Chapter 880

Bukhara, the Forbidden City, the White Palace.

Emir Hamid was gaunt and haggard; now even leaning against the headboard required someone to help support him. Seen from a distance, he looked like a scarecrow propped up by a wooden frame.

Yet everyone marveled at the Emir's tenacious hold on life, for he had looked exactly like this four years ago — seemingly on the verge of death at any moment — yet he had held on until now.

A cool breeze set the wind chimes hanging at the entrance to Hamid's bedchamber, the central hall of the White Palace, swaying; along with the tinkling came the sound of chaotic footsteps.

Hamid had the palace maids help him up to lean against the headboard, and saw the arrivals — dense, packed, and numerous.

Four of the five deputy wazirs (Counselors-in-Chief) had come; nearly two-thirds of the heads of the various departments of the Diwan (the Department of State Affairs) were present, along with a host of assorted nobles.

On the whole, apart from the Grand Wazir (Chancellor), the Hajib (Commander of the Palace Guard), and the Ghulam commander Haras who controlled the city defenses — all deeply bound to Hamid's eldest son Salah — two-thirds of Bukhara's high officials and nobles had come.

Hamid knew what they had come for.

More than a month had passed since Abu Yusuf's defeat. The fortress of Jeddah was still in imminent peril, and despite frantic conscription at home, only thirty thousand troops had been raised.

These thirty thousand Mustawa conscripts, plus the mere four thousand Ghulam guards left in the city of Bukhara, were the last armed forces of the vast Samanid realm.

And the Mustawa conscripts had little fighting strength, so the only force that could be relied upon was the four thousand Ghulam guards.

Under these circumstances, if the fortress of Jeddah were breached, the Samanid state would perish.

These people had come to him — to him, an Emir who had long since lost all real power and retained only an empty title — surely to use him as a stepping stone.

Sure enough, the crowd surged in, made a show of concern for Hamid's health, and then began to wail and weep — not entirely feigned, but born of genuine anxiety over the unknown fate bearing down upon them.

Their thousand words and myriad phrases boiled down to one request: that Hamid, as Emir, write a letter in his own hand to Baghdad, beseeching His Majesty the Caliph to send troops to rescue the Samanid realm.

Hmph. The Caliph Muti in Baghdad was now nothing more than a puppet of the Buyid family, so any army that came from Baghdad could only be the Buyid family's army.

Had not Adud al-Dawla already assumed the title of King of Kings of Persia? Naturally he had a keen interest in the Samanid realm, which occupied most of the former Persian lands.

A thoughtful look appeared on Hamid's face, but inwardly he sneered.

Once the Buyid family took control of the Samanid realm, these people's interests would not suffer much — but of his own children, Hamid's, few would remain alive.

Although Hamid, due to his health, had only three sons — the second had died young, and the eldest, Salah, seemed as good as dead — his youngest son, Mansur, still had to be preserved.

Just as these people surrounded Hamid with a torrent of honeyed persuasion, the deep wail of horns sounded. The crowd in the White Palace erupted in commotion and rushed outside.

The room fell quiet again. Apart from the curses and sounds of slaughter outside, which were gradually intensifying, it was as though no one had ever come.

A cold smile flickered across Hamid's face. It was he who had secretly sent word to Salah.

The sounds of battle grew fiercer. No one could have imagined that at this moment, with the Samanid realm on the verge of destruction, it was not the enemy breaking in, but the Samanid elite beginning an internal struggle within the city of Bukhara.

At this time, the Samanid realm had not yet begun recruiting Turks into Anxi City on a large scale to serve as Ghulams; the Ghulams of this era were mostly drawn from the sons of Persian nobles.

Therefore, when Salah ordered the arrest of the high officials and nobles who had entered the White Palace in the Forbidden City, word immediately leaked.

These high officials and nobles had dared to come to Hamid in such numbers precisely because, while they had inside informants, they also had large numbers of retainers and servants of their own, ready to be called out to fight at any moment.

