Jingnan Strategy

Chapter 596 Epilogue: Chonghong's Decline
"I now take the throne and change the reign title to Chongzhen..."

In the 32nd year of the Tianqi reign, Crown Prince Zhu Cixuan ascended the throne and changed the name of the next year to Chongzhen, becoming the Chongzhen Emperor.

Zhu Cixuan was born in the first year of the Longqing reign and was 55 years old when he ascended the throne. Due to his weak character, Zhu Youxiao had always disliked him and did not appoint him as the crown prince until the 30th year of the Tianqi reign.

After ascending the throne, Zhu Cixuan flipped through the nameless book in the inner court, and only then did he understand why his father did not choose him.

The current Ming Dynasty has undoubtedly begun to fall into trouble, and I, who am not strong enough in character, obviously cannot lead the Ming Dynasty out of this predicament.

Although he knew this, Zhu Cixuan was powerless to change it.

The Ming Dynasty today is no longer a place where the emperor has the final say. Ever since Renzong decentralized power, the emperor has been forced to rely on his ministers to carry out reforms.

With each subsequent reform, the emperor's power would be invisibly decentralized. When the Ming Dynasty was passed to Zhu Cixuan, although the emperor still had absolute say in the central government, he did not have that much say in local areas.

Local capital colluded with officials and military officers, so even if the soldiers knew who they were loyal to, the emperor could not directly command the soldiers.

Even what Zhu Cixuan's grandfather and father could do was to command some of the troops in Shangzhi, such as the Four Guards of Yanshan, Jilin, Tiance, and Longxiang, which were the troops that the imperial family could directly mobilize without going through the Ministry of War and the Six Military Governor's Office.

The rest of the Twelve Guards were either neutral military officers or had been won over early on.

Jinyiwei, East Factory, West Factory, Neihang Factory...

These former spies of the emperor had long since become corrupt and were no longer fit for duty.

Because of this, the first thing Zhu Cixuan did after ascending the throne was to abolish the factory guards and retain only the Jinyiwei as an intelligence organization.

For ordinary people, the abolition of the factory guards might be a topic of conversation after dinner.

But for those within the imperial court, most people knew that the so-called Factory Guards were just an empty shell, and their existence or not would not change the current situation.

There is no so-called "perfect tense" in reform, only "present tense". Once it is interrupted, no matter how hard the people behind try, the opportunity will always be gone, and all the efforts will only prolong the death.

Facing the reality, Zhu Cixuan could only continue the policies of the Tianqi period and promote a group of relatively honest officials to conduct continuous inspections in Beijing.

It’s a pity that the so-called Beijing inspection is just to hit small fish and shrimps, and cannot uproot them completely.

In the second year of Chongzhen, Britain launched a 10,000-ton destroyer. In the same year, France, Spain and other countries also launched 10,000-ton destroyers one after another.

In addition, they began to develop fighter jets and bombers, and a round of arms race in Western Europe began.

In order to prevent possible wars, Zhu Cixuan secretly ordered the Six Military Governor's Office to manufacture aircraft carriers, improve various types of weaponry, and re-equip the Shangzhi Army and the fleets east of the Malacca Strait, including the Dongyang, Donghai, Damingyang, Nanyang, and Nanhai fleets.

In the third year of Chongzhen, the Ming Dynasty's military expenditure increased from 13.8 million taels per year to million taels, accounting for % of the fiscal revenue of the same year...

In the same year, France had the highest military expenditure among the Western European countries at 30 million taels, while the rest were mostly between 40 million and million taels. Military expenditure accounted for basically %-% of fiscal revenue.

This year, the Ottoman military expenditure was 48 million taels, accounting for % of fiscal revenue...

The competition for colonies mainly focused on the northern part of Kunlun Continent.

In the fourth year of Chongzhen, the Ottoman Empire planned to build a canal connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea in Egypt, but the plan was terminated due to condemnation from the Ming Dynasty.

Although the construction of this canal also had certain benefits for the Ming Dynasty, it affected the interests of the Kunlun Xuanwei Office, and the interests of the Kunlun Xuanwei Office were also the interests of the Six Military Governor's Office.

