Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 200 Westerners' First Impression of Emperor Zhengde
It is now the ninth year of Zhengde. Counting from the summer of the eighteenth year of Hongzhi, the Zhengde Emperor Zhu Houzhao has now ruled the country for ten years.

Ten years later, the empire seemed to have not changed much.

But if you look closely, there have been quite a few changes.

Hetao was still in the hands of the Ming Dynasty, and after Yulin City, new counties such as Dongsheng, Wuhai, Yunchuan, Guihua, and Yumu were established in border towns one after another.

After recovering its strength, the Tushe tribe joined forces with the Ordos tribe to attack the Chahar tribe in order to avenge the Chahar tribe's collusion with the little prince.

Zhu Houzhao ignored the opposition of his ministers and allocated 300,000 taels of silver on the grounds that the Ming Dynasty, as the suzerain state, should prevent the various tribes on the grassland from killing each other and massacring the people. He ordered the First Division of the Guards to march north, out of Xuanfu, and defeat the joint forces of the Tuxie and Ordos tribes with new flintlock rifles, and forced the three tribes to sign the "Non-Aggression Treaty."

Cai Kuan, the governor-general of Shaanxi, was conferred the title of Marquis of Liyang and given the title of Taibao by Zhu Houzhao for his contributions in recovering Hetao and pacifying King Anhua. Now he has been appointed by Zhu Houzhao as the minister to Mongolia, to coordinate the affairs of the Tuxie, Ordos and Chahar tribes on behalf of the Ming court. He is also responsible for training the newly recruited young and strong men in the border towns in southern Mobei to serve as the Ming cavalry.

The Tatars are now divided internally. The Tushe and Ordos tribes now rely on imports of weapons, tea and salt from the Ming Dynasty. They are also unable to resist the Ming Dynasty's interference in their internal affairs. Seeing that the Ming Dynasty intends to protect the Chahar tribe, they have no way to protest. Even the "Non-Aggression Treaty" was forced to be signed under the military pressure of the Ming Dynasty.

Now, Zhu Houzhao sent an official to their three tribes, but they dared not speak out. As the three tribal leaders who were frightened by Cai Kuan before, after knowing that Cai Kuan was a first-rank minister stationed in Mongolia, they could only become more honest. No one dared to have the ambition to annex the other two tribes and dominate the world.

Now, in the ninth year of the Zhengde reign, after Cai Kuan reported that he had trained 20,000 Ming cavalrymen on the grassland and could directly form a cavalry division of the Guards, Zhu Houzhao realized that this would make it even more difficult for the three Mongolian tribes to rebel against the Ming Dynasty, so he immediately issued an edict to the Ministry of Education, granting the children of the three tribes' lords permission to study in the Imperial College and granting them the status of students.

"This is a very good move! The children of the Mongolian leaders do not learn Chinese, they are only good at riding and shooting. In the future, they will inevitably follow in the footsteps of Yesen and the little prince. If they are taught the correct way of Confucianism, they will not be good at using weapons, but only know the mechanics of writing!"

Mao Ji, a minister who believed in Neo-Confucianism and was the chief academic officer of the Imperial College, was the first to believe that Emperor Zhu Houzhao's move was a good policy and did not oppose it.

Of course, although Zhu Houming ostensibly allowed the children of the leaders of the three Mongolian tribes to study in the Imperial College, he actually required the leaders of the three tribes to send their children to the capital as hostages.

The leaders of the three tribes had no way to refuse, and were afraid that the Ming Dynasty would become suspicious, so they had to send all their children to the Imperial College in Beijing. In order to allow these Mongolian noble children to live a more luxurious life and have more knowledge of books, Zhu Houzhao simply issued an edict to let these people study in the Imperial College in Nanjing.

Less than a year after Bayanqing, the prince of Shunzhong Yibula, entered the Imperial College in Nanjing, he changed his name to Su Xishi to express his respect for Su Shi and his love for poetry. He completely forgot the habits he should have as a Mongolian. Two years later, he even forgot the skills of riding and archery.

