Chapter 892: Sage in Letters, Divine in War, Supreme in All the World's Martial Arts (Part Two)

Yang Jiye was thirty this year, Yelu Xiuge thirty-one, Seljuk twenty-four, Zhang Deqing twenty-eight, and Lu Duoxun twenty-nine.

Including Zhao Kuangyi, who had earlier gone to Persia, and the little black bear Zhang Liechao and Lu Duan, who were twenty-four, twenty-five, and twenty-eight respectively.

Clearly, this was the team Zhang Zhao was building for the fourth imperial son, Zhang Xianjing, who was about to become crown prince.

The biggest reason was that Zhang Zhao was already fifty-one this year, and he planned to hold power until around age sixty-six, fifteen years from now, then gradually begin reducing the power in his own hands.

By that time, Yang Jiye and the others would mostly be between forty and forty-five years old, in the prime of life and rich in experience, more than capable of assisting the crown prince.

More importantly, these men had grown up step by step under Zhang Zhao's influence, and their loyalty to and worship of Zhang Zhao would certainly far exceed that for Zhang Xianjing.

With them as his core team, Zhang Zhao could also ensure that after relinquishing some surface power, he would still hold enormous hidden power, enough to overturn any status quo.

A vortex of power leaves little room for father-son affection; planning early is far better than playing at loving father and filial son.

Of course, this also had to do with Zhang Zhao's readiness, over the next fifteen years, to once again make some major moves and lay the foundation for most of the road that the Xia sovereign and Yi people were to walk.

The reason for such urgency was unavoidable: an emperor holding absolute power, who also held divine authority, and who moreover possessed strong claims over the steppe and the high plateau, able to adjust his position at any time and strike at enemies from every angle with no blind spots.

was simply too broken!

In such a state, as long as he wished, he could at any moment reduce all his subjects, high and low, noble and base alike, to slaves, and no one before Zhang Zhao would have the slightest sense of security.

Especially as Zhang Zhao grew older, this terrifying oppressive pressure would begin to surge rapidly among everyone.

This was a power the First Emperor had never possessed, that Emperor Wu of Han and Emperor Taizong of Tang had never possessed, and that even the later Hongwu Emperor had not been able to possess.

A true double-edged sword!

This control under high pressure allowed Zhang Zhao to rapidly mobilize the nation's manpower and resources to achieve his goals, but it could also easily lead to overreaching or a massive backlash born of extreme fear.

So the time should not be maintained too long; fifteen years was a comparatively suitable length.

Thus, with the need to train a core team for Zhang Xianjing and draw them closer emotionally, Zhang Xianjing, as Commander-in-Chief with Imperial Credentials, was no longer merely serving as a nominal supreme commander.

Instead, with the assistance of Yang Jiye, Yelu Xiuge, Lu Duoxun, and others, he was genuinely exercising the responsibilities of a grand army commander.

Of course, this was before the battle, specifically during the march.

Zhang Xianjing traveled westward all the way, fully participating in every aspect of the march and warfare, and with Liu Zaisheng, Chief Minister of the Guanzhong Province and Prince of Linzi Commandery, with whom he had previously had little contact.

With Hu Guang, Chief Minister of the Hexi Province, Grand Defense Commissioner of Hexi and Longyou, and Prince of Julan Commandery, who had just returned to Liangzhou to take charge.

With Guo Tiance, Chief Minister of the Anxi Province, Grand Defense Commissioner of Anxi and Beiting, and Prince of Yezhi Commandery, he conducted deep exchanges, beginning to try and become familiar with dealing with these pillars of the state.

And while Zhang Xianjing was on his way to Persia, the situation in Persia and the Arab lands had undergone tremendous changes.

First, when news of the disastrous defeat arrived, Ayad al-Dawla, the Buyid regent remaining in Baghdad, immediately panicked.

Because their Daylamites, in the final analysis, had come from Persia, and now that most of Persia had fallen, and thirty thousand of the forty thousand guards controlled by the Buyid dynasty had been captured or killed, their heartland and military strength had been lost at the same time; it could be said the Buyid family had reached the brink of destruction.

So Ayad al-Dawla forcibly sealed off all news leading to Baghdad and immediately led troops into the palace of Caliph al-Muti, attempting to order the caliph to issue an edict at once conscripting fifty thousand warriors and place them under the Buyid family's control.

