Chapter 884: Breaking the Enemy Ten Thousand Li: Zhang Xiantai the Worthy

In the fourth year of Qianyou of the Great Zhou, 963 CE, in the second month, Zhang Xiantai, having taken in the steppe cavalry, finally arrived at Shule.

The herders were settled separately in Shule, Kucha, Yanqi, Khotan, and other places, where the local authorities were responsible for their food and drink and allotted them temporary grazing lands.

At the same time, the three kings' western expedition armies were all assembled, conducting joint drills while adapting to the local climate and conditions.

Although when they set out from the Divine Capital the three kings' western expedition armies were mere empty shells, the framework supporting those shells still existed—namely, the veterans who had graduated from the Dragon Tao Academy year after year and then entered the army.

In the western expedition armies, all ranks from Army Inspector upward and a small number of squad leaders were held by these veterans. These old soldiers were familiar with the customs and conditions of Anxi; a minority were fluent in Turkic, and most could manage simple everyday conversation in Turkic.

They could also find their bearings in open country, and more importantly, they had a slight understanding of medical principles.

Well, calling it medical principles may be an exaggeration, because what they knew was only the medical common sense that people of later ages would consider ordinary—namely, using Huoxiang Zhengqi Powder and montmorillonite powder to treat illness caused by unfamiliar climate and water.

The former mainly treats dizziness, chest tightness, distension and pain, and vomiting; it is a precious, famous formula that had long been established in this era and was included in the Essential Formulas Worth a Thousand Gold.

The latter mainly treats diarrhea caused by unfamiliar climate and water; historically, it was invented by the French at the beginning of the twentieth century.

But thanks to my Sage Zhang's "excellent" constitution, in which eating a single banana as a child could bring on diarrhea, he was extremely familiar with montmorillonite powder, and so after deciding to make the barbarians into subjects of the Xia, he began sending people to search for and study it.

At last, effort paid off. The physicians of the Brocade Guard's Yin-Yang Pharmacy Bureau made large discoveries in Henan, Hebei, and the three provinces of Andong.

In Andong in particular—that is, the Northeast—the montmorillonite bentonite discovered there was abundant, high-quality, and easy to mine, and it has now become one of the sources of wealth for the various peoples of Andong Province.

Quinine Zhang Zhao still could not produce, so going to Southeast Asia remained very dangerous.

But with Huoxiang Zhengqi Powder and montmorillonite powder, among the brave men going west to Transoxiana, Persia, the Caspian coast, and India, deaths from unfamiliar climate and water dropped by more than eighty percent.

Therefore, Huoxiang Zhengqi Powder and montmorillonite powder became formulas that every graduate of the Dragon Tao Academy had to know well, and in extreme circumstances, they even had to be able to compound the medicines themselves from raw ingredients.

In the fourth month, the great army completed its joint drills, and the soldiers had largely adapted to the climate of Anxi. Zhang Xianyu then divided the army into three routes.

The main force of the southern route was led by him personally: fifty thousand infantry and cavalry from Shule toward Ningyuan.

The central route was led by the Great King of Song, Zhang Xianxi: six thousand infantry and cavalry north from Shule to Suyab.

For Zhang Xianxi was the adopted son of Guo Wan'er, his birth mother was the Samanid Persian Princess Safiyeh, and he had also already married Hu Jie, the daughter of Hu Guang.

More importantly, as a heroic woman in the mold of Princess Pingyang Zhao, Hu Jie was with the army, and she was helping Zhang Xianxi command a force of elite Tatar cavalry.

The Hu clan originated from a small group of White Tatars west of Juyan Lake who had submitted to the Guiyi Army. After Hu Guang rose to prominence, more White Tatars who could no longer get by on the steppe came to seek refuge with him.

After Hu Guang incorporated them, he selected their finest and sent them to the Central Plains to serve as Zhang Xianxi's personal retainers.

Now Hu Guang had served in Anxi for more than ten years as the Grand Pacification and Displacement Commissioner, firmly controlling more than a dozen cities from Suyab to Talas, with a population of over six hundred thousand, and had also formed a military system of eight thousand elite troops and twelve thousand conscripts.

Zhang Xianyu could not help feeling a little envious. Among the three brothers, Zhang Xianxi's task was the easiest; not only had his father-in-law arranged everything, but he also had Samanid Persian blood.

