John Tang did not have a good time in Xi'an, and the people of the Ming Dynasty in Shaanxi were not as religious as they were rumored, and they not only did not feel interested in the great Catholicism, but also said that his god was immoral.

If it weren't for the fact that he often treated some common diseases for free for the people of the Ming Dynasty, John Tang didn't know how many beatings he would have to suffer because of his preaching.

At this point, Matteo Ricci in the Wanli period had a painful experience.

After staying in Xi'an for several years, Lao Tang not only did not find an angel willing to fund his church, but was so depressed that he had to go to the mountain temple to live.

Recalling the ups and downs in Daming over the years, the disheartened old Tang originally planned to return to China, but he was detained by Jinyiwei's people in the mountain temple late at night half a month ago.

This frightened Lao Tang, you must know that he had been mixed in the capital of Daming back then, knowing the horror of Jinyiwei, Lao Tang was discouraged and said goodbye to Yu Le, who spent the day in the mountain temple.

However, when he entered the Jinyiwei stronghold in Xi'an Mansion, he learned that he was favored by the big man in the capital of the Ming Dynasty, as long as he helped the messenger of the big man to complete the task, the big man would not only fund him to build a great Catholic church, but also help him preach.

At first, Lao Tang didn't believe it, after all, he had been deceived in Daming not a hundred times but eighty times over the years, until the brocade clothes and hundreds of households said the name of this big man - King Anguo County, Lao Tang was stunned on the spot.

There is only one king of Anguo in the Ming Dynasty, and that is the legendary Liu Hongjian of the Ming Dynasty, Tang Ruowang knew that this big man was still the commander of the Jinyi Guard, and he was sure that the Jinyi Wei officials in front of him would not dare to use the commander to bluff him.

Hearing that the messenger named Gu Jia just wanted him to show him the way to the Holy Roman Empire, Lao Tang immediately slapped his thigh to express his agreement, and persuaded Gu Jia to bring Yu Le, who was also a fallen person at the end of the world, in the mountain temple.

He has been in Daming for twenty-eight years, and Lao Tang can be said to be like an arrow, and he has to ask Gu Jia every day when he will leave, but he is always prevaricated by Gu Jia on the grounds that he is still waiting for someone.

Now that the people who are waiting are also here, and the annoying Jinyi Wei Qianhu is also gone, where does Tang Ruowang want to wait any longer, he wants to go back to see if his parents are still alive, and he wants to establish a great Catholic church in Daming as soon as possible.

"Priest Tang, do you know that this is a long way to go, and we must prepare properly!" Gu Jia ignored the anxious Tang Ruowang, but looked at the outer road of Jiayuguan again.

Outside Jiayu Pass is Hami, Hami in the early years of the Ming Dynasty or the territory of the Ming Dynasty, Yongle years Zhu Di set up Hami Wei, but Hami is located in the traffic artery, in the next hundred years changed hands several times, the Ming Dynasty can not bear repeatedly.

Then in the Zhengde years, the powerful Turpan Department annexed Hami again, and the Ming Dynasty retreated to Jiayuguan, and now one hundred and thirty years have passed.

In the past 130 years, Turpan has been annexed by Yarkand and difficult to recover, and has always firmly controlled Hami in his own hands, all because Hami is too important, and it is a necessary place to pass through the Silk Road that has been inherited for thousands of years.

Although the status of this ancient road has been reduced due to the rise of maritime trade, there are still many Arab traders from the Near East and the Middle East and Ming merchants who travel to and from this ancient road in the spring of each year, and export Ming silk, tea, porcelain, etc. to Europa.

Originally, Liu Hongjian also thought about letting Gu Jia go by sea, but after weighing the pros and cons, he still chose land, and wanted to reach his destination by sea ship, not only to cross the South Sea, cross Malacca to the Punggar Sea (Bay of Bengal), and then cross the Small Western Ocean (Arabian Sea) to the Gethorni Sea (Caribbean Sea), and then cross the Red Sea into the Mediterranean.

Now the Ming Dynasty can't even control the South China Sea, and it can't provide corresponding protection at all, and a big storm on the ocean is even more difficult for manpower to resist, not to mention that in terms of time, taking the sea route is roughly the same as the land route.

But how easy is it to travel by land?

Out of Jiayuguan and looking at the yellow sand, I heard the general stationed at Jiayuguan say that half of the territory of the Turpan Khanate is desert, and if people who are not familiar with the desert go in, it is almost difficult to get out.

In order to avoid unnecessary trouble, Gu Jia's plan was for them to disguise themselves as a Ming caravan, all the way through Hami, Turpan, and then Yarkand to Samarkand, continue west to Tehran, and then through Istanbul to Vienna, the nominal ruling center of the Holy Roman Empire.

