Restoration of the Great Ming: A Tianqi Timeline
- Thread starter RexSueciae
- Start date
I love him
Its so good he is that straight forward because then they think he's easy to manipulate and if something wrong happens rather than blame & try to overthrow him thy just blame themselves
"The Emperor is like a bored kid he wouldnt have been up to this on his own, who did this? Who's the bad influence huh?!"
Tywin Lannister: anyone who says "I am the EMPEROR" is no true emperor
He wasnt saying it in response to someone contesting his authority though, but asserting his desire for nice floaties
From what I read, the Tianqi Emperor is more of an emperor than Joffrey Lannister was a king, IMO...
He just desired a fleet with his statement...
BTW, @RexSueciae, good TL, and waiting for more, of course. Hope you're watching the Super Bowl today (if not, I understand)...
I thank you for all your kind words! The Jurchens are down but not quite out -- we shall see a little of them later on. But yes, military victory in Liaodong has bought the Ming some more much-needed breathing room.
Haha, yes! Why would anyone suspect him?
That is a very high compliment.
You all have gotten to the heart of things, so I just wanted to add one final point with notes from Chinese political philosophy (something which I confess I realized only just now, reading your comments).
Most people might be familiar with Confucius (Kongzi) and his teachings, which I will summarize in a sentence as "be virtuous and set a good example for your subjects." Many might also be familiar with the precepts of Daoism, which has picked up a number of religious trappings over the millennia but whose political teachings as communicated by Laozi and Zhuangzi could be summarized something like "don't force things and just go with the flow," or more poetically "ruling through inaction." (I cannot over-emphasize how much I am simplifying things for convenience's sake.)
Those two systems became very well-known as essentially the "official" ideology of most later Chinese sovereigns (particularly when applied to emperors who outwardly didn't appear to do much of anything) -- but they weren't the only ones. The philosopher Mozi (founder of the school usually called "Mohism" in English-language sources) had a bunch of really interesting teachings (and I could go on about them for hours) but the central theme there would be something like "reward success, punish failure" (envisioning a ruler who is directly involved in rewarding and punishing his underlings). Which is all well and good, but that idea in particular was further refined by the so-called Legalists, and in particular by Han Feizi (whose book is the best-preserved of his Legalist contemporaries') who noted that actually, court officials are pretty good at flattering the guy who decides their life or death. Instead, Han Feizi suggests the modified tactic of a ruler making their general desires known and then having their subordinates come up with solutions to problems themselves -- then, based on the success or failure of those proposals, making free with the rewards or punishments. There was a blog I read that flippantly described the Legalists as "Evil Daoists" and it's a funny description but not entirely inaccurate: the emperor is now once again essentially ruling through inaction.
What I mean to say is that the Tianqi Emperor, being a rather simple sort, seems to have accidentally stumbled across Han Feizi's winning strategy: he wants ships, his officials figure out that he meant not those kinds of ships, the campaign ended up being a success, and now everybody gets promoted and nobody's head gets cut off. Which is probably a big coincidence, because he's an illiterate carpentry enthusiast who wouldn't have done any of this on purpose, right? ...right?
Lmao I never thought of it that way but yeah Im adopting it now
I'd argue it was more on the lines of "bias bad love good ascetism great!" because his doctrine was both very anti-materialist/hedonist and a radical supporter of universal, equalitarian care for everyone
That said yes as a governing principle "reward success punish failure" is a good way to put it, since his ideal ruler was supposed to be someone completely unbiased who cares only about his subject-children actions like a great impartial father
Indeed! It's no coincidence that Mozi is probably my favorite among the ancient philosophers.
Mine too!
He's one of those "couldnt ever live with your principles but oh my God you're so cool!"
1630
Yang Jisheng (1516-1555)
楊繼盛
The arts and literature of the Great Ming have been commonly cited as mirrors to the dynasty’s fortunes. We see reflected there the triumphant rise and occasional struggles of a powerful family. The literati spent their days composing praises for the Ming emperors -- or criticizing them. Even the iconoclastic heretics of earlier years may, in time, become figureheads of a new orthodoxy.
