Chapter 1460: The Grand Secretariat and the Foreign Affairs Department

While the Crown Prince posed his questions, the Emperor had remained silent the entire time, merely listening quietly.

"These questions of mine, Your Son, are merely doubts born of solitary contemplation — clearly a case of a single leaf before the eye obscuring Mount Tai. The reason I asked Imperial Father was solely to probe the deeper meaning behind your intentions... Since Imperial Father has acted thus, there must surely be deeper meaning."

"Your thinking is not actually wrong. If I had devoted all my energy to the south, perhaps we truly could have opened up more territory." After a moment of silence, the Emperor nodded. "But have you considered that although the north is largely bitter and barren land, it thrusts straight at our vitals, and therefore must be pacified first? The Mongols are within striking distance of the capital; if the Mongol elite cavalry gathered their strength and charged, they could reach the walls of the capital before long! Therefore, to safeguard our vitals, we must seize the opportunity while the Mongol tribes are divided and slaughtering one another to occupy Mongolia in one decisive push. Occupy it, no matter the cost. Push the Great Han's northern frontier ever northward, until the capital is no longer threatened at its very core. The former Ming claimed the Son of Heaven guarded the national gate, but in the end, wasn't it simply because they couldn't hold their ground and had no way to push that gate further outward?"

Having laid out the main principle, the Emperor shifted his tone to one far gentler. "Besides, our dynasty has only just been founded. This is precisely the moment when our officers and soldiers, high and low, possess the keenest edge, and when our house is at its most enterprising. In another generation or two, who can say whether the Great Han's Sons of Heaven will be content then, unwilling to expend vast effort opening up the Western Regions and northern frontiers? Wasn't the former Ming a living lesson in this? As your father, I naturally know some things are easy to do and some are difficult. But precisely because I know this, I want to exhaust every means, while heaven and earth favor us, to do the difficult things first! So long as you and I, father and son, rouse our ambition and open up ten thousand li of northern frontier, turning all these lands into Great Han territory, then even if our descendants prove mediocre, they will at least still know to defend the soil and will not easily abandon it."

So... so Imperial Father has been planning for our descendants all along... The Crown Prince finally understood his father's intent.

A moment later, a surge of joy rose in his heart, because his father regarded both him and himself as founding, expansionist sovereigns, and had also entrusted him with the weighty task of "laying down a realm for future descendants to safeguard." Since his father held such high hopes for him, he ought to exhaust every means to fulfill them.

"Furthermore, it's not that we don't plan to expand in the south — it's simply that the time is not yet ripe." The Emperor suddenly gave an enigmatic smile. "I have slowed our strikes against the remnant Ming forces in Guangxi and Yunnan precisely to allow those remnants to flee southward. Once they truly have fled there, won't we then have a pretext to dispatch troops and continue south? The miasma and malaria in the south are both severe, and our officers and soldiers are mostly northerners unaccustomed to the climate, so I don't expect to march south and destroy those kingdoms right now. However... we must still give them a beating, let them taste our might first."

"Your Son understands! I thank Imperial Father for his guidance!" After this secret explanation from the Emperor, the Crown Prince now finally understood the full scope of the Emperor's schemes, and his veneration for his father deepened by several degrees in his heart.

"What is there to thank? Isn't it only right that I tell you? Since you asked, would I leave you muddled and confused?" The Emperor still wore a kindly smile as he patted his son on the shoulder. "Alright, stay and have dinner with me in a while. Starting tomorrow, take your attendants and go enjoy yourself!"

"His Majesty has once again handed us a difficult problem!"

Having finished handling the official documents before him, Wang Zhaojing, Prime Minister of the current Great Han court and Duke of Yong, looked at the meeting record in his hand and sighed softly once more.

Over the past few days, he had already scrutinized this record in his hands several times, and each time he felt immense pressure and a tangle of threads.

The Emperor had spoken simply — dispatch a brigade on an expedition to Japan. A single short sentence. But to assemble and supply a fleet and an expeditionary army to cross a thousand li of sea and campaign in a foreign land — how could that possibly be an easy matter? The slightest misstep, he feared, could lead to unimaginable consequences.

What was more, the objectives the Emperor had set for this expedition were exceedingly complex. He did not want to crush the Japanese, but rather to make them bow their heads and submit, and agree to the conditions he proposed. In other words, not only must they avoid crushing Japan, they had to ensure Japan maintained a functioning system, so that this system could then be exploited to extract benefits.

They had to inflict pain without letting it collapse — the balance had to be carefully gauged. This was certainly not something that could be left to a bunch of rough, boorish soldiers to go killing and burning and running wild!

At this thought, the Prime Minister's head began to ache faintly again. He had been agonizing over this matter for days now.

It's been several days; by now, there ought to be some progress on that front.

With this hope, the Prime Minister beckoned to an attendant beside him.

"Summon Director Kong here. I have time to see him now."

"Yes." The attendant, dressed in the gray uniform of the Grand Secretariat Office, bowed respectfully, then turned and left this great hall of the imperial palace.

Indeed, the office where the Prime Minister now worked was a hall within the palace city of the former Ming imperial palace.

