Chapter 863: In the Southern Heavens, I Reign as My Own King

Zhang Xiancun's campaign against the Kingdom of Women was no act — he truly went and fought it.

And the fact that he attacked the Kingdom of Women just as he was about to march against the Jinghai Army was determined by the situation within the Chu fief.

In the ninth year of Shaoming, at the end of the ninth month, Zhang Xiancun was in Dali City, where he completed the investiture and resettlement of the cave and stockade chiefs within the fief who were willing to submit, and opened civil and military examinations to recruit a large batch of capable civil and military talent.

Of course, what made it possible for him to accomplish this was the strong support of his father, Zhang Zhao.

After receiving his eldest son's request, Zhang Zhao — under the coaxing of his granddaughter — first drew three hundred thousand strings of cash from the inner treasury and paid it out in batches to the Transport Commissioner's office and the Ministry of Revenue.

The Transport Commissioner's office then issued orders to the Sichuan Provincial Transport Bureau, directing them to withhold one hundred thousand strings from the salt, commercial, and other taxes that were supposed to be escorted from Sichuan and send it to Dali.

The Ministry of Revenue announced that this year's taxes from Sichuan Province destined for the central government — including cash, grain, and cloth — would be made up to two hundred thousand strings and shipped directly to nearby Dali, thereby supplementing the Chu fief's expenditures.

Zhang Xiancun was still very grateful, because he understood in his heart that after supporting his elder brother, King of Yan Murong Xinzhang's large-scale eastern campaign, his father no longer had much in reserve.

Moreover, the shortage of precious metals such as gold, silver, and copper meant the exchange houses could no longer issue silver notes on a large scale.

So these three hundred thousand strings were not like what had been given to Murong Xinzhang — part of which was newly issued silver notes — but real, hard gold and silver.

Therefore, although it was only three hundred thousand strings, Zhang Xiancun knew that his father, Sage Zhang, had truly gritted his teeth to produce it. Since it had come with such difficulty, it certainly needed to make a sound.

And the thing that could most quickly make that sound echo across the whole country was, naturally, war.

That was the external reason. Internally, through these two undertakings, Zhang Xiancun had basically won over the hearts of the people within the Chu fief. These more than one million people were beginning, emotionally, to accept him as their Great King.

Recently, on every hillside and in every basin, from the headmen down to the common people, everyone was speaking well of Great King Zhang.

This was a good sign. By bringing out an extra share of the cake, he had at last let everyone taste a bit of the benefits.

But apart from this, one more thing was still lacking: a war in which everyone took part.

To be precise, a victorious war — a campaign that would bind the people of the Chu fief together through glory and blood and sweat.

So, driven by both internal and external needs, Zhang Xiancun, immediately after the civil and military examinations concluded, announced that he would carry out a punitive expedition against the Kingdom of Women.

The Kingdom of Women, also called the Kingdom of Nanben, was a state located in the area of later Thailand's northern Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai regions. It was founded by the Mon people, with the Chiang Mai–Lamphun basin as its main territory, and its capital in Lamphun Prefecture, south of Chiang Mai.

This state was established very early. Before the Tai peoples had even migrated south, they were the local power here.

Because they were in the early stage of slave society and still retained many vestiges of matrilineal clan customs, their kings — or rather, tribal confederation leaders — were mostly women, which is why it was called the Kingdom of Women.

Historically, Nanzhao had repeatedly sent armies of twenty to thirty thousand to attack it, but at that time the Kingdom of Women was still at its height and could field ten to twenty thousand troops to resist Nanzhao. Combined with the high mountains and dense forests, although Nanzhao won more than it lost, it was never able to make the Kingdom of Women submit.

But by now, a regional great power had appeared next door to the Kingdom of Women: the Angkor dynasty, established after Jayavarman reunified the Land Chenla and Water Chenla.

Although the Angkor dynasty lacked the ability to conquer the Kingdom of Women, they had cut off the trade route between the Kingdom of Women and Huanzhou (central Vietnam) of the Jinghai Army.

This trade route was the Kingdom of Women's vital channel for foreign trade, through which it obtained salt, sugar, tea, and iron tools.

