I was compiling the daily records during the Wanli reign

January of the fourteenth year of the Wanli reign.

The construction of Dongfang Port is proceeding smoothly, and barring any unforeseen circumstances, it will be put into use by mid-March this year.

In the new year, Shen Nian devised a new plan, which he named the "Ming Dynasty Alliance Plan".

The main contents of this plan are—

Next, Shen Nian will dispatch several officials skilled in trade to various Jurchen tribes, starting with the weaker tribes, to sign trade contracts with them.

Shen Nian offered very generous terms that would greatly improve their living standards and guarantee their safety.

Shen Nian does not force those who are unwilling to sign a contract.

However, if anyone dares to rob Ming Dynasty goods or bully Ming Dynasty's contractual allies, the lightest punishment will be beheading, the medium punishment will be expulsion, and the heaviest punishment will be extermination of their entire clan.

Shen Nian predicted that within a year, he could form alliances with more than fifty Jurchen tribes around Winter City.

When everyone becomes a community of shared interests in trade, then the interests of Winter City and Eastern Port will be everyone's interests. At that time, wars and internal strife will be greatly reduced, and the fierce and warlike Jurchens will gradually become ordinary people.

If everyone is averse to war, then wars will be less frequent.

……

Just then, a major event occurred in the capital.

Consort Zheng gave birth to a son for the young Wanli Emperor, namely the third prince Zhu Changxun (the second prince died at birth).

Because he doted on Consort Zheng, the young Emperor Wanli was overjoyed at the birth of his third son and immediately declared a general amnesty, bestowing rewards upon members of the imperial family and officials.

At this time, cabinet ministers such as Shen Shixing and Yu Youding, along with officials from the Ministry of Rites, jointly submitted a memorial, earnestly requesting that the eldest son of the emperor, Zhu Changluo, be established as the crown prince.

The reason why the officials proposed establishing a crown prince at this time was that the young Wanli Emperor's health was somewhat poor. He had stopped giving lectures on the classics and his attendance at court had decreased significantly. At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, he also sent Duke Dingguo Xu Wenbi to replace him in the sacrificial rites.

Shen Shixing and others worried that the young Wanli Emperor would die young like the late emperor, so they hoped to establish a crown prince as soon as possible.

Emperor Wanli refused to establish an heir apparent on the grounds that "the crown prince is too weak." When his ministers remonstrated, he simply put the memorials aside and ignored them completely.

In February, the court was busy with the imperial examinations and did not mention the matter of establishing an heir again.

……

On the second day of the third month, without the knowledge of the cabinet, Emperor Wanli promoted Consort Zheng to Imperial Noble Consort on the grounds of the birth of his third son.

It should be noted that the mother of the eldest prince, Zhu Changluo, was only Consort Gong.

This move caused an uproar in the government and among the public, with many officials submitting memorials to express their dissent.

At first, Emperor Wanli kept the memorials in the archives without issuing them. Later, he directly ordered Zhang Cheng, the Grand Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, to burn all the memorials in the document room. Then he issued an edict: Anyone who discusses this matter again will be punished with eighty strokes of the cane.

Under Shen Shixing's mediation, the officials stopped submitting their remonstrances.

The current imperial court is completely dominated by the one-man rule of a young Wanli Emperor.

Many officials were dissatisfied with Wanli's actions, but they were powerless to do anything about it. Even if they dared to voice their dissent in private, they would be immediately summoned to the imperial prison by the surveillance agents.

……

March 20th is the opening day of Dongfang Port.

Shen Nianyao was in charge of the overall situation in Jiliao and did not go to participate. However, Zhang Xueyan, the governor of Liaodong, personally went to Dongfang Port to participate in the opening ceremony.

After attending the port opening ceremony, he will stay in Dongfang Port for three months to help Shen Maoxue plan the development of Dongcheng, as requested by Shen Nian. In terms of people's livelihood, commerce, and urban construction, Zhang Xueyan is far more outstanding than Shen Nian, Li Chengliang, and Shen Maoxue.

……

Meanwhile, news from Ji and Liao continued to reach the capital.

After reviewing the memorials from the Six Ministries, Shen Shixing, Yu Youding, and other cabinet ministers, and then looking at the documents submitted by Shen Nian, Qi Jiguang, Li Chengliang, and others, they felt as if they had slapped themselves in the face.

