Chapter 869: Corn, Sweet Potatoes, and Chili Peppers

With locals to guide the way, Master Cixian's party traveled much faster, mainly because everyone's minds were far more at ease.

Moreover, these captives they had taken were clearly people who had received simple instruction in the Dharma.

This showed that Master Yanshou, who had set sail more than two years before them, had also reached the Eastern Body Continent just as they had, and had furthermore won over and civilized a certain number of the local descendants of the Yin people.

This gave everyone hope: as long as they found Master Yanshou, they would surely discover traces of the four supreme Buddhist treasures — or perhaps Master Yanshou had already found them.

However, the one thing that struck Helian Hailong as strange was that the farther south they went, the drier the land became; even by the sea, barren gobi appeared where not a blade of grass grew.

No one else thought this unusual. Only Zhao Hutou furrowed his brow. He walked onto a stretch of sand, tried hard to recall something, and drew and scribbled for a while, then shook his head and sighed.

If he remembered correctly, they should now be south of Gold Mountain, on the arid peninsula desert the Sage had spoken of — a peninsula with little rainfall and sparse vegetation, and they would soon reach its end.

This was in completely the opposite direction from the gold-rich Gold Mountain region the Sage had marked, and from the prosperous Shengzhou (Mexico).

Yet these captive guides genuinely seemed to know the way, and Zhao Hutou could see no reason at all why they would need to deceive them.

The two sides had cooperated seamlessly the whole journey: the guides led them to water sources and to herds of wild cattle and packs of wolves in the gobi, and very thoughtfully helped the one warship still able to sail find harbors where it could anchor.

Just yesterday, the two sides had even worked together in a surprise raid on a tribe of savages, seizing a small amount of strange dry flatbread, some smoked meat, and most importantly, salt.

This situation left Zhao Hutou utterly bewildered. He even began to suspect that after all the hardships at sea, he could no longer clearly remember the Sage's instructions.

The Baja California peninsula was actually not short at all. Counting from Gold Mountain, it was a full four thousand li — farther than from Chengdu to Xi'an.

Fortunately, the group did not have to travel that far. After roughly thirty days and sixteen or seventeen hundred li, the journey came to an end.

This threw Zhao Hutou's mind into even greater confusion!

Because the Sage had told him that this Gold Mountain peninsula was all arid gobi, yet now, amid the cheers of the native guides, what appeared before everyone's eyes was a lush, verdant hill country.

Rivers threaded through it, wild beasts of every size roamed at ease, and from tents scattered in the distance, hundreds of descendants of the Yin people came pouring out.

This was not what the Sage had said at all!

Well — it was already impressive that Zhang Zhao could remember that the Baja California peninsula was a fairly dry peninsula. How could he have known the fine detail that it was wet in the north and south and dry in the middle?

But though his mind was in turmoil, his wits were not clouded. Zhao Hutou raised a hand, and Zhao Siwan, shoulder to shoulder with him, led twenty-odd armored warriors with spears into formation, while Helian Hailong led several dozen crossbowmen into a fan-shaped firing array.

But then, in the next moment, everyone relaxed their guard, because these charging Yin barbarians were actually carrying a large swastika banner on a silver-white field. What it represented was already perfectly clear.

And after the barbarians arrived, they made no move to attack. Instead, they collectively knelt and sat at a short distance, ceaselessly bowing to Master Cixian and chanting strange-sounding sutras that could still just barely be understood.

"Are they chanting the Great Compassion Dharma King's Heart Mantra?" Fayan listened carefully and suddenly recognized it. Though the pronunciation was somewhat off, the melody was right.

Facing the worship of a dense crowd of several hundred barbarians, Master Cixian could not help but feel a shiver run through him.

Although he had received such treatment in the past when he went to the Khitan, the Khitan had already been a Buddhist nation before him; he had merely strengthened that faith.

But now, these were barbarians from tens of thousands of li away, who had suddenly become devout believers of Buddhism. In an instant, Master Cixian felt heaven and earth widen before him.

Heart demons, sectarian disputes — all of it receded completely, like the ordeals on the waters of the vast sea. Now he wanted only to remain here and draw every barbarian into the embrace of the Buddha and the Supreme Heaven.

The monk Fayan and the others beside Master Cixian were even more stirred. In this age, Confucianism, which had been pounded into the ground by Buddhist learning for over a thousand years, had finally welcomed its first revival.

