Chapter 1056: The Famous General Zhu Chunchen (Please Favorite)

"Rest assured, Your Majesty. With me commanding the troops in Gansu and Shaanxi, I will never let the roving bandits have their way."

Wu Sangui breathed a huge sigh of relief. He truly had sensed no malice in Zhu Cilang's words or expression. Most likely this emperor was simply overwhelmed with the myriad affairs of state and had no time to read proper histories, which was why he had mistaken the Romance of the Three Kingdoms tale of Sima Yi holding off Zhuge Liang for fact.

Zhu Cilang smiled and nodded. "We shall transfer three divisions to you. One is already in Shaanxi, and two more are entering the Pass. If that is not enough, you are authorized to draw troops from Anxi, Hexi, and Shuofang."

Wu Sangui hastily performed a salute and said, "Sending relief troops is like fighting a fire. I do not wish to delay and would like to return to Gansu and Shaanxi at once to take charge of military affairs."

Zhu Cilang waved a hand. "No rush, no rush. Stay two more days. We want to take you to see the new city of Tianjin. Did Sanmei mention it to you?"

By the time Wu Sangui reached the Tianjin bastion, Zhu Cilang was not inside the fortress. He had gone with Shi Kefa and Shen Tingyang to the newly enclosed Tianjin New City on the north bank of the Wei River — the future site of Tianjin municipality, the Ming's future center of rule in the north.

Zhu Cilang's approach to governing the country was not to put down roots in the countryside and then surround the cities. Rather, it was to use central cities to control transportation hubs and economic lifelines, and thereby control the countryside.

That was why he placed such special emphasis on building up central cities!

In the south, the places receiving priority attention were Nanjing, Shanghai, and Wuhan along the Yangtze, Guangzhou in the Pearl River basin, and Quanzhou in southern Fujian.

In the north, the areas Zhu Cilang currently had his eye on for major development were Tianjin and Tianhe (Yingkou) — two seaport-and-river-mouth regions where he planned to build two great metropolises.

In the direction of the Southern Seas, Zhu Cilang was also building Jin'ou City and Gold City, two seaport (river-mouth) cities commanding the Jiulong River and the Chao Phraya River.

And in North America, the priority was developing the America Prefecture.

In other words, the future ruling centers of the Great Ming Empire would be nine great metropolises: Nanjing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Quanzhou, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Tianhe, Jin'ou, and Gold City — and if possible, Malacca would of course have to be added as well. Ten great cities in all, situated along rivers and coasts, positioned on transportation hubs, each able to radiate over a vast region, would allow the Ming court to firmly control the entire Celestial Empire at an administrative cost it could bear. As for the rest of the empire, depending on economic development, it could be appropriately loosened, loosened further, or simply left alone!

A great empire, after all! How could it be without priorities? To hold everything firmly, to extend imperial power down to every village — the administrative costs could not be controlled, and the court would have far too many vexing matters to deal with!

"Your Majesty, Her Majesty the Empress said..." Wu Sangui said thoughtfully, "that you do not want my family buying land in Liaodong, and that you want my family to take two streets here in Tianjin?"

"Right, right," Zhu Cilang said with a smile. "Buying land in Liaodong won't make you money. You and your father are not cut out for trade, and you wouldn't know how to run a farm either. How could you manage such meticulous business? Don't sink a few hundred thousand taels into it and end up collecting hardly any rent. So We have set aside two streets for your family in Tianjin New City — one for you, one for Sanfu. Both are near the Wei River, and in the future they'll be fine locations close to the docks. They will certainly appreciate in value. But your family shouldn't try to manage them yourselves. Just cut them into parcels and rent them out. Remember, rent only, never sell. Once Tianjin develops, your family can make money lying down."

The Wu Sangui family could only make money lying down. If they were really left to run a business themselves, they would be guaranteed to lose money.

"I thank Your Majesty for this grace," Wu Sangui rose and performed a salute. "But I still wish to depart as soon as possible. As for the two streets in Tianjin New City, Your Majesty may assign them as you see fit — anywhere will do. I am no merchant, and I will follow Your Majesty's judgment in everything; it will surely not be wrong. But as for the war in Gansu and Shaanxi, Your Majesty must listen to me. You must not take it lightly!"

That was rather convenient — treating Zhu Cilang as the Wu family's manager.

Wu Sangui continued, "Your Majesty, the roving bandits of today are not the roving bandits of the Jing-Chu campaign! Since the bandits seized Bashu, Yunnan, and Guizhou, they have been governing diligently, modeling themselves on the Sui and Tang, channeling all profit through a single conduit, and building their state on farming and war. Now they have two to three hundred thousand battle-ready warriors in their whole country, every one of them delighted at the prospect of war! If I cannot hold them south of Mount Qi, San Pass, and the Baoxie Valley road, the consequences are too terrible to imagine. Perhaps the entire northwest will fall into enemy hands!"

