Chapter 914: Let's Go Capture Fulin! (Please Subscribe)

Inside the golden-roofed imperial tent in Tongzhou.

Kong Sihai, who had risked leaving the city, now knelt before the Son of Heaven of the Great Ming, Zhu Cilang, while behind Zhu Cilang stood Kong Sizhen, dressed as a Ming palace maid — the genuine article, beyond all doubt.

Zhu Cilang was bent over his desk writing something; in the blink of an eye he finished, set down the brush, and said to Kong Sihai with a smile: "We have written out the contract voucher in Our own hand. Surely you can rest easy now? Take it and look it over; if anything is amiss, it can still be changed."

What the Zhu Emperor had written was, it turned out, a "contract for the sale of a person," and the subject of the contract was Fulin, or a designated part of Fulin — his head!

And the price for purchasing Fulin, or Fulin's head, was a pardon for Shang Kexi, Kong Tingxun, and their lackeys, along with the appointment of the two men as Military Governor and Vice Military Governor of the Duogan Army, with tenure for life and hereditary succession for two or three generations. Kong Tingxun could pass his post to a son, while Shang Kexi could pass his to a son and then a grandson. Thereafter, the court would appoint the Duogan Military Governor and Vice Military Governor.

Such a "contract for the sale of a person" seems at first glance a bit absurd. But when it is set down clearly in black and white and carried out to the letter, it is in fact a low-cost and highly efficient way of administering or conducting affairs. That style of shrouding everything in fog, never spelling anything out, always leaving room to shift blame, change one's story, and dodge responsibility, always ready to "settle accounts" — it feels satisfying to watch, but it does not suit the Great Ming of today.

That "satisfying" style of rule must be built on a foundation of highly centralized power; otherwise there will be no trust between the court and its inner and outer vassals, and without trust there is no basis for coexistence. The Celestial Empire would then exist in name only!

And the Great Ming Empire has by now already evolved into a Celestial Empire. Given the current means of transport and communication, establishing a highly centralized Celestial Empire is simply impossible.

Moreover, Zhu Cilang, who wants to move quickly to seize territory in competition with the Westerners, is likewise unwilling to first abandon the Great Ming's own Celestial system and shrink the Great Ming into a highly centralized Western-European-style nation-state before undertaking colonial expansion. So he must establish the good faith and credibility of the Great Ming Son of Heaven!

In his view, the Celestial system that the Great Ming possesses is in fact the treatment of East Asia and Southeast Asia as a single civilizational sphere.

This sort of colonial rule, even in the West, was generally practiced on those outside the sphere. For example, when Europeans carried out colonial rule in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, those regions were "outside the sphere" at the time. Carrying out colonization "inside the sphere" is very difficult, and it especially draws hatred.

If the Great Ming truly wanted to colonize East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Northeast Asia, it would first have to smash the Celestial system, expel from the sphere all the inner and outer vassals within the Celestial system other than the Han heartland of the Great Ming, and only then proceed with colonial expansion.

But after gaining a deep understanding of the Eastern Celestial system of this era, Zhu Cilang no longer planned to pursue this shrink-first-then-expand colonial path, nor did he intend to abandon the Great Ming's sphere. Instead, he prepared to unite all within the sphere into one.

He planned to use the Han population advantage and the enormous economic, cultural, and political advantages of the Great Ming homeland to fuse all the peoples and states within the sphere into a single whole.

And the Eastern sphere of the seventeenth century was completely different from what later generations understood as East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Northeast Asia!

Apart from the small amount of territory controlled by Western colonizers, there were only two truly sovereign independent states: China and Japan!

Japan had no "sphere" of its own; it was just a solitary country — the later so-called "leaving Asia for Europe" was fundamentally a false proposition. From the late Tang onward, Japan was not a member of the East Asian sphere, so where does "leaving Asia" come from?

Within the Eastern Celestial sphere, the Han numbered over one hundred million, while all the others combined amounted to at most twenty million. And of those twenty million others, at least some ten million were Joseon people and Annamese — in the seventeenth century, they were basically "quasi-Han," and if the central dynasty were strong enough, they could be completely turned into Han.

As for the remaining fewer than ten million, they were further divided into three small spheres: Buddhist Mongols, Theravada Buddhists, and the South Seas Muslims. Among them, the Buddhist Mongols had long been contending with the Great Ming for leadership of the entire Celestial sphere, while the Manchus belonged to the fringe between the Buddhist Mongols and the Great Ming's main sphere. Now the Manchus had been completely defeated, the Mongols were fragmented, the Theravada Buddhist small sphere was basically finished, and the South Seas Muslims had been brought down by the Westerners.

