Maria Theresa von Mancini opened the car curtains and took a look outside the car. The streets were all blue and white, very monotonous. The streets in Pukou City are wide, with tall and straight buildings on both sides. There are rows of shops along the street. There are many passers-by on the street. There are also many mobile vendors selling a variety of delicious-looking snacks, and they also make noises from time to time. The high-pitched and low-pitched hawking is very interesting.
However, the colors of this majestic and vibrant metropolis are very monotonous. When you look at it, it is either white or blue... This is compared to the colorful cities such as Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Shanghai, Suzhou, Yangzhou and Nanjing. Big cities are far behind.
Not only is the city here colorless, even the clothes of passers-by are very monotonous, all blue and white, which is really ugly.
The whole city gives people an eerie feeling, giving people an urge to escape as soon as possible.
What made Maria Theresa even more unbearable was that she herself was sent a few particularly ugly white and blue clothes - not only were the colors not good-looking, but the workmanship was also poor, they didn't fit at all, and they were all too wide. Yes, she wears it like a sack... She is the most beautiful "Snow White" on the European continent. She came to Ming Dynasty with more than a dozen boxes of replacement clothes and several large boxes of jewelry to match her clothes. Go to funeral.
When she appeared in the big cities of the Ming Dynasty such as Guangzhou, Quanzhou and Shanghai, I don’t know how many handsome Eastern princes she attracted the attention of...Maria Theresa had blackmailed her uncle Zhu Hefu on the way to the East. There were also Turkmen Khan Zhu and Yi who had all inquired about it.
This time there will be many oriental princes attending the funeral of the old Emperor Jian (as he is called in the West), including princes from wealthy countries such as the United States, Qing Kingdom, and the United Kingdom of the Southern Continent - Snow White is of course going to marry The rich prince's!
The princess is a perfect match for marrying a prince! Moreover, the prince and princess are both old enough to get married, so they just take advantage of this big funeral to get to know each other and enhance their friendship... After the funeral, there is a happy event, how well is the connection?
So Maria Theresa always dressed herself up beautifully, and took the initiative to chat with those princes... and she also successfully established friendships with several of them.
Just when Maria Theresa wanted to go one step further and develop a pure friendship with a certain prince, the person who had been traveling with Maria Theresa since Temasek Island was dark and thin, and looked very... The unkind "Old Black Prince" (Zhu Cizhao) is here to beat the couple!
And also put forward a bunch of inexplicable reasons.
The strangest thing is that they don't get married if they have the same surname - but she and those princes have different surnames at all! Her surname is Mancini, which can also be called Bourbon-Mancini, and those princes are all named Zhu. How could they have the same surname? Do you, the old black prince, know how to read? No matter whether it is written in Chinese, Latin, French or German, Bourbon-Mancini and Zhu cannot be the same!
The transliteration and free translation are different, how could they have the same surname?
Later, the old black prince came up with an even stranger reason - the blood relationship is too close, and it is easy to give birth to stupid children!
Okay, let’s not talk about whether the blood relationship between the couple and the silly child has anything to do with it. Even if it does, how could Maria Theresa and those little princes named Zhu be close relatives? People of different races, how could they be too close by blood?
Zhu Cizhao and Maria Theresa explained all the way, but this little girl was also bad. She agreed well in person, and then turned around and went to find the princes and brothers again.
But Zhu Cizhao actually had nothing to do with her!
First of all, Maria Theresa is the daughter of the Archduke of Austria...and she is so beautiful. Her future prospects can be imagined.
Secondly, Maria Theresa’s name is not on the jade certificate! Strictly speaking, she was not under the control of the imperial clan, but under the reception of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She was regarded as a representative of foreign monarchs who came to Nanjing to attend the funeral of Emperor Chongzhen. What's wrong with seducing the unmarried King Daming Zong?
And it’s not too out of the ordinary, I’m just looking for a suitable marriage partner for myself…
To be honest, if her father was not Zhu Cixiang's illegitimate child, based on her appearance and background, she would be qualified to be a "disobeying vassal" princess.
So Zhu Cizhao had no choice but to "invite" Maria Theresa to go with him. He also asked his granddaughter-in-law, a princess from the Siamese royal family, to accompany Maria Theresa.
After arriving in Pukou, Zhu Cizhao, an elder of the Ming Dynasty clan, asked Maria Theresa to ride with him in the car so that he could once again warn her about the matters and etiquette that she needed to pay attention to on the way to Laoshan.
It's not a matter of red tape...Zhu Cizhao didn't expect Maria Theresa to behave like a princess and princess of the Ming Dynasty who knew etiquette - in fact, the princes and princesses of the Zhu Ming clan this time didn't know much about etiquette. If it had been left in the past, I don’t know how many people would have been arrested and imprisoned under high walls.
But times have changed now, and it's impossible to punish them like this... It's just to mourn an old and dead emperor, and it would be more than worth the gain to start a world war.
But Zhu Cizhao still has to talk to Maria Theresa, don't be too ostentatious, don't smile all day long, and wink everywhere...be more serious, we are doing a funeral here!
The old man was also arrogant and nagging all the way, but thanks to Maria Theresa's good temper, no matter what the old man said, she accepted it with an open mind. Whether she would change or not was another matter.
While smiling and listening to Mr. Zhu Cizhao's chatter, the carriage suddenly came to a screeching halt.
Zhu Cizhao lifted the curtains of the car window and looked out, then said to Maria Theresa: "Maria, we are here..."
Maria Theresa also took a look out of the car window and saw only a large area of red-walled high-rise buildings, resplendent in beauty! There was a huge city tower, even more majestic. On top of the city tower, there is a piece of white flags, white flags and white cloth. The soldiers guarding the closed gate also wore white linen clothes outside their military uniforms.
"Is this the Laoshan Palace?" Maria Theresa asked.
"Yes," Zhu Cizhao nodded, "How is this place better than Emperor Louis' Palace of Versailles?"
"It's more grand!" Maria Theresa said, "It also seems to occupy a larger area..."
Zhu Cizhao said calmly: "The Ming Dynasty is a huge country, and of course it cannot be compared to the Roman Kingdom in the West! The rules in this Laoshan Palace are not comparable to the Palace of Versailles. You must abide by them carefully. You must not Zaoci, do you understand?"
"I know..." Maria Theresa stuck out her tongue, responded in a low voice, and then asked, "Uncle, should we go in now too?"
Zhu Cizhao shook his head, then raised his finger and pointed to a two-story building outside the gate of the city tower, and said to Maria Theresa: "Let's go there first and wait... someone will come out to pick us up."
Zhu Cizhao was not an ordinary clan king. He was the elder of the Zhu Ming clan, the "one-character king" of the Ming Dynasty, and the king of the Phuket Kingdom, and he came all the way to attend the funeral. Of course, Zhu Cixiang had to receive him in a more grand manner. If he didn't go out to welcome him, he would have to send people like the prince and princess to welcome him. So the ministers who came with Zhu Cizhao had already gone to report, and Zhu Cizhao and Maria Theresa had to wait outside Laoshan Palace for a while.
As the old prince Zhu Cizhao walked with Maria Theresa to the small building outside the gate of Laoshan Palace, he was still giving instructions: "You are here for a funeral, and you will meet the Ming Emperor later... In other words, your grandpa must cry and howl loudly. This is the rule, do you understand? Even if you can’t cry, you still have to howl a few times!”
"I understand," Maria Theresa nodded seriously, "Don't worry, great-uncle, if I can cry, I will definitely cry very sadly! Because the person who passed away unfortunately was my great-grandfather after all!"
Zhu Cizhao nodded: "Okay, you are somewhat filial!"
