Traveling through the late Ming Dynasty to promote Chinese civilization

Chapter 414 The house leaks and it rains all night

The capital city, the Qianqing Palace.

With a loud crash, a beautiful porcelain cup was smashed to the ground, shattering into pieces that scattered everywhere.

"Useless! A bunch of useless trash!" Emperor Chongzhen shouted angrily. "Shen Youlong is not even as good as Zou Weilian, who was dismissed from office. Zou Weilian drove away the Red Hairs while in office, but Shen Youlong was helpless against a few Red Hairs warships and even sent a letter for help to me! If I have to do everything, what use is he as governor?"

Seeing the Emperor's furious expression, Wang Chengen quickly knelt on the ground, saying, "Your Majesty, please calm down and don't upset your health."

Emperor Chongzhen ignored him and pulled out another memorial, which he then slammed to the ground.

"When it rains, it pours. Is the heavens saying I'm not unlucky enough? The Japanese pirates, who have been extinct for many years, have reappeared in Taizhou, Zhejiang! And all the officials in Zhejiang are useless, allowing a thousand or two thousand men to enter as if they were nothing."

Wang Chengen dared not say it aloud, but he thought to himself: Your Majesty, you didn't see that during the Jiajing era, a few dozen Japanese pirates dared to attack a county town! A thousand or two thousand men could practically roam freely in the Jiangnan region where military preparedness was lax.

After venting his anger, Chongzhen calmed down. He knew that anger wouldn't solve the problem, so he thought for a moment and ordered, "Go and summon Wen Changqing and Zhang Boqi."

Zhang Boqi was none other than Zhang Fengyi, the Minister of War, whose courtesy name was Boqi and literary name was Lingxu. Not long after, Wen Tiren and Zhang Fengyi rushed over and were somewhat surprised to see the mess on the ground.

Emperor Chongzhen tossed the memorial from Fujian requesting aid to Zhang Fengyi and coldly asked, "The Japanese have blocked the port, preventing even a single plank from going to sea. The Fujian governor, Shen Youlong, has sent an urgent message from 800 li away, asking me to send troops. What is the Ministry of War's opinion?"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Fengyi was in a real predicament. With Tartars invading the north, troops needed to be drawn from various regions to Xuanfu and Datong to resist them. Meanwhile, bandits were causing trouble again in the west, but his forces were concentrated in the north and couldn't be redeployed. Now, suddenly, troops had to be sent to Fujian—even a skilled cook can't cook without rice. What could Zhang Fengyi possibly do?

But he couldn't ignore the emperor's words. After racking his brains for a while, he couldn't come up with a solution and could only say helplessly, "There are no troops to send at the moment, so we can only organize a resistance in Fujian. The Red Britons only have strong ships and powerful cannons, but their land warfare is mediocre..."

Emperor Chongzhen sneered, "Is this the Ministry of War's opinion?" He pointed to the memorial that had fallen to the ground, "Take another look at this memorial."

Zhang Fengyi inexplicably picked up the memorial from the ground, opened it, and immediately turned pale and broke out in a cold sweat.

If the Japanese warships were merely blockading ports, which wouldn't directly impact the local government, and the "Longqing opening" was limited to Yueguan, meaning the remaining ports would still be subject to maritime prohibitions, then theoretically, the complaints of local merchants and people could be ignored. However, the sudden reappearance of Japanese pirates in Zhejiang was a matter of life and death.

Japanese pirates appeared at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, and reached their peak during the Jiajing and Wanli periods. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the Jiangnan region, and the entire court and the public were terrified of them. At that time, Hu Zongxian and Qi Jiguang recruited and trained troops in Zhejiang, and it took them several years to completely wipe out the Japanese pirates.

With a mournful face, he replied, "Your Majesty, war is raging everywhere, and I have nowhere to send troops! We must guard against the Tartars entering the pass, not only can we not spare the border troops, but we also have to send troops from other places to provide assistance; if the bandits make a comeback, we must also prepare for the worst and send out a large army to suppress them again. Now, where can we send troops to Fujian and Zhejiang?"

