Zhu Jinglun does not have a lot of knowledge of Japanese history, but he knows that the Japanese are so open-minded in the face of the West that it is unimaginable, at least it is difficult for Chinese to accept the attitude of encountering another culture, immediately throwing away their own culture, and learning like a primary school student. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Chinese cultural pride is too strong, so it is difficult to bend down to learn from others, look at the history of the world, the West and China have a good cultural characteristic, Europeans always think that they are the most civilized, especially their religion, so to preach to the world.

China, on the other hand, regarded it as either a Chinese or a barbarian, and always despised those nations and countries that refused to wear Chinese-style brocade clothes and jade clothes and refused to use the Chinese language, while countries such as Korea, Vietnam, and the Ryukyus were willing to accept the Chinese language system.

Perhaps it is because I have been used to being a student for a long time, so that Japanese people can calm down and learn from others.

But this doesn't make sense at all.,Vietnamese、Koreans have also been learning Central Plains culture for a long time.,But when Western culture arrived,,,They weren't as crazy as Japan to learn.,There are still all kinds of resistance.,This can't be explained by their sinicization at all.。

Zhu Jinglun couldn't help but think of Japan's national characteristics, no matter how you look at the Japanese, they all have the characteristics of a maritime nation, and the food is mainly sea fish, and all kinds of marine-related customs. Of course, in terms of ethnic classification, the Japanese are divided into the ranks of agricultural civilization, which can only be said to be that the Han civilization is too strong, and it is just a cultural reversal of Japan, a natural maritime nation, into an agricultural culture.

However, the maritime people are naturally curious about the outside world, and this is much stronger than that of China and other countries with agricultural civilization, after all, people who depend on the sea for survival are more willing to go to distant places, and farmers who farm land do not need to know things ten miles away at all, which is a cultural characteristic determined by reality.

What Zhu Jinglun didn't know was that as early as the 18th year of Keicho (1613), just after the confrontation with the Ming Dynasty in Korea, the Japanese samurai Shikura Tsunecho was sent by the feudal lord Date Masamune to cross the Pacific and Atlantic oceans on the ship "St. John the Baptist" to go to Europe. The voyage passed through Mexico, Havana, Cuba, and Spain, and reached Rome, Italy, in 1615, where he met with the King of Spain and the Pope. Chang himself was baptized by the pope and granted Roman citizenship, ranking among the Roman nobility.

In order to build the St. John the Baptist, Date Masamune spent a lot of effort, using 800 workers, 600 forgers and smelters, and 3,000 handymen to complete the construction.

What is even more amazing is that Date Masato sent people to Rome to meet the pope, and the request was to allow Catholicism to spread in Japan in exchange for the pope'Chinese s permission to trade in Spanish territory.

Unfortunately, after the return of Tsunecho Shikura, the Tokugawa shogunate chose to close the country and banned Catholicism. Otherwise, it is really difficult to predict what changes will be made to the history of East Asia by Japan, which was founded at that time, and perhaps with the promotion of Japan's catfish, it will also make the Ming Dynasty of the same era adopt a different attitude.

After the United States broke Japan's seclusion, the attitude of the Japanese quickly returned to the state before the Tokugawa shogunate, and they were once again full of curiosity about the outside world. Fukuzawa soon after visited the United States on behalf of Japan, and almost every few years, Japan sent a delegation to the Western countries to carry out activities.

The trip to the United States in 1860, England in 1862, and France this year were all activities that took place before the Meiji Restoration, and the fact that the first official diplomatic mission to the Manchu dynasty began in 1905 is really telling in comparison.

In addition, due to the positive external interest of the Japanese in history, in the 1870s, a wave of Japanese art was set off in Europe, and it can be said that the Japanese made the West understand Japan better from the beginning, and the Qing Dynasty always carried a layer of mystery.

Now the situation is different, Zhu Jinglun will build the Ming Dynasty more open, but in terms of degree, it is still not as good as Japan, this time suddenly saw the Japanese appear, so that Zhu Jinglun couldn't help but start worrying, he thought of the closed old masters in China, thinking of the open characteristics of the Japanese at the beginning, he felt that his pace was not fast enough.

He was not afraid of Japanese competition, and if under his leadership, the Ming Dynasty would lose to Japan in a few decades if he took the first step, then there would be no need for him to govern. What he is worried about is that once the Japanese take an extremely open attitude and the country promotes the introduction of Western technology, will the Ming Dynasty slowly be in a disadvantageous position in the competition with Japan, and this unfavorable situation in the national situation will form a Matthew effect, the stronger the stronger, and the so-called backwardness will fall behind step by step.

Of course, all this is a rainy day, at least for the time being, the Ming Dynasty has been too far ahead of Japan in all aspects, the technical capabilities introduced by the huge arsenal have produced a continuous diffusion effect, and there are already dozens of iron factories equipped with steam engines in Foshan, which Japan does not have yet.

But what those in power should do is to constantly strengthen their own advantages and make up for their own disadvantages, so that their country can always stand in an advantageous position.

Zhu Jinglun continued to visit with a heavy heart.

That's how the French machine is, the real look at the machine, mainly depends on the British, and Europe can compete with the British machine, only Belgium is one country, and the rest of the country is a generation behind.

