"Dear Your Majesty, today is November 1, 1406th in the Lord's calendar, Halloween. I hope you can spend this holiday safely, and I also hope that all the people I know can spend this holiday safely. I am in the Eastern Ming Kingdom
There is no need to worry about the capital city of Ming Dynasty, because the souls of the dead will return to the place where they lived during their lifetime, and the capital city of Ming Dynasty has not been inhabited by any believers of the Lord before me."
"Having said that about the festival, the first thing I want to report to you is that my attendants are learning the advanced papermaking and printing techniques from the East. After a year of hard study, they have initially mastered the papermaking process, but there will still be cases where the raw materials are used.
It was a mistake, and the language of the Eastern Han people is indeed too difficult to pronounce. The attendants have no language talent and often misremember the meaning of vocabulary. But I believe that after two years, that is, the learning time for apprentices in Eastern countries is usually
Eventually, they will learn advanced papermaking and printing techniques."
"The second thing I want to tell you is the culture of the Ming Dynasty. The culture of the Ming Dynasty is different from all countries that believe in the Lord, all countries that believe in the evil god of heaven, and the countries of the barbaric Mongols on the Eastern European prairie. First of all, it is them
Attitude towards gods. There are also many religions spread in the Ming Dynasty. The Seris people seem to believe in these gods. They can often be seen in Buddhist temples or in a unique religion called 'Tao' of the Seris people.
There are many people worshiping in religious temples. But if you observe carefully, you will find that they are not as devout in their beliefs as we are. They are more of a trade than a believer. They hope that by offering money to the gods,
In exchange for the benefits they think of or to avoid disasters, if they fail to achieve their goals, they will stop worshiping the gods. Rather than being followers of a certain religion, they are better described as atheists."
"Of course, there are devout believers among the Seris people, but the number is very small and not enough to have any impact. As for the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, it is difficult for me to guess whether he truly believed in the existence of gods. He seems to believe in Taoism.
The abbot of a Taoist temple was given extremely high courtesy, and the word "天" in "Tianzi", another title that represents the source of the Ming emperor's sanctity, seems to come from the Taoist gods. But he also allowed the spread of Buddhism.
Before drawing the final conclusion, I can only temporarily think that he is a shallow believer in Taoism."
"But among the Seris people, there are also symbols similar to gods, which are their ancestors. All Seris people worship their ancestors. The ancestors are supreme and cannot be blasphemed. Even the words of the ancestors cannot be violated.
, has become a rule that the entire family must abide by. Even the poorest people would rather go hungry themselves, but still have to offer the best things to their ancestors, just like we worship the Lord."
"The social organization of the Seris people is also based on the family unit, rather than the nobles or temple abbots who rule them. Many people with the same surname live together and get their patriarch in some way.
Ancestral halls composed of older people manage the entire family. The grassroots ruling institutions of the Ming Dynasty are linked to individual families, not families or individuals. Even in cities, there are families, but they are relatively loose, but the government
What can be managed is not individual families, but a unit between families and families composed of families with the same grandfather or great-grandfather.”
"Normally, they will not leave their hometown, but if they do, when they need help in other places, they will not rely on the temple, but on their fellow villagers from the same place. These fellow villagers will form mutual aid groups to help each other."
“In the Ming Dynasty, if there was only one single family living in a certain place, they would be easily ostracized by the people around them, and things ordered by the government would easily fall on such people, because a family usually only had one adult man, and one
A family will have many adult men. Like our country, adult men are not only productive, but also combative. A family with few adult men in the family is more likely to be bullied, and a family with only one adult man will be bullied even more. Therefore,
They have the same bad habits as the Romans who were not taught by bishops: infanticide, and they mainly kill female infants."
"Dear Your Majesty, I have praised the civilization of the Seris people many times, but their bad habit of infanticide makes me deeply disgusted. Babies are also God's creations and have been redeemed by Christ. The act of killing babies should be
It is equivalent to murder. But in the Ming Dynasty, everyone did not take it seriously. They believed that children are the property of their parents, and parents have the right to deal with their children in any way. Nowadays, the Seris people are generally relatively wealthy, and the phenomenon of infanticide is very common.
There are few, but just a few decades ago when the Seris were at war with the Mongols, most people were very poor and would often abandon or kill their children, mostly female babies. I hope these people abandon or kill themselves
The children will be punished after death."
