Chapter 702: The Great Ming Encirclement

Siberia, on the right bank of the Lena River, the ice city of Yakutsk.

Inside this fortress built upon permafrost, the military governor of Yakutsk, Dmitry Andreyevich Frantsbekov, was staring dumbfounded at several "English-made" flintlock pistols!

These "English pistols" had been captured from Chinese troops in the Zeya River region by Khabarov, the foremost man of ability in Yakutsk!

This Khabarov was a remarkable fellow — originally a poor peasant from the Veliky Ustyug area, only a cut above a serf. In Russia, where nobles ruled, such an origin was absolutely bottom-tier loser stock.

Starving to death was out of the question — Russia had few people and vast land, so no one starved. But getting ahead was extremely difficult. Still, Khabarov found a path: exploring the east! From 1625 onward, he stopped farming, left his hometown, and joined an expedition, pushing eastward in search of valuable furs.

He explored all the way from the Yenisei River basin to the Lena River basin, but he did not hunt many furs. Instead, around Yakutsk he returned to his old trade and opened a farm to grow crops!

The later historically renowned great explorer — whose surname was used to name a major Russian city and a Russian frontier territory — Khabarov actually made his fortune by farming!

Farming in the permafrost zone of Siberia was by no means easy, yet this peasant explorer, who could not read a single word, actually succeeded. Using the crude method of digging through the frozen soil, he managed to farm successfully at Yakutsk and even grew wealthy.

But his property brought him disaster. The previous military governor of Yakutsk, Pyotr Golovin, crushed him thoroughly — he was thrown into prison, and the farm and salt works he had painstakingly built were confiscated.

Yet this sudden calamity did not break Khabarov. After his release, penniless, he quickly attached himself to Yakutsk's new governor, Frantsbekov, and with his support began searching for a shortcut to the Amur River.

It was because of this expedition that Dorgon sent Oboi to the Heilong River. And Oboi, the foremost warrior of the Manchus, in a moment of carelessness became the defeated underling of the Russian peasant explorer Khabarov — losing not only more than a hundred Manchu warriors and a comparable number of Daur warriors, but also several dozen "English-made" pistols.

Khabarov had guides under him who understood the Daur language. Through these guides, Khabarov interrogated several Daur captives who knew a little Chinese, and figured out the source of the flintlock pistols he had captured — these were fine goods made in London, England!

Flintlocks were already commonplace in the developed countries of Western Europe — even infantry had begun to be equipped with them — but in Russia they were still a rarity, fine goods that even advanced Russians did not have. How did the backward Chinese come to possess them? Until he figured this out, how could Khabarov dare continue his aggression?

After determining that the English were behind the mischief, Khabarov immediately took the evidence back to Yakutsk.

The governor of Yakutsk, Frantsbekov, was an educated German. In these years there were far too many illiterate nobles in Russia, so the Tsar of Russia found it hard to locate enough educated native nobles to serve as officials, and had no choice but to bring in German talent. As a result, many Germans held posts in the Russian government and army.

But now Frantsbekov found that he could not read a word — he did not recognize a single one of the square characters engraved on these pistols!

And these characters were certainly not English!

"Yerofei Pavlovich," Frantsbekov said, looking at Khabarov — in his forties, long-bearded, skin reddened by the sun, eyes bright and piercing — "you think the writing on this pistol is English?"

Khabarov was taken aback. "Is it not?"

Whether it was or not, he could not read it either!

"Of course it isn't!" Frantsbekov did not know whether to laugh or cry. "This is the square script of the Orientals. If I am not mistaken, it should be Chinese characters."

"Chinese characters? What do they say?"

"I don't know!" Frantsbekov shook his head. "I can't read them either. But there should be scholars in Irkutsk who know Chinese characters."

He paused. "Let us set aside these guns for now. Tell me about the fighting ability of those Chinese troops."

"No good — completely no match for the Cossacks!" Khabarov laughed. "Their cavalry does not know how to charge. These English pistols were useless in their hands — they hit nothing. And because they were using pistols, they had not carried long guns, so in the subsequent charge they had no way to switch weapons. In that encounter we killed and captured more than 200 men, at a cost of only 10 casualties.

I think that if we could field an army of more than 6,000 men, we should be able to conquer the entire Amur River basin, and perhaps even reach the warmer south!"

"6,000 men?" Frantsbekov smiled bitterly. "Apart from His Majesty the Tsar, no one can mobilize that many men for a war of conquest in the Amur basin. Moreover, we do not yet understand the situation in China, and His Majesty probably would not approve an operation of that scale!

So we had better prepare for a protracted war with the Chinese!"

"Imperial Father, the Northern Ocean Trade Commission reports that this month they again seized a batch of flintlock muskets made in London, England — 100 in total, all destined for the Qing state!"

"Your Majesty, this England is but a tiny, insignificant country, yet it dares to interfere in the celestial conquest of our great Chinese realm — truly detestable!"

"Your Majesty, this subject recommends expelling all English merchants and prohibiting English merchant ships from entering the jurisdictions of the Northern and Southern Ocean Trade Commissions."

Nanjing, the Forbidden City.

Zhu Cilang was presiding over the first joint session of the two councils in the second month of the third year of Hongxing. Before this session began, the Northern Ocean Trade Commission, far away in Lüshun, had reported yet another interception of English muskets — the evidence that England was supporting the Great Qing was truly mounting!

From flintlock pistols to plate armor forged by water-powered hammers, and even 3-pounder and 6-pounder bronze cannon!

All of these weapons bore the inscription "Made in London, England" — ironclad proof!

But the problem was that these inscriptions were all in Chinese! And not casually carved on, either — they were cast or forged calligraphic scripts, in various styles, even seal script. Could this sort of thing really have been made by the English?

This was plainly high-quality counterfeit English goods! Most likely the product of ironworks within Southern Ming territory!

This was truly beyond belief — weapons produced by the Great Ming were being sold to the Great Qing as English goods!

Who would do such a shameless thing?

Zhu Cilang turned his gaze to the Minister of Revenue, Zheng Zhilong. Among all the Ming officials in the room, he was the only one who could read Western script.

"Imperial kinsman Zheng, do you think those muskets were produced in England?"

"This..." Zheng Zhilong said in a low voice, "Your Majesty, our dynasty currently regulates firearms very loosely, and does not control firearms exports at all. It is normal for some firearms to flow into the Qing state. But these 'Made in London, England' markings are likely someone framing and shifting blame!"

This was probably the inevitable result of the wild, unregulated growth of firearms production. It was now the third year of Hongxing! Since the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Zhu Cilang had been constantly pushing the development of the firearms manufacturing industry.

The production capacity of the four great ironworks at Shanghai, Nanjing, Anping, and Foshan had expanded continuously! Moreover, water-powered forging hammers and water-powered drilling machines — two types of machinery that greatly increased production efficiency — had been introduced.

Thus the output of muskets kept rising, and now it could not only meet the needs of the Ming army but also be exported in small quantities. In fact, Foshan muskets had been exported throughout the late Ming period!

The Portuguese had even invited Foshan blacksmiths to cast iron cannon for them, though the project was abandoned due to an excessively low rate of usable pieces.

"Your Majesty," said Qian Qianyi, the Minister of Rites, who grew anxious the moment he heard that Ming firearms were flowing into the Qing state, "firearms production must be strictly controlled, lest the eastern barbarians use Chinese weapons to kill Chinese soldiers!"