Restoration of the Great Ming: A Tianqi Timeline
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There will be more! (I wanna be Turtledove-eligible next year too!) And thank you to all of my kind readers!
Epilogue: A Storm Over China
Gao Xuan shivered as he climbed the stairs up to the battlements. The emperor had insisted on being allowed to watch the fighting from the city’s walls, and had stayed up there long after everyone else had grown tired and left. His many attendants had remained the longest, but the emperor had dismissed them, and they hadn’t argued much before hurrying away to someplace warm.
Thankfully, someone had managed to convince the emperor to wear heavy furs. No sense in letting the Son of Heaven catch his death from cold.
“Who is it?” The emperor half-turned. “Oh, it’s you. No, don’t bother with that, young man, the stone’s cold enough as it is. What is it?”
Of course, the emperor could tell people not to go on their faces before him, but for one with Gao Xuan’s rank, it would be overly familiar not to make some gesture of genuflection. “Your majesty,” he said cautiously, “my master, Minister Zhou, humbly asks for a moment to discuss-”
“I know, I know. He’s been after me for days now, something to do with the tax system. Don’t worry, young man, I’ll speak with him in a little bit.”
Calling him “young man” was a bit much, but then the emperor himself was of fine middle age, and he had sons who were only a bit younger than Gao Xuan was himself. Maybe it was that which emboldened him to speak further. “Your majesty,” he said, “would you like to come down from the battlements? How much longer will you be up here?”
The emperor made an indifferent gesture. “To be honest, there hasn’t been much to see.” He pointed out a spot a fair distance away, where the cleared land near the city’s walls gave way to farm buildings, and fallow fields, and even trees in the fair distance. “Some time ago, a band of the rebels broke into the open just over there. And then some riders from the Red Banner came after them and butchered the lot.” The bodies were just barely visible, minuscule in the distance. “Apart from that, I haven’t seen anything. Distant gunfire, sometimes, and even that only occasionally.”
The emperor paused. “Almost funny,” he said.
Gao Xuan waited, but nothing else came. “Your majesty?”
The emperor waved his hand at the countryside. “All of it,” he said. “People bow to me when I walk past, and at a word I can have an army sent across the world, or have a man put to death. And people might try to have me killed, but others will jump to serve what they imagine are my interests.”
He half-smiled. “Yet,” he said, “making anything stay in place…I feel like the captain of a great ship, and the crew all jump to my orders, but every time I tell them to do something, two more things happen…”
His voice trailed off.
“Your majesty,” Gao Xuan asked delicately, “why are you still up here?”
The emperor looked around from where he stood atop the city’s walls. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I think I just wanted to watch. Because I’m supposed to; because it’s what I can do. But I’m not sure if there’s much use in it.” He exhaled heavily. “Well,” he said, a wry note in his voice, “I might as well come down and see what Minister Zhou has to say. No need for me to catch my death of cold.”
They began down the stairs, back to the city. “A bit foolish of me,” the emperor said to himself. “Can barely feel my hands. I think that’s quite enough for one day…”
Thankfully, someone had managed to convince the emperor to wear heavy furs. No sense in letting the Son of Heaven catch his death from cold.
“Who is it?” The emperor half-turned. “Oh, it’s you. No, don’t bother with that, young man, the stone’s cold enough as it is. What is it?”
Of course, the emperor could tell people not to go on their faces before him, but for one with Gao Xuan’s rank, it would be overly familiar not to make some gesture of genuflection. “Your majesty,” he said cautiously, “my master, Minister Zhou, humbly asks for a moment to discuss-”
“I know, I know. He’s been after me for days now, something to do with the tax system. Don’t worry, young man, I’ll speak with him in a little bit.”
Calling him “young man” was a bit much, but then the emperor himself was of fine middle age, and he had sons who were only a bit younger than Gao Xuan was himself. Maybe it was that which emboldened him to speak further. “Your majesty,” he said, “would you like to come down from the battlements? How much longer will you be up here?”
The emperor made an indifferent gesture. “To be honest, there hasn’t been much to see.” He pointed out a spot a fair distance away, where the cleared land near the city’s walls gave way to farm buildings, and fallow fields, and even trees in the fair distance. “Some time ago, a band of the rebels broke into the open just over there. And then some riders from the Red Banner came after them and butchered the lot.” The bodies were just barely visible, minuscule in the distance. “Apart from that, I haven’t seen anything. Distant gunfire, sometimes, and even that only occasionally.”
