A Tale of the two Chinas (Revised and Expanded)

Here it is, the revised and expanded version of the Idea of Russia timeline, Far East section…


Written to the second and third movements of the Leningrad Symphony


Part I: Blood-drenched Heavens
1644
The Ming regime is tottering. For decades China convulsed with rebellions, but this was a particularly bad year. Zhang Xianzhong conquered Sichuan and established the Daxi kingdom, and Li Zicheng, the leader of the greatest of all peasant rebellions, threatened Beijing. Soon, Beijing fell to the Li’s forces. The last Emperor in Beijing, Chongzhen, hanged himself near Beijing. The general Wu Sangui, marshal of the Shanhai Pass which defended Manchuria’s approach to Beijing, invited in Manchurian troops to help put down the rebellion. The Qing emperor Shunzi, who and his illustrious predecessors spent years trying to knock Shanghai Pass out to reach Beijing with little success against superior Ming firearms (some of which purchased from the Dutch and Portugese), reportedly exclaimed ‘he asked me to what?’ This convenient solved the problem of Qing succession – Shunzi had ascended to the throne only the year before and the Manchu faced the threat of civil war with opposing factions endorsing different candidates… Shunzi more or less said to them, ‘look, it’s China!’

…and so Manchu troops rode in strength and destroyed Li’s rebel army in conjunction with Wu’s forces in a great battle to the north of Beijing.

The defeated rebel armies dispersed, with a core fleeing with Li first west then south. In Hubei he was finally killed by local militia.

The Qing did not leave after defeating the rebels in Beijing… in fact they took rather a fancy to the nice countryside and decided to take a winter vacation… further south. Group vacation packages netted the travel agents, it was claimed, ‘a real killing’. Wu repeatedly tried to tell the Manchus that, ‘um, you can stop now, I can take it from here.’ Shunzi usually replied, if he bothered at all, ‘just a few miles more.’


1645
Qing forces reached the Yangtze. ‘You really can stop now, you know,’ Wu was reported to have said half-heartedly. Nobody paid much attention to him. Nanjing fell to the Qing, and with it the Emperor Longwu, on the throne for barely over a year. He was beheaded.

The King of Tang, a Ming heir, fled to Fujian province under the protection of one Zheng Zhilong, marshal of the armies of Fujian.

Thus far the Qing had encountered no serious resistance. Ming China, wrecked by years of peasant rebellion, Imperial reconquest, peasant rebellion again due to repressive slaughters of ‘rebel sympathizers’ by the Imperials, didn’t care much if this bunch of Imperials wore pigtails.

That was, of course, until the Qing decreed that all subjects thereof are to wear the aforesaid hair style.

All off China erupted in rebellion.


1646
All of China, that is, apart from Zheng Zhilong. Probably because he lived for long periods of time in Japan, he didn’t think shaving off half the hair and wearing the rest in some sort of knot looked particularly silly. He surrendered to the Qing. Having heard of the Qing’s brutal reprisals against rebels, however, he decided that he must move more cautiously – and he thought he would need some insurance… The King of Tang looked good.

Zheng Zhilong has a son, one Zheng Chenggong. As luck would have it, he intercepted one of his father’s missives to the garrison in the pass of Xianxia, which guarded the entrance to Fujian province to redeploy its forces. Suspicious, he returned to Fuzhou anonymously, and discovered his father’s designs. Appalled, he went to his mother, a Tagawa Matsu of a minor samurai clan, for advice. After some deliberation, she advised him to save the Ming heir and remove him to some safe location, preferably overseas, but declined to join his son.
This is the first major point of divergence in the Far East

Zheng Zhilong traveled to the Qing’s domain to finalize the deal, and sent the King of Tang to Fuzhou under an armed escort for his ‘protection’. Zheng Chenggong intercepted this mission claiming to have been ordered by his father to provide extra security. He hinted at just enough of Zheng Zhilong’s plan that the escort’s commander, a confindant of Zheng Zhilong privy to his designs on the King of Tang, believed him. Zheng Chenggong led the original escort right into his own ambush, and destroyed his father’s escort. Having saved the King of Tang, Zheng removed self and other Ming loyalists to Xiamen.

