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

Chapter 278 The Xiong family has made something of themselves!

The "Veritable Records of Emperor Xizong of Ming" states: "Tingbi was in charge of defense, while Huazhen was in charge of offense; the defeat was due to Huazhen." This places the primary responsibility for the fall of Guangning on Huazhen. Ironically, however, Wang Huazhen was only imprisoned, while Xiong Tingbi was executed along with his head at the Nine Garrisons for the crime of losing the border.

Until two years ago, Zhu Youjian exonerated Xiong Tingbi and executed Wang Huazhen, but even so, his family was not implicated. Compared to Xiong Tingbi's eldest son being forced to death by the eunuch faction after being pursued for stolen goods, and his wife and children being humiliated in the street, his fate was already considered good.

However, Xiong Tingbi's unfair punishment was not directly related to Wang Huazhen. The execution and confiscation of his property were the result of a joint trial by the three judicial departments, and the decision not to implicate others was Zhu Youjian's intention.

If you make a mistake, you must admit it and try to make amends. If you can make amends, do so; if you can't, compensate; if you can't make amends or compensate, learn from the experience, rather than using a bigger mistake to cover up the previous one. Even if Wang Huazhen were sliced ​​into Peking duck, Xiong Tingbi wouldn't have survived.

After exonerating Xiong Tingbi, Zhu Youjian appointed his second son, Xiong Zhaobi, as a centurion in the Embroidered Uniform Guard. A centurion in the Embroidered Uniform Guard was a sixth-rank military officer, and his salary was the same as other sixth-rank officials. He could receive five shi of rice per month, which, according to Beijing's grain prices, was about four taels of silver per month, only slightly higher than the salary of elite border troops.

Taking the servants in Liaodong as an example, their monthly salary was three taels of silver, plus two shi of rations. This was already the salary of a sixth-rank official. The income of those eighth-rank, ninth-rank, or even insignificant officials was even more meager.

Therefore, the official income of Ming Dynasty officials was indeed not high on the surface. Low income and high status inevitably breed corruption, but this cannot be curbed simply by raising wages, because the state cannot afford to support them.

There's nothing new under the sun. The Song Dynasty, with its rule by officials and scholars, had already elevated the treatment of bureaucrats to an unbelievable level, yet it still inevitably headed towards its demise.

Judging from Zhu Youjian's pitiful life experience, corruption is almost unsolvable. Neither severe punishments nor anti-corruption campaigns can eliminate it.

Severe punishments and harsh laws, such as the case of the corrupt official who embezzled sixty taels of silver during the Hongwu era and had his skin peeled off and stuffed with straw; and moral persuasion, such as the so-called philosophy of mind promoted by Wang Yangming, both failed.

So sometimes, being an emperor is quite despairing. All you see are unsolvable problems. Instead of racking your brains for solutions, it's better to just give up and let things slide. After all, we all die together eventually, so you won't be lonely on the road to the underworld. What country can escape the cycle of history? That's just unrealistic.

Xiong Tingbi's wife, Chen, was granted the title of Third-Rank Imperial Lady and was given back her land, house, and property. However, while the land and house were returned, the property was gone. Not only were the gold and silver jewels gone, but even the pots, pans, tables, chairs, and benches in the house were all taken away. If it weren't for the fact that trees die when transplanted, they probably would have even packed up their houseplants.

When asked, the answer was always the same: "I don't know" or "I'm not clear." The newly appointed magistrate of Jiangxia County said that it was the work of the previous magistrate, Wang Eryu, who had just arrived and knew nothing about it. When they found Wang Eryu, he said he had already been dismissed from his post and reduced to a commoner. "Aren't you satisfied yet?" he asked.

As for money, Wang Eryu was penniless and incorruptible; how could he possibly seize someone else's property? The reason he was dismissed was simply because he chose the wrong side.

Wang Eryu's face was full of the expression of accepting defeat, without any sense of having done wrong, and without a trace of guilt in his heart. His only regret was that he had not been ruthless enough to force the Xiong family to their deaths, which allowed them to rise from the ashes and have the audacity to come up to him and act arrogantly!
Since Xiong Zhaobi had already been incorporated into the Embroidered Uniform Guard, which was responsible for collecting folk songs for the emperor, Tang Baixiang told this story to Zhu Youjian as a joke.

When Zhu Youjian learned of this, he was furious and ordered the Jiangxia County government to fully compensate the Xiong family for their economic losses, restore their reputation, and compensate them for their mental distress, totaling eight hundred taels of silver.

The newly appointed magistrate of Jiangxia County complained bitterly, as he could only use the tax revenue retained from that year to pay the expenses. He resigned himself to his fate and donated a month's salary. With the head of the department donating, could the rest of the county government simply pretend to be oblivious?!

