On the occasion of rebirth Zhou Sui

Chapter 461

The Mahayana Emperor Gao Tancheng of the Buddhist Kingdom was escorted to Jinyang together with his nun queen Jingxuan.

When the Ministry of Criminal Justice was adjudicating the case, Gao Tancheng scolded Cui Che for only allowing state officials to set fires, but not for the common people to light lamps. Didn't he also raise troops in Yandi and rebelled against the imperial court, so he has the power he has now.

When the matter reached Cui Che's ears, Cui Xiangguo deeply understood it, but he was not going to praise Gao Tancheng's spirit of resistance.

Instead, he gave Gao Tancheng two thousand dollars.

On the execution ground, Gao Tancheng was cut a full two thousand knives and executed Ling Chi.

His empress, Nun Jingxuan, was much luckier, and was directly beheaded without much pain.

Jingxuan is both the queen of the Buddhist kingdom and a nun, so it stands to reason that it suits Cui Xiangguo's preferences.

But Cui Xiangguo is not really a vegetarian, a queen of a grass-roots team obviously can't arouse his interest.

Cui Che aggressively suppressed Buddhism, but did not ban Buddhism.

He knows that scholars and people have their own spiritual needs, and Buddhism can be revived again and again, so there is a reason for its existence.

Cui Che decided to allow temples to accept offerings from believers, but they have to pay taxes, and they must be heavily taxed.

All the sesame oil money offered by believers to the Buddha will be divided into accounts, and this tax is named sesame oil tax.

The cronies all feel that the 5.00% sesame oil tax is a little ugly. After all, the commercial tax is only set at 30.00%, and the sesame oil tax is set at [-]%. Such a high tax is almost unheard of.

Cui Che and his cronies were surprised and said:
"The king only needs [-]% when, [-]% belongs to the monastery, and [-]% is the tax amount."

When everyone heard this, they were dumbfounded.

But Cui Che also has his reasons. These monks are not productive, but earn the hard-earned money of the common people.

Leaving [-]% of this kind of ill-gotten wealth to them is already magnanimous for His Royal Highness King Yan.

If Cui Che was really annoyed, he would directly nationalize the temple and see who dared to object.

At that time, there will be no need to pay [-]% of the tax. How much sesame oil is collected, leaving the cost of vegetarian meals for the monks, and the rest will be collected into the national treasury.

I don't know who spread His Highness King Yan's threatening words, and the monks in the Guandong didn't dare to complain about the [-]% sesame oil tax.

It would be nice to keep [-]% of the temple. If the temples were confiscated and they would eat vegetarian meals and drink porridge, who would be able to bear it.

When the incident spread to Kansai, the emperors and ministers of Renshou Palace used this to ridicule Cui Che.

Even Yang Su, who came to Renshou Palace to recuperate, laughed at his son Yang Xuangan on the sickbed:
"Cui Che has a talent for domineering, but he is too calculating. He looks like an overlord in brocade clothes and silver armor, but half of his abacus is exposed around his waist."

But just after laughing at Cui Che, Yang Su had a sad face and sighed repeatedly.

Yang Xuan felt puzzled and asked:
"Father used to laugh, why is he sighing so much now?"

Yang Su said with emotion:
"Jinyang's treasury is in short supply, but Cui Che does not raise taxes to the people, but instead uses the power of thunder, regardless of personal reputation gain or loss, to plunder monks' finances and focus on strengthening the country. Such an opponent is not terrible."

Yang Xuan felt speechless.

In fact, the Eastern Sui Dynasty was far from the only one troubled by financial problems.

After the Western Sui Dynasty lost the prosperous Kanto land, it is now also facing the dilemma of treasury constraints.

The Jiangnan area was developed to a certain extent during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, but it is still far from being comparable to Hebei and the Central Plains.

What's more, it is extremely difficult to transport materials from Jiangnan to Kansai without passing through Luoyang Basin and Nanyang Basin.

It's just that Yang Guang has always been superstitious, so he can't scrape off the Buddha's oil and water, so he can only choose to increase taxes on the people.

Cui Che's suppression of Buddhism is not limited to this, he also specially ordered to purify monks from all over the world.

Purification in Buddhism refers to cleaning the body and mind through practice and chanting mantras, so as to achieve a state of purity, no dirt, and liberation.

It is not only a method of practice, but also a state of practice.

But Cui Che made them castrate physically.

Anyway, the teaching of Buddhism is to ask monks to abstain from sex, so Cui Che simply castrated the monks to cut off the possibility of monks violating the abstinence from the source.

In the Southern Dynasties, Emperor Liang Wu could prohibit monks from killing and eating meat. Today, Cui Xiangguo can also impose a rule of pure body practice.

It will also avoid any more obscene monks tempting believers to visit the Buddha in the flesh.

This move naturally aroused strong dissatisfaction among the monks in the Kanto region. However, the monks and soldiers had already been forcibly disarmed. The governors of various states and counties also followed the lessons of the Huairong county magistrate and took strict precautions against the monks. The dissatisfaction of the monks could only be Expressed in words, but not in action.

Fortunately, Cui Xiangguo still gave the monks a chance to choose. If they didn’t want to be castrated, they would return to vulgarity and be classified as tax households, and they would be allocated public land. They could then engage in productive labor with peace of mind and pay rent and taxes on time.

Of course, not everyone chose to return to vulgarity.

In Buddhism, there are not only scum who cheat women for sex under the guise of practicing, but also Buddhist disciples with firm beliefs.

Castration is not without precedent, and it was Emperor Liang Wu of the Southern Dynasty. At that time, Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism, entered the palace to preach for Emperor Wu of Liang.

Many monks followed Bodhidharma's example and even had to recite scriptures and practice in temples without hesitating to give up two taels of meat.

For these people, Cui Che let them go. Being able to make such a big sacrifice showed his firm belief.

Cui Che felt that he had made great contributions to Buddhism, even though he looted all their belongings, [-]% of their future income from Buddhism would still be taken.

But he did purify the Buddhist environment, making the monastery truly a pure place, and it will no longer be a place to hide filth.

There was a saying in the Jiaqing Dynasty that He Shen fell and Jiaqing was full.

This is also the case in the Eastern Sui Dynasty today. Through extensive exploitation of Buddhism, Cui Che finally achieved the goal of filling the national treasury before the autumn harvest, and because many monks returned to secular life, they obtained a large amount of labor.

Although through the secret visit and investigation of the Observation Department, it was found that the ability of Taoism to earn money is far inferior to that of Buddhism, but no matter how small a mosquito is, it is still meat.

But just before Cui Che shot, the masters of the local Taoist temple in Jinyang approached Wei Zheng, who had been a Taoist priest, and asked him to speak to Cui Che. Safety.

Cui Che was overjoyed upon hearing the words, and immediately approved the matter.

With Jinyang Taoist temple as an example, Taoist temples in various places followed suit.

Give it to him, at least half of the wealth accumulated over the years is still left. As for the future sesame oil money, I only need to contribute [-]% to the court.

Look at other people's Buddhism, not only being robbed, but also having to suffer castration, to be an incomplete man.

Be content.

In the land of three rivers, all the main traffic roads are full of traffic, busy transporting the wealth looted from Buddhism, Taoism and corrupt officials to Jinyang.

With more money, Cui Che is ready to carry out many things that he had imagined before.

　Overlord and Abacus is a quote from the Hong Kong film Chang Cheh's evaluation of the Hong Kong film Li Hanxiang
　　
　
(End of this chapter)