The Great Arcanist Who Traveled Through the World of American Variety Shows.

Chapter 415: Buddhism, come out and drop gold coins!
"Sir, this act of destroying Buddhism may arouse the wrath of the Buddha." Before Guo Rong could speak, an official behind him could not help but say.

"This is wrong. The Buddha said: Save all living beings. There is also an act of cutting flesh to feed the eagle. Why would the Buddha care about these gold and silver? If it can help the people, he will support your actions even more." Richard did not give him the chance to continue speaking and interrupted him directly.

"If you keep making excuses, you are definitely not a true Buddhist. You are the incarnation of Mara who has sneaked into Buddhism and ruined its reputation!"

Richard was stopped in his tracks. This person was none other than Prime Minister Wang Pu, who was the Prime Minister of Emperor Zhaozong of Tang. Many members of the Wang family of Taiyuan believed in Buddhism and even had a family temple dedicated to it. They were very dissatisfied with Richard's act of destroying Buddhism.

"Don't worry, my Lord. This is a move to save the people. Buddha will also support it." Guo Rong said directly.

"You guys go out first."

The entourage and ministers around him had to leave.

"Dear guest, do you know how many temples there are in the world now? How many monks and nuns are there? How much Buddhist land do those monks occupy?" Richard looked at Guo Rong and said.

"I have traveled extensively for business, and wherever I went, there were Buddhist temples with more than ten large ones and dozens of small ones, hundreds of monks and nuns, and thousands of acres of farmland. If you ask about the number in the world today, it would be a hundred times more." Guo Rong said.

"Less!" Richard sneered.

"Is this still not enough?" Guo Rong had tried his best to improve, but he didn't expect that what he said was still not enough.

"Not to mention the rest of the country, just within the Great Zhou, there are more than 50,000 Buddhist temples, more than 100,000 monks and nuns, and hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland. If this number is extended to the rest of the country, it would be more than three times more."

Hearing this, Guo Rong was completely stunned. He knew that the people believed in Buddhism, but he didn't expect it to be so serious. Tens of thousands of Buddhist temples, more than 100,000 monks, and so much land, such a wealth was richer than his national treasury.

The country is in a difficult situation now, and the Khitan in the north is eyeing it covetously. If he wants to realize his ambition, this Buddha must be destroyed.

Richard was very unhappy with these Buddhists. There were few monks who truly practiced Buddhism, but there were countless monks who harbored filth and corruption. Richard could not stand these people, so he naturally wanted to clean them up this time.

After Guo Rong and Richard had a conversation, he suddenly felt enlightened. The money and grain problem that had been bothering him for a while was solved. He immediately invited him, "Sir, you are a great talent. I wonder if you are willing to serve the country. I am willing to invite you to the position of prime minister."

"There is no need to do this, my dear guest. I have no intention of pursuing a career in politics. However, if you have any questions, you can come to me." Richard waved his hand and said.

In the end, Guo Rong still failed to invite Richard to be prime minister and could only leave with regret.

Richard continued to practice medicine and give lectures. He also recruited disciples when he gave lectures. These disciples were officials he prepared for the world. At this time, the Zhou Kingdom was short of talents and needed a large number of officials, and many times local tyrants had already controlled the power in the local area.

In order to solve these problems, Richard can only train talents himself.

Fortunately, he not only has various books for them to study, but also various methods to help them quickly master knowledge.

In the past, those aristocratic families relied on their monopoly of knowledge to obtain official positions. Although the aristocratic families no longer exist, there are still people who try to do things the same way. Since Richard has already planned to intervene, he will naturally not give them this opportunity.

These people are the talents he prepared for Guo Rong. Of course, in addition to these people, there are also papermaking and printing. Only when the price of books is low enough can a large number of talents be trained for use.

Richard has already started preparing various workshops, including papermaking workshops and printing houses. Although he has decided to support Long Ting, he does not intend to use magic. Richard knows very well that magic can only solve the problem temporarily. Once he leaves, the original problem will still not be solved, so he plans to use normal methods to solve it.

Unless there are other people who do not follow the rules and want to use magic to destroy the Chinese country.

Another reason is that the fewer spells Fulongting uses, the less entanglement with luck will be in the end, and the more benefits he will gain.

Another advantage of this method is that all the knowledge, books, workshops, etc. he imparted will be left behind. If he used magic, nothing would be left after he left. And Da Zhou would eventually return to its old ways.

