Chapter 1395: The Eternal Shit-Stirrer (Please Subscribe)

If Luo Zhichen truly understood the history of the Islamic nations well enough, he would know that Aurangzeb's request was not at all excessive... "Foreign slaves make good officials" was in fact an effective system by which the Islamic nations maintained their armies' fighting strength, safeguarded central authority, and supplied fresh blood to the ruling group.

These boy cadets were not actually real slaves either. The reason they bore the nominal status of slaves was to prevent Islamic nobles from sending their own offspring to serve as cadets, and at the same time to prevent the cadet corps from becoming hereditary — once either of these two situations arose, it would mean the decline of the "slave legions"!

If the youth battalions of the "slave legions" were filled entirely with second-generation scions, could they still be drilled to the point of death? Could strict elimination still be enforced? Could strict discipline still be carried out? Could rewards truly be given according to merit?

Absolutely not!

Moreover, if the slave legions became a hereditary guard corps, then the "Praetorian succession law" would soon follow! At that point it would no longer be the state that possessed the guard corps, but the guard corps that possessed the state.

Therefore the brilliant Islamic rulers attached the status of "slave" to their own personal guard corps, using religious law to cut off inheritance and ensure that fresh blood from outside could enter the guard corps, so as to preserve its fighting strength.

However, because the Central Asian and Caucasian regions that could produce capable fighters were successively "greened," most Islamic regimes' slave soldiers lost their reliable sources of manpower...

And the boy guard corps system that Zhu Cilang implemented was in fact learned from the Islamic nations!

Those boys selected from the barren and impoverished lands of the nine border garrisons were in essence no different from the Ghulam warriors, Mamluk warriors, and Janissary warriors. It was only that Emperor Zhu had no way to use Islamic religious rules to establish a slave military system that prevented hereditary succession and coups. Therefore his boy soldiers did not have as good prospects as the Islamic slave soldiers — they could almost never climb to the position of Grand Secretary, and could not even dominate the middle and upper ranks of the army — Emperor Zhu had also established the boy military academy and the Staff College, training well-born scions of merit-noble families and the elites of the guard corps to check and balance each other.

In a certain sense, the current Ming army's land forces were a hybrid of a European-style aristocratic officer corps and Islamic boy cadets... For now, this army's fighting strength was still quite good. Who knew whether it would develop the "Praetorian succession law" or "young officers making a republic" that Emperor Zhu so worried about!

To guard against these two eventualities, Emperor Zhu had truly racked his brains and exhausted every scheme.

On one hand, he made boy-soldier officers of humble origin and Nth-generation officers of wealthy and noble origin check each other; on the other hand, he diligently cultivated the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess; at the same time, he also made a one-stone-two-birds arrangement in the Southern Seas — promoting the establishment of the Republic of Batavia!

A republic, it was said, was a fine system in which one did not usurp titles, did not pass them to descendants, but instead created the method of election, approaching the ideal of the world held in common... There would certainly be no shortage of scholars within the Great Ming who, upon hearing "the world held in common, promoting the worthy and capable, not passing to descendants," would become wildly excited!

Therefore Emperor Zhu absolutely had to give those below him a preventive inoculation within his lifetime — now that the great emperor was alive, petty villains lay low. Even if there truly were some Chinese Cromwell, he would have to keep his tail between his legs and behave.

For this reason, Zhu Cilang himself promoted an "Asia's first republic," the Republic of Batavia, so that those infatuated with republicanism could see just what a republic was all about.

Matsolker, whom Emperor Zhu had designated as the founding father of the Republic of Batavia, had by this time arrived at the island of Temasek, accompanied by Jabus, the Vice Governor-General of the Southern Continent — under Zhu Cilang's arrangement, the Southern Continent Governor-General's Office had two governor-general yamens, called the Northern Office and the Southern Office respectively. The Northern Office was established in Yingtian Prefecture, with Governor-General Feng Mingshan in command. The Southern Office was established at Temasek, with Jabus in command.

Because Jabus had spent quite a few years in Europe and was thoroughly familiar with the political systems of the Dutch Republic of the United Provinces and the Republic of England, Emperor Zhu had additionally entrusted him with the mission of helping Batavia establish a republic.

