Chapter 88: Section 16

"The decadent and ignorant Confucian ideology suppresses human nature!"

After leaving Fang Zhenru's home, Huang Shi cursed inwardly. The death of such a traditional Huaxia scholar-official was filled with tragic, mournful beauty and power, pressing so heavily on Huang Shi's chest that he felt stifled. After that silent curse, Huang Shi finally managed to catch his breath.

Having already chosen his camp, Huang Shi politely declined Zu Dashou's welcoming banquet. Wang Zaijin still held the upper hand for the moment; relying on the support of the Liaoxi military clans, he had forcibly drawn up a plan to reinforce the border walls. This plan would construct a new cluster of fortresses inside Shanhai Pass, stretching from Yipianshi in the south to Huanxiling in the north, and extending westward to Jimen — all of it to be turned into a fortified zone.

During this period, Wang Zaijin did not summon Huang Shi again, and the Liaoxi military group kept him at a respectful distance. Fang Zhenru did comfort Huang Shi a few times, telling him not to lose heart, and his expression even carried a trace of guilt. Huang Shi, however, remained calm and composed, waiting for Sun Chengzong to come and inspect, and then to transport the provisions — the reward his loyalty had earned — back to Changsheng Island.

"General Huang, this is Huanxiling," the guide introduced to Huang Shi and his several subordinates. Now free of all responsibilities, Huang Shi spent his days touring around Shanhai Pass, euphemistically calling it familiarizing himself with the terrain.

"Also called Shangxinling, right?" Huang Shi asked with a smile.

"Yes," the guide paused for a moment, then flattered him: "General Huang is widely learned. Your subordinate is full of admiration."

"Why is it called both Huanxiling and Shangxinling?" He Baodao immediately asked. This fellow's curiosity was truly unbearable.

Half a month ago on Changsheng Island, Huang Shi had introduced the tactic of "boiling a frog in warm water" to his subordinates. Everyone had sighed in admiration and submission — except He Baodao, who immediately went to conduct an experiment. The result proved that the frog would jump out on its own rather than wait to die, causing Huang Shi to lose considerable face. What was especially excessive was that He Baodao even threw a frog into boiling water in front of everyone, and it instantly flipped belly-up and died. This made Huang Shi even more displeased — doing the experiment quietly would have been fine, but why shout and make a fuss, as if afraid no one would know the commanding officer had been wrong?

"When our Great Ming frontier army returns from campaign and gazes upon this ridge from afar, they know they are about to reach home and will soon see their parents, wives, and children. Everyone is overjoyed, so naturally it is called Huanxiling." Huang Shi showed off a story he had heard from a tour guide in his previous life.

"And when they march out beyond the pass, it is called Shangxinling?"

"Yes." Huang Shi sighed. In the past, this allusion had merely been amusing to hear, but having come to this era, where life and death were separated in the blink of an eye — like that mounted scout who had died in the line of duty — Huang Shi now felt this name deeply.

"For nearly three hundred years of our dynasty, the bones of a million comrades lie beyond the pass, and only thus do we have peace within the realm. How heroic!" He Baodao's valor surged, and he sighed repeatedly that there was no wine at hand: "Since the Three Dynasties of antiquity, the martial glory of our Great Ming stands supreme. Heroic! Heroic!"

Although Huang Shi inwardly disagreed, he had no desire to say more. Pride in one's nation and people was a praiseworthy sentiment in any era, and a soldier's pride was especially stirring to the heart.

Unexpectedly, He Baodao, seeing that his superior had not echoed him, stole several glances at Huang Shi, appearing somewhat disrespectful. Huang Shi explained mildly: "I think the Han and Tang were also quite impressive."

"Haha," He Baodao burst into raucous laughter: "My lord, you are mistaken. Our Great Ming had no Han-style marriage alliances with the Xiongnu, nor any brotherhood pacts with barbarians. Those who dare to invade our Great Ming must be exterminated to the last. The surrounding barbarians must be made to bow their heads and declare themselves subjects. The Tang Son of Heaven had to call himself the Heavenly Khan to win over the barbarians. By the Song, not only did they pay tribute, but there were also those damn Aguda and damn Genghis Khan wreaking havoc upon our Huaxia. Now those Mongol savages — even the title of Genghis Khan is one our Great Ming bestowed. Haha."

"Company Commander He, watch your words!" Huang Shi barked sharply. The status of the Yuan Grand Ancestor had been decreed by Zhu Hongwu himself. Although the current Mongol Chinggis Khan was invested by the Great Ming, by the logic of this era, He Baodao's disrespect toward the Yuan Grand Ancestor was disrespect toward the Ming Grand Ancestor's imperial word, disrespect toward the Great Ming Son of Heaven, disrespect toward the imperial court...

