Chapter 938: What Fine Upright Officials, What a Fine Emperor (Please Subscribe)

"Home! Home! Home! We're going home!"

The entire Yifeng Gate Avenue was drowned out by the cry of going home!

All the commoners who had come to welcome the triumphant army were weeping and shouting that they wanted to go home! Not back to their homes in Nanjing, but back north, back to the old homes that had haunted their dreams for more than ten years.

The cry of going home quickly infected the soldiers and officers who had returned to Nanjing with Emperor Zhu. Most of them were veterans who had served more than ten years, old soldiers born and raised in the northern lands. Though they did not shout along with the commoners, every face was wet with tears, as if they could already hear their homeland calling!

The smile on Zhu Cilang's face slowly stiffened!

He had already suppressed the call in the court to move the capital back to Beijing, but now the call from the common people had suddenly risen, and it was even louder than the call in the court. Well, the common people's call was not entirely about moving the capital — it was about going home!

But for Zhu Cilang, who relied on northerners to rule the southeast, if all the northerners in the southeast went home, who would he have left to rely on?

And these northerners who were set on going home had done nothing wrong. They were the very foundation of Emperor Zhu's own rule, so he could not very well forcibly suppress their longing to return.

This matter seemed to be getting a bit troublesome!

The victory celebration and military review came to an end amid waves of cheering and cries of going home, and Emperor Zhu returned to the Forbidden City in Nanjing, which he had not seen for a long time.

According to the plan drawn up earlier, tomorrow — that is, the morning of the second day of the fourth month — he was to receive the instrument of surrender presented by the Qing Kangxi Emperor in the Fengtian Gate of the Nanjing Forbidden City, in the presence of envoys from various countries and the officials great and small of the Grand Secretariat, the Marshal's Office, the Deliberative Assembly, the Censorate, the Court of Judicial Review, the Imperial Academy, and other government offices, and personally proclaim the complete extinction of the Qing state. This was not for the officials and commoners of the Great Ming to see, but for the envoys of various countries stationed in Nanjing to see.

The Great Ming was now an important member of the international community!

In Zhu Cilang's Celestial Empire system, the concept of "foreign countries" did exist!

Any country that had not signed a Treaty of Suzerainty and Vassalage with the Great Ming was a foreign country, regardless of size or strength.

And foreign countries were further divided into world empires equal to the Great Ming, independent great powers one rank below the Great Ming, independent small states two ranks below the Great Ming, and foreign vassals three ranks below the Great Ming.

This foreign policy of dividing countries into ranks according to size and strength was obviously contrary to the diplomatic line that all countries, regardless of size, strength, or wealth, are equal. But in the seventeenth century, how could a sesame-sized little state sit as an equal with the Celestial Empire? No such thing! The little states themselves would not dare!

In the present world, the only countries that could sit as equals with the Great Ming were six: Spain, the Ottoman Empire, France, the Netherlands, England, and the Holy Roman Empire.

These six countries had all established embassies in Nanjing, and the Great Ming had likewise dispatched missions to these six countries.

And in the Great Ming's formal state letters to these six countries, as long as the six countries requested it, their monarchs could all be addressed as "His Imperial Majesty the Great Emperor"! That is to say, they sat as equals with Zhu Cilang!

Apart from these six countries, there were six independent great powers — Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Japan, India, the Mongols, and Russia — that had also sent envoys to Nanjing, and the Great Ming had likewise sent envoys to them.

However, the missions sent by both sides were not large in scale; basically they just set up an office.

And in the Great Ming's state letters delivered to these six countries, the monarchs of the six countries could at most be addressed as "His Majesty the King," and could not be called Great Emperor.

Therefore the state letter the Great Ming delivered to Japan was not addressed to the Tenno, but to the Seii Taishogun. The Tenno could not be acknowledged — Zhu Cilang was only an emperor, and the Japanese Tenno was even greater than him. How could that be allowed? Where would the Celestial Empire's face go? So the Great Ming and Japan wrangled for a long time, and in the end simply settled on emperor-to-shogun!

In any case, after the Great Ming established relations with the Western countries, it had already seen non-monarchical states. Now the Great Ming called the head of England the "Lord Protector," and called the head of the Netherlands the "Grand Pensionary." One more "His Excellency the Shogun" was nothing much. As for the Tenno or whatever — he did not exist.

