Chapter 1718: The Great Ming Son of Heaven Does Not Go Home

Beijing, the twenty-sixth day of the sixth month.

The very day after Fan Wencheng reached Shenyang and brought the great good news to Hong Taiji, the Tiancong Khan of the Great Jin, a large body of cavalry escorting several important men bearing imperial commands flew straight into the barbican of Desheng Gate on the north side of Beijing. These cavalrymen were all dressed as the Embroidered Uniform Guard, every one of them wearing flying-fish robes. Because they had ridden hard for several hundred li, they were all drenched in stinking sweat, and the horses beneath them had grown gaunt and shaggy. In ordinary times, these Embroidered Uniform Guardsmen qualified to wear flying-fish robes were all gentlemen of standing — when had anyone ever seen them in such a sorry state?

The Son of Heaven's Embroidered Uniform Guard was not only a fearsome secret-police agency; it was also a "kindergarten" for the sons of officials and the sons of ennobled merit families. Many an official father, having piled up a bit of merit, would cash it in for some Embroidered Uniform Guard Centurion post for a son still nursing at the breast. There really was something of treating the Embroidered Uniform Guard as a kindergarten. How much fighting strength an Embroidered Uniform Guard turned into an officialdom kindergarten could still have — that could be figured out with one's heel.

And the men escorting the important persons back to the capital today were just such a group of N-generation heirs from the "Embroidered Uniform Guard kindergarten." Earlier, that old fellow Zhang Weixian had coaxed and tricked them into leaving the capital on campaign, and they had traveled more than six hundred li to Datong Garrison, which had been invaded by the Mongol Tartars. Not staying in perfectly good Beijing, but going to such a dangerous Datong — just thinking about it was courting death!

Still, they had been lucky enough: the little emperor, who had been on the throne less than a year, had somehow or other sent the invading Tartars away. So the whole venture could be counted as startling but not dangerous!

But the little emperor's wild thrashing about was not over! He had no intention whatever of returning to court in triumph; he wanted to stay on in Datong Garrison and keep thrashing about. Not only did he want to thrash about with an imperial personal expedition, preparing to strike straight into the Tumed River plain; he was also thrashing about with the hornet's-nest business of clearing fields, surveying land, and reorganizing the army.

What gave these N-generation heirs from the "Embroidered Uniform Guard kindergarten" an even bigger headache was that the little emperor had actually used the matter of the expedition against the Tumed River plain to threaten the Duke of Ying, the Duke of Cheng, the Marquis of Funing, and the rest into bringing the literate, capable officers of the Capital Camps to help investigate fields and people!

This business was smashing people's rice bowls and cutting off people's livelihoods — there would be retribution for it!

And how much profit could Datong Garrison possibly have? It was only the territory of a single prefecture, and cold and dry at that. The military colonies under its eight guards and sixty-four forts amounted to at most 2.7 or 2.8 million mu — even if all of it were recovered, how much could be collected? How could it compare with the military-guard colonies around Beijing? Around Beijing there were several dozen military guards alone, a good seven or eight times Datong's eight guards, and the land that had been embezzled away was at least 10 million mu.

Moreover, the phantom payrolls of Datong Garrison could not possibly compare with those of the Capital Camps. The Capital Camps not only ate phantom payrolls ferociously, but the capital troops' pay was also higher — one tael, seven or eight mace of silver a month. Eating phantom payrolls there was truly too comfortable.

Now that the Son of Heaven was sending Capital Camps officers to investigate the military colonies and phantom payrolls of Datong Garrison, would he not later have Datong Garrison officers come investigate the Capital Camps?

Just thinking about it was dreadful!

But even knowing it would be dreadful, the Capital Camps officers in Datong did not dare oppose the little emperor who had just defeated the foremost Mongol champion.

The Capital Camps troops Zhang Weixian had brought to Datong — counting the household retainers of the various ennobled merit families, the N-generation heirs idling in the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and the temporary soldiers at one tael of silver a month — amounted in all to just over twenty thousand men. In Datong, whom could they bully?

The Son of Heaven's household retainers alone numbered ten thousand!

And after confiscating the estates of several princes, the little emperor had opened a branch of the "Son of Heaven's household retainers" in Datong, offering the high price of 500 mu of office land per household plus a house inside Datong city, recruiting 1,500 brave men from among Datong Garrison's eight guards and sixty-four forts. (The estates taken from the several princes were enough to allot 2,000 households, but Zhu Youjian still planned to move a batch of backbone men from Beijing to Datong, so he recruited only 1,500 households locally in Datong.) How many brave men did the Datong Garrison region have in all? Once the local military houses like the Ma and Ma generals' clans had divided them up, and the little emperor had taken away another 1,500 households, what was left to thrash about with?

If the little emperor could stay in Datong for half a year, this Datong military garrison would probably fall completely under his control, and thereafter Datong could be treated as the Great Ming's western capital.

