In fact, with China's size, it is like a star, and it is impossible not to get the attention of the surrounding people. China is born with its own halo and has stood in the spotlight since ancient times.

Therefore, there are many countries that are concerned about the changes in China's political landscape, and Western countries pay close attention through their commercial offices, but they are limited to the level of interests, and as long as such changes do not affect their actual interests, they do not care too much about who is in power in China.

But for China's neighboring countries, the impact is too great, compared with the West, only economic interests, China's changes, the impact on the surrounding countries is all-round, political, economic, cultural, military, and so on are the focus of attention of the surrounding countries.

Therefore, after Zhou Lang conquered Jiangnan, Japan, Vietnam, Korea and Ryukyu, the traditional countries of the Chinese civilization circle, began to consider the issue of China's change of dynasty. After Zhou Lang captured Fujian, Japan expressed goodwill. The Ryukyus cut off tributary trade with the Manchus, and not just because the sea routes became difficult. Vietnam's Tay Son and Nguyen dynasties both established trade ties with Zhou Lang, but only that, with no political interaction.

When the news of Zhou Lang's capture of Beijing spread, these countries immediately decided to send envoys to congratulate them and confirm the relationship between the new Central Plains Dynasty and them.

The most active of these was the Nguyen dynasty in Vietnam, which had already won a decisive victory in the civil war with the Tay Son dynasty and would soon be unifying Vietnam, according to tradition, if they wanted to gain legal status, they had to be canonized by the Central Plains dynasty.

The same is true in North Korea, if the Li family wants to continue to rule Korea legally, it must be recognized and canonized by the Central Plains Dynasty, and the status of canonization is not too high, for example, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the king of Korea is only the title of a county king, and if those iron hats of the Qing Dynasty go to Korea, the king of North Korea has to bow down.

Japan has no concerns about this, because due to geographical advantages, they have always been close to the Central Plains Dynasty, culturally active, and politically guarded. They were not de jure vassal states of the Central Plains Dynasty, and at least during the Shogunate period, they no longer needed to obtain legal status from the Central Plains Dynasty.

Therefore, when the news of Zhou Lang's capture of Beijing spread, Korea, Ryukyu, and Vietnam planned to send envoys to congratulate them, while Japan remained silent, only watching every move of the new dynasty, but it was more lenient for the Chinese merchants who went to Japan to trade than before, and some merchant ships that broke in rashly without a letter card were no longer expelled or seized as before, but began to allow them to sell some of their goods.

But the Russians arrived faster than these countries, not only because Russia is a neighbor of China, but most importantly, Russia has always had a stronghold in Beijing, and they think that this is a permanent diplomat, which the Qing Dynasty did not recognize, and the Qing Dynasty did not have the Western-style concept of permanent diplomats. However, this is not necessarily a purely Western system, during the Warring States period in China, countries would also send permanent envoys to other countries, and each country had its own post house.

Nikolai, a Russian, asked to meet Zhou Lang, who happened to be in Beijing, so he was naturally received.

Nicholas did not express his recognition of Zhou Lang's regime, he only wanted to maintain their old trade relations with the Qing Dynasty, and did not want the political changes in China to affect commercial exchanges, which Zhou Lang gave them a guarantee that they would continue to allow trade to exist, including the future unification of China by the Great Zhou, and would not cut off trade.

As for the recognition of the legitimate status of Zhou Lang's regime, the Russians did not mention it, and Zhou Lang did not care, the recognition of legal status is often used by Westerners as a political weapon, but the legitimacy of Chinese tradition, at least not in China, the earliest legal status was through the canonization of Zhou Tianzi; After Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rebelled, "the prince and the prince will have a kind of Xiangning", and the legitimacy of the rule began to be entrusted to the heavens, so the literati attached so much importance to the enthronement ceremony of worshiping the heavens and worshipping the ancestors. The Central Plains Dynasty gained legitimacy by sacrificing heaven and earth, while the surrounding small states used China's golden canonization as a source of legitimacy. This is the traditional system of suzerainty and feudal system, which is the diplomatic culture of the East.

The Russians don't recognize Zhou Lang, and Zhou Lang hasn't recognized Russia yet. In this era when the standard of diplomacy is dominated by me, Zhou Lang does not need recognition from the West. He would send envoys to the West to strengthen ties between China and the West, but there was no such thing as a complete acceptance of Western diplomacy. Rather, it is to restore the traditions of the Warring States, and it is impossible to be completely the same as the West in terms of procedure.

After the leaves fell in late autumn, Zhou Lang went south, not for Wodong, otherwise he would not go to Nanjing, but directly to Guangzhou.

After the attack on Beijing, the general trend of the world was completely tilted towards the Great Zhou regime, and he did not need to be in the pro-conquest. Leave a few generals and attack separately, which is enough to take the world.

The purpose of returning to Nanjing was to carry out political reform, and at the same time to receive envoys from various countries.

Wang Fuqian and other ministers believed that this procedure was very important, just as small countries such as Vietnam needed to obtain legitimacy by obtaining canonization, and on the other hand, getting tribute from small countries was actually one of the ways for the Central Plains Dynasty to strengthen its own legitimacy. People have a psychological need to be recognized, and it is actually the same at the national level. Most dynasties also wanted the approval of their neighbors.

The first to arrive were the Korean envoys, who went first to Beijing, where they learned that the emperor had gone south, and then to Nanjing.

