Han Khan

Chapter 4, Leaving Dunhuang
Although the young master has woken up, the Jinshan Kingdom is indeed gone. The person in charge of Dunhuang now is Cao Rengui, who changed his name to Cao Yijin.

The emperor wiped out the Li family in the struggle to regain power, and the Suo family was also in decline at this time.

Therefore, at the beginning of the establishment of Jinshan Kingdom, the emperor redistributed family power, with his own clan Nanyang Zhang, Qinghe Zhang, foreign relatives Song and Yin, and minority generals such as Luo Tongda brothers and Hun Ziying as the pillars.

By now, Cao Yijin had already accumulated popularity over a long period of time, made friends with many powerful families, and intermarried with them. He first married Suo, the granddaughter of Taibao Gong, and then married a woman from the same clan as Song, who was intermarried with Zhang.

Almost all the prominent families in Guazhou and Shazhou throughout the ages have been won over by Cao Yijin. Even if they did not stand on his side, it would be difficult for them to continue to support Zhang Sheng.

Then in the sixth year of Tianfu and the fourth year of Qianhua of Later Liang (914), he married Princess Tian of the Ganzhou Uighurs.

Cao Yijin's sisters and daughters married into many prominent Dunhuang families, including the Zhai, Yin, Fan, and Yan families, and won their support.

Cao Yijin also colluded with the Ganzhou Uighurs and Zhu Wen's Later Liang, and gained the support of Han and Tibetan forces at home and abroad. After Zhang Chengfeng was defeated by the Ganzhou Uighurs, he conspired to overthrow Zhang.

Because the emperor's establishment of the Jinshan Kingdom was in line with the pursuits, interests and needs of most of the Guiyi Army's noble families and the people, he gained the support of the military and civilians, allowing everyone to gain a new collective identity after the demise of the Tang Dynasty.

However, in the eyes of the Central Plains Dynasty and various vassal forces of the Central Plains Dynasty, such as the Later Liang Dynasty and the Ganzhou Uighurs, his father's establishment of the Jinshan Kingdom was an act of rebellion and a serious provocation.

His father Zhang Chengfeng's defeat and shameful submission to the Ganzhou Uighurs, the successive natural and man-made disasters in the Jinshan Kingdom, and Cao Yijin's collusion with domestic and foreign marriages and the peace policy he advocated.

This caused a large number of people, nobles and tribal chiefs in Jinshan Kingdom to turn their support to Cao Yijin, a descendant of the Sogdians.

With the support and acquiescence of the Ganzhou Uighurs, the Later Liang Dynasty, and the Han and Tibetan nobles within the Jinshan Kingdom, Cao Yijin, a sinicized Sogdian, became a senior official of the Jinshan Kingdom.

Under the pretext of returning to the Celestial Empire, he led a large army to suddenly surround the Yacheng (inner city) of Jinshan Kingdom in the middle of the night three days ago, forcing his father to abdicate and let his father take over. He also planned to abolish the Dunhuang Kingdom and rebuild the Guiyi Army, with Cao Yijin as the governor.

Zhang Sheng, who just turned 16 years old, is a man who refuses to surrender, even though he is still young and has not yet been crowned, and even though he has not received the support of the powerful families.

However, relying on the wealth and reputation accumulated by several generations of the Zhang family, he also gathered an elite soldier force of more than 1000 people under his command, as well as tens of thousands of tenants and slaves in the Zhang manor, all under his command. His strength was completely that of a large tribal leader near Dunhuang.

Moreover, he is both civil and military, and is skilled in managing family affairs. Anyone with a discerning eye can tell that he will be a rising master of tomorrow.

But he was born at the wrong time, and everything was too late. Zhang had lost the hearts of the people of Dunhuang, and the Han people no longer had the ambition to return to the Tang Dynasty. They only wanted to live in peace.

Faced with Cao Yijin's sudden usurpation of power, the common people and the nobles chose to remain silent. He was extremely angry. Without any support, he immediately put on armor with the help of his followers, mounted his warhorse, raised his lance, and led his guards and some of his father's guards in a bloody melee with the rebels led by Cao Yijin.

He was strong and healthy. As early as the war with the Ganzhou Uighurs, he served as a bodyguard beside his father Zhang Chengfeng. He had rich combat experience and was extremely brave, and he was quite famous in the army.

He led more than 600 guards, fought and retreated with thousands of rebels, successfully broke out of the inner city, retreated to the Zhang family manor outside the city, lit signal fires, beat war drums, and gathered more than a thousand soldiers and guards to form a force of people to fight the rebels.

When Cao Yijin saw that Zhang Chengfeng's only son was so brave, and that he had elite soldiers and was well-equipped, and that there were quite a few Han generals who were unwilling to give up the fantasy of Jinshan Kingdom.

During the Cao Yi Jin coup, these generals supported Zhang Chengfeng's only son Zhang Sheng and joined forces with him to form an army of nearly 2000 people to resist his attack.

Faced with such a situation, Cao Yijin had no choice but to go all the way, advance without retreat, and lead his troops to continue attacking Zhang Sheng. He immediately asked the Ganzhou Uighurs, Hexi Tatars, and the Long family of Suzhou, who were also not far from the city, to join the battle.

Faced with the large numbers of Uighurs and rebels, his predecessor was not afraid, but led the troops in a bloody battle with Cao Yijin's rebels, but was eventually accidentally knocked off his horse by an armored cavalryman.

In this situation, the soldiers loyal to him withdrew from the battle with his "corpse".

After fighting for so long, everyone knew that in the current situation, it was impossible to fight against Cao Yijin.

