Chapter 104: A

"Wu Youke, tell me the truth—if this Great Ming were a terminally ill patient, is there still any hope of saving it?" The Chongzhen Emperor suddenly asked this, and Yuan Ban was scared half to death, prostrating himself on the ground trembling, unable to utter a single word.

Wu Youke's reaction was hard to read. As the saying goes, serving a monarch is like living with a tiger. The Chongzhen Emperor had confiscated the properties of how many high officials this year? Even Chief Grand Secretary Wei Zaode, if he heard these words, would probably react much the same as Yuan Ban.

Wu Youke showed not the slightest trace of fear—judging by his expression, he was actually pondering carefully.

"The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon says: 'Treat not the already-ill but the not-yet-ill; govern not the already-chaotic but the not-yet-chaotic.'" Having said this, Wu Youke bowed deeply: "Your Majesty above, please forgive your subject for the crime of overstepping his station."

"I pardon you of all guilt—speak freely."

Wu Youke nodded, sighed, and said: "Every dynasty in history has risen in glory and ended in decline. The reason, your subject believes, is that they all emphasized the arts of controlling the realm while neglecting the way of governing it. Our dynasty's accumulated ills run deep; truly, this cannot be cured by a single dose of harsh medicine..."

These words were familiar to the Chongzhen Emperor. No anger showed on his face as he said calmly:

"What my minister says accords well with my thinking. If harsh medicine cannot cure it, then if one used a sufficient dose of poison—fighting poison with poison—might there yet be a thread of hope?"

"Is Your Majesty not already fighting poison with poison? In your subject's view, this method is not without merit." Wu Youke smiled lightly and continued:

"Nowadays all under heaven say that Your Majesty is the wise sovereign who will restore our dynasty. Your subject initially dared not agree, but after more than two months in the capital, I now feel these words are not false."

"Your Majesty knows full well that your subject's medical way runs contrary to conventional rules and standards, yet you still let me take my chances. Your subject thanks you for this trust—and this very trust is precisely what a true tyrant like Jie or Zhou could never possess."

Hearing this, the Chongzhen Emperor also let out a long sigh. He was about to say something when he received several pieces of news in succession from the attendant eunuch Li Chun.

The good news was that Chen Qiyu, who had been exiled to the frontier due to attacks by the Donglin Faction, had finally returned to the capital and was currently waiting at the door of the warm chamber for an audience. The bad news could, in fact, also be called good news.

On his way to Zhangjiakou, Gao Jie had somehow suddenly run into more than a thousand cavalry of the Plain Blue Banner led by Abatai. When he first heard this news, the Chongzhen Emperor had broken out in a cold sweat for Gao Jie.

Abatai was the seventh son of the old barbarian chieftain Nurhaci, considered brave and skilled in battle, and by seniority was also the elder brother of the current Manchu Prince Regent Dorgon.

But because of his lowly birth—his mother, of the Irgen Gioro clan, was a concubine and he was born of a secondary wife—Abatai was in fact heavily ostracized within the Manchu ranks, his status and position far inferior to those of Hooge, Dorgon, and others.

Last time Tang Tong had driven Abatai off; this time Gao Jie was even more extraordinary. It was said that after nearly a full day of fierce battle, not a single one of those Jianzhou barbarian cavalry survived—even Abatai himself was cut down.

Infantry encountering cavalry—such things were common occurrences in Liaodong in days past. A thousand Jianzhou cavalry chasing tens of thousands of Ming troops across the mountains and fields was perfectly normal.

To defeat a thousand of the enemy's cavalry, one would need no fewer than thirty thousand mounted and foot soldiers to have some confidence—and that's not even mentioning annihilating them completely. If cavalry wants to run, how could infantry ever catch up?

If the Tartars came with several thousand cavalry, no one would dare leave the city to fight. Even for infantry to escape back unscathed would be impossible.

Gao Jie had performed a truly extraordinary feat this time—annihilating nearly two thousand Jianzhou cavalry with seven thousand foot soldiers. Complete annihilation! Just those ugly braided heads alone numbered over a thousand severed.

Amid his elation, the Chongzhen Emperor suddenly remembered something. This battle, which should never have happened in Xuanzhen, was somewhat suspicious.

