Bungo had never seen a man with such a strange appearance. They were all high-nosed, bearded, and dressed in fluffy lantern-like pants, and didn't seem to understand Japanese customs and etiquette. To a small group of onlookers gathered at the fuchiu pier, the three navigators seemed to be from another world.
The ship was blown to Japan by a storm, and the wind was already at the end of the crossbow off the coast of Japan. Sailboats crossing the East China Sea are very rare, so as soon as the ship, which had been ravaged by the sea, arrived, it attracted the attention of the acting officials of the government, and he heard the news and rushed to the docks. There, the strangers told him through Chinese interpreters that they were "from a country on the other side of the world called Portugal."
The acting officials of the prefectural government did not know how to deal with this matter, so they sent someone to report the news of their arrival to The Great Toyo Yoshikan, the daimyō of Bungo. Fearing that surviving these people might cause unnecessary trouble, Yi Jian ordered their execution and confiscation of their belongings and ships. This incident caused criticism from the clan's regents, and the reaction of Yoshikan's eldest son, Yoshijin, was particularly fierce. He told his father that doing so would tarnish Fenghou's reputation throughout Japan and that he would not tolerate such murders.
Yi Jian reluctantly withdrew the order. However, after hearing more about these "foreign" people, he began to rejoice in his decision. It is said that these people are well-dressed and well-spoken, which is crucial in the orderly and hierarchical Japan. To his greatest satisfaction, these people were "dressed in silk robes and swords around their waists, very different from ordinary merchants." He wrote a letter to the acting officials of the house, ordering them to bring one or all of them to him immediately. He wrote in his letter: "I have heard that these people have told you interesting things about the world, and have sworn that there is a world out there that is bigger than ours. ”
The reason why Fenghou Daimyo suddenly became interested in these outsiders was only out of boring curiosity. At that time, he was suffering from several diseases, either real or imagined, and his life was boring. He wrote in the letter: "You know I've been unwell, suffering from illness, and desperately need something to distract me. As a result, he promised that whoever came to visit as a guest would receive the highest level of courtesy.
It was not difficult to choose among the three Portuguese to go and see the daimyo. Fernand Mendes Pinto, a well-tongued explorer, was immediately favored by the acting officials of the prefectural government because "his humorous speech and popularity with the Japanese may cheer up the patient" and "make the daimyo happy, not just distract him".
Fernand. Mendes. Fernão Mendes Pinto was an extraordinary explorer and at the same time an eccentric aristocrat who liked to wear gorgeous costumes and was extremely charismatic. Born around 1514 in a poor family in Montmors, central Portugal, he worked as a boy in an aristocratic family, when Portuguese overseas expansion was in the ascendant, pinto, like many of his compatriots, dreamed of crossing the ocean and making a fortune in the New World.
So in 1537 he boarded a sailing ship and headed for India. In the East, he roamed for twenty-one years, serving first for the Portuguese royal family and then in business; he also participated in the Society of Jesus but inexplicably broke away; he also accompanied Portuguese missions to Japan. His experiences were bizarre and bumpy, and he traveled to Goa, Ethiopia, China, Japan, Hormuz, Malacca, Sumatra and other places in India.
He was also a romantic who liked to collect anecdotes and left Portugal more than six years ago to search the world for eccentric stories. Years later, as he began to organize his travel records, he wrote an attractive introduction on the title page: "I have been shipwrecked five times, sold sixteen times, and enslaved thirteen times. ”
His work, titled "Journeys," chronicles the various contingencies and adventures that took place around this fearless author. He wrote the book only to share adventures with friends and family, but it was soon published and became a bestseller at the time. In 1558, he returned to Lisbon and immersed himself in writing, and in 1576 he completed the "Journey" about his travels in the East, which immediately reverberated in Europe after its publication, publishing the Spanish text in 1620, the Dutch text in 1625, the German version in 1671, and then the Italian, Swedish, English and French versions. According to incomplete statistics, since the publication of "The Journey of the Long Distance", there have been as many as 170 kinds of excerpts and full translations, including Chinese.
Note, however, that Pinto was an out-and-out plagiarist who took the fruits of other people's adventures for himself. His book describes the process of distress as a pirate off the coast of China; then records the experiences of Pinto and others being escorted from Nanjing to Beijing as prisoners. In this way, Pinto claimed to have traveled from the coast of China to Jiangnan and from Jiangnan to Saiwai, crossing most of China and making more in-depth contact with Chinese society through a series of events.
