Restoration of the Great Ming: A Tianqi Timeline

The Wandering Emperor [Chapter Two]
A nondescript teahouse, Beijing

Shi Chunjing had led them well. They had a place to stay for a little while. And the food wasn’t half bad.

The emperor’s gaze drifted to the other customers. They were preoccupied with their own issues and didn’t pay him much attention. Some men were playing pai jiu like it was their job, unsmiling and methodical. A handful of common folk exchanged tired stories about rain, the harvest, and the vagaries of the gods. An old man sat by the fire, telling the fortunes of some youths in exchange for a coin.

Against such a backdrop, nobody noticed the little table at the side of the room where the emperor (incognito), Shi Chunjing, and Master Jin were seated, drinking tea.

Shi stood to pour them more tea. “Thank you, older brother,” the emperor said politely. Shi had poured tea for Master Jin first. The emperor was perfectly fine adopting the persona of a junior student, and it amused him whenever his companions stuttered a bit as they caught themselves before they could call him “your majesty.” Everything still had the air of an adventure.

He sipped his tea. It wasn’t bad tea, if a little weak.

Beijing was a city in which to lose oneself. Bustling like a great beehive. (He had never seen a beehive, but he imagined they would be quite busy, what with all the bees.) Nobody ever looked at you twice. There was just too much happening for anyone to be the center of attention for too long. Unless, maybe, they were the emperor. And he was not the emperor.

Their little party had spent the previous day venturing about the city. Not in search of anything, just to observe. He couldn’t help but be impressed by the sheer number of people around. And this was just the one city! There were many others, he knew, all down the coastline and further inland, cities of comparable size and antiquity (although none, he suspected, were truly as grand as the capital). Perhaps he would have to visit them someday.

For now, he felt like continuing to explore Beijing. And then maybe venturing into the nearby countryside. The city was not everything. He remembered, vaguely, that in his youth, his tutors had read to him from various texts whose authors, the great sages, had done things like go up mountains or sit by rivers and do the sorts of contemplative things that, the commentaries suggested, had a lot of double meanings. The only thing that really stuck with him was that there were people going up mountains or sitting by rivers. There were no real mountains or rivers in the imperial palace.

Well. Maybe he could climb a mountain. But for now, he was in the city. And there were a great many things to do and see in the city.

He finished his tea. He noticed that his companions had finished their tea as well. Boldly, the emperor stood, grasping the teapot. “Allow me,” he said brightly, and began to pour tea for them.

Shi’s eyes went wide. Master Jin reacted about a second later. The emperor smiled. By the protocols of court, an emperor pouring tea would be unthinkable! But he had given them specific instructions not to reveal his identity. Even though anyone who received such a high honor from the emperor ought, by long custom, to throw themselves upon the ground in an obsequious display of gratitude.

It was Master Jin who recovered his wits first. Reaching out with his hand, he subtly rapped the table with the knuckles of three fingers. Shi Chunjing quickly did the same.

Well done, the emperor thought, very pleased with his companions’ cleverness. He recognized the gesture as an approximation of the kowtow, the hands and head of a supplicant prostrated upon the ground. That was a deft bit of thinking. But then, everyone knew that Master Jin was an intelligent man.

He poured tea for his companions, and poured tea for himself, and sat back down. Today was going to be a good day.



Footnote

Unnumbered footnote. There is a legend about the Qianlong Emperor (who will not exist ITTL), how, when he traveled incognito, he played the same practical joke on his companions by insisting on pouring them tea -- and one of his companions, caught in a dilemma, invented the same ingenious solution. It is, of course, a legend, but I couldn't pass up using it here. Maybe this is simply another legend commonly told ITTL about the Tianqi Emperor. Maybe not.
 
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The Wandering Emperor [Chapter Three]
A quiet side street, Beijing

Of course they ran into trouble eventually.

To be fair, his companions were doing an excellent job keeping them out of trouble. He had to practically go looking for it.

But when they stumbled across the scene -- a gang of street ruffians holding cudgels, menacing some merchant -- his companions dragged him back around the corner, out of view.

“Not our business,” Shi Chunjing said. “Not a good idea to get involved.”

Master Jin looked pained but agreed. “We cannot risk your safety.”

The emperor looked from one to the other. A more learned man would have pulled some lofty quote from the aether, drawing from one of the classical commentaries about doing the right thing no matter what. The emperor didn’t have any of that. He just said: “we need to help.”

“But-”

“I don’t like it,” the emperor said. He crossed his arms. “It’s not right. We have to do something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” The emperor squared his shoulders. “But I’m not going to stand by and do nothing.”

His purposeful stride forward was halted by Shi Chunjing. “Wait. Waitwaitwait.” The guardsman pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Glancing over at the confrontation, he looked back to the emperor and Master Jin. “You two, wait here,” he all but ordered. “If anyone’s going to intervene, I’ll do it. Just keep back.” And he approached the ruffians at a loping run.

