Chapter 1729: We Must First Kill Hong Taiji!

The Daigen Tala traveling palace.

In this courtyard, built in a blend of Mongol and Ü-Tsang architectural styles, a rare guest had arrived today! Empress Zhou, wife of Zhu Youjian, escorted by the Directorate of Ceremonial's concurrent brush-holding eunuchs Chen Bingzheng and Qi Benzheng, the Directorate of the Imperial Horses' superintendent eunuch Gao Qiqian, and the Supervisorate of Instruction's Supervisor Kong Zhenyun, among others, had finally traveled several hundred li to be reunited with Zhu Youjian.

Leaving the capital together with the Empress were Noble Consort Tian, Noble Consort Yuan, Shen Tingyang, who had come at imperial summons, and Qian Qianyi, who had shamelessly tagged along on his own initiative.

Of these, Noble Consort Tian and Noble Consort Yuan had both stayed behind at the Datong Summer Palace — the former Prince of Dai's residence — to settle everything. The two Noble Consorts and Empress Zhou had also brought with them a group of young eunuchs and palace maids specially selected from the imperial palace in Beijing, all reliable people, who would henceforth attend to Zhu Youjian's household.

Shen Tingyang and Qian Qianyi, for their part, had delivered a secret memorial to Zhu Youjian — a memorial from Chief Censor of the Left Sun Chengzong impeaching the eunuch faction at court for plotting to enthrone the Prince of Fu, Zhu Changxun!

Moreover, this secret memorial had also received the support of Empress Zhou, now heavy with child!

"Your Majesty, after Prince Dai and the others sent their seditious memorials to the capital, the eunuch faction at court and most of the ennobled favorites who control the Capital Camps and the Embroidered Uniform Guard all wished to welcome the Prince of Fu to the throne! Only Donglin gentlemen like Master Sun, and the inner attendants Companion Xu, Companion Shang, Companion Zhou, Companion Wang, Companion Gao, and others, along with Empress Yi'an, wished to enthrone the child in this concubine's womb."

The one making this report in the great hall of the Daigen Tala traveling palace was Empress Zhou — she had traveled all this way from Beijing, sparing no hardship, precisely to lodge this complaint!

She truly loathed that pack of eunuch-faction schemers and ennobled favorites! To think they wanted to enthrone the Prince of Fu. The child in her womb was certainly a son! Zhu Youjian also believed it was a son, and had even chosen a name already: Zhu Cilang!

That gang of treacherous ministers would not even wait, but insisted on enthroning the Prince of Fu — killing them would not even quell her hatred!

Zhu Youjian sat upright in a chair, holding Sun Chengzong's memorial in his hands, turning it over and over as he read — this was a fine thing indeed!

It was a memorial from the leader of the Donglin Faction impeaching the Prince of Fu, Zhu Changxun!

That Prince of Fu, the most favored of the old Wanli Emperor!

His princely estates alone amounted to twenty thousand qing — that is, two million mu! At the time, Henan Province could not even scrape together that much official land, and only later were fertile fields taken from Shandong and Huguang to make up the total.

In addition, a considerable portion of the property Zhang Juzheng had embezzled was also assigned to the Prince of Fu. Miscellaneous taxes along the Yangtze from Yangzhou to Taiping in Anhui were likewise assigned to the Fu household. The revenues of the salt wells of Sichuan, and part of the Huai salt revenues as well, all went to the Fu household — truly rich as a nation!

These days Zhu Youjian had been spending lavishly, and since he did not know how to make money (he had studied under that unfilial son for fifty years, yet the one thing he had never learned was how to make money), his purse was already somewhat tight.

Moreover, in his previous life Zhu Youjian had hated the Prince of Fu Zhu Changxun's son, Zhu Yousong, to the bone (that one had helped the unfilial son force the abdication)! Could he possibly let Zhu Yousong's father off in this life?

But although the Prince of Fu Zhu Changxun was rich as a nation, that was no crime warranting the reduction of his princedom and the abolition of his state. His wealth had all been given by his parents, openly and honorably, and Zhu Youjian could not simply confiscate it on a whim!

But now, at last, a crime had presented itself — someone had plotted to enthrone the Prince of Fu!

That in itself was the crime!

If the Prince of Fu had no ambitions, why would others plot to enthrone him?

Furthermore, Sun Chengzong had also stated in his memorial that the Guang Temple (the Ming Guangzong Emperor) and the Xi Temple (the Ming Xizong Emperor) had both died under suspicious circumstances, very likely murdered by villains plotting to enthrone the Prince of Fu!

Heh heh — a suspected regicide!

At this thought, Zhu Youjian's mood could not have been better. He put the memorial away, then bade Empress Zhou go and rest, and had Qian Qianyi and Shen Tingyang summoned in.

After Qian and Shen had performed the full ceremony of obeisance, Zhu Youjian granted the two men seats, then said with a smile to Qian Qianyi, who was already seated upright on an embroidered stool: "Minister Qian, you are the foremost leader of the Donglin, and are qualified to enter the Grand Secretariat. But at present there is no vacancy among the Grand Secretaries, and the posts of Minister and Vice Minister in the Six Ministries are all filled. How about first serving as Junior Supervisor of Instruction and concurrent Hanlin Academy Chancellor?"

