klisemfg Chapter 215 The Secret of the Foreigners
Chapter 215 The Secret of the Foreigners
Chapter 215 The Secret of Foreigners
Kangxi came back very quickly, and Yinreng and his son waited in the side hall of the Qianqing Palace for a quarter of an hour. Before they finished their cup of tea, Liang Jiugong came to find them.
After standing up and tidying his clothes, Yinreng signaled Hongye to take the account book and go to the front hall together.
After greeting and being offered a seat, Kangxi, with a mixture of curiosity and seriousness, asked, "How did you two find time to come together today? I remember Hongye was taking a break today, but is there anything I can do for you?"
He knew that Hongye had been observing boys of the same age, hoping to find a suitable husband for Jingyi. Could it be that he had finally found someone he liked? Was he planning to keep him on his radar so that he could arrange a marriage for them later?
Facts proved that Kangxi had overthought. Yinreng and his son had been looking for a girl for a long time. Even if they found one they were satisfied with, they had only put her on the list for investigation. How could they grant her a marriage now? As "daughter-control" and "sister-control" couples, they had planned to keep Jingyi until she was twenty years old before considering her marriage.
Yinreng gestured for Hongye to answer. After all, to put it bluntly, it was Hongye's curiosity that led to the investigation, and because it was Hongye, Yinreng helped to dig out so many secrets.
Following Yinreng's actions, Kangxi's gaze also turned to Hongye. Could it be that he guessed wrong, and today's incident actually had nothing to do with Jingyi?
The answer was soon revealed. Hongye walked up to Liang Jiugong and handed him the account book he had been carrying along with the translated paper. "Your Majesty, please take a look. This is an account book that I accidentally found from the foreign church. Since it's all in foreign languages, I translated it. It was because of this action that I discovered many problems. Since I didn't know much, I asked you privately. As a result, what you told me made me panic for a moment, and I just wanted to go to the palace to find your Majesty."
After hearing Hongye's words, Kangxi also realized the seriousness of the matter. Something that both Hongye and Yinreng found difficult must not be a small problem. And if it involved foreigners, the matter might escalate to a higher level.
Without delay, he took the account book from Liang Jiugong and flipped through it page by page, then turned directly to the end and took out the blueprint of the red cannon to compare carefully. While comparing, he also asked Liang Jiugong to take out the blueprint he had previously kept. When the two blueprints were compared, it was clear that Kangxi's face darkened visibly.
Then Kangxi gave a direct order, asking the imperial guards to bring the foreigner Lang Shining, who was still staying in the palace, to the palace. At the same time, he ordered a search of the former residences of Johann Adam Schall von Bell and Ferdinand Verbiest. All items with text or pictures were to be brought over, even if they could not understand them.
Instantly, the Imperial Guards were dispatched. The first to return after the search team were the men with Lang Shining. Because of his exceptional talent for painting, he was recruited into the imperial court and became the official painter of the Qing dynasty, spending most of his time in the Forbidden City.
No, when the imperial guards found him, he was drawing for the Eighth Princess. As soon as they met, the guards arrested him directly, without paying any attention to the Eighth Princess's obstruction, even though the Eighth Princess shouted that she would complain to the Emperor.
Are you kidding? They were just executing the emperor's orders. The smart ones should have faced the reality when they saw them taking Lang Shining away like that. They should have known that no one dared to move in the Forbidden City without the emperor's order.
She's the Eighth Princess, and I don't know how Concubine Min raised her. She doesn't even have the foresight to do this. She's almost raised her to be the Eighth Concubine's wife. Not only has her manners and temperament not improved, but she's actually regressed. She dared to make such a scene today, stopping the guards from moving. If the Emperor finds out, she'll be in big trouble.
Didn't they see that Concubine Min had been out of favor for several years, and even Prince Yong was now estranged from the Thirteenth Prince? Only they themselves hadn't noticed, and still thought they were the emperor's favorite concubines and the emperor's most beloved princesses.
