Chapter 39: The Clay Prime Minister

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【At the end of the third month of the seventy-third year of the Chongzhen reign, you were enfeoffed as “Chancellor,” granted permission to establish your own office and command staff, and entrusted with launching a new government!】

【The moment the news broke, the whole realm was shaken!】

【From Shanhai Pass to Zhen'nan Pass, from the Hexi Corridor to the hills of Jiangnan, there was no one who had not heard your name...】

【Whether among the common people or within officialdom, everyone was astonished by the sudden appearance of you, this “Chancellor,” and before long they naturally split into two camps.】

【One camp consisted of the people, long tormented by natural disasters and human calamities. They had been praying for a new government to save them. Now the Divine Emperor had suddenly changed his ways, issued an edict of self-criticism, and declared that he would entrust you, the “Chancellor,” with setting the realm straight. This naturally filled them with excitement! They began to view the reforms you had yet to implement with instinctive goodwill and eager anticipation!】

【The other camp consisted of the vested interests: corrupt officials, members of the imperial clan, hereditary nobles, great clans, wealthy merchants, landlords, and the like. Every comfort they had enjoyed in the past came from the Divine Emperor’s indulgence. The emperor himself was their greatest umbrella of protection.】

【Yet now that protective umbrella had actually cut ties with them and slipped away—and had even found a “Chancellor” to establish a new government. This... this was nothing less than a death sentence for them!】

【Under such circumstances, the vested interests were naturally unwilling to submit. But since even the Divine Emperor stood on your side, resistance would be useless. All they could do was wait despairingly for death, hoping only that their punishment might be lenient enough for them to remain wealthy gentlemen afterward...】

【But one month passed, then two, then three...】

【For several months, the two camps waited with entirely different thoughts, yet still no further word came from the capital. It was almost as though the orders for the new government had never been issued at all...】

【Huh? What was going on?】

【Both camps were completely baffled. Was this new government actually going to happen or not?】

【Could it be that the newly appointed “Chancellor” was also a corrupt official, and that the so-called new government was merely a tool for you to win fame and fortune?】

【Or perhaps you... you had become a second Grand Commander Yuan, thrown into the Imperial Prison by an emperor who had changed his mind?】

【Or was it...】

【For a time, every possible explanation was being thrown around. In short, everyone was utterly confused: what on earth had you been doing?】

【...】

【“What have I been doing?”】

【In the capital’s “temporary chancellery,” you, the newly appointed “Chancellor,” were sitting alone at a table, looking utterly helpless.】

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【“I’m a parachuted-in Chancellor with a title but no substance, an office but no actual authority. What can I do? I can’t do a damn thing...”】

【The ideal was rich and glorious; reality was painfully bare!】

【Your investiture as “Chancellor” in the third month had indeed been spectacular, as though you would be able to eradicate treacherous villains and restore the radiance of sun and moon at any moment!】

【But the reality was that you, this “Chancellor,” were nothing more than a commander without troops...】

【The Divine Emperor had given you permission to establish your own office and command staff so that you could rebuild a clean and efficient court! On the surface, this seemed to grant you power enough to reach the heavens. In practice, however, the arrangement had boxed you in!】

【No matter how much authority you possessed, you still needed subordinate officials to help carry out your orders, didn’t you? But now that you had established your own office and command staff, you could no longer poach people from the central government to work for you. The court was filled almost entirely with corrupt officials whose roots ran deep after years of entanglement. How could the head of the new government recruit them? Wouldn’t that be tantamount to undermining your own foundation?】

【Purity was supposed to be the most important mark of your administration...】

【And so, over the past several months, apart from bringing in people from the Ministry of Works to construct your “chancellery,” you had spent the rest of your time recruiting new people to join your cause!】

【Given that, did establishing your own office and command staff have any practical purpose beyond an intimidating title?】

【Clearly not. There simply had not been enough time. You had not even assembled a makeshift team...】

