Great Zhou Empire: Kill Zhao Kuangyin at the beginning

Chapter 382: Ghazni (Special thanks to my friend daddycool for his 8 monthly tickets!)

On June 25, the 29th year of Kaixi, after nearly three months of discussion by seven cabinet elders, a plan was drawn up to divide the country's 1,100 states into 36 divisions based on geography and people's customs.

Among these divisions, the one with the most prefectures under its jurisdiction is 52, which are the smaller prefectures in the Central Plains; the one with the fewest prefectures under its jurisdiction is 15, which are the vast border prefectures.

After Chai Zongxun's imperial approval, the six ministries began to recommend officials for each department, and many middle and low-level officials with excellent test scores over the years were promoted to serve in the court.

When the people learned that the emperor had increased the admission rate to the imperial examinations several times, they were all delighted, because children from ordinary families now had many more channels to advance into the upper class of society.

At that time, the spirit of learning was very popular throughout the country of the Great Zhou.

On August 11, battle reports came from the Central Asian front that Huyan Zan led the First and Second Corps and, after nearly a year of offensive, on June 3 captured the capital of the Ghaznavid Empire, which was guarded by 700,000 troops.

Since King Subuktqin of Ghaznavid succeeded to the throne in 977, he expanded the country's territory by confiscating private property, paid attention to the establishment of a tax system, reclaimed wasteland, built water conservancy projects, and encouraged industry and commerce. In terms of culture, he vigorously recruited talents, making the Ghaznavid dynasty prosperous.

The Ghaznavid Turkic rulers occupied a historically settled region of the astral world, and were influenced by Arab and Persian Islamic civilizations, evolving a nomadic to a settled lifestyle, and imitating Persian political organization and administrative structures.

The administrative system of the Samanid dynasty was adopted, and a centralized monarchy was practiced. The monarch held political, military, judicial and religious powers in one person. The army was directly commanded by the king, who was militaristic. The central government set up a ministerial council, and ministers from various departments were in charge of government affairs. Experienced Persians were appointed to important administrative positions. The governors of each province were military generals who were born as Turkic slaves.

Faced with the powerful Great Zhou army, Subuk Teqin originally mobilized 700,000 elite Turkic troops from across the country to resist.

In the Battle of Punjab at the end of the 28th year of Kaixi and the Battle of Peshawar in March of the 29th year, they were defeated by the army of the Great Zhou and suffered more than 200,000 casualties.

Seeing that he could not withstand the offensive of the Zhou army, Subuk Tekin mobilized the garrisons of seven prefectures near the capital to gather in the capital, Ghazni. Together with the imperial guards, a total of 700,000 troops were deployed to defend the capital.

Huyan Zan and others led five corps to quickly capture cities one by one, and in late March of the 29th year of Kaixi, they surrounded the city of Ghazni.

Although Ghazni was the capital, it was founded in 962 for only twenty years and had limited city defense buildings.

Under the continuous bombardment of thousands of "Yansu artillery" by the Second Front Army of the Great Zhou Dynasty, the city was captured in just over a month. More than 300,000 soldiers of Ghazni were killed or wounded, and the rest fled.

Huyan Zan led his troops into the city and engaged in fierce street fighting with the remaining 160,000 imperial guards of Subuk Teqin. Ten days later, all the enemy troops in the city were wiped out.

Subuktekin retreated to the royal palace, dismissed thousands of concubines from the harem, and ordered the captain of the guard to protect his son Mahmoud, who mixed in with the crowd of concubines and fled to the Green Caliphate in North Africa.

After everything was arranged, on the morning of June 3, Sushik Teqin, holding a cup of red poison wine, sat on the throne in the main hall of the palace and waited.

More than an hour later, a large number of powerful footsteps were heard in the palace. Huyan Zan led his generals and bodyguards to kill the remaining enemies along the way, and strode into the main hall of the palace.