Zhang Weixian, Zhu Chunchen, Zhu Guobi, Luo Sigong, Luo Yangxing, and the rest had also sensed that something was wrong: this little emperor did not want to go home; he meant to keep roaming wild in Datong!

This was using the old trick of the Zhengde Emperor, who had made Xuanfu his home, to set up a "Garrison-State Office" in Datong, even farther from Beijing than Xuanfu (the Zhengde Emperor had once established a Garrison-State Office in Xuanfu and made it his home, commanding the border armies from there), so as to shake off the Grand Secretaries at court and do great things on his own!

Zhang Weixian and the others, having discovered this ominous sign, also knew that in Datong Garrison they had no way to handle Zhu Youjian. So a few days earlier, they had jointly advised the little emperor to send Li Zunzu, the Earl of Ningyuan, and Zhao Zhilong, the Earl of Xincheng, who had accompanied the Capital Camps to Datong, back to Beijing to take charge of the Capital Camps and put the capital's defenses in order.

Zhu Youjian had a good impression of Zhao Zhilong and Li Zunzu — Zhao Zhilong was the "loyal subject" who had raised troops in Nanjing to resist the rebellious son!

And Li Zunzu had gone missing in the breakout battle from Beijing in the jiashen year, and had never been found afterward; he was presumed to have died a martyr.

So Zhu Youjian very readily approved Zhang Weixian and the others' proposal, letting Zhao Zhilong and Li Zunzu act as joint Commanders and Superintendents of the Capital Camps, and, bearing Zhu Youjian's direct edict, they returned to Beijing under the escort of a company of Embroidered Uniform Guard cavalry.

Returning to Beijing after an absence of twenty-some days, Zhao Zhilong and Li Zunzu looked upon the Great Ming's foremost capital, now under alert, with the feeling of a world apart.

Beijing, ordinarily so lax, now actually had something of the look of strict vigilance! Inside and outside the Desheng Gate barbican, large bodies of Capital Camps troops were actually standing guard!

The officer guarding the gate, seeing a large body of Embroidered Uniform Guard about to enter the city, actually dared to stop them, ordering the main force to remain in the barbican and admitting only Zhao Zhilong and Li Zunzu into the city to conduct their business.

This degree of vigilance was almost up to Datong Garrison's level — something must have happened!

Zhao Zhilong, who knew everyone, found an acquaintance at the Desheng Gate barbican and asked, and only then learned that Beijing had been far from peaceful these past days!

Because the news that had come from Datong Garrison earlier had been contradictory and strange, it had stirred up no small disturbance in Beijing. First, memorials from several unlucky princes arrived — the Son of Heaven had been defeated and surrounded, his fate unknown! This startled every sort of personage in Beijing.

The Son of Heaven had no son yet! If he were truly gone, who would be the Ming emperor?

The two empresses in the palace, the six Grand Secretaries at court, and the ennobled merit families all over Beijing were dumbstruck — and then began to scheme. They automatically split into two factions: those supporting the Prince of Fu were one faction; those wanting to take a young child from the household of Zhu Changying, the Prince of Gui, to make a boy emperor were another.

Those wanting to enthrone the Prince of Fu were the so-called eunuch faction — that is, those who had not crossed the Prince of Fu during the succession struggle. By procedure, he was indeed the one who ought to become emperor.

And those wanting to take a son from the Prince of Gui's household were the Donglin Faction and the great eunuchs of the palace. This combination was a bit strange: the eunuch faction had no eunuchs, while the Donglin gentlemen this time stood together with the eunuchs.

The reason for this was that the proposal to adopt a son from the Prince of Gui's household had been put forward by Empress Zhang — she still hoped Empress Zhou would bear a son to be adopted by herself, so that she could become Empress Dowager! Of course she could not let the Prince of Fu come to Beijing. The Prince of Fu was enfeoffed at Luoyang and could reach Beijing very quickly; there would be no waiting for Empress Zhou to give birth.

The Prince of Gui, however, was enfeoffed at Hengzhou; going there and back would take quite some days, and if things could be dragged out a little more, it would most likely be possible to drag things out until Empress Zhou gave birth. If Empress Zhou then bore a son, the Prince of Gui's son could be sent back; if she bore a girl, then there would be no help for it.

This proposal naturally won the support of the Donglin Faction led by Sun Chengzong, and at the same time gained the support of Xu Yingyuan, Zhou Shizhi, Shang Fuming, and several other great eunuchs who had come from the Prince of Xin's princely establishment.

Because Zhu Youjian, before leaving Beijing on his personal expedition, had contracted out the salt tax to Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan, he had injured the interests of Beijing's ennobled merit families. So the capital's ennobled merit families stood on the eunuch faction's side in this "succession struggle" triggered by misunderstanding. But before the two sides could actually come to blows, the second wave of men sent by Zhang Weixian arrived, bringing the good news of the great victory at White Mountain.

(End of Chapter)