Dragon Sea Empire

Li Lihua's yard is not big, but it is very clean. Every plant, every tree, every flower and every stone is simple and elegant, and people can feel the heart and wisdom of the hostess at a glance. There is a small European-style fountain in the corner of the garden. The whole courtyard is a combination of Chinese and Western, forming a world of its own. The hostess is wearing a Spanish court-style white muslin dress and combing a Chinese-style hair bun. She is sitting by the fountain, holding a book and looking at the sky obsessively.

Three Jesuit missionaries, Baradas, Jinnige, and Guo Jujing, and four people including You Wenhui, led by an old woman, walked through the corridor to Li Lihua's private garden.

Li Lihua, who just looked away from the sky, waved her hand, the old lady bowed, turned and walked away, only one of Yin Feng's most loyal black guards was left beside Miss Li.

"Dear Ms. Li, hello..." Baradas just opened his mouth when Li Lihua stood up and motioned for everyone to follow her.

She came to a corner of the yard, moved a pot of camellias, and said slowly: "When I was in Manila, I never knew that there were such beautiful flowers in my motherland,"

She spoke in Spanish, which fortunately some of the missionaries knew.

When Jin Nige entered the yard, he was surprised by Li Lihua's fair and beautiful appearance, and also surprised by her Western-style attire. At this time, he was shocked by her fluent Spanish. Li Lihua's Spanish is The pure Castellan accent is the lingua franca of the Spanish royal family.

"I have roughly guessed why you are here." Li Lihua stood up, looked at the three missionaries with watery eyes, and said lightly: "I am Captain Yin's woman, and I want to consider everything for him. What I want to ask is , what kind of compensation do you plan to make for this incident?"

Jin Nige quickly crossed himself on his chest and said: "May God bless the enthusiastic Captain Yin, our Jesuits also know the story of Captain Yin, he is so enthusiastic about saving people, no matter in any country in the world With the blessing of God, Father Matteo Ricci of the capital wrote a letter to Captain Yin, hoping that Captain Yin could reopen the missionary activities of the Jesuits in Taiwan," he took out the letter from his pocket.

But Li Lihua walked away slowly and did not go to answer the letter. She smiled and played with a bonsai, shook her head and said, "Dear priest, you haven't answered my question yet,"

Baradas and Guo Jujing glanced at each other, Baradas stepped forward and made a sign of the cross and said, "Miss Li, you know, our Jesuits have no money, and the reason why our church members resell guns to make money is to give money to the church. Raising funds for..."

Li Lihua sneered, staring at Baradas with a pair of deep black eyes: "Can poor people steal things, respected priest, it seems that you still don't realize what mistakes you made, I don't think there is anything to talk about, wait Let's talk about it when Captain Yin comes back."

Baradas smiled bitterly and said: "I'm sorry, our people did make a mistake in this matter. We have already expelled those who participated in the incident from the diocese, and you can still deal with it, but we need to pay 5000 taels of silver. , we are really..."

Li Lihua chuckled, and his voice and smile made Jinnige tremble in his heart: "I am a Catholic. I studied with the bishop of the Dominican Order in Manila. I know that your Jesuits get a certain percentage of money from Macau every year." Silk trading rights, will you have no money?"

The three Jesuit missionaries were all taken aback: I didn't expect the Chinese company to know such a thing.

The Jesuits first participated in commercial activities in East Asia in the last century, when a doctor named Luis de Almeida who joined the Jesuits donated a large sum of money to the organization, and the money was invested Silk trade from China to Japan, although at that time the Holy See's Council of Trento (the 1545th ecumenical meeting of the Catholic Church that competed with Protestantism was held in the Italian city of Trento in 1563-19) had called for Priests engaged in trade were punished and even excommunicated, but missionaries in the Far East could not be reached.

The Portuguese royal family decided to spend 1000 cruzados each year to support the missionary societies, paid from the customs revenue of Malacca, but the payment of this money was very unstable, and the remittance allocated by the Jesus Society from its income in India It was not enough, so the Jesuits entered into an agreement with the Macao Municipal Council, which was later codified into law by the Holy See and Goa, which gave the Jesuits a percentage of the silk trading rights, and Officially recognized in a royal decree in 1584, it was used to pay for the maintenance and various houses, seminaries, mission schools, and nearly 200 houses they owned in various countries. Church expenses.

However, after the Chinese company besieged Macau, Macau’s trade income had to be shared with the Chinese company, so the funds allocated to the Jesuits’ missions were also reduced. disaster.

