Just when Shi Chonggui's envoy was about to arrive in Khitan, Zhang Zhao was also writing a letter to Yelu Deguang, the leader of Khitan.
Of course, he did not need to report the news of his father's death to his grandfather as a grandson like Shi Chonggui did, but instead wrote to his elder brother in the name of a younger brother.
The thing is actually very simple. At this time, the two countries of Khitan and Zhang Zhao were separated by a whole Hetao area.
The Khitans did not have the extra ability to control the Fengzhou Zhenwu Army and the Tiande Army, and Zhang Zhao did not have the ability to attack the Khitans.
So the two sides are still getting along well, and the relationship is even somewhat good.
Zhang Zhao wrote a letter to Yelu Deguang mainly to explain two things.
The first thing is that although the birthday of Yelu Deguang's mother, Empress Dowager Su Luping, is still a few months away, it is her nephew's first birthday, so she still needs to communicate in advance.
Then, Zhang Zhao first had to write a letter of trust for the envoy to take to Khitan, and let Yelu Deguang determine where the birthday envoy was going. What was the identity and status of the birthday envoy from Liang?
Because after the Khitan established the Sixteen States of Yanyun, it had many capitals.
Sometimes it may be in Linhuang Prefecture in Shangjing, sometimes in Liaoyang Prefecture in Tokyo, sometimes in Dading Prefecture in Zhongjing, and sometimes in Youzhou in Nanjing.
At this time, communication was inconvenient. Only by determining the place where the birthday would be held could the messenger of Zhang Zhao's birthday be prevented from running around and missing the birthday date.
Moreover, the Liang Kingdom is not a vassal of the Khitan, so the etiquette to be used must be discussed in advance.
The second thing is specifically about the Gaochang Uighurs. The contact between the Gaochang Uighurs and the Khitan actually existed a long time ago.
When Yelu Abaoji first founded the Khitan Kingdom, he had a good relationship with the Gaochang Uighurs. In seventeen years, the Gaochang Uighurs paid tribute twenty-four times.
However, sixteen years ago, in the second year of Tongguang in the Later Tang Dynasty, that is, 924 AD.
The new Khan of the Gaochang Uyghurs was unwilling to continue to regard the Khitan, thousands of miles away, as its suzerain state, and also competed with the Khitans for the tribes of the Xijias north of the Altai Mountains.
So Yelu Abaoji sent 20,000 fine horses across the quicksand north of the Gaochang Uighurs and headed straight for Futu City, the summer capital of the Gaochang Uighurs, which was also the Beiting City of the Beiting Protectorate of the Tang Dynasty in the past.
The Khitans destroyed the city in one battle, killed thousands of Gaochang Uighurs, and placed all the Xijias tribes under the command of the Khitans.
Later, although the Khitans chose to reconcile with the Gaochang Uighurs because they could not occupy it for a long time, and let the Gaochang Uighurs redeem Futu City with gold and silk women, the grudges between the two sides had already been forged.
In recent years, if Zhang Zhao had not put too much pressure on the Gaochang Uighurs, they would not have gone to worship the Khitans.
But since you have made a pilgrimage, there is a sense of incense and love.
Zhang Zhao and Yelu Deguang are brothers. Now that he wants to annex the Gaochang Uighurs (of course he can't say it openly), he still has to say hello to Yelu Deguang.
Therefore, this is also the reason why Zhang Zhao sent people first to ask Jielibiga, the Gaochang Uighur, to remove himself from the title of Heavenly King and so on.
This was a provocation, provoking Jie Lipijia of the Gaochang Uighurs, and then used this as an excuse to send troops to attack, so that the Khitans would not be able to say anything.
Therefore, the Zhang Dynasty divided the letter to Yelu Deguang into three letters. One was about Jielipika's refusal to give up the title of Heavenly King, the second was about Jielipika's refusal to convert to the Buddha, and the third was about Jielipika's refusal to change his faith to the Buddha.
Rebika refused to marry her sister to him.
When the time comes, no matter what choice Jielibijia makes, the envoy to Khitan will present one of the letters to Yelu Deguang.
