A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 300: Departing for Chaoge, the five major clans of the Bai Kingdom
After crossing the tall palace gate, walking through the long straight stone avenue, and stepping onto the long palace steps, with palace guards standing like poplar trees on both sides, they finally met the key figure for this purpose, Emperor Liu Zhuang of the Han Dynasty. .

Liu Zhuang was a very serious middle-aged Han man. Due to the distance, they could not see his face clearly, but they could tell from his voice that this man was very harsh on himself and others.

"Cai Min, a doctor in Guangluxun's mansion, was ordered to go to Tianzhu to obtain Buddhist scriptures and eminent monks. Today, he has successfully completed his mission. Please review it."

Cai Min wore the official uniform that represented his identity and his own six hundred stone seal ribbon. He respectfully handed the scepter in his hand to the eunuch beside him.

When Liu Zhuang saw that Cai Min had successfully completed the task, he said kindly: "Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Cai. I heard that he has traveled thousands of miles and visited dozens of countries. He is actually the second best prince in Bowang!"

Cai Min was very excited and said: "Thank you for your majesty's appreciation. It is a matter of being loyal to the emperor, but I dare not say anything about the hardships."

Liu Zhuang did not ask again, because some things were not suitable to be asked here. After the Xiaochao meeting, he would find Cai Min and ask him clearly about what he had seen and heard along the way.

Then he looked at the two eminent monks below who had been standing silently, and said with a little respect: "I guess these two are eminent Buddhist monks from Tianzhu!"

She Moteng and Fran saluted with the Buddha's salute and said: "Namo Amitabha, the poor monk She Moteng/Flan has met His Majesty the Emperor of Han."

They spoke a bit blunt Chinese.

Liu Zhuang leaned forward slightly and asked with a confused look on his face: "Have these two masters been to Dahan?"

Cai Min, who was on the side, quickly came out to explain why She Moteng and the two knew Chinese.

Liu Zhuang then nodded and said: "It seems that the two masters not only have profound Buddhist knowledge, but also have considerable abilities in other aspects."

Finally, Liu Zhuang felt his head hurt when he saw that most of the Buddhist scriptures were written in Sanskrit from Tianzhu, and the two masters now rarely have the ability to translate the connotations.

Therefore, in order to retain these two masters and to express the great importance of the Han Dynasty to the Western Regions, they were ordered to temporarily live in Honglu Temple where foreign guests were received. They translated the Buddhist scriptures brought from Kushan at Honglu Temple and sent out doctoral disciples. Qin Jing recruited twenty imperial students to assist them.

Yongping 11th year

The two eminent monks have been living in Honglu Temple for nearly a year. In order to translate scriptures this year, the two eminent monks can speak Chinese fluently, can basically recognize Chinese characters, and clearly understand their meanings. .

Liu Zhuang often summoned them to the palace to give lectures. In addition to some questions about Buddhist scriptures, they also asked about the situation in nearby countries such as Tianzhu and Guishuang.

Therefore, every time Liu Zhuang met with two eminent monks, there would be an official who specially took notes and wrote down their conversation verbatim.

From their mouths, Liu Zhuang understood that Tianzhu was not a country, but a civilization, just like China. Today, Tianzhu is divided into many countries, the number of which is even greater than that of the Western Regions.

The countries of Tianzhu still use the Huaxia, a mixture of the state system of the Spring and Autumn Period and the nomadic tribal system, that is, there are hierarchies between countries, but there is no common master of the world.

Further west from Guishuang is Anxi, and further west is Daxia which has been passed down from the Shang, Zhou and Qin Dynasties.

Based on the oral accounts of the two masters, coupled with Cai Min's understanding and the discovery of ancient books, a simplified version of the world map was drawn by Liu Zhuang.

Liu Zhuang looked at this huge map, which he named "Atlas of All Nations", and sighed in his heart: "The world is so big, but the Han Dynasty is so small."

Then he ordered that the map of all nations be stored in the "East View" of the Nangong Palace and be sealed, prohibiting anyone from reading it, because he knew that the appearance of this map would inspire many careerists, and it would also make future emperors ignore the power of the people and engage in military warfare.

