"How many have you already met?" Yun Xi stretched his waist and said.

"Your Majesty, I have already met six envoys from the foreign fan, and there are five more." Fu An replied.

"Five more?" Yun Xi looked at the moon that had risen high outside, and had the intention to push the remaining five envoys to tomorrow to receive him, but thinking about it, he felt that there would be things about tomorrow, so he still said: "Announce the envoy of the next country to meet you." ”

"Let the messengers of Castile come to you." Fu An instructed the interpreter guarding the door, and after he stepped back, he turned his head and said to Yun Xi: "Your Majesty, after that, the envoy of the country of Castile will visit Your Majesty. ”

"Castile?" When Yun Xi heard it, he felt that the name and painting style of this country were different from the previous ones, and asked, "Where does this country come from, and how much do you know?" ”

"Your Majesty, this country is the farthest country from Samarkand among the eleven countries, and it is also the farthest country from Daming."

"This country is located in Europe, and it is also a very westward country in Europe; But this country is now very strong, the territory occupied has been close to the Ottoman state, because of the hostility with the Ottomans, so they sent two envoys to Samarkand, and then followed Timur to Yiwu, Timur was captured by the Ming after the defeat. Fu An introduced.

"Located in Europe? What color are the hair and eyes of these two messengers? Hearing Fu An's introduction, Yun Xi suddenly became curious and asked.

'Which country will be the emissary from the European countries?' He thought at the same time. He had never seen anyone from Europe since he came to Daming, and he wanted to know which country this was from.

The hair of people in European countries is rich in variety. The hair of people in other countries is basically black, slightly lighter at most, but European hair may be red, yellow, brown, or pale gold, which is similar to white.

Similarly, European eyes come in a variety of colors, ranging from light blue, dark blue, green, brown, and black.

Of course, in modern times, because of hair dyeing and contact lenses, people of other nationalities can also have colorful hair and pupils. But in this era, it was still easy to distinguish Europeans by the color of their hair and pupils, and even to determine which country they came from.

Listening to Yun Xi's question, Fu An was stunned for a while. Because Yun Xi has always been more concerned about Fanguo, he prepared in advance for the basic situation of these eleven countries and the envoy's mission. But he really didn't expect Yun Xi to ask such a question. "Your Majesty, the hair of his lord is brownish-yellow, and the hair of his vice-envoy is brownish-black, and as for the color of his eyes, please forgive him for not noticing." Fu An said after a while.

Yun Xi also realized that the question he asked was abrupt: the hair is fine, who seems to be okay and will pay attention to the color of other people's eyes? He said, "I'm just asking casually, don't worry about it. ”

But he thought to himself: "Brown-yellow hair and brown-black hair, probably mixed-race, right?" It is not surprising that the nobility of European countries often married into each other. But it's impossible to tell where it came from. ”

As he was thinking, two messengers had already walked in with the attendant. The waiter walked up to Fu An and whispered something, Fu An frowned when he heard this, walked to Yun Xi, who was still thinking, and whispered, "Your Majesty,"

"What?" Yun Xi came back to his senses and asked.

"Your Majesty, these two messengers from Castile said to the attendants that they would kneel only to the Lord and not to the secular monarchs, and that they would allow them not to kneel. When they met the king in their own country, they bowed three times, and they were willing to bow five times to your majesty, as a sign that your majesty's status was above that of their king. ”

According to the traditional Chinese practice of summoning foreign envoys, three days before the summoning, officials from the Ministry of Rites and other yamen will train the envoys who will face the saints, so that they can learn the etiquette of meeting the emperor. However, this meeting with them was decided suddenly, and there was no time for training, and the person in charge of this errand could only tell them what to do before summoning them. The first five messengers all agreed, but the two messengers from Castile refused to kneel.

The waiter was at a loss, so he could only let them wait outside the door for the time being, and he went in to report.

"Your Majesty, they must not be allowed to salute like this!" Chen Ji immediately said: "Your Majesty is the lord of the world, how can you allow the envoy of the foreign fan to just bow?" Xu Huizu also said the same, and showed righteous indignation.

"Don't you kneel?" Yun Xi smiled and said, "Fu An." ”

"The minister is here."

"You have been in Samarkand for more than eight years, and the Heavenly Sect generally does not kneel to secular monarchs."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"But they kneel when they meet the so-called Lord, and they kneel for a long time, all the time."