Ayad's plan was that all of Iraq had only these few tens of thousands of warriors left; first conscript and control them, and with the caliph, who had long been controlled, they should barely be able to keep the Buyid family from being overthrown immediately.

But his plan soon collapsed, because without Adud al-Dawla and the tens of thousands of Buyid elite troops, Ayad al-Dawla did not possess the authority to command the caliph.

Under Caliph al-Muti's secret instruction, the head of the Amid family, who had always been the chief civil official of the Abbasid dynasty of the Black Banner Arabs as vizier, the current vizier of the Abbasid dynasty, Abu al-Fadl Muhammad al-Amid.

That is, the famous Grand Vizier al-Amid of Black Banner Arab history, immediately spread the news.

At once, the Arabs, who had long been dissatisfied with the Persians entering Baghdad and controlling the caliph, rose up in a wave of opposition, and the fierce Kurdish, Bedouin, and other tribes living around Iraq also began rebelling frequently.

The greatest danger, however, came from the Hamdanid dynasty, whose main controlled territory was in present-day Syria.

Because Baghdad had originally been controlled by the Hamdanid dynasty; it was only eighteen years earlier, in 945, that they had been defeated by the Buyid dynasty and forced to retreat to Syria.

Now that it was the Buyid dynasty's turn to weaken, the Hamdanid dynasty had recovered its strength in Syria and naturally wanted to return to the throne.

In the fourth year of Qianyuan, 965 CE, after a fierce struggle, the Buyid family's ruler Ayad al-Dawla was trapped defending Baghdad.

Meanwhile, Bedouin light cavalry loyal to the Hamdanid dynasty occupied Fallujah, the northwestern gateway to Baghdad, ready to launch an attack at any time.

The Buyid family's defeat was already sealed; it was only a matter of time and cost.

Subsequently, under the mediation of Grand Vizier al-Amid, in order to deal with the threat from the east.

Sayf al-Dawla, lord of the Hamdanid dynasty, agreed that Ayad al-Dawla could lead the remaining Buyid family forces safely out of Baghdad, and permitted them to continue governing Khuzestan and Basra.

These two places lay at the mouth of the Two Rivers, controlling vast coastal plains, and were the wealthiest lands along the Persian Gulf coast; Basra in particular was a famous wealthy and cultured city throughout the broad Arab territories of this time.

Ayad al-Dawla, who had no great ambitions and only wanted to preserve his life, agreed at once; after signing an agreement in Baghdad with the Hamdanid court ministers and announcing that he would nominally become a vassal of the Hamdanid dynasty, he immediately withdrew from Baghdad.

And as soon as Ayad al-Dawla withdrew from Baghdad, Sayf al-Dawla, lord of the Hamdanid dynasty, personally led thirty thousand troops into Baghdad at top speed.

This instantly shattered Caliph al-Muti of the Abbasid dynasty's hopes of regaining power.

And Sayf al-Dawla, after entering Baghdad, with the assistance of Grand Vizier al-Amid, rebuilt the power structure that had originally belonged to the caliph.

He abandoned the honorific title of Dawla, and instead had the caliph appoint him as Sultan, taking his original name Alim as his title, calling himself Sultan Alim.

The word Sultan did not yet have its later meaning; its original sense was something like power or arbiter, and now that Sayf al-Dawla had brought it out, it directly became the highest title of usurper in the Abbasid dynasty.

Sayf al-Dawla becoming Sultan Alim was like evolving from Prime Minister Cao into the Great Han Prince of Wei who entered court without hastening, was praised at audience without his name being announced, and ascended the hall wearing sword and shoes.

Poor Caliph al-Muti, laboring for others' sake, in the end even his symbolic significance was nearly played out.

And while Baghdad was undergoing upheaval, Zhang Xianyu was in Isfahan with no time to pay them any attention.

Because after the battle of Fort Jia San, the southwestern Persian and southern Persian territories such as Isfahan and Shiraz that Zhang Xianyu controlled had not originally belonged to Samanid Persia.

And in fact this was the core region of the historical Persian Empire, rich in products, densely populated, and religiously complex.

Not counting Khorasan and Rayy (Tehran), Isfahan and Shiraz alone had close to four million people; counting Khorasan and Rayy, there were fully seven million.

