In a blink of an eye, it was already the fifteenth day of the first lunar month of the thirteenth year of Kangxi.

On the busy Grand Canal of Jiangnan, a fleet of several colored official ships was winding northward, stirring up white waves on the canal waterways in Suzhou Prefecture. One by one, the flags of Catholicism and Western countries and the dragon flags of the Qing Dynasty were fluttering in the spring breeze.

There are large fertile rice fields on both sides of the South Canal. Spring sowing has not yet begun, but there are already some Jiangnan farmers wearing straw hats driving the buffaloes to plow the fields. They are only busy with the farm work at hand, and no one takes a look at the official boats with colorful flags on the canal.

However, at this time, some little squire wearing long clothes and melon-skin hats were standing on the embankment of the canal, looking at the official boat passing through the canal in a daze.

As early as the New Year, this canal connecting the wealthiest states in China, such colored official ships passed from time to time. However, those official ships were filled with red flags of "entering to the court under the orders", and those who were riding were all famous people who were "captured" as heroes. After the New Year, the indicators of "entering to the court under the orders" increased again. Each county had to send several largest landlords to attend the consultation meetings, probably the Hongmen Banquet. Anyway, there was no good meeting, and no good banquet.

These little gentry who were not qualified to go to Hongmen Banquet could only guard the canal and look south at the King's Army in October and November last year, rural areas in Jiangnan were immersed in the joyful atmosphere of the Qing Dynasty!

There was so much good news at that time! I said Kang Mazi was killed!

After a while, it was said that the Qing Dynasty soldiers were in Jiangxi and Hubei were defeated in a crushing situation. They were almost 100,000, and Kang Mazi was captured!

Later, it was said that Wu Sangui and Prince Zhu San were going to hold a "mass-killing conference" in Jiugong Mountain, Hubei. In short, it was all good news!

As a result, in December, there was an outrageous news that Kang Mazi had not died of beheading her head! Is this true or false? Even if she beheading her head, she can't beheaded, and this "Qing Demon" turns out to be a real demon!

However, there are still unwilling gentry and people who will go to the canal when they have time to wait. The king's army is now in the thirteenth year of Kangxi, not Daoguang, and in the Xianfeng year, it is only more than 20 years since the Qing Dynasty set foot on the south of the Yangtze River. Moreover, thirteen or fourteen years ago, the Northern Expedition Army of Zheng's surname once came to the city of Nanjing.

After experiencing loose rule in the late Ming Dynasty, I saw the Northern Expedition Army of Zheng, and those who survived the Qing army's butcher knife were still alive and missed their homeland, thinking that one day they would restore their Chinese clothes.

And the days of recovery seem to be not far away!

But when will this day come?

What passed through the canal today is still a ship with strange flags, not the ship of the Great Ming soldiers' northern expedition.

Hey, why do these boats have a few "curly-haired Yangyi" wearing strange costumes and standing on the deck and waving? What does this mean?

"Hi, hello, I am a guest of the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, representing the King of France"

On the deck of a leading official boat, a cheerful "curl" was waving hello to the little landlord of Suzhou who was looking forward to the king's army on the shore, and introduced himself in fluent Chinese. This was Tefrid William Leibniz, who came to China to study magic on behalf of Louis XIV.

He is one of the few "Chinese fans" in this huge foreign delegation.

That's right, there were a lot of "Chinese fans" in Europe in this era. The French King Louis XIV was the number one "Chinese fans", including Chinese porcelain, Chinese silk, and Chinese perfume. He liked it very much.

And Louis XIV is the "No. 1" in the European fashion circle now. This European fashion circle can even be said to have started with Louis XIV.

Under the influence of Louis XIV, Leibniz, who had been in the French courts in Paris and Versailles for a long time, naturally became a "Chinese fan". So when Louis XIV wanted to find a great scholar who knew everything to visit China, Leibniz found a way to win this position and became the deputy commander of the French delegation to send Chinese.

In addition to Louis XIV, the "fashion Chinese fan", although the promiscuous businessmen of several East India companies in Europe have done many anti-China things along the coast of China and in Southeast Asia, they have pretended to be Chinese fans when they come to Europe. They want to describe China as black charcoal, Chinese porcelain, Chinese silk, Chinese perfume, Chinese sugar, and Chinese tea are still sold at high prices?

The above products, except sugar, are not necessary products, and are all things used to enhance the taste of life. Therefore, among these merchants, China is a very civilized, very rich and quite tasteful place.

Of course, this is only said in Europe. When you arrive in China, you have to praise Europe's advanced technology, strong ships and powerful guns, and invincible firearms. Otherwise, how can you sell arms?

These guys are "two-sided blowing".

And of course there are Hua Hei!

Huahei in Europe was originally a Catholic missionary. They were actually people who knew China the best. Many people also experienced the disaster of the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the rise of the Qing Dynasty, so they naturally would not leave any good impressions.

In addition, Catholicism, including Orthodox and various Protestantisms, has a strange feeling of "save the world", and always feels that God has given them some mission to "save" the foolish humans who do not believe in the Lord.

Moreover, ignorant humans who do not believe in the Lord are all "non-humans" without souls, so they can be killed and played casually.

So they always try their best to criticize China, otherwise why would they spread the Lord's gospel to the Chinese?

When Leibniz was angry on the deck for a while and returned to the cabin to prepare for lunch, he found that several Dutch, English, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish in the joint mission were gathering together to read the report!

Everyone looked surprised, as if they had seen something incredible to them.

"Father Philip, what's wrong?" Leibniz asked in fluent Latin.

He called Father Philip aged, with a little dry appearance, always very serious face, and a little serious. Looking at the intimidating old man, this is not an ordinary person, but a priest with a little "mana". He is the deputy justice of the heretical referee of the Roman church, and the chief exorcist of the Holy See.

This time, he was assigned by the Holy See to China to investigate mysterious magical events. If possible, the Holy See also hopes that he can help the Qing emperor defeat the black magic, thereby creating conditions for the widespread spread of the gospel of God in China.

Because this mission was caused by "black magic", and there are still complex relationships between France, the Netherlands, England, Spain, England, Portugal and other countries participating in the joint mission. They may be enemies, allies in Europe, and competitors or partners in the South China Sea and the coastal areas of China.

At the same time, they have more or less common interests in the South China Sea and the coastal areas of China.

So after a series of secret or public consultations, the heads of France, the Netherlands, England, Spain, England, Portugal, and the Holy See decided to form a joint mission and take joint action in China.

Moreover, because the Portuguese Macau colony was "illegally occupied" by Zhu Hetong, and Zhu Hetong repeatedly rejected the "free trade request" of Britain and the Netherlands, the joint mission did not visit Guangzhou first, but regarded Ningbo under the Qing Dynasty as their first stop.

Shortly after they arrived in Ningbo, the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty announced that they would go to Nanjing to meet, and at the same time asked them to observe the opening ceremony of the first Qing Dynasty Consultation Council.

This was a bit beyond their expectations!

What country did they arrive in?

Fortunately, they came to Ningbo to welcome them by a slave from the Portuguese leader named "Figo". In addition to bringing imperial edicts and invitations, they also brought a document that was said to be the program of the parliament, called "Mingyi Waiting for Interviews".

Because this "Mingyi Waiwen Lu" is written in classical Chinese, Leibniz still doesn't understand it very much, so he can only ask Ji Dabao, the chief translator who accompanied him to translate it into Latin.

Now that I have just translated part of it, Father Philip has a copy in his hand.
Chapter completed!