Volume 1: The Battleship Yitian Changes into the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 Chapter 96: Four Religions Into One?!
In May 1870, there were many cases of missing and kidnapped children in Tianjin (trafficking women and children was one of the things Sun Gang hated the most in that era. He believed that the state should "reduce the crime of killing people who trafficked, and all such people trafficked should be killed"). At this critical moment, due to the hot weather and the epidemic, many orphans adopted by the church's orphanage died of illness. Rumors spread all over the place, but what was more coincidental was that a child kidnapper Wu Lanzhen was taken to the government by a local. In his confession, he fabricated that Wang San, a church member, and the church were partners. This made the people angry, the gentry were in an uproar, the academy was suspended, and great pressure was put on the government and the church. Under such circumstances, Liu Jie, the magistrate of Tianjin, took the criminal Wu Lanzhen to the Wanghailou Catholic Church for confrontation, but found that there was no Wang San in the church, and no one in the church knew Wu Lanzhen.
However, the masses who did not know the truth came in large numbers after learning about it. Thousands of people surrounded the church and refused to leave for a long time. They were determined not to give up until the matter was investigated, which caused great chaos. After learning about it, the aggressive French Consul in Tianjin, Feng Daye, personally led people to the church when he asked Governor Chonghou to send troops to rescue the church but did not get a satisfactory answer. Unexpectedly, when he saw that the county magistrate Liu Jie was unable to disperse the crowd, he opened fire in anger, and ended up "shooting the county magistrate's entourage in the head". This stirred up a hornet's nest. The onlookers were so angry that they "beat to death" Feng Daye and his secretary on the spot. Ten nuns, two priests, two other French consulate staff, two French expatriates, three Russian expatriates and more than 30 Chinese Christians in the Catholic church were killed. The French Consulate, Wanghailou Catholic Church, Charity Hall and four Christian churches run by local British and American missionaries were all burned down. Since there are many secret society members with ulterior motives among these participants, this makes the incident even more confusing.
After the Tianjin Incident, envoys from seven countries, led by France, jointly protested to the Zongli Yamen, and a large number of foreign warships also came to the waters of Tianjin to patrol and demonstrate, and the situation was extremely tense. Zeng Guofan, the then highly respected but elderly and sick governor of Zhili, was ordered to deal with the incident, but he found that the situation was far more difficult than he expected. The French side demanded that the most xenophobic General Chen Guorui, as well as the prefect and county magistrate of Tianjin, be executed, while conservative Chinese officials and literati clamored against making any concessions or appeasement. In this emergency situation, Zeng Guofan showed extraordinary integrity and courage. He did not cater to the public's anger, nor did he succumb to foreign pressure. Instead, he decided to clarify the right and wrong . He persuaded the court to first compensate Britain, the United States, and Russia so that they would not be involved in the French case. He immediately went to the orphanage to directly understand the children. As a result, he found out that they were not abducted. The truth of the matter was revealed, and he immediately requested the court to issue a statement to "refute the rumors" and "restore the reputation" of foreign churches. Then he began to deal with the case. He suggested that fifteen culprits be executed, the prefect and county magistrate of Tianjin be dismissed, and the other twenty-one be exiled. However, this angered the conservative diehards. They catered to the people's dissatisfaction and immediately accused Zeng Guofan of selling out the country. The Hunan Guild Hall in Beijing burned Zeng Guofan's handwritten couplets decorated on the wall. Zeng Wenzheng Gong "lost his integrity in his later years" and was cursed, which became a regrettable thing in his later years.
As the situation unexpectedly deteriorated and was on the verge of breaking out, Li Hongzhang was transferred to take over the case. Fortunately, the Franco-Prussian War broke out in Europe at that time, and the domestic situation in France was turbulent and unable to deal with China. Li Hongzhang quickly took this opportunity to resolve the matter. The final result of the matter was that China compensated France for the loss of 400,000 taels of silver, executed eight people, and exiled 25 people. Tianjin prefect Zhang Guangzao and county magistrate Liu Jie were dismissed and exiled, and Beiyang Minister of Commerce Chonghou personally went to France to apologize. On November 23, 1871, Thiers, the interim president of France who had just suppressed the "Paris Commune", said to Chonghou: "France is not interested in executing several perpetrators, but hopes to achieve lasting peace and order." He then accepted the apology letter from China, and the crisis caused by the "Tianjin Incident" ended.
But the matter is not over yet. The "Tianjin Incident" shows that missionaries and foreign churches protected by foreign forces can even override local government. When some church members have conflicts with ordinary people, they often intervene in lawsuits through missionaries, and missionaries put pressure on government. As a result, the church members often win. Because if local officials are unwilling to yield, missionaries may put pressure on the Zongli Yamen through the superior bishops and foreign ministers in Beijing. If the Zongli Yamen resists a little, these ministers will threaten to protect the interests of the church themselves. As a result, the Zongli Yamen is overwhelmed and has to order local government to solve these civil-religious disputes as much as possible on the spot, and not to report to the higher authorities. Therefore, local officials have to "favor the church and suppress the people" in order to solve them quickly. In this way, the people lose the protection of the state's public power in the conflict between the people and the church, and can only fight against the church and some rogue church members with bare hands and no protection. Once the people's resentment and depression erupt, the consequences are unimaginable.
