Chapter 887: The Long-Delayed Fated Showdown (Part One)

The plan was set, and now it was time to begin military operations.

This was also what Zhang Xianyu cared about most. Zhang Xiantai's great victory had only solidified the image of the brothers as powerful dragons.

Whether they could truly gain a firm foothold — and especially whether Zhang Xianyu could become the leader of all the Xia kings in Transoxiana — would depend on what came next.

To be precise, the moment had arrived to test whether Zhang Xianyu's plan could actually be realized.

The first step of that test was whether they could deal a heavy blow to the Buyid dynasty and seize Rayy (Tehran); the second step was entering Baghdad; the third was withstanding the Arabs' counterattack and stabilizing the new Persian kingdom.

So what was the situation now?

The current state of affairs was this: although the Abbasid dynasty of the Black Banner Arabs had not yet fallen, the caliph's position had already sunk below even that of the Zhou Son of Heaven.

He was even worse off than Emperor Xian of Han. At least Emperor Xian still had rubber-stamp authority that could be used to control the feudal lords in the Son of Heaven's name, but the caliph truly retained nothing but symbolic significance.

After the caliph completely lost power, the Arab world in the traditional sense was ruled mainly by three powers.

Namely, the Buyid dynasty, which ruled what would later be Iraq, Kuwait, eastern and southeastern Iran, and a small part of Syria.

The Hamdanid dynasty, which ruled most of what would later be Syria, the greater part of Jordan, Lebanon, and a small part of Turkey.

And the Ikhshidid dynasty, which ruled what would later be Egypt, all of Palestine, most of Lebanon, and part of Jordan.

As for the other states — the Asid dynasty ruling the Saudi region, the Imamate of Oman ruling Oman, and a host of others — they could only be counted as minor powers of no great strength.

As for the Caliphate of Córdoba, which ruled most of Spain, and others like it, they had already proclaimed themselves empires.

It was worth noting that these three major dynasties had all been founded within the last hundred years, and could basically be said to be at the height of their power.

Among them, Adud al-Dawla of the Buyid dynasty and Sayf al-Dawla of the Hamdanid dynasty were both outstanding enlightened rulers.

Hmm, they did not share a surname — rather, the word "Dawla" was actually an honorific title, roughly meaning one of boundless good fortune who could represent the state.

Adud al-Dawla meant "pillar of the state," and Sayf al-Dawla meant "sword of the state."

Both were honorific titles, much in the same vein as the bestowal of the Nine Bestowments or the twelve-tasseled crown in Chinese history.

And now the most troublesome opponent Zhang Xianyu faced was none other than the king of the Buyid dynasty, Adud al-Dawla.

At present the Buyid dynasty had a population of over thirteen million, and the city of Baghdad alone held around nine hundred thousand people — far more than the four hundred thousand Zhang Xianxi had estimated.

The province in which Baghdad was located had a population of over seven million.

At this time, before the revival of Zhang Zhou, Baghdad was the largest, wealthiest, and most culturally flourishing city in the world.

Of course, after the revival of Zhang Zhou, although the populations of the Divine Capital and the Eastern Capital had not yet reached Baghdad's heights, in other respects they had already caught up.

Facing such an opponent, one naturally had to be extremely cautious. The previous victory could not serve as a standard at all.

This was because the fifty thousand Buyid troops defeated by Cao Bin at Merv earlier had been nothing more than a hastily assembled force.

A very large portion of them had even been local turncoats raised on the spot in Samanid Persian territory such as Rayy (Tehran), with only a small number of the Buyid dynasty's elite troops among them.

Moreover, given the Buyid dynasty's size, losing over thirty thousand dead was still far from crippling. To break them, more bloody battles would be needed.

In the third year of Qianyuan of the Great Zhou, 962 CE, in the ninth month, after the Xia kings of Transoxiana had finished their deliberations, Zhang Xianyu brought out the tally and battle-axe that Zhang Zhao had bestowed upon him, and established the Transoxiana Field Headquarters in the city of Kangju in the Jin Domain.

Zhang Xianyu assumed the post of Chief Deployer of the Transoxiana Field Headquarters and Grand General of the Allied Xia Armies. He appointed Bai Congxin and Hu Guang as Deployers, leaving Bai Congxin to guard Transoxiana and stabilize the rear, while Hu Guang assisted Zhang Xianyu in controlling the main army.

