Chapter 1772: The Son of Heaven — All Are Great Robbers

"Your Majesty, you're going to rob Beijing — you can't do this!"

"Your Majesty, inside Beijing city is not like the grasslands."

The Great Ming still has good officials!

Right by the earthen wall outside Beijing there are two of them — one named Sun Chuanting, one named Lu Xiangsheng.

They are both civil officials who read the sages' books and passed the Son of Heaven's examinations — naturally not like those two officials recruited from sea and land bandits, Li Zicheng and Shen Tingyang (does that seem a bit unfair to them?) — and they do not know what matters and what does not.

At first Sun Chuanting and Lu Xiangsheng did not know that Zhu Youjian was going to rob some female treacherous merchant or whatever — they thought the little emperor was going to Beijing to seize treacherous merchants who colluded with foreigners and sold out the country! So after receiving the little emperor's edict, they immediately assembled two regiments of cavalry and galloped off to Beijing with him.

When Zhu Youjian arrived outside the earthen wall of Beijing with more than two thousand cavalry and began resting and deploying for the seizure operation, the two loyal subjects finally realized that the little emperor was going to rob a female treacherous merchant in Beijing — and they instantly grew frantic.

The Emperor of the Great Ming!

Such a lofty, exalted figure! How can he go robbing at every turn? This year he already robbed the Uriankhai, and next year he plans to rob the Tartars farming at Mameng Mountain! Those are all beyond the Great Wall, so it was tolerable. But this time he wants to rob Beijing — and rob during the New Year, no less — and rob a female treacherous merchant. If word of this gets out, the whole realm will take the little emperor for a fatuous tyrant!

Future history books will write the little emperor as utterly infamous!

So the two loyal subjects knelt before Zhu Youjian and began remonstrating boldly to his face.

Seeing these two loyal subjects, Zhu Youjian truly did not know whether to laugh or cry. These two loyal subjects were loyal, all right, but they had read themselves stupid and had no idea of the trick to being an emperor!

Of course, that trick was not so easy to find. Because the sages' books never wrote it down, and imperial tutors generally did not know it either — and even if they did know, they would not tell the crown prince or the little emperor.

At any rate, Zhu Youjian had never heard any of the lecturers mention it. Fortunately, he had studied under his unfilial son for more than fifty years, and he also had a flock of sons and grandsons who had "opened ten thousand li of territory" to use as reference. He had finally learned the real skill!

Put plainly, the skill is simply this: the Son of Heaven (the sovereign), all are great robbers!

For anyone who would be Son of Heaven or great king, the first skill is "robbing"; the second skill is "swindling"!

Only by knowing how to swindle and rob can one become a good emperor (good great king) whose name is recorded in history.

Of course, when actually putting the two skills of robbing and swindling into practice, there is an emphasis to be chosen.

If Zhu Youjian, like his unfilial son, moved the capital to Nanjing and established himself in the rich lands of the southeast, the land of plenty under heaven, then he would have to rely mainly on swindling and only secondarily on robbing. After the unfilial son went south of the Yangtze, although he did rob, he mainly swindled!

But Zhu Youjian could not move the capital — he had to be the Son of Heaven guarding the national gate!

And the Great Ming's national gate was situated in a place with a relatively backward economy, and one that certainly could not develop any industry or commerce in the coming decades — from the Tianqi era onward, the Ming's northern lands had grown colder and drier. Under such conditions, how could any industry or commerce develop? What would the industrial and commercial population eat?

So what lay before Zhu Youjian was not developing industry and commerce in Northern Zhili, but de-industrializing Northern Zhili. Because Northern Zhili's agriculture in the coming decades simply could not supply a huge urban population.

And shipping tribute grain by sea to supply several hundred thousand troops (including their families and livestock) was already extremely strained — if Zhu Youjian intended to carry the war into the Later Jin's home territory, then he would also have to reckon with the enormous wastage of overland supply lines.

Under such circumstances, it was simply impossible to maintain an industrial and commercial population of a million. These industrial and commercial people, plus the livestock serving industry and commerce, could consume over ten million shi in a single year! Moreover, many of the raw materials needed for the production these million industrial and commercial people engaged in would also have to be shipped in from the southeast by sea.

And the port at Tianjin was not very good — it froze over for several months every year! The Wei River (Hai River) was constantly too shallow for boats, and transport costs were extremely high.

So even if Zhu Youjian had heaven-defying methods and forcibly developed industry and commerce in Northern Zhili, the products would certainly be far more expensive than those from the southeast, and no one would buy them.

Therefore, Zhu Youjian, who made Beijing his imperial capital and pursued the route of "the Son of Heaven guarding the national gate," could only base himself on the armed forces of the landlord class.

And for a landlord-class armed force based in Northern Zhili, if it could not rob in the next twenty or thirty years, could it even survive?

"Master Sun, Master Lu!" Zhu Youjian said with a smile to the two loyal subjects (both of whom held the nominal title of lecturer), "Are you two perhaps preparing to abandon Confucianism for commerce and manage Our vast imperial estate holdings for Us? Should We transfer you two into the Directorate of the Imperial Horses?"

