A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 1014: The Bai people of Wumeng are established, and the story of Zanduo in Yunnan is revealed

February 6, the first year of the Great Xiapingning
The Wumeng tribe of Quzhou in the Yunnan-Qiannan route of Daxia.

Unlike the inland areas of Daxia where there were counties and towns under the prefectures, the prefectures in Yunnan and Guizhou were mostly tribes. The Wumeng tribe was a Bai tribe under the jurisdiction of Quzhou.

Buddhist culture is prevalent in this Bai tribe, and Buddhist supplies can be seen everywhere.

A monk came to the tribe and brought the news of Kuncheng's great victory. The entire Wumeng tribe was jubilant.

The tribal leader even proposed to go to Kuncheng with the monks in the near future to pay homage to the Lord of Kuncheng, the Great Black Dharma King, His Majesty the King of Qian, and return to Kuncheng.

After hearing this, the monk from Kuncheng smiled happily, said "good" directly, and began to preach to the tribal people.

After a small tribal ceremony, the monk left here and took a child with him, accepting him as his own monk and taking him to Kuncheng to study scriptures. He was destined to become a monk in the future.

The tribesmen present did not feel anything was wrong, but instead envied the family whose child was taken away:

"Your family will become rich if the Buddha takes you away to study Buddhist scriptures!"

The family was so happy that their mouths stretched to their ears and they kept saying "it was luck".

Even the leader of the Wumeng tribe cordially invited the family to a banquet at the official village.

In Yunnan, due to the large-scale development by the Bai family in the early Tang Dynasty, tens of thousands of Bai clan members were relocated to build Yunnan. Over the past hundred years, in order to survive better in the local area, they adapted to local conditions and actively accepted some local customs and concepts.

In the eyes of the local barbarians, there is no strong concept of clan or family. They cannot understand the concept of a large family with more than one million people spread all over the world.

As a result, the Bai clan members who took root in Yunnan gradually called themselves the Bai people.

With the support of the Central Plains dynasty and the leadership of the Duke of Qian, after hundreds of years of development, the Bai people intermarried with local barbarian tribes and gradually became the largest clan in the area.

The Bai people gradually expanded outward with Dianchi Lake and Erhai Lake as their center.

Under the planning of the Duke of Qian, Yunnan was transformed from the original alliance of the Six Zhaos into a region dominated by Nanzhao, and eventually formed a pattern of coexistence of various tribes and dominance of the Duke's Mansion.

Relying on the authority of the Tang Dynasty, the Qiannan Army led by the Duke of Qian continuously compressed the territory of the Pyu Kingdom in the south and occupied most of the Yunnan-Myanmar region.

But the good times did not last long. The Tang Dynasty collapsed, the connection between the Duke of Qian and the Central Plains began to weaken, and the resources it obtained became less and less.

The government was increasingly unable to support itself, to the point that Zheng Maisi, the former commander of the Changhe Army under the Qiannan Army, rebelled, occupied the northern part of the former Pyu Kingdom, proclaimed himself emperor, and established the "Great Changhe Kingdom."

As time went on, the Qiannan Army began to run out of food and could not obtain additional weapons.

On the other hand, Zheng Maisi, relying on his relations with Southeast Asian countries and India, gained a lot of support and gradually gained the upper hand in the battle with the Qiannan army.

At that time, Zhu Wen usurped the Tang Dynasty and Wang Jian occupied Bashu, completely severing the connection between the Qiannan Army and the Central Plains.

As a result, Zheng Maisi occupied Yongchang Prefecture, an important military base in southern Guizhou, and even crossed the Lancang River to capture Hedong Prefecture, the granary of Erhai Lake.

After losing Hedong Prefecture, it became increasingly difficult for the Qiannan Army to hold its own, so that a large number of tribes originally under the command of the Duke of Qian defected to the Dachanghe Kingdom, including many Bai tribes in the northern part of Kunzhou.

Fortunately, Kunzhou was a fortified city built by the Naigong Mansion. Dachanghe was unable to capture it after a long siege and had to retreat to Hedongzhou, where he established Yangzhumie City as his capital.

The Dachang Kingdom then fell into a standoff with the Qiannan Army. Neither side could do anything to the other, but the situation in the government office continued to deteriorate.

Every year, there are tribes and generals who defect to the Great Changhe Kingdom.

To make matters worse, the old Duke died of illness and had no children. The Qiannan army fell into a state of disarray and was almost defeated by Da Changhe.

Fortunately, Bai Yuanwen, the leader of the Southwestern Branch of the Bai Clan and the Military and Political Director of Southern Guizhou, stepped forward to turn the tide and proposed to invite a son of the clan from the Central Plains to Yunnan to inherit the title of Duke.

In the end, Bai Yi's son Bai Yu was chosen. After traveling through mountains and rivers, he finally arrived in Kunzhou. He was entrusted with the task of succeeding the titles of Duke of Qian and Jiedushi of Qiannan Army.

Under Bai Yu's control, the Qiannan Army finally stabilized the front line and began to consolidate itself.

It happened that Buddhist culture in Southeast Asia was popular, and even many soldiers and civilians under the Qiannan Army believed in the localized Buddhist Azhali religion.

Azhaliism is the product of the fusion of Tibetan Buddhism, Central Plains Buddhism and Indian Buddhism. It was spread directly to Yunnan by the Indian monk Candragupta. It belongs to the Tantric Buddhism and believes in the great god Mahakala.

