Chapter 769: Dumplings

The Qian Residence in the capital.

To celebrate Qian Shisheng's return from his diplomatic mission, his eldest son Qian Shi had the household servants buy plump raccoon dogs at the market and handed them to the cook to prepare.

Raccoon dog is just yellow rat — because it steals crops, it's also called the big-eyed thief. It was a famous northern delicacy during the Yuan and Ming dynasties, produced in Shaanxi, Xuan-Da, and beyond the frontier, with those raised in Xuan Prefecture considered the best. Ordinary households normally couldn't get to eat it.

The yellow rat meat is first soaked in wine, then scallions and pepper paste are added, wrapped in wheat dough, and slow-steamed over a low flame.

When Emperor Yingzong of Ming went traveling abroad, the Embroidered Uniform Guard Colonel Yuan Bin went out to fetch water and came back to find His Majesty quite adept at catching these — he'd caught a yellow rat and was pouring water into it.

Actually, slow pan-frying gives a more fragrant and crispy taste, but Qian Shisheng was getting on in years, so clear steaming was healthier.

Only, Qian Shi never expected that Qian Shisheng would be utterly uninterested in this rare delicacy... In the capital, this counted as exotic game, but in the northwest and beyond the frontier, it was an everyday snack.

For people like Liu Chengzong's crew, they'd eat anything that moved. Qian Shisheng had tagged along for nearly three months — never mind ordinary treats like yellow rat, he'd eaten moose lip and single-humped camel hump several times over.

So much so that now the very sight of yellow rat made him sick; he only wanted some light, homestyle fare.

After three spoonfuls of wine, Qian Shisheng began to stare blankly.

"Father, what are you thinking about?"

Qian Shisheng looked at his eldest son Qian Shi and second son Qian Qi, shook his head, and said to Qian Shi: "Liu Chengzong..."

He'd had children late; his eldest son Qian Shi was the same age as Liu Chengzong, and his second son Qian Qi was even younger — only seventeen this year.

But to him, this seemed hardly worth saying.

People — same age, different fates.

The Chongzhen Emperor was struggling in the Forbidden City for the fate of the Great Ming realm, Liu Chengzong had already carved his way out of the northwest's mountains of corpses and seas of bone, and his own son was still buying him fat rats to eat.

But which was better, Qian Shisheng couldn't really say. Liu Chengzong's old father would have a hard time eating a fat rat his son bought for him.

At that thought, Qian Shisheng couldn't help shaking his head with a smile, and then asked Qian Shi about his studies.

Qian Shi had actually just arrived from the south barely two months ago. His teacher was Huang Daozhou, a colleague of Qian Shisheng's at the Hanlin Academy during the Tianqi reign.

A few years back, Huang Daozhou had returned home due to illness, and Qian Shi had followed his teacher to Fujian. Only this year, when Chongzhen recalled Huang Daozhou, did Qian Shi follow him back to the capital.

After that, Qian Shisheng couldn't help worrying about his eldest nephew — his younger brother Qian Shijin's son, Qian Zhan.

Qian Zhan was one of the less obedient juniors in their clan. His studies were poor; he'd barely passed the Provincial Graduate exam before losing all interest in books.

This was no exaggeration. The Qians were descendants of the Kings of Wuyue, a great and powerful lineage stretching back over six hundred years since the Zhenhai Army Military Governorship. In just these two generations alone, the family had produced one Principal Graduate and multiple Presented Scholars. Qian Shisheng, Qian Shijin — these two brothers — and their uncle Qian Jideng were all Presented Scholars.

Qian Shisheng and Qian Qianyi of Changshu in Suzhou Prefecture were also of the same clan — a relationship of clan cousins.

From the age of six, Qian Qianyi had studied under Qian Shisheng's father, Qian Jike.

A Provincial Graduate in this family was just a normal person.

Qian Zhan had founded the Response Society in Jiashan and also joined the Restoration Society, built two separate villas specifically to collect bronzes, stone inscriptions, calligraphy, and paintings, and to host friends from all around — somewhat given to sensual pleasures and extravagance.

Qian Shi said with great solemnity, "Before I returned to the capital, I went back to Jiashan to see Elder Cousin. He's doing very well. Since Second Uncle passed away, he dismissed the household singers and dancing girls, devoted himself to studying military strategy, and has been exceptionally diligent."

"Military strategy..."

Qian Shisheng murmured slowly. His nephew's diligence was one thing, but studying military strategy — that subject...

To be honest, if he'd heard this news before his diplomatic mission, he would certainly have been overjoyed.

But after returning from his mission, he did not hold high hopes for his Zhejiang-based nephew studying military strategy.

