Chapter 507: Xiong Wencan's Choice

For over a thousand years, officials dispatched from the Central Imperial Court to take up posts in Guangdong would always set out from Zhangzhou in Fujian, then follow the ancient post road through the Fujian-Guangdong Border at Fenshui Pass into Chaozhou in Guangdong, before transferring onward to other places.

This slow but relatively safe mode of travel had accompanied the rise and fall of dynasty after dynasty, remaining unchanged since the Tang and Song dynasties.

Then, in this plane of the Transmigrators, the newly appointed Governor-General of Liangguang, Xiong Wencan, broke this convention, whether intentionally or not, and the trajectory of history here once again deviated slightly from its original course.

Let us turn back time to one month earlier, when the former Governor-General of Liangguang, Wang Zunde, finally succumbed to illness and died in his official residence in Zhaoqing. After this, urgent dispatches traveled without a moment's pause through Guangzhou, Fuzhou, and all the way north to Beijing.

A certain power that held the advantage of the telegraph, however, had already completed all political preparations before the urgent dispatches even entered Beijing.

Then, when the court began discussing the candidate for the new Governor-General of Guangdong, Xiong Wencan, whose achievements far surpassed those of his historical counterpart, received the tacit approval and recommendation of various powerful figures and gained the consent of the Chongzhen Emperor, who had a very good impression of him, thus taking the seat of Governor-General of Guangdong nearly two years earlier than in history.

This time, Lao Xiong's official post not only transferred from Fujian Governor to Governor-General of Liangguang, but also, due to his previous military merit of "scraping three feet of ground" to dispatch troops for the King's Rescue, his substantive rank was directly promoted from Assistant Censor-in-Chief to Right Censor-in-Chief, stepping into the ranks of First Rank Officials — one could truly say he was riding high and galloping at full speed.

In this plane, since the pirates along the Fujian-Guangdong Coast had long been exterminated, the situation that historically bogged Xiong Wencan down never occurred. Lao Xiong directly succeeded to the post of Governor-General of Guangdong, and that short-term acting Governor-General of Liangguang, Wang Yegao, therefore never appeared.

Yet the development of things is always interconnected. For the same reason, after taking over as Governor-General of Guangdong, Lao Xiong had no need to concurrently hold the post of Fujian Governor to unify the military forces of Fujian and Guangdong to exterminate pirates. In this plane, the moment Lao Xiong took up the post of Governor-General of Guangdong, he also relinquished the position of Fujian Governor.

And the successor as Fujian Governor, as expected, was none other than the then Nanjing Court of the Imperial Stud Minister and Right Assistant Censor-in-Chief, Zou Weilian.

The Transmigrators were quite accepting of this final round of personnel appointments.

As a "heavy treasure" in their hands, Comrade Lao Xiong's transfer to the post of Governor-General of Guangdong had already achieved the Transmigrators' most important objective, making official preparations for the next stage of deeply cultivating Guangdong.

As for Zou Weilian... given the current situation in Fujian, changing one governor would not stir up any great waves. If he cooperated, everyone would get along well; if he did not, Zou Weilian had historically been dismissed from office twice due to his discord with the old artist Wen Tiren. If the Transmigrators truly wanted to deal with him, a couple of casual moves would send him back to his old home to eat plain rice.

And so, the new Governor-General of Liangguang, Lao Xiong, full of enthusiasm, egged on by Grand Commandant Cao, who had made a special trip aboard a battleship to receive him for his glorious assumption of office, half-reluctantly and half-willingly, cheerfully brought his family members and attendants, his two sleeves full of gold, bid farewell to his Fujian colleagues, and boarded the towering Fuyuan. All the way, relaxed and at ease, composing poems over wine, he thus sailed from Fuzhou to Guangzhou, the entire journey taking only three days.

Xiong Wencan's blatant official collusion with Cao and his group was also a decision he had his own considerations for.

If, at the very beginning of their contact, Lao Xiong had still been unclear about the Transmigrators' true strength, then after these years of mutual cooperation, if he still could not see Cao's ambition and capability clearly, he would truly be a moron.

