[Comprehensive] The Giant of the Red Chamber

The emperor held a thick stack of papers and flipped through the pages one by one. The more he looked, the deeper his frown became, and his face gradually changed from serious to angry.But after reading more than a dozen pages, I couldn't read any more. I slapped the table heavily, and couldn't even sit on the dragon seat. I stood up with a bang, walked around in the hall, and roared as I walked:

"It's unreasonable, it's unreasonable! I know that the previous dynasty advocated Buddhism and built monasteries wantonly. It not only gave these monks a good status, but also gave them a lot of land to support them. I thought that no matter how many monks there are, how many resources can be occupied, but it turns out that this is the case. Exaggeration. My people have worked hard for a year, and they dare not slack in the slightest day and night. In many places, they still don’t have enough food and clothing. When natural disasters strike, they will sell their children and daughters and starve to death. But these monks, apart from chanting scriptures, visiting Buddha, Nonsense, posturing, what else do they do? They don’t do production and get something for nothing, but they have so many high-quality fertile fields, tens of thousands of houses, tens of thousands of rice barns and granaries, thousands of cattle and buffaloes, mountains, water There are countless ponds. What kind of compassion and saving all living beings? I think they use this kind of guise to make my people work for them. This is no different from landlords and wealthy households. I am afraid that some landlords of aristocratic families are not as greedy as them , What a heart of a Bodhisattva, ridiculous, ridiculous."

"Your Majesty, please calm down first, and don't be so angry." Since the master took office, he has not shown his emotions and anger. It has been many years since he was so angry and exposed. Although Ryan didn't know what was happening on paper What exactly did he write that made His Majesty so angry, but because he was worried that the dragon body was still under pressure to persuade him.

Such a sentence did not have any effect, the emperor seemed to have not heard it and was still immersed in anger, Ryan looked at Jiang Yingrong for help, Jiang Yingrong shook his head, indicating that there was no problem.The chestnuts just now have been eaten, and it will not be a serious problem to hang on to the emperor with this bit of aura.Jiang Yingrong had already expected that the emperor would look like this when he saw something.

"I originally thought that I would first stabilize the government, pacify the San Francisco, and relieve internal and external troubles, and then slowly reduce the temple monks step by step. Now it seems that I am too kind, and I have left these moths to have a good time. Ten years. If I had known that I would have resorted to thunderbolts to collect these fields from the very beginning, I don’t know how many people could have been saved, and I wouldn’t have let my good men who pacified the various tribes of Beidi almost go to the battlefield hungry.”

In fact, it is not to blame today, the previous two founding emperors have not been in power for a long time, and there is still a lot of mess waiting to be cleaned up.He came to the throne at a young age, and finally took back power bit by bit from the four auxiliary ministers. It is not easy to eliminate internal and external troubles.In addition, most of the Buddhist temples are worshiped by the people. In the unstable situation, the emperor did not dare to take major actions to rectify the situation. It has not completely won the hearts of the people. If it is not good, it may arouse public anger and make the situation even worse. Seriously nervous.

The emperor was only busy with important state affairs, and he didn't notice it for a while, and he didn't have time to collect statistics on the situation of monks in monasteries and temples nationwide. He only knew that Buddhism was prosperous because of the praise of the previous dynasty, but he didn't expect it to flourish to this extent.In fact, if there is no Jiang Yingrong, the next emperor will finally start to renovate the temple because of the emptiness of the treasury. Of course, he will not get such detailed information from Jiang Yingrong, but it will be reduced by three or four points. , but because of the pressure of the incumbent, Buddhism will no longer dare to show off as before, but most of them are still rich and untouched.

Why are these temples so rich?It turned out that the monastery had monastery fields, and the monks and nuns mainly relied on monastery fields for their food and clothing.Most of the monastery fields are donated by "good people", wealthy households, or gifted by emperors and princes. Thousands of fields have been accumulated over time. The bad ones felt that they had wronged the monks.The most important thing is that the monastery land enjoys the privilege, and its land tax is exempted.This alone can allow the monastery to save more than one-third of the total food every year.

The monastery monks do not need to directly cultivate the fields. The monks rent out or enslave the nearby farmers. Because these fields do not pay taxes, even if the rent is higher than that of the landlords, most farmers are still willing to rent. of.In addition, most of the temple fields are high-quality fertile land, and the grain harvested per mu is much more than that of ordinary fields. The surroundings of the temple are generally relatively peaceful and quiet. , Living around all the year round is another guarantee for safety.Therefore, there are a large number of farmers scrambling to rely on temples to live, which can be said to serve multiple purposes.

In addition to monastery farms, monasteries also operated businesses and issued usury loans, not only lending money but also renting grain, exploiting the working people, especially the poor, and wantonly amassing wealth.Therefore, the life of these monks is very good, and it is often said that "rich monks are like landlords".

