Chapter 445

The news that the Emperor of Great Ming had welcomed a princess, deliberately leaked by Tonghemen Palace, spread throughout the capital; soon, everyone knew the third princess's name was Zhu Xuanshu, for the emperor had inscribed it on the "All Is Well" gift boxes distributed to all officials in the capital, and the first thing the gatekeepers in every official's household saw, then passed along through gossipy aunts and matchmakers who roamed the streets, made the name known to all.

The Emperor of Great Ming was in good health and continued to produce heirs—a good omen for the realm, for after Emperor Wu Zong died without issue, great turmoil erupted; regional princes stirred with ambition, and scholar-officials in court looked down upon the rustic Emperor Jiajing Emperor, widely questioning the emperor's sacred legitimacy; the emperor repeatedly strained to uphold imperial authority until the realm was exhausted.

Zhu Zhu Yijun finally understood why Wang Wang Chonggu had beaten Wang Qian—this was the second time in two months.

The first time, Wang Qian thought Zhang Zhang Juzheng was ill, and the Jin Party could exploit the moment to expand its influence; Wang Wang Chonggu chased him down two streets. The second time, the Wang family publicly claimed Wang Qian had gotten into a jealous quarrel at Taibai Pavilion and sent a thousand flower baskets; Wang Qian was chased down two streets again.

But that was the official story; in truth, Wang Wang Chonggu beat Wang Qian for another reason.

He truly deserved it.

Great Ming once experienced a massive speculative frenzy: when the wool trade first began, the extravagant households fiercely coveted fine-spun wool cloth as a form of currency. The process unfolded as follows: due to scarcity and Wang Qian's stories, the price of the cloth rose from seven cash per chi to two taels per chi; the rapid price surge ignited a Kuangre pursuit of wealth among the extravagant households, further driving up the price, and the silver bottleneck pushed the cloth's value even higher, luring more people into reckless investment.

Eventually, it reached a peak of twenty-four taels per chi of cloth, while a single ox in Great Ming sold for only six taels.

According to the original script, once the cloth currency rapidly absorbed silver from the extravagant households through word-of-mouth and class barriers, those households would split the cloth into smaller denominations to absorb silver from middle-class families and poor laborers, until reason vanished entirely and the bubble burst, leaving millions bankrupt and displaced.

But Zhu Zhu Yijun's market crash—flooding the market with cloth currency—caused its price to plummet; even private trading houses set up by civilians shut down during the collapse; many speculative borrowers jumped into the Tonghui River; thus, the cloth bubble burst without engulfing the middle class or below.

Yet this massive speculation still birthed a speculative culture: specifically, manipulating the prices of "goods" to buy low and sell high.

The methods of manipulation were numerous.

Wash the market: several extravagant households holding large stocks of cloth currency joined forces, dumped massive quantities to deliberately depress prices, inciting panic among trading houses and forcing small holders to sell all their cloth in fear; then these colluding households bought back cheaply and pushed the price back up.

Flip trading: outside the Yanxinglou Trading House, a private trading society with high entry barriers was established; participants would split and swap their cloth currency to manipulate its circulation among traders and control its price within a manageable range.

Corner the market: a highly exclusive small private trading circle that nearly controlled all cloth currency circulating through Yanxinglou, forcing any other buyer—newcomers or "green onions"—to purchase only at manipulated prices to secure profit.

At the final market crash of Yanxinglou, a new tactic emerged: "short selling"—selling cloth currency one did not own, borrowed from others; after the price collapsed, they repurchased it cheaply, returned it, and pocketed the profit.

These four methods were the primary forms of price manipulation; more specific techniques and combinations were endless, and in practice, they were often used repeatedly and in tandem.

Wang Qian, as one of the originators of the cloth currency trade, was clearly already adept at all of this.

After finishing court affairs, Wang Wang Chonggu suddenly realized his troublesome son had not taken money from home for months, yet Wang Qian still spent lavishly—once giving the courtesan queen ten thousand taels; Wang Wang Chonggu immediately sensed disaster.

Soon, Wang Wang Chonggu discovered where Wang Qian's silver came from: Wang Qian had teamed up with several playboys to manipulate the capital's pearl market; rumors spread that Prince Lu Zhu Zhu Yilou's wedding required vast quantities of pearls; months earlier, Wang Qian had laid his trap, steadily raising prices; before the Wenhuadian court deliberation on Prince Lu's wedding, Wang Qian liquidated his entire stockpile, netting thirty-two thousand taels—three-fifths the value of the late emperor's mausoleum.

