Last time, I mentioned that "general affairs" occupied an extremely important part of the foreign trade of the Ming and Qing dynasties, but it is still strength that determines the country's foreign trade policy!

By the beginning of the 17th century, the commercial supremacy of the Portuguese in the Far East had begun to decline, as their merchant ships were repeatedly plundered by Dutch fleets in the Far East. At the same time, the Portuguese wanted to unite with the British to contain the Dutch in order to maintain their leading position in trade with China.

However, the British were not stupid and were not willing to be used as guns by others, so they decided to find another way to open up the situation, and even tried to break into the Chinese market with the help of the Portuguese, who had monopolized trade with China for a long time. This means that all cooperation between the Western powers must be based on the distribution of interests.

In 1635, the British East India Company reached an agreement with the Portuguese governor who occupied Goa, India, and agreed to allow British merchants to enter and leave Macao freely to trade with the Ming Dynasty of China. On December 12 of the same year, King Charles I of England issued a decree appointing Captain Weddell as commander and leading six ships to China. Weddell's fleet set sail from London on 14 April 1636 and anchored outside the Cross Gate south of Macao on 27 June.

The sudden arrival of British merchant ships made the Portuguese feel very embarrassed, because they were worried that the British would take advantage of their brain fever after defeating the Spanish "Armada" to expose the stinking problems of the "old Europeans", and even show off their force in Chinese waters brutally, which made the Chinese feel disgusted.

As a result, the Portuguese took the opportunity to try their best to slander the British in front of the Ming officials, saying that the British were "red-haired ghosts" or "red-haired people" (Dutch), and they tried to make trouble and should be expelled. At the same time, the Portuguese sent patrol boats from Macao to patrol the vicinity of the British ships and prevent the British from trading.

Weddell saw that there was no hope of trading in Macao, so he set off for Guangzhou at the end of July. On August 8 of the same year, the British ship arrived at the Ya Niang Shoe (A

u

ghai) was discovered, causing the defenders of the Humen Fort of the Ming Dynasty naval division to fire a warning gun, demanding that the British merchant ships leave the waters of Guangzhou immediately.

However, Weddell deliberately provoked the incident, and ordered the trade flag of St. George to be torn down, the military flag of the King of England raised, and put on a posture ready for battle, and then directed the fleet to bombard the Humen Battery. After storming the fort, the British tore down the Chinese flag, hung the British flag, and dismantled 35 cannons, which were carried to the ship as trophies. The British ships continued to penetrate deep into the river of Guangzhou, and this violation of China's sovereignty aroused the anger of the Guangzhou authorities in the Ming Dynasty.

On September 10 of the same year, the Guangdong coastal defense authorities sent three warships to rush at the British convoy, firing artillery and rockets, forcing the British ships to slip away in a hurry. However, Weddell not only had no remorse for violating the inland waterway of the Pearl River, but instead intensified his indiscriminate and violent abuse, believing that his strength was invincible in the world.

By September 19, after setting fire to three Chinese sailing boats in the Humen area, the British burned down a town and looted 30 pigs.

On September 21, the British captured and blew up the "Yaniang Shoe Fort" in Humen and burned a galleon. When Wild had committed such a crime at Humen, he felt that it was no longer easy to deal with the Chinese, so he sailed his fleet to Macao, asking the Portuguese to intervene and turn the circle with the Ming Dynasty on his behalf.

On 22 November, the British agreed to China's demands in Canton, offering to pay 2,800 taels of silver, after all, this was also the result of the Portuguese trying their best to mediate. On the 30th, Weddell submitted a letter of guarantee to Chinese officials apologizing for the Humen incident and promising to leave as soon as the trade was completed.

Accordingly, the officials of Guangzhou in the Ming Dynasty decided not to prosecute him and ordered him to leave the waters of China as soon as possible after the end of the trade. On 29 December, Weddell's fleet left Macau and departed for China. In this way, the first exchange between China and Britain full of gunpowder came to an end, which made people laugh and cry.

