Chapter 864: The Young Aunt's Decision

The young aunt was somewhat older than Zhang Zhao; this year she was already forty-four.

People say that as a woman ages and her beauty fades, love slackens, but in the young aunt's case, this rule had completely failed to apply.

For she was a beauty in the mold of Sawaguchi Yasuko! Never mind forty-four — even at fifty-seven Sawaguchi Yasuko's looks could still hold their own, and the young aunt was no less formidable.

Moreover, a person's aesthetic sense really does shift with age, continually conforming to one's own stage of life.

In one's teens and twenties, seeing a woman of thirty or forty, one would only think she was already an old woman.

But once one reaches thirty or forty oneself, one suddenly discovers that among those same-age women one once dismissed as old, quite a few are still beauties with looks and figures very much intact.

Conversely, the teenage girls one used to fancy now seem very immature, lacking in charm.

And so Zhang Zhao was still very fond of the young aunt.

The young aunt, for her part, was very good at catering to his tastes. She kept a troupe of Western Regions beauties under her, so that whenever the Emperor wanted a change of flavor, he did not even need to step out of her bedchamber before Sage Zhang was dazzled by the choices.

And this unique advantage — being able to keep her own beauties within the rear palace — was determined by the young aunt's special status, because apart from her title of Consort Shu, the young aunt also held a substantive post: Lady of Shanshan Commandery.

The so-called Shanshan Commandery was the Zhongyun Kingdom, where Zhang Zhao had fought his first battle after leaving Dunhuang; it roughly corresponded to the later Ruoqiang County plus part of Hami City.

Back then, after Zhang Zhao killed the Zhongyun king Sanpoba there, he had handed the entire Zhongyun Kingdom over to the young aunt.

Thereafter, the young aunt had ruled this country as Queen of Zhongyun. Even after she later became Zhang Zhao's consort, this Zhongyun Kingdom was not dissolved; it merely changed from the Zhongyun Kingdom into Shanshan Commandery, the only place in all of Zhang Zhou still named a commandery.

In former days the Zhongyun Kingdom had a population of eighty or ninety thousand and was not particularly wealthy, but after these years of unimpeded trade routes, the oases of Shanshan Commandery had basically all been developed, and the population had grown to a hundred thirty thousand. In Shanshan City alone there were more than twenty thousand people.

Although the commercial taxes of Shanshan Commandery were collected by the state, with only a very small portion — about five percent — going to the young aunt, the other taxes of Shanshan Commandery basically all went into the young aunt's pocket.

Thus she could afford a dance and music troupe of over a hundred Western Regions beauties, all of them very easy on the eyes.

Of course, the territory of Shanshan Commandery included the former Loulan Kingdom, and there were still large numbers of Canwei people belonging to ancient Loulan there — an ethnic group quite prolific in producing beauties.

However, today Zhang Zhao had not touched any Loulan beauty, but instead had fought three hundred rounds with the young aunt. For Sage Zhang, who possessed hundreds of resources and more than thirty titled consorts and beauties, this counted as a rare display of initiative.

The clouds gathered and the rain ceased. The young aunt half-reclined on a foreign couch, her left hand holding a luminous jade cup, observing by moonlight the iced purple wine within the jade cup, which showed a strange, bewitching vermilion hue. Then she drained it in one great gulp and let out a satisfied sigh.

Having finished the wine, the young aunt very naturally stretched out her hand and lifted the Emperor's head onto her plump thighs.

After savoring this rare initiative, the young aunt sighed. She knew that the Emperor's attentiveness was not so easy to enjoy.

"Out with it, my Zhang Erlang — what scheme are you hatching now?"

Zhang Zhao shifted his head to lie more comfortably, then closed his eyes and said slowly:

"The great Han clans of Jiaozhou cannot be allowed to remain any longer. If they stay any longer, those fellows will, for the sake of profit, turn themselves into Yue people."

The young aunt had always paid close attention to politics and naturally knew the situation of the Jinghai Army, but she said with utter indifference:

"What does it matter? Break them up and resettle them inland. Right now Hebei, Andong, Lelang, and Korea are all short of people. Didn't Nobunaga write saying he wanted to develop the Kanto Plain and also needed large numbers of Han people who know how to farm?"