Lu Dongbin was amazed by Richard's actions.

"My fellow Taoist is truly a learned man, knowing so many things. No wonder he dares to support Long Ting." Lu Dongbin said in surprise.

According to Richard's current practice, his chances of success are extremely high, and there will be almost no consequences.

"It looks good now, but we still need to be careful against other people." Richard said with a smile.

"Hehe, if those people dare to show their claws, my sword will be in need of a few people to sacrifice it!" A flash of sword energy appeared on Lu Dongbin's body.

Lu Dongbin is not a good guy. As the most famous swordsman in the world, he has killed many evil demons with his sword.

"Haha, then I'll thank you for your help when the time comes." Richard said with a smile.

"You are too polite, fellow Taoist." Lu Dongbin said, "Although I don't have the ability to support Long Ting, I can still deal with those withered bones in the tomb."

Lu Dongbin was obviously very clear about the moral character of those people. For example, as Richard said about destroying Buddhism, there would definitely be Buddhist monks who would come out and fight him at that time. It is not even ruled out that these people would join forces with others to act together.

Not everyone wants to unify the world, and not everyone wants the Chinese people to flourish. After all, if the Chinese people flourish, the countries around China will have a hard time.

I won't mention anything else. The Khitans also believed in Buddhism, and the Khitan royal family believed in Buddhism. In addition, Shi Jingtang became the puppet emperor of the Khitans and gave the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun to the Khitans. Now the Khitans are eyeing the Central Plains covetously.

Although the last attempt to go south to the Central Plains failed, the Khitans will not give up, and the monks who support the Khitan Kingdom will not give up either. After all, the fate of these people is connected with the Khitans, and they will prosper together and suffer together.

Many people wanted to ride the Khitan into the Central Plains and become the masters of China, so that they could use this feedback to achieve enlightenment in one fell swoop.

Richard is now supporting Long Ting to block their path to enlightenment, so they will have to fight. If you want to use the Chinese people as a wedding dress, you have to see if your teeth are good enough!

After getting the solution from Richard, Guo Rong was very happy. After returning to the palace, he immediately sent someone to sit down. Richard gave him the method of drying salt, and he immediately arranged for his confidants to go to the salt fields in Qi and Huainan to try the method. At the same time, Guo Rong also sent people to investigate the number of Buddhist and Taoist temples in the surrounding counties and the amount of land they occupied.

Temples in this era did not pay taxes or perform labor service. Although several emperors issued orders during the Tang Dynasty, they could only have some effect for a short time. After a few years or after the emperor's death, these orders would be abolished and no one took them seriously.

This is also why so many ministers and emperors throughout the ages have wanted to destroy Buddhism. The Buddhist community is truly extremely rich.

In addition to the various money and materials donated by believers, Buddhist monks are also responsible for usury. Because they have a lot of money in their hands, it would be a waste if the money is kept idle, so the monks began to use the money to lend money to the people.

The speed of temple lending has developed very rapidly. In addition, many believers in Buddhism in the society dare not owe money and fail to repay it. As a result, temple lending has been very smooth.

After seeing this situation, the noble families and powerful people in various places lent money to the temples, and then let the temples lend money. With the help of the noble families and powerful people in the local area, the monks' lending business has become the most profitable business.

Even those wealthy families who used to lend money have begun to lend money in the name of temples. After all, usury and loan sharking have a bad reputation. With the Buddhist temple as a white glove, they can stand behind and make money.

There are even some wealthy families who use their own ancestral temples to lend money. With the support of these people, the lending business of the temples has become the most profitable business of the temples.

The temples are naturally very happy because they can easily make money without even using their own money.

When the people Guo Rong sent to investigate came back, they found that the situation in Buddhism was even more serious than what Richard had told him. Guo Rong, unable to sit still, once again rushed to Richard for advice.

"Sir, I want to destroy Buddhism. Please teach me." Guo Rong asked directly as soon as he saw Richard.

"Have you made up your mind, my dear guest?" Richard asked.

"I've made up my mind!"

Richard nodded and said, "In that case, let's talk about how to get started."

"Destroying Buddhism is not a good idea. We can change the name and rectify Buddhism! Anyway, the Buddhist Pure Land is basically occupied by those fat-headed guys now."

