Chapter 1140: Great Ming Samurai

"Your Majesty, Consort He and Xu Zhengjing have arrived together and are waiting for an audience outside the Gate of Imperial Supremacy."

A palace attendant appeared without a sound, announced this one line, then stood with hands lowered, awaiting the Zhu Emperor's verbal instruction.

The Zhu Emperor was sketching, standing before an easel with a pencil in his hand. Sitting across from him on a chair as his model was a white girl of the utmost beauty. Her eyes were a deep azure, her golden hair fell in natural waves like billows, her features were gorgeous as if carved from ice and snow, her red lips pressed tightly together, and a rosy flush showed on her cheeks, making her look shy and bashful.

This was a Russian girl named Natalie, only sixteen this year, yet already full-figured and alluring—an excellent model. Earlier, Zhu Cilang had mistakenly suspected her of being a Russian spy and had her brought into the palace for questioning. Only after the interrogation did he realize it was a misunderstanding, so he kept her in the palace as a dedicated model.

Oh, and this was done with Natalie's consent properly sought—the Zhu Emperor had asked her whether she would rather go keep company with a fifty-year-old old grandpa, or stay by the side of the supreme ruler of the Celestial Empire.

Natalie did not understand Chinese, and Zhu Cilang could not speak Turkish or Russian either, but he still read her wishes from the Russian girl's eyes. As the Son of Heaven, he at least had that much discernment.

"Natalie," Zhu Cilang said with a smile, "let's stop here for today."

With that, Zhu Cilang handed the pencil to an elderly "senior palace lady" standing nearby. This old dame was surnamed Cao, a childless widow from Cao Huachun's clan, introduced into the palace by Cao Wenbao to serve as a senior palace lady.

These "senior palace ladies" were meant to replace eunuchs. After the Zhu Emperor established his capital at Nanjing, the eunuch system began its decline. But Zhu Cilang did not issue a single edict driving all the eunuchs out—drive them out to starve? That would not do either, and the palace still needed them to handle affairs.

So abolishing the eunuch system was a gradual process. First, no new eunuchs were recruited.

Second, the role of eunuchs changed—they were no longer menial laborers in the palace, but became officials of the court. That is to say, no new ones were taken in, but the old ones had their status raised and their functions strengthened.

This was because Zhu Cilang had relied on eunuch strength in his early years. He had a batch of "hardship eunuchs" under him, and he had to look after their interests.

Moreover, before a balance formed between the hardship merit-noble bloc and the examination-bureaucrat bloc, Zhu Cilang still needed the inner-court eunuchs to play the role of a key counterweight in the power game.

Third, of course, was finding replacements for eunuchs. What could replace eunuchs was naturally palace ladies. But the Zhu Emperor was not willing to recruit young maidens into the palace as palace ladies—what he wanted were old dames for rough work, not pleasing young misses.

So now the Zhu Emperor's palace ladies were basically all elderly widows, especially destitute widows with no one to rely on. Zhu Cilang had even set up a retirement home for them. When they could no longer work, they went there to be cared for, with food and drink and someone to see them off at the end, and they could even be buried beside the imperial mausoleum. The treatment was not bad.

After dismissing Old Dame Cao and Natalie, Zhu Cilang instructed the eunuch: "Have Tokugawa Taka and Xu Zhengjing wait in the Western Warm Pavilion of the Yan Mountain Palace."

Tokugawa Taka was Consort He, counted among the Nine Consorts.

Now her father, Hoshina Masayuki, had become the lord of Kyushu, Xu Zhengzhi—a descendant of Xu Fu, one might say!

In terms of lineage, he now stood higher than the Tokugawa main house!

So the young lady Taka's status had risen with the tide as well. She had become a consort of the Zhu Emperor and counted as a figure of some standing in the rear palace.

Xu Zhengjing was Hoshina Masanori. This time he had come along with Tokugawa Mitsukuni's embassy. Apart from offering congratulations on the Chongzhen Retired Emperor's fiftieth birthday, he was here to report to Zhu Cilang on the organization and training of the "Great Ming Samurai Corps."

After the dust settled in Japan's civil war, the samurai recruited with Great Ming funds had all been concentrated in Kyushu, with Xu Zhengjing as their supreme commander, responsible for training and reorganization.

"Your Majesty, the samurai corps is now roughly divided into two parts. One part is the elite Red Iron Gunners! Ten thousand men in all, all equipped with flintlocks, drilled hard in loading and bayonet work. In training, they can complete three shots within a minute.

