After a busy day at the Military Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Industry, Xue Hong rode back to Xue Mansion in the capital.
As soon as they entered the door, they saw a group of servants chattering and discussing something. When they saw Xue Hong coming back, they quickly saluted and shut their mouths.
Xue Hong didn't bother to ask them what they were talking about. After all, not all servants in the Ningguo Mansion and Rongguo Mansion dared to gossip about their master's family affairs.
Xue Hong handed the horse over to his servant and was about to go back to the yard to rest when he happened to bump into Xue Pan holding a small silver cross.
Xue Hong stopped Xue Pan and asked, "Where did you get this cross?"
Xue Pan looked surprised: "As expected of you, I know all these things. A friend of mine who is a Western missionary gave this to me. Brother, is there anything wrong with this thing?"
Xue Hong: "Missionary? Can you introduce me to him? I want to meet this missionary."
Xue Pan: "Okay, brother. When you have time someday, I will take you to find him. You don't know how interesting this little old man is. He is busy preaching every day, but no one believes in him. To be honest
, I admire his perseverance, I would have given up long ago."
Xue Hong: "The power of faith cannot be underestimated. People with faith like him will often fight for their goals regardless of everything."
Religion is a double-edged sword. If used properly, it can promote cultural prosperity, improve national cohesion and stabilize society.
If you get away with it, you will be in big trouble. A group of lunatics with beliefs can cause much more trouble than the rebellion of the disaster victims!
Although the teachings of most religions are good at the beginning, people's hearts are dark if they cannot stand it, and religions will inevitably be exploited by people with ulterior motives.
Xue Pan was a little curious: "Brother, haven't you been very busy recently? Why do you suddenly want to meet Andre, the missionary?"
A kind smile appeared on Xue Hong's face: "Oh, it's nothing. You just need to tell him that I am very interested in the sect he believes in. There is no need to say much else."
Xue Pan nodded obediently, he didn't believe it was that simple.
Ever since he was young, every time Xue Hong smiled like this, he was definitely trying to scheme against someone.
As for what Xue Hong wants to do with Andre... brainwashing and reverse proselytizing, what else can he do with using him to obtain some things from the West!
Without bragging, if you give Xue Hong some time, he can describe Christianity as a branch of Taoism, and even make Andre believe it with all his heart!
Christianity at this time is full of loopholes, contradicting itself in many places, and blindly absorbing myths from other sects for the sake of proselytizing.
In other words, this is the time when it is easiest to take action against Christianity.
Fighting with weapons can only enslave the body, but faith and culture can silently enslave the soul.
If we want the future Ming Dynasty to have less resistance to the West, reverse cultural export is a must!
Xue Hong didn't believe it. He had read hundreds of fantasy novels and various myths. How could he fool a priest?
At that time, I will directly mix various stories from the ancient times into it. The main content is: the current Christianity in the West has been bewitched by the demon ancestor Luo Hu, and has deviated from the core.
Talk about the war between the three races and the war between the lich, and put the blame on the church for the fact that the West has not yet been unified and the people are impoverished, even though the church has already taken a lot of the blame.
Isn’t the story of later generations more convincing than your bible that is full of loopholes? More exciting and attractive?
Anyway, it's just bragging. You, God, created the world in seven days. I would say that you created a small world. There are thousands of worlds in the small world, and it takes 30 million small ones to form a big one.
Only thirty million of these worlds can be combined into one great world, and only thirty million of these great worlds can be combined into one original world.
All the current worlds were formed after the original world was shattered.
The main meaning is that Christian orthodoxy is in the Ming Dynasty. If Andre is not so easily fooled, then he will resort to tricks. Isn’t it easy for Xue Hong, a master with half a step and a big finger to perform miracles?
Xue Hong can guarantee that within one month, Andre will be lured to the road! Let his family provide for the three cleanses!
Then, through Andre, we can infiltrate some Western believers and even nobles bit by bit. When the time comes... we hope that the Ming Dynasty will attack the West in the future and let the people welcome it!
And there are still many good things in the West today, such as cinchona, which is a miracle drug for treating malaria!
There are also some talents and technologies from the West that Xue Hong wants!!
Xue Hong just did what he said and went back to the house to start studying how to cheat... No! It was to save Father Andre from returning to the embrace of orthodox Taoism!
…
Yangzhou, which used to be peaceful with singing and dancing, is destined to be filled with blood and killings today!
After Lin Ruhai got the order from Emperor Longqing, according to the account books he got, he started to ransack the salt merchants one by one!!
The process of searching the house went surprisingly smoothly without any excessive resistance. It was as if the salt merchants already knew their fate and gave up the struggle.
Lin Ruhai also knew that there must be a monster if something went wrong, but all subsequent clues have been cut off. The other party was too decisive, and more than a dozen salt merchants gave up when they said they would. This also means that the other party may have already taken care of the tail!
If it drags on any longer, I probably won't even get any money.
Moreover, Emperor Longqing is really extremely poor now. It’s the end of the year again. Just the rewards from the ministers and the Jiubian soldiers are a huge black hole of silver!
There are also New Year activities, ancestor worship, and palace repairs, etc.
Sure enough, during the search of the salt merchants' homes, no important letters were found except money!
Lin Ruhai ordered people to dig three feet into the ground, but there was still no result!
In desperation, Lin Ruhai had no choice but to order someone to compile the financial statistics and prepare to report it to Emperor Longqing.
If you don’t check, you won’t know. If you check, you will be shocked!
The cash money copied from these dozen salt merchants alone amounted to more than 5 million taels! There were also more than 100,000 taels of gold, as well as some difficult-to-value antiques, calligraphy and paintings, porcelain, farm estates, etc.
There was so much money in the treasury that the box burst, and the moment it was taken out for counting.
The white silver reflected the sunlight, arousing the greed in a person's heart, and even Lin Ruhai couldn't help but feel dazed for a moment.
During the accounting and counting, the silver ingots fell to the ground and made a crisp sound, all of which impacted the bottom line of the officers and soldiers present.
Adding up all the property, it is estimated that these dozen or so salt merchants have at least 1,670,000 taels of silver!
You know, even if Lin Ruhai's ancestors were four generations of marquises and more than a dozen officials, and he himself served as a salt inspector for many years, the combined wealth of the Lin family has only just reached the level of one million taels!
These dozen or so salt merchants are still just small salt merchants, and the real big deal is not in their hands!
No wonder the treasury is empty, all the money has gone into their hands!
Lin Ruhai could already imagine how angry Emperor Longqing was after seeing his memorial.
How could he have so much money just by copying a few small salt merchants? It’s a pity that he is an emperor who can’t even hold a banquet during the holidays, and many of his palaces are damaged and not repaired!
But these don't matter much to Lin Ruhai. Now he just wants to leave the quagmire of Yangzhou and take good care of Daiyu until Daiyu gets married and has children.