Chapter 786: From Failure to Failure

The favor he enjoyed stirred jealousy among another faction of clergy in the Ottoman court — those belonging to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Ever since Greece and the Balkan Peninsula had been conquered by the Ottoman armies, the Eastern Orthodox Church had remained an influential faction within the Ottoman court, enjoying a special status.

These Eastern Orthodox clergy strongly rejected figures from the Catholic Church of Western Europe, and Louis, who had gained the Ottomans' favor, naturally became a target of their loathing and exclusion. Although Louis repeatedly stated that he had not come to proselytize, that he cared nothing for the differences between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, and even swore that he was ready at any time to convert to Eastern Orthodoxy or even Islam, it was all to no avail. He quickly lost the already precarious favor he had held, and was ultimately dispatched to a port on the coast of Greece to oversee the construction of warships. From the moment he left Constantinople, he knew that everything he had hoped to gain had once again dissolved into foam and shadow.

Life on the coast was dull and flavorless — so tedious that Louis nearly forgot his original dreams.

Clinging to the hope that the minister might change his mind, he wandered countless times along the sandy shores of the Aegean Sea. The languid sea breeze, carrying grains of sand and a faint briny tang, brushed against his face, making him long only to drift quickly into sleep beneath the blue sky and white clouds. Lingering here, he could feel none of that blissful atmosphere, nor could he grasp the tranquil, detached pleasures of life that come when ambition and anxiety are cast aside. The air and the gentle murmur of the waves were suffused with reverie. The beach whispered — now melancholy, now joyful, now glittering gold, now dim and lusterless — yet it stirred not the faintest echo in Louis's heart.

By the third year, Louis finally understood that the minister would never change his mind, and that his dreams no longer held any possibility of fulfillment in the Ottoman Empire. One afternoon, gazing out at the sun slowly sinking into the western sea and the clouds of rosy mist that filled the sky, he could only come to the helpless realization that here in the Ottoman Empire, the day of his rise would never come.

He summoned his servant and had him pack his belongings. And so, one night, taking what little money he had, Louis and his servant quietly departed that stretch of coast, setting out toward a new chapter of life.

After carefully assessing his situation, Louis concluded that on the European continent he likely had few opportunities left to rise above the rest, so he turned his gaze beyond Europe — he decided to go to the Americas.

Once he had made this decision, he immediately scraped together every bit of money he could lay his hands on, then set off directly with his servant. The adventurer's spirit was disguised as missionary zeal; he once again dressed himself up as a missionary and made his way to the Americas.

At this time, the Americas were being conquered step by step by the Spanish. In Mexico and Peru, one brilliant civilization after another was crumbling to dust and ashes. The native peoples were either slaughtered en masse or forced to convert to Catholicism, and the Spanish Empire's demand for missionaries grew ever greater — they needed missionaries to reshape the thinking of the local natives and, incidentally, to scout the way ahead for them.

Louis, who had experience cooperating with the Spanish army back in the Netherlands, naturally had no psychological barrier to any of this. The moment he arrived in the Americas, he actively set about exploring every region the Spanish army had yet to set foot in. Deep mountains and high plateaus, primeval jungles — none of these posed any obstacle to him. He was searching not only for lambs not yet called by God, but also for undiscovered riches.

For the sake of unreliable rumors, he did not hesitate to tread into the most dangerous jungles, hoping to find the last hidden treasures of the Inca. With his servant, his footprints covered every desolate corner of the Americas. The local clergy all marveled at the tenacity of his missionary spirit.

Yet after long and arduous effort, Louis did not obtain results that satisfied him. He darted madly through every ruin the Inca had left behind, wanting to find gold inside, or any object of value. In the end, he was disappointed. Just as the Inca people had been slaughtered to the last, the wealth here had long since vanished without a trace, leaving only a few lingering ruins to testify that a civilization had once existed.

After more than a century of aggressive expansion, the Spanish had essentially taken control of the Americas. Ship after ship of gold and silver was ceaselessly transported from the Americas to every corner of the world, while the things left for him to unearth grew ever scarcer. Even the land itself had long since been carved into the estates of wealthy locals.

After several years of adventuring without striking it rich, the thirst for money finally eroded Louis's reason. In a chance encounter, he attempted to embezzle the gold a Spanish officer had plundered, only to be discovered by that officer. In the terror of being hunted down, Louis was forced to board a ship leaving the Americas and embarked on a journey to Asia.

Laden with many passengers and a large shipment of silver, this ship sailed toward the Philippines, Spain's colony in Asia.

