Chapter 1216: Your Majesty, Do You Like Talented Ladies? (Seeking Subscriptions)

In this era, the course of war was usually rather slow. It was rare for fighting to break out the moment it was declared; from the two sides falling out and provoking each other to actually coming to blows could drag on for several months, and that was considered fast.

After all, mobilizing troops now depended mainly on marching, transmitting messages mainly on shouting, and scraping together supplies and provisions mainly on prying them from between the common people's teeth. Gathering over a hundred thousand men at the Samarkand oasis was enough to give Aurangzeb both a headache and a pain in the purse.

Of course, no matter how much it hurt, he could not back down!

If Persia and Russia had not sent troops, the old man might have shrunk back, and the newly submitted Arab Muslims of Transoxiana could probably have understood. But now that mighty Persia and Russia had both sent troops, how could the grand Timurid Empire retreat? If he slunk away in disgrace, he would be looked down upon by the Transoxiana Arab Muslims he had gone to such pains to win over.

So Aurangzeb could only grit his teeth and hold firm at the Samarkand oasis, and moreover he had to keep scattering money on a grand scale — only by scattering plenty of money could he invite the great armies of the Khanate of Khiva, the Persian state, and the Turkmen tribes to Samarkand!

Meanwhile, on the other side, Sengge's Dzungar Kingdom was also bustling with activity — strengthening fortifications and clearing the countryside, evacuating the old and weak, reinforcing the cities, stockpiling military supplies, and of course, seizing the time to train the hastily assembled great army. The rotating garrison troops, after all, had inevitably grown lax in training, so before battle they had to cram at the last minute and drill a bit.

In short, no troops could be dispatched for the time being — at least not before summer's end.

And the envoy sent by Sengge, Baha Bandi (son of Chokhur Ubashi), carrying Princess Nisha's golden slippers, portrait, and poetry collection, along with the Dzungar Kingdom's urgent dispatch, traveled day and night, covering nine thousand li in a month and a half, and arrived at the heart and nerve center of the Celestial Empire — the Old Mountain Palace in Yingtian Prefecture.

An urgent dispatch from a vassal state!

Naturally, nothing could be more urgent. After the Marshal's Office received the report from the Dzungar Kingdom's presentation office, it dared not delay, and immediately sent a memorandum to the Grand Secretariat, requesting Chief Grand Secretary Wei Zaode, together with the Marshal's Office military strategist Yan Yingyuan, to enter the palace and see the sovereign.

When Wei Zaode and Yan Yingyuan entered the Old Mountain Palace, Zhu Cilang, who handled ten thousand affairs a day, was riding on Old Mountain with Marie Mancini. They were riding two Andalusian horses that had just arrived from Spain — these two horses were gifts from Philip IV to the Ming Emperor on account of the signing of the Treaty of San Diego (Zhu Cilang likewise presented Philip IV with exquisite porcelain).

Strictly speaking, the Treaty of San Diego was not a treaty concluded between the Ming Empire and the Kingdom of Spain, but rather a treaty concluded among the United States of New Continent, the Kingdom of Jiaqing, and the Kingdom of New Spain. For Zhu Cilang, the conclusion of this treaty was beyond doubt a major victory. The status of the United States of New Continent and the Kingdom of Jiaqing in North America had been recognized by the Kingdom of New Spain,

and moreover these two Ming vassal states had also obtained the whole of California (including the Baja California peninsula)!

In addition, the Kingdom of New Spain also agreed to open Acapulco to the United States of New Continent and the Kingdom of Jiaqing on a limited basis — permitting no more than twenty-seven merchant ships of the United States of New Continent and the Kingdom of Jiaqing to enter the port of Acapulco each year. In exchange, America Bay, Gold Mountain Bay (San Francisco), and Qingfu Port (San Diego) would also be opened to ships of the Kingdom of New Spain, though the number of ships permitted to enter these ports each year was unrestricted (these three ports had been fully open all along).

Clearly, Philip IV had already sensed that his days were numbered, and had also perceived the surging ambition of his neighbor, Louis XIV of France. That was why he had no choice but to agree to the Treaty of San Diego, so as to concentrate the strength of the Kingdom of Spain for use in Europe.

This treaty had actually been signed the previous year, and the two Andalusian horses had long since been dispatched from Spain. But no sooner had they reached Zanzibar than they ran into the war between the Ming and the Dutch East India Company. So the merchant ship of the Yiguan Party trading house carrying the two Andalusian horses anchored at Zanzibar, and only after the Ming and the Dutch East India Company signed an armistice agreement was it able to continue its eastward return.

