Devouring Evil Martial Arts, Eliminating Demons from All Heavens

Chapter 171 All About Colluding with the Japanese

With a long roar, the mountains and valleys echoed.

Looking up, the sky and sea stretch out before me.

These two lines are a couplet hanging in the backyard of the Bodhidharma Hall, outside the gate of Zen Master Miaoguo's courtyard.

A gravel path leads through the courtyard, flanked by lush green vegetable gardens.

Near the base of the wall, there was a square table and several stools.

Master Miaoguo sat at the table, drinking tea with a relaxed expression. Clearly, the defeat and death of Chen Zuqi had lifted a heavy weight off his heart, bringing him a long-lost sense of ease and joy.

My recent mood has been quite in line with the couplet at the entrance.

But Zuo Ziqing, who was also sitting at the table, was holding a letter in his hand. He felt flustered and short of breath, and beads of sweat kept appearing on his forehead.

Stacks of letter paper were laid out on the table.

Zuo Ziqing had only read a little over half of it.

The paper contained the official titles, names, and crimes of many prefectures and counties in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.

"What exactly does the Zen master mean by showing me these things?"

Zuo Ziqing said slowly, "Does he perhaps hope that I will take these things back to the capital and present them to the Emperor?"

Zen Master Miaoguo smiled casually: "Although I brought these things, it was at someone else's behest. Don't ask me anything yet. First, take a good look at these things, and someone will come to talk to you."

Zuo Ziqing calmed down and continued to look through a few more pages when he heard someone coming from outside.

Chu Tianshu led Xiahou Feishan into the courtyard.

"Heavenly Hermit!"

Miao Guo stood up, took out a cup she had prepared beforehand, poured him a cup of tea, and said with a smile, "Please sit down."

Chu Tianshu wasn't thirsty, so he sat down and took a quick sniff of the tea aroma.

Zuo Ziqing's heart sank, and he asked, "Your Excellency has sealed our acupoints and left us all in the temple. What are you going to do with us?"

"It's not treatment, it's diagnosis and treatment."

Chu Tianshu calmly said, "Lord Zuo, I see that you are all suffering from wind-evil, with blurred vision and deafness. You need to rest and recuperate."

"However, Lord Zuo is one of the better ones. At least his writing is quite good. We all thought your previous letters to the capital were commendable."

"The letter didn't mention anything superfluous, only the results of the anti-Japanese war."

Zuo Ziqing's breathing slowed slightly, and he said, "If you have something to say, please speak frankly. What is your purpose in showing me these?"

Chu Tianshu asked first, "What does Lord Zuo think of these people's crimes?"

After careful consideration and observing Chu Tianshu's expression, Zuo Ziqing finally said, "If we follow the judgment of the officials in the court, most of his crimes do not warrant death."

"Haha, even allowing soldiers to kill innocent people and claim credit is not a crime punishable by death."

Chu Tianshu chuckled twice and said, "What if we add another charge against them all, such as, colluding with the Japanese?"

Zuo Ziqing's expression changed, not because the crime of colluding with Japanese pirates was impossible to cover up.

However, he sensed Chu Tianshu's deep killing intent in those words.

The Southern Shaolin Temple took the fight against Japanese pirates as its banner. When they encountered those who colluded with the Japanese pirates, the only response was to kill them.

Zuo Ziqing's last bit of hope was finally shattered.

This man is destined to kill so many high-ranking officials in one fell swoop; he is indeed destined to rebel in the future.

Zuo Ziqing said, "So many people are colluding with the Japanese, isn't that a bit too much... Are there even members of the Ming imperial family among them who are colluding with the Japanese?"

Chu Tianshu said calmly, "Are the Japanese pirates the ones who plunder and kill civilians along the coast of China?"

Zuo Ziqing said, "Of course."

"Since they are doing the same things as the Japanese pirates, how can they not be considered colluding with the Japanese?"

Chu Tianshu sighed, "The Japanese pirates are rampant, and we are passively resisting. Their troops are like a comb, and they have abandoned the southeast. I think their crimes are even more heinous than the Japanese pirates."

Seeing that things had come to this point, Zuo Ziqing calmed down and straightened his clothes.

“Master Tian has made up his mind, and I’m too lazy to argue with those people anymore. I’ll just ask one more question.”

"Is the Heavenly Hermit showing me all this to kill me, the imperial envoy, as a sacrifice to the flag, to show mercy and let me die knowing the truth?"

Xiahou Feishan looked at this scene and suddenly felt a sense of familiarity.

If things really do follow the same trajectory, then what's next...?