Junior Supervisor of Instruction was a post under the Eastern Palace, and since Zhu Youjian currently had no son, the Junior Supervisor held no real power. But Hanlin Academy Chancellor was something formidable! The Hanlin Academy's duties were to oversee the drafting of edicts and the compilation of historical records, to examine and deliberate on institutions, to scrutinize and correct documents, and to serve as advisors to the Son of Heaven — though of course, after the Grand Secretariat's authority grew ever greater in the Ming, the most important of the Hanlin Chancellor's duties, the drafting of edicts, that is, the power to write imperial decrees, had passed to the Grand Secretaries.

But Zhu Youjian was now an emperor free from the control of the court officials. He had no Grand Secretaries at his side (he had wanted to summon Huang Liji over, but Chief Grand Secretary Huang had found an excuse to decline), only the brush-holding eunuchs of the Directorate of Ceremonial, and so he needed someone to replace the Grand Secretariat scholars in drafting edicts. Now that Qian Qianyi had delivered himself to his door, he suited Zhu Youjian's purposes exactly.

However, Zhu Youjian did not yet intend to strip the Grand Secretariat of its power, nor to bring down the eunuch faction — because he was still fairly satisfied with the current Grand Secretariat. And he also knew that he could not count on purging the Grand Secretariat to push through any new policies; the only thing that could truly push through new policies was the New Army!

Until the New Army was fully established, the Grand Secretariat would serve merely as a caretaker, and there was no need to place great hopes in them, nor to spend too much energy matching wits with them.

So Zhu Youjian did not wish to wrangle with that lot every day. Henceforth, the Hanlin Chancellor and the Directorate of Ceremonial would help handle the draft rescripts and memorials sent over by the Grand Secretariat, and that would be enough.

"Shen Tingyang, is it?" After arranging Qian Qianyi's post, Zhu Youjian turned his gaze to Shen Tingyang, the God of Wealth. This man had been one of the pillars of that unfilial son back in the day!

"This student is indeed Shen Tingyang." Shen Tingyang appeared somewhat ill at ease, both hands resting on his knees, looking nothing at all like a cunning merchant.

Zhu Youjian asked with a smile: "You came north for the matter of the kaizhong system and the sea transport of southern grain?"

Sun Chengzong had submitted a memorial specifically on Shen Tingyang's behalf — first, to recommend him; second, to help Shen Tingyang promote his method of shipping tribute grain by sea.

Because the Yellow River had seized the Huai's course in the late Northern Song, all three vital waterways — the Yellow, the Huai, and the Grand Canal — had developed problems. The source of the trouble was the enormous volume of silt carried by the Yellow River! After this silt rushed into the Huai, it began to deposit in the lower Huai and in Hongze Lake, steadily raising the riverbed and the lakebed, causing the Huai's outlet to the sea to silt up gradually, and leaving Hongze Lake suspended over the heads of the Huai'an and Yangzhou prefectures.

After the Wanli reign, flooding on the Huai grew ever more severe, reaching the point of a major flood every two or three years, dealing a serious blow to agricultural production throughout the Huai basin. And there was only one way to solve the problem — cut off the Grand Canal, and dig a channel north of the Huai for the Yellow River to enter the sea, so that the Yellow River's silt would no longer enter the Huai.

If the canal were not cut off, but instead allowed to intersect with the Yellow River, then the Yellow River's silt would quickly raise the riverbed at the junction of the two waterways, and before long the Yellow River would become a "high wall" severing the canal.

Therefore, after the Ming moved the capital to Beijing, in order to maintain the absolute security of Beijing's grain supply, the state adopted a policy of "abandoning the Huai to preserve the canal," letting the Yellow River's silt pour into the Huai.

"Your Majesty," Shen Tingyang nodded, "if the kaizhong system is to be implemented to supply grain to the Liao army, then the grain shipped north by sea each year already amounts to several million shi, roughly equal to the tribute grain total. With only one more doubling of the sand-ships, replacing the tribute grain transport entirely by sea is completely feasible. Once sea transport has replaced the canal, the channel for the Yellow River to enter the sea can be excavated. Then the lower Huai will no longer silt up, the Huai waters will no longer flood year after year, and countless lives in the prefectures and counties along the Huai will be saved from utter ruin."

As for lives being ruined, Zhu Youjian did not actually care. But if the Huai stopped flooding, Huai-region grain would greatly increase in yield! That would ease the overall tightness in grain supply.

With grain in hand, the heart is at ease!

But abolishing the canal and preserving the Huai would touch the interests of many people, and Zhu Youjian did not dare act rashly. Just as he was thinking of putting the matter off for a while and, in passing, arranging a good post for Shen Tingyang, Chen Bingzheng, the brush-holding eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, came hurrying to Zhu Youjian's side bearing a memorial from the Ministry of War already affixed with a draft rescript. Zhu Youjian took the memorial, opened it, and glanced at it; his brow immediately knotted into a frown. After a long while, he closed the memorial and said to Shen Tingyang before him: "Shen Tingyang, We shall implement the sea transport of tribute grain to save the common people along the Huai. But before that, We must first kill Hong Taiji!"

(End of Chapter)