Chapter 1625: What Is Rome Doing?

In the second volume of Zhu Zhongshu's Comprehensive History of the Great Ming, an entire major chapter is devoted to analyzing how the idea of world unification arose within the Great Ming Empire and gradually developed into a mainstream current of thought.

First, he poses this question — to unify the world and place it under the Celestial Alliance: is that ultimately a good thing or a bad thing?

Of course, the "blending of barbarian and Chinese" that appeared in the last years of Xingfu, grew during the Xianjia years, and finally became state policy in the Qiansheng years did not mean chopping off the heads of every great king and grand duke in the world and replacing them with governors and prefects of the Great Ming. The sovereign and ministers of the Ming in that era were not yet so muddled; they knew their court could not manage that many affairs.

The "world unification" and "blending of barbarian and Chinese" they wanted was merely to expand the Celestial Alliance to the whole world — to establish a new world order with the Great Ming Empire as suzerain!

This question is indeed very hard to answer...... Zhu Yaofei was of course opposed, because he did not believe the Great Ming Empire and the Celestial Alliance had the capability or the necessity to conquer the world.

Because to conquer the world, taking India, the Middle East, and the east coast of Africa would not be enough; one would have to take Europe and the west coast of the Americas, which were powerful and far too distant from the Ming homeland.

Since it could not be done, there was no good or bad to speak of.

But Zhu Bolian in his Comprehensive History of the Great Ming says that from the last years of Xingfu until the Qiansheng years, when the state policy of "blending barbarian and Chinese" was finally established, most people believed the world should be under the leadership of the Great Ming Empire.

That was only natural! If the whole world truly needed a leader, then without question it should be the Great Ming Empire.

Because the Celestial Alliance led by the Great Ming Empire already possessed half the world!

Since it already had half, why not take the whole?

Moreover, the other half of the world under the leadership of the Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire was not peaceful; it was extremely turbulent during those decades.

First the Roman Empire erupted in the "War of the Regents"! A civil war broke out between the coalition headed by King Philip I of Serbia and the coalition headed by the Duke of Orléans.

This civil war lasted nearly ten years, and in the end neither side could claim victory. The two sides signed a Treaty of Joint Rule in Vienna, stipulating that the Roman Empire be divided in two: the Duke of Orléans would assist Louis II in ruling the Western Empire, while Philip I would serve as regent of the Eastern Empire.

In addition, in this Treaty of Joint Rule, the Duke of Orléans and Philip I also reached an agreement to jointly attack the Ottoman Empire.

It stipulated that Philip I would lead the Eastern Empire's army to attack Istanbul and drive the Ottoman Empire out of Europe in one stroke.

The Duke of Orléans, meanwhile, would lead the Western Empire's army in a landing in Tunisia to seize North Africa under Ottoman rule.

In the third year after the signing of the Treaty of Joint Rule, the "Two Heroes of Rome," having caught their breath, began their offensive against the Ottoman Empire.

This war lasted a full eight years. The Ottoman Empire suffered devastating losses, losing Tunisia, Algiers, and Cyrenaica in North Africa. In Europe it lost all territory outside the vicinity of Istanbul, and the entire country fell into a great crisis.

At the same time the Ottoman Empire fell into crisis, India was also in chaos. The Timurid Empire fell into civil strife and came under fierce attack from the Great Shun Empire of India, and was likewise on the verge of collapse.

The Russian Empire, after the death of Peter the Great, fell into political turmoil. First the low-born Empress Catherine was crowned sovereign with the support of the powerful minister Menshikov! Within a few years Empress Catherine died of illness and was replaced by Peter II.

Peter II did not last long before dying in 1730, and the Russian throne was suddenly laid before Elizabeth Petrovna and Anna Ivanovna, the niece of Peter I.

Of these, Anna Ivanovna, the niece of Peter I, was Duchess of Courland, while Elizabeth Petrovna had already, as she had wished, become the Crown Princess of the Ming.