The severing of the trade route caused the Kingdom of Women to grow poorer by the day. Three years earlier, in order to reopen the route, they had chosen to risk launching a war, but were quickly and disastrously defeated by the Angkor dynasty, and their strength declined even more sharply.

So for Zhang Xiancun's Chu fief, the declining Kingdom of Women was an extremely good target for attack.

It was not as powerful as the Jinghai Army, nor could it compare to the Angkor dynasty. Its population and wealth were concentrated in the small area of the Chiang Mai–Lamphun basin, making it very convenient to plunder.

At the same time, the tribal inhabitants on the southern border of the Chu fief were very familiar with the roads to Lamphun, and there were ready-made trade routes all around. A round trip took only about forty days.

Even more remarkable was that the justification for the campaign was already there, ready-made.

It turned out that during Zhang Xiancun's destruction of Dali, among the Ten Black-Tooth Tribes in the far south, near what would later be Vientiane, three tribes were unwilling to continue paying tribute to the northern power and sought to ally with the Kingdom of Women. The Kingdom of Women had very boldly accepted them.

You tell me — with such a fat piece of meat, and even the justice of sending troops handed to you, practically fed right to your mouth, if you don't take a bite, you'd be failing the arrangement of Heaven itself.

Zhang Xiancun did not need the Kingdom of Women's territory for the time being, but the precious metals, grain, livestock, and population they had accumulated were very much needed by the entire Chu fief.

At the end of the ninth month, Zhang Xiancun concentrated fifteen thousand elite troops in Mangnai Circuit (Jinghong), with Little Black Bear Zhang Liechao as commander. Following the trade routes through the dense forests, they reached the Chiang Mai–Lamphun basin — the heart of the Kingdom of Women — in less than twenty days.

At this time, the main weapons of the Kingdom of Women's army were wooden spears, various polished stone axes and stone hammers, and bone arrowheads steeped in all sorts of random jungle poisons. Iron swords and the like were only available to officers, and armor was essentially nonexistent.

More importantly, they could never have imagined, no matter how hard they racked their brains, that the Chu army would come to attack them. They had made no preparations whatsoever. When the Chu army arrived, the entire kingdom was still in a state of utter bewilderment.

Little Black Bear directly encamped his troops outside the city of Lamphun and used the tactic of besieging the point to strike the relief force. He first defeated more than ten thousand troops coming to lift the siege, then defeated several thousand more who sallied out of the city, taking more than four thousand heads. In a single battle, he stormed Lamphun Prefecture.

He captured over a hundred nobles and headmen of the Kingdom of Women. Apart from failing to find the queen, he almost completely swept up the upper stratum of Lamphun Prefecture.

At the end of the tenth month, Little Black Bear routed the last army of more than ten thousand that the Kingdom of Women had conscripted, utterly destroying their capacity to resist. After that, well — they began packing up to go home.

In just over a month, fifteen thousand Chu troops plundered from Lamphun Prefecture more than one hundred jin of refined gold, over forty nuggets, with a total weight exceeding fifteen hundred jin.

The reason the haul was so large was that Chiang Mai and the surrounding area were the main gold-producing region of later Thailand. The Kingdom of Women had occupied this place and naturally accumulated a great deal of gold.

Apart from the gold, the Chu army plundered sixty thousand shi of grain, more than six hundred head of cattle, over fifty thousand sheep, and more than thirty thousand able-bodied men and sturdy women.

There were also more than seventy trained elephants. Do not underestimate this — elephants were extremely important property in the states of this time, including the Chu fief.

Although elephant troops were mere child's play before the dynasties of the Central Plains, for these southern states, they lacked sufficient firepower to quickly harm elephants, so the shock power of elephant troops was magnified many times over.

At the same time, elephants were the best companions for traveling through the jungle. They had great carrying capacity and could also be used to open paths in the jungle. The food they needed was everywhere in the jungle — even people could fill their bellies alongside them.

Finally, elephants were also a very important source of meat at this time. Although the meat was far inferior to beef and mutton, it was still meat, wasn't it? Elephant hide also made excellent leather, and ivory was extremely valuable.

The pitiful Kingdom of Women probably had only two to three hundred thousand people in total. In one stroke, more than a tenth of its population was carried off — and entirely able-bodied young adults. Combined with the roughly one-tenth who were killed, the population loss was quite severe.

