Chapter 415: Zhang Erlang, the Manifest Sage and True Lord

To wait for the scholars traveling from Qinzhou to Liangzhou for the examinations, Fan Zhi stayed five extra days in Qinzhou.

And during those five days, new edicts kept arriving from Liangzhou.

All scholars traveling to Liangzhou for the examinations could freely use government mules and horses as transport, and the post stations along the way would provide food and lodging — not only on the way there, but also on the way back.

But even so, those willing to go to Liangzhou for the examinations were still few, because many people worried the authorities would not keep their word.

After all, the round trip was eleven or twelve hundred li; if the food and lodging were not reimbursed, it would be hard for an ordinary family to bear.

Fan Zhi nodded to himself at the side. It seemed this Liang state of Great King Zhang was not as strong as it appeared on the surface; at the very least, at the grassroots level, it had not yet established full authority and trust.

The people obeyed ordinary laws and decrees, but in matters closely tied to their own interests, they still could not give complete trust.

Of course, this was still far better than the Jin state in the Central Plains. The Central Plains had been torn by decades of continuous warfare, and between officials and the people there was, one could say, no trust at all.

The Liang state's situation could only be said to be somewhat worse than Meng Shu, Southern Tang, and Qian Yue, but still higher than the Central Plains.

And once the examination scholars had gathered, Fan Zhi gained a new understanding.

Because the scholars from Qinzhou going to take the examinations numbered a full one hundred and thirty. The number looked large, but in fact martial candidates testing in spear and staff, bow and crossbow, and horsemanship accounted for a full one hundred and ten — an absolute majority.

Of the remaining twenty, fourteen were plainly country farmers at a glance; they were testing in the agriculture subject.

The remaining literary scholars numbered only a mere six, and not a single one was in the Classics subject. Of the four, three were in mathematics and one in policy essays.

One must understand that in the Liang state, this Qinzhou, which Zhang Zhao had extorted from Shi Jingtang, was already the wealthiest prefecture outside Liangzhou and Lanzhou, and in literary culture it was the foremost flourishing great prefecture.

If Qinzhou was like this, the other prefectures could well be imagined.

Sure enough, after the group passed through Qinzhou and reached Weizhou, the Weizhou examination candidates numbered sixty-seven, of whom sixty-three were martial athletes, and for literary studies there was only one old scholar going to test in mathematics.

Fan Zhi gave them a small test and was left dumbstruck. This level was not even up to that of his thirteen-year-old younger brother Fan Zheng.

Liu Tao's father Liu Ne was also dumbstruck, though he was not mainly shocked by the level of Confucian learning in Hexi, but astonished that an old farmer who tilled his fields well could also sit the imperial examinations.

"How can there be, under heaven, a way to obtain official rank merely by farming? If so, what dignity would official status still have?"

After passing Weizhou, they entered Didao, and after traveling a little over thirty li, they reached the border of Lanzhou.

The Lanzhou of this time was completely different from what Fan Zhi had seen when he came three years earlier.

Last time he came, although there had been several dozen Guiyi Army cavalry escorting him, large numbers of Lanzhou Wenmo bandit riders had constantly harassed and intercepted them.

Once, several hundred bandit riders had even used a diversion tactic and nearly broken through to cut Fan Zhi and his party down.

So the moment he entered Lanzhou, Fan Zhi tensed up as if from reflex.

But for Liu Ne and the others, who were coming for the first time, Lanzhou gave them a very good impression.

The post roads were straight, with signs of maintenance visible everywhere; on both sides fields stretched in neat plots, cattle and sheep crowded the roads — a scene of prosperity.

The group traveled about ten li, tired and thirsty, and at last caught sight of a small town.

The town was called Changcheng Fort. Originally it had been a military fort controlling the route between Lanzhou and Weizhou, but after the Tibetans occupied it, it had been abandoned.

And once Zhang Zhao had unified Hexi and Longyou, Changcheng Fort was rebuilt.

After the rebuilding, however, its military function had greatly declined; instead, a small town of more than a hundred households had formed around the military fort.

The town's head official was the squad commander of the Changcheng Fort garrison, who was also the county lieutenant of Didao County.

The group had just drawn near when they heard gongs and drums clamoring inside the town — a great bustle, lively indeed.

The county lieutenant, seeing that these were scholars from Qinzhou and Weizhou coming for the examinations, hurried over to invite them to observe the ceremony.

It turned out that Lanzhou was closer to Liangzhou, and those testing in agriculture had already finished; those who had received honorary rank were now celebrating.

Only then did Fan Zhi learn what this agriculture subject established by Great King Zhang was actually for.

Unlike the Classics and other subjects, where the numbers were too small and required all the scholars of the Liang state to test together to create an atmosphere,

and unlike the military examination, where rankings could be determined and everyone had to wait to compete together,

the agriculture subject's assessment was very simple: mastery of the four seasons and eight solar terms, proficiency in seed selection and breeding, how to interplant various crops, vegetables, and fruits for maximum yield, how to enrich the soil, and the repair and use of farming tools.