Zheng Zhilong was furious and immediately surrendered to the Qing, who accepted it with good grace. Tagawa Matsu hanged herself at the news. When Zheng Chenggong heard of this, he was reported to have wept openly and said, ‘if my father cannot be a loyal subject, then I fear that I cannot be a filial son.’ He cut his hair, signifying both his repudiation of his father and the Qing, and rose Fujian province in rebellion. Zheng’s Ming loyalist forces fought with his father’s forces and Qing advanced elements, and defeated them near Quanzhou.

The King of Tang declined to assume the throne of Ming for now, preferring to reign as ‘regent’ until such times as they can reestablish themselves in either the old capital of Nanjing or the original capital of Beijing. In gratitude and recognition of Zheng Chenggong’s services, he named him a peer of the realm, and granted upon him the title of ‘Guoxingye’, the Lord with the Imperial Surname.

The King of Gui ascended to the throne of Ming in the southern city of Guangzhou (Canton), beginning the reign of Yongli.


(henceforth Zheng Chenggong shall be referred to as ‘Zheng’, while Zheng Zhilong would b referred to as ‘his father’. I should be used to typing long and hard to pronounced names by now, but I am not.)

Elsewhere in China, the Daxi rebels of Zhang Xianzhong’s reign in Sichuan was threatened by the Qing advance – by the end of the year Zhang would be forced to abandone Chengdu – but not before razing it. By the end of the year he would be captured and killed by the Qing forces, to cheering crowds of Sichuanese who survived his razing of Chengdu.


1647
In a series of hard-fought battle, Zheng gained naval supremacy in the coastal islands of Fujian and Zhejiang provinces. The campaign season over, his forces wintered in Xiamen. Thus far he had financed his resistance with the Dutch and Portuguese trade, but he was sorely lacking in a secure base of operations, since his father moved more cautiously in the beginning, and had some elements of his navy ‘away on exercises’ during the crucial period, with the intention of using same to escape (with the King of Tang, should that prove profitable) if negotiations with the Qing soured. The unexpected result was that he retained enough of a navy for the Qing that none of Zheng’s bases were entirely secure. Mulling over this with one of his lieutenants, he was reminded of the fact that a scant twenty years ago, a number of pirates established enclaves in an island to the east…

Elsewhere in China, the Daxi remnant rebels led by Li Dingguo and Sun Kewang established fiefs in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces south of Sichuan, and sent emissaries pledging alliance with Yongli.


1648
Zheng stripped his best ships and men, leaving the defences of the mainland to other Ming loyalist troops under the command of the surprisingly capable King of Tang, and sailed for Taiwan. He took the Pescadores with minimal resistance, and used it to stage the assault on Taiwan proper.

His father, unfortunately, received news of this from a traitor in Zheng’s ranks. He quickly informed the Qing, and a force, under his command, assaulted Fuzhou...

Meanwhile, the attack on Taiwan came as a nasty surprise to the Dutch, and the coastal fort of Hollandia at Tainan quickly fell. The Portuguese to the south, at Sao Miguel (Gaoxiong), was at first pleased to see their Dutch rivals in trouble, and accepted Zheng’s offer of parley, even supplying them with some arms and food (at a reasonable price, etc). The victorious forces of Zheng marched on to Fort Oranje at Anping, and laid siege to it. With some rented cannons from the Portuguese and guns dismounted to his ships, he began a bombardment of Fort Oranje. Seeing no prospect of reinforcement (in this timeline, the Dutch were not well established in the East Indies, facing competition from Portuguese, Castilian, English and French competition from India to the Far East, as we can see from the ahistorical presence of the Portuguese in Taiwan), the Dutch surrendered. Zheng allowed them to keep their personal possessions, but requested that all trade goods and materiel be left behind… and being used to working with pirates, he also offered to take any Dutchmen, whose artillery and musketry skills impressed him, as mercenaries. About five hundred joined.