On this day, Liu Zhuang felt that it was not a problem for the two masters to live in Honglu Temple for a long time, so he ordered the construction of a monastery in the north of the imperial road three miles outside Xiyongmen in Luoyang, and named it "White Horse Temple" in commemoration of the white horse carrying sutras.

Yongping 12th year

She Moteng and Frank officially moved into the White Horse Temple and moved all translated and untranslated scriptures into the temple. Buddhism officially had its first foothold in China.

Since the two of them moved into the White Horse Temple, the two masters have become worried in order to promote Buddhism, because at this time, the people respected Confucianism and abandoned other schools of thought, and Buddhism had just arrived and there was no way to spread Buddhism.

Even among ordinary people, few believe in Buddhism, because when people ask, can one become an official by worshiping Buddha? The two masters had no way to answer, which was a natural disadvantage.

So they decided to first seek help from the Bai family, a famous family in the world, a noble family in Hebei and the Ya family in the world.

The two made a clear division of labor. Shemo Teng stayed at Baima Temple to translate scriptures, while Fran went out to teach the Dharma. The first thing he did was to visit the Bai family in Chaoge.

Soon, they obtained Liu Zhuang's permission and sent an official to accompany him to Chaoge.

On this day, Frank arrived at the north gate of Luoyang, preparing to go to Chaoge with the officials arranged by Liu Zhuang. The official's surname was Bai, and his name was Bai He. He was fifty-eight years old and was the former Taifu Mansion who went to the Bai Kingdom to worship his ancestors. He is an official and has a long history as a Taifu.

As soon as Fran arrived outside the north gate of Luoyang, he saw a carriage parked under an old locust tree not far away. An old man with gray hair, a straight spine, and a green Confucian robe was sitting beside the carriage. on the cushion. As a monk, Flan was easy to identify. From a distance, Bai He's followers reminded him that Master Flan might have arrived.

Bai He turned around and saw a man wearing a Tianzhu cassock with a bright head slowly walking towards him under the sun.

He stood up immediately and his attendants returned the cushions to the carriage.

When Flan approached, Bai He took a step forward and saluted: "I have long heard that there are two Tianzhu masters coming to Luoyang. They are profound in knowledge and often answer people's questions. You must be one of them!"

Fran responded: "Namo Amitabha! The donor is polite."

Then, at Bai He's invitation, he boarded the carriage.

The reason why Bai He respects Fran is that he is a master in Buddhism, equivalent to a Confucian scholar, a Taoist master, and a peasant sage.

Although Bai He is regarded as a great tutor with a rank of thousands of stones, his knowledge is not as profound as that of a scholar who has been deeply involved in it for many years.

In the Han Dynasty, the people respected the most not powerful people, but learned people. In other words, in terms of respect, being a soldier is not as good as being an official, and being an official is not as good as studying. As long as you are everyone in the same direction. , even the current imperial master will get out of the car and treat you politely when he sees you.

If you meet the emperor, he will also respect you.

However, at this time, in the field of learning, only those wealthy clans with rich family assets and strong inheritance could have masters. Therefore, the country that produced the most great Confucian masters was the Bai Kingdom, and the largest number of Bai clans in the Bai Kingdom were the Bai family and the other five major clans.

The five major clans of the Bai Kingdom were Su, Yuan, Quan, Sun, and Hei before the Qin and Han Dynasties. However, in the early Han Dynasty, the Sun family rebelled against the country. The Sun family declined and was removed from the five major clans of the Bai Kingdom. The Wang family replaced the Sun family and became one of the five major clans.

Therefore, since the early Han Dynasty, the five major clans of the Bai Kingdom have become Su, Yuan, Quan, Hei, and Wang.

The ancestors of the Wang family are the Bai clan of the Bai Kingdom. During the Warring States Period, the Bai Kingdom was crowned king. After some of the Bai clans became clans with the surname Bai, they took Wang as their surname and gradually formed the major clans in the Bai Kingdom.

