Chapter 990

The cabinet ministers all agreed that His Majesty should reside in Songjiang Prefecture, the place destined to carry out the Wanli Reforms, yet the hundred and one matters of Shuntian Prefecture filled them with deep anxiety—Shuntian was disloyal, and if His Majesty resided in Songjiang, he could never rest easy, burdened by constant dread.

Yet making Shuntian loyal seemed nearly impossible.

At this point, the old bureaucratic method should be employed: deceive superiors and conceal truths from below; during the reorganization of the Shuntian Yamen, adjust the figures upward to make them look slightly better.

But since this involved the Emperor’s own safety and that of the heir, no one dared undertake it—how many heads would be enough to lose if it were ever investigated?

The Minister of Rites, Gao Qi, formally assumed office; he had only two tasks: to purge the idle rhetoric of the Hanlin Academy and oversee the operations of the Huan Tai Trade Alliance.

The Huan Tai Trade Alliance was proceeding more smoothly than the Ming court ministers had imagined—not because Gao Qi was particularly capable, but because of the Prince of Lu.

In June, the restless Prince of Lu traveled to Lima, the seat of the Peruvian Viceroyalty; ten fast sailing ships, over thirty zhang in length, anchored in the harbor, delivering a powerful shock to the foreign traders at the maritime ports.

From then on, Ming merchant ships sailed without obstruction; all those petty schemes and conspiracies vanished instantly beneath the dark muzzles of cannons.

According to the directors dispatched by the Red-Haired Barbarians to the Liaison Office in Ryukyu, the Viceroyalty had previously held differing opinions, but the armed patrols of the fast-sailing ships had unified all voices.

Both the Peruvian and Mexican Viceroyalties made a joint decision: to reduce the shipment of silver to Spain.

Viceroy Petto promised that next year, over two million taels of silver—out of the three silver mining regions in Mexico totaling six million five hundred thousand taels annually—would be sent to the Ming, up from fifty thousand taels previously.

Having secured the Ming’s war loan, Petto now controlled these mines and dared make such a promise; with a blade in hand, the will to kill arises—he leveraged the Ming’s five-masted ocean-going ships to return to the Viceroyalty and began conquering territory.

The Peruvian Viceroyalty’s rich silver mines produced seven million taels annually and pledged to send four and a half million taels to the Ming, restoring levels to those before the Ming-Spanish rift.

Both Viceroyalties offered a perfectly legitimate reason: Spain, undergoing the Price Revolution, did not need so much silver.

The Price Revolution was the historic event wherein cheap silver and gold from the Americas flooded the West, causing devaluation of Western silver and gold, and a rise in prices.

Due to distribution issues, most of this incoming silver was controlled by the nobility; Western peasants went bankrupt one after another during the Price Revolution.

Reducing silver flows back to the homeland, stabilizing prices, and increasing the flow of goods—no matter how you looked at it, this justification appeared righteous and noble: the West could not consume so much silver; sending it back would only become a harm.

Gao Qi had been to the West; he knew the truth was not so simple. The logic seemed plausible, but to the Western ruling class, it was utterly unacceptable.

The inflow of cheap American silver into the West was, at its core, the plunder of colonies by the homeland; once the colonies received sufficient goods from the Ming, Western silver would flow toward these colonies—this would no longer be homeland plundering colonies, but colonies plundering the homeland.

Gao Qi deeply understood that the fundamental logic of the Ming and the West was entirely different.

The Ming could never, under any circumstances, allow large-scale displacement of its people; once it occurred, it signaled the trembling of the state, the collapse of heaven and earth, the exhaustion of the Mandate, equivalent to heaven falling.

The West could endure large-scale displacement; even countless unarmed rabble could never topple a throne.

After all, England’s Enclosure Movement had long surpassed the danger line—over ninety percent of farmland was concentrated in the hands of gentry and parliamentarians; London teemed with vagrants and beggars, and two-year-old children had to begin crawling down chimneys to work.

If Western silver flowed back toward the colonies, the heavens of every Western ruling class would collapse, for without wealth, they lost the means of rule.

