North America 1849, from Gold Rush to Warlord

Chapter 245 Suppression in Prestige
The other day, Wu Qingfeng's heartfelt words made Feng Yunshan think for a long time.

Feng Yunshan was undoubtedly a man of extremely strong will.

Therefore, he temporarily declined Wu Qingfeng's suggestion to send him to the other side of the ocean to recuperate.

Initially, Hong, Feng Yunshan, and Hong Renxuan started spreading their doctrines in Guangdong.

However, Guangdong opened up to foreign trade relatively early, had better economic conditions, and its people were more enlightened and civilized, so no one bought into their ideas.

The saying goes that "foreign monks chant better sutras," so the three had no choice but to go to Guangxi, a region known for its fierce people but also for its extreme poverty, to preach.

Feng Yunshan invited two clansmen to go with him, making a total of five people preparing to set off from Guangdong.

As a result, before they even set off, Hong Renxuan was caught by his elderly parents and given a good beating, leaving him covered in bumps and welts. He had no choice but to abandon his plan to travel with them.

The remaining four, including Feng Yunshan, continued their journey.

As a result, Feng Yunshan's clansmen could not endure the hardship and turned back before even reaching Guangxi.

That leaves Feng Yunshan and Mr. Hong.

Then, the two encountered bandits who robbed them of all their meager travel expenses.

At the time, the two had no intention of rebelling, so they reported the matter to the authorities.

A prefect, seeing the plight of these two scholars, gave them a string of copper coins as a form of financial assistance.

With just this string of copper coins, the two of them finally made it to Guangxi.

By this time, the two had spent all their money and were disheveled and barely clothed.

If someone goes on a missionary mission looking like that, claiming to be the second son of the Father, who do you think would believe them?
Everyone would just think of these two beggars as mentally ill lunatics!
After persisting for a while, even this "second son of God" Feng couldn't take it anymore.

Despite Feng Yunshan's objections, Hong returned to Guangdong alone, where he once lived a simple life as a private tutor with his wife and children. He also studied the Bible under a missionary named Luo Xiaoquan.

In the end, only Feng Yunshan was left to preach in Guangxi.

Despite facing such dire circumstances, Feng Yunshan persevered alone with unwavering determination. Through sheer perseverance and a spirit of determination, he gradually gained momentum, developing a following of several thousand followers in the Zijing Mountains of Guangxi.

Feng Yunshan has excellent speaking skills and is extremely good at bluffing.

Initially, he was arrested by the local magistrate on charges of "plotting rebellion" for inciting a disturbance.

After the followers raised funds and bribed the county magistrate, Feng Yunshan was released, but two constables were sent to escort him back to Huaxian County, Guangdong.

But on the way back to his hometown, under Feng Yunshan's repeated deception and brainwashing, the two constables not only released him, but also voluntarily followed Feng Yunshan into Zijing Mountain and joined the God Worshipping Society!

……

Such a determined and eloquent person was rendered speechless by Wu Qingfeng's words.

It's not that Wu Qingfeng is better at bluffing than Feng Yunshan, but rather that their perspectives and knowledge structures are on completely different levels!
In the words of later generations, Wu Qingfeng's worldview, outlook on life, and values ​​completely overwhelmed Feng Yunshan's!
Under Azu's command, Wu Qingfeng traveled almost the entire world, from Asia and the Americas to Europe, and truly saw the true nature of the world.

Wu Qingfeng has studied and is quite familiar with both Eastern and Western systems.

During his three years under Azu's command, Wu Qingfeng studied medicine, worked in industry, served as a high-ranking official in the state government, and recently led a fleet to forcefully subdue the Japanese shogunate.

Wu Qingfeng has undergone a complete transformation in terms of vision, understanding, and ability. He is no longer the naive young merchant who followed Peter Parker to America to find a way for his family to survive.

As for Feng Yunshan, no matter how amazing his talent and ability were, he was ultimately just a poor scholar who hadn't even passed the county-level imperial examination. He spent his days holed up in the deep mountains and forests, dealing with a group of charcoal burners and poor miners. How could his knowledge and level of understanding possibly be compared with Wu Qingfeng's?

Even if they learned some Western learning, they only learned a little bit of the superficial and dross from the Bible!
Even these bits and pieces of dregs are of unknown origin, having been through multiple hands.

The book that inspired Feng Yunshan and Mr. Hong, "Words of Admonition," was written by Liang Fa, who was merely a woodblock engraver at a bookstore. He learned a little about Christianity by engraving woodblocks for the Bible.

Liang Fa combined Western medieval thinking from the Bible, modern colonialism, and Eastern Confucianism to compile "Words of Advice for the World," a book used for missionary work.

It can be said that the book "Good Words to Admonish the World," which Feng Yunshan and Mr. Hong regarded as a supreme classic, combined the dregs of Eastern and Western cultures and had no nutritional value whatsoever; it was utter garbage.

Given the complete disparity in their knowledge structures and cognitive levels, after this conversation, Feng Yunshan felt that the belief system he had once held as the ultimate standard and was willing to dedicate everything to was rapidly collapsing and disintegrating!
……

Two days later, Wu Qingfeng, having nothing else to do, came to find Feng Yunshan to continue their conversation.

Wu Qingfeng continued, "King Nan, I must say, you and Hong are truly audacious!"

"What do you mean?" Feng Yunshan asked, barely managing to break free from the despair of his rapidly collapsing faith.

