Chapter 987: Enemies Must Be Beaten One by One (Seeking Subscriptions)

Shang Ke'ai came and went. When he arrived, he was a bearer of mourning tidings, clad in sackcloth and mourning weeds, weeping as though his own father had died. When he left, the sackcloth was no longer given him to wear, the mourning weeds he could no longer don, and he dared not shed a tear — for Dodo had "returned from the dead," and he, the bearer of mourning tidings, had no mourning left to report.

At first glance the affair seemed absurd beyond measure, but once Shang Ke'ai calmed down, he quickly grasped the Zhu Emperor's intent — Zhu Cilang wanted to postpone the resolution of the question beyond the passes for a while longer!

The Great Ming now had rather too many enemies, and to open war on multiple fronts at once would strain both the national strength and the military. So the Zhu Emperor could only make his enemies queue up to be beaten, and destroy them one by one. Among all those enemies, the Qing remnants beyond the passes were comparatively hard to deal with, and for the moment they had not yet torn their faces off with the Great Ming. Therefore, among the enemies the Zhu Emperor needed to destroy or defeat, the Qing remnants ranked near the back of the line.

But ranking near the back did not mean their turn would never come.

And the reason Zhu Cilang used the pretext of "not acknowledging that Dodo was dead" to postpone the war beyond the passes was that he had to preserve the gilded signboard of his own reputation for keeping his word.

Because Zhu Cilang kept faith, once he had enfeoffed Duoni as lord beyond the passes, he could not casually find some pretext to strip him of his post and send troops to chastise him — if one wishes to condemn a man, there is indeed never a lack of words, but the eyes of feudal lords and feudal bureaucrats are sharp; right and wrong, straight and crooked, all lie clear in men's hearts.

If Zhu Cilang broke faith with Duoni, what would everyone else think? Even if they remained outwardly obedient, there would surely be a knot in their hearts. The relationship between the Zhu Emperor and the bureaucrats and feudal warlords below him would be very hard to keep as harmonious as it now was — at present, the military governors, grand protectors, pacification commissioners, garrison commissioners, and the like under the Zhu Emperor not only harbored no disloyalty, but placed the utmost trust in the Ming court.

Apart from Dodo, every one of them would enter the capital to pay homage at a single imperial summons, and none of them feared going and never returning.

This harmonious relationship between the central government and the separatist powers was of the utmost importance to the Zhu Emperor's vast empire — the country was too large to appoint only circulating officials everywhere, so the amity and trust between emperor and vassals determined how far the empire could go.

As for the question of reducing the feudatories, Zhu Cilang had his own arrangements as well, but he would not reduce them through intrigue and statecraft — he would reduce them through the spirit of contract. Between himself and most of the military governors, grand protectors, and pacification commissioners below, he had signed contracts stipulating their terms of office and the number of generations allowed to inherit.

Among them, Wu Sangui's Anxi Garrison was hereditary in perpetuity — that is, passed down generation after generation, with every grand protector surnamed Wu!

The Hexi Garrison, likewise held by Wu Sangui, was held for life only — the moment Wu Sangui's time was up, the court would appoint another military governor.

The Shuofang Garrison, held by the Prince of Tang, Zhu Yujian, was also to end after one generation — Zhu Yujian was well advanced in years and had no son, so the question of a hereditary military governor did not arise.

The Anbei Garrison of the Prince of Dai, Zhu Cijiong, was hereditary in perpetuity, with treatment identical to the Anxi Garrison! That was something the Third Prince Zhu had earned by serving as the "Loan King" in the Lüliang Mountains and northern Shaanxi. The Third Prince Zhu's merits and hardships were so great that Zhu Cilang could not refuse to acknowledge them.

Gao Jie's Beiping Army and Huang Degong's Daning Army were both hereditary for two generations — both men were already well advanced in years, and if their posts were to end with them, they would likely lose their drive. Moreover, the Beiping and Daning armies were both still in their founding stage, with every enterprise beset by hardship, and precisely needed their strenuous exertions.

As for the Beiting Army, the Zhu Emperor was seeking to split it apart. He hoped to take the Ili Steppe and the Dzungar Steppe held by the Beiting Army and form them into a new Beiting Army, and then allow the Dzungar tribe to establish a new khanate.

The Jinghai Army south of Annam also enjoyed hereditary-in-perpetuity treatment — although Zhu Cizhao was a worthless sort, there was no helping it, his luck was simply too good. Even in fleeing, he had managed to run Annam back into the embrace of the Celestial Dynasty, so what more was there to say? Moreover, the Zhu Emperor was presently unable to send troops to Siam, and could only rely on the Jinghai Army's great general Zhang Yong to dispatch troops in support of the Siamese royal capital, Ayutthaya.

The military governor of the Jin'ou Army served five-year terms, the same as Ming governors and prefects — and with the Zhu Emperor's approval, could serve consecutive terms.

