Late Ming Dynasty: So what if Emperor Chongzhen was inactive?!

Chapter 232 My Master, I miss you dearly, return quickly!

One hundred and seventy li northwest of Pingliang Prefecture is Guyuan Prefecture, which is also the seat of the Governor-General of the Three Border Regions.

The area east and south of Guyuan was mostly under the jurisdiction of prefectures and counties, which were civilian areas under the administration of Shaanxi Province. The vast, narrow area west of Guyuan was under the jurisdiction of Shaanxi Provincial Military Commission, which was a military area, mostly controlled by garrisons and had no local government offices.

The westernmost part of the Shaanxi Provincial Military Command consisted of Suzhou Guard, Gaotai Garrison, and Ganzhou Guard, which was the Gansu region. This marked the westernmost border of the Ming Empire. Originally, the Ming territory included Hami Guard, but the old Taoist priest was busy cultivating immortality, and Turpan seized this area, forcing the Ming to retreat to Jiayuguan Pass.

Jiayuguan, on the other hand, directly faced attacks from the Oirat Mongol forces. Moreover, due to the mixed Han and non-Han populations and chaotic religious beliefs in Gansu, it was not uncommon for border residents to be instigated by external forces to rebel and launch attacks on Jiayuguan from both sides.

Moreover, since the Turpan Khanate is also declining, the internal troubles in Gansu are now more serious than the external troubles. In the three years since Sun Chengzong took office, Jiayuguan has been attacked more than a dozen times, and at the most critical moment, it was almost lost!

The enemy situation at Jiayuguan seriously tied up Sun Chengzong's energy and manpower, so much so that he could do very little in suppressing the peasant uprising in northern Shaanxi. But he was not slacking off; he was just struggling because he had no resources. He was under immense pressure to manage his troops!

The southernmost part of the Shaanxi Provincial Military Command was Taozhou Guard and Minzhou Guard, which was already part of the snowy region and was under the reign of terror by various religious sects and local nobles, among whom the Gelugpa sect was the most powerful.

The Gelug school, also known as the Yellow Sect, is a branch of Tibetan Buddhism. It is the "rubbish" sect that the Mongol Khan Borjigin Ligdan forced his followers to convert and successfully drove almost half of the tribes to rebellion.

Sometimes Confucius does have some merit. No matter how despicable and shameless the scholar-officials are, or how rigid and corrupt Confucianism is, they are still better than these monsters and demons. At most, scholars exchange a few bad poems, which is better than writing letters to friends every few days, borrowing a few pieces of meat and heart to perform rituals!
The fact that Tibetan Buddhism was able to spread to southern Mongolia and even almost abduct Aisin-Gioro Fulin from his home shows just how aggressive it is!

In the Gansu-Qinghai region, various schools of thought, such as the Yellow Sect, Green Sect, White Sect, Red Sect, and Flower Sect, were vying for dominance. Only Confucius was relegated to obscurity here, and only the local schools in the garrisons continued to teach the Four Books and Five Classics and instill ethics and morality.

However, relying solely on the small population of the garrisons, the Ming Dynasty's popular support on the northwestern border was still very weak, which further exacerbated the difficulty of border defense.

This area, spanning over 1,200 li and covering 500,000 square kilometers—equivalent to one-third the size of Shaanxi—had a population of only over 200,000 according to the imperial court's fish-scale register. These 200,000 were mostly military households, and can be roughly considered to represent the total number of Han Chinese in the Shaanxi Regional Military Commission.

Such a vast area could not possibly be inhabited only by Han Chinese; the Ming Dynasty needed to govern it together with the Western Barbarians, Mongols, and local chieftains.

This area has been arid since ancient times, but the snowmelt from the mountains makes up for this. Generally speaking, oasis agriculture is not affected by drought.

However, the severe drought during the Chongzhen era was not a typical case. It was a drought caused by the Little Ice Age, which impacted the oasis in a more abstract way: the weather was too cold, the glacier melted at a slower rate, and the glacial meltwater naturally decreased, leaving the oasis with insufficient water!

