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

Chapter 320 Zhu Youjian: Destroy it, I want to go home!
"Your Majesty, are these the two big-bottomed ponies you were talking about?!" Zhu Qiuzhu stared blankly at the two little mares in front of him.

"What do you know? These are tribute horses from the Western Regions, much bigger than the things you raise on your ranch!" Zhu Youjian said disdainfully.

“Your Majesty, the quality of a horse lies in its suitability for its purpose, not in its height. Your Majesty’s Ferghana horses need warm sheds in winter and cannot tolerate rough feeding. They are only good for playing and are not suitable for battle!” Zhu Qiuzhu said helplessly.

"Nonsense, bigger is better, if you don't want it, then forget it!"

"No, no, no, I want it, I want it! Thank you for the reward, Your Majesty!" Zhu Qiuzhu clung to the horse's leg, refusing to let go.

He's a horse breeder, how could he not recognize a horse? These things are expensive, there are only a handful in the entire Ming Dynasty, worth a thousand gold pieces!

"Then take good care of them. I only have seven breeding horses from the Western Regions as tribute," Zhu Youjian said with some reluctance.

The horse administration of the Ming Dynasty was a complete mess. The Liaodong Garrison had 100,000 soldiers, but less than 20,000 warhorses. When the Beijing Garrison was being reorganized, only more than 10,000 horses were found and formed into 3,000 elite cavalry.

In recent years, we have won many battles and captured a lot of warhorses, but the loss rate of warhorses is also heartbreakingly high. In a single battle, more than half of the warhorses are lost.

Moreover, the captured horses were not of high quality. Whether Mongolian or Jurchen, they generally showed signs of degeneration compared to the warhorses of the early Ming Dynasty. While retreating to the borders might have been advantageous in the short term, the loss of the Seven Guards of Guanzhong resulted in the Ming Dynasty losing a stable source of large-sized stallions from the Western Regions.

Of course, the decline in the size of warhorses was partly due to poor breeds and partly due to starvation! After the horse breeds degenerated, the Ming cavalry had to innovate their cavalry tactics: the heavy cavalry with both men and horses fully armored was eliminated and replaced by the so-called "elite iron cavalry" with armored men and unarmored horses.

Faced with the decline of the horse administration, the Ming Dynasty did try to make a comeback. However, whether it was the attempt to breed warhorses imported from Central and West Asia or the attempt to breed European horses presented as tribute by Portugal, all ended in failure, and the foals produced by crossbreeding were unlikely to survive.

Horse breeding is not like rabbit breeding. A "heroic mare" can only produce seven or eight foals in her lifetime, making it difficult to expand the population. According to the "Collected Statutes of the Ming Dynasty," the annual cost of feeding just ten tribute horses from the Western Regions was equivalent to that of three hundred Mongolian border horses.

Therefore, the tribute horses from the Western Regions became "pretty little useless things," only good for pulling the emperor's carriage or as a reward for meritorious officials. Riding them on the street was like riding a Ferrari, enough to attract a crowd.

Just as the Ming Dynasty was unwilling to export firearms, the Mongol tribes were not stupid either. They were also unwilling to export fine warhorses to the Ming Dynasty, and would even deliberately intercept warhorses sent as tribute from the Western Regions. Nurhaci, Huang Taiji, and others also consciously prevented the loss of Jurchen horses to the Ming Dynasty.

There was no direct territorial conflict between the West and the Ming Dynasty, but in Europe, fine warhorses were a rare treasure; moreover, the sea voyage from Western Europe to the Ming Dynasty was thousands of miles long and took half a year. The harsh living conditions on the ship made it difficult for even the crew to survive, let alone the delicate and spirited horses.

The fifth year of the Chongzhen Emperor's reign marked the fifteenth year of the Thirty Years' War in Europe. The war had entered its third phase, also known as the "Swedish phase," a period of peak intensity with all of Europe embroiled in conflict. The number of troops involved exceeded 500,000, and dragoons and cuirassiers became the decisive forces in the war.

The standard for cuirassiers' mounts was no less than 1.52 meters, and for elites, no less than 1.58 meters. Zhu Youjian's imperial horses did not meet these requirements.

Currently, the border troops are mainly equipped with warhorses that are crossbred, with a shoulder height of only 1.35 meters, which is already considered a superior breed within the Ming Dynasty; civilian riding horses are mostly only around 1.2 meters tall. This situation made Zhu Youjian anxious: how could he possibly defeat the French Emperor and trample the Holy Roman Empire like this?!
History has accelerated, entering a very strange period. Europe broke free from the Middle Ages, transforming itself through continuous wars and rising from "barbarians" to the protagonists of the era; while the once towering Ming Dynasty of Eastern civilization was heading towards complete decline.

Zhu Youjian also longed for a life of debauchery, and he certainly had the means to do so; lying down was very comfortable. But when he opened his eyes and looked at the Ming Dynasty, he found that it had far too many problems, so many threads that he didn't know where to begin, and he only realized his own insignificance.

Did the Ming Dynasty become safe after defeating the Jurchens? But which of the three major campaigns launched by Wanli Emperor was inferior to the Jurchens? The Ningxia Campaign was against the counterattack of the Mongol Tatar tribes; the Bozhou Campaign was against the rebellion of the southwestern chieftains; and the Wanli Korean War was against the Japanese, who had thoroughly humiliated the Qing Dynasty.

