Chapter 481: The Yellow River Breach

During these two-plus months, everything in the Great Ming had been progressing fairly smoothly.

The war situation in Liaodong had stabilized, and the fighting with the Mongols was finished, with a perfect outcome.

The only person who might be unhappy was Ligdan Khan.

Out of nowhere, two Mongol tribes had grown powerful and even started playing at alliances?

And the Great Ming was building a city at Daning, and trading with the Khorchin and Inner Khalkha?

When he received the news, Ligdan Khan was extremely, extremely furious. But there was nothing he could do about it—after all, this was an internal war among the Mongols themselves, and the Great Ming hadn't sent troops.

As for matters of trade between these tribes and the Great Ming, or opening frontier trade markets—the Great Ming and the Mongols had always done such things, just with fighting in between. After so many years, everyone had gotten used to it. Having one trade city wasn't a big deal.

If Ligdan Khan sent someone to complain, the Great Ming would just push the matter onto the Khorchin and Inner Khalkha. Your own affairs, you solve them yourselves.

On the Jurchen side, Hong Taiji had turtled up, licking his wounds and biding his time. Word had it he'd set his sights on the forests further north, wanting to draw the people there out.

On the Great Ming's Liaodong side, Xiong Tingbi was building cities. Besides the original location of Dongning Guard, another city was to be built along the Yalu River.

The city's name was Dandong, said to have been personally chosen by the Emperor. No one knew where the name came from, but Dandong it was.

These matters were all handled by the Imperial Household Department, which was said to have purchased vast tracts of land in Liaodong, seemingly preparing for a major undertaking.

Countless merchants also followed the Imperial Household Department's lead. The reason was simple: merchants who participated in investment in central Liaodong could get a share of the trade at Daning—and that was a massive market.

Beyond that, word had it that once Dandong was completed, the Great Ming would open trade with Joseon.

Not the ordinary kind of trade, but trade with official cooperation—and reportedly on a fairly large scale.

All at once, countless people began flooding toward Liaodong. In their words: hurry to Liaodong and get rich. Some even started spreading rumors, saying things like "Liaodong people are rich and dumb, come quick."

For a time, Liaodong was bustling with extraordinary activity.

This matter was handed to the Imperial Household Department, so Zhu Youxiao naturally didn't get involved. He only needed to keep a further grip on the situation and make sure things didn't spiral out of control.

Meanwhile, quite a few foreigners had been sent to the capital. It was no longer a question of whether the foreigners wanted to come—after receiving the news, local officials across the realm sent them to the capital at the first opportunity.

Given the foreigners' distinctive appearance, hiding anywhere in the Great Ming was simply impossible. Local officials were thoroughly sick of these foreigners too—if the court hadn't forbidden killing them outright, these officials would have done away with them long ago.

These foreigners just went around stirring up people's hearts and minds. Do they have any idea what stability and order mean? What's all this fussing about?

When word came from the court, officials were overjoyed and galloped off at top speed to arrest these foreigners, handing them over to the Embroidered Uniform Guard to be sent to the capital.

Once these foreigners arrived in the capital, they naturally had to be placated. Zhu Youxiao even received them and hosted banquets in their honor.

After fully expressing his sincerity, Zhu Youxiao handed these foreigners over to Wei Chao, sending them to the New City.

There, Zhu Youxiao designated an area for the foreigners, letting them live there—helping build the library on one hand, helping the Great Ming conduct research on the other, and also needing to translate books.

The whole New City became much livelier with the arrival of these foreigners. After all, many scholars in the capital knew of them. People like Xu Guangqi were very pleased and would occasionally go to exchange ideas with them.

The entire New City had actually managed to put on the appearance of cultural prosperity.

In any case, Zhu Youxiao had Wei Chao assign people to keep watch, strictly forbidding these foreigners from proselytizing. The reason given was simple: the new doctrine had not yet been formulated, their doctrine did not conform to the Great Ming's laws, nor did it conform to the Great Ming's public morals and customs, so they were not permitted to preach for now. Once their new doctrine was compiled and completed, then they could preach.

This matter received official support from the Great Ming. Quite a few scholars approved of it, and even Xu Guangqi and his circle couldn't find anything to say against it.

As for those missionaries—it was good enough that they weren't quarreling.

They weren't even from the same country to begin with. If they all preached their original doctrines, there wouldn't be much of an issue.

But once the Great Ming's regulation requiring localization of doctrine came out, some among these foreigners felt the original doctrine shouldn't be changed, some felt it should be changed, and some felt that those who wanted changes were betraying God.

The foreigners started quarreling among themselves, and with people stirring up discord in the middle, the effect was even better.

Don't assume that just because they're of the same faith they're united—most of the time, it's between colleagues that the most naked hatred flows.

After the foreigners' internal strife appeared, Zhu Youxiao was delighted. He had people watch them—as long as they didn't resort to armed brawls, they could do whatever they pleased.

Everything was improving, and Zhu Youxiao naturally breathed a sigh of relief.

Zhu Youxiao came out of the palace—he simply had no choice but to come out.

Because something had happened: the Yellow River had burst its banks!

Upon hearing the news of the Yellow River breach, Zhu Youxiao could be said to have two heads swelling to the size of one—utterly overwhelmed.

Since the beginning of this year, the Great Ming had known no peace—a whole pile of chaotic troubles.

