Chapter 36: Half a Day of the Great Ming Emperor's Diligent Governance

(Begging for monthly tickets)

(Begging for monthly tickets)

The twenty-eighth day of the eighth month, the day before the regular court assembly.

After breakfast, Zhu Youjian stretched his limbs, then sat down eagerly before the imperial desk.

The desk was piled high with routine memorials like a small mountain, awaiting his favor.

In the days since his enthronement, the memorials of the hundred officials had all been sorted by the Directorate of Ceremonial, which then selected the important matters and summarized them for him.

But after all, this was his first time being an Emperor — he still wanted to get a feel for what a diligent Emperor actually experienced.

Besides, directly handling first-hand information would also help him gain a more comprehensive understanding of this crumbling empire.

After all, genuine knowledge comes from practice — posterity has never deceived me.

He casually opened the first one: "Memorial from the Governor of Huguang Requesting Commendation of the Chaste Martyr Madam Pang."

The matter itself was not complicated, but this civil official's pedantic writing made a trivial affair both stinking and long.

The gist was that a local bully named "Xiong Yuxuan" of Huangpi in Huguang had tried to forcibly seize the wife of Yuan Sancai, one Madam Pang.

Madam Pang would rather die than submit. She first killed her two young daughters with her own hands, then took her own life.

Therefore, the local officials were applying to grant her the title of "Chaste Martyr."

Hardcore!

Absurd!

That son of a bitch!

Zhu Youjian offered up three exclamation marks. The good mood he'd started with vanished without a trace in an instant.

He turned his head and asked Gao Shiming, who stood in attendance beside him: "This Xiong Yuxuan — how was he dealt with?"

Gao Shiming bowed and replied: "In reply to His Majesty, the Ministry of Justice originally sentenced him to frontier exile according to the law. The late Emperor felt that insufficient to atone for his crime and issued a special decree for his execution. The sentence has already been carried out."

Only then did the fire in Zhu Youjian's heart ease somewhat. He picked up the vermilion brush and wrote "Approved as requested" on the memorial.

He then flipped through a dozen or so more. Most were trivial matters like dispatch requests and official transfers, making his temples throb.

He stood up to stretch his limbs, extended in a lazy stretch, and cast an inconspicuous glance at Gao Shiming beside him.

The man still stood like a wooden or clay statue, his face showing neither sorrow nor joy.

No wonder the Directorate of Ceremonial could rival the outer court — they were simply forced into it.

If the Depot and the Guard were the Emperor's hands, feet, ears, and eyes, then the Directorate of Ceremonial was his external brain.

After all, not everyone was like Zhu Yuanzhang, able to process two hundred routine memorials a day, year in and year out without fail.

Unwilling to delegate power to the civil officials, he could only delegate it to the inner palace servants.

But however useful this external brain might be, it could never be completely loyal.

Even if it were loyal, it would slowly develop its own selfish desires.

And those selfish desires would inevitably find their most comfortable space for rent-seeking, then gradually erode and expand it.

The affairs of this dynasty have always been thus, ever thus.

He sighed, suppressed these untimely thoughts for the moment, and buried his head once more in the routine memorials.

Even if changes were to be made, that was a matter for later. For now, he'd just get through what was in front of him.

Tomorrow, he'd still have to let the Directorate of Ceremonial help screen these routine memorials. Otherwise, if every day were like this, he truly wouldn't be able to get anything else done.

After who knows how long, just when his eyes had gone blank and his head was swimming, the title of one routine memorial jolted him instantly awake.

"Routine Memorial from Sun Guozhen, Governor of Denglai, Requesting Merits for Mao Wenlong of Dongjiang and Extolling the Depot Minister."

Oh ho, Mao Wenlong!

It's been several centuries since I last saw your name. I truly have missed you dearly.

His spirits lifted, and he hurriedly opened it.

The routine memorial contained a battle report requesting commendations for Mao Wenlong's great victory in the Dingmao Campaign.

The so-called Dingmao Campaign was the matter of the Later Jin Jurchens invading Joseon this past spring and summer.

As Zhu Youjian read through it, thoughts surged in his mind.

He had not expected that the first report concerning the Jurchens he received after his enthronement would come from Dongjiang, not from Ningyuan-Jinzhou.

This was the Dingmao Campaign!

Yet in the present Great Ming, apart from himself, not a single person realized what this signified.

They even still thought Dongjiang had won another great victory.

But this war, fought on Joseon soil, had profoundly influenced and driven the entire strategic situation under Heaven.

One must understand that the might of the Later Jin Jurchens was completely different from the might of traditional steppe tribes.