The two sides were, in a sense, evenly matched. The "Crouching Dragons and Young Phoenixes" fought a great melee in Anxi City (Bukhara); wails of slaughter filled the ground, raging fires blazed within the city, thugs and ruffians began looting amid the chaos, and the common citizens fled the city in panic.

The next day, the fighting spread beyond Anxi City — Salah's faction on one side, and the high officials and nobles inclined to submit to the Buyid family on the other.

Both began sending out calls to war to the iqta vassals and dehqans outside the city who supported them, and the scale of the fighting grew ever larger.

Hamid sat on the palace balcony, his left hand holding his seven-year-old youngest son Mansur, his right arm supported by his trusted palace chamberlain, staring blankly at the distant fires of the city as though it had nothing to do with him.

Seven-year-old Mansur already understood a few things. Gazing at the distant flames, the little boy was frantic.

"Father, can you make Elder Brother and the others stop fighting? If this goes on, our family will be finished."

Hamid shook his head, then asked instead: "The biography of King Narsieh I told you to read — have you read it thoroughly?"

Little Mansur nodded obediently. Though he did not know why his father always asked whether he had thoroughly read the biography of King Narsieh, he truly knew the story by heart.

Mansur had even developed a strange sense of familiarity with that great Taohuashi empire described in the book, ten thousand li away, so fabulously wealthy it was like a palace in the heavens.

A rare smile finally appeared on Hamid's face. "My Mansur, remember this: you are a descendant of King Narsieh. In the distant land of the great Taohuashi Zhou, there are still descendants of King Narsieh — our own kinsmen.

From this day forward, you are a Taohuashi. You must pledge loyalty to His Majesty the Great Taohuashi Emperor.

In the days to come, without your father, think thrice before every act. Never be like your elder brother, bringing ruin upon yourself and your family."

With that, Hamid waved his hand, and the palace attendants led the half-comprehending Mansur away.

Only when the young boy had vanished behind the curtain did the doting expression on Hamid's gaunt face disappear, replaced by the cold look befitting an Emir.

"Has the person sent by Safiya arrived?" Hamid asked the palace chamberlain beside him.

"She has. She has already reached the outskirts of the fortress of Jeddah. The message sent back says that as long as the Emir can hold out until she enters the city, all problems will be resolved!"

The palace chamberlain answered carefully, though his brow soon furrowed. "The messenger also relayed one particular sentence, saying that His Highness the Emir should be decisive when the time comes, and not make things difficult for her."

At these words, Hamid instead broke into a smile. "It seems Safiya still cares for this brother of hers. The person she sent is so ruthless — she should be able to control the situation and preserve little Mansur's life."

In the ninth year of Shaoming, 954 CE, in the second month, an internal clash erupted in Anxi City. Prince Salah, who held actual power, and the high officials and meritorious ministers who wished to submit to the Buyid family fought fiercely within the city.

At the same time, Emir Hamid, in the White Palace of the Forbidden City, ordered his trusted palace chamberlain to set a fire amid the chaos, burning to death the mother of his youngest son Mansur along with dozens of palace servants and attendants. This was what Guo Zhou'er had meant by being decisive when the time came.

In the middle of the second month, Prince Salah, unable to hold out, sent riders at full speed to the fortress of Jeddah, ordering Abu Yusuf, who had been holding the fortress all along, to return to Anxi City to aid the fight.

Although Abu Yusuf knew that the fortress of Jeddah would be in danger the moment he left, seeing that the Zhou army had largely withdrawn, and considering that if anything happened to Salah, his own entire family would die as well —

he left his deputy Omar to hold the fortress, while he himself led twenty-five hundred elite infantry and cavalry back to Anxi City (Bukhara) to help Prince Salah suppress the rebellion.

And no more than three days after Abu Yusuf departed, the secret envoy of Emir Hamid, setting out from the White Palace in the Forbidden City, arrived at the fortress of Jeddah.

