Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 991 Zheng Sen
Zhu Minlan was very excited about the research topic proposed by Zhu Shenzui, especially when Zhu Shenzui told Zhu Minlan that if he worked on this project, he could mobilize some resources, including the resources of the General Senate for assistance, which was equivalent to letting the prince directly participate in part of the work of the General Senate in advance, or equivalent to the prince not only studying in the military academy, but also holding some positions in the General Senate.

This was what Zhu Minlan had been longing for, and he was also well aware of the importance of this topic, so he agreed immediately, looking extremely happy and excited.

Just like that, Zhu Shencui handed the matter over to Zhu Minlan. No matter what results Zhu Minlan achieved in the end or what achievements he made, it didn't matter. What was important was that this matter could be used to better train the prince and cultivate his overall view and judgment. As long as this could be achieved, Zhu Shencui would be satisfied.

Because Zhu Minlan only has one day off a week, he has been in the Qianqing Palace for half a day today. After the father and son finished talking, Zhu Shenzhu sent him away. After all, the prince is married, and the couple does not have much time to see each other on weekdays because the prince is in the military academy. It is rare to rest. I can't tie Zhu Minlan to official duties, right? It is still necessary to combine work and rest. What's more, Zhu Shenzhu wants to hold his grandson as soon as possible. Although his eldest son Tenger in Mongolia already has a child, the child is in Guihua City. Zhu Shenzhu can't hold the child, even if he wants to see him, it is difficult. He can only settle for the second best and trouble the prince.

After Zhu Minlan left, Zhu Shenzhui continued to handle the official business at hand. After being busy for more than an hour, he finally stopped, drank a sip of the new tea, looked at the list handed over by the Chinese Imperial College, and smiled.

The list of the Imperial College is not uncommon. Although the Imperial College is the highest institution of learning in the Ming Dynasty, under the imperial examination system, the presence of the Imperial College is not strong. After all, for literati, only officials who pass the formal imperial examination can be considered the right path, and those who graduate from the Imperial College can only be said to be opportunistic.

Therefore, the Imperial Academy has always existed only as a supplement to the imperial examination. The students who studied in the Imperial Academy were not those who could not pass the imperial examination by their own ability, but hoped to find a way out by "saving the country in a roundabout way" through the Imperial Academy. In addition, there were more children of nobles and gentry. These people were just so-so in their studies. They could not pass the imperial examination by their own ability even if they studied for decades. They could only study in the Imperial Academy and then get an official position after graduating from the Imperial Academy.

From this point of view, any student who is capable of taking the regular imperial examinations would not bother to study in the Imperial Academy. The four major private academies were much stronger than the Imperial Academy of the court in terms of both foundation and reputation, and were more sought after by literati. Precisely for these reasons, the Imperial Academy did not have a high status among students, and the prospects of graduates from the Imperial Academy in officialdom were far inferior to those of Jinshi who passed the imperial examinations.

But even so, the Imperial College is still the highest institution of learning in the Ming Dynasty. This is true. Therefore, every year, a copy of the Imperial College's admission list will be delivered to the palace for the emperor to preview. But before, the delivery of this list was just a procedure. How could the emperor have so much free time to look at this thing? Not to mention the emperor, when this thing was delivered to the Ministry of Rites and the Cabinet, no one took it seriously. At most, it was just a procedure and filed. Who would care about how many new students entered the Imperial College this year, and who graduated successfully or was expelled from the Imperial College because of failing the assessment?
But this time it was different. Zhu Shenzhui had someone find the list specifically. If he hadn't remembered something a few days ago, this thing would never have landed on his desk.

Looking at the densely packed names on the roster, Zhu Shenzui's eyes fell on one of the names, the name was Zheng Sen.

This Zheng Sen was none other than Zheng Zhilong's eldest son. Originally, Zheng Sen should have been studying at the Imperial College in Nanjing at this time, and because of Zheng Zhilong, he was accepted as a disciple by Qian Qianyi. However, the current situation has changed. First, Qian Qianyi was recalled to the capital a few years ago and reinstated. Now he has become the Minister of Rites of the Ming Dynasty, just half a step away from the cabinet.

Since Qian Qianyi was not in Nanjing, it was naturally impossible for him to be Zheng Sen's teacher. In addition, due to the outbreak of the Jiangnan case, a large number of officials in Nanjing were involved in the case, and the court took ruthless measures to clean up the Jiangnan officialdom. In view of this situation, Zheng Zhilong was worried that Zheng Sen would get into trouble if he went to Nanjing at this time, so he stopped Zheng Sen's arrangement to go north to study. After the Jiangnan case gradually subsided and Nanjing was completely fine, Zheng Zhilong was relieved to let Zheng Sen go north.

However, due to this delay, Zheng Sen's original plan to enter the Nanjing Imperial College was changed, resulting in Zheng Sen not being able to study in the Nanjing Imperial College as expected. In fact, this so-called change was specially arranged by Zhu Shenzhui. As an emperor, it was easy for him to do such a small thing. Under his arrangement, the Nanjing Imperial College rejected Zheng Sen's request for admission and gave him two options: either wait for another year or go directly to the Imperial College in Beijing to study.

For this reason, Zheng Sen considered choosing the latter. In this way, Zheng Sen continued to travel north from Nanjing to the capital, and with the recommendation letter from the Nanjing Imperial College, he successfully entered the Imperial College in the capital, thus becoming one of the students enrolled in the Imperial College this year.

Zhu Shencui had his own ideas about bringing Zheng Sen to the capital and keeping him under his own watch. Zhu Shencui had to deal with Zheng Zhilong, but how to deal with him and how to avoid turmoil in the process of dealing with him were also issues that Zhu Shencui considered.

