Chapter 924: We Were All Sent by the Tsar!

"Your brother is of course a filial son — I obey Imperial Brother in everything!"

With his elder brother putting it that way, Zhu Cihuan naturally had to compete for the title of filial son too! Who didn't know that Zhu Cilang was the twenty-fifth exemplar of filial piety in the Great Ming, and that he prized filial devotion above all?

But Chongzhen's brow furrowed deeply — his Imperial Father was still alive, so how could a filial son obey his Imperial Brother in everything? Shouldn't a filial son obey his father? Only when the father is gone does the eldest brother stand in the father's place! If you're already treating your elder brother as father, then you're being unfilial!

Zhu Cilang was quite satisfied. "Good, good — a true filial son indeed! Imperial Father, you see Fifth Brother's wholehearted filial devotion. Won't you send him on a trip to Tibet?"

The Retired Emperor Chongzhen could only smile wryly and nod. "Cihuan is indeed filial. Your father will send you on this journey... only your father's purse is empty, and I have no silver for the tea offering. What is to be done?"

Zhu Cilang smiled. "We shall put up the silver for the tea offering. We still have some savings, so We'll start with fifty thousand taels!"

"Imperial Brother, there's no need for that much," Zhu Cijiong reminded him. "Ten thousand taels would be plenty. Fifty thousand is too much."

"Not too much, not too much," Zhu Cilang said with a wave of his hand. "Our Imperial Father has silver to spare, and he is sincere in his devotion to the Buddha. He also plans to build a hundred lamaseries on the steppe, and to build a resplendent head temple in Beijing at a cost of five hundred thousand taels, and to invite an enlightened Khutuktu to reside there permanently. So first we donate fifty thousand taels in tea money as a token of our sincerity. If the wish is fulfilled, there will be even more tea money."

That would cost a million taels, wouldn't it? Who's actually paying for all this? Don't tell me it's coming out of Our pocket? Chongzhen thought to himself: even if the court pays, it's still not right! This is all the fat and marrow of the people! How can it be spent like this? It's outrageous!

Before Chongzhen could speak up to object, Zhu Cijiong was already shaking his head. "Not easy, not easy. Imperial Brother must want to invite the Venerable Dharma King to Beijing. But this generation's Venerable Dharma King is the son of Tüsheet Khan Gombodorji — I'm afraid he can't be invited just by spending a bit of money."

The Venerable Dharma King was the Jebtsundamba, said to be the reincarnation of an eminent monk who was one of the five hundred bhikshus before Shakyamuni Buddha. After this eminent monk had been reincarnated fifteen times, he became the Jonang school master Taranatha of Tibet. Taranatha had once preached the Dharma for twenty years among the Khalkha Mongols and won the devotion of the Khalkha princes and herdsmen, and was called the Jebtsundamba — that is, the Precious Saint, or the Venerable Dharma King.

This eminent monk passed away in the seventh year of Chongzhen, and in the eighth year of Chongzhen he was discovered to have been reincarnated as Zanabazar, son of Tüsheet Khan Gombodorji. A few years ago this Zanabazar followed the Fifth Dalai Lama — who had come to Beijing to chant sutras for Dorgon — back to Tibet, and became the latter's disciple. He is still in Tibet studying the sutras.

Zhu Cilang said with a smile, "Third Brother, you're mistaken. Imperial Father is sincere in his devotion to the Buddha and wishes to invite the Venerable Dharma King to Beijing to preach the Dharma. Where sincerity is absolute, even metal and stone yield. So the Dharma King will certainly come to Beijing! Imperial Father, is your heart sincere or not?"

Sincere my ass! Chongzhen thought: your father doesn't believe in lamas at all!

Seeing Chongzhen remain silent, Zhu Cilang nodded and said to Zhu Cihuan, "Fifth Brother, you too must be sincere. You must make sure the Great Lama and the Upholder of the Faith, Güshi Khan, see Imperial Father's sincerity."

Zhu Cihuan nodded repeatedly. "Imperial Brother is right." He thought for a moment. "When I get back, I'll find a monk to tonsure me. That should count as sincere, right?"

"No!" Zhu Cilang frowned. "How can you be tonsured? If you're tonsured, how will you show sincerity?"

"Exactly!" said Zhu Cijiong. "Fifth Brother, you haven't even taken a wife — how can you leave the household? If you're truly sincere, you should take a wife first!"

What did that mean?

Both Zhu Cihuan and the Retired Emperor Chongzhen were baffled.

"Third Brother knows what sincerity means!" Zhu Cilang nodded. "We shall have the Great Consort Nangnang make arrangements for Fifth Brother to marry a Chahar princess."

