Chapter 126: The Rougher the Waves, the Pricier the Catch!

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Zhu Yuanzhang was still deeply distrustful of eunuchs. Although he understood that eunuchs could be like a sharp sword in the emperor’s hand, he did not approve of this arrangement.

One should do everything oneself and thereby secure one’s own food and clothing.

If you handed power away, you could only fear that chaos would follow.

Old Zhu had no formal education, yet his understanding of culture and history ran extraordinarily deep. He had studied the eunuchs who had usurped power throughout the dynasties in meticulous detail, and he had no fondness for them whatsoever.

Ahem!

Over here, Old Zhu Di was frantically winking. The Eastern Intelligence Bureau had been established by him, but so far his father still knew nothing about it. He thought it had been the work of his good and saintly grandson.

Don’t you dare let the cat out of the bag!

“This…” Zhu Jianshen was stumped. He gave a couple of bitter laughs. No matter what he said, he would offend an ancestor, so he could only turn to Zhu Youjian with a pleading look.

Wang Zhi!

One of the four most powerful eunuchs of the Ming dynasty.

Wang Zhen, Wang Zhi, Liu Jin, and Wei Zhongxian.

Zhu Youjian smiled and said, “Great Ancestor, every dynasty has its own methods of governing the state. Besides, with the judgment and ability of this ancestor of mine, do you really have no confidence in him?”

Zhu Yuanzhang’s expression softened considerably. He nodded and said with a hearty laugh, “I was merely being narrow-minded. In any case, execute Liu Wentai, just to liven things up.”

The assembled emperors and heirs broke out in a cold sweat.

“By the will of the Great Ancestor!” Wang Zhi wiped the cold sweat from his soaked collar. He felt as though he had been pardoned; just now, he had nearly been scared witless.

One of the four powerful eunuchs, was he?

Zhu Youjian thought it over. Wang Zhi was simply not on the same level as the other three.

Eunuch Wei was powerful enough to treat second-rank officials as his sons and appoint third-rank officials at will. He was truly powerful enough to dominate the entire court. Liu Jin, too, could execute anyone below the second rank first and report afterward!

Even the utterly inept Wang Zhen had descendants spread throughout the court, while the Embroidered Uniform Guard was practically his private army.

Wang Zhi, by contrast, clearly lacked sufficient weight at court. Under his command were only the Western Intelligence Bureau and the Imperial Horse Directorate, and his authority was quite limited.

He was the sort of man whose job sounded impressive, but who actually had little he could do.

In the Ming dynasty, if you presented Eunuch Wei with a gift, and he happened to be pleased, then with a little effort he could make you Minister of Personnel, appoint you the top official of a province, or even squeeze you into the Grand Secretariat.

But if you presented a gift to Director Wang of the Western Intelligence Bureau, the most he could do, if he was in a good mood, was send you to the Western Intelligence Bureau as an official.

And even then, you would still have to undergo a minor operation.

Still, Wang Zhi was formidable in other respects!

The third Chenghua “plowing the court” campaign had been led by Wang Zhi. In truth, the Chenghua campaigns were merely a very small military achievement for Emperor Xianzong and Wang Zhi—so small that they could hardly have been smaller.

Whenever the Mongols harassed the Ming dynasty’s northern frontier, the Jianzhou Jurchens would always take advantage of the chaos and plunder as well. They were like flies, and Emperor Xianzong found them intensely irritating, but he had no intention of attacking them.

The Jianzhou Jurchens consisted of only 2,300 households. Even these were divided between the Left and Right Guards. Dongshan, the ancestor of Nurhaci, was nominally a commander-in-chief, but in reality he commanded no more than the strength of a single thousand-household command.

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Emperor Xianzong could have sneezed and blown them away. There was absolutely no difficulty involved; they were not even worth the effort. It simply was not cost-effective.

Thus, in the fourth year of Chenghua, when Dongshan came to Liaodong to present tribute, he was permitted to go only as far as Liaodong and was not allowed to enter the capital. Emperor Xianzong issued an edict warning him.

Then Wang Zhong, an assistant director of the Court of State Ceremonies, memorialized that Dongshan and the others had spoken disrespectfully. At that point, Emperor Xianzong wanted to wipe them out.

But Wang Bing, the Censor-in-Chief overseeing military affairs, said that destroying the Jianzhou Jurchens over such a matter would hardly demonstrate the grandeur of the Han Chinese state. The affair therefore came to nothing.

If that fool had not insisted on putting on a show, there would never have been the later list of reparations for declaring war on France and declaring war on England…

Emperor Xianzong was still young then, barely in his twenties, and could not yet speak with much authority. So he merely summoned Dongshan to the military camp in Liaodong to receive an education.

The emperor’s decree was simple: return whatever you have stolen, and your responsibility will not be pursued. You may even be forgiven.

Emperor Xianzong tried to reason with Dongshan.