Regarding this point, the wrangling between the Six Military Commanderies and the Six Ministries began this year.

For the six ministries and capital, the completion of the canal will undoubtedly shorten the time for Xizhou's outsourcing, and time is cost.

For the Six Military Commandery, once the canal is completed, it means that the importance of Kunlun Cape will decrease, and the direct benefits that can be obtained will also decrease.

The wrangling between the two sides did not last too long. After all, many capitalists in the army also hoped to shorten the time for going to Xizhou for trade. Moreover, the Ming Dynasty had been peaceful for more than 50 years, and there were no new military merits to serve as the backbone. Most of the meritorious officials and military officers had already turned to civil governance.

Most of the dukedoms are in charge of both military and political affairs. They can profit from whether the canal is built or not, so their attitude is not firm.

Because of this, the outcome of this so-called wrangling was determined from the very beginning, and the civil officials were arguing that the canal should be controlled by the Ming Dynasty, not a small "Lumi Kingdom".

In July, Zhu Zhen, the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites of the Ming Dynasty, communicated with the Ottoman Empire and believed that the Kunlun Canal could be built with funding from the Ming Dynasty and protected by the Ming Dynasty’s garrison after completion. The tax revenue would be 80% for the Ming Dynasty and 20% for the Ottoman Empire.

The situation is stronger than the people. Although the Ottoman Empire, as the largest OEM factory of the Ming Dynasty, had a fiscal revenue of 24 million taels and a population of 26 million, they were still too weak compared to the Ming Dynasty.

On the second day of August, the Kunlun Canal Treaty was signed and the Kunlun Canal project began.

At the same time, the Dongzhou Canal (Panama Canal) project was also launched.

The two canal projects cost 50 million taels, but this time the Ministry of Revenue was exceptionally generous in allocating money and grain.

As early as fifty years ago, the Ming Dynasty had the technology to build these two canals, but construction could not begin because the Little Ice Age was active at the time and it cost too much money and grain.

After the end of the Little Ice Age, the Ministry of Revenue was burdened with a 10 billion dollar national debt to repay, which delayed the project for forty years until today.

Fifty million taels was an astronomical figure for the Western Continental countries, but for the Ming Dynasty, even if the treasury was empty, once government bonds were issued, a large amount of wealth could be quickly accumulated.

Fifty million taels, if evenly distributed among the 900 million people of the Ming Dynasty, would only be a little over fifty wen per person.

In March of the fifth year of Chongzhen, the two canals were officially built. In the same year, the first Yellow River Bridge in the Ming Dynasty was built in Kaifeng Prefecture.

In May, the proposal for the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge was approved, but after a detailed inspection, the proposal was cancelled due to technical failures.

In the sixth year of Chongzhen, industrial countries began to fully explore every corner and tribe of the world. In the same year, the Ming Dynasty established the Antarctic Research Team and the Iceland (Greenland) Research Team.
On the other hand, evolutionism and nationalism gradually led the Ming Dynasty to develop a sense of superiority as the "Heavenly Kingdom", while Xizhou divided the world into whites and blacks.

They believed that Xizhou and Daming were "white people", while black people were incompletely evolved animals.

In addition, the rise of nationalism has enabled most Western European nations to establish their own modern countries and begin to establish and preserve their own history and culture.

In the seventh year of Chongzhen, war broke out between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire.

Because the Kunlun Canal was being built at that time, the Ming Dynasty provided partial assistance to the Ottoman Empire.

With the assistance of the Ming Dynasty, the Ottoman Empire defeated the Holy Roman Empire and seized large tracts of territory and industrial areas.

The failure of the war led to the beginning of the split within the Holy Roman Empire. At this time, French King Louis XIV launched the "Franco-Dutch War" and annexed the Netherlands in the ninth year of Chongzhen.

In the tenth year of Chongzhen, the "Franco-Spanish War" broke out, and war broke out between France and Spain. The Holy Roman Empire also joined the battle and declared war on France in July.

In August of the same year, the Ottoman Empire declared war on the Holy Roman Empire.

