Chapter 1372: Where Is Hope? Hope Is in the Distance!

In the summer of the twenty-first year of Hongxing of the Great Ming, on the tenth day of the fifth month.

On the main streets of Pukou in Yingtian Prefecture, they were already packed full of common folk dressed in their finest clothes — not ordinary common folk, of course, but Pukou people who lived at the feet of the Son of Heaven. Most of them were "hard-work heroes" or "hard-work descendants" who had endured hardship and built the nation together with Zhu Cilang, or at the very least "righteous people" or "descendants of the righteous."

The Great Ming realm had a small share that belonged to them too!

Pukou City, where the hard-work heroes and hard-work descendants lived together, was of course the best-built city in the entire Great Ming dynasty. The streets, built under Zhu Cilang's personal planning, were all broad and level, with drainage ditches on both sides of the roads, all covered over with stone slabs. Rows upon rows of weeping willows had also been planted along both sides of the streets.

Besides the beautiful and perfectly straight streets, large stretches of handicraft districts, port districts, and thriving commercial districts had also appeared in the part of Pukou City near the Yangtze River.

This city, facing Nanjing across the river, was now faintly showing signs of being able to stand as an equal rival to the prosperous and wealthy Jinling on the opposite bank.

Since the day before yesterday, the people of Pukou and of Nanjing across the river had known that their wise sovereign, the Hongxing Emperor, had defeated the roving bandits who had thrown the realm into chaos for more than thirty years, and was returning in triumph. Although one corner of Yunnan had not yet been recovered, how many more days could the roving bandits who had lost Sichuan Province keep hopping about? And the roving bandits driven into the single province of Yunnan (the common folk ignored Burma) could at most amount to a Kingdom of Dali. When the old Kingdom of Dali still existed, wasn't the Northern Song also a golden age of peace? Moreover, the Great Ming was temporarily missing one Yunnan, but had gained countless inner dependencies and outer vassals. Because the territory was too large, it could no longer be drawn on a map, and had to be drawn on a globe instead. Truly a golden age unprecedented since ancient times!

Judging by the present situation, the Great Ming dynasty's lifespan might well continue for another 279 years — that would make a 581-year feudal dynasty. Although it could not compare to the Zhou dynasty's eight-hundred-year realm, it still surpassed the four hundred-plus years of the Western and Eastern Han!

Quite a few learned men who understood the heavens above and the earth below had already taken the pulse of the present Great Ming dynasty. The Great Ming after the Jiashen southward relocation and the one before it were no longer the same thing. The previous Great Ming, with Beijing as the residence of the Son of Heaven, was equivalent to the Western Han; this present Great Ming, returned to Nanjing, was equivalent to the Eastern Han.

Although the Great Ming realm would eventually come to an end, for the people living in this age, at least they could be born amid hardship and die in peace and comfort.

For people who had lived through an age of chaos and then begun a new life full of hope once more, could there be anything more joyful than this?

So the whole of Pukou was now emptied of its people. The procession welcoming the triumphant army stretched from the Pukou docks all the way to the gate of Laoshan Palace, waiting for the Great Ming Hongxing Son of Heaven, Zhu Cilang, and his triumphant army returning to Yingtian Prefecture by the Yangtze water route. This triumphant army was also the army of Pukou's own sons and brothers!

But beyond the expectations of these Pukou people who had come of their own accord to welcome the imperial procession, the great host returning in triumph with Emperor Zhu was actually so enormous!

There were not only expeditionary officers and soldiers in black and red uniforms, but also countless men and women, old and young, dressed in washed-out blue cloth garments. These "blue-clad people" and the Ming army soldiers were marching in alternating sections — often two Ming infantry battalions with several thousand men, women, old and young mixed together between them, the blue-clad people carrying a great deal of luggage and supporting one another as they walked.

These blue-clad people and the Ming soldiers flanking them had not disembarked from the Pukou docks either, but had come on foot or horseback along the long levee road on the north bank of the river, surging in from the Xijiang docks west of Pukou City. Before the Great Ming Son of Heaven's carriage came ashore, they had first entered the flourishing and prosperous place at the feet of the Son of Heaven.

Like the people at the feet of the Son of Heaven in every dynasty past, the Pukou people were also full of curiosity about state affairs, and moreover were widely experienced, well-informed, and fond of asking one another for news.

"What exactly is the background of these blue-clad people? Why are they so disorderly, old and young, men and women all mixed together?"

"What people? Did you see what color clothes they're wearing?"

"Blue clothes!"

