At this time, the European continent had been mired in the Thirty Years' War, and Spain was not having a good time, first the Invincible Armada at sea was defeated by the English, resulting in the loss of most of the interests of the Americas; Later, the Netherlands became independent with the support of Ming and Britain, and its position in Europe was seriously weakened. Now that Cromwell brought up the Luzon tragedy again, the Spanish envoy Aragon was very angry and said cautiously:

"Your Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, today is your happy day, this envoy has brought Spain's most sincere blessings and rich gifts, and I hope that the two countries can make the most of their past suspicions and jointly benefit from trade. This envoy heard that one of your concubines is a Persian princess, who was sold to Arabia by the Shiri brothers, and finally came to the Ming Dynasty after several twists and turns. ”

The Shelly brothers, who had been military advisers to Persia and trusted Abbas the Great, had done such a thing that Persia had banned the English from operating in the country. Aragon mentioned this matter, firstly, to counter Cromwell, and secondly, to drive a wedge between the Ming Dynasty and England.

Of course, Zhu Youxiao understood what he meant, and secretly scolded in his heart that the two countries were not good birds, but the Luzon tragedy had a greater impact on the Ming Dynasty. During the Jiajing period, Regasby of the Spanish East India Company came to the Philippines to colonize and plunder, and built a castle in Manila.

When he found that there were Tatars and barbarians in the north of the Ming Dynasty, Tusi rebellions in the southwest, and Japanese robbers in the southeast, coupled with the continuous disasters in the interior, he wrote a letter to King Philip II of Spain to invade the Ming Dynasty. Although the Ming Dynasty was spared a foreign invasion, Yan Yinglong, Zhang Wei and others mined gold in Luzon in the 30th year of Wanli, which aroused the fear and covetousness of the Spanish colonists, and the following year a large-scale massacre of local Chinese, with as many as 25,000 victims.

Zhu Youxiao retrieved the case file from the palace archives and found that Emperor Shenzong only beheaded Zhang Wei, but did not punish the Spaniards, and in addition to grief and anger, he sent Xiong Wencan and Yan Siqi to lead sailors to surround Manila, shoot and kill the Spaniards and Japanese people in the city with heavy artillery, and incorporate Luzon Island into the territory of the Ming Dynasty. Later, in order to avoid becoming an enemy of the Ming Dynasty, Philip IV appointed Aragon as ambassador to China and governor of the East India Company, and handed over several leaders who participated in the Luzon Massacre to Dali Temple, hoping that the two countries could repair trade.

Now that the Ming Dynasty was marrying with Persia and Japan, Philip IV understood that this would affect the situation in Asia in the future, and wanted to take this opportunity to make overtures to the Ming Dynasty again and try to protect their trade interests in the East. Aragorn did not fail in his mission, and did a lot of foreshadowing in the early stage, but he didn't expect to kill Cromwell halfway, which almost made him mess up, and continued to argue:

"That unpleasant incident was entirely the personal act of the East India Company, and our King Philip the Great deeply regretted it. In order to restore the diplomatic relations and trade between the two countries, he not only took the initiative to hand over several important criminals to your country for punishment, but also offered 200,000 taels of silver as compensation. Now that some people don't know what to do, they want to stir up the relationship between the two Ming monarchs, and their sinister intentions cannot be ignored. ”

For Aragon's humility, Zhu Youxiao is still quite satisfied. After the wedding, he did not indulge in Wenhe Township, but discussed with the cabinet the establishment of a foreign embassy area in Tianjin, seeking to establish diplomatic relations with more countries, and sending missions to enhance the Ming Dynasty's understanding of the world.

In terms of economy, on the basis of the Shanghai Pudong Free Trade Zone, three special zones will be added: Tianjin Haihe, Qingdao Sifang and Guangzhou Zhujiang, allowing foreign investors to settle in these four cities. At the same time, the supporting services in the suburbs were further improved, the roads were widened, and post stations were added, making it the economic center of the Ming Dynasty.

The liberal policies of the Ming Dynasty and the favorable conditions offered not only attracted merchants from all over the world, but also attracted many scholars and missionaries. Their works cover astronomy, geography, engineering, chemistry, medicine, economics, applied science and technology, historiography, literature, art, etc., and can be said to include the main achievements of the European Renaissance. Under the impact of new knowledge, the imperial court began to explore a new education model, no longer taking the subset of economics and history as the only criterion for selecting talents, and began to attach importance to applied disciplines, such as materials, machinery, engineering, manufacturing, smelting, etc., to cultivate professional talents in modern industry.