Adjacent to the French Pavilion is the Pavilion of neighboring Prussia.

The steel products produced by the Prussians have slowly begun to emerge in Europe, and Krupp's steel products have begun to enjoy a reputation for high quality and low price, and thirty years ago, they were ridiculed by the British, and all kinds of inferior products imitated from Britain, so that the British Ministry of Commerce required the Germans to distinguish between the Germans in the export products that must be marked with German manufacturing.

Zhu Jinglun saw that the Germans seemed to have begun to reverse their image.

Zhu Jinglun saw the German inventor Nicholas? The circulating four-stroke gasoline piston engine invented by Otte was the foundation of the automobile industry in later generations, but it obviously has no use value now, and it will take decades of improvement before it can be put into practice.

And Werner? The generator invented by Siemens, which was invented by Siemens in January this year, was immediately sent to Paris to participate in the exhibition, hoping to promote it as soon as possible. The difference is that there are many kinds of designs for generators, and Siemens has designed the first generation of practical technology. This is also the cornerstone of the rise of the Siemens empire.

Zhu Jinglun had a long discussion with Siemens, telling Siemens that if he was willing to invest in China, he was willing to fund half of Siemens' funds and would be happy to be a partner of Siemens. Although Siemens was tempted, he himself did not have confidence in this product, because electricity is a huge problem, and without the support of power plants and long-distance transmission technology, the electric motor is just a toy that uses batteries.

In addition to these novelties, the main products of the Prussian pavilion were mechanical products such as steel tracks, Krupp train wheels, and some machine tool products, which were classified according to the classification of the Paris Expo, and they were divided into the fifth category, "Processed or unprocessed products such as mining, industry and forestry", and the 40th sub-category "Mining and metallurgy".

But what attracted Zhu Jinglun the most was a huge steel cannon in the middle, the Krupp cannon!

This cannon also belongs to the classification of mining and metallurgy.

Compared to the electric motors of Siemens, which belonged to the future, Krupp's cannon was clearly the star of its time.

Of course, in Europe, at this time Krupp is still unknown, at most there is some small fame in the metallurgical industry, everyone knows that he produces high-quality steel, the main product is exquisite German knives and forks, recently in the field of train parts quite accomplished, as for Krupp's cannon, before the German army defeated France, no one thought that the role of the cannon was greater than the rifle, and no one thought that Pruss could be compared with France, so the German weapon was not famous, this time Krupp's cannon was concerned by the audience, The main reason is his size.

The cannon was so large, more than three meters high, with a barrel length of five meters and six meters, and a weight of fifty tons. And such a steel monster, he can fire a cannonball weighing a thousand pounds.

In comparison, the largest British naval gun is 110 pounds, and the largest naval gun that Daming can produce is also 110 pounds, just to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with British warships in firepower, but Krupp's giant cannon is ten times that of British naval guns.

"This cannon is used for coastal defense, and the shells are extremely penetrating and can destroy the iron armor of ships."

Krupp, who had a simple personality, only wrote such a simple introduction on the leaflet.

After reading it, Zhu Jinglun smiled and said to the Krupp salesman: "I just called an ironclad ship to France, and you said that your cannon can sink an ironclad ship?" ”

The Krupp man bowed and said, "I'm very sorry, we don't mean to offend, it's just an advertisement, you don't have to take it seriously." ”

Krupp's salesman knew that Zhu Jinglun was an emperor of an Eastern country, although he didn't know much where the Ming was, didn't know the history and background of the Ming Dynasty, he was a professional engineer, he didn't need to know so much, he just needed to know that this was an emperor and maintain a certain amount of respect.

Zhu Jinglun smiled: "I'm serious, I want to know if you can produce naval guns, breech naval guns of more than 100 pounds?" ”

The salesman subconsciously thought for a moment: "100 pounds? Of course! ”

There was confidence in his eyes, confidence in his skills.

Zhu Jinglun said with a smile: "Very good, my country's ironclad ship is in Calais, I hope your company can send someone to visit, I hope that when I leave Europe, my warship can be equipped with Krupp cannons." ”

Naval guns are a high-priced, lucrative business, and the naval guns on a warship often mean hundreds of thousands of taels of sales, tens of thousands of taels of profits, the engineer immediately took over the business, and then took the trouble to ask Zhu Jinglun to sign the contract, and then asked about the contact.

Zhu Jinglun secretly said in his heart, the cooperation with Krupp began here, the purpose of buying the cannon was only preliminary, and when he saw the giant cannon at the expo, he made up his mind to introduce this technology into the Ming Dynasty, but how to let Krupp transfer technology, he had not yet thought about it.

Suddenly, a few Japanese figures appeared in Zhu Jinglun's eyes again, and suddenly Zhu Jinglun made a decision, maybe it's time to be more open.

At this time, he made a big decision, he decided to attract investment in Europe.

Zhu Jinglun didn't meet the Japanese, Zhu Jinglun left first, he saw that the Japanese seemed to be coming for him, maybe they were also from the East, and the Japanese wanted to get a firm presence here.

But Zhu Jinglun left early, not because he put up a fight, but because he felt that the location was wrong.

Before leaving, he explained to Chen Qiyuan: "Contact me with these Japanese, I want to meet them." Also, ask them what they are going to do in France? (To be continued.) )