As for wealth, nearly fifty percent was plundered away, and ten to twenty percent destroyed. This was absolutely a calamity that cut to the bone.

Almost in an instant, this small state that had originally been able to endure through hardship was brought to the brink of national extinction.

On the way home, Little Black Bear dispatched two thousand elite troops on a detour to launch a surprise attack on the territory of the Ten Black-Tooth Tribes, carrying out indiscriminate sweeps against them.

The killing continued until the elders of the ten tribes escorted the entire families of the three tribal chiefs who had colluded with the Kingdom of Women to Mangnai Circuit (Jinghong) and executed them before more than ten thousand Chu troops. Only then did the Chu army stop the slaughter.

Immediately afterward, Little Black Bear extorted from the ten tribes thirty trained elephants, eighty head of cattle, one thousand sheep, and two hundred jin of gold and silver before letting them go.

From then on, the Ten Black-Tooth Tribes were extremely submissive and never again dared to disobey orders.

In the twelfth month, Dali City was packed with people and filled with rejoicing. Whether one is a king of men or a leader of beasts, there is one most important indicator.

That is whether you can fight — whether you can protect your own group while also satisfying your own developmental needs by plundering other groups.

This campaign against the Kingdom of Women had undoubtedly displayed this side of Zhang Xiancun perfectly.

In the eyes of the former Dali commoners, now the people of the Chu fief, the Kingdom of Women was a southern "great power" that Nanzhao had campaigned against several times, expending countless money and grain. Yet not only was it toppled by Great King Zhang in a single battle, but a large amount of population was plundered in a short time — proof enough that this Great King was very reliable.

Prestige won through war like this is extremely solid. It was like Emperor Wu of Han — had any other emperor been as militaristic as he was, the whole country would have long since thrown him to the ground.

But Liu the Little Pig, purely by virtue of the immense prestige from crushing the Xiongnu, not only avoided disaster but actually managed to enter the ranks of the greatest emperors of all time.

Today Zhang Xiancun had achieved a small measure of this himself. Therefore, in an instant, his image was accepted even more rapidly by the people of the Chu fief, while the influence of the Duan clan of Dali was dissipating at great speed.

Moreover, there was one more thing that exceeded Zhang Xiancun's expectations: at this time, the people of the various large and small states within the territory of Thailand were slaves very much in demand in the Central Plains.

The character "xian" in "Xianluo" itself means "slave" in Sanskrit.

The Kunlun slaves who were all the rage in the Great Tang historically came mainly from two places: the various large and small states in the territory of later-day Thailand, and the Shailendra dynasty, which occupied the island of Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, and part of Java.

Just think about it — never mind that Africa is an immense distance from the Great Tang, but with the laziness, gluttony, utter lack of discipline, and thieving, sneaking vices of African blacks, how would they ever qualify to enter the great houses of the Tang as slaves?

Only these Southeast Asian peoples — short of stature, dark of complexion, deeply influenced by Indian culture and thus quite resigned and submissive, and with features barely acceptable to the Tang people — were the legendary Kunlun slaves, hardworking, obedient, and docile.

Even at that time, quite a few people from the Indian subcontinent were also abducted and sold to the Great Tang and the Tibetans, and they too were a fine source of tame and obedient servants.

Thus, when these twenty or thirty thousand somewhat dark-skinned prisoners of war from the Kingdom of Women appeared in Dali City, the various vassals of the Chu domain, the chiefs of the cave strongholds, and the traveling merchants from the Central Plains all scrambled to buy them from the army.

In just one morning, nearly twenty thousand were bought up, quickly allowing Zhang Xiancun to recover over a hundred thousand strings of silver cash.

Great King Zhang had made an absolute killing on this one — not only did he win the hearts of the people at home and establish his prestige, he also swiftly recouped his costs and even turned a tidy profit.

Along the way, he also drilled and integrated the coordination of the Chu domain's northern and southern prefectural armies, the vassals, and the native officers' retainers, greatly enhancing their combat effectiveness.

In his great delight, Zhang Xiancun announced that the spring and autumn taxes of every prefecture and county would be halved the following year, drawing cheers from the whole assembly, while commoners prostrating themselves and shouting "Long live!" covered the entire city.