Having said this, and seeing that the Emperor made no response, the young aunt continued: "If Erlang does not want to resettle them inland, then the only option is to kill them. Kill eighty or a hundred thousand, and they will naturally become obedient."

Zhang Zhao gave a bitter laugh. "Moving the people away would only benefit the ever-growing number of true Yue people, making it even harder to resist the encroachment of Champa.

Killing only solves the problem for a time; it cannot solve it for all time."

The young aunt understood. Zhang Zhao was not dissatisfied with the two methods of relocation and slaughter; rather, he was worried that neither could last.

She suddenly realized something, and her face lit up with a joy tinged with disbelief. "Erlang, you don't mean to send Third Brother to Annam?

No, no!"

As she spoke, the young aunt Li Ruoliu shook her head vigorously. "If Third Brother went to Annam, that would be something I could only dream of — it should be me serving you. The Emperor has his eye on this bit of coffin money of mine!"

Third Brother was the third imperial son born to Li Ruoliu, Zhang Xianzhao, currently fourteen years old and studying at the Dragon Strategy Academy.

As the young aunt had said, although Annam's climate was somewhat hotter, it was still far better than Tokharistan. The locals might love to stir up trouble, but they were not, after all, as alien as those in Tokharistan, and the difficulty of ruling them was considerably lower.

More importantly, the Chu fief of Zhang Xianzhao's elder full brother Zhang Xiancun lay just to the north. Once Zhang Xianzhao arrived there, the two brothers could watch each other's backs — absolutely ten thousand times better than Zhang Xianzhao going to Tokharistan.

At these thoughts, the young aunt's expression greatly improved, and she declared with great generosity: "Three hundred thousand strings — no! I'll give four hundred thousand strings."

"You have that much money?" Zhang Zhao looked at the young aunt in great surprise.

Shanshan Commandery looked quite large, but it had only a hundred-some thousand people, and some places were not comparable to the Central Plains — still very poor.

So its annual tax revenue was only sixty or seventy thousand strings. After deducting the salaries of Shanshan Commandery's officials, what landed in her hands would not exceed forty thousand strings.

That money seemed like a lot, but the young aunt had to maintain her enormous Loulan beauty troupe, and she also had to give some support to her brothers and nephews on her maiden family's side.

Some time ago, for Zhang Xiancun's grand wedding and his departure to his fief, the young aunt had shelled out several hundred thousand strings before and after. She ought to have been squeezed nearly dry!

The young aunt smiled slyly. "Erlang has forgotten the money house association? I can use Shanshan Commandery's future tax revenue as collateral and borrow the money!"

That was true. Zhang Zhao rolled his eyes in speechless exasperation. His mind had been so bound up by the impossibility of issuing more silver notes that he had not considered that although no more silver notes could be issued, the money house association's business of taking deposits, making loans, and handling remittances between places was still operating.

Shanshan Commandery's tax revenue could be called a very high-quality collateral. Never mind four hundred thousand strings — even eight hundred thousand could be borrowed, and at interest far lower than ordinary borrowers.

However, the young aunt still had not realized the danger of Zhang Xianzhao going to Annam.

For Annam was different from Dali. Although Annam frequently stirred up trouble, from beginning to end this land had been a piece of the Golden Bowl and had never been enfeoffed to a king.

If Zhang Xianzhao were now enfeoffed in Annam, there was no guarantee that the crown prince who succeeded to the throne in a few decades would not move against Zhang Xianzhao.

At the same time, even if Zhang Xianzhao could follow his father's will and govern Annam loyally and diligently, what of his descendants? Whether they might harbor thoughts of complete independence — that was truly hard to say.

So enfeoffing a king in Annam had the advantage of quickly taking control, at least ensuring for several decades that Annam stayed on the right path.

But the disadvantage was that once there was a royal title and a legitimate fief, one could imagine a future in which, after the blood ties between the Annam royal house and the Central Plains imperial house grew thin and affections faded, there was an extremely high probability that trouble would break out.

