Chapter 1188: The Shun Are Truly Benevolent and Righteous!

Li Guo, the sixty-three-year-old Shun Emperor, had spent the past two years living on the scenic Wuhua Mountain in Kunming and had not returned to Sichuan.

The reason he did not return to Sichuan was not that he was too old to travel, but that he had grown to dislike Sichuan more and more, because the Sichuan of today gave him a feeling of déjà vu everywhere he went — a feeling that came from his youth and boyhood!

Back then, although the realm had already shown signs of disorder, it had still been broadly stable. Li Guo, at the very bottom of society, and his Imperial Father Li Zicheng, two years his junior, had struggled bitterly in hopeless poverty. But no matter how they struggled, life only grew harder.

When he toured Sichuan, Li Guo, high and exalted, seemed to see countless versions of himself — ragged, gaunt-faced, possessing nothing but youth, without the slightest hope of rising, even worse off than he and Li Zicheng had been in their youth.

Because when he and Li Zicheng were young, the ones lording it over them had been mere xiucai and juren, bullying people on the strength of their utterly useless examination degrees.

But in Sichuan today, those riding on the necks of the poor laborers were blue-uniformed garrison soldiers with sharp blades at their waists!

These garrison soldiers might only be able to hold their ground against the Ming army, hard-pressed to strike back, but pressing down on the poor men of Sichuan, they could guarantee those men would never rise again.

Li Guo had thought he was building a fine world on earth where all poor scholars of the realm could be well fed and clothed, yet he had never imagined that this fine world was turning, at a speed he could scarcely conceive, into a hell for the working people.

Moreover, Li Guo had discovered that as Emperor he simply had no way to change the ever-worsening plight of Sichuan's poor laborers.

Because the blue-uniformed garrison soldiers oppressing them had been brought to Sichuan by him, the Emperor, and were moreover the ruling foundation of the Shun regime.

Li Guo now understood why Zhu Yuanzhang in his old age had executed so many meritorious officials and civil officials — it was not necessarily to remove potential threats for Zhu Yunwen. If it had been only for Zhu Yunwen, killing a few ringleaders would have sufficed; why implicate so many?

Besides, killing so many civil officials was even more unnecessary — civil officials could not usurp Zhu Yunwen's throne.

What Zhu Yuanzhang did was most likely because he saw the people below gorging on the flesh and fat of the common folk. If he did not kill them, the common people would suffer too bitterly!

Now Li Guo saw the people of Sichuan growing ever more miserable, and saw the eight deliberative princes and the crowd of meritorious officials and fierce generals below growing ever fatter, and he too wished he could seize a butcher's blade and slaughter them all.

But he could not!

He was not the Ming founder; he had not unified the realm. That Ming dynasty, which had come within a hair's breadth of being beaten to death by his "little father" Li Zicheng, had now revived. And it had revived so vigorously that it was pressing the Shun dynasty on the battlefield!

To withstand the Ming offensive, he had to let that gang of meritorious officials, fierce generals, and garrison soldiers drink the people's blood and eat the people's flesh. Otherwise the Shun dynasty would cease to exist!

Faced with this situation he could not stomach and was powerless to change, Li Guo could only choose to escape, hiding away in Yunnan, where the conflict between people and land was relatively mild, seeking peace and quiet on the scenic Wuhua Mountain.

Now he scarcely managed state affairs at all, leaving the daily business to the Crown Prince Li Laiheng, while he himself handled only matters of exceptional importance that concerned the fate and future of the nation.

Such days, in truth, passed quite pleasantly.

Today, when the Crown Prince Li Laiheng came up Wuhua Mountain to pay his respects, the old Emperor was holding a stack of outdated newspapers and slowly leafing through them — these newspapers had all been gathered from the Ming side by officials of the Shun Ministry of Revenue in charge of trade, and they carried many items great and small about conditions within Ming territory, allowing him to learn a little about the situation of his adversary.

Conditions on the Ming side looked far better than on the Shun side — not that the poor of Ming lived better, but that there was hope, there was something to strive for!

There were too many opportunities to rise: within the country there were all sorts of businesses one could run, one could study and advance, one could join the army. Fair it certainly was not, but one could not say the poor had no chance, could one?

