A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 1233: Longxing Temple was assassinated
The fifteenth year of Zhenguan, the ninth day of the twelfth lunar month.

In the afternoon,

Outside Dingding Gate, the south gate of Luoyang Guocheng, an official from Luoyang came to the post house outside the city to welcome the prime minister Wu Huaiyu back to the city.

A group of people, riding horses, mules and donkeys, walked towards the magnificent Dingding Gate.

The South Gate of Luoyang is a three-lintel structure consisting of a pier, a partition wall, and a doorway. It is a grand building complex with a city gate tower as the main body, supplemented by towers on both sides and connected by city walls.

The vermilion Dingding Gate is extremely eye-catching from a distance.

Yang Guangwu, the chief officer of Luoyang Prefecture, accompanied Wu Huaiyu, half a head behind him. "Among all the gates in Luoyang, only Dingding Gate is vermilion, which shows its extraordinaryness."

"When the previous dynasty completed the construction of the Eastern Capital, this gate was named Jianguo Gate. In our dynasty, it was renamed Dingding Gate."

He also introduced the origin of the name. King Cheng established his capital in Jiahao, and the south of it was named Dingding Gate, because it was the place where the Nine Cauldrons were brought in.

Standing in the Luoyang Ziwei Palace built in the Sui Dynasty and looking south, on the south bank of the Luo River is the majestic Dingding Gate, further south are the Longmen Grottoes, where the Yi River flows out.

Wu Huaiyu stopped his mount,
Looking at the magnificent Dingding Gate,

Then I looked at the people queuing to enter the city.
He couldn't help but sigh, "If you want to know about the rise and fall of ancient and modern times, please just look at Luoyang City."

The capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty, but later the world fell into chaos and split into the Eastern and Western Wei. The Northern Zhou, a branch of the Western Wei in Guanzhong, finally destroyed the Northern Qi and unified the north. The Sui Dynasty, which succeeded the Northern Zhou, annexed the Western Liang and destroyed the Southern Chen, ending three hundred years of division.

The Sui Dynasty built the Eastern Capital and relocated its capital to Luoyang, making it the center of the country.
Unfortunately, at the end of the Daye period, the country was in chaos again, and Luoyang was destroyed by war and became a ruin.
In those days, Li Mi, Wang Shichong and other heroes fought fiercely in front of this gate. The Tang army marched out of Tongguan and surrounded Luoyang. A dou of rice cost only 3,000 yuan in Luoyang city, and two to three out of ten people in the city starved to death. Finally, Luoyang surrendered.

It has only been twenty years since the brutal siege at the end of Daye, but Luoyang has been reborn.

On the wide official road outside the city, there was a lot of traffic and noise, and many camel hoof prints and wheel ruts were left on the dirt road.

Those camels were led by some Sogdian people wearing pointed hats with flowers on their heads. These people may have come from the Western Regions thousands of miles away. They followed the Silk Road, passed through the Tianshan Road, passed through the Hexi Corridor, passed through Longyou, passed through Chang'an, and finally passed through Tongguan and came to Luoyang.

These Sogdian merchants traveled thousands of miles, perhaps just to sell their goods at a better price.

Entering Dingding Gate, you will see Tianjie, which is one hundred steps wide and nine miles long from north to south.

In fact, Luoyang City and Chang'an City were both built in the Sui Dynasty and are not far apart, but Luoyang City is completely different from Chang'an City. Chang'an Taiji Palace and the Imperial City are both located in the north of Chang'an.

However, Luoyang Palace and the Imperial City are located in the northwest of Luoyang City. The entire city is not a very regular rectangle. The Luo River also runs through the city, separating the Imperial City from the South City, which are connected by the Tianjin Bridge.

Although Dingding Gate is in a straight line with the imperial palace, it is also biased towards the west.

On both sides of Tianjie in the city, near Dingding Gate, there are two Lifangs, Mingjiaofang and Ningrenfang.

There is Longxing Temple in Mingjiaofang and Longxing Temple in Ningrenfang. They face each other across Tianjie, which is very spectacular. Even though Buddhism and Taoism were suppressed in the early Zhenguan period and many temples were abolished, these two temples still remained.

Today, the incense is still very popular.

"Does the Prime Minister want to visit Longxing Temple or Longxing Temple?"

Wu Huaiyu didn't care. If the emperor hadn't ordered the Luoyang officials to entertain him, and Yang Guangwu and others hadn't come to greet him early and waited outside his house for more than an hour, blowing a lot of cold wind, Wu Huaiyu would have found it difficult to refuse. Otherwise, he would not have planned to enter Luoyang City and would have rested in the Luoyang Posthouse for three days.