That's not right. He was a fifth-rank eunuch, a favorite of the emperor.

Surely it's not like I'm working for Chu Tianshu.
“Simply killing will only create more chaos. What I want is to eliminate the pests and cultivate our own foundation.”

Chu Tianshu said, "So, we also have a list there, which is used to fill vacant official positions in the south."

"Kill and replenish as you go. After the killing is over, the comrades in all regions will be able to operate their duties more effectively than before."

Zuo Ziqing said helplessly, "Everyone can see that you will definitely rebel in the future. Do you still want to temporarily use the name of the capital to take over everything usable in the Ming Dynasty's framework so that your own foundation can grow stronger even faster?"

"No matter what the people in the capital are like, they wouldn't be so stupid as to heavily support the enemy!"

Chu Tianshu simply smiled: "Liuyun Prefecture has more than enough control over three provinces. How many officials in those three provinces are their people?"

Zuo Ziqing said sternly, "Liuyun Prefecture took more than ten years to gradually replace itself, taking advantage of the political turmoil in the court. It's not as straightforward as you are."

Chu Tianshu seemed thoughtful: "Was it really too straightforward?"

"Fortunately, as I just said, Lord Zuo's writing is quite good, so from now on, whenever any news from our side is sent over, please polish it up."

Zuo Ziqing remained silent for a long time.

Xiahou Feishan thought to himself, "Although this man is a eunuch, he looks quite tough, with such strong kidney meridians."

It seems I'll have to refuse.

"I……"

Zuo Ziqing lowered his eyes and said, "To embellish news from the local areas, it's not about how good a person's writing or rhetoric is, but rather how much influence that person carries in the imperial court."

"Although I have some skills, I can't cover up what you're talking about unless I make another great contribution when I return to the capital."

Zuo Ziqing thought it over and over, but still didn't want to die.

Colluding with rebel leaders might actually be an opportunity.

Back then, Liuyun Prefecture got its position through connections with high-ranking officials in the imperial court, even reaching the Grand Secretary of the Inner Cabinet.

Once everyone knew that Liuyun Prefecture harbored rebellious intentions, those ministers who had clearly been deeply involved in the conspiracy became even less likely to act rashly.

Chu Tianshu was prepared and asked, "May I ask, Lord Zuo, does the Emperor require horses?"

Zuo Ziqing's heart stirred.

Horses? The emperor desperately needs horses!
The current emperor has officially included the "offering a horse to atone for a crime" provision in the Ming Dynasty Code. If a commoner is accidentally whipped to death or run over, there will be no trouble if no one reports it. Even if someone reports it, one can offset the crime by offering a horse to the government.

Zuo Ziqing asked cautiously, "How many horses are there?"

Chu Tianshu said leisurely, "Many."

He only discovered this recently when he was reviewing various intelligence reports while considering future development strategies.

Historically, the number of horses raised in the south has always been less than that in the north. During the Eastern Wu period, because the territory was in the south, there was no other way but to vigorously raise horses in the south.

However, in the early Ming Dynasty, because the capital was located in the south, fourteen horse farms and pastures were established in the southeast, which were unprecedented in scale.

However, after the Jingnan Campaign and the Tumu Crisis, the warhorses from the south were conscripted and moved north, resulting in severe losses.

Especially after the Tumu Crisis, the military preparedness in the south fell into disrepair, and the pastures and horse farms became virtually useless.

This was taken advantage of by local powerful families and gangs, who then began raising horses again, keeping them out of the government's register.

Many coastal gangs, although they often disguise themselves as Japanese pirates, actually have their headquarters, residences, and farmland on land, and they have more horses than ships.

Chu Tianshu originally had no intuitive understanding of the number of horses.

When Miao Kong and the others saw it, they realized that the number of horses collected from the already destroyed gangs was quite considerable.

If the operations in Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang go smoothly, they can also seize a large number of fine horses from those gangs.

Miao Guo eliminated the fine horses he intended to keep for breeding, and then wrote a number on the table.

Upon seeing this, Zuo Ziqing's breathing immediately became much heavier.

He had originally hoped for credit related to the Fire Mystic Technique, but now he couldn't care less about it.

Although the Ming Dynasty had the Divine Machine Battalion, its musket cavalry did not necessarily have any advantage over ordinary cavalry.

Arquebusiers against ordinary cavalry are even less of an option.

The Fire Secret Technique, though supposedly an improvement on the firearm, is still a firearm after all, and none of the officials in the capital have ever actually seen the Divine Fire Gun.

