Chapter 307: The Hot-Air Balloon Shocks the Foreign Envoys

As the enormous sphere slowly rose into the sky, the atmosphere inside and outside Guangqu Gate ignited in an instant.

Cheers, shrieks, and exclamations of wonder merged into a single roar, like water boiling over.

But atop the Guangqu Gate tower, a bizarre chaos reigned.

This spot, commanding the finest view, was closed to the public today — the Court of Colonial Affairs had reserved it entirely.

The moneybags local tycoons of the capital region, even brandishing a hundred taels of silver as a viewing fee, could not touch the threshold here; they could only go squeeze onto the rampart walkway below, which cost one tael, and drink the northwest wind.

Those who could stand here were all the envoys from the various tributary states, who had just finished the New Year's Day Grand Court assembly and, without even time to change out of their court robes, had been brought straight to this place. And when that monster spewing fierce flames truly rose into the sky, the loss of control was a hundred times more violent than below the wall.

"3ui}j! amp; paj!!" (Uyghur: It is a demon! Run!)

"aygxmzrgraxwRq!!" (Tibetan: Heavens! The god in the sky is burning fire!)

Cries of alarm in every tongue rang out at once, followed immediately by a chorus of howling and wailing.

Sandan Duozhi from Ü-Tsang dropped his prayer beads all over the floor; his entire body lay prostrate on the icy city bricks, chanting obscure and difficult scriptures, trembling all over like chaff in a sieve.

Beside him, several turbaned tribute envoys from Turpan and Hami were so terrified their faces had lost all human color.

They had been chatting with one another moments before, but now some were clutching their heads and diving behind pillars, while others simply went weak in the knees and knelt on the ground, kowtowing frantically toward the great sphere painted with arcane patterns in the sky, shouting "Allah protect us" at the top of their lungs.

In their eyes, how could a mortal possibly ascend into the sky?

That fire-belching basket was clearly the legendary implement of purgatory used to punish sinners!

Amid this chaotic throng of prostrate, kowtowing foreign monks and tribute envoys, a few groups stood out conspicuously.

Though equally shocked, they had not abandoned their dignity.

The Joseon envoy Jeong Duwon, his hand braced on the battlements, tilted his head back to gaze at the enormous sphere, his eyes filled with wonder.

"As expected of the Celestial Court, the superior state — the Way of investigating things, the Way of science! To have reached such a level!"

He turned his head and glanced sidelong at those envoys weeping bitterly and fleeing in all directions, and a powerful sense of pride suddenly surged in his chest.

Barbarians will be barbarians.

Even if this Way of science is profound and hard to grasp, have they not even heard of the principle behind a sky lantern?

It is merely made somewhat larger and can carry a person — why lose composure to this degree?

He opened his mouth to speak, wanting to offer a remark or two, but was drowned out by the surrounding din of ghostly wails.

"Forget it..." Jeong Duwon shook his head, but his mind had already begun to calculate.

This tributary mission to the capital had been, one could say, full of novelties.

The customary silver for greasing palms at every level — this time the Sacred Court had strictly forbidden the taking of bribes.

Most bizarrely, the prohibition had actually taken effect!

Those eunuchs and officials, ordinarily so difficult to deal with, had one and all become as incorruptible as clear water.

Even Eunuch Wang Tigan, with whom he had become thoroughly familiar in previous years, had unexpectedly shut his door and refused visitors.

This had also meant that the gold, silver, and jewels he had brought along had gone unspent.

That money, originally, had been intended half for purchasing saltpeter and gunpowder, and half for bribery...

With the new emperor's ascension, all of Joseon, high and low, greatly feared that this new sovereign might bring up the humiliating peace treaty Joseon had signed with the Later Jin earlier that year. Thus, this mission had come with the dual purpose of demonstrating loyalty while probing the imperial will.

"Once the demonstration is over, I must go ask Vice Director Hong."

Jeong Duwon narrowed his eyes, fixed them on the slowly ascending hot-air balloon, and the little abacus in his heart clicked away furiously.

"Can this thing be used for war? Drop gunpowder from above? If so, can we buy some to take back?"

"Even if it cannot be used for war, taking it back to Hanseong would make an excellent auspicious omen... I only wonder what the price might be?"

Not far away, the envoy of the Mongol Prince of Shunyi, along with the prince's eldest son Ombu, was also staring dumbstruck.

The entire Mongol Right Wing had been dealing with the Great Ming for centuries.

From fighting and killing to the present state of peace and harmony.