At the same time, Guo Zhou'er sent Habad, the governor of Herat Province who had already defected, who likewise entered the fortress of Jeddah with the help of inside collaborators.

Omar, with his great beard, looked loyal enough, but faced with the Emir's command from above and the overtures of Princess Safiya's special envoy from below, he swiftly betrayed Abu Yusuf.

He let Guo Zhou'er's three hundred armored soldiers of the Great Zhou Left Jinwu Guard and the two thousand Persian armored troops recruited from among the prisoners into the fortress of Jeddah.

At the beginning of the third month, Prince Salah, having gained Abu Yusuf's support, finally won a decisive victory.

Abu Yusuf's armored soldiers might not be able to beat the fierce men of Taohuashi, but could they not beat a bunch of fat, idle nobles of Anxi City?

But just as Prince Salah was about to storm the White Palace in the Forbidden City, kill the rebellious high officials and nobles, and even kill his father Hamid and his young brother Mansur directly — Guo Zhou'er arrived!

As the rising sun first appeared, Zhang Mei, clad in silver-white cloth-faced iron armor, gazed at Anxi City in the distance — still extraordinarily majestic despite being engulfed in the flames of war — and could not help but feel his spirits soar. Looking at the Basmyl men An Cunxiao and Shi Shouxin on either side, he said:

"Beholding this mighty city, I think back to those days, when the Sage seized the moment with precision and took a city such as this with no more than fifteen thousand infantry and cavalry, capturing the lord of five million people — what a hero he must have been!"

"Then today, since we have come here, we must by no means fall short of the Sage's former glory. Let these barbarians see once more what the heavenly troops of the Great Dynasty truly are!"

Shi Shouxin was even more entranced; he turned his horse and cupped his hands toward Guo Zhou'er behind him.

"Madam Guo, I beg to serve as the vanguard!"

The Great Zhou troops preparing to enter Samanid Persia this time consisted of only half a du of three hundred men from the Left Jinwu Guard, plus three hundred cavalry drawn from the Basmyl and Ili tumens.

Of course, these six hundred men alone could not achieve complete suppression. The army's true commander, Left Jinwu Guard General Cao Bin, was leading a thousand elite Left Jinwu Guard troops and had only just entered Khotan; it would be more than a month before he could reach Samanid Persia.

So for now, militarily, this force was divided among Zhang Mei, An Cunxiao, and Shi Shouxin, each controlling a portion of the Great Zhou troops and captured Persian soldiers.

The three had no chain of command among them, so they temporarily decided to make Guo Zhou'er the symbolic commander.

Guo Zhou'er felt a surge of emotion. Even though Shi Shouxin was not from the Left and Right Yulin Guard, the Left and Right Jinwu Guard, or the top elite of Hanhai Garrison, Wuwei Garrison, and Yingyang Garrison, the imperial army's Shengshe Garrison was still a battle-hardened lion descended from Hanhai Garrison.

"Granted. General Shi, move swiftly to seize and slay the disloyal rebels within the city!"

In Anxi City, though the great fire was beginning to die down, the area near the forbidden city had been nearly leveled to bare ground. Residents' houses had been torn down to make siege equipment and even weapons.

Shi Shouxin led three hundred Great Zhou armored soldiers, with a thousand Persian barbarian troops, charging toward the battle zone. On either side of Shi Shouxin, cavalrymen each held a silver-white Three Stars banner fluttering in the wind.

Coming toward Shi Shouxin were ordinary commoners fleeing for their lives, supporting the old and carrying the young, laden with bundles large and small.

Since the high officials and nobles had been defeated days earlier, the northern city they controlled had completely lost order; even the city gates were unguarded. That was why Shi Shouxin could lead thirteen hundred horse and foot into the city so easily.

'Thud!' A middle-aged man wearing a rolled-brim pointed felt hat suddenly stopped, then dropped straight to his knees on the ground.

His eyes fixed on the silver-white Three Stars banner in the rider's hand, staring again and again, and then he suddenly let out a loud shriek.

