Chapter 79 preamble

In 1804 AD, the ninth year of Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty, that is, the year when the Wang Cong'er Uprising of the White Lotus Sect that shook Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Chu, and Henan was completely quelled, a fifteen-year-old boy named Ah Fa came from his hometown in eastern Guangdong. Came to the provincial capital Guangzhou to work.He first worked as an apprentice, worked as a pen maker, and also studied painting and woodblock printing. In 1815, Emperor Napoleon suffered a defeat at Waterloo, and the British Empire was in full swing, dominating that half of the world.On this half of the world, Ah Fa judged the situation and was employed by the British devil Milne, and went to Java with his bedroll.In the eyes of people at that time, it was a world of devils with red hair and blue eyes.Although the Qing Dynasty was not very useful at this time, it had a strong foundation after all, and its gross national product slightly exceeded the sum of the whole of Europe—so no one would look enviously at such a foreign and barbaric land.

By the time he returned to his hometown again, it was already the 24th year of Jiaqing.Although the rebellion launched by the White Lotus Sect has been quelled for fifteen years, various traditional religious superstitions are quite prevalent, constantly adding trouble to this declining dynasty. In the eighteenth year of Jiaqing, the Tianli religion, which was widely spread in the north, unexpectedly gathered a crowd to attack the Forbidden City under the internal response of several eunuchs, and fought fiercely with the palace guards at the Longzhong Gate, Zhongzheng Hall, and Yangxin Hall.This surprised Emperor Jiaqing, and shouted, "There has never been anything wrong, but it came out of the Qing Dynasty."At that time, the palace was in total chaos. Not only did Prince Zhuang go out to buy sesame seed cakes for the army, but even the second son of the emperor, Min Ning, participated in the battle at the south of the Hall of Mental Cultivation.This was the only thing that made Jiaqing feel gratified in the whole incident. Therefore, the emperor issued an order to reward his son for "both loyalty and filial piety", and also named the gun used by the second child "Wei Lie".However, according to the second master, the future Emperor Daoguang himself, it was mainly due to the haste at that time, and there were not enough guards around him, so he had to carry the gun himself into battle. After thinking about it, it was very scary.

Because of the prevalence of cults in the society, when Ah Fa returned to his hometown, engraved large-scale printed pamphlets, and gave them away everywhere, the highly vigilant local officials of the Qing Dynasty focused on this demagogue.The detective reported that this guy joined some kind of organization in the barbarian land of Fanbang. It is said that it is called "baptized into a religion". Good people, grab it first and then talk! As a result, Ah Fa was arrested by the government, destroyed the edition and burned the book, and was flogged thirty times.This lawsuit made foreigners more aware of Ah Fa's devotion to Western religions, so they bailed him out and sent him abroad for further studies.Four years later, Ah Fa was hired as an assistant of the London Missionary Society, and four years later, he was appointed a priest.

When Ah Fa was fifty years old, it was nineteen years since Daoguang, and he returned to Guangdong on the eve of the first Opium War.The "Good Words to Advise the World" and other books he engraved are quite popular in Guangzhou - that is the headquarters of the thirteen industries that monopolize Chinese and foreign trade. There are more people who eat foreign food, so it is easy to find readers.In 1855, on the eve of the Second Opium War, the sixty-six-year-old Ah Fa died in Guangzhou.He didn't know until his death how much his life, which was questioned by the people of the country at that time, changed the trajectory of this ancient country.

The sound of wind and rain that shook history resounded outside the window of his house, but he was too old and sick to hear it clearly.After all, one generation can only do what one generation does, and no one knows what kind of monsters are contained in Pandora's box—so the person who opened the box had to close his eyes and die.