The sky is a little quiet, and the temple is already lit up, but it is still busy, and tourists come and go to worship the Buddha.

The fifteenth day of the first lunar month is very auspicious to burn incense and worship the Buddha, according to the traditional habit of burning incense, the first and fifteenth days of each month is a good time to burn incense, there are no taboos on these two days of the month, you can burn incense and worship the Buddha at any time.

The main purpose of Queen Xu Chenyun's appearance this time is also to burn incense and pray for the child.

Zhu Cihong didn't believe in Buddhism, so he didn't follow, so he waited under the glazed tower in front of the hall.

As a traverser, Zhu wanted to believe in Taoist metaphysics, but he didn't expect to cultivate immortals.

Carefully looking at the environment of Dabao'en Temple, I suddenly heard a gurgling sound of admiration under the glazed pagoda.

Zhu Cihong looked for a sound, and saw a group of Westerners with high noses and deep eye sockets pointing to the pagoda and praising them.

One of them had an exaggerated expression, holding a paintbrush in his hand, as if he had seen the beauty he liked, and he exclaimed: "I have never seen such a magnificent building!" I'm going to record her face! ”

The middle-aged man seemed to have taken medicine, fiddling with the easel while constantly asking the people around him about the history of this glazed pagoda.

Zhu Cihong tilted his head and asked, "Who are these people?" ”

Wu Zhong, who was beside him, beckoned to the head of a plainclothes stall in Dongchang, and gave a few orders in a low voice, and the head of the stall hurriedly ran to the nearest contact point to retrieve information.

After a while, the stall head returned to this place again and whispered to Wu Zhong for a while.

Wu Zhong approached Zhu Cihong's side and replied: "If you go back to your father, this group of foreigners is the mission of the East India Company, and they just settled in Honglu Temple today. ”

"Oh, Dutch, don't they have messengers in Nanking? Why did you send someone again? Zhu Cihong said curiously.

Wu Zhong replied: "According to the information of Dongchang, these people did not take a boat directly to Nanjing, but landed from Guangzhou, stopping and stopping along the way. ”

"One of them is a Hongyi named John Niehoff, who keeps writing and painting, and Dongchang guesses that they are the detailed works sent by the Hongyi people to my Daming, but after searching, they did not find anything suspicious, only a few albums and notes."

Zhu Cihong said: "Sometimes, from the folk style paintings, you can also see whether a country is strong or not. ”

For John Niehoff, Zhu Cihong seems to have a little impression.

This guy is a traveler in the Netherlands, and like Xu Xiake's hobbies, they both like to travel, write diaries and paint, and they are all people who don't want to go home.

Nihov is obviously more ruthless, this guy has not been home once in more than ten years since he left home, and he has basically spent his life abroad, only two brief experiences of returning home.

Nihov wrote several books about his travels in Brazil, China, and India, the most famous of which was his 5,000-mile journey from Guangzhou to Beijing during the Shunzhi period (the Dutch Mission to Beijing).

He recorded his travels in China in the book The Mission of the East India Company, which made him the leading writer on Chinese subjects in the West at the time.

The great reputation of the glazed pagoda of Dabao'en Temple in Europe is first of all due to the guy Nikhov, who painted the glazed pagoda into his works and became famous in Europe.

At the same time, there are also the money rat tail braids of the Qing Dynasty, and many pig tail braids from the early Qing Dynasty appear in Nihoff's works, and some are hung on the flagpole.

Niehoff's travelogues and illustrations have been cited or extensively adapted in other books on China and Asia.

Until the 40s of the 19th century, Niehoff's travelogues and illustrations were an important source of knowledge for Europeans to understand China.

Three years earlier, Nikhoff had left the Spanish colony of Brazil to join the Dutch East India Company and take up residence in Batavia in the South Seas.

This year, the East India Company sent a delegation to the Ming Dynasty to pay homage to Emperor Tianwu, and Nihoff was one of them, who was responsible for drawing buildings and other objects in various parts of the Ming Dynasty and filing materials for the East India Company.

The purpose of this visit to the Ming Dynasty, the East India Company, was to strengthen the relations between the Ming and the Netherlands, and to obtain from the Ming Emperor the right to trade with the Korean Peninsula and the coast of Japan.

Everyone knows that Japan is in a civil war, and all maritime trade is basically monopolized by the merchants of the Ming Dynasty.

People are at war, and naturally there is a need for firearms on a large scale, and the Dutch people feel that this is a good opportunity to make a lot of money.

On top of that, the Netherlands wanted to win over Da Ming because they were in trouble.

In the eighth year of Tianwu (1651), the Parliament of the English Republic led by Cromwell passed the first bill to protect the monopoly of seafaring trade in Britain, called the "Navigation Regulations".

The regulations brazenly stipulate that all British imports are only allowed to be transported by British ships or ships of the original producing countries, and export products are only allowed to be transported by British ships!

What does this mean?

Just like Trump in the 21st century, he pursued the America First policy, arrogant!

Not only that, but this regulation is also a major trade war against the Republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands.

This act also triggered four Anglo-Dutch wars, and the two maritime hegemons, Britain and the Netherlands, worked intermittently for decades, even pulling several European powers into it, and the political landscape of Europe changed significantly.

Eventually, the financial supremacy of the Netherlands, and its most glorious colonial years, came to an end after four Anglo-Dutch wars, and the wheels of the coachmen at sea ran away.

Of course, because this incident happened not long ago, Zhu Cihong has not yet received relevant information, and he does not know that Britain is doing things in Europe.

Zhu Cihong was a little curious about the mission of the Dutch East India Company, and just wanted to go up and talk to them, but by the way, he was stopped by an old acquaintance.

The old man with bad hair in front of him was none other than John Tang, who he hadn't seen for many years.

Zhu Cihong said meaningfully: "Father, I haven't seen you for many years. ”

Tang Ruowang was flattered and hurriedly said: "Thank you, Your Majesty, for remembering Your Majesty!" ”

"How has the priest been in recent years?" Zhu Cihong asked with a smile.

Tang Ruowang's face was not very good, and he said with a haha: "It's okay, thank you for Your Majesty's care." ”

Zhu Cihong smiled, this bad old man is still pretending! His every move, Emperor Zhu is clear.

Looking at the emperor's relaxed face, Tang Ruowang really had a hard time!

When he was young, he was ordered by the Holy See to come to the East to preach, but he ran into walls everywhere, and finally got on the big ship of the crown prince Zhu Cihong.

As a result, the young crown prince was not easy to fool, and after using himself, he directly kicked himself aside.

At this time, Tang Ruowang's intestines were all repentant, and the original crown prince has now become the famous Tianwu Emperor, who is in charge of the Nuoda Empire and has a population of hundreds of millions.

If these vast populations were baptized by the Lord and heard the gospel of God, their status in the Church would skyrocket, even comparable to that of the Pope!

It's a pity that he doesn't have much of a chance now.