Gao Qi wrote a special letter to Yao Guangqi and Yan Shixuan, urging them to remind the two Viceroyalties to proceed gradually, avoid excessive haste, and not provoke Felipe into turning his expeditionary target from England to Mexico and Peru.

Purging the Hanlin Academy proceeded less smoothly; these empty talkers were extremely stubborn.

Gao Qi devised a study-travel plan: the Western Regions, Gansu, Suiyuan, Liaodong, and Songjiang Prefecture were all destinations; these Hanlin scholars heard only the wind, rain, and reading within the Hanlin Academy, never the suffering of the common people.

Reading ten thousand scrolls is not as good as traveling ten thousand miles; even if the Hanlin scholars did not wish to walk these ten thousand miles, they must walk them.

The Minister of War, Ceng Shengwu, was already ancient; the suppression of Bozhou had become inevitable—this was his final duty; after completing it, he would retire with Wang Guoguang. Though His Majesty had given Yang Yinglong a chance, Ceng Shengwu understood too well the mindset of hereditary tusi.

“I know, perhaps the Junior Minister of Works cannot comprehend, but these hereditary tusi truly think this way,” Ceng Shengwu explained the logic of these tusi to Liang Menglong, who could not understand at all.

Liang Menglong frowned and said: “It is utterly incomprehensible.”

Ceng Shengwu shook his head again: “Take Yang Yinglong as an example—his family has ruled Bozhou as kings for over seven hundred years, through Tang, Song, Yuan, and Ming, passing down twenty-nine generations. In his eyes, what is an emperor?”

“Bozhou belongs to his family; no one else may touch it. The court sending appointed officials violates the rules—it is an invasion.”

“A state within a state—this is precisely what it is.”

Yang Yinglong was a microcosm, no different from the Du Zhang Man; this mindset and thinking, summarized, is a state within a state—and such things inevitably arise.

“It is ridiculous! If they think themselves so powerful, why not fend for themselves? Why still rely on the court? Or better yet—just rebel outright?!” Liang Menglong’s tone turned cold and sharp, even carrying a hint of lethal intent.

Ceng Shengwu sighed: “Yang Yinglong—he has already rebelled.”

“Once, I summoned the hereditary tusi of the Du Zhang Man to Chongqing for inspection; the court pardoned his crimes, yet in the end, we still had to mobilize troops to exterminate him.”

The court was actually indifferent to these hereditary tusi; if they behaved themselves and did nothing, the Ming tacitly allowed them to be local emperors—but each time, they provoked the court, testing its temper.

Those in the Ming heartland simply could not understand how these people thought—and they need not understand; if they rebel, then suppress them.

“Junior Minister Liang, the Han troops of Sichuan and Yunnan are trustworthy,” Ceng Shengwu spoke of another matter.

The court had some concerns about the Han troops of Sichuan and Yunnan—much of this concern stemmed from distance, fearing local power would grow too large and lead to the warlord fragmentation of the late Tang.

Thus, whenever the court waged war in the southwest, it had to mobilize troops and supplies from the capital and heartland—such as the several Luchuan campaigns at the dynasty’s founding.

In Ceng Shengwu’s view, this was wasteful: soldiers and grain had to traverse half the empire, at exorbitant cost; nor were northern or southern troops skilled in jungle warfare.

During the Zhengtong era, the three Luchuan campaigns incurred enormous war costs and heavy casualties.

During the Jiajing, Longqing, and Wanli eras, this was not so: Ming campaigns in the southwest relied primarily on southwestern Han troops, with excellent results.

It was not that the court had lost its suspicion—it simply lacked the manpower, resources, and finances to mobilize troops and grain across half the empire; it had no choice but to rely on southwestern Han troops.

After the Wanli Reforms, His Majesty merely followed the precedents of his predecessors.

“It was hard to explain before, but now it’s easier: first, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Guizhou are simply too poor to sustain a warlord regime—they cannot survive independently of the court.”