The emperor and Master Jin just watched. It was almost frightening to behold. The first ruffian was taken from behind, a sudden blow to the head, and he went down hard. The second similarly had little warning. Shi wrested the cudgel from the man's limp, unresisting hands and proceeded to wallop a third ruffian, who yelled with pain until he took such a hit that he stopped yelling.

One ruffian left. Unnerved by the speed with which his comrades fell, he backed slowly, his cudgel held in front of him like a sword. But Shi was a professional. Almost lazily, he twirled his own weapon through the air, until with a great shout he dashed forward, swinging it around. The ruffian barely brought his own cudgel up in time to parry, and they met in a great clatter.

Shi gave him no time to recover. He was on him again, and again, and again. And then the ruffian yelled out, for Shi had clobbered him on the wrist, causing him to drop his weapon.

The guardsman wasted no time, but kicked the ruffian in the chest, sending him sprawling backwards, then rushed forward, weapon raised for the killing blow-

“Hold!” The emperor’s voice rang out. “Take him alive. I want to speak with him.”

Shi paused. Then he lowered his weapon. He still kicked the ruffian again, though.

The emperor waited until the man had stopped wheezing in pain. “Now,” he said, crouching down next to the bandit they’d apprehended, “what is your name?”

“Fuck you.”

“That’s the strangest name I’ve ever heard,” the emperor said pleasantly. “And why were you and your…currently indisposed associates threatening this fellow here?” He gestured back at the merchant whom Shi had rescued. The merchant, goggle-eyed, was glancing back and forth between the parties, obviously still stunned.

“Why do you think?” The ruffian spat on the ground. “We needed to eat. He looked like he had money. Nobody wants to starve. I’m no exception to that.”

“So you chose to preserve your life by threatening someone else’s,” the emperor said as sternly as he was able. “Where is the justice there?”

The ruffian laughed. “Justice? I gave up on justice within a week of coming here. This city has a way of devouring the meek and the just. I’ve survived this far by not thinking about any of that.”

The emperor thought about what he wanted to learn next. “Where are you from?” But the ruffian did not answer. “Why did you come here?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” the ruffian muttered.

“Explain.”

“I didn’t have a choice.” The ruffian looked him in the eye. “Do you know what the farmers do when they have too many mouths to feed? Too many children in a time of famine?”

Clearly, the emperor did not.

“Some farmers probably just kill them,” the ruffian said bitterly. “Or maybe not intentionally, but when the country starves it’s always the old and the young who die first. They need the strong young men to live long enough to bring in the harvest. Whenever there’s not enough to eat, it’s the harvestmen who die last.”

The ruffian coughed. “But,” he said, “some families want to be merciful. They don’t want their precious children to die. They want to give them a chance. So for the boys,” he coughed again, “they get a certain operation. And then their families take them to the capital and they abandon them. In the city, after all, there’s a chance. Maybe they can get a place with the palace eunuchs. Maybe they won’t starve after all.”

“...what?”

“You heard me,” the ruffian said. “That’s what my parents had done to me. I was still a child.”

The emperor leaned back, face troubled. “Surely, they know that the emperor has not accepted new palace eunuchs in a long time.” Not for the better part of a decade. There were still quite a few, but Wei Zhongxian’s ouster had been followed by Minister Dong making a very careful investigation of his former cronies. They had been quietly purged and replaced by men that Dong trusted.

“Yeah, no shit.” The ruffian sighed. “Didn’t matter that the chances of success had gone even lower. Not that they were high to begin with. My parents wanted me to have a chance. A tiny chance is better than nothing.”

“So they made you a eunuch,” the emperor said quietly. “And they took you here. And you found that working for the palace was just about impossible.”

“Finally, the fool gets it. And when I couldn’t find honest work, I turned to dishonest work. Not that I give a damn for any of the boys.” He motioned in the direction of the other ruffians whom Shi had dispatched. They lay there, unnervingly still. “They’re all bullies and crooks. Same as me, I suppose.”

The emperor passed a hand across his face. “For whatever crimes you have committed,” he said, “you have no doubt been punished for them by now. Get out of my sight. Don’t let me lay eyes on you again. And here.” He produced a coin from his robes, pressed it into the man’s hand. “Take this. You can go now.”

The ruffian looked perplexed, but he accepted the coin, rose unsteadily to his feet, and hurried off.

“Are you alright?” The emperor asked the merchant. “Very well. You can go, too. Forget everything you saw just now.”

And then the emperor was alone with his companions again.

“That was a kind thing you did,” Master Jin murmured.

