Chapter 661: White Lotus Temple in the Zhongnan Mountains

Zhang Liecheng and Zhang Lieming scrambled away in a panic.

Jiao Jixun departed full of gratitude, now even more convinced that Zhang Zhao was a sage ruler; a matter that should have stirred up towering waves had been let go so lightly.

But Zhang Zhao had not actually let it go as lightly as he claimed.

How could that be possible? Zhang Zhao was no Jiaqing; that lord had nearly been stabbed to death by a cook at the Gate of Divine Might, and afterward could only retreat to the inner palace and weep in terror — a rare sight through the ages.

Besides, what lay behind this affair was by no means simple; it was no mere chance incident like the Jiaqing assassination attempt.

Zhang Zhao's outward calm was because he could not afford to fall into the trap.

If he let this matter ignite his fury and began a purge in the army and at court, that would be exactly what those hidden in the shadows wanted.

At best it would disrupt the Zhou's rhythm of unifying the realm; at worst it would trigger a great struggle between the Hexi-Longyou faction and the Central Plains-Hedong-Daibei faction.

But that did not mean Zhang Zhao would not investigate; it only meant the matter had to be handled in the manner of "enter the village quietly, no firing of guns."

The one thing Zhang Zhao could not figure out was why the other side, when they could have sent a few assassins to settle it once and for all, had instead sent an old, kindly monk who could not kill anyone.

And from this arose another question: did this Master Cixian truly have no political sensitivity whatsoever, or was he deliberately playing dumb to warn Zhang Zhao?

What a complicated question! Just thinking about it gave one a headache.

Zhang Zhao racked his brains for a long while with no clue; in truth he was not much good at scheming and intrigue — it had been so before he crossed over, and it was so after. He summoned Li Gu and Zhao Pu precisely because he wanted such men to give him some inspiration.

But the result somewhat disappointed Zhang Zhao. Li Gu was not one of his original followers, and there were some things Zhang Zhao did not quite dare say too plainly to him.

Everything Zhao Pu had came from Zhang Zhao, so he could be used without worry; moreover, historically he was a master of scheming and intrigue. But at present he was too green — he had the will but not the strength.

After a few words with the two that could not touch the root of the matter, Zhang Zhao appointed Li Gu as Surveillance Commissioner of Guanzhong Province and Tongguan Defense Commissioner, ordering him to rush to Tongguan to take up its defense.

As for the current Tongguan Defense Commissioner Wu Xingde, Zhang Zhao planned to transfer him to attack the Shu kingdom.

Because compared to Wu Xingde, Li Gu at least had a historical reputation for loyalty and righteousness, and in the operation to bring back Shi Chonggui he had proven his vision and ability.

As for Wu Xingde, although he had risen in arms to answer Zhang Zhao and driven out and killed the Khitans before the great Zhou-Liao battle at Luoyang, and had rendered no small merit in the battle of Luoyang,

he was after all a native of Hedong and Taiyuan, a man who had risen through Shi Jingtang's favor, and a representative of the Daibei-Hedong faction.

With such a background, whether or not he had any problem, and whether or not Zhang Zhao trusted him, he certainly had to be replaced immediately.

Only by first using Li Gu to control Tongguan, the gateway in and out of Guanzhong, and securing the connection between Guanzhong, Luoyang, and Kaifeng, could Zhang Zhao feel at ease.

As for Zhao Pu, Zhang Zhao also ordered him to return to Luoyang at once to assist Zhang Liecheng in a large-scale screening of the personal army and part of the imperial guard.

Zhang Zhao suddenly realized a problem: today he had frightened Zhang Liecheng badly, or rather the near-assassination itself had scared Zhang Liecheng out of his wits.

In such a state, Zhang Liecheng might well be unable to contain the fire in his heart, and his actions might exceed the bounds Zhang Zhao had set.

And although Zhao Pu was still somewhat immature in politics and intrigue, he could speak with Zhang Liecheng and knew Zhang Zhao's requirements very clearly, so going to Luoyang to assist Zhang Liecheng in secretly gathering intelligence was just right.

He had just finished making arrangements when a palace attendant came in to report that Luo Yu'er had already arrived outside the mountain gate of Xiangji Temple with two thousand elite troops from Changguo Garrison.

Zhang Zhao's heart immediately settled a great deal. Luo Yu'er was one of his original one hundred and eight followers, and one of the fifteen more capable members of the original-follower faction; whether in loyalty or ability, he could be trusted.