They only seemed insignificant because the Ming Dynasty defeated them. Essentially, the Jianzhou Jurchen rebellion was no different from these people's rebellions; it's just that by the time Nurhaci rose up, the Ming Dynasty was no longer capable of dealing with it. The strange thing is that after Zhu Youjian (Nurhaci) killed the Jurchens, the people of the Ming Dynasty at the time didn't realize how significant this was, because they were unaware of what would happen next. Perhaps in their eyes, killing the Jurchens was no different from killing the Japanese or the Tatars.

The Ming Dynasty remained the invincible Ming Dynasty, and its officials and gentry remained the same. But what did this have to do with the common people who were driven to the brink of starvation by natural disasters and man-made calamities?

The Ming Dynasty needed to stabilize the people's livelihood, quell border troubles, promote the development of handicrafts, develop the navy, rectify official corruption, enlighten the public, reshape national consciousness, and establish a modern nation-state. The Ming Dynasty had far too many debts to repay. Every time he thought about these things, Zhu Youjian couldn't help but ask himself, "Can I do it?!"

From a pragmatic perspective, what the Ming Dynasty needed was a sufficient number of mules and horses, or even donkeys; what it needed were mounted infantry, not cavalry. However, cavalry was far from being obsolete, and a powerful cavalry would always be the best choice for agrarian civilizations to crush nomadic peoples at low cost.

Whether it was Emperor Wu of Han's selection and breeding of celestial horses and the Hequ horses that defeated the Xiongnu, Li Shimin's conquest of the Turks, or the Northern Expeditions in the early Ming Dynasty, all these events proved this point.

However, regardless of the type—whether it's mounted infantry or elite cavalry—the Ming Dynasty must first possess its own mule and horse breeding capabilities, rather than relying solely on battlefield spoils and horse market transactions.

When Zhu Youjian fled Beijing, he thought: "The world is so big, I have to see it." After a month or two, he thought: "The Ming Dynasty is damn big, I'm tired, let it be destroyed, I want to go home!" In reality, he was still only circling around Beizhili.

Entering Henan from Shanxi, the most striking impression is the sudden flatness and openness of the terrain. Looking back, it's a magical sight, as if you've reached the edge of the world, with the Shanxi Plateau rising abruptly from the ground; looking south, there's an endless plain, and in the distance, the sky seems to merge with the earth.

After entering Henan, Zhu Youjian did not go to Luoyang, but instead followed the old practice in Shanxi and headed straight for Kaifeng. This was because the Henan Provincial Administration Commission was located in Kaifeng. Upon arriving in Kaifeng, the city's officials were clearly prepared, staging a massive display of misery:
The governor of Henan inadvertently revealed a patched undergarment beneath his official robes, and the provincial treasurer wore tattered straw sandals; some officials, realizing they couldn't be fooled, simply abandoned their posts and fled. Zhu Youjian was so angry he laughed: Catching corrupt officials is indeed not so easy!

Systemic problems are beyond his capabilities to solve alone. Kaifeng is also a place with a very strong Buddhist atmosphere; the famous Kaifeng Iron Pagoda is a Buddhist pagoda.

At this time, the monks in Kaifeng City had either run away or gone into hiding. Those who had run far away were beyond Zhu Youjian's control; but the monks who had gone into hiding could not be let go!

There's an old Chinese saying: "You can run away from the monk, but you can't run away from the temple." The monk may leave, but the temple and the land it owns cannot escape.

On the night of his arrival in Kaifeng, Zhu Youjian stayed at the home of Prince Zhou, Zhu Gongxiao. Zhu Youjian had a good impression of this Prince Zhou. The princes at the end of the Ming Dynasty were all very unconventional, and Prince Zhou was the best among them. If he hadn't died young, he might have been able to support the Southern Ming!

Despite the emperor's sudden visit, this "wise prince in troubled times" remained flustered. He controlled 200,000 mu of land; as a long-established vassal king, and with his fiefdom in the desirable location of Kaifeng, he had accumulated some wealth over the years. He feared the emperor would ask to borrow money, and even more so, he feared the emperor would ask for his life if he refused!

Zhu Youjian was getting tired from his journey. Further east from Henan was Southern Zhili, and crossing the Yangtze River would take him to Nanjing. He planned to stay in Nanjing for a while before heading north to launch the Northern Expedition. He was essentially making a small loop through the North China Plain, the Yellow River Plain, and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

Zhu Youjian felt that his inspection tour was more symbolic than practical, and that news of it would be leaked. If the enemy was prepared, it would be difficult to strike. He also did not have the manpower to launch a purge in both capitals and thirteen provinces at the same time.

However, since they were already there, the fugitive officials were immediately put on arrest warrants and tracked down to their hometowns according to their place of origin. Even if they had escaped, their homes were still searched. Those who remained were also interrogated to prevent them from taking advantage of the situation.

Zhu Youjian stayed in Kaifeng and ordered local Henan officials to cooperate in the collection of temple property. The property was to be collected according to the ownership of the land six months ago. If it was recently transferred, it would not only be denied, but the receiving party would also be investigated. If it was found to have been "donated" in the past, the land would either have to pay back 263 years of unpaid taxes or have it confiscated.

(End of this chapter)