December 25 is only five days before the New Year's Day. Pen%Fun%Pavilion www.biquge.info Five days is not a long time, but it is not a short time. During this period, Yuan Keli met again, and the next day he left south for Huai'an to take up his post.

When Yuan Keli resigned, Zhu Daming explained to him the strategy of recruiting a large number of people from Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan and Shandong, and then cultivating troops along the river and along Huaitun, and allowed him to intercept part of the canal tariffs for the preparation of Cao Ying, and also granted him the right to perform secret folds, gave Shang Fangjian, rectified the soldiers and horses in the towns of Jiangbei such as Xuzhou, Fengyang, Huai'an, etc., under the jurisdiction of the governor of Caoyun, verified the soldiers, selected the elite, eliminated the old and weak, and so on.

The emperor's full trust in himself made Yuan Keli naturally grateful. Before leaving, according to the emperor's intentions, Yuan Keli went to visit Xu Guangqi again, took Xu Guangqi's handwritten letter, went to the agricultural institute in Tongzhou, and got a batch of sweet potatoes, potatoes and corn seeds, at the same time, at the invitation of Yuan Keli, Wang Zheng and Xu Ji, who are now in charge of the agricultural institute instead of Xu Guangqi, also sent a few people to Yuan Keli to guide the planting of these crops. Yuan Keli also promised to set up a farm office in the Yamen, the governor of Caoyun, to guide and promote the cultivation of new high-yield crops.

Xu Ji is Xu Guangqi's son, so there is no need to say much. Speaking of Wang Zheng, most people don't know, but Zhu Daming happens to know this person. This Wang Zheng is Xu Guangqi's New Year's friend, and he is another agronomist in the late Ming Dynasty. Of course, this man was also a Catholic, one of the few scholars in the history of the late Ming Dynasty who knew a little bit about Western studies.

As the saying goes, things gather by like, people by groups, Xu Guangqi is a tall plane tree, after Zhu Daming arranged him in the position of the Ministry of Rites, those who have a bad career, are devoted to Western learning, and are good at practical geeks, have come to Beijing, and gradually gathered under the command of Xu Guangqi, and now the Qin Tianjian and the Agricultural Institute under the control of the Ministry of Rites, the Ordnance Department under the control of Sun Yuanhua, and the Gunpowder Bureau, Ordnance Bureau, Firearms Bureau, Gun Factory and so on. It has also become a place where these talents who know some Western musket and artillery technology know.

Of course, Zhu Daming is very happy to see this. Therefore, when Xu Guangqi proposed that Wang Zheng be the governor of the Agricultural Academy, Zhu Daming fully agreed, and asked Xu Ji to be the co-governor of the Agricultural Academy, and told Xu Guangqi that in the future, all the affairs of the Qin Tianjian and the Agricultural Institute would be handed over to Xu Guangqi to be responsible.

Xu Guangqi was also overjoyed at the moment, and soon wrote a letter to recruit some talents who were familiar with Western studies, but did not go well in the imperial examination or had a poor career, to the Beijing teacher, such as Li Zhizao, Li Tianjing, Wang Zheng and others, which also included a group of Western missionaries, such as Pang Di'e, Xiong Sanba, Yang Mano, Julius, Deng Yuhan, Tang Ruowang and others, some were arranged to Qin Tianjian, some were arranged to enter the Agricultural Academy, and Li Zhizao and Li Tianjing entered the lecture hall under the recommendation of Xu Guangqi.

Of course, Xu Guangqi made a report about these situations afterwards, and before he reported it, Zhu Daming already knew about it. These Western missionaries, who looked very different from the Chinese, although they had learned Chinese and were dressed like the Daming scholars, wanted people to enter the Beijing division without knowing it, they might have been able before, but now it is impossible, Gong Yonggu and Fang Zhenghua are now well aware of the situation within the nine gates of the Beijing division through Jinyiwei and Dongchang.

The soldiers and horses of the five cities in the southeast, northwest, and central cities within the nine gates of the Beijing Division have long been in the hands of Liu Wenbing, the cousin of Emperor Chongzhen, in the purge of the eunuch party.

However, when Xu Guangqi came to report that the Western missionary John Tang had arrived in Beijing and was eager to come to the palace to meet His Majesty the Emperor, Zhu Daming was still very happy, and soon arranged a special time to summon John Tang in the study of the Qianqing Palace.

John Tang's outfit is completely like a Ming scholar, tall and thin, very slender, brown hair, black curly beard, about forty years old, except for a high nose bridge, deep eye sockets and gray eyes, there is no legendary German blonde and blue-eyed physical characteristics.

"Your Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, it is a great honor to be summoned by you!" After Xu Guangqi's introduction, Tang Ruowang said.