Once word of his arrival in Transoxiana spread, who knew how many Samanid Persians would come to pledge allegiance to him.

The northern route was led by the Great King of Shu, Zhang Xiantai: thirty thousand infantry and cavalry, going through Kucha into the Land of the Seven Rivers.

The main task was to conscript roughly fifty to eighty thousand Karluks as auxiliary troops, and then rendezvous with Lu Sanlang at Dinghai City (Jand).

The Karluks were in a somewhat miserable state at the moment. Historically, their betrayal at the Battle of Talas would not in itself have mattered, but the Zhang Zhou court of this very time had a large number of East-Returning partisans descended from the Anxi Army, and the Karluks also had the black mark of having followed Satuq Khan in opposing Zhang Zhao.

Therefore, although their numbers reached nearly five hundred thousand and they occupied the rich Land of the Seven Rivers, they had not even been granted a ten-thousand-household unit. They were divided and controlled by the Basmyl and Ili ten-thousand-household units and the Beiting Provincial administration, and whenever there was a war, they were conscripted as auxiliary troops to do the dirty, exhausting, and deadly work.

It was estimated that by the time their population had been drained to only a little over a hundred thousand, the Land of the Seven Rivers would no longer belong to them, and the remaining people would surely be absorbed into other tribes.

In the fifth month, Zhang Xianyu reached Xining City, the capital of Ningyuan, and began taking over from Cao Bin, who had been garrisoned there for nearly ten years and was to return east once Transoxiana was fully pacified.

And unlike Cao Bin's office of Grand Pacification and Displacement Commissioner of Ningyuan, Zhang Xianyu's full title was "Commissioner Bearing the Imperial Staff, Supervising and Governing All Military, Administrative, Fiscal, and Grain Affairs of Ningyuan," abbreviated as Governor-General of Ningyuan.

In the present Zhang Zhou, Ningyuan's status was very special. In today's Transoxiana and Anxi, Ningyuan had the highest proportion of Han people, and Zhang Zhao had explicitly stated that no princes would be enfeoffed in Ningyuan.

At the same time, it was neither a province nor a vassal state, but a directly administered prefecture clearly distinct from both.

Zhang Zhou now had three directly administered territories. The former Henan Province in the capital region was called Zhili, and its chief officer was the "Commissioner Supervising and Governing Zhili's Finances, Grain, Judicial, Guard-Post, and Military Affairs," abbreviated as Governor-General of Zhili.

The second was the Pengtai Directly Administered Prefecture within Penglai Province, whose chief officer was the "Commissioner Temporarily in Charge of Penglai Island's Finances, Grain, Military, and Administrative Affairs, Concurrently Prefect of Pengtai."

This post had been established on Zhang Xianyu's recommendation after he left Pengtai, mainly not to control Penglai Island (Kyushu).

But rather to let the people of the two provinces of Penglai and Chao Ri, formerly belonging to the Wa kingdom, know that there was still a court above them, and that they were now part of the Central Plains court.

The third was the Ningyuan Directly Administered Prefecture, whose chief officer was the "Commissioner Bearing the Imperial Staff, Supervising and Governing Ningyuan's Finances, Grain, Military, and Administrative Affairs," abbreviated as Governor-General of Ningyuan.

Also, unlike the other two directly administered territories, the Governor-General of Ningyuan was appointed directly by the Emperor, without going through the Ministry of Personnel of the Department of State Affairs.

To put it bluntly, Ningyuan was a private domain of the imperial family, and it also served the function of providing a blood bank for making the barbarians into subjects of the Xia.

For example, the several million shi of grain now stockpiled in Ningyuan, the hundreds of thousands of arrow shafts, and the arsenal that the Dragon Tao Academy and the Heavenly Works Academy had jointly established here were all prepared for the future western expedition.

For this reason, every Governor-General of Ningyuan was a trusted confidant of the imperial family—indeed, often a member of the imperial family itself.

Zhang Xianyu stayed in Ningyuan for a month, and during that month he was by no means idle. The situation in Transoxiana Province was now complex, and in particular the infighting among several factions of their own people meant that Zhang Xianyu first had to calmly analyze the situation and reach conclusions before taking action.

One had to understand that among these people, even the most marginal figure, the Grand Duke of Dinghai, Lu Sanlang, was a member of the East-Returning faction.

As for the rest, Bai Congxin was not only a member of the Original Followers faction, but the second-ranking meritorious elder within that faction.

