Chapter 1581: The Emperor's Retirement Plan

Henry de Mancini's trip to Versailles in the spring of 1700 was, in truth, only meant to help a group of Viennese banking usurers compete for the chance to develop Europe's stock market, but its impact proved extremely far-reaching. In a sense, it changed the future course of world history!

Because he put a full-powered money-printing machine into the hands of that spendthrift Louis the Great, the Roman Empire founded by Louis could keep pressing forward for decades to come!

And the Archduchy of Austria, ruled by the Mancini dynasty, because Henry de Mancini had secured the great business of issuing stocks to raise money for the Roman Empire, leapt past London and Amsterdam a dozen or so years later to become Europe's largest stock exchange market.

And the war the Roman Empire waged against the Ottoman Empire with money raised from the Vienna market gave the Archduchy of Austria's financial market still more opportunities for growth, thereby laying the foundation of its own position as Europe's financial center.

At the same time, the establishment of Vienna's position as a financial center also gave the Roman Empire under the House of Bourbon a dedicated money-raising center, which was still extremely beneficial for prolonging the Roman Empire's dynastic lifespan!

Austria and Rome, Mancini and Bourbon, could be said to have achieved a win-win!

And the long dynastic lifespan of the Roman Empire was, in fact, something Henry's father Zhu Cilang was glad to see. As a feudal monarch who had ruled the Great Ming Empire for more than fifty years, the Hongxing Emperor of the Great Ming did not like the French Revolution one bit. The House of Bourbon was wonderful — not only did it possess the feudalist truth of "I am the state," it was also bellicose, always fighting inefficient wars, making it a truly ideal enemy.

For such an enemy, the Hongxing Emperor Zhu Cilang was extremely fond and protective; he had no wish to see Bourbon Rome swept away by the storm of revolution.

However, the prospect that the Roman Empire, after the death of King Carlos II of Spain, would provoke a great war against the Ottoman Empire in order to merge the "Carlos inheritance" of Spain, New Spain, Naples, Milan, and the rest, still caused the Son of Heaven of the Great Ming, far away in Yingtian Prefecture, some concern.

Because the strong enemy the Ottoman Empire now faced was not only the Bourbon Roman Empire, but also a rapidly rising powerful northern neighbor — Russia!

As early as eleven years before, Russia's "Little Tsar" (at that time Russia had produced the political spectacle of a Great Tsar and a Little Tsar reigning jointly with a princess as regent), Pyotr Alekseyevich Romanov, had led his "Toy Army" in a coup, overthrowing the rule of his sister, Princess Sophia, and seizing power. Afterward, under the leadership of "Little Tsar" Peter I, Russia began step by step upon the road of reform and national strengthening.

Although Peter was still a teenager when he first took power, his style of handling affairs was very steady. He did not, like the Chongzhen Emperor of that year, rush to launch grand undertakings immediately after rooting out Wei Zhongxian. Instead, he handed the government over to his mother, uncles, and others to handle, while he himself patiently trained his troops!

He spent six or seven years and finally expanded the Toy Army that had followed him in seizing power into the Preobrazhensky Regiment and the Semyonovsky Regiment, and with these two elite units as the backbone, launched the Azov expeditions. After two expeditions, Peter finally seized the port of Azov, which was somewhat beyond the Ottoman Empire's reach, opened a passage into the Black Sea, and at the same time established his authority.

After establishing his authority, Peter did not carry out reforms in a whirlwind either. Instead, he made an incognito tour, visiting England, Holland, and the Roman Empire in 1697 and 1698, seeing with his own eyes the advanced state of Western Europe, and thereby confirmed the direction and route of reform.

With authority established and a correct direction and route for reform in hand, Peter I's reforms were on the fast track.

Russia's national strength and military power were bound to increase rapidly. In the foreseeable future, it would become a powerful enemy on the Ottoman Empire's northern border!

Under the pincer attack of Rome and Russia, the Ottoman Empire's prospects were truly quite worrisome!

And once the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the Great Ming Empire and the Roman Empire would probably have to fight a tug-of-war in the Indian Ocean again...

But this war no longer belonged to Zhu Cilang, now past seventy; it would be a test for the lucky Crown Prince Zhu Hexing.

