Chapter 15: How Meritorious Officials Are Made (Cast Your Recommendation Votes)

"Reporting to Thousand Years, this humble one has fought the roving bandits and also fought the Tartars. The roving bandits are far inferior to the Tartars…"

"This old fellow has also fought the roving bandits and the caitiff scum. The roving bandits can't take a beating, but the caitiff scum can really fight. Whether death soldiers or shock troops, they can all hold their own against our strongest household retainers. Ordinary soldiers who run into them simply can't fight them in the open field!"

"Right, how could the roving bandits compare with the caitiff scum? Before Governor-General Hong and Governor-General Lu had their plans ruined by the caitiff scum, the roving bandits were being chased and beaten by the government troops. But when we ran into the caitiff scum, it was the other way around…"

"Ah, if the government army's elite troops hadn't all been wiped out by the caitiff scum, how would the roving bandits ever have come to this!"

"The roving bandits, frankly, just profited from the government army's death struggle with the Tartars!"

"If we'd known, we shouldn't have thrown so many crack troops away in Liaodong…"

"Ah, so many brothers, all dead for nothing!"

Quite a few of the Wu family retainers who had fought both the caitiff scum and the roving bandits were indeed talking it over. The views they expressed were exactly what Zhu Cilang had expected: all of them feared the Qing army, and at the same time all of them rather looked down on the roving bandits.

Li Zicheng's battle record was indeed a bit weak. Before Hong Chengchou was transferred to Liaodong, he had basically been fleeing in all directions, with no hope in sight of replacing the Great Ming. If Hong Chengchou had won the Battle of Songjin and brought the Guanning Army back to encircle and destroy him and Zhang Xianzhong, those two peasant uprising leaders would long since have been beaten to death.

But then again, however weak Li Zicheng's fighting strength was, it was still more than the present Great Ming dynasty could withstand.

From the eleventh year of Chongzhen, after the main forces of Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting were transferred to Liaodong, Li Zicheng entered a period of rapid development. And after the three assaults on Kaifeng in the fourteenth and fifteenth years of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng held the advantage on the Central Plains battlefield. That same year, the more than one hundred thousand elite Ming troops commanded by Hong Chengchou were annihilated by the Qing army on the Songjin battlefield, and the following year Sun Chuanting's Qin troops suffered a narrow defeat at the hands of Li Zicheng at the Battle of Jia County, resulting in the destruction of the entire army. After that, the Ming dynasty's military strength was already vastly inferior to the surging Li Zicheng.

If the Qing troops had not entered the pass, Li Zicheng's seizure of the empire and founding of a new dynasty would probably have been a near certainty. Even with Zhu Cilang's golden finger, it would have been impossible to reverse the Ming's decline; he would not even have been able to unite the group of people gathered today in the main hall of the inner drill ground. But the problem was, the Qing army's entry into the pass was unavoidable!

Even without Wu Sangui opening Shanhai Pass, Dorgon would still have led the Qing army in an invasion through Rehe. And the few tens of thousands of veteran camp soldiers Li Zicheng brought to Beijing could never have defeated the Eight Banners' crack troops, who numbered as many as eighty-some thousand.

So at today's "Great Ming Market Outlook Analysis Meeting," the Qing dynasty beyond the pass became Zhu Cilang's key material for beguiling hearts and minds.

Hearing everyone speak with one voice that the Qing army was far stronger than the Shun army, Zhu Cilang gave a cough, and once the hall had quieted somewhat, he began his next round of persuasion.

"Gentlemen all say the caitiff scum are stronger than the roving bandits. Then if the roving bandits enter Beijing, and the two-hundred-plus years of accumulated wealth of the thousands of official and noble households in Beijing all falls into their hands… will the caitiff scum just stand by and watch?"

"How could that be possible?"

"The caitiff scum will certainly come to seize it."

"Right. With all those great houses and rich families in the whole city of Beijing, how much gold, silver, and treasure must there be? How could the caitiff scum let that pass?"

"Not just gold, silver, and treasure! They might even enter the pass to contend for the empire!"

Zhu Cilang's question had been highly leading from the start, and the answer it produced was entirely within expectation.

He nodded approvingly and added: "Then once the caitiff scum invade, will the Roving Bandit send out his own veteran camp to fight, or will he make the government troops and turncoats who have gone over to him take the vanguard?"

"He'll surely make the surrendered government troops and turncoats take the vanguard…"

"Right! If we don't fight the roving bandits, we'll have to fight the caitiff scum!"

"Fighting the roving bandits, there's still a way to live. Being herded by the roving bandits into battle against the caitiff scum — that's a dead end!"

"Even if you don't die, can you expect the roving bandits to pay out reward silver?"

The ones doing the talking were mainly a bunch of old household retainers — what sort of good men could they be? Talk to them about national righteousness, about loyalty to the sovereign and love of country, and they would treat it as wind past their ears. So the only way was to lay out the stakes clearly for them… in fact, not really to lay them out clearly, but to make them believe what Zhu Cilang wanted them to believe.

As a veteran finance dog, Zhu Cilang in his previous life had also been a great bluffer, the kind known as "pigs can fly" — able to blow a pig into the sky! No matter how rotten a listed company or startup, he could present the facts and reason it out until he had puffed it up into a future superstar stock whose value was severely underestimated.