During the dry season, animals on the African savanna fight over water, let alone humans. All ethnic groups are struggling to survive; this place is far from peaceful!

What is somewhat counterintuitive is that, although Gansu is arid and has a pitifully small population, at its peak, Gansu was not only self-sufficient through oasis military settlements, but also had a surplus to support border towns such as Ningxia and Yansui, with an average annual grain production of several million shi (a unit of dry measure)!

The border regions of the Ming Dynasty were mostly like this: seemingly dilapidated, remote, and worthless, but in reality, they could unleash an astonishing production capacity and had extremely significant value in terms of military and economic affairs.

For example, in Liaodong, for a long period during the Hongwu era, the only passage between the Ming Dynasty and Liaodong was the sea route to Liaodong, and Liaodong was merely an exclave of the Ming Dynasty.

However, the land in Liaodong is fertile, and the harvest of one year can be enough for several years, enough to support the army of the imperial court, and even provide some financial subsidies to the central government. Moreover, since it is a frontier, it should naturally play the most important role of border defense and military buffer, so that it will not be able to be rushed to the capital in one fell swoop. The Ming Dynasty had also considered moving the capital to Xi'an.

Throughout history, rulers and ministers have been incredibly obsessed with the achievement of territorial expansion. This was not for empty fame, but to secure real living space for their people. It was a great practice to delay the outbreak of internal strife and alleviate the conflict between people and land!

Of course, Zhu Youjian did not realize these things at first. When he first arrived, he had only one simple wish, just like the millions of disaster victims in northern Shaanxi today: to survive!

Therefore, a strategic contraction should be implemented. Liaodong can be abandoned, and even Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia can be abandoned, including the area under the jurisdiction of the Shaanxi Provincial Military Command.

However, Sun Chengzong and Zhu Xieyuan told him that abandoning Gansu would not make border defense easier. The court did not simply lack troops, but rather lacked the supporting measures to support them. If Gansu were abandoned, the military households in Gansu would have nowhere to go.

The enemy could also advance unimpeded and threaten the Central Plains. Since Gansu Town was one of the Nine Garrisons, it naturally had its reasons for existing.

……

Inside Guyuan City, the snow was three inches deep. Sun Chengzong, who was born in the 42nd year of the Jiajing reign, had hair that was almost as white as the snow. The garrison commander of Jiayuguan asked him for soldiers and supplies, saying that he only had a little over a thousand soldiers left, half of whom were white-haired soldiers, the kind who could prepare for their death if they fell down.

Jiayuguan originally had grain, but unfortunately, last month the bandits attacked and burned down the granary! Sun Chengzong frowned. He was unsure whether the granary had really been burned down by the bandits or if the Jiayuguan garrison was playing a trick by burning the granary with a fire dragon. He planned to send Mei Zhihuan, the governor of Gansu, to check.

Sun Chengzong unfolded the letter paper and began to write with the speed of a dragon, but only left dry, broken lines on the paper, vaguely forming a character that was not very clear. He was a little embarrassed.

The old man sighed softly and took out an exquisite bronze stove from his wide sleeve. This was a hand warmer specially given to him by the emperor. Its formal name should be a sleeve stove, but the emperor did refer to it as a hand warmer in his letter, which was rather...interesting.

The small bronze stove contained fruit pit charcoal. According to Sun Chengzong's observation, it should be made from apricot pits, a high-grade product costing tens of coins per pound, ten times more expensive than ordinary charcoal. Sun Chengzong usually couldn't bear to use it, but because it was a gift from the emperor, and he couldn't sell it, he indulged in this extravagance. He opened the perforated lid of the bronze stove and heated the tip of his brush over the charcoal fire until the bristles softened before continuing to write. This time, the brushstrokes were indeed much smoother. After writing half a page, he wanted to dip it in ink, but found the inkstone icy cold, and the ink on it had long since frozen.

He sighed again and placed the inkstone on the small bronze stove to heat it, but this froze his fingers again. His wrinkled skin was icy cold, and his fingers were difficult to bend or straighten.

