Chapter 88: Longing for Liangzhou

"Young Lord Zhang Erlang, Wu Da'er is honored to report that the mission has been accomplished. The Gaochang white cotton cloth, fine cotton fabric, refined iron, sulfur, and wind-dried beef and mutton, worth one thousand five hundred and eighty strings of cash in total, have all been delivered." The moment Wu Da'er saw Zhang Zhao enter, he hurried over to pay his respects.

"Ha ha! Excellent timing!" Zhang Zhao said with a smile, steadying Wu Da'er before he could bow.

He was just now short of cloth and iron, and the wind-dried beef and mutton would serve perfectly as military provisions; the sulfur went without saying. Yet Zhang Zhao frowned in surprise.

"I had observed that the Tegin Diluo, Pugu Cheng, is no man of his word. I never imagined he would actually be willing to pay out such a sum as agreed!"

A sly smile crept across Wu Da'er's face, and he cupped his hands toward Zhang Zhao.

"After receiving your guidance, young lord, when I reached Yizhou I deliberately did not press the Tegin Diluo for the ransom. Instead, following protocol, I went to Gaochang to pay my respects to the Umu Zhu Khagan, conveying the Great King of Tuoxi's explanations and regards. Afterward I amused myself sightseeing for a while, and only after fifteen days did I go to seek out the Tegin Diluo!"

As he spoke, the smile on Wu Da'er's face grew even brighter.

"Sure enough, at first the Tegin Diluo thought one thousand five or six hundred strings was a fair price to escape his predicament, but as time dragged on, the more it pained him to part with the money.

In the end, even when I threatened to bring the matter before the Umu Zhu Khagan, the Tegin Diluo was only prepared to pay one thousand strings!"

"Hmph! Interesting!" Zhang Zhao snorted contemptuously.

"Pugu Cheng intercepted us at Puchang Lake, and it must have been at the Umu Zhu Khagan's instigation. Now that he has botched the affair so badly, he dares gamble that you won't take it to the Umu Zhu Khagan just to save five hundred and eighty strings. He truly values money over his own life!"

"The young lord's judgment is exactly right. No matter how fiercely I threatened him, the Tegin Diluo refused to pay a single coin more.

So I went to the Chen family. They too had been humiliated beyond endurance, and they went to the Tegin Diluo's residence every day to make a scene. In the end, the Tegin Diluo would bar his gates the moment he saw anyone from the Chen family coming!"

Having finished, Wu Da'er burst into loud laughter. "In the end Chen Huiyao was driven to desperation. He had no choice but to sell the family's ancestral shop on the busiest street in Yizhou to make up the five hundred and eighty strings for me.

By the time I hauled the goods out of Yizhou, the young men of the Chen family had already picked several fights with the Tegin Diluo's kinsmen, and they had even drawn blades."

"Well done! Captain Wu, you are a man of great talent. With a few simple moves and quick thinking, you have turned the Chen family's hearts to resentment against the Tegin Diluo. Tell me, what is the Chen family's standing in Gaochang? How many clansmen do they have?"

Wu Da'er held an honorary title of Captain in the Guiyi Army, so he could be addressed as Captain Wu.

Zhang Zhao did not care much about the few hundred strings of wealth extracted from the Chen family. What he coveted most were the Chen family's armored soldiers and their Han folk population.

"Their numbers are not small!" Wu Da'er held up three fingers.

"The clan numbers at least three thousand, though not all bear the surname Chen. They are formed by intermarriage among the Chen, Li, and Wang families.

These three families have served as military officers in Yizhou for generations. The armored soldiers of these three families alone number over a hundred, and they command more than a thousand troops in Yizhou. Their standing is not low.

However, Chen Huiyao is not the one who makes decisions. The head of the Chen family is Chen Huiyao's elder brother, the Military Adjutant of Yizhou under the Gaochang Uyghurs, General of the Household Chen Huiting!"

"Then I must trouble Captain Wu to write down the important members of the Yizhou Chen family on paper. Also, Captain, escorting the goods all the way from Yizhou here has been truly arduous. Please accept fifty strings as a token of my gratitude!"

"Many thanks for the young lord's generosity!" Wu Da'er did not decline; the fifty strings were his due.

"I shall return to Dunhuang in a few days. Does the young lord have any letters for me to carry back? And once I return to Dunhuang, I will inevitably have to say a few unflattering things about the young lord. I beg the young lord's understanding!"

Zhang Zhao understood why he said this. Wu Da'er's younger brother Wu Yuan'er had originally been an envoy of the Guiyi Army, and now he had come directly over to Zhang Zhao's side. If Wu Da'er did not make his stance clear upon returning, the Cao family would not only cease to employ him, but would likely bring trouble upon him as well.

