Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1047 [Eternal Rome]

Of course, China has public baths, and they also provide services such as back scrubbing, nail clipping, facial shaving, massage, etc., and also provide guests with tea, wine and fruit.

Its basic service content is not much different from that of modern bath centers.

The largest public bathhouse in Luoyang is in Tianwang Temple, and the largest public bathhouse in Kaifeng is in Xiangguo Temple.

Because public baths were originally introduced from India along with Buddhism. As early as the Southern and Northern Dynasties, public baths had become an essential facility in large and medium-sized temples, mainly for monks and pilgrims to use to wash away disasters and gain blessings.

In the Northern Song Dynasty, with the rise of the urban middle class, public baths became detached from religion and completely secularized.

Why can't I find a public bath in Aksuhe?
Because the official who accompanied him to Beijing was in a hurry, he just said perfunctorily that there was no such thing.

Even when he was in Kaifeng, he wanted to walk around the city, but he gave up after only walking half a circle because the officials accompanying him came to urge him to get on the boat quickly.

At this moment, six second-generation officials were in the bathhouse of Xiangguo Temple in Kaifeng.

Several monk attendants were trimming their nails and beards.

Beards and hair should also be trimmed.

Long hair tends to dry out and break easily, so it must be trimmed regularly to look good. The same is true for beards, especially sideburns, which must be groomed regularly, otherwise they will look too sloppy. A long and beautiful beard requires a lot of effort.

After the trim, Bai Shihou looked at himself in the mirror and said with emotion, "It's still more comfortable back home. We haven't even had a chance to enjoy ourselves since we came back to accompany the envoys to Beijing."

Lu You had a goatee on his chin and two mustaches under his nose: "We have to go back to Luoyang eventually. Do you dare to go back?"

"I have to go back even if I don't dare," Bai Shihou sighed, "Let's stay in Kaifeng for a few days first."

The elders in the family knew that the second-generation officials had secretly gone out to sea. They were so anxious that they were afraid that their children would die outside. Bai Shihou would definitely be beaten when he returned home.

After their hair, beards, faces, fingernails and toenails were trimmed, the monks took them for a quick wash and then into a private bathhouse.

A new group of monk waiters came, and this time they were here to provide bathing and massage.

In fact, these are not regular monks. They cannot obtain ordination certificates. They are just dressed like monks.

The second-generation officials sat in the same bathhouse and chatted. The monks first scrubbed their bodies and used fragrant soap. They moved to another bathhouse, changed to clean hot water, and continued to soak. The monks continued to massage them.

As we chatted, I stopped talking and just closed my eyes and enjoyed the massage.

After coming out of the bathhouse of Xiangguo Temple, everyone felt refreshed, so they went to the brothel to listen to music.

They even brought their Armenian maids with them to let the foreign maids experience the Ming Dynasty folk art.

The maids had long been numb with shock. They came from the County of Edessa and had never seen a megacity like Constantinople. The longest they had ever seen was when they were sold to Baghdad, and because of their status as slaves, they only stayed in the suburbs for a month.

When the maids landed at Guangzhou's outer port and followed their master into Guangzhou city, they thought they had arrived in heaven.

Although the scale of Guangzhou after the expansion was still slightly smaller than Baghdad, they could only watch Baghdad from a distance in the suburbs, but now they can freely enter and leave Guangzhou. The swarming flow of people and the dazzling array of goods have a huge impact on these Armenian maids.

Then came Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Yangzhou, Huai'an, Shangqiu, and Kaifeng. They thought that the city of Guangzhou was unique, but it seemed to be everywhere in the Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, Hangzhou, Yangzhou and Kaifeng are larger than Guangzhou!
Following their master to a high-end tile house, they attracted a lot of attention before they even entered.

"Brother Xue Pu!" A young man called out to Bai Shihou.

Bai Shihou turned around and saw that it was his friend Su Ping in Kaifeng. He immediately introduced him to everyone, saying, "This is Su Liulang, Su Ping, Su Dingbang, the great-grandson of Su Ziweng (Su Shunyuan)."

"Excuse me, excuse me!" Everyone came forward to greet him.

Su Shunyuan was originally from Shuzhong. He was an able official with outstanding political achievements. Later, he returned to Beijing to serve as an official and settled in Kaifeng.