Beyond the above twelve countries, there were six outer vassals that had stationed tribute envoys with the Great Ming: Annam, Siam, Laos, Chenla, Joseon, Chahar, and Tumed. Envoys stationed by vassal states at the Celestial Court were uniformly called tribute envoys — they came to offer tribute!

And the envoys the Celestial Court stationed in vassal states were called supervisory envoys — nominally they went to supervise the vassal states!

Besides the envoys of these eighteen countries, three candidate vassal states had also sent envoys: the Ryukyu Kingdom, the Brunei Kingdom, and the Sulu Kingdom.

These three states had already submitted applications to conclude a Treaty of Suzerainty and Vassalage and become vassals of the Great Ming, but because of certain disputed issues, Emperor Zhu had not approved them.

And the formal extinction of the Great Qing was now also a major international event. The Great Qing Mongol state had also stepped onto the world stage, after all!

So Emperor Zhu had to give the international community an explanation, and then he still had to clean up the Great Qing's mess.

But after returning to the Forbidden City, Emperor Zhu was in no mood to prepare for tomorrow's surrender ceremony. Instead, he ordered that Zheng Zhilong, who had just arrived, and Shen Tingyang, who had reached Nanjing, be summoned to the Western Building of the Forbidden City.

The Great Ming's richest man Zheng Zhilong, second-richest Shen Tingyang, and the richest of all, Zhu Cilang, thus shut the door and discussed how to feign poverty and how to raise money to develop the north.

Feigning poverty was, of course, to delay the move north.

And developing the north was, on the one hand, to digest the fruits of victory, and on the other, to give an answer to the northern refugees who supported Emperor Zhu's rule.

"Marquis Chongming, We shall speak frankly with you. Although the Prime Minister of the Great Ming court is now Wei Zaode, the one who truly holds great power is still the Duke of Quan! What does Prime Minister Wei know? He does not even know how much money the court has! The budget for court expenditures and the final accounts are not his responsibility either. The auditing of the finances of every province and prefecture is not something this Prime Minister can manage — he would not even understand the audit reports if they were given to him! So the true Prime Minister of the Grand Secretariat is in fact the Duke of Quan, who controls the financial power!

And the post We are entrusting to you is Minister of Revenue and concurrently Minister of Works of the secondary capital. That is one more ministership than the Duke of Quan's Minister of Revenue! Moreover, the Ministries of Personnel, War, and Rites in the secondary capital are all nominal, and the Duke of Yu as the resident minister has little real power. The offices that truly manage affairs are the secondary capital's Ministry of Revenue and Ministry of Works. Among them, the secondary capital's Ministry of Revenue has overall charge of all official and enemy properties in Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, Hebei, and Beijing, and is also responsible for surveying fields, inspecting lands, and prospecting mines in these places. After the survey and inventory are complete, it is also responsible for disposal and distribution. The responsibility is enormous!

And the secondary capital's Ministry of Works has even more matters. First, it manages the river works in Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, Hebei, and Beijing — the Yellow River must undergo major repairs, and the Grand Canal must be restored as much as possible. Second, it repairs the official roads everywhere. Third, it manages ports and trading quarters. Fourth, it repairs critical cities and passes.

These four great tasks assigned to the secondary capital's Ministry of Works are all of the utmost urgency, and they cost money and effort. We have thought it over and over — apart from you, Marquis Chongming, who else in the world has such managerial ability? Marquis Chongming, are you willing to be Our Chancellor of the Northern Lands?"

Chancellor of the Northern Lands!

Zhu Cilang was truly going to put Shen Tingyang in a position of great importance this time!

Shen Tingyang was somewhat stunned. He had never imagined that Zhu Cilang would dump so many matters on him. This was practically handing over the entire recovery and reconstruction of the north to him!

"Your Majesty," Shen Tingyang thought for a moment, "does the court really have that much money to undertake so many great works in the north? We can no longer conscript corvée laborers now. If we must hire laborers for everything, the construction costs will be expensive."

Zhu Cilang glanced at the God of Wealth, Zheng Zhilong. God of Wealth Zheng said: "There are so many great works in the north. It is impossible for the court to squeeze them all out of the fiscal surplus, but the court can borrow money, can raise funds by selling off properties, can use the method of government-owned, merchant-operated enterprises, and some great works can simply be handed over to merchants to run.

In short, there are many ways to raise money, and we can try them all."