Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 960 Heaven on Earth
After learning the identities of Adolf and Ferdinand, the Ming Dynasty officials immediately reported it. When the news reached Xiong Wencan, Xiong Wencan did not dare to neglect it.

Xiong Wencan had previously written to the emperor about the issue of Xiaoliuqiu, hoping that the court would send troops to deal with the Dutch in Xiaoliuqiu. However, this matter was suppressed by the emperor on the surface. The court only sent a letter to Zheng Zhilong in Fujian, asking Zheng Zhilong to be responsible for handling the matter. At the same time, they found a reason to punish Xiong Wencan, who had already left Fujian, and fined him his salary.

But in fact, Xiong Wencan knew in his heart that the emperor did not really want to punish him, because while punishing him on the surface, the emperor rewarded him privately. Later, the emperor also privately told Xiong Wencan to pay close attention to the situation in the South China Sea countries as the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, and to monitor Zheng Zhilong's military operations against Xiaoliuqiu, and report to him at any time if there was any situation.

For these reasons, Xiong Wencan paid special attention to this after he took office as the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, especially since Macau was under his jurisdiction. Moreover, as a legal place for Portuguese people to reside in China, Macau was an important area for Western countries to travel to the Ming Dynasty. Now there was a sudden news from Macau that European envoys and people from the Holy See had arrived and requested to go north from Macau to the capital. How could Xiong Wencan ignore it?

Moreover, he had just received news from the capital not long ago. Zhu Shenzhui told Xiong Wencan to pay attention to this situation and explained that the court had previously entrusted Johann Adam Schall von Bell to contact Europe. After receiving the news, Xiong Wencan sent people to Macau to bring Adolf and others to Guangzhou. If their identities were confirmed to be authentic, they would naturally be sent north to the capital according to the emperor's request.

Just like that, after staying in Macau for less than a week, news came from Guangzhou that Adolf and Ferdinand and their party should go to Guangzhou first. After learning about the attitude of the Ming Dynasty, Adolf was very happy, and quickly packed his luggage, and left Macau with Ferdinand and his accompanying servants, and went to Guangzhou under the official escort of the Ming Dynasty.

A few days later, when Adolf and his companions arrived in Guangzhou, they were immediately stunned by the grandeur and prosperity of the city, because what appeared before them was a big city that they had never seen or even imagined.

Today, Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong. Guangzhou Prefecture has a population of more than 400,000, and the population living in Guangzhou alone exceeds 300,000. This huge number is unimaginable for Adolf and others who came from Europe.

In Europe, the population of an average city is only a few thousand to tens of thousands, and a city with a population of 100,000 is considered a megacity. For example, commercial cities such as Milan and Florence are large cities with a population of nearly 100,000, and their prosperity is beyond the imagination of ordinary people.

The most populous cities in Europe are Paris and London. It is said that these two cities have as many as 300,000 people including the suburbs. But Adolf has never been to Paris and London, let alone seen them with his own eyes. The Guangzhou city in front of them is real, a city with a population of over 400,000, with more than 300,000 permanent residents living in the city alone. The impact on them is unimaginable.

"My God, is this the capital of China? It's so prosperous!" Adolf couldn't help but admire, and Ferdinand beside him was also shocked with his mouth wide open and an incredible look at the extremely prosperous Guangzhou city in front of him.

In addition to being shocked, the two were extremely excited when they thought about meeting the Chinese emperor. But when they entered Guangzhou and were led to a place, they realized that this city was not the capital of the Ming Dynasty, but only the capital of a province of the Ming Dynasty, and the person they were going to see was only the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, Xiong Wencan, not the emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

There are many cities like this in the Ming Dynasty, and the capital of the Ming Dynasty is in the north, very far away from here. Because of their identities, they must first be confirmed by the Governor-General's Office of Guangdong and Guangxi, and they must be personally received by Governor Xiong Wencan before the next arrangements can be made to send them north to the capital.

After learning this, Adolf and Ferdinand were even more shocked. They had never expected this to be the case, but they were also more expectant. After being led into the Governor's Mansion, they soon met Xiong Wencan. Facing this majestic Governor, Adolf and Ferdinand expressed their respective identities and took out tokens of identity, including the letter that Johann Adam Schall von Bell had sent to Europe as evidence.

After understanding what the other party said through the interpreter and then checking the tokens and letters they took out, Xiong Wencan quickly confirmed that there was no problem with their identities. Although he did not know where in the West the Kingdom of Sweden and the Kingdom of Poland that Adolf mentioned were, after all, most of the Westerners dealing with the Ming Dynasty today were from the three European countries of Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands, and little was known about other European countries. Moreover, in the eyes of Ming officials, most of these Westerners looked the same, basically with fair skin, high noses, hair of various colors, and even eyes, which was very different from the appearance of Ming people.

But no matter what, since their identities were correct, Xiong Wencan would naturally give them a warm reception. Moreover, the emperor had already made private instructions before. In addition, Adolf and his party had come from afar, and as envoys from two European countries, this was also an important matter for the Ming Dynasty.