In one of the ironies of history, at what was latter believed to be the same moment, Fuzhou fell to the Qing, and the King of Tang died in the street fighting that ensued. A newly-born prince of the King of Tang’s household was removed from Fuzhou by faithful retainers, and was safely delivered to Xiamen.


1649
Zheng took the news of the King of Tang’s death badly. That compounded with his father’s treachery, somewhat destabilised the young man (he was only twenty four then). He issued official proclamations calling himself a ‘guilty minister’, under which title he would fly his banner for many years.

But the business of state must continue. Zheng took his new Dutch battalion and a crack force of his own men to Sao Miguel, with the intention of returning the cannons to the Portuguese… ball first. Taken by surprise, the fort quickly fell to Zheng’s forces. Zheng renamed Fort Oranje and environs the city of Dongdu, the Eastern Capital, and the area under its sway the municipality of Chengtianfu. Fearing that he would lose another Ming heir, he had the King of Tang’s son, the Prince of Fu taken to Dongdu. In the mean time, he swore allegiance to the emperor Yongli, and dispatched his formidable navy in harrying Qing forces along the Fujian coast.

However, since he blamed himself and his adventurism for the death of the King of Tang, he adopted a much more conservative and defensive posture than he would have done (and did historically), limiting himself to naval and defensive engagements when the odds are favourable, and refraining from further large scale attacks inland. In order to facilitate this he established extensive contacts with criminals, disgruntled gentry and secret societies, binding them in ‘triads’, which would be an invaluable source of intelligence – and other, less expected things – in the years to come.

The situation was grim for southern Ming, however. Free to leave a relatively small force to guard against Zheng, Qing forces under Wu along with his turncoat army launched an assault upon Guangdong province through the passes of Hunan and Jiangxi, and by the end of the campaign season Yongli was forced to flee to Nanning to the west, in Guangxi province, there to link up with the Daxi rebels of Zhang Xianzhong’s remnants.

Back in Taiwan, as winter approaches tensions began to flair between the coastal native tribes and the newly-arrived Ming forces. The natives initially welcomed Zheng as they removed the overbearing Dutch, but Zheng was to prove just as enthusiastic in securing Taiwan...


1650
The year began badly for the forces loyal to the Ming. Loyalist rebels suffered a series of reverses in the mid-reaches of the Yangtze, and the Qing continued to make gains in Sichuan. Refugees fled to the relatively stable coastal area. The resultant disruption in China’s grain production caused great hardship throughout China.

Zheng’s triad network began to contact Ming loyalists and sent them to Zheng’s domains on the Fujian coast. A large number crossed over to the relatively peaceful Taiwan. Amongst the refugees were Fujian and Zhejiang tea planters; Guangdong potters; loyal smiths and powder-makers of the Imperial Arsenal; loyalist gentry with their coffers; and scholars who remained loyal to Yongli but could not reach his court in Guangxi. Taiwan began to have the look of a booming Chinese province.

Zheng was pleased with the swelling of his power base, and it accorded well with his more conservative posture, but he feared that with increasing population greater instability might result, to say nothing of tensions with natives and possible traitors. In order to forestall this and to secure Chengtianfu, he organized the skilled refugees in special settlements and plantations close to Dongdu; the farmers along regional lines and sent them to secure more of Taiwan’s western flood plains, granting them collective land titles and no taxation for a period of three years. He also conscripted the best (and most dangerous) of them to form the King of Fu Household Guards regiment. He purposefully inserted Dutchmen into this so it would be impossible for it to form one single power bloc against the Ming – or himself. The scholar and gentry he kept close in Dongdu also, to form the basis of the Ming government of Taiwan.

The natives mounted a number of raids against increasing Chinese encroachment, as Zheng expected, and he sent his regiments and drove them off the lowlands into the mountains of eastern Taiwan. He divided the vacated land amongst allied tribes, original Chinese settlers and the new settlers. A number of captives were taken and sold to the Portuguese, who had resumed trade relations – the governor of Macau was no friend of the governor of Sao Miguel.