Chongzhen coldly replied, "You mean to say: let the Japanese pirates burn, kill, and plunder, and then let them return laden with their loot? Let the red-haired barbarians go with them, and then retreat to Southeast Asia when supplies run out?"

Zhang Fengyi dared not reply, but thought to himself: That's pretty much it! No matter how powerful the British are, they can't just come ashore and conquer cities and territories. The Japanese pirates came out of nowhere, but since they've been extinct for many years, maybe this is just a flash in the pan.

Emperor Chongzhen turned and picked up a paperweight from the table, throwing it at Zhang Fengyi. The paperweight flew past his ear, nearly smashing the Minister of War's head. Enraged, he shouted, "You're all clueless and incapable of any solutions! What use are you ministers to me? Shen Youlong is like this, and so are you, Zhang Boqi! If it were just Tartars and bandits, that would be one thing, but to allow a few ships of the British to swagger around in Fujian and a group of Japanese pirates to wreak havoc in the heart of Jiangnan—does my Great Ming have no one left to serve?"

Zhang Fengyi's face turned deathly pale. He repeatedly kowtowed on the ground, pleading, "Your Majesty, please calm your anger and allow me to think about it again..."

After waiting for Chongzhen to calm down a bit, Wen Tiren said, "Your Majesty, it's not that there's no one available. There's a suitable candidate in the south..."

Emperor Chongzhen was taken aback, then realized what he meant, "You mean, Liu Ye of Qiongzhou?"

“It is indeed this man,” Wen Tiren explained. “According to the memorial submitted last year by the former Fujian governor Zou Weilian, when Fujian guerrilla Zheng Zhilong was fighting the Japanese, Liu Ye sent his navy to participate in the naval battle and made great contributions. In addition, the complete annihilation of the rebel fleet in Shandong this time is enough to prove the strength of his navy. Driving out the Japanese should not be a problem. His land forces are good at firearms and can defeat the rebel cavalry head-on. Dealing with the Japanese pirates should also be no problem. When Qi Jiguang quelled the Japanese pirates, he was also quite skilled in using firearms. The two are similar in their ability to achieve the same result.”

In fact, Qi Jiguang began using firearms on a large scale after becoming the commander-in-chief of the Jizhou garrison. To defend against the Tatar cavalry, he created a chariot formation combining firearms and side wagons. During the resistance against Japanese pirates in the south, his army had a higher proportion of melee weapon troops, repeatedly defeating the pirates through the flexible and mobile "Mandarin Duck Formation." There weren't many arquebusiers, and the artillery consisted only of small-caliber tiger-crouching cannons. Wen Tiren, after all, was merely a politically manipulative civil official and didn't understand the details. However, this blunder didn't affect the overall situation; when firearms were used properly, they could defeat both the Tatar cavalry and the Japanese pirates.

Emperor Chongzhen was intrigued by this suggestion. Qi Jiguang was a top general in the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, renowned for his victories against the Japanese pirates in the south and the Tatars in the north. If anyone in the dynasty could be compared to him, Chongzhen would be overjoyed. Wen Tiren's comparison of Liu Ye to Qi Jiguang sounded plausible. With the northern border wars pressing and no one else available, it might be worth trying this southern general skilled in firearms.

He pondered for a moment and said, "Changqing is right. But Fujian and Zhejiang are both in dire need of attention. I'm afraid Liu Ye won't be able to handle it all."

Wen Tiren thought for a moment: "To drive out the Dutch, we only need the navy, and to deal with the Japanese pirates, we only need the land force. In theory, we can send troops at the same time. However, for the sake of safety, we can let him act as he sees fit. If we must decide which is which, I suggest sending troops to Taizhou first. After all, the Dutch navy is just a minor problem, while the Japanese pirates are the real threat."