Chapter 1568: People Have Come from the West!

"What? How did Li Jicheng become Emperor of India?" Zhu Hexing was a bit confused too. "Has he gotten so addicted to seizing India that he simply went and became an Indian?"

"That may well be the case." Li Dingguo had never been to India, but he knew well enough how rich the pickings were there. "Your Highness, when this subject served the false dynasty, I heard no end of talk about how wealthy India was. If it was a matter of easy plunder... there were plenty of people in the false court whose hearts stirred at the thought, all wanting to follow Li Jicheng to India and grab a share. Had it not been so, the false dynasty would not have collapsed so quickly."

Zhu Hexing smiled. "Had Li Jicheng not skimmed the fat off the Indians, the false dynasty would long since have been wiped out by our Great Ming... The false dynasty practiced the system of garrison-farm troops and military households, which is in truth raising troops on fief land. Where land suffices, troops are strong; where land runs out, troops grow weary. But land is finite while military households multiply without limit, so the day always comes when land runs out and troops grow weary. To preserve the strength of the garrison-farm troops over the long term, one must expand outward, plundering to make up the shortfall. That Li Jicheng found India, that rich and gentle land, was truly Heaven not yet willing to let his state perish!"

Li Dingguo sighed. This Crown Prince Zhu had seen clean through the whole method of garrison-farm troops and military households... That path simply cannot be worked in a place with many people and little land! Otherwise the conflict between men and land, between soldiers and civilians, is bound to build up quickly, and in time either the military households will sink into poverty and decay, or they must be allowed to oppress the people and seize their fields!

And do not imagine that military households were all honest folk who let themselves be bullied... Those people and the samurai of neighboring Japan were in truth cut from the same cloth! Only the samurai seized control of the state, established a warrior government, and won the privilege of oppressing the peasants. The military households of the Great Ming had no such privileges and could not go cutting down common folk, so the higher military households could only bully their own kind.

And the Shun regime that Li Dingguo had once served was a regime that upheld the interests of the garrison-farm troops and military households... in reality, it was a warrior government!

Had it not been defeated by the Great Ming, the peasants of Sichuan would sooner or later have been turned into serfs by them!

And now, it seemed the peasants of Sichuan had escaped that calamity — only the common people of the land of India had to suffer for it!

Just as Li Dingguo was indulging in such compassionate brooding, Zhu Hexing beside him had already made up his mind. "Commander, since Li Jicheng has sent a military envoy to sue for peace, let us receive him... and see whether the envoy sent by this Emperor of the Great Shun Empire of India looks like an Indian or not."

Zhu Hexing held overall command of the military affairs of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan in the name of Army Superintendent, and concurrently served as Military Commissioner of Sichuan and Yunnan. One could say he grasped both military and civil authority in a single hand, and he also had the authority to negotiate with Li Jicheng!

So once his order went out, the envoy of the Great Shun Empire of India was swiftly escorted into the great hall of the Five Splendors Palace in Kunming.

"Crown Prince of the Great Ming, I am the envoy of the Emperor of the Great Shun Empire of India. My name is Xin Guiyi..."

The envoy spoke in a mouthful of Shaanxi dialect and wore the blue official robes of the Shun dynasty, but he had the face of a foreigner — deep-set eyes, a prominent nose, a thick beard, and dark skin.

"Where in Shaanxi are you from? How do you look like that?" Seated on the throne, Zhu Hexing stared at Xin Guiyi's distinguished countenance and found it very strange — he was no ignorant "prince of the inner palace"; he had been to many places and seen many people, yet he had never seen a Shaanxi man who looked like this.

"I'm not from Shaanxi..." Xin Guiyi was of course no Shaanxi man. His original name was Singh — the very jagirdar lord Singh who had surrendered in Orissa Province when Li Jicheng first entered India. His daughter was even one of Li Jicheng's consorts!

After submitting to the Shun, Singh had been granted the name Guiyi — names like Guiyi and Guiming were generally reserved for the capitulation faction. Besides the name change, he had also become an official of the Shun and learned to speak a standard Shun Chinese.

"Then where is your ancestral home?" Zhu Hexing pressed on.

Xin Guiyi answered, "My ancestral home is Rajput Province of the Timurid Empire of India."

"What?" Zhu Hexing was taken aback. "So you really are an Indian!"

"Your Highness," Li Dingguo recognized Xin Guiyi, and so said with a smile to Zhu Hexing, "he is indeed an Indian. Because Li Jicheng has repeatedly entered India to plunder and has even seized a bit of territory, he has quite a few Indian subjects under him, and some Persians as well."