“Second, the primary contradiction in the southwest differs from that in the heartland,” Ceng Shengwu explained from the perspective of contradictions why the southwestern Han troops were trustworthy.

Though both were Ming, conditions in the southwest differed from those in the heartland; the primary contradiction in the southwest remained the struggle for survival between Han Chinese and the “raw Miao,” not fully sinicized commandery-county regions—but long residing in the heartland, one easily thinks from the perspective of fully developed commandery-county systems: the central-local conflict.

Clarifying this primary contradiction fully explains why the southwestern Han troops are trustworthy.

This campaign against Bozhou still relies primarily on southwestern Han troops precisely for this reason—the court need not fear that equipping them with new artillery will lead to a situation where the tail wags the dog; the hereditary tusi are the Han troops’ true enemies.

Liang Menglong finally understood why Ceng Shengwu had not requested His Majesty to mobilize the Capital Garrison—there was absolutely no need.

The southwestern Han troops also had pride; when some tusi rebelled, there was no need to summon heavenly troops to march long distances to suppress them.

Ceng Shengwu continued: “Moreover, this Bozhou affair is simpler than the Du Zhang Man rebellion. The Du Zhang Man uprising had the shadow of Mang Yinglong behind it—a collusion of internal and external forces: foreign threat, raw Miao, and tusi joined together—complex indeed.”

“But now the Toungoo are barely clinging to life; the Ming has already established its Pacification Office right at Mang Yingli’s doorstep—the Toungoo can no longer coordinate with Yang Yinglong.”

Ceng Shengwu had dealt with Mang Yinglong—he was a man of meticulous thought, always acting after careful planning, and extremely decisive; when things turned sour, he immediately abandoned the Du Zhang Man and sought friendship with the Ming to prevent the Ming from using the Du Zhang Man affair to launch war against the Toungoo.

At the time of the Du Zhang Man affair, the Ming mobilized 140,000 Han troops precisely to guard against the Toungoo, even preparing for a full-scale national war.

Mang Yinglong was a warlord; his son Mang Yingli was a fool. Mang Yingli actually believed the Ming, this broken house, would collapse with one kick—even if the Ming were a broken house, was it one Mang Yingli could kick?

Without internal-external collusion, Yang Yinglong stands alone, unable to sustain himself.

After analyzing the primary contradiction in the southwest, Ceng Shengwu and Liang Menglong made concrete arrangements: mobilize ten thousand Han troops from Sichuan, three thousand soldiers, five thousand laborers, and three thousand seasoned Miao as guides; mobilize thirty thousand troops each from Yunnan, Guiyang, and Huguang, ready to intervene at any moment.

Liang Menglong presented another plan: he felt the Sichuan Han troops alone were insufficient; his overall strategy was eight columns of armies, each thirty thousand strong, advancing together to crush Yang Yinglong with one blow.

Twenty-four thousand troops, such a massive force, had a simple goal: to utterly intimidate the rebellious intentions of all southwestern tusi.

Only then did Ceng Shengwu realize that Liang Menglong, the Minister within Zhang Juzheng's shadow, was actually an extremist! He, Ceng Shengwu, the hardliner and pro-war faction member, was now on the conservative side.

True, Ceng Shengwu understood the southwest better, but Liang Menglong understood politics more profoundly.

The Sichuan Han troops as the main force—ten thousand Han troops and thirty thousand soldiers as backup—was insufficiently stable; if they failed to capture Yang Yinglong, matters would become extremely complicated—not because Yang Yinglong was difficult, but because the court would fracture over the failure of a single campaign.

Once a fracture occurred, factions would fight over some issue; once fighting began, the suppression itself became unimportant, for the victory or defeat of the struggle became the paramount concern.

At that point, suppressing the rebellion would become difficult.

Eight columns of armies, twenty-four thousand troops, to ensure one mobilization could utterly crush Yang Yinglong and completely shatter the southwestern tusi’s resistance to appointed officials.

If the Bozhou campaign became a protracted mess, the time, energy, manpower, resources, and finances expended would far exceed those of eight columns advancing together—and it would yield only military victory, not political victory; the southwestern tusi would still resist the Ming’s “reform of tusi to officials.”

