"Mr. Liang, what did you say just now that made this lustful man so surprised?"
Seeing Liang En's direct words, the Semuren who had been expressionless before was shocked. Dong Xiancheng was very curious about what he said that could have such an effect.
"That's it. He said that his identity came from a city-state republic called Florence, and was sent by the local ruler, an organization called the Council of Elders, to the east to find objects that could be traded. The other party should not have thought that
I was surprised how much I knew about them."
Liang En nodded slightly, and then translated what he just heard to the county magistrate.
"At the same time, he claimed that he was captured by the previous group of Semu pirates, and all his belongings were taken away, but his credentials and the ring that can prove his identity should still be on the pirate ship."
After he finished speaking, he roughly described what the two things looked like by asking the rescued prisoners.
"Oh, it would be nice if there was something that could prove my identity." Dong Xiancheng nodded, then quickly wrote a few words on a piece of paper and handed it to Capt. Li.
"Send this letter to Chito Fukuyama for me and tell him that there is probably a certificate of credence and the identity seal of the envoy from a certain country in Western Europe on the ship, and ask him to try to find it."
"Yes!" After taking the letter, Capt. Li tapped his left chest gently with his right hand, then turned around and walked out of the room. After a while, Liang En heard the sound of horse hooves walking farther and farther.
"Okay, we have to confirm the identity of the other party before we can proceed to the next step, so what is the name of the country you just said he came from?" After watching Capt. Li leave, Dong Xiancheng took out a writing brush and stared at Liang En
, eyes full of thirst for knowledge.
Different from the situation in this era of the modern world, the Confucian scholars in this world are not conservative, let alone those rotten Confucians who seek to extract chapters and sentences. It can even be said that they have an extremely strong thirst for knowledge.
The reason for this is that the official ideology of the Song Dynasty is now called Yuan Confucianism, which according to Liang En is a pragmatic Confucian scholar disguised as fundamentalism.
This sect originated in the late Southern Song Dynasty. Some Confucian scholars who were rescued from diving in Yashan got together and began to study why the Song Dynasty, which respected Confucianism so much, was destroyed by the northern barbarians, and twice.
Perhaps because they died once, these people were finally able to put aside all the messy external causes and start discussing the matter itself.
After several years of discussion, they realized that there was a problem at the core of Confucian theory. If the distortion of the core of Confucianism during the long process of dissemination could not be changed, Confucianism would have no future.
So they abandoned almost all Confucian classics, retaining only the classics of Zhou Gong and Confucius, and directly absorbed the true meaning of the oldest saints from them.
There is no doubt that those aristocratic families do not like this group of guys. Even though the management ability of the Yuan Dynasty was close to zero, this faction did not suffer much official blow, but various private conflicts still continued.
Frequent conflicts made it difficult for these Confucian scholars to establish themselves in a certain place for a long time. Fortunately, as original Confucians, they also found a way to deal with it from the classics - imitating the sages and traveling around.
Considering that there are everything from mountain bandits and water bandits to mountain spirits and sea monsters in the wild, and the weapons of criticism alone cannot solve real problems, this group of Confucian scholars, known as original Confucians, began to practice the Six Arts.
In addition, they walked among the people to spread their ideas of equalizing land and freeing slaves. At the same time, they learned all the knowledge that could strengthen themselves to strengthen themselves.
Due to the vertical management style of the Yuan Dynasty, the group of landowners without any control naturally could not behave themselves. Therefore, although this group of original Confucians were rejected by local forces, they could always find allies in various places, and their strength was growing day by day.
.
Unexpectedly, when the number of Confucian scholars willing to practice this Tao reached 10,000, their unified thoughts actually connected the world.
Some original Confucian scholars who studied Confucianism vaguely felt the existence of Confucius, the seventy-two sages and three thousand disciples of Confucius in an out-of-body state, and learned a lot of knowledge from these sages.
Since then, Confucianism has mastered a cultivation method called Haoran Zhengqi. Compared with the art of cultivating immortals, this method cannot make people live forever, but it can make practitioners strengthen their bodies and develop a Haoran Zhengqi.
It's a pity that this kind of cultivation method of cultivating one's nature without cultivating one's life, cultivating one's mind without studying the Dharma. No matter how high one practices, it can at most deter some evil spirits and ghosts, but when faced with bandits, water bandits and various monsters, the effect is not that good.
At the same time, the ideological requirements also make it impossible for them to practice Buddhist or Taoist practice methods after practicing Haoran Zhengqi, so they have to spend effort to learn martial arts skills and other knowledge they can learn to ensure that they can travel around.
of safety.
However, due to the Mongol's Western Expedition, a large amount of Western knowledge was introduced to the East, so these original Confucians gradually discovered that the magic system transmitted from the West did not require a certain concept to be learned.
As a result, a large number of former Confucian scholars began to learn magic and innovate on this basis, getting rid of the embarrassing situation where most of them had no power when they were alive and could only randomly become gods of incense and fire in the netherworld after death.
Compared with the traditional Chinese practice method, the way of magic is difficult to learn and master. Fortunately, it is not a problem for Confucian students who have practiced Haoran Zhengqi. Therefore, Confucian and Taoist masters have gradually become the representative identity of this group of original Confucian scholars.
With magical power, the power of Yuan Confucianism began to expand rapidly. Until the great uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, under the leadership of Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen, they took refuge in Han Shantong and fought alongside them. Finally, the new Song Dynasty was established, and Yuan Confucianism became the official doctrine.
At the same time, Yuan Confucianism also joined forces with some Shinto forces to establish the current city god system from top to bottom, and began to hunt down the Shinto forces of the previous dynasty on a large scale - many of the so-called ghost kings were the gods of the previous dynasty who were unwilling to surrender.
In the Yang world, the thoughts of Yuan Confucianism became the core ideas of the imperial examinations, and most of the officials at all levels were served by these Confucian students who practiced Yuan Confucianism.
The Dong county magistrate in front of Liang En was an official with a former Confucian background, so he maintained curiosity about all kinds of new things. Therefore, when he learned that the group of people in front of him came from a country he did not know, he
I want to know more about their country from Liang En.
"The Republic of Florence, this is a very small city-state." Liang En introduced the Republic of Florence to Dong Xiancheng while communicating with the envoy in front of him who claimed to be named Medici.
"This country relies on banks, banks and the woolen textile industry. It is a very wealthy country, but because of its small land, all kinds of food need to be imported."
"This country is now ruled by a council of elders composed of 7 representatives from the large guilds and 2 representatives from the small guilds. Its leader is called the Justice Standard Bearer, and he is also the commander of the City Self-Defense Force."
"But in fact, all these rulers are rich people, so the people of this country are living a very bad life. A few years ago, the poor carding workers even broke out in uprising, but they were suppressed-"
Following Liang En's introduction, Dong Xiancheng began to record this knowledge in his notebook.
"There is a country in the west of Thailand called Florence. Its territory is extremely small, but it is good at cultivating goods. It does not have the title of prince, does not follow the rules of the world, and public weapons are given to the public.
However, the rulers of this country are only for the rich, so that the rich have a field of hope and the poor have no place to stand. This is not a long-term way."