So he was an Indian traitor!

Zhu Hexing nodded, then asked again, "What is this Great Shun Empire of India all about? Li Jicheng was perfectly well a man of the Celestial Dynasty — why has he gone and become an Indian?"

Indeed, why emigrate when all was well? What was so good about India, anyway?

"Crown Prince," Xin Guiyi said with a smile, "my Emperor felt that he could not become Emperor here in the Celestial Dynasty, so he thought to go to India and become Emperor there... Henceforth Your Highness shall be the Emperor of the Great Ming, and my Emperor shall be the Emperor of India. Each keeps to his own well and does not trespass on the other's river. Surely that is good enough?"

So it turned out jobs for emperors were easier to find in India... Here in the Great Ming, the emperor class was showing signs of hardening; Emperor Zhu Cilang had no intention of stepping down yet, and Crown Prince Zhu Hexing had already begun to rise! Li Jicheng was simply no match for the Zhu father and son!

Once Li Jicheng concluded he had little hope of becoming Emperor of all China, he simply emigrated to India... And right now India was still in chaos! Anything was possible there! Moreover, India had a tradition of welcoming foreign conquerors, which was very much to the Shun's advantage!

Of course, Li Jicheng did not expect to have all of India; if he could swallow Bengal, he would be fully satisfied.

"Then... does Li Jicheng intend to withdraw from Yunnan?" Zhu Hexing went on. "Yunnan is one of the vital heartland territories of the Great Ming's Two Capitals and Thirteen Provinces. Until the day it is recovered, we dare not speak of full glory! So if Li Jicheng does not hand over Yunnan, there is nothing to discuss."

His meaning was that after Li Jicheng withdrew from Yunnan they could "talk" — he did not say what could be "settled."

Because he knew that between the Great Ming and Li the Roving King there was fundamentally nothing to talk about! The two sides could never possibly sign a peace treaty.

Moreover, the Great Ming would never recognize any Great Shun Empire of India... because the Great Ming's friend in India was Aurangzeb!

But the Great Ming Empire would not continue attacking Burma in the short term either. After swallowing Yunnan in the southwest, without ten years to digest it, the Great Ming's rule over Yunnan could not possibly be consolidated.

As for the direction of the Lesser Western Ocean, the Great Ming had no thought of westward expansion for the time being; it was enough merely to keep the trade routes open.

That was why Zhu Cilang had not long ago sent Zhu Hexing a handwritten edict, telling him to find every means to bring pressure on the roving bandits and force them to sign the Treaty for the Protection of Neutrality and Free Trade.

So long as trade was unaffected, Zhu Cilang's willingness to intervene in the Timurid–Shun war was not strong. The Timurids and the Shun attacking each other in India was in fact to the Great Ming's benefit: first, it allowed the sale of arms for profit; second, the hotter the Timurid–Shun fighting grew, the stronger India's power to resist the Westerners became.

Zhu Hexing continued, "If Li Jicheng is unwilling to hand over Yunnan, that is no great matter... Our Great Ming's one hundred thousand heavenly troops have already arrived. Advancing steadily and surely, we can take Yunnan within another year. After taking Yunnan, our Great Ming heavenly troops will shift to Burma. When that time comes, even if he wishes to be Emperor of India, he will have lost the base from which to expand westward."

With that, he waved his hand and had someone send Xin Guiyi away. The terms he had set were not something a figure like Xin Guiyi could answer; the matter would have to be left for Li Jicheng to consider.

Watching Li Jicheng's envoy being led out of the great hall, Crown Prince Zhu said to his military adviser Li Dingguo, "This Xin Guiyi let something slip. It seems Li Jicheng will not remain long in Yunnan! Once he leaves... every roving bandit in Yunnan will be shattered with fright! The Yunnan campaign, I fear, will not take much longer to end in victory."

Li Dingguo said, "Your Highness, a journey of a hundred li is only half done at ninety... So long as Li Jicheng remains in Yunnan a single day, we must not let down our guard for a single day."

Zhu Hexing nodded. "Naturally. As the Crown Prince serving as Army Superintendent, I can only win, never lose."

Zhu Hexing's steadiness and thoroughness were in fact also tied to his status as Crown Prince. He could not afford to lose! If he were ever defeated in battle, the Crown Prince might well be replaced, so he could only win, never lose.

Even if victory took two or three years, so long as he won, nothing would be a problem.