Xinshun 1730

Chapter 693 Religious Diplomacy
The task of meeting King Kandy fell on Du Feng.

Given that he was basically the chosen candidate for the governor of Ceylon, he had to meet the king and establish a good relationship with him.I thought that I would later manage India and lay a solid foundation.

As for the specific details of the negotiations, the people from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will come forward to discuss.

Although it may be hoped that Kandy will use the name of tribute, but considering the messy political correctness of the Li government, it will not be able to do much, so the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which does not have so many political correctness, will do it.

Fort Colombo was captured. In fact, the Dutch system in India completely collapsed.

Jaffna is in the north, and several Dutch strongholds on the Indian subcontinent are all south. Taking Colombo is tantamount to dividing all Dutch strongholds in the entire Indian Ocean region.

There was no need for Du Feng to attack every fortress. Since the Dutch chose to surrender, it was up to them to bring the people together.

This is not Europe, the big deal is to run away, and you can go back to your country if you ask for food.This is Ceylon, and the hatred between the Kandy Dynasty. If the Dutch do not surrender, they will die a miserable death.

The Kandy dynasty believed in primitive Buddhism, which was able to organize sects and monks. It was not the kind of honest Buddhism that was destroyed and reformed by the Chinese government several times.

When setting off in Guangzhou, Liu Yu told Du Feng that even if he doesn't believe in Buddhism, he should pretend to believe in it and respect it formalistically, especially when visiting Buddhist temples, don't talk nonsense.

Anyway, the current king of the Kingdom of Kandy also converted from Hinduism to Buddhism in order to rule.

If everyone doesn't believe it, then they all pretend to believe it.

Dashun is now busy fighting with the Dutch and the British. These two countries can be used as shit sticks.

If you really can't get it, you will be disgusted with Dashun, and you may turn to support the Kandy Dynasty.

Furthermore, Ceylon is really not easy to capture.Later generations of Ceylon are famous for the tea leaves stolen by the British. These things grow on high mountains. It is really not easy to attack the mountains.Ceylon can also build reservoirs and irrigation canals. It is really difficult to have such organizational skills.

The most critical point is that the monks and temples of the Kandy Dynasty owned a lot of land.

If Dashun wants to collect taxes, develop, and immigrate, it has to confiscate temple land and monks’ estates. This is the entire clergy class against each other, and it will definitely fall into a "people's" war.

Instead of confiscating the land of temples and monks, why attack Kandy?What are you drawing?

Temples and monk property have always been tax-free. Could it be that Dashun wants to pay back money to satisfy these monks?
Therefore, not only must peace be maintained, but if necessary, part of the Dutch "inheritance" can also be given up and returned to the Kandy Dynasty.As long as Dashun has an exclusive monopoly on the export of cinnamon, betel nuts and precious stones.

As long as they control three ports: Jaffna, Colombo, and Trincomalee, the rest can be returned to the Kingdom of Kandy as a sign of friendship.

The Dutch rule here made the nobles of the Kandy Dynasty very dissatisfied, because the Dutch abolished the caste system and banned virgin marriage, which seriously damaged the interests of the feudal nobles.

Of course, Dashun will not drive backwards, but the policy will not change where the Dutch occupy. That is also the "crime" of the Dutch before, and it has nothing to do with Dashun.

This point must be made clear to the people of the Kandy Dynasty: except for the three ports, the old system can continue, the old religion, the old caste system, the caste social division of labor, virgin marriage, etc. , Dashun will not care.

Kandy can be regarded as Dashun's attempt to build a new type of tributary relationship.

An important material basis for the operation of Southeast Asia in the early Ming Dynasty, or the Celestial Dynasty in Southeast Asia, was to have a huge consumer market.

Without a huge consumer market, it is impossible to become a dynasty.

But now, Ceylon's specialty cinnamon, betel nut and gemstones, these three things, Dashun's consumer market is far behind that of Europe and India.

If Dashun wants to restore the original sphere of influence and new tributary relationship in Kandy and Southeast Asia, two conditions must be met.

First, prove that you can drive away Westerners.

Second, Dashun can sell the goods without reducing the original export scale of various countries.

Indispensable.

Otherwise, Dashun would not be able to eat so much cinnamon and betel nuts. Naturally, the Kingdom of Kandy would consider making friends with the British and letting the British sell their goods.

And this is also a key point of this trip to the Sports City for negotiations.The superiority in force has already been proven, and the rest is economic promise: Dashun has the ability to eat all your betel nuts and cinnamon.

A celestial dynasty that cannot bring benefits to countries within the celestial dynasty system is bound to be unstable.This is true no matter what kind of international system the Celestial Dynasty is.

Of course, the current Dashun is unable to eat so much cinnamon and betel nuts.

The Dutch have always monopolized the market. If Dashun cannot achieve its goal in the negotiation with the Dutch East India Company, Dashun will really not be able to get out, and the merchant shipping force may be trapped in the east of Malacca forever, and the Malacca one-stop trade up.

In this negotiation, Liu Yu also persuaded the trading company from Dashun to make a big gamble, and asked the trading company to take over from the Dutch this year and eat all the cinnamon from the Kandy Dynasty.

If you lose the bet and fail to take over the inheritance of the Dutch East India Company, you will have to pay a million taels of silver.That is to say, Liu Yu's face is big enough, for the first and last time, he directly interfered with the business decision of the trading company.

For various reasons, the team of missions to Kandy this time is very strange.

There are royal envoys, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, business representatives from trading companies, people from the military, and the most important monks.

Shortly after taking over Colombo Fort, Du Feng led the mission towards Kandy City. He sent two monks and a messenger to inform the Kandy Kingdom.