The locust merchants were at their wits' end—they had certainly sent people to contact their masters. This indirectly proved that his decree to confiscate everything from those seven families of state-harming thieves in one fell swoop was the absolutely correct decision.

The fact that the Jianzhou barbarians had sent people to intercept so quickly was simply out of fear that he would wipe out in one stroke those locust merchants who had been continuously supplying them with military pay, provisions, and armor. This was easy to judge.

But what was Dorgon really thinking—sending only a thousand-plus men, and having a prince-level person lead them? Was it arrogance that made him lose, or was he plotting some other scheme?

In any case, one thing was certain: after many officials in the capital had been confiscated, those remaining had clearly learned to be smarter—behaving properly on the surface while going underground to oppose him.

"Trying to pull that Military Statistics Bureau and Central Statistics Bureau routine on me? Push me too far and I'll really drag out Old Chiang's tricks and have some fun with you all!"

The Chongzhen Emperor very much wanted to raise the butcher's knife against those righteous gentlemen of the Donglin Faction and chop them down one by one—but that could only be a fantasy.

After all, the Great Ming had not yet fallen, and everything was developing in a good direction. Some matters could no longer be handled with that initial approach of mutual destruction; one needed to weigh the pros and cons.

Zhou Yuji, Huang Degong, Chen Qiyu, Wu Youke—so many loyal and righteous men were converging on the capital, each using their own methods to serve this Great Ming with utmost loyalty. If he kept messing things up like this, the Great Ming might truly be ruined by his own hand.

There wasn't a single good bird among the court full of Donglin partisans. Some were certainly colluding with the locust merchants from within, and some were certainly secretly communicating with the Jianzhou barbarians. Once Gao Jie's victory report and the Embroidered Uniform Guard's secret memorials arrived, these lackeys who longed for their masters beyond the pass would need to be eliminated as soon as possible.

As for these civil officials—at the very beginning, the Chongzhen Emperor had no money to spend and feared being forced to hang himself by Li Zicheng. Killing a few from time to time to borrow some money for emergencies was certainly acceptable. But if he slaughtered them all at once, the court would inevitably collapse into paralysis.

Then who would handle affairs and take the blame for him? Just those lackeys of the Three Depots and One Guard?

Promoting petty clerks and appointing imperial loyalists were matters that had to be done one step at a time. If he casually appointed an inexperienced young upstart as a high minister of the court, not only would the world refuse to accept it—in truth, the Chongzhen Emperor himself didn't believe they had the ability to shoulder such great responsibility. They would certainly be unreliable.

After Old Zhu became emperor, he executed corrupt officials batch after batch and replaced people batch after batch, only to finally discover that corrupt officials could never be killed off completely. So he changed his approach—making corrupt officials work in handcuffs and leg irons, killing one now and then to intimidate the petty villains.

Later, Old Zhu was astonished to discover that although these corrupt officials were detestable, when you held a blade to their throats, they worked with no small efficiency—very nimble—and knew what mattered.

Most importantly, these officials had deeply mastered the court's arts of control. Without real ability, who could have climbed to such high positions? Only by using them, killing them, and replacing them simultaneously could one ensure the court machinery didn't develop major problems.

This great victory was another piece of capital to boast about before the Donglin Faction. The Chongzhen Emperor first had Li Chun pass down orders that the ministers were to be summoned for the routine morning court audience tomorrow.

Whenever he thought of those 'ministers' of the Qing barbarians on his court, the Chongzhen Emperor's head ached terribly. He decided to set the matter aside and rest his mind for a while. Seeing that it had grown dark, a sudden wave of drowsiness washed over him.

At this moment, the Chongzhen Emperor had no heart to discuss matters of state and military. He said Chen Qiyu should come again tomorrow, dismissed Wu Youke and Yuan Ban, and then strolled leisurely straight toward Kunning Palace.

Empress Zhou heard from the palace maid Xiumei that the Chongzhen Emperor had arrived and immediately came out beaming with joy. Seeing Empress Zhou dressed so beautifully, the Chongzhen Emperor found his appetite greatly whetted and decided to relax thoroughly, spending the entire night in Kunning Palace diligently tilling the fields.