Chapter 179: I Am Not in a Hurry, and Neither Are You Allowed to Be

Zhu Youjian slowly slid the sword back into its scabbard with a clear, ringing clang.

He paced back behind the imperial desk and sat down again.

Zhu Youjian looked at the corner he had cut off the imperial desk, then gripped the Son of Heaven's sword in his hand once more. A thought surged up irresistibly from the depths of his heart.

This sword, this desk — they had taken part in this dramatic scene.

A hundred years from now, they would probably become the crowning treasures of the Great Ming Imperial Museum.

And beneath them would be the "tribute offerings" from the entire Western world!

I shall use the scepter of the King of England to hold down my memorials!

I shall use the crown of the King of France to hold my ink and brushes!

I shall use the gold of Spain's Invincible Armada to cast the steps of my palace!

I shall use the sea charts of the Dutch East India Company as my carpets!

All the law codes, art, and treasures that the people of the West take such pride in shall cross the oceans and become ordinary displays in this museum — mere ornaments beneath my feet!

They shall silently prove to future generations one irrefutable truth:

Beneath the Son of Heaven's sword, no crown remains!

Wherever sun and moon shine, all is Han soil!

"Ahem."

Zhu Youjian gave a light cough and forcibly dragged himself out of this excessively chuunibyou daydream.

Enough. Dial it back.

Right now, the new policies in Northern Zhili have barely even gotten underway, and here he was thinking about conquering the world — that was far too ambitious by half.

First, make sure the Great Ming can survive this globe-spanning Little Ice Age. Everything else comes after.

He reined in his thoughts, adjusted his sitting posture, and only then slowly spoke, his voice returning to its usual calm.

"Ministers, you may rise."

"We thank Your Majesty!"

The assembled ministers rose one after another and returned to their seats, though every face still bore traces of lingering excitement and awe.

The moment Huo Weihua steadied himself, he began to bow and open his mouth again, as if he still wanted to say something more to pledge his loyalty.

Seeing this, Zhu Youjian hurriedly raised a hand to cut him off.

"Minister Huo," he said preemptively, "what you have said and done today, had it happened in times past, would already be a fine tale of a lord and minister in perfect accord."

"One might even say, following the conventions of those old operas, the next line would be 'enshrined in the imperial heart,' and then you would soar straight up to the highest heavens of success."

Zhu Youjian paused, then abruptly shifted his tone. His gaze swept over Huo Weihua and then to all the ministers in the hall.

"But I have said before: from this day forward, the Great Ming's rewards for merit shall not be decided by the imperial heart's likes and dislikes, but solely by the magnitude of actual achievements."

"Therefore, though I appreciate Minister Huo's utter sincerity, everything, in the end, will still depend on the real work you accomplish."

He leaned forward slightly, fixed his eyes on Huo Weihua's, and asked, one word at a time:

"So, Minister Huo, do you have the confidence to become, under this new policy of the Great Ming, the first capable minister to earn ten gold ribbons by actual merit?!"

"Do you have the confidence to receive, from my own hands, the reward of a count's patent?!"

Huo Weihua was stunned.

The emperor had cut him off, perfectly timed, every time he tried to speak. If he still could not sense His Majesty's slight impatience with this "performance," then he had wasted all those years in officialdom.

The Son of Heaven was telling him: the play is over.

Now, it was time to talk business.

He fell silent for a moment, swallowed the impassioned declarations that had already risen to his lips, and in the end chose to quote a classical allusion as the closing act of this lord-and-minister duet.

He bowed deeply and said in a grave voice, "'To be enfeoffed as a marquis was never my intent; I wish only that the waves of the sea be stilled.' This subject shall take these words of Qi Shaobao as his self-admonition, and for Your Majesty, for the Great Ming, spare no effort in service until his dying breath!"

"A fine 'I wish only that the waves of the sea be stilled.'"

Zhu Youjian nodded approvingly. Seeing that Film Emperor Huo had simultaneously wrapped up his act, he said no more and steered the conversation directly to the business at hand.

"That final memorial of yours, concerning the clearing of payrolls and anti-corruption efforts in the various garrisons — I approve. But there are a few details I wish to supplement."

"First: the matter of recalling and selecting capable officials in the capital shall be led by you, with the Ministry of Personnel coordinating. Once the list of names is drawn up, report it directly to me for final decision."

"Second: your request to add inner palace eunuchs, Eastern Depot officers, and Embroidered Uniform Guard lieutenants to each account-inspection team as supervisors — I also approve. After court is dismissed, go find Gao Shiming and request the personnel."

"Third," Zhu Youjian's tone grew weightier, "since we are assembling these seven teams to carry out such a thorough rooting-out of entrenched abuses, we may as well do it even more solidly."

"I order your ministry: after each team has finished clearing up the troop strength and payroll funds, they need not hurry back to the capital. They shall simply remain stationed in Liaodong for several months and, together with Supreme Commander Sun, settle anew the entire troop and horse quotas for Jiliao!"

"What are the current quotas? If we intend to hold defensively in the future, how many are needed? If we intend to counterattack, how many are needed? What of the civilian grain shipments and capital funds to support these quotas? How are sea transport and land transport to be arranged? All expenditures — warhorses to be procured, military equipment, fortifications, and every other cost — calculate them all meticulously and compile them into one clearly organized general ledger!"

Huo Weihua did not hesitate for an instant. He immediately clasped his hands and accepted the order: "This subject obeys the decree!"

Zhu Youjian nodded slightly, but his gaze passed beyond Huo Weihua, toward somewhere farther away.

"The detailed matters of Liaodong must wait for Supreme Commander Sun to deliberate with you together. Today I shall not discuss details, but I do wish to speak with you, my ministers, of the grand strategy in my mind."

