On the way to Macau, Siu Ruxun became interested in the world map presented by Matteo Ricci. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

"This is, the world you're talking about?"

Xiao Ruxun held the world map that Matteo Ricci presented himself, and felt a little emotional.

He has seen a lot of world maps, and he doesn't think it's strange at all, but in the Ming Dynasty of this era, there are very few people who know the concept of "world", and everyone is still stuck in the theory of the round sky and the center of China a long time ago, "China" in this period does not refer to China in the modern sense, but the empire in the center of the world, and the ancient Chinese believed that the land under their feet was the center of the world, and they were the most powerful countries, so they were called so.

Until now, the people of Daming still believe that they are the center of the world, and after understanding this, Matteo Ricci drew such a complete map of the world according to the minds of the Chinese, placing the place where China is located in the center of the entire map, which means the central empire, which is very in line with the taste of the Daming scholars, and they also know for the first time that there are so many continents in this world that can only be reached by sea ships.

In fact, in the sense of the East and the West, anyone in the center can be, but the orientation of the drawing is different, but in the eyes of the Ming Dynasty, I am the strongest in the world, and I must be in the center of the world, otherwise it will not work!

Matteo Ricci also worked hard enough to make the Chinese accept the theory of geography, and it can be said that he was one of the Western missionaries who came to China during this period who understood the rules of Chinese society best.

"Yes, General, this is the Great Ming Kingdom."

Matteo Ricci said, pointing to a large piece of land in the center of the map.

This world map only has the prototype of a modern world map, and many places look weird, and these Europeans themselves have not figured out what the world is like, but with the prototype, they can generally understand some things, so Xiao Ruxun asked: "Where is your country?" By the way, are you a Franco? ”

Matteo Ricci was stunned for a moment, and didn't know how to explain it for a while, thought about the wording, and said: "No, general, the old man is not a Franco, Francois is called a Spanish person in our place, and no one here in Daming should be clear, in fact, Francois is two countries, which were merged into one country not long ago, and now it is more appropriate to call it Spain, and the earliest Francois has now been annexed by the Spanish." ”

"Annexed? Francois was unbeatable at the beginning, and now he is being ...... by this. The Spanish were annexed? ”

Xiao Ruxun didn't know how to translate the Spanish pronunciation according to this pronunciation, so he could only use Spanish instead, anyway, it was almost the same.

Spain? The literal translation ability of Chinese is really strong......

Matteo Ricci speculated.

"Yes, more than ten years ago, the country of the Francois was annexed by the country of the Spanish, so now these two countries are one country, the people in Luzon are the Spanish, and the people in Macao are the Francos."

Xiao Ruxun pretended to be suddenly enlightened.

"It turned out to be two countries, so, it seems that we were mistaken before, where are the Spanish and Francois people?"

Matteo Ricci pointed to the location of the peninsula in the lower left corner of Europe.

"This is the homeland of the Spanish and Franco, and now all belong to the Spanish country."

Xiao Ruxun nodded, and then asked, "It's far away from Daming, how did your ship come from here to here?" What is the route like? ”

Matteo Ricci stretched out his hand and drew a line from Europe, over the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, and then to the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, which was his route.

"That's how it came about, it took months, and there was a storm on the road, and I almost lost my life."

"It's thousands of miles away, and there are so many hardships and dangers in between, why the hell are you here? Isn't it good to stay in your hometown? Why do you have to come to Daming from such a distant place? What is the purpose? ”

That's the most important question, right?

Matteo Ricci speculated.

This general is not easy to fool, and he is afraid that he can't easily explain what he says to others, so he probably has to tell the truth, otherwise he may not be able to please himself if the general hears a problem.

Matteo Ricci very much wanted to meet the emperor of China and achieve his goal, and this general came from the capital of China, which means that he has the qualifications to meet His Majesty the Emperor, if he has a relationship with this general, maybe he can satisfy his desire to meet His Majesty the Emperor.

So Matteo Ricci honestly confessed.

"We are actually equivalent to the monks of our country, and the monks of your country are the same, they are all devout believers who believe in God, monks believe in Buddha, we believe in God, and the purpose of our coming to Daming is to spread our faith in Daming, so that more people can believe in God, so as to bathe in the glory of God."

He used easy-to-understand language to link Catholicism and Buddhism, helping Xiao Ruxun to understand, because the word God comes from the Four Books.

Xiao Ruxun closed the world map, reached out and picked up the globe and began to fiddle with it.

"I probably understand what you mean, what you have done, those monks and Taoist priests have also done, and there is no shortage of people who believe in the Buddha and the Three Qings in the Ming Dynasty, simply put, you are here to promote the religion you believe in? Is your religion called God's religion? ”

Matteo Ricci nodded: "Yes, it can be called the Cult of God." ”

"What kind of god is this God?"

Matteo Ricci said: "God is called Jesus, the Son of God, who lived in a time of long, long ago, who preached good doctrines and taught people to follow the path of goodness and thus get out of the abyss of suffering, but in a catastrophe, Jesus sacrificed himself, but although he sacrificed, his teachings his spirit remained, and his followers continued to spread his teachings, continued to follow in his footsteps, and never forgot his teachings." ”

Xiao Ruxun continued to fiddle with the globe and said: "Actually, I don't believe in any religion, and I don't really believe that there are gods in this world, if there are gods in the world, why are there so many disasters and disasters in the world, and there are so many devout believers, but I can't see the gods come to the rescue?" ”

"That's because people are born with original sin, and the suffering they go through is original sin, and they must go through the torment of these sufferings in order to atone for their sins, and all the suffering they experience is not accidental, but inevitable, because we must go through suffering in order to receive God's salvation."

Matteo Ricci then began to preach because he found it interesting.