The climate in Beijing was much drier and harsher than in Nanjing, and the inhabitants used coal for heating as well as cooking, the bedroom being nearly always located beside the kitchen so as to take advantage of the heat produced during the preparation of meals. The model of the brick kang, or sleeping platform, connected to masonry conduits channeling hot air from the kitchen was widespread throughout the north of China.
The more Ricci explored the city, the more similarities he noticed between his own observations and his memories of Marco Polo’s Travels, which prompted him to seek further evidence that Beijing and Khanbalik were one and the same. If Cathay really was a large and powerful country situated east of Persia, as it was believed in Europe, why had Ricci never heard it mentioned by the Chinese during all his years in China? Additional support for his conjecture was provided by two elderly Turks resident in Beijing for forty years. Having arrived as members of an embassy to the Son of Heaven, they had never been granted permission to return to their native land for fear that it might organize a military expedition against China, and they were forced to live as prisoners at the government’s expense. They told Ricci that China was still called Cathay in Muslim countries and that that capital was known as Khanbalik, or “Cambalù” as he wrote it. This information was borne out by some Persian merchants. Ricci probably discovered also that during the Mongol dynasty, the Chinese used the term Dadu, meaning “Great Capital,” instead of Khanbalik.
The confusion of the Mongol, Chinese, and subsequently Portuguese names used for China and Beijing had caused “our cosmographers to make two kingdoms out of one . . . with no possibility of finding out the truth until today.”13
Certain that he had now cleared up all doubts and taking it as established fact that China and Cathay were one and the same, Ricci wrote again to his superiors in India and Italy but failed to convince them. The idea of Cathay was so deeply rooted in Western culture that it could not be dislodged very easily, and as we shall see, the Jesuit would have to try and try again before his brethren began to think that he might be right.
After his first superficial explorations of the city, Ricci tried to obtain an audience with the emperor. Since Wang had still to take office as minister of rites and was therefore powerless to help, the Jesuit was obliged to seek the support of other officials. He thus found out that in order to arrive at the imperial court, it was indispensable to negotiate with the taijian, or eunuchs, who operated a power structure parallel to that of the guan as a sort of private bureaucracy serving the emperor and controlling access to the Imperial City.
Ricci met a eunuch supposedly willing to act as an intermediary and showed him the gifts for the emperor. Having heard that the Jesuit was an expert alchemist, the taijian said that he would only help in exchange for his secret formulas for making silver. Ricci denied any such knowledge and was unceremoniously dismissed with the information that the war in Korea had made foreigners unwelcome and there was no possibility of being received at the court until it was over.
Meanwhile, the celebrations for the emperor’s birthday had come to an end, and Wang, whose appointment was still awaiting ratification, was obliged to leave Beijing, having no grounds for prolonging his stay in the capital. The mandarin could do nothing more for his friends at present and advised them to return to Nanjing with him. The missionaries decided to remain in the hope of finding support elsewhere. Manuel Dias, who had taken over as superior of the Jesuit College in Macao after the death of Duarte de Sande the previous year, sent a bill of exchange to finance the missionaries’ stay in the capital, but they were unable to cash it, and the same thing happened with another sent from Japan. Now devoid of sufficient funds and treated with growing hostility by the guan to whom they applied for assistance, they finally resolved to leave Beijing and await a “better time and better opportunity” to return. Ricci was bitterly disappointed and described the capital as a “Babylon of confusion rife with every kind of sin.”14
Withdrawal to the South
The missionaries left Beijing on November 5, 1598. Their journey south was slow because their junk was not as fast as the minister’s, and they had no right of way at the locks.
Unable to remain idle for long, Ricci decided to occupy the time by preparing a new version of the Chinese-Portuguese dictionary. In order to make it more complete than the one compiled in Zhaoqing with Ruggieri, he added phonetic transcriptions of the Chinese words and specified the rules for the correct pronunciation of the five tones with the aid of Cattaneo, who knew music and had good ear, and Sebastião, who spoke excellent Mandarin. Ricci hoped that the new dictionary would help missionaries avoid the “great confusion” initially encountered in the study of Mandarin.