"Tawgach, Tawgach, the warriors of the Gur Khan have come again!"

Time flowed on, as if everything had turned back twenty years.

Twenty years ago, the middle-aged man had been a lad in his teens. At this same northern city gate, he too had followed his family in terror, trying to flee the city, and then had encountered the great army entering the city with the Three Stars banner raised high.

This moment was exactly like that one. The middle-aged man suddenly remembered that back then he had a female cousin who had been chosen by the Tawgach people to earn a few silver coins, and then...

And then she had given birth to a baby that looked exactly like a Tawgach person.

Struck by sudden inspiration, the middle-aged man knelt with his whole family on the cold, muddy street, and pushed his twenty-something-year-old 'Tawgach' nephew to the very front of the crowd.

The cavalrymen had already drawn their long blades. One was about to strike down with a cleaving blow, because these people could not be allowed to block their assault route.

Then he saw a barbarian with a Han face just like his own, and at the very last moment, he pulled back the swinging saber.

Immediately after, many residents of Anxi City recalled that scene from years past. The Gur Khan's army, though fierce, did not kill indiscriminately; they even paid money when they sought someone to warm their beds.

More and more people chose not to flee but to kneel along both sides of the road. The once-crowded, surging streets slowly began to clear.

Shi Shouxin was also quite clever. Seeing this, though he did not understand why, he immediately ordered his soldiers not to use force, even if it meant advancing more slowly.

Salih glanced at the hourglass raised by the attendant beside him and issued a death order: if the forbidden city's White Palace was not breached within one double-hour, he would severely punish the officers around him.

The reason for such urgency was that Prince Salih had no time left. These men daring to rebel could not have acted on a whim; they could only have begun their move because Buyid family troops had already set out from Baghdad.

Fortunately, someone had secretly sent him word. Prince Salih felt a chill of lingering fear.

If no one had warned him, once these rebels had the entire forbidden city under their control, and the Buyid army had reached the vicinity of Anxi City, he would have been doomed.

Just as he was about to give the order to fire rockets into the city, Salih heard a horn call he had never heard before, approaching from far to near, and then he felt as if the area around him had exploded into chaos.

Dust rose from nowhere, and then everywhere there were people fleeing for their lives. And he did not even know what was happening, until he heard countless people shouting: "Tawgach, Tawgach."

Shi Shouxin first covered the field with a rain of arrows, then led his cavalry in a direct charge. Several hundred men swept over Salih's positions like a violent storm, and then the infantry followed up to encircle and annihilate.

In truth, this battle hardly needed to be fought at all, because the main force on Salih's side — the relief troops from the Jeddah fortress — collapsed the moment they saw the silver-white Three Stars banner flying in the distance.

They paid no attention to how many men Shi Shouxin had brought. In their terror-stricken hearts, they simply believed the Jeddah fortress must have fallen the moment they left, and that a boundless Tawgach army had come to hunt them down.

Abu Yusuf was even faster than Salih. Long since terrified out of his wits by the battle at Heyang Garrison, he turned and left the battlefield with a dozen trusted guards, leaving Salih standing there in a daze.

It was a one-sided beating with no suspense at all. Shi Shouxin routed more than four thousand of Salih's Persian troops with just over a thousand men.

At the same time, An Cunxiao and Zhang Mei, led by inside agents, closed in from both flanks, and the battle was finished in less than a double-hour.

In the White Palace, Guo Zhou'er looked at Emir Hamid in disbelief, and then her expression turned to admiration. Sick as he was, he still had not breathed his last — truly pitiful was the heart of a parent.

Hamid had developed a high fever, which for someone as weak as him was undoubtedly the death knell already sounding.

In his dazed confusion, Hamid looked at Guo Zhou'er and asked softly: "How is Safiya? Does she still hate me?"

A mocking look flashed across Guo Zhou'er's face, but it quickly vanished. "Hate? How could she hate?

Consort Sai rose from a princess of a small barbarian kingdom to become the favored consort of the most powerful monarch under heaven. She is too overjoyed for hatred; there is only contentment and happiness."

