Chapter 258: Debate on Scriptures

In late February, Privy Councilor Zhang Jun hurried back to Kaifeng Prefecture.

I have to say that the conditions these days are really hard to describe. Something that could have been clarified with just a phone call ended up requiring a prime minister to personally spend more than a month to go through the process.

Of course, on the other hand, there is no phone, so anyone who wants to speak to someone in person has to spend time on the road.

Zhang Jun returned to Tokyo at noon that day, and went straight to the palace to see Emperor Zhao. However, apart from knowing that the "air pressure practice" in Xuande Tower had been postponed to tomorrow, he gained nothing else. According to Senior Official Lan, although the Emperor already knew about the Dongting Lake settlement, he did not know that Zhang Shuxiang would return to Beijing today, so he went on a private visit early in the morning.

It is undoubtedly a ridiculous and frivolous act for a great emperor to go on a secret visit in disguise. Of course, it should be firmly opposed. However, considering that Emperor Taishang Daojun was particularly fond of visiting prostitutes in disguise before his northern expedition...some things are just like that. As long as we bring enough manpower, we have to accept it with a pinch of our nose.

Otherwise, do you really think you can control an emperor on horseback who has personally fought in wars in an imperial society?

However, Zhang Jun still did not dare to delay, and he carefully asked the official Lan Guilan about the whereabouts of the emperor. Then, relying on his youth and health, he turned around and headed directly to where Emperor Zhao was, that is, the direction of Wuyue Temple.

Besides, if Emperor Zhao went to Wuyue Temple, it would not necessarily be considered a secret visit, because unlike the Daxiangguo Temple that was passed down to the Tang Dynasty, Wuyue Temple could barely be considered Emperor Zhao's private property - it was a Taoist place specially built during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong of Song Dynasty for the Fengshan activities, which was very compatible with the Daxiangguo Temple and was located on the south side of the Imperial College.

Of course, although it is very compatible with Daxiangguo Temple in terms of scale and system, everyone knows that the actual influence and business level of the two are not on the same level at all... First of all, Wuyue Temple has an illegitimate origin, because everyone knows that Song Zhenzong's Fengshan was a farce. Even Wang Anshi's generation of politicians completely destroyed the Han Confucianism's theory of the correspondence between heaven and man starting from the Fengshan event; secondly, the scale is similar and the distance is not too far, but there is still an obvious difference in location. Daxiangguo Temple is in the inner city and Wuyue Temple is in the outer city. The two are separated by a city wall and the Imperial College. Are the land prices in the second and third ring roads the same?

However, perhaps it was a blessing in disguise, because the location was too good, after Emperor Zhao returned to the old capital, the Grand Prime Minister's Palace was soon requisitioned for military use. It served as both a high-end military weapons supervisory office and inner city barracks, and even concurrently served as a reception center for senior generals... Now, no matter how delicious the monks' vegetarian food was, how high-end the location was, or how excellent the room service was, they could no longer continue to engage in commodity economic activities and folk religious activities.

At this time, due to the actual needs of Tokyo's economic recovery, Wuyue Temple located south of Taixue became the most upscale civilian hotel in Tokyo... It can only be said that, thanks to the blessing of the Taoist ancestors, the Taoists just sat there and did not move, but they actually surpassed the monks.

Don’t you see, if they want to debate the plot of “Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons” nowadays, the monks have to count on the abbot Fahe of the Shaolin Temple branch to take the lead in the west of the city. This part of the Imperial Street has always been the territory of the Five Mountains Temple.

Without further ado, although Zhang Jun did not know the specific reason why Emperor Zhao came to Wuyue Temple, he could still guess something... It was the first civilian hotel in Tokyo, and it was next to the Imperial College, so it was naturally a place where civilian scholars who were not students of the Imperial College gathered and lived. And now it was not the imperial examination season, and considering the postponement of the "air pressure practice", the people who gathered there were naturally the Taoists, Neo-Confucianists, or other great and famous Confucian scholars who came from afar.

As expected, Zhang Jun hurried to the Wuyue Temple. As soon as he entered the temple, he found that hundreds of scholars and students had gathered in front of the main hall. After asking, he learned that it was Yang Shi, a famous Confucian scholar and direct descendant of the two Cheng brothers, who was also the protagonist of "Standing in the Snow for Cheng's Door", who had brought his children here. These people were all here to see Yang Shi.

However, Zhang Deyuan arrived in a hurry in a purple robe. He could not find the figure of Emperor Zhao. When he asked around and was looked at by everyone, he immediately became the focus of attention. Then many familiar people came to greet him, and even the Taoist priests of Wuyue Temple came to serve him anxiously. At this moment, Zhang Jun realized that he was a little rash. In desperation, he had to bow around and then sit on the ground like an ordinary student, pretending to be eager to learn and seek the truth, and refused everyone to come in.

Just like that, after a while of bustle and hustle and bustle, an elderly man in his fifties came to the prepared cushion in front of the hall, but he did not sit down. He just raised his hand and greeted the crowd below. The bustle and hustle and bustle below immediately dissipated:

"Learning is best achieved through quietness. Since you are here to learn, please be quiet for a while. The teacher will be here soon..."

"Isn't this Yang Shi?" Upon hearing this, Emperor Zhao, who was sitting behind the window in a side room about seventy or eighty steps away, asked a question that he shouldn't have asked.

The people accompanying him looked at each other in bewilderment. Before Yang Yizhong could respond, Lü Benzhong beside him said blankly, "Your Majesty, Mr. Guishan (Yang Shi) is almost eighty years old. He was an important minister before the Jingkang period. When your Majesty ascended the throne, he once accompanied you in Nanjing (Shangqiu). After arriving in Nanyang in the second year of Jianyan, I remember that my father once again summoned him on behalf of the court... How could your Majesty have forgotten everything?"

Zhao Jiu laughed in silence, then raised his eyebrows: "To be honest, Ju Ren (Lü's Chinese name), I really forgot a lot of things when I fell into the well that day. Later I remembered some of them roughly, but I am still a little confused."

Lu Benzhong nodded quickly. That matter was related to the secret of his father's ascension to the throne. He was unwilling and too lazy to think about it, so he directly introduced through the half-closed window: "Good instructor, you know that this person is a disciple of Mr. Guishan (Yang Shi), called Luo Congyan, known as Mr. Yuzhang, and is also a famous Taoist scholar and a great scholar in the southeast."

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