"I understand. Take care of yourself in all things, Captain!" Zhang Zhao cupped his hands.

"By the way! The eminent monk Sanghadharma, whom the young lord had my younger brother investigate — I do have some impression of him. It is said he is of Khotan royal lineage and profoundly learned in the Dharma.

Not only is he a renowned eminent monk in Khotan, but he also enjoys considerable prestige throughout Guazhou, Shazhou, and Ganzhou, and even in Liangzhou and among the Wenmo people. The abbot of the Great Cloud Temple in Liangzhou is said to be his disciple."

Liangzhou. Zhang Zhao could not help but feel his pupils contract. This was a city that carried so much of the Guiyi Army's rise and fall, its blood and tears!

Every time the Guiyi Army had been at the height of its power, it had held Liangzhou. Every decline of the Guiyi Army had begun with the loss of Liangzhou.

And then there were the Wenmo tribes of Liangzhou — tribes formed from the descendants of the fallen Tang military and civilian population of Longyou, mixed with other minority peoples, bearing strong Tibetan imprints.

They were the protagonists of the verse "The Han folk have all learned the barbarians' tongue, yet they curse the Han from atop the city walls," and they were the fierce people who had brought down Li Jiqian, the God of War of Dijinze.

These powerful tribes that had held Liangzhou for centuries could still stand toe-to-toe with the Western Xia even in the era of Gusiluo. They were precisely the ones Zhang Zhao most wished to conquer and win over.

This humble monk may be able to assemble a host of eminent monks, and have the masters of the Buddhist clergy recognize the young lord as a guardian deity of the Buddhist faith.

This humble monk is willing to aid with over a hundred warrior monks.

Zhang Zhao now somewhat understood the power of those two sentences! To him, they were absolutely no less valuable than Li Shengtian's support.

Wu Yuan'er saw Wu Da'er off, while Zhang Zhao waited in the inner chamber for another person's arrival. Before long, gracefully and elegantly, the Khotanese palace maids arrived at the residence in full ceremonial dress.

They clustered around a noblewoman whose forehead bore an intricately patterned floral ornament, whose cheeks were painted with blue bird-shaped beauty marks resembling flying cranes, draped in a crimson outer robe, her head full of gold and jeweled hairpins, as she walked in with every manner of grace.

"Cousin, is there some urgent matter that brings you to your younger brother at night? So late, and Uncle has allowed you out of the palace?"

The woman who had come was none other than Li Shengtian's queen, Cao Yijin's sixth daughter, Zhang Yichao's great-great-granddaughter, and Zhang Zhao's blood cousin, Cao Yuanxin.

Cao Yuanxin sat down unceremoniously in the seat of honor and looked at Zhang Zhao with a faint smile.

"First you call me cousin, then you call him uncle. So am I your cousin, or your aunt? Or perhaps in the future I shall become your sixth aunt? And besides..."

Cao Yuanxin raised her head to glance at the sun, which still seemed reluctant to set and had spread a streak of rosy clouds across the horizon.

"You call this coming to find you at night? Zhang Erlang, it seems you are quite afraid of me?"

Zhang Zhao gave an awkward smile. He truly was somewhat afraid of this woman. Chosen by Cao Yijin to be married off to Khotan, bearing the arduous task of mending the rift between the Cao and Li families, and having pushed the former Queen of Khotan into the Suomoro Temple to become a nun the moment she arrived — could such a person be easy to deal with?

This was a master of palace intrigue!

Before Zhang Zhao could answer, Cao Yuanxin extended a fair finger and pointed at him.

"With a blood relative like you, I, Cao Liuniang, am truly blessed! In just a few days, you have presented the Son of Heaven with two daughters of Sanpoba, and even offered a method for their upbringing!

Zhang Erlang, was it really so difficult to leave Sanpoba's bastards to die in a thousand li of yellow sand? You had to bring them to Khotan. You came here to tear down my stage, didn't you?"

"Cousin speaks too harshly. I am the Son of Heaven's nephew. Having obtained the Sanpoba princesses, how dare I not present them to my uncle?"

Zhang Zhao decided not to engage with Cao Yuanxin. In any case, Li Shengtian would soon be unable to do without him. Before the great prize of taking Shule, he would simply keep out of Cao Yuanxin's way.

"Hehehehe!" Cao Yuanxin laughed coquettishly a few times, then suddenly glared.

"Still calling me cousin, are you? I see you won't shed tears until you see the coffin!" As she spoke, the woman removed one of the gold and jeweled hairpins from her hair, then stared at Zhang Zhao with a teasing look.

"Zhang Erlang, guess what all of Khotan would say if I were to rush out right now with my hair disheveled and in a panic? And what would the Son of Heaven think when he heard of it?"

All chapters have been cached for you. Download the APP to view.