"Heh heh, then do you know what sort of people over in Sichuan get to wear blue clothes?"

"Sichuan... ah, the roving bandits favor blue! The roving bandits' military farming households all wear blue clothes. Could they be—"

"They're the roving bandits' military farming households! After the court's great army entered Sichuan, many of the roving bandits' military farming households had no way out and had no choice but to accept amnesty and surrender to the government troops, so they were brought to Pukou."

"Brought to Pukou for what? These scourges ought to all be killed!"

"Right! Back then the Xi bandit pretended to accept amnesty, then later found a chance to rebel again and drove Xiong Wencan to his death! Isn't the court afraid these bandits will rebel again?"

"They can't rebel anymore! Look, those people have all been disarmed, and are being escorted by government troops, just waiting to be sent into exile!"

"Exile? Sent where?"

"To Xinzhou and Liaoyang, of course, by ship! See those sand-boats crowded at the Dongjiang docks? Those are what will be used to send these blue-clad bandits out to sea. Once they go out to sea, they'll never come back!"

"Good that they can't come back, good that they can't come back... then the realm can be at peace!"

Never going back again!

Never going back to Shizhu County with its beautiful mountains and clear waters...

Somehow, Du Mulan, who in the past had not particularly loved her hometown of Shizhu, found that these days whenever she closed her eyes, what came to her in dreams was no longer the handsome and extraordinary local magnate king, Zhu Hehao, but the mountains and waters of the Shizhu countryside and those hometown people she would never see again.

She was now weeping, supporting her old father, Du Mazi, as they walked along the broad streets of Pukou — she had originally not belonged to Du Mazi's Centurion unit, but to Zhu Hehao's guard battalion. But the family was about to part, and this parting would put them at opposite ends of the earth, never to meet again easily. So she had specially asked Zhu Hehao for leave to accompany her old father and old mother, to spend as many days with them as she could.

"Good that they can't come back..."

"Once they can't come back, the realm will be at peace!"

"The farther they roll away, the better!"

The people on both sides of the street had already guessed the origins of the "blue-clad people" and began shouting abuse loudly — only shouting abuse, with no other excesses. Because black-uniformed Imperial Guards had long been stationed on both sides of the street to keep order!

The sound of cursing and thick hostility surged toward Du Mazi, Du Mulan, and these blue-clad people. But these military farming households, who had strutted about Sichuan for many years, could now only swallow their anger and keep walking — because they had already seen that most of the people along the street wore swords and blades at their waists!

Most of those carrying swords and blades were Great Ming "military farming households"... not people to be offended!

Du Mulan looked tearfully at her father, Du Mazi. Old Du, however, wore an expression of complete indifference, and even smiled as he consoled his daughter: "Mulan, don't mind them. We're not staying long in Yingtian Prefecture anyway. Once we get to Tianhe Prefecture and the New World, it'll be fine!"

"Father," Du Mulan said through tears, "you must take good care of yourself. Your daughter... your daughter will definitely come back to see you if she gets the chance!"

Du Mazi shook his head and said, "Mulan, don't think about this old man. You must serve the Great King well!"

"Mm," Du Mulan's small face flushed bright red at once. "I... I know." She paused, then said to her father, "The Great King told me that over in Tianhe Prefecture, the Crown Prince and Crown Princess will be put in charge, and there's plenty of grain there, so there'll be no worry about food. He'll also put in a word with His Highness the Crown Prince to arrange some official post for you."

Du Mazi nodded gently, patted his daughter on the shoulder, and said nothing more.

While the Du father and daughter were making their way into Pukou City, the Great King whom Du Mulan loved most had already disembarked from Emperor Zhu's flagship and gone aboard the ship of his birth mother, Noble Consort Zheng — the day of parting between mother and son was not far off either!

Moreover, Noble Consort Zheng's mood these days was somewhat depressed — clever as she was, she of course knew that Ding Yuying's appearance had already made the Crown Prince Zhu Hexing's position completely secure. And Ding Yuying had also borne Zhu Hexing a son, Zhu Yiyou — this was Zhu Cilang's eldest legitimate grandson!

Even if something happened to Zhu Hexing, Zhu Yiyou would become the Imperial Grandson-heir, and Ding Yuying, under Zhu Cilang's cultivation, could fully grow into a regent empress dowager. Therefore Zhu Hehao, Zhu Hekun, and Zhu Hezhen, the three sons born of Noble Consort Zheng, no longer had the slightest hope — no, hope still existed. Hope lay in the distance!

(End of Chapter)