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

Chapter 301 Tea Ceremony, Secret

Wushejin is the closest to Luoyang in the north and is also the largest Yellow River ferry.

Bai He and Fran plus an entourage, the three of them crossed from carriage to boat.

After finally finding a cargo-passenger ship that was about to set sail at the busy ferry, the three of them immediately stored the carriage at the station next to the ferry and boarded the ship.

The boat is a wooden boat with a boathouse and is parked at the ferry. It is about three people tall. Because the current of the Yellow River is fast, small boats cannot resist the undercurrent, so most of the boats traveling on the Yellow River are large boats.

Because Chaoge is in the lower reaches of Luoyang, about three or four counties away from here from the Yellow River. From there, you can save several days of walking ashore.

Piles of cargo are piled on the deck, and ship passengers enter the ship building to rest. It takes about half a day to reach their destination smoothly.

Bai He invited Fran to a guest room in the hall, leaving only his entourage to look after the luggage in the guest room.

The ferry is divided into two parts, cargo and passengers. Cargo is stacked on decks and cabins, and guests enter the ship's building. The ship building is divided into three parts, crew room, guest room and hall.

Because this place is very close to the Bai Kingdom, most people go to the Bai Kingdom, and the people of the Bai Kingdom like tea, jade, literature, and commerce. This is known to the world.

Therefore, the hall on the ship is equipped with tea and snacks, as well as some letters, for the entertainment of waiting guests. If you are tired, you can go to the guest room to rest. When you reach your destination, the crew will call you.

Bai He started making tea himself, and his complicated yet smooth movements made Fran seem to have discovered a new world.

After the tea was boiled, Bai He pushed it in front of Flan. He picked up the tea cup and made a gesture of inviting him. Flan performed a Buddhist salute and followed Bai He's example, sipping it in small sips.

As soon as the tea came to his mouth, Fran felt a strong aroma of tea. As the tea flowed down his throat, a mellow feeling gradually spread from the base of the tongue to the entire mouth, and the whole person seemed to be in a The nature is full of tea trees, and the fatigue of many days of driving and horse riding is also wiped away in an instant.

Fran looked at Bai He with bright eyes:

"The poor monk also drank tea invited by some friends in Luoyang, but in terms of the process of making the tea and the aroma of the tea, nothing seems to be able to compare with the tea you have this time."

Bai He smiled slightly and explained: "Master, I don't know, this tea is also called Ming. It was discovered by my ancestors in the Taihang Mountains, hundreds of years ago.

In the beginning, people liked drinking because wine can make people forget their worries, but few people liked tea because tea was bitter and intolerable. People always like happy things and subconsciously abandon pain.

But my ancestors did the opposite and believed that people can only achieve something by experiencing pain, so they introduced this tea into the family. As time went by, we gradually discovered more and more tea products. The one I invite you to taste today is one of them.

There are two places in the world where the tea is the best. One is the Yangzhou tea in Yangzhou in the south, which is famous for its tribute to the emperor, and the second is the Taihang white tea from the Bai Kingdom, which is famous for its thousands of years of inheritance. This is the only top-notch tea in the world. "

"I see, the poor monk has received the teaching. In the past, he only knew how to drink tea to satisfy his appetite. Now I think it is the poor monk who has violated the precept of greed. There is no Amitabha in the world."

Bai He refilled Fran's cup of tea and asked casually: "I don't know why Master went to Chaoge. If there is anything I can do to help, I will do my best."

Fran stopped reciting sutras and replied: "Nothing else, just to preach. Before the poor monk came to the Han Dynasty, he had heard people say that the Bai family was the Ya family in the world, the first of the scribes, Chaoge was the capital of literature and commerce in the world, and now Everyone in the world likes Confucianism and abandons hundreds of schools of thought. Bai is the leader of Confucianism in the world. The poor monk wants to ask him what he thinks about Buddhism."

Bai He smiled: "It has only been a year since I arrived in Han Dynasty, but I know so many secrets. I really admire you. But the most famous Confucian scholar in the world is the Kong family of Shandong."

Fran looked at Bai He and smiled without saying a word. Bai He shook his head helplessly and said with a smile: "But I made the master look down on me. I am just a master, so I am offering tea instead of wine to apologize."

After speaking, he picked up the tea cup and drank it all in one gulp. Fran didn't drink it all like Bai He did, but took a small sip.

"Walking with the donor is a great fate for the poor monk, and it is also the decision of the Buddha. Because of you, the poor monk knows that this tea has such an origin, and it seems to contain deep Buddhist principles, which is worthy of the poor monk's lifelong pursuit.

The poor monk has communicated with His Majesty many times, but the poor monk can clearly understand that what Your Majesty values ​​is the influence that Shemateng and I have on the countries in the Western Regions, rather than our interest in Buddha.

However, the more this happened, the more interested the poor monks and brothers were in preaching in the Han Dynasty. The Buddha said that the Dharma should not be taught lightly, and the Dharma should not be heard. This was the test that the Buddha put to the poor monks, brothers and the common people of the Han Dynasty. The opportunity for two monks to become Buddhas. "

Bai He did not comment on this, but just poured tea for him silently. Afterwards, the two chatted a lot, from history to philosophy, from politics to business. Bai He only felt that Frank, as a monk, had no knowledge of anything else except Buddhism. With such an insight, is there really a genius?

Fran just replied lightly: "The great roads are connected, one dharma is connected, and all dharma are connected. Whether it is a Buddha or a saint, they are just the end of the great road, they just have different names." These are the principles that Frank followed Luo this year. Judging from Yang's library, this year, Frank was not immersed in translating Buddhist scriptures like Shemo Teng, but was wandering in the classics of various schools of thought.

