Da Wei Chun

Chapter 57
Further inside is the main hall.

Because of the small area of ​​the South Peak and the large number of monks, officials and monks in Zhaoxuan Temple, the dormitories occupy most of the peak, so Zhaoxuan Temple does not have as many halls as Taiping Temple.

There are only two main halls, and the inside is a mess: the offerings are crooked, and the ground is full of incense ashes, papers, and loose incense. It is obvious that when the monks and the people were in chaos, they took away the lead trays for offering offerings and the copper furnace for incense. .

But the Buddha statues are still standing well.

The first hall is still dedicated to the Buddha. It is a seated statue, about half a zhang high, with two life-sized servant statues standing on the left and right sides, wearing the right hanfu, but it looks like an Indian.

In the other hall, there are many more gods. There are eighteen life-size gods. Li Song said that they are all bodhisattvas, but he can't name them.

Li Chengzhi was slightly better than him, he knew that there must be Guanshiyin in it, but he didn't know which bottle, it could never be a woman anyway.

No matter how big or small, every bottle of deity is glittering with gold, and I don't know how much gold powder was used...

"It's all people's fat and people's cream!" Li Chengzhi said with emotion.

Li Song nodded sincerely: "Sramana is not involved in production, but still robs, coerces and oppresses, and disturbs the people of Jingzhou. It's hard to make a living, and now the people are forced into chaos... I don't know what the court thinks?"

Li Song was talking about the uncle of the current emperor, Yuancheng, the king of Rencheng, who was then the minister of government.

Yuan Cheng not only failed, but was ordered by the emperor to kneel in front of the Buddha statue all night and slapped 99 times.

At that time, Li Chengzhi only thought that the emperor was stupid for believing in Buddhism and was digging his own foundation.

But after a long time, he understood a little more, and after gradually realizing the influence of "aristocratic clansmen" in this era, he slowly understood: out of the need for stable rule, the emperor can only do this.

To put it bluntly, there is one sentence: The emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty has always regarded the Han family and clansmen as a serious problem to his confidants, but he can't use it, and he dare not move. The only way is to prevent it.

If the monks do not annex the land, it is definitely the gentry clansmen who annex the land, the local tyrants.

If monks don't use religion to gather and restrain the people, then the people who do this will still be clansmen. Just like in the late Ming Dynasty, there are more hidden households than Ming households...

When the land is in the hands of the monks, the grains grown are exchanged for money. At most, more temples are built, and more pagodas and statues are built.

But in the hands of the gatekeepers, it is impossible to say that it is to build high walls, store food widely, or change to spears, bows and armors...

When people are brought into the hands of monks, at most they are exploited and squeezed by these monks and officials. At least they have beliefs to support them.

If you replace it with a door, you will become a tenant, a hidden household, and even a source of soldiers...

As long as the emperor is not stupid, of course, he would rather be exploited by a monk than a clan.

In addition, the high-level monk official system is completely in the hands of the imperial court. Even if the monk households are in chaos, at most they will be in one state and one place, such as Jingzhou. .

When the world is in chaos and people are struggling to survive, just like Emperor Taiwu, would it be enough to destroy the Buddha once more?

The military force of the Northern Wei Dynasty was already strong, and the powerful clansmen would definitely support it. This matter is really not difficult to handle.

In this way, the rebellion will be quelled, the grievances of the people will be dissipated, the land and population will be recovered, and the treasury will be filled...

Therefore, Li Chengzhi suspects that the royal family of the Northern Wei Dynasty has been raising Buddhism as a pig...

But even if you understand it, it's useless. This is a conspiracy, and I'm not afraid to let people know...

He laughed self-deprecatingly, and looked at the Buddha statue again.

Looking at it again, he saw that something was wrong.

They have already started to rob them, so it doesn't matter whether they believe in or not, they don't have to be in awe or not.

But this hall has been robbed like a garbage dump. These golden Buddha statues are actually intact?

Li Chengzhi asked strangely, "Why is no one scraping the gold powder on the Buddha statue?"

There are more than 20 bottles of Buddha in this size, how can you scrape a few taels?
"It's not easy to scrape!" Li Song shook his head, "It's all burnt gold juice, smeared with an iron ruler, and has long since grown with the copper inside..."

Li Chengzhi asked in shock, "What did you say, there's copper in it?"

"It's naturally copper." Li Song replied, "It's just hollow, and each bottle weighs a few hundred kilograms... Otherwise, it won't stand up at all!"

Li Chengzhi's eyes were about to fall out: "Why is the Taiping Temple made of clay?"

"Langjun, the Taiping Temple was built by the imperial court..." Li Song explained helplessly.

It means that there is so much copper in the imperial court, and even if there is, it is impossible to use it to make statues of gods.