Why were the Jurchens always called savages? Because they had been civilized for such a short time. When you tried to reason with them, they simply could not understand…

At the military camp in Liaodong, Dongshan and the others drew their blades and caused a disturbance on the spot.

Emperor Xianzong was so furious that he actually laughed. If matters had reached such a point and he still refused to strike, there would be no way for the Ming dynasty to govern all its territories.

Thus, in October, Emperor Xianzong ordered Zhao Fu, Marquis Jingwu, to serve as General Pacifying the Barbarians and annihilate the Jianzhou Jurchens.

That was the first Chenghua “plowing the court” campaign.

Emperor Xianzong’s edict was perfectly explicit: destroy their lair and exterminate their kind!

In reality, however, fewer than a thousand heads were taken.

They had only 2,300 households in total. There were simply too few of them; there were not even enough to provide a respectable tally of military achievements.

Compared with the rebellion of the Mongols who had submitted to the Ming in the fourth year of Chenghua, it was nothing more than a minor skirmish. In a single battle, over eight thousand Mongols had been beheaded.

As for the time required, the campaign to suppress the Du Zhang barbarian rebellion in Sichuan lasted from the first year of Chenghua all the way to the fourth.

The three Chenghua “plowing the court” campaigns, by contrast, followed the same pattern every time: Emperor Xianzong ordered an attack one month, and the army returned victorious the next. The Jianzhou Jurchens vanished like smoke at the snap of a finger.

The Jurchens of Liaodong, especially the Jianzhou Jurchens, were weak, constantly colluded with the Mongols, and were both incompetent and eager for trouble. If they were not to be attacked, then who should be?

The second and third “plowing the court” campaigns had no legitimate justification whatsoever.

In the fourteenth year of Chenghua, Chen Yue, the Censor responsible for inspecting Liaodong, memorialized that the Haixi Jurchens were about to raid the frontier.

Emperor Xianzong ordered an attack on the Jianzhou Jurchens.

That was right: Chen Yue said the Haixi Jurchens were about to raid the frontier, while Emperor Xianzong attacked the Jianzhou Jurchens. They were beaten for reasons that made no sense at all.

The third campaign was the same. Chen Yue again claimed that the Jianzhou Jurchens were about to raid the frontier, and Wang Zhi was ordered to take overall command of military affairs and beat the Jianzhou Jurchens once more.

At that time, the Jianzhou Jurchens had just been attacked the year before. They had neither the ability nor the courage to make a move. What Chen Yue had memorialized was that they were going to raid the frontier.

In other words, the Jianzhou Jurchens had not yet raided the frontier when they were attacked.

In truth, the whole thing was merely an exercise arranged for Wang Zhi.

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It was not a reason at all.

The real purpose was to give Wang Zhi control over the armies of Liaodong.

The following year, Wang Zhi, now experienced in leading troops, and Wang Yue, the Minister of War, were transferred to the northwest.

One was a eunuch and the other a civil official. Without notifying anyone beforehand, they led twenty thousand cavalry deep into enemy territory, reached the Weining Sea, and wiped out the Mongol royal encampment!

They captured more than seven thousand horses and over ten thousand suits of armor and weapons!

Mandukhai, the queen who had only just unified the Mongol tribes, was killed!

Wang Zhi became famous in a single battle!

That year, Wang Zhi was only nineteen, the same age at which Huo Qubing was made Marquis of Champion.

Wang Zhi and Huo Qubing fought in much the same manner. Both first took command of troops in their teens, possessed little experience, and specialized in surprise attacks.

Yet whenever they struck, they achieved a great victory!

By contrast, the generals leading the armies of the Han and Ming dynasties were famous commanders such as Li Guang. The result was either that they could not find the enemy or that they fell into an ambush. The difference was enormous!

The situation under the Han and the Ming was the same: some people within the armies were secretly colluding with foreign tribes and did not want the enemy destroyed.

The northern lands were bitterly cold, and living conditions were harsh. The people there could only exchange horses and livestock for grain and supplies, but the Ming court managed frontier tributary trade with extreme strictness.

It not only fixed the prices but also limited the quantities.

First, this was done to raise prices and earn profits.

Second, in times of crisis, it allowed the north to be subjected to a grain blockade, reducing the foreign tribes’ population and weakening their strength without shedding a drop of blood.

But there was a rule in business: the more strictly the authorities controlled something, the higher its price became.

The fiercer the storm, the more expensive the fish.

High profits inevitably led to more smuggling. And who guarded the northern frontier? The frontier troops, of course. Who else could take part in the smuggling?

Apart from selling grain, salt, and tea, the Ming frontier armies also sold armor. When the price was high enough, they even sold firearms. These were all businesses with enormous returns.

If the emperor ordered such men to attack their own customers, how could they bring themselves to do it?

That was why the secret to the victories of Wang Zhi and Huo Qubing was simple: they told no one where they were going!

Not even the emperor knew. And even if someone wanted to leak the news, there was no way to do so.

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