Chapter 1132 Craveyo's Journey to the East - Oh, Han Chinese were once white people too?
When Wang Gong took the order, he said to Xu Huizu, Claviyo and others: "Xu Aiqing, Chen Aiqing, Fu Aiqing, it's getting late today, I give you permission to have dinner with me."
"Thank you for your kindness, Your Majesty." They immediately bowed to express their gratitude.
Yun responded with a smile, and then said to Claviyo and 5: "Klaviyo, 5, I will also grant you a meal together." He said this sentence in Chinese and asked Fu An to translate it.
Chen Ji wanted to remonstrate, but thought for a while and finally did not say anything. There is a precedent for His Majesty to allow foreign envoys to eat together, as long as they eat separately.
"Thank you, His Majesty the Emperor, for your gift." Claviyo and 5 also bowed to express their gratitude.
The food came quickly. The kitchen had been waiting for a long time. After hearing Wang Gong's instructions, the soup that had been simmering was immediately served, and the meat and vegetables that had been cut up were stir-fried, and the sumptuous dinner was ready.
Before the meal even started, Kraviyo and 5 were attracted by the aroma of the food. When they moved their chopsticks, once Kraviyo and 5 tasted it, their tongues almost swallowed it, and they praised loudly: "It's really delicious!"
Yun smiled. He didn't understand what they just said, but he could tell what they meant by looking at their expressions. "You two envoys, don't be in a hurry, eat slowly, there's more. Besides, even if it's gone today, it will be gone in the next few days."
You can eat it," he said in English.
"Dear Your Majesty, we are really surprised. This is the first time we have eaten such a delicious meal."
5 said: "Your Majesty, I won't go into details about the food of European countries, but we have also been to many Tianfang countries. The ordinary people in these Tianfang countries do not eat well, but the aristocrats are still very particular about their food and the taste is good.
But it can’t compare to this meal. If it’s better than the food, Ming Dynasty will definitely be ranked first in the world.”
"Haha, it's true. Daming's rice is the most delicious in the world, but European countries also have their own specialties." Yun said with a smile: "For example, in architecture and painting, astronomy and navigation, Europe also has its own uniqueness.
"
"Although Europe is not as good as the Ming Dynasty, it does have its own uniqueness." 5 said. Of course he was very happy to hear the emperor of the Ming Dynasty praise them.
"I wonder what masters in architecture, painting, astronomy and navigation are there in Europe now?" Yun asked again.
"Well, Your Majesty, in terms of painting, Giotto di Bondona was a recognized master decades ago, but he has been dead for more than sixty years. Although there are... and other famous painters after that, they are not considered to be...
Grandmaster."
"The same is true in the construction industry. Giovanni Pisano was very famous. He had built many churches and created a new architectural style, but he also passed away. Although people after him, such as... were very powerful, they were not as good as
He. But when we set out, there was a young man in his twenties named Brunelleschi in Florence who was said to be very talented. The local bishop commissioned him to build the main church."
"What kind of master can be produced in the two aspects of astronomy, stars and navigation? Astronomy is where it is, and it will not change for thousands of years. Navigation is just sailing according to the star chart. It is just proficiency. What kind of master can be produced?" 5 said.
There was a look of perseverance on Yun's face. Of course, his praise of Europe just now was not without purpose. The Renaissance should have begun by this time, and Europe was about to enter an era of talent. 5 As a diplomat, he traveled far and wide, and he was a well-informed and awesome master.
Everyone should know that Yun Peng Yi Peng Europe just wants him to name such people, and then he sends people to 'invite' them all.
But he didn't expect that 5 actually said that there were no masters in Europe at this time, which made him very disappointed.' Well, after a while, he ordered the envoys sent to the Golden Horde to go to Europe and send some famous painters and sculptors to them.
Please give me an architect or something.'
Yun lowered his head to think about something, raised his head and was about to say something more when he saw Claviyo talking to 5. Seeing this, Yun thought that he had nothing important to say to them, so he didn't speak in a hurry and turned his head to Wang Gong.
