Chapter 1416: Shunzhi, Shunzhi, Where Are You?

The trading town Zhu Cijiong established at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains was located in a place called Alimatu, roughly where Almaty would later stand. Because it was nourished by snowmelt from the Tianshan, the land around the trading town was quite fertile. If Zhu Cijiong could endure long-term losses and slowly carry out settlement and development, it would certainly grow in the future — the very distant future, say, more than a hundred years from now!

This forecast looked a bit pessimistic, but judging by how things had developed over the past few years, it was still very likely.

The reason was simple: if common people from the Ming heartland wanted to migrate to the area around the trading town, the travel costs they had to pay were certainly higher than going to the New World United States!

Starting from Yingtian Prefecture, it was nearly ten thousand li to the trading town! A migrant traveling overland who could cover fifty li a day would already be remarkable — that was about the marching speed of the Ming army. Ten thousand li would take two hundred days, and at a slower pace, a full year. Not to mention whether there were supplies along the way — even if there were, a poor man on a long journey spends like a rich one! Over a long trek of two hundred days to a year, how much would the travel expenses and provisions cost? With that kind of money, one might as well go to the New World!

Going to the New World United States took three months at most, leaving nine months to dig for gold and hunt furs. Even doing hard labor, one could still save up a little money.

So after the reopening of the Silk Road trade fell through, few migrants from the Central Plains were willing to come to the State of Dai. There were, however, some "Green Banner military households" who had followed Wu Sangui to settle in Anxi and Hexi, and who for various reasons could not make a living in Anxi. They migrated to the Beiting Army and the State of Dai, both under Zhu Cijiong's control — the State of Dai and Beiting had divided the Ili River valley (the trading town area was also part of the Ili River valley), and the State of Dai also possessed the rich and fertile Issyk-Kul region, a living environment far better than the barren lands of Anxi and Hexi.

But Anxi and Hexi themselves did not have large populations. The number of households that could migrate to the State of Dai and Beiting each year was only around one or two thousand. Over a hundred years, that would be just two hundred thousand households.

Zhu Cijiong was now in his early forties. Although he was in good health, he was unlikely to live to a hundred and forty. So he could not wait for the day his State of Dai developed naturally.

Since he could not wait, he had to find some windfall wealth — no, some "windfall people" — to speed up the development of the State of Dai. And the Chu River Prefecture, which had been developed twenty years earlier and had received two successive waves of immigration (one from the Yarkand Khanate, one from the Eight Banners Mongols and Khorchin Mongols), giving it a relatively large population, naturally became the target Zhu Cijiong coveted.

Because immigrants of every kind converged around the city of Chu River, the whole city had become noisy and bustling, and had developed into a commercial center of the Central Asian steppe region. People of various ethnicities came and went, and train after train of camels and carts passed through continuously. Wooden wheels bound with iron rings struck sparks from the stone slabs of the streets. Mongols from the steppe swaggered through the streets with knives at their waists, glancing idly at the shops around them. The Mongols, Han Chinese, and Manchus from the east who lived in the city mostly wore Ming-style clothing and spoke Chinese and Mongolian, either conversing with one another or soliciting business.

There were also some merchants dressed in Arabian religious garb who had recently appeared in the city of Chu River. They all carried "trade permits" issued by the Ming embassy in Delhi, bringing dazzling goods produced in India, or rupee silver coins. Escorted by Dzungar cavalry dispatched from the Stone Fort royal city, they came in pursuit of a special "commodity" — the Little Grand Secretary, also known as slave child-soldiers!

Besides the many merchants, there were also especially many lamas here, wearing monk robes and cockscomb-shaped lama hats, threading through the streets and alleys. The soldiers of Galdan's Chiliarch garrison stationed in Chu River Prefecture were extremely respectful and trusting toward these lamas, allowing them to pass freely through the city gates. No one questioned them, much less blocked them.

Because the ruler of this city, Galdan, had himself been a highly respected lama not long before — Galdan ruled this commercial center on the edge of the Central Asian steppe in the capacity of a monk.

Therefore the lamas in this city had always received special care, and the place had naturally become a gathering spot for Yellow Temples.

