[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-stealing-ming":3,"chapter-stealing-ming-stealing-ming-chapter-93":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},1220710,1614,"Chapter 93: Section One","stealing-ming-chapter-93",93,"\u003Cp>Among the reasons Mao Wenlong gave for keeping Huang Shi in his letter to the Liaodong Grand Coordinator was that a counteroffensive was imminent — and this was no empty claim.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the first month of the second year of the Tianqi reign, Mao Wenlong launched the second Zhenjiang campaign, attempting to provide some diversion for the Guangning front, but Guangning fell almost immediately, and Nurhaci turned his forces back and defeated him. This made Mao Wenlong realize that the Liaodong Ming army was still not ready to confront the Later Jin army head-on. Early in the second month, Mao Wenlong fled back to Dongjiang Island and began planning a new wave of offensives. This time he decided to try terrorism first.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The first step in terrorist Mao Wenlong’s plan was to poison his Manchu compatriots. The rapid expansion of Later Jin territory had created unstable rule. Mao Wenlong exploited this to develop underground activities. Incited by Mao Wenlong, large numbers of profiteering merchants sympathetic to the Ming army struck against their minority brothers, beginning to sell poisoned rice, poisoned oil, and poisoned flour.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If displeased, break faith; if they won’t submit, resort to terror — that is the formula for founding a righteous cause. Nurhaci’s rise was no different.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>First came the shift from displeasure to breaking faith.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Later Jin side’s propaganda went:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The crimes committed by the evil Ming Empire are too numerous to record. Not only did the empire interfere with women’s freedom to marry, it even distorted the friendly visits Manchu compatriots paid to neighboring regions into crimes of plunder… The Korean people had always longed to relocate to the “abundant” Jianzhou, and the warm-hearted Manchu compatriots had always been eager to help them move, and indeed did contribute their modest efforts to the relocation work.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the Ming Empire’s Nurgan Regional Military Commission listened only to one side. In the one hundred and seventy years since the third year of the Chenghua reign, because the Korean landlord class’s general representative — the King of Korea — repeatedly came weeping with complaints, the Jurchen relocation teams that voluntarily helped neighboring peoples move were continually killed by the Ming army. Among those killed were Nurhaci’s grandfather and father.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Nurhaci himself absolutely loved peace. This can be seen from the fact that he voluntarily sold himself into slavery to his father’s murderer, Li Chengliang, and even took him as his godfather. Although the Ming Empire therefore did not exterminate the Gioro clan, it still failed to appreciate his painstaking efforts to bury the hatchet, and continued to prevent him from leading the region’s people to produce and prosper…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>— Huang Shi preferred to understand this as the mark of a hero. His own experience with Sun Degong showed that in this respect he still could not match a veteran hero like Nurhaci.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After his godfather Li Chengliang died, Nurhaci saw that the Liaodong Ming army had suffered devastating losses in the war to aid Korea against the Japanese. As if slapped awake, he instantly came to his senses and realized overnight that he had long been unable to endure any more. Nurhaci could not wait to list all these crimes in the “Seven Grievances,” and thereby severed all ties with this evil suzerain state, embarking on the revolutionary path of resisting the “Ming–Korea” axis of evil…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>— Huang Shi did not believe either that Nurhaci, after decades of bitter contemplation, suddenly had an epiphany that “a blood debt for one’s father can never share the same sky.” He felt this was unquestionably taking advantage of another’s misfortune.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun. If after that they still would not submit, then only terror remained. So it was only proper that Later Jin severely cracked down on the terrorism of the Mao Wenlong gang and ensured the people of Liaodong could live and work in peace.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Nurhaci quickly issued a series of orders to crack down on counterfeit and shoddy goods. Over a hundred shops were raided and shut down. Under the influence of this atmosphere of terror, a common habit formed among Manchu women: after buying food, they would record the shop’s name so they could hold the merchant accountable. This habit of recording shop names finally allowed the wave of terror to peak in the fifth month of the second year of the Tianqi reign. In the history Huang Shi originally knew, this fine consumer awareness persisted for some years, only gradually vanishing after the fourth year of the Chongzhen reign, when the Dongjiang garrison declined.