Matteo Ricci (12 page)

While the impact of this memorial was not to be underestimated, Ricci was determined not to lose heart and drew up a defense of the missionaries for presentation to the censor and the
haidao
. Matters reached a head with the arrival in Zhaoqing of the new governor Liu Jiezhai, who took a hostile attitude and decided to confiscate the Jesuits’ residence and expel them from the city.

Ricci rushed to Macao to consult with Valignano, who advised him to ask the governor for permission to move the mission to another Chinese city and to return to Macao if this request was refused.

On Ricci’s return to Zhaoqing, the prefect’s lieutenant called and presented the governor’s sealed decree, where the compensation for the requisition of the house was set at a sum equivalent to 60
scudi
, less than a tenth of its real value.

The Jesuit sent word to the governor that he had no intention of accepting the money, as he knew that doing so would preclude any possibility of returning to Zhaoqing at a later date and regaining possession of the house. When his request for an audience was refused, Ricci sent memorials in his defense to the more influential figures in the city and the province, feeling confident of obtaining the support of a good many
guan
. Passing through Zhaoqing to discuss matters with the governor, the imperial censor of the Guangdong province called on the Jesuits one day to pay his respects with a group of dignitaries from his retinue. The official wished to see the clocks he had heard so much about, the prisms that glowed in the sunlight, the paintings, the maps, and the globes. On entering Ricci’s room, he was surprised to find an entire library of European and Chinese works. What possible danger could there be in that bizarre man from the West, so enamored of culture as to have a study as full of books as a scholar? Ricci hoped that the censor’s apparent sympathy might help him overcome the hostility of the governor. He proved unyielding, however. The Jesuits were informed at the beginning of August 1589 that they had three days to leave the city and that they were to accept the compensation for the confiscation of their house.

When the lieutenant asked Ricci to hand over the keys and held out the money, the Jesuit had the courage to answer that he was grateful for the offer but found himself obliged to decline. He followed this immediately by asking the lieutenant for a permit to move to another locality in the province. The official refused categorically but was unable to persuade Ricci to accept the money, which he was forced to take back to the government offices.

On August 15, 1589, as Ricci and Almeida were about to sail for Macao and a small group of converts and friends had gathered to bid them farewell, the lieutenant offered the money once again, and Ricci once again refused. Moreover, he succeeded in obtaining a written statement attesting that the Jesuits had not accepted the money and that they had left without ever breaking the law.

On reaching the provincial capital, Canton, the missionaries’ junk had to wait in the harbor while the permits for Macao were being drawn up. Without even setting foot on land, the Jesuits abandoned their gray Buddhist robes for their customary garments, resigned by now to the idea of returning to the life they had left behind them six years earlier. Ricci was deeply embittered to see that his efforts to create the first mission on Chinese soil had all been in vain. He felt exhausted and compared his labors to those of Sisyphus, condemned by the gods to push a heavy boulder to the top of a hill only to have it roll back down again for all eternity. As he was abandoning himself to the most melancholy thoughts, however, he saw a fast vessel arrive with some provincial officials sent by the governor with astonishing instructions to take him back to Zhaoqing immediately, together with his companion.

Having changed their dress once again, the missionaries were escorted into the town they had just left and were summoned to an audience with the governor, who was furious because they had not accepted the money offered. His insistence was not a matter of principle but was born of the knowledge that if he could not show that he had paid for the Jesuits’ house, even a symbolic sum, he would be open to the accusation of having appropriated a dwelling for his personal gain. No civil employee, no matter how powerful, could risk such a serious charge.

Ricci looked hurriedly for an interpreter, an indispensable intermediary in any meeting between a foreigner and an official of high degree, but the only one prepared to help had a very limited grasp of Portuguese. On arriving before the
guan
, Ricci was handed the money by the governor in person, and he refused it once again. The official explained that refusing the offer was a serious breach of etiquette, and Ricci replied that he was unable to accept a gift from someone who chose to expel him for no crime from the city in which had lived a peaceable life. The mandarin lost his temper and berated the interpreter for mistranslating Ricci’s words, as he could not believe that the Jesuit would choose to disobey his orders. Ricci spoke up in the interpreter’s defense and asked the governor for permission to move to another city where he could live in peace for the rest of his days.

The mandarin gave way in the face of such stubbornness. In order to avoid losing face, he declared that it had always been his intention to grant the Jesuits a new residence, and he suggested either the great Buddhist monastery of Nanhua in the northeast near the borders of the Guangdong and Jiangxi provinces, which could be reached by junk in ten days, or the town of Shaozhou, thirty kilometers farther north, two localities falling within his jurisdiction. He then handed Ricci the money again, and the Jesuit accepted it.

