Chapter 54: Emperor Toghon Temür

Zhu Shuang, whose fruits of labor had been plucked, was deeply distressed. Without sufficient contributions, not only would his nearly four years of hard work go down the drain, but whether he could even keep the Pacifying People's Army under his command remained a question mark.

Zhu Wenzheng summoned a yin-yang diviner captured along the way, a man in his late twenties dressed like a Confucian scholar.

He was well-versed in geomancy and divination. In ancient times, consulting the oracle when facing indecision was a major tradition.

Liao Junqing held three copper coins cupped between both palms, shook them a few times, and tossed them into the Bagua compass. The coins rolled around like dice twice.

After repeating this a few times, he walked up to Zhu Shuang, cupped his hands in a bow, and said, "The six-line divination diagram indicates supreme good fortune, carrying the auspicious sign of purple qi coming from the east."

Purple qi coming from the east? Zhu Shuang knew this originated from Laozi passing through the Hangu Pass when Guanyinxi saw purple qi in the east, signifying that a sage passing through the pass was an auspicious omen.

We are in the west of the capital, and isn't the east the region east of the capital... which should be Dadu.

Aren't ancient emperors considered sages? Zhu Shuang slapped his thigh. In the northeast, there was Prince Liaoyang Ashild. Although he was a descendant of Temuge Otchigin, the younger brother of Genghis Khan, his ancestor Nayan had rebelled against Kublai Khan.

As a descendant of Kublai Khan, Toghon Temür would certainly be unwilling to go to the northeast to act as a hostage. The Yuan emperor only knew that Xuanfu had been lost, but he did not know Zhu Shuang's exact position. Seeing that the situation was looking ominous, he wanted to enter Shanxi through the Zijing Pass, have the garrison at Taiyuan cover him as he passed Datong, and enter the Mongolian Steppe to the north.

As soon as he shared his thoughts, everyone in the commander's tent was dumbfounded. There was a blind spot in their thinking known as the darkness under the lamp; everyone had focused solely on the Yuan dynasty's final force of six hundred thousand troops, never thinking of targeting the Yuan emperor himself.

Because of the turbulent politics of the Yuan dynasty and frequent internal fighting among powerful ministers, they had gone through five emperors in thirteen years. Yet every single time, this fellow Toghon Temür had managed to run away alive and kicking.

Historically, before Xu Daguo could even attack the Yuan capital of Dadu, this fellow had abandoned the capital to Köke Temür, fleeing with his ministers, wives, and children without the slightest hesitation or drag.

Even Zhu Yuanzhu had no choice but to grant him the posthumous title of Emperor Shundi of Yuan, meaning one who conforms to heaven's will.

Yet Zhu Shuang actually wanted to target such a long-distance running champion. For a moment, no one held out any hope.

"An emperor moving house isn't a matter of a single day or two. The Yuan officials in Dadu, excluding their families, number over three thousand. The Yuan emperor's children and imperial harem, together with the members of the imperial clan and nobility, total tens of thousands of people."

"Toghon Temür, accustomed to luxury and indulgence, will certainly not be willing to eat grass once he runs to the barren grasslands; he will need massive amounts of gold and silver jewelry to support his eating, drinking, and merrymaking."

"With such heavy luggage and baggage for travel, how far can they run in a day?"

Historically, Xu Da failed to block Toghon Temür because the Yuan soldiers were scattered everywhere at the time, making it impossible for him to divide his forces.

Because of Zhu Shuang, this little butterfly, almost all the Yuan troops in the north were now concentrated together and led by him to slaughter one another, allowing Xu Da to launch a surprise attack in the meantime.

With no one to coordinate and support the Yuan emperor's flight to the north, the Yuan emperor in Dadu had effectively become isolated.

Zhu Wenzheng's eyes lit up. Since ancient times, the merit of annihilation had been ranked first among military achievements. Building upon this, there was the even greater honor of destroying a state, capturing the enemy chieftain, and presenting them at the Imperial Ancestral Temple.

If they could capture the Yuan emperor alive, it would be no less remarkable than Li Jing capturing the Jiali Khan alive.

Such legendary merit that would endure through the ages was something met with by chance rather than sought. The breathing of these generals of the Pacifying People's Army grew hurried.

Zhu Shuang had Liao Junqing cast a divination for each of them. Unexpectedly, when it came to Li Jinglong, who had just tagged along for the ride the whole time, the result turned out to be supreme good fortune.

Zhu Shuang left five thousand men with Li Jinglong. Remembering this fellow's prominent historical record of driving millions of Southern Army troops to their doom, he ordered Zhu Neng to stay behind as his deputy.

Leading the remaining force of over fifty thousand troops, Zhu Shuang spurred his horses and galloped toward Dadu.

Inside the city of Dadu, the Yuan Emperor Toghon Temür was just over fifty years old, a bloated and chubby man.