Confucianism had boldly absorbed the essence of Buddhism — compassion, self-cultivation toward enlightenment, logical inquiry, and the like — and under Confucianism's all-embracing breadth, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism had begun to merge.

So for a Han monk like Fayan, he had the wish to spread the Dharma, but what rose even more strongly in his heart was the Confucian impulse of education without distinction and the civilizing of all peoples.

Never mind religious figures like Cixian and Fayan — even rough soldiers like Zhao Siwan, Zhao Hutou, and Helian Hailong felt an immense pride rise in their hearts at the sight of several hundred people bowing in worship.

Suddenly, a strange ox-horn sounded, and in the distance came a procession bearing banners of many colors, the barbarians in it clustering around a white Eastern Continent wild ox as it walked forward.

When they drew near, a few gong-strikes rang out, and the sound of Buddhist chanting suddenly rose. Only then did everyone see that on the back of the white Eastern Continent wild ox sat a monk with palms pressed together — and he looked very familiar.

"Fa — Faming, junior brother? You're junior brother Faming!" Monk Fayan suddenly shouted. Wasn't that, on the white ox's back, none other than Faming, disciple of the great master Yanshou?

"Senior brother Fayan! It really is you who have come, senior brother Fayan!"

Monk Faming had also finally made out who the people before him were. In one bound he leaped down from the white ox, tears streaming from his eyes.

"We've found Great Master Yanshou and his people — they really did make it!" The hundred-odd survivors of the fleet could not help but cheer. Even a madman like Zhao Siwan had an excited look on his face.

After gripping Monk Fayan's hands for a few seconds, Monk Faming immediately dashed several flying steps over to Master Cixian.

He stared in astonishment at the pine-cone-like hairstyle atop Master Cixian's head, then at once prostrated himself on the ground and cried out loudly:

"Disciple Faming respectfully welcomes the envoy of the Supreme Heaven's Wheel-Turning Great Dharma King, the great worthy Cixian, to the Eastern Body Continent!"

Well now — Master Cixian had not only become an envoy, but had even been given the title "great worthy," a term that was fast becoming exclusive to the Six Dharma Sect.

Master Cixian smiled faintly. Naturally, he would not quibble with Monk Faming at a moment like this; this scene might as well have been arranged especially for him.

At once, Master Cixian pressed down all the questions in his heart, put on a smile of Buddha-like compassion, reached out and gently helped Monk Faming to his feet, and then began to lead the chanting of sutras.

For a renowned religious figure, chanting sutras in public was a required skill.

Master Cixian's voice was resonant, penetrating, and richly rhythmic. The moment it rang out, it showed a tremendous difference, and combined with his strange pine-cone-headed appearance, it instantly won over the barbarians present.

Eastern Body Continent, Mountain-Sea Fort.

Its location was near what would later be La Paz, the capital of the Mexican state of Baja California Sur.

The reason it was called Mountain-Sea Fort was that Monk Yanshou had named it to commemorate crossing mountains and seas and arriving in this Eastern Body Continent by the skin of his teeth.

Mountain-Sea Fort was a small Chinese-style fortress built against a mountain and facing the sea. Considering that the native peoples of the Americas had only just entered the early stages of a slave society in terms of productive power, this fort could fully be called an unconquerable city of the Americas.

In this wild land, roughly twenty-five thousand li in a straight line from the Central Plains, Master Cixian and Master Yanshou met once more, and the soldiers and sailors from the Central Plains below could not help but embrace one another in a great mass.

Whether they had set out as Han, Xianbei, Khitan, Jurchen, or even Chaori people, at this moment they were all fellow countrymen from home.

It turned out that after Monk Yanshou had set out upon the vast sea, he had been even more unfortunate than Master Cixian's party.

He had not met a gale that blew him to the Gold Mountain region; instead, he had been caught in the California Current and had very nearly failed to make landfall at all, going straight home to the afterlife.

Fortunately, by a stroke of luck, the sailors on board had been fishing and had stumbled upon the Baja California peninsula, and only then had Yanshou's party been able to come ashore.

The two men were now recounting their respective experiences, but in truth both voyages had been extremely perilous. Had any single link gone wrong, they would never have reached the Americas, let alone been able to meet.

To cross a voyage of tens of thousands of li through such danger, and to succeed on only the third and fourth trial voyages, was truly a miracle.

Of course, behind this miracle lay the lives of more than thirteen hundred people, including the monks Faxin and Fazheng, plus the grievous loss of fifty-seven large and small ships missing or sunk.

