[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-stealing-ming":3,"chapter-stealing-ming-stealing-ming-chapter-211":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Stealing Ming",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1220828,1614,"Chapter 211: Section 28: Dispatching the Troops","stealing-ming-chapter-211",211,"\u003Cp>Where nine rivers converge, the Son of Heaven's ferry crossing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The second day of the eighth month, fifth year of the Tianqi reign, Tianjin.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On this trip to the capital, besides bringing a small squad of Internal Guards as his personal escort, Huang Shi also brought along Jin Qiude. Jin Qiude had vehemently opposed Huang Shi's entry into the capital, and when that failed, insisted on accompanying him. Though Huang Shi did not believe the court would now discard him once his usefulness was spent, he could not bear to chill Jin Qiude's fervent loyalty, so he truly brought him along. Hong Antong remained on Changsheng Island — after all, his Internal Guard duties were still very demanding.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Tianjin city at this time, like Jinzhou Fortress in Liaodong, was also a thoroughly militarized guard-battalion fortress. After over two hundred years of construction by the Great Ming, this fortress was far more solid than those in Liaodong. The walls on all four sides were built with staggered barbican towers, and the city gates were protected by grand semicircular barbicans.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet in the eyes of these two soldiers, Huang Shi and Jin Qiude, the city's architectural design, though elaborate, seemed somewhat flashy and impractical. For instance, the gates of Tianjin Garrison's semicircular barbicans opened straight ahead. While this appeared more dignified and was more convenient for pedestrians and merchants coming and going, from a military perspective it also weakened the city's defensive strength. The military regulations in Liaodong, for example, stipulated that all enceinte gates and semicircular barbican gates must open sideways along the horizontal line of the wall — so that when the enemy attacked the city they would have to press right against the wall to assault the gate, and even if they breached the outer barbican gate, the enemy would have to laboriously turn their siege weapons ninety degrees to attack the inner gate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Over the moat, directly facing the city gate, a broad stone-slab bridge had been built; the city gate's drawbridge had become mere decoration. Both the ropes and the wooden planks had long since rotted beyond use. As Huang Shi's party crossed the great bridge, merchants and travelers thronged upon it, none paying any attention to this group of outsiders from afar.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Following their guide through the gate of Tianjin Garrison, Huang Shi saw the garrison guards sheltering in the shade on either side, chatting idly, letting the endless stream of pedestrians pass in and out unchecked, not a single person being inspected. The people's faces mostly wore smiles, and they continued talking and laughing loudly as they passed the guard posts. Mingled among them were the clamor of children and the giggles of women — a vivid contrast to the solemn, silent atmosphere before the fortress gates of Liaodong. A scene of cheerful bustle had replaced the air of imminent battle found in Liaodong.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After entering the city, Huang Shi gazed at the thriving, bustling streets around him and let out a long sigh: \"This is the sight of peace. I have not seen it in nearly ten years.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jin Qiude, who had kept a taut face the entire journey, also seemed stirred. Like Huang Shi, he had never been to Shandong, having worked diligently on Changsheng Island all these years. Jin Qiude looked left and right for a moment, then said with emotion: \"Your subordinate was banished to Liaodong at sixteen; it has been nearly ten years now. I truly wonder what Suzhou looks like now.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After entering the city, the first order of business was to go to the Tianjin county government office to exchange their travel permits. In the Great Ming, according to the institutions laid down by the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, only those who held official rank or examination honors were exempt from travel permits. If a scholar could pass the academy examination and become a Licentiate, he could wear a sword and travel the realm for study, no longer hindered by checkpoints. But without such honors, even a hereditary second-rank military officer like Huang Shi had to exchange his local travel permit in every province and prefecture, and report his personal escort and all weapons carried.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Though Ming Taizu Zhu Hongwu came from impoverished origins, he believed that the shi — that is, the scholars, the intellectuals — were the essence of the nation. Thus Zhu Hongwu adopted various measures to encourage the shi and elevate their status; for example, he encouraged Confucian scholars not to perform kneeling obeisances when meeting the Emperor, and encouraged them to speak frankly of the Son of Heaven's faults.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After over two hundred years of tempering, the shi of the Ming dynasty had come to take pride in daring to reproach the Emperor's faults. By the Wanli reign, scholars were no longer satisfied merely criticizing the Emperor alone; they often criticized his wife, his sons, even his mother along with him, and had progressed to speaking insolently and without restraint, frequently even speculating with ill intent and publicly discussing the Emperor's private life.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The maritime ban, for instance, was one of the targets of civil officials' attacks.