After the Russian mission crossed Zhangjiakou, before entering Beijing, Count Sava was already full of sighs about this ancient empire.

At this time, Europe was at the beginning of the Enlightenment, and the Count of Savoy had traveled to Western Europe and had interacted with those early Enlightenment scholars.

The purpose of praising foreign countries is often to criticize their own country. Nowhere was this more evident than in the early days of the Enlightenment.

As Voltaire put it, while the Chaldeans were only carving on rough bricks, Chinese were already carving on light bamboo slips......

Voltaire also wrote a poem for Confucius:

Only reason can benefit intelligence, but with integrity shines on people's hearts.

The words of the saint are not prescient, and the land is in the past.

Whenever people want change, they always start by painting an ideal country. China's ideal state is the rule of three generations, and the ideal country in Europe at this time is Confucian China.

As for whether the truth is like that or not, it doesn't matter, the truth never matters in propaganda for a certain purpose.

It's important to reassure people that there are better options. And now, right now, here, rotten.

The Russians are farther away from France, and there is an indescribable awkwardness about this fabled ideal country.

Russia is the most foreign-minded. Not one of them.

This awkward mentality is strange and easy to understand:

On the one hand, like Jing Chu, I am a barbarian, what can you do with me?

On the other hand, they desperately want to get the recognition of the West, get rid of the identity of barbarians, lick from France to the Netherlands and from the Netherlands to Lithuania, as long as it is Western, it is worth licking, and has never changed its heart to integrate into the West.

ashamed of the Russian language, proud of Latin French, but holding up half of the sky of realist literature in the purest Russian; Proud of traditional Russian costumes and proud of Western dresses, but full of praise and appreciation for girls who can dance the most authentic Russian dances in Bragi; ashamed of Russia's barbaric autocracy, proud of the Western Enlightenment, but eager for every monarch to be Peter and Ye Er; Ashamed of the serf villages in Russia and proud of the development of Western capital, one after another emerged in Russia with a conscience singing the elegy of the village communities and fearing the pains brought about by industrialization......

This kind of awkwardness and strangeness, at this time, is when the Western Enlightenment scholars lick the East, and they think that the further east they go, the more barbarian they are, and they are still a little proud of their own not so "barbarian".

"Semi-barbarians" will always try to find self-confidence in the real "barbarians".

With this awkward and bizarre prejudice, when the Count of Sava arrived in Zhangjiakou, he thought that Zhangjiakou must be one of the largest cities in China.

The towering Dajing Gate is still there, the Great Wall that has fallen into disrepair due to the decline of the Mongols and the northward movement of the garrison, and the trading cities that have developed from the Gongshi and the Tea and Horse Markets are full of people.

Porcelain, tea, brown sugar, medicinal herbs, cattle and horses, furs, wool weaving, etc. meet here. The pungent smell of soot, which is difficult to smell in Russia at this time, also occasionally wafts out at lunchtime.

The crowds of people, standing on both sides of the road and watching the bustle, probably because of the Catholic missionaries, are not the first time that people here have seen people like Rakshasas, and they are not too surprised.

Monks, Taoists, lamas, Confucian scholars, occasional Catholics, people of different religions live in harmony here.

In the whole of Russia, perhaps only Petersburg and Moscow were the only ones at this time. The Count of Sava rightfully considered this one of the largest cities in China.

Qi Guogong, who was traveling with him, couldn't help laughing when he heard this, thinking that this might be the day with the highest evaluation in Zhangjiakou's history, and he should be recorded in the history books of Zhangjiakou. These Rakshasas are really uninformed.

"If you have the opportunity, you should go to Suzhou, Jinling, Guangdong, Zhangzhou. Zhangjiakou is not even Kiev for the Celestial Empire, or as Astrakhan in your country. ”

This answer made Count Sava dumbfounded, and he asked the Duke of Qi about something else.

The translator was very well-behaved, and said: "Earl, where is the duke's fief?" How big is this fiefdom? ”

"Uh...... Under the whole world, it is not the king's land. I don't have a fief or a fief. Qi is very large, with a population of 10 million, but that is not my fiefdom, it is the land of the Son of Heaven and the people of the Son of Heaven. "The Duke of Qi said what age is this, and asked me about the fiefdom and food, when there is no such thing as Emperor Sejong's lineage, how can there be any princes who are really out of the town?

After receiving the interpreter's explanation, the Count of Savoy reflected on what he had seen and heard along the way through Zhangjiakou, and thought that the Chinese bureaucracy might be the best system, at least neither France nor England had such an efficient and unified system.

For now, at least, the bureaucrats everywhere are carrying out the will of the above. The Duke of Qi did not need to consult with any locals, but only needed to order, even if the fief of the Duke of Qi was not here, or there was no fief at all.

This is a dream that Peter has always wanted to achieve, but did not achieve before he died.

During the night's rest, the Count of Savoy recorded in his diary everything he saw.