Li Congde went without saying. The Li family of Khotan had rendered great and meritorious service, had extremely deep ties with the Zhang family, the Cao family, and even the entire Guiyi Army, and had moreover completed Zhang Zhou's first round of angel investment.

As for Guo Zhou'er, not only was this woman no simple matter, she was also deeply entangled with the radicals within Samanid Persia and the radicals of the Six Dharmas Sect in Transoxiana, and could not be moved lightly.

All of this meant that in facing them, Zhang Xianyu could not use force. How to resolve each party's needs and bind them into a single rope was entirely a test of Zhang Xianyu's personal ability and political wisdom.

A vast sea of documents: records from the Brocade Guard's secret agents over the past ten-plus years, reports from pioneers who had graduated from the Dragon Tao Academy and already put down roots in Transoxiana, official documents and papers, folk rumors, merchants' accounts, the observations of court officials, and so on.

All of this, in great profusion, required Zhang Xianyu to sift out useful information within a short time.

This was ability. These records were not like the documents you see in later ages, carefully prepared by subordinates, clearly organized, with pictures and tables.

They were a great heap of extremely terse classical-style records written on all kinds of coarse paper, sheepskin, and even white wooden boards.

And among them was a great deal of useless information that you had to distinguish and accept or discard.

An ordinary person seeing these would have their brain crash on the spot, their CPU smoking, but Zhang Xianyu took only five days to sort it all out.

Look first at Bai Congxin. This Original Follower general had been making a fuss all along, but in fact it was out of anxiety.

Because his Principality of Zheng, although it occupied the rich lands of Transoxiana including the city of Shiguo and Baishui City, was actually not large in territory.

It was only a little more than two-thirds the size of Ningyuan, roughly comparable to the Hanzhong Basin. Within this area there were over five hundred thousand people, of whom some one hundred fifty to sixty thousand counted as Han.

Besides that, Bai Congxin also had more than ten thousand people of the original Kucha ethnicity—that is, the historical Yellow-Head Uyghurs—and the vassals of the Principality of Zheng, great and small, numbered over a thousand.

This meant that although the Principality of Zheng was not large in area, and its population was over five hundred thousand, there were still a few too many people living as lords, so that everyone could be wealthy, but not too wealthy.

As for further outward expansion, to Bai Congxin's west lay Lu Sanlang's Grand Duchy of Dinghai, to his north the Song vassal state controlled by his son-in-law Hu Guang, to his east the Ningyuan directly-administered prefecture which he could not touch, to his southwest the Samanid Persians, and to his southeast the Jin vassal state occupying Samarkand.

Damn it all — this completely walls off the future of the Zheng vassal state on every side. The future is already fully visible, and it ends here.

And back when he fought to win the Fourth Battle of Shiguo City, Bai Congxin had offered extremely high rewards.

After the war, in order to settle his clansmen, he could not fail to honor those promises — which meant he could only shrink the lands controlled by the royal house.

Among the Yan, Chu, Song, and Zheng vassal states that have now formed across the realm, the Zheng vassal state is the one whose royal house holds the least land, wealth, and population — even less than Lu Sanlang's Grand Duke of Dinghai or the Lord of Rinan, who enriched the peasants.

How could Bai Congxin not be anxious? He was now like Guo Ziyi, with seven sons and eight daughters, and more than twenty grandsons and granddaughters already — and the number would only keep growing.

The wealth, land, and population the Zheng royal house could control were simply not enough to divide up.

If things went on like this, then as soon as he died, within twenty years the Zheng vassal state would fall into civil strife — and not just any civil strife, but a great one. There was no way Bai Congxin could not be anxious!

He was so anxious his hair was nearly all falling out, yet he had no other recourse. He could only think of nibbling away at Li Congde's Jin vassal state and the Samanid Persians — take whatever little he could get.

As for the Jin vassal state, Zhang Xianyu had sorted out the situation point by point. The Jin vassal state held an unusual position: Khotan lay within the imperial court's domain, stable and prosperous, and was moreover the ancestral land.

Now that the fief had been moved in a single stroke to Kangju (Samarkand), the people under its rule were unwilling to accept Jin vassal rule, and kept fleeing to the neighboring Anxi (Bukhara), Dong'an, and Xiesu (Dushanbe).

At the same time it had to face pressure from Bai Congxin to the northwest, could not trust the Samanid Persians to the west, and to the east still had to fight the rebels occupying Tokharistan who had not yet submitted to the Anyuan state.