He believed that only by understanding what the Han people were thinking could the spread of the Dharma be successful. It also brought about a great change in his thinking, and he no longer took the utilitarian nature of teaching the Dharma so seriously.

Although Chaoge is not far from Luoyang, six or seven days have passed since we started from Luoyang and arrived at Chaoge by car and boat.

Fran asked the groom to stop the car not far from Chaoge. He bid farewell to Bai He and prepared to walk all the way there. This was his habit. He still liked walking rather than riding in a car. If Bai He hadn't seen that he was getting older, he would have stopped. In addition, I really didn’t know the way, so I had no choice but to ride with him.

Now that he knew the road ahead was not far, he wanted to come down and take a walk to see the scenery along the way.

Bai He didn't stay too much, thinking that Buddhism had rules similar to those of Mohism, not riding in cars or wearing bright clothes.

Not long after walking, Fran saw the city wall of Chaoge. It was not as tall and thick as the city wall of Luoyang, but full of mottled marks of time. In order to reflect the history of Chaoge, the Bai family never overhauled the city wall of Chaoge. It was fine-tuning, so many city bricks and stones that have been handed down since the Shang and Zhou dynasties have been left behind.

Along the way, he saw that people here were different from other places, spiritually different. But Fran is a little confused. Is this a country governed by the Buddha?
Since deciding to come to Chaoge, Frank has consulted a large amount of historical materials about Chaoge and the Bai family. Chaoge has appeared many times in the history of the Han Dynasty, and its status is also very important.

Before the Qin and Han Dynasties, as the capital of the Shang Dynasty and the Wei Kingdom, it assumed extremely important political attributes. After the Qin and Han Dynasties, it served as the fiefdom of the Bai family, assumed the business and culture of the Bai family, and also became the representative of the Bai family.

In the history books, there are many descriptions of the Bai Kingdom, but very few descriptions of the Bai family. Fran had a feeling that the author was afraid of something and did not dare to write a lot about him.

Frank stayed in the National Book Collection of Han Dynasty for nearly a month, just to find out a few words about the Bai family. But after all, it was a collection for the public, not a royal secret collection, and it did not have much value.

But just from these few words, Flan was able to piece together an extremely large network, and the center of this network was Chaoge.

In history books, there are many descriptions of the Bai family of the Bai Kingdom before the Qin and Han Dynasties, among which "Bai Weiwen Wangping Family" written by Sima Qian of the Han Dynasty is the most detailed.

After the Han Dynasty, the description of the Bai Kingdom was very vague, only official records, what happened in the Bai Kingdom in which year, and what talents came out of the Bai Kingdom in that year.

After Emperor Guangwu, there were even fewer descriptions. Except for a few chapters describing the wars related to Emperor Guangwu, there is almost no trace of the Bai Kingdom in Luoyang's history books, because the Bai Kingdom officially took back the history of its own history. According to the rights, the court historians do not need to set up separate historians from the Bai Kingdom. If necessary, they can collect historical materials from the Bai Kingdom.

Because the Bai Kingdom implemented the New Deal, the land within the entire Bai Kingdom was redeemed. That is, all the land in the entire Bai Kingdom is publicly owned. If the land is leased to farmers, the farmers only have the right to use it, not the right to trade. If they don’t want to After farming, it can only be traded to Baifu.

The people without land entered Chaoge and several counties under the Bai Kingdom, became citizens, and earned money through work to support themselves.

Therefore, the White State divided and managed the people under its jurisdiction according to their nationality. The White State divided all people with the White State nationality into agricultural, civilian, military, craftsman and commercial registrations.

Citizenship can be changed at will, but only farmers can rent land, and there are restrictions. A single person can lease and farm no more than 100 acres of land by virtue of his agricultural registration. The government will directly confiscate the excess land, regardless of gender.

And if there is land to be reclaimed, it needs to be reported to the government. If it does not exceed the limit of one person, you will have priority to cultivate it. Of course, you can also hand it over to the government, because the government will pay you a large sum of money to redeem it in one go, and exempt you from the land. Five years of tax on cleared fields.

Therefore, farmers have become a profession like businessmen and craftsmen. It is equivalent to working for the country. If you pay enough to the country, the rest is your own. And it does not mean that you can only farm the land. The White Kingdom also allows your own farming. Some livestock are used as income to supplement family income, but large-scale breeding is not allowed. Large-scale breeding requires the transfer of registration to civil or commercial registration.

To do business, you need to go to the government to transfer your registration. You only need to pay a certain amount of coins to transfer your job status to any job status. In other words, if you want to go out to do business or open some larger handicraft workshops (you need to hire people) , must be a business registration.

Otherwise, once discovered, the illegal gains will be confiscated directly. To run some small businesses by yourself (without hiring anyone), such as a small shop, buy some food, or go to the countryside to buy small commodities, you only need citizenship.

Needless to say, you have military status and craftsman status. When you become a hired craftsman or soldier, the government will automatically classify you as a craftsman or a military official. If you don’t want to work anymore, you can transfer your status, but you are no longer allowed to join a craftsmanship workshop or start your own business based on your skills. The store serves as a commercial and possesses standard weapons.

Also, nationality is the most common and basic job title in the Bai Kingdom. Whenever a newborn is born, if both parents are from the Bai Kingdom, they will automatically obtain the nationality of the Bai Kingdom, even in rural areas, because the Bai Kingdom The country has enough official power to extend its influence to any corner of the Bai Kingdom.

When a child becomes a child, he or she can choose whether to change his job status. This time, the change is free of charge and there is no need to pay a transfer fee.

Moreover, the government also stipulates that any job title has the right to enroll in school and serve as an official.

(End of this chapter)