The root reason was that the southwest, where the Chu fief lay, needed the court's support in many respects, including material resources.

But Annam was a place that could even be self-sufficient in culture — naturally full of independence.

The young aunt's breathing quickened. On one side was the temptation of her second son being able to join his elder brother and possess a great country of a million people; on the other was the prospect that her second son's descendants might ultimately end up like Liu Bi, King of Wu.

Truly a hard choice!

Not only was the young aunt hard-pressed to choose, Zhang Zhao too was in fact hard-pressed. This was his own son; if anything went wrong, how could he, as a father, live with himself?

But the situation forced Zhang Zhao to make a choice. He let out a long sigh and said:

"In my judgment, the reason Annam always stirs up trouble is still a matter of interests.

It is too far from the Central Plains; it cannot enjoy the court's benefits, yet it is still squeezed by the court. Anyone would be resentful.

To solve this problem, the only way is to make maritime trade flourish as it did in the Great Tang of old."

If maritime technology advanced a little further, so that seagoing ships could sail freely to Arabia and India, and if the Central Plains grew wealthy enough to afford Kunlun slaves, then the Annamese would be able to benefit from these sea-trade routes and would not resist the court so much.

And that would still take at least thirty to fifty years to take shape, so for now the best approach is to enfeoff an imperial prince and send him to Annam.

But I cannot be certain whether, within these thirty to fifty years, something else might happen in Annam."

With these words, Zhang Zhao in effect tossed the choice directly to his young aunt. Why a prince should be enfeoffed in Annam now, Zhang Zhao had already explained completely.

Annam was dissatisfied with being bled dry by one side alone, so the court would simply stop bleeding it and use a princely fief to do the bleeding instead.

The princely fief would replace the court's role, distributing this portion of the benefits to Annam's civil and military elite, forming a distribution model in which the court took one part through the princely fief's tribute, the prince himself took four parts, and the prince's civil and military elite took the remaining five parts, with all three sides together suppressing the discontent of the common people below.

In this medieval age, as long as the locally knowledgeable and troublemaking elements are pulled into the ruling group, the discontent below can basically be completely ignored, or at least several decades of stability can be guaranteed without problem.

The only risk is whether, as time passes, the prince might be coerced, and whether his loyalty might become a problem.

The two fell silent for a long while. The young aunt slowly opened her eyes. She had resisted the temptation, but it seemed she had not entirely resisted it, because she said to Zhang Zhao:

"Then he shall not be called a Great King, and shall not establish a princely administration. He will only be given the title of prince. The meritorious officials who go south with the prince shall not be enfeoffed as lords, regional governors, or inspection commissioners; they will only be given guard-battalion commands and minor inspection posts.

Once San Ge'er goes there, he will manage military affairs only; civil administration will still belong to the court."

Because Zhang Zhou had inspection commissioners both at home and abroad, he called the inspection commissioners who served as enfeoffed lords in the princely domain "grand inspectors," while the domestic inspection offices, which were merely eighth-rank military posts, were called "minor inspectors."

Zhang Zhao thought it over carefully. Was this not exactly the Ming dynasty model of the Duke of Qian, the Mu family, garrisoning Yunnan and Guizhou?

That is, military power and civil authority were separated. Provincial, prefectural, and county affairs were still governed by court-appointed circulating officials, while the enfeoffed lord, as the largest local armed chieftain, controlled military affairs, with suppression, campaigns against rebels, and pacification all carried out by the enfeoffed lord.

It was just that the Duke of Qian served as the leader of the native chieftains of Yunnan and Guizhou; after the enfeeoffment, the Mu family was nominally the greatest native chieftain of Yunnan and Guizhou.

And Li Ruoliu's proposal was to make Zhang Xianzhao the leader of all the guard-battalion commanders in Annam.

Perhaps it was a workable method. Zhang Zhao slowly nodded. Then let Zhang Xianzhao go and be a prince, and establish thirteen guard battalions across the thirteen prefectures of Annam.