After the immigration to the border, more and more Han people gathered in Hetao and Monan, and more and more Hu people were assimilated into the Han culture. Zhu Houzhao specially issued an edict to set up a provincial administration office in Hetao. At the same time, he also ordered that the areas under the jurisdiction of the provincial administration offices in the world be called provinces, and Hetao would be set up as a separate province. At the same time, the Mongolian tribes stationed in the Mongolian area were allowed to participate in the imperial examinations in Hetao.

Zhu Houzhao was giving the Sinicized Hu people an opportunity to further Sinicize themselves, and it was also a denial from an institutional perspective that the Mongolian tribes at that time were independent countries. Therefore, Cai Kuan, the minister stationed in Mongolia, was ordered to build a community school in the south of the desert and recruit the sons of the Yuan Dynasty to teach them.

In general, ten years later, the Ming Dynasty in the north had gradually used Confucianism as a weapon to eliminate the hostility of the Mongols. Cheng Jian, who boasted of himself as a great scholar who defeated 100,000 rebels with a single scold, was appointed by Zhu Houzhao as the assistant minister in Mongolia, in charge of academic affairs in Mongolia south of the desert.

Cheng Jian was extremely reluctant, but he could not disobey the emperor's order.

After Zhu Houzhao saw that his first disciple, Su Xishi, the prince of Yibula, was dull and bookish, he was extremely satisfied with Cheng Jian's educational results. He repeatedly praised Cheng Jian's way of moral education. He also specially ordered Su Xishi to stay in the Hanlin Academy and promoted Cheng Jian to the title of Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites.

Cheng Jian never expected that he would be so highly regarded by Emperor Zhu Houzhao just for teaching a few Hu people Confucianism. He was very happy about it and thought that he could be promoted and eventually be included in the court cabinet. So Cheng Jian continued to spread Confucianism in the south of the desert and persuaded the Mongolian nobles to be loyal to the wise monarch since they were wise ministers.

As a result, more and more Hu people learned Chinese, spoke Chinese, and wore Chinese clothes. Today, it is difficult to distinguish between Hu and Han people in the entire Hetao and southern desert areas.

In the south, the Ming Dynasty had successfully rebuilt Zheng He's treasure ship. At the same time, the Zhijiang Shipyard had built five soft-sail battleships. Zhu Houzhao named them after the regions, namely "Beidu", "Nandu", "Zhongdu", "Yangzhou" and "Baoding", and all of them were delivered to the Guangdong Navy for trial use.

Lin Tingxuan, the Governor-General of Liangjiang and Governor of Guangdong, has also achieved remarkable results in training the navy and has basically eliminated pirates in the South China Sea.

But in the ninth year of Zhengde, Zhu Houzhao received a memorial from Lin Tingxuan, which mentioned that red-haired foreigners were found in Tuen Mun (now Tuen Mun, Hong Kong), and they erected a stone tablet to mark their identity and made a living as pirates. However, a man named Pires claimed to be the special envoy of the Portuguese king and requested to meet Zhu Houzhao and demand trade.

Zhu Houzhao didn't expect that the Westerners would eventually come!
This was the first time that the Ming Empire came into contact with Western forces. Zhu Houzhao did not dare to take it lightly. He knew that the Portuguese were the Western maritime hegemons of this era. He could guess that since the Portuguese could appear in the South China Sea of ​​the Ming Dynasty, it meant that the Portuguese had occupied Malacca, the Strait of Malacca, and controlled the Nanyang route. Zhu Houzhao issued an edict to allow the Portuguese king's special envoy Pires to come to Beijing for an audience, and ordered the Governor-General of Liangjiang, Lin Tingxuan, to send troops to recapture Tuen Mun. He also ordered the Jinyiwei to investigate the situation in Malacca. Malacca was a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty and a strategic location in Nanyang. Zhu Houzhao would naturally not tolerate the Portuguese occupying it.

The Portuguese Pires set out for Beijing with his longing for the Eastern Empire.