Now, all the officials in Jiangxia County had to tighten their belts, and the yamen runners had to take a few extra pancakes from the vendors when they patrolled the streets. As a result, the officials and people of Jiangxia were full of complaints, blaming the court for its injustice and the emperor for his incompetence. They felt that in order to please a mere defeated general, or even a dead man, they, a large group of loyal and virtuous officials, had to suffer.

Eight hundred taels was no small sum. The silver reserves of Jiangxia County were also used for public expenditures, which were numerous and not something that could be easily reduced. Even if the yamen bought a broom, it still had to go through the public accounts. Therefore, the magistrate of Jiangxia County had to borrow from wealthy local households, using the taxes from the next three years as collateral, in order to pay the eight hundred taels of compensation.

It was clearly Wang Eryu who caused this mess, yet the entire Jiangxia County had to bear the cost of compensation, ultimately spending the people's hard-earned money. Wang Eryu felt wronged; he did receive money back then, but he didn't take the lion's share. He wanted to curse just looking at those eight hundred taels. He had already pocketed three hundred taels from the Xiong family, and that was after selling off the Xiong family's land and houses.

The imperial court demanded the return of the land and houses. Although the newly appointed magistrate of Jiangxia County was a newly appointed Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations), he was young and inexperienced. However, he was a native of Jiangxia and knew all about the trouble Wang Eryu had done. He did not let Wang Eryu off the hook. The land and houses that were to be returned were bought back by Wang Eryu at a cost of 526 taels and 3 mace of silver.

Not only did he have to give back what he took back then, but a lot of the money he had saved for retirement through good deeds was also poured into it. What kind of corrupt official would give back money like that? Wang Eryu felt so wronged that he wanted to bang his head against the wall.

Finally, Tang Yu dared not tell the emperor about the troubles in Jiangxia County. Given the emperor's fragile psyche, he knew that if he knew, his temper would flare up, and in the end, it would be his close advisors who would suffer. The emperor's true nature was both a blessing and a curse; sometimes even a passing dog would get kicked.

Tang Yu felt that since the compensation had already been paid, the source of the funds was no longer important. Poor Zhu Youjian thought he had done a good deed, but in reality, he pleased no one.

Over the years, Zhu Youjian also took the time to review the Embroidered Uniform Guard: The Embroidered Uniform Guard had a total of 14 thousand-household units across the country, with each thousand-household unit having a quota of 1120 people, so theoretically the total number of personnel should be 15680.
The Northern Garrison Command has a special staff of 203, including one Garrison Commander, one Director of the General Staff, 30 Clerks, 130 Captains, and 41 Sergeants. Special subordinate units include the Elephant Training Office (responsible for ceremonial guards) and the Naval Office (responsible for river defense patrols).

The theoretical number of members in the Embroidered Uniform Guard was 18883, but there was a slight difference between theory and reality!
First, the emperor himself led the sabotage, stuffing all sorts of shady characters into the Embroidered Uniform Guard. When a minister made meritorious contributions, his son would be granted several titles such as commander of a thousand or a hundred households, like Zhu Xieyuan's son; when a minister died, his descendants would be protected, like Xiong Zhaobi.

The emperor and the court vied for power and profit, grabbing whatever they could get their hands on, good or bad, existing or nonexistent, regardless of its usefulness or worth. The Southern Garrison alone had 12 workshops and over 20,000 artisans. In reality, the Southern Garrison, as a disciplinary force within the Embroidered Uniform Guard, only had a formal establishment of 944 people. The so-called Eastern Investigation Factory was also theoretically part of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

In the third year of the Chongzhen Emperor's reign, the Jinyiwei (Imperial Guard) had a nominal strength of 150,000 men, with an annual pay of 2.7 million taels of silver. After eliminating redundant and understaffed personnel, the approved strength was reduced to 49,000, and the military pay was reduced to 2 million taels of silver. The reason why the number of men decreased by two-thirds but the amount of money decreased by less than one-third was because officers accounted for the majority of the military pay.

Of the 49,000 men, there were 1000 commanders of a thousand households and 12000 commanders of a hundred households. This was quite ridiculous! You can't expect a group of leaders to supervise the work of a single subordinate, can you? Therefore, most of the commanders of the Jinyiwei (Imperial Guard) had no work to do and were simply supported by the court.

Of course, if you don't work, you can forget about getting your full salary. When border affairs become urgent or the imperial treasury is short of funds, the only option is to stop the salaries of those who do nothing. You can't let those who do work starve to death.

Although it was his elder brother who did the dirty work, Zhu Youjian, as the successor, still felt guilty towards Xiong Tingbi's family. Therefore, Zhu Youjian gave Xiong Zhaobi the rare position of centurion.