The clansmen who stayed in their hometown of Mianzhou even paid to recruit local soldiers and followed the Chengdu Fulu Transport Commissioner to resist Zhu Ming's southward advance. When the Sichuan army of the Song Dynasty was defeated, the Mianzhou Su family changed their attitude instantly and quickly sent several clansmen to join Zhu.

When Zhu Ming led his army to capture Chengdu, the entire Su family of Mianzhou would directly surrender to Marshal Zhu!
When Zhu Ming captured Kaifeng, he persuaded all the Kaifeng Su family members who had been separated to join the new court.

Bai Shihou introduced a few second-generation officials, and everyone bowed to each other.

Su Ping pointed at the foreign slave girls and asked: "Hu Ji or Bodhisattva Man?"

Bai Shihou said: "They are Huji. They came from a certain kingdom in Arabia. Because of the defeat in the war, their kingdom was destroyed and they were sold as slaves by a governor of the Seljuk. "

Su Ping commented: "She is slightly different in appearance from the Hu girls in the East and West Capitals. I also have a Hu girl at home, from Gaochang, but I have never seen a Hu girl from Arabia."

Master Bai smiled and said, "It's a pity that I only have one. If I had any extra, I would give them to you."

"No need, no need," Su Ping waved his hands repeatedly, "A gentleman does not take away what others like. I am just asking out of curiosity."

As they were talking, everyone had already walked into the tile house.

After sitting down, tea and preserved fruits were served, and an ordinary geisha was warming up the audience.

Suddenly, several more people came in. Su Ping pointed at one of them and said, "The king of the fallen Xixia has arrived. He has been very popular recently. He passed the examination to become a scholar in Kaifeng County and will soon be specially recruited to study at Luoyang Imperial College."

Li Zuqia was puzzled and said, "I'm just a scholar, what's so great about that?"

Su Ping said: "The king of a fallen country took the exam to become a scholar, and he did it entirely based on his ability. He gave up his position as a duke and was determined to take the imperial examination to become an official. Although he only has the title of a scholar, he has won the recognition of the scholars in the two capitals. They no longer regard him as a king of a fallen country, but have accepted him as one of their own."

Fan Chengda nodded and said, "This is truly valuable."

Su Ping continued, "There are many scholars who sympathize with him. They all think that the fall of the Western Xia Kingdom was not his fault. It was because the country was in a state of decay and it was difficult to reverse the situation. If he were in power a hundred years ago, he would have been an accomplished monarch."

When these words were spoken, everyone laughed.

It is true that Xixia and Song were mortal enemies, but that was a thing of the past. Now they actually sympathized with the Xixia emperor. Wang Lianqing suddenly asked, "How is Zhao Kai?"

Su Ping said, "He has become even crazier. He often gets drunk and sleeps on the street. He fell seriously ill last year and was saved by a doctor hired by a famous prostitute. After recovering from the illness, he became even crazier, but his paintings are also more expensive. I don't know much about painting, but according to the evaluation of painting experts, Zhao Kai's paintings are possessed by demons."

"Possessed by a demon?" Li Zuqia was stunned.

Su Ping nodded: "It is full of ghostly spirit. It seems weird at first glance, but it is horrifying when you look at it carefully. Some people also say that the soul of the former emperor of the Song Dynasty came back and possessed Zhao Kai to open his yin-yang eyes. So the same thing looks different in Zhao Kai's eyes than in ordinary people. What Zhao Kai saw is most likely the appearance of all things in the underworld."

Everyone was at a loss whether to laugh or cry when they heard this, but they chose to believe it a little.

They played in Kaifeng for several days, but the father of Bai Shihou, Lu You and Wang Lianqing sent someone to urge them to leave Tokyo and go to Luoyang to be beaten.

Fan Chengda and three others, however, gloated over the misfortune and ran to Luoyang to watch the fun.

It is worth appreciating the show of good friends getting beaten.

Lu You and Wang Lianqing were only scolded, but Bai Shihou was beaten. Bai Sheng broke his son's legs, and he walked with one leg higher than the other, and it was unknown how long it would take for him to recover.

Unfortunately, he had no time to recover and they were soon summoned to the palace to meet the emperor.

Before this, Eastern Roman envoys had already met with the emperor.

Zhu Ming asked many questions indirectly and finally confirmed that the Byzantine emperor at that time was the famous Manuel I.

To be honest, this man's political and military abilities are far inferior to those of his father, John II.

