Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 224 Faith
"Master, I see that you are in a good mood, but is there any good news?" Zhu Huiyu turned to Li Jing's back and lightly patted Li Jing's shoulder.

Shaking his head slightly, Li Jing knew that it would be difficult for Zhu Huiyu to change his words.

Smiling, Li Jing said: "How can there be so much good news, it's already very good that it can continue to develop like this."

After a pause, Li Jing continued: "It's just that the Academy of Sciences hasn't improved much. Those talented and learned people in Beijing are unwilling to come, and those foreigners are also unwilling to come."

"Foreigners? Those people with yellow hair and blue eyes? They are nothing more than barbarians. The master invites them, but they still refuse to come?" Zhu Huiyu wondered.

Li Jing smiled and said: "What barbarians? It's so ugly! Huiyu, let me tell you, most of these foreigners are capable. Those missionaries who came to Ming Dynasty know a lot of things, such as mathematics, Medicine, astronomy, machinery, etc., some are much more advanced than our Ming Dynasty, and these technologies are all useful to us."

"Since the master needs them, let's find a way to let them come." Zhu Huiyu said.

Seeing Li Jing shaking his head, Zhu Huiyu rolled his eyes, smiled and said, "Actually, I thought it would not be difficult to recruit those foreigners. Master, what do these foreigners come to our Ming Dynasty for? They can't be here. Officials, right? Either for money, or for some purpose. The master pays them a lot. If they don’t want to come, it means that they are not for money. Then what are they for? Just find out their purpose What is it, and then the master can prescribe the right medicine."

Hearing Zhu Huiling's words, Li Jing was shocked.

Li Jing didn't expect Zhu Huiyu to analyze the matter so clearly, it's amazing!

Suddenly Li Jing understood that this Zhu Huiling only read Wang Shouren's works all day long, and he was studying philosophy.

People who study philosophy can often see the essence of problems directly when they look at problems, and solving problems is often simpler and more practical than many professionals.

After pondering for a while, Li Jing said slowly: "These foreign missionaries came to Daming to spread the teachings. They seem to be Catholic."

"Catholicism? What is that?" Zhu Huixuan asked.

Li Jing shook his head, he didn't know what happened to Catholicism.

But Li Jing didn't know, it doesn't mean others don't know, Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua are both Catholics.

Ordering people to invite Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua, Li Jing carefully asked what was going on with Catholicism, and at the same time asked about the purpose of those foreign missionaries in China.

After hearing Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua finish talking, Zhu Huiyu suddenly smiled and said, "It's easy to know what their purpose of coming to Daming is, sir, you build a church here in Pingyang Mansion, and let those missionaries come to us to spread the teachings. Those foreigners are sure to come over soon."

Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua's eyes lit up when they heard Zhu Huiling's suggestion that Li Jing build a church.

There are many ceremonies in Catholicism that need to be held in churches. Without churches, it is a very painful thing for devout Catholics.

But Pingyang Mansion is currently engaged in major infrastructure construction, and money is being spent like water. How could Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua propose to build a church at this time?Unexpectedly, Zhu Huiyu proposed to build a church.

If there is a church here, then the Holy See will definitely send priests, missionaries and other clergy over here. There is no need to try so hard to win over missionaries as they are now, and they are still unwilling to come.

Li Jingjing nodded and smiled at Zhu Huiyu in approval.

Thinking that Zhu Huiling would stop helping Shen Ying after she entered the house, it was probably because she was afraid that Shen Ying would be suspicious, and now that she was idle all day, she should find something to do so that she would not get sick from boredom.

Smiling, Li Jing said, "Hui Lai, you are in charge of building this church. You're fine anyway, so just treat it as a boredom."

Hearing that Li Jing asked her to do something, Zhu Huiling's eyes lit up immediately, and his heart was full of joy for a moment.

But Zhu Huiling didn't know how to build a church, so he said immediately: "My lord, I don't know how to build a church, I'd better find someone who understands to do it."

Seeing that Zhu Huiyu was so sensible, Li Jing smiled lightly and said, "It's okay, we paid for the building of the church ourselves, and no one will gossip if you preside over it. Besides, you just need to keep accounts, and let those who understand the specific things do it. .”

Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua clicked their tongues when they heard this. This Li Jing is really enlightened, and he actually let his concubine come out to do things.

At the same time, he thought to himself, if Li Jing's concubine came out to do things, anyone who dares to make irresponsible remarks would be courting death.

Zhu Huiyu was bored at first, Li Jing asked her to do things just as she wanted, and she knew Li Jing's character well, as long as she decided to do something, she would do it vigorously and resolutely.

Thinking of this, Zhu Huiling stopped hesitating and saluted Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua and said, "You two gentlemen, I don't know how to build churches, so I ask you two gentlemen to invite some knowledgeable people from Beijing to give advice. "

Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua nodded after hearing this.

This matter is not difficult, let those missionaries come to repair the church, those guys will come over immediately.

Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua were about to leave when Zhu Huiyu suddenly said, "You two gentlemen, building a church is a great thing for the Holy See to spread the teachings. Doesn't the Holy See pay any money?"

Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua were stunned when they heard this. How did she know that the Holy See was rich?

Immediately, it dawned on me that there are so many Catholic congregants, and it would be a ghost if there is no money. Zhu Huiyu is so smart, it is not surprising that the Holy See has money.

Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua looked at each other and smiled wryly at the same time.

Xu Guangqi said: "I will write a letter to my friend right now, to prepare for the situation here, and it is estimated that the Holy See will definitely pay part of the money."

Zhu Huiling smiled and nodded.

Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua hurriedly said goodbye.

As Zhu Huihou expected, Xu Guangqi wrote to his friend and received a reply soon after.

The letter said to send someone to the Holy See immediately, and said that the Holy See would definitely take out the money, and asked if the work could start here first, and then pay back after the money from the Holy See was sent.

Hearing this result, Li Jing smiled and said to Zhu Huiyu: "You! This matter is done upside down, why ask them for money? If you don't want money, they will come here directly. It's good now, waiting for approval Where's the money?"

Zhu Huiling said with a smile: "It's because I didn't think well, so I asked Mr. Xu to write to them, asking them to come and build the church first."

Li Jing nodded slightly.

In fact, Li Jing knew why Zhu Huiyu asked the Holy See for money. The cost of building a church must be indispensable. Pingyang Mansion is spending money everywhere now.

Therefore, although Li Jing criticized Zhu Huiyu for putting the cart before the horse, he did not really blame him.

After Xu Guangqi wrote again, half a month later, Jiang County welcomed a group of new guests, more than 20 missionaries.

After these missionaries arrived, they hurriedly asked Xu Guangqi when the church would be built.

Seeing that these people were so impatient, Li Jing smiled. It seemed that Zhu Huiling's idea was really good, and the building of the church had really agitated the nerves of these people.

In fact, Li Jing did not wait completely. During the period of correspondence with these missionaries, Li Jing had already asked Xu Guangqi to choose the address, and at the same time asked people to prepare materials.

Plant a sycamore tree to attract phoenixes.Li Jing still understands this truth. After all the preparations have been done, people can see at a glance that they really want to build a church sincerely. It is difficult for these people not to stay.

Similarly, those missionaries also did a lot of preparatory work, and the drawings for building the church were all ready.

Seeing that these missionaries actually took out the architectural drawings, Li Jing immediately paid attention to them.

During the Ming Dynasty, when a certain construction was carried out, most of them did not have blueprints, and usually drew something similar to the renderings.

Architectural drawings are definitely drawn by professionals.

Seeing these drawings, it means that there must be professionals among these missionaries.

You must know that architectural drawings involve many disciplines, the most basic is geometry, and then there are physics, aesthetics, architecture and so on.

People who know so many subjects are exactly what Li Jing needs.

And these drawings are not only churches, but also outbuildings such as hospitals, orphanages, etc.

This shows that there are people here who understand medicine. If the disease cannot be cured, how can it be possible to build a hospital?
The methods used by foreigners to treat diseases are generally called western medicine in later generations, and they are best at surgery, which happens to be combined with internal medicine of traditional Chinese medicine.

The site is selected, the drawings are available, and the rest is to start construction.

However, before the construction started, Li Jing made a move, that is, he asked the missionaries to modify the drawings, reducing the area of ​​the church a lot, and then expanding the areas of the hospital and orphanage.

Li Jing's explanation for this is that there are no believers in Pingyang Prefecture, and it needs to develop slowly. Then building such a large church is useless. It is better to expand the area of ​​​​the hospital to benefit the people here, and at the same time let The common people can truly experience the grace of God, so that the common people will believe in religion.

All the missionaries agreed with this.

These people have not been in Ming Dynasty for a year or two, and they know how difficult it is to recruit believers in the Ming Dynasty. What Li Jing said is indeed very reasonable. Only when the common people experience the benefits of believing in religion will the common people join the religion.

They know that Chinese people have always been very down-to-earth, and Chinese people are completely different from foreigners in terms of beliefs.

Whether foreigners believe in God or God, it is unconditional, but Chinese people's belief is conditional.

The largest religion in China is Buddhism. People who believe in Buddhism hope that the Buddha or Bodhisattva can bless them.

For example, if you don’t have a child, you send a letter to Guanyin, if you have no money, you worship the God of Wealth, and if you have someone dead in your family, you go to Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva. In short, there must be rewards.

To put it bluntly, if you want the common people in China to believe in religion, there must be benefits, and if there is no benefit, they will not believe even if you tell the truth.

However, according to the doctrine spread by the Catholic Church, belief in God does not ask for anything in return, because God is the Lord and God, and belief in God is what should be done. Obviously, this approach does not work in China.

As for whether beliefs are rewarded, ordinary people will naturally find some reasons for themselves to explain.

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(End of this chapter)