Meanwhile news of the establishment of priests in China had spread to Japan and the Philippines. In his letters Ricci in particular had suggested that the time was ripe to present gifts from King Philip II of Spain to the Emperor of China. This project had been under consideration for some years and the gifts had already reached Mexico. In Japan widespread conversion had been achieved through gaining the goodwill of the great daimyo; Ricci was not alone in believing that the most effective way to evangelise China lay through the Emperor. Christianity was a reasonable religion: reason appealed to the head, and therefore to the head of state. Now that a foothold had been obtained within the country, the moment seemed opportune.
The optimistic news from China stirred mercantile as well as missionary hopes. Although Portugal and Spain had been united under the Spanish Crown since 1580, each country jealously safeguarded its former spheres of influence. The Spanish authorities now cast envious eyes on the wealth Portugal was already amassing from China and which promised, as the country opened its gates still wider, to exceed even their own Mexican and Peruvian treasures. The Governor of the Philippines and the Bishop of Manila decided to set up a Spanish trading base in Kwangtung province, with the Italian missionaries’ help. They sent a Spanish Jesuit and the royal exactor of tribute to Macao, carrying money for the Chinese mission and letters which asked the Jesuits of China to obtain permission for a present to be brought to the Emperor by Spanish ambassadors. This present, to the value of 70,000 ducats, would include two dozen Mexican horses, velvet, brocade, Flemish tapestries, Venetian glass, mirrors, clocks, gold, swords, oil paintings, red and white wine. Such a gift, it was hoped, would persuade the Emperor to grant free entry to Christian missionaries. On their arrival in Macao the visitors from the Philippines wrote asking Ruggieri to obtain permission for them to come to Shiuhing and treat personally with the viceroy about the proposed embassy. Ruggieri, unsuspecting, acceded to their request. Both Wang P’an and the viceroy approved the plan of an embassy and it was sent to the Haitao at Canton for his final decision.
Meanwhile the Portuguese traders of Macao learnt that the Spaniards proposed to use their influence to establish a trading post at Canton. The Spaniards possessed unlimited supplies of silver, so highly valued in China; if they came to Canton prices would soar and the Portuguese stood to make a greatly reduced profit. The traders at Macao pointed out that they had largely financed the Chinese mission, which therefore owed them a debt of loyalty. As for the present to the Emperor, they believed that if it was given by Spanish ambassadors, Spain would be accorded more favourable rights than Portugal now enjoyed. To permit such a result would be inconsistent with papal pronouncements and with King Philip’s own assurance that the Portuguese should continue to have exclusive trading rights with Macao. Recognising the force of these arguments, the Jesuit superior at Macao wrote an urgent letter to Ruggieri, telling him to let the matter of the embassy drop. This put the Italian in a dilemma, for the petition was now in the Haitao’s hands and could not be withdrawn. As chance would have it, the Haitao finally decided against the proposal, saying that only tributary states were permitted to send gifts to the Emperor. Indeed, a well-known prophecy held that the empire would fall if a new embassy was admitted.
Ricci could not share his colleague’s unqualified relief. The Haitao’s decision had prevented open rivalry between the two Iberian countries which might have proved fatal to the delicately placed mission. Yet the decision seemed to rule out any embassy in the future; from the Pope, for instance, in order to avoid rousing national sentiment—a scheme in which Ricci had the greatest confidence.