Before, Qian Shisheng had also believed that warfare was a contest of strategy, funds and provisions, and troops — as long as the commander's strategy was sound, the court's coffers were full, and the soldiers' quality was high, then battles could be won.

But after personally witnessing the Battle of Lingdong and following Liu Chengzong on the march, Qian Shisheng discovered that it was far more than that.

It wasn't that military strategy was flawed — strategy was perfectly correct — but if troops were ever needed in a place like Jiashan, then even the best strategy would be useless.

Liu Chengzong had spent nine years building a wolf-and-tiger-like army; Huangtaiji's Eight Banners had been running rampant for a full twenty years and were even nearly past their prime.

No matter how brilliant the strategy, with a first-time commander and newly recruited troops facing such a supremely seasoned army — never mind confronting Liu Chengzong or Huangtaiji directly, they wouldn't even need to send a deputy commander.

Just that blade-bearing foot soldier Zhang Yong, the one who delivered meals to his tent every day at Lingdong — if he led a single army, he could likely rampage across Jiangnan.

He, Qian Shisheng, had watched only this one battle, and his entire understanding of warfare had been rewritten. So how many march maneuvers and battlefield engagements must that Zhang Yong have witnessed, following Liu Chengzong?

Facing such an opponent, what use was there in shutting the door and studying more military texts at home — mere paper talk?

"A thousand chapters and ten thousand maxims of strategy are not worth experiencing one real battle."

Qian Shisheng shook his head, then his expression suddenly froze, as if something had occurred to him. He said to his second son Qian Qi, "You always love chasing after Qian Zhan to play. Go back to Jiashan and tell Qian Zhan that there's a Commander in Gaoyou, Yangzhou, whose military command is quite good — very effective at suppressing bandits and quelling rebellions. If he truly intends to pursue military affairs, I'll send a letter of introduction. The two of you go to Gaoyou and learn a few things."

Though these words were addressed to his younger son, both sons froze upon hearing them.

Com... Commander?

Qian Shisheng. Yangzhou Commander. Good military command.

Any two of these three terms were impossible to pair together.

First of all, it was very difficult for Qian Shisheng to have any dealings with a military officer of the Commander rank. In fact, even Regional Commanders found it hard to curry favor with Grand Secretaries of the Cabinet — nor was there any need to.

The two sides practically walked their own separate paths.

Besides, a Commander in Yangzhou simply had no opportunity to command troops in the first place.

The two brothers were not unfamiliar with military officers from the Southern Metropolitan Region — take Tian Hongyu, the father of Imperial Noble Consort Tian, for example. He came from a Southern Metropolitan Region military background.

How profound his strategic acumen was, the Qian brothers had no idea. But they did know this: saying Tian Hongyu was familiar with every singing girl on the Qinhuai River might be an exaggeration, but that he had an acquaintance on every single painted barge — that was certainly true.

People only proactively refine skills that can translate into tangible benefits.

Being a military officer in Jiangnan, especially an officer on the Grand Canal, required very high professional qualities — but martial skill, military strategy, and formation command were not essential competencies.

Even if there were a hero, there was no battlefield to use him.

Yet Qian Shisheng truly felt that his eldest nephew and younger son should go there and broaden their horizons.

"In the realm today, if all remains peaceful, it's no harm if you've earned scholarly rank but don't wish to take office. Learning some martial arts and military strategy won't hurt."

Qian Shisheng paused, then added, "If trouble comes in the future, civil officials with military talent — none can afford ignorance of warfare... And besides that."

"Go and take a look at that Commander called Zhang Yichuan. Listen to his accent — see if it's the northern official tongue, or simply Shaanxi speech."

Upon hearing this, Qian Qi looked utterly baffled. "Father, your son has never heard Shaanxi speech."

The Zhejiang-Fujian region had a great profusion of dialects; Qian Qi could speak the local tongues of many places, but the Qin heartland dialect — that he truly did not understand.

"No harm, that Great Tang elegant tongue is quite something special."

Old Qian Shisheng waved a hand, briefly recalled the tone of Liu Chengzong, Zhang Xianzhong, and the others speaking, mimicked a line, and said with a laugh: "The cadence is like barren fields — at first hearing it seems soft and loose, but in truth there's an endless wind blowing sand and gravel right in your face."

But this was only Qian Shisheng speaking in jest: "The soldiers of Gaoyou Garrison, with their fine armor and sturdy horses — their accent is certainly different from the rest. You'll know it the moment you hear it."

By now, the way Qian Shisheng's two sons looked at their old father was no longer quite right.

