Back to the Ming Dynasty to be a tyrant

After unloading most of the supplies on the ship and loading them into the carriage, Li Chengyan led a delegation towards Austria.

That's right, the so-called Habsburg emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was actually Ferdinand III, who was also the king of Hungary and Bohemia, as well as the Archduke of Austria, known as Ferdinand IV.

Faced with such complicated relationships and numerous titles, Lee Seung-yeon, who thinks he has a certain understanding of the West, has to say admiration!

If it were in Daming, only Emperor Wuzong, who proclaimed himself "Governor of Military Affairs, Mighty General, Commander-in-Chief" and "Duke of the State", could be compared. The other emperors had only one title—Emperor of Ming Dynasty.

What made Li Chengyan even more unbelievable was that the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Ferdinand III, his second wife was actually his cousin, Grand Duchess Maria Leopoldine.

According to the rumors in the world, the Grand Duchess's health does not seem to be very good, and she feels that she is dying soon - Ferdinand III's desire to stop the war has something to do with this, not just because of the decline of the people .

In fact, it’s normal to think about it. If the people’s power is withered or not, it has little to do with these grand dukes, lords, or even the emperor. They won’t collect a cent less poll tax because of the people’s power.

At this point, the emperors of the Central Plains, who have a little brain, will choose to exempt taxes and taxes in exchange for popular support, but these bigwigs in the West don't need it.

With churches and priests around, taxes can always be guaranteed, because if you don’t pay taxes, you won’t be able to wash away your sins, and you won’t be able to go to heaven if you don’t wash away your sins—especially the tithes that the church needs to collect. The most important.

In Li Chengyan's view, this is not a tithe tax, but more like an IQ tax.

Because it is mentioned in the "Bible" that one-tenth of the agricultural and animal husbandry products belong to God, the common people in Europe must pay tithes.

The specific objects collected are divided into big tithes (grain), small tithes (vegetables, fruits) and blood tithes (livestock) according to the nature of the products.The amount of tax often exceeds one-tenth of the taxpayer's income, and the burden mainly falls on farmers.

If that's all, Li Chengyan would not call it an IQ tax. At most, he would sigh the last sentence that the government is fiercer than a tiger, and then he should do what is left.

The point is that these European civilians revolted, rebelled, and then chose peace talks?Did you forget your brain in your mother's womb when you were born?

PS: Sacrifice "The Rebel King" today

Chapter 745 Agitate Your Lips and Tongue to Knock Mountains and Rivers

When it comes to rebellion, Li Chengyan can say to everyone in Europe with a smile, I am not targeting anyone here, but that all of you are hot chickens!

The Central Plains dynasty has had a tradition of rebellion since ancient times. Almost from the Shang Dynasty when there are only written records to the current Ming Dynasty, there are people who are willing to take the risk of beheading the nine clans to rebel.

There are various reasons, some are because they can't live anymore, some are dissatisfied, and some feel that they can also have a taste of being an emperor.

Anyway, there have been many rebels in the past dynasties. Except for a few successful cases, most of the rebels ended up miserable, either due to insufficient preparation, or failed due to various other reasons.

There is even such a tease as Zhang Shao who rose up to rebel in order to have a big banquet in the imperial palace and almost succeeded.

But without exception, almost none of the rebels would choose such a funny way of talking together, except for those who planned to recruit security from the beginning, the rest were all fighting to the end.

What shocked Li Chengyan was a rebellion in Germany in the third year of Jiajing - the German Peasants' War.

At the beginning of this rebellion, which lasted only one year, the peasant army decided to negotiate with the Swabian Union and sent fifty representatives to Memmingen, a free city sympathetic to the peasants.

The representatives of the peasants in the uprising tried to explain the demands of the peasants and used the "Bible" as the reason for their demands. After many negotiations, they published the "Twelve Articles" and "The Imperial Reform Program" on March [-] of the following year. .

Then there is nothing more - the three major uprising peasant corps decided to help each other, spread the news of the establishment of the Upper Swabian League to Augsburg, hoping to negotiate with the Swabian League on an equal footing.

But the nobles who made up the Swabian Union did not want to negotiate.An army of [-] mercenary infantry and [-] armored cavalry financed by the Fugger, a wealthy Augsburg merchant family, was sent out to suppress the peasants, armed mainly with sickles and flails.

From here we can see the difference between East and West.

Once there is a rebel in the East, especially if he cannot survive, it will be easy for a large number of follow-up rebels to follow.