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When one plan failed, Mao Wenlong tried another. He dispatched wave after wave of fifth columnists, attempting to win over the wavering and opportunistic elements within the Later Jin Han army. In the sixth month of the second year of the Tianqi reign, Nurhaci received reports of discovered Dongjiang spies almost daily. In that single month, the Liaoyang authorities detected twenty-two attempted bribery incidents.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Later Jin regime’s countermeasure was to implement a strict vetting system and dispatch additional scouts to hunt down Ming spies sneaking across the border. At the same time, the Later Jin regime issued successive proclamations rewarding those steadfast revolutionary comrades who bound and delivered spies to Liaoyang. These various measures inflicted considerable losses on the Ming army’s intelligence front and effectively struck a blow against the rampant arrogance of the Liaodong Mao Wenlong gang…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By this time, Huang Shi had already returned to Changsheng Island. He answered Dongjiang’s call to grasp revolution and promote production… first of all, “promote production.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“General, you’ve had a hard journey.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Huang Shi, who had just jumped off the small boat, received a warm welcome from the soldiers at the port. A simple port had already been built, and beside the port an open-air shipyard had been erected. If one did not look carefully, it might be mistaken for a refugee shack.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Returning to Changsheng Island after an absence of several dozen days truly gave him the feeling of arriving home.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beside the refugee shack were four or five refugees… no, beside the shipyard were four or five Dongjiang soldiers painting a brand-new fishing boat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every person on the island, whether farmer, artisan, or fisherman — even those picking wild fruit in the hills — as long as they could speak human language, they were soldiers. The entire Dongjiang army was like this.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Everyone was registered as a military household, and all output had to be turned in. As soldiers, their daily grain and cloth needs were uniformly allocated by the Changsheng officers. The surplus value they created — or perhaps surplus output — was used to arm a minority of combat troops. Exactly the same as the traditional Great Ming guard-battalion military garrisons, the primary occupation of the Changsheng Island officers and men was labor and production, striving to eat their fill and stay warm. They also had to boil salt to sell for silver taels. Fighting was merely a side job for most military households.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although the Dongjiang army at this time claimed to use a recruitment system, compared to the genuine Guanning Iron Cavalry, the difference between the two was like that between amateurs and a professional team.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The recruitment system was meant to create a full-time professional army detached from production. He Baodao said with some regret, “If only our army could eat imperial grain like Shanhai Pass, then we would have enough time to train the soldiers.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Huang Shi answered without thinking, “That is a problem for Lord Mao. Only when Dongjiang is formally established as a garrison and the Ministry of War verifies the troop count can we get military pay.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Dongjiang Garrison — is my lord certain that will be the name?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Huang Shi smiled slightly. “There is absolutely no mistake. It will be Dongjiang Garrison. I have a feeling.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhao Manxiong and Jin Qiude soon arrived as well and gave Huang Shi a brief report on the progress of these past days. Almost no farmland had been reclaimed, but fishing and hunting were being conducted in perfect order.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Your subordinate recommends two men to my lord. The first is named Bao Jiusun — he can be put to great use!” As Huang Shi’s authority grew daily, Zhao Manxiong also showed him ever greater deference. Of the two men he recommended, one was out fishing at sea; that Bao Jiusun was still on the island.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Bring him to see me.” A simple and clear reply. The feeling of issuing orders imperiously was indeed very good.\u003C\u002Fp>",1428,"2026-06-04T07:54:30.907Z",1,"Novelzhen Translator","13d404e8b1320c1110d211cc3a545ac235b51fea4d0b65287d593fff6f6a1e4f","stealing-ming-chapter-94","stealing-ming-chapter-92",323,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fstealing-ming-cover.jpg"]