New Shun 1730

The Jesuits in Macau are not gods who can do five loaves and two fishes, so they need money to operate.

Before Japan closed its doors to the outside world, the Jesuits could directly invest in the raw silk trade, and 10% of the raw silk trade belonged to the Jesuits; after Japan closed its doors to the outside world, the Jesuits also relied on their own St. Paul to run the South China Sea trade and earned enough funds.

Of course, the Fujian matter was done by the Dominicans.

But from the perspective of Dashun, aren't the Jesuits and Dominicans both Catholics?

Even in the eyes of most people, at most, it is just the relationship between various Confucian schools, and the difference is not too big. As long as the reputation is ruined, how can ordinary people tell whether it is the Dominicans or the Jesuits?

Especially when forced into a desperate situation, Liu Yu had to write an open letter to the Pope, asking the Jesuits to pay for the "brothers and sisters" in Macau to immigrate to South America, so that they could go to the Kingdom of God of the Jesuits in Paraguay and build the kingdom of heaven on earth with those Indian brothers.

But the Jesuits were unwilling to pay even the money from the French Caribbean, so how could they pay this money?

If they come up with similar remarks as after the Lisbon earthquake, it will ruin their reputation.

A group of sympathizers and even secret believers in the Dashun gentry class will be completely disappointed - this theory does not work in Dashun.

Although Dashun also has similar sayings of warning from heaven, it is absolutely unacceptable that they did not provide disaster relief afterwards. Therefore, the two seem similar, but they are actually very different.

Therefore, a large number of gentry will convert to Christianity in the early stage, thinking that they are similar, but they will be separated when the core is completely different.

The trend led by Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi made a large number of scholars and officials have a great liking for Catholicism before the ban on religion in Dashun.

"All laws can be observed, except for the one that cannot take concubines."

In other words, apart from not being able to take concubines, many scholars and officials feel that this is pure and can complement Confucianism.

Distance creates beauty.

And the few strong men who came to the Jesuits in the early stage were indeed well-educated, and they talked and laughed with the scholars and officials, and did not expose the absolutely reactionary things of the Jesuits after the Lisbon earthquake.

In Dashun, if something like the Lisbon earthquake happened, it could be said that it was a warning from heaven and that heaven and man were in touch with each other; the emperor could also issue an edict of self-criticism.

But no one would stand up and say something like "We should not save ourselves, we should reflect on ourselves, and saving ourselves is to fight against the will of heaven."

It was precisely because of the distance that beauty was created, so the Jesuits did not expose their evil.

It also made a large number of scholars and officials feel good about it.

The emperor's reasoning that "rebellion must have the participation of gentry to succeed" is indeed reasonable.

If you want to remove the influence of Catholicism, banning religion will not be enough. It is only a temporary solution.

It can only, or must, make the scholar-official class of the Celestial Empire collectively disgusted, and use the scripture priests of the Celestial Empire to fight against the scripture priests of the Lord.

Moreover, without the participation of the scholar-officials, Catholicism would not have spread in Dashun. Let's not talk about anything else, just a translation problem. Without the scholar-officials with sufficient level to translate, can the cultural foundation of the grassroots write a high-level Bible like Chinese?

Come up with a bunch of things that have not been integrated into Chinese culture, come up with a bunch of names like Dousi, if they can be spread, then it will be a miracle.

Therefore, the emperor's intention is to expose the evil of the Catholic Church and arouse the disgust of the literati who are close to it, so as to completely eradicate it.

Persuading women to remain chaste... This matter, in the eyes of the literati, is "illegal but reasonable", not evil, just illegal. It is a bit similar to "revenge killing", illegal, but reasonable.

This kind of thing cannot arouse the collective criticism and disgust of the literati.

It is necessary to come up with something that makes the literati feel "evil", not necessarily illegal, but not in line with their morality, so that the literati can turn collectively.

At this time, many literati in Dashun actually tended to "Catholicism is not bad, but it should not be under the jurisdiction of the Holy See, but each country should manage its own. It is good to worship Confucius and ancestors, which can complement Confucianism."