"Your Excellency can use the method of examination to assess those monks. Those who fail to meet the standards will be forced to return to secular life. The number of certificates issued in the future will also be limited. As for land, all temples are only allowed to retain no more than 200 mu of Buddhist land. All other land will be taken back by the state and distributed to the landless people."

"But those temples will definitely not give up. You can directly distribute these lands to the soldiers as a reward."

"Buddhism has its own rules and regulations. Temples are audited according to the rules and all those that fail to meet the standards are banned. Temples with less than 50 qualified monks are banned and then sent to other large temples."

"Some temples harbor filth, harbor criminals, and cheat people. They should all be shut down and held accountable."

Richard formulated a complete plan for Guo Rong to rectify the Buddhist sect with various means, and also predicted the various resistances that the Buddhist sect would launch and provided solutions.

It can be said that those who carry out the execution just need to follow this rectification manual.

"Destroying Buddhism is inhumane. We changed the name and rectified it. Our goal is to rectify the monks in the temples who do not abide by the laws of the country and the rules and regulations."

"You are the ruler of a country. Even if you want to destroy Buddhism, you must occupy the righteousness and use your power to pressure others and force them to do it."

The word "destroy Buddhism" sounds bad and can be easily exploited. During this period, due to the wars in the world, the people were displaced. Not only the people, but also many aristocratic families and powerful people felt that their future was in danger.

So these people began to place their hopes on gods and Buddhas. Some ordinary people had the same idea, while others wanted to pray for wealth and prosperity in the next life.

Therefore, there are many Buddhists in the world. If they are used by others, it is likely to cause some chaos, so the strategy given by Richard is very important.

Soon, Guo Rong issued an order to conduct a strict inspection of temples and Taoist temples across the country because a large number of monks violated the rules and regulations, did not study Buddhist scriptures, bullied the people, and defiled the quiet place of Buddhism. All monks who did not meet the requirements were ordered to return to secular life, and the surplus land was given to landless and landless refugees and the people.

And took the opportunity to register all the people and compile a yellow book. The method given by Richard firmly controlled the local tyrants and Buddhist temples. He even sent some personnel to the countryside and county towns to preach about the monks' violations of laws and regulations, which soon aroused the common hatred of the people at the bottom, and the local tyrants had no power to resist.

After this system was completed, the Zhou Kingdom had millions of acres of fertile land and more than 100,000 laborers.

In addition, the confiscated temple properties and Buddha statues were transported to Kaifeng. After obtaining a large number of copper coins, bronze Buddhas and bronze artifacts, Guo Rong ordered that these copper coins and bronze artifacts be recast into new coins.

Guo Rong imitated the Kaiyuan Tongbao of the former Tang Dynasty and minted copper coins of Zhouyuan Tongbao. Then he opened the currency exchange to the people, and officials used Zhouyuan Tongbao to sell goods.

Because a large number of bronze statues were confiscated this time, and the bronze statues in ancient times were cast with high-quality copper, the first batch of coins was of excellent quality. The subsequent copper coins were mixed with metals such as lead, zinc, and tin to cast a large number of Zhou Yuan Tong Bao coins.

It’s not that Guo Rong doesn’t want to mint coins of better quality, but if the coins are minted too finely, the wealthy families will spend the inferior money in their hands and hoard the good money that is minted finely.

As a result, the coins minted were not circulated at all, and all were put into the cellars of the noble families, the powerful, and the wealthy, which completely violated the original meaning of coins. Therefore, coins cannot be minted too well.

Guo Rong minted coins this time in order to promote currency circulation and boost the economy. This time, the wealth confiscated from Buddhist temples was used to mint millions of copper coins.

These Zhou Yuan Tong Bao coins were welcomed by the people as soon as they were released because of their good quality. After all, this era had experienced many wars, and many coins were minted privately. In order to reduce costs, a large number of inferior coins were minted. The people suffered terribly.

Therefore, the appearance of Zhou Yuan Tong Bao immediately became popular, and the commercial activities in Kaifeng became prosperous.

Moreover, the increase in the number of coins also alleviated the exploitation of the lower-class people. In the past, due to the shortage of money, the people had few copper coins in their hands. In many cases, when they wanted to barter or buy some necessary materials, they could only borrow from the noble families, the powerful, and the wealthy, and these wealthy people could easily control them.

(End of this chapter)