Chapter 561: Reception (VI)

When the transmigrators and the power they brought crossed the great sea and took root in Guangdong, the ancient and unhurried southern land began to move at a rapid rhythm.

The land centered on the New District became like a whirlpool, drawing in population and resources rolling in from all directions, and spitting out industrial goods that surpassed the era.

Even a primary-stage industrial era will bring social change. A dazzling array of commodities, all kinds of new ideas and new cultures, constantly battered the natives. Just as a steam locomotive is to a sedan chair, the natives' slow-paced living habits were silently, slowly yet firmly, forcibly accelerated.

Another characteristic of an industrial society is "noise." The originally peaceful Nanming City became tumultuous and restless after this, its muscles bulking up, brimming with vitality.

In comparison, the little bit of trouble Li Dazui stirred up in Haojing'ao was utterly insignificant. After all, there was no internet in this age; everything that happened far from the core regions was very difficult to disseminate to the public.

Even the heart of the Great Ming Empire was equally ignorant of it.

Late May, 1631. Beijing.

In the north, a thousand li away, at this time of year, even in the Little Ice Age, the air had already taken on a hint of warmth.

Over a year had passed since last year's great calamity. The ancient capital seemed to have recovered its bustling appearance of flowing crowds and carriages, but the internal wounds were still far from healed.

The ruler of this city, and also the ruler of the Great Ming Empire, was the diligent Chongzhen Emperor.

Since the Emperor was diligent, the morning court was more or less indispensable. On this early morning at the end of May, the young Chongzhen Emperor, as usual, convened the morning court at the Imperial Ultimate Gate.

The Imperial Ultimate Gate was the main gate of the Imperial Ultimate Hall. Before it was renamed in the forty-first year of the Jiajing reign, the Imperial Ultimate Hall was originally called the Hall of Obedience. In the second year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing, the Imperial Ultimate Hall would be renamed the Hall of Supreme Harmony familiar to later generations—commonly known as the Golden Throne Hall.

Let's not talk about the Qing emperors for now. In fact, except for major political events and festivals, the place where Ming emperors held their daily morning court was not inside the Golden Throne Hall, but at its main gate. This rule was established by Zhu Yuanzhang back in the day, and it had a name: "Imperial Gate Audience."

Today was no exception.

At 5 a. m., accompanied by the striking of bells and drums on the Meridian Gate tower, several hundred Beijing officials who had been waiting long and lined up filed through the gates of the Forbidden City... Los Angeles at 4 a. m.? Please, Beijing at 4 a. m., see you, you miserable wretches.

At the same time, the Chongzhen Emperor, wearing a black casual dragon robe, also emerged from the rear hall with a large retinue of eunuchs and palace maids. After the ministers were in position, the Emperor promptly seated himself on the dragon throne before the Imperial Ultimate Gate.

One kneel, three kowtows, and a chorus of "Long live Your Majesty."

After the routine was finished, by the faint light of dawn, the customary memorial discussions began before the Imperial Ultimate Gate.

Today's morning court was very ordinary, seemingly another familiar and tedious formality. High-ranking officials presented matters before the throne, while low-ranking officials without the qualification to step forward served as background scenery, all striving for an early dismissal...

In fact, after Zhu Yuanzhang, the extremely inefficient governance model of the grand court assembly was abandoned by later emperors. After the Ming Yingzong era, emperors found attending morning court too tiring, so they switched to handling affairs by reviewing memorials, with morning court held only occasionally. Even more extreme were the Jiajing and Wanli emperors, who did not attend morning court for over twenty years.

Although the Chongzhen Emperor was a model of diligence, he also did not have the habit of detaining all the civil servants of Beijing in the Forbidden City and preventing them from doing practical work. So very soon, the regular court, which had essentially degenerated into a ceremony, was dismissed.

After the court was dismissed, as the dense crowd of low-ranking officials dispersed, the true central policy decision-making system of the Ming Empire began to operate: the court assembly composed of the Emperor, Grand Secretaries, the Six Ministers, and a few other officials.

Today's court assembly had a relatively full attendance; basically, all the major figures of the second rank and above in Beijing were present, and even two or three old meritorious nobles had come—although the nobles never spoke, if they wanted to audit, the Emperor and the Grand Secretaries could not exactly push them out, right?

After the court assembly began, the sovereign and ministers first dealt with a few miscellaneous administrative matters as a warm-up. After this came the main event of the day: handling the memorials sent from Guangdong.

The memorials mentioned here were naturally the documents concerning the "conflict" in Macau from the previous month.

In fact, from the very day the conflict occurred, officials from Guangdong had been successively writing memorials to the court. Later on, the Liangguang Governor's Office, local yamens, and even officials from various parts of Guangdong, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and even local gentry and retired officials all sent word to the court. So from early April until now, the court had properly received quite a number of memorials and had gained a relatively clear understanding of the Macau incident.

However, the most critical party in this matter, the Xiangshan Regional Commander's Office, did not deliver its memorial to Beijing until mid-May. That is to say, the Loyal and Brave Count Cao Chuan had waited until the end of April or early May, nearly one week after the war ended, before unhurriedly sending his memorial to the court via the ordinary postal route.

After the court received the memorial, it naturally needed to study it carefully and savor the nuances: every other party had submitted their reports early; why had you, the principal figure surnamed Cao, delayed? What kind of impropriety was hidden here?

And so, by the time the various court bigwigs had figured out the cause and effect of the memorial through private channels, it was already late May. This was precisely the theme of today's court assembly: issuing a reply.