In the face of a large number of Ming troops, only a few invading troops, and weapons were not particularly advanced, it was impossible for the British colonists to defeat the Ming Dynasty sailors, not to mention that when the Portuguese Empire was at its strongest, it had to be "bribed" to gain a place in the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, the Portuguese Empire, which had finally obtained the foothold of "Macao," absolutely did not want to see the prosperous British succeed in bringing business to China's doorstep, because after all, this seriously threatened its economic and trade relations with China, and if it was not good, it would be burdened and lose "Macao."

The Ming Dynasty had sovereignty over Macao, and through economic and trade exchanges with Portugal, it had advantages and many benefits in terms of taxation and weapons imports, so it did not bother to pay attention to other European powers. In particular, Jiajing relied on Wang Hong at that time, and the "Imitation of the Franco Machine Gun Campaign" carried out was very successful.

After Wang Hong imitated the Francophone gun, he was immediately favored by Emperor Jiajing, and quickly promoted him to the "Secretary of the Ministry of War" and "Secretary of the Ministry of Rites", thus becoming the only minister in the history of the Ming Dynasty who shouldered two positions. You must know that the "Ministry of Rites" is the head of the six, and the "Ministry of War" is the sword of the regime!

Although the status of a person who holds these two positions at the same time is not as important as that of the "first assistant", the actual power is not much worse than that of the "first assistant". Wang Hong also made a bold move to imitate the Franc machine cannon without fear of offending people, so that the Franc machine gun began to bloom everywhere in the entire Ming Dynasty from the southeast coast to the nine-sided town, from the north of the Great Wall to the end of the earth in the south. This led to a sudden increase in the military strength of the Ming Dynasty and resolved many crises.

The deformation weapons of various Franc machine guns emerged in an endless stream, and later under the promotion of Yu Dayou, Qi Jiguang and others, various formations also emerged in an endless stream.

Relying on the large-scale imitation of the "Fran machine", the Ming Dynasty achieved many victories in the anti-Japanese war and the war against Mongolia, which made the Ming Dynasty monarchs and ministers superstitious about the importance of weapons.

However, many scholars in later generations believe that it is precisely because of this thinking that the erroneous thinking of "weapon-only theory" appeared in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.

The main manifestation is that the "passive defense policy" of the Ming Dynasty has become the same as that of the Song Dynasty, "focusing on defense and supplemented by attack", so that the Later Jin Dynasty is pressing forward step by step.

Although firearms were invented in the Southern Song Dynasty, firearms could not resist iron hooves at all, and the "weapon-only theory" was wrong in any era, because it forgot that "weapons are used by people".

The key is that the rule of officials in the late Ming Dynasty has been corrupt, and the entire officialdom is full of selfish party struggles, and everyone is no longer working for the national court, but fighting for their own things. It is said that "three years of Qing Governor's Mansion, 100,000 snowflakes of silver." In fact, this may have been the same in the late Ming Dynasty.

Even the Donglin Party, which had a strong "spiritual power" at that time, also loved money, otherwise when Emperor Chongzhen ordered the killing of eunuch Wei Zhongxian and other "eunuchs" after coming to power, how could the more than 37 million taels of silver that were confiscated from his house not be seen? Many of them are also acting in a reckless manner for the sake of their own partisan interests.

Emperor Chongzhen faced the situation of "officialdom such as a shopping mall", he couldn't bear it, so he didn't trust anyone, and replaced the "first assistant" again and again, belittled his subordinates again and again, and finally ended up alone.

At this time, Portugal's weapons and military strength were displayed in the eyes of some people who still wanted to share the worries of the country and the people, the court and the emperor, after all, in the case of the collapse of Confucianism, asking Portugal to send troops became the most direct way to save the world, as long as you give money, you can do things, and you don't have to worry about rebellion.

In the late Ming Dynasty after the "opening up of Longqing", under the impact of the commodity economy, especially the impact of the "Wang Yangming Neo-Confucianism" school, "science" began to collapse. The most critical and core place of the "Song Ming Dynasty", and the most supported by the ruling class, is "loyalty to the monarch and patriotism", but it cannot resist the temptation of selfish interests.

