixia Lodge for ten-odd days straight, holding firm until Nong Minfu could no longer hold out and came to him on his own — that was the great heart a qualified emperor must possess.

At Nong Minfu's admission of such a painless, trivial fault, Zhang Xiancun smiled faintly.

"I have no need of you to carry messages, because I intend to stay here at Sixia Lodge, here in Tonghai, for half a year or a year — until the snow flies on the mountaintops, until the river below swells and floods, before I leave.

And even if I leave, the warriors of Chu will remain here. If Duan Sizhong wants to live like a savage, then I, the King, will grant him his wish."

Seeing Zhang Xiancun so confident, Nong Minfu grew even more afraid, and he gave an awkward, nervous smile.

"Duan Sizhong will not want to live like a savage. The Duan clan has enjoyed decades of wealth and honor; even if he wanted to, he could not endure it."

Zhang Xiancun looked at the uneasy Nong Minfu and suddenly asked, "The Duan clan has enjoyed decades of fortune above all men. Does your Nong clan want the same?"

Nong Minfu was already deeply unsettled, and hearing Zhang Xiancun's question, his soul nearly fled his body; with a thud, he dropped to his knees.

"Great King, your insight is clear! The Nong clan is loyal to the Great King and loyal to the state; we absolutely have no second thoughts.

Moreover, the Duan clan are descendants of a famous Han general, while the Nong clan are merely native Luoyue people — how would we dare harbor thoughts of carving out territory and making ourselves kings?"

Nong Minfu was terrified out of his wits, but Zhang Xiancun let out a curious "Eh?" and deliberately looked at Nong Minfu with great puzzlement, asking, "That's not right! I have heard that your Nong clan are descendants of Shennong, who migrated to Lingnan during the transition from Shang to Zhou. How could you be native Luoyue people?"

"Ah!" Nong Minfu was stunned too. There was... there was such a thing? How come he had never heard of it? He gaped and answered mechanically, "Is... is that so?"

"Hm? It isn't?" Zhang Xiancun asked slowly, the words seeming to squeeze out from between his teeth, carrying a faint chill.

In a flash, it was as if a bolt of lightning had struck into Nong Minfu's mind, illuminating the little square world within his head.

He shuddered violently, and a great rush of blood surged to his brain and face, making his mind suddenly work, and his face flushed with the ruddy glow of excitement and wild joy.

"Yes, yes, yes! Right! Right! Our Nong clan are indeed descendants of Shennong.

Great King, look — the character 'nong' is made up of the characters for 'person' and 'farming,' which is clear proof that our clan descends from Shennong and are his descendants!"

Only then did Zhang Xiancun nod with satisfaction. "Since you are of the same Hua-Xia lineage, then I can speak with you now."

"Your Nong clan may not be able to carve out territory within the golden realm the way the Duan clan did — and you have seen how the Duan clan ended — but outside the golden realm, it is still possible."

Nong Minfu's eyes lit up. He had come from Annan — could it be...?

But before the pleasant dream could even begin, Zhang Xiancun cut it short. "Annan is impossible. That too is land of the state. But there is one place that will do."

"Could it be the Niuhou Man?" Nong Minfu asked cautiously, a little disappointed.

The Niuhou Man lived roughly in the area of what later generations would call Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam, bordering Laos.

At present the Niuhou Man numbered perhaps thirty to fifty thousand, still in a matrilineal clan stage, desperately poor — far inferior even to the Nong clan.

Zhang Xiancun shook his head. "The Niuhou Man's land is barren. Only their ten thousand or so able-bodied men are of any use, and they are not worth a major expedition. I speak of the land south of Annan.

In the time of the Former and Latter Han, south of Annan there was still a Rinan Commandery. In the second year of Yonghe of the Latter Han, Qu Lian, son of a merit officer of Xianglin County in Rinan Commandery, rose in revolt and seized all the land of Rinan Commandery. From that time on, it has never again belonged to the state.

If it can be recovered, a lordship of Rinan is something I can still request for you from the Sage."

Rinan Commandery was the area of what later generations would call central Vietnam — the provinces of Hue, Quang Tri, and the Da Nang region. This place was far better than the deep mountains and old forests of Dien Bien Phu.

