Chapter 125: The Monk

The Guifeng mountain region at night was a pitch-black expanse, silent and still; apart from the occasional cry of some unknown strange bird, the vast mountain area seemed utterly devoid of people.

Yutai Temple, situated halfway up Guifeng Mountain, was first built during the Han dynasty. It was destroyed by fire at the end of the Yuan dynasty and rebuilt during the Zhengtong era of the Great Ming.

After its rebuilding, Yutai Temple became one of the four great Buddhist temples of Guangdong province thanks to its flourishing incense offerings. During the Chongzhen era, the number of monks in the temple once reached a thousand.

Now, including the abbot, the old monk Qilin, the temple housed no more than a hundred monks, most of them old, weak, or disabled, and most of the temple buildings were dilapidated.

The temple's guardian pagoda had half its foundation collapsed, and the spire above swayed precariously, as if it might come crashing down any day.

Alas, those who have left the world cannot escape the mortal dust, nor can they hide from the secular realm. Years of continuous warfare have brought suffering not only to the common people but equally to these monks.

Without the incense offerings of the faithful, where was the temple to find income? How could it support so many monks, let alone repair its buildings?

The temple had once owned a fair amount of farmland, but most of its original tenant farmers had either been conscripted as laborers by the Qing army or seized as laborers by the Ming army. Those who remained had mostly fled their homes to escape the chaos.

With no tenants to work the land, the monks naturally could not devote themselves to quiet cultivation.

So it was that the old monk Qilin's first task upon waking each morning was not chanting sutras or invoking the Buddha, but issuing instructions on which plot of land to water that day, which field to turn over, and sometimes even reminding the monks to fertilize the temple's vegetable garden...

Every day his mind was occupied not with Amitabha Buddha but with these worldly affairs he had once looked down upon and disdained to even glance at. It truly was hard on the old monk Qilin.

Fortunately, no matter how chaotic the world became, monks always had their ways of making a living and their ways of getting along.

As long as the temple did not meddle in outside affairs, did not yearn for throngs of believers, flourishing incense, and piles of offerings, it could still preserve its own safety.

After all, however fierce the soldiers were, most of them could not bring themselves to raise a blade against a monk.

Being advanced in years, the old monk Qilin had learned to take things in stride. Ming or Qing, whoever took the throne would have to govern the realm; since ancient times no one who took the throne had ever failed to govern it.

So although Ming and Qing were fighting back and forth outside right now — today you attack, tomorrow they strike — making a great fuss of it, once the greater situation was settled, could the soldiers keep fighting like that forever?

When the time came, life would go back to how it had always been. Otherwise, what was the point of conquering the realm in the first place!

As for whether the one sitting on the throne was Han or barbarian, the old monk did not think it mattered in the slightest. The Buddha himself was a barbarian, so what great difference did it make whether the Emperor was one too?

Monks should mind their own affairs. As long as the Buddha did not send down punishment, why trouble oneself over other matters?

Having heard from several monks who had gone out wandering that the Southern Ming was declining day by day and that the Qing's hold on the realm was all but certain, the old monk Qilin had made a point of cultivating good relations with Qing officials, and he strictly forbade the monks of the temple from having any contact with the Ming army.

If any were discovered, they were expelled at once, without the slightest leniency.

Not only that, at the beginning of the year the old monk had accepted an invitation from the County Magistrate of Xinhui to go to Xinhui city and perform a Buddhist rite to deliver the souls of the tens of thousands of innocent commoners who had died so wretchedly during the city's defense.

Although he knew perfectly well that those tens of thousands of commoners had been slaughtered by the Qing army defending the city, in the city the old monk had gnashed his teeth and furiously cursed the "old bandits," never once mentioning the Qing army.

Such an attitude, combined with the considerable fame of the old monk Qilin throughout Guangdong, drew the attention of the Governor-General's office in Guangzhou.