Upon learning this, Wang Wang Chonggu flew into a rage, grabbing his ring-hilted knife; this time, he was truly furious: why couldn't the boy just be a decadent playboy and leave things be? Why must he earn his own money? Doesn't the family have more than enough? Why must you earn more?

"Hand the Yanxinglou Ship Ticket Trading House over to Wang Qian to manage," Zhu Zhu Yijun said after reviewing the full story, choosing to appoint Wang Qian as acting head of the trading house.

Feng Bao frowned and whispered, "Your Majesty, is this wise? Wang Qian is such a speculator; if he controls the trading house, he may drain it dry."

The Yanxinglou Trading House was to shift from full control by the Inner Office to the previous tripartite oversight: Great Ming civil officials, eunuchs of the Inner Office, and censors—just as the Tax Inspection Office had begun under the Northern Capital Security Bureau, then became tripartite after evolving into the Tax Inspection Academy; Yanxinglou was expanding, so reform was inevitable.

Feng Bao understood the expansion, but he could not understand why the position of head of the trading house was being given to Wang Qian. If this man gained power, could the trading house even survive?

Zhu Zhu Yijun smiled and asked, "Do you think he'd dare drain my trading house dry?"

"He wouldn't dare," Feng Bao answered immediately.

Wang Qian was the progenitor of speculation, but his father was Wang Ci, the Vice Minister; the Wang family, at this scale, had long sought to reduce its size to avoid crossing the emperor's execution threshold; Wang Qian would never profit from the trading house, nor even make minor moves—he would passively uphold integrity.

Not because he didn't want to, but because life mattered more than money.

And Wang Qian understood speculation better than anyone; entrusting the trading house to him would make all the shadows visible.

Zhu Zhu Yijun approved the joint memorial from the Ministries of Works, Revenue, and Personnel: Great Ming would build express roads into the Ordos, and while the court still had silver for official roads and post routes, it had no silver left for express roads or mining.

"What is the essential difference between the cloth currency trading house and the ship ticket trading house?" Zhu Zhu Yijun asked Feng Bao.

Feng Bao fell into thought, then gave up, bowing low: "Your Majesty, could it be that I am merely a eunuch?"

Zhu Zhu Yijun looked at Feng Bao—again, the master actor was pretending ignorance; he smiled: "Cloth currency is not a means of production; ships are fixed assets, equivalent to land; one ship equals stable profit. In cloth currency speculation, it is pure zero-sum: one side gains, the other loses; no new wealth is created; the sum of gains and losses equals zero."

"Cloth currency trade creates no wealth—it only transfers it. Ship tickets, however, transfer wealth and generate it."

"In a zero-sum game, someone wins because someone loses; it is a game with inevitable winners and losers, so all participants lose reason. In a non-zero-sum game, because new wealth is continuously generated, all participants may become winners—that is the essential difference."

"Stable profit is the rationality of speculation."

After serious thought, Feng Bao bowed again: "Your Majesty, now I'm even more confused."

Feng Bao didn't fully understand, but he could remember it and comprehend it slowly later.

With the expansion of Yanxinglou, Great Ming would issue two major categories of certificates: roads and mining, to raise funds for express road construction and mine development, with dividends paid to holders from the revenues of roads and mines.

In Great Ming's economic transition from small-farmer to commodity economy, Yanxinglou had assumed different historical missions at different times: it had already financed the massive investment in shipbuilding; after expansion, it would drive the wave of express road construction and inject the first capital to realize Great Ming's freedom in silver, copper, and coal.

The court held two completely opposing views on Yanxinglou's expansion.

One, represented by the radical Wang Wang Daoqin, who championed trade, advocated supporting and encouraging commerce, and insisted the court establish a Ministry of Commerce to directly intervene in the economy and actively maintain economic order.

The other, represented by the conservative Wang Wang Chonggu and Wang Wang Guoguang, despised and rejected all speculation, fiercely suppressing pro-speculation public opinion, calling the Yanxinglou cloth currency trade the "abyss of inherent human evil," the ugly manifestation of human wickedness.

Ultimately, under Zhang Zhang Juzheng's mediation, radicals and conservatives reached consensus.

Great Ming's fundamental policy was to advance both land and sea; military, political, economic, and cultural efforts all followed suit. Maritime trade's weight in the economy was far too high; without sufficient industry in the north, economic imbalance between land and sea would likely occur, and prolonged imbalance would again split north from south.

