Chapter 1644: Seizing the Army, Part One

The twenty-fifth day of the eighth month in the seventh year of Tianqi, at the hour of Zi.

It was the darkest hour of the night, and the whole Forbidden City lay in stillness. Only in the Hall of Literary Splendor, where the newly enthroned Zhu Youjian resided, did lamps still blaze, with bursts of noisy clamor sounding from time to time. It turned out that the young Son of Heaven, just ascended the throne, had laid out a banquet in the Hall of Literary Splendor to reward the eunuchs and guards who had followed him from the Prince of Xin's residence into the Forbidden City.

Too much had happened in the Forbidden City over the previous two or three days — the Tianqi Emperor had died of illness, the Prince of Xin had entered the palace to take the throne, and then there had been the enthronement ceremony. All of it involved enormous shifts of interest and the secret dealings those shifts produced. It was no exaggeration to say that anyone in the Forbidden City with the least standing had gone without sleep for those two or three days, busy with public affairs above the table and private ones beneath it. Only when the new Emperor's enthronement ceremony was over did it come to an end.

And the power structure within the Forbidden City seemed not to have changed much. Wei Zhongxian had evidently kept his power, still holding it firmly, the all-controlling eunuch grandee over everything within and without. The young Son of Heaven still relied heavily on Wei Zhongxian — otherwise he would not have specially sent word for him to wear the robes of a Duke at the enthronement ceremony.

So the outer officials and inner attendants inside and outside the Forbidden City who had attached themselves to Wei Zhongxian could at last sleep soundly tonight.

As for the "upright gentlemen" who opposed Wei Zhongxian, for the moment they had lost hope. The Son of Heaven was young, after all, and a little timid. It seemed they could only wait a while longer!

Fortunately, the young Son of Heaven still held his imperial sister-in-law in great respect, and intended to adopt his eldest son out to his elder brother and sister-in-law, and later let that adopted-out son inherit the succession.

With that promise, the anti-eunuch faction centered on Empress Zhang had something to look forward to, and could also sleep soundly. At worst they would wait a few more years; once the young Son of Heaven had a son of his own and Empress Zhang could become Empress Dowager Zhang, it would not be too late to deal with Wei Zhongxian!

So tonight, not only did most people inside the Forbidden City sleep especially soundly, but even the officials and nobles outside the Forbidden City — loyal or treacherous — mostly slept soundly too.

Even Wei Chengyun, the adopted grandson Wei Zhongxian had sent to watch the Hall of Literary Splendor, a eunuch attendant of the Directorate of Ceremonial, after arranging shifts of junior eunuchs to keep watch on the Eastern Flowery Gate and the Gate of Assembled Extremes, found a place to doze off — the so-called surveillance was really just to prevent the young Son of Heaven from colluding with the civil officials and nobles of the outer court.

And the Eastern Flowery Gate and the Gate of Assembled Extremes were the two routes one had to take to leave the Forbidden City from the Hall of Literary Splendor.

If none of those so-called upright ministers of the outer court helped the little Emperor make trouble, what could a seventeen-year-old Son of Heaven with no army of his own and the few dozen eunuchs and guards he had brought into the palace possibly do?

And looking at how meek and timid the little Emperor was, he probably did not have the nerve for it anyway!

But what this man, known as "Grandpa Little Wei," never imagined was that the all-powerful "Grandpa Nine Thousand Nine Hundred Years" — who in his eyes lacked only wings to ascend to immortality — was not even in the young Son of Heaven's sights. Killing Wei Zhongxian was simply too easy. The harder part was how to make Wei Zhongxian's death valuable enough!

Truly, an opponent like Wei Zhongxian — all claws and fangs, obviously a villain at a glance, yet with no real strength, dead at a single stroke — was something Zhu Youjian had never seen a second of in his previous life!

Moreover, killing Wei Zhongxian was a chance to "grind monsters and level up." Done well, it would not only turn a bare Son of Heaven into a mounted sovereign with crack troops in hand, but also let him pick up treasure all over the ground. With that treasure, the Emperor could sit securely.

To fail to make good use of such an opportunity would be sheer stupidity!

"The strongest troops within the capital are the Loyal and Brave, Four Guards, and Warriors camps under the Directorate of the Imperial Horses. The three of you come from these three camps, so you should know their true state. We ask you: how many crack troops are there in these three camps?"

In a side hall of the Hall of Literary Splendor, Zhu Youjian sat boldly in an armchair, his eyes blazing as he looked at the three loyal men before him and put the question.