The cost of war was simply too great.

Qi Jiguang said: War must force the enemy to submit to one’s will; if after war the enemy still refuses to submit, military victory without political victory is failure.

Liang Menglong strongly agreed; he was not an extremist—he was a calculator. The cost of one grand operation was far less than the cost of a protracted mess.

“After fighting for over a decade, I’ve become nothing but a warrior,” Ceng Shengwu chuckled bitterly. “I’ll follow Junior Minister Liang’s advice.”

Ceng Shengwu had considered the matter from a military perspective but failed to consider it politically; Liang Menglong was right—if the Bozhou campaign became a mess, the Ming’s newly restored treasury would shrink again; play it safe—deploy twenty-four thousand Han troops, eight columns advancing together.

Liang Menglong drafted the memorial; Ceng Shengwu and Liang Menglong jointly submitted it, and received the Emperor’s vermilion approval soon after.

The Emperor fully understood the logic that “playing it safe” meant deploying twenty-four thousand troops; Liang Menglong’s habit of overestimating the enemy was something he had learned from the Emperor.

The Minister of Works, Zeng Tongheng, visited the Grand Secretariat to meet the Deputy Grand Secretary Ling Yunyi, primarily to confirm details of the grand construction projects.

The Ming was currently building two expressways: the Beijing-Guangzhou Expressway and the Ji-Yang (Jinan-Yangzhou) Expressway; the Beijing-Guangzhou route progressed slowly, while the Ji-Yang route advanced rapidly—far more than just slightly.

It progressed quickly because the regions along the route were extremely wealthy, with ample manpower and resources, especially with the Grand Canal alongside, facilitating transport of all materials.

“So, the latest completion date is the end of next year, and operation can begin next spring?” Ling Yunyi inquired about the detailed schedule.

“Your Excellency, we’ve already built in redundancy for natural disasters and human mishaps; if none occur, the expressway can be officially opened by autumn or winter next year,” Zeng Tongheng revealed the truth—building in ample redundancy made it easier for everyone to report success; completing ahead of schedule or on schedule were both acts of loyalty to the sovereign and the state.

“Understood,” Ling Yunyi’s thoughts were not on the expressway, but on His Majesty’s residence in Songjiang Prefecture.

With Shuntian in this state, how could His Majesty annually reside in Songjiang for half the year to manage maritime trade?

On the fourth day of the eighth month of Wanli 19, the final Huan Tai trade fleet of the year set sail; the winter climate of the North Pacific was extremely harsh—unlike Ming storms, which raged in June, July, and August, the Golden Kingdom experienced storms in winter.

After a full two months of sailing, the Huan Tai trade fleet arrived at the Golden Kingdom’s Golden Harbor.

Zhao Mu was one of the soldiers on this voyage; he was a battalion commander of the Qingyuan Garrison in Guangzhou Prefecture, Guangdong, aged twenty-four, six chi tall, strong and vigorous.

His ancestral home was Jimo in Shandong; his father was a mercenary soldier who traveled from Shandong to Zhejiang, then Fujian and Guangdong, earning merit in suppressing Japanese pirates.

In Wanli 2, Zhao Mu’s father died in the battle at Dianbai Harbor in Guangzhou.

Zhao Mu was only six years old then, orphaned; his mother died in the Japanese pirate raids, his father fell on the battlefield. Zhao Mu received no pension, and even the family’s few acres of poor land were seized; the young Zhao Mu became a displaced person.

At the time, mercenaries had a bad reputation; once the fighting ended, they became unstable elements—many bandits and sea pirates were composed of mercenaries with no skills, gathering in mountains and islands to plague the region.

In Wanli 5, nine-year-old Zhao Mu wandered to Guangzhou, starving and dizzy, he took his cherished merit medal to a pawnshop to pawn it.

Zhao Mu believed his father was a true man who gave his life to suppress the Japanese pirates; even in his hardest moments, Zhao Mu never pawned the merit medal symbolizing his father’s honor.