But these grandiose plans affected daily life in Shiuhing very little. Far more important was a decision taken in 1585, second year of their stay in China, when the two Italians made yet another gesture of conformity by adopting honorific names. Until then everyone, even the house-boys, had called them by their Christian names phoneticised. To such scholars as Wang P’an this appeared a barbarous custom because proper names were never used by educated men except, humbly, to designate themselves, or by a high mandarin as a mark of superiority to one very much beneath him in rank. Wang P’an had suggested they follow the Chinese custom. In all China there existed a mere handful of surnames, less than a thousand, ancient and immutable. When a child was born, if a girl, she was known merely by a number—first, second or third sister—but if a boy, he received a first name, usually of two syllables, the surname being monosyllabic. His parents and elders addressed the boy by this first name; others called him by the number he ranked among his brothers. He himself in his visiting books and wherever else he wrote a signature used his first name. If he were addressed by his surname, he would consider it bad manners, even an insult. At the age of twenty-one a local mandarin gave him a middle name, by which everyone except servants addressed him, until later in life he abandoned this for “the great name.” Henceforward superiors addressed him by his middle name and everyone else by the great name. It was this “great” or honorific name which Wang P’an suggested the missionaries adopt. Ricci’s first name in Chinese was Ma-tou and his surname Li, the nearest monosyllabic equivalent to Ricci, the “r” sound being unknown in China. For a great name, he was now obliged to accept the style by which local graduates already referred to him: Hsi-t’ai, which meant the Far or Exalted Westerner. Ruggieri, who had been known as Lu, adopted the name of Fou-ch’u, the Restorer of the mission which Francis Xavier had in principle founded.
It was doubtful how far the second title could be justified. By the end of 1585 Ricci and his colleague had spent almost two and a half years in China and converted only twenty men: in the same length of time Francis Xaxier had baptised a thousand Japanese. True, Ricci could claim they had purposely remained discreet in their proselytising, lest they be expelled for disturbing the peace. But twenty out of a hundred and ninety million Chinese: for that he had become a barbarian! Ricci took recourse from the lunatic figures in the fervour of his few neophytes, in the miracle of conversion.
As the months passed their frustrations grew still more numerous. In an attempt to establish another foothold further inland Ruggieri undertook two journeys. Both proved fruitless, for he seemed unable to win the mandarins’ confidence. Increasingly, this task fell to Ricci, who remained at Shiuhing. Time and again Wang P’an grew cold, as enemies tried to drive away the essential otherness, bewildering and challenging, with a succession of trumped-up charges: that the foreign bonzes had aided a Franciscan caught at Canton without a passport; that Ruggieri had committed adultery with a local woman; that their two-storeyed house was an actual or potential fortress—an accusation difficult to refute, for only Chinese town walls or towers were built high and of brick: with tears, written petitions and gifts Ricci had to plead their innocence and bring to the fore Wang P’an’s better self; with laughter again and again shatter the brittle edge of contempt. It was a brute life, concerned only with survival. At times, when fury mounted in the town, Ricci would watch from the house the river running down to Canton, to Macao. Why not accept the natural course, drift with the current, leave the Chinese to their idols? In spite of himself the answer would rise indignantly. Yes, it was as simple as that: in giving everything he had grown to love them. However violent their hatred, however often they tried to beat him off, he was condemned to a lifetime of love.
chapter four
Gaining Ground
Many people in Shiuhing, unable to understand what the missionaries were about, supposed they belonged to the very numerous class of magicians. A firm belief held that cinnabar, a vermilion-coloured compound of mercury and sulphur, could be changed into real silver by means of amber, a resin not native to China and familiar only since its introduction to the country forty years earlier. The missionaries were thought to possess amber and know how to effect the change, because every year the Portuguese purchased in Canton quantities of cinnabar, which they transported to Japan and India. Since their carracks were seen to return from t
hese countries with cargoes of silver, it seemed obvious that the cinnabar had been transmuted by alchemy. Further confirmation was found in the fact that the missionaries lived honestly yet, unlike other bonzes, solicited no alms, neither did they trade or own land. The more vigorously they denied alchemic powers, the more convinced the Chinese became, for since many quacks laid false claim to the art, it seemed probable that those who denied all knowledge really possessed it. The missionaries, in fact, were not displeased at this explanation—an image of the invisible truth—for if it were known that they were being supported from Macao, the Chinese would become even more suspicious of their designs.