He also made the King of Shu, Zhang Xiantai, Deputy Deployer of the Field Headquarters, Chief Commander of the Vanguard Army, and Vanguard General, with Shi Shouxin — who had taken over from Cao Bin in garrisoning Anxi City — as Zhang Xiantai's deputy.

The great general Cao Bin and Lu Ketu were made Left and Right Troop Commanders of the Central Army; Luo Dingzhong of Suyab was made Marching Marshal; and the King of Jin, Li Congde, was made Chief Clerk of the Field Headquarters.

In order to at least achieve the objective of capturing Rayy (Tehran), Zhang Xianyu had even detained Zhang Xiantai, who had been preparing to march north to the Western Sea. From Transoxiana, nearly all their elite troops and finest generals were committed.

In the tenth month, thanks to the fact that the Han people of Transoxiana were all ferocious outcasts driven from their homes, mobilization proceeded extremely quickly.

On the fifth day of the tenth month, Zhang Xianyu's western expedition army had completed its mobilization.

In total there were four thousand all-purpose heavy-armored infantry, including two thousand elite modao glaive glaive glaive troops; eleven thousand lightly armored foot archers; two thousand heavy-armored elite cavalry; four thousand lightly armored swift cavalry; and fifteen thousand unarmored horse archers — thirty-six thousand men in all.

On the eighth day of the tenth month, the Zheng Domain mobilized three thousand heavy-armored infantry, two hundred heavy-armored elite cavalry, and one thousand lightly armored swift cavalry.

The Song Domain of Suyab mobilized one thousand heavy-armored infantry and three thousand elite mail-clad crossbowmen.

The Jin Domain mobilized five hundred heavy-armored infantry and two thousand heavy-armored Khotan cavalry.

On the tenth day of the tenth month, the Grand Duchy of Dinghai mobilized three thousand lightly armored swift cavalry and ten thousand unarmored horse archers.

The Han troops of Samanid Persia were not deployed, because they were needed for defense and suppression.

Thus, the allied Xia armies of Transoxiana mobilized in total eight thousand five hundred heavy-armored infantry, fourteen thousand elite lightly armored archers and crossbowmen, four thousand two hundred heavy-armored elite cavalry, eight thousand lightly armored swift cavalry, and twenty-five thousand unarmored horse archers.

Of these, infantry numbered twenty-two thousand five hundred and cavalry thirty-seven thousand two hundred, for a combined total of fifty-nine thousand seven hundred.

Moreover, although the Han troops of Samanid Persia were not deployed, Zhang Xianyu appointed Mansur — who had changed his name to An Su — as Deployer of the Rear Army. An Su himself had been drawing ever closer to Han culture, and was more than willing to go to Baghdad to become a great king.

Baghdad! Among the peoples of Transoxiana other than the Han, its name rang even louder than Chang'an.

These days An Su felt as though he were floating when he walked, and even now could scarcely believe that the Great Emperor would arrange for him to go to Baghdad to become a great king — so much so that he wished he could offer up everything he had.

And the Persians who had steadfastly supported An Su — especially those who had converted to the Six Dharma Sect — were beside themselves with excitement once they confirmed that the Great Emperor in the Divine Capital really was going to send them to Baghdad to establish a Persian empire.

All of Samanid Persia could be said to have turned out in full force, mobilizing eleven thousand infantry and cavalry, of whom over one thousand seven hundred were armored troops.

It did look rather shabby, but Samanid Persia had suffered heavy losses of able-bodied men after its defeat in the Fourth Battle of Shiguo City ten years earlier.

Afterward Kangju City had become the Jin Domain, and Khorasan and the Persian heartland had been swallowed up by the Buyid dynasty, costing them over two million in population. Being able to field a little over ten thousand troops now was already quite good.

However, though their soldiers were few, their civilian laborers were not. The Xia states of Transoxiana had mobilized only a little over forty thousand laborers in total, but Samanid Persia mobilized a full one hundred twenty thousand.

On the eleventh day of the tenth month, before the onset of deep winter, Zhang Xianyu ordered the great army to begin its advance, moving in four columns from various parts of Transoxiana to converge on the city of Merv.

After Cao Bin's great victory over the Buyid dynasty at Merv ten years earlier, Samanid Persian rule over Merv had gradually stabilized.