But the emperor's inclination is that Catholicism is not good, it should be banned, and it should be fought and criticized.

On the dispute between Catholicism and Confucianism, Liu Yu, even though he was a later generation, actually did not know as much as the emperor did about some things, or his thinking was completely different from that of the emperor.

But if we look at the rapid development of Catholicism in the late Ming Dynasty from another perspective, it was really "the right time, the right place, and the right people".

The development of the economy led to the confinement of Neo-Confucianism in the late Ming Dynasty, and the Renaissance movement with Chinese characteristics emerged, trying to break the confinement of Neo-Confucianism.

And one of the great significances of the existence of Neo-Confucianism is that the invasion of Buddhism in the past caused Confucianism to fail, and finally Neo-Confucianism was created.

The mission has been completed, and Buddhism is finished. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the system that once defended civilization and resisted Buddhism should be withdrawn.

When the economy developed and the material foundation changed, the software could not keep up, and there was no great Confucian who could completely solve the software problem, Christianity appeared at this time.

At the same time, it caught up with the anti-Neo-Confucianism trend in the late Ming Dynasty.

Matteo Ricci and others were indeed well-educated, and took this opportunity to intervene and said that [Confucianism was polluted by Song Confucianism. The system of Song Confucianism was mixed with too many Taoist and Buddhist things. 】

【Only by abandoning the influence of Song Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism can Confucianism return to its true meaning. Without abandoning Cheng Zhu, Confucius and Mencius will not be known. 】

【The ancient Confucians have worshipped the supreme god, Haotian Shangdi, since ancient times. The Tiandi of the ancient Confucians is God. 】

Excluding those contents with private goods, it is almost a consensus in the late Ming Dynasty to say that Song Confucianism was influenced by Buddhism and Taoism. Including Wang Yangming, a group of people at that time also said that he was polluted by Buddhism and Taoism.

In addition, the society was turbulent, morals were corrupted, and people's hearts were not as good as before in the late Ming Dynasty. The literati were also pursuing the "original meaning of Confucianism" and "the way of Confucius and Mencius". What is it?

Is it really polluted by Song Confucianism, so that what we learn now is the Confucianism distorted by Song Confucianism, so that society has become like this?

Catholicism also encourages people to be good. Is it really the same path as Christianity and Confucianism? Can Christianity supplement Confucianism?

The emperor is disrespectful and seeks help from the wild. Maybe this is also a way.

The main reason is that many people feel that the road is blocked, but they also feel that the blockage is not a problem of Confucianism, but that Song Confucianism has misinterpreted Confucianism. As long as we return to true Confucianism, the road will be blocked.

With this idea, we want to try everything.

This test revealed a problem...

The Jesuits were proficient in scholastic philosophy, and they could "debate", and they were the type who were very good at debating.

In addition, the first batch of Jesuits who came to China were indeed quite good.

Matteo Ricci used his very good "debate" technique to break the Neo-Confucianism with logic.

First, he said that since the Song Dynasty, the concept of the Emperor of Heaven has been mixed with too much Taoist and Buddhist connotations. The origin is neither the Zhenwu Emperor nor the Xuan Emperor Jade Emperor.

The origin is the original Emperor of Heaven, the Lord of Heaven, and the God of Heaven.

Then he used some simple logic to do some debate.

[The Book of Changes says: The Emperor comes from Zhen. ]

[The Heaven embraces the eight directions and embraces the four poles, how can it come from one? ]

[Therefore, the Emperor is not the Heaven. ]

The Heaven embraces the eight directions and embraces the four poles, so how can it be said to come from the direction of Zhen? If we say that the material heaven is the emperor and the emperor is the material heaven, then the logic of this sentence is wrong. So it can be proved that God is not the material heaven, and it is not the heaven that you understand as the emperor.

Moreover, [Shangshu·Jin Teng recorded: It is appointed in the imperial court, and blesses the four directions. ]

It can be seen that God has his court. Since he has his court, how can he be the material heaven? Therefore, the material heaven and the emperor are not the same thing.