Taking Luocheng as an example, 1367 monasteries have been built, with more than 6 monks and nuns, 1960 hectares of 56 acres of land, and 3987 hectares of 73 acres of garden land. County 2438.62 mu, An County 4059.40 mu, Qing County 3611.78 mu, Changle County 2882.81 mu, Dongwu County 1518.79 mu, Chujiang County 3349.13 mu, Changxi County 1739.07 mu, Jiuyuan County 1014.16 mu, Anyi County 2422.33 mu, Luogu 1444.63 mu in the county, 1045.14 mu in Yunzhong county... nearly half of the land resources in Luocheng, and two-thirds of the high-quality fields in Luocheng are owned by various temples.

This is the case in Luocheng alone. Although Luocheng is the most prosperous place for Buddhism, it is roughly estimated that the total number of monks and nuns, fields, gardens, forest land, ponds, and cattle in the whole country is huge and shocking. number.And these are all supported by the deeds issued by the government, which really belong to each monastery and cannot be snatched easily.

A lot of local expenditures, except for "the state's regular tax, everything is given to the monks and temples", and there are many monks and temples occupying a lot of land; these large numbers of temples do not pay taxes, and the fiscal revenue of the imperial court has naturally shrunk greatly.

As monks and nuns, they can eat, clothe and keep warm without having to work. There are also many believers and common people offering sacrifices, so there are a large number of people who are greedy for comfort and are willing to escape into the so-called Buddhism, causing the entire country to lose a lot of young and middle-aged labor.In this era where farming is the main source of income, one can imagine what kind of resource waste and encroachment it is.

That's why the emperor got so angry after reading the clear records of the situation in various temples in black and white.If it weren't for the emperor's self-cultivation, he would probably have wished to blurt out some vulgar words: Sir, I have worked hard all my life, and the emptiness of the treasury will always be a big problem that cannot be solved.When natural disasters and man-made disasters happen, I worry about eating, sleeping, and trying to save the people, but these stinky monks live a comfortable life in the temple, eating, drinking, and wearing clothes, without the wind Not being exposed to the sun is really annoying.

As the saying goes, "When the forest is big, there are all kinds of birds."When Buddhism lowered the threshold and allowed all kinds of messy people to enter, in addition to the money-making that was recognized on the surface, it also developed a large number of underground and invisible industrial chains.With so much income, why do you want to find ways to open source? Naturally, the people are not enough to swallow the elephant. If you have one, you want to have two, three, four, five, six or even more.I am afraid that the old rice in the granary has been eaten by moths, the golden body of the Bodhisattva has been painted layer after layer, and the houses in the courtyard have been expanded.

Therefore, there are many people like Shuiyue Nunnery. The pure land of Buddhism, which is supposed to save the world, has been polluted into a big vat of black ink. The more it is stirred up, the more it becomes muddy. Come here to satisfy your own selfish desires, isn't this deceiving the general public.I am afraid that only by drastic rectification can we break through and rebuild the pure place of Buddhism.

Why didn't the sufferer come out to appeal?If you think about it with your toes, you know that those who are oppressed are usually ordinary people, who have no power or power, and even if they report it, they will be suppressed early. Those monasteries are probably covered by nobles of the family, how can they allow people to sue; Tell it to outsiders, because Buddhism itself has a good reputation, but few believe it, and these people who believe it will follow the principle that one thing more is worse than one thing less.

Besides, not all monasteries are rotten at the root, there are always some good ones, everyone is influenced by the experience of the past and the present and the purpose of Buddhism's wide promotion and publicity, plus it has indeed received a lot of convenience, it is impossible to think that each of these monasteries is comparable Landlords and wealthy households are also enslaving ordinary people, and they are even more abhorrent than landlords and their ilk.

And each family sweeps the snow in front of their own doors. As long as their own family can survive and benefit from their own family, there is no time to care about other people's affairs. If they know it, they just turn a blind eye.This allowed the skins of these people to remain on their faces without being torn, revealing the dark and ugly true face inside.

Jiang Yingrong wanted to clean up the dross of Buddhism, but it was too tiring to rely on her alone, and she had to persuade the incumbent to lead the implementation, so as to achieve twice the result with half the effort.In order for the emperor to see the dangers of Buddhism and be willing to go all out to carry it out, there must be enough bargaining chips and interests to make the emperor tempted.After all, there is no profit-driven, the emperor is likely to consider many factors, and because of the checks and balances of all parties, it is easy to pick it up and put it down gently. Effect.

"Fourth Miss, when did you collect these statistics?" After the emperor got angry, he calmed down and prepared to discuss the next plan. Since he can make such a detailed list comparable to accounts, he must have his own idea.

"When I went to Yangzhou this time, I did some research in various places." In fact, 738 collected it, otherwise it would take a few years for her to collect it, and it may not be so detailed.

The emperor only thought that Jiang Yingrong had some supernatural powers to be so quick, so he didn't want to talk about it, so he didn't ask, and he didn't care about the process when there was a result. "Those four girls have a good strategy. I'm worried that if you act rashly, it will cause turmoil among the people." So the emperor was aggrieved, seeing such a big piece of fat bubbling with oil, but he couldn't immediately take action. The method not only allowed him to rectify the Buddhism, but also allowed the people to accept this matter peacefully, so as not to use this matter to maliciously incite people's hearts and arouse public anger.