They had essentially already moved beyond the concept of pure nomadism, becoming a composite of nomadic and agrarian society.

Using the Han people of Liaodong as slaves to till the land and smelt iron,

they thereby gained the natural productivity advantage of agrarian civilization, allowing their provisions and military equipment to rival those of the Great Ming, even surpassing them in certain local aspects.

Using Jurchens, Mongols, and a minority of bondservants as soldiers devoted solely to campaigning,

bolstered by advantages in equipment and cavalry, and further augmented by the combat power derived from high-intensity training,

and upon these two foundations, superimposing the higher efficiency of their military-first system and the momentum of successive victories — it was all this that had forged the Jurchens' present might.

And in the Dingmao Campaign, the Jurchens had forced Joseon to sign a treaty under the walls of its capital,

which happened to alleviate their two current fatal weaknesses — provisions and Dongjiang.

From then on, the external environment of the Dongjiang Garrison deteriorated sharply, while the Jurchens obtained stable provisions from Joseon and were able to free their hands to confidently campaign westward against the Mongol tribes.

It was from this point onward that the "Jisi Incident" of the second year of Chongzhen became possible.

The Jurchens breached the Great Wall at three points along the Ji Garrison, their barbarian cavalry riding straight into the capital region, and the lamentations of the common people filled the land.

Then Yuan Chonghuan was executed by slow slicing, the Donglin faction was purged wholesale, the Depot and Guard rose again, the Restoration Society was founded in Jiangnan — until, in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, he hanged himself on Coal Hill.

And all of this — in truth, it all began with this very Dingmao Campaign.

Gao Shiming raised his head in puzzlement, looking at Zhu Youjian sitting there in a daze, not understanding why this memorial was taking so long to read.

He lifted his eyes for a glance and carved the name Sun Guozhen firmly into his memory.

Zhu Youjian continued leafing through the pages, and the weight of history was quickly replaced by baffled amusement.

Because this His Excellency Sun, Governor of Denglai, had filled the entire second half of his routine memorial with fawning flattery of Wei Zhongxian.

All about how we rally beneath the banner of the Depot Overseer, sparing no effort.

How the Depot Overseer sits high in the court, devising stratagems from his tent, deciding victory a thousand li away — and so on and so forth.

This was the classic political ecology of the Tianqi years.

No matter what you did, if you failed to credit the chief merit to Nine Thousand Years Wei Zhongxian, you were egregiously out of touch.

But conversely, so long as you brought in Wei Zhongxian, small faults became no fault, and small merit became great merit.

And if you could go further and build a few living shrines to Wei Zhongxian, kowtowing to him like an adopted son — then you would soar straight up ninety thousand li, and who under heaven would dare not know your name?

The more Zhu Youjian read, the more amused he became, until at last he could not hold back a great laugh.

He turned his head toward Gao Shiming. "This Sun Guozhen — what sort of man is he?"

It was not that he meant to punish him; he simply found this His Excellency Sun somewhat pitiable and somewhat ridiculous.

Wei Zhongxian's corpse had been cold for days now, and for him to submit a routine memorial at this moment — under any other emperor, that would be simply courting death.

Gao Shiming had no idea what Zhu Youjian was laughing at and could only reply cautiously.

"In reply to Your Majesty, Sun Guozhen is a jinshi of the forty-first year of Wanli."

"In the fourth year of Tianqi, he personally led several dozen ships to reinforce the Battle of Penghu, overcoming the red barbarians by force and restoring Penghu to the Great Ming's territory."

"Thereafter, when the court deliberation recommended a Governor of Denglai, this man was selected on the strength of that naval experience."

The smile on Zhu Youjian's face could not help but fade.

The affairs and people of this world are truly not a matter of simple black and white.

Who would have thought that this Governor of Denglai, this man who groveled and fawned upon the eunuch faction, had once been a warrior fighting foreign invaders on the Southern Seas!

The Southern Seas, the red barbarians, Zheng Zhilong…

Placed in an era of peace and prosperity, would any of these things not be great affairs?

It is only in these last years of a dynasty, when the divine land sinks beneath the waves, that they seem so utterly unremarkable.

He pondered in silence for a moment, then lifted his vermilion brush and wrote slowly upon the routine memorial: "The merit reported above, We have taken full note of. The Depot Overseer's past affairs — speak of them no more. May you, minister…"

He paused, then carefully wrote down a line of half-fluent, half-stumbling doggerel verse:

— Once more take up the Southern Seas' heroic spirit, and restore again Liaodong's ancient rivers and hills!