All of these could be quantified, there was no question of leaked exam topics, and the determination of whether one passed was very clear, so the agriculture examination was quite simple.

Moreover, those who passed the agriculture examination did not start as high as those from the civil or military examinations. Zhang Zhao had designed a scoring standard: those above the cutoff line passed, and after passing, the starting rank was generally the Chengxin Lang of the ninth rank, lower grade.

This low-level military officer received a few bolts of cloth, two hundred jin of millet, and a small amount of salt, sugar, and tea each year.

The greatest benefit was obtaining official status; after returning to one's home village, one's standing was naturally far higher than that of ordinary farmers, and many could also concurrently serve as village elders or ward heads.

The main task was to teach and spread one's farming skills to the surrounding farming households.

Each Chengxin Lang was generally responsible for teaching as few as seventy or eighty households and as many as over a hundred; every year there was also an evaluation based on the per-mu yields of the households taught.

Every year during the farming off-season, the Chengxin Lang of each region would gather by prefecture to exchange experience, arrange the farming calendar, and coordinate the distribution of plow oxen and water sources.

Of course, these were the most basic passers. In addition, there were two cases in which the Chengjie Lang and Baoyi Lang of the ninth rank, upper grade, could be conferred.

Among them, the Baoyi Lang also carried the title of Doctor of Agriculture, and the grain, cloth, salt, tea, and sugar received each year far exceeded that of the Chengxin Lang of the ninth rank, lower grade.

But the precondition was that they could not return to their native places; they had to wait for selection by the Ministry of Personnel and then be assigned to areas where Han and non-Han lived together, to teach agriculture.

A man away from home is cheap; even going to serve as an official is no easy matter, let alone in a post that is not even a formal official position.

Changcheng Fort was bustling today precisely because three Doctors of Agriculture there were about to be assigned to nearby Hezhou, to teach the Qiang people how to farm.

Fan Zhi glanced at the Qiang chieftain who had come to receive these three Doctors of Agriculture, and could not help breaking into a cold sweat for them.

These Qiang wore thick fur robes and carried long stiff bows on their backs — bows that at a glance were clearly not for ordinary hunting, but for killing men on the battlefield.

One of the Qiang headmen had several crisscrossing knife scars on his face, and the web of his right hand bore a thick layer of calluses; a yellow sheep of twenty or thirty jin hung in his hand as lightly as a chicken.

Fan Zhi had already begun imagining it in his mind: one frail farmer after another, assigned to Qiang tribes as savage as tigers and wolves.

What fate awaited them, he wondered? Probably they could die and no one would ever know.

Liu Ne, who not long before had been indignant that Zhang Zhao had created the agriculture subject and lowered the dignity of officials, also felt a pang of sympathy.

To be cast away into the wilds was, for any Han person, a calamity that could be called utter ruin.

"Clang!"

A great bronze gong sounded. Fan Zhi and the others looked toward the source of the sound and saw a majestic wooden deity statue being carried out by a crowd of soldiers.

Before the divine image, more than ten monks in black robes chanted Buddhist invocations at the front, while many common folk around them burned incense and knelt in worship.

Fan Zhi studied the divine image carefully. It was a heavenly deity in armor, holding a strange three-pointed, double-edged blade, with a hawk on his arm and hounds at his side.

The most peculiar feature was a vertical eye in the middle of his forehead, and his countenance was dignified and full of majesty.

Only... Fan Zhi looked more closely and could not shake the feeling that the golden armor on this divine image was so very familiar.

As for the face — ah! If one ignored that vertical eye, it actually bore six or seven parts resemblance to Great King Zhang.

Suddenly, Fan Zhi turned back to look. The dozen or so Qiang chieftains, upon seeing this divine image, immediately dropped to their knees and pressed their heads into the muddy ground, utterly devout. Gone was the hawk-eyed, wolf-gazing, untamed arrogance of just moments before.

"The Supreme Heavenly Great Compassion Dharma King Bodhisattva. The Pure Source Wondrous Way Manifest Sage Erlang True Lord."

These were the black characters on the purple banners held aloft by two monks beside the divine image. Liu Tao's father, Liu Ne, read them aloud softly.

In an instant he was stunned. This title, half Buddhist and half Daoist, was deeply meaningful!

That was right — Zhang Zhao, Great King Zhang, was now elevating his own divinity and seizing the identity of Erlang Shen.

The worship of Erlang Shen at this time, from Sichuan to Gansu and on to Qinghai, was in fact already very widespread, and even existed now in Guanzhong. Later generations generally held that it had three origins.

The Li Erlang theory: Erlang Shen was the second son of Li Bing, builder of Dujiangyan, or perhaps Li Bing himself.