Nowadays, apart from the Jiliao region, all the prefectures and cities in the Ming Dynasty are declining.

The main reason for the decline was that after Zhang Juzheng's family was raided, the young Wanli Emperor, in order to completely get rid of Zhang Juzheng's influence on the court, stopped supporting Zhang Juzheng's series of policies.

As a result, land consolidation resurfaced, the performance evaluation system became a mere formality, the post station regulations were gradually abolished, and the Single Whip Law became a game for the rich to hoard silver.

The only one that could be considered normal was maritime trade.

Shen Shixing was helpless, but he really didn't have the abilities of Zhang Juzheng or Shen Nian.

He once pleaded with the young Wanli Emperor to allow Shen Nian to return to the capital, but the young Wanli Emperor believed that Shen Nian could play a greater role in Liaodong and hoped that Shen Nian could stay in Liaodong for five or even ten years.

The young Wanli Emperor no longer wanted to be controlled, and the only person who could make him feel uneasy at the moment was Shen Nian.

Shen Shixing also wrote a letter earnestly requesting Shen Nian to take the initiative to request to return to the court, but Shen Nian politely declined.

He believed that Shen Nian was aware of the current situation in the court, but Shen Nian did not mention anything about things outside of Ji and Liao, which was obviously because he was heartbroken by the fact that Zhang Juzheng's family had been raided.

Shen Shixing already had the intention of retiring from officialdom.

However, he knew that if he retired, and an official like Shen Yiguan, who liked to form cliques, became the Grand Secretary, the court would become even more chaotic.

He could only endure it, hoping that the young Wanli would gradually recover.

……

From the beginning of the year until April, there was very little rain in the entire Beizhili region. The Ministry of Rites offered sacrifices and prayers for rain many times, but to no avail. Many officials believed that the conferment of the title of Imperial Noble Consort Zheng on Consort Zheng violated ancestral rules and angered the heavens. However, the young Wanli Emperor ignored the advice of his officials and handed over the power of approval to Zhang Cheng and Zhang Jing of the Directorate of Ceremonial.

These two men, relying on imperial power, drove away more than fifty loyal and outspoken officials in the past two years. The officials had no way to express their grievances and resented them to the extreme.

……

In early May, a sudden earthquake struck the capital.

Just as the officials were preparing to take advantage of the earthquake to demand the establishment of a crown prince and the rectification of etiquette in the imperial harem.

Emperor Wanli the Younger preemptively claimed that the drought in Beizhili and the earthquake in the capital were due to the officials' mishandling of current affairs, and ordered all officials to reflect on their mistakes.

……

In early June, floods occurred in Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangnan, leaving tens of thousands of displaced people without resettlement.

The Ministry of Revenue had no money, and the young Wanli Emperor was unwilling to use funds from the imperial treasury. Shen Shixing could only order local governments to raise funds themselves, putting great pressure on local finances.

However, the young Wanli Emperor continued to do as he pleased, and because of the officials' request to establish a crown prince, he feigned illness and did not attend court.

In the first half of the fourteenth year of the Wanli reign, Grand Secretary Shen Shixing met with the young Wanli Emperor five times, and many matters were handled through oral instructions from the Directorate of Ceremonial.

This made many officials miss the days when Zhang Juzheng and Shen Nian were in power.

Although they were exhausted, all the officials were very motivated.

But now, the emperor is incompetent, the cabinet is ineffective, and the secret police are arresting people without any reason. This has made many officials in the capital disheartened. Some have resigned, some have requested to be transferred to other places, some have become muddleheaded, and some have formed cliques for personal gain. The entire court is in complete chaos.

……

In July, after feeling that local chaos and lawsuits were increasing, Shen Shixing and other cabinet ministers issued an edict in the name of the young Wanli Emperor to reduce sentences and show leniency, demonstrating benevolent governance.

The young Wanli Emperor readily agreed, but still cited "dizziness, blurred vision, and lack of energy" as reasons for not attending court.

Even when cabinet ministers had important matters to report, after entering the Wenhua Hall, it was Zhang Jing and Zhang Cheng who relayed the messages, while the young Wanli Emperor hid in the Qianqing Palace and never came out.

……

In September, the young Wanli Emperor continued to feign illness and did not attend court, nor did he even go to the Imperial Ancestral Temple for sacrifices.

At this moment, Lu Hongchun, the chief of the sacrificial rites department of the Ministry of Rites, could no longer hold back.

