Chapter 1081: The Celestial Empire Cries for Help! (Please Subscribe)

With the heads of Dodo and his son delivered to the Tianjin traveling palace, the Liaodong campaign could be considered basically over. It was only "basically" over because a military victory still needed to be secured by sensible political arrangements. And the sensible political arrangement was, of course, to implement second-tier feudalism in Jianzhou and Heilongjiang.

There was nothing to debate about the Jianzhou Military Governor and the Heilongjiang Military Governor — in the future they would certainly bear the surname Zhu. Even if Ajige and Dongzhu produced no more sons, the Zhu Emperor had sons enough. If there truly were not enough, the Chongzhen Retired Emperor would be more than willing to send his own sons to Jianzhou and Heilongjiang.

But the Zhu family could not swallow all the benefits of Jianzhou and Heilongjiang. If they took everything, who would serve as their running dogs? Such a vast, sparsely populated, bitterly cold land could not be governed entirely by rotating civil officials, could it? That sort of place was not something ordinary civil officials could handle — it required capable men who could cut people down on horseback and swindle them once dismounted. Where was the Zhu Emperor supposed to find so many of those?

So Zhu Cilang still had to keep making use of those Manchu nobles. Not only would he use the Manchu nobles, but in the future he would also need Mongol nobles and the lama grandees of the snowy plateau, and perhaps nobles from other places as well who would follow the Great Ming Celestial Empire — for who was it that wanted to revive the Celestial Empire? If he threw away the Celestial Empire and lived a small life for himself, becoming a self-contained nation-state, it would not be so troublesome.

Of course, once the Celestial Empire was thrown away, the circle of Chinese civilization would be gone. And the circles of Islamic and Christian civilization would seize the chance to expand, ultimately surrounding Chinese civilization.

If this were the late Qing, abandoning the illusory Celestial Empire and becoming a nation-state would be a fairly pragmatic choice.

But what Zhu Cilang ruled was a Great Ming Celestial Empire already on the road to capitalism! Its population, tax revenue, and GDP exceeded those of the Christian and Islamic circles combined.

Under such circumstances, voluntarily shrinking the circle of civilization would be irresponsible to future generations.

And the problem Wei Zheng spoke of — that the barbarians "when strong, turn to banditry; when weak, grovel in submission" — was something the Zhu Emperor could not ignore. After weighing the matter again and again, the Zhu Emperor took the Tokugawa shogunate's methods, modified them, and put them to use.

Stone from another mountain can polish jade. Although the historical Tokugawa house produced many good-for-nothing shoguns, the old turtle who founded the shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu, was absolutely a shrewd one, and the second-generation shogun Hidetada and third-generation shogun Iemitsu were both masters at keeping the domains in line. With the methods those three generations worked out, was he afraid he could not handle the Manchu and Mongol grandees? The Great Ming Celestial Empire's military superiority over the Manchus and Mongols was far greater than the Tokugawa shogunate's over the powerful southwestern domains. Was he afraid he could not manage them?

Of course, the Tokugawa shogunate's methods also had their failures — for example, the Tokugawa shogunate itself was on the verge of failing right now!

"Your Majesty, the present war situation in Japan is greatly unfavorable to the Tokugawa shogunate! After the Battle of Kagoshima Bay, large numbers of surviving Spanish soldiers fled ashore and promptly joined the Shimazu army. Later, the Shimazu family also salvaged a batch of cannon from Kagoshima Bay, refitted them, and put them to use in land warfare. Although these Spaniards are sailors, they are also skilled in land combat, especially adept with firearms, and well versed in siegecraft. With their help, the Shimazu army's strength has greatly increased. First they defeated the pro-Tokugawa coalition of Kuroda, Nabeshima, and Tachibana in several battles on Kyushu, pushing the front to the vicinity of Nagasaki. Then they crossed the sea to Honshu and, at the Battle of Hagi Castle, defeated the shogunate army commanded by the Aizu domain lord Hoshina Masayuki, and pressed on into the territory of the Hiroshima domain. When this subject left Japan, the Toyotomi army, with the Shimazu and Mori forces as its main strength, had already besieged Hiroshima Castle, the domain seat of the Hiroshima domain. There were also rumors that the Asano family of Hiroshima had already gone over to the Toyotomi side."

The man reporting the situation in Japan to the Zhu Emperor inside the Tianjin traveling palace was Wei Zaode, just returned from Japan. This "Great Ming Zhuge Liang" was supposed to have made a tour of the Americas, but instead he had lingered in Japan, unwilling to travel east, claiming to be gravely ill. But in reality? Looking at him now — ruddy-faced and full of vigor — where was the slightest trace of illness?

