In mid-April, I finally arrived in Chang'an, the most advanced and prosperous city of mankind.

Mr. Chan Siu-man (Note 1), who accompanied me in North Bay City, has a lot of appreciation for the city. While he could only see the faint outline of Chang'an through a telescope, the talkative scholar began to gush on and on about what he had seen and heard when he first visited Chang'an three years ago. Between the words, there are fond memories of that half-month academic trip.

Mr. Chan Siu-man is a very experienced traveler, who has spent several years walking the coastline of mainland Australia, and is said to have had several bloody intimate encounters with thylacines. Even the most seasoned city is a city that is much more beautiful than Pisa and Rome.

Strictly speaking, though, I was intrigued by this mix of Chinese and Western European styles before I arrived in the native country of the Song Dynasty.

It would be an unforgivable sin for German or French architects to mix the columns of the Roman period with the Renaissance architecture that is now more common in them. Some young people of the Ming Kingdom who studied in Australia and the Song Dynasty will also describe the classical Chinese pavilions made of cement and concrete as "crazy people" and "freaks".

But... Such a mix of Chinese and Western architectural styles is really good-looking, if you abandon ideology.

While we were still on the top deck of the boat basking in the sun, a couple of waiters came up and asked if we wanted to have breakfast on board.

Chen Shaowen rejected their proposal. He whispered to me that as soon as I came ashore and said that we were still hungry, the people who came to greet us would take us to Cantonese morning tea at Chang'an Restaurant.

It is said that leading visiting European guests to dinner was one of the main means by which Chang'an officials could eat and drink at public expense.

Just as the rising sun was lighting up the sky, Chen Shaowen came to knock on my door.

"Mr. Galileo, come and see the east coastline, there is already a shadow of the city!"

I couldn't sleep because of the rapid knock on the door, so I had to put on my shirt and open the door with sleepy eyes while stuffing the buttons into the cracks: "Chen, I'm so old, I can't sleep well, and you still come to disturb me." ”

Chen Shaowen touched his head a little embarrassed, and then took my arm and dragged me to the stairs: "Mr. Galileo, go to the teak deck on the top floor and see the beautiful morning sun." ”

I had to fight the buttons with one hand and run down the stairs with the anxious geographer.

However, the rising sun on the sea is indeed very beautiful. In the past, when I was on the Mediterranean coast, I also saw the sunrise a few times, but I didn't have the feeling of today. How to say it... When the sun rises in the sea in Italy, there is always a sense of oppression. In the words of the Otto-Song proverb, it is probably "a house for meditation was built in the shell of a snail".

The Mediterranean, surrounded on all sides, is, after all, no better than the boundless Pacific Ocean, which lacks a kind of boundless pride.

Soon, in Chen Shaowen's endless description and praise of Chang'an, day after day, the time came to 9 o'clock in the morning.

The climate in the southern hemisphere is very different from that in the north, for example, it is April in the Gregorian calendar, but Chang'an has entered early autumn. The cool sea breeze blew on our faces, curling my hat up a few meters away.

I had to bend down and pick up my hat to keep it from being snatched up by the mischievous and daring seagulls.

However, speaking of which, the northern and southern hemispheres are opposite, and such obvious evidence cannot even make some ignorant religious elements admit that the earth revolves around the sun, which is simply unreasonable! Perhaps Cardinal Stein is still regretting that his predecessors did not sink Magellan's fleet off the coast of Africa.

After half an hour under the sea breeze, we arrived at Chang'an Harbor escorted by two destroyers.

The main reason why there are still destroyers escorting me in the Australian Song mainland is that there are several guests from the Kingdom of Spain who are on the same boat as me.

These were several nobles captured by the Aussie and Song Indian Ocean fleets, among them the noble Countess of Bouinger of Valencia, the second daughter of His Majesty King Philip, Her Royal Highness Princess Christina.

Oh, that's Princess Christina, the flower of the Spanish royal family, the red rose of Madrid. Unexpectedly, such a beautiful woman, together with her loyal Portuguese fleet commander Mr. Francisco, was invited to Chang'an by the powerful Australian Song people as a guest.

However, Her Royal Highness the Princess and her Rear Admiral showed very different attitudes towards their defeat.

Her Royal Highness the Princess seemed completely unwilling to admit her misery. On board the Trade Winds, Her Royal Highness earned the respect of the crew and passengers with a staggering amount of three bottles of wine per day. A Russian guest from the Far East once thought that the beautiful woman who was under close surveillance was his compatriot – or else he would not be so drunk.

It's just a pity that after the cruise ship arrived in Limen City, Northern Province, the princess's maid carefully told her that if she maintained such a large amount of alcohol, the princess was allowed to keep a sum of money that could not support them to enjoy the endless food of the Aosong people every day, and could only eat mashed potatoes and bean sprouts like ordinary passengers.

Such terrible language immediately woke the princess up, and she had to change her daily wine to much cheaper coconut wine and rice wine—in fact, I prefer the rice wine of the Australian Song people.