These guard battalions would not be commanded by the provincial governor, nor by the Ministry of War or the Bureau of Military Affairs, but would be managed by Zhang Xianzhao.

"That works too. Then enfeoff San Ge'er as Prince of Tang, with a fief of fifteen thousand households. Establish the Prince of Tang's Left, Center, and Right Three Guards as his escort. In each of the thirteen prefectures, establish a guard battalion of two thousand households, and set up thirty-nine inspection posts to control key points. All of them shall be under San Ge'er's command."

This fief of fifteen thousand households was a real enfeeoffment, amounting to roughly seventy-five thousand people. Drawing one man from every ten would yield over three thousand soldiers.

The thirteen guards and thirty-nine inspection posts below could also draw on thirty to forty thousand households, producing a total of around ten thousand troops.

These fifty thousand or so households would become the elite of Annam. Whether for internal suppression or external campaigns against rebels, they should be sufficient.

But the young aunt was clearly not satisfied. She pushed Sage Zhang up off her numbed thigh, then extended five fingers and waved them at Zhang Zhao, saying:

"I will put up five hundred thousand strings of cash, for thirty thousand households, and also give San Ge'er the old Jiaozhi city of the Han dynasties."

Thirty thousand households meant a population of around one hundred fifty thousand. But Zhang Zhao thought it over carefully and felt it could be given.

Because Annam already had quite a large population. Take the current Ten Lords, for example: the smaller ones had two or three thousand households, the larger ones over ten thousand, averaging around six thousand households each, which was already three hundred thousand people. The Wu clan likely still controlled twenty thousand households, around one hundred thousand people.

That was already four hundred thousand people, but that was only the situation in the four core prefectures. If one counted the other nine prefectures that the Jinghai Army's chicken-dinner organization had no time to reclaim, the entire Jinghai Army had at least seven hundred thousand people.

So historically, the Jinghai Army was quite afraid of Southern Han attacks, because Southern Han had one million two to three hundred thousand people, while the Jinghai Army's core had only four hundred thousand.

But Southern Han could not be certain of defeating the Jinghai Army either, because those four hundred thousand people were relatively concentrated, and tens of thousands could be drawn out at any time.

Thirty thousand households and one hundred fifty thousand people was equivalent to one-fifth of the Jinghai Army's current population. Not very many, but by no means few, and a fairly suitable number.

But Zhang Xianzhao was only fourteen now. If he was to go take up his fief, he would need to be around eighteen.

So during these four or five years, there had to be a capable minister to hold the post in Zhang Xianzhao's place, and he also had to be willing to manage the Jinghai Army properly for Zhang Xianzhao.

The young aunt had clearly thought of this problem too. She looked at Zhang Zhao and asked, "Erlang, how old is Zhang Cheng's eldest daughter this year?"

Zhang Zhao's eyes lit up. He had just been thinking of Zhang Cheng as well. "She should be nine or ten."

Zhang Zhao still had some impression of this tiger girl of Zhang Cheng's. Last time she and Hu Guang's daughter Hu Jie had fought in the palace, and no one could pull them apart. In the end Zhang Zhao had personally gone to mediate.

"Four or five years younger, not a big problem. Then I shall write to Zhang Cheng about this matter myself." The young aunt said with a beaming smile.

Human society! Bedroom politics was just that useful. For someone of Zhang Cheng's status, making him stay in the Jinghai Army for four or five years would certainly count as a demotion.

But if it was changed to building a domain for his daughter, son-in-law, and future grandson, he would find it sweet as honey.

Once the model for governing Annam was settled, the battle to recover Annam would actually become much easier.

Because the Wu clan of the Jinghai Army plus the Ten Lords amounted to only a little over four hundred thousand people in total.

At that scale, even straining every muscle they could only field thirty or forty thousand troops, of which the elite yabing guards numbered only five or six thousand. The rest were roughly equivalent to the constables of the Central Plains' inspection offices.

The tenth year of Shaoming, 955 CE, end of the first month.