These days, having a job is considered good. Countless people envied Xiong Zhaobi's treatment; some rebellious sons even secretly wondered why their own fathers didn't die so the emperor could compensate them! Xiong Zhaobi's job was raising bears. The Qin family, the second ruling core of the Shizhu chieftaincy in Sichuan, for reasons unknown, presented three panda cubs as tribute to the court at the end of the second year of the Chongzhen Emperor's reign.

The Qin family was a related clan by marriage to the Ma family of Shizhu. The two families had been intermarried for more than 300 years, and a ruling structure of "Ma as the master and Qin as the assistant" had long been formed. During the Wanli period, a female member of the Qin family even took over as chieftain.

The tribute from the Qin family brought Zhu Youjian not joy, but shock. Zhu Youjian had no choice but to send a SF Express message to inquire about what was going on with Qin Liangyu. Ma Xianglin told Zhu Youjian that the relationship between the Ma family and the Qin family had indeed been strained for the past ten years or so.

In the 22nd year of the Wanli reign, Ma Qiancheng's father, Ma Douhu, was accused of mismanaging a state-owned enterprise mining lead, zinc and silver mines, resulting in unpaid wages for laborers and the misappropriation of public funds to make up for them. He was reported to the court and sentenced to military service and exile in Liaodong. Ma Qiancheng was detained, and Ma Xianglin's grandmother, who was also Qin Liangyu's mother-in-law, took over the duties of the Pacification Commissioner of Shizhu.

During her time as acting chieftain of Shizhu, she personally led her troops to quell the rebellion in the Die Mao Daxue Mountain in Sichuan. Like Qin Liangyu, Madam Qin should have enjoyed a high status in Shizhu and the Ma family, but she favored her youngest son, Ma Qiansi, which led Ma Qiancheng to doubt whether he was her biological son.

Madam Qin arranged for Ma Qiansi to marry the eldest daughter of Yang Yinglong, the chieftain of Bozhou, while Ma Qiancheng married the youngest daughter of the prominent Qin family of Zhongzhou through a martial arts contest.

Later, Ma Qiancheng's cousin, Ma Doulin, led a group to expel Madam Tan and Ma Qiansi, and supported Ma Qiancheng to take the throne. Madam Tan took Ma Qiansi and fled to Bozhou, where they sought refuge with Yang Yinglong.

Later, Yang Yinglong rebelled. The chieftain of Shizhu sent 3,000 soldiers, and the Qin family sent 500 soldiers to participate in the suppression of the rebellion. The son fought with his mother and even won the first place in the battle merits of Nanchuan Road.

The daughter-in-law could openly tear apart her mother-in-law. No one knows how much injustice Qin Liangyu suffered back then. She fought so hard that Li Hualong, the governor who quelled the rebellion, even ordered a silver plaque engraved with "Heroine among Women" to be made and presented to Qin Liangyu.

However, once a daughter is married, she is considered part of her husband's family, and the court rarely implicates the wife's family when executing criminals. By arranging a marriage between her youngest son and the Yang family of Bozhou, and by forcing her eldest son to seek an alliance with the Qin family, Madam Qin had already offended even her own clan, the Qin family.

It's human nature to hate someone because of their family. Although the bad things that Qin did were her personal actions, they still caused the Ma family to have a stress reaction towards the Qin family. The situation became so embarrassing that it put the relationship between the Ma and Qin families in a stalemate.

At this point, the Qin family's decision to pay tribute independently, without the Ma family's involvement, was understandable. They weren't stupid; according to the thinking of a normal emperor, with Shizhu's power so great, commanding tens of thousands of White Spear soldiers, it would be very unsafe to let the Ma family dominate. For the sake of checks and balances, the Qin family was simply a pawn delivered to their doorstep.

If it were any other emperor, he could have simply accepted it, but Zhu Youjian's thought process was rather peculiar: checks and balances?! Checks and balances my foot! Even if Qin Liangyu wanted to establish an independent country, Zhu Youjian would have to stroke his chin and think about how to suppress the public outcry in the court.

The Ming Dynasty is gone, yet they still fight against the Manchus. What's wrong with giving them preferential treatment? It's what they deserve. The Ming Dynasty may perish, but the world cannot! The emperors of the Ming Dynasty could have the surname Zhu, or Li, Zhang, or Qin, as long as they weren't from the Aisin Gioro clan, it was fine!
Zhu Youjian accepted the bear from the Qin family, thinking it was a waste not to take it. He pretended not to see their offer and let the two families resolve their own conflict. He would suppress them if necessary, and even bribe them if they wanted. Zhu Youjian's instruction was that it was best to avoid any bloodshed.

