Li Lihua's yard is not big, but it is kept very clean. Every plant, tree, flower and stone is simple and elegant. You can feel the hostess's wisdom and wisdom at a glance. There is a small European-style fountain in the corner of the garden. The entire courtyard combines Chinese and Western styles to form a world of its own. The hostess is wearing a Spanish palace-style white gauze dress and a Chinese-style bun. She is sitting by the fountain, holding a book and looking at the sky.
The three Jesuit missionaries Baradas, Jinnige, and Guo Jujing, as well as four others including You Wenhui, were led by an old woman through the corridor and arrived at Li Lihua's private garden.
Li Lihua, who had just turned her eyes away from the sky, waved her hand. The old woman bent down and bowed, turned and walked away. Only one of Yin Feng's most loyal black guards was left beside Miss Li.
"Dear Miss Li, hello..." As soon as Baradas opened his mouth, Li Lihua stood up and motioned for everyone to follow her.
She came to the corner of the yard, moved a pot of camellia, and said slowly: "When I was in Manila, I never knew that there were such beautiful flowers in my motherland."
She spoke in Spanish, and fortunately several missionaries knew Spanish.
When Jinnige walked into the yard, he was surprised by Li Lihua's fair and fair appearance. He was also surprised by her Western-style dress. At this time, he was shocked by her fluent Spanish. Li Lihua's Spanish was The pure Castilla accent is the lingua franca of the Spanish royal family.
"I have roughly guessed your purpose of coming," 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 do everything for his sake. What I want to ask is , what kind of compensation do you plan to make for this incident,”
Jinni Ge quickly crossed himself on his chest and said: "May God bless the enthusiastic Captain Yin. We Jesuits also know Captain Yin's deeds. He is so enthusiastic about saving people, no matter in any country in the world, he will be the best." With the blessing of God, Father Matteo Ricci of the capital wrote a letter to Captain Yin, hoping that Captain Yin could reopen the Jesuit missionary activities in Taiwan." He took out the letter from his arms.
But Li Lihua walked away slowly and did not 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 looked at each other. Baradas stepped forward and made the sign of the cross and said: "Ms. Li, you know, our Jesuits have no money. The reason why our church members resell guns to make money is to provide money to the church." Raise funds..."
Li Lihua sneered and stared at Baradas with a pair of deep black eyes: "Can poor people steal things? Dear priest, it seems that you still don't realize what mistakes you have made. I think there is nothing to talk about. Wait. Let’s talk about it after Captain Yin comes back,”
Baradas smiled bitterly and said: "I'm sorry, this matter is indeed our people's fault. We have expelled those involved from the parish, and they can still be dealt with by you, but we are required to pay fifteen thousand taels." Silver, we are really..."
Li Lihua chuckled, and her voice and smile made Jin Nige tremble: "I am a Catholic. I studied with the Dominican bishop in Manila. I know that your Jesuits get a certain percentage of money from Macau every year. Silk trade rights, will you have no money?"
The three Jesuit missionaries were all surprised: They didn't expect that China Company even knew about such a thing.
The Jesuits first participated in commercial activities in East Asia in the last century. At that time, a doctor named Luis de Almeida who joined the Jesuits donated a large sum of money to the organization, and the money was invested Regarding the silk trade from China to Japan, although the Council of Trento (the 19th Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church that competed with Protestantism, held in the Italian city of Trento from 1545 to 1563) at that time had called for restrictions on those Priests engaged in trade could be punished or even expelled from the church, but missionaries in the Far East were beyond their reach.
The Portuguese royal family decided to allocate 1,000 cruzados every year to support the missionary societies, paying it from Malacca's customs revenue. However, the payment of this money was very unstable, and the remittances allocated by the Christian Church from its income in India were inconsistent. It was far from enough, so the Jesuits reached an agreement with the Macau Municipal Council. Later, the agreement was confirmed in the form of law by the Holy See and Goa. The agreement gave the Jesuits a certain proportion of silk trading rights and It was officially recognized in a royal decree in 1584, and was used to pay the priests who preached in Japan and China to maintain their lives and various houses, seminaries, missionary schools and nearly 200 buildings 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 Jesuit missionary work were also reduced. The priests of the Taiwanese church were poor and short-minded, which was why the great crisis was caused. disaster.