What? Enter the Directorate of the Imperial Horses? The two loyal subjects thought to themselves: Become imperial horses? Or become eunuchs? Neither is suitable!

"Your Majesty, this subject is a Confucian scholar and does not know how to manage business."

"This subject is also a bookish man."

The loyal subjects were no fools — the imperial estate holdings were a hot potato, coveted by all sides, and extremely difficult to manage well!

Zhu Youjian asked again: "If the Founding Ancestor had encountered such a matter, how would he have handled it? He could not have forced a duck onto a perch — could he have ordered the Prince of Zhongshan and the Prince of Kaiping to go do business?"

"That..."

"But the Founding Emperor would not have gone robbing either."

Zhu Youjian said gravely: "The Exalted Founding Emperor was the leader of the Red Turban righteous army!" He clenched his fist. "He robbed the whole realm — it was all robbed! What does robbing one or two people count for?"

As he spoke, Zhu Youjian smiled and said: "You two are both scholars. If you find it unsuitable... once we enter Beijing, go take over the Military Government Office, the Shuntian Prefectural Office, the Western District Military Command, Desheng Gate, and Zhengyang Gate. Shortly after, Shi Kefa, Lu Zhenfei, He Tengjiao, Wei Zaode, and Lü Daqi will bring troops into the capital!

As for the matter of robbing the person — We, Li Zicheng, and Shen Tingyang will handle it!"

What? They also had to take over the Military Government Office, the Western District Military Command, and the Shuntian Prefectural Office? And five militia leaders were coming too?

Sun Chuanting and Lu Xiangsheng were no fools — they immediately sensed something wrong. This time the little emperor was going to "rob" not just a female treacherous merchant, but the entire city of Beijing!

The Capital Camps of Beijing had already been hollowed out by Zhu Youjian, but they had not been formally disbanded. The Commander of the Capital Camps was still Zhu Chunchen, who was away leading troops — and inside Beijing there still remained a small number of Capital Camps troops on garrison duty!

Moreover, the Capital Camps still had many properties!

The barracks, parade grounds, storehouses, granaries, fodder yards, horse pens, and so on of the Three Great Camps were all extremely valuable assets!

All these assets had to be seized.

Then Zhu Youjian would transfer the five militia leaders — Shi Kefa, Lu Zhenfei, He Tengjiao, Wei Zaode, and Lü Daqi — into the capital. They had over ten thousand "trained troops" at hand. The number was not large, but they were reliable and daring in battle! Of these five militia leaders, two were newly minted jinshi, two were juren, and one was a petty official who had served as County Magistrate for a few days before going home.

Only with them stationed in Beijing could Zhu Youjian truly stabilize the situation in the capital!

With the bottom card Zhu Youjian had revealed, the loyal subjects were reassured!

"This subject obeys the edict!"

"This subject receives the edict."

Zhu Youjian nodded, then said to Li Zicheng and Shen Tingyang beside him: "Come, let us enter Beijing!"

"Orders received!"

"Obeying the edict!"

The outer city of Beijing, Shanxi Camp.

This area was where Shanxi merchants in the capital gathered and concentrated. As early as when the Yongle Emperor moved the capital to Beijing, a large batch of merchants and artisans had been moved from Shanxi to live here. Bai Zhanyuan, the founder of the Bai family's Tianzihao, was one of them. This Bai Zhanyuan was originally from a "medical household" — the Bai family had run a medicine shop back then, and Bai Zhanyuan came to Beijing to serve as an imperial physician. He first opened a medicine shop called "Jishitang." Later, because he cured some difficult illness of Zhu Di's, he was granted the title "Foremost Divine Physician Under Heaven," and the shop was renamed "Tianzihao."

Later, drawing on the connections accumulated through this "Tianzihao," the Bai family's business grew larger and larger, and they also caught the wave of the kaizhong system and became great salt merchants. But the medicine business continued — that was the Bai family's channel for building ties with the upper crust!

Besides using the medicine shop to cultivate relations with the great figures of Beijing, the Bai family also intermarried with the families of Guard Commanders in the military garrisons around Shanxi and Beijing, and through them became connected by kinship and old ties to the meritorious nobility of Beijing.

The current head of the Bai family's Tianzihao, Mistress Xu Ruolan, came from Zhenxi Guard. Her ancestors for generations had been Guard Commanders, and the family had produced several Regional Commanders and Vice Regional Commanders — she could be counted a tiger daughter of a military family.

Perhaps this tiger daughter of a military family was too formidable, and as a result she overwhelmed her husband. Within a few years of marrying into the Bai family, she was widowed, left to raise a son on her own. But her widowhood was lived with relish. First, relying on the protection of her godmother, Madam Ke, she took over the Tianzihao. Later, she stoked the cold stove of Xu Yingyuan and acknowledged kinship with Eunuch Xu — they both had the surname Xu, so of course they were kin!

So the fall of Wei Zhongxian and Madam Ke did not touch her or the Bai family's Tianzihao. With Factory Director Xu protecting her, who in all Beijing would dare bully her?

These past few days, with the New Year approaching and the Emperor away from Beijing, Widow Xu invited her godfather and godmother (Xu Yingyuan's dining partner) to the grand residence in the Shanxi camp to properly pay her respects.

(End of Chapter)