In the years since, whether it was Cao Bin and Shi Shouxin, who held Samanid Persia's military power, or Pan Mei, who briefly served as acting commander, all had stockpiled vast quantities of grain and fodder at Merv precisely to resist the Buyid dynasty.

But when the army was little more than forty li from Merv, Zhang Xianyu suddenly detached fifteen thousand elite cavalry, with Lu Ketu as commander-in-chief and Liu Tingrang and Li Jiwo as deputies, to cross the Wuhu River (the Amu Darya) westward, racing eight hundred li in six days and nights to appear before the walls of Jiesu (Dushanbe).

In fact, at this time, Tokharistan in the broad sense was still occupied by remnants of the former Anyuan Kingdom. After Li Cunhui destroyed the Zhenyuan Kingdom, the clansmen of Zhang Bingzhong who had narrowly escaped, along with a portion of exiled Tibetans, had also gathered in this place.

Previously the Xia states of Transoxiana had been secretly fighting among themselves, and no one had bothered to expend effort dealing with these people. Instead, it was they who had continually raided the borders of the Jin Domain.

After Zhang Xianyu arrived, he had always wanted to take them, but these people were very vigilant, and with Jiesu City located in the Gissar Basin, easy to defend and hard to attack, there had simply been no opportunity.

Only after the great army openly set out for Khorasan to fight the Buyid dynasty to the death did the tightly sealed basin reveal the slightest crack.

And it was precisely this tiny crack that immediately allowed the grandson of Rashid Salman — the Pacification Commissioner of Roland City (Bamiyan), whom Zhang Zhao had left in Tokharistan to check Sadid — to find his opportunity.

Back when Sadid's power swelled, he had taken advantage of Rashid Salman's death from illness to storm the city of Roland, forcing Rashid Salman's descendants to flee into the mountains.

Now, having learned that the celestial troops of the Middle Kingdom had truly arrived, they immediately seized the chance to come out of the mountains, report the news, and serve as guides.

On the twentieth day of the tenth month, the unprepared city of Jiesu was taken by the great army, with more than three thousand heads taken. The governor of Jiesu appointed by Sadid died in battle. Lu Ketu left two thousand infantry and cavalry to support Rashid Salman's descendants in holding Jiesu, and the main army began its return.

Sadid, residing in the city of Xiliuzhou (Kabul), was frightened out of his wits and remained in the mountains, not daring to make any further moves. Zhang Xianyu thus resolved his last remaining worry.

Almost at the same time, after the allied Xia armies of Transoxiana reached the city of Merv, Zhang Xianyu immediately ordered Zhang Xiantai, Shi Shouxin, Guo Shouwen, Cui Han, and other generals to lead troops and advance on Mashhad, the key city of Khorasan.

Mashhad lies at the southern foot of the Kopet Dag range. It is the key city through which Persia proper enters Transoxiana by way of Khorasan, and historically it was also the provincial capital of Persia's Khorasan province.

Persia looks large, but across the Persian plateau in its center lie two great expanses of desert: the Kavir Salt Desert and the Lut Desert.

Therefore the cities of Persia's interior are basically all distributed along the Kopet Dag range in the north, the Alborz range, and the Kuhrud range in the southwest, surviving on meltwater from the high mountains.

The whole presents the peculiar geographical feature of desert in the center, with farming belts formed by snowmelt along the surrounding mountain foothills.

Thus, to advance from Transoxiana into Persia, one can only move along the Kopet Dag range, attacking these foothill cities one by one. Among them, Mashhad has the most formidable terrain and the strongest fortifications.

But now, this formidable and strongly fortified city can hardly withstand the assault of the allied Xia armies of Transoxiana. Even the twenty thousand vanguard troops led by Zhang Xiantai alone are more than they can resist.

This is because Khorasan and Persia proper are not the territory of the Buyid dynasty, but were torn away by them from Samanid Persia. At most, their rule there has not even lasted ten years.

In fact, even calling it rule is imprecise, because although the Buyid dynasty controls Mashhad, all of Persia proper and Khorasan is filled with large numbers of Persians loyal to the Samanid family, as well as many former Persian elites who were forced to convert but still harbor religious hatred in their hearts.

