Chapter 227: Turmoil at Court and Beyond, Obstinately Going It Alone

"Ahhh!!!"

Accompanied by the agonized howls, a large chunk of Hartai's scalp was torn clean off by Huang Degong, and he could no longer care about anything else—he simply writhed on the ground in agony.

Hartai was already breathing out more than he breathed in, yet he remained stubbornly defiant. Gnashing his teeth, he sneered: "Southern barbarian, if you kill me, are you not afraid that our Great Qing iron cavalry will charge through the passes and use your emperor's head as a sacrificial banner?"

"But as things stand now, even if you don't kill me, once I return within the passes, I will repay you for this debt of having my queue torn off!"

When Hartai said that second sentence, he must have known full well that he could no longer escape with his life—he was merely putting up a brave front to intimidate. All of this, Huang Degong naturally understood.

Thereupon, Huang Degong let out a few cold chuckles, and with a sneer on his face, said:

"We've come to this point—what use is there in still being stubborn with your words?"

As he spoke, Huang Degong muttered to himself: "Oh, right—this commander had forgotten that the thing you Jianzhou barbarians excel at most is precisely the skill of the tongue, is it not?"

"In battle you cannot defeat this commander, and in fleeing you cannot even flee properly. Hartai, aside from a hard mouth, there is truly nothing left of you."

Poor Hartai had by now already slipped into a semi-conscious state from excessive blood loss. Listening to Huang Degong's words, he could only lie limply sprawled on the ground, twitching incessantly.

At this time, the fierce sounds of fighting around them also began to gradually diminish. Because Huang Degong had made thorough arrangements, with nearly every aspect considered, few of the scattered Jianzhou cavalrymen slipped through the net—almost all were captured in one sweep.

The surrounding environment was still noisy and chaotic, but to Huang Degong's ears it seemed as silent as a dead calm. He walked quietly to stand before Hartai, looking down at him with eyes filled with utter hatred, and said:

"You dog of a Jianzhou barbarian, you need to recognize your place clearly. In the future, it will not be you barbarians charging through the passes—it will be my Great Ming charging out through them, to utterly and once-and-for-all annihilate you pack of magpies who have usurped the dove's nest, you Tartars!"

"The lands you have stolen and occupied for so many years will soon return to my Great Ming, and the accounts of the people of the Liaodong region who have suffered your ravages will be settled one by one!"

With that said, Huang Degong had no mind to say more to Hartai. He directly raised his blade and brought it down, ending Hartai's life.

This day was a great cause for joy for the entire Great Ming—yet the topics of discussion at the daily court assemblies were precisely the opposite.

Ever since the announcement that Khada's Toya was to be made Gentle Consort Rou, the voices of opposition in the court had grown increasingly fierce. And that was not all—even the normally tranquil imperial harem had been stirred into collective protest over the matter.

The sole justification that everyone used to dissuade the Chongzhen Emperor was the so-called Ancestral Instructions of the Imperial Ming.

The current Chongzhen Emperor still had some impression of that thing. The Ancestral Instructions of the Imperial Ming clearly stated therein that marriage with women of foreign peoples was not permitted. That the Chongzhen Emperor insisted on doing this anyway, in the eyes of the various factions at court and in the wider realm, was already seen as a textbook example of obstinacy and willfulness.

For the Chongzhen Emperor himself, however, this was a deeply troubling matter that he had no choice but to carry out. In his view, the future hopes of the Great Ming rested entirely upon this marriage alliance.

If it were only the Donglin Faction opposing him, the Chongzhen Emperor would without hesitation have struck down hard to suppress them. But this time the uproar was somewhat large—civil and military officials throughout the court, as well as within the harem, were nearly all voices of opposition.

Annoyed beyond measure, the Chongzhen Emperor directly issued an edict forbidding courtiers and consorts from discussing the matter. Moreover, to uphold the law and discipline, he had eight officials who had submitted remonstrances beaten to death before the court that very day.

Yet even so, eight or nine out of every ten reports submitted daily by the Eastern Depot and the Embroidered Uniform Guard still concerned this matter. In a fury, the Chongzhen Emperor decisively issued an edict suspending court assemblies—and to this day, the court had not convened for a full ten-odd days.

On the twelfth day of the eighth month of the eighteenth year of Chongzhen in the Great Ming, a procession of carriages and horses from the Doyan lands beyond the passes entered the capital through the Yongding Gate, amid the excited murmurs of the common people.

The common folk's way of thinking was not the same as that of the courtiers and consorts. They cared nothing for matters of ancestral instructions—this was not like the last time, when a princess was being married off. This was the emperor of the Great Ming taking a consort—this was a major event.