That’s why Zhang Sheng became the Zhang Sheng he is today. When Zhang Sheng recalled his past, he suddenly felt that the young warrior was facing a bleak future! !
Now, he will face the same problems that his predecessor had to face. Cao Yijin led a coup, his father died, and he himself was defeated. There is really no place for him to stay in Dunhuang.

"Thanks to the protection of Buddha and gods, Taibao's bloodline has not been cut off." Zhang Zhongxian, who stayed in the tent, sighed as he looked at the young man in front of him.

"The situation is not good..."

"Your Highness, the emperor asked me to be your teacher and teach you classics and Buddhist principles. Now, I am willing to listen to what Your Highness thinks." Zhang Zhongxian answered while looking at the student in front of him.

As Zhang Sheng walked, he thought to himself, putting aside the old emotions that remained in his mind, and carefully analyzing the current situation and his own situation. "In Dunhuang, the people of Beiting, Gaochang and Yizhou in the west are Uighurs, the people of the east are also Uighurs, and there are Tatars in the north, and Tibetans and Tuyuhun in the south.

The road to the Central Plains was cut off, and there was no replenishment from the Han people. Even if the Jinshan Kingdom still existed, it would be assimilated by the Hu people sooner or later. By then, "the Han people would all speak the Hu language, but would curse the Han people on the city walls." It was certain that they would reappear.

The court's previous distrust and persecution caused chaos among the Guiyi Army, and after decades of infighting, its collapse was inevitable.

That dog slave Cao Rengui was so servile that even if he got Dunhuang, this broken land would be assimilated sooner or later.

Now my nephew cannot defeat the alliance between Cao Rengui and the Ganzhou thieves. How can I revive the Zhang family if I stay here? I want to go north to the grassland to seek refuge with my uncle, and then plan other things. "

Zhang Sheng said to the strong and wise uncle in front of him in the tent.

Zhang Zhongxian just listened quietly to the young man's story.

Looking at the soul of the roaring, wild and unwilling boy gradually calming down, he said nothing.

Today, Zhang Sheng has chosen to give up his previous obsession and get rid of the burden. He is not cowardly, but if he continues to fight rashly, he will gain nothing.

Because of the geographical location of Jinshan Kingdom and the local population situation, he thought that even if he defeated Cao Yijin, it would be of no use.

The Ganzhou Uighurs and the aristocratic families of Dunhuang are still eyeing the country covetously. The Jinshan Han Kingdom still has to face an extremely difficult situation around it, with enemies everywhere!

What's the point of conquering this desert land with poor land production and relying on trade to survive? The wealth will be divided up by the wealthy and powerful, and the people will not get any growth or supplement.

Moreover, Zhang had basically lost the support of the people in Hexi. Cao Rengui was just another choice for the common people and the nobles.

After he finished speaking, Zhang Sheng felt that his whole body had gained peace and tranquility. He walked and said: "Yes, we won't fight anymore. Cao Yijin, that dog slave, has the support of Zhu Wen and the Uighurs in Ganzhou, the support of the Sogdians in Hexi, and many nobles and common people in the Guiyi Army are supporting him.

If I continue to fight, with only the limited force I have, and no reinforcements, I will be doomed sooner or later. The Tang Dynasty has been destroyed, and the road to return to the east has long been cut off. "

Zhang Sheng knew that he no longer had enough strength to fight against Cao Yijin and the Uighurs. He knew that the battle had ended and could not continue.

What we need to do now is to seek a more sensible solution. Continuing to fight will only magnify the risks. Not only will we fail to defeat Cao Yijin, but it may also lead to our own failure and death.

Even if they won, he felt that relying on such a small area as Dunhuang, the Han people with a population of more than 100,000 could not develop at all. Moreover, the internal strife between the Han and the foreign people, the Han and the Han, and the foreign people was very serious within the Guiyi Army.

If we cannot defeat the Ganzhou Uighurs who are looming over Dunhuang and the Guiyi Army, as well as the numerous vassal tribes, and fail to recover Hexi, then the Dangxiang and Tibetans who come down from the mountains and the Khitans who come from the northern desert will sooner or later overwhelm this place, and the Han people will be wiped out.

He decided to take a step back and seek other strategies that would save his own life and the lives of many of his supporters by giving up Dunhuang.

"Your Highness, have you ever thought about how we Han people would survive if we went to Mobei, and how we would deal with the Hu people who are all over the grassland?" Zhang Zhongxian asked.

"The Hu people can graze and survive on cattle, sheep and horses. We Han people can do the same. We can grow food and survive. As for the Hu people, humph! When friends come, we have wine. When jackals come, we have swords and guns to serve them.

Moreover, under my command, the Hu people and those with Hu blood account for more than half. There are many people available, so I am not worried.

When the Turks who forged iron for the Rouran rose to power, there were only a few hundred households in Gaochang and Jinshan, but they eventually destroyed and annexed the huge Rouran and Tiele peoples.

We Han people can also build a large grassland country. Why can the Hu people go south? We Han people can also go north and transform the Hu people into Han people. This is the will of the Lord of Heaven. "Zhang Sheng answered with high spirits and determination.

There is a classic saying in my heart, "There is no other way but to conquer."

"Then, Your Highness, what worries and concerns do you have? Now that Your Highness has a clear goal, just go and do it. Gods above, I will always firmly support Your Highness." Zhang Zhongxian said with satisfaction as he looked at the high-spirited young man in front of him.

Zhang Sheng traveled through time and fortunately was loved by gods and God. In this world, he had a powerful army that allowed him to settle down and also gave him the foundation to fight for survival in this era.

(End of this chapter)