Chapter 856: Pierre's Travels

Europe is not a big place, but there are a bunch of countries, large and small, crowded together. The relationship between countries and countries is only about interests, and if they can't get along, they will be on the go. Whoever has the big fist has the final say, and the one with the small fist can only endure it, pinch his nose to accumulate strength, and find a chance to get it back. Throughout the European Middle Ages, this was almost the case.

Pierre was a qualified diplomat, and because of this, he was able to adjust his foreign policy in time after witnessing a vast and powerful empire on the train. Those who should bow their heads bow their heads, although the Ming Dynasty is far away, their influence in Europe should not be underestimated. Far from it, the war between France and Spain alone, after the French army purchased arms, basically reversed the situation, and Spain was already pressed to the ground. It's only a matter of time before you throw in the towel.

While thinking about foreign policy matters, I have to worry about how to convince His Majesty the Emperor when I go back? Originally, France and Mongolia had reciprocal diplomatic relations, and even France still had a sense of superiority. Now this sense of superiority has been smashed, and the gap is indeed a bit big. It's like going to the kingdom one day, being pressed to the ground and beaten for more than 100 years, which directly creates a psychological shadow.

The psychological gap between the French is very large, and it is also the cultural center of Europe, and as a result, a group of nobles arrived in the Ming Dynasty, and it became the feeling of rural people going to Shanghai during the Republic of China. The European aristocrats on the entire train were unexpectedly collectively silent.

Reaching out and pulling the rope, the electric light in front of him turned on, this thing was too terrifying for the French nobles. There are too many people who have been scared beyond their cognition. So on the train, there are still many people talking in private, and they are congested in the hotel after all kinds of timidity. It's not a good feeling to be looked down upon. The key is that those who look at them with white eyes are ordinary waiters in the hotel, who serve them. It's like the shame of a nobleman in the French countryside who arrived in Paris and was looked down upon by the servants of the Parisian aristocracy.

"I must let His Majesty the Emperor know all this." Pierre muttered to himself, looking out the window at the night. With a Daming version of a pen and notebook, he began to record the bits and pieces of his Daming execution. Of course, there are a lot of personal brain supplements in this, for example, when I saw the train, I thought that the Ming Dynasty had endless steel production, and when I saw the steam engine, I thought that the Ming Dynasty was much ahead of Europe in terms of technology. Record a little bit of the night you see on the streets of Shanghai, the kind of night with brilliant lights, and the crowds of people on the streets. As well as the city of Daming, where everything seems so clean and tidy, and so on.

As he recorded these contents, Pierre could not hide his anxiety and sense of urgency. Only three nights after he came to Daming, he had already let out a strong cry in his heart: "France needs everything from Daming, but we don't have so many precious metals to pay for the goods." Learning and catching up has become the historical mission of this generation of Frenchmen. ”

"This vast empire, their actual leader is not the emperor, the man on the dragon chair is essentially a symbol. It is said that in a day and a night, I will be able to meet the greatest prime minister of today's cabinet, according to the Ming officials. How to face him. No clue at all. May the Lord bless and show the way. ”

"Today the train passed through a river. The river is yellow, and a Ming official told me that this river is called the Yellow River, and it is the birthplace of Chinese civilization. Their ancestors lived here 5,000 years ago and created a civilization that continues to this day. Five thousand years. As far as I know, only the history of Egyptian civilization can be compared. Unfortunately, the Ming Dynasty is still a great empire dominated by Chinese civilization, what about Egypt? When I think of Egypt, I am reminded of what His Excellency Zhang Guangde once told me. An army of the Ming Empire has occupied all of Egypt. There, 50,000 men of the Japanese Legion, whom they called second-class people, defeated the Ottoman Empire, which had once feared all of Europe. Well, that's not the point, the point is that when I crossed the river, I found out that the bridge was made of steel. The accompanying officer told me that the superstructure of the bridge was made entirely of steel. ”

The importance of steel to a country, from the day it was discovered and used by humans, the production of steel is often linked to a country's hard power. Of course, there are exceptions, but Pierre doesn't know that there is a more strange dynasty called the Song Dynasty in the history of Chinese civilization, and he doesn't know that the Ming Empire has also fallen to the same level.