That he, a prince once exiled to Goryeo, could become emperor was purely a stroke of luck. His biological father, the Yuan Mingzong and Khoshila, had lived in exile in the Western Regions since childhood. No sooner had he ascended the throne than he was poisoned to death by his own paternal uncle, the Yuan Wenzong Tuγ Temür, in collusion with the powerful minister El Temür.

He had been exiled by his paternal uncle to serve a prison sentence on Daqing Island in Goryeo. Before even a year had passed, someone accused him of plotting a rebellion with Goryeo, and he was imprisoned once again in Jingjiang, Guangxi.

Toghon Temür's childhood was spent either on the road of exile or serving prison sentences in various places.

He lost his mother at the age of one and his father at nine; he probably shared a lot of common ground with Zhu Yuanzhu. As if he were the chosen son of heaven, his paternal uncle Yuan Wenzong died less than a year after ascending the throne, and his imperial cousin the crown prince died soon after.

His uncle, pricked by conscience, then made his younger brother emperor, but in less than six years, his younger brother, Emperor Ningzong of Yuan, also died.

If Zhu Yuanzhu's throne was won by fighting his way through tens of thousands of troops, then his own throne had fallen straight out of the sky while he was sleeping at home.

Acting like a favorite of destiny, six years into his reign, in collusion with Bayan's adopted son Toqto'a, he succeeded in overthrowing the powerful minister Bayan.

That was the very Bayan who had wanted to exterminate the five major Han surnames of Zhang, Wang, Liu, Li, and Zhao across the empire.

People who were such villains were usually antagonists, yet he heavily relied on the virtuous minister Toqto'a to implement the Zhizheng New Deal.

He had thought that after eliminating the villain Bayan, it would be his turn to be the protagonist, but as he went along with the reforms, he found things increasingly strange and wrong.

The politics of the Yuan dynasty were chaotic, and emperors changed as frequently as lanterns in a revolving show. The copper coins in the hands of the common people belonged to one emperor yesterday, only to bear the mark of another brother today.

To end this phenomenon of currency value chaos, Toqto'a, making a second political comeback, suggested that he issue the Jiaochao paper currency to unify the empire's monetary system.

As soon as his Zhizheng Jiaochao was issued, it received rave reviews reminiscent of a chaotic battlefield game, and the common people across the realm wished they could boil his bones in a pot.

When the Yellow River flooded catastrophically, Toqto'a requested that he appoint a water conservancy expert like Jialu as the Minister of Works to oversee the repair of the Yellow River channel.

Yet two men popped up—Han Shantong and Liu Futong—who chanted a rhyme facing a newly dug stone figure with one eye: "A single-eyed stone figure stirs up the Yellow River, and the whole world rebels."

His fine Great Yuan Dynasty began suffering from the Red Turban rebellions just like the late Han dynasty.

Those Red Turban rebels grew wild and rampant like weeds in the fields, multiplying the more they were killed off, utterly impossible to wipe out.

Thus, Toghon Temür, who had been diligent in governance for less than five years, happily chose to lie flat, becoming a salted fish that would never turn over.

He held a grand selection of palace maidens to fill his harem, eating his fill and sleeping every day, and continuing to produce offspring once well-rested.

To his surprise, the first person who could no longer stand it was Empress Qi, who had shared hardships with him in Goryeo. Empress Qi had given birth to his eldest son, namely the current Crown Prince Ayushiridara.

Originally, the two of them had been living a sweet little life. But as the empire grew unsettled, his beloved wife began to change.

She suddenly started meddling in state affairs, using the palace maidens of his harem to win over ministers. Suddenly, a faction known as the Crown Prince Party emerged in the imperial court.

The outer court consisted of ministers and generals holding heavy military power on their own, while the inner court was entirely staffed by Empress Qi and the crown prince's subordinates.

He did not have much of an objection to Empress Qi and the crown prince interfering in politics. However, using the beauties he had collected with such arduous effort to bribe various factions and buy people's hearts was another matter.

Toghon Temür could no longer tolerate it, and he instructed the chief eunuch, "The Ming army is about to attack, haven't my crown prince and empress finished packing their things yet?"

The chief eunuch Jinshan was a Goryeo native and also an informant planted by Empress Qi at his side.

Bowing slightly, he replied, "Reporting to Your Majesty, the Empress and the Crown Prince are waiting for the various ministers in the court to bring their families and pack up their personal belongings."

"Moreover, it is not easy for the various princes and Noyans to move their entire households; the Empress is seeing to every detail one by one."

If he were moving house alone, he would only need to take the beauties of his harem and gold and silver on the road.

Because he was the righteous and legitimate emperor, even upon reaching the grasslands, he would still be the greatest Great Khan of the Golden Family.

The empress and the crown prince were different; both of them were replaceable figures, which was why they had to buy people's hearts.

As an emperor with long-term survival experience in the wilderness, Toghon Temür's sixth sense was extremely sharp. He felt that if they didn't leave within the next few days, they wouldn't be able to leave at all.