On the outskirts of Nagasaki, there is a small village called Beji.
There are a large number of wooden houses in the green mountains and green waters. These houses are no different from Japanese rural houses. But if you walk into the interior of the house, you will be surprised by the sophisticated European-style interior decoration of these houses.
In the innermost part of the village, there are small lakes under a hill, named Lake of the Holy Son. This is where believers wash their lives. A small stone wall stands on the north bank of the lake, and a small
waterfall flowing down.
There is a small island in the center of the lake. On the small island is a Western-style wooden building. A huge cross hangs on the door.
A wooden bridge connects the island to the shore.
This is the headquarters of a secret sect of Jili Zhidan (referring to the Tianzhu sect believers in Japan).
This place is located in the innermost part of the village, and the outside of the small lake is blocked by dense trees. It is absolutely hidden here.
A woman in a kimono and wooden clogs walked slowly towards a piece of bluestone by the lake. The bluestone was polished to be very smooth.
Her hair is draped over her back, tied with a silk ribbon and a bow at the nape of her neck. She wears a pink silk kimono with a pattern of cherry blossoms. The snow-white footwear on her feet separates her thumb and the other four toes.
Clamp the uprights of the clogs tightly.
Walking forward with small steps.
Behind her was a maid carrying a wooden tray with a piece of soap and some spices on it.
There is also a folded snow-white cotton bath towel.
Behind the maid was an elderly samurai with white hair and beard, holding a katana in his hand.
Walking to the lake, the old samurai man sat cross-legged on a stone, with his back to the lake and a samurai sword in one hand. He closed his eyes as if in trance, but his senses were always alert to every move around him.
The kimono-clad woman walked to the bluestone, and with the help of the maid, she took off her clothes, entered the clear lake water, and began to bathe with the help of the maid.
The soap foam spread on her snow-white skin, and a smile appeared on her lips, as if she had remembered something.
Judging from the round shoulders that are exposed above the water, the delicate collarbone, and the white and tender skin, she is a mature beauty.
At this time, she turned around, with a sexy oval face, it was Yang Fan's old acquaintance, Mrs. Yiyita who bought 30,000 nine-shot muskets from him - Sakurai Momo.
Taozi is twenty-three years old this year. She was widowed early and can only use power to fill the emptiness of the night.
With her day and night hard work, this small Jili Zhitan sect, which was originally established very late, has achieved great development.
On Kyushu Island, she already has 10,000 devout believers. Including their families, the number is no less than 70,000 to 80,000.
These people are the poorest class on Kyushu Island. Some of them are wandering samurai, some are bankrupt small traders, and some are farmers and craftsmen.
Unlike the Tianzhu sect that was introduced in the early days, those Western missionaries mainly made friends with daimyo and lords from various places, while the sect founded by Taozi took a different approach and took the lower-class route.
In an extremely hierarchical society like Japan, the people at the lower levels are suffering deeply, and their bodies and souls are in greater need of comfort and redemption.
There's no doubt she succeeded.
She married a general in his sixties at the age of fourteen, then gave birth to a child and became a widow.
She inherited her husband's small territory, which was the village and the surrounding 3,000 acres of paddy fields, as well as more than 500 people living here, including more than 60 retainers and warriors.
Because of her loneliness, she took refuge in Jili Zhidan, hoping to use it to relieve her endless loneliness and melancholy in the boudoir. However, she soon discovered another elixir to anesthetize the soul.
That is power.
She decided to preach on her own and founded her own sect, the Nagasaki Guardian Mission.
At this time, Japan's Jili Zhitan had formed many factions, large and small, and it was not easy to stand out.
But this didn't bother Taozi, so she decided to find another way, starting from the people at the bottom. After all, these people have been living in misery for life, and they need her guidance and salvation even more.
At this time, Jili Zhidan's prospects in Japan were very poor, and Taozi could be said to be the most unlucky successors in the drumming and passing of flowers.