Europeans' understanding of China is more at the level of a travelogue written by a guy named Marco Polo. As for how much water is in this travelogue, Europeans can't tell anyway. What Pierre knew was that the Ming Empire was built on the basis of driving out the powerful Tatars, and was now the master of the Tatars.

It is said that less than a hundred years passed from the time the Tatars dominated the country to the completion of this great feat. For medieval Europeans, the "Yellow Peril" was basically synonymous with nightmares. When the Ming Empire, after solving the problem of the Tatars, received a maritime provocation from a small European country, which triggered a maritime revolution of the Ming Empire.

Well, these understandings are all based on what others tell Pierre. Anyway, the officials of the Ming Dynasty understood it this way, about thirty years ago, the Dutch people came uninvited, occupied the island of the Ming Dynasty, not to mention the officials, and frequently invaded the coastline of the Ming Dynasty with warships. This move angered the Ming Dynasty, thus triggering an explosion of the Ming Dynasty's maritime power. Just one outbreak, the sea power of the Ming Dynasty has become a well-deserved maritime hegemon in the world today in just 20 years.

The Daming official who told this matter looked relaxed, and it seemed that it was very simple for Daming to do these things. The problem is, Pierre believed. Because what he learned from Europe, it was roughly the same. The originally mild-mannered Ming people even tolerated the deception of the Portuguese, but it is a pity that those Dutch fools awakened the tyranny of the Ming Dynasty in another way.

During the two-day and three-night train journey from Pukou to Jingshi, Pierre constantly asked questions during the day, recorded them, and summarized them in the evening, summarizing a passage based on his own understanding. When the officials on the train informed him that he had arrived at his destination, Pierre was standing in front of the window and the train had slowed down. A huge city appeared in his sight. The tall walls were like a huge beast lying on the plain. And the outskirts of the city are not desolate, a straight road runs parallel to the railway, and there are dense dwellings on both sides of the road.

"Why don't these people live inside the walls?" Pierre couldn't help but ask Zhang Guangde, who came to ask him to get off the car, and the answer he got was very simple: "There are too many foreign populations in Beijing." The expansion was too fast, and there was no suitable land in the city. These people relied on the Jingshi for food, so they had to live outside the city. Yesterday I heard news that Shuncheonfu was going to move to Tongzhou, a city not far to the east. This matter is said to have come from the cabinet, and Prime Minister Chen Daren said that Tongzhou would be regarded as a part of the Jingshi in the future. ”

Why is Jingshi expanding too fast? Pierre couldn't understand this question, because Zhang Guangde couldn't figure it out. So, Pierre cheered up. Straighten up your clothes and get out of the car. When I was standing on the platform, I saw someone waiting with a banner pulled. Zhang Guangde learned from his timely translation that this was a welcome ceremony organized by the Ming diplomatic department. The legendary prime minister of the greatest cabinet of the Ming Dynasty did not appear, and if you think about it, it is indeed impossible for this adult, who actually holds the power of the empire, to greet him.

It was Li Mingrui who presided over the welcome ceremony and read an official article, which was nothing more than the relationship between the law and the law. We should be friendly, work together, and so on. Nothing dry at all. Everyone has to stand up straight and deal with it with the best mental outlook.

What happened next was that Pierre was even more disappointed, he was loaded into a carriage and dragged to a hotel in the city, and after Li Mingrui disappeared, Zhang Guangde also disappeared. I asked the official who received it. People told him very unawares: "What's the hurry? Your Excellency Prime Minister has a lot of opportunities, and there are too many things to do, so how can you meet when you meet? Wait for the summons with peace of mind, remember to take a bath every day, and don't look like a wild man in the mountains. ”

The person who said this was an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Equivalent to the current director. Born as a scholar, where would he put barbarians in his eyes, his attitude was not very good, Pierre pinched his nose and had to admit it, especially about the bath, which made him ashamed for a while. The French did not like the trend of bathing, and it was His Majesty the Emperor who led it.