Moreover, having long garrisoned Chang'an under Cao Yuanzhong, he was familiar with conditions in Guanzhong, and the fact that he could move out on receiving the order proved that Chang'an Garrison and the rest of Guanzhong had seen no unusual movement.

At the same time, that Luo Yu'er with two thousand men could easily approach Xiangji Temple also proved that the power behind sending Master Cixian did not yet have the ability to use armed force against the court.

More importantly, it at least proved that his father-in-law Cao Yuanzhong had no problem whatsoever.

And this matter also made Zhang Zhao realize that since he had chosen the fifty thousand households of the personal army and the eighty thousand households of the imperial guard as the state's main military force at this stage, he must necessarily add a corresponding political vetting mechanism.

At the very least, he must prevent people like An Sizhong from ever again appearing in critical positions.

Secondly, the selection mechanism for the fifty thousand households of the personal army and the eighty thousand households of the imperial guard was still somewhat rigid; the earlier entry standards had been too crude, resulting in a mix of good and bad.

And after these one hundred thirty thousand households had completed the selection of seventy thousand, the conditions for later entrants had become far too harsh.

Zhang Zhao recalled the hundred-odd brave men recommended to him by the thirty-three Guanzhong patrol inspectors before Zhang Yichao's tomb; clearly, by their own qualifications, they were all eligible to enter the imperial guard or even the personal army.

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Yet under the current selection mechanism, for them to be successfully selected would take at least seven or eight years of struggle.

Considering the medical conditions of this era and the dangers of the battlefield, that probability was still too low; some fine-tuning had to be made.

South of Chang'an, deep in the Zhongnan Mountains, there was a small temple called White Lotus Temple.

It lay deep in the Zhongnan Mountains; though not exactly untrodden by man, apart from hunters from nearby villages, only a few common households lived there.

White Lotus Temple was even more desolate, with only a dozen or so monks, who ordinarily lived off a few acres of thin fields opened up around the temple; apart from buying salt, sugar, sauce, and other daily necessities, the monks rarely even went down the mountain.

This manner of conduct did not much resemble monks, but rather those Daoist recluses who withdrew from the world to cultivate.

Moreover, recently the roar of tigers had often shaken the ridges of the Zhongnan Mountains; even the authorities had posted notices, and nearby hunters had all begun avoiding this area.

In the somewhat dilapidated Great Hero Hall, a faded statue of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva somehow seemed to carry a hint of ferocity.

A dozen or so meditation cushions were laid out in the hall, and on each cushion sat a person with a different expression; though all wore gray monk's robes, clearly not all of them were members of the Buddhist clergy.

"They say the north has many heroes; now that I see it, I know that saying is a great falsehood. Since you could get a face-to-face with that enemy of the Buddha, why send only an old monk, and not use brave warriors with strong bows and crossbows to kill him? Are all the men of the north afraid to die?"

Among the crowd, on the leftmost cushion, a big man in monk's robes but wearing a net cap, gaunt-faced yet extraordinarily brawny, roared out his displeasure at the top of his lungs.

After speaking, he looked around the circle as if daring anyone to answer back, ready to fight them on the spot.

When the big man finished, a short, fat man kneeling beside him, who looked very much like a traveling merchant, spoke up.

"Master Fazhi, I said long ago we should have waited for Second Brother Li to arrive before making any plans. This time we've startled the snake in the grass, and we'll never again have such a good opportunity."

"Hmph!" As soon as the short fat man's words fell, a burly man with curly hair, a dark face, and a pockmarked complexion spoke in a sarcastic tone: "This Li Erlang, I fear, takes that Sage in Xiangji Temple for some petty rural landlord from Huaibei.

Still talking about strong bows and crossbows to strike the king and slay the sovereign. Hmph! The whole of Xiangji Temple is surrounded so tightly by ten thousand personal troops that not even water could leak through. Never mind bows and crossbows — even with a staff, no matter how heaven-reaching your abilities, you could not get close.

If not for someone of Master Cixian's standing, even if someone could remove the last sentry post, you still could not get through the mountain gate — so what use would it be?"

"I had thought the world-famous Yan Kunlun was a true man who could stand between heaven and earth; I never expected he'd be one to fear hardship and shrink from difficulty."

The sarcastic speaker's features were too distinctive; any fighting man could recognize him at a glance, and so although Li Erlang was seeing him for the first time, he could call out his identity in one breath.

"You brat! You dare show off before this old man? You don't think that by spouting a few impassioned words you can get this old man to do the head-losing deed, do you?

Since you, Li Renshu, are so brave, and that man in Xiangji Temple is returning to Chang'an tomorrow, this old man will give you a two-dan-five crossbow — why don't you go try it?"

