The Eagle of Eastern Europe

"Your Majesty, Poland's recent moves are a provocation to the empire, and we need to teach them a lesson."

Christian, the second deputy prime minister and minister of war, suggested to Peter that Poland and Lithuania, Rome's biggest rivals, needed to be eliminated. They must not be allowed to stand in the way of the Empire and other allies.

"Wait a minute, now is not the time."

From the current point of view, it is not time for a showdown between Rome and Poland. The storm within HRE is still continuing. We have to see if the younger brother can control it.

"Is what I asked you to do okay?"

"Back to Your Majesty, the location has been chosen and it is expected to be completed within two years."

Christian really admired the new emperor and said that he felt sorry for the soldiers who were disabled in the war and wanted to build a building to provide for their retirement.

What is this? This is the emperor's kindness to the soldiers. All their prayers were heard. This was the messenger sent by God.

Word has spread in Constantinople that the emperor wants to build a residence for retired soldiers and disabled soldiers. Anyone who has made great achievements can enter here to enjoy their old age, and those who become generals can also be buried with splendor. At this time, young people were enthusiastic about joining the army, which suddenly added a lot of military manpower reserves to the empire.

In addition to this, there is another matter being discussed in the government recently. That is, the mission to the East is coming back recently, and there will also be a mission sent by the Emperor of Ming Dynasty to go with it.

With the help of the Roman Empire, Zhu Di's New Deal could be implemented more smoothly. The sea ban that had been opened under pressure has now become the emperor's pocketbook, and the Ministry of Finance did not say anything because he saw that he could get a piece of the pie. This time Zheng He went to the West again. In addition to the Roman mission, Zhu Di also sent a Ming mission headed by Chen Cheng, an official from the Ministry of Civil Affairs. to enhance relations between the two countries.

In fact, Zhu Di was greatly shocked by what Zheng He brought back from the Roman Empire last time. Especially the small artillery, which is more powerful than their bowl-mouthed blunderbuss and has a longer range. He ordered the Ministry of Industry to imitate it, but it failed.

The backward artillery technology made Zhu Di see that there were powerful countries in the West, so he decided to send envoys to interact with them. If you can learn technology, you will make money.

In fact, Rome's influence on the Ming Dynasty went beyond this. In Zhejiang and other places, local dignitaries all used glasses and gold bowls made in Rome, and drank wine made in Moldova, which was really a joy. The Roman missionaries followed the example of the monks and built the first church in Ningbo and worked hard to integrate into the local society. The knowledge they brought aroused the interest of many local literati, but those who regarded themselves as orthodox academics looked down upon these strange people and strange things.

The most famous one should be the debate at Bailudong Academy in the seventh year of Yongle (1409). Roman missionaries and Jiangxi scholars debated around Confucian classics and Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism.

The missionary excerpted a sentence from Zhou Song: If you compete for the king of martial arts, you will be strong without competition; if you do not appear to be prosperous, God is the emperor. To explain that God had already existed in the Zhou Dynasty, and forcibly integrated the teachings with Confucian classics. And he boldly said that the current Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism was false, which was a forced distortion of the Confucian classics.

Because the other party's ideas were so advanced, these Confucian scholars collectively broke their defenses. Then the things they have studied for so long are all fake. Does that mean that all emperors are fake?

Regarding this, the missionary directly said that the emperor was good, but whether the people below him were good or not was another matter.

Emperor Yongle was a very good monarch. He wanted to make the country stronger, but some of the officials and landowners below prevented him from reforming because they would gain a lot from not reforming. The emperor should act arbitrarily and should not be oppressed by officials using ancestral precepts.

This duel at Bailudong Academy caused an earthquake. Outsiders openly fired at Cheng Zhuli. Was this a rebellion? I am a member of the Celestial Empire, but I am repeatedly provoked by small foreign countries. This is intolerable, but what is intolerable?

But Zhu Di was very useful. Although he was indeed provocative, he could teach the scholar-bureaucrats a lesson for him. I'm tired of talking about insufficient finances all day long to unseat the New Deal.

At the bottom, powerful secular forces make missionary work difficult. In Ningbo and Guangdong, missionaries built hospitals, charity halls and other institutions to help the people. This allowed them to gradually accept themselves.

A village in Guangzhou was often harassed by bandits. The fighting priests were divided into two teams. One team ambushed the bandits with guns on their way, while the other team went to the village to help the villagers defend the village and prevent the bandits from inside. Report the news.

When the bandits were repelled by the combat priests guarding the village, another team of combat priests who had already been ambushing them rushed out and killed the bandits in one fell swoop.

The priests tied the bandits to the village square and asked everyone to tell them about their crimes.

At this time, the villagers naturally had complaints and revenge. When the bandits were beaten to death by the villagers, the priests stopped the villagers' atrocities.

The priests asked the bandits to confess their sins, a scene all too familiar to Buddhists.

"It's probably these monks who are going to let these damn bandits go." The villagers thought in their hearts.

The bandits also thought that they should be able to escape, and sooner or later they would kill all these damn unruly people. After all, these foreign monks could not guard these villagers every day.

However, what the villagers and bandits did not expect was that after the bandits repented, the priests sent them to the cross and had them baptized in fire.

“May the Lord forgive your sins!”

After seeing the priests' fighting power and methods, the villagers changed their beliefs one after another.

Sometimes the Catholic stuff works.

The situation in Japan was much better. Andrew's missionary mission in Kagoshima was successful. More than 600 believers were baptized and two churches were built.

The armed merchant ships from Rome also received favor from the Shimadzu family head, and even offered to use a mountain of silver to exchange for a ship. However, this proposal was still too big, so he sent it back to Constantinople to request instructions.

Kagoshima rose rapidly, and goods from Ming Dynasty, Korea, and Rome gathered here. The tax revenue generated greatly increased the power of the Shimazu family, and then began the pace of unifying Kyushu.

Rome's established foothold in East Asia not only brought huge profits, but also gained a group of compradors. Rome relied on them to extract local interests and maintain the situation by bribing local officials for a long time. However, the current situation is very fragile. The routes between various trade points are not yet closely connected. The shipbuilding industry must work hard.

----Dividing line----

The news coming back from Aleppo made the emirs feel that it was okay. After all, they did not dare to expect anything better. If the other party were to come in person, they might even have to take away his own head. This would really be more of a loss than a gain.

Besides, it is also possible to convert yourself. In this way, Mecca's condemnation has nothing to do with them. I am a Christian, so what qualifications do you, a pagan, have to criticize me? In this case, let's quickly prepare to welcome Master Wang.

Negotiations in Aleppo lasted 20 days, and Rome successfully used artillery to force the emir to surrender. Expand your territory again.