And Zhang Zhao, who was originally afraid of Khitan interference, now dared to take the initiative to write a letter to express it, it was because he had figured out something.
During the Yelu Abaoji period, the Khitan Kingdom was positioned as the original Huns and Turks.
What they want to do is to become a steppe power, but the political and economic center is in the Liaodong area.
During the Yelv Deguang period, especially after he obtained the ownership of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun from Shi Jingtang.
Yelu Deguang put all his energy into the Central Plains. What the Khitan people want to do now is to conquer the Northern Dynasty of Xianbei in the past.
In fact, this trend appeared in Yelu Abaoji's later years.
Otherwise, the Gaochang Uighurs would not dare to jump out and compete with the Khitans for the Xijiasi tribes, because the Khitans have shrunk their military presence in the west.
The Khitan people are different from the Huns and Turks. The former are a pure grassland people, so they can control the entire desert.
However, the Khitan people started out as a fishing and hunting people. The attributes of the grassland people were insufficient and they did not have the ability to control the entire desert, so they had to focus on one direction.
In the end, under the leadership of Yelu Deguang, they chose to go south to the Northern Dynasty, and it was not bad, and they achieved a certain degree of success.
But just when the letter was about to be finished, Zhang Zhao thought about it and prepared to add another one.
Because when he and Yelu Deguang became brothers last year, they only agreed that Zhang Zhao would call Shulu Ping the Empress Dowager Shimu, and Yelu Deguang would call the Empress Dowager Fengtian the Queen Mother Aunt.
But Zhang Chao's own biological mother, the Song family, did not receive the honorific title of Yelu Deguang and the Khitan Kingdom.
Of course, correspondingly, the Khitan born in the Song family would not send an envoy, so King Zhang always felt a bit at a disadvantage.
So Zhang Zhao added one more temporarily and wanted to make an agreement with Yelu Deguang that on the Song family's birthday, the Khitan must also send an envoy.
In this case, the Khitan will send out two congratulatory gifts, and the amount of money given out by both parties to celebrate the birthday is roughly the same.
However, Guo Tiance, who was standing next to him, was a little confused.
"The king wants to devour the Gaochang Uighurs, and is asking the Khitans to turn a blind eye. How can he bring up this matter at this moment? Doesn't he want to annoy the Khitans?"
Zhang Zhao smiled calmly, "If someone mentions this, the Khitan people will definitely be very dissatisfied, and the focus of their debate will definitely be drawn to this aspect.
Because for the Khitan people, they are now shrinking their strength and trying to eat up more land in the Central Plains.
Compared with us annexing the Gaochang Uighurs just to eat some meat, their desire to enter the Central Plains is the real important matter, and they are more afraid of our intervention at this time.
So I gave the proposal to increase birthday gifts, and they would tacitly seize this issue to make noise and not discuss the Gaochang Uighurs."
Guo Tiance nodded. Compared with Zhang Zhao's determination, he felt a little uneasy.
"Your Majesty, if the Khitans really invade the Central Plains, what will we do?
Even the Khitan today is stronger than us. If the Khitan master takes over the Central Plains, he will definitely not be able to compete with us, the Great Liang Kingdom."
People at this time did not have Zhang Zhao's ability to see through the fog of the future. They all believed that once the Khitan went south, it was likely to gain a foothold in the Central Plains. The history of the Jin soldiers rushing to join them is proof of this.
But Zhang Zhao knew that the burden carried by the Khitans was too heavy!
With the backward system, the interests of the huge Khitan tribes could not be reconciled, and Yelu Deguang was not a man of heaven who could reconcile the internal conflicts of the Khitan and win the hearts of the Central Plains.
He is not the second generation Taizong at the peak like Li Shimin or Ming Chengzu. He is a disgrace to Taizong who is only slightly better than the second brother Zhao in terms of force.
However, Zhang Zhao couldn't say these words to anyone, so he could only pretend to nodded heavily.
"This requires us to defeat the Gaochang Uighurs quickly. As long as we can quickly annex the Gaochang Uighurs, we will have enough time to select tens of thousands of elite soldiers.