To occupy and pacify seven million people with a force of fifty or sixty thousand, and moreover to select from among them a large number willing to follow Ansu (Mansur) to Baghdad to restore the Kingdom of Persia, was no small difficulty.

Thus, while the Arabs in Baghdad were locked in chaotic infighting, Zhang Xianyu, with the assistance of civil and military officials such as Zhang Liechao, Cao Bin, Zhao Kuangyi, and Lu Duan, began enfeoffing meritorious officials on a large scale in Persia proper and Khorasan.

In one breath he handed out three lords, seven regional barons, more than forty lesser nobles, and several hundred inspection commissioners.

Afterward, amid his busy schedule, Zhang Xianyu also drew off a force of twenty thousand men and thoroughly annihilated the Saffarid dynasty entrenched in southeastern Persia, that is, the small coastal strip between the later Strait of Hormuz and Pakistan.

In this battle, the allied army took more than six thousand heads and captured over ten thousand prisoners, then carried out a terrorizing massacre, executing nearly thirty percent of the male population of the Saffarid dynasty, which had only five or six hundred thousand people to begin with.

But although the rapid enfeoffment and the destruction of the Saffarid dynasty stabilized the situation and consolidated military morale, it left Zhang Xianyu almost unable to launch another war against the Abbasid dynasty.

Because the allied army of the various Xia states beyond the river, numbering only fifty or sixty thousand in total, had won such a great victory that every man was already laden with spoils.

The soldiers and officers who had won vast riches but received no fiefs were eager to return to Transoxiana to share their wealth with their families. It was already remarkable that they had not clamored to go back; how could they possibly want to go risk their lives in Baghdad?

As for those who did not return to Transoxiana but stayed in Persia and Khorasan, they had all become enfeoffed vassals. Even the lowest Patrol Inspectors had three or four hundred households—two or three thousand serf-like commoners under them. They were even less willing to be conscripted to continue fighting.

Those of the rank of Lord and above were busy summoning friends and relatives from Transoxiana and even the Central Plains to come stabilize their fiefdoms.

The lords' sons and Patrol Inspectors were busy taking two pretty concubines each, so as to develop trusted followers on their fiefs, and then going everywhere to pull strings, hoping to buy dozens or hundreds of serfs from India to continue reclaiming wasteland and pasturing livestock.

This is what is called an army with no will to fight, an army whose morale cannot be used. If they were forcibly conscripted to go to war, on the battlefield they would dare, at best, to slack off, and at worst, to scatter in a single rush.

This was also the chronic disease that all feudal armies—and even the People's Liberation Army before the Sanwan Reorganization—could not avoid.

Just as the two sides stood in this silent and awkward standoff, after eleven months of long-distance trekking, the expeditionary army led by the Emperor's fourth son, Zhang Xianjing, Duke of Dunhuang Commandery, finally arrived at Rayy (Tehran).

Outside the city of Rayy, the Great King of An, Zhang Xianyu, led all his civil and military officials in ranks outside the city, waiting for Zhang Xianjing's arrival. He was still somewhat uneasy and displeased.

His unease came from not knowing what Zhang Xianjing was about to bring him.

For ever since his imperial father had begun to focus on cultivating him, rumors had spread throughout the court that he, Zhang Xianyu, would be made crown prince. Although the Empress and the Cao family had not particularly targeted him, there was still estrangement between the two brothers.

Now, ten thousand li away, what if Zhang Xianjing falsely transmitted an imperial edict—well, he probably would not dare do that—but Zhang Xianjing would certainly dare to use a chicken feather as a token of authority to embarrass him, or even strip him of some powers. That was why Zhang Xianyu was very uneasy.

As for the reason for his displeasure, that was even more obvious.

Even among imperial princes, there was a difference between mules and Roman horses.

Someone like Zhang Xianyu, who had no maternal grandfather's family, and whose mother was in poor health and of a withdrawn, weak character, was a proper mule.

Naturally, the Roman horses were people like Zhang Xianjing, of pure and proper lineage, and Zhang Xianxi, whose father-in-law took care of everything.

Zhang Xianjing had darkened and thinned, but he was even more spirited.

Having left at twenty and now arriving at nearly twenty-two, he had completely shed the naivety and the feigned bearing he had had in the Divine Capital. In their place was a wholly different steadfastness and approachability.

Zhang Xianjing had completely abandoned all those things he had learned from childhood in the Divine Capital—chewing slowly and carefully when eating, minding his manners even when picking up food, not speaking while eating and not talking while sleeping.