Zhu Youjian was about to seize an army — to seize an army that, in the original course of history, had belonged to him!

The matter might seem superfluous, but Zhu Youjian, who had studied the "Emperor's Classic" for more than fifty years under a sage ruler and a wicked son, now knew that an army you seize and an army you inherit are not the same in how firmly you hold them.

Only by first seizing the army, then leading it to kill rebels and quell disorder, and then rewarding merit, could Zhu Youjian truly establish absolute authority and become the true and sole supreme commander of the Imperial Horse Directorate's palace guard.

And by seizing the army, Zhu Youjian could also purge the Loyal and Brave, Four Guards, and Warriors camps, kicking out all those who held office without doing the work, or harbored ill intent, or knew only corruption and nothing of duty. This sort of kicking people out was easiest to accomplish when the whole army was madly eager to follow some new master to promotion and fortune.

Because at such a time everyone wants to perform well, everyone longs for the lord's favor, and they are unlikely to band together and make trouble.

And cutting away some of the less serviceable soldiers would also teach the remaining crack troops to value their place, making them exert themselves doubly.

So Zhu Youjian first had to get a clear picture of the true state of the Loyal and Brave, Four Guards, and Warriors camps.

Sun Yingyuan was the oldest of the three loyal men, held the highest rank, and had served longest in the Directorate of the Imperial Horses.

So it fell to him to answer Zhu Youjian's question. "Your Majesty, the three camps of our Imperial Horse Directorate have a paper strength of 6,500 men in all. The shortfall is not large — the actual number is about 6,000. However, the grand eunuchs sent out to the Nine Frontiers to supervise the armies often take some stout men from the three camps with them for protection. So the troops left in the Imperial Horse Directorate's barracks number fewer than 3,600, of whom a full 3,000 are loyal and daring fighters!"

"Are all 3,600 in camp?" Zhu Youjian asked again.

"On ordinary days they take turns on duty, so there are always 2,000 in camp awaiting orders. But these past few days are an extraordinary time, and there will be rewards as usual, so naturally every man is in camp."

Paper strength 6,500, actual 6,000, 2,000 normally in camp — by the standards of the Ming army today, that was already very reliable. Not to mention being able to pick 3,000 loyal and daring fighters from the 3,600 troops in the capital.

Do not scorn 3,000 loyal and daring fighters as too few. Those were true crack troops, the Son of Heaven's own household retainers, all warriors selected from the Nine Frontier garrisons. Almost every man had been on the battlefield and seen mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Take that Huang Degong, for instance — generations of Liaodong frontier soldiers, sword in hand on the battlefield at age twelve, and in his first battle he cut down two invading Tartars (Mongols, presumably). A proper fiend of slaughter!

The Capital Camps troops inside Beijing could not compare with them at all, let alone Wei Zhongxian's Southern Lake Pure Army.

"Good!" Zhu Youjian nodded heavily. "With 3,000 crack troops it is enough. We want those 3,000 men!"

His gaze swept over the faces of Sun Yingyuan, Zhou Yuji, and Huang Degong. "Tonight, We give each of you 10,000 taels of gold, and command you to use that gold to pick 1,000 crack troops. Can you do it?"

Ten thousand taels of gold!

Divided among 1,000 men, that averaged out to ten taels of gold apiece!

Although the three camps of the Imperial Horse Directorate had always received full grain and full pay — their grain and pay did not come from the Ministry of Revenue, but from the Imperial Horse Directorate's income from the imperial estates and imperial shops, so there had never been any arrears of pay or grain, and the eunuch superintendents and eunuch governors-general who ran the army did not dare skim from them —

still, ten taels of gold was an enormous sum to them. And this money came personally from the master of the three camps, His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Ming, so taking it was entirely aboveboard.

"With a reward that heavy, of course it is enough!" Sun Yingyuan nodded.

But Zhou Yuji said, "Your Majesty, 10,000 taels of gold is too much. That averages ten taels per man!"

Huang Degong added, "Indeed — it is worth as much as the head of a real Tartar!"

Zhu Youjian smiled and said, "Would these 10,000 taels be divided equally among the men below? The officers leading troops must certainly take more. By the time it reaches the soldiers below, five taels each would be good. And whether We can sit comfortably as Emperor, whether We can sit securely, depends on whether these 3,000 stout warriors will stake their lives. So We will give gold and silver in full measure. We will not let loyal men die in vain!"

(End of Chapter)