Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 295 An eminent monk is here

The Spring Festival holiday in Beihai Town is only three days long, and the school will not start until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

After the fifth day of the first lunar month, Zhao Xin moved back to the east bank of the Xila River on the grounds that the troops had started training.A few old people at the education gate understood, and followed them quietly under the pretext of going to the east bank for a few days if they had nothing to do.

Shen Xuan and Shen Jingdan have long been accustomed to it, and Beihai Town is still in its infancy, and its military equipment is the first.Although Shen Jingdan's wife, Shen Wushi, was a little unhappy, she also knew that what Zhao Xin and her man were doing was a decapitation business, so she just whispered a few words to Shen Jingdan in private.

On the morning of the second day after Zhao Xin left, two monks, one old and one young, appeared near the military station at the mouth of the Fuljaha River.The old monk is naturally the hall master of Wuya Temple, Cheng Che, and the young monk is his attendant novice, who is self-defeating.

Cheng Che wanted to leave in November, but he suffered from the wind and cold when he was old, and he fell ill for a month, and he didn't make the trip until the twelfth lunar month.

Unlike other temples, Wuya Temple burns incense and worships Buddha every day at the end of the year.Because of its remote location, there are not many pilgrims who come here on weekdays, and there are even fewer people when the road is blocked by heavy snow at the end of the year.When Chengche went there to restore the mountain gate, he also considered that this was an ancient temple that existed during the Yongle period, and he came here to educate the world, not for the few incense sticks at all.

After they set off, the master and apprentice walked all the way to the northeast, and then went southeast along the river after reaching the Fuljaha River. After walking all the way for nearly 20 days, they saw the gravel road leading directly to Beihai Town.

The gravel road in Beihai Town was repaired after the first battle with Fukang'an. The width of the road can accommodate four carriages in parallel, and there are road shoulders and drainage ditches on both sides of the road.In order to facilitate transportation, people clean up the road after heavy snow every year.

In order to prevent outsiders from trespassing into Beihai Town from here, there is a military depot where a company of troops is stationed.Moreover, five kilometers to the north from the military station, there are six outposts, each stationed with a squad.

As soon as Cheng Che and his disciples set foot on the gravel road, they heard a loud shout from not far away: "Those two people, stop!"

The shout from the tweeter echoed in the open mountains, and the two monks, one old and one young, were startled and stopped slowly.

"Stop still, or you'll shoot!" The two monks searched for the source of the sound, only to find a gray-white tower standing hundreds of steps ahead.It is said that the sentry towers in Beihai Town are all of the same shape, the whole body is made of wood and steel pipes, the height is five meters, and the top is a small room that can accommodate two people and a brazier.

"Master, there are people up there!" the young novice novice said to Chengche, pointing at the tower. "This man has such a loud voice, he can shout so far!"

"Yeah." Cheng Che put his hands on his forehead, and also saw two people on the tall tower in the distance.He was also a little surprised, how could a person's voice be so loud.

Forget it, it’s useless to think blindly, so let’s keep changing.

After a while, the people on the tower loudly ordered the two to move forward.Although Chengche and his disciples were surprised, they had no choice but to follow orders and move forward.After walking dozens of steps, three people in strange clothes came out from behind two big trees.

In the eyes of Cheng Che and his disciples, the three of them were dressed in snow-white and thick clothes from head to toe, with thick hats on their heads, and even masks on their faces.But from Cheng Che's point of view, although this outfit looks warm, it looks as weird as it needs to be.

After getting closer, Cheng Che noticed that the clothes on the other party's body were not completely white, and there were some gray patchy patterns on them.

I saw that the leader had nothing in his hands, and the two behind him were holding a weapon that looked like a musket.

After the three approached, the leader looked carefully at Cheng Che's master and apprentice for a while, and then asked, "What are you two doing?"

Chengche was stunned for a moment when he heard the officer's words, and thought that this person's official words were better than mine; then he clasped his hands together and said, "The poor monk's name is Chengche, from Wuya Temple."

"Are you a monk?" The leader paused for a moment, then asked, "Where is Wuya Temple?"

"Five miles north of Vladivostok."

"What about him?" The soldier pointed at the young novice beside Chengche.

Upon hearing this, Chengzhuo put his palms together and said, "Young monk is self-defeating, Master Chengche is my master."

"Oh. Where are you going?"

"The poor monk heard that a town was built on the other side of the Xila River the year before last, so he wants to make a good relationship while traveling."

"Monk. Do you have proof?"

Hearing this, Chengzhuo quickly took out a piece of paper from the cage behind him and handed it to the leader.