In September, the Ming Dynasty notified all the countries in Western Continent that they were not allowed to attack merchant ships at sea and damage the interests of the Ming Dynasty.

Because of this telegram, Spain, which had a powerful navy in Western Europe, was restricted, while the Ottomans took advantage of the development of the "Kunlun Canal" to wantonly attack Spanish merchant ships.

In June of the 12th year of Chongzhen, the Kunlun Canal was completed, and the Ming Dynasty added the North Kunlun Guard and the Red Sea Fleet to protect the canal.

In July, the Ottoman attack on merchant ships was condemned by the Ming Dynasty, and the battle of Xizhou began to gradually turn into a land war.

In August, Frederick, Duke of Prussia, supported the Austrian Habsburg dynasty, which led the Holy Roman Empire, in declaring war on the Bourbon dynasty of France in exchange for the title of King of Prussia.

In September, Duke Frederick of Prussia was crowned King Frederick I of Prussia in Königsberg, and the Kingdom of Prussia was established.

In February of the 13th year of Chongzhen, Britain declared war on Spain and the Holy Roman Empire.

In June of the 13th year of Chongzhen, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire were defeated in a joint siege by France, Britain and the Ottoman Empire. Portugal became independent and France annexed the Italian peninsula.

As a result of the defeat, the Holy Roman Empire fell into division, and the Kingdom of Prussia annexed the Silesia region and thus rose.

As the second great war in Western Continent, this war was recorded in detail in the history books of the countries in Western Continent. However, the Ming Dynasty, as the empire on which the sun never sets, did not care about it.

The peace during the Chongzhen period was not peace for the common people, but peace for the powerful.

They annexed land, controlled the market and public opinion, and basically cut off most channels for upward mobility except for the imperial examinations and the civil service examinations.

During this period, the ideological wave of "missing the king" began to rise. Thinkers and philosophers such as Huang Zongxi and Gu Yanwu believed that "the king is the greatest evil to the country."

However, due to the lack of a sufficiently advanced system, thinkers were unable to judge what system the Ming Dynasty should adopt after the end of the imperial system.

In order to control thoughts and public opinion, the powerful began to use a large number of "entertainment products" such as movies and novels to interfere with the people. In the 14th year of Chongzhen, Huang Zongxi and others visited a large number of areas and published the standards for wealthy, middle-class, well-off and poor families based on their own investigations.

A family with an annual income of more than 100 taels is considered wealthy, more than 300 taels is considered middle class, more than 100 taels is considered well-off, more than 30 taels is considered ordinary, and less than 30 taels is considered poor.

At that time, the annual income of an ordinary person in the Ming Dynasty was thirty-six taels, and one or two Ming Tongbao coins were enough to buy eighty kilograms of beef or seventy kilograms of mutton.

Pork is professionally raised and the price is one or two taels of silver per pig, which is about 230 kilograms.

For normal rice and wheat, two liang of Ming Tongbao can buy 500 kilograms.

In the 15th year of Chongzhen, with the completion of the Southwest Railway, the Ming Railway was able to transport the people of the Ming Dynasty to any corner of the Ming Dynasty.

Because of this, "traveling" has become a spice of life for middle-class and well-off families.

On the fifth day of April, the Population Department of the Ministry of Revenue published an article stating that the average height of men in the Ming Dynasty was five feet and five inches, equivalent to 175 cm, and that of women was five feet, about 160 cm.

Among them, Japan has the shortest height, with men at about 168cm and women at 152cm.

On the second day of May, the Ministry of Justice issued a new law, which stated that men taller than five feet (160cm) and women taller than four feet seven inches (150cm) would be held criminally liable for violating the law.

In the 16th year of Chongzhen, social contradictions became increasingly serious, and the financial contradictions between the central government and local governments also gradually intensified.

On February 14, the 17th year of Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen Zhu Cixuan died in the Daming Palace at the age of 72. Crown Prince Zhu Heben ascended the throne.