Visibly pleased at having brought these exhausting negotiations to a satisfactory conclusion, the governor presented the Jesuits with some works relating his feats during the victorious military campaigns against pirates on the island of Hainan and asked the lieutenant of the prefect of Shaozhou, who was present at the audience, to take care of the missionaries.

Some officials who had remained Ricci’s friends paid their respects as he left the room and was immediately escorted to the junks with Almeida. They had barely enough time to get the indispensable luggage on board, to distribute all the rest among the converts, and to entrust a letter informing Valignano of their decision to move to another locality to the pilot of the vessel on which they had traveled, which was returning to Canton.

Seen off by the group of converts who had gathered for the last farewell, Ricci and Almeida set sail on August 15, 1589. They left the city that had been their home for six years with sorrow but with their heads held high, bound for another unknown region in the Chinese interior.

Notes

1. Letter to Claudio Acquaviva, October 20, 1585; OS II, p. 57.

2. Letter to Giulio Fuligatti, November 24, 1585; OS II, p. 72.

3. FR, book I, ch. VIII, p. 90. See also Endymion Wilkinson,
Chinese History: A Manual, Revised and Enlarged
(Cambridge and London: Harvard University, Asia Center, 2000), pp. 98 ff.

4. FR, book I, ch. VIII, p. 90.

5. Letter to Ludovico Maselli, November 10, 1585; OS II, p. 65.

6. Letter to Claudio Acquaviva, October 20, 1585; OS II, p. 57.

7. Ricci provided converts with handwritten copies of his own translation of the Gregorian calendar to indicate the feast days (FR, book II, ch. XIII, p. 270, no. 6).

8. FR, book II, ch. VI, p. 216, no. 1.

9. FR, book II, ch. VI, p. 224, no. 2.

10. FR, book I, ch. IX, p. 97.

11. See chapter 2 (“Departure: ‘All Those Seas’”).

12. FR, book II, ch. XI, p. 250. See also nos. 1 and 2.

13. Paul Rule,
K’ung-tzu or Confucius? The Jesuit Interpretation of Confucianism
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1986), pp. 3 ff.

14. FR, book II, ch. XI, p. 253.

v

From Nanhua to Shaozhou, 1589–1592

The Master said, “I have never failed to instruct students who, using their own resources, could only afford a gift of dried meat.”

The Master said, “I do not open the way for students who are not driven with eagerness; I do not supply a vocabulary for students who are not trying desperately to find the language for their ideas. If on showing students one corner they do not come back to me with the other three, I will not repeat myself.”

—Confucius,
Analects
(7, 7–8)

Of these sciences, the gate and key is mathematics.

—Roger Bacon
1

The Buddhist Monastery and the Mummy of Liuzu

The junks carrying Ricci and Almeida followed the course of broad Xi Jiang River east to the point where it was joined by a tributary from the northeast. In order to enter and sail back up this river, the Jesuits had to transfer to a lighter but sturdier vessel more suitable for sailing upstream. When the current made progress impossible, the junk was hauled by teams of men waiting on the bank to catch ropes thrown from craft in difficulty.

The landscape gradually altered as they penetrated the interior of the province at the slow pace of river navigation. The plain gave way to moun
tainous uplands; rice paddies and clumps of light green bamboo alternated with the more intense hues of dense oak forests. The boundless expanse of fields stretching away as far as the eye could see conveyed a sense of vastness, and Ricci, aware that he was only traveling through a short stretch of the Guangdong province, realized for the first time just how huge China really was.

Eight days of travel brought them to the river port of Shunyao, a short distance from Shaozhou, the first stopping point arranged by the authorities supervising the missionaries’ journey on behalf of the governor. They were met on the quay by a servant of the lieutenant of Shaozhou with instructions to accompany them to the Buddhist monastery of Nanhua, one of the largest and most important in the region, where the missionaries would be allowed to stay with official authorization. Not understanding that the Jesuits had nothing to do with Buddhists despite their similarity in dress and appearance, the authorities thought that living in a temple together with the monks would be the best possible arrangement for them. Having no wish to refuse a courtesy visit, Ricci and Almeida agreed to continue on horseback to the sanctuary, but not to having their luggage unloaded from the junks. They would make it clear as soon as possible that they had no intention of living with the monks.

Buddhist monasteries were important centers of social aggregation, endowed, like their European counterparts, with landed properties and tenant farmers. Their economic activities, which supported the community together with the alms received, included letting accommodation to pilgrims and wayfarers, as well as the sale of religious articles such as incense and devotional statues and paintings. The prosperity of the nearby villages also depended on the monasteries, as their inhabitants earned a living by selling agricultural produce to the monks and pilgrims or by setting up small artisanal companies to produce ceremonial objects.