The Zhang Xianjing of now rode on horseback, taking a mouthful of mare's milk wine and a mouthful of dried meat, swallowing them down even with sand and dust mixed in.

His tolerance for alcohol had gone from getting drunk on a single bowl of rice wine to being able to drink two or three jin of high-proof liquor and still draw his bow and shoot with undiminished accuracy.

His speech was even more vulgar. From the worst being "your mother is a maidservant" and "his mother's," he had progressed to "fuck your mother," "fuck your father," "dog basket," "big dumb cunt," and so on—fully graduated in the complete curriculum of profanity.

He would no longer vomit violently because he could not bear to use the latrine together with soldiers, nor would he be knocked over by the stench of soldiers' sweat.

He could even sit together with some low-ranking officers, picking lice from each other's heads, and then crushing them one by one.

As for the dangers of war, he had also gained a more direct understanding. He knew what a fierce and brave soldier meant to a family, and no longer treated them as strings of cold numbers.

He more simply knew how to array troops in formation, and could skillfully use rewards and punishments to command his subordinates.

Of course, most importantly, he finally understood what a vast realm his father—the great Emperor of the Central Plains, Khagan of the steppe, Buddhist King of the highlands, Shahanshah of the far west, Sage Zhang—had conquered for him.

The way it was, it was like a child of seven or eight, who felt nothing when his father told him the family had saved five million yuan for him.

But if you converted it into Golden Arches and told him he could eat from now on, three meals a day, until he died and still never finish it, he would deeply understand what an enormous sum five million yuan was.

The Zhang Xianjing of now completely understood how vast and wealthy this empire was, and also understood how heavy the burden on his shoulders was.

He had already been able to break free of the old thinking that his mother Cao Yanxi had instilled in him for twenty years—that his brothers were all threats and dividers of the family property.

Zhang Xianjing deeply understood that for such a great empire, without his brothers' dedication, it simply could not be held.

Only if the brothers could live in harmony, continuously strengthening their bonds through the ties of blood, could they truly swallow up this boundless expanse of heaven and earth.

As for the threat his brothers might pose to him and his descendants in the future, Zhang Xianjing agreed with his father Zhang Zhao's words.

"I have left you the Central Plains, the steppe, and the highlands. If you still cannot defeat your brothers in the far west and far south, what right do you have to be the Emperor of Great Zhou?"

"Second Brother, Second Brother!"

Thus, unlike what Zhang Xianyu had imagined—that when the brothers met, Zhang Xianjing would hold a staff of authority, wear court robes, and meet him with an air of arrogance—

Before the music on his side had even begun, after a simple exchange of messengers, Zhang Xianjing personally rode a great white horse, shouting "Second Brother" as he galloped toward him.

Zhang Xianyu's mouth hung wide open, almost big enough to stuff an egg in.

He stared dumbfounded at the dark, thin but extraordinarily vigorous young man on the white horse in the distance. Only after studying him for a long while did he recognize that this really was the fourth brother he had once envied, resented, and hated—the quasi-crown prince, Zhang Xianjing.

"Fourth Brother, Fourth Brother!" In that moment, all the estrangement was completely washed away by these two cries full of brotherly affection.

Zhang Xianyu swiftly leaped off his mount, and Zhang Xianjing also leaped off his mount. The two, under the gaze of tens of thousands, tightly embraced.

In an instant, all unease and worry were thoroughly dissolved. There was no ceremonial music, no bookish etiquette—only cheers that shook the heavens.

The several thousand Han men present, right outside the city of Rayy, in front of a great number of Persian servants and maids, frantically embraced one another, singing and dancing. Even the civilian laborers accompanying the army were infected, and joyfully danced along.

In the fifth year of Qianyuan of Great Zhou, 966 CE, on the twentieth day of the first month, the brothers Zhang Xianyu and Zhang Xianjing victoriously joined forces at Rayy.

After several days and nights of revelry, it was not until the twenty-fourth of the first month that the further integration and handover ceremonies began.

Zhang Xianyu returned the staff of authority that Zhang Zhao had bestowed during the previous campaign, along with the gold seal and fish tally of the Transoxiana Field Headquarters Chief Deployer, relinquished the heavy responsibility of Transoxiana Field Headquarters Chief Deployer, and disbanded the Transoxiana Field Headquarters.