Even Sun Gang, who thought he "knew history", didn't know these situations before.
The current situation is that the Zongli Yamen and local officials "tremble" whenever they hear about cases related to the church. They are also well aware of the "danger" of handling such issues at present. If they are not careful, they may lose their jobs and risk being scolded. At present, they may not know that Sun Gang wants to take advantage of this situation to play a "gray" joke on those conservative intellectuals.
Under his "instructions", the Beiyang Military Intelligence Department's "Beijing Office" immediately began secret activities.
Soon, an imperial censor named An Weijun reported to the court, saying, "Now the people and religions in various places are hostile to each other, and the situation is like fire and water. The court has handled the situation improperly. Local officials are afraid of the power of foreigners and suppress the people too much. The people's grievances cannot be redressed, so they retaliate privately, and public opinion is boiling. There are often acts of killing Christians and destroying churches, which gives other countries an excuse to accuse them." If this problem is not handled properly, it will form a vicious cycle, "if this continues, it may become a prairie fire." He suggested "imitating the old system of the Lifanyuan" and setting up a special agency to deal with such problems , "so that the missionaries and believers can know the teachings of our saints, and we can also understand the words and deeds of Jesus." This will not only play a role in cultural exchange, but also show the court's attitude of attaching importance to Western religions, so that foreigners can understand it. The Chinese people could not find any fault with him. He also pointed out, "In China, there has long been a theory of the integration of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Moreover, Western religions have existed in China for hundreds of years since the Tang Dynasty. It is not a bad idea to add one more religion to avoid giving other countries an excuse to accuse them." He also said, "I heard that the Jesus they revere was born in the Arab city of Jerusalem, which belongs to the category of Eastern Asia. Jesus was born in the East, and Westerners revere him as a saint. However, our most holy teacher Confucius was born in Qufu and is a model for all ages. All saints in the world come from the East. Isn't this God's will?" The implication is that China might as well just integrate the four religions into one. In this way, there will be no conflicts in "religious culture", and the problem of "hostility between people and religion" can be fundamentally solved.
It is not known whether this article was written by Lord An, the Censor, himself. Anyway, once Sun Gang understood his meaning of "Four Religions in One", he was already under the table .
Although it's funny, if you think about it carefully, the method proposed by Censor An is still very feasible. These upright censors are not all fools.
But he did not expect that a single stone would stir up a thousand ripples. The problem was that his proposal of "Four Religions in One" immediately angered his colleagues who were reading the "books of sages" on the same street. Since the matter involved the face of the "sage", it was like touching the tiger's butt. Memorials scolding him immediately flew to the Censorate like snowflakes. For a time, "paper was in great demand in Luoyang", and even Emperor Guangxu was a little confused.
The diehards said that the Western Church "wanted people to abandon their parents and regard God as their closest relative, and to make the rulers of the country the ones who spread the Catholic religion. This is against the social order and is the worst. How can it be practiced in China?" They also said that "comparing Jesus to Confucius is extremely perverse" and that "Catholic men and women live together without paying attention to the great precautions of etiquette and morality, which leads the world to promiscuous intercourse" (The word "promiscuous intercourse" is really interesting! Maybe Sun Gang had "complex thoughts" and he got it wrong first.)
At this time, Sun Gang was actually very sympathetic to the censor. The censor just wanted to propose a solution to the problem, but he didn't expect to fall into a "minefield". Sun Gang knew that this was a "side effect" of his "instructions" to the Military Intelligence Department to "find a few censors who were not doing well last year, and preferably those who are tougher in their reports", but what he never expected was that this triggered an "ideological discussion" throughout the court and the country.
He later learned that this An Da Yushi was famous for his outspokenness. At the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, he had fiercely submitted a memorial accusing Li Hongzhang of mishandling the situation. He even dared to scold Li Lianying, the eunuch chief who was favored by Empress Dowager Cixi. He was a well-known stubborn person. At this time, facing "thousands of people pointing fingers at him", he did not do as the Zhongtang Lord said, "Let you laugh and scold me, I will be a good official myself", "suffer the anger of all officials in the world, and cultivate a spring in my heart", but picked up a sharp pen and said, "I am unmoved", "sweep away all the monsters and demons". In the face of numerous accusations, He fought back fiercely, saying, "Confucius and Mencius talked about benevolence, Jesus talked about love, benevolence and love are one, regardless of East or West, and are universal" (this is a bit theoretical, dizzy), "Without love, what is benevolence? Without benevolence, how can we talk about love? Our Celestial Empire has the Three Cardinal Guides and Five Constant Virtues, but Western countries are the only ones that don't have rulers, ministers, fathers, sons, and husbands and wives? Chinese and Western learning have something in common. Confucius said: learn and practice it from time to time. So our sage Confucius traveled around the countries and studied with Laozi. Now, just to resolve the dispute between the people and religion, you have taken a peek at Western teachings, and you are making a fuss and considering it a great shame. Is this the intention of Confucius to encourage learning?"
At this time, Sun Gang really admired the character of this An Da Yushi.
