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Chapter 757: War in Europe

"Mr. Cohen, I believe someone has told you before entering the palace that you need to be searched if you want to meet the emperor. Please, it is best to take off your clothes yourself. If you wait until they come in, they will pull out every hair on your body for a thorough inspection."

The eunuch went out, and Silva did not sit down. Instead, he raised his hand to take off his hat, then untied his belt while explaining to Cohen the necessity and tricks of entering the palace for inspection.

"...Excuse me, but if your wife goes to the palace to meet the emperor, does it have to be done this way?" When Cohen boarded the Ming Navy armed cargo ship at the Port of Manila, he did hear local officials mention this requirement, but he did not know that he had to strip naked for a body search, so he was a little resistant.

"Oyani has been to the palace to meet the emperor more often than I have. She has even swum with the emperor. Just now you said that they are not men."

Silva answered the assumptions about his wife calmly. Not to mention that the emperor didn't like Oyani, even if he did, he would pretend not to know and even be proud of it.

Did Hong Tao really go to meet the minister? Impossible. He interrupted his fishing trip just to meet the Dutch East India Company's envoy. How could he go to meet other ministers?

He was lying in the back hall of the Palace of Tranquil Longevity at this moment, with four or five young eunuchs passing by him like a revolving lantern. Each of them came in with a small note in his hand, which they handed to the emperor before quickly disappearing through the back door.

"I told you, I can't always be unlucky. It's time for me to get lucky once." At this time, Hong Tao already had more than a dozen small notes in his hand. After reading the last one, he grinned at Wang Chengen.

"Is this Western merchant here to bring a gift to His Majesty?" Wang Chengen handed over a wet wipe appropriately, took the note without reading it, and waited for the emperor to wipe his hands before offering him the lit cigar.

"Of course he doesn't have such good intentions, but he has to bow to me because his country is about to be involved in a long and drawn-out war. If he doesn't want to lose the advantage of the Spice Islands, he can only come to me for cooperation.

Don't mention it, this guy has some brains, he can actually analyze the trend of the war in advance, he is quite a character. Pack up, let Silva bring him in. Gecko will withdraw first, all the participants will be credited. But don't be complacent, some sentences are still not translated accurately, you must study hard after you go back."

Lying on the sofa and smoking a cigar, Hong Tao's mood improved a lot, but it was not because of the comfortable posture or the good taste of the cigar, but because of the words on the note.

Just as Silva and Cohen were chatting in the side hall, three Gecko members were putting their ears to the copper pipes in the partition wall less than ten meters away, writing down their conversation word by word on pieces of paper and sending them to the emperor at any time.

In the courtyard where the Hall of Mental Cultivation was located, copper tube eavesdropping devices were installed in every room. In addition, most of the imperial palace courtyards that had the opportunity to be renovated also had such devices, including the Renshou Palace, which was previously inhabited by the Empress Dowager and was later renovated and arranged for the Queen Mother to live in.

Gecko used similar means to spread a large net in the huge palace, keeping an eye on everyone at all times and doing his utmost to prevent anything that might pose a threat to the emperor.

This was one of the successful eavesdropping cases. With advance preparation, Hong Tao knew the other party's general intentions and cards, and was able to take the initiative in the subsequent meeting or bargaining.

Of course, if these notes were shown to others, they would not be so useful, because apart from Hong Tao, no one seemed to know the future five hundred years later, and therefore could not make full use of the information obtained from the notes. Is there any important information in the conversation between Silva and Cohen? There must be, two words, war, four words, religious war, five words, Thirty Years War.

There are many records and analyses of the details of this war in later generations, which Hong Tao happened to have read. In a word, it is the first war in the 17th century.

European leaders first quarreled over whether imperial power or divine power, imperial power or royal power, and then chose sides, splitting into Catholic and Protestant factions and fighting each other. The main battlefield was in Germany, and the fuse was Prague.

At that time, there was no country called Germany, but hundreds of noble territories of various sizes under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire. However, the empire was not stable internally and faced many problems from the beginning, among which the most serious was the large number of ethnic groups and their independent rule.

The emperor of the Holy Roman Empire had always wanted to strengthen his power, while the German princes were unwilling to let the emperor monopolize power. The open and covert struggles between the two sides had never stopped, but with the religious reform initiated by Martin Luther King, the long-accumulated conflicts broke out.

The German princes wanted to use the rise of Protestantism to further break free from the constraints of imperial power, while the Habsburg family, the representative of the imperial power of the Holy Roman Empire, hated Protestantism and was determined to maintain the orthodoxy of Catholicism, thereby consolidating the imperial power.

The Duchy of Bohemia was a very powerful prince among the German states and was one of the seven electors who had the right to choose the emperor of the empire. Its status and influence were crucial within the Holy Roman Empire.

So where is this principality? Why did it disappear in later generations? In fact, it still exists in later generations, but it is pronounced in English, called Czech, while Bohemia is pronounced in Latin.

Religious issues were very acute in the Duchy of Bohemia, with some nobles supporting Catholicism and others supporting Protestantism. The quarrels sometimes turned into small-scale armed conflicts.

When Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II was in office, he was also the King of Bohemia and Hungary. In order to quell the local unrest and concentrate on fighting the Ottoman Turks, he signed an agreement on religious freedom with the Bohemian nobles.

But when his cousin Ferdinand II succeeded to the throne as King of Bohemia, things took a 180-degree turn. Ferdinand II grew up in a Jesuit school and was a devout Catholic.

When he succeeded to the throne as Grand Duke of Styria, he strictly prohibited all non-Catholic existence in his fiefdom. Now that he has become the King of Bohemia, how can he tolerate any sand in his eyes? He must make his kingdom more sacred.

So he unilaterally tore up the religious freedom agreement signed by his cousin Rudolf II and the Bohemian Noble Parliament, forcibly expelled Protestant parliamentarians and public officials, and burned down two Protestant churches.

The Bohemian nobles were not happy about this and deposed Ferdinand II in parliament, no longer recognizing him as the legitimate king of Bohemia. The two sides completely broke off relations and civil war broke out.

Although Bohemia had a developed economy, it was only a duchy after all, and could not directly confront the Empire in any way. What should they do? The first reaction of the Protestant Bohemian nobles was to seek foreign aid and appeal to the German princes who were also Protestants to lend a hand.

(End of this chapter)