Chapter 322: Chun Ge'er, Who Gets to Be Crown Princess?

In the Xipu detached palace where the Ming Emperor was temporarily residing, a royal family banquet was being enjoyed with great relish.

The Zhu family's Son of Heaven had fled Beijing in panic, and the original imperial kitchens had long since disbanded. But the southeast was the wealthiest region in the realm, and when it came to refinements of food and dress, it surpassed even the Beijing court, so there was no worry about lacking good cooks. The cooks now serving the Chongzhen father and son were provided respectively by the two imperial in-laws, the Zhous and the Tians, and by the five salt commissioners of Yangzhou (Jiang, Hu, Wang, Shen, and Old Mi Su).

Among them, those serving Chongzhen at Xipu had been sought out by Zhou Kui and Tian Hongyu — these two imperial in-laws had rendered neither meritorious service nor hard labor during the southward migration, and had now been sidelined. But they were both southerners — Zhou Kui was from Suzhou and Tian Hongyu from Yangzhou — and they still had some property in Suzhou and Yangzhou, so they could still live on as wealthy men.

And because the Chongzhen Emperor feared food poisoning, he had these two reliable imperial in-laws seek out cooks from Yangzhou and Suzhou to enter the palace and serve him.

Moreover, the inner officials serving at Xipu were not "hardship eunuchs" either, but men whom Lu Jiude and Pang Tianshou had found from the Central Capital, the Southern Capital, and elsewhere — as Zhu Cilang's power in the southeast grew ever more secure, he had deliberately relaxed his control over the Chongzhen Emperor, allowing him to use a few trusted eunuchs. This was to spare him from living every day in constant dread; it would not do if he frightened himself to death.

The cooks Zhu Cilang himself used were the household cooks of the five Yangzhou salt commissioners (mainly the four Huizhou-bloc salt commissioners Jiang, Hu, Wang, and Shen). These five Yangzhou salt commissioners had more or less grown rich thanks to Zhu Cilang, and they would not dare give the Crown Prince food poisoning!

The eunuchs serving in the Dagong Quarter, by contrast, were mainly "hardship eunuchs," and not many of them — a mere hundred or so.

In addition, the Dagong Quarter employed quite a number of female officials, old palace maids, and ordinary servants — the Ming's inner-official system was now undergoing reform, shifting from large and all-encompassing to small and elite. At the very least, Zhu Cilang's Eastern Palace inner-attendant system was now following the small-and-elite "Northern Song inner-attendant line."

That is, while drastically cutting the number of inner attendants, it pursued a line of elite professionalization and bureaucratization. Under Zhu Cilang, eunuchs were no longer menial laborers but had become officials who were physically disabled yet strong in will.

To this end they had to undergo systematic training in practical learning and military studies. An Inner Academy had also been opened within the Dagong Quarter, jointly overseen by the seal-holding eunuch of the Directorate of the Imperial Horses, Tian Shuchen, the Right Chief Clerk of the Grand Marshal's Office, Su Ziwen, and Johann Adam Schall von Bell of the Directorate of Astronomy, with many Confucian scholars and missionaries learned in both Chinese and Western learning invited to serve as teachers.

The teaching materials used had been personally selected by Zhu Cilang. They included not only Confucian courses but also military studies and Western learning — in particular, the mathematics curriculum was, for this era, extremely advanced!

The students studying at the Inner Academy included not only young and quick-witted "hardship eunuchs," but also the sons and younger brothers of hardship meritorious officials and the outstanding among imperial clan descendants.

While eunuchs were being made elite, the menial labor in the palace naturally had to be handed over to able-bodied servants and clerks.

Thus within the Dagong Quarter where Zhu Cilang resided, there were many clerks and servants. A group of female officials and old palace maids had also been recruited to help manage affairs.

The cooks sent into the Dagong Quarter by the Yangzhou salt merchants were all uniformly given the status of clerks. And clerks serving within the Dagong Quarter and the Grand Marshal's Office system could all draw a decent salary, and each had their own channel for advancement.

Of course, a clerk's advancement channel was different from that of civil officials. A clerk's advancement channel was to serve as a "technical official." Technical officials emphasized specialization, and unless they resigned from office, they could not transfer to other posts.