Chahar, whatever else one said, was the legitimate line of the Mongols, while the Khoshut were merely an offshoot of the Khorchin tribe — they had only fled to the Oirat of the western Mongols after failing to make it among the eastern Mongols. Once among the Oirat, they had developed under the banner of the Golden Family, and later, seizing the opportunity of the great chaos among the eastern Mongols, they had gathered many herdsmen who had migrated west. By the generation of Güshi Khan's grandfather, they had finally become the leaders of the Oirat confederation. But by Güshi Khan's own generation, with the rise of the Dzungars once more, they had been forced south to develop Qinghai and Tibet. With Güshi Khan's status being what it was, he naturally could not refuse to show face to the legitimate Chahar line.

"Imperial Brother," Zhu Cijiong shook his head again, "merely marrying a Chahar princess may still not be sincere enough!"

"You have a point," Zhu Cilang thought it over. "We shall also have Shang Kexi and Kong Tingxun escort Fifth Brother onto the plateau with twelve thousand elite horse and foot soldiers, and order Wu Sangui to move three thousand musket cavalry to the shores of Qinghai Lake! With sincerity like that, it should move Güshi Khan and the Great Lama, shouldn't it?"

Shang Kexi and Kong Tingxun's army was encamped just outside Beijing — twelve thousand men in all, of whom two thousand were cavalry and ten thousand infantry.

As for Wu Sangui, over the past two years he had joined forces with the Dzungars in a great war against the Yarkent Khanate, and the war was now drawing to a close. Wu Sangui's army had already recovered Hami Guard and the old territory of Xizhou, while the rest of the Yarkent Khanate's lands had been seized by the Dzungars — it should be noted that this war had nothing to do with the native peoples of the Western Regions; it was merely a feudal contest for supremacy between Wu Sangui and the Dzungars on one side and the Chagatai Khan's descendants who had invaded from Central Asia on the other.

"Enough, more than enough." Zhu Cijiong laughed. "Güshi Khan and the Great Lama are both reasonable men. Seeing how sincere we are, they will surely let the Venerable Dharma King come to Beijing to chant sutras for Imperial Father."

He looked at Chongzhen with a beaming smile. "Imperial Father, now your many years' wish can finally be fulfilled!"

Chongzhen wore a faint, ambiguous smile. "My son, that you can think of using the Yellow Hat sect to control the steppe is indeed somewhat cleverer than your father. But so many emperors of our dynasty, including the Exalted Founder himself, could not pacify the steppe once and for all. Don't imagine that a few great Yellow Hat lamas can make all the Mongols of the steppe lay down their butcher's knives!"

"Imperial Father speaks truly." Zhu Cilang, for once, agreed with Chongzhen's opinion. He let out a breath. "The steppe is so vast — how could there be any once-and-for-all solution? Your son would not dare harbor such extravagant hopes. Governing the steppe requires persistent, long-term effort. Perhaps even if your son spends decades of labor, he may only bring part of the steppe from barbarism into civilization!"

While Zhu Cilang was busy dispatching his good brother Zhu Cihuan onto the plateau to offer tea and invite the Dharma King, Guan Aobai was in Busan, interviewing Russians together with De Belasco.

The first to be led into the main hall of the Andong Army naval headquarters by Aobai's brother Guan Muma were several dozen "short beards" with fair skin, pale blue eyes, slightly curly hair, somewhat prominent brow ridges, and especially thick beards and eyebrows. At a glance they did look somewhat like "hairy foreigners," but as Aobai studied them, something felt off.

Aobai asked, "Muma, where did you find these Russians? They don't look right!"

"Brother, they're all Ainu from Sakhalin Island," Guan Muma said. "Last time, after we defeated the Japanese on Sakhalin, we set up a Sakhalin Jalanggin office on the island, registered all the able-bodied men of every clan, and made them serve in rotation. These men were all assigned to the Pacific Fleet as sailors. Didn't you say you wanted some Westerners to play the part of Russians? So I thought of them. How do they look?"

Aobai glanced at De Belasco. "Old De, do you think they pass?"

De Belasco studied them for a while. "They look all right. The hair color's a bit off, but it can be dyed... But can they speak Russian?"

Guan Muma shook his head. "Of course not, but we can have them pretend to be mute."

De Belasco turned back to Aobai. "Admiral, time is pressing. If we need more men to swell the numbers and make a show of strength, we'll have to use them."

Aobai thought it over and nodded. "It'll have to do... Old De, how are the muskets coming along? Have they all been engraved with Russian script? We can't do like before and just carve a few Chinese characters to fool people!"