The kingdom now holding Rinan, Champa — also called Chiem Thanh — was a great state. The Sage Zhang's Champa rice came from this very place.

The various characteristics of Champa rice show that it absolutely did not spring up suddenly in the wild, but was cultivated through generation after generation.

And for Champa to have bred Champa rice, it must have had a certain scale of population and technology.

In fact, this was so. At this time on the Indochinese Peninsula, Zhenla — which later generations would call the Khmer Empire — was locked in fierce combat with Champa. Each side could already field twenty to thirty thousand troops and dozens of war elephants.

This showed that these two states likely had close to a million people each, and their grain yields were not low. They could no longer be regarded as wholly barbarous.

So Nong Minfu was both a little excited and a little worried. The Nong clan, though powerful within the Hundred Thousand Mountains, was still weak compared to a state like Champa with its hundreds of thousands or even a million subjects.

To send him against Champa — was that sending him to his death, or sending him to his death?

As for this question — Zhang Xiancun gave a sly chuckle. "You need not panic. The court and I are not asking you to attack Champa right now. Without the court's heavenly troops, you could not take it anyway.

Your present task is to assist the court in recovering Annan and severely punishing the rebellious Wu and Yang clans.

Once Annan is pacified, the court will not only be able to spare an army of over ten thousand, but the Sage will also reward you with armor, spears, and swords. Only then will it be time to recover Rinan.

But after that, whether you can hold this place will depend mainly on your Nong clan."

As soon as Zhang Xiancun finished speaking, the little black bear Zhang Liechao, who had been guarding at his side, also spoke to Nong Minfu: "The Brocade Guard personal troops report that Rinan Commandery now has over a hundred thousand people and several million mu of fine farmland. It is the richest land in all of Champa. Prefect Nong, do you have the confidence to hold it?

If not, say so early, and we will send the Baiyi Dao clan, or the Dong and Su clans of the Eight Divisions of the Western Hills."

"How could I not hold it! General, do not look down on me!" Nong Minfu sprang to his feet with a jolt.

Other places they might mention he was not too familiar with, but Rinan he knew well — because it was under his own hand that the Nong clan's power had expanded from Guangxi into Annan.

This time, Nong Minfu had come to the Sixia Lodge from Guangyuan Prefecture.

Guangyuan Prefecture was what later generations would call Cao Bang Province in Vietnam. From there to Co Loa (Hanoi) was no more than three hundred li, and to Rinan no more than nine hundred li.

To the Central Plains people of Luoyang, Annan and Rinan seemed as distant as the edge of the sky, but to Nong Minfu they were only a few days to a dozen or so days' journey.

Moreover, Nong Minfu knew well the wealth of Rinan. Though it could not compare with Annan, it was far better than the Hundred Thousand Mountains where the Nong clan dwelt.

The Nong clan had multiplied to over two hundred thousand people even within these Hundred Thousand Mountains. If they reached Rinan, they could surely produce three to five hundred thousand. By then, he could not only become a lord, but perhaps even a vassal king.

Zhang Xiancun watched Nong Minfu struggling to suppress his delight, and chuckled inwardly as well.

The Nong clan could indeed rule as sovereigns in Rinan, because compared to the Han people, they were better adapted to Rinan's climate.

And at the present scale of the Han population, migrating over a hundred thousand people to Rinan was simply impossible. Better to let the Nong clan occupy it.

But for the Nong clan to obtain the court's permission and aid to go to Rinan as rulers, several conditions still had to be met.

First, the Nong clan members in the Hundred Thousand Mountains were to be divided into three parts. The land around Wenshan was to be yielded up. The territory in western Guangxi was to allow court-appointed officials to administer it. The land and population of Guangyuan Prefecture in Annan were also to obey the court's arrangements.

In addition to these two hundred thousand or so Nong clan members, Nong Minfu was also to bring out at least another hundred thousand common people from the Hundred Thousand Mountains.

At the same time, he was to help the court summon several dozen headmen who controlled more than three thousand people each, to go to Guangzhou and declare their submission.

Finally, the upper and middle ranks of the Nong clan were to go to Guangzhou to study the Han language and culture. Only after completing all this would they reach the standard.