“It was the only thing to do,” the emperor replied, a little annoyed. “He’d already been beaten. What else could I do, order his death? I suppose I could have, but I’d like to consult with a magistrate first. And even then, it’s my prerogative to grant mercy.”

Shi Chunjing blinked and said nothing. He would have said something like: all this for a petty merchant? But he was well-trained in keeping thoughts like those to himself.

“I tire of this,” the emperor said. “Let’s go somewhere more convivial. I’ve had enough moral dilemmas for one day.”
 
The emperor waited until the man had stopped wheezing in pain. “Now,” he said, crouching down next to the bandit they’d apprehended, “what is your name?”

“Fuck you.”
🤣🤣🤣🤣, the most cheesy restrained villain one liners ever.

On the other hand, how long until eunuch making practice is banned permanently? Do the Chinese still practice castration as punishment?
 
🤣🤣🤣🤣, the most cheesy restrained villain one liners ever.

On the other hand, how long until eunuch making practice is banned permanently? Do the Chinese still practice castration as punishment?
Eunurch making will last the end of qing dynasty OTL.
I guess u can force the emperor to stop the practise but like there’s thousands of years of cultural inertia here
 
A quiet side street, Beijing

Of course they ran into trouble eventually.

To be fair, his companions were doing an excellent job keeping them out of trouble. He had to practically go looking for it.

But when they stumbled across the scene -- a gang of street ruffians holding cudgels, menacing some merchant -- his companions dragged him back around the corner, out of view.

“Not our business,” Shi Chunjing said. “Not a good idea to get involved.”

Master Jin looked pained but agreed. “We cannot risk your safety.”

The emperor looked from one to the other. A more learned man would have pulled some lofty quote from the aether, drawing from one of the classical commentaries about doing the right thing no matter what. The emperor didn’t have any of that. He just said: “we need to help.”

“But-”

“I don’t like it,” the emperor said. He crossed his arms. “It’s not right. We have to do something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” The emperor squared his shoulders. “But I’m not going to stand by and do nothing.”

His purposeful stride forward was halted by Shi Chunjing. “Wait. Waitwaitwait.” The guardsman pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Glancing over at the confrontation, he looked back to the emperor and Master Jin. “You two, wait here,” he all but ordered. “If anyone’s going to intervene, I’ll do it. Just keep back.” And he approached the ruffians at a loping run.

The emperor and Master Jin just watched. It was almost frightening to behold. The first ruffian was taken from behind, a sudden blow to the head, and he went down hard. The second similarly had little warning. Shi wrested the cudgel from the man's limp, unresisting hands and proceeded to wallop a third ruffian, who yelled with pain until he took such a hit that he stopped yelling.

One ruffian left. Unnerved by the speed with which his comrades fell, he backed slowly, his cudgel held in front of him like a sword. But Shi was a professional. Almost lazily, he twirled his own weapon through the air, until with a great shout he dashed forward, swinging it around. The ruffian barely brought his own cudgel up in time to parry, and they met in a great clatter.

Shi gave him no time to recover. He was on him again, and again, and again. And then the ruffian yelled out, for Shi had clobbered him on the wrist, causing him to drop his weapon.

The guardsman wasted no time, but kicked the ruffian in the chest, sending him sprawling backwards, then rushed forward, weapon raised for the killing blow-

“Hold!” The emperor’s voice rang out. “Take him alive. I want to speak with him.”

Shi paused. Then he lowered his weapon. He still kicked the ruffian again, though.

The emperor waited until the man had stopped wheezing in pain. “Now,” he said, crouching down next to the bandit they’d apprehended, “what is your name?”

“Fuck you.”

“That’s the strangest name I’ve ever heard,” the emperor said pleasantly. “And why were you and your…currently indisposed associates threatening this fellow here?” He gestured back at the merchant whom Shi had rescued. The merchant, goggle-eyed, was glancing back and forth between the parties, obviously still stunned.

“Why do you think?” The ruffian spat on the ground. “We needed to eat. He looked like he had money. Nobody wants to starve. I’m no exception to that.”

“So you chose to preserve your life by threatening someone else’s,” the emperor said as sternly as he was able. “Where is the justice there?”

The ruffian laughed. “Justice? I gave up on justice within a week of coming here. This city has a way of devouring the meek and the just. I’ve survived this far by not thinking about any of that.”

The emperor thought about what he wanted to learn next. “Where are you from?” But the ruffian did not answer. “Why did you come here?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” the ruffian muttered.

“Explain.”

“I didn’t have a choice.” The ruffian looked him in the eye. “Do you know what the farmers do when they have too many mouths to feed? Too many children in a time of famine?”

Clearly, the emperor did not.

“Some farmers probably just kill them,” the ruffian said bitterly. “Or maybe not intentionally, but when the country starves it’s always the old and the young who die first. They need the strong young men to live long enough to bring in the harvest. Whenever there’s not enough to eat, it’s the harvestmen who die last.”