The emperor paused. “Almost funny,” he said.
Gao Xuan waited, but nothing else came. “Your majesty?”
The emperor waved his hand at the countryside. “All of it,” he said. “People bow to me when I walk past, and at a word I can have an army sent across the world, or have a man put to death. And people might try to have me killed, but others will jump to serve what they imagine are my interests.”
He half-smiled. “Yet,” he said, “making anything stay in place…I feel like the captain of a great ship, and the crew all jump to my orders, but every time I tell them to do something, two more things happen…”
His voice trailed off.
“Your majesty,” Gao Xuan asked delicately, “why are you still up here?”
The emperor looked around from where he stood atop the city’s walls. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I think I just wanted to watch. Because I’m supposed to; because it’s what I can do. But I’m not sure if there’s much use in it.” He exhaled heavily. “Well,” he said, a wry note in his voice, “I might as well come down and see what Minister Zhou has to say. No need for me to catch my death of cold.”
They began down the stairs, back to the city. “A bit foolish of me,” the emperor said to himself. “Can barely feel my hands. I think that’s quite enough for one day…”
It sure is, in a way.
But on the plus side, the Tianqi Emperor has lived a good couple decades longer than he did IOTL, and his story's not over yet!
God bless, Im glad you're still not finished with this because this story is wonderful
1646-1647
Painting of Magnolia and Erect Rock, Cheng Hongshou (mid-1600s)
As one can imagine, the years of 1646 to 1647 were dominated by the Prince’s Revolt and its aftereffects. A note, of course, that while today the common name for the conflict is “the Prince’s Revolt,” such a name would have actually been taboo at the time, considering the exceedingly thorough manner in which the former Prince of Fu was posthumously deprived of his titles. Contemporary descriptions tended towards nonspecific terminology, e.g. “the recent unpleasantness” and “the conflict in the north.” Mention of the whole affair is cursory at best in the official Ming chronicles, likely due to embarrassment, and has resulted in modern historiography depending largely upon foreign and societally marginal sources which lack that degree of circumspection.
In any case, the revolt being put down (not without significant bloodshed; it is estimated that parts of northern China decrease in population by around 10% -- mostly internal displacement and not death, of course), we can pause and take stock of the other things happening around the empire.
The Northern Yuan, surprisingly enough, do not take the opportunity to raid southward, as they might have been expected to do in times past. Indeed, despite their acknowledgement of Ming suzerainty, a different leader might have chosen to remind everyone that once upon a time, the Northern Yuan had been the imperial Yuan dynasty, under Kublai Khan and other great kings. (“Yuan restorationism” is a later topic of romantic nostalgia, particularly in popular fiction, reminiscent of certain literary trends observed in the Kingdom of England, though its historical presence is likely overstated by revisionists.)
But the Northern Yuan do not ride south. Historians have designated this time as the “Great Realignment,” starting in the reign of Ejei Khan and continuing for the next several generations. Ejei knows full well that the Joseon would be glad to expand at his expense, should he break the peace; regardless of the chaos in Beijing, sooner or later an emperor would emerge (or re-emerge, as things turned out, since the Tianqi Emperor and his faction prevailed). Then they would look north, and punish any opportunistic violence that may have broken out on the frontier.
Instead of plundering northern China, or fighting with Joseon, the Northern Yuan turn west. There are quite a few notable skirmishes which happen, mostly because of their documentation in Chinese sources, but what is remembered best takes place in mid-1647, at the border town of Guihua.[1] This is a little awkward, given that Ejei’s father had actually raided the place some years back, but bygones are bygones. Guihua is, of course, renowned for Dazhao Temple, a scenic Buddhist monastery whose construction had been funded by the great Altan Khan. Actually, that’s a little bit more awkward, since Dazhao is very much affiliated with the Gelug school while Ejei Khan (like his father) favors the Nyingma.
