"Liang Gongzi, what did you just say that surprised this color-eyed man so much."

Seeing Liang En's direct words, which shocked the people who had not been expressionless before, Dong Xiancheng was very curious about what he said could actually cause such an effect.

He said that he came from a city-republic called Florence, and was sent to the East by its ruler, an organization called the Council of Elders, to seek an object of trade. The other party should not have expected that I knew so much about them, so they were surprised. ”

Liang En nodded slightly, and then translated what he had just heard to the county officer.

"At the same time, he claimed that he was captured by the previous group of pirates, and all the things on his body were taken away, but his credentials and ring that could prove his identity should still be on the pirate ship."

After saying that, he asked the rescued captives to roughly describe what the two things looked like.

"Oh, if only there was something that could prove your identity." Dong Xiancheng nodded, then quickly wrote a few words on a piece of paper and handed it to Li Zhutou.

"Help me send this letter to Chito Fukuyama, and tell him that there is likely to be a credential and the identity seal of an envoy from a certain country in Taixi on the ship, and let him find it as much as possible."

"Yes!" After receiving the letter, Li Zhutou gently tapped his left chest with his right hand, and then simply turned around and walked out of the room, and after a while, Liang En heard the sound of horses' hooves walking farther and farther.

"Okay, we have to confirm the identity of the other party before we can move on to the next step, so what did you just say he was from in that country?" After watching Li Zhutou leave, Dong Xiancheng took out a brush and stared at Liang En, his eyes full of thirst for knowledge.

Unlike the situation in this era of the modern world, the Confucian students in this world are not conservative, let alone those rotten Confucians who are looking for chapters and sentences, and it can even be said that they are extremely curious.

The reason for this is that the official ideology of the Great Song Dynasty is now called Yuan Confucianism, which according to Liang En, is a pragmatist Confucianism dressed in the skin of fundamentalism.

This faction originated in the late Southern Song Dynasty, when some Confucian scholars who were rescued from diving in Yashan got together and began to study why the Great Song Dynasty, which was so revered for Confucianism, destroyed the hands of the northern barbarians, and twice.

It may be because they have died once, but these people are finally able to let go of all kinds of messy external causes and start discussing the matter itself on a case-by-case basis.

After years of discussion, they realized that there was something wrong with the core of Confucian theory, and that Confucianism would not have a future unless the distortion of the Confucian core in the long process of transmission could not be changed.

So they discarded almost all the Confucian classics, only retained the classics of Zhou Gong and Confucius, and directly drew the true meaning of the oldest sages from them.

There is no doubt that the big families don't like these guys. Even though the Yuan Dynasty's near-zero management capacity did not allow this faction to suffer much from the authorities, there were still various private conflicts.

Frequent conflicts made it difficult for these Confucian scholars to gain a long-term foothold in a certain place, but as proto-Confucian scholars, they also found a way to cope with it in the classics - to follow the example of the sages and travel around the world.

Considering that there are everything in the wilderness of this world, from mountain thieves and water bandits to mountain spirits and sea monsters, and that critical weapons alone cannot solve practical problems, this group of Confucian scholars, known as the original Confucians, began to practice the six arts.

In addition, they walked among the people to spread their ideas such as Juntian and freeing slaves, and at the same time learned all the knowledge that could strengthen them and strengthen themselves.

Due to the management method of the Yuan Dynasty, the group of landlords without any control could naturally be uncontrollable, so although this group of original Confucians was rejected by local forces, they could always find allies in various places, and their strength was growing day by day.

What I didn't expect was that when the number of Confucian scholars who were willing to practice this Tao reached 10,000, their idea of merging into one actually communicated heaven and earth.

Some of the original Confucians, who studied Confucianism intensively, vaguely felt the existence of Confucius Sages, the seventy-two sages of Confucius, and the three thousand disciples in an out-of-body state, and learned a lot of knowledge from these sages.

Since then, Confucianism has mastered a method of cultivation known as Haoran Righteousness, which, compared to the art of cultivating immortals, does not make people immortal, but enables practitioners to strengthen their bodies and cultivate a body of Haoran Righteousness.

It's a pity that this kind of cultivation is not life-cultivating, and no matter how high the cultivation method is, it can at most deter some demons and ghosts, but when facing bandits, water bandits and all kinds of monsters, the effect is not so good.

At the same time, the ideological requirements also make them unable to practice Buddhism or Taoism after practicing Haoran righteousness, so that they have to spend effort to learn martial arts and other knowledge that they can learn in order to ensure their safety when traveling.

However, because of the Western expedition of the Mughal people, a large amount of Western knowledge was introduced to the East, so this group of Confucians gradually discovered that the magic system from the West did not need to have a certain concept to be able to learn.

As a result, a large number of original Confucian students began to learn magic and innovate on this basis, getting rid of the embarrassment that most people were powerless when they were alive and could only become the god of incense and fire randomly in the netherworld after death.

Compared with the traditional Chinese way of cultivation, the way of magic is difficult to learn and master, but fortunately, it is not a problem for Confucian students who have practiced Haoran righteousness, so Confucian and Taoist mages have gradually become the representative identity of this group of former Confucian students.

The power of Yuan Confucianism, which had magical powers, began to expand rapidly, until the great uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, under the leadership of Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen, he took refuge in Han Shantong and fought side by side with him, and finally established the new Great Song Dynasty, which also made Yuan Confucianism the official doctrine

At the same time, Yuan Confucianism also united with some Shinto forces, established the current Chenghuang system from top to bottom, and began to hunt down the Shinto forces of the former dynasty on a large scale - many of the so-called ghost kings were the gods of the former dynasty who did not want to submit.

In the yang world, the ideas of Yuan Confucianism became the core idea of the imperial examination, and most of the officials at all levels were held by these Confucian students who practiced Yuan Confucianism.

The Dong Xiancheng in front of Liang En was an official from a former Confucian background, so he maintained his curiosity about all kinds of new things, so when he learned that the group of people in front of him was from a country he didn't know, he wanted to know more information about their country from Liang En.

"The Republic of Florence, it's a very small city-state." Liang En communicated with the envoy in front of him, who claimed to be surnamed Medici, and at the same time introduced the Florentine Republic to Dong Xiancheng.

"The country is very wealthy, dependent on banks, money and wool textiles, but because of the small amount of land, all kinds of food need to be imported."

"Now the country is ruled by a council of elders consisting of 7 representatives of the Great Guild and 2 representatives of the Small Guild. Its leader is named Standard-Bearer of Justice and is also the commander of the Urban Self-Defense Forces. ”

"But in reality these rulers are all rich people, so the people of this country are having a very bad life. A few years ago, the impoverished carding workers even revolted, but it was suppressed—"

With Liang En's introduction, Dong Xiancheng began to record this knowledge in his notebook.

"The country of Tessie is called Florence, its territory is very narrow, but it is good at the way of colonization, and its country does not have the title of prince, does not follow the rules of the world, and pays the public opinion.

However, the public of this country is only for the rich, and those who are rich have a land of hope, and the poor have no place to stand, which is not a long-term way. ”