The court could not tolerate such imbalance. At the dynasty's founding, to stitch north and south together, massive population relocations, princely fiefs, the Southern and Northern Examination Scandals, and confirmed quotas for southern and northern Ming Jinshi—all these measures had forged today's universal consensus: we are all Great Ming people.

Yanxinglou's expansion held decisive significance in regulating the flow of southern silver to northern production.

The conservatives were finally persuaded, and the reason was simple: could the court's outright ban truly reduce private speculation? This uncontrolled speculation would only become more dangerous, for it lurked beneath the surface.

Great Ming's maritime ban was extremely strict, yet it did not stop extravagant households along the southeast coast from establishing private sea-trade markets.

Despite countless shipwrecks and dangers, people still sailed the seas; similarly, despite countless bubbles, people still entered the game, driven by hope for a better future, buying low and selling high, pouring their silver into the bubble to join the game.

Under court interference, this game might become a non-zero-sum game where all become winners; but among the people, it would remain merely a gambling den—money did not increase, only shifted.

Wang Qian, head of the trading house, became Great Ming's first director of the trading house.

But there was a grave, grave problem: Yanxinglou Trading House now had stable profit and thus rationality; once stable profit vanished, it would inevitably lose reason and become indistinguishable from cloth currency trade—this required transparency: public financial reports, making profits visible.

Yet as time passed and private trading circles—the "market makers"—emerged, even stable profits could be artificially manipulated through accounting, ultimately destroying rationality and turning the trading house into the "abyss of inherent human evil."

Institutional design could delay this moment, but human greed would hasten it; this was the contradiction of the trading house: how to regulate it through institutional design and administrative restraint was the test of practice.

News of the new trading certificates spread quickly through the capital; Shanxi merchants, extravagant households of Xitucheng, Huizhou merchants—all began to prepare; before the launch, Great Ming issued its first special state bond: a five-year bond totaling ten million taels, dedicated to express road construction and mine development, with a 3% interest rate—not high, but backed by the court's credit.

Zhu Zhu Yijun expected the bond to sell out in three to five months—just enough time for preliminary setup; this was already an optimistic estimate.

Great Ming court's credit? One cannot discuss something that does not exist.

But Zhu Zhu Yijun grossly underestimated his own credit. True, the Great Ming court had no credit to speak of—but the emperor did, and his credit was rock-solid; the emperor, famously stingy, had for years publicly disclosed his investments in opening the seas and distributed dividends according to capital—something more absurd in an imperial monarchy than the sun rising in the west.

Better to believe in Sun Sun Wukong than in the emperor paying dividends.

But reality was: the Great Ming emperor was truly paying dividends.

Ship tickets might lose value due to shipwrecks, but the emperor's loans were guaranteed profit; conservatives still held the majority; with a sure profit, countless people rushed to invest.

Great Ming's extravagant households did not distinguish between court and emperor; to most people in Great Ming, emperor and court were one and the same; the court's current credibility rested primarily on the emperor's reliability and promise-keeping.

The interest rate was low, but it was steady.

This ten-million-tael special bond was entirely snapped up within the capital, without leaving the city; most commoners didn't even know it existed. Upon hearing the news, the Governor of Nanjing, Pan Pan Jixun, and the Governor of Songjiang, Shen Shen Shixing, immediately petitioned the court, accusing it of favoritism: weren't the extravagant households in the capital the emperor's subjects? Were those in Nanjing and Songjiang not?

Such a golden opportunity to extract the emperor's silver slipped away! How could one not lament bitterly!

In Suifeng Wuyuan Prefecture, at the top of the Yellow River's great bend, at the foot of the Bai Yinshan, bordering Wuliangsuhai Lake, lay the Ordos Plain—the pastureland of the Ordo tribe, known as the Ordos people, who were primarily responsible for the sacrificial rites of Genghis Khan's tomb; Qi Qi Jiguang ordered the Ordo tribe's myriarch to surrender; the Ordo tribe did not hesitate at all.

The Ordo tribe's myriarch, Jinen, and Qiejin Huang Taiji, chose immediate surrender.

The speed of surrender was unbelievable; Qi Qi Jiguang suspected deception, but after investigating, he understood the reason.

In April of Emperor Longqing Fifth Year, the Great Ming sent envoys to Ban Sheng to confer titles and tribute upon Altan Khan; during the grand ceremony, the myriarchs of Tumed, Kharachin, and Yongxiebu received court-appointed offices—but the Ordo tribe received none.

The celebration was theirs; the embarrassment was theirs.

