Among the many buildings in the capital, if you say the most distinctive, I am afraid that the European-style south hall, this is a seven-foot-high baroque cathedral, the sanctuary is eight feet long, four feet wide, and it is also a church, if it is replaced by ordinary people's homes, this seven-foot-high cathedral is against the law.

The iron cross more than one zhang high stands at the top of the church, even if it is far from here, you can also see this cross, which can be said to be the most conspicuous building in the capital, and on the west side of the cathedral to build the priest's residence, the observatory, the library and the instrument hall, as for the plaque of the Shunzhi Emperor's imperial pen book "admiring the way of heaven" hanging outside the door of the church, and the door of the imperial pen book "Tongxuan Jiajing" and the inscription of the imperial Catholic Hall three years ago, all of them show the importance of the Qing Dynasty, at least the emperor of the Qing Dynasty, to this master, That is, the importance of John Tong.

For John Tang, who came to China as early as 40 years ago, he was protected by the Qing court for his knowledge of the astronomical calendar and his skills such as cannon casting, and because of his erudition, he was often in and out of the court, and was even called "Marfa" by Shunzhi, which means "old man" in Manchu. As a missionary, he had reached heights that no other missionary could match, at least in the North.

It is precisely because of this that Ilya Perfiliev, who came to the capital as a Russian envoy half a year ago, will do everything possible to please John Tang, so that he can get his help and be able to meet the Emperor Shunzhi.

It was not a coincidence that he came, when he came to the capital, Shunzhi was in the south at that time, and for him, the envoy of the Rakshasa country - a vassal envoy who repeatedly violated the border, the minister who stayed in the capital naturally did not treat him very well, so he stayed here, but he did not stay idle, but studied Chinese here.

The Master said...... This "曰" is to speak, so is "month" and "covenant" also the meaning of speaking? ”

Perfiliev spoke stiff Chinese, and asked Nan Huairen in front of him, after he came to the capital, fortunately he knew Latin, if not, I am afraid that he could only communicate with the Qing people through the Mongolian translator, but even so, he also suspected that Nan Huairen, who acted as a translator, was very likely not to convey his meaning to the Qing people completely, after all, he believed in Orthodox Christianity.

It is precisely because of this that he decided to pay attention to learning Chinese, after all, there is no one in the whole of Russia who can speak Chinese. Although Russian influence had extended to the northern and northeastern frontiers of China by this time, neither side had anyone fluent in each other's languages. As early as the Ming Dynasty, in 1619, that is, in the forty-seventh year of Wanli, the Russian Ivan Petrin sent an envoy to China, and the Wanli Emperor asked the delegation to bring back a letter of state. The letter was brought back, but there was no one in Russia who could read it, and the letter was kept in the archives, and until now, the letter is still lying in the archives.

There are no people who are proficient in Chinese, which directly affects the interests of Russia in the East in the future, and when Berfeliyev made up his mind to learn Chinese, he did not expect that this Chinese language would be so difficult to learn.

"Your Excellency, this is exactly the case in Chinese, although their pronunciation is similar, but the meaning is completely different......"

When Nan Huairen explained the subtleties of the Chinese language to the aristocrat-looking Russian marquis, he did not know that this Ilya Perfiliev was the first Russian to cross Lake Baikal and expand the territory of Russia to the east of Lake Baikal, and it was for this merit that he was knighted.

This time, he and Ablin came to the capital together, although ostensibly as a messenger for the Tsar of the Russian Empire, but in fact, he wanted to find out the attitude of the Qing people, after all, in the past few years, they had repeatedly clashed with the Qing indigenous officials in the Amur Valley.

Judging from the information available so far, the Qing army is simply not able to take care of their actions in the Amur area. Of course, this does not change the reality that their strength in the Far East is extremely weak and they are not opponents of the Qing army at all, but this also allows him to see an opportunity, an opportunity to take advantage of the fire.

After a morning of learning Chinese, as in the past, he once again chatted with Nan Huairen, and not in Latin, but in Chinese.

"Chinese is really hard to learn."

For Perfiliev, who learned Mongolian in just a few months, learning Chinese was a nightmare.

"Yes, it is very difficult to learn Chinese, and as missionaries, we all have to spend several years in Macao to learn Chinese, but it takes a long time to understand Chinese script, and it is not only very difficult for us to learn, but also Manchurians—"

Looking at Perfiliev, Nan Huairen explained to him.