Today's royal family banquet had been prepared under the joint supervision of Huang Dabao and Lu Jiude, by the cooks of Xipu and the cooks of the Dagong Quarter. There was nothing heavy or greasy — just fresh, light Huaiyang dishes. They looked plain, but tasted extremely delicious.

When he was eighty percent full, the Chongzhen Emperor set down his bowl and chopsticks and let his gaze drift slowly across the great hall, first glancing at the somewhat ill-at-ease Zheng Zhilong, then at Zhu Cilang, who was eating plain boiled eggs — this unfilial son must have done too many guilty deeds and feared someone would harm him, for he ignored the fine dishes before him and had the cooks he had brought from the Dagong Quarter boil him a plate of plain eggs, with no fear of choking to death.

"Chun Ge'er, are the plain boiled eggs here at Our place tasty?" the Chongzhen Emperor asked with a smile.

"Tasty, very tasty!" Zhu Cilang nodded repeatedly. "They're free-range eggs — fragrant!"

What did he mean, free-range eggs? Looking down on chickens? Chongzhen thought to himself: the hens here at Our place are all golden hens, not common fowl!

"Then you may come often to Our place to eat eggs," the Chongzhen Emperor said with a smile.

"Thank you, Imperial Father."

Chongzhen smiled and cast a glance at Zheng Zhilong, then asked Zhu Cilang: "Chun Ge'er, the Zheng family's daughter is well-read, sensible, dignified, and steady — one look at her and she has the bearing of a mother of the nation. We and your Imperial Mother both like her very much. Why not make her your consort?"

Make her a consort?

The Crown Princess?

Zheng Zhilong was still pretending to eat daintily in small bites — he actually also liked free-range eggs, but he had been too embarrassed to ask Zhu Cilang for any, so he had to eat only a little, so that if anything was unclean, it would not cost him his old life. Now, hearing the Chongzhen Emperor's words, he had no mind left to pretend to eat, and immediately stole a glance at Zhu Cilang.

Zhu Cilang's expression darkened slightly for a moment, then immediately changed to a smiling face. He laughed: "Imperial Father, have you forgotten? We are still negotiating a marriage alliance with the eastern barbarians! How could your son install a Crown Princess?"

"The marriage negotiations are likely to fail, are they not?" the Chongzhen Emperor asked.

Zhu Cilang smiled: "They may not necessarily fail. Zu Kefa sent a memorial by messenger the other day, saying that Dorgon has already agreed to our establishing a marriage-negotiation hall and a trading hall on Haisha Island, and also said that the gifts your son sent to Princess Dong'e were very much to the princess's liking. Your son feels this matter still has hope!"

"But the Tartars are cunning after all!" the Chongzhen Emperor said. "They have not stopped their siege of Datong Prefecture, have they?"

"No," Zhu Cilang said. "A secret report from the Prince of Dai's palace received on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month said that Datong Prefecture had been completely surrounded at the beginning of the twelfth month by a great army led by the eastern barbarians' Prince Ying, Ajige.

But Datong city has ample reserves and can hold out for at least a year, so Imperial Father need not worry overmuch. Moreover, the Dai princely establishment has already built a princely residence in the Lüliang Mountains, so even if Datong falls, the Dai princely establishment can continue to hold out."

Fine! So you are letting your younger brother draw the Tartars' forces in the Lüliang Mountains. The Chongzhen Emperor gritted his teeth and forced himself not to flare up. "What if Cijiong cannot hold out in the great Lüliang Mountains, and war breaks out on a grand scale between north and south — will the marriage negotiations still continue?"

Zhu Cilang smiled: "By then, naturally it will be all the people resisting the Qing — how could there be any possibility of peace talks or marriage alliances?"

"Good!" Chongzhen looked at Zhu Cilang. "Then at that time, who will be your Crown Princess?"

By then she would not be the Crown Princess. Zhu Cilang thought to himself: You, the Emperor, just want to use this Crown Prince's marriage to create friction between the Wu and Zheng families. Do you not know the principle that harmony in the family brings prosperity in all things? Imperial Father, doing this is useless!

(End of Chapter)