Not long after Zhu Youxiao left the capital, an earthquake struck Yangzhou. In the Southern Capital's Yingtian Prefecture, the prefectures of Su, Song, Feng, Si, Huai, Yang, and Chuzhou all shook on the same day. In Yangzhou, over three hundred eighty sections of the city wall collapsed, along with more than twenty gate towers.

Then, a few days later, an earthquake hit Luanzhou (present-day Luan County, Hebei) near the capital.

First, on the thirteenth, Jizhou, Yongping, Shanhai Pass and other places shook repeatedly, damaging city walls and destroying countless homes.

Later, Luanzhou suffered a great quake, destroying countless dwellings, with the ground splitting open and spewing water and strange objects.

At Jiupu Village in Leting, the ground split open and spewed black water over a chi high.

In Qian'an, the sound was like great thunder, collapsing countless city walls and civilian homes.

In Lulong, a great many official and civilian houses were toppled by the quake.

Within the capital, the palace halls shook with sound, and water in bronze vats surged and sloshed about.

Changli, Xin'an, Zhending Prefecture, Jizhou, Zunhua, Yutian, Hejian Prefecture, Baoding Prefecture, the Three Guards of Tianjin, and eastward to Shandong's Linyi, Deping, Haifeng, Wuding Prefecture (present-day Huimin) and other areas—more than twenty prefectures and counties in total—suffered disaster.

While Zhu Youxiao was busy making trouble in Zhangjiakou, the court was busy with disaster relief. By the time the disaster had somewhat eased, fighting had broken out in Liaodong.

Zhu Youxiao had barely returned to the capital and caught his breath when the Yellow River burst its banks again at Xuzhou.

One thing after another left Zhu Youxiao utterly frazzled; the faces of the ministers throughout the court also turned extremely grim.

Zhu Youxiao sat on the dragon throne, his expression very ugly.

His gaze slowly swept over all the ministers standing below, and Zhu Youxiao said: "Is there a result on the specific situation yet?"

"Your Majesty, this minister feels we should send an imperial envoy." At this moment, Xu Guangqi stepped forward and said directly: "The Yellow River has breached—investigate whether it's a natural disaster or man-made calamity. If someone has taken the opportunity to annex land and exploit the people, the imperial envoy can also seek justice for them. Moreover, disaster relief is prone to corruption cases—sending someone to look into it would be wise."

After hearing this, Zhu Youxiao nodded, feeling that Xu Guangqi made sense.

Something like the Yellow River breach wasn't the same as an earthquake.

With a disaster like an earthquake, you can't predict it, and you know it's a natural calamity.

But with something like a river dike breach, there might well be something behind it. The court allocates funds every year for repairing river dikes—unless there's an especially severe natural disaster, they shouldn't breach.

A dike breach means either the natural disaster was too severe, or it was man-made. And in most such cases, corruption lies at the heart of it.

Sending an imperial commissioner had another purpose—to investigate. After all, disaster relief required money and grain from the court, and the wealthy merchants and local officials might well collude with each other to stir up trouble after a disaster struck.

When the court sent an imperial commissioner to investigate whether local officials and merchants were guilty of corruption, if they were found guilty, their families could be confiscated to fund disaster relief.

Perhaps having tasted the sweetness of it, the entire court had become quite adept at investigating corruption and confiscating households.

Especially several of Zhu Youxiao's loyal ministers—they had clearly grown accustomed to reaping the benefits. Someone like Xu Guangqi was even of the opinion that when something major happened, confiscating a few households was a perfectly good solution.

Take this year's several disasters, for instance—if Zhu Youxiao hadn't confiscated so much money from those households, the court would hardly have been able to hold out.

Moreover, ever since Your Majesty ascended the throne, he had kept having granaries built and grain purchased all across the country—that work had never stopped. If not for that, where would the court have found the capital to wage war in Liaodong? Just the disaster relief alone had already strained the court to its limits.

But spending like this wouldn't do either. Although His Majesty had obtained some money at Zhangjiakou this time, money was the kind of thing that was naturally better in greater quantities.

Since the Yellow River had burst its banks at Xuzhou anyway, they might as well take a look.

Watching the ministers below wearing expressions of utter self-righteousness, with others chiming in agreement, Zhu Youxiao's expression turned somewhat bitter.

He suddenly realized something—the ministers under his command seemed to have grown accustomed to his way of doing things, and through him they were colluding with one another, eliminating rivals, and swapping out personnel.

By now, everyone in the court factions had become their trusted confidants.

There was a saying: those who walk different paths cannot make plans together. But in the court, in officialdom, it was more than just that. Only those who supported him as Emperor would be promoted.

Zhu Youxiao had merely promoted Xu Guangqi and a few others, yet they had quietly developed a faction of their own. Zhu Youxiao noticed something—recently, the voices of opposition to his decisions had grown much quieter, which meant these people had already formed a massive faction.

He hadn't even noticed it himself—was he too slow-witted? Or had they done it so quietly? Or was it because they shared his views?

The current situation was just like when Yan Song held power—whatever the Jiajing Emperor said or wanted done in court, there was nothing that couldn't be accomplished, and no one would oppose it.

As for those who jumped out to make trouble, someone would take care of them.

The Jiajing Emperor had been impeached because the things he did went too far.

Zhu Youxiao was different—Liaodong had just won a great victory, he practiced thrift and economy every day, and he always sent people to sing his praises as Emperor. So his reputation was good.

But Zhu Youxiao still felt something was off. Why did he feel so unaccustomed to all this?