Speaking of Catholicism, we have to mention the missionaries in China at that time, the famous one is Matteo Ricci, which we mentioned earlier.

In the 16th century, theology was still the dominant factor in European thought, and science was still in the primary. The purpose of the Jesuit education was to equip the missionaries with the knowledge necessary to demonstrate the existence of God. The spread of Geometry is a good example of this. The most wonderful thing about the Geometry is its rigorous logical system, and the missionaries studied the original in order to apply this formal logic to religious arguments. In the eyes of the missionaries, science was merely a means of understanding God.

Take, for example, Matteo Ricci and John Tong. At first, Matteo Ricci went to China only to preach for the sake of preaching, but it turned out to be quite unsmooth. Later, he changed his strategy and decided to adopt a curve missionary approach, opening the library to the public, displaying maps, promoting Western technology, etc., and then waiting for an opportunity to act, and immediately changed his situation. Matteo Ricci's actions not only attracted many ordinary people, but also attracted many intellectuals, and attracted a large number of Chinese scholars and doctors, and their influence became more and more significant. First, Qu Taisu followed him, and Qu learned and made the celestial globe and astrolabe with his own hands. Later, there were many people who studied mathematics from Matteo Ricci: there were the well-known scholar Gu Qiyuan, the prefect Wang Pan, the son of the famous scholar Li Xinzhai and his two students, and Zhang Yangmo, a student of the Hanlin Wang Kentang at that time.

When Matteo Ricci asked Zhang Yangmo to spread Christianity, Zhang Yangmu thought it was a waste of time, and he thought that teaching mathematics to enlighten the Chinese would be enough to achieve his goal. When Zhang Yangmo once wanted to translate "Geometric Originals", he was also rejected by Matteo Ricci.

However, after Matteo Ricci arrived in the capital, he found that if he did not provide Western scientific and technological knowledge to the Chinese scholar class, he would interact with each other negatively, and the people who came to visit him were far less than before, so Matteo Ricci had no choice but to translate with Xu Guangqi. It can be seen that the Chinese people are really completely immune to the culture of God.

Xu Guangqi and Matteo Ricci also attracted much attention when translating the "Geometric Original", and in the process of translation, many of China's highest-ranking officials and scholars participated in the discussion and discussion, such as Yang Tingyun, Li Zhizao, Ye Xianggao, Feng Yingjing, Cao Yubian, Zhao Kehuai, Zhu Zaibo, Wu Dashen, etc., and a look at Ye Xianggao knew that the status of these people was not low.

In fact, in the Ming Dynasty at that time, he himself did not reject Western learning, to Chongzhen 9 years (1636), Ming Dynasty officials and scholars entered the Catholic Church with 14 first-class members, 10 Jinshi, 11 lifters, and 300 students. In the 13th year of Chongzhen, there were 3 concubines, 50 palace maids, more than 40 eunuchs, and 140 royal families in the Ming Dynasty court and royal clans

More than one person. It is estimated that 40,000 or 50,000 people will join the church nationwide by the end of the Ming Dynasty. It can be seen that at the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was already a rather strong atmosphere of advocating Western studies and Western religions.

This is also the beginning of what Li Jiancheng is advocating and exalting overseas people is the officials of the Ming Dynasty are not very opposed, this is the time when the Ming Dynasty itself has actually begun to realize the wisdom of overseas people.

But then there was a death to this trend, because after Matteo Ricci's death, the church authorities in Macau did not allow missionaries to spread science under the pretext that they should be missionary. Matteo Ricci's successor was Long Huamin (formerly Nicolas

Longobardi was one such person, who advocated an open outreach to society, the development of believers, and demanded that those who entered the Church must abandon traditional Chinese customs. However, he and Matteo Ricci had different views on the issue of Chinese liturgy, which led to a dispute between the Catholic Holy See and the Qing government over Chinese liturgy, which eventually led to the prohibition of the spread of Catholicism.

However, there are positive and negative, and Matteo Ricci's successful experience made the missionaries realize that in order to succeed in missionary work in China, they must learn the Chinese language and writing, and respect the Chinese ritual customs of worshiping heaven, worshipping ancestors, and worshipping Confucius, and "the best way is to win people's hearts with scholarship."

As a result, most of the missionaries to China were well-educated people in the West at that time, and they had high attainments in science, and they took the propaganda of Western scientific civilization as an important means of preaching. The largest of these was the 7,000 books brought in by the French missionary Ginny Court in 1620, which included philosophy, theology, doctrine and other famous works, as well as many books on medicine, law, music, and mathematics invented today. The missionaries compiled and published the book and collaborated with Chinese scholars to write directly in Chinese and disseminate Western knowledge of the natural sciences to China. It was against this background that advanced firearms technology from the West began to be introduced to China.