They were naturally no strangers to all manner of Han contrivances.

A sky lantern — the common herdsmen might never have seen one, but Ombu had.

Yet no matter how familiar they were with Han things, faced with this spherical giant, several zhang high, slowly rising, they too could not remain calm.

Not a single Mongol could truly remain calm.

If nothing else — how much cloth must this have taken!

The Ming people... are simply too rich!

And that Way of science... is it truly so miraculous?

Why does it feel even more formidable than the sorcery of the White Lotus sect?

Ombu, who had always dismissed the Great Ming's new policies as mere Han scribblers playing with their brushes, suddenly felt an immense interest sprout within him toward this thing called "science."

Unlike Ombu's simple curiosity, Ligdan Khan's envoy Guiying Qia was, at this moment, ashen-faced.

It was too outrageous.

Too fast!

He was a trusted confidant of Ligdan Khan who had climbed up from the bottom.

He was proficient in Chinese.

Since entering the capital, he had not missed a single issue of the Great Ming Times, and had even collected and read through all the back issues.

The "Science Column" in it, he had originally read as a joke.

The initial demonstrations — the gas well, the hemispheres, the pulleys — he had all thought to be nothing special.

Things that could neither kill nor plunder — how could they compare to the bow in one's hand and the warhorse between one's legs?

The only thing he had taken seriously was that "Thousand-Li Message Relay," which could transmit orders a thousand li.

But... this so-called pneumatics, had it not started out as mere tricks of burning paper and swallowing eggs?

How long had it been since then?

How the hell... did it just shoot up into the sky?!

Is that even the same thing?

Isn't this way too fast?

More to the point, how am I supposed to go back and explain this to the Great Khan?!

As for the envoys from the southwestern tusi, their reactions were not much different from those of the commoners beneath the city gate.

They looked exhilarated; some even mimicked the "clapping salute" newly fashionable in the capital, smacking their hands together — papapa.

Only, their applause was quickly drowned out by the strange howls of several foreign monks nearby, at which they sheepishly stopped.

What they call tusi — the "tu," the native, refers to the native people at the bottom.

Among the chieftains above them, few are truly "native" at all.

Over the two-hundred-plus years since the Great Ming's founding, these tusi were civilized long ago.

Tusi who are completely ignorant of the Han tongue and Han institutions are exceedingly rare.

Take, for example, the rebellion of She Chongming now raging in the south.

Once he rose up, he directly proclaimed a dynastic title, "Great Liang," and fixed a reign era, "Ruixing."

He then established a full government, setting up offices for Chancellor, Grand Secretary, the Five Courts and Six Ministries — done with all due pomp and form.

— Can such a man be called a complete barbarian?

Hong Chengchou, Minister of the Court of Colonial Affairs, withdrew his gaze from the hot-air balloon and looked upon this motley assortment of envoys, his heart buoyant.

Li Shiqi from the capital's Tax Office had been pressing him to start collecting taxes at the "Foreign Yi Market" this very year.

That was what forced him to choke out this scheme of "borrowing Heaven's mandate" to overawe the barbarians.

More crucially, had it not been for this scheme, he would have had no pretext to use the angle of "diplomatic value" to successfully insert himself into the "Hot-Air Balloon Project Team" and claim a share of the merit.

This is truly a case of the old frontiersman losing his horse — who knows if it isn't a blessing?

Today's affair had suddenly opened up his thinking.

Beyond economic control, military deterrence, and espionage infiltration...

Might this path of science also be a major direction the Court of Colonial Affairs ought to attend to?

If nothing else, at least those foreign yi in the southeast — shouldn't their seagoing vessels be given a bit more science too?

He made up his mind: he would take that earlier submission from the Academy of Science, the "Request for Interpreters of the Four Barbarians," and give it some attention, raise its priority, and first build good relations with that department.

The atmosphere here was lively, everyone's thoughts shifting like treacherous clouds.

Yet at the edge of the crowd, two blue-robed officials still stood, silently watching it all.

As Song Yingxing's ringing "Declaration of Ascension" faded, the gaze of Mao Yuanyi, Doctor and head of the Academy of Science's Military Section, finally withdrew from the faces of the various envoys and returned to the hot-air balloon.

The moment he opened his mouth, his tone was sour and prickling:

"What is that 'Academician' Song shouting about? On an occasion like this, how can he be so undignified?"

Standing beside him was Chen Renxi, who had temporarily taken over as head of the Military Group after Sun Chuanting departed for Liaodong.