The Senate, the actual supreme governing body of the Russian Empire, in order to prevent the throne from falling into the hands of the Ming Crown Princess, enthroned Anna Ivanovna, whose claim to succession was not so secure, as empress, and stripped Elizabeth Petrovna and her children of their succession rights.

And so a Russian war of succession became unavoidable!

This war was also seen as the prelude to the "blending of barbarian and Chinese"...... If the son of the Ming Crown Prince could become tsar, then why could the Great Ming Empire not become master of the world?

In order to make his wife empress of Russia and at the same time realize his ideal of "blending barbarian and Chinese," Zhu Bolian and his wife Elizabeth Petrovna left Yingtian Prefecture together and began a twelve-year expedition. At the same time, Zhu Bolian asked his father Zhu Yiyou to invest his eldest son Zhu Zhongtong as Imperial Grandson-heir...... And this long expedition produced an unexpected consequence.

It opened an era of Ming female power!

Because of Zhu Bolian's long expedition and Zhu Yiyou's doting on his grandson Zhu Zhongtong, Zhu Zhongtong developed a weak and indecisive character. Worried that his weak grandson would be bullied by that "madwoman" Elizabeth Petrovna, Zhu Yiyou once again broke the "Crown Princess Examination system" and directly selected a young lady of the Duke of Quan's house as his grandson's principal consort, hoping to use the power of the Zheng family to protect his grandson Zhu Zhongtong.

This arrangement seemed quite thorough, but it inadvertently raised the curtain on the era of Ming female power!

Meanwhile, Zhu Bolian, mired in a long war, did another foolish thing...... He broke the iron rule laid down by Zhu Cilang that "officers of Boy Scout origin may not serve in the Guards Army"! He allowed officers of Boy Scout origin to serve long-term in the Guards Army — the so-called Boy Scouts were the student soldiers of the Guards Army, who enlisted in their early teens, studied and trained for six years, and after passing an examination could become formal Guards Army soldiers.

After entering the Guards Army, they climbed upward by military merit, and the best among them could enter the Military Academy and then become officers of the Ming Army. However, these officers promoted from the Boy Scouts and Guards Army could not return to serve in the Guards Army; they could only command ordinary Ming troops. Those who commanded the Guards Army had to be officers of noble birth.

Such an arrangement was of course to prevent close-knit groups and factions from forming within the Guards Army, so as to avoid the Guards Army interfering in politics.

But Zhu Bolian, leading tens of thousands of Guards Army troops on a long expedition abroad, found that Guards Army officers of noble birth were more prone to war-weariness and unwilling to follow him and Elizabeth Petrovna in slowly grinding things out with the method of "three parts politics, seven parts military"...... Most of them were young gentlemen of Yingtian Prefecture and naturally unwilling to fight such a protracted war.

So Zhu Bolian simply memorialized his imperial father and transferred in a batch of Boy Scout-origin officers willing to fight a prolonged war. And once this precedent was set, the Guards Army would become more and more assertive!

Moreover, this batch of Guards Army troops who had followed Zhu Bolian on the Russian expedition for many years became quite close to Elizabeth Petrovna and to Zhu Zhongzhen, the son Elizabeth Petrovna bore for Zhu Bolian, and they were also more in favor of the "blending barbarian and Chinese" ideal — these destitute Guards Army men were naturally more warlike than officers of Yingtian noble origin.

After planting a great pile of landmines and raising up a blood-stirring ideal for the Celestial Empire, Zhu Bolian, who had just ascended the throne, fell ill from accumulated overwork and died of illness in the Forbidden City of Nanjing in Yingtian Prefecture a few days before his fiftieth birthday — by this time, he had already seized the Russian throne for his wife, so Elizabeth Petrovna was not at his side, but his second son Zhu Zhongzhen, who had fought beside him on the Russian battlefields for many years, had returned to the Ming with him and was there at his side......