On March 20th of the 17th year of Chongzhen, Zhu Cixuan was buried in Shunling Mausoleum on Tianshou Mountain. His temple name was Xiaozong and his posthumous title was Shunmingzhewenshaotongshenwumingshengchengxiaoming emperor.

On March 27th, Zhu Heben changed the next year's reign title to Hongguang, and became the Hongguang Emperor.

Zhu Heben was born in the fifth year of the Tianqi reign. He was greatly influenced by his grandfather Zhu Youxiao. In addition, he was only 45 years old when he ascended the throne. He began to formulate new policies with a keen sense of enterprising spirit.

In the second year of Hongguang, Zhu Heben relied on officials and military officers such as Zhang Boxing, Shi Shilun, Peng Peng, and Zhang Cewang to implement new policies, hoping to revive the spirit of integrity and rectify the military.

In March, Zhu Heben officially launched the official system reform. He first started with the official system, which had the most problems. He issued an imperial decree to abolish those official positions that were only in name only, and all the official positions that were originally nominal positions were actually used for work.

In July, the commander of the Central Army, Zhang Cewang, was impeached for suggesting that the army be reduced to one million. Among them, Hanzhou Bosun Xun openly insulted Zhang Cewang in the court, saying that "the Hu people have ambitions and will destroy us Han people as long as they live."

Zhang Cewang's ancestors were nobles of the Oirat tribe, but the Oirat had already submitted to the Ming Dynasty for nearly three hundred years. Zhang Cewang even regarded himself as a Han Chinese, so he was furious and fought with Sun Xun in the Fengtian Hall, and Sun Xun was seriously injured.

Afterwards, Zhu Heben stripped Sun Xun of his title for initiating the "Discussion on Chinese and Barbarians" without authorization, and fined Zhang Ce three years' salary.

Judging from this incident alone, the failure of the implementation of the new policy is inevitable, but Zhu Heben does not intend to stop the new policy.

He ordered Zhang Boxing, Zhang Cewang and others to lead the Yanshan Guard to forcibly implement the new policy, and reused the eunuch Jin Wen to regain control of the Ming Dynasty's newspaper, radio, film and other industries.

In March of the third year of the Hongguang reign, the eunuch Jin Wen, the chief supervisor of the Imperial Household Department, was killed in a car accident on his way to work. Zhu Heben was furious and ordered the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, Yu Quan, to torture the culprit. The culprit was arrested and imprisoned, where he died suddenly the next day.

The news spread quickly, and the incident quickly became known as the Jinyiwei's disregard for human life. More than 100,000 protesters appeared on the streets of Beijing, blocking traffic. Many shops were smashed and damaged, causing losses of more than 3 million taels. The Yanshan Guard and Jilin Guard went out to the streets to arrest people.

On the second day of April, twenty-four ringleaders of the riot were tortured to death by slicing, after being paid to incite the people to riot.

In May, more than a dozen officials who instigated the people were arrested, imprisoned, and sentenced to execution.

In June, local protest marches intensified, and eunuchs sent to many areas were beaten to death by the protesters. The local governments did not stop them and even condoned them.

On the sixth day of the third month of the fourth year of the Hongguang reign, the commander-in-chief of the Central Army, Zhang Cewang, was shot dead by a disbanded soldier at the disarmament site. He was 41 years old. The shooter committed suicide.

On the second day of September, a fire broke out in the Qianqing Palace of the Forbidden City, and Zhu Heben was carried out of the fire by the commander of the Jinyiwei.

After waking up, Zhu Heben ordered a thorough investigation of the fire and moved to the Daming Palace to live and work.

On the fifth day of the second month of the fifth year of the Hongguang reign, the Minister of Revenue Zhang Boxing was assassinated while inspecting Nanjing. Fortunately, the killer was nervous and failed to shoot him to death, and Nanjing Hospital successfully rescued him.

When the news reached Beijing, Zhu Heben was neither happy nor sad. He temporarily suspended the implementation of the new policy and absented himself from court for several months.

In April of the sixth year of Hongguang, Zhu Heben returned to the Forbidden City after half a year and dismissed a large number of eunuchs and palace maids, retaining only 600 eunuchs and 300 palace maids.