Temasek, Southern Continent Governor-General's Yamen, council hall.

"Mr. Matsolker, Mr. Gauss, you both come from the Dutch Republic, so you must both be supporters of republicanism! Now that imperial grace overflows and your wishes have been granted, permitting you to try establishing a republic in Batavia, you must do it properly and not make a mess of it!"

"Gentlemen, as far as I know, this European republican system also comes in several models. First is the ancient Roman republic, where the aristocratic senate calls the shots, sometimes with a dictator and sometimes without; second is the Polish republic, where the noble parliament elects the king and the noble parliament has the free veto; third is the English republic, with no senate or council or anything of the sort, where the Lord Protector holds sole power, hereditary and irrevocable; fourth is the federal republic of your mother country, the Netherlands, with no stadtholder, dictator, Lord Protector, or king, but rather the Grand Pensionary of the States General managing affairs... Which kind of republic do you two intend to establish?"

Jabus and Wei Qingmu were at this moment playing good cop and bad cop in unison, questioning John de Matsolker, Governor of the East India Company, and Krylov van Gauss, Governor of Batavia.

Both Dutchmen wore mournful expressions... showing not the slightest sign of raising a sword three feet long, ascending a height to raise revolt, and founding a republic.

"Your Excellency the Governor-General, Prefect Wei," said Gauss, the Governor of Batavia, a man of about forty, with a ruddy complexion, brown hair, and a tall, large frame, shaking his head repeatedly, "in truth I am a supporter of the monarchical system..."

It turned out he was an Orangist and did not care for the republican system.

"Oh," Jabus nodded, "do you wish to declare yourself king or emperor?"

"No, no, no..." Gauss hastily waved his hands, "I will not be king, I dare not presume, I dare not..."

"Not king," Jabus said with a smile, "then what? Lord Protector? Dictator? Or Grand Pensionary?"

"I will just be a merchant..." How could Gauss be willing to jump into this fire pit? He hastily pushed Matsolker forward. "Better to ask Governor Matsolker to lead the republic! John, what do you want to be?"

What did he want to be? Matsolker thought to himself: anything that doesn't put me on the gallows! But don't think you can stay out of it and keep on being a profiteering merchant!

"Krylov, why don't we do it together... You be stadtholder, and I'll be Grand Pensionary." Matsolker chose the Dutch republican system of the Orangist era, which had both a stadtholder and a Grand Pensionary.

"No good, no good..." Gauss's head shook like a rattle-drum. "The Netherlands is a federal republic, but our Batavia has only that little bit of territory and so few people — how could we form a federation? Better to establish an English-style republic. John, you be Lord Protector!"

Lord Protector? One needed a New Model Army to hold that post! Matsolker was hardly willing to submit. "I won't be Lord Protector — you be Lord Protector!"

Gauss still shook his head, firmly refusing.

Jabus and Wei Qingmu watched the two of them going back and forth yielding to each other, and began to find it somewhat awkward — these two were simply too noble and virtuous, not even wanting a realm and state. What was to be done?

It was Wei Qingmu who had a solution. He said with a smile: "You two needn't keep yielding... How about this: Batavia will still follow the path of stadtholder plus parliament, but we won't set up a Grand Pensionary — just elect a few councillors. As for the first stadtholder, why don't the two of you draw lots! Whoever draws it takes the post; whoever doesn't can keep working toward it next time."

Matsolker and Gauss looked at each other, both sighed, and nodded.

They could only draw lots and leave it to fate... This would truly be a marvel of history! The founding father of the Republic of Batavia was chosen by drawing lots!

So Jabus and Wei Qingmu, in front of the two men, took two slips of paper, wrote the character "hit" on one and left the other blank. Then they folded them into two small squares, placed them in a tea bowl with no water poured in, covered it with a lid, shook it, opened the lid, and let the two foreigners before them draw for themselves.

In the end, Krylov van Gauss, Governor of Batavia, had the good fortune to draw the "hit" character, and could thus go down in history as the founding stadtholder of Asia's first republic!