The German John Tang is really one of the most legendary foreigners in China. He was once the best graduate of the Roman Academy, he was the emperor of Shunzhi and Kangxi, he was once sentenced to lingchi, he was also favored, and his life was hanging by a thread. Where did he come from and what did he bring to a closed China? Xiao Jue talked about this foreigner today.
John Thomas, whose original name was Johann Adam Schall von Bair, was born in Cologne, Germany in 1592, and entered the best German High School in Germany at that time, the Deutsche College in Rome, showing great talent in philosophy, classical literature, mathematical astronomy and so on. After entering the Académie de Rome, he graduated with the finest grades and became a priest through four years of theological and mathematical studies. In 1618, the 26-year-old John Tang was sent by the Portuguese government to accompany 22 missionaries to China as a missionary.
This group of missionaries first arrived in Macau and then north to Beijing, when it was the end of the Ming Dynasty, john Tang showed his talent in astronomy and optics, successfully predicted solar and lunar eclipses, and wrote a book on the Galileo telescope in Chinese, "Far-Mirror Theory", the first to introduce the latest inventions in Europe to China. During the Chongzhen period, under the recommendation of Xu Guangqi, he served as the Qin Tianjian, translated the almanac, pushed the astronomical steps, made instruments, and was ordered by the Ming Court to supervise the construction of war cannons in the West, and dictated the principles and technologies related to the smelting, manufacturing, storage, transportation, and performance of cannons, as well as the preparation of gunpowder and the manufacture of artillery shells, and was instructed to set up a factory to cast cannons, casting 20 cannons in two years.
In 1644, the Qing army entered Beijing and the Ming dynasty died. Well, well, at this time, John Tang, as a foreigner, did not martyr himself and surrendered. After the Shunzhi Emperor came to power, John Tang cured not only the empress dowager, but also the unmarried empress borjigit of Shunzhi. Empress Xiaozhuang thanked him very much and invited him to attend the grand wedding ceremony of the Shunzhi Emperor. The empress dowager honored John Tang as his righteous father, and Shunzhi honored him as "Marfa" (Manchu for "grandfather"). Shunzhi's interaction with John Tang grew closer and closer, to the point of extending beyond the relationship between monarchs and courtiers. Shunzhi's 19th birthday was spent at John Tang's house. Because Shunzhi favored Tang John, he gave him many titles: first added Taibu Siqing, and soon changed to Taichang Siqing. In the eleventh year of Shunzhi (1654), he was given the title of "Tongxuan Teacher". Later, he was also enfeoffed as a political envoy, Jin Guanglu Doctor, and Shengzheng Yipin.
At that time, the Shunzhi Emperor was dying of smallpox, and John Tang stressed that he must find a prince who had received smallpox to succeed to the throne. Shunzhi's third son, Xuan Ye, had already suffered from smallpox at that time and was already immune to smallpox. The Shunzhi Emperor decided in one word, Xuan Ye would inherit the throne! This led to the later Kangxi Emperor!
John Tang's long favor in the Shunzhi Dynasty made the spread of Catholicism in China relatively smooth at that time. As the number of missionaries increased, the scope of activity expanded and believers continued to grow. In the time of John Tang, there were more than 30 churches in China, and according to statistics, the number of believers in 1650 had reached 150,000.
After the death of the Shunzhi Emperor, the young emperor Kangxi ascended the throne. The auxiliary chancellor Ao Bai opposed Western doctrine, and the officials and students of Shexian County, Anhui Province, went to the Ministry of Ceremonies to submit a formal accusation against John Tang for three major crimes: first, conspiracy to rebel, second, heresy to confuse the public, and third, absurdity of the calendar. The Qing court spent nearly a year hearing the case from the sixth day of August of the third year to the july of the fourth year, and finally made the decision to prohibit the Jesuits from spreading Catholicism in China. He also detained and arrested more than 30 missionaries from other provinces and released them from Beijing. Sentence John Ling Chi. At the time of detention, jingshi earthquake for five consecutive days, coupled with shunzhi's mother's strong exoneration, Tang Ruowang was spared a death.
However, after this incident, tang John Wang, who was more than a year old, was not as healthy as before, and the next year, John Tang died in Nantang at the age of 75. Until the beginning of Kangxi's pro-government, Tang Ruowang was thoroughly enlightened, and the name of "Tongxuan Teacher" was restored, and because the "Xuan" character of the original title "Tongxuan Teacher" was the name of the Kangxi Emperor, he was renamed "Tongwei Teacher". The attitude of Ao Bai and Yang Guangxian towards John Tang represented the closed self-preservation of the imperial court at that time, and also made China pay a heavy price later.