The Andong Army held by Dodo, however, was a rather special case; the question of its term had always been handled vaguely and never spelled out.

"Your Majesty, is Dodo truly feigning death?"

On the very day Shang Ke'ai left Nanjing, at the joint conference of the two imperial offices, someone raised the question of whether Dodo was alive or dead.

And the man who raised the question was none other than the Embroidered Uniform Guard Commander, Zhu Chunjie.

"Commander Zhu," Zhu Cilang shot him a glance, "does the Embroidered Uniform Guard not know whether Dodo is dead or not?"

"This subject," Zhu Chunjie said with a conflicted expression, "to this subject's knowledge, he is indeed dead. He died of illness on the fifth day of the first month in Jianzhou City by the shores of Lake Xingkai. It should not be mistaken."

Of course it was not mistaken — the nanmu coffin in which Dodo slept had been purchased with the help of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Jabus was now the richest man in Manchuria; when Dodo fell ill, he had offered medicines and summoned famous physicians, and when he learned Dodo was beyond saving, he had even purchased a first-rate nanmu coffin from the Great Ming and shipped it to the northeast. He was more filial than Duoni himself! Could the news of Dodo's death obtained from him possibly be false?

Zhu Cilang nodded. "Then is that not settled?" He turned his gaze to the Minister of War, Li Ruolian. "Have the Ministry of War send men to negotiate with Duoni. So long as he agrees to divide the Andong Army into three and hand over the territory under the Liaodong Regional Military Commission, We shall acknowledge the news of Dodo's death."

Could things even be done this way? Li Ruolian could scarcely believe his own ears. Dodo was plainly already dead, yet His Majesty refused to acknowledge it, insisted on forcing Dodo to keep "living," and used that to hold Duoni hostage. Of all the emperors in the history of the Great Ming, none tormented people more than you!

"Your Majesty," the military advisor Wu Sanfu said, "Duoni will likely not agree to such terms, will he?"

"We know he will not agree," Zhu Cilang shook his head. "But do we at present have the confidence to seize the lands beyond the passes quickly? If we acknowledge Dodo's death, then the matter of dividing the Andong garrison can no longer be delayed. If Duoni should take a desperate gamble and proclaim himself emperor beyond the passes, founding a state, how could we ignore it?"

The Chief Grand Secretary, Lu Zhenfei, did not understand, and asked Zhu Cilang, "Your Majesty, if you do not acknowledge that Dodo is dead, will Duoni not rebel?"

"Of course not!" Zhu Cilang smiled. "Duoni would have to make thorough preparations before he could rebel! And how would he prepare to rebel? Shanhai Pass is in his hands — would he dare come in?"

"He would not dare, absolutely not." Wu Sanfu shook his head repeatedly. "How would he dare deliver himself to us to be beaten?"

"Then what would he rebel for?" Zhu Cilang laughed. "So long as We do not acknowledge that Dodo is dead, Andong has no question of division or succession."

Lu Zhenfei said, "But this cannot be dragged out for more than a few years!"

The Zhu Emperor gave a cold laugh. "We have no intention of dragging it out for years. Dragging it out until the Satsuma Domain collapses will do!"

"Is the Satsuma Domain so important?" asked the Minister of Rites, Qian Qianyi.

"It is very important!" The Minister of Revenue, Zheng Zhilong, took up the topic. "These past few months, we have already lost fifty or sixty great bird ships, trade with Japan has been completely cut off, and even sailing to Joseon is no longer safe! So we must take the Satsuma Domain as quickly as possible and eliminate the Spanish fleet base in Kagoshima Bay."

The Spanish fleet could no longer prevail in open battle — in a pitched engagement it could not defeat the combined Ming-British-French-Dutch-Portuguese fleet — but broken up into raiders it was still formidable.

And the Ming's great bird ships were slow and lightly crewed, and feared nothing so much as being waylaid and plundered by armed galleons.

"How are the army and navy preparations coming along?" the Zhu Emperor asked.

"Nearly complete," Wu Sanfu said. "Over the past few months, thirty-one armed galleons have successively joined the allied fleet. We ourselves have another twenty-seven armed galleons, and the gift ships from Britain and France number thirteen, also joined to the allied fleet — seventy-one in all!

Of these, roughly half have already been dispatched on convoy duty, and the remaining thirty-six are concentrated in the Wusong River, queued up to have swivel bombards installed. By now nearly all of them are fitted."

The so-called swivel bombard was in fact simply a bombard (the Hongxing Year Seven model 24-pounder short-barreled cannon) mounted on a circular hardwood track, capable of rotating a full 360 degrees — this design was not a golden finger supplied by Zhu Cilang, but had long existed. In this age, large armed galleons all carried several large-caliber cannon, a considerable portion of which were mounted on tracks.

(End of Chapter)