At some point in the mid-to-late 1620s (the dating is not precise, as the sources are not entirely clear on this point) a theatrical performance was staged for the Tianqi Emperor. The performance was a revival of the play Mingfeng ji, “The Phoenix’s Cry” (鳴鳳記), with some details updated for the present time. It was a historical drama detailing the life (and death) of the bureaucrat Yang Jisheng, a minor court official who had spoken out against evil ministers during the reign of the Jiajing Emperor. This proved to be detrimental to his career, as he was immediately arrested for his temerity and thrown in prison. Eventually, one of the evil ministers engineered Yang’s death by covertly adding his name to the bottom of another man’s death warrant, and the emperor, careless or negligent, signed it without reading. But, the play’s authors tell us, Yang Jisheng went nobly to his execution, standing upright through the generations as an example of virtue and honor.[1]
The performance was a risky move. The late, thoroughly unlamented Wei Zhongxian had not tolerated criticism very well. A group of scholars based around the Donglin Academy had begun voicing their concerns about his power, and Wei had responded by having several of them executed. But that was normal. In the Ming bureaucracy, boldly submitting memorials to the throne was seen as a surefire way of achieving immortality -- whether because the emperor rewarded you for your bravery or had you decapitated for your insolence. Thus, wherever you had corruption, you had men speaking out against it, men like Hai Rui -- who survived his imprisonment and was eventually rewarded -- or men like Fang Xiaoru -- whose entire family was executed alongside him.[2]
The revival of Mingfeng ji was intended as a sort of trial balloon, to see if the Tianqi Emperor was going to make any more bureaucrats into martyrs. Fortunately, he appeared to be a lot more easy-going than Wei Zhongxian had been. According to the official histories (compiled years later and probably edited for political purposes), the Tianqi Emperor had congratulated the dramatists on their efforts and pledged to thoroughly root out corruption wherever it may lie. Nicolas Trigault, in his writings, merely noted that “the emperor was much entertained by the spectacle of the theater,” although historians have noted that Trigault tended to marginalize those who appeared to compete with him for the emperor’s attention. Having confirmed that they probably were not going to all be killed, the surviving members of the Donglin movement breathed a sigh of relief. It may have been their influence that led to Qian Qianyi being promoted to head the Ministry of Rites at around this time.[3]
This political faction -- commonly referred to as the “Donglin movement” years later, despite its eventual evolution and movement away from the old academy -- soon found itself an unlikely ally in Beijing. In 1630, the Tianqi Emperor received an important visitor at his palace. His name was Zheng Zhilong. He was a remarkably handsome young man, with a Japanese wife and a six-year-old son. He was nominally Catholic, fluent in several languages, and accompanied everywhere by a squad of African bodyguards who had formerly been slaves of the Portuguese.[4] He was also acquainted with Qian Qianyi, who likely introduced him to court.[5]
The merchant fleet of the Zheng family dwarfed the Ming imperial navy. This, of course, was not really difficult, since nobody in the Ming bureaucracy was really troubling themselves with maintaining a navy, but the Zheng fleet was genuinely massive. Also, they were definitely not pirates. They were often quite well-armed in order to fight pirates, that was true, and the fact that they were the de facto naval enforcers of the South China Sea was only a coincidence. Yup. Not pirates.
In any case, the Great Ming had leaned heavily on the Zheng family’s fleet in supplying the Liaodong campaign of 1629. Zheng Zhilong had accepted some token payment (mostly covering basic operating expenses) at the time, but the understanding was that Zheng would be owed a future favor by the emperor. And Zheng had figured out an excellent prize to request: Dutch Formosa.
The island known to the Portuguese as Ilha Formosa and to China by several names, among them Taiwan, was until now a marginal presence in the chronicles of history. The nearby archipelago of Penghu was technically part of Fujian province, albeit mostly ignored except by the fishermen who lived there. About a decade ago the Dutch had seized Penghu and demanded that they be permitted access to China’s markets. They had not fared well. Licking their wounds, the Dutch had withdrawn to Formosa, or more accurately had been driven there by the Ming.[6]
Since then, the Dutch East India Company had done its best to wring a profit out of Formosa. Some indirect trade with China was still possible, as the Fujian authorities tolerated merchants traveling to and from the island, but the Dutch authorities envisioned making serious money out of agricultural extraction, subjugating the indigenous population and putting them to work on sugar plantations. Easier said than done, of course, and the Dutch East India Company had its hands full fighting against indigenous Taiwanese confederations and glaring angrily at the Portuguese over in Macau and the Spanish on the north end of Formosa, where they had coincidentally set up their own colonial outpost.[7]
Zheng Zhilong, who had himself worked with the Dutch East India Company for a time, had a simple argument: the Dutch could not be trusted. They had caused trouble for the Ming before and would do so again. They were at odds with the Portuguese, the familiar foreigners whom the Ming tolerated in Macau, and with whom the Dutch had fought several times since their arrival. And this upstart nation could certainly be beaten in battle -- the Ming navy had done so before -- so why not dispatch an expedition to Formosa?