No less widespread than the craze for making silver was the desire to know the future. Ricci was astonished by the number of fortune-tellers and their many ways of prediction. Some drew oracles from words; others kept a bullfinch and tortoise to select cards of good or bad import. A man with a small nose and distended nostrils was believed born to penury; a thick hand with a soft red palm betokened good fortune; to dream of the moon falling foretold the birth of a daughter: lives were governed by such auguries and it frequently happened, as Ricci himself had witnessed, that some wretch, for whom serious illness had been predicted by a certain date, would worry himself to death, thus confirming the wisdom of his executioners.
The most esteemed magicians were those who taught the art of living to a great age by ascetical practices, sexual abstinence, rhythmic respiration and especially by the quaffing of an elixir containing what was thought to be gold. Again cinnabar played the dominant role. Easily resolved into its two constituents and easily recomposed, it was taken to be the perfect embodiment of Yin and Yang, the dark feminine and bright masculine principles underlying all creation: not only transmutable into silver but a type of periodic renaissance, holding the promise of immortality. When recomposed, it left traces of yellow sulphuric arsenic and it was this, believed to be edible gold, which formed the basis of the elixirs. The men who administered them, to prove their efficacy, claimed to be immensely old and often, to avoid awkward questions, pretended that most of their life had been spent abroad. Rumour had it that Ricci and his companion knew the art of longevity; that they were far older than they would admit—a hundred, perhaps two hundred years old—and that they did not marry in order to prolong their lives still further.
Lest powerful officials should gain too great an influence over people so ignorant and pliable, possibly leading to rebellion against the central government, the laws of China provided that a mandarin must be appointed to a new post in another province every three years. In 1584 an exception had been made when Wang P’an was appointed Superintendent of the Western Frontier, from which office during 1587 he waited in vain for promotion. He began to fear that his friendship towards the foreigners had ruined his career, but in January of the new year, to his great joy, he was promoted assistant to the governor of Hukwang province. Before his departure, as the customary way of showing gratitude, the people of Shiuhing erected a pagoda to one who had governed them like a father. On either side of his own statue, which dominated the building, Wang P’an insisted on placing smaller statues of Ruggieri and Ricci, in recognition of the good which had resulted to him from their stay. On the day of his departure the whole population, accompanied by drums and gongs, trooped to the pagoda to light candles and burn incense. A leading citizen presented him with a new pair of shoes and solemnly requested his black chamois slippers of office. These he put in a carved box, inscribed with Wang P’an’s good deeds, which was locked and placed in the centre of the pagoda, as a relic of his just administration. Special attendants would keep lights and incense burning night and day before the altar of a righteous man whom the people themselves had spontaneously canonised. Ricci paid particular attention to the ceremony, for it threw light on the privileged position of Confucius. Some of his brethren had seen in the veneration paid to the great philosopher a religious sacrifice. But if the same sort of honour, in lesser degree, could be paid Wang P’an, whom none claimed to be more than mortal, the rites to Confucius did not prove the philosopher a god. Ricci had already noted that the mandarins during their fortnightly homage in the school thanked Confucius for his good teaching, which had enabled them to reach their present rank, but they never asked favours as from a deity. The discovery pleased him, for if Confucianism was untainted by idolatry, it would not be necessary to combat all three Chinese sects at once.
With no less regret than the local people, the two Italians said goodbye to the man who had made possible their entrance into China. For almost five years he had given’ them his friendship and protection at great personal risk. They had found his intellectual attainments equivalent to those of an Italian gentleman: he read his country’s classics, could appraise a picture and produce a well-turned poem. For his part, he had lauded parts of the Westerners’ doctrine, but remained a religious agnostic.
