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Chapter 18 Monk and the Clock

"Concubine Zuo, is there anyone who is familiar with the affairs of the European countries to recommend to me?" There is no way to deny Hong Tao, the European missionary, so he can only settle for the next best thing.

According to Ye Xianggao, these missionaries had arrived in the Ming Dynasty many years ago and had wandered around Fujian, Jiangsu and Zhejiang for a long time. They understood Ming Dynasty etiquette and Chinese, and gathered around them a group of scholars who were curious and willing to learn about the world. and officials.

"The person who is closest to Matteo Ricci is Li Zhizao. He was a Jinshi in the 26th year of Wanli (1598), a native of Hangzhou, and is currently a member of the Ministry of Works, Camp, Renovation and Qing Dynasty. He graduated from the fifth grade and is fluent in Xiban dialect. Your Highness, if you want to meet in person If you ask, I would like to recommend you!"

Hong Tao really has no memory of who Li Zhizao is, but there is no harm in meeting him.It doesn’t take much, just talking about specific things for an hour can tell whether this person is tempted by Christianity, or whether he yearns for the unknown and likes to delve into the unknown.

If it's the former, I won't see you again.If it's the latter, hey, I have an extra helper.Even if you don't use it now, it can help you in the future. You can use it when you are idle and busy.

Speaking of making preparations quietly, Hong Tao was energetic.He started learning to write from his birth mother Wang when he picked up a brush at the age of four. He wrote and drew on many pieces of paper when he had nothing to do. Each numbered piece of paper was folded into different books and placed in a small box by the bedside.

In the eyes of outsiders, these papers are all the naughty works of children, incomprehensible and worthless, but in Hong Tao's eyes they are extremely valuable.They are all production materials for future generations of technological products recorded in modern English. Everything that can be thought of is written down from parameters to processing methods. As long as they are equipped with qualified workers, they can be turned into a process immediately.

Hong Tao figured out the direction of his life long before weaning. If he wants to change his destiny, he must first change the environment around him. If he wants to change the environment, he must change people's thoughts. If he wants to change people's thoughts, he must provide enough temptations.For example, material and spiritual, the first step is material.

The ancients often said that if you have enough food and clothing, you will know your integrity, and if you have enough food and clothing, you will know etiquette.It’s not that people in the Ming Dynasty didn’t like progress, nor were they naturally cowardly.Most of them don't have enough to eat or wear, and they have to struggle all day long to make ends meet.If we have to raise our arms and shout about the elimination of class exploitation and the overthrow of feudal rule, who has time to listen and who has time to think about it?
Only after people have eaten and drank enough, satisfied some of their material needs, and their living conditions are not too urgent, can they be in the mood to ponder the meaning of life and the principles of the world, and then think about what to do in the future.Only after people have the initial ability to resist disasters will they be willing to slightly harm their own interests for others.

The bureaucrats and landlords of the Ming Dynasty did have these conditions, and there were many highly educated people. Why didn't they worry about the world's worries first, and rejoice after the world's happiness?The environment also does not allow it.

Although they have power and money, if they relax even a little bit, they will be swallowed up by greater power.The failure of political struggles often marks the rise and fall of a family, and the struggle cannot stop for a moment.First fight with the imperial power and then fight with your colleagues. The struggle will never end in life.

Essentially speaking, the people of the Ming Dynasty and the bureaucratic landlords were all in the same environment, and that was the theory invented by Shang Yang.Through various methods to keep people in a state of exhaustion and reduce thinking time, the imperial power will be easily consolidated.

Obviously, Shang Yang's set of things was effective at the time, just like Wang Anshi and Zhang Juzheng's reforms, which could change the status quo in a short period of time.But once time goes by, the disadvantages become more and more obvious. The struggle is too fierce, and even the imperial power is involved. Let's fight together, there will be no end.

Changing dynasties cannot prevent such situations from recurring. Throughout the thousands of years of Chinese civilization, the founding kings can usually suppress the side effects by relying on their personal abilities, but the further they go on, the less able they are to suppress them.Once a successor lacks ability, he will collapse immediately and be out of control.

It’s not that no one is trying to change, but culture is something that is usually invisible and invisible. Once a system is formed, it is very stubborn and will not change easily. If something goes wrong, it cannot heal itself.

Is there any way to stop the vicious cycle? Hong Tao doesn't know and doesn't want to know.He had tried different tricks during the previous time travels, but the results were not satisfactory. He had long been bored and didn't want to try again.But the tree wants to be still but the wind doesn't stop. In this life, it becomes a useless prince and a short-lived emperor. If you don't continue to toss, you will have to let others sit on your head and shit. It's still thin.Can?Of course not!Not to mention the thin ones, the dry ones won’t work either!
From this point of view, the gadgets that control Hong Tao's travels over and over again have indeed become extremely proficient in controlling human nature.He knew exactly what was happening, and he knew that Hong Tao couldn't help it, but still had to leave a way to survive, and then quietly watched the excitement from the side.Just like humans watching crickets fighting, they might even place bets on them.

There are only two choices now, either to fight something unknown that far exceeds human civilization, or to fight the current emperors and ministers of the Ming Dynasty, including the surrounding national forces.

Hong Tao calculated carefully with his toes, and the answer was very clear.Not to mention only the Ming Dynasty, but also the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, I had no choice but to bite the bullet.At least these people and things can be seen and touched, and it is possible to use your brain to find a way to defeat them.

There is no way, no matter how powerful the cricket is, it is still a cricket. Who has ever heard that a cricket can bite a person to death in one bite?

According to this idea, Hong Tao will take the first step in fighting crickets. He will first let his cricket absorb enough nutrients to grow a strong body and teeth, and be ready to bite in the future.

However, this process must be as covert as possible. Once the emperor and Concubine Zheng see the clues, they will inevitably encounter great resistance, or they may die midway.

In addition, the eunuchs and courtiers around him are not very good helpers. They can only use deception and bluffing, which can be used in the short term, but they still cannot discover their true purpose.

The self-ringing bell is a good excuse that Hong Tao accidentally discovered.I originally planned to start in the printing or textile industry, but I didn’t expect that on my wedding day I saw Emperor Wanli holding a clock in his hand and couldn’t put it down, so this is it.

Speaking of which, the watch industry has a lower starting point than the printing and textile industries, and it is easier to cover up.This is not to say that its technological content is low, on the contrary, the scientific and technological content of clocks must be very, very high in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.

How unattainable is it? Without the personal teachings of European missionaries, it would be almost impossible to imitate it just by relying on the Ming Dynasty craftsmen.Let alone making clocks and watches, this idea alone will not come up for a while.

It is precisely because of this that Hong Tao feels that the watch industry is suitable for him. The more people in the Ming Dynasty do not understand and cannot imagine it, the easier it is for him to deceive him. It is so convenient that almost no one can argue with him, and no one can expose it.

At the same time, this kind of thing is relatively easy to make money. You don’t need to explode production capacity, and you can get enough profits with only a small amount of products.In this way, raw materials are easily sourced and the impact is minimal.

Compared with it, whether printing or weaving, there are dozens or hundreds of people at every turn, the machine is as big as half a room, and the noise is constant every day, making it basically impossible to operate it in the palace.

(End of this chapter)