'Thud!' Before Nong Minfu could rise, the headman of the Abo tribe instead dropped to his knees with a clang.

"Great King, my Cuan clan is also of Han descent! Cuan Pan does not read the times. Your servant is willing to go and persuade him, to make him understand the state's benevolence and magnanimity, and once more turn from barbarism back to the Xia."

"Once more" — that word carried deep meaning.

Because the surname Cuan sounds like a barbarian surname, does it not? But in fact it is not. On the contrary, they are quite properly of Han descent.

Their ancestors were none other than the Ban clan — illustrious in the Eastern Han, and even more famous in later ages.

The Ban clan of Ban Chao, Ban Gu, and Ban Jieyu.

In history, a branch of the Ban clan went to suppress the rebellions in Nanzhong, and for their merit were enfeoffed at the place called Cuan.

In the middle and late Han, influence over Nanzhong declined, and the Ban clan gradually barbarized, adopting their fief Cuan as their surname, replacing the original Ban surname.

By the time Chancellor Zhuge of the Ji Han pacified Nanzhong, the Cuan clan had already stood shoulder to shoulder with the Meng clan of Meng Huo's family and the Yong clan of Yong Kai's family as one of the greatest local powers in Nanzhong.

After the Ji Han pacified Nanzhong, the Cuan clan was also treated with favor as a great Han family of Nanzhong, and grew ever stronger. But afterward, through the chaos of the two Jin dynasties and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and into the Sui and Tang, the court could not actually control Nanzhong, causing Nanzhao to grow step by step.

During this period, the Cuan clan again began rapid barbarization, continuously intermingling with the local Yi peoples. Many tribes connected to the Cuan clan but not Han also began to take the surname Cuan.

For example, the headman of the Abo tribe before him — one could tell from the tribe's name that they were a branch of the Bo people, yet his surname was Cuan.

This was in fact a helpless choice made for survival, because the Meng and Yong surnames, which had not barbarized or had barbarized incompletely, had already almost entirely vanished.

The Cuan clan, however, had remained a great clan of the Yunnan-Guizhou region until their defeat in the seventh year of Tianbao (748) in their struggle with Nanzhao for control of the region.

Even now, though called the Black Yi, they still possessed the strength to field around ten thousand men.

The reason the Abo headman said "once more turn from barbarism back to the Xia" was that over these several hundred years of history, the Cuan clan had already done this many times.

When Chancellor Zhuge pacified Nanzhong, they had returned once.

When Liu Jinu awed the realm, they returned again. At that time, Cuan Longyan became General of the Dragon Cavalry, Colonel Protecting the Man, Prefect of Ningzhou, and Marquis of Qiongdu County under the Liu Song, and left behind the famous Cuan Longyan Stele.

Zhang Xiancun looked at the Abo headman kneeling on the ground before him, and understood in his heart that this man was the person the Cuan clan had put forward to make contact with him and express their sincerity.

If it were up to Zhang Xiancun's present temperament as a young great king, with Duan Sizhong and Cuan Pan being so tactless, he would absolutely not forgive them.

But at that very moment, Zhang Xiancun suddenly recalled what his father Zhang Zhao had said to him — that he was to be the one who, seven hundred years after the Martial Pacifying King Zhuge, would once more settle Nanzhong.

When he set out, Zhang Zhao had also earnestly instructed him: after taking up his fief, let winning hearts be the first priority, killing the last, and civilizing transformation the foundation — unite the various peoples, and stand together facing south.

Thinking of all this, Zhang Xiancun forcibly suppressed the discomfort in his heart and said to the headman of the Abu tribe, word by word: "Go back and tell Cuan Pan that in five days I will be waiting for him in Jianshui City. Let him come in person."

Having said this, Zhang Xiancun still felt somewhat uneasy. "That I am willing to take in the Cuan clan even now, when they are at the end of their road, is above all to carry on the Sage's earnest teachings for civilizing Nanzhong, and below to honor the heroic spirits of Ban Lantai and Ban Dingyuan in heaven. Do not bring ruin upon yourselves!"

(In the previous chapter I got the name wrong — Duan Siping's maternal uncle is not called Cuan Chuan; he should be called Cuan Pan.)

(End of chapter)

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