The monastery of Nanhua,
2
the “Temple of the Flower of the South,” was situated in the broad, green valley of a river surrounded by wooded mountains. The immense complex consisted of twelve buildings providing accommodation for about a thousand monks and laid out around a pagoda on the top of a hill. There was a small village at the foot of the steep climb up to the monastery, and the surrounding plain was an unbroken expanse of orchards and fields growing rice, cereals, and vegetables. Ricci was again struck by the abundance of the produce offered by Chinese soil.

The monks were followers of the “school of meditation,” or
Chan
, a Chinese variant of Buddhism better known in the West by the Japanese term
Zen
. According to legend, its founder, Bodhidharma, attained enlightenment after sitting immobile for nine years. The temple was dedicated to Huineng, better known as Liuzu, the “sixth patriarch” or “sixth ancestor” of the Chan school, a monk who lived in the seventh century
ad
. According to the widely known legend, as a baby he was fed by a spirit with dewdrops instead of his mother’s milk, and he entered the monastery when still very young as a servant responsible for cleaning the rice. Having become a monk, he led an exemplary life of penance and came to be regarded as a spiritual guide by the pilgrims who flocked from all the towns in the surrounding area to see him. During the last few years of his life, Liuzu had himself bound in chains and left the resulting sores to fester and fill with worms as an extreme act of penance. After his death, his mummified body was displayed in a niche to the adoration of the faithful.

Deeply prejudiced against Buddhists, Ricci was already in a state of some irritation when he entered the monastery and was received by a group of monks led by the prior, who courteously showed him into the rooms reserved for figures of great prestige. Li Madou had no intention of being fooled by a friendly welcome that he regarded as a sham, believing that the monks were concerned and afraid that the wiser and more virtuous Jesuits might remain in the temple and seek to impose their iron discipline. Recorded in an account of the visit in Ricci’s history of the mission, this interpretation reflects the author’s biased hostility toward the followers of a rival religion.

After a short pause for refreshment, the missionaries were taken into the temple, which was made up of several rectangular rooms separated by courtyards. It was the first time that Ricci had found himself in the heart of a Buddhist place of worship, and he was astonished at the abundance of statues of Buddha, reckoning that the main hall held as many as five hundred, made of wood, bronze, white or gilded plaster, stone, and marble, in all sizes, from small to “disproportionately large.” Votive offerings of fruit, bowls of food, and incense were placed in front of them. There was a huge bronze bell, the biggest he had ever seen, hanging from an imposing wooden structure inside a tower of stone in the main courtyard.

After their visit to the dark rooms heavily scented with incense, the Jesuits were taken to a cavern to pay their respects to the mummy of Liuzu, preserved in a coat of lacquer and illuminated by the light of a hundred candles above an elevated altar accessible by means of a staircase.
3
All the monks knelt down in silence with great solemnity, but the missionaries remained standing, to the consternation of their hosts. Ricci was convinced that a non-Buddhist Chinese visitor in his place would have genuflected with the others out of courtesy, but he had no intention of bowing down to a pagan idol, even at the risk of being impolite.

On leaving the rooms of the temple, the Jesuits walked along the narrow paths through the poor and unhealthy living quarters. The monks were shab
bily dressed, and the presence of many women and children showed their disregard for the vow of celibacy. Observing the bonzes in their own environment did nothing to change the opinion that Ricci had already formed on meeting them in the streets of Zhaoqing. He thought them uncultivated, dishonest, and immoral, and he felt renewed aversion for them.

Regardless of whether Ricci was right to suspect the prior of hoping in his heart that the Westerners would not find the accommodation at the temple to their liking, the Jesuit could not wait to be on his way and was determined to stay in the village at the foot of the hill rather than accept the Buddhists’ hospitality. When he expressed his intention not to remain, the prior was evidently relieved and even offered to accompany Ricci as far as Shaozhou and to help him buy a piece of land for the new residence. Almeida returned to the junk and continued along the river while Ricci spent the night in the village before setting off with the prior on horseback the following day.

Having arrived in Shaozhou on August 26, 1589, Li Madou was granted an audience with the lieutenant and had to explain why he had declined accommodation at Nanhua. The Jesuit took advantage of this opportunity to criticize the monks, claiming that his good reputation would have been damaged if he had stayed at the temple. He said that he wished to settle in Shaozhou, where he would be able to honor the Lord of Heaven and delight in the scholarly company he found congenial. The lieutenant was very surprised at these words, as he had thought that the priests were Buddhists and had no idea that they worshiped a god called the Lord of Heaven. The prior also had his say and criticized Ricci in turn for his failure to kneel before the monk Liuzu. According to Ricci, however, the mandarin had little fondness for the monks and took the missionaries’ side, saying that fetishes like the mummy of the patriarch were not revered in China in the ancient times held in such consideration by Confucianists. The prior replied that it was indispensable to offer idols for adoration in order to win people over to the faith. At the end of this peaceable skirmish between the mandarin, the missionary, and the monk, Ricci obtained permission to reside in the city.