As the son of Zheng Zhilong and also the eldest son whom he had high hopes for, Zheng Sen was the undisputed heir to the Zheng Group. Logically, Zheng Zhilong should have allowed Zheng Sen to find a way to enter the military academy. After all, Zheng Zhilong was a senior general of the Ming Dynasty and had a title. With his status and position, Zhu Shenzhui could not refuse if he wanted to arrange for Zheng Sen to study in the military academy.

I don't know what Zheng Zhilong was thinking, or whether it was Zheng Sen's own intention, but he chose a path of learning literature for Zheng Sen. Perhaps they took into account that the status of the military generals in the Ming Dynasty was not as good as that of the civil officials. They felt that if the Zheng family could produce a serious scholar, they could change the grass-roots origin of the Zheng family and squeeze into the group of civil officials. However, these ideas are just wishful thinking. The difference between civil and military is not so easy to change. With Zheng Zhilong's background, let alone Zheng Sen, even if Zheng Sen's son and grandson have been studying, they are still descendants of military men. Moreover, as a general who came from a pirate background, Zheng Zhilong is short-sighted and does not understand the changes in the court now. Zhu Shenzhui has now begun to gradually improve the status of military generals, and gradually narrowed the gap between the two sides by establishing military representatives in the cabinet. From this, it can be seen that the situation of civil officials being noble and military officials being humble in the Ming Dynasty will gradually change in the future, and the gap between civil and military officials in the Ming Dynasty will also be different from before. As a military general in the future, there may be a day when he will come to the fore.

But Zhu Shenzhui would never tell Zheng Zhilong and his son about these things. He would even be secretly happy about the choice of Zheng Zhilong and his son. It was a good thing for Zheng Sen to study in the Imperial College. No matter whether he could make any achievements in this book, at least it would be much easier for him to attack Zheng Zhilong in the future than if he had gone to school to study.

Moreover, Zhu Shenzui was not optimistic about Zheng Sen's military ability. Although Zheng Sen was very famous in history and was even called a hero, his achievements were not worth mentioning in Zhu Shenzui's eyes. Counting Zheng Sen's achievements in history, apart from the recovery of Xiaoliuqiu, the rest of his achievements were simply a mess, and he was not as strong as the rumors said.

Even in the battle to recapture Xiaoliuqiu, the real credit did not lie with Zheng Sen but with several old subordinates of Zheng Zhilong. You should know that the Dutch in Xiaoliuqiu originally landed and settled on the island with the tacit consent of Zheng Zhilong, and the number of Dutch in Xiaoliuqiu was not large, with a total of less than a thousand people.

At that time, Zheng Sen was leading the main force of the Zheng pirate group with 25,000 troops, and their troop strength was nearly 30 times that of the Dutch occupying the island.

Even with thirty times the number of troops and the advantage of time, place and people, the battle still lasted for eight full months under Zheng Sen's command. In the end, Zheng Sen failed to completely annihilate the Dutch. Finally, the Dutch saw that the situation was hopeless and took the initiative to go out of the city to negotiate surrender without any reinforcements. At the time of surrender, there were still more than 600 Dutch people. In other words, this battle lasted for eight months and so many troops were mobilized, but the total casualties of the Dutch were only more than 200 people, which is simply unimaginable.

After the Dutch surrendered, Zheng Sen did not deal with the surrendered Dutch. In order to avoid any further complications, he simply sent troops to escort them all out of the country. This is the true situation of Zheng Sen's recovery of Xiaoliuqiu.

From this point of view, this battle was not only fought with more troops defeating fewer, but also with advantages in all aspects. However, in the end, this result was achieved, which is enough to show what Zheng Sen’s true military ability is.

Later, Zheng Zhilong was killed because the Qing Dynasty went back on its word. Zheng Sen was furious upon hearing the news and became sworn enemies with the Qing Dynasty. He wanted to avenge his father. However, when the Southern Ming Dynasty still had the strength to fight the Qing army that was heading south, Zheng Sen did not take the initiative to unite with the Southern Ming army to fight against the Qing army. Instead, he set up a new organization for his own benefit, intending to reap the benefits when the Southern Ming and Qing Dynasty were both defeated.

Because of this, the Southern Ming was defeated by the Qing army and suffered heavy losses. Seeing that the Southern Ming could not hold on and the Qing was getting stronger, Zheng Sen hurriedly raised an army to contact the remnants of the Southern Ming, relying on the advantage of the navy to land and fight, intending to defeat the Qing army, then seize Nanjing, and finally occupy the south of the Yangtze River and divide the river with the Qing.

But the problem was that Zheng Sen not only failed to grasp the timing of sending troops, but also made many mistakes after sending troops, which led to the initial unstoppable momentum turning into internal chaos until the Qing army finally seized the opportunity to completely defeat him. After the defeat, he fled to the sea in embarrassment and ran to Xiaoliuqiu without looking back.

After this battle, the forces resisting the Qing army were short-lived and never recovered, and Zheng Sen never dared to talk about counterattack after suffering heavy losses on the mainland. After that, the Zheng Group had been entrenched in Xiaoliuqiu, living a small life with their heads down. After Zheng Sen's death, his son Zheng Jing and his grandson all became local emperors in Xiaoliuqiu, until Emperor Kangxi sent troops to capture Xiaoliuqiu, which completely destroyed them.

Judging from these circumstances, Zheng Sen was not only not a famous general, but also a mediocre general, and his political vision and judgment were far from good. If he had not been lucky at the time, he would not have been able to take Xiaoliuqiu, so Zhu Shenzhui did not think highly of Zheng Sen's "military talent" and did not think he had the qualifications to be a famous general.

(End of this chapter)