This enraged Jinen and Qiejin.

Altan Khan was deliberately suppressing the Ordo tribe, for their myriarch, Gunbilike, had clashed with Altan Khan multiple times; when Altan Khan was young, Gunbilike had been his fiercest rival; only after Gunbilike's death in Emperor Jiajing Twenty-First Year did Altan Khan fully secure his position as khan.

Thus, at the Emperor Longqing Fifth Year April tribute ceremony, Altan Khan granted the Ordo tribe no titles or offices.

In August of Emperor Longqing Fifth Year, Jinen and Qiejin Huang Taiji sought connections in Shaanxi and petitioned the court, requesting separate tribute; they did not seek princely rank, only a hereditary Assistant Regional Commander—yet their petition vanished into silence, for the court's dominant focus was the power struggle between Gao Gong and Zhang Zhang Juzheng.

In June of Emperor Longqing Sixth Year, Jinen and Qiejin Huang Taiji again petitioned the court through Shaanxi contacts, requesting tribute.

But by then, the Emperor Longqing Emperor had died; the court had tightened its policy of granting titles to northern chieftains; Jinen and Qiejin Huang Taiji thus missed their chance for trade with Great Ming; all dealings with Great Ming now had to go through Guihua City and Ban Sheng, to the markets at Datong and Xuanfu.

This middleman layer extracted profits: livestock sold by the Ordo tribe was stripped by Altan Khan; goods from Great Ming were stripped by Altan Khan; over time, the Ordo tribe's resentment deepened; when news spread of the Great Ming army's campaign against Ban Sheng and Altan Khan ordered Jinen to send troops to reinforce it, Jinen and Qiejin Huang Taiji feigned ignorance.

The next message they received was Qi Qi Jiguang's decree demanding surrender.

Great Ming had a mature system for resettling Tartar officials; after negotiations with Jinen and Qiejin Huang Taiji, all Ordo myriarchs and above agreed to relocate to Shaanxi Provincial Military Command, adopt Han surnames, and relinquish command of their tribal troops.

In this era, being a dog of Great Ming was, for the Ordo tribe, a stroke of fortune—far better than the miserable life of a wandering stray dog.

As long as Jinen and Qiejin Huang Taiji committed no offense, their family could forever hold the hereditary post of Assistant Regional Commander in Great Ming; their descendants could truly become Great Ming people; but on the steppe, after a single severe snowstorm, they might be beheaded by their own men for a reward.

Under unstable conditions, even the meat-eaters lived in cautious fear.

"Eighty percent of the Ordos people are Han," Chen Chen Dacheng said gravely: "They fled from Han lands beyond the frontier."

Eighty percent Han, twenty percent northern barbarians—this was the composition of the Ordos people; after brief visits, Chen Chen Dacheng confirmed this; the population makeup was both a relief and a sorrow: relief that Great Ming had a stable foundation of rule in the Ordos, sorrow that Great Ming had never previously cared about this place or why they had fled here.

Qi Qi Jiguang carefully studied the patrol reports; Li Li Rusong had already launched a surprise attack on Wuhai; this campaign was over, but war was not; next came the harsher struggle of pacification.

Qi Qi Jiguang's capital troops would remain in the Ordos for one year; during this year of military rule, their main task was to transfer defense responsibilities to the Three Borders: Yanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia.

Ningxia Tianjin Tianjin Weisuo encompassed the entire He Lan Mountains; reinforcing the Ordos with the Three Borders meant fully transforming it into a military colony system—a true territorial county; besides waiting for the Three Borders to reinforce it, the court would relocate migrants: displaced people from Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Gansu (Shaanxi Provincial Military Command), due to land consolidation, would be resettled in the Ordos.

During this year of military rule, the Great Ming capital troops would sweep the entire Ordos region of bandits, providing a stable security environment for Great Ming's development of the Ordos; clearing bandits would quickly win the Ordos people's recognition; public sentiment, not fortifications, was the true foundation for lasting stability.

The strength of mountains and rivers lies in virtue, not in terrain.

Qi Qi Jiguang's gaze turned to the topographic map north of the Yin Mountains; south of the Yin Mountains, the Ordos Plain thrived thanks to the Yellow River; under spring winds stretched endless grasslands, dotted with flocks of sheep amid rolling hills.

North of the Yin Mountains lay the enemy of agriculture: the desert.

A desert stretching over four hundred li, boundless yellow sands, roaring in the wind; ancient roads long buried beneath sand; Great Ming's frontier watchtowers, sent north to monitor the Oirats, accidentally discovered the Wuma Gang mine.

