Take control of Wei Zhongxian at the start and confiscate 100 million from him!

Chapter 147 This is the world, a complete world!

The inner hall of the Provincial Administration Office was so quiet that one could hear the heavy pounding of Sun Chuanting's own heart in his chest.

"Boya, sit down."

The emperor's voice was very soft.

Sun Chuanting was in a daze, letting Zhu Youjian press him back into that cold armchair.

After a long silence, just when Sun Chuanting thought this deathly silence would last forever, Zhu Youjian suddenly spoke up and asked a question that left Sun Chuanting completely baffled.

"Boya, do you know what other countries exist in this world besides my Great Ming, Later Jin, Korea, and Annam?"

The question was too far-fetched, and Sun Chuanting's mind struggled to keep up with the young emperor's unpredictable train of thought.

He forced himself to steady himself, his Adam's apple bobbing, and replied in a hoarse, almost dreamlike voice, "Your Majesty, I have heard that there are the Portuguese in the West, the Persians in Arabia, the remnants of the Roman Empire in the far west, and India beyond the South China Sea... In addition, there are countless other small, uncivilized states scattered throughout the land, which I know little about. However, these barbarians are like monkeys wearing hats, not worth worrying about."

This answer was almost the standard response from all the educated and worldly elites of the Ming Dynasty during that era.

In their words, the mentality of a superior nation, rooted in their very bones and passed down for thousands of years, was laid bare. We are the Central Kingdom, the center of civilization, and everything outside is merely dust swirling around the blazing sun, sometimes illuminated by its light, but never able to compare with the golden sun itself.

After hearing his answer, Zhu Youjian turned around.

The emperor laughed.

The smile held no approval whatsoever; instead, it carried an overwhelming sense of pity, and a deep-seated helplessness and loneliness, as if gazing into an abyss.

“Boya, what you said is all correct. But do you know that the world is far more vast than you can imagine! Moreover…” Zhu Youjian paused, each word seemingly squeezed out from between his teeth, carrying a heavy weight, “Some of those barbarian lands that you thought were barbarians are no longer barbarians.”

Before Sun Chuanting could fully appreciate the deeper meaning of those words, Zhu Youjian had already reached his desk. There lay a sandalwood box that he always carried with him, secured with an exquisite brass lock.

With a soft click, the emperor opened the wooden box and carefully took out a roll of parchment.

The emperor did not unfold it on his desk, but instead took it and walked back to Sun Chuanting. Then, under Sun's shocked gaze, he unfolded the simple "Map of the World" with a "whoosh".

For a moment, Sun Chuanting's breath caught in his throat.

This was completely different from all the maps he had ever seen!

It didn't have the regularity of a flattened celestial sphere; instead, it was an irregularly shaped, flattened sphere. The territory of the Ming Dynasty remained vast there, but compared to the surrounding equally enormous, or even larger, tectonic plates, it seemed... no longer so unique.

What sent shivers down his spine was not the deep blue that occupied most of the map, but the Chinese characters clearly marked on those blue areas: 【Atlantic Ocean】, 【Pacific Ocean】, 【Indian Ocean】.

He had never seen these words before, but their literal meaning was terrifyingly simple and straightforward. This boundless blue expanse, named "Ocean," was like a silent behemoth, completely enveloping everything he knew—the Ming Dynasty, the grasslands, the Western Regions—compressing it into a solitary piece of land!
The "world" he had known all his life turned out to be an island on this map!
Above the body of this blue behemoth, several other colossal objects "floated": a continent shaped like a giant boot, labeled "Africa"; and on the distant other side, two more lands he had never heard of, named "South America" ​​and "North America." Each unfamiliar name struck his deeply ingrained Chinese superpower consciousness like a hammer blow.

"What...what is this?!" Sun Chuanting's voice became sharp with extreme shock. He stood up abruptly, instinctively bracing himself on the edge of the table to prevent himself from falling due to his weak legs.

"This is the world, a complete world!" Zhu Youjian's tone was terrifyingly calm. He pointed a finger at the land on the map that belonged to the Ming Dynasty, a piece of land that appeared slightly small in the boundless deep blue.

"The land beneath our feet is not a flat plate, but a sphere suspended in the endless void. I call it 'Earth.' Everything we talk about, everything we fight for, takes place on this enormous sphere."

Sun Chuanting muttered to himself, feeling as if the hall of knowledge he had painstakingly built over the years with the teachings of sages and saints had been smashed to pieces by an invisible force at this moment!
"In the past few months, I have ordered the Embroidered Uniform Guard to make contact with Portuguese and foreign merchants and so-called missionaries in places like Macau and Guangzhou, sparing no expense, to obtain this map. After interrogating, interrogating, and verifying it, we were able to piece together the outline of this world." Zhu Youjian gave a reasonable explanation for the origin of the map, "Although it may not be entirely true, it gives us a glimpse. Boya, take another look."

