Chapter 769: My Lord, This Time the Eastern Barbarians Are Truly Finished!

"Ah, this is Aurangzeb of the Mughal Empire! How—how did he end up at Mulan Hunting Ground paying tribute to Dorgon?"

Zhu Cilang finally understood!

No, not entirely. What on earth was going on? What was the Mughal Empire trying to do? Did they have too much silver and nowhere to spend it? Why pay tribute to the Great Qing? Was it just because the Qing emperor held the title of Great Khan of the Mongols?

"His name does seem to be Aurangzeb!" Zu Zeqing said with a laugh. "That fellow really is something—he's become Dorgon's death-dealing little ghost. Your Majesty, this subject still has good news to report!"

Since when did he become "this subject"? Zhu Cilang thought to himself: You're planning to become a three-time subject now? We haven't approved that yet!

"What good news?" Zhu Cilang asked with a smile.

Zu Zeqing said jubilantly: "The Great Qing—no, the eastern barbarians are finished!"

Zhu Cilang looked at the scruffy, honest-faced traitor Zu Zeqing. "How are they finished?"

"Ajige and Dodo are about to come to blows!" Zu Zeqing said with a laugh. "That Ajige is a real blockhead. Dorgon wasn't even cold before he wanted to take over as Imperial Ama, but Dorgon had wanted Dodo to become the new Ama for the Shunzhi Emperor."

Zhu Cilang burst out laughing. "That actually happened? So who ended up as the new Ama?"

"No one did," Zu Zeqing said. "They convened the Deliberative Council of Princes and Ministers to choose a new Ama, and in the end they settled on a regency of two princes, with the Emperor attending court."

Zhu Cilang was astonished! The Great Qing's "constitutional" strides were far bigger than in history—they'd even opened a parliament to elect the emperor a new father. Not even England could do that! When could the English Parliament ever elect a new father for a king or queen?

Zu Zeqing continued: "The two regents are the brothers Ajige and Dodo. But Ajige won't let Dodo enter the capital right away. He says they must first defeat Japan and Russia, and wait until Dorgon's imperial tomb is finished before entering the capital."

Defeat Japan and Russia? Zhu Cilang thought: Isn't that asking a bit much? Can Dodo pull it off?

Turning this over in his mind, Zhu Cilang asked aloud: "Does all this have anything to do with the eastern barbarians being finished?"

"Of course it does!" Zu Zeqing said. "Ajige is clearly out to get Dodo! Keeping him from entering the capital now is to win over Dorgon's old subordinates inside the Pass and inherit Dorgon's power. Once his authority is consolidated, he'll lure Dodo in under the pretext of holding Dorgon's funeral—how could that end well?"

"That's true. But would Dodo fall for it?" Zhu Cilang glanced at Zu Zeqing. You don't exactly look like a deep schemer. If even you can see through it, wouldn't Dodo?

"How could he possibly fall for it?" Zu Zeqing shook his head. "Dodo is far too shrewd. So a fight between Ajige and Dodo is certain. And no matter who wins, the eastern barbarians will be badly weakened. If the royal army then seizes the chance to march north, how could it fail to win?"

"My lord, this subject, his father, and his elder brother may be in the Qing camp, but our hearts are with the Ming, wholeheartedly longing for the royal army's northern expedition!"

"Good, good, good," Zhu Cilang nodded repeatedly. "We have always known of your family's loyalty and valor, father and sons and brothers alike. Zu Kefa has told Us all about it. You all feigned surrender to the eastern barbarians!"

Zhu Cilang was most adept at discovering loyal ministers, because he saw himself as a sovereign of troubled times! A sovereign of troubled times cannot afford to be fastidious. He must understand the principle that water too pure holds no fish, and a man too discerning has no followers. In the late Ming world, if one clung rigidly to "utter purity" and "utter discernment," there truly would be no one left to employ—then one could only mutter that everything was rotten to the root and beyond saving.

And the great loyalist Zu believed Zhu Cilang's words one hundred percent—Emperor Zhu's reputation for keeping his word was already established!

He was a good emperor who did what he said, far better than his unreliable father!

Moreover, this Hongxing Emperor was especially skilled at raising money and grain! When his father Chongzhen was on the throne, there were deficits everywhere. In a whole year, the money and grain he could scrape together amounted at most to ten million or so. With an army of several hundred thousand and so many officials, how was he supposed to cover expenses?