As soon as Lang Shining arrived, Kangxi first rewarded him with ten beatings with boards to vent his anger. After a series of beatings, his small body could not bear it and he fainted.
The guards poured a bucket of water over him, and the unconscious Lang Shining quickly regained consciousness. He was an old man in the Qing Dynasty and knew the rules. As soon as he woke up, he cried out, "Unjust, unfair!"
When the guards saw that the other party was awake, they took out their smelly socks from their boots and blocked his mouth. Two more people escorted him into the main hall. In an instant, the strange voice of "unjust" disappeared.
When Lang Shining knelt in the main hall, he finally saw Kangxi sitting on the dragon throne. He struggled hard, and it seemed that he wanted to ask the emperor for help.
Kangxi glanced at him calmly and said, "If you dare to resist again, I will give you ten more strokes of the cane."
As soon as the words fell, Lang Shining's twisting body stiffened instantly, his eyes full of disbelief, but he dared not move at all.
Kangxi waved his hand to let the guards release him, then spoke: "I ask, you answer. How many years have you been stealing this knowledge and technology from the Qing Dynasty? How many people are still doing this? How much of our Qing Dynasty's knowledge has been leaked? Are Johann Adam Schall von Bell and Ferdinand Verbiest your leaders?"
As soon as Kangxi finished speaking, everyone could see Lang Shining's face change drastically. He was not a trained spy in the strict sense, or perhaps because the Qing Dynasty was not on guard against them and did not attach importance to foreign languages, they had become a little too proud of themselves in recent years and did not pay much attention to covering up. As soon as Lang Shining was suspected, he was immediately exposed.
Seeing that there was a door, the guard drew his sword and put it on Lang Shining's neck without Kangxi's signal. This scared the boy so much that he became incontinent and confessed everything he knew like pouring beans.
It is said that this matter actually started when Johann Adam Schall von Bell entered the Qing Dynasty to preach. And these foreigners probably met old friends in a foreign land. Even though the three of them came from three different countries, Schall von Bell was from Germany, Ferdinand Verbiest was from Belgium and Castiglione was Italian, they quickly got to know each other. Ferdinand Verbiest even privately recognized Schall von Bell as his teacher, and Castiglione was also protected by Ferdinand Verbiest.
To the outside world, they claim to be just colleagues, and they do not serve the same country, so no one doubts them too much, just like Koreans telling you that they don't play with each other, and no one doubts it. But privately, they communicate through the Vatican.
Over the years, they have gradually sent back to their respective countries information about the Qing Dynasty's calendar, humanities, geography, mineral resources, machinery, army, etc. As long as they saw something that was beneficial to their country, they would collect it all. The most of them were the Qing Dynasty's gold and silver.
Among them, there was one item that particularly caught Yinreng's attention: opium paste, also known as longevity paste, which was also called opium. From Lang Shining's mouth, it was learned that this thing had begun to flood in Guangdong and Guangxi, and the Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, Shi Lin, was also directly controlled by them with this thing.
Many people may not know this person, but I believe many people are familiar with his father Shi Tingzhu. In other words, Shi Lin, the governor-general of Guangdong and Guangxi who has only been in office for a few years, is the younger brother of the current Duke Yongyi Shi Wenbing.
They also learned that Hong Kong had become an opium processing factory for transporting opium to the mainland. What is opium?
That was a drug that was banned during the reign of Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty. Countless people have died from smoking opium since the Ming Dynasty. The mildest consequences were that families were ruined and people lived in poverty. The worst consequences were that the country was destroyed, families were ruined, and the country was devastated.
After Yinreng's reminder, Kangxi also noticed this problem. Similarly, as a monarch, he certainly understood the harm of opium. Because of this, he hated these foreigners even more. They wanted to squeeze the marrow out of the Qing Dynasty!
Thinking of this, Kangxi directly ordered Liang Jiugong to recruit all the princes. The next focus would not be on developing agriculture or breeding offspring, but on solving the foreign threats that would be faced.