Finally, the monks, led by Fahe, the abbot of the Shaolin Temple branch in Tokyo City, jointly wrote a letter to the court, requesting that an end be put to the play that slandered Buddhism… Because according to their research, the story of the Legend of the White Snake clearly originated from the Luoyang python incident during the Tang Dynasty. In that incident, it was clearly the python that wanted to assist An Lushan in flooding Luoyang, and was subdued by the monk Shanwuwei. However, rumors spread, turning it into a ridiculous play in which the monks of the Shaolin Temple broke up human relations, the white snake flooded the Shaolin Temple, and finally the monk Fahai suffered retribution and escaped into the belly of a crab.

In response to this, Emperor Zhao, who had always been protective of religious figures, immediately replied personally that Shaolin Temple had served the country and the people and had made many contributions to the court in times of difficulty, and that it must not be slandered easily. However, he personally asked the person who wrote the play, who was told that the story roughly came from a Taoist priest from the Five Mountains Temple, so he immediately asked the Taoist priest from the Five Mountains Temple to come out and explain to Fahe.

Then, the abbot of Wuyue Temple came out in person to explain to Fahe, firstly saying that this white snake was not a giant python from the Tang Dynasty, but the disciple of Lishan Laomu and so on; he also said that Xu Xuan, who opened a drugstore in Tokyo in the play, also existed as a person, and was a person of Renzong's reign, and that things like borrowing an umbrella when encountering rain at Jinming Lake were all told to his master by Xu Xuan's brother-in-law, Ma Han, the leader of the Kaifeng government servants... Of course, his master, who had just ascended to heaven last year, lived to be a hundred years old; finally, he also said that the great monks of Shaolin Temple subdued the snake demon, and asked Xu Xuan to collect alms and build a pagoda to suppress the snake demon, which was naturally a great merit and a good thing. As for why Xu Xuan's son succeeded in saving his mother by offering sacrifice to the pagoda, while the monk Fahai fled for five thousand miles and could only escape to the belly of a crab in the south of the Yangtze River to survive, it was because Lishan Laomu had boundless magical powers, and her disciple Bai Suzhen, who had no worries because of Xu Xuan's death, was better than the monks of Shaolin Temple.

As the saying goes, the power of my Buddha is boundless, so Fahe certainly did not accept this explanation! So the two sides went back and forth, debating all day long, one saying that my Buddha holds three thousand worlds in his palm, the other saying that the purple air of the Taoist master came from the east for thirty thousand miles, which attracted countless topics of conversation.

However, Fahe and the monks from the various temples in the city knew better and only went to settle accounts with the Taoists from Wuyue Temple. But that didn't mean that others knew better. Moreover, it was just a play and it was insignificant. The monks were just trying to make their presence felt. It was a joke. In comparison, some court strategies should not be taken lightly... For example, after the Buddha's Bathing Festival, Emperor Zhao sat in the palace these days, and received many memorials about the incident at Yuetai that day.

These memorials can be roughly divided into three categories.

The first category was naturally the ones submitted by Li Guang and other censors. They were mainly responsible for admonishing the emperor and impeaching Qu Duan. Their only goal was to ask Emperor Zhao to maintain the demeanor of a ruler and not lose his composure like he did that day at Yuetai. At the same time, Qu Duan maliciously slandered the wise men... Among them, Fan Zhongyan's descendant Xiao Fan Tongzhi and Han Qi's descendant Meihua Han also wrote letters to the court, requesting that the court restore the reputation of their ancestors... That was not too bad.

But the latter two categories are interesting.

The first group was represented by Prime Minister Zhao Ding, Deputy Prime Minister Liu Ji, Minister of War Hu Shijiang, and Minister of the Honglu Temple Zhai Ruwen. They each wrote a letter in which they elaborated on the rise of Western Xia during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, described the process and current situation of the "barbarianization" of the Hetao region, and bluntly stated that the founding of Western Xia was not a fluke. On the contrary, if anyone wanted to plot against Western Xia by chance, they would only suffer heavy losses, causing the real Northern Expedition to be frustrated for no reason.

The other group was headed by Privy Councilor Zhang Jun, Deputy Privy Councilor Chen Gui, Minister of Punishments Wang Shu, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Cavalry Qu Duan, Deputy Commander-in-Chief Liu Qi, and Deputy Commander-in-Chief Li Shifu. They wrote a letter to the emperor suggesting that they could attack Western Xia to enrich themselves, and the issue of the Imperial Cavalry's lack of horses would be automatically resolved.

These two memorials with almost opposite opinions and views immediately made Emperor Zhao confused, and the blisters at the corners of his mouth became more serious.

You must know that, to be honest, after Zhao Jiu was forced into a corner due to the lack of horses for his cavalry, he did think of destroying Western Xia first, but the problem was that according to the current intelligence, Li Ganshun was not a waste, and even though Western Xia lost 30,000 cavalry at the hands of Lou Shi, it still had enough combat power.

It seems that he is not a soft persimmon.

So, Zhao Jiu simply called the two groups to the Wende Hall and asked them to debate in public, but the debate between the two groups in the hall, like the debate between the Buddhist and Taoist groups in the city, soon fell into a vicious circle.

The thing is... Zhao Ding and his gang believed that since the imperial court had failed to conquer Western Xia in a hundred years, then rushing for success this time would inevitably fail, and failure would lead to a setback in the overall situation and the gains would outweigh the losses. However, Zhang Jun and his gang believed that the times had changed and after the tempering of fighting with the Jin people, the army's combat effectiveness was simply not comparable to that of the previous hundred years, so there was a great probability of success. Chen Gui especially proposed that with the sealing and power of today's gunpowder bags, as long as the army pressed to the front of Lingzhou City, they could immediately break the city without firing any cannons.

However, as the saying goes, practice is the only criterion for testing truth. For now, such a vague indicator as combat power cannot be quantified. Unless we go to Xixia in person, we can verify who is right and who is wrong.

But the problem arises. If the verification is wrong, it will be a loss-making result. It is even likely to push the currently cautious and neutral Western Xia to the Jin people. Once Western Xia unites with the Jin people, considering that Yan'an is still in the hands of the Jin people, then Jin and Xia will be connected in the north, which will create huge military pressure on the Guanzhong direction... By then, let alone war horses, it will be difficult to cross the river to Hedong.

In a word, although practice is the only criterion for testing truth, the cost of practice this time is too high, so high that the overall situation of Song and Jin is at stake. No one can make a decision based on the words of a few ministers.

Therefore, the matter soon came to a stalemate.

But soon, something came to break the deadlock... In late April, "Mulian Saves His Mother" and "The Legend of White Snake" were still in full swing in Tokyo City. New fruits and new wines brewed by various stores had just been released. Just when the vitality of Tokyo City reached a higher level with the change of seasons, the Jin envoy Wulin Da Zanmo came to Tokyo City again.

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