Across four trial voyages, one thousand four hundred and seventy-seven people had set out. Now, here at Mountain-Sea Fort, there were only one hundred and eleven of Master Cixian's party and fifty-three of Monk Yanshou's.

After the emotional embraces, Monk Yanshou looked at Master Cixian and said with a smile:

"Yanshou congratulates the great master on attaining the Wisdom Hair and on the verge of realizing the fruit of the Arhat. I know the great master has countless questions, but please come with Yanshou to the Buddha-Viewing Terrace, and all will become clear at once."

Master Cixian was indeed surprised that Yanshou had only put to sea a little over two years before them, yet had managed to build such great influence here — and whether Yanshou had already found the four Buddhist treasures — so he immediately quickened his pace to follow Yanshou.

The Buddha-Viewing Terrace was a platform in Shanhai Fort that overlooked the whole fort, built beside a steep sea-facing cliff. When Master Cixian reached it and looked out, he was instantly dumbstruck.

They had entered the town from the west just now and had not seen the eastern side. Looking out now, he saw that the eastern side of Shanhai Fort was all hillside covered in endless terraced fields, with crisscrossing irrigation channels woven through them as waterworks.

The terraced fields stretched all the way down to the harbor, where several dockyards floated, and in the dockyards warships of several hundred liao were under construction.

Farther out, some already-completed boats, clearly of Chinese style, were just returning from fishing, laden with their catch.

To the left of the harbor was another slope, where the barbarians were tilling the fields with various Chinese-style farm tools, and in the midst of these fields the barbarians were also using the Chinese rammed-earth method to build walls and houses.

"Master, please come with me." So saying, Yanshou took Master Cixian by the arm and led him beside the Buddha-Viewing Terrace, into a room built of rammed earth, where the clear sound of recitation rose up.

Master Cixian looked and saw the walls covered with paintings of oxen, sheep, fish, dogs, and all manner of animals and farm tools, and beneath each painting was a corresponding Chinese character. Dozens of barbarian youths and children, dressed in clean, small-sized short tunics, were reciting in unison after the monks.

"When I first arrived, I was swept here by the waves, not far from this place, with only some fifty people around me, all our ships large and small lost. It was the barbarians of this land who saved my life.

Your disciple found that they were even more backward than the Shiwei and Jurchen of the Greater and Lesser Xianbei Mountains. Their sacrifices routinely used humans as offerings; children knew their mothers but not their fathers; men and women wrapped themselves only in animal hides, knowing no shame, no sense of propriety; incest between father and daughter, grandfather and granddaughter was commonplace.

They knew nothing of farming or weaving, living entirely by hunting. They had no houses; the poor lived in trees like macaques, only the rich had caves to dwell in, and a chieftain who possessed a single hide tent could be called wealthy. Their weapons and farm tools were all ground from animal bone and stone.

Their people numbered over thirty thousand, divided into two groups: one living on an offshore island, fierce by nature; the other dwelling here in these mountains, gentle in temperament.

Since your disciple arrived, I have used the compassion of the Dharma to drive out their savage sorcery, taught them to farm and build, instructed them in the great principles of human ethics, and their people have willingly taken refuge in our Buddha. To this day, a little over two years on, the people number more than sixty thousand, and the granaries have a slight surplus."

Good heavens — if Zhang Zhao's arrival in this era could be called a crushing advantage in some sense, then the monk Yanshou's arrival in the Americas was a crushing advantage little different from time travel itself.

He had brought the agricultural techniques accumulated over several thousand years in the Central Plains to American natives still in the early stages of slave society, with clear remnants of matrilineal clans.

One can well imagine that, with this boost of productive power several centuries ahead of theirs, this little tribe of a few tens of thousands —

no, by the scale of American natives at this time, thirty thousand people was already a very large tribe.

And so, with the boost given by the monk Yanshou, this tribe of thirty thousand had, in just two short years, conquered dozens of small tribes great and small all around, and its population had exploded to more than sixty thousand.

Moreover, above they had established a complete political system, and below they had formed a strict ethical order.

This ensured that the tribe's strength could be brought to bear all the more fully, while at the same time the foolish and beast-like behavior among the common people greatly diminished — the tribe was made healthier, more regulated, more evolved.

Especially in matters of religion: the native shamans, who knew only to kill people as sacrifices, could not possibly compare with the monk Yanshou, who had a complete theoretical system, a mature method of proselytizing, and could even treat headaches and fevers.