At this time, the best golden period of rapid development has passed, because the rapid development of power has begun to arouse the vigilance and suspicion of the rulers.
In the second half of the 16th century, Tianzhu religion developed rapidly in Japan.
Dozens of daimyo converted to Christianity, and the number of Gilishitan believers grew to hundreds of thousands, not only throughout Kyushu and southern Honshu, but also gradually expanded to central and northeastern Honshu.
Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi successively adopted a tolerant attitude towards the development of Jilishitan.
In 1583, Hideyoshi even personally set aside a piece of land in Osaka for the Jesuits to build a church. Hideyoshi also had good personal relationships with several upper-level Jesuit priests.
But almost overnight, Toyotomi Hideyoshi suddenly changed his face.
On July 23, 1587, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who had just unified Kyushu, came to Hakata and met again on a Portuguese merchant ship, Father Coelho (ho), the head of the Jesuit Diocese of Japan.
The host and guest chatted happily.
However, in the middle of the night, the priest was suddenly awakened by Hideyoshi's envoy and was severely questioned, including: Why are the Japanese forced to convert? Why are Buddhist and Shinto temples demolished and destroyed? Why use such beneficial livestock as horses and cattle?
For food? Why did the Portuguese sell the Japanese into slavery overseas?
These questions are all nonsense. They are purely false, so there is no way to explain them clearly. Maybe this is the Japanese style of wanting to inflict guilt without excuse.
The next day, Hideyoshi issued the famous "Bantenren Order" declaring the Tenzhu Sect a cult and ordered all missionaries to leave the country within 20 days.
Tsuki Hideyoshi ordered the arrest of 26 priests and believers in Kyoto and Osaka.
And in February 1597, they were publicly executed in Nagasaki, the base camp of Gili Chitan, in the name of violating the ban on religion.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! This is the "Nagasaki Twenty-six Martyrdom Incident". From this point on, it kicked off the large-scale official purge and persecution of the Tianzhu Sect in Japan.
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After Hideyoshi's death, Tokugawa Ieyasu decided to ban Christianity in 1614. He accelerated the search for missionaries and believers in various places, causing many incidents of persecution.
In 1620, the Zhuin Ship Incident occurred during the period of the second generation Tokugawa Shogun Hidetada. In 1622, the ship owner Hirayama Tsunechan and the missionaries were burned at the stake by the shogunate, and all the crew members were beheaded. A month later, 55 missionaries and
The believers were arrested and later executed in Nagasaki, which is known in history as the "Great Martyrdom of Yuanwa".
After this incident, Taozi was keenly aware of the changes in the political winds. It was only a matter of time before the shogunate took action against Jili Chidan, but at this time, she was already in deep trouble and unable to escape.
She had only joined for more than a year, but she was already in a lot of trouble. Her late husband's status could not protect her. The grandson of the feudal lord Konishi Yukinaga received priesthood in Rome, but they were all later executed. Momoko already understood
, if you want to save yourself, you must rely on powerful forces, or have powerful strength in your own hands.
In order to protect herself, she carefully considered and turned her attention to the forgotten people at the bottom.
In the next six years, she vigorously preached at the grassroots level. Her special status provided great convenience, and the number of believers increased from a few to more than 10,000.
Including their family members, the total number is as many as 70,000 to 80,000.
Secret communication, single-line contact, and going deep into the grassroots became Taozi's main strategy and achieved success.
A huge secret sect requires huge funds to maintain its operations. Nagasaki was the center of East Asian overseas trade in this era. She set her sights on maritime trade.
With people, she will naturally hope to have advanced weapons to arm herself.
Only firearms could allow her to sleep peacefully. So she came to Ming Dynasty and met Brother Xu Guangqi under the introduction of Western missionaries.
Finally, she came to Zunhua and brokered her first major arms order with Yang Fan, the sale of 30,000 nine-shot door guns.
This chapter has been completed!