Because Zhu Cilang, who had already been Son of Heaven for more than fifty years, had long since grown weary, and no longer wished to keep dedicating what little life he had left to the people of the Great Ming.

From the fiftieth year of Hongxing onward, this great emperor, the lord of the Great Ming's restoration, had largely stopped attending to state affairs, handing most government business over to Crown Prince Zhu Hexing and Crown Princess Ding Yuying.

And today, the seventh day of the fourth month in the fifty-second year of Hongxing, in the Yanshan Hall of the Old Mountain Palace, he had, together with Empress Wu Sanmei, laid everything out for the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, husband and wife, and set the formal retirement plan.

"Lucky boy, safe and sound — you've been Crown Prince for nearly fifty years now," Zhu Cilang asked with a smile. "Are you a little tired of it?"

Tired of it?

Looking at Zhu Cilang, whose hair was graying but whose spirit was still hale, the lucky Crown Prince Zhu Hexing thought to himself: What does Imperial Father mean? Could it be he wants me to retire? A Crown Prince retiring... and let Yiyou become the imperial grandson-heir?

"Imperial Father," Zhu Hexing said with a smile, "your son is not tired of it. Your son is still young and can continue being Crown Prince..."

"Young?" Zhu Cilang looked at his son, who had kept himself well and looked at most forty-some years old. "Young you are not..." He turned and asked Wu Sanmei, who had already become an old granny, "Sanmei, do you think it's time to let him be emperor for a few years too?"

What? I can become emperor?

Zhu Hexing was stunned. He had never dared imagine such a fine thing... Their old Zhu family had originally been known for child emperors; even the Chongzhen and Hongxing emperors had been very young when they ascended the throne.

But by Zhu Hexing's generation, something had gone wrong: there appeared a fifty-year-old Crown Prince!

What was more terrifying was that this fifty-year-old Crown Prince actually still had a living grandfather... the nearly ninety-year-old Chongzhen Retired Emperor was still not dead! When would the seventy-something Hongxing Emperor die?

In any case, the lucky Crown Prince felt his own prospects were a bit uncertain; even if he became emperor, he would be an old emperor of seventy or eighty!

"Your Majesty, are you going to become Retired Emperor?" Wu Sanmei had not expected Zhu Cilang to have finally come around... She had originally thought Emperor Zhu would work until at least eighty!

"Already past seventy..." Zhu Cilang laughed. "If I keep going, I'll become senile. Empress, do you think Lucky can shoulder the great responsibility?"

"If he cannot shoulder the great responsibility, isn't there still the Crown Princess to assist him?" Wu Sanmei pointed at Ding Yuying — now Auntie Ding!

Zhu Cilang glanced at his daughter-in-law and nodded with a smile. "True, there is still the Crown Princess... Yuying, We intend to retire. From now on, the realm is handed over to you and Lucky!"

"Your daughter-in-law will surely exhaust every effort and properly assist the Crown Prince."

Ding Yuying was not modest; she directly thumped her chest — she had been studying statecraft under Zhu Cilang since she was seventeen or eighteen, and had long since been tempered into an expert, so what was there to be modest about?

Zhu Cilang said with a smile, "We also want to make an agreement with you two... From now on, the emperor of the Great Ming must have a retirement age, and cannot keep going on forever, lest he become senile!"

He made this agreement because Zhu Hexing's health was quite good, and he looked like someone who could live a very long time.

So a retirement plan had to be set for him too!

"Imperial Father, at what age do you think future emperors should retire?" Ding Yuying asked.

Zhu Cilang glanced at his son. "Not too old either. Let us set it at sixty... five!"

Zhu Hexing breathed a sigh of relief — he still had more than ten years of being emperor!

"Your son will obey Imperial Father in everything!" Zhu Hexing said. "When your son reaches sixty-five, he will yield the throne to Yiyou."

"Good, good," Zhu Cilang nodded repeatedly. "This is a sovereign worthy of Yao and Shun!" He paused, then added, "Sanmei, Lucky, Yuying, let us all go together to the Retired Emperor's place and tell the old man this good news! Once We abdicate, he will be the Retired Emperor's Retired Emperor!"

(End of Chapter)