The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 466 Great Purge

The midsummer of the first year of Taichu was exceptionally cool. Even in July, the hottest month of the year, women could still wear horse-faced skirts. The Little Ice Age climate seemed unwilling to leave the time travelers easily.

On the sixth day of July, the emperor moved into Yongfu Palace. On the same day, Empress Dowager Jin Yuji, Yang Qing'er and Concubine Dowager Chen Yuanyuan moved into Linzhi Palace next to Yongfu Palace.

The weather in Shenyang was pleasant in July, and the emperor's appetite increased greatly, so he acted recklessly.

As soon as the abdication ceremony was over, he carried out drastic reforms in preparation for the upcoming purge.

The old and new systems alternate, and the new totalitarian iron-blooded system will replace the classical ideal country that is full of affection and advocates tolerance.

The helmsman of the Great Qi Empire will transform from a saintly gentleman praised by everyone into a murderous tyrant who is unforgivable.

In this dramatic change from feudalism to totalitarianism, those who cannot adapt to the new system and new situation will be ruthlessly purged.

Anyone who may threaten the imperial power will be eliminated immediately.

A new power structure was devised, leading to significant changes in the upper echelons of power within the Great Qi Dynasty. Kang Yingqian was stripped of his position as Prime Minister and replaced by Sun Chuanting. Kang was demoted to Minister of Personnel. The remaining heads of the six ministries were assigned to Lu Xiangsheng, Qiao Yiqi, Wang Huazhen, Ge Yewen, and Song Yingxing, respectively in charge of the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of War, and the Ministry of Works. Ma Shiying, Hou Xun, and Qian Qianyi were appointed Imperial Grand Secretaries.

The chief officer of the Suoyi Guard was replaced by Shen Lian by Zhang Dong. The Suoyi Guard was given greater power and was directly responsible to the emperor. In addition to external reconnaissance, it was also responsible for monitoring officials. In an emergency, it could bypass the Ministry of Justice and arrest people directly. The Suoyi Guard was expanded to two thousand people. Jiang Liuer, Alessa, Li Zicheng and others became the new blood of this team. There were four bureaus in the east, south, west and north, each with three hundred people, responsible for the four directions of the empire, a total of one thousand two hundred people. Zhang Dong personally led eight hundred people to be responsible for domestic intelligence clerkship.

The Imperial Guard was responsible for guarding the imperial palace and escorting the emperor when he went out. The force was expanded to 2,400 people. The chief officer was Pei Dahu, and the four lieutenants (also known as the Four Vajras) each led 400 guards. The Four Vajras were: Lin Yu, Wu Xiao, Zhao Yuanzhi, and Wei Zhao.

The original fourteen Guards were reorganized into ten corps (each with a full strength of 50,000 men). The current strength, commander, and flag of each corps are as follows:

The First Corps consisted of 15,000 men, led by Liu Zhaosun, who held the Black Dragon Flag.

The Second Corps, 8,000 men, commanded by Deng Changxiong, carried the Black Tiger Banner;

The Third Corps, 8,000 men, led by Qi Jin, carried the Black Lion Banner;
The 4th Corps, 8,000 men, commanded by Qin Jianxun, carried the Black Bear Flag;

The Fifth Corps, 8,000 men, commanded by Pu Gang, carried the Black Antelope Banner;

The Sixth Corps (Navy) consisted of 4,000 men, commanded by Wu Aheng, and carried the black skull flag;
The Seventh Corps (Cavalry) consisted of 3,000 men, commanded by Wang Zengbin, and carried the Black Eagle flag;

The Eighth Corps, 8,000 men, led by Commander Zhao Lujiao, carried the Black Wolf Banner;

The Ninth Corps (Foreign Corps) had 8,000 men, with Jin Yinghe as the chief officer, holding the Black Panther flag.

The 10th Corps consists of 8,000 men, led by Zheng Yishi, holding the Black Dragon Flag.

The entire army consisted of 78,000 men, with the addition of 2,000 artillerymen from the artillery corps, for a total of 80,000 troops.

In the new round of troop expansion in autumn, the total strength of the Qi army will exceed 100,000.

For all the corps to be fully staffed and expanded to 500,000 troops, we have to wait until next year after we cross the Yangtze River and destroy the Southern Ming Dynasty.

Considering that all the military instructors had been killed or wounded, the only survivors were the chief instructor Sen Ti, the former instructor of the Second Army Huang Youlun, the former instructor of the Third Army Chu Jinsheng, and the former instructor of the Fourteenth Army Xing Zhongyi. In order to strengthen control over the army, at the instruction of Emperor Wu Ding, new instructors and combat representatives were quickly dispatched to each corps and battalion.

On the surface, there was no change in the power structure of the Great Qi Dynasty. The power was smoothly transferred from the regent ministers such as Kang Yingqian to the emperor.

The whole process was uneventful. The ministers of state were originally the confidants of the retired emperor. In front of the Emperor Wuding, whose temperament had changed drastically, they did not dare to show any intention of clinging to his position.

Although Kang Yingqian and others were walking on thin ice, the time traveler still decided to carry out a major purge of his old subordinates.

