This court meeting made the Ming Dynasty feel an unprecedented sense of crisis, and many people immediately thought of the Mongols back then, that is, in a hundred years, they suddenly came out.

When the Mongols arose, they swept away all civilizations they could touch, and the West was no different, and everywhere they passed was inevitably accompanied by the destruction of civilizations, as well as the brutal killing and oppression of defeated civilizations.

China's threats have always come from the north, but this time the threat seems to have changed direction.

However, compared with the threat of Xiyi, the controversy caused by the Earth Circle Theory is undoubtedly stronger.

"The sky is round and the place is round, and China is in the middle" This is the basis of Huayi's worldview. If the earth is round, is China still the center of the world? Can you still call the Quartet Yidi? China is not the center of the world, and its status is not the same as that of the four yi, so where does the sense of superiority come from?

After Wang Yan finished the court meeting, he asked people to send the colorful map of all countries and the globe to the Guozijian.

His original intention was to let the prisoners of Guozijian feel the crisis he felt, so that they should not be satisfied with the status quo, but he did not expect that compared to the rise of Xiyi, the prisoners discussed the most in the West," said Di Yuan. ”

China also has a saying that the earth is round, and in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Heng's "Armillary Sphere Annotation" has "the armillary sky is like a chicken." The celestial bodies are round like projectiles, and the earth is like a chicken in the middle of the yellow, living alone, the sky is big and the earth is small. There is water in the heavens. The sky envelops the earth, and the shell is wrapped in yellow. ".

During the Three Kingdoms, Wang Fan's "Hun Tian Xiang Said", "The body of heaven and earth is like a bird's egg, the sky is wrapped outside the earth, like the egg wrapped in yellow, and the circle is unprovoked, and its shape is muddy, so it is called Hun Tian." Its technique is that the sky is half covered by the earth, half is underground, its north and south poles hold its two ends, and its heaven and the sun, moon and stars turn obliquely. ”

After the introduction of the Western theory of the circle of the earth, only some Chinese who have a deep study of astronomy, such as Xu Guangqi, Li Tianjing, Wang Xixi, Mei Wending and others accepted the theory of the circle of the earth, but for the vast majority of people who have no basis in astronomy, the theory of the circle of the earth is completely nonsense.

Sometimes, the most terrible thing is that the layman wants to talk about the insider's things, and he still thinks that he has a reason, and by virtue of the number of people, he must let the insider admit the mistake that does not exist.

The officials in the main hall still have some sanity, and Wang Yan also said that they will send a fleet to go around, whether it is right or wrong, and it will be clear in two years at most, but as soon as this matter is picked out by the people, the impact will be great.

Diyuan said that since it was introduced to the Ming Dynasty, it has only caused a small range of discussions, after all, most scholars focus on fame, and few people pay attention to these miscellaneous studies.

But just because they don't pay attention doesn't mean they don't. "The sky is round and the land is in the center" is one of the important world views of the scholars, just like the church wants to burn the "heliocentric heresy", and the whole Shilin is boiling because of this incident.

For a time, the people of Shilin criticized Bai Yingli and other Westerners, and the excited people even smashed the churches of Westerners in Nanjing.

Many people began to publish their own opinions directly in various newspapers, and openly debated with Bai Yingli and others, and some people said, "If the four major states, the mountains and rivers of all countries, are a big round ball...... The soles of the feet of the people of the land on the ball are opposite the soles of the feet of the people of the land under the ball...... I don't even think about the upside down of the people of the land below...... Those who have insight push it with reason, but they don't feel that the case is full of rice! ”

Most of the people in Shilin think that the theory of the center of the earth is nonsense, and most of them think, "If you make people stand sideways, it is difficult to stop, let alone turn the soles of your feet upside down and face the center of the earth, how can you stand without falling?" ”

Although Bai Yingli put forward many arguments, such as the increase in the horizon height of the North Star when traveling north, the tip of the mast appeared first on ships coming from afar, and the shadow of the earth seen during the lunar eclipse was round, etc., this could only convince some literati with high astronomical attainments in the Ming Dynasty, but it could not convince those scholars who did not understand astronomy.