"Except for their ancestors, the idea generally believed in by people in the Ming Dynasty is an idea called 'Confucianism'. This idea was proposed by a sage named Confucius around 1900, and was later
An emperor of the Seris people 1,600 years ago determined it to be the orthodox thought of the country, and later it was determined to be the designated thought for the examination for selecting officials by an emperor 800 years ago. The books written by the sage Confucius also became
It became a designated teaching material. Because the sage Confucius called his thoughts Confucianism, those who later believed in the thoughts of the sage Confucius were called Confucianists."
"The status of Confucianism in the Ming Dynasty is similar to the status of the church in Europe, but it is different. The Ming Dynasty was a truly independent country. The emperor of state power was also the highest living leader of Confucianism, and there was no separate organization.
Promoting Confucianism to ordinary people is the responsibility of the government. Although the Ming Dynasty was not as religious as the cannibalistic regime, and the Ming Dynasty was more secular, it is still undeniable that they were **
It is a ** country. The emperor not only bears the mission of governing the country, but also bears the mission of offering sacrifices to the 'saints' and the heaven, earth and gods."
"Dear Your Majesty, I have suggested to you in my previous letter the implementation of an official selection system similar to that of the Ming Dynasty. However, after understanding the culture of the Seris people, I now feel that the Ming Dynasty's official selection system is difficult to implement in our country.
The Ming Dynasty's official selection system and its culture complement each other. Only such a culture can implement such an official selection system, and only such an official selection system is most suitable for such a culture. Castile cannot implement it.
"
"But Your Majesty, I am still studying the culture of the Ming Dynasty and want to find out the similarities with our culture so that I can learn from the culture of the Ming Dynasty to improve our country's system. In addition, I always believe that European civilization is no better than any other civilization.
If it falls behind, Castile will sooner or later become a country comparable to the Ming Dynasty."
"Finally, at the risk of blaspheming the Lord, I try to compare European civilization with the civilization of the Seris people. First of all, the lives of ordinary people under the rule of European civilization are not as good as those of the Seris people, although I really want to compare European civilization with that of the Seris people.
They use the excuse that the land is barren, but it seems a bit weak in the face of the facts. Secondly, because the Seris people have nothing to fear except their ancestors, they have a lot less scruples in doing things. Whether they are doing business or farming, they make artifacts better than those in Europe.
People are better, and this is related to the fact that the lives of ordinary people in Seris are better. But it also makes them lack the bottom line in doing things, so it is difficult to distinguish whether this is an advantage or a disadvantage."
"Besides the lack of scruples, I think another reason why the Seris people live better than Europeans is that they have a unified country. A unified country means that they can allocate resources in a wider area and engage in more of the same activities.
People in the industry can communicate more easily, making it easier to advance manufacturing processes, which is reflected in both agriculture and commerce."
"But the civilization of the Seris people also has shortcomings. The grassroots organizations of the Ming Dynasty are composed of people with the same ancestors. When they leave their hometown, they unite with their fellow villagers. Above the family or the fellow villagers' mutual aid group, it is from top to bottom.
An integrated government, which makes it possible for no one except the emperor and his vassal kings to organize people with more than the same blood and the same hometown. This is a good thing for the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, but this
It also made it difficult for the Seris people to truly unite when facing enemies outside the Ming Dynasty. When the country where the Seris people were destroyed by the Mongols was about to be destroyed, a group of people lived in Tianfang in Quanzhou, the largest port in the East at that time.
The believers took control of Quanzhou with not too much strength, and the Seris people who had more people than them in the city quickly expressed their surrender. More than forty years ago, before the regime established by the Mongols was eliminated, this family no longer
They were loyal to the Mongols and wanted to establish a country belonging to Tianfang believers in Quanzhou. The Seris people in the city still did not resist. It was not until the Mongolian army entered the city that they rushed into the local Tianfang believers as if they suddenly woke up.
They tortured and killed them in their homes and robbed them of their belongings.”
"..."
"Based on the above content, European civilization and Seris civilization each have their own advantages and disadvantages. Neither one is perfect, and there is no perfect system and culture in the world. But I believe that under the shining of the glory of the Lord,
European civilization will definitely get better and better." (To be continued)