It was like a rich second-generation heir who had never lacked food or drink, suddenly thrown out to attempt some sort of independent startup — the company had barely opened its doors and problems surrounded it on every side. It would be strange if he felt comfortable at all.

And on Guo Zhou'er's side, there were two problems. First, Mansur was already sixteen years old, and could be considered grown.

Although under Guo Zhou'er's upbringing he had developed a strong affinity for Han culture and had converted to the Six Dharma Sect, this land of Transoxiana was clearly not something the imperial court intended to give him.

At the same time, Zhang Zhao seemed rather unwilling to let Mansur go to the Central Plains. This was very troublesome — a place had to be found for Mansur to settle, and quickly.

The second problem was Guo Zhou'er herself. She had just turned thirty this year, but she was no longer suited to be Mansur's adoptive mother, and Guo Zhou'er had also made it clear that she did not wish to continue in that role.

At the same time, Guo Zhou'er had formed an alliance with the fanatical Six Dharma Sect master Shili Fuluo — that is, the junior fellow disciple of the Dharma Master Cixian who had originally been preaching in Goryeo but had swiftly sold out the Goryeo king Wang Zhao.

Shili Fuluo had gathered a large group of people, and Guo Zhou'er had gathered a group of her own. It appeared that Shili Fuluo was preparing to support Guo Zhou'er as their leader, taking a large body of believers out of Transoxiana to go somewhere and become a queen while spreading the faith.

This was somewhat difficult to handle — more difficult than the problems of Bai Congxin and Li Congde.

As for Grand Duke Lu Sanlang of Dinghai, his problem was actually the easiest to solve.

The Grand Duchy of Dinghai was situated by the Leizhu Sea (the Aral Sea), and to its west and north were all nomadic tribes.

The Yabghu Danu Ximi of the Oghuz Yabghu state, who had been driven off back then —

Sage Zhang's old adversary, the unkillable cockroach who was still rushing about the front lines of the anti-Zhou resistance in his fifties, the former Khagan of the Karakhanids, Satuq Khan — both were on this front.

They had united a great number of steppe tribes from the Central Asian steppe all the way to the Caspian Sea and the banks of the Volga, and were constantly raiding the pastures and farmlands of the Grand Duchy of Dinghai.

Although Lu Sanlang — and especially his adopted son Lu Ketu — was brave and skilled in battle, repeatedly smashing these bandit Hu and making them wail for their fathers and mothers,

the Grand Duchy of Dinghai had only a little over two hundred thousand people after all. Guarding such a long border was already exhausting, and having to deal with harassment from every direction was indeed difficult.

Therefore the problem for Lu Sanlang and the Grand Duchy of Dinghai was an urgent need for a powerful backer.

Originally Lu Sanlang had banded together with Bai Congxin, but after seeing Bai Congxin's predicament, Lu Sanlang feared that he would get hot-headed, do something reckless, and provoke the Emperor — so he had cut off his alliance with Bai Congxin.

Without the support of the Zheng vassal state, the remaining Samanid Persians, the Jin vassal state, and the Song vassal state simply could not serve as a powerful backer for Lu Sanlang.

And so in recent years, Lu Sanlang had been tormented by Danu Ximi and Satuq to the point of near-madness, and urgently needed the imperial court to step in and stand up for him.

Once the needs were understood, the right remedy could be prescribed.

At the end of the fifth month, the King of Shu, Zhang Xiantai, sent word back: he had successfully levied sixty-five thousand Karluk auxiliary troops, and with a vast army of one hundred thousand, had marched directly to Dinghai City, the capital of the Grand Duke of Dinghai, and then... seized military control of the Duchy of Dinghai.

The reason it went so smoothly was that Zhang Xiantai's subordinates, if not exactly a galaxy of talent, were at least a constellation of brilliant stars.

On the civil official side, there was Zhao Kuangyi, who had already served as a prefectural governor in the regions and as a Zhaowu Academician and Luantai Drafter in the central government.

Second Brother Zhao was twenty-four this year, at the very peak of his intellect — versed in strategy, skilled at planning, and ruthless to the core.

Besides Second Brother Zhao, the civil officials also included Lü Duan, styled Zheng Hui, who was twenty-eight this year and whom history records as one who never muddled great matters.