The direct cause of the "Great Purge" was the attack led by Zhang Mazi.

At the end of July, when Zhang Dong led the Suoyi Guard to execute the "expropriation" order in Tieling City, he was obstructed by the Tieling Civil Affairs Officer. The Civil Affairs Officer sent out the guards to fight with the Suoyi Guard, and Zhang Dong was hit on the head...

Afterwards, the retired emperor ordered the Ministry of Justice and the Imperial Guard to conduct a thorough investigation of the matter, and reported that it was Zhang Dong who condoned the murder and aroused public anger.

As Liu Zhaosun's right-hand man and brother in life, Zhang Mazi's inexplicable attack and the bizarre direction of the subsequent investigation completely angered Liu Zhaosun, and directly became the beginning of the purge launched by the emperor.

Just as the gunshots in Sarajevo ignited the First World War, we know that before the Sarajevo incident, dark clouds had already gathered over the whole of Europe, and Sarajevo was just the fuse of the war.

Likewise, Zhang Dong's injury was merely the catalyst for the Great Purge of the First Year of Taichu. As one of the most accomplished emperors in the history of the Qi Dynasty, Liu Zhaosun might have taken revenge by killing a few individuals due to the injuries of his confidants and the obstruction of his new economic policies, but he would not have launched an internal purge that swept across Liaodong and massacred 20,000 of his own people just for Zhang Dong.

Regarding the fundamental reasons for the "Great Purge" movement, we can only understand the thinking logic of Emperor Wu Ding more than 400 years ago by standing in the historical context of the time.

In 1628, with only five years left until the Eighth Crusade (1633-1642 AD), the situation both inside and outside the Great Qi State was becoming increasingly dire.

In response to the Qi State, which disrupted East Asian trade, the war between European countries (the Thirty Years' War) was ended prematurely.

From London to Paris, from Zurich to Moscow, European monarchs turned their eyes to the East.

The colonial powers deeply detested the totalitarian (Note 1) Great Qi because the Qi army had repeatedly disrupted the normal trade order in the Far East.

The stock markets in London and Amsterdam plummeted, and many civilized and respectable middle-class families went bankrupt overnight. The upright gentlemen of Britain and the Dutch Republic wished they could eat Nicholas' flesh and sleep on his skin.

Therefore, under the instigation of the East India Company merchants, the second anti-Qi alliance among European countries will soon be re-formed.

In addition, the small Southern Ming court, which had been watching the fight from the sidelines, was already secretly planning with Zheng Zhilong to launch a new round of Northern Expedition.

The Tokugawa shogunate in Japan was also expanding its military and obtained new weapons from the Dutch.

In short, Qi's international environment was extremely bad at that time.

Qi State did not have many allies, and Khorchin Mongolia in the north was tortured half to death by the plague.

To the west is the European anti-Qi alliance who are determined to destroy us, and to the east are Japan and Korea who are bent on revenge.

All of this strengthened the traversers' determination to fight.

Liu Zhaosun judged that Da Qi would soon become the target of public criticism and be besieged from all sides, a process that would take at least three years and at most ten years.

The real decisive battle is about to begin.

In order to deal with all kinds of monsters and demons, he must integrate the national power as quickly as possible and tie everyone to this chariot that is advancing at full speed.

What? You don't want to get on the chariot, then you'll die.

Historians have discovered that around 1627, some official terms often seen in the imperial comments on memorials reflected the primacy of the empire. Words such as "imperial affairs," "imperial warriors," and "imperial interests" became extremely sacred.

In short, in the eyes of Emperor Wuding, the interests of the empire are above everything else.

When Liu Zhaosun used these words frequently, his subjects would think that what he was saying was of vital importance, while terms such as class struggle, the great way, and the revolutionary cause were old ideas that had been abandoned.

The Emperor was a loner, but this was by choice, not by nature—he was essentially sociable.

His work habits, though strange to historians, were typical of the rulers of the Eastern Capital (Jinan) in the first half of the 17th century (his son Liu Kan was similar).
Liu Zhaosun gets up very early during the day and works until late at night, sometimes going to bed at dawn.

His biggest hobby was dinner that lasted 3 to 5 hours, and midnight happy time with the Queen Mother and the nun (Daphne), which happened every day.

Like Louis XIV, Liu Zhaosun liked to discuss important matters with his closest advisors over dinner;
Similar to the "Sun King", Liu Zhaosun was an irrefutable and unquestionable ruler both at the dinner table and in his own country.

The attack on Zhang Dong at this time became the last straw that broke the patience and rationality of the emperor.

Liu Zhaosun realized that the opposition forces in Da Qi were still strong and they opposed his governing philosophy.

Moreover, they have already taken action.

To this end, he had no choice but to launch the last resort he could think of - the Great Purge.

Note:
1. Totalitarianism: A political term used to describe a political system in which a state exercises absolute authority over society and seeks to control public and private life to the utmost. Totalitarianism implies that social order is entirely established by political or state power, that private space is compressed to near-nonexistence, and that freedom is reduced to a minimum.

(End of this chapter)