In fact, Pinto should have visited some of China's port cities, probably the coastline around Guangzhou and Ningbo, but the description of Chinese mainland, especially the description of Beijing, is based on the information of predecessors, and on this basis, fiction and imagination are incorporated. Pinto's mastery of words and narratives, fiction and reality are wonderfully combined, so his colorful descriptions convince the author that he is present. Pinto's extensive description of China's geography, politics, justice, economy, and customs in His Journey shaped the image of sixteenth-century China in his eyes.
He claimed to be the first European to arrive in Japan, and it was well known (he himself) that some Europeans who had suffered shipwrecks had drifted to the coast of Japan before him.
In order to make his books more entertaining, he did not hesitate to falsify dates, plagiarize stories, and exaggerate them. However, most of his descriptions of Japan's experience are true, and he did go to Bungo with his compatriot Jorge de Faria, and the intelligence about the Japanese coastline was basically accurate. His experience during the Fenghou period should also be true, because it can be corroborated with other sources. Yoshijin, the son of Yoshikan, later told a similar story to a Japanese historian, who wrote it down. The English translator of Pinto's Travels wrote, "Before him ... No one has described the East in such detail" – this is not an exaggeration.
Many courtiers and attendants, dressed in ornate robes and holding scepters symbolizing their official positions, took Pinto to meet the daimyo of Fenghou. Pinto was impressed by the men's ornate costumes embroidered with delicate petals and inlaid with gold thread, but later visitors were more concerned about what the Japanese looked like. The Jesuit Louis Floys wrote that their "eyes and nose were small", and instead of having a large beard like the Portuguese, they would instead use tweezers to "pluck the hair out of their faces" to make the skin smooth and shiny. Their hairstyles are equally ridiculous. The Japanese shave off most of the hair on the top of their heads, lengthen the rest of the hair, comb it into a ponytail, and "coil it behind their heads." Even the way the Japanese goug their nostrils has sparked comments from Europeans. "We dig our nostrils primarily with our thumbs or forefingers," one European wrote, "but they use their little thumbs because their nostrils are small." ”
Otomo Yoshikan
Pinto was soon taken into the inner city of Fuuchi and taken directly into Yi Jian's bedroom, where he lay impotently in bed. When he saw Pinto, he struggled to get up and showed a long-lost smile. "You have come to my country," he said, "and for me it is as pleasant as the rain and dew that descends from the sky and moistens our rice fields." Pinto was startled by this extraordinary welcome ceremony. He wrote in the book that he was "overwhelmed by the words of the daimyo and such greetings." But he quickly calmed down, apologized to the daimyo for a moment of silence, and explained: "The great king is so majestic that I dare not spit out half a word." He went on to write: "Compared to his greatness, I am no different from a stupid ant. ”
Pinto probably thought that Yoshikan was the king of Japan, and he learned a few years later that Yoshikan was just one of Japan's many feudal daimyōs. His small fief occupies only a small part of the island of Kyushu, one of the four main islands that make up the Japanese archipelago.
Yi Jian did not correct Pinto's mistakes, nor did he have any interest in Pinto's world. Instead, he kept talking about his favorite thing — himself, and he asked Pinto's Chinese translator to tell his Portuguese guests about his condition. "You must let me know that in your country, at the end of the world, there is no cure for the disease that is afflicting me." Yi Jian suffered from gout, but it wasn't his only problem, and he didn't have much appetite every time he ate seafood or shellfish. He told Pinto that he "had no appetite ... It's been almost two months."
Pinto panicked and found himself asked to make potions. He wanted to delay time, so he told Yi Jian that he "didn't know medical skills." But fearing that Yijian would be disappointed, he abruptly changed his mind that there was "some kind of wood" on his ship, and that soaking in the water "could cure a stubborn disease that was much more serious than the disease he complained about." This piece of wood was taken to the inner city of Fufu, where Pinto used it to soak in water, and Yi Jian "drank for thirty days in a row... Completely restored to health".
Although Yi Jian and Pingto soon established a friendship, and he did seem to be grateful for Pinto's medicine, his compatriots did not think that there was anything commendable about the early Europeans who came to Japan. "These people were Berbery merchants [referring to North Africa outside of Egypt]," one history record goes, "and although they knew a little about the high and the low, I don't know if they had a proper set of etiquette." "Others were horrified to find that the foreigners were shouting and cursing at each other unscrupulously." "[They] hide their emotions," one scribe wrote contemptuously, "[and] illiterate." "To make matters worse, their clothes are dirty and smelly, and their unshaven scruffy appearance is unpleasant.