The proposal was surprisingly supported across broad swathes of the Ming court. The Donglin movement approved of putting a quarrelsome nation of barbarians in its place, although its members debated over the exact dimensions such a maneuver should take. The Jesuits and the Catholic-aligned faction, being mostly sympathetic to the Portuguese, had no issue with ousting the Dutch from Formosa, owing to the religious difference and other geopolitical concerns.
For Zheng Zhilong, the primary motivation was profit. Whoever controlled the island could more efficiently tax visiting merchants, and travelers were already using the island as a rest stop to take on supplies. Of course, the Portuguese had similar hopes for Malacca, years ago, only to discover that they’d conquered an expensive money sink.[8]
Fortunately, if trade dried up there was still the option of simply taking over the Dutch plantations and continuing to extract wealth from the indigenous population. All Zheng needed was the emperor’s blessing to recruit sailors for this expedition and he’d take all the risk upon himself. If he failed, the failure would be his alone. If he succeeded, he’d be ridiculously, fabulously rich.
Of course, he’d have to pay taxes. Eventually. That was a sticking-point that many of the emperor’s ministers considered. Sun Chengzong, we are told, was skeptical that the measure would actually contribute anything to the imperial coffers; pirates are not keen to pay taxes. But he admitted that it certainly couldn’t hurt. The state wouldn’t be spending anything, and might get something in return. That wasn’t a bad deal. Also, if it could get a bunch of hungry, listless men fed and put to work -- away from the cities and from local hotbeds of unrest -- that could only be a plus. There remained the issue that these men would be armed and placed under the command of a guy who was, well, something of a pirate.
Zheng Zhilong had a solution for this as well. So great was his confidence in success, he had decided to leave his son, Zheng Chenggong, and his wife with the imperial court. Ostensibly, it was so the boy could be raised up properly, and the emperor would be doing him a great favor. Implicitly, the meaning was: you can trust me, because I am trusting you with my family.
Some of the ministers still grumbled. (Not Qian Qianyi, who spoke in favor of his old friend.) The emperor, having heard all the objections, simply directed his ministers to calculate how much tribute Zheng would need to produce in the event of a “successful” mission. The younger Zheng, nearly of age with the Crown Prince, would become almost a surrogate member of the imperial family, and the Tianqi Emperor was said to be fond of him. “I have three sons,” the emperor once said, and indeed, he and Empress Rong would produce no more sons between them (although they had several daughters).
Historians have long accepted that the great expedition of Zheng Zhilong had a stabilizing effect on coastal China. The voyage drew off a lot of excess population, mostly potential troublemakers, and sent them into the mouth of danger. Pirate attacks apparently dropped as well, with amnesties proclaimed for any willing to risk their lives in service to the Great Ming (or more specifically, in service to Zheng Zhilong).
But the overall effects were limited: relatively few people from the more inland provinces joined the expedition, nor would they have been able to do so. Travel through bandit-infested villages was a bad idea, and while the bandits themselves might have made for acceptable recruits (there was always a need for violent men eager to prove themselves), many of them seemed content to stay put and wring gold out of their home turf. No need to go on some overseas adventure.
Several bandits from this era have been immortalized in song and story, but foremost among them is undoubtedly the one called Huanghu, the Yellow Tiger.
“He chops down forests of pear trees, he slaughters the old and the young,” wrote Wang Wei, a former courtesan turned Buddhist poet and traveler, in an oft-anthologized poem (although it is questionable whether she wrote from first-hand knowledge).[9] Revisionist historians sometimes try to recharacterize Huanghu as a populist folk hero, a victim of Ming propaganda, but despite their efforts the Yellow Tiger has become something of an archetypal bogeyman in the popular mind.[10]
What is known of the Yellow Tiger is that his birth name was probably Zhang Xianzhong, and after some brief service in the Ming army he was sentenced to death for some crime. This, at least, is probably a true fact, although likely less romantic than described in “The Yellow Tiger’s Fury” (黄虎之怒), that popular literary classic reviled by schoolchildren for its lengthy preambles. Escaping from custody, the Yellow Tiger joined a local peasant revolt, and became one of the top men in Shaanxi.