One was from Suzhou, the other from Gui'an; separated by a single Lake Tai, gazing at each other from afar, they had been close friends for many years.

Faced with a man who had stepped in dog shit and struck it lucky, they were naturally united in shared resentment.

Chen Renxi's voice was likewise full of bitterness:

"Who knows? A man who has ascended to the heavens is a man who will be written into the histories — no amount of excitement would be strange."

Chen Renxi glanced toward the cluster of envoys, drew Mao Yuanyi a little farther toward the edge, and asked in a low voice:

"Zhisheng — how high can this thing go at most, as it stands now?"

Mao Yuanyi glanced at the envoys and lowered his voice too:

"We'll have to test it both tethered and untethered before we know its limits."

"When we tested it before, inside the imperial city, we were afraid of accidents and fires — we never conducted full-scale tests at all."

He extended a single finger and pointed toward the faintly visible smoke and flame:

"This winter wind is dry to begin with. If it really went out of control inside the palace grounds, or even drifted over the commoners' heads and set the whole city ablaze — then this auspicious omen would turn into a tragedy."

Chen Renxi's face changed color at these words; he was plainly shuddering at the possibility too.

Mao Yuanyi tightened his cotton robe around him and continued:

"Later on, the Physics Section people will find an open wilderness, and apply to the Valiant Guard Camp for a few cavalry squads to follow. Then they'll properly test both scenarios — with the cable untied and with it still tied."

"But they certainly won't be sending a man up yet. As before, they'll try it with a sheep first and see."

Chen Renxi nodded, his gaze returning to the hot-air balloon gently swaying in midair, his eyes full of regret.

"Do it quickly. If all it can do is maintain the data and performance we're seeing now, this thing... really isn't very useful."

"It can't be deployed in the north. In the south and west it might still see some use, but I'm afraid not for very many times."

Chen Renxi's words were very veiled, but Mao Yuanyi, as a fellow member of the "Hot-Air Balloon Project" team, naturally understood what he meant. Since the New Policies, apart from red-ink performance reviews and official document composition, the most important thing had been the implementation of the "project system."

Take the hot-air balloon matter, for example.

Its research and development was the business of the Academy of Science's Physics Section, temporarily under the supervision of Academy Chancellor Xiong Mingyu.

But because it involved military applications, Mao Yuanyi and Chen Renxi were drawn in.

After that, because it involved patent auctions, popular science outreach, and diplomatic affairs, Li Shiqi, Ruan Dacheng, and Hong Chengchou were drawn in as well. Thus Xiong, Mao, Chen, Li, Ruan, and Hong — six men and their subordinates — formed a basic small project team.

And the people inside such a small project team would naturally not exclaim, "Heavens, this ball can actually fly!" Rather, they had long ago conducted preliminary discussions on every aspect of the hot-air balloon's uses and value.

And yet...

After the fever born of realizing the mad dream of flight had cooled, the results the group had discussed and extrapolated were not very promising.

War in the north, in this era, was fundamentally war dominated by cavalry.

Under such a mode of warfare, the two most common scenarios were:

The first was the surprise attack during a march, where the fight hinged on the time gap before one side could form ranks.

On the Mongol side, the terrain is grassland with wide-open visibility.

As long as the scouts did their job well before battle, the Ming army could basically always form its wagon formation before the cavalry suddenly crashed down on them.

But the Liaodong side has both mountains and plains, and in places like Jinzhou, Guangning, and southern Liao, the terrain is actually more mountainous.

(Attached image: topographic map of the Liaodong Peninsula)

In this situation, the Ming army was instead easily ambushed and broken by Jurchen troops suddenly bursting out of mountain paths.

"A single barbarian rider burst from a mountain hollow; the iron cavalry trampled the formation; before the firearms could even fire, the camp was already broken."

Records like this in the Ministry of War's military dispatches are simply far too common.

This is real war, not some virtual game.

There is no such bizarre setting as "cavalry attack power 10 on plains terrain, cavalry attack power 10 on hilly mountain terrain." So, in this real world, based on the equipment and tactical-technical levels of both sides—

Liaodong, with some mountains but not the deep mountains and dense forests of the south, actually turned out to be more suited for cavalry to exert its power than the Mongol steppe.

And against this kind of ambush warfare, what use could a hot-air balloon possibly be?

The thing inflates extremely slowly. By the time it finishes inflating, either the Ming army has already formed up on its own, or the battle line has long since been pierced through.

Well then, how about trying to hold this thing by a tether and drag it along on the march?