Listening to Tang Ruowang speaking Chinese awkwardly, Zhu Daming couldn't help but smile. If John Tong could not speak Chinese, then even Zhu Daming would not be able to communicate with him.

Of course, Zhu Daming of later generations knew a little English, and simple communication was fine, but unfortunately, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Britain was far from the so-called empire on which the sun never set, and English was just a dialect on a remote island in Europe.

Latin and French were prevalent in Europe at this time. And these two languages, for Zhu Daming, are real foreign languages.

Xu Guangqi was already very surprised that the emperor agreed to summon Tang Ruowang in person, but after seeing the emperor's performance when he summoned Tang Ruowang, he was even more surprised. He thought that the emperor would be a little surprised by the appearance of Westerners, after all, this emperor was born in the deep palace and grew up in the hands of eunuchs, and he had never left Beijing, nor had he ever seen Westerners.

But when it came to the end, he found that Zhu Daming was completely relaxed and natural, and did not have the fear or disgust that ordinary Chinese showed when they first met Western missionaries.

John Tong saluted the emperor like a Chinese minister, and the emperor showed respect for the Western missionaries. Watching the emperor and Tang Ruowang have a relaxed and happy conversation, Xu Guangqi seemed to have an illusion, and always felt that all this was unrealistic.

From Matteo Ricci to the present, Western missionaries have been coming to China for many years, but from the emperor to the common people, few people take Western missionaries seriously, and some even regard them as liars.

Now that the emperor's performance has made Xu Guangqi, a scholar who thinks he has insight into life and world, suddenly begin to believe in the so-called doctrine of talent concept theory of Westerners.

Being able to communicate with a semi-modern person makes Zhu Daming also have a feeling of crossing again. Westerners in this era have not looked down on or despised the faults of the Eastern nations, on the contrary, most Chinese in this era do not look down on the degree of civilization of Westerners.

Of course, others may underestimate the energy of these Western missionaries, but Zhu Daming, who came from later generations, will not underestimate them. These Western missionaries were able to come to China, and each of them was selected by the Holy See.

At this time, Europe was in the midst of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and they admired the distant oriental learning very much, lest the missionaries sent would lose the face of Europeans, so most of the carefully selected volunteers were scholars and expert missionaries who knew astronomy and geography very well.

For example, in history, Tang Ruowang, who entered the post of Qin Tianjian in the third year of Chongzhen, not only translated Galileo's "Distant Mirror Theory" into Chinese and introduced it to China, but also knew how to manufacture artillery, wrote "Fire Attack Essentials", the most authoritative monograph on casting Western cannons in the late Ming Dynasty, and introduced all the European manufacturing methods and fire attack strategies to China at that time, and in the eleventh year of Chongzhen, that is, in 1638 AD, with the Chinese scholar Li Tianjing mentioned earlier, He cooperated in the translation and publication of the 16th-century European mining and smelting technology masterpiece "Mining Encyclopedia", which is called "Kunyu Gezhi" in Chinese.

In addition to John Tong, several other Western missionaries were also more modern than a cow, and in seventeenth-century China, there was absolutely no one more modern or more modern than them.

Since they are in China, and they are willing to be used by the imperial court, wouldn't it be a typical tyrannical thing not to use them? Of course, these Western missionaries are not pure good intentions, they naturally have selfish intentions and have their own goals, but for this, Zhu Daming is not worried at all, what is the attitude of the Chinese towards religion in their hearts, he knows better than anyone in the world at that time, and he is not at all worried that these missionaries will lead the Chinese culture that has been stretching for thousands of years astray.

Therefore, Zhu Daming not only did not have too many missionaries from Germany, Italy, Portugal and other countries sent by the Holy See. At the end of the summons, Zhu Daming told John Tang and asked Xu Guangqi to tell the missionaries to ask them to write to the Pope or to relatives and friends to recruit some talents for His Majesty the Ming Emperor in the fields of mining and mining, firearms manufacturing, and military command, and the Ming Emperor would not only pay a considerable remuneration, but also grant certain official positions and titles according to their talents.

The words of the Ming Emperor, conveyed by Xu Guangqi and Tang Ruowang, soon spread among these missionaries. At this time, the Jesuits in Beijing regarded the Ming Emperor's reception of John Tang as a milestone for the Jesuits to come to China to preach, so they wrote letters to the Pope, or to the kings of their own countries, trumpeting that the Ming Emperor was more enlightened than they imagined, and asked for help in recruiting a group of priests, retired military officers or arms dealers on the verge of bankruptcy in Europe, to the rich Eastern Empire of the Ming Dynasty to spread European civilization.

Of course, these things are not something that Zhu Daming can understand after the interview.