Generally speaking, taking a consort was a symbol of a dynasty in its period of prosperity. That the Chongzhen Emperor was taking Khada's Toya as an imperial consort was not simply a matter of slapping one's face swollen to look fat—he naturally had his own deeper considerations.

The first was this very clan of Khada. Tracing back to its origins, the Khada clan derived from one branch of the Turkic peoples, with also a portion of Khalkha bloodline—during the generations of Genghis Khan, it had been a rather renowned family.

Among the various tribes of the present-day Doyan Three Garrisons region, the Uriankhai main tribe governed by the Khada clan was the undisputed big brother. Even across the entire Mongol steppe, it was a great clan that did not pale in comparison to Khorchin—it was only that after several wars fought in following the Jianzhou barbarians on campaign, its strength had become somewhat diminished.

For the Chongzhen Emperor, although he had barely managed to weather that wave of the armed salary-demanding courier Xiao Li last year, the predicament of the southern rebels and northern barbarians was not something that could be easily resolved in its entirety.

The Great Ming of the present day could be said to be beset by internal troubles and external threats. And besides these internal and external woes, the ministers at court also gave the time-traveling Chongzhen Emperor not a moment of peace of mind.

The Jianzhou barbarians had never been the true problem. If one wished to recover Liaodong, the first step was to destroy the two states-within-a-state of Dashun and Daxi, and only then could one concentrate one's efforts on dealing with Dorgon.

Lin Qingye's coming to the capital last year was a point in history that the Chongzhen Emperor had not known about.

In history, that man Lin Qingye had only come after the previous emperor had hanged himself. But now he had very smoothly made contact with the Chongzhen Emperor. Seeing this Joseon general who was loyal to the Great Ming, the Chongzhen Emperor felt as though he had discovered a loophole in history itself.

With hardly any deliberation, the Chongzhen Emperor immediately issued an edict entrusting the entire situation in Joseon to Lin Qingye, granting him credentials of proof, so that he could return to Joseon and stir up trouble for the Tartars from behind.

As for that man Wu Sangui—in history, opinions about him could be said to be wildly divided.

Some said he surrendered to the Qing for the sake of Chen Yuanyuan—the so-called "flying into a rage for a beauty." Others said that Wu Sangui was simply a warlord of chaotic times who merely preserved his strength to pledge himself to a new master, and that the so-called "flying into a rage" was nothing more than a high-sounding excuse.

No matter how the Chongzhen Emperor looked at it, for a time-traveler, that man Wu Sangui absolutely could not be allowed to remain.

But here was the problem: with the Great Ming's current strength, it could not directly confront the private army loyal to the Wu family, the "Guanning army." Stabilizing Wu Sangui—that great traitor of history—thus became the top priority of the moment.

If the matter of Wu Sangui was not handled properly, there was the possibility of completely collapsing the good situation that had been fought for so desperately last year.

Wu Sangui had to be guarded against, yet he could not be pushed too hard. If he were driven to desperation and, as in history, defected to the Jianzhou barbarians, the Chongzhen Emperor would be powerless to reverse the situation—with no recourse but to move the capital south.

Containing and appeasing were the keys to stabilizing Wu Sangui, and thereby stabilizing the situation in Liaodong.

And so came the second reason for taking Khada's Toya as an imperial consort: once the Uriankhai main tribe formed a marriage alliance with the Great Ming, the remaining tribes of the Doyan region would flock to the Great Ming. Recovering the Doyan region and stretching one's hand back out beyond the passes would then be within reach—merely a matter of time.

Besides this, Wu Sangui might very well be secretly communicating with Dorgon at this very moment—counting on him to help contain the Tartars was clearly impossible.

After thinking it over again and again, the Chongzhen Emperor had staked the entirety of the Great Ming's future prospects upon this first marriage alliance with a foreign people since the dynasty's founding. If this news were to spread to Mongolia, he was certain it would stir up a tremendous uproar.

At present, the Chongzhen Emperor relied upon three forces to contain Wu Sangui and the Jianzhou barbarians.

The first was the Ji Garrison and the Santun Camp, under the responsibility of Huang Degong and Yang Yufan. The second was the Pidao and Tianjin naval forces, established not long ago. The third was the Uriankhai, with whom a marriage alliance had just been concluded.

Judging from the news that Feng Quan had sent back not long ago, this marriage alliance had gone fairly smoothly.

The Uriankhai had killed the chieftain of the Ujiyed and the Jianzhou overseers stationed in their main tribe—counting as a complete rupture with the Qing Tartars. From this point on, they had become yet another fist under his command that could be clenched at any moment.

Of course, what consequences this fist might bring about in the future was not yet within the scope of the current Chongzhen Emperor's considerations.