Afterward, Zhang Xiancun ordered these dog-head gold nuggets packed up and sent in their entirety to the divine capital Luoyang, as a filial offering to his father, Sage Zhang.

Setting out together with these dog-head gold nuggets were several hundred young boys and girls of the Kunlun slaves, who would serve in the imperial palace as future palace maids and inner attendants.

In the Jinghai Army, Wu Changwen was busy forging alliances in every direction — one moment putting on a show of preparing to send troops to suppress so-and-so, the next assuming a long-suffering, earnest manner and going about reasoning with everyone.

Everything he did was for the sake of scraping together the two hundred thousand strings demanded by Zhang Zhaojun, Duke of Hanguo.

All the gold, silver, silk, and brocade of the Wu family combined amounted to only a hundred thirty or forty thousand strings; the rest was grain, armor, weapons, and the like that had to be retained, so Wu Changwen had no choice but to find targets for "financing."

So then, was anyone willing to put up money together with Wu Changwen?

Yes! Because Wu Changwen was a man not lacking in petty cleverness.

He put the word out that the Duke of Hanguo required only two hundred thousand strings, and the Jinghai Army of Jiaozhou could obtain a semi-independent status, just like the Qingyuan Army of Zhangzhou.

Then, as long as this sum was raised, he, Wu Changwen, would receive the title of Duke of Jiaozhou Commandery or Duke of Annan Commandery, along with the posts of Governor of Jiaozhou Prefecture and Supervisor of Jiaozhou Troops and Cavalry.

The other contributors could then be recommended by him to obtain civil and military posts such as Chief Clerk or Garrison Commander of the remaining prefectures.

What did this amount to? It amounted to bailing out the Ten Commissioners and the Wu family, who had already entered the final circle of the battle royale — as soon as the court's edict came down, everyone would go their separate ways, seize back the prefectures and counties they had earlier voluntarily abandoned, and each live their own lives.

Therefore, Wu Changwen's scheme still stirred the hearts of quite a few families; after so many years of fighting, some people inevitably no longer wished to keep fighting.

Of course, there were also those who did not believe it — or rather, not that they did not believe it, but that they refused to accept the Wu family continuing to climb above everyone else's heads.

But that was a headache for Wu Changwen alone; Zhang Zhaojun's stratagem had succeeded regardless.

Because with Wu Changwen making this move, the other Ten Commissioners immediately assumed that Wu Changwen had already smoothed things over with the court, and they at once dropped their wariness of the court and focused entirely on wrangling with Wu Changwen.

In the divine capital Luoyang, the Zhenguan Hall of the Purple Tenuity Palace blazed with light; over a hundred Zhaowu Scholars and Qionglin Scholars of the inner court's Secretariat, along with Hanlin Scholars of the outer court's Department of State Affairs, had all been summoned by the Emperor to the great hall.

Together with the Emperor, they pored over the vast ocean of records and maps, meticulously combing through every piece of information on Annan that had been recorded over the several hundred years of the Great Tang.

The reason for such a grand mobilization was that Zhang Zhao understood in his heart: Annan's break from court control could be called the most grievous loss in China's several thousand years of history — bar none.

What Outer Manchuria, what southern Tibet, what Outer Ili, what Outer Mongolia — all those losses combined were not as great as the loss of Annan.

If in later ages the Republic could possess the land of Annan, with our capabilities it would become an economic powerhouse no less than the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta.

More importantly, the Republic's hand could reach directly into the heart of Southeast Asia.

We could even directly become part of ASEAN, act as its leader from within, and firmly grasp this enormous market.

And by the way, we could keep a death grip on the throats of Japan and Korea so they would not dare act as dogs without restraint — and even, when dissatisfied, easily blow the kangaroo's brains out.

Therefore, before resolving the Jinghai Army problem, Zhang Zhao had to deeply understand: what exactly was the reason that led to the Jinghai Army being lost at this time, never to return?

After waiting bitterly for most of the night, the report finally came out, and the result, which somewhat surprised Zhang Zhao, was this.

The greatest problem with the Jinghai Army's repeated bids for independence was the question of why they should hand over the fruits of their hard-won efforts to the state.