He said: "Wang Gong, have everything been packed?"
When Yun was speaking, Wang Gong was looking sideways at Claviyo and 5. He was stunned when he heard Yun's question and then realized, "Official, except for the things that the official carries with him, the rest has already been packed. Tomorrow
These will be cleaned up as soon as the officials get up."
"Okay." Yun praised first, then asked with a smile: "What are you looking at?"
"In the official family, this servant has never seen yellow hair. I have always thought that everyone has black hair. This is the first time I see hair that is not black. I can't help but look at it more."
"Only some Europeans have hair that is not black. People from all other places have black hair," Yun said.
"Why isn't their hair black?"
"This is because the place where they live is colder, so their hair color is lighter. And do you think their skin is also whiter?"
"Huh?" Wang Gong looked at the two of them carefully after listening to Yun's words, and then said: "Guan family, although it is dark now and the light is not very clear, but based on my more than ten years of experience in watching people at night, they
My skin is not white."
"Ah? Aren't they white?" Yun Zheng turned to look at them, wanting to carefully observe whether their skin was whiter. But it was difficult to tell whether they were white or not under the light.
At this moment, he suddenly heard the word "negro" uttered from Claviyo's mouth, and he couldn't help but said: "Clavio."
"Your Majesty, what do you have to say to me?" Clavijo said in English.
"The word negro you just mentioned means black people?" Yun asked.
"Your Majesty also knows Castilian?" Clavijo said in surprise.
"Isn't this word an English word?"
"Your Majesty, this word does not exist in English. It is Castilian and there is also this word in Portuguese."
‘Huh? There is no word ‘negro’ in English at this time?” Yun was surprised.
But this is not important, and it is not because of this that Yun suddenly spoke to him. He asked: "You Europeans, do you think you are white?"
"Your Majesty, we do consider ourselves white."
“Then why do you think you’re white?”
"Your Majesty, in our European culture, white symbolizes holiness, purity, nobility and wisdom, while black symbolizes lowliness, evil, filth and barbarism. In this case, of course we do not want to think of ourselves as black.
Think of yourself as white.”
"At the same time, just on the African road south of Europe, there are many people with very dark skin. So we consider ourselves white; of course, we call people with dark skin black."
"Isn't this the Kunlun slave written in the legends of the Tang Dynasty? It is said that the Kunlun slave's body is as black as charcoal." Wang Gong said in a low voice.
Yun didn't hear Wang Gong's words. He suddenly became curious and asked: "Then what kind of people do you think the Han people are?"
"Of course the Great Cannibals and the Han Chinese are also white people."
Claviyo said in a very firm tone: "Although the Dashi people believe in a different religion from us Europeans, their civilization is very high, the country is strong, the people are rich, and they are naturally white. We passed through the Dashi Peninsula and came to 3
When passing through Baghdad, even though this city was once massacred, the prosperity of that year can still be seen from the wreckage. In the whole of Europe, only Venice and Genoa can compare."
"What about the Han people? Why do you think the Han people are white?" Yun said with a strange tone.
"Your Majesty, the Ming Dynasty is now the most powerful country in the world. At the same time, even if we only come to Yiwu, a city on the edge of the Ming Dynasty, and have just experienced war, we can still feel the wealth and civilization of the local people.
So of course the Han people are also white people.”
"And your Majesty, do you think the skin color of the Han people is darker than that of us Europeans? I have seen many Han people these days, and the skin color of these Han people is as white as our Europeans. Occasionally, I can see women on the street,
These women were also white like us and looked very much like the women of Castile."
"Of course, it would be better if the Han people could believe in God." Claviyo replied.
For a moment, Yun didn't know what to say. What Kraviyo said just now went against his education and knowledge of many years in his previous life. And he had a new question: 'Since Europeans think that Han people are white at this time, why?
Will future generations be considered yellow people?'