Hamid wanted very much to say that Samanid Persia was not barbarian, but his time was short, and he no longer had the energy to argue over such things.

"Very well, it is good that she does not hate." As he spoke, Hamid handed over a sheet of paper, and then had the court minister pass Mansur — who had just lost his mother and was crying his eyes out — to Guo Zhou'er.

Guo Zhou'er looked at the small boy with gray hair and brown eyes before her. Good, at least he was not a yellow-haired barbarian; he looked rather agreeable.

"The names on this paper are all worthy ministers who can be used. They have seen the might of the Great Emperor's army and will cooperate with you."

Guo Zhou'er nodded and walked out without a word. Behind her, Hamid shouted: "Will Saman be ruled by Safiya's son in the future?"

Heh heh. Guo Zhou'er laughed coldly twice in her heart, and without turning her head said offhandedly: "His Highness the Emir should rest and recover well. How the Great Emperor will decide is not something people like us can presume to guess."

Once outside the palace hall, Guo Zhou'er handed the paper to Shi Shouxin beside her. "General Shi, arrest and kill according to the list. Killing half will be enough."

Guo Zhou'er did not care whether Hamid had salted the list with false names, because she understood one truth: under the combined threat of death and temptation of wealth and rank, no one can hold out.

Shi Shouxin hesitated. He was still a fresh-faced newcomer and had never done this kind of thing before. "Madam, which half of these people need to be arrested and killed?"

Guo Zhou'er let out a giggle. "General Shi, that will be for you to decide, because you are the conqueror. This is your right!"

In the ninth year of Shaoming, 954 CE, in the fourth month, Guo Zhou'er had essentially taken control of Anxi City. She then pinned the death of Prince Salih — killed by Zhou troops — on the rebellious high officials and nobles, and immediately launched a great purge.

On the seventeenth day of the fourth month alone, Guo Zhou'er exterminated thirteen clans totaling more than seven hundred people, until heads rolled through Anxi City and every face turned pale.

On the twenty-second of the fourth month, Abu Yusuf, who had fled south to Lasebo — the city of the Lesser Shi Kingdom — was captured by Zhou troops and then taken to Anxi City to be executed by slow slicing.

That same day, Samanid Emir Hamid finally breathed his last, still uneasy at heart.

Only three days later, on the twenty-fifth of the fourth month, Guo Zhou'er held Mansur in her arms and enthroned him in the forbidden city as the new Emir of Samanid Persia.

On the third day of the fifth month, Left Jinwu Guard General Cao Bin led a thousand Great Zhou elite troops into Anxi City, bringing the investiture edict of the Great Zhou Emperor, the Heavenly Khagan, the King of Kings of Persia, Sage Zhang.

Mansur was formally invested as King of Samanid Persia, and Guo Zhou'er was made Lady of Anxi Commandery, to serve as Mansur's adoptive mother and wield regency over the state affairs of Samanid Persia.

At the same time, Guo Zhou'er began to rely on a group of people she had never imagined would exist, using them as the foundation of her rule.

These people were the descendants left behind by the soldiers who had followed Zhang Zhao into Anxi City (Bukhara), numbering more than four hundred — and that was counting only the males. If the girls were included, there were as many as nine hundred.

Considering that quite a few pregnant women had already been taken away at the time, Guo Zhou'er clicked her tongue in amazement.

What kind of studs were the men who followed Sage Zhang into Anxi City back then? How could they be this good at sowing their seed!

What was rather shocking was that these mixed-blood children had originally faced some discrimination in Anxi City and within their families, but now, all of a sudden, they had become valuable.

Because of the soldiers and officers who had entered Anxi City with Zhang Zhao back then, any who had survived were now officials of one rank or another. Who knew — among these children there might be bloodlines left behind by meritorious generals like Duke of Chen Ma Zhaoyuan, Duke of Tian Liu Zaisheng, and others. How could they not be valuable?