The other part is Japan's traditional ban regiments, made up of matchlock gunners, pikemen, and archers, with a small number of mounted samurai as well. Sixty thousand in all! Divided into ten great ban, each ban six thousand strong!"

The one speaking now was Xu Zhengjing. He had changed into Ming official robes and sat upright across from the Zhu Emperor, hands on his knees, looking somewhat ill at ease.

Dividing the samurai corps into the Red Iron Gunner Army and the Great Ban Army was Zhu Cilang's idea. After learning how formidable the Red Iron Gunners were, the Zhu Emperor had decided to make good use of them.

In Zhu Cilang's view, his Nine Frontiers Youth Army and Japan's Red Iron Gunners were very likely the most formidable flintlock units of this era.

It was hard to say which was superior; the key lay in how they were employed.

The Nine Frontiers Youth Army followed the elite-troop path: good at night fighting, good at skirmishing, good at forced marches, and swift and agile in movement on the battlefield.

The Red Iron Gunners followed the all-out path: they could press a fierce assault against enemy fire—when two forces meet in a narrow pass, the brave win!

So both of these elite forces had to be kept firmly in hand and deployed to the most critical battlefields.

And for the Great Ming Empire, the most critical future battlefield was of course the Americas. In the Southern Ocean, they could first deal with the Dutchmen's running dogs without tearing their face off with the Dutch, because in Europe there was still a Louis XIV! He was now building up his army on a grand scale and would sooner or later strike at the Dutch homeland itself.

When the time came, they could decide whether to seize Batavia based on the situation in Europe.

So sending the Japanese samurai ban regiments to the Southern Ocean would be enough—send sixty thousand, and an estimated thirty thousand would die of disease. The remainder could be enfeoffed in Patani, Perak, and Johor, and a few could even be squeezed onto Luzon.

Of course, the important cities, ports, and islands would not be given away. What they could be given was the vast countryside. Once they had pacified those places, the Zhu Emperor would enfeoff as kings the children he had begotten with those two Japanese beauties, Taka and Miho.

As for the American theater, because the distance was too great, transport costs too high, and logistical supply capacity limited, only elite troops could be used.

"Zhengjing," Zhu Cilang said, "We have other uses for the Red Iron Gunners. For the Southern Ocean expedition, use only the ban regiments! Are you willing to lead the troops on this campaign?"

"This subject is willing to go to war!" Xu Zhengjing said loudly.

"Good!" Zhu Cilang nodded approvingly. "We hereby appoint you General Who Subdues the Savages, under the command of the Western Ocean Military Commissioner, the Commandery Prince of Luokun."

Zhu Cizhao had been entrusted with a heavy responsibility this time as well!

Zhu Cilang had originally looked down on him, but this fellow had great fortune and a great destiny, always finding noble patrons to help him. That too was a kind of ability!

And Zhu Cizhao had another virtue: he listened to advice. That is, he was good at accepting remonstrance, and he knew which "remonstrance" was right and which was wrong.

In this he was better than Chongzhen!

So the supreme command of the Southern Ocean campaign could go to him. With Zhang Yong, Xu Zhengjing, Shi Lang (in charge of the navy), and others assisting, things basically could not go wrong.

"Your Majesty," Xu Zhengjing seemed somewhat eager to march, "when may this subject lead the troops out?"

Zhu Cilang looked at him. "What? In a hurry?"

Xu Zhengjing nodded and said, "This subject is not in a hurry, but the men below are. The royal court in Tokyo is even more so!"

Japan now had a Tokyo—it was Edo, the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate.

After Tokugawa Mitsukuni married Queen Meisho, the court and the military were fully merged, and Kyoto was no longer suitable to serve as Japan's nominal capital—name and substance needed to be united, so Japan's capital was moved to Edo, and Edo was renamed Tokyo. And the shogunate, after absorbing a portion of the court officials, was reorganized into the Japanese royal court.

This royal court was, of course, extremely worried about the seventy-thousand-strong samurai corps in the hands of Xu Zhengzhi and Xu Zhengjing, father and son!

"We understand!" Zhu Cilang said with a smile. "Once you return to your country, begin the deployment. But a seventy-thousand-strong army cannot be shipped out all at once. It will probably take two or three years to finish transporting them. You must tell them to have a little patience!"

(End of Chapter)