The stability of Shizhu was hard-won. Instead of wasting energy on internal strife, it would be better to use that energy to fight the Tartars in Liaodong and make achievements. With such a large territory as the Liaodong Regional Military Commission and the Nurgan Regional Military Commission, it would be more than enough to enfeoff a hundred or so chieftains.

In the late Qing Dynasty, the Qing government opened up the Willow Palisade and encouraged people to migrate to Northeast China. Land was freely created, and people could claim land by shooting arrows. This was used as a pressure relief valve to ease the conflict between people and land. What the Manchu Qing could do, the Ming Dynasty could also do.

Ultimately, the policy of appeasement was not the right path. First, the seven guards of Guanzhong under the Shaanxi Provincial Military Command were lost, and then the Jianzhou Jurchens rebelled against the Ming Dynasty. As historians lamented, "The mismanagement of the borders led to the loss of the frontier."

To truly safeguard the nation's borders, it is essential to be willing to bear the costs of governance, relocate people to populate the border regions, and maintain the dominant position of the Han Chinese ethnic group in these areas. Only in this way can long-term stability be achieved. So-called "tributary autonomy" is nothing more than the weakness and laziness of the rulers, a form of appeasement within the country!

A once-in-a-millennium catastrophe is about to strike. This cannot be solved simply by increasing transportation capacity, developing industry and commerce, and vigorously promoting maritime trade. The whole world is short of food, and the whole world is at war. In order to survive, all the surviving countries have become full of martial spirit.

If we do not want to survive the brutal catastrophe by depleting our population, we must strive to secure more living space for the people of the Ming Dynasty. The vast forests and snowfields of Liaodong and Eastern Siberia are the promised lands bestowed by Heaven upon the hardworking Han people.

Liaodong was able to support millions of people under the Ming Dynasty, yet its potential had not been fully developed, and the vast black soil had not been transformed into fertile land. There was an even wider world to be developed north of Liaodong.

History did give the Jurchens a chance, but after they seized Liaodong, they implemented a brutal population reduction policy, killing almost all of the millions of Han Chinese!
The fertile Liaohe Plain was used as a horse breeding ground by the Jurchens. They did not engage in production. As a huge bandit group, they were used to plundering for a living. They regarded the law of the jungle as the truth and the enslavement of others as their due. They were the cancer of China and did not deserve to live on this land!

The Jinyiwei (Imperial Guard) had a staff of 112, but Xiong Zhaobi, as a centurion, only had nine subordinates, which, together with himself, formed a squad. Other centurions were in a similar situation, though not as bad as him, but they were rarely at full strength. Xiong Zhaobi was even ridiculed, with people saying that his position was deliberately created by the emperor to accommodate him.

Under Zhu Youjian's rule, he hoped that no one in the Ming Dynasty would be idle except himself, so even pandas couldn't just eat and not train, becoming useless manure-producing machines. Therefore, in addition to selling bamboo all over the capital region to feed the pandas, Xiong Zhaobi also took the pandas to the streets to beg for food during market days, together with the elephant training institute.

On one hand, there was the contempt from his colleagues, and on the other hand, there was the shame inherent in performing for money; Xiong Zhaobi's work was not easy. Tang Baixiang was also very unwilling when he first started raising elephants, but after raising them for more than ten years, he developed an attachment to them. Xiong Zhaobi, however, was clearly still in the stage of being unwilling.

Zhu Youjian was unaware of Xiong Zhaobi's predicament. In his view, arranging a job for Xiong Zhaobi was already a great favor; he wasn't anyone's nanny who could cater to his subordinates' feelings at all times. In the end, Xiong Zhaobi hadn't made any outstanding contributions; all his preferential treatment stemmed from his father, Xiong Tingbi—he was merely a second-generation rich kid.

Originally, Xiong Zhaobi might not have appeared in Zhu Youjian's sight for a long time, but the lad proved himself worthy. Zhu Youjian held the first military examination in the first year of Chongzhen's reign. The imperial examination was held every three years, so the second examination was in the middle of the fourth year of Chongzhen's reign. Xiong Zhaobi was among those who passed the military examination! The Xiong family had produced a success!

Xiong Tingbi died because of the great defeat in the Battle of Guangning, and Guangning surrendered without a fight. Now, because of the traitor Li Yongfang, Guangning has been recovered without losing a single soldier.

Zhu Youjian decided to give Xiong Zhaobi a chance and appoint him as a trial commander of the Guangning Tuntian Thousand-Household Office. Of course, he would not appoint him directly. Instead, he would send an experienced general to mentor him and observe him for two or three years. If he was competent, he would be officially appointed. If not, he would be sent back to clean up messes!

(End of this chapter)