The people who came to meet Li Jiancheng this time were Long Huamin, Jin Nige, (formerly known as Nikolai Terry) and John Tang. John Tong is also a celebrity, a Jesuit missionary in Italy, a Catholic Jesuit monk, priest, and scholar. He has lived in China for 47 years and has gone through two dynasties, Ming and Qing dynasties. After his death, he was buried on the left side of the Matteo Ricci tomb in Beijing, and the Kangxi Dynasty was named "Guanglu Doctor", and the official was a product (first-class genuine). In Cologne there is a former residence with statues. In the Italian Jesuit archives there is a large number of materials on him.

John Tang is a figure to be reckoned with in the history of cultural exchanges between China and the West, the history of Christianity in China, and the history of Chinese science and technology. With his pious faith, profound knowledge and outstanding talents, he has established an important position in the history of cultural exchanges between China and the West.

This man also wrote a lot during his lifetime, but his current name is not John Tong, which is a homonym of his name from 1622, and his real name is John Adam.

The three people that Li Jiancheng met can be said to be very learned and capable Westerners, and this meeting also happened to be a good thing that Jin Nige happened to come to China with books and met the emperor to summon him, for them missionaries, to be able to meet the emperor of the Ming Dynasty once is definitely a very significant thing, which is completely comparable to their pope's reception. The country of the Ming Dynasty was definitely a big country at the beginning of the 17th century, with a vast territory, prosperous commerce, and hundreds of millions of personnel, but he did not trade with foreign countries, which is also the reason why Catholicism had to squeeze into ancient China no matter how difficult it was.

This time, these three people came to see Li Jiancheng and prepared a lot of gifts, thinking about globes, telescopes, clocks and watches, among which the books carried by Jinnige were also among them, which they used to present to the emperor and use to curry favor with him Li Jiancheng.

Li Jiancheng himself also attached great importance to this meeting, and the standard was also very high, and the summons were directly conducted in the Imperial Palace. Long Huamin, Jin Nige, and John Adam also came to the center of the Ming Dynasty regime for the first time, and before they had time to sigh at the luxury here and were interrupted by a 'The emperor has arrived', all three of them saw someone coming out inside, and these three people also knew the etiquette of the Ming Dynasty for a long time in Daming, and they all knelt down to worship in their jerky Chinese: "Long live my emperor, long live long live!" ”

Li Jiancheng felt a little funny when he heard their words, it was a feeling to see these foreigners before, but now it is a feeling to see them, he is now the emperor, Li Jiancheng opened his mouth to let them live.

Only then did these three people stand up, and they only saw Li Jiancheng's face at this time, and they were surprised that the emperor of this ancient great empire was such a young child! Li Jiancheng ignored their surprise but said to himself: "Hehe, are you the missionaries that Mr. Xu explained?" Tell me what your names are and where are you from! ”

The first to stand up was Long Huamin, who said: "Back to His Majesty, I am a citizen of the Kingdom of Sicily. ”

This Sicily was not a country in Italy at that time, Italy in the 17th century was very distributed, Italy was roughly divided into the Papal States, the Duchy of Savoy, the Republic of Venice, the Duchy of Milan, the Duchy of Parma, the Duchy of Modena, the Marquis of Mantua, the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of Sicily, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and the ** Republic. Among them, the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of Sicily, and the Duchy of Milan belonged to Spain. The rest belonged to the local Italian princes.

Then John introduced his name and said that his name was John Adam, and although he was an Italian, he was born in Cologne, Germany. Kinney Court was not an Italian, he was born in what is now the French city of Douai, which is located in Flanders. This era was still under Spanish rule. They told Li Jiancheng their names and where they came from one by one, and Li Jiancheng roughly learned about their birthplace.

The seventeenth century was an era of colonialism, with the discovery and refinement of universal solutions to cubic and quadratic equations, and the use of imaginary numbers for the first time. This is the biggest breakthrough in algebra since the Greek Diophantus. This era is also the origin of calculus, one is the tangent problem (the central problem of differential calculus) and the other is the problem of quadrature (the central problem of integralism), which bridges the two and is the beginning of calculus.

Calculus in the 17th century had serious logical difficulties that led to criticism from many quarters. It is based on the theory of limits, and Newton and Leibniz's concept of limits is very vague. What exactly is the limit and what is the infinitesimal was a fundamental problem at the time. Still, calculus' triumph in practice is convincing enough. Most mathematicians put aside their logical foundations for the time being and went forward to open up this new field.

However, these things appeared in the mid-17th century, caused by Newton and other cattle people, Li Jiancheng felt that he lived to meet these cattle people at that time, and there should be no problem in asking for autographs or something!