Compared with this poor princess who fell straight from a princess above 10,000 people to a prisoner of the Australian and Song Defense Forces, General Francisco, who had already learned stiff Chinese, showed good adaptability.

Even during the long voyage to the Southwest Pacific, he still insisted on exercising every day and having a very regular routine, which successfully washed him away from the empty appearance of being captured, although he looked handsome but in fact had no tough guy atmosphere, and made him exude a full spirit from the inside out.

At this moment, Mr. Major General, who had some beautiful beards, also walked up the gangway to the top floor and sat on a chaise longue basking in the sun.

Chen Shaowen asked him with a smile: "Francisco, why don't you come to see Chang'an Port?" This is the second largest port in the world in terms of throughput! (Note 2)

Francisco raised his upper body, took off his sunglasses and smiled: "Anyway, I will live in Chang'an for a long time, and it will be the same in the future." ”

Chen Shaowen shrugged, ignoring Francisco, who was plastering his chest muscles with a layer of bronzing. He took a leather case from the waiter's hand and handed it to me, "Mr. Galilei, you need to change your clothes. ”

Puzzled, I placed the box on the ground and opened it, and inside was a very ornate set of traditional Italian costumes, which looked to be made of oriental silks.

"Why change your clothes?" I looked up and asked, "Is the clothes I'm wearing now going to be washed?" ”

Chen Shaowen smiled and pointed to the shirt on my body and said to me: "Your current clothes, there are at least 100,000 people in Chang'an wearing the same style. If you don't put on the clothes of your hometown, some bureaucrats who don't know how to do it will think you're just an ordinary visiting scholar. This will make them look down on you. ”

I couldn't understand the logic for a while, thinking that maybe this was a bureaucratic habit of Eastern civilization, so I carried the box to the gangway: "Okay, Chen, I'll go back to my room and change my clothes now." ”

Chen Shaowen smiled and watched me go down, he himself remained on the teak deck, enjoying the chilled orange juice and the warm sunshine.

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This newspaper, special correspondent Niu Shangke, reported from Dongtiangang, Chang'an City.

At ten o'clock in the morning, Mr. Galileo Galilei, a famous physicist, mathematician and astronomer from the distant European kingdom of Italy, chief mathematician and philosopher of the court of the Duchy of Tuscany, and chief professor of mathematics at the University of Pisa, arrived at the port, accompanied by Professor Chen Shaowen, a famous geographer of our country.

The Government and the people of our country extend the most sincere welcome and the most noble courtesy to this great scientist, who is famous in Europe but who was persecuted by the ignorant and feudal Holy See for his support of the truth.

The greeting group, led by Dr. Ma Linxi, President of the Great Song Academy of Sciences, had arrived at the port in advance, ready to greet Mr. Galileo. The main members of the welcoming group were: Dr. Lin Shenhe, Vice Dean, Dr. Mao Qiuzhen, Dean of the School of Physics, Dr. Li Haiyue, Dean of the School of Astronomy (female), Mr. Yan Bowen, Minister of Science and Technology of the Republic, Mr. Xin Xuewen, President of Truth Magazine... There is also a good friend and student of Mr. Galileo, Professor Bonaventura Francesco Cavalieri, who came to our country two years ago. Professor Johannes Kepler, who is currently on an academic visit at the City of Youth, regrets that he was unable to welcome this well-known figure in European science due to distance. But when Professor Kepler learned about this, he also wrote to Professor Cavalieri in advance, asking him to welcome him on his behalf.

Soon, as the port gates opened, Mr. Galileo, dressed in traditional Italian costume, stepped out first. He was ruddy-complexional and in good spirits, apparently unaffected by the long journey.

The famous scientist was very surprised that he was received such a grand welcome. He thanked the scholars and officials who had come to greet them one by one, and gave a short but influential impromptu lecture at the port at the invitation of Dean Marlinxi.

In his speech, Mr. Galileo first expressed his gratitude for the great importance he received in the Australian Song Dynasty, and praised the beauty of Chang'an City, saying that it was the best city he had ever seen in his life, a hundred times larger than Rome, the capital of Italy.

Subsequently, Monsieur Galileo strongly denounced the reactionary and evil of the Holy See, which hindered the development of science, and denounced the stupid religious elements as fools with a head full of myths and superstitious ideas (Galileo: I didn't say that!). ）。 He said that if the Holy See were to be killed by a meteorite now, the scientific enterprise of the peoples of Europe would be able to move forward for at least fifty years at once.

Finally, Mr. Galileo said that he would work hard in the Republic of Australia, which is free of thought, people's democracy, strong academic atmosphere and scientifically advanced, and will continue to devote himself wholeheartedly to scientific exploration, and strive to make the greatest contribution to all mankind, including the people of Australia and the Italians.

Science Daily, April 7, 1629 (excerpt). ”

Note 1: Chen Shaowen, a famous geographer and traveler, was the first traveler to complete a solo trip around the continent on foot and on horseback. In 1633, he traveled to China for ten years with Xu Xiake, a famous traveler and writer of the Ming Kingdom, in southern and southwestern China, and co-wrote Xu Xiake: Chen Shaowen's Travels.