Li Chengzhi looked at these golden statues, his eyes lit up.

my goodness...

Even if a bottle is only 21 jins, these [-] seats contain tens of thousands of jins of copper.

These are all money...

When he first came across, Li Chengzhi was extremely surprised: the dignified Wei Dynasty was still in the stage of bartering, including national taxes and official salaries, all of which were collected using silk or corn as currency. issued.

Only after I asked Li Song did I know that because the court had no copper, there was no way to coin coins.

What about copper?
Several copper mines developed in previous dynasties have either been exhausted or occupied by the Southern Dynasties.

And those copper coins and copper utensils that passed through the people have long been fortified into copper ingots by officials, nobles, gatekeepers, and nobles, and were hidden in the cellar.

If it is not easy to understand, just think about the gold of the future: the less the more expensive, the more expensive the more reluctant to sell...

The court issued several copper coins, but all of them ended in failure.The reasons are a bit complicated, but the most important point is that there are too many counterfeit coins, and as soon as good coins come out, they are driven out by bad coins.

The imperial court of the Wei Dynasty has some conscience. The copper coins they cast are copper six and lead four. When the counterfeit coins are in the hands, they will become copper three lead seven...

It is also because the Yuan and Wei royal families lacked the centralization of power and did not dare to be as ruthless as the Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty against these powerful clans who made and sold counterfeit coins, so the IQ tax was confiscated...

As a result, the coins minted by the Great Wei court and clansmen were not recognized by the people at all. They either only used Han Wuzhu or bartered them.

Let’s not talk about the Western Han Dynasty, but only talk about the Eastern Han Dynasty, when Liu Xiu once minted coins, that was more than 400 years ago, and then 300 years were in a period of war. How much baht money can be handed down?

So in the Northern Wei Dynasty, copper and money became more expensive.

Taking Luoyang, the capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty as an example, a catty of copper can be exchanged for 150 Wen and five baht coins, or a bolt of silk, or two stones of millet.

And Hu Baozong, a school captain of the seventh rank, was paid only [-] pieces of silk per year, which was equal to [-] coins, or [-] catties of copper.

This is annual salary...

It can be seen how valuable Dawei's copper is.

Li Chengzhi silently calculated, how much grain can [-] catties of copper buy... After calculating, he grinned.

A full 240 stones, equivalent to [-] million catties...

Li Song was startled when he saw Li Chengzhi staring at the Buddha statues with his eyes shining and his saliva almost drooling.

He also has a temperament that understands Li Chengzhi. Whenever he sees good things and becomes greedy, he definitely has such an expression.

"Langjun, this Zhaoxuan Temple is an official government..."

It means that you dare to worry about the government's money?
If we can steal, how can it be our turn?
Li Chengzhi didn't speak, just rolled his eyes.

It's not that he is greedy.

No matter how bad the Li family is, he is still an aristocratic family member. The accumulation of several generations is enough for him to build for several lifetimes.

Besides, with the knowledge in his mind, and with the wealth and connections of the Li family, it is not much harder than eating and drinking water to make a fortune.

What Li Chengzhi is thinking about is now.

If we wait until the food is exhausted, and the army of the imperial court to suppress the rebellion has not come, or the rebellion has not been quelled, these monks and people might be driven away, right?
But if you have money, you don't have to worry about it at all.

The chaos is only in Jingzhou. Liangzhou, which is west of Kongtong Mountain, is stable as usual. If you melt two bronze statues, you can exchange for more than [-] stone of grain. Save a little, you can eat for half a month.

Be more courageous and melt a few more seats. Don't you have all the war horses, iron materials, bows and arrows, knives and guns that are in short supply right now?

If it is bigger, it is not impossible to pull a few thousand catties of copper to Liangzhou, and hire some private soldiers of Liangzhou gatekeepers to quell the chaos...

He pinched his chin: "Is it okay to frame it for Yinguang or Yinzhen?"

Li Song trembled: "Lang Jun, there are thousands of monks and people..."

It means that Yinguangyin is really easy to handle, and you can kill it, but you can't kill all the five or six thousand monks, right?

Can't steal?
What about stealing beams and changing columns?

It's definitely not possible to replace it with wood or stone. You don't need to break it open to see it. You can tell it's wrong by tapping it with your fingers.

But with iron, it doesn't seem to have this problem.

Anyway, I have to make steel myself...

Li Chengzhi's eyes are getting brighter and brighter...

The sweat on Li Song's head is also getting more and more, more and more...

"Lang Jun, there are endless troubles!" Li Song said in a trembling voice.

Li Chengzhi really dared to melt the Buddha statue, not to mention the imperial court, the monks all over the world would not let him go...

"Do you know shit?" Li Chengzhi scolded.

He hesitated for a moment, then said nothing.