Zhu Cilang indeed had not taken the Shun very seriously. In his view, although the Shun's strength was not weak, destroying them would be very difficult — two to three hundred thousand households of fubing troops sharing the Shun's fate, how could they be so easily wiped out? Mobilize those two to three hundred thousand households and five or six hundred thousand soldiers could be raised! On open plains, the Zhu Emperor could still rely on the Ming army's powerful cavalry formations to smash them. But the territory the Shun occupied was dense with mountains, and there would be no shortage of grueling mountain assaults to fight!

If they had to attack by force, the casualties would certainly not be small.

But he also did not believe that a counterattack from Bashu into the Guanzhong and Long regions could succeed. In history, apart from Han Xin pulling it off once, such a thing seemed never to have happened again.

"Since you, Sangui, are anxious to return to Gansu and Shaanxi, We shall not keep you." Zhu Cilang smiled. "We have already ordered two Arabian thousand-li horses prepared for you. Fine horses for a fine general — ride them back to Gansu and Shaanxi and take command!"

"I thank Your Majesty for the gift of horses!"

Wu Sangui gave thanks for the reward, received the imperial edict appointing him Governor-General of Gansu and Shaanxi, and hurriedly set out on the road west.

And no sooner had he left than another of the Great Ming's famous generals, Zhu Chunchen, came galloping on a fast horse all the way from Dagukou to the Tianjin bastion.

At the time of the Jiashen Catastrophe, Zhu Chunchen was already past forty. Now, fourteen years later, he was an "old man" in his fifties. But if you really put the Zhu Chunchen of today next to the Zhu Chunchen of fourteen years ago, as long as you didn't look at his face, he absolutely looked younger.

Fourteen years ago, Zhu Chunchen had been a fat, bulky fellow. He looked imposing, but strip off his clothes and you would find nothing but flab — of no great use at all.

But the Zhu Chunchen of today had slimmed down by more than a size and toughened up by more than a little. He was not one of those musclemen built in a gym, but his frame showed at a glance that he trained every day. Perhaps it was because when the Zhu Emperor first went south, he was truly short of generals, and so he threw Zhu Chunchen into the military camp. And the Ming army's new troops, under Zhu Cilang's urging, worked "997" every day. Zhu Chunchen might be a senior general, but he could not be too lazy either. Moreover, he had lived through the Jiashen Catastrophe, so naturally he had to push himself a bit harder, and so he trained along with everyone else. As he trained, he found his health improved, his appetite grew, and he even had more strength when holding hands with his concubines.

So he became addicted to training.

When the men below saw that even the Duke was working hard, they naturally felt too embarrassed to slack off and had no choice but to work hard along with him. Gradually, this Duke acquired a reputation for being skilled at managing troops.

Besides being skilled at managing troops, Zhu Chunchen was also discovered to be skilled at fighting!

Since the move south, he had been commanding troops at the front, and had clashed with the Qing army many times in Henan, Fengyang, and elsewhere — and had won every time!

Later, when the Zhu Emperor launched the great northern expedition, the Henan front was his responsibility, along with Wu Sanfu and Yan Yingyuan, commanding three great columns — and they won there too.

After that, he led troops into Shanxi to sweep away the remnants of the Qing, again winning every battle, extinguishing multiple centers of resistance and successfully recovering most of Shanxi (excluding Datong).

So by the end of the northern expedition, both the Marshal's Office and the Ministry of War considered Zhu Chunchen a commander of the highest caliber and unanimously recommended him as Governor-General of Liaodong.

Now he had come from Lüshun Prefecture, where the Liaodong Governor-General's yamen was located, to the Tianjin bastion for an audience with the emperor.

"Your subject, Governor-General of Liaodong Military Affairs, Duke of Kecheng, Zhu Chunchen, respectfully inquires after His Majesty's sacred well-being!"

Inside the Tianjin traveling palace, Zhu Chunchen's booming voice startled the Zhu Emperor, who was bent over the planning map of Tianjin New City. He looked up at the Duke, whose hair and beard were still jet-black and gleaming, though his face had darkened considerably and gained many more wrinkles, and suddenly recalled the scene years ago when he had frightened him with the imperial sword. He sighed and smiled. "If the Duke of fifteen years ago had possessed your present abilities, perhaps the Jiashen Catastrophe would never have happened?"

Zhu Chunchen gave a bitter smile at these words. "Without Your Majesty's urging, how could I have become what I am today? Without Your Majesty personally creating the Kecheng New Army, even if my ancestors were reborn, could they lead ragged, starving government troops to defeat such ferocious enemies?"

(End of Chapter)