Chapter 872: What? The Great Qing Is Gone! — Thirteen (Please Subscribe)

The Baoding prefectural yamen now served as the central command post of the Imperial Uncle Dodo.

The gates of Baoding city were now tightly shut. Of the fewer than thirty thousand beaten remnants who had entered the city, apart from a small portion who had gone up onto the walls to stand guard, the rest had seized empty houses in the city and were sleeping with their heads covered.

Dodo, of course, could not sleep. He had summoned his trusted generals overnight: Yue Le, Helohui, Bahana, Tantai, Leng Sengji, and others, plus Tuhai — oh, and also a Mulima bound hand and foot with ropes.

Mulima was in serious trouble. The scapegoat for the Battle of Deshengdian could be none other than him!

If the Deshengdian position he had held so firmly had not been broken through so quickly by the Ming army, Dodo would not have suffered such a crushing defeat!

Moreover, of the nearly thirty thousand fighting men the Qing army had lost in the Battle of Deshengdian, five thousand had been lost through his errors — first a disastrous defeat inside Deshengdian, and then outside Deshengdian he had used elite cavalry to charge head-on against the Ming black-gun troops, losing another two thousand men...

So he knew things were bad. Without even waiting for Dodo to order his arrest, he had had himself bound, with thorny branches strapped to his back — this was called "bearing thorns to beg forgiveness"!

But his crime was so great that it could not be settled merely by a beating with thorn branches!

"Mulima, you — you — what am I supposed to say to you?" Dodo said, pulling out a handkerchief and beginning to pretend to wipe away tears.

Mulima had also read Romance of the Three Kingdoms thoroughly, and seeing this scene he knew things were about to go badly... Wasn't this the episode of "weeping as he executed Ma Su"?

"Imperial Uncle, this slave deserves death ten thousand times over..." Mulima hastily kowtowed. "This slave is willing to atone for his crimes with merit — to go, to go assassinate Zhu Cilang!"

"Assassinate?" Dodo did not know what to say. "How would you assassinate him?"

Mulima said: "This slave — this slave can emulate Jing Ke, concealing a sharp blade in his bosom, going as an envoy to Nanjing, and making blood flow within five paces..."

Dodo, hearing him say this, hesitated a little too — clearly it was supposed to be "weeping as he executed Ma Su," so how had it turned into "Jing Ke stabbing the King of Qin"?

"On what grounds would you go as an envoy?" Dodo asked. "And on what grounds would he agree to see you?"

"This slave, this slave..." Mulima's heart sank. He seemed to have no way either! Was he fated to be Ma Su?

"Imperial Uncle," Bahana at this moment thought of a solution, "this slave has an idea... This slave once heard that Grand Bishop Li Yufan, who came from Hispania, said that Zhu Cilang has for years wanted to open up some Pacific shipping route, and therefore needs to obtain a Pacific sea chart, but has never been able to get his hands on one."

In the Age of Discovery, nautical sea charts were a core competitive asset of a maritime nation! You could not buy such a thing in a bookshop in Amsterdam or London, and even if you did buy one, it was not necessarily genuine.

And without a sea chart, one could of course still go exploring, but the cost was not low, and the demands on the captain were even higher.

So although Emperor Zhu had always wanted to "cross the Pacific," he was hampered by having no sea chart, being unable to grasp the conditions of the ocean currents and monsoons, not knowing the state of the Pacific's western coast, and also being unable to obtain permission from the authorities of New Spain — so it was very difficult for him to make a move.

At present New Spain was not open to the outside world. The Atlantic side had loosened somewhat, but the Pacific side was still an iron wall — even the Dutch found it very hard to get through, let alone the Great Ming. The Japanese had gone there once several decades ago: a ship carrying the Spanish Governor-General of the Philippines was wrecked near Japan, and the Governor-General himself made his way to Japan, where with the help of the Tokugawa shogunate he built a Spanish-style sailing ship and returned to New Spain, taking the Japanese along with him.

However, the Japanese sailing ship was later forcibly purchased by the New Spain authorities... so they only made a one-way trip, and had no idea how to get back.

"Is there such a thing?" Dodo thought for a moment. "Do we have this — what sea chart — in our hands?"

"We might be able to get hold of one," Bahana said. "Last time Shang Ke'ai came back from Tsushima Island, he said that Oboi might take the Pacific fleet on a trip to this New Spain... and then sail back around this summer."

No wonder Oboi had not taken part in the Battle of Deshengdian — so he had been chased all the way to the Americas by Zheng Jiangong... Having gone there once, he would of course know roughly where the Kuroshio Current lay, and roughly where the return North Equatorial Current was.