At this time, the Ming Dynasty had entered the era of flying shuttle weaving and vertical spindle hand spinning (Jenny spinning machine), which caused cloth prices to plummet and cloth production to increase significantly. More people wore cotton cloth and brocade. In addition, with the collapse of rituals and music and the accumulation of wealth, even the lower-class people could have one or two brocade clothes.

The Ming Dynasty that Pires saw was still a prosperous one. He had to believe that Marco Polo's notes were correct, and he had to write in his diary:
"I feel like a beggar, a beggar who has walked into the world of the rich. The people here are all exquisite, the city is all exquisite, and even the cups and plates used are exquisite."

Zhu Houzhao met with Pires. Many Ming officials of that era did not understand why the emperor would take the time to meet with a barbarian envoy, but only Zhu Houzhao knew that he was meeting with a civilization that was about to surpass the East, so he had to be cautious. However, although he was cautious, he was not cowardly.

"Since you have asked me to allow you to trade with the Ming Dynasty, why do you still want to be the enemy of the Ming Dynasty?"

Zhu Houzhao asked this question first.

At this time, Huozhe Yasan, the Chinese interpreter hired by Pires, translated Zhu Houzhao's words to Pires.

Pires waved his hands quickly: "No, no, Your Majesty, we have no intention of making your country an enemy. We are only here to request peaceful trade."

"Since we are conducting peaceful trade, why do you want to destroy our vassal states and occupy our Tuen Mun Island?"

After Zhu Houzhao understood Pires's meaning through Huozhe Yasan, he asked coldly with a very stern tone. He is now twenty-four years old, with a thick beard under his nose, and his physique has gradually grown up, becoming more sturdy and taller, and naturally more majestic and majestic. Pires was speechless when asked this question, and explained after a while:

"Your Majesty, the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, that was not the behavior of our king, but the behavior of merchants, and it was just a trade conflict. We merchants did not know that Malacca was a vassal of your country, and there were no residents of your country living in Tuen Mun. It seems that the Ming Dynasty stele has no right to say that it is your territory!"

After Huozhe Yasan's translation, Zhu Houzhao had to admit that Pires was very good at diplomacy. He first blamed the merchants for his Portuguese occupation of Malacca and refused to admit that it was his king's intention. At the same time, he directly characterized it as a trade conflict and refused to admit that he had destroyed Malacca. He even refuted Tuen Mun by saying that there were no Ming Dynasty residents living there and no Ming Dynasty inscriptions.

For a moment, the ministers in the court were extremely angry. Duke Yingguo Zhang Mao even shouted in the court: "You are just a small country. The emperor of the Ming Dynasty has condescended to meet you, and you dare to offend the majesty of the Ming Dynasty!"

Zhu Houzhao waved his hand to stop the anger of Zhang Mao and others, and said with a smile: "Pires, you are very good at diplomacy. Why don't you stay and be my diplomatic envoy? I will give you a chance to join the Ming Dynasty. If not, I will execute you as an invader and put Pires in prison. If he refuses to serve the Ming Dynasty, I will castrate him and send him to Datong to build roads."

Pires was a little surprised after reading Huozhe Yasan's translation. He didn't expect that the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty neither scolded him nor let his ministers debate with him. Instead, he wanted to hire him directly, and had no intention of asking him whether he agreed or not. He directly put him in prison.

"Your Majesty, the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, your country is too overbearing! I am now an envoy of the Portuguese king, you cannot treat me like this!"

Pires protested, but Zhu Houzhao ignored him and the Jinyiwei still dragged him away by force.

Pires had not spent even one night in the Jinyiwei prison before he was frightened into agreeing to become a citizen of the Ming Dynasty and change his nationality to the Ming Dynasty. He was also willing to become a diplomatic envoy of the Ming Dynasty and a subject of the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

"This is a domineering but visionary emperor. I am very fortunate to be his subject. Otherwise, I might not have become an outstanding diplomat of the Ming Dynasty, even though I was forced to do so in the beginning!"

Many years later, Pires, a professor at the Ming Empire's Foreign Affairs Academy, wrote this in his autobiography.

Thanks to the book friend 20181121154845686 for the 100 Qidian coins reward

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(End of this chapter)