But nine-year-old Zhao Mu, with no means of survival, had no choice but to sell it.

The pawnshop offered four qian of silver for a dead pawn; nine-year-old Zhao Mu looked up at the high counter—he could not even see the pawnshop clerk’s face.

All pawnshops built their counters extremely high; many clerks had to climb steps to sit on their stools, precisely to avoid seeing human suffering.

Four qian of silver for a dead pawn—his father’s entire life was worth four qian of silver.

Zhao Mu did not want to sell it; he reclaimed his father’s merit medal, curled up in a corner, unsure what to do, a surge of anger rising within him—he hated the court, hated the yamen, hated the hateful neighbors; he ran to the Guangzhou yamen and beat the grievance drum.

The yamen opened only for money; without money, do not enter. Zhao Mu, though young, knew that once he beat the grievance drum, he was more likely to be beaten.

That year, Ling Yunyi served as Provincial Governor of Guangzhou; his notorious reputation for killing people had spread throughout Guangdong and Guangxi. Though it was a minor matter, the merit plaque eventually ended up in Ling Yunyi’s hands.

In the fifth year of Wanli, Ling Yunyi began investigating corruption among guest troops.

In the sixth year of Wanli, Ling Yunyi escorted forty-three corrupt officials to the capital—all of them embezzlers who had withheld stipends from guest troops and garrison soldiers. After the Emperor’s imperial approval, they were all beheaded and their bodies displayed for ten days; their families were exiled to Lu Song as convicts, as a warning to others.

By the seventh year of Wanli, this storm had nothing to do with the young Zhao Mu; he had become a Company Commander of Qingyuan Guard, and Ling Yunyi had recovered nearly a hundred children or descendants of guest troops who had endured similar fates.

Zhao Mu stood beside the pier at Jinshan Port, feeling the sea breeze, when suddenly he recalled the scenes of his sixth year, when he would wave goodbye to his father at the dock—back then, even when he stretched his hand high, it still didn’t reach the height of his father’s waist knife.

He clearly remembered his father’s blade—it had been passed down through generations.

The spine of the blade was long rusted, yet the mottled rust still could kill, proving the craftsmanship of the waist knife; decades of honing had curved its edge like a dog’s bite, but this blade had drunk the blood of Japanese pirates, and was his father’s most cherished possession.

His father also owned a iron-reinforced cloth armor, a type of lamellar armor, its iron plates long corroded with pitted holes.

Zhao Mu possessed a full iron armor forged of fine steel, two hook-sickles, a long and a short matchlock musket, one wild goose-feather saber, one short dagger, and a ship uniquely his own: a three-hulled, three-masted, hydrofoil fast sailboat.

All were new—issued to him just before he arrived in Jinshan City. This hydrofoil fast sailboat belonged to Zhao Mu personally, an extra imperial grace bestowed by the Emperor, hoping he would serve diligently for his younger brother, Prince Zhu Yiliu, stationed in Jinshan.

The ship was truly swift; when he first received it, he covered two hundred li in just one hour—from Jinshan Port to Xin’gang in Songjiang Prefecture, a water journey of twenty thousand li. Zhao Mu was confident he could return to Great Ming within forty days using this vessel.

Standing in the howling wind, Zhao Mu suddenly found his father’s face growing hazy. At nine years old, he had learned an idiom: “Carving a mark on the boat to seek the sword.”

Now, as he recalled the past, it was nothing but “carving a mark on the boat to seek the sword.”

“Father, your son is now a distant marquis of the watchtower.” Zhao Mu kicked a stone into the sea and strode toward Jinshan City. He had come, and he would not leave—he had come to assume the post of Mountain Overseer for Prince Lu, Chief of Coastal Defense for Jinshan State.

Jinshan City was far more prosperous than Zhao Mu had imagined. Since the establishment of the Transoceanic Trade Alliance, more merchant ships were arriving to gather and disperse goods here, and it would only grow more prosperous.