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After exchanging their travel permits, the officers and soldiers of Changsheng Island strolled through the streets. By now, Tianjin city was no longer merely a military fortress; a large number of merchants lived within the city, and many artisans had settled there as well. Even outside the city, numerous trading markets had sprung up. All these changes were the result of the Wanli reign's complete lifting of the maritime ban.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In fact, as early as the Jiajing years, the Son of Heaven of the Great Ming had already begun to relax the maritime ban in a disguised form. In his youth, Emperor Jiajing had struggled bitterly with the civil officials, but later, for twenty years, he never altered a single character of the Grand Secretariat's draft rescripts. By the late Jiajing period, the once brash young Son of Heaven had grown old and weary. Emperor Jiajing simply increased the number of ship permits slightly, then left the heavy task of further opening the maritime ban to his son — the Longqing Emperor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Huang Shi had always felt that the Longqing Emperor, to put it kindly, was a \"nice guy,\" and to put it bluntly, was a weakling. When he ascended the throne, the old men of the Grand Secretariat were all shrewd operators who had scrapped and struggled with Jiajing for most of their lives; any one of them could handle Longqing until he had no temper at all. At every imperial audience, it was basically those Grand Secretaries discussing matters among themselves. Whenever the newly enthroned Longqing tried to express an opinion, the Grand Secretariat would bluntly rebuff him — \"Your Majesty, the imperial house is not flourishing in population at present; if you have the time, you would do better to return to the rear palace and beget a couple of children, rather than pestering us over nothing.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the days that followed, the Longqing Emperor attended court every day only to listen to his ministers debate. Once they had finished debating, they would present the plan right under the Emperor's nose; the Son of Heaven would say \"Approved,\" and the ministers would shout \"Long live Your Majesty,\" then scatter in a hubbub and go home from work. Historical records state that for years the Longqing Emperor had the opportunity to say only the word \"Approved\" every day. Because before Jiajing died he had opened a few ports for import and export trade, Longqing's courage only extended to this step.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After Longqing died, the next emperor, Wanli, no longer wished to attend court. As a result, the ministers gave the Emperor a nickname: \"Little Bee.\" \"Little\" meant the Son of Heaven was rather slight of build, and \"Bee\" referred to the Son of Heaven's fondness for flitting about only among the flowers of the rear palace.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the Wanli era, the two successive general managers of the Great Ming Company were each more formidable than the last. General Manager Gao Gong was long accustomed to the previous useless chairman Longqing, and besides, since draft rescripts came from the Grand Secretariat, he felt there was nothing to fear. As a result, Manager Gao bellowed at the eunuch delivering the edict: \"Do you truly expect me to believe that the words of a ten-year-old child are called an 'imperial edict'?\" ... Unexpectedly, the current Chairman Wanli's two mothers (his birth mother and his legal mother) were two very formidable young women — at least more formidable than their deceased husband. These two women secretly bought off Assistant Regional Commander Manager Zhang Juzheng, and together they sent Manager Gao packing back home to retirement.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After Wanli took personal rule, the Little Ice Age arrived. To increase revenue, Wanli ordered the complete abolition of the maritime ban and ship permits, replacing them with a fixed maritime tax per ship, for example, forty taels...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The party from Changsheng Island traveled the road from Tianjin to Beijing. Huang Shi saw that besides the Great Ming's own merchants, there were also many foreign merchants, escorting all kinds of goods back and forth between Beijing and Tianjin, including whole teams of black slaves. After Wanli lifted the maritime ban, many Ming officials — especially capital officials — thought it very prestigious to buy a few black men to guard their homes, so for Western merchants, black slaves and clocks were both very popular commodities.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because he opened the maritime ban, Wanli was attacked by civil officials until not a piece of his skin was left intact. But this Son of Heaven had his own fixed principles. When he saw the Grand Secretariat would not pass it, he sent eunuchs to collect the taxes. The eunuchs collecting maritime taxes reported that the Great Ming's sea merchants were building ever larger ships; goods that previously required two ships to carry could now be transported in one. The stingy Wanli Emperor felt he was being shortchanged, so he raised the tax silver per ship... The merchants built even larger ships... Wanli collected even higher taxes... By Huang Shi's era, the customs duty per seagoing ship in the Great Ming had risen to eighty taels.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Huang Shi remembered that the Spanish, around the Wanli years, had held completely different assessments of China. At first they said China's maritime trade capability was low, her sailors too few to defend themselves. But ten years after Wanli opened the seas, the Spanish Governor-General of Manila wrote to the King of Spain, declaring that China's seagoing ships had become both large and numerous: \"If the Emperor of China so wished, his ships are so many they could form a bridge of boats from Quanzhou to Malacca.