Zhang Xiancun, who had basically taken control of the Chu princely domain, followed the orders of his father, Sage Zhang, and began concentrating the Chu princely domain's Northern Army of four thousand men, the Southern Army of seven thousand men, and the fifteen thousand men of Zhang Cheng's personal and imperial guard forces still within the Chu princely domain, all at Jiayongbu.

The "bu" in Jiayongbu should be this "bu," meaning a key water-and-land dock.

In ancient times, in remote border regions people liked to use this "bu" in place of "bu," meaning that when one walked to this point, one had almost reached the end of traditional Han culture and should stop.

The specific location of Jiayongbu should be a dozen or so li northwest of later Hekou County, making it the transportation hub of the upper Red River at this time.

And in order not to alert the enemy, Zhang Xiancun issued proclamations far and wide, declaring that he was going to campaign against the unsubdued Tangmo tribe and the Niuhou Man, the barbarians who in later times lived around Dien Bien Phu in northwestern Vietnam.

In fact, it would not have mattered much if Zhang Xiancun had not issued this proclamation, because the Jinghai Army's Ten Lords and the Wu clan had long since lost control of the upper Red River.

This natural stronghold, which determined whether the Jinghai Army would be attacked from the upper Red River, was actually defended by some Baiyue people who only nominally submitted to the Jinghai Army.

While the Chu army was putting on a show at Jiayongbu for half a day, scaring the Tangmo tribal chief into coming to Jiayongbu in tears to kowtow and admit his faults, and while the Niuhou Man had burned their villages and fled deep into the mountains to hide,

the Chu army suddenly sailed south with the current, leaving everyone dumbfounded.

The great army moved down the Red River and very easily broke through the Jinghai Army's loose-rein prefectures of Linxi Prefecture (Lao Cai, Vietnam), Duoli Prefecture (Yen Bai, Vietnam), and other places.

In just six days, thirty thousand men including civilian laborers had rushed downstream to Xinchang County in Fengzhou.

This place was near later Vinh Phuc City in Vietnam, only about seventy li from Co Loa (Hanoi). The one entrenched here was none other than Wu Riqing, one of the Ten Lords.

Wu Riqing was a nephew of Wu Quan, a clansman of the Wu clan. Among the Ten Lords, he was one of those more inclined toward the Wu clan, so his strength was relatively great, and he controlled about nine thousand households.

Wu Riqing was only in his teens at this time. Although he was one of the Ten Lords, real power was held by his mother and maternal uncle.

Faced with the menacing Chu army, his mother and uncle both hoped to abandon Xinchang and retreat to Tanglin County while the Chu army was still setting up camp.

Because Tanglin County was the old nest of Wu Riqing's clan, nestled against mountains and water, with strong walls, enough to hold out.

But Wu Riqing, in the throes of adolescence, felt this was a perfect opportunity to seize power back for himself.

Therefore he vehemently opposed retreating to Tanglin County, on the grounds that although Tanglin County was the Wu clan's old nest, it was much poorer than Xinchang County.

Xinchang County was densely populated, and nearly all of the Wu clan's wealth was in Xinchang County. If they withdrew now, the losses would be catastrophic.

Wealth stirs men's hearts! Wu Riqing quickly persuaded the entire Wu clan, and they unanimously resolved to hold Xinchang County.

In this way, Wu Riqing did incidentally seize back some real power, but by doing so, the entire clan lost their only chance to escape with their lives.

In the middle of the second month, Zhang Cheng ordered thirty thousand Chu troops to surround the county and attack from all sides.

The Wu clan had only a little over four thousand defenders in Xinchang County, and since the county seat was built on the Red River plain, there was no defensible terrain at all. After barely five days of assault, the Chu troops used a battering ram to collapse a section of the eastern wall of Xinchang County.

The great army then entered the city. Wu Riqing, who had sat at ease in Xinchang County believing he had used a clever move to reclaim the family property, was captured by the Chu troops along with his mother, uncles, and several dozen other relatives.

After entering the city, Zhang Cheng began turning Xinchang County into a logistics base, preparing for the next stage of the offensive.

(End of Chapter)

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