Although the Chongzhen Emperor was the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, he did die and struggle. At the time of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, in order to survive and survive, the small court of the Southern Ming Dynasty made many changes to save the people, including: uniting with the peasant army, dividing up foreign surnames as kings, giving foreign surnames, and so on, the most bizarre and also enjoyable is the rescue of the Southern Ming Court to the Pope.
Due to the complexity of the historical materials of the late Ming Dynasty, and the fact that this matter is too remote, most of the Internet is full of half-understood speculation and nonsense without evidence, so in the end, has Yongli ever borrowed troops from the Pope? How did the Southern Ming court relate to catholicism? Did the Ming dynasty royal family receive Catholic baptism? These historical truths will be revealed today through the book "Matteo Ricci's Memory Palace":
The religious beliefs of the Ming emperors were counted
The founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, who once worked as a monk, preferred Buddhism. However, legend has it that he received the help of Emperor Zhenwu several times in the war when Zhu Di defeated Emperor Jianwen to seize the throne, and afterwards he claimed that this was the apparition of Emperor Zhenwu, and he was the Son of Heaven. Therefore, after Zhu Di sat on the throne, he repaid Li with a peach to worship the Taoist gods, and also spent a huge amount of money on civil engineering, and built a palace temple in the Taoist holy land of Wudang Mountain.
After that, the emperor was more obsessed with Taoism than the other, especially Jiajing and Wanli, who spent all day in the palace to ask Daoist priests to practice, practice Dan, and cultivate the art of immortality, and even did not go to the court for more than ten years, chongzhen was a good emperor who worked hard compared with them. However, the Chongzhen Emperor was also very religious in Taoism at first, and when he saw the country gradually collapse, he finally exploded in his mentality and began to believe in Catholicism under the flicker of two people, xu Guangqi and Tang Ruowang.
How was the Chongzhen Emperor brought into the Catholic pit?
In addition to being a Catholic, Xu Guangqi was also a scientist, and during the Chongzhen period, he was an official of the Rebbe Shangshu and a scholar of Dongge University. In the scorching situation of the Ming and Qing wars, he urged the imitation of Western artillery to create a number of powerful Hongyi cannons, and as soon as this cannon came out, the Eight Banner Soldiers cried on the spot, and even Nurhaci suffered defeat under the Hongyi cannon. Not only to build cannons, at that time, the Qin Tianjian officials could not measure the eclipse accurately, which made the Chongzhen Emperor very angry, and it was also Xu Guangqi who recommended the Italian missionary Long Huamin and the German missionary Tang John wang to enter the palace, and instead used the Western calendar to measure solar and lunar eclipses, which opened Chongzhen's eyes, so xu Guangqi was ordered to supervise the formulation of the new calendar. There are so many talents in the Catholic Church, Chongzhen is naturally quite dependent, and he loves the house and Wuxia, and he also has a good feeling for the Catholic Church.
Xu Guangqi, Tang Ruowang and others brainwashed Chongzhen all day long, and the Buddha statue was the devil, and they wanted to destroy the bronze Buddha statues enshrined in the palace. In the twelfth year of Chongzhen (1639), Yang Sichang wanted to go out to supervise Pingkou and ask Chongzhen for money to train troops and raise salaries, at this time the imperial court really had no money, what to do? Chongzhen simply did not do two things, not only melted some gold, silver and bronze utensils in the palace to cast money, but also melted the gold, silver and copper Buddhas as well as military pay, while the remaining worthless mud Buddhas were withdrawn outside the palace and piled up in the temple.
How did Catholicism enter the Ming Dynasty?
Matteo Ricci's entry into China has benefited from the active development of Fan Li'an and Luo Mingjian. Fan Li'an was the earliest advocate of the adaptive missionary line, and Luo Mingjian was the first Catholic missionary to settle in China. In the eleventh year of the Wanli Calendar, Matteo Ricci entered Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province, with Luo Mingjian, and from then on embarked on the road of no return to preaching in China. Matteo Ricci first lived in Zhaoqing, then to Shaozhou, where he lived for twelve years.
In these twelve years, although Matteo Ricci only developed a few dozen believers, he established two congregations, translated and wrote many Chinese archbishops' catechisms, and initially formed an adaptive missionary route, laying the foundation for the further spread of Catholicism.
How did Catholicism spread to its zenith during the Ming Dynasty?
The frontier crisis in the middle and late Ming Dynasty provided an opportunity for the revival of Catholic missionary work in the late Ming Dynasty. In the forty-sixth year of the Wanli Calendar, Nurhaci officially rebelled against the Ming Dynasty with seven great hatreds, and in the forty-seventh year of the Fang Calendar, the Ming army lost all four ways in the Battle of Salhu, and the later Jin regime became a new threat to the Ming Dynasty. In order to strengthen armaments and enhance the combat effectiveness of the army, Xu Guangqi and Li Zhizao sent people to Macao to buy Western cannons and introduce European firearm casting technology.
In order to ensure the quality of the casting cannon and fully grasp the use of artillery technology, the Ming court allowed missionaries to come to Beijing to listen to it. In the third year of the apocalypse, seven Portuguese leaders, one on the way, accompanied by sixteen Jesuits, came to Beijing. Subsequently, Catholics on standby in Macau came to Beijing several times to serve in the Military Department. In addition, the calendar cultivation activities of the Chongzhen period also provided an opportunity for missionaries to show their strengths and enter Beijing.
By the ninth year of Chongzhen, there were 114 sect members, 40 inner palace devotees, and more than 80 people who had been appointed by the emperor.
Xiao Ruoser's "Examination of Catholic Transmission in China" said: "In the last years of Chongzhen, the teachings were transmitted to thirteen provinces, and at that time the whole country stopped in fifteen provinces, but Yungui did not reach it. There are about 150,000 or 60,000 catholics, including 14 high-ranking officials, 10 jinshi, 11 people, and hundreds of Xiucai shengjian." At this point, Catholicism reached its peak in the Ming Dynasty.
Epilogue:
In the book "The Palace of Matteo Ricci's Memory", it is recorded that in 1648, the Southern Ming regime was no longer at the point where the Manchu Qing Dynasty was no longer able to go, at this time, the mother of the Yongli Emperor, Empress Wang, did not rush the courtiers to discuss the policy of war, but was urgent, and wrote a letter of distress to the Catholic patriarch of the Vatican, praying that the Holy See could help her. Unfortunately, due to the inconvenience of transportation, the letter arrived at the Vatican two years later, and the reply was waited for a full decade. The letter is also stored in the National History Museum in Rome. The main point of our concern is, why did the Ming Dynasty think of asking for help overseas? Come and listen to Dong Hao's reading to unveil the mystery of Matteo Ricci's memory palace, while also unveiling the long-lost history for you.