Wu Qingfeng smiled and said, "About half a year ago, I accompanied my boss to the Vatican to pay a visit to His Holiness the Pope of the West!"

"What...?!" Feng Yunshan was extremely shocked: "You... actually saw the Western Pope with your own eyes?"

“Yes, that Pope, heh... he’s just a fat old man!” Wu Qingfeng nodded calmly: “Even His Holiness the Pope, whom everyone in the West reveres, only dares to call himself Jehovah’s spokesperson!”

Having spent a long time by Ah Zu's side, even Wu Qingfeng has learned some of Ah Zu's style of speaking and acting.

“And Jehovah is the only Son of the Father… You dare to call yourselves the second or third Son of the Father? Where does that leave the entire Western Papacy, and even the entire Western world?” Wu Qingfeng continued, “If His Holiness the Pope were to hear your fallacies, he would probably immediately have you all burned at the stake!”

"Cough cough...!" Feng Yunshan was injured in the chest, and although he had been recuperating for more than half a month, there was still blood in his cough.

“Mr. Wu, the Heavenly King and I are convinced that our God Worshipping Society and the Western Vatican are brothers on equal footing…!”

"Hahaha...!" Upon hearing this, Wu Qingfeng couldn't help but burst out laughing: "King Nan, should I say you're naive, or should I think you're ignorant?"

"What do you mean by that?" Feng Yunshan's face showed considerable displeasure.

Wu Qingfeng patiently explained to him, "In the minds of Westerners, doctrines are black and white; in the doctrines of Christ, if anyone dares to change even a single word in the Bible, it is a heinous crime punishable by the extermination of nine generations of their family!"

As he spoke, Wu Qingfeng began reciting the original text from the Bible.

“You shall not add to or take away from the words I command you, so that you may keep the commands I have given you, the commands of the Lord your God.”

“I testify to all who hear the prophecies in this book that if anyone adds anything to them, God will add the plagues that are written in this book to that person.”

"If anyone removes anything from the prophecies in this book, God will remove his name from the book of life, his portion from the holy city of Jerusalem, and all the blessings written in this book…!"

……

After reciting the original text of the Bible, Wu Qingfeng continued, "King Nan, you may not know that in Western history, due to slight differences in doctrine, how many wars have broken out, how many people have died, and how many countries have been destroyed over the past thousand years?!"

"Unlike the inclusiveness of us Chinese, Westerners see things in black and white, with a binary of either/or. Their culture is absolutely exclusive..."

"What is...exclusivity?" Feng Yunshan couldn't help but ask.

Wu Qingfeng replied, "Exclusivity means that those who are different from me are mortal enemies! Especially... heretics!"

"I said this, do you understand?"

Upon hearing this, Feng Yunshan's expression darkened again, and he nodded sadly, his heart filled with indescribable bitterness and sorrow.

Not only were his own doctrines refuted as worthless by Wu Qingfeng.

More than anything, Feng Yunshan looked at the young man in front of him, who was much younger than himself, and the reasoning he spoke was completely beyond his comprehension, yet he was completely unable to refute it.

This feeling of being completely crushed by young people in terms of knowledge structure and cognitive level made Feng Yunshan, who had always been quite confident, feel a sense of powerlessness, and even... self-consciousness!
Wu Qingfeng continued, "Therefore, your fabricated doctrines have made you not only enemies of the Qing Dynasty, but also enemies of all foreigners!"

"You are enemies of the world, except yourselves! How can your uprising possibly succeed under such circumstances?"

"More importantly, the doctrinal foundations upon which you rely to start your uprising are so utterly worthless that you cannot possibly succeed."

Under Wu Qingfeng's barrage of verbal attacks, Feng Yunshan fell into complete self-doubt and remained silent for a long time.

After a long silence, Feng Yunshan finally asked, "Mr. Wu, in your opinion, how can we expel the Qing demons, save the country and its people, and ultimately achieve great things?"

This question stumped Wu Qingfeng as well. After thinking for a moment, he said, "King Nan, you've asked the wrong person!"

"Oh...?" Feng Yunshan asked curiously, "Then who should I ask?"

Wu Qingfeng replied, "Besides my boss, I'm afraid no one in the world can answer your question!"

"Your boss... is that the governor of California in the United States?"

Wu Qingfeng nodded: "My boss is absolutely the most visionary and far-sighted person in the world!"

"If we're talking about who will ultimately save the country and its people and achieve great things... it has to be my boss!!!"

"You can't do it, and the Qing Dynasty is even less capable... Only my boss can answer the question you asked!"

Upon hearing this, Feng Yunshan really wanted to meet the mysterious "boss" in person!

Wu Qingfeng added, "Speaking of which, Nan Wang, your life was saved by my boss!"

"You were able to go to Hong Kong for medical treatment because you had been injected with penicillin."

"And penicillin was invented by my boss himself."

"If it weren't for my boss's penicillin, you, Nan Wang, would be long gone."

"Is that really true?!" Feng Yunshan was shocked again: "That kind of miraculous medicine that costs at least one tael of gold to buy is actually your boss's invention?"

Wu Qingfeng nodded: "Absolutely true!"

"My boss's Huamei Company has sold penicillin all over the world, saving countless lives."

"Compared to your uprisings and rebellions, which have caused countless families to be destroyed, my boss's actions are those of a true savior of suffering and a living bodhisattva who brings good news to the world!"

(End of this chapter)