Yang Guangwu took them to Longxing Temple in Ningrenfang first.
The Longxing Temple occupies half of Ningrenfang.

Longxing Temple and Longxing Temple were both built when the Sui Dynasty constructed the Eastern Capital. Similar to Xingshen Temple and Xuandu Temple in Chang'an, they face each other across the street and occupy a very important location.

At the beginning of the Zhenguan period, illegal activities were rectified and many temples and monasteries were demolished or converted into schools.

The quota of temples is stipulated, and those granted by the government are considered temples. Private construction is strictly prohibited, and those that have not been officially approved and named are considered illegal temples.

Luoyang's Longxing Temple and Longxing Temple were both on the list of the few temples and monasteries that were preserved in Luoyang City at that time.

In the past, Longxing Temple was very popular, with a large temple complex and many monks. At that time, Longxing Temple was also known for being addicted to wine, keeping wives and concubines, and buying cheap and selling expensive.

Not only did they run pawnshops, lend money, and collect interest on pawned objects, they also managed a large number of farms and rented them out to collect rent.

Longxing Temple once had a large number of Jingren, or slaves.

They also brew and sell wine, press and sell oil, and do almost anything that can make money.

During the Zhenguan period, although Longxing Temple was granted a quota to be retained, the 15 manors and more than 17,000 mu of farmland that they had annexed were eventually given only 20 mu to each monk and nun, and the rest were all taken over by the government. Even their pawnshops, oil mills, millstones, and cart shops were confiscated.

Most of their land was distributed to the tenants who had rented their land, as well as the slaves in the temple, who were also given land and gained their freedom.

Many unqualified monks and nuns were also returned to secular life.

Now, more than ten years have passed, and the number of monks in Longxing Temple has increased from 100 to 300.

Although there were no manors, fields, pawnshops, banks, wine shops, carriage shops, and slaves, the temple was gradually becoming popular again. Many nobles, scholars, and common people began to donate to the temple. Although they did not dare to donate manors, fields, and slaves, they did not dare to annex fields, buy and sell slaves, or run businesses.
But the monks in the temple are indeed much better off than when they were just reorganized at the beginning of the Zhenguan period. At least now they no longer need to grow their own crops.

Longxing Temple occupies half of Ningrenfang.
In addition to the 300 monks in this temple, there are also many other monks who come to stay here. With such a large area, Longxing Temple has become a place where the people of Luoyang often come to burn incense and pray, and they can even come here to stroll around, enjoy the flowers and view the scenery in their spare time.

It is the twelfth lunar month, and the wintersweets in the temple are very famous.

The Chief Clerk Yang Guangwu kept talking about how beautiful the wintersweets in Longxing Temple were, and also said that the vegetarian meals in the temple were good.

Led by Luoyang officials and escorted by a hundred cavalrymen, Wu Huaiyu entered Longxing Temple.

The abbot and other temple officials were also notified and rushed to greet him.
Led by these monks, Wu Huaiyu visited Longxing Temple, which was indeed very large. Ningrenfang had an area of ​​nearly 500 acres, and Longxing Temple occupied half of it, covering more than 200 acres.

It is larger than the Longmen Temple in Xuanyangfang, Chang'an, which was visited by Wu Huaiyu.

Wu Huaiyu was not very interested in the palace and the golden Buddha statues. Although Li Yuan was the first to initiate the campaign to eliminate Buddhism and Taoism and rectify illegal practices, and Fu Yi was the one who initiated it, and Li Shimin continued to implement it, it was Wu Huaiyu who took the lead at that time.
He demolished many temples, forced many monks and nuns to return to secular life, confiscated many temples' manors, fields, pawnshops, and millstones, and freed many slaves.

They even demolished many Buddha statues and banned many non-compliant Buddhist scriptures.

Especially when the attack on the Third Order Sect was launched, it was even more intense. Regardless of whether there is really a Buddha in the world, Wu Huaiyu is definitely not liked by the monks in those temples, no matter which sect or school they belong to.

He let the abbot and others do their own things, and Yang Changshi and others took them to visit the wintersweet trees behind the temple.

There are thousands of wintersweets in the temple. These flowers are also known as snow flowers and wintersweets. The yellow flowers are like beeswax and bloom in December. Compared with the general pink plum blossoms,
These yellow wintersweets are indeed very beautiful, especially in the twelfth lunar month when it is snowing heavily. In the city of Luoyang, there is such a large patch of wintersweets in the backyard of a temple covered in snow.