The Zhou army soldiers were a little surprised when they saw the Ghaznavid king Subuktegin sitting on the throne with a wine glass in his hand.

Hu Yanzan pointed his halberd at Subuk Teqin and shouted:
"Turkic barbarian, knowing that my Great Zhou army is about to capture the palace, how dare you not flee?"

The Longxiang Guard who was stationed in Central Asia and accompanied the army translated it loudly into Turkish.

Subukteqin smiled sadly and said:
“I never thought that we Turks were driven out of the steppes during the Tang Dynasty and fled here, and today, more than 200 years later, we can still be defeated by the Chinese Dynasty!
Is this God's will? "

Zhang Ning, the Grand Commander of the Fifth Corps, rebuked:
"You Turks are not productive, but aggressive. You were defeated and driven away during the Tang Dynasty of China. After you fled to Central and West Asia, you made no progress and abandoned the Shamanism of your ancestors and converted to the Star Religion!
If the Samanid Dynasty had not joined forces with the Star Religion countries to attack, His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Zhou would not have thought of sending troops to attack you!"

Subuk Teqin sighed, looked at Huyan Zan and said:

"Governor Huyan, if I surrender my entire country now, will your Majesty treat me well?" Huyan Zan pondered for a while, thinking that the Great Zhou army had already captured more than half of the territories including the capital of the Ghaznavid Empire, and Subuk Tekin's surrender was of little significance.

Moreover, in the Battle of Bekara, 110,000 soldiers from the 4th and 8th Corps of the Longxiong Army were killed. It can be said that the Great Zhou has forged an irreconcilable feud with the countries of the Star Sect world.

Hu Yanzan said:

"Subuk Teqin, when you first joined the Samanid coalition and dared to invade our Great Zhou, you should have expected the outcome today.

I will not hide it from you. Even if you surrender now, His Majesty will execute you for the sake of our soldiers who died in the battle."

Zhe Yuxun said angrily:

"Subuk Teqin, you, the Star Sect coalition, dared to invade our Great Zhou, causing heavy losses to our Dragon Army's Fourth and Eighth Corps. Our Great Zhou Emperor has ordered an all-out attack on you.

You don't need to surrender, our Longxiang Army will soon wipe out the Ghaznavid Empire!"

Subuk Teqin nodded and said:
“After seeing the elegance of all the generals today, I finally believe the rumor that ‘Great Zhou is the country chosen by heaven’.

General Huyan did not make promises lightly, which shows his noble character.

I will tell you where the royal family hides their treasures. I only hope that the general will stop hunting down my concubines and that the Great Zhou will treat our Turkic people well. "

Hu Yanzan nodded and said:

"You can rest assured about this. His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Zhou only punishes those in power and will not bring disaster to the people of all ethnic groups.

Your concubine is just a girl from a commoner family and has never been involved in state affairs.

On the contrary, all the people who came under the rule of our Great Zhou Empire have enjoyed a better life.”

Subuk Teqin picked up the wine glass and drank it all, saying:

“With General Huyan’s words, I can leave with peace of mind.

Most of the treasures accumulated by the second generation of the Ghaznavid dynasty are hidden under the pond in the back garden. After General Huyan drains the water, he can see the entrance to the underground vault covered by the mud at the bottom of the pond.

By the time he finished speaking, Subuk Teqin's entire body had begun to tremble rapidly, but within a cup of tea, there was no more movement.

Hu Yanzan sighed:
“This man is also a hero among the Turks. Before he died, he was still thinking about the people of his own tribe. He should not be humiliated.

Let him be buried in the outskirts of Ghazni with the rites of a Turkic royal family."

The eunuch in charge of military supervision led the Wude Division and the military police to spend several days counting the national treasury, and they obtained more than 6 million taels of silver and more than 2,000 rare treasures.

Huyan Zan did not send troops to pursue the thousands of concubines who fled in all directions.

(End of this chapter)