This cultural exchange, which was led by the imperial court, fueled by European scholars, and widely participated by the scholar class, is known as the gradual study of the East and the West. Its purpose is to open up the wisdom of the people, look at the world with a broad view, and at the same time suppress Confucianism and break the ideological shackles of the Three Principles and Five Constants on the Han people.

Of course, this kind of change will definitely be met with fierce resistance, Sun Chengzong, Xiong Tingbi, Huang Kezhang, Fan Jingwen, Han Xi, Yang Lian and other elites vomited a few mouthfuls of old blood, desperately advising Zhu Youxiao to think twice before acting. They believe that since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty deposed the Hundred Schools, the subset of classics and histories has always been the orthodox doctrine of all dynasties, and the Western Encyclopedia is just a strange theory of three religions and nine streams, and cannot be elegant.

These veterans are all well-educated people who have been trained in officialdom for decades, and they have benefited from the doctrine of the sages, because they also firmly support the orthodox status of Confucianism. They originally thought that the little emperor was a traditional martyr, and that the southern and northern wars were just to maintain the status of the great unified dynasty. However, they underestimated this slightly immature young genius, and they did not realize that he had already begun to do a lot of preparatory work for this movement of learning from the West to the East.

At the beginning, Zhu Kuiyuan quelled the rebellion of Lu'an and Shuixi, and Qi Xingguo read out the holy decree in Longchang and ordered Wang Sanshan, the governor of Guizhou, to build an ancestral hall for Wang Yangming. The disciples who served the king's mind were reused by the imperial court, and Nan Juyi, Lai Zongdao, Yuan Chonghuan, Lu Xiangsheng, Zuo Guangdou and others became hot figures.

In this collision of ideas, Zhu Zongyuan, who participated in Zhejiang's political affairs, was the most intense. He openly ridiculed those conservatives who were not diligent and did not distinguish between the four bodies and the grains, and suggested that the imperial court revise the criteria for opening up the department and expand the scope of talent selection, resulting in irreconcilable disputes between the old and new factions.

Zhu Zongyuan believed that Western astronomy, physics, mathematics, and the legal calendar were all applied disciplines of the Poor Source Exploration Committee, clocks, telescopes, cranes, and musical instruments were all exquisitely crafted, and the people of Hogo were all enemies with muskets and cannons. Driven by science and technology, the merchant ships of the European projectile country have spread all over the world, accumulating a large amount of original capital, and its wealth is not inferior to that of the Central Plains.

Although Zhu Zongyuan exaggerated the strength of Europe, it was not a fool's dream that the Ming Dynasty would be surpassed by Europe in time, and this kind of clue had already been reflected in the process of conquering Japan. At the beginning, Joseph defected and used only nine warships to blockade the sea outside the river, shelled the defenders of Tokugawa Iemitsu, and assisted the Ming army in a smooth landing. Afterwards, Nan Juyi and Hong Chengchou both reflected on this, believing that England was just a square inch of land, but its combat power was not under the Ming Royal Navy. Their seafaring talent is outstanding, and they should take the initiative to learn shipbuilding and cannon casting skills from them, so as to improve themselves.

In this controversy, because the two sides were evenly matched, neither of them could gain the upper hand, and in the end they could only turn to the little emperor to administer justice. In these years, Zhu Youxiao followed Fang Congzhe and Ye Xianggao to study, and he had already become a master of harmony, and he pretended to be very reluctant to change the Bagu Zhishi to the argument and administrative ability test, but emphasized that the examination must be based on Confucian classics, supplemented by European disciplines, and comprehensively examine the students' abilities. In addition, the probationary system during the Han Dynasty was restored, and the emperor selected talents according to specific conditions, so as to break the monopoly of the scholar class on the bureaucracy and allow the children of the poor family to have the opportunity to display their talents.

After the establishment of this parallel selection system of arts and sciences, the Ming Dynasty quickly replenished many engineering talents, Qu Rukui, Li Zhizao, Yang Tingyun these enlightened gentry gradually entered the center of the Ming power, under their leadership, the intellectuals of the Ming Dynasty began to pay attention to the exploration of the material world, has been in the forefront of the West.