At this time, the Philippines was flourishing and thriving thanks to trade with Asia. Vast quantities of silver were shipped over from the Americas and exchanged for Eastern porcelain, silk, and spices, which were then transshipped to Europe, forming an immense commercial network. After arriving in the Philippines, because he was so tight-lipped about his origins, Louis found himself at odds with the local Catholic circles. It took enormous effort before the local church confirmed his status as a missionary.

Once he had gained a somewhat secure footing, Louis began to pursue his dreams. Having been under Spanish rule for many years, the Philippines, like the Americas, offered little room for an outsider like him to develop, so Louis was forced to search elsewhere in Asia.

After several twists and turns, he followed a merchant ship to the port of Nagasaki in Japan, then disguised himself as a missionary and began operating in Japan, searching ceaselessly for an opportunity to strike it rich.

Although he initially intended to learn Japanese himself, he soon discovered that it was the most difficult language he had ever studied. Beyond the kana, it was mixed with a vast number of Chinese characters imported from the continent, making it utterly impossible to find a foothold. He was forced to abandon the idea and instead mingled among the local Catholics.

Fortunately, after years of missionary work by Spanish and Portuguese missionaries, Japan already had a large number of Catholics in regions such as northern Kyushu and Nagasaki, and quite a few people had learned Spanish and Latin. Louis therefore encountered no real obstacles and quickly blended into local Catholic circles, establishing a measure of personal prestige in the area.

In pursuit of his dream of wealth, like most missionaries of the time, Louis used his medical knowledge to treat a few patients locally. By sheer chance, he managed to cure several people, among them a local merchant, and thus earned the merchant's gratitude. Using the influence he had built, Louis urged that merchant to take part in maritime trade, helping him earn a large sum of money, from which Louis himself took a considerable cut.

This missionary, this adventurer, was nearly forty years old by now. But because of the many years spent abroad, battered by wind and frost, he looked even older. His long golden hair had begun to turn white in places, and a few threads of wrinkles had appeared on his forehead, making him look not much different from a man of fifty. Yet his sharp, keen eyes, brimming with restless ambition, left no one suspecting him of senility or muddle-headedness.

His forehead was rather broad, his complexion pale, and he always wore a long black coat. Paired with his solemn expression, he appeared devout and dignified. And because he had earned the respect of the locals and made a sum of money, his bearing had grown increasingly grave — to the point that his entire person could almost be taken as a model of a missionary.

Yet just as Louis thought that this time his dream might finally come true, as if God himself intended to obstruct him, new calamity arrived unbidden.

At this time, Japan was transitioning from the chaotic slaughter of the Warring States period into the relatively stable era of the Tokugawa shogunate. The civil wars among the realm's warlords were gradually drawing to a close. In 1615 in particular, after the Great Shogun of Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu, stormed Osaka Castle and slaughtered the entire Toyotomi clan, the former rulers, the Tokugawa shogunate's rule over Japan steadily solidified.

Having established direct rule over Japan by the sword, the Tokugawa clan began seeking to consolidate their rule in other respects — and ideological control, as a crucial link, certainly did not escape the shogunate's grasp. To strengthen ideological control, Tokugawa Ieyasu deliberately patronized Buddhism and suppressed the spread of Catholicism in Japan.

At the same time, although Japan had entered an era of relative peace, the oppression and extortion of the peasants by local lords remained the same as before. Unable to bear the oppression, Japanese peasants rose up in resistance one after another, and at the same time adopted the foreign religion of Catholicism as their spiritual refuge. In the Japan of that time, uprisings (ikki) launched by Catholics occurred with some frequency.

The shogunate would naturally not sit idly by. At the same time, they did not believe it was their own oppression that had provoked the peasants' resistance, but rather held that Catholicism had corrupted the people's hearts. They therefore resolved to ban the spread of Catholicism within Japan.

In 1612, the Japanese shogunate first issued a ban on Christianity in its own direct domains, forbidding Western missionaries from proselytizing. The following year, this decree was extended to the entire country. By 1616, the shogunate further expanded the ban to cover foreign trade, stipulating that European ships could only dock and trade at the two ports of Hirado and Nagasaki.

As a member of the Catholic clergy, Louis was naturally regarded by the shogunate as a dangerous element. Local officials summoned him directly and ordered him to cease proselytizing in Japan, warning that any violation would cost him his life.

Louis, who had never cared much about proselytizing to begin with, naturally agreed to this order with great ease. But the shogunate's policy restricting overseas trade caused him bitter anguish. Under the threat of the shogunate's swords, he was forced to halt his activities across Japan and return to the port of Nagasaki, intending to resume his career there.

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