On the military side, there was Cui Han, styled Zhongwen, a founding general of the Northern Song renowned in history for his valor, cunning, contempt for wealth, devotion to honor, and extraordinary bearing.

There was also Guo Shouwen, likewise a founding general of the Northern Song, who received the posthumous title of Prince of Qiao and the Zhongwu posthumous name — the highest martial honor of the Northern Song — skilled in strategy and versed in poetry and letters.

Compared with these two, even a famed Northern Song warrior of history like Liu Tingrang seemed somewhat overshadowed.

At the same time, backing Zhang Xiantai was the famed Zhang-Zhou general Li Zun, Marquis of Weiyuan, formerly Grand General of the Left Shenwei Guard of the personal army, a man of Weizhou.

Li Zun's youngest sister was a secondary consort of Zhang Xiantai, so the two men were extremely close.

With such a combination of civil and military talent, plus the three hundred elite Yan-Zhao cavalry — trained for him by his maternal grandfather Fu Yanqing and composed mainly of Fu family sons — handling a Lu Sanlang and a Lu Ketu was all too easy.

And by the time word reached Zhang Xianyu, Zhang Xiantai, on the advice of the insidious Second Brother Zhao and Guo Shouwen, had already put out a grand smokescreen to the outside world.

His operation of bringing sixty-five thousand Karluks to handle Lu Sanlang was falsely reported as: the Karluks, unable to endure oppression any longer, had come to Dinghai City to loot it and then head west in search of a way to survive.

Under Second Brother Zhao's planning, the major Karluk chieftains all very "delightedly" agreed to cooperate with Zhang Xiantai in putting on the act.

When word reached the steppe, Satuq immediately declared that this was very likely a trap.

This old cockroach knew the Karluks' character all too well, and understood perfectly that his own side had nothing whatsoever worth the Karluks defecting for.

But Danu Ximi, desperate to fight his way back to the Leizhu Sea (the Aral Sea), held a different view. He believed Lu Sanlang simply did not have the ability to mobilize the Karluks to put on a show for him.

And the facts were indeed so — except that, most unfortunately, the one who had made the Karluks willing to put on the show was not Lu Sanlang, but Zhang Shilang, Zhang Xiantai.

Although Satuq claimed it was a trap, it was merely his speculation and could not serve as proof.

In the end, driven by the feverish desire of his subjects to go plunder the Grand Duchy of Dinghai, Satuq gradually stopped insisting on his own view.

At the beginning of the sixth month, Danu Ximi and Satuq paid heavily to buy over a group of Kimeks and Kipchaks, forming these fierce steppe folk together with themselves into a coalition army.

In the middle of the eighth month, these people reached a place more than five hundred li northwest of Dinghai Town.

This place was roughly near Aralsk in later Kazakhstan; during the Qing dynasty it belonged to the Little Jüz of the Kazakhs, about twelve hundred li from the Ural River and the Caspian Sea, and was an important commercial node between the Ural River and the core region of Central Asia.

Danu Ximi's arrangement of halting the coalition army of over a hundred thousand at Aralsk was not without preparation.

This place was still five hundred li from Dinghai City. Once he reached Aralsk, he sent men to Dinghai City to verify the situation — if it was a trap, he would withdraw immediately; only once it was confirmed genuine would he go forward to plunder.

This arrangement could not be called anything but cautious, but Zhang Xiantai had never planned to wait for them to approach Dinghai City before acting.

Because the closer they got to Dinghai City, the easier it would be to give the game away. For that reason he decided that he only needed to confirm that Danu Ximi had really brought his men, and then he would act.

And so, before Danu Ximi's scouts had even gotten near Dinghai City, Zhang Xiantai had already learned the exact location of Danu Ximi's coalition army through the Karluks and the Oghuz who had converted to the Six Dharma Sect.

With the assistance of Li Zun, Lu Ketu, Lu Duan, and others, Zhang Xiantai immediately selected thirty thousand elite cavalry from the Northern Route Army of the Western Expedition, which numbered well over a hundred thousand. With one man and three horses, guided by the inside agents, they raced day and night straight for Aralsk.

Four days later, the Han army, having galloped five hundred li, arrived some thirty li east of Aralsk.

Danu Ximi's allied army was still completely unaware. They had cruelly seized the local Oghuz women and plundered the Oghuz people's cattle and sheep, and were now merrily feasting, drinking, and holding orgies.