Thousands of miles away in France, the ghost knows that the rules of Daming are like this, if you don't like to bathe, you are a wild man? Do you speak with the feelings of the French people in mind? After resting for the night, I got up in the morning and continued to wait.

When Pierre waited helplessly, it was not without good news. The members of the delegation lived together and were not constrained in their movements. The only requirement is that in order to leave the embassy, you must first file a record, and then the diplomatic department will provide guidance and translation, except for some important and sensitive departments, and other places are open to them.

After figuring out this rule, Pierre immediately went to find Zhang Guangde's European concubine, Madame Rambouillet, but he didn't expect that this marquise didn't live here. As soon as the man got off the train, he took a few servants into a carriage, and then disappeared into the traffic of the Ming Jingshi. It's too much, like an undisciplined organization.

Soon Pierre knew another thing, the European ladies of the whole team, whether they had husbands or not, had already inquired about the news, and Pierre had not gone out to visit the Jingshi of the Ming Dynasty, they had already set off early in the morning.

At nine o'clock in the morning, Chen Xie habitually sat down on the big chair in the office, looked at the thick stack of documents waiting to be signed on the table, looked up at Wu Meicun who was standing in front of him and waited for his orders, and said, "Is there anything important today?" ”

Wu Meicun, who was born in a dignified jinshi, made Chen Xie a big secretary, which has always been criticized in the Ming Dynasty. But that was before, and now everyone knows that this position is a fat shortage. Wu Meicun is still the director of the office for the time being, and after the general election in September, he will be the person who will be appointed by the education minister. In other words, many people are now seeking this position but can't.

"The French delegation stayed, and Master Li kept complaining, being too polite to those barbarians. Burn a few of their dirty clothes, and still have to pay for it? Wu Meicun said this in a joking tone, Chen Xie immediately laughed, waved his hand and said: "Don't listen to his noise, he actually fell in love with the 200,000 special approval." Each French nobleman made three sets of Ming costumes as gifts, and this could not be changed. Even for those servants, a dress was a must for each of them. I just want to see what kind of sensation those Frenchmen can cause when they return to Europe in the clothes of the Ming Dynasty. Don't talk about this, where is Li Mingrui? ”

Wu Meicun said with a smile: "Just waiting outside, by the way, the people from the Ministry of Construction came again early in the morning, and the relocation project of Shuntianfu should have brought the planning map of Tongzhou." Chen Xie smiled and shook his head: "It can't be for this matter, those guys can't afford to be early, they must have come for the house and land left behind after the relocation of Shuntian Mansion." This is official property, tell them not to have crooked thoughts. The specific destination of that piece of land, Shuntianfu has long had an idea. So, if the people from the Ministry of Construction want to make a fuss about it, let's go to Suncheonfu to discuss. ”

It scares the eyes of a scarred prime minister who has been battered by high housing prices to play such a trick in front of a prime minister. Chen Ge Lao saw through their tricks at a glance, so let the two departments slowly bite each other on this piece of fat. If you want to take over Chen Xiangye's momentum, it is really in vain.

When Zhang Guangde yawned and walked into the cabinet compound, his mind was not very clear. This trip back to China to report on work is really a timely rain for Mr. Zhang, who has a lascivious and debauched lifestyle. The place in the Heroes Concession is a crime for him to stay. I don't know what European ladies think? They have organized groups to travel to the concession, and then brush a boss named Zhang Guangde. In fact, the purpose of these European ladies is very clear, that is, to get a quota from the Ming Dynasty luxury jewelry.

The goods that European merchants got in Xinghai City or Shanghai could indeed be sold at a good price when they returned to Europe, but those goods were civilian compared to the sources of goods in Zhang Guangde's hands. In order to show their status, the European aristocracy did not care about the price at all. Then the problem arises, the various products with the special words of the Ming royal family on the trademark are destined to become the top luxury goods in Europe. Getting a place to sell these limited quantities of goods was a lot of gold coins for European merchants. As for Zhang Guangde, this guy simply arranges only one agent for one country. (To be continued......)