If the Khitans really enter the Central Plains, we will take over the Guanzhong Sanjiedu and Hezhong Jiedushi envoys’ territories and enter the Central Plains too!”
As soon as Guo Tiance heard that he had entered the Central Plains, he was immediately beaming with joy. Just as he was saying a few words, Guo Rong came to see him with tears streaming down his face.
For Guo Rong, the relationship with his uncle Guo Wei is not necessarily very deep.
If he was serious, Guo Wei would not be willing to let Guo Rong, who was thirteen or fourteen years old, follow the merchants from Tongzhou to sell tea in the territory of Nanwu and Qian Yue.
You must know that at this time, even if an adult man travels far away, he will always face the danger of death if he does not adapt to the climate. Let alone a young man, he still 'goes abroad' to Nanwu and Qianyue.
But Guo Rong's feelings for Chai must be very deep.
Historically, it is said that Guo Rong was born in the Chai family, a wealthy family in Xingzhou, and his family was a big businessman, but in fact, this is just to put money on Guo Rong's face.
Their family was an ordinary family. Fortunately, a beautiful eldest sister was born and was elected to the palace. She served Emperor Zhuangzong Li Cunxu. Later, he was dismissed by Emperor Ming Li Siyuan and returned to his hometown with a large sum of money.
Then he fell in love with Guo Wei, and gave half of his property to his parents for old age, and half of it was used as his own dowry.
From this, the Chai family entered a small wealthy family. However, after Guo Rong's grandparents passed away, his father Chai Shouli was a prodigal and quickly lost all his family property. It is possible that his wife also ran away.
This can be seen from the history books. Chai Shouli had three wives, namely Wang, Huang and Liu, but it was not said who gave birth to Guo Rong.
This is very abnormal considering Guo Rong's status as a first-generation British master.
If it was these three who gave birth to Guo Rong, they would definitely write a big book about it. Even if Guo Rong's biological mother died young, it would be recorded.
Therefore, there is only one possibility. After Chai Shouli lost all his family property and continued to wander around, his first wife ran away with him.
Guo Rong must have been very young at that time, and the names of Guo Rong's two older brothers were not recorded. This can be seen from the fact that only the fourth brother Chai Hua and the fifth Chai Gui have their names recorded.
It is very likely that the young Guo Rong was abandoned by his mother, and when her mother abandoned him, she also took away her two brothers who were already able to work and were relatively valuable.
So for Guo Rong, he was abandoned by his mother when he was young, and his father was a prodigal. He had no choice but to seek refuge with his aunt at a young age, but his uncle didn't like him very much.
In this kind of life, if you don't completely give up on yourself, you can really be considered mentally strong.
In this darkness of life, only his aunt Chai gave him motherly warmth.
The Chai family adopted him as their adopted son, partly to plan for their own future, and partly to give the young Guo Rong an identity.
It is much better to be an adopted son than to be a nephew who depends on others, and you are still in the embarrassing situation where your aunt is not yet able to give birth and your uncle is worried that you are coming to seize the family property.
Looking at the tearful Guo Rong, Zhang Zhao also looked up to the sky and sighed, and finally persuaded Guo Rong to stay. Unexpectedly, Mr. Chai turned out to be seriously ill. Isn't this God's will?
Originally, he was a little doubtful whether this was Guo Wei and Chai's idea, just to call Guo Rong back.
But looking back, it seems that the Chai family has indeed passed away long before Guo Wei took power in history. It is hard to say that he will pass away in the next year or two.
"Since my mother is seriously ill, how can I force her to stay? I wonder if we will ever see each other again!" Zhang Zhao said with great emotion.
"Tiance, you go to Mingxing to get five hundred pieces of gold, silver, brocade and silk from a certain person's inner treasury, so that you can help Commander Guo along the way."
When Guo Rong heard this, he was even more moved and knelt on the ground and burst into tears. However, he did not say that he would come and surrender once the matter was over.
Because the world was in turmoil at this time, Hedong and Hexi were thousands of miles apart, and with his return, if Mr. Chai really passed away and had to observe filial piety, it was really uncertain whether he could return to Hexi.