And so, Guo Zhou'er relied on them and the families behind them to quickly stabilize the situation.

On the twenty-sixth day of the fifth month, the great general of the Buyid dynasty, Muhammad Qa'im, finally arrived at the city of Merv, seven hundred li southwest of Anxi City, leading fifty thousand infantry and cavalry.

This city belonged to Turkmenistan in later ages; at this time it was a major stronghold of Transoxiana. The defenders of Merv, as well as the defenders of Rayy (Tehran) further west, had all already gone over to the Buyid dynasty.

The appearance of the Buyid army at Merv marked the complete loss of all of Khorasan, which had belonged to Samanid Persia.

This was also the reason the Buyid army had arrived so late — because they had been seizing the opportunity to digest the former Persian lands headed by the city of Rayy (Tehran).

On the fifth day of the sixth month, Cao Bin personally led thirty-two thousand infantry and cavalry to the north of Merv, and the two armies began a standoff in the Gobi on both banks of the Murghab River.

On the tenth day of the sixth month, the impatient Muhammad Qa'im led his great army across the Murghab River and began attacking Cao Bin's forces.

Cao Bin concealed two thousand elite cavalry of the Great Zhou within his main force, sending out only thirty thousand Persian auxiliary troops to fight.

The two sides fought for about one shichen, and the Persian troops began to falter, being cut down in utter disarray. Had they not known that there were forces behind them holding the line, they would likely have collapsed long ago.

Muhammad Qa'im was overjoyed at the sight and immediately pressed his entire army forward, surrounding them on three sides and attacking fiercely.

This fierce three-sided assault looked very imposing, but in reality it left their own formation wide open.

Seeing this, Cao Bin immediately ordered the two generals Shi Shouxin and An Cunxiao to lead two thousand elite cavalry and charge straight at the Buyid commander-in-chief, Muhammad Qa'im.

Muhammad Qa'im had never imagined that such elite cavalry existed among the Persian troops. Caught completely off guard, he had no time to respond; the defensive forces he dispatched had not yet arrived when Shi Shouxin and An Cunxiao charged right up to him.

In the midst of ten thousand troops, Shi Shouxin loosed three arrows in succession, and all three hit their mark, shooting Muhammad Qa'im dead on the spot. An Cunxiao, wielding a long-handled battle-axe, cut down the great banner of the Buyid army.

The Buyid troops instantly fell into panic. Cao Bin immediately raised his arm and shouted, personally leading his army in a counterattack.

With their commander slain, the Buyid army was like a headless fly. Under the counterattack of the Persian auxiliaries, whose morale was soaring, they collapsed like a landslide, and fifty thousand troops fled wailing and weeping.

The Buyid army suffered catastrophic losses. In their scramble to cross the Murghab River first, the casualties were horrific and countless men drowned. Some fled into the boundless Gobi, where the only thing awaiting them was death.

In this single battle, Cao Bin slew more than twenty thousand on the field, and the fifty thousand-strong Buyid army, along with its commander, was nearly annihilated to a man.

With this great victory, the tottering political situation of Samanid Persia was finally stabilized, while the Buyid dynasty, which harbored ill intentions, was thoroughly cowed.

At the end of the sixth month, the great army recaptured Merv. Cao Bin left Shi Shouxin to garrison the place, then led the army back.

But the war was not over. The next step fell to Guo Zhou'er, who began to act according to the circumstances, stirring up hatred between the Samanid Persians and the Arabs, retaking Khorasan to the west, and deliberately manufacturing enmity between the two peoples.

At this time, Bai Congxin and Lu Sanlang, far away in the city of Shiguo, finally received their investitures.

As expected, Zhang Zhao also handed Baishui City over to Bai Congxin, promoting him to Great King of Zheng, and renaming Shiguo City as the new Zheng royal city.

Lu Sanlang was invested as Grand Duke of Dinghai, with his capital at Jand, and was ordered to lead three thousand households of Western Zubu people and one thousand households of Han people to establish a state around the Aral Sea.

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