Isn't it a sign of prosperity that all nations will come to pay tribute to the emperor when foreign envoys from overseas kingdoms come? Xiong Wencan talked to them with a pleasant face, and politely asked them to stay in Guangzhou for a while. After a few days of rest, he would send them north. After the simple meeting, Xiong Wencan wrote a secret letter to the emperor and sent it to the capital urgently. On the other hand, he notified the Jinyiwei organization in Guangzhou Prefecture and transferred some personnel and accompanied them by Jinyiwei to escort them north. A few days later, Adolf and Ferdinand boarded a ship from Guangzhou to the north under the escort of the Ming government. This time, they first went to Hangzhou Bay, passed Hangzhou, and went up the river to Nanjing. They disembarked in Nanjing and went north, and then changed ships to go north from the Grand Canal and directly arrived in the capital.

As they continued on their journey, what Adolf and Ferdinand saw and heard opened their eyes. They had never imagined that the territory of the Ming Dynasty was so vast. It would take a long time to go all the way north from Guangzhou, and just the route from Guangzhou to Nanjing in Europe would mean crossing several countries. In the Ming Dynasty, this was only a part of the southern part, which was far from the entire Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, the further north they went, the more prosperous the cities were. Big cities similar to Guangzhou were almost everywhere, especially Hangzhou and Nanjing, whose scale and prosperity stunned them. Hangzhou, with a population of more than 300,000, was fine, but when they learned that the entire city of Nanjing had a population of more than 2 million, Adolf and Ferdinand were so shocked that they were speechless. They could only subconsciously mutter "Oh God!" and make the sign of the cross on their chests.

After a brief stop in Nanjing, they continued to travel north along the Grand Canal. At this time, Adolf and Ferdinand were numb. What they had seen and heard since arriving in the Ming Dynasty completely overturned their imagination. They could not imagine how there could be such a powerful country in the world, let alone how populous and wealthy this country was.

During the journey, Adolf and Ferdinand followed the Chinese officials who escorted them north to learn Chinese and learned a lot about the Ming Dynasty from them. When they learned that if it weren't for the natural disasters and man-made disasters in the past few years, the Ming Dynasty would have been even more prosperous, Adolf and Ferdinand didn't know what to say.

Moreover, when they heard about the intensity of the civil strife in the Ming Dynasty, the territories of the provinces involved, and the number of people lost in the war, the two were shocked to the extreme. In their opinion, if a civil war of this extent happened in Europe, at least half of the European countries would be completely destroyed and the population would be almost wiped out. However, in the Ming Dynasty, it was only a minor injury, and the recovery after the war was extremely fast. The shock it gave them was indescribable.

It took two months to travel from Guangzhou to the capital. When they got off the ship in Tongzhou and changed to a horse-drawn carriage to arrive in the capital, the magnificent capital once again gave them an incredible shock.

Looking at this huge city that they had never seen before, even Adolf and Ferdinand, who had seen the prosperity of Nanjing, were still stunned. When they came to their senses, they realized that they had finally arrived at the capital of the Ming Dynasty, and their hearts were full of expectations.

When they arrived in the capital, officials from the Honglu Temple, who had received the news in advance, took them to the Yingbin Palace and let them live there.

The reception hall of the Honglu Temple was a place specially used to receive foreign envoys. Here, Adolf and his companions enjoyed the same treatment as envoys from Korea, Annan, Japan, Ryukyu, Siam and other countries. The exquisite architecture and other aspects of the place were a feast for the eyes, especially the beds covered with fine silk and the exquisite porcelain and other furnishings everywhere in the room. Even Adolf, who was born into an aristocratic family, felt as if he was in a dream.

In his room, Adolf was dazzled by all the displays around him. He looked here and there like a peasant who had never seen the world. He was so obsessed with an ordinary tea set that he kept turning it over and over again.

He had no way of estimating the value of these things. If they were in Europe, not to mention the nobles, even the royal family would not be able to own them.

Compared with those products used in Europe, the things here are much more exquisite. As a nobleman, he can naturally tell the difference. In his opinion, if all the things in this room were taken to Europe for auction, the gold coins exchanged would probably be more than the total wealth of his entire family. And this is just an ordinary room for entertaining guests. There are many similar rooms like the one in the guesthouse. Adolf has no way of calculating the final value of all this.

The wealth and power of the Ming Dynasty had left a deep impression on Adolf. Lying on his soft bed at night, covered with a silk quilt as soft as a girl's skin, Adolf found himself suffering from insomnia for the first time. What he saw along the way made him feel that more than 20 years of his life had been wasted. Born into an aristocratic family, he found for the first time that his previous life was so unbearable. In the Ming Dynasty, he saw a world completely different from Europe, a paradise that opened his eyes and made him yearn for it. At this moment, Adolf could not fall asleep at all. He was excited and overwhelmed.

(End of this chapter)