【That was the source of your predicament: in theory, your authority was immense, but in practice, you could not use it at all.】

【You wanted to find a group of capable people with spotless backgrounds to serve as officials in the chancellery, but you truly could not find them!】

【The officials already available were too morally compromised for you to employ. Finding an honest official was like panning for gold in a river of excrement.】

【As for reserve officials such as examination candidates and successful degree holders, there were hardly any normal people among them either. After years of indoctrination under the Divine Emperor, the elite selected through the civil service examinations had long since become more renowned than capable. They were good at shouting about loyalty and lining their own pockets, but actually asking them to accomplish anything was an absolute nightmare!】

【With no other choice, you could only select a few relatively normal individuals from among the small number of newly successful candidates with clean backgrounds, place them in the chancellery—which had little more than an empty shell—and begin training their ability to govern and handle affairs from scratch.】

【If you really wanted these newcomers to take on actual responsibilities, they would first need time to mature...】

【And that meant you could forget about seeing results for several years!】

【As you struggled to build everything from the ground up, you could not help cursing the Divine Emperor as an old bastard: he claimed to support the new government, but all he had given you was a position and a title...】

【Then you thought about it again. The Divine Emperor truly might not be able to help you much. This was simply the state the Great Ming was in. The fact that he could give you a position and a title was already something. How could truly capable and upright officials possibly exist within the court?】

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【At this thought, you could not help letting out a mournful sigh: what a rotten mess this was! Divine Emperor, you really were damnable...】

【And all of that was merely one of the difficulties you currently faced. What made the road to your new government even more arduous was the stubborn resistance of the capital’s bureaucratic system!】

【Although the Divine Emperor had made his support for your reforms perfectly clear, leaving the corrupt officials nervous and restless yet afraid to resist you openly, they could still place obstacles in your path.】

【After all, it was obvious that you intended to overhaul the administration—and perhaps even dismantle the entire bureaucratic system and replace it. They were naturally destined to stand against you... Under such circumstances, even with the emperor’s threats hanging over them, they would inevitably fight you for the sake of their wealth, honor, and lives!】

【What excited them even more was that, to this day, the Divine Emperor had offered you nothing beyond verbal support for your reforms. He had never shown any intention of personally stepping in to help you deal with them...】

【What did that mean?】

【Clearly, His Majesty’s resolve was not absolute. Although he had issued an edict of self-criticism and declared his intention to sever ties with the officials of Great Ming, perhaps he still wished to preserve the court’s “loyalty”...】

【As for what he truly thought, no one knew. His attitude was so ambiguous that it invited endless speculation... And that ambiguity happened to become the court’s final glimmer of hope: what if His Majesty was merely putting on an act?】

【Yes! It was too soon to surrender!】

【Loyalty! Loyalty!】

【Driven by that final glimmer of hope, the officials of the court could not help looking down on you. Many of your orders were met with superficial obedience and covert resistance...】

【The entire bureaucracy achieved unprecedented unity before you, this parachuted-in “Chancellor.” They rallied tightly around the Chief Grand Secretary, Chen Shuxue, and the senior officials of the Six Ministries, firmly determined to fight you to the bitter end!】

【Thus, caught between internal emptiness and external hostility, you, this “Chancellor,” became like a clay statue. Your decrees could not even leave the capital; for all you knew, they could not get beyond the chancellery gates...】

【This left you increasingly irritated. What exactly did the Divine Emperor mean? Did he support you or not?】

【Damn it! Why were all the Zhu emperors such riddlers? The Taoist priest Jiajing had been famously impossible to read, and now the old bastard Chongzhen, after reigning for more than seventy years, had mutated into one as well, taking up the riddler’s trade and forcing me to guess at the emperor’s intentions...】

【Ding! Faced with troubles both within and without, compounded by the Divine Emperor’s ambiguous attitude, you—lacking experience in dealing with the world—are so frustrated that your hair is falling out. You have no idea which path to take... Choose: (?) Please devise your own strategy!】

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