A Millennium Aristocratic Family Starting from the Shang Dynasty

Chapter 653 I don’t want to overcome poverty

Following Luo Yi's death, the north soon settled down. During this period, the south also surrendered under the persuasion of the Huai'an Wang family, and the entire world had basically been unified.

Li Shimin, who had just ascended the throne, was under tremendous pressure from public opinion because of his murder of his brother and his father. Coupled with the ensuing Turkic invasion and rebellion, if it had not been resolved in the shortest possible time, it would be difficult to imagine what would happen to the Tang Dynasty. What.

Therefore, after settling the world, Li Shimin couldn't wait to prove himself.

With the support of Li Shimin, the imperial court began to impose restrictions on Buddhism and Taoism. The first step was to clear out the land. The court needed to complete the inventory of the fields before it could collect taxes from the temples, otherwise these laws would be empty talk.

There are too many temples near Chang'an City. Not to mention the small temples, there are more than a dozen temples with names alone, such as Da Ci'en Temple, Da Xingshan Temple, Da'an Guo Temple, Zhuangyan Temple, Da Chanding Temple and so on.

Because the inventory and restriction of temples was proposed by Wang Xuanjing and strongly supported the adoption, and even now there are still many Buddhist and Taoist officials in the court who oppose it, so Li Shimin could only appoint Wang Xuanjing to take charge of the inventory of temples and fields.

After Wang Xuanjing was appointed, he immediately sent people to investigate the temple. Originally, Wang Xuanjing was mentally prepared, but after seeing the documents sent, he realized that he had underestimated what he had calculated before.

Just one large Zen temple has hundreds of monks and about 10,000 acres of cultivated land. The remaining dozens of temples have as few as a dozen people and dozens of acres of land, and as many as thousands of people and tens of thousands of acres. Good farmland.

After seeing so many acres of land, Wang Xuanjing couldn't sit still at that time and directly asked Li Shimin for an order to allow him to use the army in the city to cooperate.

Fu Yi said with a smile: "They do three things every day, reciting scriptures, doing classes, and cleaning."

Wang Xuanjing took Fu Yi towards the temple. Fu Yi looked at the vast temple in front of him and couldn't help but said, "Does Zhongshu Ling know what these monks do every day?"

"What's so surprising about these three things?" Wang Xuanjing asked.

Wang Xuanjing led two hundred soldiers and a large number of officials to the Great Zen Temple. Although the Great Zen Temple was not the top in Chang'an, it was still ranked second.

"What Shangguan said is true. There are not many virtuous and eminent monks in this temple, but there are countless fat-headed ones." Taishi Ling Fu Yi said beside him.

As members of the Wang family, they have always been concerned about recording the world. In the past, powerful nobles occupied the fields and oppressed the people. Now, in addition to powerful nobles, there are also temples and Taoist temples.

When he arrived here, he discovered that the temple's buildings and pavilions were radiant with greenery, and with the gurgling Sanskrit sounds and deep sandalwood incense, it was very solemn. There were many believers who came to burn incense and worship Buddha. The more solemn and prosperous the temple was, the more Wang Xuanjing hated it.

In his opinion, it is better for those people to worship the so-called gods and Buddhas than to worship King Haotianwen.

"People often say: You can see the real Buddha hidden in the mountains." Wang Xuanjing shook his head and said: "In my opinion, the real Buddha cannot be seen here."

"I don't know about that." Wang Xuanjing asked, "Does Tai Shiling know?"

Wang Xuanjing said with a smile: "This time I am reorganizing the temple on behalf of the emperor. Naturally, I must re-establish the rules to prevent this bunch of fake monks from taking the opportunity to make money and cheat."

"It turns out there are so many ways!" Wang Xuanjing nodded slightly. There are many ways to make money in Buddhism.

Fu Yidao: "The purpose of reciting scriptures is to deceive the ignorant people. The purpose of cleaning is to place the memorial tablets, prayer bags purchased by pilgrims, and some other memorial tablets for worship. In short, the purpose is to make the people pay, and the most important thing is to perform rituals."

Fu Yinai was one of the few people in the court who agreed with Wang Xuanjing's restriction of Buddhism. He was even more radical than Wang Xuanjing and bluntly stated that he wanted to destroy Buddhism.

"Shangguan, there are too many ways for Buddhism to make money. What I said is just the tip of the iceberg. To sum it up in one sentence, Buddha does not save the poor." Fu Yi said.

When Wang Xuanjing heard this, he couldn't help but glance at him. This man was really a talent, and he could summarize Buddhism and Taoism so accurately.

After discovering that a large number of soldiers came here, the temple immediately closed its doors and many monks retreated inside. Fu Yi had good eyesight and vaguely saw many monks holding sticks. He quickly said to Wang Xuanjing: "Wang Zhongshu, there are monk soldiers in this temple." "Seriously?"

"Nine times out of ten!"

"It seems that this temple needs to be carefully investigated!" Wang Xuanjing's eyes flashed with a trace of cruelty.

There are monks and soldiers here, and there are probably various weapons hidden in this temple. Now that the world has been settled, the court has not forced civilians not to own weapons, but crossbows, armor, spears, and one-stone bows are not allowed to be owned by private individuals.

Now that Wang Xuanjing came on behalf of the court, these monks actually closed the temple and even thought of resisting. This completely changed their nature.

The captain who led the soldiers immediately ordered people to come forward and call the door.

"Come here with the order from the imperial court and open the door quickly!"

"How dare you use swords and weapons in front of the Buddha's door? Aren't you afraid of the Buddha's punishment?"

"Captain, they won't open the door!"

"Listen to the monks inside. The imperial court sent Zhongshu Ling to come and open the door with a cup of tea. If not, don't blame me for taking action!"

"Did you hear that clearly? Brothers, please speak louder and repeat it to those monks!"

"only!"

All the soldiers shouted in unison. These people were all drawn from the Xuanjia Army. They were all killed from the mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Their loyalty was not a problem, and they did not take those monks seriously.

"Host, this time Zhongshu Ling is here. What should we do? Why would Zhongshu Ling be targeting us?"

"Yeah, what should I do?"

"How about giving him some money and giving him some land so they can do business?"

"Why are you panicking?" Zen Master Hongzhen got up from the futon and said, "Our temple has good relations with many noble families, including the royal family, and there are hundreds of thousands of believers. What's going on with you? Why did you close the door? , I don’t believe he dares to mess around in the place where the Buddha lowered his eyes!”

"Host, there's also Fu Yi, the rebellious Buddha. They must be evil this time!"

"Host, this door cannot be opened."

"Yes, it can't be opened. I have already asked the monks to gather together and prepare to rely on the gate to resist!"

"Nonsense! Now that the Tang Dynasty has pacified the world, even if we have monk soldiers, we can't stop the elites of the Tang Dynasty. When they take action, we will really have trouble explaining!" Hongzhen has never thought about violence. Resistance, he knew very well, would only make the court determined to destroy them.

The best way is still to do things by influencing those nobles, relatives and relatives of the emperor.

When the time comes, those nobles and relatives of the emperor will intercede, and if they hand over some things, the matter will be over. Hongzhen immediately sent someone to open the door.

(End of this chapter)