There were also former Zoroastrian and Manichaean believers infiltrated by the Six Laws Sect, and large numbers of guides bought off by Guo Zhou'er's lavish spending.

In recent years, the Samanid Persia controlled by Guo Zhou'er and the Buyid dynasty have not fought any major wars, but the small frictions of mutual infiltration and bribery have never ceased.

Therefore Mashhad looks strong, but inside it is riddled with holes. To say nothing of defending the city with united hearts, they cannot even keep news from leaking out.

Zhang Xiantai led his troops in an assault lasting only about five days, and two internal uprisings broke out within the city. Although they failed to open Mashhad's gates, information flowed out in a steady stream.

Now also dressed in military attire with a hengdao saber at his waist, Second Brother Zhao, after gathering the intelligence, immediately suggested that Zhang Xiantai launch a psychological offensive.

Second Brother Zhao ordered men to write, in Persian on coarse paper, an edict from the Shahanshah, the Great Emperor, promising that in the future they would support the Persians in restoring the Persian kingdom at Baghdad.

Then they wrapped hard corn buns in this coarse paper, tied them tight, and sent them into the city through various channels.

Even in peacetime, grain is precious. Attracted by the corn buns, word spread through the whole city in no time. Even the lowest Persians knew that the Taohuashi Empire from the east was coming to help the Persians restore their kingdom.

Next, Second Brother Zhao brought Mansur and members of the Samanid family to the front lines, raised the great banner of the King of Persia, and circled three sides of Mashhad, shouting ceaselessly to summon the Persians in the city to surrender.

Finally, he ordered men to raise great clouds of dust in the distance, making it appear that the main army was about to arrive.

Sure enough, the Arab garrison in the city could not hold out, because the Buyid dynasty also knew that defending Mashhad was difficult. Their true stronghold in Persia was Rayy (Tehran).

Mashhad actually existed as an outpost, its main purpose being early warning. If it could be held, all the better; if not, the decisive battle would be at Rayy. If they placed their main force at Mashhad and the Persians turned against them, they might well be wiped out in one stroke.

At this time, in the city of Mashhad there were only six thousand Arab troops and twenty thousand Persian auxiliary troops. Seeing the panic within the city and what seemed to be an army of one or two hundred thousand arriving outside, the Arab soldiers did not even dare remove their armor at night to sleep, and morale had nearly hit rock bottom.

On the second day of the eleventh month, several thousand Arab defenders, taking advantage of the night before a great snowstorm, seized the horses in the city, left Mashhad to the Persian auxiliaries to guard, and fled toward Rayy.

Although these Persian auxiliaries numbered twenty thousand, they were nothing but collaborators. Once the Arabs left, how could they hold the situation? The Arabs had barely left when the collaborators inside the city passed the news out right behind them.

Zhang Xiantai immediately ordered more than ten thousand armored soldiers to assault the small gate on the southwest side of Mashhad. Seeing the ferocity of the Han army's attack, the Persian auxiliaries surrendered in large, organized formations.

After entering the city, Zhang Xiantai did not rest. He immediately ordered Cui Han to lead three thousand elite cavalry to follow the tracks and pursue.

The Arab troops had not expected the Han army to arrive so quickly. In their panic, several attempts at interception were defeated, and they could never shake off Cui Han. Cui Han chased at their heels for more than seven hundred li. Had it not been for the heavy snowfall, they would certainly have been annihilated to the last man.

After learning that the advance was going smoothly, Zhang Xianyu also continuously adjusted his plans through analysis.

The Abbasid Caliphate, the Black-Robed Arabs, originally drew a large part of its soldiers from Khorasan and other regions.

This was also the Arabs' consistent practice: their most powerful fighting units were often recruited from regions far from the political center, operated in the manner of slave soldiers. Even in later ages, countries like Saudi Arabia still relied on the armies of the Baba Yang as mercenaries.

After the Abbasid caliphs lost power and the various regional lords took turns entering Baghdad, the habit of conscripting troops from the Khorasan region began to weaken.

The forces these Arab lords used to replace the slave armies were often the clansmen of their own tribes. Thus the Daylamites and Kurds, living near the Caucasus region, began their continuous rise.

Having recognized that the Buyid dynasty could not immediately mobilize a sufficient army from its vast population, Zhang Xianyu immediately decided to strike fast and hard. He had to advance to the vicinity of Rayy before the Buyid dynasty could mobilize all its strength.