Countless small yellow flowers dotted on the branches are particularly bright and beautiful in this world of ice and snow.

Walking into the wintersweet forest,

The refreshing fragrance of flowers fills my nose,

In the forest, many scholars and ladies were admiring the beautiful yellow flowers despite the cold weather.

Wu Huaiyu admired these beautiful snow flowers and was filled with praise. Several ladies who were admiring the flowers under the tree in front seemed disturbed and hurried to leave.

They passed by Wu Huaiyu and his party,
When passing by,

suddenly,

Several young ladies suddenly pulled out something from under their wide cloaks.
Liu Guangting, the leader of the Hundred Cavalry Team, changed his expression drastically as he recognized the object.

"There is an assassin, protect Situ!"

"Assassin, crossbow!"

The Tang army was equipped with seven types of crossbows, namely the Bro Zhang crossbow, the horn bow crossbow, the wooden single crossbow, the large wooden single crossbow, the bamboo crossbow, the large bamboo crossbow, and the Fuyuan crossbow.

The individual crossbow is the draw crossbow for infantry and the horn crossbow for cavalry.

Other crossbows are larger, but even a single-soldier crossbow is very large.

Liu Guangting recognized at a glance that the crossbows these women took out were obviously not standard military crossbows, but privately made and modified small hand crossbows. The crossbows were smaller and easier to hide, but the range was shorter and the lethality was smaller.

But at this time, these assassins disguised as ladies admiring flowers were too close to Wu Huaiyu.

Just a few steps away.

A single soldier's crossbow can shoot over a hundred steps, and the longest range is even three hundred steps.

Even if this modified small crossbow only has one-tenth of the range, this distance is enough.

What's more, Wu Situ was not on the battlefield at this time and was not wearing armor.

After Liu Guangting shouted, he rushed forward and tried to knock Wu Situ down.

But the assassin was too close and attacked suddenly.
Caught off guard.

Wu Huaiyu had never expected that

He was in Luoyang City, but he was unexpectedly assassinated.

They were four young women, dressed like two rich ladies, who came to the temple with two maids to burn incense and admire the flowers.
When I met this group of people, I took the initiative to avoid them and left.

Who would have thought that four crossbows would suddenly be taken out.

Such a close distance,

Wu Huaiyu was too late to dodge.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh,
As he dodged to the side, he heard a whooshing sound, and felt a sharp pain in his abdomen, followed by a stabbing pain in his thigh.

He knew he was hit by a crossbow arrow.
I also won two.

The one on his leg was fine, but he didn't know how serious the one on his waist and abdomen was.

While I was still thinking, my injured body had already hit the snow hard.

At this time Liu Guangting had already pounced over, but he was still a step too late. However, he immediately fell on Wu Huaiyu and used his body to protect him to prevent a second wave of crossbow arrows.

The other hundred knights also rushed forward.

The four female assassins saw Wu Huaiyu fall to the ground after being hit by two crossbows, but they still had no intention of letting him go. They threw down their small crossbows, pulled out short swords from under their cloaks, and pounced on him fiercely.

"Protect Situ and stop the assassin!"

Yang Guangwu, the chief officer of Luozhou, had red eyes. He didn't expect that when he brought Situ Wu to Longxing Temple, he would encounter an assassin here.

This was simply a spur-of-the-moment decision at the city gate, without any prior arrangements. How could we still encounter assassins?
The assassin was obviously well prepared and was waiting here in advance. What was going on?

Yang Guangwu felt that he could not clear himself of the injustice even if he jumped into the Yellow River.

Now he just wanted to capture these assassins alive and make them confess clearly. This matter had absolutely nothing to do with him.

The assassin rushed over.
He roared and blocked the way, but since he was unarmed, he fought with his bare hands.

But he overestimated himself and underestimated his opponents. Although they were women, these four young female assassins cooperated with each other tacitly. They were silent and dull, but their sword strikes were fierce and they fought with a completely reckless style.

Yang Guangwu was a civil servant after all, and he had no weapons. He rushed forward with anger, but was stabbed several times and fell to the ground. Fortunately, it was winter, and he was wearing thick clothes and a fur coat, which prevented him from being stabbed that deeply.
Lying in the snow, he felt the blood gushing out from several wounds. He wanted to get up but he had no strength left. He saw that not far away, Wu Situ was being protected by a hundred riders and was also bleeding.

Under the yellow wintersweet flowers blooming in the garden,

On the white snow, the blood flowing from the two people was so bright red.

(End of this chapter)