"Chinese have no true faith, they are polytheistic idolatry......"

"The town near the capital is bustling, and there is a strange carp in the pond. Golden, red, white, and even green, they don't eat these strange carp, but for ornamentation. In any case, these strange carp are beautiful, and the local officials were consulted, and they said that the fish was easy to keep and that they could probably be brought back to Moscow......"

"The terrible Chinese eat everything, without any taboos. Frogs, tortoises, dogs...... But the food at the banquet was very good, and their wine was very mellow, perhaps only the wine of Romagna could be compared......"

"The clothes of the Chinese are beautiful, and the rich wear silk. The sleeves are wide, much like the sleeves of a fat-sleeved blouse. Many women have very small feet, small like children, and it is said that the greatest shame for women is to be seen, so they hide their feet with cloth......"

"In some towns there will be some horses or donkeys at the entrance of the street. If you want, you can make some copper coins and you can ride. If it's a donkey, someone will lead the ...... in front."

"After inquiry, it is known that onions, garlic, turnips, turnips, etc., ripen around the time of Lent; Cherries and cucumbers ripen around George Day; Grapes and pears around the time of the Semyon. Chinese are very good gardeners, they have a high yield of vegetables and the yield of the farmland is so high that I can't even imagine it......"

"It's that meat is very expensive here, much more expensive than in Russia. A hen is about two pieces of silver, a duck is twice as much as a hen, and a bull is about ten taels of silver. Here I learned the shocking news that tea leaves grow on trees, and that those tea balls, which are popular in Petersburg high society, are not even of the highest class, at least the officials here never take out the tea balls when they entertain us, and think that they are only Tatars drink, and I am ashamed of his words......"

"It's not a gem everywhere. The same pearls, on the contrary, are three times more expensive here than in Russia. In places like Zhangjiakou, spices such as pepper can be easily bought in the bazaar, silk, cotton, tea, medicinal herbs and even gunpowder, which are much cheaper than in St. Petersburg. I don't know what goods from Russia can be sold here, perhaps, precious stones and pearls? ”

"The ordnance of the 'citizen shooting corps' everywhere is not good. The style of the level of the Thirty Years' War is obvious. Bows and arrows, armor, arquebuses can be seen...... At least here, I don't see a flintlock pistol. They had a lot of cannons, a variety of different calibers, and perhaps they compensated for the lack of firepower of the arquebus mix with the number of cannons......"

"I'm about to go to the capital, the weather is very good at night, after measurement, you can know that the latitude of the capital is about 40 degrees north latitude, it's hard to imagine that the latitude here is about the same as Rome. It's farther south than Paris and London, but it's much colder than there. The lads of the Academy of Sciences thought that perhaps there was a cold current in the sea to the east. It's windy, there's a lot of sand, and it's not close to the sea, so it's hard to understand why Chinese chose to be the capital in such a place......"

"Of course, no matter how frequent the wind and sand here are, it is not as frequent as the fires in Moscow......"

"Different officials have different animals embroidered on their clothes. Cranes, quails, lions, and bears in a strange black and white color. It is said that snakes are sacred animals here, and snakes with long legs are painted everywhere on the emperor's clothes and in the forbidden city, and this snake is like the crown of the tsar, not a ...... that subjects can have."

"Jesuit Catholics told me that the emperor of China was a good man at heart, even though he had dozens of concubines, even though he was idolatrous, even though he did not read the Bible. Perhaps, as long as they are allowed to continue to open churches, even if the emperor beats the Pope, they will think that the emperor is a good believer at heart...... However, the Catholic clergy were full of anxiety about the future, and their faith provoked a fierce revolt in the locality, and I do not think that the mission should be a requirement for this negotiation, since among their officials there is a young man who is very aware of religion and the situation in Europe......"

"I questioned the local judiciary, and they thought their trial was fair, but in reality it was uncivilized and barbaric. Of course, this judgment was progressive in relation to the serfs in Russia, but the serfs were not considered human beings, and they considered that there were no slaves in their kingdom......"

Before he reached the capital, the Count of Sava made a judgment on Dashun with an attitude of peeping at the leopard in the tube: this ancient Eastern Empire is invincible for the time being. Rich, populous, free of religious conflicts, bureaucrats carrying out the will of those in power, and any bureaucracy can do what they want anywhere in the vast expanse.

At least that's how it seems. If the tax laws formulated by Peter were fully implemented, including the payment of taxes for wearing long shirts, taxes for beards, and so on, I am afraid that such a huge empire could receive at least 80 million or even 10,000,000 annual revenues, which is a amount that Russia at this time could not have imagined in any way.

The Count of Savoy, of course, saw something not so glamorous.

For example, in the case of unpaid forced labor, the mission needed manpower to help feed the horses and transport forage, and the local officials would recruit some poor farmers on the spot to perform unpaid labor.

