Chapter 285: Duke Yansheng, You Must Step Forward!

At some point, the entire area around Qufu had turned into one vast construction site.

The moat that originally ringed the city had now been widened to more than fifty feet, and was still being widened. The city wall inside the moat had also changed dramatically. The originally vertical brick wall, seen from the outside where part of it was already finished, had become a steeply angled slope — the wall and the ground no longer met at a right angle, but formed an angle of seventy or eighty degrees. The top of the wall had also been widened somewhat. The crenellations, which had never been very sturdy, had all been torn down, replaced by a thick, solid stone parapet, its outer face likewise sloping at seventy or eighty degrees. Every ten paces, this parapet had a large embrasure for mounting cannon.

At the four corners of the roughly square city of Qufu and at its five gates, enormous scaffolding had now gone up, and thousands of craftsmen were working day and night, laying sturdy grey bricks over the surfaces of nine triangular rammed-earth gun platforms.

These grey bricks were fired right beside Qufu. Kiln after kiln belched thick smoke day and night, and the bricks they produced were immediately carted off in an endless stream of wagons to the worksite where the city was being enlarged.

Teams hauling timber from the nearby mountain forests also came and went in a steady procession, chanting work songs and shouting at their horses. The wagons were loaded with first-rate building timber. The forests around Qufu were all part of the geomantic preserve of the Kong family cemetery, and cutting had always been forbidden. Now the Duke for the Perpetuation of the Sage had personally issued the order to open them to felling — for the sake of defending Confucius's tomb, what sacrifice was too great?

The people working at the Qufu construction site were all families who had been attached to the Duke's household for generations, and had long since come to regard Confucius as their own ancestor. So they all worked for nothing, asking no wages!

These unpaid people of Qufu had been hard at work since the ninth month of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, and now, with the eleventh month nearly upon them, the "Qufu bastion" had at last begun to take shape.

That was right — Qufu was being rebuilt into a bastion fort!

This small but sturdy city was very well suited to bastion-style conversion, because the city was not large, so the cost of the work could be kept under control. Moreover, all five of Qufu's gates had semicircular barbicans, so gun platforms could be added on top of the barbicans. The outline of Qufu was also fairly simple — perfectly square — so projecting gun platforms could be added at the four corners as well. Together with the gun platforms built atop the five barbicans, this would create nine mutually supporting gun platforms capable of delivering crossfire.

The man who designed and directed this rebuilding of Qufu for Shi Kefa and Kong Yinzhi was Han Lin, a Bureau Secretary of the Ministry of Works — the author of the Shouyu Quanshu. After he had gone ahead as an advance man for Gu Junen and then been sent by Zuo Liangyu to Yangzhou, he had been taken into service by the discerning Zhu Cilang and made a vice director of the Ministry of Works. He had not even reported to the ministry, but had been sent straight to Qufu to take charge of repairing the walls.

By the time he reached Qufu, Shi Kefa and Kong Yinzhi had already completed the preparations for enlarging the city, which let him, the author of the Shouyu Quanshu, take over the project directly. He had been busy for nearly two months now, and at last there were some results.

If Dorgon could give him a few more months, then by spring of next year at the latest, Qufu would become an impregnable bastion.

According to Han Lin's own account, once Qufu was repaired according to Western methods, it would be a strong city, easy to defend and hard to attack, and proof against internal disorder as well. Even if the Tartars had Hongyi cannon, they would never be able to breach the fortress.

Thus Kong Yinzhi, the Duke for the Perpetuation of the Sage, could stay in Qufu with complete confidence, defending Confucius and defending the orthodox teachings.

But this Duke, who had been forced by circumstances to step forward and resist the barbarians, never imagined that the Ming Crown Prince, Commander of the Armies, had already prepared an even weightier task for him!

"What? S-step forward, and march n-north to recover Yan and Yun!"

In the great hall of the Kong residence in Qufu, Kong Yinzhi, who had just been kneeling to receive the decree, felt a wave of dizziness and could barely get his words out.

The man delivering the decree was Wu Ruzheng himself, the Marquis of Gongshun and Chief Minister of the Office of Transmission. Hearing Kong Yinzhi's question, he simply smiled and said, "My Lord Duke, this is an opportunity for your Kong family! If the northern expedition succeeds, you may advance yet another step — you could be enfeoffed as a prince!"

"B-but I, I do not wish to be enfeoffed as a prince!" Kong Yinzhi was so frightened he could not even get up, and could only cast desperate glances at Shi Kefa beside him.