All of this, of course, is reconstructed from much later sources. We do know that he would later gain a reputation for brutality -- the fact that he was called “the Yellow Tiger” should be a hint, it was not only his physical appearance that gave him the nickname -- but despite the histories, he was clearly not a mindless brute. Several times, when the Ming armies were on the march, he had the presence of mind to surrender, feigning acquiescence until he had the chance to break free yet again. Which, given the near-constant roil of rebellion, was usually a moment later.
Many of these rebels who took up arms during the Tianqi era were ephemeral figures, mentioned briefly in contemporary sources and then vanished into thin air. This, of course, was due to the violent circumstances in which they lived. A rebel leader would rise, acquire some power over the countryside, then die, at the hands of another rebel or the Ming authorities. We know very little about Li Zicheng, the “Dashing King,” who established a short-lived state in the Shaanxi area, save that he was a contemporary of the Yellow Tiger and that he was killed by one of his compatriots shortly after seizing power from another minor rebel.[11] We know even less about Yuan Shizhong, save that he was apparently killed by one of the Yellow Tiger’s lieutenants.[12]
The Yellow Tiger, in contrast with these others, is comparatively well-documented in the literature. Qin Liangyu, from her base of power in Sichuan, wrote to the emperor requesting assistance. Because the emperor was already acquainted with her name, it is likely that her message was a key factor in the Ming court taking the situation more seriously. Hong Chengchou, the regional governor, was rather more dismissive of the threat posed by the rebels.[13] He had already blasted apart at least one rebel mob with cannons, and he was skeptical that they would ever pose a threat that he could not handle. Still, he noted that their numbers posed a significant threat, and until such time as the peasants were no longer desperate enough to rebel, it would likely be a long, grinding campaign before the countryside would be pacified.
Schoolchildren are to be reminded that “The Yellow Tiger’s Fury” is a work of historical fiction, and that it was regarded even in its time as an entertaining melodrama that borrowed from well-known events. Many of the romantic elements were likely added by the (anonymous) author, and it is unfortunate that the more salacious details are the ones best remembered. Suffice to say that none of the generals, court officials, or other characters are believed to have had relationships with each other -- although some historians do believe that the Tianqi Emperor was himself bisexual, the evidence is thin on the ground.[14]
But all that aside -- in autumn of 1630, the Yellow Tiger threw down on his arms and sued for peace. Hong Chengchou, as representative of the Ming government, granted him generous terms, hoping to use him against other rebels in the area. It is easy enough, in hindsight, to criticize his actions, and even Hong Chengchou himself later ruefully remarked that he did not have the man beheaded when he had the chance.
No matter. For the Ming court, the expedition to Dutch Formosa was attracting most of the attention. Hardly anyone was paying attention to Shaanxi.
Footnotes
[1] This is a real play about a real person. Mingfeng ji was probably written in the 1570s, within living memory of Yang Jisheng’s death. When the Qing dynasty IOTL took control of China, they were apparently fond enough of the play to create their own adaptations, because the story made the Ming dynasty look bad.
[2] These were also actual people who existed and whose biographies were well-known during this time.
[3] IOTL the Donglin movement recovered their fortunes somewhat during the Chongzhen era, although they were rather less successful in getting Qian Qianyi named Grand Secretary. ITTL he’s a reasonably solid choice for a slightly lower imperial office, which he gets without controversy.
[4] This is all OTL. Zheng Zhilong was a real person, a larger-than-life piratical adventurer who was eventually executed by the Qing in 1661. Despite all that, IOTL he is mostly overshadowed by his son, Zheng Chenggong, better known as Koxinga.
[5] Qian Qianyi and Zheng Zhilong came from the same part of Fujian, and IOTL Qian Qianyi was a mentor to the young Koxinga.
[6] This is OTL. While the Ming dynasty after the reign of the Yongle Emperor has a reputation for mostly ignoring naval affairs, it nonetheless continued to prove itself a formidable adversary to European armadas.
[7] Dutch and Spanish involvement in Formosa is OTL. Portuguese involvement in Macau is OTL too, but you knew that already.