He looked at them all, his voice steady and forceful.

"The Liaodong affair has dragged on to this day, nearly ten years now. In my several secret discussions with Supreme Commander Sun, reviewing every past campaign, I have found that the causes of defeat are myriad, but when traced to the root, they all come down to one word: haste."

"The Battle of Sarhu: we gathered a host of eighty thousand, combined with Joseon and the Haixi Jurchen, totaling one hundred ten thousand men, proclaimed as four hundred seventy thousand."

"Yet among them, Du Song and Liu Ting were retired old generals, and the troops of each army were drawn from Fujian, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Shaanxi, and other places far and wide."

"With such a force — where the soldiers did not know their generals and the generals did not know their soldiers — to go and fight sixty thousand rested and well-prepared Jurchen barbarians, how was that any different from throwing eggs against a rock!"

"What is more, the date ultimately set for the march was decided neither by season, nor by terrain, nor by the opportune moment of battle, but merely out of fear that the army would grow stale and the provisions run dry. Only for that reason did we rush into battle."

"A campaign so absurd — how could it not end in defeat!"

Zhu Youjian swept his gaze over everyone, his tone cool.

"I executed Yang Gao because he lost our territory and disgraced the state. He had to be executed."

"But if we truly judge by the causes of success and failure, was this grand and sweeping debacle the fault of Yang Gao alone?!"

"And after that, the battles of Liaoyang-Shenyang, of Guangning, of Jinzhou-Fuzhou-Haizhou-Gaizhou... in which of those were the provisions sufficient, the armaments prepared, the troops trained, the officers purged of incompetents, before they sought to gamble on chance and greedily reach for the merit of destroying a kingdom?"

"Time and again, defeat after defeat! Only after the two battles of Ningyuan and Ning-Jin did we barely steady our footing — and already some have begun spouting empty words about annihilating the barbarians. How absurd, how short-sighted!"

Zhu Youjian's voice echoed through the great hall, every word striking the hearts of his ministers.

"Therefore, here before Us, what We have set for Liaodong is a 'ten-year strategy.'"

"The first two years shall focus on reducing troop numbers and rooting out corruption. The following three years shall focus on training soldiers and stockpiling provisions."

"Until We have one hundred fifty thousand crack troops in Liaodong, and another one hundred fifty thousand reserves within the passes — a combined force of three hundred thousand — with ten million in provisions fully prepared, We shall never speak of a decisive battle!"

"In the five years after that, only then may We deploy an army of righteous might and advance with the crushing force of Mount Tai itself!"

"First battle at Guangning, second battle to retake Liaoyang-Shenyang, third battle to capture Kaiyuan, fourth battle to pursue the fleeing foe, smash their lair, and exterminate their race!"

"If five years are not enough, then We shall take seven! If seven are not enough, then ten! If ten are not enough, then twenty!"

"Until that day," Zhu Youjian's gaze blazed as he swept it across the assembly, "all efforts in fighting corruption, eliminating abuses, building fortifications, cultivating military farmland, and drilling troops shall be recorded as merit equally!"

"He who can train the troops well and prepare the provisions well — the ranks of Count and Marquis await him!"

"He who can annihilate the Later Jin and take the heads of the four Jianzhou Beile — even the rank of Duke, We shall not begrudge!"

At this point, Zhu Youjian laid bare his sincerity as fully as he could:

"Today, We shall speak a few words from the heart, truly and honestly, to all you great ministers."

"We are, this year, merely seventeen years of age. Every day We draw the bow sixty times and lift the stone one hundred times. Our meals are light and plain; We dare not take much oil, salt, or rich meat. This is not to seek long life, but only from fear that if We ruin this body, We shall delay the affairs of state and once more bring turmoil upon the dynasty."

"All that We say and do — whether the new policies in Northern Zhili or the military affairs in Ji-Liao — has always sought deliberation over haste, and steadiness over rashness."

"Therefore, We are not impatient in the slightest, and We absolutely forbid any of you from harboring thoughts of rash, headlong advance!"

—This was a lie.

Inside, Zhu Youjian was as frantic as a monkey king.

Before the second year of Yongchang, the new policies had to show at least initial results.

Before the tenth year of Yongchang, the entire Great Ming had to enter a growth market.

Otherwise, never mind a sage sovereign reborn — even the Jade Emperor descending to the mortal world could not save the Great Ming.

Otherwise, Zhu Youjian would not have forced Wei Zhongxian to his death the moment he ascended the throne, then personally stepped down into the arena to become this "leader of the new policy faction."

But tactical urgency, urgency in execution efficiency, must not be allowed to spread into strategic rashness.

Therefore, in slogans, in the fundamental tone, whatever tempo and emotion could be reined in, Zhu Youjian was determined to rein in.

Seeming fast but being slow in truth — that was exactly what this meant.

Zhu Youjian paused a final moment, then spoke his last line:

"My beloved ministers, have you all understood clearly?"

After a brief silence, Li Guopu rose to his feet. He adjusted his robes and cap, then bowed deeply before Zhu Youjian.

"Your Majesty does not wield the unpredictable as his authority, but takes utter sincerity as his foundation; he does not fix his mind on the merit of a single moment, but holds the foundation of ten thousand generations as his weight. To curb haste and exercise forbearance — truly this is the great fortune of the altars of state!"

Zhu Youjian nodded with satisfaction and gestured for Li Guopu to sit.

The matter of the Ministry of War, at this point, had been thoroughly settled in its tone.

Only then did he turn his gaze to the final person in this day's court assembly.

"Minister of Revenue Guo Yunhou, it is your turn. Rise and receive your orders."