The ruffian coughed. “But,” he said, “some families want to be merciful. They don’t want their precious children to die. They want to give them a chance. So for the boys,” he coughed again, “they get a certain operation. And then their families take them to the capital and they abandon them. In the city, after all, there’s a chance. Maybe they can get a place with the palace eunuchs. Maybe they won’t starve after all.”

“...what?”

“You heard me,” the ruffian said. “That’s what my parents had done to me. I was still a child.”

The emperor leaned back, face troubled. “Surely, they know that the emperor has not accepted new palace eunuchs in a long time.” Not for the better part of a decade. There were still quite a few, but Wei Zhongxian’s ouster had been followed by Minister Dong making a very careful investigation of his former cronies. They had been quietly purged and replaced by men that Dong trusted.

“Yeah, no shit.” The ruffian sighed. “Didn’t matter that the chances of success had gone even lower. Not that they were high to begin with. My parents wanted me to have a chance. A tiny chance is better than nothing.”

“So they made you a eunuch,” the emperor said quietly. “And they took you here. And you found that working for the palace was just about impossible.”

“Finally, the fool gets it. And when I couldn’t find honest work, I turned to dishonest work. Not that I give a damn for any of the boys.” He motioned in the direction of the other ruffians whom Shi had dispatched. They lay there, unnervingly still. “They’re all bullies and crooks. Same as me, I suppose.”

The emperor passed a hand across his face. “For whatever crimes you have committed,” he said, “you have no doubt been punished for them by now. Get out of my sight. Don’t let me lay eyes on you again. And here.” He produced a coin from his robes, pressed it into the man’s hand. “Take this. You can go now.”

The ruffian looked perplexed, but he accepted the coin, rose unsteadily to his feet, and hurried off.

“Are you alright?” The emperor asked the merchant. “Very well. You can go, too. Forget everything you saw just now.”

And then the emperor was alone with his companions again.

“That was a kind thing you did,” Master Jin murmured.

“It was the only thing to do,” the emperor replied, a little annoyed. “He’d already been beaten. What else could I do, order his death? I suppose I could have, but I’d like to consult with a magistrate first. And even then, it’s my prerogative to grant mercy.”

Shi Chunjing blinked and said nothing. He would have said something like: all this for a petty merchant? But he was well-trained in keeping thoughts like those to himself.

“I tire of this,” the emperor said. “Let’s go somewhere more convivial. I’ve had enough moral dilemmas for one day.”
Were there any famous cases of eunuch criminals in Beijing iotl?
 
🤣🤣🤣🤣, the most cheesy restrained villain one liners ever.

On the other hand, how long until eunuch making practice is banned permanently? Do the Chinese still practice castration as punishment?
Eunurch making will last the end of qing dynasty OTL.
I guess u can force the emperor to stop the practise but like there’s thousands of years of cultural inertia here
...I have no comment on the emperor's personal opinions on the subject.

I will note that there are a lot of cultural practices which were common at one time but which were deliberately eradicated within the span of a generation. Some of the practices are probably unlamented. The last palace eunuch died in 1996 but there are still women living today whose feet had been bound. (I have not explicitly stated it thus far, merely implied it, but footbinding is in full swing at the present moment ITTL just as it was IOTL.)

Castration as a judicial punishment was once done, and the Hongwu Emperor (first emperor of the Ming) at one time spoke favorably of it, but even during his lifetime regularization of the penal code meant that castration (and tattooing, and various kinds of court-ordered mutilation) was basically eliminated as a punishment -- if convicted of a crime, wrongdoers were fined, or beaten, or exiled, or put to death.

Were there any famous cases of eunuch criminals in Beijing iotl?
I can't think of famous individuals off the top of my head (these individuals were not memorialized like Dick Turpin and others in western folklore), but cast-off eunuchs causing problems is not unusual IOTL as well as ITTL.
 
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Loving the chapter
Watching the Emperor become a knight errant of those old chinese tales about justice is both awesome and highly amusing, looking forward to how that will shape his reign once he returns
 
It was even funnier when the Emperor took that as his name at face value
Loving the chapter
Watching the Emperor become a knight errant of those old chinese tales about justice is both awesome and highly amusing, looking forward to how that will shape his reign once he returns
Thank you! Personally, I was feeling that the emperor was more not rising to the bait and continuing the conversation. Although given how the emperor is sheltered and literal-minded, that explanation is also likely.

If the Qing dynasty's emperors (who are not going to exist ITTL) could get away with such escapades, I see no reason why the Tianqi Emperor cannot as well!
 
The Wandering Emperor [Chapter Four]
Outskirts of the city, Beijing

Master Jin approved, in principle, of charity, but after seeing the emperor give another handful of coins (indeed, the entire remaining contents of a leather pouch that he carried) to a young beggar at the roadside, he felt obliged to speak up.

