Chapter 123: The Death of Zhengde

After all, Chongzhen had transmigrated from a later age, and in his memory there was no problem that couldn't be solved by firing off one round — if there was, then you just fired off another.

Never mind whether it was a bullet, a cannonball, or an atom bomb; fire off a round, and the matter always got resolved.

But now what Zhang Weixian and Cui Chengxiu were telling him shattered that illusion — or rather, that dream. Because the firearms the Great Ming currently possessed were nowhere near capable of solving his vexing problems with just one round.

Take Liaodong as an example.

Those toys from later generations — never mind the big killers like mushroom bombs, even those things called Red Flags or five-road-wheel types — if you could just get your hands on a few and fire off a couple of rounds at the Jianzhou barbarians, there would be no more problems in Liaodong whatsoever.

But what about the Great Ming right now? Forget five-road-wheels and Red Flags — even with the Hongyi cannon, one shot only devastates a few dozen meters; hoping to devastate several hundred meters is a pipe dream.

Take that Old Slave Nurhaci, who was supposedly blasted to death by Yuan Chonghuan — after the man took a round, didn't he still go gallivanting around the steppe for a spell before he finally kicked the bucket?

From this one can see that the so-called firearms of the present are basically just good for making a loud noise.

Chongzhen was just daydreaming about all those fine things of later ages, smugly imagining when he too might produce such things in the Great Ming and give the Jianzhou barbarians a round, when Zhang Weixian's voice rang out: "Your Majesty, the fact that our Great Ming's cavalry cannot defeat the Jianzhou barbarians' cavalry, and that the ordinary guard stations have decayed to such a state — the root of it actually lies in the Zhengtong era."

Chongzhen very much wanted to tell Zhang Weixian that he had absolutely no idea when the Zhengtong era was…

The only ones he knew anything about, apart from Hongwu, Yongle, Chenghua, Zhengde, Tianqi, and Chongzhen, were those other emperors, of whom he had hardly any impression at all.

But in order not to reveal his ignorance — or rather, to conceal the fact that he was a transmigrator — Chongzhen merely gave a bland "Mm," and said, "The Duke of Ying may continue. We are listening.

Just speak your mind; say whatever you wish, and We shall not take offense."

Zhang Weixian had in fact long wished to speak, only he had not dared. All the ennobled houses of the Great Ming wished to speak, yet none of them did.

Ever since Tumu Fortress, these Great Ming noble houses had been played for dogs by the civil officials — after all, the realm belonged to the emperor, and if you offended the civil officials, the one who would bear the consequences was yourself.

But now, seeing the ferocity with which the Chongzhen Emperor was slaughtering civil officials, Zhang Weixian glimpsed hope that the noble houses might rise again. He sorted out his thoughts and said, "Does Your Majesty know of Zhang Taiyue, who presided over the reforms in the Wanli years?"

Chongzhen actually had no idea who Zhang Taiyue was, but since it involved the Wanli years, reforms, and the surname Zhang, then this Zhang Taiyue must without a doubt be Zhang Juzheng.

Chongzhen nodded and said, "Master Taiyue single-handedly directed the Single Whip Reform, which greatly replenished the state treasury — We know of him, of course."

Unexpectedly, Zhang Weixian said, "Your Majesty, forgive my presumption, but Your Majesty knows only of Zhang Taiyue's reforms.

Does Your Majesty know that Qi Nantang, who personally forged a crack force like the Qi Army, in his letters to Zhang Taiyue had to refer to himself as 'your gate-running dog, this humble Qi'?

And even so, he still had to keep presenting seal genitals and sending thousand-gold beauties to Zhang Taiyue, only then to obtain sufficient military pay?"

When Chongzhen heard this, fury surged within him. A famed general of an age, and even when addressing his own teacher, he had to call himself a gate-running dog?

Where did that leave the Son of Heaven of the Great Ming? Since when could a mere Grand Secretariat — an entity no different from a secretarial office — decide major matters of military funding?

Though inwardly enraged, Chongzhen still maintained that look of breezy indifference — after all, his acting skills were lacking, and he had to rely entirely on a deadpan face to make up the difference. After a soft "Oh," Chongzhen went on, "Enough.

Those are all matters of the past. After all, General Qi did fine work striking the dwarf pirates in the southeast.