Therefore, in just two short years, these natives had completed their conversion, and now all were believers of the Six Dharma Sect.

Still, it was not without hidden dangers. Master Cixian did not speak of these now, but instead asked the core question.

"Has what the Supreme Heaven said been fulfilled? Is this place truly Purvavideha?"

Although Master Cixian had been telling everyone outside that they had reached Purvavideha, in his heart he did not entirely believe it.

Because of the three things Zhang Zhao had foretold — rice like pearls, corn like pearls and jade hanging on trees; beans as large as fists buried in the earth; eggplants red as fire, surpassing winter persimmons — and the one thing of rolling gold mountains, none of these had yet been seen.

Before these four treasures of the Buddhist gate had been seen, this place might be Purvavideha, or it might merely be some unknown barbarous land.

The monk Yanshou did not say outright whether he had them or not, but instead asked: "I have heard that among the fleet there is one who received guidance from the Supreme Heaven and was granted the Record of the Plants and Peoples of Purvavideha."

Master Cixian nodded in agreement. Indeed, it should be so — by verifying against each other in this way, they could better confirm whether this place was Purvavideha. He immediately sent a disciple to invite Zhao Hutou over.

When Zhao Hutou arrived, his head was still somewhat muddled.

Because a man who regarded Zhang Zhao as a deity, once he discovered that some of what the deity had said was not quite right, would not dare suspect that Zhang Zhao had erred, but would instead feel that he himself had misremembered the deity's words and could not fulfill the charge.

The harder he tried to recall what he had once memorized perfectly, the more easily strange and jumbled things mixed in, making his memory even more confused.

When the monk Yanshou saw Zhao Hutou, he did not speak either, but had a disciple under him hand over a dried corn stalk and a dried corn cob.

Zhao Hutou's memory and thoughts had already been in complete chaos, but the moment he saw the corn, it was as if he remembered everything.

With that stimulus, his mind cleared, and he immediately said with great delight: "Isn't this corn?

The Sage said its stalk is much like black millet, and when eaten it has a faint sweetness like sugarcane. The fruit is long and slender, in colors such as orange and white, the kernels like pearls and jade studding the outside, and the inner core is solid, which livestock love to eat most."

Only then did Yanshou's expression turn to alarm, because a mere "rice like pearls and jade hanging on trees" actually left much room for exaggeration — he, Yanshou, could also prophesy that ten thousand li away there were warhorses as tall as camels.

But for Zhao Hutou to speak so clearly, and to recognize it at a single glance, could only mean that the Supreme Heaven truly knew of this thing.

Gritting his teeth, the monk Yanshou, refusing to believe it, brought out another item.

"Oh, chili peppers! Master, you've even found chili peppers!

This thing is green when young, turns red when ripe, and its flavor is pungent and hot, far surpassing dogwood. The Sage longed for this thing most of all, and called it the foremost spice under heaven."

Sage Zhang was from Chongqing, after all, so naturally the taste of chili peppers was hard for him to forget.

The monk Yanshou's face changed drastically, and he brought out yet another item.

"Ah, this is the sweet potato!

The Sage said that 'beans as large as fists buried in the earth' actually refers to two things. One is called the potato, which cannot be eaten raw, and even cooked one must beware of poison; it can only be eaten after freezing in heavy snow.

The other is called the sweet potato. It is larger, with red skin. Eaten raw it is sweet and crisp; steamed or roasted it is sweet as honey, and it can also be used to make sugar. Its stems and leaves are quite large and can also be eaten."

Thud! The monk Yanshou fell to both knees, kowtowed repeatedly toward the west, and cried out in a mournful voice: "So there truly are gods and Buddhas in this world! From this day forth, your disciple Yanshou is willing to be a foot soldier under the Supreme Heaven!"

And as Yanshou cried out, Master Cixian and the monks Fayan and Faming all pressed their palms together — they too were now completely convinced.

The faith of the Six Dharma Sect was now thoroughly and firmly established in their hearts.

After a long while, when the monk Yanshou's emotions had settled, he made another bow toward the west, then said to Master Cixian and Zhao Hutou:

"Your disciple has encountered here a back-to-the-Buddha heretic. I beg the divine envoys of the Supreme Heaven to assist in rooting him out, so that Purvavideha may truly become a land of the Buddha, and we too may attain the true fruit."

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