Sun Chuanting's gaze was fixed on the map like iron filings drawn to a magnet. He saw the emperor's finger slowly sliding from the top left corner of the map to a place called "Europa".

"Right here, in this place we call the West, several powerful nations stand side by side, such as Spain, Portugal, and the Red Barbarians. They are doing something that our Great Ming Dynasty has never done or even imagined in its hundreds of years of existence, or even in the thousands of years of Chinese history—"

Zhu Youjian's tone suddenly turned icy, carrying a coldness that spoke of the inevitability of history.

"Global colonization!"

His finger traced breathtaking arcs on the map, crossing the vast Atlantic Ocean from Europe to the new continent of America; then around the southernmost tip of Africa and into the "South Seas" familiar to the people of the Ming Dynasty, and even heading east, almost touching the coastline of the Ming Dynasty.

"With their navigational skills far surpassing those of our dynasty, they crossed what we considered to be monstrous waves capable of swallowing everything, and went on to conquer those unknown continents!"

"There, they slaughtered the local natives with unimaginable cruelty, plundered millions of gold and silver, captured and sold living people as slaves, and continuously transported the wealth of the world back to their homeland like rivers flowing into the sea, to support their country and build a more powerful army!"

Sun Chuanting's face had turned deathly pale from the initial shock!
After arriving in Shaanxi, he had seen countless mountains of corpses and seas of blood, but the bloody picture that the emperor described, which spanned the entire world, was so grand in scale and so inherently greedy that it still sent chills down his spine!
However, this is not the end.

Zhu Youjian then changed the subject and talked about the root of the conflict between countries, the ultimate factor that determines survival and victory or defeat—military!
"Zheng He's treasure ships were indeed large, but they were ceremonial vessels used to display the might of the Celestial Empire to the barbarians during the height of the nation's power. Our Great Ming Navy has now enjoyed a long period of peace, with outdated warships and conservative tactics, only able to drive out Japanese pirates in coastal waters. In contrast, the Westerners' warships are equipped with new cannons far more powerful than the Portuguese cannons, and their hull designs are specifically for fighting in the vast ocean waves—they are true...sea fortresses!"

"Let's talk about the cavalry and infantry." Zhu Youjian took a deep breath, stared into Sun Chuanting's eyes, and asked a series of questions that made his soul tremble.

"Has Boya ever considered what it would be like if one day our soldiers' muskets no longer needed those useless matchlocks that were ineffective in the rain and exposed at night?"

"If its loading and firing method could be improved, the rate of fire could be three times faster than it is now?"

"If a three-foot-long short sword could be attached to the barrel of the gun, the musketeers could fire volleys from afar or form ranks to thrust at close range, without fear of charging into battle?"

"Boya, tell me, when such an army appears, with ten thousand against one hundred thousand of my Great Ming army, what will be the outcome?"

A series of "ifs" struck Sun Chuanting's heart like heavy blows. He didn't need to think; almost instinctively, as a veteran, he arrived at the answer that filled him with despair.

It doesn't need 100,000, or even to face 100,000. Such an army, if its tactics are sound and its soldiers fight bravely, would be more than capable of easily defeating any Ming army of equal or even several times its size in open battle!

The so-called elite troops and the so-called fearless warriors are nothing but a cold joke when the difference in their weapons is like heaven and earth.

"The ability to defeat ten generals single-handedly is no longer a legendary feat of martial prowess, but a reality that can be mass-produced." Zhu Youjian concluded this military education session, delivered with an almost pronouncemental tone, showcasing a level of military superiority that felt like a game-changer. "And Western nations are currently devoting all their national resources to building such armies!"

There was a "clang" sound.

Sun Chuanting could no longer hold on and collapsed back into the chair, causing the expensive armchair to slide back several feet.

His mind went blank. The future the emperor described was a hundred times more concrete, a thousand times more bloody, and a thousand times more hopeless than the fate of Emperor Ling of the late Han Dynasty that he was so worried about, a more terrifying natural disaster, or a more rampant banditry!
The cold weather is a natural disaster, bandits are a man-made calamity, and the government is plagued by problems. These are all the inherent scripts of dynastic changes in China over thousands of years. Sun Chuanting believes that there are still clues to follow and remedies to be found.

But what the emperor had just revealed was a crisis he had never imagined—not a matter of temporary strength or weakness, but the collapse of the very foundation of the nation!

Sun Chuanting wanted to refute, to say that this was merely His Majesty's alarmist talk, an exaggeration by those Western missionaries. But his reason was frantically telling him: every word the Emperor said could, and very likely could, be true!

His mind raced, his thoughts drifting back a thousand years. Could the ancient people have imagined the magnificent sight of Zheng He's treasure ships traversing the four seas? And could he himself have imagined that this thing called a "flintlock gun" could fire without the aid of wind or rain?
Your Majesty's words are true... This way of creation is itself an unstoppable torrent! Once it is mastered by others, and our Great Ming is the only one without it, all that awaits them is the disaster of overthrow!