Zhou Lang sat in the Jinluan Palace, in full accordance with the traditional procedure, and met with the Korean envoys, the other party knelt three times and kowtowed nine times, and the surrounding ministers were lined up in two columns, with solemn expressions, as if this was such an important thing.

The North Korean envoy then read out the congratulatory note, in standard Beijing Mandarin. The content of the congratulatory table, in addition to the fleshy praise of Zhou Lang's expulsion of Hulu, is to express the Korean deference to the Great Zhou, through the words "Chen Yu (Joseon King Li Yu) worships the head" and other words.

Eighty percent of the congratulatory expressions sprinkled with thousands of words of praise were fleshy and numb, some praised Zhou Lang's great martial arts, some ridiculed the fate of the Manchu Hu Lu, and some expressed the loyalty of North Korea.

At this time, Korea had just experienced a prosperous era in their history, of course, the so-called prosperous era of North Korea was by no means a strong military or anything like that, and their military equipment had been completely decayed in the Toyotomi Hideyoshi era. Prosperity refers to the fact that the politics are clearer and the economy is better, and that's it.

The reason for this is that the previous two kings of Joseon, Youngjo and Jeongjo were in office for a long time, the traditional dynastic era, the length of the king's reign had a great impact on political stability, Joseon Youngjo was a king for more than 50 years from 1724 to 1776, and Jeongjo did it from 1776 to 1800, for more than 20 years, both of them were middle-aged successors, and they ruled continuously for more than 70 years. It is a stable period of comprehensive development of agriculture and industry.

Therefore, this history is very important in the history of Joseon, and the Koreans call it the "Yingzheng era", and there is even a Korean Renaissance period.

At this time, the mentality of the Korean people began to swell, and the Korean literati, who did not agree with the Manchu Qing Dynasty, began to exaggerate the phenomena such as earthquakes, comets, floods, droughts, and insect plagues that occurred in China during this period, as a sign that "Hu'er has no luck for a hundred years". They expected the Manchus to die in a hundred years, as the Yuan Dynasty did.

There is also an idea that some scholars of the Joseon Dynasty emphasized the distinction between Huayi and regarded themselves as Chinese orthodoxy, and if the Manchu Qing Dynasty died in a hundred years, then could North Korea replace it?

In the 52nd year of Qianlong, the Korean Bibian Department stipulated that "those who carry miscellaneous documents and books of our country will be given a hundred rods and three thousand miles", and "all books that involve the Left Way and the Heresy and the Witch Sayings, as well as miscellaneous books, will be strictly guarded against." Regardless of the interpreter and the three envoys, if there is anything to do with the potential trade, it will be picked from the place and burned on fire. The offenders were reopened" and began to ban books published in China on science, phonology, poetry, scriptures, histories, astronomy, geography, political classics, and so on. This is a manifestation of the mentality of North Koreans who are no longer culturally dependent on China.

It's a pity that this "Yingzheng era" almost began and ended with the Qianlong era. A few years after Qianlong's death, Joseon Jeongjo also died, and the successor was not as good as Jiaqing, a child who was only eleven years old in 1790 this year. Historically, North Korea has entered a turbulent political era, with the successor always a young child and power controlled by powerful ministers.

It was in the late Yingjo period that Western Catholicism began to be introduced to Korea, because Korea forbade foreigners to enter. The Catholic Church used China as a springboard to spread the ideas of Catholicism by sending Chinese who looked the same as the Koreans into North Korea to preach. Koreans who came to China also became Christians by being baptized in China. For example, the Korean envoy Lee Seung-hoon was baptized as a Catholic at the South Catholic Church in Beijing, and his Christian name was Peter (Peter).

A large number of Chinese missionaries entered North Korea, causing the North Korean regime to become alarmed. In 1791, the Chinese missionary Zhou Wenmo infiltrated Korea and began to preach, and the believers included two classes of dignitaries and lowly soldiers. The North Korean government regards Catholicism as a cult and continues to arrest and execute believers.

In order to arrest Chinese missionaries, North Korean believers were arrested and tortured. In order to protect the safety of the Joseons, Zhou Wenmo surrendered to the Korean government and was killed in Seoul on April 19, 1801.

It is known as the "Xinyou Evil Prison" in history.

Zhou Lang had just learned that if he wanted to make trouble, he could raise troops to ask for the crime on the grounds of killing Chinese nationals.

In fact, the introduction of Western religion did have a great impact on traditional Eastern countries, Japan, China, and North Korea have successively carried out similar political suppression, and Kangxi completely banned Jesuit missionary work in China; After the end of Japan's Warring States Period, seeing that its own Catholic forces actually sent ships to Europe to seek assistance, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who ended the Warring States Period, began to ban Christianity, and then Catholicism launched a rebellion in Japan, and after being bloodily suppressed by the shogunate, not only completely banned Catholicism, but also severed trade exchanges with Portugal and Spain, and only the Netherlands, which did not proselytize, was allowed to continue trading with Japan in Western countries; The spread of Catholicism in Vietnam was also very strong, and the Nguyen dynasty was able to defeat the Tay Son dynasty with the help of French missionaries.

The main reason why China, North Korea, and Japan have banned the spread of Catholicism is that they are worried that the people will collude with external forces.

Because of the war, Vietnam, just like the Japanese Catholic Church that had developed hundreds of thousands of people during the Warring States period, spread widely, and the government was powerless to stop it. Later, after the Nguyen clan unified Vietnam, they also began to follow the example of China, Japan, Korea and other countries and banned the spread of Catholicism.