The mountain elder really has a big problem, alas, Gu Jia looked into the distance and sighed.

This reminded him of the high monk Xuanzang a thousand years ago, when Xuanzang must have felt like him, he felt powerless for the distant journey.

"We'll leave in two days, so let's all go back and get ready!" Seeing a long scar on his face, Yu Le also came over, and after speaking, Gu Jia went down the city wall without looking back.

With Liu Hongji's signboard, Gu Jia effortlessly got more than 30 well-fed camels in Suzhou City, of which ten camels were loaded with tea, drinking water, and food, and the rest were used to carry people.

Two days later, Gu Jia, Tang Ruowang, Hoffmann Hule, and eighteen guards led by Xie Xinghua, plus a local guide in Suzhou, and a team of twenty-two people left Jiayuguan and headed west.

At this time, it was the beginning of May, and the sun in the northwest region was not so hot, but the group could bear it, and after four or five days of westward travel, the caravan finally arrived at the first stop of the westward journey, Hami.

Gu Jia ordered the caravan to rest here for a day, first, to recover his strength, and second, to the west is the desert area, the guide in Suzhou is not very familiar with Gu Jia does not dare to take risks, he needs to find a new guide who understands the terrain of Turpan.

"Master Gu, there are many fish and dragons here, let me go and ask our brother Daming." Xie Xinghua said with a grin.

According to what was said before, in order to guard against foreign meticulous work, out of the Ming Dynasty realm, they do not call each other official positions, Xie Xinghua knew that Hami had a secret stronghold of Jinyiwei, so he proposed this proposal.

"It's okay, go out and be careful." Gu Jia was also unambiguous, and took out a handful of silver coins from his baggage and stuffed them into Xie Xinghua's hand.

In fact, there is one thing in common between the Ming Dynasty and the foreign vassal states, that is, it is rich and easy to do.

"Gotcha!" Xie Xinghua took the silver coin, answered and called two of his subordinates out of the door.

The city of Hami was not very large, the east of the city was inhabited by civilians, the west of the city was inhabited by wealthy people, and the streets were filled with Arab traders from the Near and Middle East, as well as white people from the more west.

Many people compared to selling the goods in their hands, intending to find a wronged boss who did not know how to do it, Xie Xinghua was not interested in this, and walked through the dirty civilian area to a brothel in the west of the city.

Ordering his two subordinates to wait outside, Xie Xinghua raised his feet and entered the house.

The brothel industry is probably also an industry that runs through the history of human civilization, but there are not only local, but also blue-eyed exotic beauties in this brothel in Hami.

Xie Xinghua pinched several handfuls of exotic beauties as he walked, and laughed angrily, not denouncing the corruption of the Jinyi Guards here, and went up to the attic on the top floor with his head suffocated.

There were two bearded men standing at the door of the attic, still waiting for Xie Xinghua vigilantly, Xie Xinghua weighed it, estimated that he couldn't beat it, and shouted at the top of his throat:

"The Heavenly King Covers the Tiger."

In order not to hear it from the people downstairs, Xie Xinghua's voice was not high, and the people in the house obviously heard it, and there was a rush of footsteps, which seemed to have come to the door of the attic.

"Chicken stew with mushrooms!" The people in the room coughed and replied, but did not open the door.

"The River Demon of Pagoda Town." The man in the house said again.

"Mushrooms with chili peppers!" Xie Xinghua said.

The door creaked open.

PS: Xie Xinghua wrote earlier that it should be a deputy thousand households, but due to too much time, the previous chapter was written as a hundred households, and changes have been made.

PS: Little popular science, the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) was destroyed in 1453, here we are talking about the Western Roman Empire, the full name of which is the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation.

On the map, with Germany as the core, it roughly corresponds to the whole territory of present-day Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, most of Denmark, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, eastern France, western Poland and northern Italy.

Moreover, the Holy Roman Empire did not have a clear capital, and even the imperial throne was held by the King of Germany, the Count of Luxembourg, and the Archduke of Austria.

The Holy Roman Emperor had no real power, except for his own troops, and at best he called on all the principalities, and after the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), the Emperor was even more in name only, not even the leader of the German states.

Since then, the world has been more likely to think of the emperor as the ruler of the Austrian-centered Habsburg monarchy than as the supreme monarch of the First German Empire.

In this regard, Voltaire, a famous French philosopher of Enlightenment thought, once commented on the Holy Rome after the 30 Years' War as follows: neither holy, nor Rome, nor empire.