Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 263 The Ming Empire in the Eyes of Leonardo da Vinci
Tong Laowu and Tao Hei were originally craftsmen of the lowest class in the Ming Dynasty. They had little idea about court robes. If they were granted dragon robes, they might not know how valuable wearing such robes meant for them. But having seen the Jinyiwei wearing flying fish robes when the emperor went out on tour, they knew what wearing such robes meant.

Therefore, they were all very energetic at the moment, and even felt like they were dreaming. Their hands were stiffly suspended in the air, for fear of touching the expensive Feiyu suits on their bodies. Their smiles were also stiff, and they were even trembling a little, for fear of being laughed at by the officials present.

After all, it was the first time for them to be in front of the Fengtian Gate with so many officials whom they usually dared not even look at.

Fortunately, the person standing in the first place to receive the award was the Minister of War Wang Shouren. Basically, they learned to do whatever Wang Shouren did.

Tong Laowu never thought that he would be valued so much by the Emperor just for developing a musket that did not require a fuse and could be loaded with bullets.

Therefore, he had never been so proud of what he was doing as he was now. He could not help but secretly swear to make the rifle that His Majesty expected with all his heart, otherwise he would be letting down His Majesty the Emperor.

The same went for Tao Hei. He looked at his hand that was accidentally broken while smelting iron. He still felt that it was worth it even if he lost his life to be valued so much by the court and the emperor.

"A great doctor governs the country. Your Majesty values ​​my doctors so much that he even bestows them with the title of Shangshu. This shows that Your Majesty is a benevolent monarch. The people of the Ming Dynasty are blessed!"

Li Yanwen sighed in his heart. He was not as excited as Tong Laowu and Tao Hei, but now that Zhu Houzhao valued him as a doctor, he also respected Emperor Zhu Houzhao even more.

Xu Jing had never thought that he would become a second-rank official in the court one day. This reminded him of the incident in the imperial examination in the 12th year of Hongzhi, when he was murdered. He couldn't help but sneer in his heart:
"Back then, those villains tried to block my path to success, but I finally met a wise master! If those villains knew, I wonder if they would be furious!"

Cabinet Grand Secretary Kang Hai held the seal, and Zhu Houzhao presented it personally. The seven people expressed their gratitude one by one.

Ten thousand taels of silver is considered a huge sum of money, and the significance and value of this huge sum of money is also quite great. Even the powerful people in the court would envy it.

There were even some nobles in the court who couldn't help but secretly think that it would be difficult for a family like theirs to establish martial arts achievements, so it would be better for them to work hard on these unique skills and tricks, and perhaps they could win the emperor's favor and be valued by His Majesty, thus revitalizing the family.

Zhu Houzhao did not expect that because he established the highest royal science and technology award, all the powerful people in the court would begin to pay attention to academic careers.

Even the Duke of Wei began to spend a lot of money to find people to develop aircraft, and the Duke of England also had a sudden idea to recruit Qingke to build ironclad ships.

Leonardo da Vinci, who visited Ming Dynasty for the first time, also learned about this event from Pires. He was very surprised and happy that Ming Dynasty attached so much importance to secular knowledge.

"This empire called Ming is as luxurious and elegant as the legend says. It is like an oriental beauty just out of the bath, emitting sunshine-like charm, even more fascinating than the legend. The streets here are well-organized, with trash cans every hundred steps. The trash cans have artistic features, so the streets are as clean as the surface of a peeled egg, but the texture is very hard. I heard from the adults in the Ming Dynasty that it is cement, a kind of adhesive that can solidify quickly."

“And what surprised me even more was that the people here were all wealthy, both commoners and nobles wore expensive silks, and were even all learned, with more schools than churches and temples;
This is really a secular world, a humanistic world, not a world of worshiping gods. I really like it here. Even their king did not spend his extra wealth on religion, but gave generous rewards to some engineers and artists, and even made them nobles! For the first time, I began to feel that I was a little unfortunate. Unfortunately, I was not born in such a country! "

"In this country, religious beliefs are indeed free. Even some nobles are willing to listen to me tell them stories from the Bible. I also began to learn to accommodate their Taoism and Buddhism."

Leonardo da Vinci carefully recorded his feelings after arriving in the Ming Dynasty, and even recorded them in Western paintings.

Raphael and Michelangelo were no exception. Michelangelo even began to use sculpture to carve the common people of the Ming Dynasty.

At this time, Pires found them and said, "Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty wants to summon you. Remember to follow me to the Royal West Garden tomorrow."

"It's great that even the emperor is willing to see us!"

Leonardo da Vinci and others were so happy that they almost jumped up. Although they were very famous in later generations, in that era, even in Florence, they were not highly valued by the Medici family, a Florentine noble family. Now when they heard that the wealthy Emperor of the Ming Dynasty wanted to see them, they were naturally very happy.

Leonardo da Vinci hurriedly began to look through his paintings, wanting to give the Ming Emperor Zhu Houzhao the painting that he was most satisfied with.

