Chapter 920: The Daning Military Commissioner (Please Subscribe)

"Gone, gone, all of it's gone."

Beijing, Coal Hill.

The Retired Emperor Chongzhen of the Great Ming, after eleven years, once again climbed Beijing's Coal Hill, the place that haunted his dreams — but what he saw was a landscape utterly changed, and it truly disappointed him.

Zhu Cilang, however, was rather fond of the fortress-like Coal Hill bastion and the city of Beijing.

The Ming capital of Beijing ought to be a fortress!

Even if the Son of Heaven truly must guard the national gate, then a fortress built to hold out for the long term is what should have been constructed. Yet that Yongle Emperor built a metropolis rivaling Nanjing — how could that possibly work? Nanjing lies in a land of fish and rice, and with the Yangtze River's water transport to rely on, grain can easily be obtained from the upper reaches and from between the Yangtze and Huai rivers, so naturally it can feed any number of people.

But how could Beijing be run that way? Not only does the area around Beijing produce little grain, it also has four military garrisons: Jizhou, Liaodong, Xuanfu, and Datong! Although the Ming implemented the military-farm colony system, among these four great garrisons only the Liaodong garrison has somewhat fertile land; the other three garrisons, even without hitting the Little Ice Age, could hardly produce a good harvest.

In the long run, relying on them to farm for self-sufficiency is unrealistic — the agricultural conditions simply aren't good enough.

Therefore the three garrisons of Jizhou, Xuanfu, and Datong must depend on grain and financial support from the south in order to be maintained over the long term.

And before the advent of trains and steamships, the cost of transporting grain over long distances was truly staggering!

Thus if the Son of Heaven truly intended to guard the national gate at Beijing, he had to control Beijing's population — a hundred thousand or so would be about right, and absolutely not a metropolis of a million people. Wouldn't that be snatching rations from the Jizhou, Xuanfu, and Datong garrisons?

Moreover, a metropolis at the Son of Heaven's feet would inevitably be a place to make easy money — what would the hard-luck soldiers at the front use to compete with Beijingers living inside the Second and Third Ring roads for rice and flour?

Beijing, as the place where the Son of Heaven guards the national gate, absolutely must not be built up too large; a medium-sized city of a hundred thousand people would be the absolute limit. Even the Beijing that Dorgon and Fulin had already reduced in size was still too big in Zhu Cilang's view.

That city with fourteen gates and eighteen forts was still too large — without forty or fifty thousand men it simply couldn't be defended. And that was the garrison strength required after converting to bastion forts, which saved on troops.

So after the Zhu Emperor re-entered Beijing, he began contemplating tearing down Beijing's old city walls — because after the recapture of Beijing, a great many people, including the Retired Emperor Chongzhen, had been urging Zhu Cilang not to turn Beijing into Beiping. The Great Ming should still maintain the two capitals, north and south, and at most add a western capital at Wuhan.

And Beijing should all the more become the strategic choke point where the Son of Heaven guards the national gate!

Since everyone said so, Zhu Cilang also intended to follow good advice, so Beijing's old city walls would most likely not be preserved!

After demolishing the walls, Zhu Cilang also planned to tear down all the buildings between Beijing's city walls and the imperial palace fortress, then use the materials from the demolished walls to reinforce the imperial palace bastion.

The imperial palace bastion was actually not small either. The inner perimeter of the bastion (not counting the outer protruding forts) was more than twenty li in circumference, and the internal area exceeded ten square kilometers.

Without ten thousand elite troops (one soldier per meter of wall already comes to over ten thousand), it would be very difficult to defend it fully.

Today, as Zhu Cilang accompanied the Chongzhen Emperor up Coal Hill to view the scenery, he was drawing geometric figures in his mind — building bastions and assaulting bastions is simply a geometry problem!

Now, suddenly hearing the Chongzhen Emperor speak, Zhu Cilang emerged from his thoughts and responded: "Ah, what's gone?"

The Chongzhen Emperor turned to look at his son. What was gone? His own imperial power, of course!

"The old locust trees are gone!" Chongzhen said crossly. "There used to be many on Coal Hill, and now not a single one remains!"

"Oh, that." Zhu Cilang smiled. "The trees on Coal Hill are said to have all been ordered cut down by Fulin!"

"Hmph, that wretch dared to cut down Our old locust trees — his death was too good for him!"

Zhu Cilang thought to himself: Is Fulin really dead? Not necessarily! But it doesn't matter — even if he's alive, he can't overturn the heavens now!

At that moment the chief eunuch Pan Shuchen, who attended Zhu Cilang, walked quickly up behind the Zhu Emperor, presented a memorial, and said in a low voice: "Your Majesty, this is a joint memorial from His Highness the Prince of Dai and His Highness the Commandery Prince of Chongqing. The two Highnesses have already arrived below the castle at Longevity Hill (Coal Hill) and request an audience."