He submitted a memorial stating that the young Wanli Emperor's illness was due to his excessive indulgence in wine and women, which led to physical weakness. He hoped that the young Wanli Emperor would be careful in his daily life and moderate his indulgence in wine and women.

Lu Hongchun had some medical knowledge, and his memorial to the throne immediately received a response from many officials.

Officials submitted memorials one after another, earnestly requesting that the young Wanli Emperor take care of his health. Some officials also pleaded again for the establishment of an heir apparent and for the reform of corrupt practices.

Emperor Wanli was furious and immediately ordered the Embroidered Uniform Guard to arrest Lu Hongchun and bring him to the Meridian Gate to be flogged sixty times. He then issued an edict to dismiss him from his post and make him a commoner, never to be employed again.

This move sparked public outrage, and officials submitted numerous memorials opposing it.

However, the young Wanli Emperor claimed that this action was a "party rescue," and stripped the officials who had spoken out of their salaries for a year, confined them to their homes for seven days, and directly ordered the Embroidered Uniform Guard to forcibly send them back to their homes.

Shen Shixing, a master of smoothing things over, claimed that the young Wanli Emperor's illness was caused by excessive consumption of cooling medicines due to summer heat.

Another cabinet minister, Shen Yiguan, submitted a memorial stating: "Because of your diligent work day and night, and your tireless efforts in attending to the emperor, Your Majesty's health has been affected. I only hope that Your Majesty will purify your mind and reduce your desires, nourish your energy and calm your spirit, and be even more cautious."

Shen Yiguan's claim of "working diligently day and night and being hardworking in his duties" is all a pretext. Everyone knows that the emperor has hardly attended court this year and has not even participated in sacrificial rites. What hard work could he possibly have done?
However, his later statement, "purify your mind and reduce desires, nourish your energy and calm your spirit," was actually a reminder for the young Wanli Emperor to pay more attention to his daily life. But this kind of superficial and ineffective reminder had no effect whatsoever.

……

Late at night, in the study of a large house.

Grand Secretary Shen Shixing flipped through the almanac and murmured, "Based on the development of Jiliao, by the end of the year at the latest, Jiliao's military expenses will be self-sufficient. And next March, Ziheng will have been Governor-General of Jiliao for three full years. According to custom, Ziheng should return to the capital to report on his duties. If he returns, he will surely be able to revitalize His Majesty and change this mess!"

……

On the third day of the tenth month, Qi Jiguang, the general of Jizhou, submitted a memorial stating that the annual surplus of Jibei Port could not only meet the military expenses of Jizhou, but also have a surplus. At the suggestion of Shen Nian, the Minister of War, all the surplus of Jibei Port would be added to the national treasury.

This money is undoubtedly a timely help for the current imperial court.

Just when Shen Shixing felt this was the best time to earnestly request Shen Nian to return to court.

Emperor Wanli first issued an edict to reward Shen Nian and Qi Jiguang handsomely, and then issued a handwritten edict to Shen Nian, stating that Shen Nian did not need to return to the capital to report on his duties in March of the following year. He granted Shen Nian the authority to act expediently in all maritime trade matters in Jiliao and the Ming Dynasty, and required Shen Nian to promote the trade in Dongcheng and Dongfang Port within three years, so that the trade surplus could be used to support the military expenses of the Nine Borders every year.

The young Wanli Emperor's actions stemmed from two reasons: firstly, he didn't want Shen Nian to return to the capital, and secondly, he treated Shen Nian as a money-making machine.

When Shen Shixing found out, he was very angry. He felt that it was a waste of talent for the young Wanli Emperor to place Shen Nian in Jiliao. However, he was powerless to do anything about it, as there were too many officials in the capital who did not welcome Shen Nian.

……

On October 20th, Shen Nian received an imperial edict from the young Wanli Emperor.

He knew what the young Wanli Emperor was thinking, and he was not in a hurry to return to the capital.

At this moment, if Shen Nian returns to court, trying to change the young Wanli Emperor or the current state of the court, it will only result in a lose-lose situation.

He was waiting, waiting for the people to be completely disappointed with the young Wanli Emperor, waiting for everyone to look forward to a change of regime, before returning to court to solve the problem.

Shen Nian cannot change the Ming Dynasty, but the system can. Therefore, reform is the best way to solve the problem.

Shen Nian had been secretly preparing for this all along. (End of Chapter)