Ever since the old father returned from beyond the frontier, it was as if he had struck some strange agreement with Liu Chengzong — if he wasn't complaining the food had grown tiresome, he was telling his son to go to Gaoyou and study military strategy under some man from Shaanxi.

Though in all fairness, the working meals of the Grand Secretariat of the Great Ming truly were not good.

The Court of Imperial Entertainments was in charge of the matter, and everyone who had ever eaten it said it tasted like chewing wax.

Back in the day, the thing Yan Song hated most about Xia Yan was precisely because the Grand Secretariat's working meals were so awful.

The two of them served as colleagues in the Grand Secretariat for two years.

At the time, Xia Yan had already been Chief Grand Secretary for many years; his family was wealthy and lived in luxury, so every day he brought delicious food from home, while Yan Song, lacking such deep family resources, could only eat the meals the court provided.

The two sat facing each other at meals, and Yan Song was driven to drool with craving day after day — yet for two full years, Xia Yan never let him have so much as a single spoonful.

Later, Yan Song worked Xia Yan to death.

But Qian Shisheng's network of connections in court and country was deep and wide, yet he had virtually no ties to Shaanxi people — so how was it that the moment he returned, he could not go three sentences without mentioning Shaanxi?

There was no helping it. Qian Shisheng believed the future hope of the realm lay in Shaanxi — or, to put it more bluntly, in the hands of either Liu Chengzong or Hong Taiji.

Since Liu Chengzong had defeated Hong Taiji, then for the time being it lay in Liu Chengzong's hands.

It was not because Liu Chengzong or Hong Taiji were so formidable, but because the dead knot the Chongzhen Emperor faced was one the Great Ming itself could not untie.

This was not even really... a question of Chongzhen's ability. Swap in the vast majority of emperors, and none would have had a solution.

Nor was it a problem of those court ministers. Those who were executed, those thrown into prison — placed in anyone else's hands, they would have been capable ministers and fierce generals. Though of course... one must exclude Yuan Chonghuan and Mao Wenlong.

Had Mao Wenlong been a banner lord under Hong Taiji, and Yuan Chonghuan a subordinate general under Liu Chengzong, they would only have died even faster.

The Great Ming's problem was very simple: no money.

Why no money? It was not that too little was levied or that levies could not be collected. In fact, amid an environment of widespread natural disasters, the Great Ming's tax collection completion rate was still passable.

And it was not that taxes could not be collected from the south — they very much could be. In truth, the Great Ming at present was propped up entirely by the Grand Canal corridor; only the ceaseless flow of grain and money sent up year after year sustained the endless campaigns.

It was that spending was too high.

Not counting locally retained land taxes, the imperial household's fixed expenditures accounted for over fifty percent of national tax revenue — exceeding military spending.

And this was after the officials had done their utmost to withhold and skim.

And this imperial household spending was not the so-called "feeding of pigs." In fact, the expenditures of most princely fiefs and cadet branches were not outrageously large; they had even been repeatedly cut and capped.

This was especially so after the Jiajing Emperor, who succeeded from a minor branch to the main line and was close to no one, and was particularly capable of ruthless measures.

During the Jiajing reign, after nearly two centuries of inflation, total imperial household spending was still only five million taels per year.

That looks like a lot, but in truth it was very little.

Because by the mid-to-late Wanli reign, this expenditure had risen to over fifteen million taels per year.

Wanli's brothers and sisters, his sons and daughters, his mother Empress Dowager Li's Wuqing Marquis family, along with the sustenance estates of his many imperial in-laws, as well as the salt certificates and national tax revenues granted away.

And this was even with several of Wanli's sons and daughters dying young, and one princely uncle who had been enfeoffed twenty thousand qing of land by the Longqing Emperor leaving no heir — enjoying a lifetime where a man's debts died with him, his fief and enfeoffed lands all reverting.

But such clan members who left no heir, died early, and understood the greater good were, after all, a minority.

Suppose total revenue was thirty million taels, and fifteen million went out — that meant only fifteen million taels remained in national tax revenue.

This problem, no one could solve.

The Chongzhen Emperor wanted more than anyone to put every last one of his relatives to death, but this was a thing that could not be done, and words that could not be spoken.

The court ministers were even less able to speak of it or act on it.

Everyone knew what the real problem was, yet it simply could not be solved.

Chongzhen's few princely uncles were each more docile than the last: the Prince of Lu stayed home plucking his zither, the Prince of Fu shut himself in his mansion drinking wine, the Prince of Hui chanted Buddha's name at home, and the Prince of Rui shouted for help at the top of his lungs every day: "Zhenzi, save me!"