Legend
(Apologies for my utter lack of cartographic talent, I have tried to make it as accurate as possible, but the flesh is weak, etc...)

The year is 1650
1.) The Dzungar Khanate, a rising Mongol power we would see much of in the decades to come
2.) The various Khalkha Mongol khans
3.) Khoshuud Mongols who conquered Tibet less than twenty years past, proclaimed by the Gelug sect of Tibetan Buddhism to be khan of Tibet
4.) Qing China; lighter yellow on Sakhalin tributary tribes
5.) Areas of China seeing active rebellions
6.) Ming remnants
7.) Zheng's domains

The unnumbered lands are, respectively:
-The Kingdom of Korea
-Japan
-Bright red in South East Asia represents Castilian colonies, chiefly in the Ferdinands (The Philipines)
-Deep blue represents Dutch colonies
-Light blue represents Portuguese colonies
-Light grey is the Sultanate of Java
-Dark grey is the Hindu kingdom of Bali
-The Sultanate of Johore on the Malay penninsula
-The Sultanate of Aceh in northern Sumatra
-The Sultanate of Brunei in northern Borneo
-The Ayutthaya kingdom of Siam
-The Kingdom of Dai Viet, Trinh lords dominant to the north, Nguyen lords dominant to the south
-Vietien, Laotian kingdom, currently a buffer between the kingdoms of Ayutthaya and Dai Viet
-Cambodja
-Burmese kingdom to the north of Burma
-Pegu pretender to teh south of Burma

Please note that blank areas are not, of course, blank. At least not all of it. Central Asia, Siberia and Far East involves Russian history, and maps of India involve European history, so I am leaving them for now. Australia is, however, for all intent and purposes, blank.

Apologies to the terminally confused by this 'map'.

untitled.GIF
 
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It's kind of catchy although I had to review it twice just to get the gist of it. You might want to clarify the prose a bit just to show "POD! POD!". Otherwise from that, it's a very good TL, and I do like the personalization in the first paragraph of the first year - (aka this:


The general Wu Sangui, marshal of the Shanhai Pass which defended Manchuria’s approach to Beijing, invited in Manchurian troops to help put down the rebellion. The Qing emperor Shunzi, who and his illustrious predecessors spent years trying to knock Shanghai Pass out to reach Beijing with little success against superior Ming firearms (some of which purchased from the Dutch and Portugese), reportedly exclaimed ‘he asked me to what?’ This convenient solved the problem of Qing succession – Shunzi had ascended to the throne only the year before and the Manchu faced the threat of civil war with opposing factions endorsing different candidates… Shunzi more or less said to them, ‘look, it’s China!’

However, you do need to clear up the Zheng bit - perhaps Zheng A or Son of Zheng A - something along those lines.
 
Part Ib: Blood-drenched Heavens
1651
The year opened to a particularly grim scene for the Ming. The Qing are broadly in control of China Proper. The provinces of Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangxi and parts of Sichuan, briefly recaptured by the Ming during 1647, were once again in Qing hands. In North China, only in Shanxi was there much in the way of resistance, mostly from remnants of Li Zicheng's rebel faction, the Shun rebels. The Daxi rebels and the Yongli Emperor's reign was now reduced to Guizhou and Yunnan province, Wu Sangui, Kong Youde and Geng Jimao are poised to strike... it is only a matter of time until they do. The Ming armies under the able leadership of Li Dinguo begins to train for that eventuality. General Li also begins entertaining thoughts of attempting to recover Guangdong and Guangxi to link up with Zheng's forces.

