Talk:Zhu Youlang, Prince of Gui
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[edit] Merge
This topic exists twice (Prince of Gui and Zhu Youlang. They should be merged. Laca 14:37, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- Is there any truth to the assertion that he "converted" to Christianity, in oder to bolster support from the West, in his struggles with the Qing? Dr. Dan 18:45, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
- just stumbled over the same question. According to Kaminski, Gerd; Unterrieder, Else: Von Österreichern und Chinesen. Wien 1980. (= About Austrians and Chinese), a fairly reliable publication, the story goes like this:
Some jesuit missionary of Austrian origin named Andreas Koffler (1603-1651) was introduced to the "emperor" (most possibly Guiwang (桂王) but the name is never mentioned) by a converted General with the christioned name "Lukas" and the chancellor "Pan", christioned name "Achilles". The first meeting happened on a ship (but no location), which the "emperor" at that time did not dare to leave, because he was afraid of the ghosts he imagened to be on land. Kofflers explanation was, that the emperor "from time to time was quite crazy in his brains" (sounds like Guiwang ;-) The emperor was deeply impressed by the gifts (a round mirror, some mathematical instruments, a picture of holy Mary and her child and a picture of saint John) Koffler gave to the emperor. When the empress saw the picture of holy Mary and her child, she screamed, that she saw the baby boy in her dreams and was threatened by it. After some discussions about the procedures Koffler baptized the empress and the empress-mother, but could not convince the emperor himself to get baptized (especially because it would have ment, that the emperor would have to give up his concubines). Koffler managed to become more influential at the emperors court and when the empress bore a boy-child he baptized it on the name of "Konstantin"; under the condition that that child will just be allowed to marry one wife in future. Obviousely the emperor also sent a embassy of christian officials to the Jesuit mission in Macao (on chinese boats with a christian cross painted on their sails!). He even planned another embassy to the pope in Rome (which was never realized). Luck was not on the emperors side and instead of reestablishing Ming-dynasty he had to retreat from Manchu-power and finally got killed. Koffler was killed by a Manchu-captain on 12. 12. 1651 near the city "Thien-tscheu" (somewhere in Guangxi province).
The whole story was originally reported in Berichte des Pater Michael Boym vom Jahre 1653, welchen er in Rom abgestattet hat, in: Weltbott Nr.13. Teil eins und zwei (= Reports of father Michael Boym in the year 1653, which he made in Rome. In: Weltbott Nb. 13, Part one and two).
Well, the major goal of Jesuit mission was to turn high officials (and ideally the emperor himself) into christians. So when the Manchu started to invade china the jesuit missionaries split up into three groups: some fled with the troups of Zhang Xuanzhong, some with the princes of the Ming-dynasty, and the third group (among which was the influentual Johann Adam Schall von Bell) stayed in Beijing and established good contacts to the Manchu court. Consequently no matter which power should prove to control China in the future, there always will be Jesuit missionarys close to that power. In some regards Andreas Koffler was one of chinas most successful missionaries by managing to baptize the son of an emperor (the possible future emperor!).
If you have further information on this topic please let me know. --Pepolo 15:35, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
