These days, Yin Feng has taken people to places where literati gather, such as the Shanxi Merchants Guild Hall, the Anhui Guild Hall, the Town God's Temple and the Hong family's old shop. The engraving and printing industry was developed in this dynasty, and Beijing was the political and cultural center. Although the printing industry was not developed, the country's Books from several major printing places were gathered in the capital for sale. The Hongjia Laopu, located along the West River, was a prestigious bookstore in the capital at that time. It mainly printed books such as "Jin Shen Ji Lu" and imperial examination reference books.
There are four major book markets in the country, namely Beijing, Nanjing, Suzhou, and Hangzhou. Among them, there are very few printed books in Beijing itself. However, boats and cars from all over the country gather, and wealthy businessmen and businessmen come with books. In addition, the books collected by the noble families of officials, gentry, and nobles also It appeared in the market from time to time, so it became a famous book market. Most of the bookstores in Beijing were to the right of Daming Gate, outside the Rite Department, and to the west of Gongwei Gate. Every time the imperial court held examinations, the book market was located in the examination room. Before. Three days after the Huachao Festival, it will be moved to the Lantern Market. On the first and fifth days of every month, it will be moved to Chenghuang Temple. The city is adjacent to Bi Jiaofang in the east and has a row of shops for three miles. These bookstores and nearby restaurants and restaurants often become gathering places for provincial officials and scribes rushing to take exams.
These days are the opening days of the market, and merchants gather together. The big ones carry cars, the small ones carry bags, and there are also people carrying large and small bags coming and going. Products from home and abroad are gathered here.
Although there are constant natural and man-made disasters all over the world, the capital, as the center of the world and the gathering place of the country's distinguished merchants, shows a kind of abnormal prosperity, which is incompatible with the turbulent situation around the capital. Yin Feng and others mix into the crowd dressed as scholars, trying to get along with those During his interactions with scribes, Zeng Shan also made friends with several fellow villagers from Quanzhou.
Following Yin Feng to the mainland for inspection, it was the first time that You Wenhui went deep into his own country. Along the way, he drew a lot of sketches and also drew a map of the coast of the Liaodong Peninsula. This time when he went to Beijing, Yin Feng was afraid of attracting others' attention, so he gave special instructions He was not allowed to go privately to the Catholic church in Xuanwumen to meet his fellow believers and teachers.
As one of the first batch of Chinese Jesuit monks, You Wenhui grew up in Macau and had extremely limited knowledge of the situation in the mainland. His painting talents and map-making techniques were all learned from Matteo Ricci and Jesuit missionaries. As one of the first Chinese believers to be baptized by Matteo Ricci, he has always respected Matteo Ricci very much.
Although You Wenhui was nominally an assistant to the priest in a Taiwanese church, he was also an employee of the business affairs department employed by the China United Company. Therefore, he upheld the business spirit of keeping promises and keeping promises, so he had no choice but to obey Yin Feng and stay at the Hanhai Inn.
In the past few days, Yin Feng and others went out before dawn and did not know what they were doing. They had to wait until dark before returning to the inn. You Wenhui received a completely European-style Catholic education. Yin Feng was worried that his speech and behavior would He was a gangster, so he never took him out. Therefore, most of the time during the day, You Wenhui had to stay alone in the inn, sorting out some map information drawn along the road.
Next to the Hanhai Inn is the "Taiping Building", a restaurant opened by a Shanxi businessman. Since this restaurant is named under the name of a certain father-in-law in the palace, basically government officials, gangsters and other people will not come to make trouble, so the business Very good too.
On this day, Yin Feng and others did not go out and only discussed something in the house. You Wenhui finished morning prayers in his room. Chen Zhongji, Xu Hongji and others knocked on the door and brought some books into the house. You Wenhui Take a look at: Taiwan's movable type version of "Elements of Geometry", "Records of Western Hearings and Seeings" written by Yin Feng, and "On the Movement of Celestial Bodies" translated and published in Taiwan, "Introduction to Analytical Methods" written by Frenchman Veda (introducing a large number of algebraic symbols, improving three , the solution method of quartic equations, pointing out the relationship between roots and coefficients, and being the founder of symbolic algebra) Tartariya's pioneering work on ballistics "New Science" and other books---these books were brought from Europe by Jinnige and others. Due to the lack of corresponding translators in Taiwan, most of the Western science and technology books that came to Taiwan relied on missionaries who had learned both Chinese and Western knowledge to translate them. Jinni Ge brought thousands of Western books, and it took several years to translate and publish thirty or forty books. Some of them have been used as teaching materials for technical schools and military academies.
You Wenhui also contributed to the publication and printing of these books. He drew some of the illustrations in the books. He raised his head and asked curiously: "Mr. Chen, Mr. Xu, what does this mean?"
Chen Zhongji smiled and said: "That's right. The ship owner hopes that the Chinese Jesuit Diocese can send more people to Taiwan to serve as school teachers. Of course, you can also be allowed to add churches. Regarding the addition of missionaries who are proficient in Chinese, you still have to ask the Longhua Association The captain is asking for help, so the captain thinks you can go to church,"
You Wenhui stood up excitedly and made a sign of the cross on his chest: "God bless you, the captain. I'm going to take these books with me and let Father Long see our achievements."
Chen Zhongji smiled and said, "That's what the ship owner meant."
When You Wenhui went to Xuanwumen Church excitedly, Yin Feng and Zeng Shan came to the second floor of the "Taiping Building" next to Hanhai Inn. They sat in front of the window drinking with sad faces. After a while, Chen Zhongji and Xu Hongji also came. He said in a low voice: "Mr. You has already gone,"
Yin Feng nodded: "How about you guys sit down too? Let's talk about it. How about dealing with those scribes these days?"