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Entering Beijingcheng, Huang Shi constantly saw all kinds of bookshops and publishing houses. Besides the various Confucian classics needed by scholars, these bookshops also sold countless kinds of novels, Buddhist sutras, Daoist scriptures, as well as Western works translated into Chinese and all sorts of propaganda pamphlets.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Great Ming collected two million taels of silver annually in agricultural taxes. Because of the Little Ice Age's effects, the Wanli Emperor had to remit large amounts of agricultural taxes and provide disaster relief every year. He first ordered that disaster relief funds come from the inner treasury, then that special war funds come from the inner treasury, then that river-dredging and water-control funds also come from the inner treasury, and also that military farm shortfalls be subsidized by the inner treasury, and so on.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To meet all these expenses, Wanli racked his brains to earn money. Besides collecting nearly three million taels of maritime tax silver and over ten million taels of industrial, commercial, salt, and tea taxes, he also ordered the opening of publishing houses to earn silver for the inner treasury. Any book that could be sold was to be printed, and if someone was willing to pay, it would be printed for them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thus this era was also the period in China's feudal dynasties when the most books were printed. Huang Shi remembered that the scriptures of Xu Hongru, the leader of the Smelling Incense Sect, were printed by the imperial publishing house, and the Smelling Incense Sect's rebellion propaganda leaflets were also printed by the imperial publishing house — simply because Xu Hongru paid...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The clothes worn by people on Beijing's streets were also of every color, all of this also for tax revenue considerations. There had once been remonstrance officials who spoke with heartache of how the Great Ming's commoners dressed more splendidly than officials, and some had even begun wearing bright yellow fabrics. The civil officials demanded the Emperor rectify court discipline and forbid commoners from overstepping their station. At first Wanli hesitated, but the eunuch collecting the silk tax and printed-cloth tax asked him: \"If the common folk are forbidden from wearing silks and satins, then from whom will Your Majesty collect the taxes?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the end, the Wanli Emperor once again fell before the onslaught of silver bullets, withstood the united furious curses of the civil officials, and revised the Great Ming's ancestral institutions, abolishing all restrictions on carriages, horses, clothing, and sedan chairs.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"General Huang, the Imperial City lies ahead. Please halt,\" the hired Beijing guide interrupted Huang Shi's thoughts. He pointed to the distant Forbidden City: \"General Huang may draw a little closer for a look, but not too close. After you have seen it, we will go to the post house to rest and await the summons of the imperial decree.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Huang Shi walked forward a little further. His current position was roughly where the memorial hall of Mr. Mao stood in his previous life; the southern gate of the Forbidden City was now distantly visible. Huang Shi strained his eyes to look, but the distance was too great to make out the plaque above the gate tower, let alone the characters written on it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The guide, seeing Huang Shi gazing so intently, could not help but draw near and ask: \"What is General Huang looking at?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Is there a plaque above the city gate?\" Huang Shi swiftly pointed toward the southern gate of the Forbidden City from afar, and found his voice trembling with excitement: \"Does the plaque read 'Da Ming Men'?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The guide smiled and nodded: \"General Huang is correct. Has the General visited the capital before?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"No.\" Huang Shi denied it without turning his head. He saw the fleet of seagoing ships that blotted out the sky outside Tianjin port; saw the merchants of various nations within Tianjin city and all along the road to Beijing; saw Beijing's clusters of bookshops and publishing houses; and saw the gorgeously dressed residents of Beijing. Though Huang Shi could not see the plaque on the southern gate, the moment he thought of the three characters \"Da Ming Men\" upon it, and thought of how China had already lifted the maritime ban, the travel ban, the book ban, and the sumptuary dress hierarchy, Huang Shi felt that everything he had done in the past was meaningful.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Da Ming Men, Da Ming Men.\" Huang Shi felt the rims of his eyes begin to moisten. The many years of hardship seemed, in this moment, to have already been rewarded. He murmured softly to himself: \"Tomorrow, the day after at the latest, I will be summoned, won't I? I must take a good look at that plaque. It symbolizes the Huaxia civilization I have risked my life to defend — the glory of my ancestors and the blessing of my descendants.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The tenth day of the ninth month, fifth year of the Tianqi reign, Shanhai Pass, the Great Ming Liaodong Regional Military Commission\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ma Shilong spread a large map across the table. After dismissing everyone else, Regional Commander Ma personally explained the situation east of the river to Sun Chengzong.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just as in Huang Shi's original history, Ma Shilong had ultimately chosen Yaozhou as his target — this key hub connecting the central Liaoning plains to the hilly region of Fuzhou and Gaizhou: \"My lord Sun, recently many Han soldiers have fled from the Yaozhou and Haizhou area to Liaoxi. After careful interrogation, Yaozhou has only some banner levies and Jianzhou slave dependents, and the current fortress at Yaozhou was expanded from a post station; its walls are low and can be scaled with a tall ladder.