Altan Khan had launched campaigns against the Oirats, but only as raids; he never established actual rule, for the desert.

North of the desert lay Mobei; the grasslands of Monan and Mobei had long existed.

Great Ming's strategic planning—even the most radical Tan Lun—planned only to recover the Ordos and use the desert and Yin Mountains to build a fortified military colony defense, securing rule over the Ordos; Tan Lun never imagined Wuma Gang would appear; the plan ended at the Yin Mountains.

But Wuma Gang's discovery rendered all strategic planning absurd theoretical speculation—even including Qi Qi Jiguang's.

Qi Qi Jiguang had never considered expanding northward in his planning; the Ming's thirteen northern expeditions and Altan Khan's campaigns had all failed to establish actual rule over Mobei; in fact, even the Hu Yuan, originating from Mobei, could not effectively govern it—nor could Kublai Khan.

Möngke, the ruler of the steppe, died beneath Diaoyu Castle; at that moment, the vast Mongol Empire split: one faction followed the steppe custom of "youngest son inherits the hearth" (Ariq Böke), the other followed the Chinese custom of "the state needs an elder ruler" (Kublai Khan).

The northern steppe's core tribes, old nobles, and royal princes supported Ariq Böke, while Kublai led Han bureaucrats and Han hereditary lords on a northern campaign, successfully leveling Karakorum, the Mongol holy site.

This was where Genghis Khan swore his oath to Eternal Heaven to establish the Great Mongol Empire; after his defeat, Ariq Böke surrendered and returned to Central Plains with Kublai.

The struggle between northern and southern steppe did not end with Ariq Böke's defeat. In the twenty-third year of Zhiyuan, Borjigin Nayan, who held Karakorum, launched another rebellion. Kublai was forced to lead Han hereditary lords on another northern campaign, again capturing Karakorum and crushing Nayan alive by wrapping him in felt and beating him to death.

This capture of Karakorum in the twenty-third year of Zhiyuan was accompanied by a massacre.

Upon his triumphant return, Kublai ordered the severing of all transportation routes: the Teli Gan, Mulin, and Nalin roads—the three official courier routes linking Karakorum to the Central Plains—were cut off.

All food and drink for Karakorum had been transported from Han lands; Kublai's embargo directly plunged Karakorum into famine.

The Great Ming had little interest in the northern steppe. If the Oirats entrenched in Karakorum wished to move westward, the Great Ming would not obstruct them—but the Oirats could not possibly invade the Hetao region, blocked as it was by desert and the Yin Mountains.

The original plan had merely been to reclaim the Hetao region, entirely in line with the court's strategic calculations; Qi Qi Jiguang was even the lead architect and organizer of the Hetao recovery plan.

Now, Wuma Gang has disrupted all arrangements.

The appearance of Wuma Gold was entirely accidental, but since the Naturalist Doctor had located its source through dragon-divining and gold-seeking, the Great Ming could never abandon a mountain of gold, silver, and copper once it knew of its existence.

Building a four-hundred-li express road was no problem; the issue was how to defend the mine. With Wuma Gang as a mine, the Great Ming would be forced to continue expanding northward.

"To fully claim the mine, we must advance at least as far as the Northern Sea (modern-day Lake Baikal)," Qi Qi Jiguang said, studying the topographic map, his head aching.

From the capital, advancing to the Northern Sea would require at least three thousand li. Excluding regional armies, merely supplying the Imperial Guards along such an extended line left Qi Qi Jiguang uncertain he could convince the court ministers. It would be easy to launch the campaign, and he believed the current Imperial Guards could win—but the problem was that after victory, the Great Ming army could only retreat.

Chen Chen Dacheng pondered a moment and said: "Just build fortresses around Wuma Gang to defend it—we only need the mine."

The extent of the territorial prefectures and counties should stop at Wuma Gang—that was Chen Chen Dacheng's idea, and far easier to achieve.

Qi Qi Jiguang took a deep breath and said: "But this mine can be mined for at least fifty years. If there's more underground, it may well last far longer than that."

The Wuma Gang mine is an open-pit mine, and what we have now is only preliminary survey. According to the Naturalist Doctor's assessment, this mine does not stand alone; beyond Wuma Gang, the northern steppe must harbor other mines as well.

As Grand General, Qi Qi Jiguang must draft and preliminarily implement a northern steppe expansion plan for His Majesty.

(End of Chapter)