The Yellow Temples of Sanbao Lama and Mingzhu Lama were also inside the city of Chu River Prefecture, with a rather vulgar name: the Little Golden Temple. It had been granted to the two of them after Sengge destroyed the Khanate of Bukhara. After the Little Golden Temple was completed, the two great lamas had specially dispatched disciples to the Central Plains to invite a group of lamas to come and reside there (the Ming Central Plains also had Yellow Temples, most of them left over from the Yuan dynasty). Among them were several eminent monks of high attainment, and even Sanbao Lama and Mingzhu Lama would take turns returning from the Stone Fort royal city to Chu River to hear these eminent monks expound the Dharma and discuss the Way.

The one returning to Chu River Prefecture today was Sanbao Lama. He was in his carriage, leaning by the window and quietly reading a few newspapers in the sunlight. The carriage wheels rolled over the stone slabs at the front gate of the Little Golden Temple, and the jolt made Sanbao Lama, who had been absorbed in his reading, jump.

Sanbao Lama hastily put away the newspapers and lifted the curtain to look out. He saw several burly iron-staff lamas coming forward to greet him. The leader had already approached: "Your Eminence, His Eminence Fute has arrived and is waiting for you in the scripture hall! You stayed in the great mountain valley for quite a long time this time. We heard you encountered danger, and everyone in our Little Golden Temple was terribly worried."

Sanbao Lama had actually just returned from the front in the Fergana Basin!

When Sengge let Anusha Khan of the Khanate of Khiva into the basin, he had not expected the man to be so tenacious, contesting the basin inch by inch with the Dzungar Kingdom — the population distribution in Central Asia was very uneven. The population density on the Three Jüz steppe was very low, while the Fergana Basin was densely populated, with around two million people!

So in recent years Sengge had truly strained every muscle to conquer the Fergana Basin. Most of the territory in the basin had now been taken, but Anusha Khan and his followers, who had retreated into the mountains, were still extremely troublesome.

So Sengge had Sanbao Lama and Mingzhu Lama take turns garrisoning the basin — this was by no means an easy or safe assignment.

A month ago, Sanbao Lama, while patrolling the Anyanji area in the eastern part of the basin, had been ambushed. Several thousand men besieged his five hundred, and the two sides fought a bloody battle for two days and three nights before it ended when Sanbao Lama's reinforcements arrived.

Sanbao Lama smiled and waved a hand: "Nothing to fear. Those who follow me are all pure firearm cavalry, each man armed with a flintlock. Why should I fear such a rabble?"

As he spoke, he climbed out of the carriage and said to the lama in the lead: "Come, lead the way. Your master is going to pay his respects to His Eminence Fute."

His Eminence Fute was, of course, none other than the Shunzhi Emperor, Fulin — the man Zhu Cilang had always wanted to capture and strangle.

Over the years he had traveled all over the famous mountains and great rivers, feasting his eyes on the magnificent landscapes of his great motherland. He had even ventured deep into the tiger's den and the dragon's pool, going to Pukou in Yingtian Prefecture, and had even stayed as a visiting monk at the Huangjue Temple in Pukou.

He had not dared to visit his son at the Marquis of Yan'en's residence, but he had gone several times to visit the most deserted street in the center of Pukou — Embroidered Uniform Guard Street (the Eastern Depot was also there). Once he had even encountered a high Embroidered Uniform Guard official (Zhu Chunjie) surrounded by attendants. The official had assumed he was there to beg for alms and actually gave him a few silver coins (whether that counted as aiding the enemy, who could say?). With the silver coins Zhu Chunjie gave him, Fulin went to a restaurant next to the Eastern Depot office on the street and had a good meal. Everyone eating inside was either an Embroidered Uniform Guard cavalryman or an Eastern Depot agent.

With so many Ming secret agents around, not one of them noticed anything wrong with the monk Fulin — no wonder they could never catch him!

But after his tour of Yingtian Prefecture, Fulin could not return to Mount Wutai — his old nest on Mount Wutai had been raided by the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Of course, the loss was not great: he only lost a few disciples who knew no secrets, and a bit of temple property.

Homeless, Fulin set out westward together with Sonin, Suksaha, and the others, heading to the Dzungar Kingdom to seek refuge with his Empress, Meng Guqing.

(End of Chapter)