The Zhao Erlang theory: Erlang Shen was the sword immortal Zhao Yu of Qingcheng Mountain in Shu.

The Yang Erlang theory: the Erlang Shen we know best, who split the mountain to rescue his mother.

But none of these three theories held at this time.

The Li Erlang theory had not yet taken shape.

Zhao Erlang was something the students sent to the Five Nations City had concocted to gild their own faces.

To put it plainly, this Zhao Erlang was Emperor Huizong of Song using himself as the model, a product of his own fantasy.

Yang Erlang, for his part, was mainly born in the Ming dynasty and would not come into being for several hundred more years.

Yet the worship of Erlang Shen was already extremely widespread at this time. After frequent investigation, Zhang Zhao found that the accurate origins numbered two and a half.

The first was the vertical-eye worship of the ancient Shu kingdom. Such divine images were later unearthed at Sanxingdui, and they were likely the ancient Shu people's worship of their leaders.

It very likely originated in the Can Cong and Yu Fu period. Only because the Can Cong and Yu Fu period was too remote, it gradually became anthropomorphized onto the son of Li Bing, who was associated with water.

The second originated in the vertical-eye worship of the Di and Qiang peoples. This was likely the ancient Di and Qiang peoples' worship and fantasy of their heroic ancestors, and by now it had gradually been anthropomorphized onto Yang Nandang, king of the Later Chouchi state.

The third source counted only as half, and was likely due to Buddhist influence.

At this time Buddhism had a Buddha named Dujian, whose image was exactly that of a vertical eye. He was the second son of Vaishravana, and thus also an Erlang.

There were also two circulating tales from the Tianbao era — that Dujian manifested to protect Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, and that he protected the Great Tang's Western Regions. These were probably promoted by Buddhist monks as embellishments, so they could count as roughly half.

Once he had some leisure, Zhang Zhao instantly seized upon this widespread Erlang Shen worship. He, Zhang Erlang, was also an Erlang!

Moreover, by now in Hexi and Longyou, the legend had already begun to spread that Zhang Erlang had been granted golden armor by Heaven at the mountain stronghold.

Qi Xiahu in particular bragged to everyone he met, saying that on that night at his stronghold, Heaven had granted Zhang Zhao golden armor and divine weapons, and had even sent down heavenly thunder to aid Zhang Zhao in single-handedly slaying the horse bandits of the Geduo tribe.

Bai Congxin, Qiongre Duojin, Huang Yingda, and the others who had personally experienced it also began to praise it with all their might, saying they had been defeated by Zhang Zhao possessed by Erlang Shen.

And the Buddhist establishment of Hexi, at Zhang Zhao's hint, also began to add fuel to the fire, because they wanted to enter the Qingtang Plateau and the lands north of the Altai Mountains to spread the faith.

Thus in no more than two or three months, the rumor that the Dharma King Bodhisattva was Erlang the True God had swept across the entire Liang kingdom.

Amid the clamor of drums and music, the county lieutenant of Gangu County swaggered up and stood before the dozen or so Qiang chieftains.

"The Dharma King Bodhisattva, moved by your sincerity and at the entreaty of the great masters of Black Cliff Monastery, has bestowed this golden-bodied divine image. After you return, it will bless your tribes with thriving livestock.

These three doctors of agronomy have received the Dharma King Bodhisattva's guidance. The farming techniques they teach are divinely bestowed arts, and you must study them well.

When next year's grain and rice harvest is abundant, do not forget to report the good news to the Dharma King Bodhisattva!"

The Qiang chieftains could not suppress their wild joy. When they raised their heads, every face was etched with submission and the delight of being favored by the gods.

When they looked at the three gaunt doctors of agronomy, their faces too were full of respect.

"Rest assured, honored official. We will certainly study hard, and this autumn's harvest we will surely go to Liangzhou to report the good news!"

"This... can this really work?" Fan Zhi's entire worldview shattered.

As a Confucian scholar who kept the spirits at a respectful distance, he had not expected Great King Zhang to ascend to godhood in the flesh so quickly, and he felt thoroughly ill at ease.

"Work! Of course it works!" Liu Tao's father, Liu Ne, on the other hand, was energized.

"What a brilliant stratagem! If he can make these million Di and Qiang people revere him as a deity, then great things are possible. I see the Great King is about to accomplish something grand!"

"It's a pity there are too few men of letters!" Fan Zhi's thirteen-year-old younger brother, Fan Zheng, already understood a few things.

He felt that everything about the Liang kingdom was good, except that the proportion of military men seemed far too high.

"Few is good! You cannot conquer the realm by relying on the civil. Only the more armored soldiers there are, the greater the deeds that can be accomplished.

And is it not precisely because there are so few scholars that our opportunity has come? I am but fifty-one; perhaps I can still show my mettle!"

Liu Ne was now thoroughly excited. He felt that restless heart of his come alive once more.

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