After the efforts of the Zhuang family, Zhang Yingchen first "cleansed" his sect. He had his own ultimatum, and the three missionaries who came from Qiongshan all had official Taoist ultimatums obtained by the Foreign Intelligence Service through the Guangzhou Station.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, local officials were very vigilant about monks and Taoists, especially wandering monks and Taoists, who in the eyes of the government were simply potential criminals and instigators. All prefectures and counties had monk association departments, and Daolu departments were responsible for the full-time management of monks and Taoism.
In theory, when monks travel abroad, they must have the local monk association secretary, and the Taoist Lu Secretary will issue a road reference document. Only in this way can the person who places an order when traveling abroad be considered as having a formal status. If you want to place an order in a certain place, you must also report to the local "related documents".
Department” filing.
Although this system was no longer very strict at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Yingchen believed that the procedures should be as complete as possible to prevent the government from using this to pull people's hair.
The first was to officially turn "Yunsheng Temple" into a Taoist temple. Under the operation of the banker and Zhang Yingchen's generous use of money, it was quickly completed. Later, the three missionaries from Qiongshan were listed as "official
"Compilation". Zhang Yingchen appointed one of the most clever and well-spoken old boys as the host, and he was in charge of external affairs.
In this way, he had a legal religious place in Yizhou. Then Zhang Yingchen invested money to expand the Taoist temple. In the year of the disaster, labor was extremely cheap. Except for a few skilled workers, most of the workers only needed to eat.
Just eat it.
Then, the medical bureau co-founded by him and the banker also opened. For a time, New Taoism was in full swing in Yizhou and its momentum increased greatly. The number of believers continued to increase. The various branches of Nanwuliang Sect in the local area began to collapse, and many incense owners and Sixiang
They began to defect - some because they were frightened by the legend of his "magic power", and some because of financial difficulties. In the past two years, floods have been frequent, and the government's taxes have been heavy. Many small landowners and rich farmers who were incense owners and sellers have already
Overwhelmed, and the church itself has a lot of "offerings" and "incense rituals" to distribute - although they can distribute it to grassroots believers, the situation of ordinary believers is even worse and they can't give much money at all. After the flood, although
Relief money and food were also allocated from the main altar, but very little fell into their hands. Instead, a lot of money and food were extorted by the altar owner in the name of "relieving comrades."
Zhang Yingchen learned from the incense owners who defected: Ma Sanwei, the current leader of the Yizhou altar, was afraid of a local toba - the so-called toba, which is almost a mixture of landlords and bandits. With his hard work and hundreds of thugs under his command,
, was very powerful in the local area, and the government did not dare to provoke him easily. He saw that the Nanwuliang Sect was getting more and more popular in the local area and had more followers, so he became interested and joined the sect. He was a rich and powerful person in the local area.
Naturally, the church also valued it very much, so within three to five years, the original local altar leader suddenly died, and he naturally became the altar leader.
For such a person, the so-called faith is just a tool for him to make money. Of course, he is still very respectful to the higher-ups in the sect, and even behaves very piously - because although he has no faith, he is very superstitious, and the people in the sect are very superstitious.
The "spells" of guardians and patrols made him afraid. Secondly, he felt that it was more convenient to make money wearing this skin than in the past.
Therefore, the believers in Yizhou have long been dissatisfied with Ma Weisan, the altar leader, but due to his power, no one dared to speak out. Some people once went to Jinan General Altar to "complain", but because Ma Weisan was not there
Yizhou has done a great job, and a large amount of incense and ritual offerings are made every year, so the "petition" has nothing to go on.
After listening to the reports of several incense owners, Zhang Yingchen sighed: It is said that life is full of rivers and lakes, but in fact life is also full of "officialdom." Of course, it seems more accurate to say that officialdom is also a river and lake.
"Do you have anything to eat at home now?" Zhang Yingchen asked: "I see there are many victims here. People are starving to death everywhere. There are also many refugees fleeing the famine."
"Yes, there are some." Several incense owners burst into tears. "Everyone eats them evenly, and with some bark and wild vegetables, they can barely survive. They are too old and too young, and their bodies are too weak to bear it. If a few of them die, it is their fate."
!It’s just that there are floods in the summer and I can’t plant anything. I don’t know what to do in the fall. I’ll have to leave my hometown to beg for food, otherwise I’ll starve to death!”
Most folk religious sects have the color of "mutual aid". Starting from Taiping Dao and Wu Dou Rice Cult, they have this characteristic. In addition, the general altar allocates money and food to some extent, which makes the situation of the local religious people slightly better than that of other ordinary people. Therefore,
Every time a major natural disaster breaks out, it is the best opportunity for folk religions to expand their strength.
If Ma Weisan hadn't been too selfish and blindly exploited, it would have been unrealistic for Zhang Yingchen and Zhang Yingchen to try to shake the status of the Nanwuliang Sect here.
Zhang Yingchen nodded: "Tomorrow you go to the banker's house to get food first - the owner of his family and I have already made an agreement to temporarily lend a hundred grains to everyone for relief. In a few days, someone will send food."
