The twentieth day of the fifth month in the fifth year of the Tianqi era.
During the morning court, the officials suddenly discover that their emperor, once obsessed with woodworking, has undergone a complete change of character after a “falling into the water.”
The “Carpenter Emperor,” once absorbed in wood shavings and sawdust, can now spot embezzled military funds in a Liaodong dispatch at a glance, sketch cannon plans ten times more accurate than those of the red-barreled cannons, and even point to an icefield on the Complete Map of All the Kingdoms of the World and declare, “This place will belong to the Ming too.”
The “Nine-Thousand-Year-Old” Wei Zhongxian kneels beneath the vermilion steps, drenched in cold sweat. He cannot understand the emperor’s new gaze: it looks beyond three centuries of rise and fall, carrying a modern soul’s scorn for history.
The Later Jin cavalry taunt them beyond the passes, the Jiangnan factions feud at court, and the bitter winds of the Little Ice Age devour the northern harvests. Yet inside the Forbidden City, the “foolish ruler” mocked by the history books for four hundred years writes eight bold characters on soft rice paper:
“Reform. Train the troops. Trade. Colonize.”
When cannons roar at Sarhu, when the first wisp of smoke rises from a steam engine in Jiangnan, when the dragon-bone sails of the Ming navy appear in the Bering Strait, the envoys of the Muscovy principality kneel at the Meridian Gate and realize that the man on the Dragon Throne is not fondling a block of wood, but a jade seal engraved with a map of the world.
“Have you read the letter I sent your country?”
“Your Majesty, they… cannot read Chinese.”
The emperor smiles, the sun and moon turning in his eyes.
“Then teach them.”
…
The Carpenter Emperor has stopped carving wood. What he intends to carve away is the foundation of the old world!
With no barbarians left, the Han way shall flourish!
