A Millennium Aristocratic Family Starting from the Shang Dynasty

Chapter 657 The Great Court Meeting

Wang Xuanjing directly conducted a thorough search of the Zen Temple. After a search, he discovered that he still underestimated these monks.

Not all of the land in the Chanding Temple belongs to them. Since the Sui Dynasty, many powerful families have placed their land under the name of the Chanding Temple.

Wang Xuanjing simply pretended not to know about these lands and confiscated them. Since they had put these acres in the name of the temple, they would be confiscated as the temple's land. Even if they made a fuss, they would just go to the court to sue.

Wang Xuanjing is not afraid of this.

All the monks in the Great Meditation Temple were examined and their identities verified to prevent them from being mixed with some criminal thieves or fugitives. Those whose identities were unknown were all kicked out of the monkhood.

At the same time, all the monks were pulled out and asked to be identified by the people around them. Originally, these people did not dare to identify because they believed in Buddhism and were worried about the punishment of the Buddha. Now after the incident of the Living Buddha emerging from the pure water, the halo around these monks It was ripped off and there was no scruple anymore.

These monks had done a lot of plundering and robbery, and a large number of monks were quickly identified.

Wang Xuanjing handed over these matters to Fu Yi for handling. At the same time, after layers of screening, the remaining monks had to undergo Buddhist assessments.

Only monks who pass the examination can be issued certificates and become official monks. Monks who fail to pass cannot be regarded as monks and need to return to secular life and be re-entered into their household registration.

After all, even orders restricting Buddhism and Taoism need to be implemented by the officials below, but if the officials are resistant, I am afraid that this edict will become a piece of waste paper.

After a quick trial, more than 20,000 acres of land in this large Zen temple were confiscated by the court, leaving only 300 acres of Buddhist fields in the temple. Of course, there were thousands of monks in the Great Zen Temple, and only about fifty of them passed the examination.

Li Shimin saw that there were a lot of discussions between the DPRK and China, and it was difficult to implement it by force, so he prepared to discuss it at the DPRK meeting.

In addition to money, Wang Xuanjing also discovered that many monks in this temple also raped women.

The temple was searched very quickly. From the temple's treasury alone, Wang Xuanjing confiscated more than 300,000 yuan of property. In addition to these, there were also a large number of Buddha statues and ornaments made of precious metals.

Under the guise of giving birth to a child, these monks invited many childless couples to come to the temple to worship, and then took the opportunity to rape the women. Although Wang Xuanjing knew that there was a lot of darkness behind the Buddhist light, he never expected that these monks could do so many things.

With this great talent here, these monks can't even hope to get away with it.

Just when Wang Xuanjing was reorganizing the Great Zen Temple, many officials wrote to the court after seeing the fate of the Great Zen Temple. They said that Wang Xuanjing's method of restricting Buddhism was too harsh and asked for a lighter punishment.

In the imperial court, there were many ministers who believed in Buddhism. Even when Li Yuan rebelled, he claimed that he was a descendant of Lao Tzu Li Er and named Li Er the emperor.

Fu Yi was hostile to Buddhism's accession to the throne, but he was proficient in Buddhist scriptures, no worse than those Buddhist eminent monks. The reason why he studied Buddhist scriptures so hard was to attack those monks.

In addition to the land properties, the entire temple also had a large number of IOUs for loan sharking. These IOUs amounted to one hundred thousand guan. After sorting it out, Wang Xuanjing discovered that the value of such a temple had reached almost one hundred thousand guan. Wan Guan.

In this temple, a gilt Buddha statue as tall as a man was actually made of copper and inlaid with a large number of precious stones and agate. The cost of this Buddha statue alone was no less than 100,000 yuan.

Soon the imperial meeting was held. Originally, Shangshu Ling was the head of the civil service. However, because Li Shimin had served, he no longer appointed Shangshu Ling. With Wang Xuanjing as Zhongshu Ling, the Crown Prince and Tutor became the head of the civil service, ranking at the forefront. Behind them are Shang Shu Pushe, Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, Xiao Yu and others.

Since Li Shimin, Zhongshu Ling has become the de facto prime minister. Of course, the power of Zhongshu Ling is still not as good as that of the prime minister.

The Dachaohui initially dealt with the appointment and dismissal of some officials. The Tang Dynasty learned from the experience of the Sui Dynasty and restored the three-level system of prefectures, prefectures and counties in the Daqian period, except that the counties were changed to states and the states were changed to roads. In essence, Still the same. The governor of the state was appointed as the governor, and Dao became the inspector-general, but the inspector-general was not permanent.

Soon Shangshu Zuopushe Xiao Yu came out and said: "Your Majesty, I heard that Wang Neijun inspected the Great Zen Temple, killed several eminent monks wantonly, slandered the Buddha, seized temple property, treated monks harshly, and several monks died. , and even damaged the Buddha statue, which is a heinous crime. I sincerely request your Majesty to investigate it strictly to calm the public opinion of the world. "

Following Xiao Yu's appearance, more than a dozen people also came out to impeach Wang Xuanjing. For a moment, Wang Xuanjing seemed to have really done something heinous.

"Okay, I know all this." Li Shimin waved his hand to silence these people, and then said to Wang Xuanjing: "Wang Qing, so many ministers are impeaching you, please tell me."

Wang Xuanjing came out of the queue, glanced at those people, with a bit of contempt and disdain on his lips, and then said: "Your Majesty, I have never done those things they said."

"Wang Xuanjing, do you dare to do this?" Chen Jianzhi, the censor next to him, said angrily.

"I have never committed the crime you mentioned, so why should I admit it?" Wang Xuanjing said without raising his eyelids: "And this is a meeting of the imperial court, how can you be allowed to make a loud noise here?"

"I was impulsive and lost my manners before you. Please forgive me!" Censor Chen Jianzhi quickly bowed and saluted.

"That's it this time, a one-month fine." Li Shimin did not go into details.

After seeing the disposal of Chen Jian, Wang Xuanjing continued to write: "Your Majesty, this is my investigation of the Great Zen Temple during this period. I have already written everything down in it."

"Send it up."

Li Shimin opened the thick memorial and looked through it quickly. The more he read, the angrier he became.

"Bang!" Li Shimin slammed the table and asked angrily: "Are these true?"

"The evidence is conclusive. I have placed it all in the official office so that Your Majesty can inspect it personally." Wang Xuanjing said immediately.

"Your Majesty, you can't trust him," Xiao Yu said quickly next to him.

"Look, this is what you call embezzling temple property, treating monks harshly, slandering the Buddha, and killing eminent monks!" Li Shimin said and threw the memorial on the table. The servant next to him quickly sent the memorial to Xiao Yu and others.

"This is not a pure place of Buddhism. It is completely a place of filth and evil!"

"Chen Yushi, I heard that your son went to the Great Zen Temple to ask for a son?" Wang Xuanjing said suddenly.

Chen Jianzhi was stunned for a moment, but before he could understand, Wang Xuanjing said again: "I have investigated and found out that those monks raped women in the name of giving away their children."

When Chen Jianzhi heard this, his face suddenly turned red, his whole body was shaking slightly, and a surge of anger rushed to his forehead. The man actually fainted and fell to the ground. The officials around him quickly supported him.

Li Shimin quickly ordered someone to help him to a side hall to rest, and ordered the imperial doctor to diagnose and treat him.

Others were also surprised by the case involved in the Great Zen Temple, but after seeing Wang Xuanjing's handling, they all felt how cruel Wang Xuanjing was.

(End of this chapter)