…………

In the royal city of Kandy, the king learned about the war between Dashun and the Netherlands from many sources.

The court ministers are not surprised by this incident. Back then, the Portuguese beat the Tamils, and the Dutch came to beat the Portuguese. Even now, some nobles are actively contacting the British, hoping that the British will fight the Dutch.

Although according to Liu Yu's statement, the policy of the Kandy Dynasty is quite brainless, and has no overall view.To be able to come here to fight across most of the world, and still win, how strong is the country behind this?He actually thought about driving away the tiger and devouring the wolf, and didn't even think about driving away the wolf. Isn't it more uncomfortable when a tiger comes?
But they don't think so. They always feel that they can manipulate and take advantage of the contradictions of various countries to realize the independence of the kingdom.

Of course, there are still some people who are purely the habitual traitors of the feudal aristocrats, making friends with foreigners and preparing to rebel.If you don't sell your country, you can only be a small feudal nobleman; if you sell your country, you may become a king, even if you sell part of the country's interests, it is still better than being a small feudal nobleman. This is a very profitable business.

Everyone has seen this kind of thing in the Kandy Dynasty.

It is not uncommon for foreign powers to fight along the coast.The Dutch, the Portuguese, the French, the British, often go to war.

Things are common, but some people called the Kandy Dynasty are surprised by the country that does this kind of thing today.

They were not familiar with Dashun at all. The last official communication between China and Ceylon dates back to the time of Zheng He's voyages to the Western Seas during the Yongle period.

Moreover, at that time, there was civil strife in Ceylon, and the new dynasty had not yet been truly established. After so many years, the impression was finally annihilated.

It was not until a few years ago that a large number of Chinese slave laborers were transported to Ceylon by the Dutch that they began to have some understanding of Dashun.

Considering that there were too many traitors in the Kandyan dynasty, and the feudal nobles were all in cahoots with the Netherlands, France, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, Dashun did not send official personnel in advance to ensure the secrecy of the strategy.

But in the end, many slave workers chose to escape, and some of them fled to the mountains and came to the Kingdom of Kandy. This is considered to have some contact.

People who work as slave labor do not have a high level of education, and they don't know much about their own country and the outside world.It was difficult for the Sinhalese to learn the true situation of Dashun from these slave laborers.

As for China, they only have a vague impression: it is big, populous, rich, rich in porcelain, silk and tea, and it seems, probably, should, almost also believes in Buddhism.Because the slave laborers who escaped to Kandy would also go to worship when they saw the temple...Of course it may be because there is no Taoist temple in Kandy, otherwise they would also go to worship.

Other than that, there are not many impressions.In particular, the Dutch broke their promises and drove away the Portuguese but did not leave. Instead, they intensified, making the Kandy Dynasty continue to move inland and hide in the mountains. Much of the understanding of the outside world must be through the Dutch.But the Dutch didn't want to talk about Dashun with them.

Now Dashun suddenly sent a messenger, saying that the emperor's special envoy was coming, and some monks wanted to pay homage to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple.There were two monks who followed the messenger. Although the language communication was not smooth, and they were heretics with Ceylon Buddhism, it was precisely because of the poor language communication that they won the initial favor of the Ceylon people.

Because the religions in Dashun are legal, and almost all of them are modified versions of demons.Although they are all monks, there are great differences in teaching.

There is a very typical example of how chaotic Dashun's religion is.

A Taoist priest revised and sorted out Lu Dongbin's Taoist collection, and transcribed and sorted out all of Lu Dongbin's works into a complete book.

A volume of Taoism's "Taishang's Edict Acting on Rescue Tribulation and Demonstrating the Dao Sutra" has such an explosive original text, which can almost clearly explain the state of Dashun religion:
Jishou worships God, Yuanhe spreads all over the ten directions.The gift of Taixu Immortal, the true master of Jishou ceremony.Great compassion, save the suffering.Om Na Om La Moo Duo Ma Saha, Om Ma Om Duo Du Duo La Saha, Om Li Moo Su Om Dotami Saha, Om Tuo Su Oduo Doma Chi Saha...

The person who copied the book thought that the following paragraph was in Sanskrit. Although Taoism has nothing to do with Sanskrit, but because Chinese religions are too weird, this Taoist didn't think there was anything wrong with Sanskrit appearing in Daoist, so he wrote this paragraph " The transliteration of "Sanskrit" was copied verbatim.

But in fact, this is not Sanskrit, but the Syriac transliteration of one end of the scriptures of the Christian Nestorians who ran from Syria to the Tang Dynasty. The translation is "Praise, Christ ascended to heaven! Praise! The Holy Lord Bless this Jesus!"

That is to say, an orthodox Taoist thinks it is very normal for Sanskrit to appear in Daoist scriptures, and when he recites the "Sutra Mantra of the Taishang's Edict of Salvation and Tribulation and Demonstration of Daoism" when he is practicing for others, he is actually praising Jesus and asking Jesus for help.

If there is a so-called heaven, if it can save the catastrophe and prove the Tao, it will be a ghost, and the five thunders will be almost the same.

Taoism is like this, and Buddhism is not far from it.

From this, it is conceivable that if the language really communicates, the monks from Dashun may have the opposite effect.Perhaps during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, or before the large-scale extermination of Buddhism, the monks in China must have been similar to the monks in Ceylon.But now, I'm afraid it's hard to say whether heresy is more hateful than heresy.

However, what is needed is a form.The king was originally a Hindu, so he also pretended to believe in Sakyamuni.

This form is very important.

Rajsingh, the king of the Kandy Dynasty, immediately started from the need, and had a first-sighted affection for Dashun.He believes in Buddhism and is also a formalist. He actually doesn't care about the situation of Buddhism in Dashun.

(End of this chapter)