In the same month, Zhu Heben held a court meeting in the Fengtian Hall and did not mention anything about the new policy.

Since then, local processions have gradually become fewer and fewer, and eventually disappeared.

In July, Zhu Heben allocated 500,000 taels of imperial funds to build the Yanshan Palace.

In October of the eighth year of the Hongguang reign, several years after the end of the Franco-Spanish War, France tasted the sweetness of war and Louis XIV declared war on Spain.

In February of the ninth year of the Hongguang reign, the French army occupied the important city of Zaragoza in northern Spain, and Prussia declared war on France.

In August, the French army fought with the Prussian army at Waterloo, defeated the Prussian army at Waterloo, and marched towards Mainz.

In October, the French army failed to capture Mainz after a long siege, Britain declared war on France, and the Ottomans attacked the Italian region of France.

In March of the tenth year of the Hongguang reign, France and Prussia negotiated peace and both sides returned to their pre-war borders.

In August, Hungary declared war on the Ottoman Empire and Austria declared war on the Ottoman Empire.

In September, the Ming Dynasty issued a statement that it would not interfere in the actions of its vassal states, but did not want to see other countries invade its vassal states.

In October, the Ottomans were defeated in Sabac and the Hungarian army advanced towards Sarajevo.

In December, Voltaire, who came from a French lawyer family, went to study abroad at Ming Dynasty Nanzhong University with the support of his parents.

In April of the eleventh year of the Hongguang reign, a naval battle broke out between the British and French armies in the English Channel. The French navy was defeated and retreated to the Bordeaux waters.

Starting in June, the British army continued to harass the French coast.

In July, Voltaire arrived at South China University to study.

Compared to the war in Xizhou, the people in the Daming area lived a rich life with low prices.

At South China University of Technology, Voltaire met a large number of international students who came to study.

While studying at Nanzhong, Voltaire created many literary works and obtained permission to leave Nanzhong in June of the 13th year of Hongguang.

He used his winter and summer vacations to travel around the southern part of Ming Dynasty Zhongzhou, and wrote his experiences as "Travels in Greater China".

In the 15th year of Hongguang, Louis XIV died of illness. His years of wars had severely damaged the vitality of France. Therefore, after Louis XV ascended the throne, he began to initiate peace negotiations with various countries.

Over a three-year period, he formed alliances and reconciled with Britain, Spain, and the Ottoman Empire, striving to develop a peaceful relationship to avoid further conflict.

Due to the failure to gain sufficient war benefits, social contradictions in France intensified, the burden on the people increased, and capitalists became exploitative.

On June 11, the 19th year of the Hongguang reign, the masses of Paris rose up in armed uprising, hoping to overthrow the reactionary rule of the bourgeoisie and the monarchy.

After the news spread, the royal families of Western European countries were afraid that the revolution would spread, and they all supported Louis XV in suppressing the uprising.

After Voltaire, who was far away in the Ming Dynasty, learned the news from his hometown, he published an article criticizing the autocratic rule. He was also arrested and imprisoned for his article attacking official-business capitalism.

Upon learning that he was imprisoned, Zhu Heben, who loved his articles, ordered his release and invited Voltaire to the Yanshan Palace.

In August of the 20th year of Hongguang, the 26-year-old Voltaire went to the Yanshan Palace and met the Hongguang Emperor Zhu Heben.

He recorded this experience in his work, and after the communication, he felt sorry for Zhu Heben's helplessness.

In October, Ming provided assistance to France and suppressed the Paris Revolution the following month.

At that time, the popular thought in the Ming Dynasty was mainly focused on attacking the monarchy, but Voltaire's newly published work did not attack Zhu Heben himself, but instead expressed regret for him.

Such content led many thinkers to criticize Voltaire.

They did not believe that Zhu Heben was unable to control the court. They all believed that the court's policy of assisting France in suppressing the rebellion was an order issued by Zhu Heben.

In the 24th year of the Hongguang reign, the 30-year-old Voltaire was forced to return to France under the criticism of the people and the coercion of the powerful.

(End of this chapter)