The so-called Council of Guihua (which mostly takes place outside of the city) laid the groundwork for, if not complete harmony between the khans of the Northern Yuan and the Dalai Lama in Tibet, at least the framework of a relationship. The Council is recorded in the writings of Nicolas Trigault as something like an ecumenical conference, as one might expect from the perspective of a Catholic familiar with the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon and all the other great church councils. In truth, the Council of Guihua is more of a diplomatic summit, mapping out formal spheres of influence between the Mongols and Tibetans (and saber-rattling as one might expect). Religion is discussed, but is more of an afterthought. The Ming soldiers and merchants who happen to be present in town are mostly confused by everything that’s happening. Surprisingly, no fights break out at the Council. Of course, in the coming years there will still be multiple low-level conflicts between the Mongols and Tibetans as disagreements are settled with violence, raids in response to some insult, et cetera, but that’s to be expected. Great monuments are not built in a single day.
And in any case, such affairs aren’t much noted in the provinces, save among the imperial court officials whose job is to monitor affairs of the tributaries. No, the more immediately interesting developments have to do with the porcelain industry.
Let’s take a step back. Jingdezhen porcelain had for a long time been an iconic Chinese trade product, being put out by great kilns with imperial patronage. Porcelain itself was kind of a mid- to low-prestige item, fairly unimportant in the domestic market. Cups and plates and things; common as dirt! Almost literally, considering the materials used to make porcelain. As a trade good, porcelain in China wasn’t highly valued unless it was extraordinarily fancy. Historically, much of the trade in porcelain went to other countries -- to Japan, for instance, or down the Silk Road to the west, where porcelain products were exotic and highly valued.
The product coming out of Jingdezhen had long been regarded as the best of the bunch, especially because the imperial family supported the industry there. Unfortunately, due to decades of unrest and, frankly, outright neglect from Beijing starting during the reign of the Wanli Emperor, the Jingdezhen kilns had been largely left to fend for themselves. They still exist, of course, largely turning their attention to producing much cheaper product for private sale, either domestically or overseas.[2]
Zhou Qiyuan, the Minister of Revenue, has been waving his hands and pointing at the porcelain industry for a long time. He’d been really loud about it back in 1642 when he was appointed to run the ministry, but this has been a pet issue going back to when he was a much lower official, decades before. The emperor would like more revenue, yes? Why not just take control over porcelain and make a new state monopoly? Failing that, maybe the emperor could just regularize and tax the process. A lot of the porcelain trade (particularly foreign exports) has been slipping through the cracks, and though China has long had abysmal state revenues, the market for porcelain is one place where money can be safely skimmed off the top without too much trouble. It would be a little unusual, but the numbers check out.
The emperor agrees. Many of the neglected kilns are re-established under state patronage, but instead of merely making porcelain for the use of the imperial household, they’re officially producing goods for profitable export. A few men in the industry had been heavily fined, and at least one executed, for alleged disloyalty during the recent unpleasantness; their enterprises are taken over by loyal men. The Prince of Yi, an imperial prince who has lands nearby, is put in charge of organizing all of this as recognition of aid rendered to Daišan during the latter’s relief expedition to Beijing.[3]
Speaking of Daišan, he’s doing rather well for himself, being rewarded (again) for his actions against rebels. Unlike the fight against the Yellow Tiger, this time he is able to retrieve the identifiable corpse of the renegade scholar-official Wang Shaohui, which is posthumously decapitated. It is believed that he was also able to retrieve the corpse of the former prince, who had hanged himself. The official chronicles are silent on the matter, given the degree to which the former prince’s name was expunged from the chronicles, but historians agree that the unfortunate rebel was likely also subject to posthumous dismemberment. Daišan is less lucky in apprehending Wu Sangui, who escapes with some of his followers and becomes a common outlaw. It will be several years before that man’s death is confirmed.
Anyways, Minister Zhou is very much pleased with himself, having gotten his economic ideas put into practice, and Daišan is also richly honored for his actions. Admiral Zheng is…less fortunate. His enemies at court make much of the fact that his reinforcements arrive in Beijing weeks after Daišan, much too late to be of any use! (To be fair, he was traveling greater distances and Daišan was able to use river boats and the Grand Canal to speed his travel, just as he did years before. And Admiral Zheng was dealing with fighting against the Dutch and other foreign interlopers, although to be fair his own bellicosity was a large part in why there was fighting with the Dutch in the first place.) Although he is not formally punished or demoted (he still retains the emperor’s favor), Zheng Zhilong appears to largely retire from public life around this time; he is aged beyond his years, not in good health, as years of fighting and the occasional tropical fever have taken their toll. His son, Zheng Chenggong, will serve as de facto regent of Dongshan for the rest of his father’s life.