Of course, Oboi himself could not figure it out, but Oboi had fairly reliable European bannermen around him, and through them, Oboi might be able to obtain a sea chart.

With this as a gift of introduction, Mulima could at least get to see Zhu Cilang... As for whether he could make blood flow within five paces, that was another matter.

Dodo looked at Mulima's taut face, feigning tragic heroism, sighed, and waved his hand: "Drag him away..."

Drag him away for what? Not public beheading, was it? Mulima's heart was in his throat.

"Hold him for now!" Dodo said. "Wait until Oboi returns, then we'll talk."

If Oboi did not come back, or could not bring back a sea chart usable to hoodwink Zhu Cilang, then Mulima's head would still have to move house!

Mulima had already been dragged off. Dodo sighed: "With the defeat at Deshengdian, the Great Qing is finished... but we are not finished yet! Let us now discuss our way forward!"

"Imperial Uncle," Tuhai was the first to offer an opinion, "this slave has heard that back in the day, Zhu Yuanzhang received guidance from a master and used the strategy of 'build high walls, store ample grain, and delay claiming the throne' to contend for the realm, and only thus won in the end."

Dodo nodded: "Well said. Now is not the time to be Emperor... And in the past, when the late Emperor was alive, he proposed peace talks five times, but unfortunately they did not succeed. Otherwise, how could there have been so much death and injury!"

At present, Dodo did not know whether he had even twenty thousand able-bodied old Manchu men of the Eight Banners in his hands. Even counting the old Manchu Eight Banners men inside the Pass, it was certainly less than thirty thousand... This number was less than half of what Nurhaci had when he fought the Battle of Sarhu.

Although Dodo could still conscript Han Chinese to make up the numbers, the problem was that if things went on this way, the old Manchu of the Great Qing would grow fewer and fewer — would it not in the end turn into a Western Wei or Northern Zhou?

Yue Le took up the topic: "Peace talks can only relieve the emergency. The Southern Court still needs time to pacify the various regions inside the Pass, so it should be willing to grant peace. But once they have pacified the interior, they will still send troops beyond the Pass. Imperial Uncle, we must learn from Yuwen Tai..."

Dodo nodded silently.

Tantai added: "Imperial Uncle... we still lack people! We must plunder more population from inside the Pass and take them beyond it! Let us seize people from Jizhou and Yongping Prefecture!"

Leng Sengji interjected: "If we carry off that many people, how do we solve the problem of feeding them? This year's spring sowing and summer planting are all ruined; after autumn there will certainly be a grain shortage."

"Make the Joseon people supply the grain!" Helohui said. "Make Joseon produce one million shi of rice!"

"And if they refuse?" Leng Sengji asked.

Dodo said in a grim tone: "Then fight! Conquer Joseon! We have lost the interior... so we must take Joseon to make up for it!"

That same night, the Shunzhi Emperor was also consulting with his trusted confidants on countermeasures.

"The most urgent thing now is to safeguard His Majesty's departure from the Tianjin garrison... We can agree to any conditions, as long as we can leave the Tianjin garrison!"

"Even give up Beijing?"

"We might as well agree to it for now; whether we actually give it up can be discussed later..."

"But will Zhu Cilang believe our empty words?"

"That... we must at least try, mustn't we? Your Majesty, how about this slave goes to Xuzhou in person to see whether he can persuade Emperor Zhu!"

The one preparing to go in person was Sony, Grand Secretary Suo. In truth, he had little confidence either; he could only treat the dead Great Qing as if it were still alive.

Declaring vassalage, acknowledging him as father, ceding territory, sending princesses... As long as Shunzhi could be allowed to leave, he could agree to all of it!

Because if Shunzhi could not leave the Tianjin garrison, sooner or later he would be captured and taken to Nanjing to become Prince Gong, and most likely would also have to sample crane's-crest red!

"What are the conditions?" Shunzhi asked him.

Sony gritted his teeth: "Just one — Your Majesty cannot go as a captive... Your Majesty is the green mountain of our Great Qing. If Your Majesty is captured by Zhu Cilang, then the Great Qing is truly finished!"

Shunzhi sighed. He knew this was comforting nonsense... Perhaps if he found a rope and hanged himself, the Great Qing would actually be saved!

Sun Zhixie said: "This slave thinks it can be done! Your Majesty is now a dragon trapped in shallow waters. As long as you can escape, it will be a dragon entering the sea, a tiger returning to the southern mountains... It does not matter if the Great Qing is temporarily gone; there will always be a chance for revival!"

Shunzhi sighed again: "Very well. The two of you go together... and have a good talk with Emperor Zhu!"