“Your maj-” he caught himself in time. “I mean, um, I hesitate to presume,” he said, “but perhaps a more judicious approach is in order?”

The emperor gave him a curious look. “What do you mean?”

“Not to put too fine a point upon it,” he said, “but your life is quite valuable, and-”

“What the honorable master means,” Shi Chunjing interjected, “is that he’s worried that you keep giving money to people who are potentially unstable, diseased, or dangerous.”

The Jesuit spluttered. “That is not precisely what I meant-”

“I mean, think about it,” Shi Chunjing continued, “that last one was coughing his lungs out. You might catch the plague, for all we know.”

“And what,” the emperor asked, “are the symptoms of plague?”

The guardsman paused. “Um. As far as I remember, like, these large bleeding blisters? And a strong fever, and-”

“But no coughing. Therefore, no plague.”

Master Jin winced. “Well, some versions of the plague do spread via the breath,” he pointed out, “and in any case, a bad case of la grippe would still be dangerous to the life of our beloved-”

“If I fall ill, then I am afraid it will be up to you to bear me safely home,” the emperor said. “And besides, I have a responsibility to my people.”

“Yes,” the Jesuit said carefully. “That does you great credit. And you have been responsible for doling out coins to innkeepers, grocery merchants, and miscellaneous beggars since the beginning of our adventure. Please, though, assuage my nerves by telling me just how many bags of coins you have about your person, so that I may rest easy knowing we still have sufficient funds.”

The emperor carefully stowed the sizable but empty coin purse into a fold of his robes. Then he told them.

Shi Chunjing’s eyes almost bulged out. “What! That many?! It’s a wonder you don’t clink when you move!”

“It was a lucky number,” the emperor said. He’d visited Minister Cai and politely asked for a quantity of copper coins in leather bags, which the Minister of Finance had provided without question. It was convenient being the emperor, sometimes.

“Lucky number!” The guardsman pinched the bridge of his nose. “Aaaaa. Okay. Fine. Now I’ll just be sure to worry about yet another risk to your life. If anyone’s following us in this crowd, and they try to rob us, I shall be very, very-” He stopped talking. “Never mind. I live to serve.”

“Cheer up,” the emperor advised. “It’s a lovely day.”

And it was. The sun warmed the earth, but not unbearably so, for there were wispy clouds and a gentle breeze. And as the trio wandered further from the center of the city, it seemed even the smell of the air was better, though that may have been simply imagination. After all, even in the less dense areas, there were still crowds of people. With people came all the scents of humanity -- and not all of them were good.

But it was still pleasant enough, being out in the open, and though his companions worried about him, the emperor was not worried. He was, by now, practically a seasoned traveler. True, he hadn’t traveled much before this. Or at all, really, except in the immediate vicinity of his palaces.

The road, he knew, stretched out to the east, continued down to the coast and to the harbors there. And down the road there was a little commotion.

“Make way!” He could hear people shouting. “Make way!”

A pair of guards were clearing a path through the crowds, which parted in front of a small procession. There were attendants carrying a fashionably ornate litter, one befitting an official of decent rank, which advanced through the mass of people in the street.

The emperor’s party hurried to the side, out of the way. The litter, they could see, was occupied by a distinguished-looking fellow whose bored gaze wandered over the crowd. Then he blinked and shouted a command to his attendants, who stopped.

He clambered out, and when his feet were on the ground walked forward until he stood in front of the emperor.

“Your majesty?” Magistrate Di Renjie asked, surprised. “What on earth are you doing here?”
 
Master Jin approved, in principle, of charity, but after seeing the emperor give another handful of coins (indeed, the entire remaining contents of a leather pouch that he carried) to a young beggar at the roadside, he felt obliged to speak up.
Giving everything to the poor?

How christian of you

Okay joke aside if anyone finds about about this trait of his in the future he'll be even more popular

Like "that one chinese emperor who acted like a living Jesus steriotype"
“Your majesty?” Magistrate Di Renjie asked, surprised. “What on earth are you doing here?”
YEEEEEEEES

The crossover we've been all waiting for!

Im so excited for this
 
The emperor waited until the man had stopped wheezing in pain. “Now,” he said, crouching down next to the bandit they’d apprehended, “what is your name?”

“Fuck you.”

“That’s the strangest name I’ve ever heard,” the emperor said pleasantly.
Hahaha!

“Your majesty?” Magistrate Di Renjie asked, surprised. “What on earth are you doing here?”
Oh dear, the commotion is about to get one hell of a lot worse, isn't it?
 
