In the 11th year of Zhengde (1516), the Portuguese envoy Philot came to China for the first time. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

This means that the Age of Discovery opened, the Portuguese envoy Firot came to the Ming Dynasty, the arrival of the foreign envoy with white skin, red hair, blue eyes, deep eye sockets, and high nose bridge caused many onlookers, and his more than ten entourages were also ordinary, and many people thought that this was a group of red-haired demons running from the seaside.

Although foreign envoys came to the Chinese continent as early as the Sui and Tang dynasties, the real Europeans came to the Chinese continent during the Yuan Dynasty, the Italian Marco Polo visited, but after all, hundreds of years have passed, and there are very few people who really know that there are such aliens, if it weren't for the coastal officials who have heard that there are such foreigners in this world, plus the Portuguese envoy Philot will speak some lame Ming Dynasty dialect, I am afraid that he will be beaten to death as a red-haired demon.

In history, the arrival of the Portuguese envoy Firot was not personally received by the emperor, because the emperor was playing games with the concubines in the leopard room, but the current emperor is Lewen, he knows what the arrival of the Portuguese envoy means, so he sent someone to bring the Portuguese envoy to the capital to face the saint.

On the top of the Jinluan Palace, Lewen sat on the dragon chair, he smiled, and set his eyes on the Portuguese envoy Ferrot kneeling under His Royal Highness, only to see that Ferrot was dressed in a round-necked gown and pointed shoes on his feet, dressed like a medieval European nobleman.

It seems that he still understands the etiquette of the Ming Dynasty, and when he came to the Jinluan Palace to see the emperor, he first took off the high-brimmed top hat on his head, and performed a formal etiquette of a medieval Portuguese nobleman to the emperor above the main hall, and then used the etiquette of the Ming Dynasty to give His Majesty the emperor three bows and nine bows.

"My dear, His Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the Portuguese envoy Firot has bowed to you, may God bless you!" The Portuguese envoy, Firot, put on a pious look.

"Your envoy is flat!"

Lewen felt that although the words of the Portuguese envoy were lame, they were quite interesting, a bit of a combination of Chinese and Western, that is, he raised his hand and let him flatten.

"Thank you, Your Majesty the Emperor." The envoy Philot, holding a high-brimmed top hat in one hand, got up and gave Lewen another Portuguese courtesy.

The civil and military ministers standing on both sides of the Jinluan Hall looked at this blue-eyed red-haired Portuguese envoy, and their eyes showed a hint of strangeness.

"I don't know if your envoy has come to my dynasty thousands of miles away, what do you do?" Lewen sat on the dragon chair, the emerald green jade wrench on his thumb, slightly knocked on the armrest of the dragon chair made of gold, and said slowly.

When the envoy Philot heard the emperor's words, he smiled mysteriously on his face: "Back to His Majesty the Emperor, the envoy has brought a treasure from his first visit to your country, hoping to make a deal with His Majesty the Emperor." ”

"You red-haired ghost, so rude, you dare to make a deal with my emperor, do you want to die?"

Before the emperor could speak, the civil and military ministers standing on both sides were not happy, and the red-haired ghost was too bold.

Although in the eyes of the Minister of Civil and Military Affairs, he felt that this made the minister Feirot very rude, but the minister Feirot was a foreigner after all, where did he know what to avoid, and he was not fluent in language, so he spoke very directly, he came to Daming this time to make a deal with the emperor and make a windfall.

As soon as Le Wen patted the mountains and rivers, His Royal Highness's Minister of Civil and Military Affairs immediately quieted down, "Oh? ...... trading, what are the three treasures you are talking about? ”

"Yes, Your Majesty the Emperor, the little envoy brought a treasure, the scientific name of this treasure is corn." The envoy Philot proudly said three names that he had never heard of in the Ming Dynasty.

Although history records that the Portuguese envoy Philot visited China during this year, the purpose of his visit is not recorded at all, and there are different speculations about how corn and this crop were introduced to China.

As for how corn was introduced to China, in 1492, the navigator Christopher Columbus discovered the New World of America, brought corn back to Europe, and then spread all over the world.

Western scholars have speculated that there are two theories about the way corn was introduced to China: one is that it was introduced by land, that is, from Europe to Africa, and then through India to Tibet. then enter Sichuan; The other route is from Mecca through Central Asia to Xinjiang, and then into the interior. The second theory was first transmitted by sea to China's coastal provinces. And then gradually spread to the mainland. At that time, Portuguese merchant ships were active along the coast of China, and it was more likely that corn was imported by sea.

However, their speculation is also based on earlier Chinese literature, some of which are based on Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica", and some are only quoted from Tian Yizhen's "Liuqing Rizha".

In fact, there are rich records about corn in the records of various provincial capitals and counties in China. According to the records of the provincial chronicles and the county annals, corn was first introduced to China in Guangxi in 1531, less than 40 years after Columbus discovered America.

It was not until the end of the Ming Dynasty (1643) that it really spread to the provinces of the Ming Dynasty, that is to say, it spread for more than a century with the spread of corn, and the speed can be described as extremely slow.

In fact, the reason for the fall of the Ming Dynasty was very simple: the population at the end of the Ming Dynasty was approaching 200 million, and the space for food growth was exhausted, and it was difficult to bear, and there were signs of collapse in all aspects.

However, if high-yielding food crops such as corn, peanuts, sweet potatoes, and corn had been taken seriously by the emperor and spread across the Chinese mainland to alleviate the extremely tight food problem, the tragedy of 1644 might have been avoided.

For Europeans, the most important thing was the potato, which arrived in 1588, and for the Chinese, the most important thing was the high-yielding food crops such as peanuts, sweet potatoes and corn.

However, there is a problem that is difficult to explain, that is, since the Portuguese envoy's visit to China was to make a big deal, then why there is no record of anything in history about the envoy's visit, and at this time corn has spread on the European continent, but there is no such crop in the Asian continent.

But it's not surprising to think about it, it is likely that this Portuguese envoy did not get Zhu Houzhao's summons when he visited the mainland of China, and the coastal officials just made a record, even if the Portuguese envoy wanted to make a deal with the coastal officials, I am afraid that the coastal officials did not know what the corn he was talking about, so the Portuguese envoy's transaction was not completed.

But in today's Ming Dynasty, the one sitting on the dragon chair is not the Zhu Houzhao who likes to squat in the leopard room, but Lewen, who is familiar with history, so how will history change? (To be continued.) )