Once the trend of rebellion is formed, unless the emperor in power is particularly powerful and able to suppress all dissatisfaction, most of the time it will end with a change of dynasty.

But the West is different.

Even if the West is rebelling, once its own demands are achieved or suppressed, the rebellion will be over and will soon calm down. Peasants will continue to be farmers and nobles will continue to be nobles. Basically, there will be no change.

The same is true for this German peasant uprising. After being suppressed, what should happen? Except those who participated in the rebellion were killed or became criminals who were deprived of all rights, what happened to the rest.

Nobles are still nobles, and the tithes that should be collected must continue to be collected.

That's why Li Chengyan said that these teasers have forgotten their brains in their mother's stomach?

So the three gangs rebelling can be a fart?Keep up, once hundreds of thousands of civilians rebel, will they still need to be taxed?

However, when Li Chengyan believed that the tithe tax was already an IQ tax, the European people used their performance to completely refresh the lower limit of the three views, and told Li Chengyan what the real IQ tax is!

According to the news that Li Chengyan learned, as early as the 41st year of Jiajing, the European god stick leaders had stopped selling such things as indulgence coupons.

However, the amazing thing is that until now, that is, in the 20th year of Chongzhen, there are still many people in Austria who believe that the church should not compromise and should not stop the sale of indulgences.

Because people are sinful, and sinful people cannot go to heaven after death, the only option is to go to hell.

What if you are guilty and want to go to heaven?

Buy indulgences from the Church!

The "New Testament Gospel of John" said that Jesus appeared to the disciples after his resurrection, and breathed on them, and instructed: "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive, their sins are forgiven. You stay Whose sins are left behind."

Since then, Catholic priests have declared that they, as the heirs of the disciples of Jesus Christ, have the authority to forgive sins.

The Roman Catholic Church also declared that the blood of Jesus and the later martyred saints was more than enough to atone for the sins of mankind, and accumulated to form the "Holy Father's Treasury", which can be replaced by the successor of St. Peter, that is, the Catholic Church represented by the Pope. Will come to take charge, representing God to atone for the sins of specific people, and open the door from purgatory to heaven.

The Catholic Church, represented by the pope, has the resources to atone for people's sins and the key to ascend to heaven after death.The later pope simply announced that those who could not go to Rome for pilgrimage could pay the corresponding fee to obtain salvation, and issued a document representing the pilgrimage.Such instruments are known as "indulgences".

Almost all Europeans believe that there is no sin in the world that cannot be solved by indulgences—if there are, then two indulgences!

Even Martin Luther wrote "95 Theses", and even the Catholic Council of Trento announced the suspension of the issuance of indulgences in the 41st year of Jiajing.

There are still a large number of Europeans longing for indulgences, and even disappointed by the weakness of the Holy See.

Li Chengyan began to be interested in indulgences - as long as there is money, there is nothing that cannot be sold, even God.

After spending a lot of money, Li Chengyan finally managed to get a few old indulgence coupons, and invited the accompanying Jinyiwei Baihu and Dongchang stalls, as well as Zhongguan eunuchs to watch together.

Zheng Xun, a member of Jinyiwei, looked it over and over again, put it down suspiciously, and said, "Isn't this just a piece of torn paper? It should be written by barbarians? It's probably not as useful as Taoist talismans, right? "

Zhongguan eunuch Diao Qirong let out a chuckle: "This thing can atone for sins? God is sorry, Master Zhang of Longhushan may not dare to say such a thing, right?"

Ding Yifei, the head of the East Factory, also looked suspicious: "If this thing is really useful, why doesn't it even have the slightest vision? After all, it is something that can communicate with the world? Are you going to burn it?"

Zheng Xun was immediately excited, and he booed: "That's right, those bull-nosed people also need to burn talismans when they do it, maybe this thing has to be burned to be effective?

Besides, we have five cards in our hands now anyway, so it doesn't matter if we burn one or two, at worst, we just need to buy them again. "

Li Chengyan cast his eyes on Diao Qirong: "How about? Burn one and try?"

Diao Qirong said: "Master Li is in charge of everything, our family is only accompanying you, and you are the chief official."

Li Chengyan nodded in satisfaction, reached out and took out a fire pocket from his arms to ignite it, then picked up an indulgence note and lit it.

What is disappointing is that until the indulgences are all burnt out, there are no visions, let alone any hypnotized fairies come into the world.