Scolded by Huang Shi, He Baodao deflated, but still muttered under his breath: "Stinking Tatars."

The guide turned his face away, pretending he had heard nothing. This guide also came from a military household background. For centuries, the Ming army and the Mongols had fought back and forth repeatedly; soldiers, no matter what, could not harbor any goodwill toward the Mongols or their ancestors.

Moreover, the Ming dynasty had always maintained a hardline policy toward foreign peoples, absolutely refusing peace talks and even more absolutely refusing compromise. Even if the Emperor was captured, they would fight until the enemy submitted. A Ming Emperor had even personally taken to the battlefield and killed a Mongol soldier with his own hands — something unique in all of Huaxia's dynasties.

After a while, He Baodao grew restless again: "The mighty Han might still be comparable to our Great Ming, but the former Tang, from its very founding, called barbarians brothers. Later they abandoned their capital and fled; within a hundred years of founding, their capital was breached. For the next two hundred years, barbarians came and went freely across the Central Plains. The Tang Son of Heaven had no capable martial generals or warriors — how could it compare to our Great Ming? Haha, haha."

When it came to warriors and martial men, He Baodao was talking nonsense. After all, what he had been exposed to were mainly the great achievements of the Ming. The lesson of Han and Tang military men meddling in politics had led the Song to begin exalting the civil and suppressing the martial. From then on, the magnificent sight of the Son of Heaven ascending a platform to appoint a general, who would then set out on campaign amid the cheers of the people, was never seen again.

He Baodao was still chattering on about something, but Huang Shi did not take in a single word. Having been in the Ming dynasty for so long, he had gradually learned to see issues from a Ming person's perspective.

Perhaps because the catastrophe of the Song dynasty had shaken the Ming people too greatly, this dynasty was the most rigid in its methods in all of Chinese history, its way of thinking completely different from every other dynasty. All diplomatic means were classified as cowardice.

Huang Shi had discovered that in the Ming dynasty, the phrase with the most currency was: "Barbarians have the faces of men and the hearts of beasts; they are fickle and inconstant, and absolutely cannot be trusted."

The brutal slaughter by the Mongols had reduced the Han population of the north by sixty percent, and the south had suffered losses exceeding thirty percent. Huaxia's benevolence and tolerance vanished from history from that point on, replaced by vigilance and suspicion from top to bottom. The Ming dynasty had only one language for the northern barbarians — fight.

Huang Shi remembered that quite a few experts and professors criticized this barbaric ethnic policy. They considered the methods used after the Manchu Qing entered and took the Central Plains to be far better. The Qing's "Great Emperors" did not discriminate against those the Huaxia people saw as "barbarians," and were even willing to keep sending princesses off to Mongolia — how wonderful to maintain peace through women's bodies, and it provided plenty of romantic gossip material besides.

A trace of mocking laughter floated up from the corner of Huang Shi's mouth.

A certain association president put it well: the Manchu Qing laid the foundation of China's modern territorial boundaries. Without the Manchu Qing, there would be no fifty-six ethnic groups; without the Manchu Qing, there would be no Northeast, no Xinjiang, no Tibet.

What were the Great Ming's Nurgan Regional Military Commission and Ü-Tsang Regional Military Commission? Illusions! Shameless slander from anti-Manchu elements.

The War of Resistance actually never happened, and the Republic never sent troops to Tibet or Xinjiang. These are all illusions! All of it is deliberate distortion of facts to slander the great Qing dynasty.

The historical truth is that the Chinese people shouted a few times, "We are the inheritors of the Manchu Qing legacy!" and the Japanese obediently went back where they came from. The separatists all wept bitterly and returned to the motherland. The heavenly gods even more impatiently delivered wealth. China's prosperity has nothing to do with the nation's unremitting self-strengthening, nothing to do with the hot blood shed by soldiers, nothing to do with the sweat poured out by our forefathers. Everything, absolutely everything, is merely the lingering prestige of the Manchu Qing.

Huang Shi did not doubt for a moment that the Ming sovereign and ministers were all blockheads. They stubbornly clung to outdated ways — "The land of our ancestors, the people of our ancestors, cannot be abandoned." They only understood that "the sovereign of Huaxia shepherds the people of Huaxia," only understood that "the sovereign of Huaxia dies for the altars of state." They lacked the Qing's political "great wisdom."

"A Ming sovereign could never utter the words, 'Better to give to friendly nations than to domestic slaves,'" Huang Shi, an atheist, could not help but pray to the unseen: "Protect our Huaxia, and may we never, ever hear such words again."