Prince Zhu Yiliu stood inside the Chengyun Hall of the Lu Prince’s Mansion and shouted at Jinshan Marquis Quan Tianpei: “This has been a mistake from the start—we must find a way to correct it! Not let it rot further!”

“I know this will cost dearly, but if we don’t correct it, Jinshan State will perish within ten years! I can sail back to Great Ming—my elder brother may scold me a few times? What about you? What will you do?”

Zhao Mu had no idea what the argument was about. He waited outside the hall for Prince Lu’s summons, catching fragments of the exchange, and after hearing explanations from his chief secretary, Meng Jinquan, he understood the cause.

Quan Tianpei was a good man; Prince Lu was a good man who refused to be reasonable.

The matter was simple: Jinshan City had no land system. Land ownership depended entirely on horse-encircled claims—customary and accepted: whoever claimed it, owned it.

This created a fatal problem: the expansion of Jinshan Port required land requisition, causing land prices to skyrocket.

The docks lacked berths and needed expansion, but any direction of expansion was already claimed land—each owner hiked prices to levels even the Lu Prince’s mansion could not afford.

Prince Zhu Yiliu was a demon of chaos—he intended to simply confiscate the land without compensation, and if anyone refused, he would throw them into the sea.

Quan Tianpei pleaded earnestly: these were the old comrades who had helped him build Jinshan City from nothing. To forcibly seize their land would make no one dare remain loyal to Jinshan City in the future.

Zhu Yiliu sharply flicked his sleeve and said: “Womanly sentiment! The seashore is all sandy land—unsuitable for farming. These were unclaimed lands. As soon as port expansion was announced, these empty lands instantly became claimed.”

“They aren’t taking advantage of the Prince’s Mansion—they’re taking advantage of Jinshan State itself!”

“If I allow this today, then every future project in Jinshan State will be held hostage by such greed—nothing will ever get done! Jinshan Marquis, do you understand my concern? This isn’t just about expanding Jinshan Port.”

“This opening must not be made. How much silver and gold must Jinshan State have to fill the greed of men?”

“Jinshan Marquis, greed is bottomless! In a few years, they’ll dare to seize gold mines!”

Zhu Yiliu was not exaggerating. As soon as port expansion was announced, the unclaimed wastelands became highly coveted. Dozens were injured, nine killed, over disputes of just a few plots of land. Now, all waited for the Lu Prince’s decision—and each plot carried a steep price.

If this Lu Prince merely tolerated it, then every future endeavor would fail. This opening must not be made.

Quan Tianpei understood the Prince’s concerns perfectly. His own silver reserves were still ample—but this was not about money. It was about rules.

“Your Highness, allow me to plead with them once more,” Quan Tianpei said, exhausted.

The Prince’s land seizure would not be gentle. If these landowners resisted, the Jinshan City yamen troops would descend instantly—how many of these pioneers who built Jinshan City from nothing would survive?

Quan Tianpei wanted everyone to keep their dignity. He had pleaded many times, but the landowners refused to budge—even united to raise prices, leaving Quan Tianpei in dire straits.

This price hike ignited the Prince’s fury. Luo Shangzhi, the fierce wolf, had already donned armor and grasped his weapons, awaiting only the Prince’s command.

“Jinshan Marquis, this is your final chance. Before sunset, if they do not withdraw their servants blocking port expansion, the army will march in.” Zhu Yiliu issued his final ultimatum, granting Jinshan Marquis Quan Tianpei a face.

These landowners had driven their slaves to the shore to cause chaos and interfere with port construction.

Zhu Yiliu received the newly arrived Mountain Overseer Zhao Mu, then waited in the Lu Prince’s Mansion until sunset. Quan Tianpei returned, face filled with disappointment, saying nothing.

Seeing Quan Tianpei’s expression, Zhu Yiliu knew persuasion had failed. He pondered and said: “Jinshan Marquis, had they not banded together to raise prices this time, I might have tolerated it. But they insisted on raising them.”

The Prince turned to Luo Shangzhi and said: “Luo Commander, I rely on you.”

“Your servant obeys.” The towering Luo Shangzhi bowed and accepted the order.