Of course, there are many poor people, and this time Dashun did not learn from Emperor Yang of Sui's "silk silk tangled trees", and beggars will often appear in the field of vision. It's just that these beggars are also very honest, and when they see the mission and officials, they will avoid it, at least they will not rush to the mission to ask for alms...... Probably for fear of being beaten by officials and soldiers.

Poor children carried wicker baskets on their backs and followed behind the mission, competing for the horse manure dropped by the mission's horses, and then sending it to their own vegetable gardens, and some children even fought over horse manure.

The aristocracy of different cultures has different "elegance", but the suffering at the bottom is always similar.

In another time and space, Macartney, a true aristocrat who was born in the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution but had never even seen coal, and whose fingers did not touch the spring water, visited China, naturally did not compare those beggars with the poor people in the factory district of London who fed their noisy babies wine and opiium in order to do more work and earn a little more money.

The British before and after the crow would record in their notes the beer belly of the London farmer and the crystal palace that dominated the world to show the "wealth of the kingdom" and "civilization and decency", but they would not mention half a sentence about the workers in the London textile district who could only live for three years, and the people who really cared were digging holes with their feet in the library of London.

It's just that at that time, he could still play Tianji horse racing, but at this time, Sava didn't even have the qualifications for Tianji horse racing.

It was not that he did not know what the serfs in Russia were like, and he had no sympathy for these poor people. All he cares about is Dashun's strength, in order to make a bottom-line judgment for future negotiations.

After leaving Mongolia, the bottom line in his heart became higher and higher. Just like Liu Yu said during the negotiation that day, Dashun is trying to change, and if there is no shortage of money, there will be no shortage of guns and instructors.

In the first battle of Northern Xinjiang, flying hot air balloons, French-style siege skills, strong logistics capabilities and not bad artillery all convinced the Russians that Dashun's military backwardness was only temporary, and they had begun to catch up.

This mission to the south convinced Count Sava that Liu Yu's original words were not intimidation, and that Russia should not provoke such a big country, especially after this big country had opened its eyes to the world and knew that it would threaten them with the Polish throne, the Crimea, and the Turkut tribes.

After Zhangjiakou, it is the official farming area, this year's rain is very good, and the northern part of the country has done well since the war.

When they arrived in Changping, the accompanying escort guards were disarmed, and the guns and cannons as "gifts" were temporarily sealed in the barracks in Changping.

This is a rule that has been set at the time of border negotiations, and Liu Yu changed the words of the emperor as a rule of equal diplomacy between Dashun and foreign countries under the "world etiquette law".

"If a diplomat refuses to bow five times and kowtow three times, it is disrespectful to the Son of Heaven. A Chinese envoy to Petersburg should present the Tsar with the same courtesy as a Russian knighthood or a high civil official. No monarch would ever treat his envoys as if they were equal to him. Could an envoy sent to Turkey not wear the required piri robe when summoned by the sultan? It makes no sense to meet the Chinese emperor and follow Russian customs. If the Russian custom is to kiss the tsar's buttocks, do you also want the Son of Heaven to take off his pants and wait to lick them? ”

There is no "Son of Heaven" in the world, and naturally there is no "weekly ceremony" in the world, so you can abide by the rules wherever you go.

In terms of strength, the Russians accepted this condition very obediently.

Count Sava originally wanted to demonstrate force, saying that the battle in Heilongjiang was not the strength of the regular Russian army, and hoped that Dashun would know that Russia was still very strong, and not open his mouth in the subsequent negotiations.

But the emperor also gave a will: refuse to perform martial arts, and don't even watch it.

All accompanying soldiers handed over their weapons in Changping and were not allowed to bring weapons into Beijing.

The soldiers of the Dashun Jing battalion also selected the most elite group and escorted them along the way.

Outside the capital, they were greeted by Li Jiusi, the Duke of Eguo, who was in charge of the Beijing camp drills, and the squire of the Li government, the Shaoqing of Honglu Temple, which was neither high nor low, just right.

Of course, the emperor would not come forward, but sat in the forbidden city and waited for the envoy to come to the audience.

As they approached the towering gates of the capital, the children who followed the mission and picked up horse manure along the way with baskets on their backs scattered.

Several cannons rang out on the towering urn city, the mission walked through the Anding Gate, and the temple of the Zhenwu Emperor in the urn city was also full of incense, pressing the priests of the army in the Rakshasa mission.

As he passed through the Urn City, Count Sava felt a little depressed.

After the war and reconstruction of the capital 80 years ago, a lot of horse faces were added, although the multi-layer structure of the fortress was not formed, but the heavy wall foundation still gives people a kind of despair that is difficult to destroy.

Sava was sure that this was not something that could be blasted by artillery, and for a moment he had a feeling of sadness that a rabbit was dead.

It is hard to imagine that eighty years ago, such a city was captured by the ancestors of today's sons without artillery, and it is even more difficult to think that the city fell into the hands of the Tatars eighty years ago. Being under the city reminded him of Constantinople three hundred years ago.

How could such a city fall?