The person headed by "Daxiong Baoshan ordered the establishment of Wuya Temple to uphold the Buddhist precepts and precepts altar" looked away from the paper in doubt, and asked, "What is this?"

"It's a letter of commandment." Cheng Cheng explained in a deep voice: "Since the 39th year of Qianlong, the imperial court has abolished the certificate of monkhood and Taoism in the world, so the certificate of commandment is the certificate for us monks to go out."

"Oh." The leader returned the ultimatum to Cheng-defeating, and said, "Come with me."

Cheng Che and his apprentice followed the three through a forest, and a camp surrounded by wooden walls suddenly appeared in front of them.There was a large empty space outside the camp. Dozens of strong men dressed in the same clothes as the previous three were standing in an open space, shouting rhythmically, and changing into strange postures from time to time.

The self-defeating young man was curious, walked and watched these people making strange movements, and asked Cheng Che in a low voice, "Master, are they practicing martial arts?"

Cheng Che shook her head, expressing not to talk too much.However, in his opinion, these people kept changing their postures following orders, which is probably a kind of exercise for fitness and health.

Several people entered the gate of the military station, then turned to the right and entered a small room.The leader said: "You just sit here, someone will talk to you later." After speaking, he opened the door and went out, while the two armed soldiers behind him guarded the door.

Chengzhuo waited for the others to go out before he began to look around. He felt that everything here was very novel, and he had never seen it in Wuya Temple or other places.I saw a single bed, a wooden table, and two chairs in the room.

In the corner, a dark stove was burning something, making the room very warm. From the stove, a white metal pipe thicker than his fist was connected, and it went all the way up through the roof.

Chengche patted the snow on his body, and asked Chengzhuo to put down the box on his back, and took off the hat and gloves on his head, and the master and apprentice sat down on the chair.

Not long after, a soldier opened the door and brought two cups of hot water and some steaming buns for the master and apprentice.After the soldier went out, he came in with an iron pot after a while and put it on the stove.

The soldier fiddled with the fire door with his fire chopsticks, and at the same time said to Cheng Che and the two: "Eat and drink some water first, an officer will come to ask questions later."

Cheng Che clasped his hands together and said politely, "Thank you, Mr. Jun."

The soldier laughed and said, "I'm not a military master, but an orderly soldier. You can call me Xiaotian."

"Hmm. Master Tian, ​​Xiaotian." Cheng Che nodded.

After finishing the stove, Xiaotian put the kettle on, and then said, "I heard from our company commander that you are monks? Hehe, I have been in Beihai Town for two years, and I haven't seen a monk yet."

Cheng Che saw that Oda's eyes were clear and that the other party was speaking politely, so he smiled and said, "Oh. So you've met before?"

Oda nodded and said, "Yes, every village used to have them."

Cheng Che was a little surprised when he heard this, and thought that there is still such a place in the world, that there are temples in every village?He felt that Xiaotian's speech was a little blunt, with an unspeakable accent, so he asked, "Where is your hometown, Xiaotian?"

"Beihai Town, I am from Beihai Town."

Chengche was about to ask again, when someone outside the house shouted: "Xiaotian!Come out and stop talking! "

Only then did Oda say to Chengche and his disciples: "You guys should rest for a while, the officer is coming from Beihai Town, it will take one or two hours to arrive."

"Hour?"

"Well, an hour is half an hour." After finishing speaking, Xiaotian pushed the door open and went out.

Cheng Che and his apprentice waited for an hour, and it was almost noon before they were taken to another big room in the camp.When I entered the door, I saw two white square boxes above my head exuding milky white light; a long table was placed in the middle of the room, and there was a curtain hanging on the wall, and I don't know what it was used for.

On the opposite side of the long table sat two men, completely different from the soldiers outside. Both of them were wearing a black cloak and a fluffy cotton hat on their heads.

"Please sit down, both of you." The middle-aged man pointed to the opposite side of the desk, and said to Master Chengche, "Let me introduce myself. I am the person in charge of the security police in Beihai Town. My surname is Pian."

The person who came was none other than Pianshan, the head of the security police in Beihai Town.

Two hours ago, when Sheng Haizhou was called from the military depot, Sheng Haizhou first called Chen Qingsong.

How could Chen Qingsong understand this!Modern monks have seen it, but they don’t know what kind of monks they were in ancient times, how to confirm them.

Sheng Haizhou had no choice but to notify Katayama again.Unexpectedly, after asking, I found out that when Katayama was working as Tongxin in Matsushima Town, he actually handled official affairs related to temples and knew some Buddhist knowledge.