That's even more ridiculous…

The hot-air balloon's current endurance in the air is less than two quarter-hours.

To maintain observation, you would need several hot-air balloons taking turns going up.

And because it inflates so slowly, either the entire army has to halt to protect the balloon as it ascends, or you leave a small detachment to wait for it to ascend and then drag it over.

But dragging it over—you dare not drag it too fast, only slowly.

Otherwise, if a strong wind hits, I fear it would either shatter into pieces or burn into cinders.

And this situation, to use the term His Majesty defined in the wargaming exercises—

This is trading "mobility" for "information power."

But once you're already advancing at a snail's pace, why not just go full turtle formation and advance slowly?

In that case, the effect in preventing ambushes might well be better than going to all the trouble of dragging a hot-air balloon along slowly.

So for this kind of ambush warfare, the hot-air balloon finds itself in an extremely awkward position.

And the other type of northern warfare under cavalry-dominant conditions is pitched battle in formation.

Both sides deploy their formations, with a reason they cannot avoid battle.

In this kind of warfare, infantry must be the main force in the clash, while cavalry provides screening on the flanks and looks for opportunities to break the formation.

Whether Mongols or Jurchen, unless they spot a loose formation, there is no reason for cavalry to foolishly charge a formation head-on.

The four words "dismount and fight on foot" appear constantly in the battle reports from both these fronts.

All the wheeling, all the horse archery, all the feints—everything serves to coordinate with the infantry to tear open the formation, and finally smash through it with a crash.

Once the formation is broken, even if the actual kill count is tiny, the Ming army is powerless to turn the tide.

For this kind of fixed positional warfare, the hot-air balloon could indeed be of use.

But on one hand, there is the fatal flaw mentioned earlier—the endurance time is too short.

On the other hand, there is what Chen Renxi was just concerned about.

If it is only at a height of ten zhang, the effect is truly not great.

After all, in army field engagements, if preparation time is long, they will definitely build fixed observation towers.

Ten zhang is a bit exaggerated; generally there is no need to build them that high, but eight zhang is certainly done.

(Attached image: from the Song dynasty the Five Classics Zongyao, with text explanation of the illustration)

If preparation time is too short, then building an observation tower wagon three zhang or five zhang high is also standard practice.

(Another attached image: this wagon is marked 48.5 chi, which is 4.85 zhang.)

So if the hot-air balloon wants to take up this post, its competitor should not be compared against a soldier's height.

It should be compared against these traditional military implements of five zhang or ten zhang.

Finally, the key point that utterly broke the Yongchang Emperor's defenses and shattered his fantasy about hot-air balloons in a single blow was this:

Whether common soldiers, generals, civil officials, or even eunuch army supervisors who had led troops—all told him:

The Ming army's defeats against the Jurchen were very often not a case of "I didn't notice he was going to hit me there, and he ambushed me."

But rather—"I knew he was going to hit me there, but I wasn't fast enough, wasn't hard enough, wasn't fierce enough… I couldn't beat him."

Damn, that makes way too much sense… The Yongchang Emperor was completely unable to refute it.

Of course, the hot-air balloon team did not spend all this time studying it only to reach negative conclusions.

It is just that, with testing still incomplete, these are the only conclusions that can be drawn for now.

Going forward, the hot-air balloon must still undergo multiple rounds of testing and improvement, then gradual trial use, before it enters the consideration process of "whether to adopt for equipment." And this trial-use process must look, on one hand, at the physical experience, and on the other hand, at the wargaming results.

Yes, after tinkering for several months, Sun Chuanting had finally, following the Yongchang Emperor's vague instructions, managed to tinker "wargaming" into existence.

Of course, the rules of wargaming are not hard to design; what is hard to determine is the data within them.

Objective data, such as marching speed, is relatively easy to determine.

Under normal conditions: cavalry 120 li per day, infantry 80 li per day.

Under forced-march conditions: cavalry 150 li per day, infantry 100 li per day.

These are the figures set by Great Ming military law; take each camp out for training runs, and you can obtain fairly definite data.

For example, currently the Valiant Guard Camp, after a forced march of three days to Santun Camp, had a straggler rate of five percent; after one day of resting in place, its troops' combat strength was restored. Judging purely from the stats on paper, it is already an elite unit.

Supplementing this objective data for the hot-air balloon is also very simple: just pile on the time and test slowly.

But subjective data is very hard to determine.

For example, is the Ming army's base morale 50, 60, 70… or 3?

Hard to say, my friend.