Was Lao Xiong a moron? Clearly not.

As the Fujian Governor, Xiong Wencan, who possessed numerous channels of information, could be said to be the person among the Ming People with the deepest understanding of the freakish Cao Clan.

Yet everything was already too late.

The capacity of an industrial society to spew forth wealth was something the ancient mind could not comprehend.

Although Xiong Wencan, as an elite of the traditional landlord class, possessed decent perspective and vision, the cataclysmic changes that a steel production line brought to a power base still caught him, with his mind full of traditional feudal thinking, completely off guard.

Originally, in Xiong Wencan's view, a frontier power like the Cao Clan was merely a chess piece in his own hand.

Even if the Cao Clan became too large to control in the future, at most it would be an ungovernable military province or a loose-rein prefecture. Such a trifling ailment on the borderlands was neither here nor there for the vast Central Plains dynasty... most importantly, by that time, he, Lao Xiong, would have long since been posted who-knows-where, so who would care about all that?

Yet in a mere two or three years, Cao's power base had developed at a speed that left Xiong Wencan dumbstruck. This speed was so terrifyingly fast that Xiong Wencan was utterly incapable of formulating a correct response and could only passively accept it.

One must understand that even a rebel of An Lushan's caliber had to lie low, build up strength, and grovel at the court's feet for a full twenty years before he possessed all the conditions for rebellion.

Yet the Cao Clan, developing from a group of sea bandits to a state of elite troops, ample provisions, wealth rivaling a nation, and readiness to rebel at any moment, took only three years.

By the time Xiong Wencan finally investigated and understood that this immense power came from those steel furnaces spewing molten steel and those cold assembly lines, everything was already too late.

Xiong Wencan's mind was now as clear as a mirror: if Cao were to raise the banner of rebellion now, perhaps dividing the realm with the court along the Yangtze was still out of the question, but Fujian, Guangdong, and the coastal areas would certainly cease to belong to the Great Ming overnight.

How laughable that he had once considered Cao a chess piece.

After figuring everything out, Xiong Wencan had secretly undergone a period of mental struggling.

Yet no matter how he extrapolated the scenarios, his own fate as the instigator who let the tiger out of the cage would probably not be good — if the Cao Clan did not rebel, all would be well, but once they did, Lao Xiong knew that his entire family being executed by the court was the most probable outcome.

So, would the Cao Clan rebel? Nonsense, possessing such immense power, if they did not release it outward, would they keep it to blow up their own insides?

Xiong Wencan had never studied physics, but he naturally understood the basic laws of how society operates.

And so Lao Xiong began to agonize.

First, he could not submit a memorial to the court saying that a group of sea bandits on a remote, desolate island possessed the strength to divide the realm with the court and could rebel at any moment — no one at court would believe it.

Yet Xiong Wencan believed this, and he also knew that countless treacherous people who had received benefits from the Cao Clan now believed it too.

Only the court was kept in the dark.

Furthermore, Lao Xiong knew that he absolutely could not warn the court in this way: Wasn't that Cao fellow someone you single-handedly propped up? Aren't you two close allies? Are you trying to make yourself the laughingstock of the entire world?

It still came back to that saying: anyone under heaven could oppose Cao, except you, Xiong Wencan.

In this painful agony, Lao Xiong ultimately attained enlightenment.

Yes, after learning that Cao had actually gone north and truly chopped off several thousand Tartar heads, Lao Xiong finally thought it through completely: let him be. A man of such unparalleled martial prowess was beyond his own ability to control. In the future, he would simply have to let the Emperor down this once.

Xiong Wencan, who bore the duty of defending his territory, ultimately gave himself this psychological suggestion.

Lao Xiong's making of this decision was consistent with his character, for Xiong Wencan, from start to finish, was never a stubbornly loyal, iron-headed official like Shi Kefa or Wen Xiang, devoted to sovereign and country.

