Chapter Thirty-One: God Favors No One; He Supports Only the Virtuous (Part One)

This series of wars continues to exert a profound influence to this day.

As the representatives of Novgorod and Moscow entered the venue, they immediately began greeting the various dignitaries. They were particularly warm toward Guo Kang and Li Xuanying, insisting that they be allowed to pay personal visits.

Guo Kang’s popularity went without saying. Ever since his great-uncle, Guo Di—known to the Rus as "Old Peter"—was stationed in Novgorod, he had brought many unexpected benefits to the region. The port of Petrograd continues to generate immense profits for the Republic of Novgorod to this day, a fact they could not easily ignore.

As for Li Xuanying, the reason was even simpler. His grandfather, Li Yinglin—the famous figure who took three arrows from his father’s hand—had turned the tide at a critical moment during the "Civil War," leaving an indelible impression on the various Rus states.

At that time, the Northern Yamen rebels had allied with the Poles, marching south along the Dnieper River to strike at the heart of the Purple Tent. They boasted that they would capture Varna, the seat of the Great Orda, in one stroke, and drive out the Khitans, the Greeks, and the puppet Great Khan they had installed. Along the way, several Rus principalities and steppe tribes joined their ranks. Hearing the news, the Hungarians also mobilized, intending to strike eastward to reclaim the eastern territories they had previously lost.

Faced with such formidable enemies, the Empress Regent Maria Khatun panicked. She considered ceding territory to sue for peace while secretly preparing ships to flee with her son back to her home in Morea. She ordered the commanders on the southern front—Li Yinglin, Cao Xun, Guo Shuai, and others—to cease military operations, negotiate with surrounding factions, and provide an escort for the imperial court to escape.

The hereditary nobles were deeply dissatisfied with this order. Grand Marshal Wang Fangzhong, Left Chancellor Yelu Jian, and Supreme Justice of the Great Court of Judicature Talishi mediated between the parties, urging everyone that in times of national crisis, one must not openly violate the established order. Even if the Empress's commands were unreasonable, they argued, one must seek solutions within the framework of the state.

The veteran ministers went to visit Maria Khatun to explain the gravity of the situation. Yelu Jian pointed out that the Palaiologos family was in total disarray. John V, who styled himself emperor, could not defeat the Ottomans, the Serbians, or the usurper John VI Kantakouzenos. He could not even unite with his own sons, with whom he carved up his tiny territory.

The Northern Song Dynasty had only one Emperor Huizong and one Emperor Qinzong, but the Palaiologos dynasty had a whole crowd of them. Such a petty regime had no future whatsoever, and there was no need to consider them.

This argument was sound, but it gave Maria Khatun other ideas. She reasoned that since her father and brothers were cowards, she could simply clean up the mess herself. She should abandon the struggle in the north and compensate for it in the Greek territories to the south. She was confident that, through diplomatic intrigue, she could set the rebels, the Poles, and the Hungarians against each other over the spoils, preventing them from causing trouble for her.

The imperial army, she believed, was more than enough to deal with the Greeks. She could drive away her useless father and brothers, rule as Empress of Rome herself, and afterward, grant everyone more power.

She assumed this exchange of interests would satisfy the ministers. However, this act of compromise caused the ministers to lose all hope in her, leading them to side with the southern lords instead.

Li Yinglin, however, saw this as an excellent opportunity. He had originally feared that the Ottomans would take advantage of the chaos, but the Empress’s foolishness was perfectly timed to lull the enemy into a false sense of security. The Ottomans were happy to see the Greeks continue their infighting and would remain on the sidelines in the short term. As long as they could neutralize at least one enemy force in the north before the others reacted, the situation would be much improved. Thus, he argued, they should not burn bridges yet.

Soon, the peace talks were successfully concluded. The Southern Yamen armies were ordered to return to the Great Orda to escort the court. However, on the night they entered the city, a bloodless palace coup occurred.

Li Yinglin and his colleagues, citing the precedent of the Spring and Autumn period when the official Yuquan remonstrated with the King of Chu, led troops into the palace to arrest Maria Khatun. The on-duty Kheshig guards did not interfere. The Khatun fled in haste, only to be captured by the southern forces outside the city.

The Chancellor, the Grand Marshal, and others enumerated the Empress’s crimes, accusing her of "the hen crowing at dawn"—interfering in state affairs and harboring designs on the throne—making her intentions clear. If not stopped, the Great Qin would suffer the same fate as the Great Tang under the Empress Wu and Empress Wei.