“Your majesty?” Magistrate Di Renjie asked, surprised. “What on earth are you doing here?”
only the greatest detective in all of China could spot the emperor so quickly
Magistrate Di is either about to get a wonderful promotion or to be sent back to Dongshan at the speed of light! 🤣🤣
 
All I can say is -- I've gotta get the emperor back to the palace eventually. And then I was like -- wait a minute. I've introduced a character who might, might be observant enough to recognize his emperor in street clothes. So! Magistrate Di makes another cameo appearance. After the next narrative segment, there's going to be some more historical content -- I feel the urge to infodump -- I spent considerable time figuring out a plausible set of ministers for the imperial bureaucracy (we've already met some of them thus far -- Minister of Works Dong Kewei, Minister of Justice Zhou Qiyuan, Minister of Rites Qian Qianyi, and I did reveal the surname of the current Minister of Finance). Will all of these individuals play a notable part in historical events? Probably not! But it was fun picking names from the stockpile of people who were alive during the 1630s.

I was a little slower in actually writing the most recent chapter and getting it posted, but hopefully I'm back on track in terms of my personal schedule.

...unless I get sidetracked in creating (English) Wikipedia articles for the minor historical characters whose names I am using.
 
The Wandering Emperor [Chapter Five]
Outskirts of the city, Beijing

The emperor stepped forward to grab the magistrate by the arm before he could bow to him in the street.

“Not so loudly,” the emperor said, although by then heads were already turning throughout the crowd. Ah well. It was fun while it lasted.

The magistrate’s guardsmen were advancing on him, although Magistrate Di waved them off.

“I had seen you maybe once before,” he said to the emperor. “At the ceremony of my appointment. And before that, I think, as I was just attaining my degree.”

The emperor looked close. “I recognize you,” he said. “You’re the magistrate we sent down to Dongshan.” He smiled. “And how are things going over there? I know the Admiral can be a strong personality, but he’s a decent fellow at heart.”

“Things are going well enough,” Magistrate Di said, a bit cautiously. “Although there is one important matter that he wished for me to convey in person. When we landed at the docks, they said that our emperor had gone into seclusion and was taking no visitors, but I figured I might as well arrive and see if one of your ministers would take a message.”

“Well,” the emperor said with good humor, “I suppose you can have an audience with me momentarily. Just as soon as we get back to the palace.” He beckoned Shi and Master Jin closer. “Let’s join their precession, shall we? Before the people notice and start kowtowing all over the damn place.”

The emperor turned back to Magistrate Di. “I’d like to commandeer your litter. I’m afraid you’ll have to walk the rest of the way, but here.” He pulled multiple heavy coin-purses from his robes and pressed them to the flabbergasted magistrate. “This should be suitable recompense, I hope. Do be a gentleman and distribute some of it to the commoners, if you would? Thank you. Alright, c’mon. I’ve got an audience to grant, so let’s step to it.”

He clambered into the magistrate’s litter and they were off. Honestly, it was good to get all that money into someone else’s hands. He could’ve given the stuff away even more generously and still have been at it for weeks. Well, it wasn’t his problem anymore. Idly, he wondered how the people did it. Carrying so much money around was a bother! No wonder that emperors had toyed with paper money, years ago. But that was probably a bad idea. It never really seemed to work out. And of course, the people didn’t seem to usually have such a problem with the weight of coins. Many of them hardly seemed to have enough.

And that wasn’t the only thing that the emperor thought about. He missed his wife, his children. I do feel bad for leaving them. That was my only mistake, he thought, and though going among the commoners was probably the right thing to do at the time, he was glad to be heading home.

It’s funny, he thought. I’ve never come to my palace this way before. I’ve lived within the grounds practically all my life. A brand-new experience, really. The thought cheered him.

Well. Now that he’d done it once, he might well do it again. If things ever got so bad and he needed to clear his head. Although maybe he’d more thoroughly schedule a return plan, rather than leave it up to fate. It wouldn’t do to upset things too much. Even if he was the emperor. Especially since he was the emperor.

He realized, also, that he’d been away from his woodworking for...quite some time. His hands itched for the chance to carve something beautiful again. He’d seen so many things -- not just the polished fineries of his palace, but things that were breathing and real. How had he ever gone without seeing them? Why had he been kept away for so long?

Those were all things to think about. Later, of course. For now, the emperor settled back and thought about what he’d say to his beloved wife.
 
The emperor in his naive and weird way is a very wholesome dude
Definitely an improvement fron the OTL Tianqi who had separate palaces for male and female lovers🤐
To be fair -- while I have been able to find many sources which talk about how he was a simple fellow who spent his time woodworking, I've been having a real devil of a time tracking down a specific source for the "separate palaces for male and female lovers" claim. It sounds a little bit like propaganda, and I suspect that if it were indeed true, Wei Zhongxian would have set about establishing some method of controlling it -- not for nothing did he and/or his cronies outright murder several of the emperor's concubines -- and considering that Consort Rong (now Empress Rong ITTL) was maybe an actual relative of Wei Zhongxian (not directly, from what little I've been able to find), I suspect that everyone's least favorite schemer (and TTL's first dead guy) would have been reluctant to undermine someone that he might have hoped would be an ally at court. (Which isn't to say that Consort Rong would have regarded him as an ally, more like an evil uncle or whatever relation they had, but she was a canny survivor, and survivors do what they must.)