None of Wu Xiang's old or young household retainers had ever seen the financial markets of later ages or the various cons of the venture capital world. So without needing a god-tier figure like Jia Yaoting to take the stage, Zhu Cilang's art of persuasion was enough to trap them.

"Gentlemen, you truly have insight! Far cleverer than those Regional Commanders and Assistant Regional Commanders who betrayed the court." Zhu Cilang sighed repeatedly. "They originally only needed to hold the pass cities and fight the Roving Bandit, but now they will be herded onto the battlefield by the Roving Bandit to fight the caitiff scum to the death."

"A dead end!"

"How could they possibly win?"

"Even our Guanning Army couldn't do it…"

Zhu Cilang coughed a few more times, and the hall at once quieted considerably. Zhu Cilang raised his voice and declared: "But we don't need to fight the caitiff scum. We only need to escort my Imperial Father to Nanjing… Regional Commander Wu's great army has already crossed Shanhai Pass and will come to meet us. When the time comes, everyone will escort the Son of Heaven in a breakout from Beijing, go to Tianjin, and take the sea route south. We'll leave Northern Zhili to the Roving Bandit and the caitiff scum to fight over. The Roving Bandit will have to fight desperately to hold off the caitiff scum — how much strength will he have left to move south? Our Great Ming still has the Tianjin Guard naval fleet, the Fujian naval fleet, the Guangdong naval fleet, and the sea transport fleet under the Governor-General of the grain transport. That is enough to establish a Huai River fleet and a Yangtze River fleet, and by relying on the natural defenses of the rivers, we are fully confident of blocking the Roving Bandit's southward advance!"

As he spoke, he turned to Sun Fugui and Wang Guoyong, who stood before him: "You two brave men, are you willing to escort the imperial carriage south?"

"Willing!"

"Willing."

"Good!" Zhu Cilang nodded heavily and picked up the two princely decrees he had just written. "Sun Fugui, Wang Guoyong, these are decrees written in Our own hand. We appoint you two as Squad Leaders of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, grant each of you a 300-mu estate in Jiangnan, and bestow 10 taels of silver and the title of Merit Official Who Overcame Hardship.

Zhu Chunjie, bring them the silver! Secretary Bi, record these two brave men's names, offices, and the acreage of the land grants."

Sun Fugui and Wang Guoyong were both stunned on the spot.

They had just become officials? And they also had 300 mu of paddy fields in Jiangnan… Jiangnan paddy fields were said to be very expensive! One mu of paddy field could bring in one shi of rice in rent a year; 300 mu meant three hundred shi, an income of over 200 taels of silver no matter how you counted it!

Was this a dream?

Nearby, Bi Jiucheng, Secretary Bi, was also stunned by Zhu Cilang's words. What on earth was the Crown Prince doing? Could it really be as the people in the Eastern Palace said — that the Crown Prince had received a dream from the ancestors and obtained an immortal plan to save the Great Ming?

But in granting offices and land like this, did the Emperor know?

Zhu Chunjie was already pressing gleaming silver ingots into their hands. Seeing the two dumbstruck youths, he coughed: "Still not thanking Thousand Years for his gracious reward!"

Only then did the two youths Sun Fugui and Wang Guoyong wake as if from a dream, and they dropped straight to their knees before Zhu Cilang. "This humble one Sun Fugui (Wang Guoyong) thanks the Crown Prince, Thousand Years, for his great kindness! We are willing to die for the Crown Prince, Thousand Years!"

Zhu Cilang coughed again, turned his head, and glared at Secretary Bi, who was still standing there dazed. The fat secretary gave a start, hurriedly fetched a blank memorial book and a brush, dipped it in ink, and began recording in tiny regular script the rewards Zhu Cilang was granting…

At the same time, throughout the hall, countless eager gazes turned toward Zhu Cilang.

Zhu Cilang smiled and said: "Gentlemen, you are all loyal subjects of our Great Ming, so naturally every man shall have his share of gracious reward… but as for the Jiangnan paddy fields granted, We cannot redeem them for you here in the capital. They will be given after you have escorted Us to Jiangnan.

But you may rest absolutely assured: We are the Crown Prince and have always kept Our word. After reaching the secondary capital, We will never renege on the land owed to you.

Once we reach Jiangnan, not only will every one of you have an estate, but all the other officers and men who escort the imperial carriage south will also each receive a parcel of land, no less than 50 mu of an estate! With these estates, you will be able to take wives and raise children in Jiangnan, put down roots and spread your branches, and your descendants will all be loyal subjects of our Great Ming. For those brave men who, in this hour of national crisis, step forward to escort the imperial carriage south, are all meritorious servants of the state. We shall enfeoff you as Merit Officials Who Overcame Hardship, for generation after generation, enduring together with the dynasty!"

At this, everyone grew excited. This was a grant of hereditary office! Generation after generation, enduring together with the dynasty… it meant the Great Ming would have a share belonging to their own families!

This treatment was the same as the meritorious officials who had followed the Founding Emperor to establish the dynasty and followed the Chengzu Emperor in the Jingnan campaign — and about the same as the Eight Banners' brave warriors on the caitiff scum's side!

From now on, they would no longer be fighting merely for the Emperor's family, but for their own families, for their sons and grandsons!

Everyone, including a group of elderly household retainers, suddenly felt full of drive… Following the Crown Prince really did have a future!

(End of Chapter)