Seeing this, Zhang Xiantai ordered the army to rest for four double-hours. After eating and drinking their fill before dawn, they suddenly launched an assault on the allied army spread over an area of six or seven li around Aralsk.

These fellows—including Saktu, that old fox grown shrewd with age—had never imagined Han elite cavalry would suddenly appear. Most of them, far from being ready to fight, did not even have their warhorses or weapons at hand, so the battle lost all suspense the moment it began.

Zhang Xiantai first ordered fifteen thousand steppe cavalry to outflank from both wings, creating the illusion that an army of at least a hundred thousand was descending.

In the limited visibility of dawn, the startled allied army could not tell the difference at all. Terrified, they abandoned their carefully built camps and fled wildly toward the gap in the west.

After the two sides pursued each other until daybreak, all but a small portion of the allied army that escaped were surrounded at the edge of a gobi desert.

From high ground, Danu Ximi discovered that only tens of thousands—in fact, little more than ten thousand—of cavalry had attacked. Enraged, he ordered the allied army to dismount and form ranks, using foot bows to shoot back and repel the steppe cavalry's assault.

Zhang Xiantai immediately changed tactics, ordering five thousand Karluk death-soldiers to charge recklessly at the main body of the allied army, which had already dismounted.

But this was a feint. As expected, the Karluks suffered terrible casualties under the sky-filling rain of arrows, which at once greatly boosted the allied army's morale.

Before setting out, Zhang Xiantai had also deliberately made the Karluks put on brocade clothes, even brightly colored garments, and gold and silver ornaments from the army, in order to lure the allied army.

The allied army indeed took the bait. Seeing that the enemy could not withstand a single blow and that the spoils were rich, they—long accustomed to poverty—rushed out in droves to seize the plunder. Even Danu Ximi could not stop them.

Many Kimeks and Kipchaks, in order to grab the spoils more quickly, even turned back to find their horses after having dismounted, then remounted and charged forward.

Thus some were advancing while others were heading back to find horses. People argued, people grabbed, and everywhere on the ground men were busy stripping the fine clothes off the Karluks. The allied army of over a hundred thousand fell into utter chaos and completely lost command.

At that moment, five thousand Han elite cavalry hidden five or six li away received the signal and immediately galloped over at full speed.

These Han elite cavalrymen were all warriors chosen from ten thousand, equipped with fine armor, weapons, and powerful warhorses. Their fighting will and skill were even more extraordinarily high and tenacious.

When their arrows were spent they drew their cavalry lances; when their lances were spent they shot their arrows again. Charging and killing without pause, in just one double-hour they thoroughly routed the chaotic allied army.

At this point, the steppe cavalry on both flanks swept around again to drive them, tearing at the allied army like wild wolves at a badly wounded wild ox. Over a hundred thousand allied troops collapsed and ran in chaos across the gobi, never able to form ranks and resist.

By the second double-hour of battle, when the outcome was already clear, Zhang Xiantai personally donned armor and took the field, leading three hundred elite Yan-Zhao cavalry in a fierce charge at Danu Ximi's position.

The three hundred Yan-Zhao elite cavalry fought as if each man were worth a hundred. With a single charge, they scattered Danu Ximi's elite guard.

Amid ten thousand troops, Zhang Xiantai spurred his horse forward and struck with his lance, directly smashing away half of Danu Ximi's skull. The allied army finally collapsed like a mountain.

In this battle, Zhang Xiantai had in fact used only twenty-five thousand men to annihilate an enemy nearly five times his number.

The allied army wailed for their fathers and mothers, and corpses lay strewn across the field. The Han soldiers fought until even their third spare hengdao sabers were notched and blunted before the battle finally ended.

In this pursuit battle stretching over twenty li, the allied army lost more than thirty thousand killed in formation, over forty thousand captured, and only forty to fifty thousand managed to escape.

Zhang Xiantai then, at the edge of this nameless gobi, executed twenty thousand of the forty thousand captives. Using fifty or sixty thousand allied heads, he piled up three enormous victory mounds to display the martial glory of the Han army.

The several hundred thousand head of livestock the allied army had brought with them were simply abandoned, because there was not enough water to take them away.

Several days later, Saktu, who had narrowly escaped with his life, let out a piercing shriek before these terrifying victory mounds, then vanished into the endless desert with his last hundred or so trusted followers.

He knew that in this lifetime, he was destined to fail.

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