The Japanese were both fascinated and disgusted by the Portuguese captain. These flamboyant explorers, though flamboyantly dressed, rarely bathed and showed no respect for Japanese etiquette
If it weren't for an important cargo, the Japanese would probably have sent the Portuguese away immediately. This cargo was their weapon, the arquebusier, and its lethality was breathtaking to the Japanese. "People in that country have never seen a gun," Pinto wrote, "nor can they understand what a gun is." Not knowing the secrets of gunpowder, they concluded that it was a demon. ”
Yi Jian asked Pinto about the number of musketeers under the Portuguese king, and Pinto concocted one of the most absurd stories to date. Pinto claimed that the King of Portugal had two million musketeers under his command. "The king was uneasy." Pinto wrote. He added triumphantly that it was "a brilliant answer."
Yoshikan's son, Yoshijin, soon realized the value of this weapon, and the Japanese were still fighting with swords and bows and arrows. He wanted to test the arquebus himself, but fearing that Pinto might refuse his request, he sneaked into the guest's room at night and stole the weapon. This is foolishness. The young Yizhen did not know how to fill gunpowder or how to open fire. He filled the barrel with a large amount of gunpowder, stuffed it with projectiles, and lit a fire rope. Accompanied by a burst of light and a loud explosion, "the arquebusier broke into three pieces, he suffered two wounds and lost the thumb of his right hand". The young prince looked at the broken thumb, dizzy, and "fell like a dead man."
For Pinto, this could be the worst news. The accident of the young heir of the Otomo family caused a commotion and anger in the city, and they pointed their finger at the uninvited guest. "They concluded that I had killed him," Pinto wrote, "and two men drew their short knives and tried to kill me." But Toyo Daimyo stopped them, and he had to figure out the situation first. Pinto tied his hands behind his back and knelt in front of Daimyo. An interpreter interrogated him carefully, and next to him stood an official in charge of the trial, holding a dagger "stained with the blood of the prince." Pinto was briefly informed of the Japanese punishment. Convicted prisoners are often severed in public and then whipped to death or beheaded, leaving the body in place until it decays as a warning to others. The penalty Pinto will suffer is equally terrible. "If you can't answer my question," said the interrogator, "you'll be crushed to ashes, like the feathers of a dead bird, blown by the wind from one place to another." ”
The judge in charge of the trial could not wait to chop him to powder, but Yoshikan was more sensible, and suggested that since his guest had caused the accident of the young Yoshijin, it was his duty to bring Yoshijin back to life, and he might be able to revive the son of the daimyo with a new potion. This was the second time since Pinto arrived in Japan that he found himself playing the role of a doctor, only this time he himself was in a life-and-death situation.
The young Yizhen looked dead. He fell to the ground, "lying motionless in a pool of blood." However, after an initial examination, Pinto was convinced that his injuries were not as severe as the courtiers gathered around him thought. The wound on his forehead, though terrible, was "not a big deal"; his thumb was almost broken, and it was still possible to keep it connected only by tendons and hands. "Now, because the thumb of the right hand is the most seriously injured," Pinto wrote, "I started from there and stitched seven stitches." His technique was very crude, and the wound was still bleeding, so he used a more traditional potion - "egg white... I've seen people use this method in the East Indies." The therapy worked, the bleeding stopped, and Setsuko regained consciousness and gradually woke up. Within twenty days, he recovered, "without any inconvenience, but the thumbs were not very flexible." The accident proved the lethal effect of the arquebusier, which was widely used in Japan's future wars. In the months following the accident, local blacksmiths have been busy copying the weapon.
Japanese etiquette is cumbersome
The Japanese etiquette surprised Pinto, while Yoshikan's courtiers were shocked by the rude Portuguese eating habits. In 1556, when Pinto came to Japan for the second time, he was invited to a solemn banquet. At the banquet, he soon found himself the object of ridicule. He wrote: "We began to eat all the food in front of us in our own way. He also wrote that for "the king" and "queen," it was more interesting to watch him eat (than) watch any comedy. The Japanese "have a habit of eating with two small sticks ... And it is considered rude to touch meat with both hands." Toward the end of the banquet, the good mood of the Japanese turned to naked contempt, and the courtiers attending the banquet "used us to pass the time, and they laughed and fooled us." At the end of the banquet, a Japanese businessman entered the room with some wooden prosthetics. He explained to Pinto and his men that since their hands "inevitably get fishy and fleshy ... This item is just right for them." The other guests laughed.
Pinto spent a few months in Ōtomo's Fuuchi Castle and ended his first trip to Japan. He had always been fascinated by the riches and splendor of Japan, and although his story sounded like a made-up medieval fable, it was the first time the world had been given a glimpse of the country. Pinto vividly described the incredible things he saw, and the people who later traveled to Japan agreed with him. A man who had just arrived in Japan wrote in shock in a letter to his hometown that the Japanese were excellent in almost all respects. "You shouldn't treat them as barbarians," he said, "and we are far removed from them except religiously." ”