One must know that between Lao Xiong and Chongzhen, there had also been mutual backstabbing.

In real history, Xiong Wencan, who served consecutively in Fujian and Guangdong, far from the political whirlpool, actually lived a rather free and easy life compared to his colleagues.

Besides dealing with pirates in the coastal areas and summoning the pacification of Zheng Zhilong, he also extensively collected jewels and gems to befriend powerful figures at court, hoping to permanently garrison Lingnan — "Wencan served long in Fujian and Guangdong, amassing wealth beyond measure, generously gifting treasures to influential figures at court and in the provinces, scheming to garrison Lingnan permanently."

This sentence clearly illustrates Xiong Wencan's attitude toward officialdom: rake in silver at his post, send gifts to the bigwigs at court, and seek to be a permanent local emperor in a wealthy, stable, and remote region.

Chongzhen, however, did not think this way.

The Ming court at that time was already tottering in the storm, under pincer attack from the Li Zichengs and the Tartars. Chongzhen had long since panicked, summoning "famous ministers and great generals" from all directions to save the crumbling dynasty.

Thus, Chongzhen "dispatched a palace eunuch under the pretext of being a Purchaser from Guangxi to go observe him. Upon arriving, Wencan lavishly presented him with gifts and kept him drinking for ten days. The eunuch was pleased and spoke of the bandit chaos in the Central Plains. Wencan, just then drunk, struck the table and cursed: 'The various ministers have failed the state! If I, Wencan, were to go, how could I allow those rats to come to this?' The eunuch stood and said: 'I was not going to Guangxi on a purchasing mission, but bearing the Emperor's command to observe you, sir. You indeed possess talent fit for the age; without you, sir, these bandits cannot be dealt with.' Wencan, caught off guard, regretted his slip of the tongue and immediately spoke of five difficulties and four impossibilities. The eunuch said: 'I shall see the Emperor and request it myself. If the Emperor is not stingy, then you, sir, cannot decline.' Wencan, at a loss for words, replied: 'Agreed.'"

This episode is the mutual backstabbing.

Chongzhen sent a palace eunuch pretending to be passing by to investigate Lao Xiong, and then Lao Xiong lavishly wined and dined this eunuch. Getting drunk and baited, Lao Xiong spouted wild boasts: the roving bandits are all rats; if I go, I'll wipe them all out.

Then Lao Xiong was dumbfounded: the eunuch revealed his identity and insisted on recommending him to go to the Central Plains to deal with Li Zicheng.

Here comes the most crucial part: after Lao Xiong came to his senses, he was filled with regret and immediately backtracked, making excuses that for him to go on a Bandit Suppression Campaign, there must be the preconditions of "five difficulties and four impossibilities."

Is this something a loyal minister would say to his Emperor?

Yet Chongzhen actually stiffly agreed to Lao Xiong's conditions, and then Lao Xiong, swallowing his tears, went off to the Central Plains to suppress bandits. In the end, Lao Xiong's old trick of summoning pacification of the roving bandits failed, and Chongzhen, who had previously agreed to everything, immediately turned hostile and ultimately had Lao Xiong beheaded in public.

The Emperor did not act like an Emperor, using rhetorical cunning to trick his minister; the minister did not act like a minister, shirking responsibility with empty lies and deceit. This pair of sovereign and minister, Chongzhen and Lao Xiong, was precisely a microcosm of the political ecology of the late Ming court.

Knowing these stories, one can understand that Xiong Wencan was absolutely not an incorruptibly honest minister utterly devoted to the old Zhu family.

Therefore, Xiong Wencan ultimately made his choice, half-reluctantly and half-willingly boarding the Cao Clan's flagship.

The act of disembarking from the Fuyuan, before the entire officialdom of Guangdong, was tantamount to Lao Xiong clearly hinting that in the future, he would draw even closer to the Cao Clan and fully advance and retreat together with them — truth be told, Lao Xiong truly had no other choice... the person he had chosen himself, even if he later found out it was Qiao Biluo, he still had to swallow his tears and live with it!