Also said:

[Shang Shi also said: Xia Shi has sinned, I fear the God, and dare not be unjust. ]

[Tang Hao said: Only the emperor, who descends to the people, if there is a constant nature, can pacify them, only the future. ]

This is to say that in the Three Dynasties, it was God who gave the people the nature of benevolence, reason, and wisdom, but in order to make people have a constant nature to follow his way, there must be a king to govern and teach. Xia Jie committed a sin by disobeying God, so Shang Tang feared God and had to correct Xia Jie's sins...

He himself knew how to debate scriptures, or this kind of missionary had learned this since elementary school. The index level was not low at all, and he even specialized in this in college.

And Neo-Confucianism was originally created to improve the world view and cosmology, and it was created to fight against Buddhism in the crisis. This world view and cosmology do have some logical points that are easily broken.

He started this and created a new cosmology and world view. Subsequent missionaries also followed up, one by one, with the attitude of holding the Bible in the left hand and the Thirteen Classics in the right hand, saying that "The Emperor came out of Zhen" wave after wave, which means that God created the world, and then derived the concept of "Tai Chi".

And tried to integrate the cosmology and world view of Neo-Confucianism with the world view and cosmology of Catholicism.

Of course, Dashun certainly had a lot of opponents.

However, once it comes to the issue of world view and cosmic view, Confucianism is indeed not inherently sufficient, otherwise it would not be embarrassed by Buddhism, which has a cosmic view and world view.

This has led to a large number of opponents, and some people feel that "well, it makes sense, it makes sense."

Although, Confucius does not talk about random forces and strange gods.

But there are always people who want to know, what is the universe? Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? What is the truth of the universe? What is the world? What is the matter with matter and spirit?

The emperor's contact with missionaries before was no less than Liu Yu's. The missionaries who could be around the emperor were all talking about Zhouyi and Shangshu.

This led the emperor to think that debates were pure nonsense. What's more ridiculous is that a group of scholars and officials in this dynasty helped Catholicism to debate together. Who would lose on the other side?

Therefore, after listening to Liu Yu's idea of ​​"punishing the heart", the emperor felt that this was indeed a good method.

Debating scriptures is originally the business of scholars and officials.

The key to the current debate on the scriptures is that a group of scholars and officials think that Catholicism is good and help Catholicism to debate. Starting from Xu Guangqi of the previous dynasty, it has influenced many people. If it were not for the issue of taking concubines, there might be more scholars and officials who converted to Christianity.

Liu Yu would not debate the scriptures.

But his heart-breaking methods can erase the goodness of Catholicism on the moral level, making the scholars and officials see its evil and hypocrisy.

Thus, those scholars and officials who are close to Catholicism and help Catholicism debate the scriptures are disgusted.

After establishing a persona that "Catholicism is hypocritical and evil", it is equivalent to cutting off the arm of Catholic missionaries, and the remaining scholars and officials who oppose Catholicism will naturally win the debate.

This is similar to "someone is eloquent and eloquent, and everyone is in a dilemma with him. Some people support him, and some people oppose him. At this time, someone jumps out, does not debate the scriptures, but directly exposes black materials and makes personal attacks. Whoever supports him is a traitor."

The emperor's focus is not on how to win the debate against Catholicism and eliminate the influence.

But how to discredit Catholicism.

As long as it is discredited, you can win without arguing.

Only in this way, the emperor felt, can we treat the symptoms and root causes and completely eradicate the influence of Catholicism - as long as the literati do not support it, preaching will be difficult.

The emperor does not believe that the imperial power does not go down to the county. If there is no sympathy from the local gentry and literati, would the religious incidents in Fujian and Suzhou develop like this in secret?

If they regard the missionaries as the Emperor Taizu of the year, can they still spread it?

As long as the literati are close and sympathetic, in the emperor's view, it must be a wildfire that cannot be extinguished and will grow again in the spring breeze.

This is very different from Liu Yu's idea, he thinks it is not the case.

But even if the idea is different and the starting point is different, the emperor supports Liu Yu's idea on how to do it. Although Liu Yu's goal is trade and a future war, tossing Catholicism is not the goal.