"Even the rulers of the Qing Dynasty, many of them, even though they have been in China for more than ten years, still do not speak Chinese, let alone read Chinese books, and certainly cannot write Chinese characters."

When mentioning that those Manchurians did not learn Chinese, Nan Huairen had a mocking smile on his face.

"Father, I remember you said that the Qing people are not Chinese?"

In the past, he thought it was Chinese, but after coming to the capital, it took him several months to figure out that the so-called China is just the European name for "China", and in current China, there is a "Qing country" and a "Ming country", which is also the information that Perfiliev is eager to know, but he who does not know Chinese wants to get news from the locals, which is not an easy thing.

"Yes, Your Excellency the Marquis, Chinese in the traditional sense of Europe should refer specifically to the Han people, so the Ming people are real Chinese. As for the Qing State, their founders are the Tatars who are similar to the Mongols, they are just like the Mongols, living outside civilization, and because of the civil strife in the Ming Kingdom, they were able to take advantage of the chaos to enter China, just like the Mongols conquered civilization, they conquered China and occupied here, but the resistance of the Ming people did not end, in the past ten years, the Ming people have been resisting the invasion of the Qing army, including the Qing people must have thought that they had controlled China, but no one thought of it, The situation has changed since two years ago, and now the Ming army occupies the most prosperous Jiangnan in China, where the founders of the Ming Kingdom raised their troops and drove the Mongols back to the steppe, which is why you have not seen the emperor to this day......"

Of course, Nan Huairen would never tell him that the reason why Perfiliev did not meet the Qing emperor was because his national letter was "arrogant and rude", and it took the Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French people decades to find out the experience of dealing with the Chinese, and they must be flattering enough in the national letter, while Perfiliev's state letter used the language of Europeans, which was obviously disrespectful to the emperor in the eyes of Qing officials.

As a Catholic, he did not remind Perfiliev of his obligations, and even John Tong told Nan Huairen that the Russians had to learn how to deal with the Qing people on their own.

"So, Father, do you think it is possible for the Ming people to drive the Qing people out of China and back to Manchuria, as their ancestors did?"

What if those Qing people returned to Manchuria?

For Perfiliev, he naturally knew that the so-called Manchuria was "bordering" Russia, and once the Qing people were driven out of China, it was very likely that the two sides would clash in the Amur region in the future, and even now, Russia would not have an advantage there, not to mention the return of "hundreds of thousands of Manchu troops" to Manchuria.

"I'm afraid only God knows this."

Nan Huairen threw the problem directly to God.

"But we can now know that the Ming army in the south has prepared a large number of muskets and artillery, and there are very many of them, Your Excellency the Marquis."

Referring to the firearms possessed by the Ming army in the south, Nan Huairen said again.

"Your Excellency Marquis, I believe you already know that the reason why Father John Tang was able to gain the respect of the Qing royal family and even the emperor himself was because the Qing army needed us to help them cast artillery, and from what we have learned, it seems that the artillery cast by the Ming army is better than ours."

"They have artillery? Got a musket? ”

For Perfiliev, who has repeatedly clashed with the Tatars of the Amur region, the news came as a shock.

"Didn't they use cold weapons like broadswords, bows and arrows?"

"Your Excellency Marquis, you must know that gunpowder was invented by the Chinese, and the number of Chinese artillery is far beyond your imagination. I believe that they must have cast more artillery elsewhere, while the Ming army in the south only had more artillery than them. ”

As the vanguard of Russia's eastward expansion, he knew very well why Russia was able to easily defeat those Tatars, relying on firearms, and under the protection of firearms, the Tatars could not conquer the fortress.

If the Qing army or the Ming army had a large number of firearms, then Russia's future expansion in the East was likely to be affected, or even stop at the present stage.

You must try to understand them as much as possible, and while making up this mind in his heart, Perfiliev is also more curious about the Ming people in the south, after all, since he came here, he has heard more than once from Nan Huairen's mouth "How is the Ming Kingdom", so what does the Ming Kingdom look like?

With such curiosity in his heart, Perfiliev looked at Nan Huairen and asked.

"Have you ever been to Mingguo? If I want to go to the south, that is, the Ming Kingdom, from where can I go there? ”

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