This principle is extremely simple; this principle is also extremely harsh!
Zhu Youjian looked at Sun Chuanting, whose face was ashen and whose eyes were filled with fear and confusion. The calm that he had been maintaining finally cracked and turned into a deep, bitter smile.

"Boya, do you understand now?"

"Leaving aside those Western countries that are still thousands of miles away, just consider the disaster in Shaanxi and the bandits everywhere. If I had not come here in person, if I had not used such swift and decisive measures to execute the princes, kill the corrupt officials, open the granaries, and implement new policies, and if I had allowed the region to degenerate, how long could my Great Ming Dynasty have lasted?"

This question was like a needle, piercing the last shred of hope in Sun Chuanting's heart.

Yes, if we can't even remove the internal abscesses, how can we resist the external torrent of steel?
Zhu Youjian's tone became unusually sorrowful. He slowly approached Sun Chuanting and, with a gentle yet endlessly melancholic tone, guided his mind to consider the most desperate scenario.

"Let's not talk about the distant past, but about the nearby Later Jin beyond the Great Wall. Boya, imagine if that day ever comes, the Later Jin cavalry would drive straight in, break through the Great Wall, and head south to drink from the Yangtze River..."

Zhu Youjian paused, as if the scene were already before his eyes, and stared intently at Sun Chuanting, asking each word carefully:

"But our Great Ming still has loyal and courageous men gathered in Jiangnan, hoping to restore our dynasty. Tell me, what will those Jurchens, who are already bloodthirsty, do?"

Sun Chuanting had answered this question several times, in his dreams and in his deductions with his friends. But this time, hearing it from the emperor's mouth, combined with the emperor's bloody description just now, he felt as if the two words he was about to say had exhausted all his strength, burning his tongue.

"Slaughter the city!"

“Yes, massacre the city. Because they were weak before, they were poor before, so when they became strong, faced with readily available wealth and resistance that refused to yield, the simplest and most effective method was to massacre the city.” Zhu Youjian’s voice was completely calm, as if he were stating a fact.

His gaze passed through Sun Chuanting, through the room, as if he were looking at a time and space hundreds of years in the future, and his eyes even became slightly moist.

"Boya, you've never been to Yingtian Prefecture, have you? It's so prosperous there... I often think about a question, a question that's very, very far away."

"If one day, the Ming Dynasty is gone. Or, after hundreds of years, the national strength of this land has once again weakened to its extreme. Those invaders from overseas, who possess the kind of absolute military superiority we just mentioned, and they breach our capital, whether it be the capital or Yingtian Prefecture... what do you think they will do then?"

Sun Chuanting was stunned.

He didn't know why the emperor would ask such a seemingly abstract, even somewhat treasonous, question.

But this question struck him like a bolt of black lightning. In a daze, he seemed to see a hellish scene of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, to see the prosperity of Nanjing burning in flames, and to see countless unarmed compatriots howling and dying under the swords and sneers of the invaders whom the emperor spoke of.

why?
Because it is weak.

Because we do not have those firearms that can withstand wind and rain, those guns and swords that can kill instantly, or those impregnable sea fortresses.

His Majesty had previously vaguely mentioned to him the phrase, "If you fall behind, you will be attacked"...

This is not merely a warning, but a blood-soaked iron law forged with the bones of countless nations!
Just then, Zhu Youjian straightened up, slowly turned around, and walked towards the door.

The afternoon sunlight streaming in from the west cast his long shadow on the ground.

In that figure, there was a resoluteness that Sun Chuanting had never seen before, and a kind of... boundless loneliness that seemed to bear the secrets of the rise and fall of the entire world.

Sun Chuanting couldn't see the emperor's expression, and naturally, he couldn't fathom the deeper worry buried beneath that resolute loneliness. In Zhu Youjian's heart, a clear-headed yet chilling voice echoed repeatedly—

This severe punishment, imposed during a chaotic era, cut off the financial lifeline of corrupt officials, the foundation of wealthy salt merchants, and the smuggling lifeline of powerful families in the southeast. This is now a war to the death. The number of people throughout the land who want this emperor dead is countless!
Zhu Youjian was certainly afraid of death, but he was most afraid that he would die suddenly from elixirs, drowning, or a strange cold, just like the previous emperors of the Ming Dynasty, and not live to see the day when he could sweep away the world and rebuild the universe!
It was this fear of "not being able to wait" that fueled his urgent need at this moment!

"So, Boya..."

The emperor's voice came from ahead, passing through the golden dust, calm yet as firm as an unyielding mountain.

"I have no time to play those court games of polite probing with those people anymore."

"What I desire is to ignite a raging fire on this decaying land, a fire that can burn away the past and illuminate the future!"

(End of this chapter)