It was like an unfavored son of a concubine in a great clan going out to start his own enterprise; although he had indeed, to a greater or lesser degree, drawn on the clan's strength, he himself did not see it that way — he believed that everything he had obtained had come from his own blood and sweat.

Seeing the clan seemingly take away a considerable share of the profits without having contributed much, the resentment in his heart grew day by day, until in the end, keeping all the fruits for himself became his greatest wish.

Thus, when the state was flourishing — during the Great Tang period, for example — Jiaozhou in Annan became a key city for maritime trade and also the largest base for importing Kunlun slaves into the Great Tang.

The Tang armies went south from here, obtaining large numbers of Kunlun slaves either through war or through purchase, then conducted unified training in Jiaozhou City, and finally resold them to the Central Plains.

In this process, the entire Han immigrant community of Annan benefited, and with the prosperity brought by maritime trade, they were naturally willing to support the state.

But when Nanzhao several times seized all of Annan, and the decline of the Great Tang meant Kunlun slaves could no longer be afforded,

and Jiaozhou's geographic position could not compare with Guangzhou to the north, many of its functions were naturally siphoned away by Guangzhou, and it declined with extreme rapidity.

Separated by a thousand mountains and rivers, with the original benefits gone and still having to escort tax revenues to the Central Plains every year — losing on both ends — discontent bred with extreme speed.

And in order to avoid continuing to send tax revenues to the court, the best method was to make trouble.

That was the economic reason; culturally, it was even more exaggerated.

Because Annan is cut off from Guangxi and Guangdong by high mountains and steep ridges, transportation is extremely inconvenient, and it has always been a place where the court exiled disgraced officials and criminals — one could say the Han people here basically all bore some resentment toward the court.

At the same time, ever since the Warring States period, the Central Plains people had been driving the Baiyue peoples of the Suzhou-Zhejiang region southward; after over a thousand years of continuous expulsion and assimilation, those willing to become like the Han had basically all been assimilated.

Those Baiyue remnant clans unwilling to assimilate had basically all fled to Annan, farther from the Central Plains, where they settled and interbred with the more primitive local natives.

And there you have it — the full set: disgraced officials, criminals, and their descendants, mixed with the Baiyue descendants who had been driven all the way south — resentment levels absolutely maxed out.

When there were benefits, they were of course obedient; when there were no benefits, these people would merge together and immediately start making trouble.

Not only did the Baiyue descendants take up "Great Yue" as their banner, the Han people did the same.

Of course, Guangdong and Guangxi were in fact also places of exile for criminals and disgraced officials, but because of the Lingqu Canal, as long as the court held Guilin and other places, it could advance from the Li River — just as Zhang Zhou had destroyed the Southern Han this time — and easily attack Guangzhou Prefecture, using overwhelming military force to dispel this resentment.

At the same time, because the terrain could not serve as a reliance and transportation was still fairly convenient, the Guangdong-Guangxi region in fact continuously absorbed culture from the Central Plains, playing the role of a cultural successor.

But in Annan, the Red River running through its territory originates in Yunnan; when the Central Plains court could not firmly control the Yunnan-Guizhou region, the Red River and these rivers flowing from northwest to southeast not only could not aid in a punitive expedition against Annan, but were instead an obstacle.

Historically, the punitive expeditions of Central Plains dynasties mostly met with disastrous defeat on the banks of the Bach Dang River.

Therefore, at this time, launching a punitive expedition against Annan was an extremely difficult matter.

At the same time, the closed-off geographic environment made it extremely easy for an independent mindset to breed, and with the surroundings full of petty barbarian states, it further encouraged the mentality among the Annan Han of "I alone am king in the southern sky."

They were unwilling to continue serving as the trash bin of the Central Plains dynasties, and even more they wished to become a little China beyond the Golden Oar.

Taken together, the problem with Annan is this: economically, obeying the court brings no benefit; ethnically and historically, the people have no goodwill toward a Central Plains court; culturally, a separate self-consciousness easily takes root.

Having understood all this, Zhang Zhao was clear in his mind: in recovering Annan, military force was only an auxiliary. If the matter was to be settled once and for all, other methods would have to be devised.

(End of Chapter)

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