Raphael was the same, searching through his pile of Madonna statues, fearing that the painting he presented would not satisfy the Ming emperor. Michelangelo, on the other hand, looked at his sculpture carefully, wondering if his offering would please the Ming emperor.

……

When Zhu Houzhao met Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael, he did not expect that these three people would give him gifts.

This made Zhu Houzhao very happy. After all, he knew that the works of these three people would be worth a fortune after hundreds of years, so he was very happy to accept them. He even said, "I didn't expect that they were so sensible and knew to give me a gift, which also saved me the trouble of asking for it myself."

"Pires, tell the three of them that I respect their freedom of creation and research, but the Ming Dynasty cannot tolerate lazy people. They can tell me what they want to do in the Ming Dynasty, and I can help them," Zhu Houzhao said to Pires.

Pires then translated Zhu Houzhao's words to Leonardo da Vinci and the other three.

Da Vinci and the other three were delighted after hearing this. What they wanted most was freedom. So when they heard what the Ming Emperor Zhu Houzhao said, they hurriedly said, "Thank you, Your Majesty. I, Da Vinci, just want to learn more about your country."

Neither Michelangelo nor Raphael said so.

Zhu Houzhao nodded and said hurriedly: "In this case, I will allow you to go to the Imperial University of Peking for further studies and learn our Chinese language first."

When Zhu Houzhao was speaking, Da Vinci pointed to the astronomical telescope behind Zhu Houzhao (historically invented by Galileo in 1609, so it appears here in advance): "May I ask your Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, what is the iron cylinder behind you?"

"This is the tool used by our Ming Dynasty for observing astronomy, it is called an astronomical telescope," Zhu Houzhao said. After Pires translated it, Leonardo da Vinci and others became curious and hurriedly asked Zhu Houzhao to allow them to use the astronomical telescope.

Zhu Houzhao did not refuse and asked Liu Jin to teach them how to use it.

As soon as Leonardo da Vinci used the Ming Dynasty Astronomical Telescope, he was surprised and said in the Western Yi language: "Oh my God! Guess what I saw, the Milky Way is made up of stars, Jupiter, that should be Jupiter, there are celestial bodies around Jupiter, isn't the earth the center of the universe? Oh my God! How is this possible!"

Leonardo left the telescope in shock, muttering in despair: "The knowledge possessed by this empire is shocking!"

At this time, Michelangelo and Raphael, who also looked at the sky through the astronomical telescope, were as shocked as Leonardo da Vinci and said to themselves foolishly: "I never thought, I really didn't expect that the universe is like this!"

Seeing this, Liu Jin could not help but ask Zhu Houzhao: "Your Majesty, these three Western barbarians acted like a young girl getting into a sedan chair for the first time. This is really unbecoming! Do you think we should reprimand them?"

"No need. When the officials of the Imperial Observatory saw this astronomical phenomenon for the first time, their reaction was not much more strange than theirs. Tell Pires to take them to the Imperial University to learn the language." Zhu Houzhao flipped through the paintings presented by Leonardo da Vinci. Seeing a large-scale Western painting, he gave it to Tang Bohu and said, "I'll lend it to you to take a closer look. Maybe it can help you in painting. Their Western paintings are different from those of the East. Take a good look at them."

Hearing Zhu Houzhao's words, Tang Bohu hurriedly took over the words, opened it and looked at it. He was stunned for a moment, and hurriedly whispered to Zhu Houzhao:
"Your Majesty, please forgive me for being so rude. This Western barbarian is so bold that he dared to send you a picture of the 0Spring 0Palace. Moreover, the scale is so large and realistic, without any subtlety. If the Taoist scholars knew about this, they would probably call them flatterers."

"What they have there is not a painting of the Spring Palace, but humanism, you know, understand it well," Zhu Houzhao said with a smile, and asked the eunuch to take the other two works, a sculpture by Michelangelo and a Madonna by Raphael, to the Cining Palace.

Empress Dowager Zhang's birthday was approaching, and she was unhappy because her two younger brothers had not returned to Beijing since they went to sea. Therefore, Zhu Houzhao thought that while Leonardo da Vinci and others were presenting Western paintings and sculptures, he could give them to the Empress Dowager and say that his two uncles had asked someone to bring them back for her. The Leonardo da Vinci's painting was too large, so Zhu Houzhao didn't want to give it to him directly, so he gave it to Tang Bohu to appreciate first, and prepared to keep it for himself to enjoy quietly. As for Michelangelo's sculpture and Raphael's Madonna, Zhu Houzhao thought that Empress Dowager Zhang should be able to accept it.

After Empress Dowager Zhang learned from Zhu Houzhao that it was a gift brought back by her brother from the West, she became interested and hurriedly asked someone to open it and take a look. As a result, when she saw Michelangelo's sculpture, she could not help but wave her hand and said:

"Take it away, take it away. What's so good about a naked man? These barbarians are really uncivilized. Your two uncles are still so stupid. They dare to send them to the palace. Why don't you issue an imperial decree to reprimand them?"

(End of this chapter)