"Of course I came here for Mr. Zhao. I can accommodate both of you in my heart. There is no conflict." Xuelang didn't expect Zhao Hao to be jealous of his father. He quickly explained it and couldn't help asking curiously, "Who?"
He knows a lot of dignitaries, and the only one who may be as convenient as his own is Mr. Zhao.
"There is another one." Zhao Hao smiled faintly and said, "And he is a real Baili Hou. He has the power of life and death in his territory, and his words are the law! He is much more powerful than my father!"
"Who is it, exactly..." Xuelang's curiosity was completely aroused.
It is said that once a woman is curious, she will be hooked. The same is true for monks...
"Your old lover, old partner." Zhao Hao said with a smile: "We have done business together."
"Fatty Tang... Oh no, Donor Tang?" Xuelang couldn't help but be surprised and said, "It's not that I look down on him, but how can he be on par with your father?"
"Aren't you just looking down on him?" Young Master Zhao laughed and said, "When you've been away for three days, you should look at him with new eyes. Fatty Tang is no longer an ordinary fat guy. He is the first mayor of our Ming Dynasty!"
"Hi, so you're the one in charge of the market..." Xuelang immediately lost interest.
“Uh…” Zhao Hao almost choked to death and could only force a smile: “The mayor’s city is not the market’s city, it’s the mayor’s city, the city’s city. His power is much greater than my father’s, even the prefect can’t compare to him!”
"Is this true?" Xuelang asked in disbelief, "Where is he serving as mayor?"
"Xingang City." Zhao Hao said.
"Never heard of it." Xuelang shook his head.
"New Port City, Tamra Island." Zhao Hao had to add an explanation.
"Isn't that the place where the Korean government exiled officials and slaves?" Xuelang was well-educated and knew a thing or two about the customs and practices overseas. He was immediately surprised and said, "You want to exile me abroad too? Isn't it just to force you to write poetry? Does Mr. Zhao hate me so much?"
"How could that be possible!" Zhao Hao didn't bother to tell whether he was cursing or not, and quickly waved his hand and said, "Jamra Island does seem to belong to the Joseon Dynasty, but what belongs to the son also belongs to the father, right? So in the final analysis, it's still ours - look, we need a relay station for the grain transportation, and they immediately gave us a piece of land to build one!"
"So filial?" Xuelang didn't believe it: "They begged and pleaded to go back there in the beginning."
"That's how filial they are." Young Master Zhao said seriously, "Later, we needed to fight Japan again, and they gave us a bigger piece of land. My goodness, it took up a quarter of the entire island! We couldn't refuse it, they were so anxious to give it to us!"
"What do they want? Are they looking for you as a fig leaf?" Xuelang said in disbelief.
"Maybe they just like to be protected, and feel that way is very safe." Mr. Zhao thought for a moment and said, "Japan is the same, they all want their dad to love them again."
"That's really despicable." Xuelang snorted disdainfully, but he believed it in the end.
He was silent for a while, as if thinking something over.
~~
Mr. Zhao waited for a while and couldn't help asking, "How is your consideration?"
"No." Xuelang shook his head firmly.
"Don't be so straightforward." Zhao Hao quickly threw money out: "Didn't you make a vow to build ten temples? Xingang City doesn't even have one. How about this, I will fully fund the Huayan Temple in Xingang?"
"No need. I can afford it with my own money. I just want to enjoy the pleasure of forcing donations... Oh no, I want to gather the devout hearts of donors, so I'm raising funds." This trick didn't work for Xuelang. He shook his head and said, "Besides, that shabby place with no one around will not attract any visitors even if it's built. The merit value is too low."
"No." Zhao Hao shook his head like a rattle and said, "Xingang City was opened as a port last year, and this year it already has a population of 20,000. And look at Huai'an, Wuxi, Jining, and Linqing. Wherever the canal passes through, they all prosper in an instant. The effect of our sea transportation is the same. Soon there will be a thriving population there. You can go and grab the first opportunity!"
"No." Xuelang still shook his head.
"Why?" Damn, this monk is quite stubborn.
"It's boring. In a place like that, there won't be anyone to talk to in ten years." Xuelang said honestly, "For example, those Qinhuai ladies from the Qi family and the Zheng family."
"..." Zhao Hao was about to ask, what are you doing in Kunshan? Then he remembered that Kunshan and Suzhou are adjacent, and the famous prostitutes outside Changmen are no less beautiful than the Qinhuai women.
"So a monk like you can't live without a famous prostitute?"
"It's okay to leave the famous prostitute, but I need a wonderful person like Mr. Zhao to accompany me..." Xuelang said as a matter of course: "I'm going to Tamra, I don't know when we will meet next time."
"How could that be? It only takes three days to get to Xingang by boat from Chongming." Zhao Hao hurriedly comforted him, "I go there several times every year, and I'll come to see you on the way."
"Then you must keep your word and give me another farewell poem..." Xuelangxing's eyes were filled with tears. He nodded reluctantly, then came to his senses and said, "When did I agree to go? No, no!"
"Alas..." Zhao Hao saw that he could not fool people, so he had to incite them instead. He sighed and said, "Master, do you know that the Huichang Persecution is going to happen again?"
"What?" Xuelang said in horror, "Is Ox-nosed going to cause trouble again? We monks have been very well behaved in this dynasty!"
There was a loud thunderclap, and Jimo behind him started crying in fear. His little face turned pale and he looked so timid.
This is not surprising, perhaps because Emperor Taizu was a monk and started his career with the White Lotus Sect. He not only knew the horror of religion, but also knew its tricks. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty's management of monks and Taoists was the strictest and most successful in history.