The old man thought of the garrison at Jiayuguan again. Regardless of whether the fire dragon burned the granary, the grain still had to be allocated to them. They didn't have hand warmers to use, and if they went hungry for a few more days, they might really freeze to death.

Just then, Sun Chengzong's page rushed in carrying a package, excitedly shouting, "Master, a letter from the capital!"

Sun Chengzong's thoughts were interrupted. Looking at the package, which was much larger than before, he smiled bitterly, but felt warm inside. Every time he submitted a memorial to the emperor and the emperor approved the document, he would always send him some strange little trinkets.

The pageboy stood there, not saying a word, but staring intently at the package with a curious expression. Sun Chengzong didn't chase him away. Although he had endless work to do every day, life in Guyuan was quite boring for most people. One of the few pleasures his pageboy had was watching him unpack the package. If it was something delicious, he would even share a bite or two with him.

Sun Chengzong opened the package and found it was an Eastern sable, which was produced by the Jurchens and made of sable fur, while the Western sable was produced by the Mongols and made of blue squirrel fur.

Sun Chengzong touched it; it felt silky smooth. He muttered to himself, "A single sable pelt is less than a foot square. More than sixty sable pelts are needed to make just one fur coat, which is worth a hundred gold pieces!"

The pageboy was greatly disappointed, his face fell, he was so angry, he didn't get a share again this time!

There was a letter tucked under the package. Sun Chengzong tore open the envelope and found only a few words written on a square sheet of Xuan paper: "My teacher, I miss you dearly. Return home quickly!"

Sun Chengzong almost dropped the letter, which was as light as a feather. His fingers trembled slightly, and tears rolled down his cheeks when he wasn't looking, landing on the fur of his mink coat, where they clung together like pearls.

Seeing his master's strong reaction, the pageboy couldn't help but steal a glance at the letter. Upon seeing the words on it, he was first stunned, then beamed with joy, a stark contrast to Sun Chengzong's reaction.

He followed Sun Chengzong to take up his post and has not been home for three years. He doesn't know if his elderly mother is still well, or if Xiao Cui is still waiting for him to return as promised!
"You're asking for it!" Sun Chengzong gave him a sharp rap on the head. In the dead of winter, the pain brought tears to the boy's eyes!

He covered his head, squatted on the ground, and still boldly said, "Master, please stop hitting me! I'll go pack my things right now!"

"Sigh, go ahead!" Sun Chengzong waved his hand helplessly. The pageboy turned around quickly, but before he could even walk out the door, he heard his master say in a low voice, "After we go back this time, you can stay in our hometown. You don't need to come back to Guyuan with me."

The pageboy stumbled and almost fell; this time, he truly cried.

“I’m not blaming you, but your heart isn’t really here. That’s true, ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, for time is still a-flying.’ You’re of marriageable age now. Let your wife prepare the formalities for you, and just say it was my idea,” Sun Chengzong said gently.

The page stopped crying and whispered, "Thank you for your kindness, sir!"

Sun Chengzong nodded slightly, but then he heard the boy say, "Master, aren't you going back to Gaoyang?"

“According to the Ming Dynasty’s official law, if an official leaves his post without the approval of the court and returns to his hometown without permission, he shall be punished with eighty strokes of the cane for minor offenses, and dismissed from office and exiled to the border for serious offenses,” Sun Chengzong replied.

"But if I go back, who will lead your horse, sir?" the page asked again.

"I can lead the horse myself!"

Who tucked you in at night?

"You sleep even more soundly than I do! I've tucked you in countless times!" Sun Chengzong roared in anger.

"Well, someone has to run errands for you!" the page said timidly, bracing himself against the old man's murderous glare.

"What exactly are you trying to say?!"

"Master, I don't want to leave!" The pageboy burst into tears instantly, his eyes brimming with tears.

"Go!" Sun Chengzong kicked him in the buttocks. The pageboy looked back three times as he went and disappeared into the corridor of the government office.

(End of this chapter)