Incidentally (adding a bit of author's commentary, not Word of God but maybe useful to consider), this is a possible clue why the POD (Wanggongchang Explosion averted -- remember that?) might not have been all that it seemed, and that Wei Zhongxian might not actually have been at fault -- IOTL the explosion caused the death of Consort Rong's son who was also the emperor's only surviving son -- so why would he have tried to harm his own kin? (That being said, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that Wei Zhongxian would have known every possible side effect of the explosion, if he even had a part in it, which is...debatable.) (The whole issue of the explosion isn't meant to be cut-and-dry, ITTL historians are debating it even harder than IOTL and there's still all sorts of disagreements. This timeline's focus is on the continued survival of the Tianqi Emperor and his production of an heir / heirs, and what that does for the dynasty. Wei Zhongxian getting eliminated was a happy side effect. I mean, I don't think many people liked him all that much. If it wasn't for the incident at Wanggongchang, someone would have found a reason to get rid of him eventually as they did IOTL.)

Getting back to the original topic, though, before I started rambling -- yes! I'm doing my best to portray the emperor as wholesome (in his eccentric way). And whether or not he had palaces full of lovers, that's not to say that the Tianqi Emperor can't be bisexual in this timeline. I mean, he's affiliated with bureaucrats and piratical adventurers from Fujian (a province which, during the Ming era, was stereotyped as permissive of homosexuality) -- he clearly has courtly favorites, as many emperors did. It's just that for this emperor, woodworking turned out to be his life's most intimate passion.
 
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1637, part 2
A_Ming_junk_1637.jpg

Warship in the service of Admiral Zheng Zhilong, illustration published 1637. Note the junk-rigged sails and two rows of gunports. The cannons of this ship are of relatively small caliber and fire roundshot.

The Tianqi Emperor’s return to the palace is one of triumph and celebration. At least, to the imperial family. Most people had no idea that he’d left, including his high officials. The venerable old Sun Chengzong, who is capping off his illustrious career with a long spell as Grand Secretary, wrings his hands but doesn’t kick up a fuss; after all, the emperor’s spirits have clearly improved and he was worrying about the lad. Zhou Qiyuan, Minister of Justice, writes a very formal and restrained memorial to the throne suggesting that the emperor kindly not pull a trick like that in the future, couched in very respectful language. Dong Kewai, Minister of Works, pretends that he wasn’t the person to arrange the emperor’s vanishing act in the first place.

Qian Qianyi, Minister of Rites, has some private meetings with the emperor. This may or may not be related to their mutual friendship with Zheng Zhilong, Admiral of the Coastal Seas, and a recently arrived missive from the emperor’s viceroy on Dongshan. Indeed, some historians believe that what followed had already been planned, to some degree, before the emperor’s sojourn among the people.

The Tokugawa family has controlled Japan for three decades at this point. The present shogun is Tokugawa Iemitsu, first of his lineage to be born after his distinguished grandfather, Tokugawa Ieyasu, formally seized power. Iemitsu resembles his counterpart the Tianqi Emperor in many ways; they are both relatively young men (indeed, they were born almost within a year of each other) whose court was dominated by regents until they were able to assume personal control over their respective nations.[1] They differ, however, in one aspect: their tolerance of Christianity.

The Tianqi Emperor, of course, is positively inclined towards Christians, and in particular the Jesuits, who are his friends. Persistent rumors exist concerning his religious affiliation (mostly legends invented by optimistic Europeans) and that of his family (his brother, the Prince of Xin, is rumored to be a Christian[2]). Also, every now and then one of his courtiers gets baptized -- this isn’t exactly common, but when it does happen most people basically shrug and get on with their lives. Their emperor is the greatest emperor in the world -- indeed, is the emperor, so why worry about foreigners and their strange religion?

Tokugawa Iemitsu is not like that. At all. To him, Christians are less “harmless foreign eccentrics who know a lot about astronomy” and more “those assholes in Kyushu who keep importing guns.” Which is to say, he views them as an existential threat. He does not like the renegade daimyos who pretend to be good Catholics so they get favorable deals from the Portuguese and Spanish. He prefers the Dutch, who might be foreigners but at least they’re not those kinds of foreigners, and are more than willing to cooperate with the duly appointed authorities. Iemitsu is not what you’d call a tremendously cosmopolitan fellow. Two years ago, he introduced a bunch of restrictions on foreign trade and has since been directing his men to hunt down any Japanese Christians they can find.