The Great Khan was benevolent and filial and could not bear to act against his mother. However, the fate of the nation was more important than personal sentiment; thus, the ministers felt compelled to execute the law of the land on his behalf.

From then on, the ancestral laws were reaffirmed: the harem was strictly forbidden from interfering in politics to ensure history would not repeat itself. The Great Khan and the various Pillars of State swore a collective oath to uphold this promise.

The ministers planned to have the Empress become a nun, according to old Greek tradition. But they were so unfamiliar with the local customs that they did not know about procedures like blinding; they simply thought it meant shaving one’s head. As a result, under the supervision of the Supreme Justice Talishi, Maria Khatun was shaved bald and exiled to an island under house arrest.

This event proved once again that when you cannot win in battle, intrigue is of little use. Of course, the Greeks were certainly not lacking in such examples…

This, of course, was only the first step. After stabilizing the internal situation, Li Yinglin immediately set out north to intercept the rebels.

By then, the rebel forces had gathered in great numbers, claiming to be one hundred thousand strong. Many of the junior and mid-level officers in his army, hailing from Bulgaria and Wallachia, were somewhat fearful of the enemy and asked for his instructions. Li Yinglin looked at them with disdain and told them it was only because of their limited experience.

He regaled them with stories of Ban Chao, Li Jing, Yelu Dashi, and others, telling them that defeating armies of one hundred thousand Central Asians or Turks with only a few thousand, or even a few hundred men, was a daily occurrence back home. It was only because these new recruits were inexperienced that they were intimidated by such a small spectacle.

These Eastern European "Boli'er" (the Yuan History’s name for Poles) and "Mazha'er" (the Yuan History’s name for Hungarians) were barbarians whose combat effectiveness was inferior even to the Turks; otherwise, they would be the ones marching on Jerusalem. It was clear that the rebels only looked numerous, but were actually nothing more than a rabble. It was only because they had lacked capable commanders in the past that they appeared formidable. Now, he would show them what real warfare looked like.

The men remained skeptical, feeling his stories were exaggerated. Just then, the army’s Great Patriarch, Daoist Yin, stepped forward and told them that God had long ago ordained this, but they had not been pious enough to perceive it.

Daoist Yin gathered the officers and soldiers and produced a handful of small silver coins for them to examine. They were ordinary Roman silver coins, seemingly unremarkable. Daoist Yin then prayed, saying that if God truly wished for them to triumph and had sent the battle-hardened Seres to lead them, then let a miracle be shown: let all the coins land heads up.

He gathered the coins, cupped them in his hands, shook them a few times, and scattered them onto the altar table before the cross. When the men looked closely, all dozen or so coins had indeed landed heads up, and a gasp went through the crowd. Daoist Yin ordered the coins to be nailed to the table with a sacred nail to be displayed to the entire army.

The soldiers, who had seen little of the world, all cried out that it was a miracle.

Daoist Yin remarked that God had actually blessed the Romans to defeat the barbarians more than once; such records were everywhere in church history. It was just that the church had declined, losing the noble spirit of the ancient apostolic age, and the local priests were of such poor quality that they could not explain these things to them.

However, God was a noble deity who cared about his reputation. Divine grace was not given to just anyone. He was a discerning judge.

If God recognized you as a pious believer and granted you protection simply because you believed in Him and bowed in a temple, wouldn't God be nothing more than a peddler of divine grace? That would be beneath His dignity. That was clearly impossible.

God was not some stupid and wicked local lord who blindly favored his own relatives and favorites without principle. The reason it is said that God loves the world is that God is just and fair, and does not show partiality. Only those who possess virtue and ability, and who care for the citizens and protect the Roman Empire, can receive God’s protection.

At this, everyone truly believed.

Of course, neither the identity of the Khitans, the banners of the Roman legions, nor the grace of God could directly increase one’s combat strength. However, if everyone sincerely believed that these things were real, they would be more steadfast and their morale would soar. And a more steadfast army, in turn, truly possessed greater combat effectiveness.

Guo Kang had always suspected that the Li family’s talent for blowing their own horns was something honed on the battlefield. But boasting could only work for a moment; the fact that they could turn their grand declarations into reality was the fundamental reason why people had believed in them for decades. And that, truly, was their real skill.