It is said that because the Tokugawa shogunate banned Catholicism, it required all people in the island country to become Buddhists.In the third year of Wanzhi (1660), the shogunate began to require temples all over the country to make "Principal Accounts", which recorded names, ages, family members, etc. according to each family.Only by registering in the account of the purpose person can you prove that you are not a Catholic.

The temple will also issue a "Temple Request Certificate" that can be used as identification.When traveling, it must be presented together with the passport of each feudal customs office.It is also used when getting married or moving house.

In addition, when someone dies and a declaration is made through the landlord, it is also processed in the temple.The deceased is then deleted from the "Principal Person's Account" and placed in a register called "ghost register" that only registers the name of the deceased.Therefore, Buddhism in the Edo period not only had a religious role, but also played a role in assisting the government to manage civilians (in modern Japan, when a person dies, it is called "guiji", which is based on this allusion.)
Well, to pull out the general, Katayama can only drive the duck to the shelf, and send it to handle the affairs of Cheng Che's master and apprentice.But the problem is that Katayama doesn't understand Daiqing's monk management system, which is completely different from the island country's monk management system!

After reading the precepts provided by Cheng Che, Katayama realized that this unremarkable old monk opposite was actually a descendant of the Linji patriarchal lineage, which surprised him!
It should be known that the Zen sect that the islanders first came into contact with was the Linji sect, which was introduced from China by the monk Ming'an Rongxi in the Song Dynasty.At the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, many Chinese Zen monks traveled eastward to Fusang to escape the war, which made the Zen sect of the island country develop rapidly.It is said that there were as many as 24 schools of Zen Buddhism that were introduced to Japan at that time.However, these various branches and sects are actually developed on the two main lines of Linji Chan and Caodong Chan.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Yinyuan Longqi, the abbot of Fuyan Temple in Huangbo Mountain, Fujian Province, and an eminent monk of the Linji Sect, came from the east, breaking the silence of the Zen forest in the island country at that time.Yinyuan founded the Obakusan Manfuku Temple in Uji and founded the Japanese Obaku Sect, which became a major event in the history of Japanese Buddhism.Takaki Yinmoto had a great influence in Japan. Later, the royal family headed by Emperor Mizuo, daimyos headed by dignitaries from the Tokugawa shogunate, and a large number of businessmen successively converted to him.

(As an aside, kidney beans were brought into the island country by Yinyuan and started to be planted. Until now, Kansai people call lentils "Yinyuan beans".)
Katayama felt that this was a big deal, and an eminent monk came!
Both Chinese and islanders have always respected Buddhist eminent monks; but for modern people like Chen Qingsong, they also hold the attitude of trusting it.

After Chen Qingsong received a call from the military depot, he thought that the day had finally come.

In fact, he knew in his heart that even if he didn't want to, as long as Beihai town existed, he would have to face this day.It's better to come early than to be late, it doesn't matter if it's not the White Lotus Sect.

He had discussed this with Zhao Xin before.Zhao Xin's point of view is that due to frequent disasters in Chinese history, be it natural disasters or wars, the people at the bottom are the most insecure.Therefore, praying to gods and worshiping Buddha has become the spiritual sustenance of ordinary people, praying to gods from all walks of life to ward off disasters and avoid disasters.

Chen Qingsong thought for a long time, and finally asked Katayama to bring the two monks back to meet again.

What he was thinking about was that although the weather in Beihai Town was harsh, the common people under the rule could eat enough and wear warmth, and their children could still read and write. This was heaven in the eyes of the refugees everywhere.Under such circumstances, the only role of Buddhism and Taoism is to comfort the mind. As long as there are strict restrictions, there is nothing to be afraid of.

If he is really an eminent monk, at least he is still a cultural person, which is better than those two missionaries.

Since Zhao Xin brought back two missionaries from Urupu Island, although the two were banned from preaching in Beihai Town, they usually said "God bless you" when they talked to people. Will wonder who "God" is.

Ferapontov has been working on the east coast, and he doesn't have many contacts; but Makarius works in Beihai Town Central Hospital, and he can come into contact with patients all day long.

After the priest Ma got through the initial discomfort, he was quickly shocked by the advancement of Beihai Town's medical technology, and eagerly followed Hong Tao to learn medical skills.Since Hong Tao and Liu Siting were too busy, Father Ma stopped shouting for bloodletting and was able to operate the X-ray machine by himself, so Father Ma went to the imaging room to take X-rays for patients.

After taking X-rays on people every day, Father Ma would habitually say "God bless you, my child!"

When Zhao Xin heard about this, he was very annoyed.But he can't cover other people's mouths to prevent them from speaking!But at this point, because the two priests had been exposed to too many secrets of Beihai Town, Zhao Xin could only be like Qianlong, and it was impossible to let the two go.

(End of this chapter)