People live in the Ming Dynasty, evil spirits are soaring into the sky

Chapter 287 Check the accounts! The extravagance and lust of the monks! A cassock costs million yuan! !

The ledger only records food. How much does it cost each year?
As well as the key purchases, they are all clearly recorded.

For example, other people buy Changbai Mountain ginseng by the two because it is too expensive. But at the beginning of this year, Longxing Temple alone purchased more than a thousand kilograms of Changbai Mountain's top-grade ginseng.

It is also recorded here that every host likes to drink a soup called Bazhen Soup.

What is Bazhen Soup?
The eight ingredients are sea cucumber, fin fish, bone, fish maw, bird's nest, bear paw, deer tendon, and hash frog.

This Bazhen soup is the abbot’s breakfast.

Are you saying he doesn't eat meat?

He said to others that he did not eat meat.

And even if ordinary monks eat vegetarian food, it is by no means ordinary ingredients such as cabbage and cabbage.

They ate cabbage, which is what modern people call baby cabbage.

Baby cabbage is expensive even in modern times, let alone in ancient times.

To make cabbage, you need to use a Chinese cabbage, peel off the outer layers of leaves, and only take the freshest bit in the middle for soup.

Then there are all kinds of dried mushrooms from Liaodong, senbei, top-notch black fungus, and even cordyceps from Wushu.

Even the oil they use is not lard made from ordinary pork, but the freshest fat made from suckling pigs.

Why is it recorded so clearly?

Because among these account books, there is one that specifically guides the cooking menu in the temple's kitchen.

There are also levels. What kind of meat should the abbot level eat? What fruit to eat? What kind of wine do you drink and what kind of house do you live in? How many silk quilts are used? How much fine incense to use.

Speaking of this incense, Chen Han also saw the spices burning in the cauldron when the abbot meditated.

what is it then?

Ambergris!
You must know that Emperor Jiajing was obsessed with Taoist rituals and wanted to burn them with ambergris to create that ethereal artistic conception.

Just because they wanted to satisfy the emperor's role in cultivating Taoism, the officials in Guangdong agreed to allow Fran to occupy Haojing in order to better obtain ambergris.

At that time, ambergris had been hyped to the point where it cost one thousand two hundred taels of silver per pound.

But Chen Han saw that in the thirty-fifth year of Jiajing, the largest purchase order of ambergris actually contained twenty kilograms.

Twenty pounds of ambergris a year.

How much silver is it?
Twenty-four thousand taels of silver.

Scroll down and you will find that Longxing Temple purchases ambergris every year. What is it used for?
In Buddhism, incense is not burned to worship Bodhisattvas. In many cases, incense is burned to drive away odors and calm people's minds in such an atmosphere.

Ordinary monks light ordinary incense, but such high-level monks light ambergris.

Here are the cassocks they wear.

The cassock was definitely an expensive project.

Therefore, every host must change his cassock every three years.

Like this Guangzhi, he has been the host for ten years and has changed into three cassocks.

What are their cassocks made of?

First of all, the fabric is made of fine Yun brocade.

Yunjin is originally a specialty of Nanjing. In the beginning, Yunjin could only be used as a royal product.

Yun brocade is said to be every inch of gold, and because of its gorgeousness and preciousness, it has always been ranked first among the four famous brocades.

Ordinary people cannot use it, but Longxing Temple can be used under special circumstances because it is the place of Longxing.

Yun brocade is already very precious, but the cassock worn by the abbot of Longxing Temple is not only precious because of the fabric.

The decoration on it is made of the Seven Treasures of Buddhism.

What are these seven treasures?

Gold, silver, colored glaze, agate, red pearl, clam, coral.

Except for the relatively low value of gold and silver, the remaining five pieces are valuable.

This is not over yet. Guangzhi's cassocks, or the abbots' cassocks, in addition to decorating the Qibao and Yun brocade, their hooks are also different.

The hooks of other monks are all made of iron. This ring is actually very ordinary. It is just a button on both sides of the cassock, so that it can be easily draped on the body.

But the cassocks hosted by Longxing Temple must have a certain level.

He used hooks and loops made of fine jade.

The cost of making a cassock is no less than 20,000 taels of silver, worth 16 million yuan.

It can be seen from this that these monks are really rich, and even the nouveau riche are not as rich as them.

Looking at these account books and looking at the monks, it was hard for Chen Han to imagine that the more than 500 monks and those who followed him to work together totaled about two to three thousand people, and they could spend a year. Dozens or millions of taels of silver.

They still accept offerings from so many people every year, but they have never thought of being considerate of the people.

The people borrowed their grain, and when it was five days overdue, they took away their cattle.

Is this a Buddhist practice?

Is this Buddhist kindness?

These are robbers and bandits.

Chen Han asked Jin Yiwei to interrogate each monk one by one with the ledger.

The monks looked at the account books and were speechless.

Because every item recorded here is closely related to them.

From the abbot to the ordinary novice, every monk who can enter Longxing Temple is nepotistic.

Chen Han even found three generations among these monks, grandfather, father and grandson.

He also asked if they had any heirs.

Actually 60% of them have children outside.

Even looking at the history of this temple, I found out what happened inside this temple?
A monk hooks up with a female pilgrim and commits adultery;
A monk goes to the donor's house to perform rituals, sees a beautiful girl from another family, and seduces her into an adulterous relationship;

A monk hooks up with a concubine from a noble family;
A monk hooks up with a married woman and commits adultery, etc.

It even happened during the Hongzhi period that an abbot liked Long Yangzhi.

What's more, during the Zhengde period, Longxing Temple held a so-called son-giving ceremony.

For those infertile couples, as long as the woman lives in the temple for three days, they will dream of the Bodhisattva offering children, and at least two or three out of ten of them will become pregnant.

Later, after investigation, it was discovered that these monks dug secret passages under the beds in those houses. The tea that the women drank was scented, and after the women drank the tea, they fainted.

The monks came out of the secret passage to rape the woman. Because the woman was in a daze, she did not know what had happened.

And because the people who do this kind of thing are all strong young monks, it is inevitable that they will actually get pregnant after returning.

Those women thought that they really dreamed of Guanyin sending their children away, and there was a lot of talk about it.

Until a prefect found it strange and sent a prostitute to investigate, asking the prostitute not to drink the tea in the temple and bring cinnabar with her.

She was not stunned. After being insulted by the monk, she applied cinnabar on the back of the monk's neck.

The prefect also wanted to burn down the temple at that time, but the background of the temple was too big, and in the end all these things turned into major events and minor matters.

But these things were actually recorded in these files.

Maybe some eminent monks want to use these things to teach the monks in the temple not to do these things.

However, until now, these monks still have no restraint.

They probably think that we are a temple in the land of His Majesty Taizu, and no one dares to do anything to us.

Even if there are so many cases, so what?

Chen Han looked at these piles and saw the things these monks had done in recent years.

They forced people to death, seized people's fields, plundered people's wealth, made usury, colluded with evil gentry, corrupt officials, etc.

When Chen Han saw this, he slammed the account book to the ground and said, "Hit! All the monks will hit a hundred boards first. If they don't die, they will be lucky!!"

So all five hundred monks were knocked to the ground...

Second update! !

(End of this chapter)