Bai Yingli also has no way to explain that if the earth is a sphere, then why the people below don't fall, and the people below hang upside down, how to live.

At this time, the Westerner who was hit by the apple was only about eleven years old, and the theory of gravitation had not yet been established, and Bai Yingli naturally could not explain these problems.

Wang Yan said that it would be verified in two years, but the people's sentiment was very resistant to Diyuan's theory, and even Song Yingxing was against it, but he was still reasonable, unlike most people, just because Diyuan's words hurt their self-esteem, they opposed it because they opposed it.

Although Song Yingxing did not support Diyuan's theory, he took the initiative to apply to follow the fleet to do this verification.

Originally, it was not a very urgent matter to send ships to sea, but under the pressure of public opinion, Wang Yan could only order the transfer of five large sea ships, more than 1,000 elite sailors, and hired Westerners to guide and act as interpreters for the fleet, and set off from Ningbo to sail to the east.

Wang Yan promised that no matter whether what Diyuan said was true or not, when they returned to the Ming Dynasty, they would be given titles and other rewards.

This attracted many people to take the initiative to go with the fleet.

At the end of August, after less than a month of preparation, the fleet set off from the port of Ningbo and headed east, and the controversy over the theory of the circle of the earth slowly faded.

At this time, the report of Nanyang came again, and after the Ming Dynasty sailors went south to Malacca, they fought a big battle with Helan, and returned in vain, and found that it was difficult to capture the port of Malacca from the sea, so they could only retreat to the city first.

Because of the lack of strength in Luzon, the sailors did not dare to leave Luzon Bay without authorization, fearing that once the sailors left, Spain would take advantage of the situation to attack Luzon.

In order to make a breakthrough, the Ming Dynasty sailors decided to solve the Spaniards first, after all, Spain had just occupied Sulu, and there were no strong fortresses and forts blocking the port like Malacca and Java in the port, which was relatively easy to attack, and as long as the Spaniards were defeated, they would fold the Dutch arm, and the Luzon sailors would have no threat and could go to sea to help in the war, and the strength of the South Seas would fall to the side of the Ming Dynasty.

On August 5, the Ming Dynasty dispatched more than 100 warships, together with the Luzon sailors, to kill Sulu, and in the Sulu Sea and the West and the Dutch coalition army at sea encounter, it turned out that the West also wanted to destroy the relatively weak Luzon first, the two sides met unexpectedly, and a naval battle was carried out.

Although the Ming Dynasty and Luzon had more ships, almost twice as many as the Western and Dutch coalition forces, there were not many gunboats, while Spain and the Netherlands were both strong attacks on the sea for many years, and both sides fought and lost, and neither of them achieved their strategic goals.

When the war at sea did not progress and was evenly matched, the Dutch gathered 2,500 musketeers in Malacca, and mobilized 15,000 troops from the Sultanates, and advanced north along the Malay Peninsula to prepare to capture the city by land and uproot this important stronghold of the Ming Dynasty in the South Seas.

When the men and horses on land marched north, the Dutch warships also approached the Gulf of Siam, trying to force Siam to join their side, but the war did not benefit the King of Siam, and he did not want to participate in the war between the Dutch and the Ming Dynasty, so he refused the Dutch request.

The Allied Commander Wood Hauswell did not stop because of Siam's refusal, but directly defeated the Siamese army consisting of more than 10,000 war elephants and more than 10,000 infantry troops on the border, approaching Ayutthaya, the capital of Siam.

This sudden change made the Donghu Dynasty, the small overlord of Southeast Asia, feel that there was an opportunity, and it also began to invade the Siam border, and the situation in Nanyang immediately became chaotic.

For a time, Siam was attacked on both sides, and the enemy was strong by him, so the king of Siam could only compromise with the Dutch, allowing the armies of the Dutch, Spanish, Malacca and other sultanates to enter Siam and provide them with supplies.

At this time, the state of Chenla saw that Siam was invaded, and quickly succumbed, and immediately sent an envoy to Champang, and then passed through Guangzhou, and was sent to Nanjing to ask for help from the Ming Dynasty, and asked for the protection of the Ming Dynasty as a vassal.

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