Good heavens — the curly-haired, dark-faced, pockmarked man seated at the head was none other than Murong Yanchao, Liu Zhiyuan's half-brother by the same mother, who had successfully slipped away right under the Zhou army's nose.

And this ill-spoken Second Brother Li was none other than Li Renshu, the Huaibei bandit whom Zhang Zhao had been ordering his men to track down.

Poor Zhao Kuangzan was still scouring Xuzhou for him, but no one imagined that Li Renren, who had run rampant across Huaibei, was not from Huaibei at all.

His ancestors were from Tongzhou in Guanzhong, men who had followed Gao Pian to Huainan, and he could speak the Guanzhong dialect that in Zhang Zhou's realm was practically a passport — he had long since slipped out of Huaibei.

"Namo Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva! You two would do well to cease this war of words."

A Buddhist invocation rang out, and a lean old monk looked at Li Renren and spoke.

"Li Danyue, if any harm came to the people of Xiangji Temple, it would be no blessing to the world, and certainly no blessing to the faithful of my Buddha.

We have gathered here to dispel calamity and relieve suffering for all under heaven. If we can only make him see that one cannot defy Heaven's course, that alone will be a great merit for us."

"Quite so! Quite so! The Sage did render service by opening the trade routes and founding the Money House Association. So long as the Money House Association can be restored to what it was, we will not commit any act of rebellion against our sovereign."

"True enough! Sage Zhang can still be counted a wise lord — except that Six Laws Sect is truly absurd!"

Li Renren was so furious his eyes blazed. He glared bitterly at the atmosphere in the great hall, which had somehow turned genial and conciliatory.

In his rage, Li Renren abruptly stood and strode toward the door. "Cowards are not worth plotting with! Wait until Zhang the traitor slaughters every last one of you!"

As Li Renren rose and left, the two fierce-looking attendants behind him also got to their feet.

These two were the personal escorts of Liu Renzhan, Military Governor of the Qinghuai Army of Shouzhou in the Southern Tang. Without Liu Renzhan, whose reach in Huainan extended to both heaven and earth, Li Renren could not have so easily evaded the Zhou army's manhunt.

And the reason Liu Renzhan had sent men to take part in such a gathering was, in truth, that Zhang Zhao had forced his hand.

Zhang Zhao had seized He Jingzhu, which he himself seemed to think was no great matter — but to Liu Renzhan it was nothing less than five thunderbolts crashing upon his head.

If Zhang Zhao dared carry off He Jingzhu today, and the Southern Tang court did not dare utter a word, then tomorrow Liu Renzhan's entire family might be carried off.

Moreover, with the Southern Tang's situation growing ever more wretched, Liu Renzhan — son of Liu Jin, a founding hero of the Southern Tang, and one of its "shareholders" — could no longer sit idly by.

Li Renren and his two companions had only just left when several more men hurried after them, led by a grim-faced fellow who clasped his hands in a formal bow.

"Li Erlang of Huaibei is a true hero indeed. The bald donkeys in the hall still cling to their fantasies, but we do not.

Please go back and report: Military Governor Zhao and Military Governor Li are already prepared. If the bald donkeys of Guanzhong and Henan dare not act, then we shall simply choose another place."

In the hall, a resolute-faced middle-aged monk sighed softly, then walked toward the rear hall.

In a quiet chamber at the back, the curly-haired, dark-faced Dharma Master Cixian was translating the Vajra-Shattering Dharani Sutra into Khitan script. Hearing footsteps behind him, he did not turn around.

For the only person who could enter this quiet chamber freely, unhindered by his Khitan disciples outside, was the monk Yanshou from Qianyue, whom he greatly admired.

"Your disciple Yanshou wishes to ask the master a question," the middle-aged monk Yanshou said softly, in the Heluo refined speech with a Wuyue accent.

Only then did Dharma Master Cixian turn his head. He handed Yanshou a thin booklet, on whose title page were written the words "Compendium of Imperial Script Sound-Training Methods."

"I have heard that this is a sound-training method composed by Sage Zhang under divine inspiration. I, a humble monk from India, was able to speak refined speech within a month through this method. Junior brother, being a man of the Central Lands, should master it even more quickly."

Hearing Dharma Master Cixian's Heluo refined speech, so flawlessly precise, Yanshou — who had not felt embarrassment in a long while — actually felt a twinge of shame. He reached out and took the booklet.

"Many thanks for the gift, senior brother."