So what Chongzhen faced was a situation of robbing Peter to pay Paul, where no patch could ever hold, where there was no money anywhere, where he had to frantically open new revenue streams and keep raising surtaxes yet still could not solve the problem.

Qian Shisheng felt this was a simple arithmetic problem. National tax revenue collected was under thirty million taels, while military spending was thirteen million, official salaries were over five million, and imperial household spending exceeded sixteen million.

However you calculated it, whatever you did — never mind eliminating the deficit — every means of delaying payment, withholding, skimming, and diverting funds had long been exhausted.

All that remained was the palace treasury, which the court ministers could not pry out.

The Great Ming's palace treasury was itself originally part of the state treasury. In the early years, in fact, the Twelve Storehouses of the Inner Palace, including the Transport Receiving Storehouse, were the state treasury.

By now, the palace treasury had become the emperor's private coffer, though it still bore some function in handling sudden emergencies.

This was also the most interesting thing about the Wanli Emperor.

The greatest source of the palace treasury was the annual tax paid by the imperial estates.

Wanli lavished great rewards on most of his sons and daughters, yet to the one who inherited the throne alone, he added no imperial estates.

Then, during his reign, he waged war after war, and on the verge of his death even fought a great defeat in Liaodong, spending down nearly all the palace treasury he had saved.

Chongzhen still had a palace treasury — not much — but he dared not spend it.

Because the nation's prospects were poor.

What he could foresee was that future revenues would grow ever smaller, while crises would grow ever more numerous. Even having money, he dared not bring it out.

The remaining means was to open new revenue streams.

Raise taxes.

Raising taxes was easy; the problem was that before Zhang Juzheng carried out his reforms, he had first to use the Merit Evaluation Law to solve the efficiency problem.

In the present situation — official salaries unpaid in full, military funds unpaid in full, imperial clan stipends in arrears, border troubles outside, Eastern Curs in Northern Zhili, roving bandits in the Central Capital, snow falling in Nanjing, exploitation in the capital at its extreme, and local civilian strength exhausted — for every tael that entered the state treasury, the wastage had to be calculated at three taels.

That was why Qian Shisheng had submitted the Four Admonitions, urging Chongzhen not to vent his anger on the court ministers and not to struggle so desperately. This was not your fault; you have simply encountered a dead knot that cannot be untied. The allotted span of fortune has run its course.

And the true solution was exceedingly simple: change the imperial surname, and lo — the dilemma resolves itself!

Just at this moment, the eldest son, Qian Shi, perceived that Qian Shisheng's sending his younger brother to Gaoyou was surely connected to Liu Chengzong.

He therefore steeled himself and asked: "Father, on this mission of yours — this Liu Chengzong, this Marshal's Headquarters, what are they like?"

"Liu Chengzong, huh." Qian Shisheng thought for a moment, then said with deep feeling, "That extraordinary man of Qin, that great hero under heaven — the Barbarian King north of the ridges, seeing his heroic bearing as he commanded troops in battle, would cast aside home and property to throw himself under his banner."

"As for the Marshal's Manor..."

Qian Shi could sense that when his father mentioned Liu Chengzong, his tone was filled with boundless emotion and admiration, but when he mentioned the Marshal's Manor, his tone clearly changed — it was as full of disdain as disdain could possibly be.

Qian Shisheng said, "The Marshal's Manor is a dumpling."

Toward Liu Chengzong, who was the same age as his son, Qian Shisheng felt genuine respect — the man was absolutely number one under heaven at fighting and shamelessness.

Truly, you could see it just from his motley crew of thugs — in the nine years since Liu Chengzong raised his army, he had done absolutely nothing proper except pick fights with people.

Qian Shisheng truly could not imagine the scene of them ruling the realm. If that bunch ever entered the Forbidden City, there probably wouldn't be many living souls left in Northern Zhili.

This was also the source of Qian Shisheng's assessment of Liu Chengzong as brutal.

The army is the place where rewards and punishments are most severe.

Thus the will of the ruler determines the character of the army.

That state of tragic despair and helpless paralysis in the Ming army was a projection of Chongzhen.

And the Marshal's army's utter recklessness likewise came from Liu Chengzong's deliberate indulgence.

At least, what Qian Shisheng saw on the Lingdong battlefield and outside Liaoyang was a pack of wild beasts gathered around Liu Chengzong, obeying his orders.

Not even the species of beasts were uniform.

"A dumpling?"

Qian Shi could not understand — he could not connect the Marshal's Manor to a dumpling.

Qian Shisheng explained, "Liu Chengzong is the dumpling wrapper — white, tender, and glistening on the outside. Inside, there's every kind of filling, but it's all chopped to mush, not a single whole piece of meat!"

Good evening!

(End of chapter)