[8] It turned out that conquering the region’s naval power was a bad decision because the Sultanate of Malacca had been doing all the work of keeping the straits free of pirates. The Portuguese ended up having to deal with the trouble of running the place themselves, plus the Sultan of Malacca fled to the hinterlands and continued to resist the Portuguese, plus the Ming court was so pissed off that they ended up executing a bunch of Portuguese who had the misfortune to be visiting China at the time.
[9] A real person, IOTL she traveled and wrote poems -- her “home base” appears to have been the Jiangsu / Zhejiang area, a coastal part of south China, but she did venture to religious sites further afield.
[10] I am referring, of course, to Zhang Xianzhong, who IOTL is sometimes held to be a victim of Qing propaganda despite all the atrocities credited to his name. From the testimony of relatively neutral voices, it seems clear that he did at least some of what he was accused of doing.
[11] IOTL he captured Beijing in 1644 and overthrew the Ming dynasty before the Qing defeated him and took control of Beijing themselves.
[12] IOTL he lived until 1643 when he was killed by one of Li Zicheng’s lieutenants.
[13] IOTL Hong Chengchou was a Ming official who had considerable success in fighting Li Zicheng. He was eventually captured by the Qing, defected, and spent the remainder of his life in their service.
[14] Try as I might, I have been unable to find scholarly sources in the English language to back up the suggestion that the emperor liked men, although it is popularly supposed. I will simply note that, while the Ming dynasty may have interpreted some of its laws to prohibit sodomy, same-sex relationships during the 1600s were not unknown, and at least one emperor of the Ming dynasty (the Zhengde Emperor, r. 1505-1521) was possibly bisexual. Furthermore, ITTL the Tianqi Emperor has begun surrounding himself with court officials from Fujian, a province that around this time had acquired certain stereotypes concerning relationships between men. Suffice to say that with the Tianqi Emperor being more prominent ITTL, there are a lot of scholars debating the possibility.
The Dutch, in the early years of their occupation of Taiwan (and 1630 is very early) encountered quite some difficulties in attempting to extract wealth from Taiwan's population. This was partially a result of the tendency for indigenous tribes to revolt, but also a reflection of the difficulties of imposing a taxation system on a largely pre-currency populace. Indeed, they initially encouraged Chinese immigration precisely because they found Chinese peasants easier to tax. (Although the Guo Huaiyi Rebellion dampened their enthusiasm for Chinese immigrants somewhat.)
None of this would necessarily be known to Zheng Zhilong, or to discourage him from attempting a conquest- but if he does seize the island, he may well find paying the Emperor's tribute more difficult than expected. In turn, that likely puts a strain on relations between Zheng and the Ming; how the Emperor manages such difficulties will have big effects on Chinese seapower.
It's so weird for a figure like Li Zicheng to be reduced to a footnote, but it makes sense - the Ming aren't fighting a war on two fronts ITTL, after all.
Very good points. Of course, an invading army can sometimes be a (very blunt) tool for monetizing a society -- I've heard it suggested that Alexander the Great's army essentially did this to the far reaches of the Achaemenid empire, since they were paid in coin and were obviously the ones in a position to demand goods or services post-conquest in exchange for coin -- but that's more long-term effects, and I suspect Zheng Zhilong is looking for more immediate sources of wealth.
To be fair, Koxinga managed it IOTL as the representative of a rapidly collapsing rump state -- his father ITTL has the backing of the emperor in Beijing, albeit this time he's leading something more along the lines of a private filibustering expedition. And then there's the question of what happens next. Needless to say, the Zheng family has their work cut out for them.
Butterfly goes flap flap flap. (And, to be honest, sometimes you've gotta bump off a character or two in order to make room for the really fun ones. IOTL he got really lucky at a critical point to affect Chinese history, ITTL he got...less lucky. Or maybe he traded his luck with Nicolas Trigault, who is still alive ITTL.)
A Narrative Interlude [1630]
A palace of the Forbidden City (early 20th century)
The halls of the palace were dark at night, but that didn’t bother her these days. There were guards at every entrance and they were loyal, Minister Dong made sure of that. She almost allowed herself to relax -- at least, as much as one could while having to take very small steps to travel the shortest of distances.
Her husband’s workroom was well-lit. He was skilled enough to probably be able to work in complete darkness, but he preferred working by lanternlight.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, without turning around.
She didn’t say anything, just continued into the room, until she was able to run her fingers through his hair. He relaxed perceptibly at her touch.