Chen Zhongji sat down with a wry smile, shook his head and said: "You often say that today's literati's academic style is empty and useless, and their lofty words have no reality. Now I have seen that these literati always talk about scientific stereotypes, and all the books they read are stereotypes. Standard articles are either empty talk about Taoism, good Buddhas and Zen. From what I see, today's world is in troubled times, and these scholars can only be said to be useless. If there are foreign enemies approaching the city at this time, what can these scholars do? What, they usually sit back and talk about their feelings, but when things come to pass, they will probably have to die to repay the king. What can the people do? We can't rely on these scribes to revitalize the country."
Yin Feng also smiled bitterly and shook his head: "I also thought about recruiting some people with real talents, but it turns out...it seems that there is nothing to see in the capital. Taking the capital as a guide, I want to recruit scribes from all over the country. It’s probably nothing more than that,”
After all, Zeng Shan was once one of these scholars. He still wanted to maintain the face of the scholar class to some extent: "It cannot be generalized. There are scholars in the world who are concerned about the country and the people, such as the kings of Donglin. Mr. Xu Guangqi, who does practical things..."
Xu Hongji had no nostalgia for his original life as a scholar. He said unceremoniously: "In my opinion, in addition to setting an example in political ethics, the princes of Donglin also have many elegant and elegant scholar-bureaucrats, and they also have many hobbies of prostitutes and alcoholics. The matters that are fought over in the court and with the various parties have nothing to do with the actual practice of relieving the people from the fire and water, and are of no practical use to the country. The norms advocated by the Lords of Donglin today are, in the eyes of those advocates, They are worthless at all. More and more people in the officialdom are greedy for profit and have lost all loyalty and filial piety. In the eyes of the world, they are deviant and shameless. Who will believe this kind of self-deception?"
Yin Feng also said: "In the recent Di Di newspaper, Xingrensi Xingren Liu Zongzhou wrote to the court saying, 'The world is not plagued by lack of talent, but only by lack of original intention. He blindly and hollowly urges the emperor to follow the ways of Yao and Shun, and to learn from Yao and Shun. The country In the grand plan, laws and disciplines should be the main focus. If laws and disciplines are repaired, people's hearts will be solemn, and people's hearts will be solemn, which will lead to foreign orders. This statement seems to be correct on the surface, but it is simply impossible to implement, and there is no possibility of actual implementation. First of all, the first The question is, what method does he have to make the current sages become 'Yao and Shun'?"
Zeng Shan was unconvinced and said: "The Lords of Donglin are asking the mining tax inspectors to be exempted from business taxes and so on. It is always a good thing, right?"
Yin Feng shook his head and said: "My second brother's words are inappropriate. There is nothing wrong with the state collecting taxes. The question is what the taxes are used for. If all the taxes are used to support the officials and gentry to spend their time and enjoy life, then it will be exhausting the whole country to support a group of moths; If it is used to relieve refugees and open up territory for people to cultivate and live, then why not,"
Zeng Shan was confused by this unheard of theory and was speechless for a long time.
Yin Feng continued: "The main source of taxation in this dynasty is agriculture, but the court's expenditures are getting larger and larger, and powerful mergers are becoming more and more serious. The national taxes are still spread on acres of land. In fact, they are depleting the land. Industry and commerce are now booming, opening up new fields." There is nothing wrong with the source of taxation, but what the mining tax envoys did was actually to deplete industry and commerce, only collecting taxes without protecting them; after the opening of Yuegang, our overseas Chinese businessmen paid one hundred thousand taels of silver to the court every year, but the court did not To turn a blind eye to the massacre of our businessmen and other people in Luzon is an act of dereliction of duty by the imperial court, which took our tax money but did not protect us."
"If you take tax money, you have to protect us," Zeng Shan was shocked by this theory that was close to "contract theory."
Yin Feng nodded and said: "Of course, otherwise we have to pay taxes to the country. Therefore, I have stipulated in Taiwan that the government, gentry, businessmen and people pay taxes together, and if you pay taxes, you can get the protection of our Chinese army. Today's emperor... …The imperial court thought of collecting money regardless of methods, while the civil servants thought of reducing the tax burden. None of them thought of how to release water to fish and cultivate tax sources. In this way, the mining supervisory tax envoy was a kind of plunder that drained the water and the people were dissatisfied. , the civil servants objected that the emperor's limited wealth resulted in a three-lose situation, and the real beneficiaries were only the eunuchs and their minions who performed specific tasks."
Zeng Shan's mind was buzzing and he couldn't react. Xu Hongji was also swayed by Yin Feng's arguments. Chen Zhongji smiled and said: "These words of the captain are often said to the students in the military academy. I think the world All the people pay taxes and silver for the court, so the court has to protect the people. This is a logical thing, just like when we do business, we hand over the money and deliver the goods."
Zeng Shan almost spit out the wine he drank in his mouth: "This, this, how can this national event be confused with business?"
Yin Feng smiled and said: "There is no certain relationship between the imperial court and the people. It is said that water can carry a boat and capsize it. If the imperial court cannot let the people live a good life, why should we pay taxes to it? To pay taxes to the court is to let the officials of the court do things for us. If they don’t do things for us, we won’t pay taxes. This is an obvious truth. The so-called emperor feeds all the people, but actually it is all the people who support the emperor and the court.”
Zeng Shan finally came to his senses and said with a wry smile: "I had forgotten that we were originally businessmen of the Zhonghua Company, but the Ming Dynasty was not a businessman. Since ancient times, there has been no such court in all dynasties."
After You Wenhui came back in the evening, he informed everyone: Long Huamin, president of the Jesuit Diocese of China, and missionary Xiong Sanba were not in the church. They both went to Xu Guangqi's residence in Tianjin.