The newly appointed Governor-General Li had specifically mentioned Qilin's "righteous deed" in a memorial sent to Beijing, which left the old monk truly beside himself with excitement: that was a memorial from His Excellency the Governor-General sent to the capital, a memorial for the Qing Emperor's own eyes!

That a monk's name should pass beneath the imperial gaze — truly it was the Buddha's grace, and the merit of his ancestors.

In his excitement, Qilin, despite being nearly eighty, began considering whether he should make a trip to Guangzhou — on the one hand to thank His Excellency the Governor-General for his commendation, and on the other to take the opportunity to form a good connection with this newly appointed Governor-General.

Then, once the situation was settled, he could ask the Governor-General's office to help arrange for wealthy and prominent families to properly restore Yutai Temple.

After all, the temple's current condition was truly unacceptable — so broken-down and shabby that it was no fit place of quiet cultivation for monks.

People need fine clothes, and Buddhas need gilded statues. No matter how many sutras one chants or how much Buddhist doctrine one understands, in the end it cannot compare to letting the faithful see something impressive and practical.

The old monk Qilin understood this principle well. Who could have imagined that just as he was mulling over a trip to Guangzhou, disaster would suddenly befall him?

That day, the great mass of commoners and soldiers suddenly surging up from the foot of the mountain gave the old monk Qilin a terrible fright, and threw the temple's monks into a panic as well.

Before the monks could even open their mouths to ask, the soldiers who had fled up the mountain viciously herded them into the Great Hero Hall.

Then a man calling himself the Taiping Camp's Chief Commissary Officer, His Excellency Song, shamelessly announced to them that Yutai Temple was henceforth taken over by the Taiping Camp, that all monks in the temple were to be placed under centralized custody, and that all grain in the temple was to be handed over for the Taiping Camp's use.

Any who disobeyed, he declared, would see this pure Buddhist ground turned into ground soaked in blood!

Heaven-cursed bandits! Heaven-cursed Taiping Army! Heaven-cursed Commissary Song!

When he saw those bandit-like Taiping soldiers dig out the grain hidden in the temple, the old monk Qilin nearly fainted from sheer distress. Had his disciple not been quick-eyed and quick-handed in pounding his chest, he might well have "passed into nirvana" then and there.

When a scholar meets a soldier, reason cannot be made clear; when a monk meets a soldier, reason likewise cannot be made clear.

Faced with that shameless, utterly uncouth His Excellency Song, the monk Qilin could only swallow his bitterness in silence, not daring to offer the slightest resistance.

Yet watching his own territory occupied by a great mob of ragged, unruly commoners, and his own grain wolfed down by them, the old monk who had chanted sutras for decades and bowed before the Bodhisattva for decades could not resign himself to it.

What Song Xianggong wanted was the monks' honest cooperation, and he had no intention of harming these monks. After all, he too came from a scholarly background and always held a measure of respect for those who had left the world.

In the past, whenever he encountered a temple, he habitually went in to pay his respects and offer some incense money.

This time, had the situation not been so urgent, had the very survival of the rear camp not been at stake, he would not have treated the monks so rudely, nor would he have spoken harsh words to that kindly-faced, virtuous, and highly respected abbot.

The tiger has no intent to harm man, but man has the heart to kill the tiger.

Song Xianggong had no intent to kill the monks of Yutai Temple, but these monks fully intended to kill him!

On the second night after the Taiping Army's rear camp occupied Yutai Temple, a very unremarkable-looking young monk, taking advantage of a moment when the guarding security team members were not paying attention, quietly slipped out of the hall and, under cover of darkness, stole down the mountain by a little-known path behind the temple.

After descending the mountain, this young monk did not flee. Instead, he headed straight for the Qing army camp at the foot of the mountain.

Hidden against his body was a letter — a letter written in the abbot's own hand, by that kindly-faced, virtuous, and highly respected old monk Qilin, so renowned among the faithful of Guangdong, addressed to the Qing army's commander.