They reached Linqing, on the border of the Shandong and Hebei provinces, after a month. It was now December, and the temperatures had fallen dramatically. The Grand Canal was beginning to freeze over, and it would soon be impossible to sail any farther. Ricci decided to continue alone by horse, leaving Cattaneo and the others in the town to wait for the thaw and take care of the gifts for the emperor, which it would have been imprudent to transport overland.
Ricci traveled with the sole aim of finding a safe place to stay in the south for as long as it took to plan his return to Beijing. He felt that this was a temporary withdrawal and that the goal was finally within his reach. His books had enjoyed an unexpectedly large circulation and had earned him a solid reputation, and his friends in high places at the imperial court would help when the time was ripe. After many years in China, he had learned that nothing was as simple as it appeared to be. Known causes did not always produce the effects envisaged, and the direct approach was not always the most effective way to attain an objective. It was sometimes necessary to take one step back and then perhaps to wait. Ricci had to behave like a Chinese sage seeking to accomplish a difficult project. The way was to set out in the desired direction and then allow events to take their course, making no attempt to bend reality to his own wishes but instead benefitting from the natural evolution of things. Still more patience was required.
Preferring not to return to Nanchang and realizing that it would be dangerous to stay in Nanjing on his own, he decided to head for Qu Taisu’s hometown of Suzhou, situated in the southern part of the Jiangsu province southeast of Nanjing and slightly west of present-day Shanghai. This would enable him to remain in the vicinity of Nanjing, which he considered the best starting point for Beijing, and to benefit from his friend’s help and protection.
He traveled for a long time in very bad weather with an icy wind sweeping down from Mongolia across the rough country roads. In order to proceed more quickly, he alternated the use of a horse and a sort of “one-wheeled wagon” carrying one or two passengers and pushed by bearers, which proved very comfortable. This strange vehicle was one of the many forms taken by the Chinese wheelbarrow, a device unknown in Europe before the eleventh century but widely used in China from the first century in different shapes and sizes and for a whole variety of military and civilian purposes.15
The climate improved as he left the province of Shandong for Jiangsu and continued south. The landscape also changed. Tea plantations alternated with rice paddies, and water became the dominant element with the system of lakes, canals, and rivers crisscrossing the vast Yangtze delta. Ricci took little notice of this, having fallen ill as a result of the cold and fatigue he suffered farther north, but he decided to press on to his destination in his feverish state. One month after leaving Linqing, he finally arrived in Suzhou, called “Sugiu” by Marco Polo and described in his Travels as the “city of six thousand stone bridges.” Situated on the banks of Lake Tai Hu and also known as the “Venice of the East” by virtue of its system of canals, it was regarded as an earthly paradise along with Hangzhou: “Paradise is in the sky, Hangzhou and Suzhou are on the earth.” This ancient saying, where the word “paradise” refers to the Buddhist and Taoist realm of bliss in the next
world, is still used in China today. In the Ming era, the city was a flourishing commercial center enjoying a strategic position at the mouth of the Imperial Canal and famed as a holiday resort for officials of high rank. Ricci did not even spend one day there, however. On being informed that Qu Taisu had moved temporarily to the neighboring town of Danyang, slightly southeast of Nanjing, he summoned up his last reserves of strength and succeeded in making his way there. Deeply concerned about his master’s desperate condition, Qu Taisu received him with great hospitality, giving up his own bed for him to sleep in and looking after him like a father until he had completely recovered. Having received one of Ricci’s precious prisms as a token of gratitude, he had a special silver case made so that he could wear it around his neck. Qu Taisu also thought of selling it in order to pay off the debts he had run up at the time of his obsession with alchemy, but he changed his mind on hearing that Ricci intended to give an identical prism to the emperor, as it would hardly be fitting for something presented to Wanli as an object of exceptional rarity to be in the possession of another. He therefore kept the prism until Ricci had delivered his gifts to the Son of Heaven and then sold it for a sum equivalent to five hundred scudi, which he used to pay some of his debts.