Let bygones be bygones."

Zhang Weixian bowed and said, "Your Majesty is merciful. These matters were the norm even before Your Majesty ascended the throne.

When one traces the root, it still lies in the Tumu Fortress Incident of the Zhengtong era. Ever since Tumu Fortress, the standing of the Great Ming's military officers and noble houses has plummeted.

Even if Your Majesty wishes to elevate the status of military men, the chronic ailment is hard to cure, and in a short time the change cannot be very great."

Chongzhen understood these problems well enough.

Ever since Tumu Fortress, these noble houses — whose minds were full of nothing but grabbing a blade, hacking men down, and reaping military merit — had been collectively screwed over like dogs by the civil official bloc, and after that their backbones had basically bent, never to straighten again, it seemed.

Even when the Zhengde Emperor had wanted to wrench this perverse trend back, the result was merely that he fell into the water and died without recovering.

And this "died without recovering" did not mean treatment was ineffective and he died.

Judging from the Ming official and inner-palace records Chongzhen had leafed through, the Zhengde Emperor — who "journeyed east and west, traveling several thousand li, riding horseback with bow and arrows at his waist, braving peril and hardship, facing wind and snow, while his attendants often fell ill on the road, yet the Emperor showed no sign of fatigue" — absolutely could not have simply fallen into some water, caught a chill, and then dropped dead.

If that were the case, what did it prove other than that the Great Ming's imperial physicians were utterly useless?!

And what left Chongzhen most speechless of all was that a month or two before Zhengde died, he had vehemently demanded a change of imperial physicians, only to be scolded back by Yang Tinghe, who said it was caused by his dissolute lifestyle and that he merely needed to rest and recuperate.

Later, all explanations of the Zhengde Emperor's cause of death pointed to either drowning or excessive womanizing in the Leopard Quarter leading to death by, well, depletion.

To both of these, Chongzhen could only respond with a sarcastic "heh." An emperor who personally took up blades and hacked men down on the battlefield couldn't survive a chill?

The consequence of womanizing too much was, at worst, a bit of kidney deficiency and a gradual weakening of the constitution — but could a man capable of hacking enemies to death with a blade possibly be kidney-deficient?

An emperor, feeling his imperial physicians were no good, could actually be rebuffed by Yang Tinghe, a mere Chief Grand Secretary? Who gave him the nerve to brazenly rebuff the emperor?

Just because he had once served as the Zhengde Emperor's lecturer when he was Crown Prince?

This fellow, during the thirty-seven days before Zhu Houcong arrived in the capital to take the throne, assumed total control of the government, abolished the malpractices of the Wuzong reign, was praised inside and outside the court, and was granted the title of Left Pillar of State.

Well then, who was doing the praising? Wasn't it just those shameless literati patting each other on the back?

And furthermore, even after Zhengde had forcefully clashed with the Mongol Prince, what did the joint memorial submitted by Supervising Secretary of the Office of Military Affairs Wang Xuanxi, Guizhou Circuit Censor Li Run, and the rest say?

"In the campaign where the Emperor personally led the troops, the Mongol cavalry killed and captured many of our people, and our own army also suffered losses of officers and men.

Weighing the gains against the losses, it truly cannot be called any great victory.

We hope that in the future the Emperor will not rashly take the field in person again, but rather 'amplify the Heavenly Principle, curb human desire, dwell deep within the ninefold palace, and reverently contemplate the Dao in silence.'"

In the end, these fellows successfully — through the imperial physicians' inaction or by outright directing the imperial physicians to administer poison — managed to kill off Zhengde, whom they regarded as quite "deviant and heterodox," and installed Zhu Houcong, son of Prince Xingxian Zhu Youyuan, who at the time "enjoyed a reputation for virtue," as emperor.

What they never expected was that this emperor was much the same as Zhengde, and likewise had no good impression of civil officials.

Even as he shut himself away in the inner palace cultivating immortality and inquiring after the Dao, paying no heed to court governance, he nonetheless kept the entire Ming dynasty's political, financial, military, and popular welfare powers firmly in his grasp at all times.

This is the fourth update, dear readers — more to come in a bit. Whatever chapters I can hammer out before midnight today, I'll send them all out. You guys bring the fire, and the Tyrant won't back down either!

(End of chapter)