Afterward, Zhang Xianjing, surrounded by his elder brothers and civil and military officials, had the imperial edict read aloud by an inner-court eunuch before the Emperor, establishing the Five Provinces Field Headquarters Governor-General's Office.

The area from Suyab and Talas to the Aral Sea was designated as Suyab Province.

The former lands of the Nine Zhaowu Clans became Transoxiana Province.

Khorasan plus Rayy (Tehran) became Baoshan Province.

Isfahan and Shiraz became Dingyuan Province.

Tokharistan (Afghanistan) became Xiliu Province.

Rayy was renamed Tongzhi, taking the meaning that the brothers of the Zhang imperial clan share the same breath and are branches of the same tree.

Isfahan was renamed Jinlan, taking the meaning that all Han people in the far west are friends as close as sworn brothers.

Shiraz was renamed Tongzhi, taking the meaning that the Han vassals of the far west govern together with one heart.

Later generations also mostly referred to these five provinces collectively as the Five Provinces of the Far West.

And after the basic framework was completed, Zhang Xianjing assumed the post of Five Provinces Staff-Holding Chief Deployer and Governor-General of Five Provinces Military Affairs, basically forming a structure with him at the head.

And since Zhang Xianjing naturally could not remain in the Five Provinces of the Far West for long, in order to give the various Xia kings of the five provinces a leader of their alliance,

Zhang Xianjing, following Zhang Zhao's requirements, held a grand dharma assembly in the city of Tongzhi (Tehran), attended by three great worthies of the Six Dharma Sect, and announced that Zhang Xianyu was the Western Medicine Master Vairocana Light King Buddha, abbreviated as the Medicine Buddha.

This was no ordinary honorific that an ordinary prince could obtain.

In the Zhang Zhou of today, only the Great King of the Yan domain, Murong Xinzhang, is the eastern one who remains unmoving as the great earth in peace and profound as the Secret Treasury King Buddha in deep meditation — that is, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva.

The Great King of the Chu domain, Zhang Xiancun, is the southern Jewel-Born Great Sovereign Buddha.

Now that Zhang Xianyu has become the Medicine Buddha of the far west, his irreplaceable position and function within the Six Dharma Sect are firmly established.

In a place like the five western provinces, where the Six Dharma Sect is certain to be vigorously promoted, he will naturally become the foremost of the Huaxia kings of the five western provinces.

Of course, Zhang Zhao had a deeper purpose in making this arrangement.

That is, although the supreme religious authority of the Six Dharma Sect is now in his hands, the doctrinal authority at the lower levels is in fact held by a group of great worthies, masters, and chief monastic superintendents.

Zhang Zhao's position means he cannot go down to the grassroots and personally hold doctrinal authority himself; he must exercise it through the great worthies and masters.

While he is here, this is naturally no problem. Once he is gone, whether the Six Dharma Sect will turn the blade against its own master is truly uncertain.

So Zhang Zhao chose to distribute the rank of Buddha-son, one level below himself, in bulk, letting his sons contend with the great worthies and masters of the Six Dharma Sect for the more grassroots doctrinal authority, to prevent the Six Dharma Sect from ultimately becoming a tool for schemers to turn around and persecute his own flesh and blood.

For this goal, letting Zhang Xianyu gain a certain amount of power in the five western provinces — even not ruling out his growing greater in the future — is actually worth it.

And so, having confirmed his future status, Zhang Xianyu began wholeheartedly assisting Zhang Xianjing, and the two brothers immediately stirred up the fighting spirit of the great army of the five western provinces once more.

As for the method, it was very simple.

The newcomers saw that the original Han warriors of the five provinces had gained such great benefits, and naturally envied them, wishing they could march on Baghdad at once — there was no need to stir them up at all.

As for the original warriors of the five provinces: first, with so many more people now sent by the court, the Persians below dared even less to make trouble.

Second, their titles were granted only by Zhang Xianyu and had not yet been recognized by the court. If they now wanted to lie down and enjoy themselves, they had better be careful that their titles and wealth might be stripped away by military law.

And so the war drums sounded once more atop the walls of Tongzhi. Among the great empires that once stood equal to the Great Tang, the Tibetans had fallen amid natural disasters and internal strife; now the Arab Empire, still propped up by a single Caliph, was about to meet its final fate.

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