Chapter 98: Great Tang Jianzhong

"Wu Erlang, look — what do you make of this?"

In the post station, it was already deep night. Ma Yaozi, who moments ago had been snoring thunderously, scrambled up from his bed the instant he heard a few awkward cat calls, then handed something in his hand to his roommate Wu Yuan'er.

Wu Yuan'er took it and felt it over a few times; it seemed to be a copper coin. He tiptoed to the window, and by the pale gray moonlight took a look — sure enough, it was a copper coin.

"Great Tang Jianzhong?" Wu Yuan'er couldn't help murmuring the words aloud. The coin was already badly worn, but he could still make out that the characters carved on it were Chinese; at a rough glance, they looked very much like the four characters "Great Tang Jianzhong."

"Looks that way to me too!" Ma Yaozi leaned his head over and pretended to be a man of learning, though he wasn't entirely pretending — while he didn't recognize the character jian, he did know da and zhong, and tang went without saying.

"This was cast by the Martial Prefecture Prince, Lord Guo Linggong!" Wu Yuan'er's hand trembled slightly as he held the coin.

"Back then, when Anxi was besieged on all sides by the Tibetans, the Grand Protectorate was short of copper and iron, so they cast only a little over three thousand of these in all. Over the past hundred-odd years, they've long since vanished.

I accompanied my elder brother on several missions to the Gaochang Uyghur kingdom, and we never found so much as one. Captain Ma, where did you get this?"

Ma Yaozi had no idea the coin carried so much significance. He seemed to have heard the name Martial Prefecture Prince somewhere, but couldn't recall exactly who it was. Scratching awkwardly at the topknot on his head, Ma Yaozi thought back carefully.

"At the time, I tossed a big handful of Xizhou coins onto the eating-house table, then pretended I'd spoken out of turn, scooped up the coppers, and left. When I got back, I found this one!"

Ma Yaozi looked at the Jianzhong coin in Wu Yuan'er's hand. If this coin hadn't differed so greatly from the Xizhou coins he carried on him — that is, the coins cast by the Gaochang Uyghurs — he might never have noticed it.

"Captain Ma! This is a matter of great importance. Think hard — see if you can remember how this coin came to appear on your table.

I suspect — perhaps we have discovered the descendants of the old Anxi Grand Protector's people!"

Wu Yuan'er carefully put the coin away, his round face gleaming with excitement in the moonlight.

"Descendants of the Anxi Grand Protector's people? Are you serious?" Ma Yaozi couldn't help raising his voice a little.

He didn't understand much of the reasoning, but he knew Zhang Zhao's long-cherished wish: to find the Great Tang descendants who had been lost in Anxi all those years ago.

Ma Yaozi shut his eyes and thought hard for a while, then suddenly threw an excited punch.

"There was something off about that eating-house waiter! Right! It had to be him. When the mutton leg in my hand went flying, he was the one who picked it up and brought it back to me. Right! It had to be him, because he was the only one who got close to me!"

The eating-house waiter? Wu Yuan'er stood lost in thought for a while; the more he considered it, the more it seemed deliberate.

Great Tang coins from Anxi were not rare, but most were coins of the present Great Tang — the Later Tang — and Kaiyuan Tongbao coppers. The "Great Tang Jianzhong" coins cast by the Anxi Protectorate over a hundred years ago were exceedingly few.

The other party's intent in slipping this coin among Ma Yaozi's coppers was obvious, because to say nothing of Shule in Anxi, even in Shazhou and Dunhuang, even in the Central Plains, few people could read — let alone in Anxi, where those who could read Chinese characters were rarer still.

And someone who could read Chinese characters and also knew of the Great Tang Jianzhong was one in a million — and in all likelihood was neither a Han assimilated by the Gaochang Uyghurs nor a Khotan Han, at least not a Han willing to put down roots in those two kingdoms and forget the Great Tang.

"Send Li Sanlang out of the city. We're being watched too closely right now to go anywhere near that eating-house. We can only have the young lord send new people over. For now, we stick to the original plan."

After thinking for a few minutes, Wu Yuan'er quickly made his decision.

"Good! That junior officer at the post station is a follower of the Heavenly Creed. He gave me trouble when we first arrived. Tomorrow I'll pick a fight with him, and while there's a commotion, you get Li Sanlang out of the city!"

Ma Yaozi nodded in agreement, not a trace of drunkenness in his eyes! Eight bowls of fruit wine — far weaker than the black millet liquor the young lord brewed! Eight bowls couldn't match two bowls of the young lord's brew; it just made him need to piss.

At the governor's residence, Itihad was also still awake, because his instincts told him that Wu Yuan'er's arrival was somewhat strange.

And he couldn't be blamed for his suspicions, because the timing of this envoy from the Gaochang Uyghurs' Pugu Feng'en Tarkhan was simply too coincidental.

Moreover, the pretext was somewhat exaggerated: three thousand strings of goods and money was no small sum — enough to equip nearly fifty armored soldiers — and all for a few dozen monks? Would this Pugu Feng'en really spend so much?

However, Itihad did not think in the direction of reconnaissance or pathfinding, because that would have been pointless.

Shule was built on high ground, backed by mountains to the south, with a deep, swift-flowing moat to the east and a field of rubble to the west where troops could not deploy at all. To attack, only the broad plain to the north offered room to array a great army.

So the Khotan people had no need to come scout the situation; they could simply array their forces and attack. Besides, the Khotan people had besieged Shule six times, and by now knew the place better than anyone; there was no need to send men to probe.

A pity — a pity Itihad did not know that black powder already existed in this world. Had he known there was black powder capable of blasting open Shule's walls, he would certainly have understood why Zhang Zhao needed to learn the layout of the city.

Because it would greatly help Zhang Zhao choose where to dig a tunnel for the blast, and would also let Zhang Zhao place the blast point directly in the most critical area — the kind where, once a breach was blown open, troops could charge straight in and seize the governor's residence.

"Are you certain the deputy envoy was truly drunk and let something slip, and not deliberately using words to lure you into a trap?"

Itihad had no doubt at all that 'Pugu Feng'en' or an important man under him had the ability to bring goods and money to the vicinity of Jiashi, because this was Anxi — not the Central Plains, where borders were clearly drawn and spheres of influence sharply defined.

In Anxi, whether the Gaochang Uyghur Khaganate or the Karakhanid Khaganate, both were khaganates with a very strong nomadic flavor.

Although Jiashi was under Karakhanid rule, that only meant the greater and lesser chieftains of Jiashi obeyed the Bughra Khan's commands.

These subordinate chieftains could not even make out the exact border with the Gaochang Uyghurs, let alone the khaganate's upper ranks in Shule.

And it was not rare for Gaochang people to pasture or settle on Karakhanid territory; likewise, there were Karakhanids who went to Gaochang. For nomadic peoples, the concept of national territory was still rather vague.

"Respected Governor, I can swear that the deputy envoy simply drank too much, because we watched him drink at least two jars of purple wine within two double-hours. No one can drink that much without getting drunk."

The burly man who had blocked the door at the eating-house shook his head firmly. Purple wine that knocked an ordinary man out after two or three bowls — the deputy envoy had drunk two jars of it. And one jar could pour at least four large bowls; eight bowls in all. It was impossible he wasn't drunk.

But his judgment ran into a blind spot for Itihad: the governor was a zealous believer who strictly followed the teachings of the Heavenly Creed, and he did not drink, so he had no way to judge what two jars of purple wine even meant.

After thinking for a moment, Itihad beckoned to a civil official nearby.

"Go find ten of the heaviest drinkers among the governor's residence guards, and reward each of them with two jars of purple wine and fine food!"

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