This matter is not trivial, and it is best not to leak the news until it is really done.

No matter what else, the nearly [-] people in his hands now have the courage to melt the Buddha image, and it is estimated that there are not many.

Whether or not the government committed crimes is second, mainly because of superstition, fearing that the immortals will be punished for committing crimes.

Unless you put the knife around your neck...

Another, even if you want to steal the beam and replace the column, you have to ask first whether the template for casting these bronze statues is still there.

Otherwise it's really hard to change...

Thinking of this, Li Chengzhi shook his head sharply: "Well, back!"

"Ah?" Li Song was stunned for a moment, "Didn't you say you want to see where the armor is forged?"

"Don't look at it, it's here!" Li Chengzhi pointed to the open space behind the main hall.

Li Song knew as soon as he heard it that Li Chengzhi had not given up on these bronze statues.

He scratched his ears and cheeks anxiously, in a hurry, he didn't know how to persuade him.

A bad one is a disaster...

But after going down the mountain, Li Chengzhi seemed to have forgotten about it and never mentioned it again.

Li Song just let go of half of his heart...

……

After another three days, the villagers of the Song family were all moved to the monk's house at the foot of the mountain.

The Li family still needs three days.

There are also a lot of trivial matters, such as statistics, resettlement, compilation of neighbors, selection of temporary neighbors and wards, and so on.

Li Chengzhi threw all these things to Song Lishen, and sent him two household officials from Lijiabao as his assistants. It was considered that he had been trained in advance and how to be a good patriarch.

In addition, Li Chengzhi asked Li Song to seize the time to organize training soldiers and reorganize Ding Zhuang.

The requirement is: Soldiers are fine and not too many!

In fact, Li Chengzhi had no confidence in those scrawny monks.

Said to be Ding Zhuang, but not even half of those who weighed more than [-] pounds.

For a total of 1000 or 1000 monks, Li Chengzhi only picked a fraction, and formed an army ([-] people) with more than [-] monks from the Li family and the Song family, with Li Song as the leader of the army.

The lieutenants were Li Bai and Li Feng, each serving as the brigade leader (five hundred and one brigade), and the following team leaders (one hundred and one team) were all headed by the leader of the Li family.

Even the juniors like Li Zhang, Li Xian, Li Zhao, and Li Liang are team leaders.

Several leaders of the Song family all hold deputy positions, but the symbolic meaning is greater than the actual meaning.

This is also to give some thoughts to the Song family, which means "atonement for sins", otherwise, even these deputy positions would not be given.

They hadn't talked about it directly, but when they occasionally talked about the war in Jingzhou, Song Lishen and the two village elders even persuaded Li Chengzhi to attack.

He also said that Ding Zhuang of the Song family could be the pioneer. If these four hundred were not enough, it would not be impossible to choose another four hundred from among the young masters...

How could Li Chengzhi not hear it, the Song family was going to take the lives of Ding Zhuang, or even half of their clan, who were being punished, in exchange for the continuation of the incense of the Song family...

Are you kidding me?
Judging from the news from Jingzhou, the number of thieves in the rebellion may have reached [-], and there are at least [-] rebels out of [-].

Take a thousand to ten thousand?
Your Song family doesn't want to live, but my Li family doesn't want to die.

On the spot, let Li Chengzhi fight back...

At the same time, he had another thought: Since he is not afraid of death, would he dare to demolish the Buddha statue?
But the time is not yet...

The organizational structure was set up temporarily. On the same day, Li Chengzhi issued the first order: Collect iron tools!

Except for the kitchen knife, all the rest are turned in.

Including iron pans, shovels, iron plows, dung forks, hoes...

Li Chengzhi didn't know about it himself, but according to Li Song's estimate, just the Li Song family could at least collect tens of thousands of catties of iron.

Because every household has a hoe and iron plow, more than half of the households use iron pots.

More than [-] households, the average household receives [-] catties, and there are also tens of thousands of catties...

It is also because the Great Wei Dynasty could not restrain the people from mining iron ore and smelting iron tools, even swordsmen, so the private iron smelting industry was extremely developed, and iron tools were very cheap, and every household could buy them.

Li Chengzhi did the math: iron materials are readily available, either wrought iron or pig iron, and the crucible steelmaking method is used, so there will not be much waste, and if it dies, [-]% will be lost, and leftover materials can be reused, then Almost eight thousand pounds of iron armor can be forged.

However, a set of full-body cloth armor should be at least [-] pounds of steel plates, and in the calculation, it is only a little over [-] sets.

Not to mention the three hundred heavy cavalry that Li Chengzhi had planned before, he could not even arm the three hundred heavy step.

It's a bit far off...

How to do?
Li Chengzhi had to come up with the idea of ​​those bronze statues again...

(End of this chapter)