Tang ruowang

Tang ruowang

Johann Adam schallvon bell (1592-1666) was born in Cologne, Germany. He was a Jesuit missionary. He came to Macao in 1620 (the 48th year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty) and lived in China for 47 years. After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, he was one of the most important Jesuits who came to China after Matteo Ricci.

Missionary cause

The Western Catholic community believes that Tang ruowang "through his doctrinal works and books on converting pagans directly to the church, through persuading the maids to join the church, and taking the opportunity to present gifts to the emperor, clearly stated our faith in writing" and "made great contributions to God and society". In order to seek the legal status of Catholicism in all provinces, Chongzhen was asked to give the four words "imperial praise of heaven" in 1638, and plaques were made and distributed to Catholic churches.

Tang ruowang's favor and prosperity in Shunzhi made Catholicism spread smoothly in China at that time. With the increase of the number of missionaries and the expansion of their activities, the number of believers increased rapidly. By 1650, the number of believers had reached 150000. In 1650, the Qing government granted land to rebuild the church beside the original Catholic Church in Xuanwumen. Tang ruowang enlarged a sutra hall built by Matteo Ricci and built the first cathedral (South Hall) in Beijing. Tang ruowang's works on religion during his stay in China, including those written by him, translated and edited by him, or revised with his participation, mainly include "Jin Cheng Shu Xiang", "the origin of the bishop", "Zhu Zhi Qun Zheng", "Zhen Fu Xun Quan", "Chong Yi Tang diary essays", "Ai Jin Xing Quan", "soul Tao Ti Shuo" and "Notre Dame church".

Main contributions

Calendar revision

In 1634, Tang ruowang assisted Xu Guangqi to complete the voluminous Chongzhen almanac, a total of 137 volumes of 46 kinds. The completion of Chongzhen almanac marks that Chinese astronomy has entered the development trend of world astronomy. Li'erwang's book of 1645 was compressed into the book of emperor chongzhengfa. The Qing Dynasty named it the Shixian calendar, which was printed with the five words "according to the western new law" and promulgated all over the world. Since then, it has become the basis for compiling the almanac and various astronomic methods every year. Until now, it is also the basis for compiling the Chinese lunar calendar. Tang ruowang was appointed as emperor qintianjian, and became the first foreign emperor in Chinese history, which initiated the tradition of appointing Jesuit missionaries in charge of emperor qintianjian for nearly 200 years.

Casting gun

Tang ruowang was ordered by Emperor Chongzhen to successfully build cannons and complete the book fire attack. It was the most authoritative work on Western cannons in the late Ming Dynasty and had great influence until the middle of the Qing Dynasty. Tang ruowang also translated the complete book of mining and metallurgy by Agricola, a German miner, and named it Kunyu Gezhi. The book is divided into 12 volumes, covering each stage of mining and related metallurgical processes. Before it was published, it was lost in the war between the late Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty.

Tang ruowang and the "calendar dispute"

After the death of emperor Shunzhi, Tang ruowang lost his protector, and his fate also changed greatly.

As early as the 16th year of Shunzhi, Yang Guangxian, who opposed the Western calendar system, wrote the theory of exorcism, denouncing Catholicism as "heresy". The next year, he reprimanded Tang ruowang for writing "according to the western new law" on the cover of shixianli, with the purpose of "using the calendar of the Qing Dynasty to expand the western world, so that all countries in the world can know the zhengshuo of Qing Dynasty's western worship". Tang ruowang was not affected because emperor Shunzhi was still alive at that time.

In the first year of Kangxi (1662), the missionary Li Leisi's Tianxue zhuangai criticized Yang Guangxian. Three years later, Yang Guangxian wrote a Book of last resort, which said: "it is better to make China have no good calendar than to have Westerners." Li Lei Si refuted it in the last resort. Yang Guangxian wrote to Tang ruowang that he "conspired to revolt, perplexed people with heresy, and the calendar was absurd". With the support of aobai and others, Tang ruowang was sentenced to death and Nan Huairen was deported. Four years later, under the intervention of Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang, Tang ruowang and other missionaries were pardoned, but imperial officials Li Zubai and song Kecheng were killed, Catholic officials were dismissed, and Yang Guangxian was appointed as imperial supervisor. On August 15, 1666, Tang ruowang died in Nantang. The provincial governors detained more than 30 local western missionaries under orders, and 25 other missionaries except Nan Huairen were detained in Beijing. In the seventh year, Emperor Kangxi took charge of Tang ruowang, rehabilitated him, restored his name as "teacher of tongxuan", and gave him a place to bury him next to Matteo Ricci's tomb. Ren Nan Huairen was appointed as emperor qintianjian and restored the time constitution calendar. Nine years later, missionaries banned in Guangzhou were allowed to return to the church.

Chinese PinYin : Tang Ruo Wang