And what of Dongshan? Some steps will be taken to regularize its position in the imperial bureaucracy. While Zheng Zhilong retains his title as “Admiral of the Coastal Seas,” it is finally decided that the title will not be hereditary, having been intended as an honor specific to the elder Zheng. Dongshan will officially be classified as a protectorate (dūhù fǔ), modeled somewhat after the military protectorates of earlier dynasties (for example, the Tang dynasty’s protectorates along the western frontier). That said, just because the name is the same does not mean that known traits of the one protectorate can be casually ascribed to the other. Students of Chinese history often make similar mistakes as students of Roman history who conflate the “dictatorship” of the early republic with the “dictatorship” of Sulla and Caesar. For historians, the characteristics of the protectorate are those things which the protectorate has been documented as doing. Of course, much is made of the “protectorate” anyways because all parties (even the Zheng family) want a respectable term from antiquity, so although there is technically no continuity between the status of Dongshan and the protectorates of earlier times, the term sticks. Zheng Chenggong will essentially be a governor-for-life, answering directly to the throne and responsible for coordinating military operations in the area. While he’s still very much his father’s son, and opportunistic raids against foreigners will still be happily undertaken (where they don’t interfere with trade), much of his effort will be directed toward pacifying Dongshan’s still-wild interior. And he’s a trifle more practical-minded, at least relatively speaking. Relatively. Again, he’s his father’s son. A little bit of filibustering is to be expected.
Shi Kefa, who had embarked on the project to protect the ancestral tombs of Zuling, has announced that his elaborate system of walls is nearing completion. Or, at least, they're sturdy enough to work, and the elaborate ornamentation can be done by dedicated artisans. He’s honestly rather put out that the civil war has distracted people from all the good work he’s doing. Fortunately, his boss Minister Dong praises him for his efforts, and promises him further prestigious postings after the current project is wrapped up. Minister Dong, after all, isn’t getting any younger, and he could use an intelligent and hardworking young(er) man to take over things after he’s gone.
So Shi Kefa returns to Beijing, letting his subordinates put the finishing touches on his construction project. Meanwhile, other people are leaving northern China, displaced by famine or war. In some cases, suspected rebels flee for their lives, while others are spared the executioner’s ax but are sentenced to internal exile. These last are sent to a variety of places. The traditional place to serve such a sentence is the western frontier, but others come to Dongshan, which accepts any manpower it can get, absorbing people into its melting-pot culture. There are also greater levels of involvement in Ryukyu and even Ezo, that island on the fringe of Tokugawa Japan, whose Ainyu inhabitants do steady but low-level trade with Chinese merchants. Of course, it’s mostly experienced hands, and not exiled rebels, who do business in these quarters. Still, this time period marks an important milestone in Chinese influence across Eastern and Southeast Asia, as increased trade leads to the flourishing of expatriate communities across the region...
Footnotes
[1] IOTL now known as Hohhot.
[2] Everything I’ve just described is pretty much exactly what happened IOTL. The style of porcelain from this era is known as Tianqi porcelain (after the emperor).
[3] The current Prince of Yi is probably Zhu Ciyi, who IOTL died in this year while fleeing with the Southern Ming. His heirs were largely supporters of Koxinga, although they don’t appear to have been as prominent as the Prince of Ningjing, Koxinga’s resident Ming figurehead. The Princes of Yi descended from a younger son of the Chenghua Emperor.
Great chapter! So will China get involved in European affairs? The Ming Dynasty also could look into America.
Well -- the present emperor is friendly with Jesuits, and his daughter (remember her? she'll be important later) is a baptized Christian. And perhaps the emperor's sons (one of whom will likely succeed him) will be openminded to new ideas -- they wouldn't go against their sister, even if she's a bit odd -- so the prospect of diplomatic contact mediated by the Jesuits is very real. But, of course, court factions might eventually emerge that oppose further contact with outsiders (China is still very much the center of the world, after all).