After he returned, he gave a perfunctory answer, saying that it was just an exaggeration by the common people.

This horse was a truly precious possession that the emperor had been concerned about for decades and that all the civil and military officials knew how important it was.

"you……"

Zuo Ziqing couldn't help but exclaim, "You're going to rebel sooner or later, yet you're willing to give horses to the imperial court?!"

Chu Tianshu said, "He who wins the hearts of the people wins the world; the power of the people is the power of heaven and earth."

"I want to minimize the harm caused by turmoil to the people under my rule and help them develop and grow stronger as quickly as possible. I think the horses I've sacrificed for this are well worth it."

Zuo Ziqing's eyes darted around, trying to suppress the joy in his heart.

He was, after all, a roughneck from the martial world, a bald Buddhist monk; though his martial arts skills were superb, his heart was not ruthless enough.

In terms of knowledge, he was rather shallow and naive, and ultimately did not understand the principles of vying for power.

Throughout history, although the Central Plains dynasties had a large population of commoners, when cavalry marched south, burning, killing, and looting everywhere, how much resistance did they have?

It can't all be because the Central Plains dynasty at that time wasn't popular enough, can it?
Since that's the case, they can first use this rebel leader to climb the ranks of power in the court. When the day comes that a large army rebels ten or twenty years later, their power will most likely not pose a greater threat than Liuyun Prefecture.

Given their power at that time, it wouldn't be unreasonable to completely absolve themselves of the collusion from the past, or even send troops to confront them.

His first half of life was spent in power and eunuchship; his second half was spent supporting the heavens.

This is the best of both worlds!

Zuo Ziqing's heart burned with desire the more he thought about it.

Chu Tianshu observed the other party's performance and was quite satisfied.

In firearms manufacturing, progress is difficult at some stages, but relatively easy at others.

For example, given the existing basic technologies of the fire lance, we could develop a machine gun.

Because he was pleased, Zuo Ziqing took the initiative to offer his opinion.

"I have some ideas on how to embellish these things. As for these members of the Ming imperial family, you can kill them if you want, but don't actually report them to the authorities."

"Furthermore, besides replacing the original officials with the officials you recommend, I can also try to get you a batch of appointments for the position of Imperial Attendant."

Chu Tianshu asked in surprise, "Summoning the official?"

Zuo Ziqing gave an explanation.

It turns out that the so-called "official in charge of imperial edicts" is an innovation of the current emperor.

It means that without going through any imperial examinations, selections, departmental discussions, or other procedures, as long as the emperor takes a liking to you, you can be directly promoted and given an official position.

A gardener could go directly to the Ministry of Works, and an embroiderer could be promoted to an official position; these were truly extraordinary privileges.

After Zuo Ziqing finished speaking.

Miao Guo then explained the method of transmitting sound into the secret realm to Chu Tianshu in detail.

If we really look into history, this is not the first case, but because those previous cases were mostly monarchs who lost their countries.

Out of respect for the emperor, people would not say that the emperor's actions were the same as those of other rulers who lost their kingdoms; they would only say that he set a precedent in some way.

But the most troublesome thing is that what goes up must come down.

The emperor openly promoted this practice, giving the families of the concubines and various imperial relatives the opportunity to send their close relatives into the court.

At the time, a Grand Secretary of the Cabinet strongly advised against it, and the following year, the emperor arranged for him to be dismissed from his post.

As a result, some people secretly lamented.

Surprisingly, among the civil officials, there were those who were illiterate, and among the military officers, there were those who had never drawn a bow.

Even more extreme, because the emperor had established imperial estates with more than 12,000 hectares of land, he issued an edict stating that all tenants of the imperial estates were to be servants.

One man is a slave, and his sons and grandsons, generation after generation, are all slaves, unable to escape.

Civil and military officials followed suit and established official estates in various places.

Many of the officials who were sent to serve in the imperial court, naturally wanted to learn the style of high-ranking civil and military officials.

The fact that Liuyun Prefecture was able to successfully infiltrate more than three provinces is not unrelated to the resentment caused by these people's encroachment on fertile land in the Central Plains and other places.

Chu Tianshu stared at Zuo Ziqing for a long time, then suddenly burst into laughter three times.

"Hahaha, great, really great!"

He clapped his hands and said, "Lord Zuo, please take good care of yourself. Once you've recovered, report these good news to the court."

All I can say is that we, the descendants of Yan and Huang, were far too tolerant in those times.

But times always change.

With such a great Ming Dynasty, why should I worry that my saplings cannot grow into towering trees?

(End of this chapter)