The first batch of emergency rations has been transported from Qiweizhan to Jining through the Grand Canal and is being transferred to Yizhou. Zhang Yingchen only waited for this batch of food to arrive, and then used Yizhou as his base to recruit large-scale recruitment in southern Shandong, including Xuzhou, etc.
Flood victims in the land.
As long as there is food, there is also the capital to recruit refugees - no matter you want to take him to heaven or hell, he will follow wherever there is food. The army of rogue bandits in the late Ming Dynasty was nothing more than a group of desperate people relying on
Just fight to keep yourself from starving to death.
There are flowers and brocades here, and the fire is cooking oil, but Ma Weisan's incense altar is in a panic.
His incense altar is not in that farmhouse - although the location is secretive, it is where the incense owners and outsiders are usually received, and many people know the details. Now many incense owners have rebelled, making it even more unsafe.
Ma Weisan hid directly back in his incense altar. His incense altar was not a secret place, but ordinary people could not enter it. It was a local earthen fence, which was also his home. Ma Weisan had always stayed here, doing
Some activities that wander between black and white.
The earth fence is not high, only about one foot, and there are not many people. There are at least 200 people who dare to risk their lives. Self-protection will not be a problem for a while.
What he fears most now is not someone rushing in with an open fire, but those inexplicable "spells". After he joined the sect and became the owner of the local incense altar, he held several "Dharma meetings" at the Jinan General Altar.
"Going on, I met many "powerful" figures in the general circle, such as "Five Thunder Techniques", "Soul-taking Technique", "Flying Technique"... I saw no less than a dozen kinds of them.
Some of them he knew were from the "Color Gate" and could only be deceived by ordinary believers - he had learned a lot after joining the religion. But some of them he really couldn't understand, so he thought they were genuine.
If the General Forum thinks that he is not doing things well and wants to use him to establish his authority, I don't even have to fight in. I'm afraid I can kill him by using soul-stirring techniques!
Ma Weisan was careful when he first joined the religion. When he opened the incense altar, he submitted his birth date and horoscopes all falsely, so as not to have his soul "absorbed" alive early one day.
Even if these spells are all fake, the main altar still has a group of martial artists with extremely high martial arts skills for them to control - some of the guardians or inspectors are masters of martial arts themselves.
If the general altar frightened him, then Taoist Zhang who appeared out of nowhere frightened him even more: not even Hu Qi'er's spells and Min Zhanlian's martial arts could deal with him! Hu Qi'er went after Min Zhanlian, but found nothing -
I only saw seven corpses of Min Zhanlian's men on the road, stripped naked and thrown into the ditch. The most terrifying thing was that Hu Qier's face was pale when she came back - because these people died in extremely miserable conditions, and all of them were
It was a big gash in the body.
Both Hu Qi'er and Ma Weisan fell into great fear: the dual threats of Zongtan's investigation and Zhang Taoist's revenge sat at home and watched the Yizhou Incense Altar fall apart. Zhang
The Taoist priests transported a lot of food from Jining and other places. In addition to relieving the refugees, they also used the food to recruit rebels - the believers were also generally short of food and found it difficult to survive.
Now, half of the dozen or so incense halls in Yizhou have rebelled, and the other half are also in the first and second parties. Only a few of the incense halls under his direct jurisdiction are still firmly controlled by him.
Ma Weisan tried his best to counterattack and sent his capable men to attack the rebellious incense owners and believers in order to kill people and establish their authority. It was quite successful at first. However, after going there a few times, all the incense halls where killers were sent were retaliated.
Massacre, all the key members were killed. As a result, the whole situation became more and more unstable.
The situation has forced the General Forum, which originally paid little attention to Yizhou, to pay direct attention.
On the official road, more strangers appeared - horses from Jining came in an endless stream, which surprised the vendors who often set up stalls on the roadside - in the Ming Dynasty, there were very few people who could ride horses and gallop. Horses
The value can be measured in gold.
In front of the gatehouse of Majia Tuweizi, more than a dozen knights came.
The leader is an old man.
On the gatehouse of Tuweizi is Ma Weisan's head nursing teacher, who is also a believer. He usually sits here this time to check on visitors. Recently, due to the tense situation, the door of Ma Weizi is closed even during the day.
Seeing the visitor's extraordinary bearing, the nursing home teacher opened the small door and came out to greet him.
"Why are these gentlemen visiting this place?"
"Thank you." The old man returned the gift and smiled faintly: "Is Uncle Ma at home? I have something to ask for, please let the manager know." He pointed to the sky, then pointed to the ground with his backhand, and finally put it on his right chest.
The nursing teacher was shocked: "It turns out that the envoy from the main altar has arrived..." His language and attitude became more and more respectful, "Please give me the Dharmakaya so that my disciples can pay homage."
"The Dharma Protector of the Nei Dharma Hall under the General Altar is proclaimed."
The teacher at the nursing home immediately knelt down and bowed in obeisance. He said with great humility, "Disciple, I respectfully welcome the Dharma Master."
"Get up." The old man waved and said, "Is your horse altar master here??"
"I'm, I'm, I'm in the house, disciple, I'm going to report it right now."
"No need, just lead us in directly." The old man was majestic, and his momentum had an overwhelming power.
"Yes, yes." The nursing home teacher quickly got up and asked the nursing homes to open the door and introduce everyone.