After the founding of the new dynasty, although the Forbidden City had become the private property of the new imperial house, the Emperor was not one who loved extravagance. He felt that occupying such an enormous palace city as a residence was utterly pointless (he even largely refrained from living in the palace city at all). Therefore, he decided to designate the area from the East Glorious Gate to the Gathering Excellence Gate of the Forbidden City as the office space for key government organs.

The offices of the Grand Secretariat and the Prime Minister were placed in the Hall of Literary Splendor, not far west of the East Glorious Gate, to demonstrate the importance placed on the Prime Minister and the Grand Secretariat (though of course, the Prime Minister and the various ministers still resided outside the palace city, merely working here). Then, because the Grand Secretariat was now effectively the nerve center of the government, its establishment was vast. The offices of the various departments directly subordinate to the Prime Minister were also placed within the palace city for his convenience in directing them, while other ministries found office locations elsewhere in the capital, some directly using the former government offices of the Ming Six Ministries.

Although at the initial founding, some oversights and hasty arrangements inevitably affected efficiency, and communication between ministries was still somewhat sluggish, after several years since the new dynasty's establishment and a long period of磨合 (磨合), the various organs of the Grand Secretariat were now operating smoothly. Or rather, they had established a self-awareness as organs of state power, and no longer possessed that chaotic, hurried, and flustered sense of a makeshift troupe from the early days.

Foreign affairs were now directly under the Prime Minister's purview, so the Foreign Affairs Department, as a subordinate body of the Secretariat's General Office, was naturally also arranged to work within the palace city. Thus, after finishing his official duties, the Prime Minister could naturally summon the head of the Foreign Affairs Department at will.

And now, the head of the Foreign Affairs Department was Kong Zhang. He was a middle-aged man, refined in countenance, his movements gentle and mild, clearly showing he had received an excellent upbringing. At the same time, having occupied high office for several years, his glances now carried the bearing of a court minister, ensuring that no one would slight him because of his modest and courteous demeanor.

This man hailed from the Kong lineage. However, because he was not favored by his clan, he had defected to the Xuzhou side very early on and contributed considerable effort to their cause, counting as a meritorious official who had followed the dragon. Thus, after the new dynasty was established, the court naturally gave its rewards, enfeoffing him as Viscount Keqin. Furthermore, considering that during his time in the Kong clan he had often been responsible for receiving external guests, the Emperor had specifically assigned him the post of Director of the Foreign Affairs Department, placing him in full charge of the new dynasty's diplomatic affairs. Kong Zhang, too, seemed extremely satisfied with this duty, and so the moment he received this post, he threw himself into it wholeheartedly.

The Prime Minister did not have to wait long. Upon hearing the attendant's summons, Kong Zhang set aside the matters at hand and followed the attendant through the palace walls of the palace city, quickly arriving at the Hall of Literary Splendor.

In the former Ming era, the Hall of Literary Splendor was initially a regular residence for the emperor. During the Tianshun and Chenghua reigns of the former Ming, crown princes, before ascending the throne, would first handle affairs in the Hall of Literary Splendor. Later, because most crown princes were too young to participate in governance, in the fifteenth year of the Jiajing reign it was converted into an informal hall for the emperor, later serving as the venue for the imperial classics colloquium, with the building's roof accordingly changed to yellow glazed tiles. In the seventeenth year of Jiajing, the Hall of Sacred Aid was also added behind it. This spacious hall, designated by the Emperor as the Grand Secretariat's main office and meeting place, was quite fitting, and could vividly reflect the differences between the new dynasty and the former Ming.

The former Ming founder guarded against his ministers as if guarding against thieves, weakening their power by every possible means, even abolishing the post of Prime Minister. But in the end, as the generations passed down, power ultimately had to be delegated, and finally fell into the hands of civil officials and eunuchs, giving rise to some matters both laughable and lamentable. By comparison, after founding the new dynasty, the Emperor directly re-established the Prime Minister, then strengthened the authority of the Grand Secretariat, even placing the Grand Secretariat's offices within the palace city — truly a far greater breadth of vision.

Why the Prime Minister had summoned him, Kong Zhang understood perfectly well in his heart. As the principal person responsible for diplomatic affairs, the Prime Minister, upon learning of the Emperor's conception, had immediately summoned him upon returning, then handed him this top-secret information, demanding that he sort out a strategy toward Japan as quickly as possible, in order to assist the great army in achieving its intended objectives.

However, although this matter was quite thorny, unlike the Prime Minister, Kong Zhang did not regard it as a distracting and mind-consuming chore, but rather as a matter of great importance intimately tied to his own future prospects. Thus, although he was busy to the point of headaches over it, he did so with tireless delight.

Because, having become a court official, he naturally shared the same thoughts as other officials — he wanted promotion, and along the way, to expand the scale and authority of his own department.

It had to be said, in the preceding years the court's primary affairs had been focused on the civil war and the campaigns against the Mongols, and diplomatic affairs had not been placed at the forefront of consideration. So although Kong Zhang had racked his brains and exhausted every means to expand the new dynasty's influence in foreign relations, he always felt a sense of being undervalued and unsupported.

Upon receiving this important task, his mind finally stirred to life. He wanted to use the matter of the expedition against Japan to elevate the influence of the Foreign Affairs Department.