Never mind whether people were corrupt—even if everyone below were as upright as Bao Qingtian, there still wouldn't be enough to cover costs! And how much did the Song dynasty pay Bao Qingtian anyway?

So serving as a soldier for Chongzhen was, on balance, definitely a losing proposition! A few officials might have made a good deal of money, but that was built on magnifying the soldiers' losses. They were drinking the soldiers' blood, not earning money from Chongzhen—which is why Chongzhen found it so hard to command them.

But even if none of them were corrupt, the bottom line was still a loss, and the soldiers below still lost. In later terms, the entire industry was losing money—and losing big!

And if officers didn't take bribes, they couldn't maintain their household retainer units. Without retainers, they had no way to suppress mutinies among the "losing-money soldiers" below. And if they couldn't suppress mutinies, those officers would be dead men!

This was something that tested human nature to the extreme!

Now that Zhu Cilang was emperor, the money and grain he got his hands on each year, converted to cash, came to over a hundred million (grain prices were fairly high in the late Ming)—a tenfold increase over Chongzhen's time. Yet the size of the army was about the same, several hundred thousand on paper. So the spending spread across each soldier and officer had at least multiplied several times over, and soldiering for the Great Ming had become a business where one could make serious money.

With everyone below making money, Emperor Zhu could naturally make strict demands. Training, military discipline, anti-corruption, last-place elimination, 997s and 996s—all of it was feasible. It was all the later-era business management playbook, and that was exactly what Zhu Cilang knew.

And with the Great Ming now profitable and money to be made, those who had originally jumped ship to the Great Qing began wanting to eat the grass behind them. Thus loyal three-time subjects and loyal four-time subjects—physically in the Qing camp but with hearts in the Ming—grew more numerous.

While Emperor Zhu was speaking with Zu Zeqing, Wu Sanmei came in leading a sobbing little girl.

The one crying her eyes out was, of course, Princess Dong'e. Princess Dong'e had finished her coursework at the Jinling Girls' School and was now preparing to take the exam for Jinling Girls' Middle School—the middle school hadn't opened yet, so she had to wait a while. That was why Zhu Cilang had brought her to the western capital, Wuhan—for no other reason than to make tutoring convenient.

Seeing Dong'e crying like this, Zhu Cilang dropped the subject of the northern expedition with Zu Zeqing and hurried over to comfort the little girl.

Of course, comforting her was one thing, but letting Princess Dong'e go north for the funeral was out of the question. Civil war in the northern Qing could break out at any moment, and there might even be upheaval inside Beijing itself!

Whether Dorgon could even be peacefully buried in the imperial tomb at Shanhai Pass was uncertain!

"Your Majesty, should we send someone to offer condolences for Dorgon?"

"Send what? He killed plenty of our people, and he even dug up the Kong family cemetery at Qufu!"

"Right, Dorgon's crimes are monstrous!"

"What does that have to do with sending people to Beijing to offer condolences? We need to get a clear picture of the situation inside Beijing."

"Exactly. We must not only send people to Beijing, but also send someone to Shengjing to meet with Dodo."

At the next day's joint council of the two governments, all other matters naturally had to yield to the death of Dorgon. This was a momentous event!

Dorgon could be counted as the Great Ming's foremost enemy. Now that he was dead, the Great Qing might well go into steep decline.

Zhu Cilang showed little joy, because Dong'e had cried herself unconscious in his arms yesterday afternoon. He wondered whether she might grieve herself to death—surely not?

Besides, he knew the saying: walking a hundred li, the last ninety are only half the journey!

From Dorgon's death to the destruction of the northern Qing was still a long road, so there was no cause for premature celebration.

When he saw that the ministers below had mostly finished their deliberations, Emperor Zhu cleared his throat, and the hall instantly fell silent. Everyone turned their eyes to Zhu Cilang.

Emperor Zhu said: "Our five-year pact with the eastern barbarians is nearly at an end. Dorgon has dropped dead at just this moment, and within the eastern barbarians' ranks the struggle between Ajige and Dodo has emerged—it may even come to blows. This is certainly to our advantage for the northern expedition to recover the Central Plains."

"But we must not treat the northern expedition as too easy. The previous two northern expeditions failed to achieve complete success precisely because of insufficient preparation. This time we must prepare thoroughly, and strive for absolute certainty!"

(End of Chapter)