Chapter 728: The Great Ming Anxi's First Express Delivery

The situation is getting more and more complicated!

With the Great Ming moving south to find food and the Qing state moving north to seek a way out, the players on the board are no longer just the Ming, the Qing, and the Shun.

The Great Ming first pulled Annam into the game, then moved south into Champa and Water Chenla, which aroused Spain's vigilance — perhaps the Dutch and the Portuguese are also scheming behind the scenes!

So Spain got in touch with the Qing state, and even helped bring about the opening of Haishenwai as a port and the Qing state's Five Ministers' visit to Europe!

And the Qing state's northward move collided with the eastward-advancing Russia, so Russia, like Spain, Holland, and Portugal, also became a player on the board in the struggle for hegemony over the Eastern world.

Next came Japan! Who knows what got into Dorgon and Tokugawa Iemitsu, but they both set their sights on the sable pelts and gold of Sakhalin Island at the same time.

To fight over Sakhalin Island, Dorgon actually imitated the Great Ming court's method of issuing frontier bonds, issuing 500,000 taels of fur bonds to form a Pacific fleet.

Then, because that "Loan King" Zhu Cijiong of Shuofang Garrison was always thinking about repaying debts, he did not hesitate to get into the business of smuggling firearms to the Mongols in exchange for horses and then reselling them to the court's Ministry of War — and as a result he also hooked up with Batur Hongtaiji, the leader of the Dzungar tribe, who was looking everywhere for foreign guns and cannons to fight the Russians.

And so the Dzungar tribe of the Oirat Mongols blundered onto the stage. Once the Dzungars jumped out, the Kazakh Khanate and the Yarkent Khanate would surely have to follow!

That would make the Great Ming, the Great Qing, the Great Shun, Spain, Holland, Portugal, Japan, Russia, the Dzungars, Annam, the Kazakhs, the Yarkent — oh, and also Joseon, which has been standing in the corner of the stage all along.

In addition, because the Great Ming's Golden Basin Farming Commission and the Jinghai Army Military Commission recently joined forces to swallow up the eastern part of Chenla and large tracts of land in the Nine Dragons River plain, the half-dead Kingdom of Chenla has surely been dragged onto the big stage as well.

Once Chenla takes the stage, Siam's Ayutthaya dynasty and Burma's Toungoo dynasty will surely have to take the stage too!

And as the antagonism between the Great Ming and Spain rises, the half-dead Sultanate of Sulu and the state of Boni on the island of Kalimantan (that is, the later Brunei) will surely jump out to stir up trouble as well!

Oh, right — and the Khoshut Khanate on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Great Lama of Tibet have also been squinting from the corner of this big stage all along.

Count them up, and that is nineteen powers. Who knows whether the Mughal dynasty of the Ah San country has any interest in coming down to play a round? That would make it an even number.

The Fengtian Hall, the Eastern Warm Pavilion.

A joint session of the two offices was underway, and the question now under discussion was the submission of the Dzungars.

"Your Majesty, this Dzungar tribe is of the Choros clan of the Oirat. Their ancestor was Esen Khan, who carried off Emperor Yingzong at the Tumu Crisis. Although the Choros clan later declined and the Oirat migrated west to the north and south of the Tianshan, their ambition to unify the Mongols remains. We must be extremely cautious — we must not fail to drive out the eastern barbarians only to let the Oirat grow powerful.

Based on this old subject's knowledge of Mongol affairs, the Khalkha Mongols and the various tribes of the Southern Mongols have all grown weak and are powerless to stop the rise of the Oirat Mongols. Once the eastern barbarians are defeated by us, the Oirat will surely seize the opportunity to rise. If we then accept their submission and support them with firearms and equipment, I fear the Mongol tribes will all be unified by the Oirat!"

The one raising the objection was Wu Xiang. This Minister of War was basically still an old-school Great Ming military boss, with old-fashioned thinking and vision — the farthest he could see was the steppe north of the Gobi.

But Zhu Cilang had no intention of replacing him either, because he could not find an army officer much better than Wu Xiang — a high-quality officer corps is the result of long-term education and training, not something that can be had immediately through a soul-stirring speech and so-called military merit nobility. Moreover, Zhu Cilang had no way to implement a true military merit nobility system in the Southern Ming. That required "all profit to flow from a single source," but the Southern Ming's industry and commerce were too developed, and opportunities to get rich were increasing. Under such circumstances people's hearts were restless, and the appeal of military merit nobility was limited.

So for now Zhu Cilang could only make do with "old hands" (old hands are not necessarily old in age), while slowly training new people through a modern elite education and officer education system. But the process was very long — it would be good enough to see results in eight or ten years.