China is gonna China. In my mind -- and this doesn't really count as a spoiler since until it's written down it's not canon -- more of the interaction would be done through China's protectorates and tributaries. Dongshan, obviously, has the makings of a cosmopolitan thalassocracy, and their ships can be found throughout Southeast Asia at this point. The other polity likely to do some interacting with Europe (for a given value of Europe) is the Northern Yuan. They've got their eastern flank secure, given their relations with Joseon and Ming China. They don't quite have a peace treaty with Tibet, but they're learning to coexist. The Northern Yuan might look to the west -- there are certainly people who remember the days that the Mongols bestrode the continent -- and, hm, is there another nation-state expanding eastward around this time?
Just a thought. The world is large, after all.
Ah okay. Will the Ming repeat Zheng He’s treasure fleets?
Maybe. It's a funny enough coincidence that the present
Dongshan is not just Taiwan, it is a different island, right? also is it part of China or is it independent the way Korea is
Yep, Dongshan is the TTL name for Taiwan (c.f. the Kingdom of Tungning, which would be rendered Dōngníng in pinyin -- for convenience's sake I have been rendering most words how they'd be rendered today in pinyin, and obviously the imperial court would be speaking a dialect ancestral to the modern "Mandarin" language while the vernacular in Dongshan would likely be some variant of Hokkien, which has its own romanization systems today, but I'm prioritizing legibility here -- after all, this timeline is being written in English).
And Dongshan isn't quite independent, the Zheng family has closer ties to the imperial court and Beijing sends magistrates and other officials to the island, so it's integrated into the Ming empire to a greater degree than a tributary like Joseon.
Thanks, I think it would be cool if Dongshan stayed independent, with the Zheng family eventually becoming kings
1648
New
The Amur River
The reason for the rapprochement between Ejei Khan and the Dalai Lama quickly becomes apparent in the spring of 1648. And it’s mostly because of this one asshole named Vassili Poyarkov.
No, he’s not an official representative of any particular government. You see, the Tsar of All Russia is more concerned with things happening in Europe, to the west. The Thirty Years’ War is winding down, the English Civil War and related conflicts are flaring up again, et cetera and so forth. The Tsar sees this, but is more interested in duking it out with Poland-Lithuania over Smolensk. (Poland-Lithuania had won the last war but maybe this time Russia will do better!)
Again, the eyes of the Tsar are pointed to the west. That’s where the most productive land is conveniently located, and it’s his hope that good tax-paying Russians will someday inhabit them. The east? Bah. A handy place to absorb Cossacks and troublemakers and adventurers who would otherwise cause trouble. Ever since Ivan the Terrible, the east has held this reputation; after the Khanate of Sibir fell, hardly any organized resistance stood in the way.
So various Russians have been making their way east, fighting the locals and bringing diseases like smallpox with them. Russian explorers have by now reached as far east as the Pacific Ocean. It’s a matter of time before something happens.
Vassili Poyarkov is that something. He and some of his followers had set out from the outpost of Yakutsk a few years back, blundering their way around until they arrived in the vicinity of the Amur region (which is to say, the region around the Amur River, which in Chinese sources is more often referred to as the Heishui, literally “Blackwater”). Through a combination of overconfidence and brutality, Poyarkov’s gang progressed from stealing food from the locals to, eventually, literally cannibalizing their prisoners to survive the winter months.[1]
This lasted up until Poyarkov and company blundered into a roving patrol and were utterly butchered.[2]
The horsemen who had stumbled across the Russian expedition were actually in the service of Joseon -- King Hyojong’s viceroys have done a decent job of recruiting locals to serve as military auxiliaries, including many who had previously been subject-allies of the Jurchens -- but many of the people there have cousins among the Northern Yuan, and obviously there are some communications going back and forth between Hyojong and Ejei at a high level. The two kings might not see eye to eye on everything, but they’ve learnt to share and they’d rather not have anyone else upsetting the balance of power in the area.
Expeditions of roving barbarians from the north and/or west is exactly the sort of thing that they do not want at all. It’s not that either of them want the land, exactly. They just don’t want some other asshole to have it.
So Ejei Khan has been spending the last few years going around to the top men among the Mongols, sending out feelers as much as he dares to his neighbors who aren’t formal tributaries. His overtures have been successful. If he decides to go charging west and start handing out ass-kickings, his neighbors aren’t going to interfere. Güshi Khan and the Dalai Lama in Tibet are cautiously supportive; there are always hot-blooded young men who want to go off and be adventurers. Joseon, and the Ming court in Beijing, are somewhat more enthusiastic, to the point of guaranteeing support should any other neighboring polity try to cause trouble. Sure, the Northern Yuan are friendly now, but it’s always nice to have a Mongol army pointed away from you.