But John II inherited a mess, and many nobles opposed him to be emperor. Despite such internal and external troubles, he was able to continue to improve the country's strength and carry out some reforms, saving relatively rich capital for his son. He did not even leave a bad reputation, and was called a "good man" and a "handsome man". His private life was also very simple and frugal.

Thanks to the foundation laid by his father, although Manuel still faced external threats, at least the internal situation had been sorted out, and there was enough national strength to support him in resisting foreign enemies.

In Zhu Ming's opinion, Manuel I's personality is a bit like the later Sun King of France.

He was ambitious, extravagant, and always willing to send troops to war.

In his later years, he became even more arrogant and even joined forces with the Crusaders to invade Egypt.

It was possible to win the battle, but during the siege, the Byzantines and the Crusaders dragged each other down, each wanting to get rid of their allies and reap the fruits of victory alone. During the retreat when the army ran out of food, half of the Byzantine elite died in a storm in the Mediterranean.

Because the Byzantine army was completely defeated in the attack on Roma (a sultanate granted by the Seljuks), it lost the ability to expand outward.

But Manuel I was truly brave.

Facing the backstab of the Antiochus Crusaders, he led 500 cavalrymen in person as an emperor without waiting for the main force to arrive at the battlefield. He arrived at the battlefield like a god descending from the sky, and frightened the King of Armenia (a country formed by Armenian refugees) into fleeing into the mountains, forcing the Duke of Antioch to kneel down and surrender in torn sackcloth.

As the Eastern Roman Emperor, he not only often led troops to war in person, but also led teams to scout the enemy many times.

As the reconnaissance continued, it turned into an ambush.

"Your emperor wants to obtain books from the Ming Dynasty?" Zhu Ming said with a smile.

Aksukh said: "Yes, your Majesty, the great Emperor Taohuashi. The books that Fatima (Egypt) brought back from Taohuashi are hidden in the Caliphate Library. Our emperor has sent people to borrow them many times but was rejected."

Zhu Ming asked: "What did Rome use in exchange?"

Aksukh said: "The Great Roman Empire allowed Confucian monks from Taohuashi to go to Constantinople to preach and build churches. After we rebuild a powerful Roman navy and capture the Fatimid capital, we will purchase a large amount of goods from Taohuashi."

Confucian monks went to Constantinople to preach?
Zhu Ming didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and he didn't even bother to explain anything, so he just let them continue to misunderstand: "I can give Rome a batch of books, and they have been translated into Arabic. They were translated by those green-robed scholars in Ming Dynasty."

Aksuhe was delighted: "Praise your kindness, His Majesty the Great Emperor Taohuashi."

Zhu Ming said: "When you go back, I will also send a team of envoys to follow you. These Ming envoys can freely browse the Roman collection of books. How do you think?"

"As you wish," Aksukh said, "I heard that the Ming army is about to go on an expedition to Jurhan. Can I go with the army to witness this great war?"

Zhu Ming thought about it carefully and said, "Okay. But you must be restrained when you arrive in the army. You are not allowed to move around at will and you are not allowed to interfere with the war. Otherwise, you will be punished by military law."

Aksukh knelt down and praised: "May God bless you."

Zhu Ming then inquired in detail about the various systems of Byzantium, and finally sent Aksukh away.

In Zhu Ming's opinion, it would be better to help Byzantium and let it stay there forever.

It’s not that he is pro-Roman, but Byzantium has a special role.

It contained the eastward expansion of the European Catholics, blocked the westward advance of the West Asian Sultans, pressed the Egyptian Caliphate northward, and also carried the Holy Roman Empire and Kievan Rus southward. Zhu Ming did not like these forces very much, and the longer Byzantium could last, the better.

Except for firearms, Zhu Ming even planned to give away 200 sets of high-quality cotton armor.

Except for science books, all other books can be given as gifts.

No matter how much support they give, the Eastern Roman Empire will never become the real Rome. It is difficult for them to expand in a land surrounded by enemies. Not only the ethnic problem, but also the religious problem is even more troublesome. Only the barbaric Russians can pee in the same pot with them.

Byzantium had been completely Hellenized, and only official documents and religious texts had to be written in Latin.

People used Greek in daily communication, and most ordinary official documents, religious pamphlets, poetry articles... were written in Greek.

The real enemy of Byzantium was not the pagans from West Asia, but its own allies, the Crusaders.

Constantinople was conquered by the Crusaders!
Zhu Ming muttered with a strange expression: "May the Roman Empire last forever."

(End of this chapter)