Because in every generation, a descendant of the Bai family descended from the clan, and many of them took Wang as their surname. In order to rely closely on the Bai clan, they united with the Wang clan and became the clan with the largest number of people in the Bai Kingdom. Wang Zhang in the early Han Dynasty was a descendant of the Bai clan. .

However, since Emperor Guangwu, the political situation in the Bai Kingdom has changed. Except for the Su Yuan Quan San clan who share the same divorce with the Bai clan, the Wang clan has surpassed the Hei clan and firmly ranks as the fourth clan.

The Hei family gradually retreated due to their deep cultivation of the Mohist family and Heishan. The emerging Zhang family and the Bai family rose up and competed with each other for the fifth family position in the Bai Kingdom.

The Zhang family began to rise in the early Han Dynasty. The first was the Zhang family in Hanoi, and some of them gradually moved to the Bai Kingdom, including Zhang Liang's family.

Most of Zhang's disciples believe in Taoism. They are the clan with the largest number of Celestial Masters on Baide Mountain. They take Zhang Daoliang, who believed in Taoism in his later years, as their ancestor. They distinguish themselves from Zhang Liang's descendants in Chang'an and the Zhang family in other counties, and call themselves The Zhang family of Baideshan, or the Zhang family of Baiguo.

The Bai family only emerged recently, only a few decades ago, and most of their descendants are prominent in Luoyang, and most of them are officials and generals, mainly the Xiuwu Bai family and the Luoyang Bai family.

Because of their great contribution to the Bai clan, the Bai clan of the Bai Kingdom specially approved the descendants of the public clan to retain their surnames and pass them on in the name of the Bai clan.

Nowadays, there are only three Bai clans in the whole world, the Bai clan of the Bai Kingdom and the Bai clan of the public clans outside the Bai Kingdom (Xiuwu Bai clan and Luoyang Bai clan).

The Xiuwu Bai family was inherited from Bai Wei, the Marquis of Xiuwu in the early Han Dynasty. They have been deeply involved in the Han army and have a large number of contacts in the Han army. They can be said to be the invisible guarantee for the Bai Kingdom to exist in the Han army. Even the Han emperor did not know this.

The Luoyang Bai family has been inherited since Emperor Guangwu and after Bai Xuan. Their direction was the political arena of the Han Dynasty, because since the Bai Kingdom was crowned king by Emperor Guangwu, the Bai family's sons in the Bai Kingdom were not allowed to hold official positions in the court unless specifically ordered by the emperor.

In the unspoken rules of the Han Dynasty, officials with nationalities from vassal states would be naturally restricted in their career development within the imperial court, and those officials in counties and counties directly under the Han Dynasty would naturally be excluded and stay away from them.

Because there is a rule in the Han Dynasty that officials who hold imperial positions are not allowed to have correspondence with princes, kings and other foreign ministers. Anyone who violates this will be punished by death and will be expelled from the princes and kingdoms.

Therefore, in order to facilitate the influence and placement of ears and eyes in the Han Dynasty, the White House divided the Bai Xuan line into two parts. The direct line of Bai Xuan, that is, the Bai Qi line stayed in the Bai Kingdom to inherit the throne.

The Bai Xuan branch, that is, Bai Lin, Bai Lu and other Bai Xuan's second sons left the Bai Kingdom and entered Luoyang, inheriting the dukedom of Bai Xuan and Bai Lin's title of Marquis Wencheng. Bai Li, Bai Cang and others all belonged to Luoyang. Yang Bai's family.

Although on the surface, these two Bai clans have no contact with the Bai country, secretly, they still have inextricable relations with the Bai country, because both families come from the Bai country and send people back to the Bai country every year. The country worships its ancestors.

If you are not a person who is familiar with history books, you will never think that these two groups were arranged by the Bai family. And they have always inherited the Bai family's style. Whether in the military or in the court, they are very low-key and try not to attract attention.

Therefore, in view of the special nature of the Bai family, the fifth family of the Bai Kingdom was still acquired by the Zhang family, but the current head of the Zhang family knew very well that the Zhang family's influence in the Bai Kingdom was not as good as the Bai family.

(End of this chapter)