Baradas gritted his teeth and felt very depressed: "But, as you know, the Macau City Hall is also strapped for funds now..." At this time, Guo Jujing spoke: "Dear Miss Li, our Jesuits came to Taiwan not only to serve God. , no combination
Regarding other attempts, I thought when I was in Macau that your husband is a hero with far-sighted vision and a ruler who is benevolent and loves his people. He will definitely not want the Catholics under his jurisdiction to lack the teachings of religious teachers. He will definitely have a way to solve our predicament. of,"
Li Lihua felt that she had embarrassed them enough and said with a smile: "Father Guo helped me in Macau. Since you have spoken, I won't embarrass you anymore." As she said that, she took out a few pieces of paper from the scroll in her hand. It was handed over to several priests.
Several sheets of paper were filled with lists of books recorded in Spanish and Latin, including Copernicus's "On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres" and Kepler's "Copernican Synopsis of Astronomy", Galileo's "On Two World Systems" "Dialogue" and "Elements of Geometry" and other Western science and technology masterpieces. Jinnige is a missionary who loves to read. Some of these titles he had heard of when he was in Europe; they include history, natural history, philosophy, literature, and geometry. As well as hydrology, mathematics, astronomy and sundial timekeeping, physics and chemistry, mechanics and technology, medicine, linguistics, biography, miscellaneous and other five or six hundred kinds.
The three missionaries held the note and were more and more surprised as they read it. Baradas and Guo Jujing were even more surprised. Some books were banned by the church. However, the problem was that Yin Feng listed this book list. How did he know? There are so many European books.
This book list is part of the "Beitang Bibliography" that Yin Feng extracted from his own materials. In fact, this "Beitang Bibliography" is very related to Jinni Pavilion. Most of them are the first books of Jinni Pavilion in the original historical time and space. The list of Western books he brought with him when he came to China for the second time included religious books, accounting for one-third of the collection: the Bible, patristics, theological doctrines and ethics, dialectical theology and mysticism, canon law and civil law, There are more than 2,000 kinds of sermons, catechisms, prayer books, asceticism, etc. Two-thirds of the books in the Beitang collection are natural and social sciences, with a total of more than 3,000 kinds. Originally, when these books came to China, they would start from Xuanzang of the Tang Dynasty. Since the translation of Indian Buddhist scriptures, it was the second large-scale translation movement of foreign books in Chinese history. Unfortunately, Jin Nige died early due to illness, and the Ming Dynasty was dying at that time. These 7,000 books were shelved in a Beijing church and ignored. It was not discovered until the 19th century.
Li Lihua smiled: "My husband said that as long as you can bring these books from Europe to China, you can offset the compensation debt you owe. Moreover, the more scientific and technological books, the better. Moreover, he hopes that you can help China." The scholar translates these books into Chinese, and he can pay you an annual fee for this,"
The three missionaries simply couldn't believe their ears. After looking at each other, Jinnige asked carefully: "So, where is our church?"
Li Lihua picked a flower, smelled the fragrance, and smiled faintly: "First of all, 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 must publicly admit your mistakes and pay some symbolic money. This is to appease those who oppose you within the China Company. This has to be done. Then, your church can start preaching again; secondly, if you can help us Those books have been translated into Chinese, and my husband is willing to pay an annual fee to the Jesuits in Taiwan in his own name,"
The three missionaries were overjoyed. In their opinion, it was much easier to bring thousands of books from Europe to China than to make money by doing business. In Europe at that time, the church was the center of culture and education, so it was a simple matter to transport some books to China. It’s not troublesome, they kept claiming so, but Li Lihua continued: “Last point,... you must train Chinese clergy in Taiwan. Our company can bear the cost of their study and future work. Of course, their The teaching content you receive must be the same as the education you received in Europe,"
Jinnige nodded repeatedly: "This should be no problem. Father Matteo Ricci also believes that the Chinese are a hard-working and intelligent nation and can definitely contribute to the cause of God."
…
In the view of most board members of the China United Company, requiring 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. He has read a lot of Journey to the West and The Golden Ping Mei, and wants to read it. It is understandable if you read Western strange books.
Only Li Yue, who was in charge of the factory and technology, heard about this and nodded repeatedly, saying that he could learn from the foreigners' knowledge of equipment. Three large water-powered wheels have been erected in his factory to drive armor polishing. The machine tools for polishing the inner wall of the flintlock barrel were built by Western technicians. A hydraulic grinding equipment is also being added to the gunpowder workshop, which will increase gunpowder production 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 vague. I 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.
Xuanzang of the Tang Dynasty took the initiative to go to the West to obtain scriptures, while China in the Ming Dynasty had to wait for Western missionaries to send books. The spiritual realm was already very different.
At this time, Yin Feng was witnessing a popular riot in Quanzhou City that was common across the country at that time.