In order to stay in a country where the local magistrate himself was the law, every three years they would have to win the goodwill of at least one new official. In a European country that would not have proved difficult, but here government had been reduced to a fine art. Censors from Peking continually toured the provinces, noting complaints and irregularities. Every three years all principal mandarins were summoned to the capital to pay the Emperor homage. On that occasion their whole career was scrutinised and in the light of superiors’ reports they were either left in office, degraded, dismissed or even severely punished, sometimes as many as four thousand mandarins being censured in a single spring for offences ranging from cruelty to acceptance of bribes. Fortunately Ricci was already friendly with Wang P’an’s successor, who had several times visited Shiuhing on official business. He promised to protect them and soon gave proof of his good will.
During early summer and late spring Ricci again had China to himself, for Ruggieri had returned to Macao to consult Valignano. By now the objects originally brought from the enclave had lost their novelty, and in order to draw visitors and dispel the opinion that all foreigners were barbarians Ricci turned the knowledge he had acquired from Christopher Clavius to practical use, fashioning mechanical instruments which even to the graduates appeared marvels of invention. Ricci enjoyed this work: he was gifted for it and it recalled his happy days at the Roman College. With the Indian boy’s help he constructed a large clock, its face incorporated into the wall of the house so that those passing by could see the movement of the single hand. A high-toned bell struck the hour, its metal clapper catching every ear, for Chinese bells were rung with wooden mallets. The clock was pronounced wonderful rather than useful. Some of the mandarins possessed clepsydras and wood-ash or sand clocks, their unit of time being twice the length of a European hour, but the mass of people were content to keep tally by day and season. Life dragged a heavy foot: haggling in the market-place, interminable meals and elaborate etiquette extended the simplest actions to fill the day. In setting up the public clock Ricci asserted his own conception of time: independent of the rhythm of agriculture, urgent, man-made, with a purpose beyond itself, every hour crowded as a mandarin day. He also constructed copper and iron globes of the world, no less of a novelty than mechanical clocks, as well as sundials. The only Chinese sundial, fashioned for a latitude of thirty-six degrees, proved hopelessly inaccurate at Shiuhing, which lay at twenty-three degrees. Ricci had been astonished to learn that, since the underlying principle was now quite forgotten, the Chinese had not thought of making the necessary adjustment in the angle of the dial.
Every educated man brought on his first visit a present, and by the rules of courtesy expected some return. Since he could not afford expensive objects, Ricci usually gave home-made sundials or globes, so esteemed that their recipients remained greatly in his debt. He also procured by way of Macao a small library of leather-bound books containing engravings of famous European buildings: theatres, palaces, bridges and churches. Even on the illiterate these produced an effect of awe and wonder. Li’s country posses
sed majestic cities; perhaps after all, despite those ridiculous round eyes and large nose, he might be worth listening to when he spoke of the Lord of Heaven.
In midsummer Ricci learned the outcome of his colleague’s visit to Macao. Having heard a review of events, Valignano had decided that the time was ripe to send an embassy from the Pope to the Emperor; four Jesuits, preferably Portuguese or Italians, were to meet Ricci in Shiuhing and proceed under his leadership to Peking. Ricci was asked to draw up Chinese letters which, having first been forwarded to Rome for approval, the Pope could send to the Son of Heaven and the viceroy of Kwangtung, as well as a suitable form of passport for the ambassadors, should the Chinese consent to admit them. With the help of a graduate versed in court protocol Ricci composed elegant letters and dispatched them to his superior.
These letters Valignano entrusted to Ruggieri. Only by arousing interest in the mission throughout Europe and especially at Rome could money be raised for the costly gifts befitting so great an Emperor. As a direct participant, taking with him one or two Chinese servants and an array of curios, Ruggieri would attract the necessary attention. Valignano had come to the conclusion that the impetuous Southerner was unfitted for so difficult a mission field. After nine years he still had no fluency in the language; his two journeys had been almost disastrous failures; he was easily imposed on; he lacked the resolution and heroic qualities necessary to withstand constant opposition and disappointment. Ruggieri’s sailing date was fixed for November.
Wise Man Of The West (Harvill Press Editions) Page 8