Life in Shaozhou and the Meeting
with the Would-be Alchemist Qu Taisu

Located slightly south of present-day Shaoguan, Shaozhou
4
was a rich commercial town of some five thousand households surrounded by lush and fertile land. It stood at the confluence of two navigable rivers, the Wu Shui flowing from the west and the Zhen Shui from the east. Twice as big as Zhaoqing in terms of size and population, the city occupied an area stretching out on both banks of the Zhen Shui, which were connected by a pontoon bridge. Situated a short distance to the northeast on the same river was the major port of Nanxiong, a point of transit for goods from Europe and India bound for the interior and for products from the Chinese provinces bound for Canton. The area produced a cheap and delicious sweet wine made from grapes, which was sold in great quantities to the Portuguese, and had an abundance of river pearls, a commodity in great demand on the European markets. It also manufactured a valuable type of velvet, a material that the Chinese had imported from Europe in the past but then had learned to produce at lower cost and now sold to Western merchants.

On settling in, the Jesuits realized that the climate was torrid and stifling. They also learned that malaria was endemic and was more likely to strike those unaccustomed to living in a subtropical environment. Since another move was out of the question, the missionaries set about looking for a suitable site to build their new residence and found one in the western part of the town just outside the walls, a large uninhabited field very close to a Buddhist temple, where the missionaries took lodgings while awaiting the indispensable authorization from the governor. The land belonged to the monks, and Ricci offered to buy it on the lieutenant’s advice. Eager to conclude a profitable transaction at the foreigners’ expense, the bonzes asked an exorbitant price, at least ten times what would have been reasonable. Ricci refused to pay and waited to hear the governor’s decision. The Jesuit now conducted the negotiations by himself, as he knew enough Chinese to do so and no longer trusted interpreters.

Sorely tried by the climate, Almeida and Ricci fell seriously ill while awaiting a reply and were confined to bed for a long time in the care of a local physician. They were still convalescent when the good news arrived in October that the governor, whose jurisdiction extended to the monasteries, would grant them the land free of charge, along with the essential residence permits.

Ricci decided that it would be better to build a single-story house in the Chinese style, having no wish to repeat the mistake made in Zhaoqing of arousing envy with a Western-style building. He also decided to design a more spacious chapel, however, in the hope of making many converts in the new town.

Meanwhile, the letter sent by Ricci through the pilot in Zhaoqing finally made its eventful way to Macao, and the superiors, left without news for so long and very concerned about the fate of their brethren, learned that Ricci and Almeida had moved. Greatly relieved, Valignano wrote letters of encouragement and sent two young Chinese novices educated at the Jesuit school in Macao to Shaozhou. One was Zhong Mingren, christened with the Portuguese name of Sebastião Fernandes in accordance with customary practice, and the other was Huang Mingsha, now called Francisco Martines. He appointed Duarte de Sande, already superior of the Chinese mission, as rector of the college in Macao and arranged for the Portuguese Jesuits João Soerio and João da Rocha to be sent to Macao and to study Mandarin Chinese with a view to entering China later on. The Visitor had no time to make any further decisions, as he had to leave again immediately for Japan in aid of the flourishing local mission, whose survival was seriously endangered now that General Toyotomi Hideyoshi had unleashed a persecution of Christians.

When the house was completed, the small religious community resumed its customary life of study and prayer and devoted its energies to patiently and gradually building up the friendly social relations indispensable to the work of spreading the Gospel. Here, too, the Jesuits’ residence was soon visited by a whole procession of literati and officials eager to meet the man from the West skilled in the construction of extraordinary objects, the author of the map of the world and the catechism, whose reputation had spread all the way from Zhaoqing. Ricci began to make the acquaintance of the local dignitaries, a group of
guan
and
shidafu
who seemed friendlier and better disposed on first sight than the officials and scholars he had met in Zhaoqing. The impression that the dignitaries of Shaozhou were more responsive may have been related, however, to the change in Ricci’s behavior. After seven years in China, he had now attained such a mastery of the language and customs that he was perfectly at ease in social intercourse, following the ritual as though he had lived in the Middle Kingdom all his life.

In Shaozhou too, however, false rumors were spread to discredit the missionaries. It was said that they were alchemists expelled from Zhaoqing because they refused to teach the governor their secrets. Ricci was concerned about this slanderous gossip, but it was precisely his reputation as an alchemist that led to an important meeting the year after his arrival.