After the 16th century, the most important event in human history was the great geographical discovery, which has since unveiled the mystery of the earth.
Europeans opened up new routes, and they went all over the world to explore and discover new things. These people, apart from the robbers with good weapons and equipment, the rest are missionaries who carry the Bible around to preach god's good. Therefore, the task of the robbers is to frighten other peoples, while the missionaries' task is to assimilate other peoples.
But their purpose is the same: aggression.
The pace of European aggression was so rapid that it soon became the turn of the Ming Dynasty in the east. At that time, the Ming Dynasty was not a good bully, whether it was Portugal or Spain, as long as it dared to come and bully the Daming people, the Ming Dynasty's army would fight back. During the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty, some foreigners were often arrested by the Ming soldiers and hung on the city tower together with those sea Wokou for everyone to judge.
However, the Europeans are not easy to lose, although they can't defeat the Ming soldiers, but they will also play laipi. The most typical should belong to Portugal, they can't beat the Ming Dynasty, they will not leave in Macao, and they will blindly give money to Ming officials to block their mouths. In this way, Portugal really rented Macau. However, unlike the later British occupation of Hong Kong, the Portuguese did not have a high status in Macau.
At that time, the landlord was the uncle, and the Portuguese could not afford to provoke them. The Portuguese had to kneel when they saw the Ming Dynasty county orders, and like ordinary people, their daily life in Macau was regulated by the government and they had to abide by the laws of the Ming Dynasty. From the Ming Dynasty to the Opium Wars, the Portuguese were inferior in Macau.
Since then, Portuguese missionaries have also come, and they have used religious culture to infect Chinese people: although we can't fight the war, we can realize our dreams through cultural aggression.
In order to be able to preach, these missionaries competed with each other no less fiercely than the invaders seized territory. In the process of mission, many sciences belonging to Europe also followed, including European mathematics, astronomy, advanced weapons, and so on. Some scholars believe that the infiltration of European missionaries in China at the end of the Ming Dynasty allowed Western civilization to be introduced to China and exposed to these advanced things, but we do not recognize these things.
In addition to spreading their religious ideas, these European missionaries would also write books and write down all the things they saw in the East, and then bring them back to their country to show to the people who had not gone far. The records of these missionaries in China have made Europeans aware of a China that is envied by people with their cultural level, education level, political system, and economic level.
It can be said that in the cultural exchanges between the East and the West, missionaries played a very good role. The writings of the missionaries were transmitted to Europe, which made Europeans aware of the powerful China and made them more eager to explore the world. These works undoubtedly increased people's desires, influenced European social and cultural thought, and also set off a wave, that is, "China fever".
Some European scholars believe that the reason why so many great changes have taken place in Europe in modern times is entirely due to the impetus of "China fever".
So who were the European missionaries who could influence history?
After the Portuguese successfully leased Macau, a church was built in Jiajing for the usual activities of the missionaries. Originally, missionaries were only allowed to operate in Macau, and if they deliberately stepped out of the prescribed areas, they would certainly be interrogated by the Chinese army. So, if they want to preach, it's almost impossible. However, the Portuguese did not accept defeat, and the missionaries did not want to waste the trip, so they took a different approach.
The Portuguese missionary Xavier, who came to the East seventeen years ago in Jiajing, had been a missionary in Japan with great success, and he himself had become a distinguished guest of honor in Japan. Now, he is preaching in China, and can only transmit religious knowledge through other means. So he wanted to import advanced science into the East, and then use this as an opportunity to import religious culture.
Xavier's valuable experience was regarded as a treasure by later missionaries, and they have always used it.
But Xavier's experience does not work in China.
In the twenty-ninth year of Jiajing, Xavier arrived on Shangchuan Island, which is only thirty miles from Guangzhou. Xavier wanted to continue to move forward, but the Ming Dynasty people at that time began to interrogate here, not allowing foreigners to enter at will, Xavier had no choice but to wander there, after which he left. Later, Xavier wanted to pretend to be a Thai and blend into the Ming Dynasty and arrive in Beijing in this way.
Obviously, there was no problem with this method, but he was unlucky, and happened to encounter the death of the King of Thailand, which not only ruined his plan, but also wasted the silver two. This double blow made Xavier really difficult to accept, and his body was getting worse and worse. At the end of the year, Xavier died in India. Poor Xavier, until his death, could not step into the Central Plains for half a step.
However, Xavier's expedition was not in vain, it influenced later missionaries, and in it he left a crucial last word: "In order to help other peoples accept God, they must learn their language and learn their culture." Thirty years after Xavier's death, a missionary was finally able to enter the Central Plains, and he was Luo Mingjian of Italy.
He was able to get this opportunity, thanks only to the Portuguese who lived in Macau but had nothing to do.
In the seventh year of the Ming Dynasty, the Portuguese, who had not seen the fist of the Ming government for a long time, suddenly itched their skin, set up a Portuguese judge, and also enacted Portuguese laws. You know, formulating these things on someone else's turf is all about finding death. Chen Rui, the governor of Liangguang, was very angry about this, so he launched a Ming army to attack Macau, vowing to give the Portuguese a little color to see.
Chen Rui's idea was to wipe out the Portuguese people in Macau. Faced with the oppression of the Ming Dynasty's army, the Portuguese were dumbfounded, and they gathered in the church, men, women and children crying with headaches, crying endlessly for several days and nights. Finally, a man stepped forward and, in order to make everyone alive, promised everyone to go to the Daming government for negotiations. This man was Luo Mingjian, an Italian who actually stood out for the Portuguese.
Although the Portuguese stopped their tears, Luo Mingjian's arrogance was ruthlessly ridiculed by the Portuguese. How could a small priest negotiate with the Ming government?
However, Luo Mingjian did it.
Luo Mingjian was able to succeed only because of his knowledge of the Ming Dynasty. After he came to China, he immediately studied Chinese culture and learned chinese Chinese dialect, so he was not only able to speak fluent Chinese, but also knew Chinese customs and habits. It should be mentioned that Luo Mingjian originally had a bad memory and was 36 years old when he came to China, but he still learned nearly 15,000 Chinese characters through his own efforts and could write a little calligraphy.
It can be seen that Luo Mingjian is really a China pass!
It can be said that the improvement of Luo Mingjian's Chinese ability greatly promoted his missionary career, he established a missionary in Macao, and began to use Chinese to preach for the Chinese in Macau. Luo Mingjian named the mission the "Jingyan School", which was the first institution in China to use Chinese as a missionary institution, and the first school in China in the late Ming Dynasty for foreigners to learn Chinese.
Such a brave and intelligent foreigner, through this incident, opened the door to China for Western missionaries and enabled them to learn Chinese culture.
Resources:
[General History of China, Ming Dynasty, Chronology of Jesuit St. Francis Xavier, Biographies and Bibliographies of jesuits in China]