The situation in Sichuan was equally dire. Rebels continue to stubbornly resist the Qing armies at every step of the way. In return, the Qing would often slaughter everybody in a resisting city as an example to others. This, along with the brutality of the first Daxi leader, Zhang Xianzhong, lead to the rapid depopulation of Sichuan province. Refugees, such as could flee, would escape to nearby Yunnan and Guizhou. One such refugee family, the family Bai, reached the court of Yongli in Kunming. He, a skilled doctor, saved the life of a military officer's favourite concubine. In gratitude, the officer, one Li Jiao, gave him a banquet. Invited was Zheng's liason officer, Zheng Wujie. He wrote a letter to Zheng, one that would have far-reaching consequences.

Agricultural production barely recovered, since the grain-producing provinces of Hunan, Guangdong and Guangxi had been heavily fought over, to say nothing of grain trade within China. Famine and pestilence would break out in different parts of China, driving more refugees to the coastal area. This year's harvest for Taiwan, however, was quite good, luring more refugees to seek connections for a passage to Taiwan. One scholar who followed the Prince of Tang to Taiwan, Gu Yanwu, began to think about setting up the Imperial Examinations there. After all, the barbarians don't look like they'd be heading back home soon, and the country still needs new scholars. Notably, Gu was a noted critic of both stultified Neo-Confucianism of Lixue and the more radical Wang Yangming school of instinctual knowledge. Instead he was a noted rationalist and advocate for empiricism.

Meanwhile, the settlement and pacification of the western flood plains continued.

The regent of the Qing, Dorgon, after reading a report about one of Zheng's naval raids, could not sleep one night, and as a result he called of a hunting expedition earlier than expected after he was almost shot by a fellow nobleman. Reportedly he invited the nobleman to dine with him, but for no reason that can be understood, that nobleman refused. The nobleman, however, cannot be reached for comment since he accidentally fell into a pit and died the day after.

In a completely unrelated development, Dorgon began to train a number of bodyguards, and employed a food-taster. He claimed it was because he can't stand bad food.

Rebellion! The former Ryukyu Kingdom, groaning under the yoke of the clan Shimazu, finally erupted in rebellion. Pechin warriors in Uchina (OTL Okinawa), stormed the Shuri Castle, traditional seat of the kings of the Ryukyu kingdom, and freed king Sho Shitsu, before the rallying Satsuma samurai drove them back, but not before the rebels took the King with them, along with the national seal. Upon hearing this, Shimazu Mitsuhisa the daimyo of the Shimazu clan, executed Sho Shoken, a hostage from the Ryukyu kingdom. Ironically, he was in the process of compiling 'Chuzan no Sekan', a work of history (or historical fiction, as some Uchinans are known to say today) that claims the Satsuma lords had no choice but to invade in 1609 in response to Ryukyuan disloyalty.

The King Sho Shitsu, however, was raised by the Satsuma, and had little desire to rebel - he risks a lot, and in return for little gain. Uchina would be fought over, one way or another. However, he discovered a lot of revolutionary zeal after the Pechina put it to him in no uncertain terms that he is to lead the Uchinan people to freedom again... or else. A Ryukyan Pechin, Busei, a trader who has came into contact, mentioned this in a brief chat with Chen Gangbei, a lieutenant of Zheng's, and mentioned that what a nice party they were having. Chen, being the party-going type, immediately asked if him and his boys could come visit. Busei was reported to have said, "hell, why not, the Satsuma lot are no fun, we're looking for some party-crashers, anyway."



A badly disguised bump? A real indication of interest in resuming this timeline? Who knows! We'll see.

Also, can't seem to edit the first post to fix some errors...
 

Hnau

Banned
I really like it as well. What's this 'Idea of Russia' you mentioned? Where can I find that?
 
I really like it as well. What's this 'Idea of Russia' you mentioned? Where can I find that?

The Idea of Russia timeline currently exists only in my head and notes.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=27230

It grew out of a strange map by Tetsu-Katana from the map thread... and has grown from it since. The Russian section, however, is so enormously complex (charting the evolution of a more open Russia with divergence in mid-fifteenth century, one which nonetheless retained an unmistakable Russian element) that I hesitate to post it. I am ignorant of Far East, however, and can rampage around with impunity, and since I want to show something of the timeline, I am posting this section here.
 
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