Moreover, the Zhu Emperor had also received reports that during Wei Zaode's time in Japan, far from falling ill, he had fathered quite a few sons and daughters. It seemed the Tokugawa shogunate had taken very good care of him!

But Zhu Cilang did not get angry, because when old Wei returned home he had brought that Tokugawa Taka back with him — a tall Japanese beauty, and so pretty too. Truly a rarity.

Besides, the Zhu Emperor also knew that old Lu Zhenfei was about at the end of his rope, and Wei Zaode would have to be put back into the furnace to serve as Chief Grand Secretary again. The post of Chief Grand Secretary in the Great Ming was not an easy one now, because below him were the richest man Zheng and the second-richest man Shen, and above him was the richest of all, Zhu!

The two below had to be kept in check just right, and the one above must not be troubled constantly by court affairs. Zhu Cilang governed by grasping the big and letting go of the small — he concerned himself only with strong troops and ample money, and let go of everything else as much as possible. So there had to be a Chief Grand Secretary who could handle the miscellaneous work, and that Chief Grand Secretary could not be a southerner.

Because the richest man Zheng and the second-richest man Shen were both southerners, and among the Grand Secretaries there was also Foreign Minister Luo Dagong, and that old undying Donglin leader and Minister of Rites Qian Qianyi was also a southerner. If another southerner became Chief Grand Secretary, the north-south balance would be broken.

"I never expected those Spanish sailors to be so formidable in land combat," Zhu Cilang muttered, then turned to look at Hoshina Masatsune, who had come in together with Wei Zaode. He was Taka's full brother, and looked thoroughly proper and serious — Hoshina Masayuki really knew how to name his children! The daughter was named Taka, and she grew up tall. The son was named Masatsune, and he certainly looked proper and serious.

Now that his father had been beaten again and again by the Shimazu family, he had no choice but to use the occasion of escorting his sister for her marriage to beg the Zhu Emperor for help.

"Masatsune!" Zhu Cilang called Hoshina Masatsune by name. "Has the Tokugawa shogunate agreed to designate Nagasaki-machi and the Goto Islands as Princess Taka's domain?"

Taka should have come to the Great Ming long ago. The reason she had been delayed all this time was that Zhu Cilang had demanded Nagasaki, the Goto Islands, and Tanegashima as Princess Taka's "bath-fief."

This was something the Tokugawa house found hard to accept. After all, Princess Taka's "bath-fief" would in practice be Zhu Cilang's territory. The matter was equivalent to the Tokugawa house ceding Japanese land to the Great Ming.

So the two sides had been haggling over these territories, and Princess Taka could only wait in Nagasaki. It was not until Hoshina Masayuki's crushing defeat at the Battle of Hagi Castle that they were forced to make substantive concessions — the shogunate demanded the return of Tanegashima to the Goto family as their fief, and then would hand over the Goto Islands and Nagasaki to the Great Ming (which in fact were already in Great Ming hands), and moreover not as the personal domain of Tokugawa Taka alone.

"Your Majesty," Hoshina Masatsune, who had already learned Chinese in Nagasaki, now spoke with Zhu Cilang in Chinese, "the shogunate holds that the lands of Nagasaki and Goto may serve as the bath-fief of all Tokugawa princesses who enter the Great Ming court in the future, not as the bath-fief of Princess Taka alone."

"That works too." Zhu Cilang nodded. "In that case, We can recruit some Kyushu samurai in Nagasaki to form a new army to aid the shogunate. Masatsune, you are Princess Taka's elder brother — why not serve as the Nagasaki New Army's bugyo?"

"The Nagasaki New Army?" Hoshina Masatsune was taken aback. "Your Majesty, is this army a shogunate force?"

"Of course not," Zhu Cilang said. "This army will be supported by the taxes of Nagasaki-machi, so naturally it is Princess Taka's army. And after they complete their mission of aiding the shogunate, they will be used for other purposes as well — for example, the campaign to besiege Manila."

Using Japanese mercenaries in the war in the Southern Ocean was, of course, not proper. But the reality facing the Zhu Emperor was thorny.

In field operations in the Southern Ocean, the probability of contracting epidemic disease was simply too high — besieging cities and storming forts could not be done inside relatively clean cities! And the most fearsome enemy in the Southern Ocean, malaria, was spread by mosquito bites, so troops fighting in the field were far too easily infected. If an army had to carry out prolonged siege works and combat beneath castle walls, a death rate of one-third from disease would really not be much! Zhu Cilang could not bear to send large numbers of expensive Ming troops to fight in the Southern Ocean. If a hundred thousand or eighty thousand died of disease, the land needed for their pensions alone would amount to millions or tens of millions of mu. So better to use cheap and effective Japanese mercenaries!

In any case, Japan had no shortage of ronin, and the Tokugawa house would not grieve over a few more dead.

(End of Chapter)