If one could not make it at home, one could go to the America Prefecture to hunt sable or open up land, and recently there was even word that someone had discovered gold in the California Prefecture next to the America Prefecture.

If one found sable-trapping and gold-panning could earn money but not rank and honor, then the opportunities of the twelve dukedoms of the Southern Seas beckoned — opening new territory, winning merit and building a career!

In short, on the Ming side, anyone willing to stir up trouble could always find somewhere to exhaust his energies, letting him stir to his heart's content!

And those who lay flat and did not stir — presumably they could not overturn the Ming's heaven either!

With a slap, Li Guo tossed the stack of newspapers onto a low table before him, then raised his eyes to look at the "old Crown Prince" Li Laiheng, already past forty.

"Laiheng, you've come. Is there something to report? The war in the north is still steady, I trust?"

Li Laiheng smiled and handed a memorial to Li Guo with both hands: "Ada, nothing in the north — perfectly stable. Prince Li Jin's skill in command goes without saying. This is a memorial from that boy Jicheng. Take a look."

Li Guo waved his hand. "Won't look, won't look. What good could that brat have to say? Either he's disparaging the old brothers or boasting about the new army. How many battles has he even fought? And he dares talk like that! If you didn't spoil him, I'd have stripped him of his title as heir long ago!"

In truth, the reason Li Guo disliked Li Jicheng was not at all what he said, but that Li Jicheng was "too aristocratic" — he had no regard whatsoever for the common people!

This was something Li Guo, of lowly origin, found utterly intolerable.

"Ada," Li Laiheng, knowing his father's mind, said with a smile, "young people nowadays are all like this. They haven't suffered hardship or poverty as we did in our youth. They were born into wealth and rank, so it's only natural they look down on common folk."

"They've forgotten their roots! Forgotten their roots!" Li Guo cursed twice. "Weren't I and the late Emperor common folk back then? When I was little, our family was poor. Your grandfather favored my ada, and often took my food to let him eat his fill."

In fact, both he and Li Laiheng misunderstood the generation of Shun successors represented by Li Jicheng. The reason they looked down on the working people was simply that they had been born into a rigidly hierarchical feudal state.

The Shun hierarchy was far more rigid than that of the neighboring Ming!

The Ming nobility was just a tiny handful of people, and moreover it demoted with each generation. Even the hardship-defying merit nobles, whose titles did not demote, could pass their title to only one son; all other sons began as commoners. Compared with ordinary people, their only advantage was that their fathers were wealthier and could provide a better education.

Thus Ming inequality was mainly inequality of property and inequality of education — not inequality of bloodline, and still less a monopoly over the channels of advancement. Ming society was too dynamic, with too many opportunities; monopolizing the channels of advancement was impossible.

But in the Shun, where "all benefits flowed from a single source," the paths were few, opportunities too scarce, and garrison soldiers too numerous — monopoly was unavoidable!

Li Laiheng had no wish to argue with his father. In any case, his position as Crown Prince could not be changed (Li Guo's very throne had been put there by him), and once his Imperial Father became the late Emperor, the old man would have no say in whom he chose to succeed.

"Ada, what Jicheng reports this time is a matter of importance!"

"A matter of importance?" Li Guo started, then took the memorial, opened it, and as he read, his graying brows gradually drew together.

"Ada, the opportunity is rare!" Li Laiheng said. "Once we take Arakan, our room to maneuver grows considerably, and we can also befriend the Kingdom of India."

"Would that not be improper?" Li Guo hesitated. "Would it not be too dishonorable?"

"Ada," Li Laiheng laughed, "what are you saying? What honor or dishonor? We are not wandering the jianghu now — you are the Emperor!"

Li Guo frowned. "But they also want my daughter. Is that not harming my daughter?"

"Ada, marriage alliances and peace through marriage have existed since antiquity." Li Laiheng said, "If you cannot bear it, I will have Jicheng send a fake to fool the King of Arakan."

"That... I suppose it must be so!" Li Guo said. "Still, I am somewhat uneasy. Laiheng, go to Burma yourself. Enter Arakan personally. Remember, you must practice benevolence and righteousness to win the people's hearts. Under no circumstances may you slaughter the innocent. The bitter lesson we suffered in Siam must never be repeated."

"Ada, rest assured, I understand everything!"

(End of Chapter)