The Imperial Ming Dynasty's ancestral precepts say, "Buddhism and Taoism have been popular among the people since the Han and Tang dynasties, and it is difficult to completely abolish them. We must strictly prohibit them and prevent them from spreading!"
This was also in line with the interests of Confucianism, so the courts of later generations followed it as a guideline. Civil officials held high the banner of Emperor Taizu and spared no effort to suppress Buddhism and Taoism to prevent them from rising up to seize power.
The only exception was during the Jiajing reign. Emperor Jiajing was obsessed with alchemy and fell out with the civil service group, which allowed the Taoists to be arrogant for a while. Shao Yuanjie, a Taoist from Longhu Mountain, was once the Minister of Rites, and his successor Tao Zhongwen was even more powerful, an unprecedented person holding three positions.
Once the Taoist priests were favored, the monks would suffer. This was an iron law that could not be broken. Under the advice of the Taoist priests, Jiajing first expelled the infiltration of Tibetan Buddhism into the Ming Dynasty, and then, under the pretext of an empty treasury, he closed a large number of temples three times and forced countless monks and nuns to return to secular life. He melted a large number of Buddha statues into copper coins and copper cannons, and even confiscated the temples' fields...
Therefore, throughout the Jiajing period, monks were trembling with fear... otherwise Huiju Temple would not have become so dilapidated that no one would repair it.
It was not easy to make it to the Longqing period, and finally I could live a peaceful life for a few days!
Master Xuelang and his disciple were like frightened birds, which frightened Master Zhao.
"It's not the Taoist priests who are causing trouble this time." Young Master Zhao then said quietly, "It's the missionary group of the Chizhidan religion that is coming!"
"Hey..." Xuelang breathed a sigh of relief. He had obviously heard of this name before. He said with disdain, "It's just a red-haired ghost from outside the region. He hasn't been able to get in for decades. What kind of trouble can he cause?"
In the 16th year of the Zhengde reign, when the Portuguese came to Beijing to pay tribute, they proposed to preach in the Ming Dynasty. However, the Ming Dynasty was very wary of various religions and had cleared all religions in the country when it was founded. Except for Buddhism and Taoism, which were inseparable, all other religions were banned. How could they agree? So the Portuguese were just dreaming.
In the following half century, the Jesuits had been trying to enter China by any means possible—not to preach, but to enter. Because except for the official missions sent by the government, the Ming Dynasty prohibited all foreigners from entering!
They can't even get in, so what's the point of teaching? So it's ridiculous that Xuelang values them...
But Master Zhao must be made to pay attention, otherwise what can Zhao Hao use to repel the Jesuits?
At least before going to war with the red-haired devils, he still had to play the role of the Jesuit Far East protector and could not do it himself.
~~
"Isn't Buddhism from abroad?" The dirty-hearted Mr. Zhao sneered, "Why don't you believe that others can replicate your original glory?"
"I am not being arrogant." Xuelang spread his hands and said, "Times have changed, sir. The Ming Dynasty does not allow foreigners to enter."
"Yes, times have indeed changed, Master!" Zhao Hao sneered, "Emperor Taizu said that no one could go to sea, but now he has lifted the ban on sea trade. It's been two hundred years, and the old almanac has become waste paper. Isn't the Ming Dynasty in ruins enough?"
"This..." Xuelang was speechless. Indeed, according to the imperial precepts of the Ming Dynasty, civilians were not allowed to wear silk, military officers were not allowed to ride in sedan chairs, and monks were not allowed to leave their hometowns for more than 100 miles without a pass; it was not allowed to accept children from the people as monks; temples and palaces were allowed to fall into disrepair after years of age and were not allowed to be repaired...
He wore silk and rode in a sedan chair, ran around everywhere, and liked to keep many young monks. His specialty was repairing temples... If he had lived in the Hongwu Dynasty, he would have been skinned and his entire clan exterminated.
Thinking about it this way, I'm afraid it would be impossible to stop foreigners from entering the Ming Dynasty and then... preaching.
"I'm not targeting anyone, I'm just targeting you Buddhists and Taoists, these useless people, since the moment the ordinary people came in, all of them were given away for free!" Young Master Zhao waved his hand and said sternly:
"Do you know what they did? How did they get all the way to our doorstep from 60,000 miles away?!"
"I don't know..." Xuelang shook his head honestly. He was a little scared by Zhao Hao's tone.
"Since I'm free today anyway, I'll tell you everything from the beginning!" Zhao Hao prepared himself and, in this stormy time, he told Xuelang the bloody and epic missionary journey of the Chizhitan religion.
Xuelang was completely dumbfounded. How could a little sheep like him who was a Mahayana Buddhist imagine that some sects could launch wars that lasted for hundreds of years in order to establish their authority? Some sects would always use force without hesitation to convert heretics and non-believers. "For the pagans, all of them must be killed, and even the livestock in their cities must be killed with knives." Moreover, they have destroyed countless countries and almost killed all the people on an entire continent!
"I'm not trying to belittle you, but your polytheism is really lame! In order to spread the gospel of the Lord, they can go through untold hardships and even sacrifice their lives, and their missionary footprints are all over the world!" Zhao Hao patted Xuelang's face and said with disdain, "You are so good. I asked you to go to our own territory and gave you money to build a temple, but you still refused to go and only wanted to hang out with whores! Aren't you ashamed of yourself? What's the point of building 10,000 temples? They will just be demolished when the time comes!"
Ps. In history, in the 20th year of Wanli, the name of the abbot of Kunshan Huazang Temple was really "Ji Mo". If we think back, it is the little monk now. Well, it is so rigorous, it is not a homophonic pun.