Shi Kefa had no choice but to help the weak-kneed Duke to his feet, then invited Wu Ruzheng to be seated, while he and Kong Yinzhi also settled themselves.

"My Lord Marquis, this is indeed an opportunity for a northern expedition, but the Duke..." Shi Kefa's brow was tightly furrowed. In his heart he had long been cursing Zhu Cilang for a fool, but as he cursed, he began to feel something was wrong.

How could Zhu Cilang possibly be a fool? The boy was a living Cao Cao! Could Cao Cao be a fool? Anyone who thought so would surely be deceived to death by that crafty villain Cao.

But if he was not a fool, then why not let him, the Governor-General of Seven Provinces, lead the northern expedition himself? Why insist that the Duke for the Perpetuation of the Sage step forward instead?

Was Kong Yinzhi a man who could fight? Sending him to chastise the Tartars — was that not simply sending him to his death?

"His Highness the Thousand Years knows the Duke cannot fight," Wu Ruzheng said with a smile, taking up the subject. "But the Duke's standing among the people of Shandong is unmatched. And the Duke previously issued a Proclamation Against the Barbarian Invaders, calling on all the scholars of the realm to step forward. How can he now fail to lead by example? It is only for show — to let the whole realm know that the Duke's house and the Tartars are irreconcilable. There is no need for the Duke to go to the front and kill the enemy himself."

Oh... thank goodness! Kong Yinzhi had just breathed a sigh of relief when he immediately realized something was wrong.

He, the Duke, had actually wanted to surrender to the Tartars, yet he had been forced to write the Proclamation Against the Barbarian Invaders, slandering the Tartars as wanting to overturn the ancestral tablets of the Kong family. And now he was expected to step forward and "lead" a northern expedition.

If the northern expedition succeeded, well and good — but what if it failed? What if the Tartars fought their way into Shandong? Would they not settle accounts with the Duke's entire family?

And who knew whether the city of Qufu could hold? If it could not, would the Tartars not slaughter the whole city?

The slaughter of Qufu...

The image was more than Kong Yinzhi dared contemplate! Was the Kong family of Qufu, flourishing for nearly two thousand years, to perish at his hands?

He hastily cast a pleading look at Shi Kefa — Supreme Commander Shi, Grand Secretary Shi, Great Confucian Shi, save me!

Shi Kefa nodded and said to Wu Ruzheng, "In that case, let the Duke lend his name to the affair and write another proclamation, cursing the Tartars' ancestors back eighteen generations... He need not leave the city of Qufu."

Hearing this, Kong Yinzhi nearly vomited blood in fury — curse the Tartars' ancestors back eighteen generations? If the Tartars won, the Kong family would be exterminated! You, Shi Kefa... you bastard! You wretch! This is an insult to Confucius and Mencius! You are no true Confucian — you must be a Legalist thief in disguise. No wonder your name is "Kefa"!

Wu Ruzheng, however, was grinning from ear to ear. This was exactly what he wanted — no, exactly what the Crown Prince wanted!

The Duke's clan had to be driven into a corner. Only when cornered would they resist with everything they had. And if they could not hold out and were slaughtered to the last by the Tartars, what hope would remain for the scholars of the southeast? What special treatment could they still expect? However great they might be, could they compare with the descendants of Confucius?

"My lord, His Highness the Thousand Years means that we should not contend for this title of Prince of Beiping. With Wu Sangui turning his coat and striking back, that princedom will surely go to the Wu family! But a marquisate at Haizhou will always be yours. So for this northern expedition, you need not join the excitement. Just have Li Chengdong take a few thousand men and make the trip."

In the rear residence of the Garrison Regional Command headquarters at Xuzhou, Lady Xing — or rather, Princess Yuntai of the Great Ming — was now analyzing the situation for Gao Jie, Garrison Regional Commander of Xuzhou, Left Commissioner-in-Chief, Imperial Son-in-law, and Earl of Qushan.

The situation was of course excellent — so excellent that Gao Jie did not even need to lead troops in person. His great general Li Chengdong could simply take a few thousand men and go. This, of course, was the Crown Prince's idea.

The two great gods, Gao Jie and Huang Degong, were both to stay put. Gao Jie would contribute Li Chengdong, and Huang Degong would contribute Ma Degong — just enough to make a gesture.

Gao Jie stroked his great beard, his brow tightly furrowed. What sort of arrangement was this? How could one hold back in a northern expedition? These were Tartars! Even with full commitment, victory was far from certain. To hold back was to invite certain defeat! Even with the trump card of Wu Sangui, there should not be the slightest carelessness!

What in the world was His Highness the Thousand Years thinking?

(End of Chapter)