In order to stabilize the local area, Bai Yu invited Shi Tongtuo, a high monk from Chongsheng Temple near Erhai Lake, to Kuncheng to preach to him.

After communicating with Shi Tongtuo, Bai Yu decided to support the Azhali Sect to stabilize his rule. He then asked Shi Tongtuo to give him an "initiation" and donated a temple in Kuncheng, naming it "Tianlong Temple".

They also revered Shitongda as "Zanta", combined it with Tibetan Buddhism, and introduced the concept of reincarnation.

He revered Shitongda as the 'Second Candida' and sent his three sons Baiwang, Baiming and Baishi to worship Shitongda as their main guru and receive the novice monk precepts.

Shi Tongtuo gave Dharma names to the three princes: Awangtuo for Baiwang, Umintuo for Baiming, and Duoshituo for Baishi.

Although his three sons had all received ordination, according to the teachings of Azhaliism, monks were allowed to have families, so he did not have to worry about not having an offspring.

As Bai Yu began to spread the Azhali religion, a wave of Buddhist worship swept across the entire Qianguo Mansion, and the originally shaky rule of the mansion began to stabilize.

Monks from Tianlong Temple continued to travel around, preaching and starting to eliminate the hostility among the tribes.

Not long after, seeing that the time was ripe, Bai Yu personally went to Tianlong Temple to receive ordination and declared that he wanted to convert.

Finally, Shi Tongtuo accepted disciples on behalf of the ancestor Candhoguta, ordained Baiyu, and gave him the Dharma name Shi Yutuo.

Then, Shi Tongtuo led all the monks of Tianlong Temple to the government office and honored Bai Yu as the "Protector King" of Azhali Sect.

As time passed, the Great Chang Kingdom had been established for more than 20 years. Because it occupied the rich Erhai Lake, changes began to occur in the country.

Zhao Shanzheng, a powerful official of the Dachanghe Kingdom and the governor of the Tianxing Army, launched a coup d'état, killed the entire Zheng family, proclaimed himself emperor, and established the "Datianxing Kingdom".

However, only one year later, Zhao Shanzheng's confidant Yang Ganzhen killed his former master and established the "Dayi Ningguo".

As the saying goes, Yang Ganzhen was emperor for less than a year before he was deposed by his younger brother Yang Zhao.

After usurping the throne from his brother Yang Ganzhen, he was afraid of the military achievements and prestige of Tonghai Jiedushi Duan Siping, so he sent people to hunt him down.

Duan Siping was forced to flee to the Badian area, where he received support from 37 tribes including the Heichuan, Dong, and Gao tribes, who were also members of the Bai ethnic group.

The following year, Duan Siping raised the banner of halving the grain tax and easing corvée duties for three years, and summoned tens of thousands of slaves and peasants to launch an uprising to attack Yang Zhao.

After several years of arduous battles, they finally captured Taihe City, the capital of Dayining State, in the first year of Tongguang of Later Tang, the year when Later Liang was destroyed and Daxia was founded.

Yang Zhao committed suicide after his defeat, and the Dayining State, which had existed for only eight years, was destroyed.

With the support of his subordinates and the people, Duan Siping founded a country and proclaimed himself emperor, named it "Dali", and made the capital of Yangzhumie City, the former capital of Dachanghe State, and renamed it Dali City.

Duan Siping proclaimed himself emperor and founded the country, and he worked hard to govern the country, which led to great development of Dali's production and economy.

Moreover, following the example of Bai Yu’s worship of Buddha, the Chongsheng Temple outside Dali City was designated as a national temple, and temples were built almost every year.

He was honored as "Da Ming Dharma Protector King" by the chief abbot of Chongsheng Temple, and was on equal footing with Kuncheng Tianlong Temple.

As a result, two major sects of Azhali religion emerged in Yunnan, namely the Dahei Sect and the Daming Sect.

In the same year that Duan Siping proclaimed himself emperor, Bai Yu, who had not heard the elegant language of the Central Plains for a long time, met the envoy of the Great Xia Kingdom who came to enthrone him as "King of Qian".

Bai Yu was so excited that he quickly wrote down the details of Qian State in a letter. He also sent someone back to his country with the imperial envoy to ask for help from his brother Bai Jian.

The next year, the envoys from Daxia came again, bringing with them a great Neo-Confucian scholar and a Buddhist monk. They also followed the order of the Daxia emperor and conferred the title of "Great Black Dharma King" on Bai Yu.

He recognized Shi Tongtuo's identity as the "Zantuo Living Buddha" and bestowed upon him the golden book and golden seal.

It is recognized that Shitongda is the reincarnation of the eminent monk Candagupta, Candagupta is "Candagupta I", and Shitongda is "Candagupta II".

With the endorsement of the Central Plains dynasty and the emergence of Jandha II, the Azhali sect developed more rapidly.

As a result, wandering monks from the Tianlong Temple began to appear in the southern part of the Dali Kingdom, which originally belonged to the Ming Dynasty, and even in Southeast Asian countries and India.

Everyone knows that there was a Candora II in Kuncheng, who was the reincarnation of the eminent monk Candora Juduo.

More and more monks came to Tianlong Temple to pay homage to Shitongtuo.

The popularity of Tianlong Temple became more and more prosperous, and began to surpass that of Chongsheng Temple. After all, they had no living Buddha.

(End of this chapter)