Yun didn't know that the word "yellow race" actually appeared with a concept coined in the late 18th century AD. Before this word appeared, most Europeans referred to Han people as white people. Yellow race people were not Han people.
The skin color is really yellow, but it is a subjective identification of Europeans. And why does this identification occur? This has to be traced back to the Age of Discovery. Historically, from this period, Europeans began to expand around the world.
People in various places need to be distinguished and described.
At the beginning of the Age of Discovery, the Chinese civilization in the East was still a very powerful civilization, and the country was also relatively powerful. Ordinary people were also relatively wealthy (compared to people in other countries at the same time), and in addition, they were
The efforts of the Han people to spread Christianity have achieved certain results, so it is generally believed that the Han people are white.
For example, there was a Portuguese man, Piles, who came to the Ming Dynasty with the Portuguese mission in 1516. He also wrote a famous book on the history of Sino-foreign relations, "Oriental Chronicles", and later died of illness in China. He said in the book,
Chinese people are "white like us", Chinese women are "white like us and look a lot like Portuguese women, and Japanese are also well-dressed white people".
Some people may say that Japan's national strength was not strong at that time, so why was it still regarded as white?
This is of course because of the cross religion. Although Western missionaries achieved some results in the Ming Dynasty, the greater achievements were in Japan. At the end of the 16th century AD, tens of thousands of Japanese believed in the cross religion. The missionaries saw that they could
The huge potential for widespread proselytizing among the Japanese makes the Japanese whiter than the Chinese in their eyes.
However, later on, Christianity was banned in Japan from the year of Clavius in 161 AD. This caused their status in the hearts of Europeans to plummet, and in their mouths, the skin color of the Japanese suddenly became darker.
In the mid-18th century AD, a German named Engelbert Kempfer wrote a book "History of Japan", which was the most important book for Europeans to understand Japan at that time. He no longer mentioned Japan in it.
People are white, but they are described as brown or tawny. So you see, the depth of skin color is actually an evolutionary process of concepts, and it has nothing to do with the actual skin color of Asians.
Later, a thunderous name appeared. This was Linnaeus, a Swedish scientist in the 18th century AD. Linnaeus named us humans Homo sapiens, and divided Homo sapiens into four species, according to geographical units and skin color from white to black.
, divided into European whites, American reds, Asian browns, and African blacks. As a sign, the skin color of us Orientals is no longer white.
The complete combination of yellow skin and Oriental people is attributed to the German anthropologist Blumenbach in the late 18th century AD. He believed that a more scientific way to distinguish human races is to analyze skull morphology. He took this as a sign and
In 1795 AD, it was proposed to divide human beings into five types, and then combine them with skin color, that is, white Caucasian race, black Ethiopian race, red American race, dark brown Malay race and yellow Mongol race.
This distinction is clear and easy to remember, so it has strong vitality. The terms Caucasian race, Mongoloid race, and Malay race are still used by many people today. From then on, East Asians became the yellow race.
Man, if you set a specific date for this incident, it would be 1795 AD.
This is not something we should be happy about. Anyone who knows a little about history knows that this was a period when Europeans were becoming more powerful and Eastern countries were becoming increasingly depressed. European scientists were actually discriminating against the East by lowering the skin color of Eastern people.
People no longer regard Easterners as their equals. But at that time they thought it was 'science.'
Today, with the development of science, the classification method of dividing human beings into different groups based on race has lost its biological basis. It is impossible to draw a clear and scientifically based distinction between so-called races.
Boundary. Mainstream Europe and the United States have abandoned the concept of three or four major races, and instead refer to them according to ethnicity, such as Latino, Asian, Indian, etc.
"Yes, Your Majesty, I would like to obey the Holy Order." The brothers bowed at the same time and said.
"I only hope you can really listen to what I say." Yun finally said, asking them to step back.
After they retreated, Yun ordered Wang Gong: "Go and call Xu Huizu, Lan Zhen, Geng Xuan, and Zhang Fu. I have something to tell them."