Baradas gritted his teeth, feeling very depressed: "But, as you know, the Macao City Hall is also short of funds..." At this time Guo Jujing said: "Dear Ms. Li, our Jesus will come to Taiwan, in addition to serving God , without any combination

For other attempts, when I was in Macau, I thought that your husband is a visionary hero and a benevolent ruler who loves the people. He must not want the Catholics under his jurisdiction to lack the teaching of religious teachers. He will definitely have a solution to our plight of,"

Li Lihua felt that it was enough to embarrass them, and said with a smile: "Father Guo helped me in Macau. Now that you have spoken, I will not embarrass you anymore." She took out a few pieces of paper from the scroll in her hand, Handed over to several priests.

A few sheets of paper are filled with a list of books recorded in Spanish and Latin, including Copernicus's "On the Movement of Celestial Spheres" and Kepler's "Copernican Astronomy Outline", Galileo's "On the Two World Systems". Jinnige is a missionary who loves reading, and he has heard of some of these titles when he was in Europe; including history, natural history, philosophy, literature, geometry, etc. And hydrology, mathematics, astronomy and sundial chronometry, physics and chemistry, mechanics and technology, medicine, linguistics, biography, miscellaneous, etc. five or six hundred.

The three missionaries held the note, and the more they looked at it, the more surprised they became. Baradas and Guo Jujing were even more surprised. Some books are banned by the church. But, the problem is, Yin Feng made this list, how did he know? So many European books yet.

This book list is part of the "Beitang Bibliography" that Yin Feng extracted from his own materials. In fact, this "Beitang Bibliography" has a lot to do with Jinni Pavilion. The list of Western books that I brought with me when I came to China for the second time included religious books, which accounted for one-third of the collection: including the Bible, patristics, theological teachings and ethics, dialectical theology and mysticism, canon law and civil law, There are more than 2000 kinds of sermons and catechisms, prayer books, asceticism, etc., and two-thirds of the books in Beitang are natural and social sciences, with a total of more than 3000 kinds. Since the translation of Indian Buddhist scriptures, it was the second large-scale translation of foreign books in Chinese history. Unfortunately, Jinni Pavilion died of illness, and the Ming Dynasty was dying at that time. It was not discovered until the 7000th century.

Li Lihua said with a smile: "My husband said that as long as you can bring these books from Europe to China, you can offset the compensation debts you owe. Moreover, the more scientific and technological books the better, and he hopes that you can help China. The scholar translates these books into Chinese, and he can pay you a sum of money every year for this,"

The three missionaries couldn't believe their ears. After looking at each other, Kinny Court asked cautiously: "So, what about our church?"

Li Lihua picked a flower, smelled the fragrance of the flower, and smiled slightly: "First, you must sign an agreement with us; within three to five years, you must bring the books on the list to China; secondly, the Jesuits You have to publicly admit your mistakes and pay a symbolic amount of money. This is to appease those who oppose you in the Chinese company. It has to be done. Then, your church can start preaching again; Those books are translated into Chinese, and my husband is willing to send a sum of money to the Jesuits in Taiwan every year in his own name,"

The three missionaries were overjoyed. In their view, bringing thousands of books from Europe to China was much easier than doing business to make money. In Europe at that time, the church was the center of culture and education. It’s not too much trouble, they even claimed it was, but Li Lihua continued to say: “The last point...you must train Chinese clergy in Taiwan, and our company can afford their study and future work expenses. Of course, their The teaching content you receive must be the same as the education you received in Europe,"

Jin Nige nodded again and again: "This should be no problem. Father Matteo Ricci also believes that the Chinese are a hardworking and intelligent nation, and they can definitely make contributions to God's cause."

……

In the eyes of most of the board members of the China United Company, asking missionaries to bring Western books is purely Yin Feng’s personal hobby: he likes to read miscellaneous books, and rarely reads the Four Books and Five Classics, and he has read a lot of Journey to the West and Jin Ping Mei. It is also understandable to read Western strange books.

Only Li Yue, who is in charge of the workshop and technology, nodded repeatedly after hearing about this incident, saying that he could learn about foreigner's equipment knowledge. Three large hydraulic runners have been erected in his workshop to drive armor and polish it. , The machine tools for polishing the inner wall of the flintlock barrel are all built by Western technicians, and a hydraulic grinding equipment is also being added to the gunpowder workshop, which will increase the production of gunpowder in large quantities.

Only Li Lihua vaguely felt that Yin Feng seemed to want to introduce some western culture, but it was not just religious culture, but first-class science and technology. The European cultural education she received was mainly religious, so it was only hazy. He vaguely sensed Yin Feng's intentions.

Yin Feng hopes that what he does can help China start a real cultural exchange between East and West.

Tang Xuanzang took the initiative to go to the West to learn Buddhist scriptures, while China in the Ming Dynasty had to wait for Western missionaries to send books. The spiritual realm in this is already very different.

At this time, Yin Feng was witnessing a public riot that was common across the country at that time in Quanzhou City.