"I know that the Crucifixion is the same. And they kneel not only in the face of the so-called Lord, but also in the face of the so-called spokesman of the Lord, that is, the Pope of the Crucifixion. ”

"How different is kneeling to a theocratic leader from kneeling to a secular leader?" Yun Xi finally said.

Fu An lowered his head and did not answer. He couldn't figure out what Yunxi meant, for fear of saying the wrong thing. Chen Ji and Xu Huizu were also a little confused and did not speak.

"Tell me the two messengers from Castile that I know that they kneel not only before the so-called Lord, but also before the Lord's spokesman, and in some special cases, the sovereign who is loyal to them. I don't insist on exactly following the etiquette of the Ming Dynasty, but I must kneel down when I see me! Yun Xi said.

Is kneeling a backward custom? Perhaps, but since they kneel in the face of divine power, they must also kneel in the face of the emperor of the Ming Dynasty!

The waiter said yes and hurried out to deliver the message.

Yun Xi picked up a book and smiled at the person next to him: "It is estimated that these two people will argue for a long time, so I will take a book and read it first." If you have a book that you want to read, I will have it here, or I can lend it to you. ”

……

……

"Must kneel? That's what your Ming emperor said? Claviyo asked.

"His Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty said so personally." The waiter replied.

"This, no, absolutely not, we must not kneel to a secular monarch!" Gijano immediately shouted loudly in Castile.

Claviyo turned his head to look at him, noticed that the Ming attendant had left them, and said in Castilian, "Alonso, but if you don't kneel, I'm afraid you won't see the emperor of the Ming Kingdom." ”

"That's not going to work either! Never kneel down to him! Jihanno shouted loudly: "Ge Zelaizi, do you want to kneel to the emperor of the Ming Kingdom!" If you kneel down to him, I will tell His Majesty the King when I return home. ”

"But." Claviyo was very entangled. Of course, he didn't want to kneel, but looking at the current situation, he couldn't see the emperor of the Ming Kingdom without kneeling, and he really wanted to see the emperor of the Ming Kingdom.

He thought about it and came up with a compromise solution: "Honorable Ming official, can you tell the emperor that we should kneel on one knee when we meet him?" "Under normal circumstances, when the lower nobles swear allegiance to the higher nobles, they always kneel on one knee. Although they did not mean to be loyal to the Ming Dynasty, they could barely perform this ritual to the secular monarch, so they proposed.

The waiter hurriedly ran in to report to Yun Xi. After a while he returned with a look of regret on his face, and said to him: "No, His Majesty the Emperor has asked you to kneel as if you were visiting the Pope. He then explained: "The pope here refers to the highest Crusader person, the papa. ”

“papa？” Samarkand repeated, a look of shock on his face. Not only him, but the expression on Gihano's face was also wonderful.

It is not surprising that the monarch of an Eastern country knew about the Crucifixion. After all, they had been with Fu An for a long time before, and they had also talked to him about the Cross Sect. But the Latin pronunciation of papa surprised them. They never spoke to Fu An about the Latin pronunciation of the Supreme Leader of the Cross Sect, but told Fu An in the non-derogatory term commonly used by the Great Cannibals.

'How could the emperor of the Ming Kingdom know this word?' Could it be that Marco Polo left behind any record when he came to the East? ’

However, although they were surprised that the Ming emperor knew the word papa, Jihanno still refused to budge. "In any case, since the emperor of the Ming Kingdom insists on kneeling, we can't go to meet face-to-face, let's go back!" Gihanno said.

But Claviyo grabbed him by the arm. "What do you mean!" Gihanno asked.

"Alonso, it's better for us to meet the emperor of the Ming Kingdom in person." Claviyo said: "If we can't meet the emperor of the Ming Kingdom, and Castile is not recognized as a subordinate of the Ming Kingdom, we will probably be expelled from the country, and we will not be able to go to the prosperous places of the Ming Kingdom itself." ”

"That's not all, Samarkand City is already a very prosperous city, even if the capital of the Ming Kingdom is more prosperous than Samarkand City, it will not exceed much."

"But I suddenly felt that there would be some unexpected gains when I met the emperor of the Ming Kingdom."

"Because he knows the word papa?"

"Yes, because he knows the word papa."

Jihanno stood in place, and the heavens and men fought for a while, and finally said: "Forget it, I will go with you to meet the emperor of the Ming Kingdom, and disobey the teachings of the Lord." As he spoke, he couldn't help but draw a cross in front of him.