Therefore, on the seventeenth day of the eleventh month, the main Zhou army of more than thirty thousand men, along with fifty or sixty thousand laborers, set out from the city of Merv and entered Mashhad.

Then, after staying at Mashhad for no more than ten days, they again moved the entire army west through heavy snow, their objective being Semnan, only four hundred li from Tehran.

Semnan lies at the southern foot of the Alborz range. The small plain nearby is a very fertile farming region, producing abundant grain, fruit, and the like.

It is not only the southeastern gateway to Rayy (Tehran), but also the main supply area for Rayy's production materials.

More importantly, the mountains of Semnan contain several very large natural sulfur mining areas.

Previously this substance was of little use in the eyes of the Persians, but to the Zhou army it was extremely important, because sulfur can be used to make gunpowder.

After ten years of development, Zhang Zhou's cannon technology had grown increasingly mature, already reaching a level comparable to the fifteenth century in history.

Not only were there heavy cannons weighing several thousand jin, but also many medium-sized light cannons that could be placed on wagons for rapid maneuverability.

There were even more lightweight firearms weighing only a few dozen jin, flexible to operate, similar to later nine-section cannons and large matchlock pole guns — weapons between cannon and firearm.

Of course, firearms were not yet widely deployed at present, mainly because iron and gunpowder production capacity could not keep up. Zhang Zhou was currently in a period of great development, and money was needed everywhere.

Moreover, the several hundred thousand sets of iron armor maintained across the realm were already enough to overawe all directions. Before this wave of military advantage in iron armor and elite cavalry disappeared, they could not rush to push guns and cannons fully onto the stage of history, because that would instead weaken their own advantage in war.

Before bullets, all men are equal. A Han warrior wearing three layers of armor would not have much better defense than a barbarian wearing only a single garment.

Thus, although firearms were beginning to develop rapidly, under the constraints of various factors, Zhang Xianyu still had no firearms units here.

However, when he served as Vice Commissioner of Military Affairs, he had followed his father Zhang Zhao and seen their power. He knew how formidable firearms were. He did not have them, but he could request them from his father.

Now, if these sulfur mines were mined and refined, they would be useful when advancing on Baghdad.

On the eleventh day of the twelfth month, the Zhou army of thirty-five thousand, braving swirling snowflakes, began the siege of Semnan. Although they had no cannons, they had not forgotten the old skill of coffin blasting.

Zhang Xianyu personally led troops in fierce assaults for seven or eight days, exhausting the city's defenders. Zhang Xiantai led more than ten thousand elite cavalry and twice defeated relief forces coming from the direction of Rayy (Tehran), plunging the city into despair.

Amid this mixture of exhaustion and despair, Zhang Xianyu sent death warriors carrying dozens of small coffins packed with gunpowder to rush to the city walls at dawn.

Then, with an earth-shaking explosion, a section of Semnan's city wall was directly blasted apart, and the Han armored soldiers who had long been waiting poured in.

In the third year of Shaoming, 962 CE, on the twenty-first day of the twelfth month, Zhang Xianyu entered the city of Semnan, now swept clean of Arabs.

Around this great king were fanatical low-ranking Han army officers. Many were already excitedly discussing how many enfeoffed vassals such a wealthy place could produce, and how spirited those captured golden-haired Bodhisattva barbarian women were.

And it was not only the low-ranking officers who were so fanatical. The mid- and high-ranking officers within a few dozen meters of Zhang Xianyu were all excited, constantly petitioning him, hoping to serve as the vanguard and launch a surprise attack on Rayy now, taking advantage of the wind and snow.

Yet amid this fanatical atmosphere, Zhang Xianyu maintained sufficient calm.

Because the distance from Semnan to Mashhad was a full thousand li — about the same as from Kaifeng Prefecture, the Eastern Capital, to Chang'an.

So Zhang Xianyu firmly put a stop to any rash advance by his officers and men, and began both fortifying the city of Semnan and stockpiling supplies, while also establishing a reliable logistics and supply line.

In addition, he spread word far and wide that the Han army had come to put Mansur into Baghdad and restore the Persian Kingdom, using this to win over the Persians.

It was only at this point that the news of Khorasan's complete fall and the Han army's arrival before Rayy reached Baghdad.

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