“You know,” her husband said to her, “you’re the best empress in the world.”
She may have blushed a little at that. Of course, she was the only empress in the world, because the barbarians did not have real empresses. Or emperors. It was a private joke of her husband’s. Some might have believed him to be unusually droll in his mannerisms. After having been coupled with him for considerable time, she wasn’t so sure. He was the most literal-minded person she’d ever known. Sarcasm went directly over his head.
It was nice, after everything, to realize that your partner was the sort of person to say what he means, and to mean what he said.
The fact that sometimes he just wouldn’t come to bed -- because he’d have an idea, and would spend the night carefully shaving bits of wood from his latest masterpiece -- was a bit different, but she could live with that. She said nothing, just held him in peaceable silence.
He’d been working on a decorative panel. It would be beautiful, she could tell, when it was finished. Already, it was evident that a careful hand had carved the sinuous lines of a great dragon out of a reddish mahogany wood.
They stayed there for a while, him meditative at his workbench, her leaning a little on him to take the weight off her feet.
Then the sudden patter of approaching footsteps. She turned her head in alarm, as a messenger boy burst in and flung himself to the floor.
“Beg pardon, your majesties,” he gasped out, “but I beg leave to present the Marquis of Ningyuan-”
“That’ll do, lad,” the general growled, stumping in with his walking stick. He was doing better, although she could still see the slight stiffness in the way he walked, and while he had been fortunate to escape without visible disfigurement she saw the shiny red along his neck that wasn’t quite hidden by his robes. His torso, they said, had been burned in the explosion of one of his own cannon -- a cannon of foreign make, supposedly, although Minister Dong had completely shaken up the cannon foundries afterwards, so she wasn’t sure. To be injured thusly at the moment of his greatest victory...well, the universe sometimes had a cruel sense of humor.
“You don’t have to tap your head on the floor for me,” the emperor said mildly, but the general bowed low anyway.
“I couldn’t sleep either.”
She wondered if her husband had summoned the general, or if the general had decided to call upon the emperor. That would have been a little out of the ordinary, but everybody knew that her husband had special regard for this general (who had consistently delivered miracles, time and time again) so it would’ve gone unremarked. Besides, it’s not like her imperial husband had bothered with a public audience in...awhile.
“It seems like a night for it,” her husband said.
Nobody said anything for a few seconds. Then the general, a little abruptly, broke the silence.
“I would like another field command.”
“You shall get one.”
The general smiled wryly. “Will that be tomorrow, or next year?”
“It will be,” the emperor said, “when you are fully healed and ready. I know,” he raised a hand to forestall the general’s words, “that you say you are ready now. I still cannot risk your health. And I would be most upset if I allowed any harm to befall my friend.”
The general had opened his mouth to some retort, then closed it again upon hearing the last bit of the emperor’s speech. “Well,” he said at last, “I suppose I can keep bothering Minister Sun about the state of his ministry, just to keep myself in fine form.”
The emperor laughed. “Teacher is a prickly fellow, but I am sure he appreciates the company.”
She remembered how Minister Sun had once been her husband’s tutor, when he was a child. The lessons had not been much use, but he still seemed to like the man, and had chosen him as Minister for War.
“Although there are a few more projects with which I need your help,” the emperor continued. “Find that messenger boy, would you? I would send him for Master Jin, so that I may speak with him.”[1]
“At this hour?” Even the general looked skeptical.
“He won’t mind,” the emperor said.
Indeed, he probably wouldn’t mind at all. Master Jin was absolutely devoted. The empress sometimes wondered at the funny foreigner’s relationship with her husband. But the other man was kind, and knew so many entertaining stories about animals,[2] and he dressed in very fine black robes like a gentleman. So she didn’t mind him at all, and was always cordial with him.
“We may be late talking,” her husband said to her. “Would you like me to help you to bed?”
She made up her mind. “No, thank you,” she said, taking a seat on the bench next to him. “I think I would like to stay.”
He put his arm around her, and she snuggled close.
Footnotes
[1] Jin Nige (金尼閣), aka Nicolas Trigault.
[2] Apart from his work on religious matters, Nicolas Trigault produced the first Chinese translation of Aesop’s Fables in 1625.
Correct; the general entering is Yuan Chonghuan and he's got lingering injuries from the battle where Hong Taiji had even worse luck than him. My apologies for any confusion!