Seeing that the other trivial administrative matters were mostly dealt with, the Chongzhen Emperor, squinting slightly in the rising morning sun, turned his face and nodded to Fang Zhenghua, the Director of the Directorate of Ceremonial on duty today.

Fang Zhenghua, understanding perfectly, immediately stepped out of the ranks and announced loudly to the Civil Official Bloc on the left side of the steps: "An oral decree: regarding the memorial submitted from the south, do the ministers have a draft reply?"

Comrade Wen Tiren, the Grand Secretary of the East Pavilion and Minister of Rites, who had long been prepared, hurriedly stepped out of line at this moment, bowed, and drew a document from his sleeve to present: "A draft rescript has been prepared."

The next moment, the young Emperor reached out to receive the Cabinet's draft rescript and began to read it carefully from the beginning.

It must be said that during the Chongzhen reign, the power of the Directorate of Ceremonial was greatly reduced. The reason was simple: Chongzhen was a workaholic. After memorials sent to Beijing from all over the country were drafted by the Cabinet, the Emperor often directly reviewed them and wrote his instructions, leaving the Directorate of Ceremonial with little to do in between.

Today was the same. After Minister Wen presented the memorial with the Cabinet's draft rescript, the Emperor directly began his review.

The content of this belated memorial from the Xiangshan Regional Commander's Office was divided into three parts.

In the first part, a certain Regional Commander informed the onlooking crowd that on a small island in the distant south, a "conflict" had occurred between the Great Ming Official Army and the Franks.

Yes, according to the results of the Cabinet's subsequent discussion, the transmigrators defined this war as a "conflict."

The reasoning for this characterization was very simple: if the Franks (including all colonizers) were depicted as a monstrous flood, fierce beasts, savage and brutal national enemies, then the later statement in the memorial advocating "reform and opening up, allowing all foreigners to enter Guangzhou for business" would not hold water.

It was precisely based on this that the Xiangshan Regional Commander's Office's memorial this time did not use the urgent military dispatch route but was sent as ordinary mail: this was just a conflict, fundamentally not reaching the level of war requiring the court's attention, so I'm sending it by ordinary mail... No matter how the rest of you submit your memorials, I am defining this as a conflict here; anyway, as long as I believe it, that's enough.

As for the specific content of the memorial, the Adviser of the General Headquarters naturally employed all manner of understatement and Spring and Autumn style regarding the day's events: a minor discord arose between the Ming and Frankish sides; in view of the many years of prior friendly cooperation between the two nations, everyone made a gentleman's agreement to stake the barbette outside Macau City and fight a friendly match. In the end, the "Cao Army" took the barbette; the loser, though defeated, still had honor; both sides shook hands and made peace. The Franks then peacefully handed over Macau City, with no harm to women and children, and everyone was happy—a model of international relations, and so on and so forth...

The above was the first stage of the memorial: the report.

The second stage was to report the good news to the court and present gifts.

After reclaiming the island, the first piece of good news was the "restoration of governance." After the initial few days of military control, Regional Commander Cao stated that he had already transferred jurisdiction over Macau Island to the Liangguang Governor's Office, and the latter had dispatched the Xiangshan County Assistant Magistrate, Zhong Sheng, to open court and sit in the yamen to exercise governmental authority in Macau.

Secondly, since they had taken Macau City, which the Portuguese had been operating since the Jiajing reign, there were bound to be some "gains." As it happened, Regional Commander Cao, born of humble origins, was most loyal and righteous; upon opening the city this time, he naturally could not forget the Emperor and the court a thousand li away. Everyone should share the meat and the soup. Thus, Regional Commander Cao sent generous gifts separately to the Emperor and the court.

The following was the dividend gift list for the court, totaling:

One hundred fifty thousand taels of silver;

Ten Frankish Great General Cannons, with a quantity of cannonballs and gunpowder;

Thirty Frankish Medium Cannons, with a quantity of cannonballs and gunpowder;

One hundred Frankish cannons and swivel guns in total;

One hundred Frankish gunner instructors (mercenary nature).

Five title deeds for large triple-cropping rice estates "willingly contributed" by the Franks to the court (located in northern Annam).

After the court gift list came Regional Commander Cao's private gift list to honor the Emperor:

One hundred fifty thousand taels of silver;

One hundred pieces of Frankish curios;

One hundred pieces of new curios from the Cao Clan Workshop;

One hundred dan of daily sundries offered by the Loyal and Brave Count to the Emperor;

Five title deeds for private large triple-cropping rice estates "willingly contributed" by the Franks to the Great Emperor of the court (located in northern Annam).

That was all.

After the first two parts of the memorial concluded, the crucial third part arrived: the Adviser of the General Headquarters quoted classics and history, from the Kunlun slaves of the Tang Dynasty to the Israelites of the Song Dynasty, and then to the present-day Franks, rambling at great length with all sorts of specious arguments, and incidentally criticizing the Great Ming's foreign policy, arguing that a turtle shrinking into its shell was inadvisable, and that now, with him, Cao Zhongchen, present, it was the perfect time to boldly open the door and do great business.

In the end, the memorial dropped all pretense — a thousand words distilled into one sentence: reform and open up; designate a New District outside Guangzhou City as a trial zone; permit foreign ships to dock; permit foreign merchants to establish businesses; let China and the outside world exchange what each lacks.

This memorial bore the heavy stamp of a military man's rough-and-ready style. One glance at its contents made it clear — its three sections were, in order: offering face, offering benefits, and making demands, utterly undisguised and brutally direct.

And the young Chongzhen Emperor, at this moment, had finished carefully reading the Cabinet's Drafting Rescript appended to the memorial. Though its language hedged back and forth, its final conclusion was but a single phrase: "Granted as requested."