Chapter 46: Great filial piety, please follow up and ask for everything!)
Long Huamin and others shuddered. They always felt that this man was quite handsome and his smile was extremely gentle, but why did he make people feel crazy?
"It took a lot of effort to invite you all to come, and I ask for your sincere cooperation."
The evil voice came from the shadows of the hall, and all the missionaries were frightened.
No one dared to look directly into the shadows, only to see a terrifying father-in-law sitting there, his gaze directly piercing people's hearts. The wrinkles on his face trembled slightly, and his heartbeat almost disappeared for a second.
A stunned man with a bruised neck yelled: "They robbed and extorted us, and I want an explanation!"
"Um?"
The father-in-law stood up and was very angry.
Click, click, click. A group of uniformed guards and plainclothes thugs ran out from the backyard and surrounded the courtyard to the lobby.
The stunned man suddenly turned pale, and said obediently: "Those who are hardworking are blessed, and I am willing to cooperate."
Long Huamin thought to himself: "This spineless Venetian should not be allowed to join the Society of Jesus and come to the Ming Dynasty to work!"
The stunned Qing seemed to have known that Long Huamin would think so, so he turned around and pointed: "This Sicilian is the leader. He knows the most and his words carry the most weight."
"You, a Venetian merchant, are like this!"
"You Milan hugger, don't interrupt!"
"You Naples conservative guy..."
"You Florentine maverick..."
"Italy..." Wang Hongyu suddenly spoke, shaking his head as he spoke.
"With your behavior like this, Italy will always have an endless civil war, and then none of your expectations will be realized..." Wang Hongyu pointed out this issue directly, causing most missionaries to quiet down.
One of them replied: "We in Italy have our own national conditions, so we don't need people from the Ming Dynasty to tell us what to do."
"Humph~ Are you the only descendants of Rome like this?"
The Neapolitan said angrily: "How dare you call me Rome? Rome is still there and the Pope lives there."
"Stupid! The Roman Empire he is talking about is not the city of Rome. The Roman Empire is long gone, you despicable descendant of the Vikings." The Venetian yelled.
"You disgusting family of profiteers, the Roman Empire is still there. Holy! Rome! Empire! The HRE is doing well." Sicilians agree with the HRE.
"The HRE is neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. Roman orthodoxy is in Greece, and I, Florence, am the last to witness the Roman Emperor's friendship with the Pope."
A Florentine said that Byzantium was the authentic ancestor of Rome, and they came to Florence for exchanges just before the fall of Byzantium.
"Byzantium has been destroyed for more than 100 years. Now Rome is in Tsarist Russia. Those are the descendants of Byzantium and have inherited the orthodox culture of Rome."
"None of it is right!"
A voice with a different accent than before said: "Green Ra is Luo! Green Ra has inland seas and straits, Shinra has none!"
This Green Luo is exactly the Ottoman Empire that destroyed Byzantium. The Ottoman Empire is almost the opponent of most countries in Europe.
"This is blasphemy!"
"Treasonous and unethical!"
The other missionaries' necks suddenly turned red with anger, and they all turned around and glared at him.
Uh...it's that French guy!!!
"Harm~"
"No wonder~"
"You can do whatever you want~take care of your filial son~"
Everyone is filial, everyone understands~
It’s okay if you don’t understand. Anyway, France and the Ottomans are “iron-blooded allies” who have long-distance and close-attack relations. Of course, they can be sold at any time based on their weight.
Long Huamin's eyes flashed with deep meaning, he calmed himself down a little and said:
"Your Excellency can confuse our minds with just a few words. Should we call you a genius or a devil? I have seen through this method, and we will no longer quarrel among ourselves."
"I will reluctantly accept the prodigy, but there is someone else who is the devil."
Wang Hongyu smiled and waved his hand, and Li Tiezhu came in with a chime clock in his arms, put it on the table and placed it in front of the missionary.
"What does this mean? This clock is not ours..." a missionary asked confused.
"Open this clock. There is a secret letter inside."
Long Huamin thought for a moment, looked at the clamps, brushes, small hammers and other tools beside him, and then started to disassemble it. He disassembled it very slowly. After all, he didn't do this job very often, so every step was very detailed.
Li Tiezhu watched every step carefully from the side. It didn't matter if he hadn't disassembled it before. This wouldn't be a step-by-step demonstration. It would just take a while to practice a few times.
After a while, the chiming clock was taken apart, and there was a neatly folded piece of paper inside, which gradually unfolded from a small square to a paper nine times the size, which was the secret message just mentioned.
This is!
Long Huamin and other missionaries all gathered around and watched with wide eyes.
The letter was written in Chinese: "A group of people calling themselves Dutchmen, from the Dutch East India Company, say that you are all evil people, murdering witches, slaughtering cats, and burning scientists... I hope Ming Dynasty will expel you and leave it all to the Netherlands.
People take their place.”
Not only that, but a small illustration was drawn in the corner of the letter, showing a group of priests surrounding a burning stake, with a man being burned on it. The illustration also wrote a name: Burn Bruno.
In an instant, the seven missionaries were petrified on the spot. Each of them first broke out in cold sweat, and then their whole bodies turned red and trembled with anger.
The Netherlands is about the same size as the Netherlands, and in Europe it is in conflict with Spain, the HRE, Italy and the Pope.
At this time, the Spanish had been initially defeated and the East India Company was established to compete specifically for the Spanish and Portuguese markets.
They are Protestants, so they are very critical and hostile to Rome. Naturally, they have a never-ending relationship with the Jesuits, who are direct descendants of the Pope. The Jesuits do not hesitate to invest manpower and material resources in the East, and they have prepared for the Netherlands and other areas in advance.
It means to be the first to preach and win over the East.
These two purposes are also divided into two factions within the Society of Jesus.
One group is more stubborn and believes that the first task is to promote their so-called light. The other group is more pragmatic and believes that they should rely mainly on trade and science and technology to unite the East first.
Most of them, such as Long Huamin, are the first group, but now they know that their goal may be bankrupt.
Because the Dutch came to stab you in the back.
"These are all lies! It's the Dutch who are slandering!" the missionary from Naples was the first to roar.
"The Dutch are a bunch of traitors, heretics and evil, don't believe them." The Spanish missionary from Barcelona, who had been silent until now, became anxious when he heard about the Netherlands.
A few more missionaries directly denied it, but as they spoke, they lost confidence.
They are already undercover, and if the Dutch stab them in the back again, they may be expelled from the Ming Dynasty soon.
Wang Hongyu wanted to take advantage of this general trend to get these Italian and Iberian missionaries to compromise and change their attitude towards the Ming Dynasty, so that he could extract more wool from them.