When the Jesuit was able to resume his activities, he set off with Qu Taisu for Nanjing to ask the most influential dignitaries for the indispensable letters of permission to stay in Suzhou. He entered the second capital of China for the third time in January 1599 together with his friend.
The two men took temporary lodgings in a temple situated in the center of the city and went to visit Wang Zhongming, with whom Qu Taisu was also well acquainted. The minister had returned to his palace after the fruitless trip to Beijing and was still waiting to be recalled to the capital.
Notes
1. Letter to Claudio Acquaviva, October 13, 1596; OS II, p. 228.
2. Letter to Giulio Fuligatti, October 12, 1596; OS II, p. 217.
3. Letter to Girolamo Costa, October 15, 1596; OS II, p. 231.
4. Letter to Claudio Acquaviva, October 13, 1596; OS II, p. 225.
5. Letter to Antonio Maria Ricci, October 13, 1596; OS II, p. 219.
6. OS II, p. 218, no. 1.
7. Letter to Claudio Acquaviva, October 13, 1596; OS II, p. 228.
8. As attested, for example, by the Jesuit Sabatino de Ursis, who joined Ricci in Beijing in 1607 (FR, book IV, ch. I, p. 5, no. 3).
9. See chapter 12 (“The Solemn Entrance into Beijing”).
10. Letter to Lelio Passionei, September 9, 1597; OS II, pp. 234 ff.
11. See P. Buckley Ebrey, op. cit., p. 198.
12. T. Brook, op. cit., p. 48.
13. FR, book IV, ch. II, p. 28.
14. FR, book IV, ch. II, p. 30.
15. R. Temple, op. cit., p. 85.
Chapter Ten
v
Heated Disputes and Science Lessons
Nanjing, 1599
The Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things. All things leave behind them the Obscurity (out of which they have come), and go forward to embrace the Brightness (into which they have emerged), while they are harmonized by the Breath of Vacancy.
—Tao Te Ching, (42)1
There are men from a foreign land . . . who have invented the doctrine of the Lord of Heaven. . . . They say the Lord of Heaven has no body, no color and no voice. . . . How can he govern ministers and peoples, give orders, grant rewards, and inflict punishment? Even though these people are intelligent, they have not read the Buddhist sutras. It is therefore hardly surprising that their reasoning should be faulty.
—Zhu Hong, Tianshuo (“Explanation of Heaven”)2
Social Life in Nanjing
Ricci was relieved to note on walking through the streets of Nanjing that the suspicion of foreigners encountered during his two previous visits had come to an end with the war in Korea. The death of the shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi, supreme commander of the Japanese army, in September 1598 was followed by the withdrawal of the invaders from the occupied territories, and fear gave way to a lively atmosphere.
The minister received Ricci and Qu Taisu with the greatest respect and insisted on their staying in his palace for the New Year celebrations coinciding with the appearance of the first new moon of the lunar year on January 27, 1599. Marking the beginning of the Spring Festivity, this event was deeply felt and celebrated with all the splendor of which the Chinese were capable. All work ceased for a fortnight, and people poured into the temples and the parks, where fairs and shows were organized for adults and children.
Ricci was thus able to witness the celebrations from the privileged vantage point of the home of an important dignitary. Together with the mandarin’s family, he enjoyed the customary firework display, regarded as indispensable in accordance with age-old beliefs of driving away evil spirits with explosions. The Chinese were true masters of the art of pyrotechnics, and Ricci was impressed by their extraordinary skill. On beholding the fantastic spectacle of multicolored Catherine wheels, glittering cascades, flowers, and fruit repeated at a frenzied pace night after night for many hours, he estimated that the Chinese consumed as much saltpeter in a fortnight as the Europeans in two years of war. Completely unknown in Europe before the Middle Ages, saltpeter, or potassium nitrate, had been well known in China, where it was found in abundance, since the third century if not earlier, and the invention of gunpowder, obtained by mixing saltpeter with sulfur and charcoal, was yet another instance of Chinese primacy with respect to Europe.