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The map on the table was also stuck with small flags of various colors, markers used to indicate the distribution of nearby Later Jin forces, allowing a clear view of the military situation at a glance. Ma Shilong pointed to the location of Gaizhou and said: \"According to intelligence from the battle of Fuzhou, the Gaizhou area originally had seventy to eighty niru belonging to six different banners of the Jianzhou slaves. Over the past two months, our army has discovered that the Jianzhou slaves of five of those banners have already returned to central Liaoning. Lin Danhan has also written to the Ministry of War, saying that the Jianzhou slave pressure on his side is great, so your subordinate believes the main Jianzhou slave force has already gone back to northern Liaoning.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"What remains,\" Ma Shilong made a grasping motion with his hand above the map, then immediately clenched his fist and smashed it down on the Gaizhou area, \"is only twenty-one niru of the Jianzhou slaves' Plain Blue Banner entrenched here. This Plain Blue Banner has already been routed twice this year by the Dongjiang army. According to spy reports, the Plain Blue Banner's commander Manggūltai has also been wounded. My lord Sun, your subordinate's plan is first to seize Yaozhou with lightning speed, then to sweep south with the force of a thunderbolt, annihilate the Jianzhou slaves' Plain Blue Banner completely, and capture Manggūltai alive!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sun Chengzong nodded repeatedly as he listened. The intelligence and strategy both seemed perfect. He stroked his long beard and asked in a deep voice: \"Commander Ma, how confident are you?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ma Shilong straightened his body proudly, raising both large hands and spreading his ten fingers wide: \"One hundred percent. One hundred percent...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After this impassioned outburst, Ma Shilong, brimming with confidence inside and out, seemed to radiate an overbearing aura: \"My lord Sun, your discerning eye will note that in the battles of Nanguan and Fuzhou, there were instances of fleeing at the mere sight of the enemy. It is evident that this Plain Blue Banner is the weakest in combat among the Jianzhou slave banners. According to your subordinate's analysis, this banner, from top to bottom, has completely lost the courage to face our Great Ming's official troops in battle. This campaign will be as easy as reading the lines on one's palm. My lord Sun may rest assured.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As he spoke, Ma Shilong chuckled: \"If it were not to recover Gaizhou, your subordinate truly could not be bothered to strike such a wretched bunch of Jianzhou slaves.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The \"who else but me\" aura in Ma Shilong's words and tone greatly satisfied Sun Chengzong. He merely smiled and cautioned: \"Since Commander Ma is so confident, that is well, but you must not be careless, nor overly arrogant.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These words made Ma Shilong laugh heartily: \"My lord Sun, you worry too much. For this campaign, your subordinate has appointed Lu Zhijia, a famed general of Guanning, as the main commander, and that vanguard Li Chengxian also possesses valor worthy of ten thousand men. Whether in strategy or martial valor, your subordinate dares say they are in no way inferior to that Huang Shi. As for the Ningyuan Central Auxiliary Corps being dispatched this time, it further includes one artillery and wagon battalion, one armored cavalry battalion, and two naval battalions. This strength — let alone a single small Dongjiang Left Auxiliary Corps — even the entire Dongjiang Garrison cannot compare!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the twelfth day of the ninth month, fifth year of the Tianqi reign, Huang Shi was still in Beijing, bitterly awaiting the summons order. Meanwhile, the Guanning Army and Ningyuan Central Auxiliary Corps Vice Regional Commander Lu Zhijia slaughtered an ox and consecrated the banners. Four field battalions then set out grandly toward the Sanchahe. At the very forefront was the fierce warrior Li Chengxian, who was said to have thoroughly studied the military classics, could draw a ten-dan strongbow, and wield a twelve-foot-long horseman's lance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Assistant Regional Commander Li, going into battle for the first time, directly commanded an artillery and wagon battalion with 2,480 combat soldiers, and together with support troops a total of 5,500 men, possessing eighty-eight cannons, 350 war wagons, 600 horses, and 1,500 firearms of various types. The three battalions setting out afterward, according to their authorized establishment, would have another 4,000 combat soldiers, nearly 10,000 support troops, sixty cannons, over a thousand firearms, and in addition over two thousand war boats accompanying them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Like the personal guard units of the other commanders, Li Chengxian's retainers were also going on campaign for the first time. Most of them were murderers Li Chengxian had selected over the years from penal military colonies. This great mass of former jianghu toughs advanced noisily, their murderous aura seeming to press upon onlookers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The wheel of history had finally rolled to this point — the curtain on the bloody battle of Yaozhou was being gently drawn open...\u003C\u002Fp>",3566,"2026-06-04T07:54:54.057Z",1,"Novelzhen Translator","d8773853f4654e3b279d513cfebc1b2a4c6dcb87fc4776fbd14ad1f86f43681b","stealing-ming-chapter-212","stealing-ming-chapter-210",323,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fstealing-ming-cover.jpg"]