Then, with the impact of psychology and commodity economy, the self has become the main body, and the order of the emperor and the country is not as important as the self.

Originally, "the heart does not move, but moves randomly" is the most powerful point of Wang Yangming's psychology, but in the environment of money worship, hedonism, and power supremacy, Confucianism, including psychology, can only collapse, after all, the feudal dynasty of China's "family world" is more authoritarian and decadent in the end.

The original purpose and fundamental purpose of Wang Yangming's establishment of "Wang Xue" is also to be loyal to the monarch and patriotism, but under the impact of the commodity economy, people's thinking has changed, and "Wang School of Mind" has become a sharp blade to destroy Confucianism, which is really funny, and it contrasts with "the world is full of knowledge, and the practice of human feelings is the article".

Now that Confucianism has collapsed, many Confucian scholars no longer think that Confucianism cannot be changed, and it is normal to become a Taoist and a Buddha, because both have a history of more than 2,000 years. However, it is relatively rare for Confucianism to become a European religion, but this is not uncommon in the late Ming and Southern Ming dynasties.

For example, Xu Guangqi, Zheng Zhilong, Sun Yuanhua and a large number of other figures abandoned Confucianism and entered Catholicism. In particular, Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao, and Yang Tingyun (Christian name Migel) were the "three pillars of Catholicism in China" in the late Ming Dynasty, and Xu Guangqi was the biggest and most powerful protector of the Jesuits in China.

Xu Guangqi's entry into the church was the greatest achievement of the Jesuits who entered China under the guidance of the "upper line" of Matteo Ricci and others. It took them eight years, from 1595 to 1603, to finally convert Xu Guangqi to Catholicism under the Christian name Paul.

In 1605 (the thirty-third year of Wanli), Xu Guangqi was admitted to the Jinshi and became a scholar of the Hanlin Academy, and finally became a scholar of the Ministry of Rites, a scholar of the East Pavilion University, and a second assistant of the cabinet. It can be said that during the Chongzhen period, the introduction of artillery technology from Macao, the imitation and the formation of Portuguese mercenaries (12 of the 27 people were killed, and 15 people escaped after the destruction of Dengzhou City) and other events, almost all of them were organized by Xu Guangqi, Sun Yuanhua (Christian name Yinajue) and others, in order to save the Ming Dynasty.

Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao, Sun Yuanhua and others were all introduced and introduced by Western firearms in China, especially Sun Yuanhua. With Macao as the core, they organized the introduction of Western weapons several times, and at the same time, the Portuguese and Chinese in Macao also participated in the battle to defend the Ming Dynasty.

But in the end, no matter how good a weapon is, it needs to be used. Therefore, in the late Ming Dynasty, under the environment of "party struggle", financial and military strength, loyalty to the emperor and the imperial court, and faith in the Confucian world collapsed and irretrievably failed. The only way to avoid the collapse of the Ming Dynasty was to overhaul politics.

Although Portugal sent troops from Macau and carried the most advanced weapons to serve the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty eventually died. It can be seen from this that weapons can only make the enterprising person successful and stronger, but not the seriously ill person to become healthy and strong. Therefore, the "weapon-only theory" can be put to rest.

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Haha, thank you for your attention, collection, recommendation, subscription and review of this book! As an author, I am very happy and honored to provide readers with a novel that meets the needs of the general public. As the saying goes, "Life is short, but the tip of the pen is slender." "Therefore, the road to cultivation is long, where to find immortality? There is nowhere to go for troubles, and read the people in the book! I hope that the novel "Heaven and Earth Let Me Go" series can bring happiness and insight to everyone!

This story is pure fiction, if there are similarities, it is a coincidence! Friends, the part-time job is hard, the time is urgent, the creation is not easy, like the collection, by the way, forward, want to know the plot? Next time I break it down! ("The book has its own golden house?") There are thousands of bells in the book? There is Yan Ruyu in the book"? Welcome to my book)