Since Dharma Master Cixian had affectionately addressed him as junior brother, Yanshou no longer addressed Cixian as "Dharma Master" or "Elder."

"Sage Shaoming is as immovable as a mountain. Cixian has traveled through India, Transoxiana, the Central Lands, and even the great deserts beyond the frontier, and never have I seen a man so completely in command of his own emotions. Compared to Sage Shaoming, this humble monk's composure seems to fall far short.

Stranger still, when he looked at me, it was as though he were looking at a clay statue standing in a great hall.

Yet when I looked at Sage Shaoming, it seemed I could see my own birth and death, my own rise and extinction, in his eyes. That feeling was exceedingly strange."

As he spoke, the ordinarily composed Dharma Master Cixian suddenly began to feel as though his body itched all over. At first he twisted gently, but after a while his movements quickened, and the pace of his speech quickened too.

In his mind he kept recalling the strange look Zhang Zhao had given him, until for a moment he seemed possessed.

"Namo Amitabha!" Monk Yanshou suddenly intoned the Buddha's name in a clear cry, then struck the plain-faced golden alms bowl on the table with a sharp ring.

This monk was no ordinary man either — he was one of the thirteen patriarchs of the Pure Land school in history, and the invocation "Amitabha" was his creation.

Dharma Master Cixian, as though waking violently from a nightmare, started awake, his head of short curly hair drenched in sweat.

In that instant, Dharma Master Cixian understood why his fellow monks of the Central Lands, faced with Sage Shaoming's unsurpassed heavenly might, were not so much afraid of that as of his control over the Buddhist Money House and other worldly interests.

Because the doctrines of the Six Laws Sect were not easily accepted by the people of the Central Lands, but they were perfectly suited to Transoxiana, India, and the like.

He truly did wish that Zhang Zhao would push the Six Laws Sect back into India — but Zhang Zhao had refused outright.

"Junior brother, you had best return to Wuyue. This humble monk must also return to the Khitan."

All at once, Dharma Master Cixian lost all interest in this so-called great assembly to save Buddhism, convened by his fellow monks of the Central Plains.

Yanshou nodded. The head monks, elders, and great worthies of temples such as Daxiangguo Temple looked like eminent monks, but they were better described as fat-bellied merchants.

They claimed to be planning for Buddhism's future, but in truth it was all about profit.

Yanshou decided to leave. As for the matter entrusted to him by Hu Jinsi, Lord Hu, it seemed it could not be accomplished.

As a proper monk and a proper philosopher, a legitimate man of religion like Yanshou was destined never to walk the same path as the greasy monks of Daxiangguo Temple, who lent money at usury and sold fatty pork.

At the same time, Murong Yanchao in the hall had also sunk into deep thought.

He looked around. Zhao Zaili of Weizhou had lost everything in the new dynasty, and gathered around Zhao Zaili were the Hebei yabing guards who, for various reasons, had failed to be selected for the imperial guard and the personal armies.

These men, once the local lords of Hebei, had suffered grievously when the new dynasty was established.

Because Hebei had been ravaged by the Khitans several times, the only ones who could survive were local strongmen like them, who held the sword-hilts.

Sage Shaoming had given only the families and local strongmen connected to Fu Yanqing, Gao Xingzhou, and Huangfu Yu the chance to keep their power. The rest naturally hated the new dynasty to the bone.

Li Ye was Liu Zhiyuan's brother-in-law. When Liu Zhiyuan was defeated, he lost everything, and gathered around him were yabing guards and even mountain bandits and brigands from the Hedong faction who had likewise lost everything.

The Hedong Tuyuhun men around him were there because they resented Zhang Zhao's forcing them to convert to the Six Laws Sect.

These men, their heads addled by Buddhism, would not even heed the recruitment of their own royal clan member Murong Xinzhang, and single-mindedly regarded Sage Shaoming as an enemy of the Buddha.

As for the Huaibei bandit Li Renren, he was the representative of those in Huaibei and Huainan who had suffered enormous losses under the new dynasty's land equalization — and of course he had the support of Southern Tang generals like Liu Renzhan and Huangfu Hui.

The Buddhist establishment of the Central Plains had chosen rebellion because Zhang Zhao had wiped out the Buddhist Money House they had so painstakingly built, and because they feared that once Zhang Zhao was firmly established, he would use the opportunity to suppress the Buddhism of the Central Lands.

No — this could not even be called rebellion! Murong Yanchao let out a long sigh. They wanted to rebel but lacked the nerve to strike hard, so they made these half-hearted, self-defeating moves.

Could they really succeed?

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