Obviously, word gets out. Foreign trade might be strictly curtailed but plenty of Japanese have experience as overseas merchants, and plenty of foreigners from neighboring areas have made a tidy profit trading in Japan. Some of these individuals have personal connections to Japan. Some have sympathies with the local Christians.

Zheng Zhilong, Admiral of the Coastal Seas, fits all three categories. He started off his career trading in Japan, his wife (the mother of his son) is Japanese, and he himself is a nominal Catholic. And he is not happy.

The Ming court was content to send an angry letter to Shah Jahan reprimanding him for allowing the persecution of Jesuits in his domain -- there was little else they could do, really. But here, Admiral Zheng unleashes all his rhetoric in calling for swift action against the eastern barbarians, who have the indecency to torture missionaries to death in public. The Tokugawa regime, in his eyes, is causing trouble for no reason. Also, swift action would please his Portuguese and Spanish associates, some of whom are resident in Dongshan, and who are important middlemen in regional trade.

Eventually, he acts.

In September 1637, the relatively peaceful atmosphere of Nagasaki is shattered by cannon-fire. A small armada of ships has boldly sailed up to the busy port and unleashed their firepower upon the very surprised inhabitants. Furthermore, two parties are launched in small boats. One targets a Dutch East India Company merchant ship, which they capture in hand-to-hand combat (along with a decent haul of cargo). The other, led by Admiral Zheng himself, descends upon the city, where they smash up some buildings before prudently withdrawing in the face of Japanese reinforcements.

Zheng’s landing party does not leave empty-handed. They do some desultory looting while ashore, which is not particularly profitable but which is symbolically significant. The shore party demonstrates Zheng’s boldness and is additionally able to rescue one Lorenzo Ruiz, a Filipino-born Catholic missionary who had been captured by the Tokugawa regime. Unfortunately, Ruiz is badly injured by the tortures visited upon him and dies onboard Zheng’s ship.[3]

The success of Zheng’s expedition sends shockwaves through Japan. If the Tokugawa court was troubled by Christians before, they’re positively apoplectic now. And on the island of Kyushu, the news just keeps getting worse. A number of rebels in the Shimabara domain, led by an extremely charismatic Christian youth, figure that it’s now or never, and promptly kick off a rebellion which soon swells to foreboding numbers.[4]

Admiral Zheng returns in triumph. This isn’t the first time that he’s beaten the Dutch, but it’s probably the most audacious. Indeed, depictions of the “Descent Upon Nagasaki” will eventually be highly popular in East Asia and in Europe. He receives an official commendation from the emperor, rakes in a tidy profit from the sale of his prize’s cargo, and is warmly thanked by local representatives of the Catholic Church. Giulio Alenio, the foremost representative of the Jesuits in Dongshan, receives the bodily relics of Lorenzo Ruiz from Zheng’s crew and organizes the transfer back to the Philippines. Ruiz had been affiliated with the Dominicans, and it is believed that Jesuit testimony in support of Ruiz’s martyrdom was reciprocated by Dominican support for the canonization of Francesc de Borja. Both individuals are canonized within the decade.[5]

Admiral Zheng wants more action in Japan. Some of the emperor’s ministers have their own plans for internal improvements. The emperor, meanwhile, is just happy to be back with his family and particularly his empress. Soon, it becomes known that he and the empress have conceived another child -- clearly, their reunion was a happy one.



Footnotes
[1] This is an accurate description of Tokugawa Iemitsu as he was IOTL. Of course, at this point IOTL the Tianqi Emperor had been dead for ten years.
[2] As noted previously, IOTL the Chongzhen Emperor was rumored to have been very close to converting but then didn’t. Similar rumors follow him here.
[3] Lorenzo Ruiz was a real person IOTL who was tortured to death in 1637. Three hundred and fifty years later, he would be canonized as one of the Sixteen Martyrs of Japan, the first Filipino-born saint.
[4] The Shimabara Rebellion -- in response to religious persecution and more mundane economic reasons -- started in late 1637 IOTL as well.
[5] IOTL Francesc de Borja, or “Francis Borgia” (yes, those Borgias), a Superior General of the Jesuit Order, was beatified in 1624 and canonized in 1670. Lorenzo Ruiz, meanwhile, was not beatified until 1981 and canonized in 1987 as one of the Sixteen Martyrs of Japan, because records of his life had been misplaced for centuries (before eventually being located in the archives of...the Jesuit Order). ITTL, obviously, Francis has been beatified on schedule, unaffected by the POD, and Lorenzo Ruiz is a lot more famous owing to all the extra witnesses, so the two are made saints earlier than IOTL.
 
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