Shi Kefa, back in Beijing, has been workshopping various projects. New monuments in Liaoning? Refurbishments to the Porcelain Tower in Nanjing? He settles for drawing up elaborate plans to expand the City God Temple of Shanghai. His plans are not used, although eventually (a generation later) some of them serve as inspiration for new work to commemorate the temple’s posthumous veneration of Xu Guangqi.[3] (The reason why Xu isn’t being venerated so much right now is that his granddaughter, like him, is also Catholic and is a little bit leery of the whole “temple to religiously honor my grandfather” thing. With that in mind, it takes a little while for everything to be smoothed over.)
Also in Beijing are the imperial princes, who, as one will recall, were forced to flee north when the mutiny and subsequent rebellion threatened their lives. They had, in fact, escaped with the help of Sun Chengzong’s family, laying low on the frontier, and the old minister had given his life to buy them time. (The late minister’s surviving relations are now enjoying a period of extraordinarily positive favor from the imperial house.) Prince Sihuai, the younger of the brothers, throws himself into martial activities, likely to distract himself from the trauma of the rebellion. The Crown Prince Xianhuai is writing a…poem? It’s not finished yet, more to come in the future. The emperor is very proud of his son, who has done a lot better at literary matters (and, for that matter, literacy) than his father.
In any case, future scholars of literature will be far more interested in another text being published elsewhere. Remember Amakusa Shirō a.k.a. Geronimo? Young man whose followers had fled Japan in the aftermath of a failed Catholic uprising, now residing on Dongshan? Purported author of the Pearl of Great Price, a work of mystic literature, and leader of the so-called Fishermen? Well, another book has been attributed to him. This one is called The Lamb of Heaven, and it appears to draw heavily on an idiosyncratic interpretation of the Book of Revelation (possibly via a figurative translation).
It is written in language so mystical and dense and obtuse that it’s difficult to give a single coherent explanation for its contents -- so, naturally, lots of people have different interpretations. Most explosively, people focus on some passages describing the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, a topic which is briefly mentioned in Revelation. It appears that Geronimo wishes to contract a marriage -- at least spiritually -- with a woman. And then someone remembers that the Princess Yining -- daughter of the emperor, baptized under the Christian name Maria, currently about ten years old -- has talked about wanting to assume the vows of a nun (not too uncommon with imperial princesses) which she has described as being a “Bride of Christ.”
Fortunately for Geronimo et al, it’s hard to read The Lamb of Heaven and actually derive the subversive, politically unwise message that one can infer from the above passages. Prefect Di Yimin, essentially the top lawgiver on Dongshan at this point, quietly sighs and sends someone to talk to the Fishermen and tell them to be careful. Funnily enough, the text isn’t actually popular on the mainland, being more confusing than enlightening, but copies are burnt by the Inquisition in Macau, and Prefect Di has to fend off complaints from Giulio Alenio (head of the local Jesuit community and closely aligned with the Zheng family), who is demanding an investigation. Anyways, Geronimo goes into hiding for a little while to avoid offending more people. His followers, remember, are a colorful bunch, but are outnumbered on Dongshan by even the island’s community of Catholics (both European-born and local converts). Mazu, the patron goddess of actual fishermen and seafarers, is by far the most popular figure of devotion locally. Dongshan in general, and its primary settlement of Luoyang in particular, is remarkably cosmopolitan and there are many different temples and shrines located throughout.
Footnotes
[1] Everything that I’ve just said about Russian history is a hundred percent true. Vassili Poyarkov was a real person.
[2] IOTL he and his gang survived and made it back to Russian territory, where he was apparently shipped back to Moscow for trial. Turns out cannibalism is bad, even when you’re doing it to foreigners.
[3] The Shanghai City God Temple was originally built by the Wanli Emperor, grandfather to the Tianqi Emperor. IOTL today it venerates Huo Guang, Qin Yubo, and Chen Huacheng, but the last individual on this list will not exist ITTL, so eventually ITTL someone suggests Xu Guangqi because why not.