Of course, the armistice agreement was not the final peace treaty. The conditions Zhu Cilang had put forward — "buying shares in the East India Company," "freedom of navigation in the Southern Seas," and "joint development of Temasek Island" — had already been agreed to by the East India Company's Governor-General Maetsuycker, but had not yet been approved by the Dutch States General and the Amsterdam board of directors.

So now Maetsuycker and Wei Qingshan had left Batavia together and were on their way to the Netherlands.

Although the final peace treaty had not yet been signed, hostilities between the two sides had already ended — only the Ming and the Dutch had stopped fighting. Those few stubborn feudal lords of native states who had followed Dutch imperialism and betrayed the interests of the working people of Southeast Asia still had to be eliminated or driven out, so the war on the Malay Peninsula and the island of Sumatra continued.

It is worth mentioning that the war on the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra was not a "war of state" in the true sense, but rather Zhu Cilang's "private war."

Because the territory seized was all to be distributed to Zhu Cilang's sons as duchies, and these duchies were the private property of Zhu Cilang's sons, not the property of the Ming court, the expenses of the land war were all paid by Emperor Zhu out of the profits accumulated by the Royal Trading Company. The war at sea, however, was another matter — that was the Ming contending with the Dutch for maritime hegemony in the Southern Seas, beyond doubt a war of state, and of course the court had to foot the bill!

Emperor Zhu Cilang did a very fine job of keeping public and private finances strictly separate. But the most precious thing this emperor possessed was not money, but time!

Money could be divided into public and private, but time could not be so divided.

He had just used one duchy and one percent of the East India Company's shares to cheer up that little enchantress Mancini, when Huang Dabao brought him the memorial from Wei Zaode and Yan Yingyuan requesting an audience.

"My dear," Zhu Cilang could only give Mancini an apologetic smile, "go on ahead to the Pang family garden. I'll come find you once I've finished my official business."

Mancini pouted her little lips, looking somewhat displeased, but she still forced herself to nod. "Your Majesty, I shall wait for you."

"Good, good, good." Zhu Cilang said to Huang Dabao, "Dabao, escort Marie back."

With that, he rode off on the Andalusian horse beneath him, taking a few guards, and headed straight for the Hall of Imperial Supremacy. By the time he reached the Hall of Imperial Supremacy, the sky had already darkened somewhat. Wei Zaode and Yan Yingyuan, along with a dark, gaunt Mongol (exhausted to that state) who kept yawning, saw the Emperor striding toward them and hurriedly rose to salute.

Wei Zaode and Yan Yingyuan performed the bow with clasped hands, while the Mongol knelt and kowtowed.

"Rise, rise," Zhu Cilang waved his hand. "No need to kneel. All of you, sit and speak."

Wei Zaode and Yan Yingyuan both sat down with easy confidence. Only the Mongol — the Dzungar Kingdom's envoy Baha Bandi — remained standing there alone, looking extremely ill at ease.

"What is the matter?" Zhu Cilang did not invite Baha Bandi to sit, but instead opened his mouth and asked.

"Your Majesty, someone has declared war on us!"

Yan Yingyuan's first words startled Zhu Cilang.

"Declared war? Who!" Zhu Cilang asked.

Baha Bandi interjected: "Your Majesty, it is Aurangzeb of the Timurid Empire who has declared war on us!

He — he has even sent Your Majesty a pair of slippers!"

"What? Slippers?" Zhu Cilang was taken aback, and his face immediately turned livid. He remembered the business of Aurangzeb's elephant delivering slippers — the Ming and the Indian state sometimes exchanged envoys, so he knew just how overbearing this Indian "Great Emperor" was!

"What colossal gall!" Zhu Cilang was furious.

"Your Majesty," Yan Yingyuan, standing to the side and holding a box, saw Zhu Cilang's anger and knew he had misunderstood. He quickly presented the box. "The slippers are here. Please take a look."

"Take a look? You—" Zhu Cilang glared at Yan Yingyuan. "A stinking slipper — take it out and throw it away!"

"It doesn't stink," Yan Yingyuan said.

"You smelled it?" Zhu Cilang was almost angered into laughter.

"I haven't smelled it. It was sent to you." As he spoke, Yan Yingyuan had already removed the lid of the box with one hand, then held the box up with one hand and brought it before Zhu Cilang's eyes.

Emperor Zhu glanced at it and was momentarily stunned. "This is Aurangzeb's shoe? Why does it look like a woman's shoe?"

"Your Majesty, this is from Aurangzeb's daughter," Wei Zaode now also rose, and with a smile unfurled Princess Nisha's portrait. "The slippers and portrait sent to you by Princess Nisha, the beautiful and brilliant foremost talented lady of India, along with a poetry collection by the Princess."

(End of Chapter)