"What? The Third and Fifth have come? Let's see them together!"

The moment he heard that Zhu Cijiong and Zhu Cihuan had arrived, the Retired Emperor Chongzhen's interest was immediately piqued.

Zhu Cilang said nothing, but opened the memorial — a memorial being sent before requesting an audience was certainly not for idle family chatter; there was official business to discuss.

The matter reported in the memorial concerned the Mongols! Zhu Cijiong and Zhu Cihuan jointly reported on the eastward movement of the five leagues of the Southern Mongols. The Southern Mongols had six leagues in total. The Ih Juu League, under which were the six Ordos banners, had now all submitted to the Great Ming. The Jirim League, with the Khorchin tribe as its core, comprised ten banners and still stood on Dodo's side. The remaining four leagues were the targets that the Khorchin Mongols, Tumed Mongols, Chahar Mongols, and Khalkha Mongols all sought to win over, contend for, and annex!

Now all sides were engaged in fierce contention over these small and medium Mongol tribes!

The Great Qing was utterly finished, but the Mongol-Manchu problem was still extremely thorny. To completely settle it was impossible!

"Imperial Father, let us go together to see the Third and the Fifth!" Zhu Cilang handed the memorial to Pan Shuchen, then made a show of supporting Chongzhen as they walked toward the great hall inside the Longevity Hill fortress.

"Imperial Father, Imperial Brother, the Mongols today are broadly divided into the Eastern Mongols and the Western Mongols. The Western Mongols are the Oirat alliance, where the Dzungar tribe and the Khoshut tribe now stand as twin leaders. The Eastern Mongols have six major tribes — the Chahar, Tumed, Khorchin, Tüsheet Khan, Setsen Khan, and Jasaghtu Khan — along with a host of smaller tribes.

Among the six major Eastern Mongol tribes, the strongest is the Khorchin. The Khorchin have six banners, and together with the Jalaid Banner, Dörbet Banner, Front Gorlos Banner, and Rear Gorlos Banner, ten banners in all — also known as the Ten Banners of the Nen River. The territory they occupy is precisely the former domain of the Daning Regional Military Commission."

The one giving Zhu Cilang this briefing on the Mongol situation was Zhu Cijiong. Because he had long dealt with the Ordos tribe, he was an expert on Mongolia and understood the Eastern Mongol situation very well.

"Imperial Brother, your subject-brother believes that the key to pacifying the Eastern Mongols lies with the Khorchin, lies in the former territory of the Daning Regional Military Commission!" Zhu Cijiong said. "Back then, when our ancestor Emperor Chengzu withdrew the Daning Regional Military Commission and the Three Guards of the Uriankhai, he planted the seeds of the Eastern Mongols' spiraling out of control. Had the Daning Regional Military Commission and the Three Guards of the Uriankhai not been withdrawn, not only would the Eastern Mongols have found it hard to cause trouble, even the Jianzhou Jurchen could never have risen. If we are to stabilize the northern realm, we must rebuild the Daning military garrison! Your subject-brother suggests that, while the northern expedition army has not yet withdrawn, we establish a Daning Military Commissioner's Office and appoint a great general and weighty minister to garrison Daning!"

Zhu Cilang nodded, then glanced at Zhu Cihuan. Zhu Cihuan felt a surge of excitement, and then heard the Great Zhu Emperor say: "Huang Degong is sufficient to hold Daning! The Tumed tribe has already submitted and become obedient, and will soon shift their garrison to Karakorum. Yulin and Yan'an are no longer border regions and should be assigned to Shaanxi Province. Huang Degong can be reassigned to Daning!"

The "Celestial Empire system" that Zhu Cilang designed for the Ming was a series of concentric rings of "feudal governance." The innermost ring was the "direct provinces" — provinces directly subordinate to the throne, the core of the Celestial Empire.

Outside the direct provinces were the inner vassals, also called inner dependencies — the various military commissioners, grand protectors, and pacification commissioners. These inner dependencies governed either "border regions" or "wild lands." The former required granting border officials heavy authority (border officials were in theory rotating officials, but in practice hereditary succession and long tenure were possible); the latter were difficult to govern with rotating officials.

Outside the inner dependencies were the outer vassals. The five vassal states of Joseon, Annam, Siam, Laos, and Chenla were all outer vassals. And the Tumed and Chahar tribes, in the Zhu Emperor's plan, would also become outer vassals.

In addition, there was the Dzungar tribe. When the time was ripe, Zhu Cilang would also separate it from the Beiting garrison and make it an outer vassal.

"Third Brother," Zhu Cilang said, having finished the matter of Daning, and suddenly posed a question to Zhu Cijiong, "what do you think should be done about the Khoshut tribe?"

(End of Chapter)