So a Celestial Empire lay right before the Great Zhu Emperor, waiting for him to pluck it. In fact, after defeating the Manchu Great Qing and the Shun regime clinging to the southwest, the Zhu Emperor would become the common Son of Heaven of the entire Eastern Celestial civilizational sphere!

Whether he was satisfied or not, that was the reality of the Eastern world!

The eighth year of Hongxing of the Great Ming, the twenty-second day of the tenth month, early morning.

Zhu Cilang had already finished breakfast. In full armor, hand on his sword, he strode into the golden-roofed imperial tent. Inside the tent, it had long been packed with people; all the Ming generals and commanders at the Tongzhou front were already in armor and waiting, and the Retired Emperor Chongzhen of the Great Ming had also arrived — today he too would observe the battle in person and witness with his own eyes the Great Ming's heavenly troops capturing the enemy chieftain Fulin alive!

All the officers in the great tent saluted the Zhu Emperor together and shouted at the top of their lungs: "Long live Our Emperor, ten thousand years, ten thousand years, ten thousand times ten thousand years!"

Zhu Cilang walked to his throne, his face brimming with satisfaction and pride beyond words.

After today, a brand-new historical era would begin!

"Rise!" Zhu Cilang roared, then seated himself on the throne.

"Your Majesty!" Yan Yingyuan stepped forward from the ranks to report. "All units going into battle today are fully prepared and await only Your Majesty's command to march to the battlefield."

The battlefield was not east of Beijing — that area had been dug into a network of trenches, with eight large batteries and over a dozen small ones, so the Qing army could not come out of the city at all. Thus the battlefield was set, according to Fulin's wishes, north of Beijing.

And the Ming army besieging the city, including the Mongol auxiliaries, had a total strength of as many as two hundred fifty thousand! Of course they could not all be sent out, or Fulin would be able to escape from elsewhere.

So the Zhu Emperor had Yan Yingyuan, serving as "overall front-line commander," select fifty thousand elite troops for today's decisive battle.

Yan Yingyuan chose four infantry divisions, two flintlock regiments, one lancer cavalry regiment, and two mounted musketeer regiments. Since none of the selected units' baggage troops would take the field, the total came to roughly fifty thousand men. The artillery committed to battle numbered seventy-two guns in all, of which fifty-four were 3-pounders and eighteen were 12-pounders.

Such a magnificent force simply could not be defeated. Even if Shang Kexi and Kong Tingxun suddenly found their consciences and threw themselves into the fight for the Great Qing, it would still be a dead end!

After hearing Yan Yingyuan's report, Zhu Cilang nodded with satisfaction: "Good! Move out — let's go capture Fulin!"

Fulin suddenly shuddered — not because he had heard the Zhu Emperor's roar, but because he had caught sight of Xuanye in the arms of Lady Tunggiya.

He too was now fully armored and about to descend Coal Hill. Nominally he was going down to fight Zhu Cilang to the death, so of course he could not bring his wife and child along.

Therefore Lady Tunggiya and Xuanye would have to remain behind on Coal Hill!

"If anything should befall Us, Xuanye shall ascend the throne as Emperor!" Fulin drew a breath, his gaze burning as he looked around at the assembled loyal subjects of the Great Qing — apart from Shang Kexi, who never came up Coal Hill, they had all arrived, so Fulin could give his final instructions.

Although he was preparing to shed his golden cicada shell and slip away, the Great Qing must not perish in his hands!

Now that Dodo refused to become Imperial Uncle-Regent, he would have to find someone else to carry the blame, and that someone else was the Crown Prince, Xuanye!

"Upon Xuanye's accession, the reign title shall be changed immediately!" Fulin said. "We have already thought of the reign title — it is Kangxi! Kang means tranquility; xi means prosperity. Does anyone have any objection?"

Everyone was stunned. Wouldn't it be fine for the Great Qing to end with you? Why bother adding another Kangxi Emperor? Without Kangxi, the Great Qing would have exactly three formal emperors — the First Sovereign, the Middle Sovereign, and the Last Sovereign — how neat and tidy. Now with a Kangxi added, it becomes four generations of rulers. What kind of sovereign would Kangxi count as? The Final Sovereign?

"Your slaves have no objections!"

The speakers were Gang'atai and Sun Zhixie. The two of them were to keep watch on Coal Hill. They of course had no idea that Fulin the golden cicada was about to shed his shell; this matter was known only to a few people — Sonin, Suksaha, Bumbursan, Baindu, the monk Yulin Tongxiu, and a handful of others.

(End of Chapter)