"Your Majesty," Zheng Zhilong spoke up at this point. The moment he opened his mouth, Zhu Cilang knew he would surely be singing the opposite tune from Wu Xiang. "This subject believes the Oirat are not worth worrying about. For the world today is no longer what it was two hundred years ago. The Western country of Russia, relying on elite troops and fierce generals, has been expanding eastward all the way, invincible wherever it goes. The successor khanates of the Golden Horde have all been destroyed!

And the Oirat are the next Mongol khanate the Russians will destroy! So the Oirat's submission is truly out of necessity. Even if they swallow up the Khalkha Mongols, they will not pose much of a threat to our Great Ming."

Old Zheng even knew how formidable Russia was — he had better vision than Wu Xiang. But thinking that the Dzungars would not make trouble for the Great Ming once they unified the Mongols was wishful thinking.

These Mongols could sometimes be more troublesome than the Russians.

Zhu Cilang turned his gaze to Grand Strategist Li Yan and Second Strategist Li Ruolian, who were now partners managing the Grand Marshal's Office.

"Your Majesty," Li Yan said, "this subject believes we can cooperate with the Oirat, but we cannot give them things for nothing. There must be something in return. Submission alone will not do."

This idea suits Us perfectly! Zhu Cilang thought to himself: although Li Yan is also old-fashioned, he was a bandit after all, and he still has the instinct for plunder in his head.

Zhu Cilang asked, "Minister Li, tell Us — which territory do you think we should use the Oirat to seize?"

Seize? Li Yan was taken aback. How did this become seizing? Shouldn't it be trading for some good horses?

Li Ruolian saw Li Yan freeze up, and having received the Emperor's hint, immediately picked up the question and said, "Your Majesty, this subject believes we can use the Dzungar tribe to strike at the Yarkent Khanate."

The Yarkent Khanate, the Zhu Emperor thought to himself: from now on you can be called "Shot-While-Lying-Down" — you get shot even while lying down!

Li Ruolian had spent half his life in the Embroidered Uniform Guard. His skill at fighting was lacking, but he was an expert at setting traps to ruin people, and he immediately offered the Zhu Emperor a plan.

"Your Majesty, we can tell the Dzungar people that we will give them 10,000 firearms and 10 cannons, but we can only deliver them to Jiayu Pass — everything further west is the territory of the Yarkent Khanate. At the same time, we can send people to tell the Yarkent Khanate that we are sending 10,000 firearms and 10 cannons to the Dzungar tribe, and ask them not to obstruct the delivery. In this way the Dzungar tribe and the Yarkent Khanate will surely fight, and we can then have the Pacifying West Army advance westward while the opportunity is ripe, and recover Hami Garrison."

"That is not a bad idea," Zhu Cilang considered for a moment, then smiled. "But there is no need to play such tricks with Batur Hongtaiji. If there is something to say, say it plainly!

We intend to establish the Beiting Grand Protectorate and the Anxi Grand Protectorate. The Beiting Grand Protector will be his to hold, governing the grasslands north and west of the Tianshan. The Anxi Grand Protector will be held concurrently by Wu Sangui, governing the territory south and east of the Tianshan. If Batur Hongtaiji agrees, We will give him 10,000 firearms and 10 cannons, but he must send troops against the Yarkent Khanate and take responsibility for field battles against the Yarkent army. The siege work will be left to the Pacifying West Army."

This was going to destroy the Shot-While-Lying-Down Khanate!

And at the same time, the banners of the Anxi Protectorate and the Beiting Protectorate would be raised!

If Batur Hongtaiji agreed, then the Great Ming's de jure territory would expand all the way into Central Asia in one stroke! And the area of actual control could also reach the region south of the Tianshan.

This was truly a great step forward!

Zhu Cilang continued, "If none of you have objections, then reply to Shuofang Garrison in this manner, and at the same time notify the Pacifying West Garrison. Tell Wu Sangui that if Anxi is recovered, then the Pacifying West Garrison is to shift westward as a whole, and the eastern Xi'an Prefecture is to be handed over to the court for direct administration."

After Zhu Cilang finished speaking, Chief Grand Secretary Wei Zaode looked around, saw no one raising objections, then stood and bowed to Zhu Cilang: "Your Majesty is sagacious. Your subjects have received the imperial decree!"

What this meant, roughly, was that the Yarkent Khanate had officially been shot while lying down.

Zhu Cilang let out a breath. There were 18 major matters to discuss today, and only one had been settled — 17 more remained below!

The Zhu Emperor paused, then continued, "My lords, how should we respond to the matter of Japan and the eastern barbarians fighting over Kuyi Island?"

Chapter recommendation: Qingshan Tieshan's new book "My America." "A capitalist country, you see — it means I have capital and you don't, so this country is mine! Get in touch with my people and suppress them for me. If Rockefeller could do it, why can't I, Sheffield?" William Sheffield's smile faded as he said coldly, "Happy America, gunfights every day."

The Gilded Age, 1895.

(End of Chapter)