The long period of festivities came to its customary end with the picturesque Feast of Lanterns, when all the streets and buildings were hung with red lanterns of paper or silk in all shapes and sizes. Used in China since ancient times, lanterns were considered a symbol of fertility, and women sought good fortune by walking in their glow, which was also believed to help the spirits of ancestors find their way to the next world.
Spending the New Year celebrations with the minister gave Ricci an opportunity to meet many of Wang’s colleagues, who were also his guests, and to see how animated social life was in the most exclusive circles. He realized from the deference he was shown that the minister had already spoken of him to the officials as a man of culture and had told them about the gifts for the emperor, which he had enjoyed the privilege of seeing in advance.
Noting that the presence of Li Madou added to the city’s luster and that his friends were impressed by the Jesuit’s learning, the minister endeavored to persuade him to move to Nanjing and ordered his secretaries to inquire whether there was any property for sale. The news that the minister’s foreign friend was looking for a house spread very quickly, and many offers were made in the space of just a few days. Paradoxically enough, at the very time when he no longer had any intention of doing so, everyone was urging Ricci to stay in Nanjing, the city from which he had been expelled four years earlier. On weighing up the situation, the Jesuit decided that his warm welcome was a sign of God’s will and that he should not let slip such a favorable opportunity. When asked for his advice, Qu Taisu encouraged him to stay in Nanjing and promised to help him meet the most important people there. The minister of rites was delighted to hear that Xitai was going to stay and offered him temporary accommodation in one of his own mansions. Ricci declined the offer and rented a house, but he accepted some items of furniture from Wang. He preferred to postpone the purchase of a residence for the mission until he was joined by Cattaneo, who was still in Linqing awaiting the thaw.
As soon as he had settled in, the Jesuit embarked with Qu Taisu on a series of courtesy visits to dignitaries capable of facilitating his stay in the city and helping him obtain an audience with the emperor. Even though he already had some experience dealing with the guan, he preferred to follow his friend’s advice and guidance. The higher the social level, the greater the subtlety required in the art of
guanxi.
Qu Taisu took Ricci to visit the juren Li Xinzhai, greatly respected as the son of a governor and well known in the city as a tutor and a writer commissioned to produce literary compositions for weddings, funerals, promotions, and transfers. As Qu Taisu also enjoyed a certain reputation as an author for hire and Ricci was now known as a man of culture, Li Xinzhai saw them as possible competitors and took a dim view of their presence in Nanjing. Qu Taisu assured him that neither of them were in search of employment and asked him to take Li Madou under his wing. This shrewd move had the desired effect, and Li Xinzhai became a good friend.
The visit to one official of very great power, the author of philosophical works and a speaker at the cultural debates then in fashion among literati, was very cordial indeed. The mandarin, who had read the treatise on friendship, was delighted to hear that Ricci intended to stay in Nanjing and observed that there were already so many Muslims in the city that he could see no objection to the presence of someone representing another foreign form of worship. He evidently felt no distrust toward an unknown religion. In his initial contacts with these high officials, Ricci had in any case taken care to make only the vaguest of references to any characteristics of Christianity that the Chinese might not readily understand and preferred to present himself above all as a scientist, a moral thinker, and a man of culture. Ricci made the best possible use of the strategy of cultural accommodation so as to avoid giving offense to scholars and win them over to his religion by indirect means, interpreting the approach to missionary work developed by Valignano with real insight and a deep understanding of Chinese society.
Matteo Ricci Page 22