open sea

Chapter 1105 Abbot
Wanli, who lived in the deep palace, did not know what Akbar of the Mughals had experienced in Bengal. In fact, it was not as simple as a few Ming merchants supporting the noble rebellion.

Everything starts with Akbar’s governance and religious policies in the Mughals. Akbar is an upright Christian. Just like Osman at this moment, Akbar is also tolerant of domestic religions. At the beginning of his accession to the throne, he exempted the poll tax for non-Christian believers, and at the same time reused Hindus in the court.

In this way, it can balance the influence of neighboring countries on religion, and secondly, it can also attract more people of insight to serve his country.

Akbar, the lord of the Indian subcontinent who controls the country bordering the Yarkand Khanate in the northwest and extending to the Kingdom of Bengal in the east, once said: Every sect has its good side, and we should take its essence and discard its dross.

In Bangladesh, located in the northeast of the Indian subcontinent, the Ganges River finally flows into the Bengal delta, making it a prosperous and densely populated city-state. In recent years, its nobleman Daud Khan gave up his allegiance to Akbar and declared that Bangladesh became an independent country again. In the fourth year of Wanli, he defeated Rajmahal and died at the hands of Akbar.

But no matter before or after the rebellion, it was never the titular monarch Akbar who held the power in Bangladesh, but the Afghan nobles who were born and raised on this land.

The reason for the rebellion of Bengal and the Bihar nobles in the west was that Akbar recruited Christian priests to preach, which once again intensified the unstable and often shrinking northeast frontier of the Mughals.

In fact, Akbar's intelligence was wrong, and there was no Ming merchant supporting this rebellion, not a single one.

The one who really supported the rebellion in Ming Dynasty was a monk, a monk who didn't wear cassocks and battle armor, and didn't hold a Buddhist staff or an iron rod.

When the monk was named Tianshi, he was the head of the Nanyang Army's spear and club, and the abbot of Xishaolin who was responsible for the important task of spreading Buddhism from the Han Dynasty to the West.

Two years ago, the monk Tianshi used a pair of iron fists of truth to refute all the eminent monks in Myanmar. With the lofty ideal of Purdue devotees, he led a team of 370 and six monks to land at the mouth of the Ganges River in Bangladesh. Passing by quietly, the days in Basel, Bangladesh are full of leisure.

Until the Portuguese missionaries sent by Mughal King Akbar entered Basel.

Originally, Bangladesh has a relatively prosperous economy, a large population, and many people believe in Buddhism and Islam. There is no such thing as Hinduism here.

The religious atmosphere is extremely tolerant. Really, the flowing water of the Ganges River can testify that since the Master Tianshi brought the monks and blunderbuss team down from the Liuding Liujia battleship of the Nanyang Military Mansion at the mouth of the Ganges, two years have passed, and there has never been a People ask them for poll tax.

Even Master Tianshi debated with the local Buddhist abbots, sometimes the gunpowder cartridge exploded in the temple wall for some unknown reason, or the cannons on the Puen Puen River were fired twice because of the spiritual power of the debate. No one is offended.

The aristocrats never cared about it, and sometimes brought gifts across the religious boundaries to communicate with Master Tianshi in a friendly way. Everyone agreed to recruit believers according to their own abilities, and the two sides would not interfere with each other.

Master Tianshi also reciprocates. From time to time, he gives back some special products of Chinese Buddhism to the aristocratic donors who donate to the temple. For example, the Flang machine inscribed with Chinese characters and Buddhist scriptures custom-made by Nanyang Weigang, or the matchlock bird gun with six-character mantra inscribed on the barrel. Everyone uses it. It's all agreed.

Although the so-called friendly exchanges, what everyone talks about has nothing to do with religion. Instead, they talk more about silk, porcelain and grain exports. Sometimes they talk about Taoism and Confucianism, some core ideas of harmony and restraint, and self-reflection. This is a very peaceful and happy situation. .

As a result, a Portuguese priest led seven infantrymen into Bangladesh like rogues, stole two cows, robbed eight chickens, and abducted a little peasant woman along the way, swaggering into Basel to start preaching... You are not naughty Woolen cloth?
If that's the case, that's all. The Buddha will definitely argue with him, the Portuguese.

The east-west routes from Portugal have been closed. There are only a few people overseas, and there are even fewer monks. Maybe they are old acquaintances, so there is no need to make too much trouble.

It is also a compassionate heart of the Buddha to let them return to the Mughal court to fend for themselves in spite of their difficulties.

In the end, the monk who accompanied the army was good. Seeing the Ming warship parked in the river, he ran to the Afghan nobles who were in power to speak ill of him. Is this okay?This is ambitious.

The people of Bangladesh have too many monks and little flesh for Master Tianshi and the local nobles. The two sects finally negotiated a charter. Let's go, what's the matter?

In the end, the monk was directly attacked and killed by the local nobles in order to appease the anger of Abbot Tianshi.

The escaped guards returned to the palace and reported to Akbar that no one knew the ins and outs of the reasons inside this time, and finally came to the result that Bengal rebelled again.

Akbar sent troops to crusade, just as the Bihar garrison stationed in the west of Bangladesh mutinied, the nobles were also worried that Akbar would come to attack them this time, and took over Bihar and Bangladesh. rebellion.

Monk Tianshi and his blunderbuss team did not participate in the battle, but only helped the people and preached Buddhism along the way. As a result, he was also attacked by the Mughal royal team in Bihar in the west, and the abbot of West Shaolin was involved in the war. .

The encounter was very painful. The 46 monks who were serving porridge for the refugees and hundreds of defeated troops and civilians from Bihar were attacked by a Mughal team with a strength of more than [-].

This team consisted of a war elephant, [-] Turkic people using Ottoman heavy muskets, more than [-] very elite Mughal cavalry, and infantry archers composed of local Hindu headmen and small Afghan tribal chiefs.

The results are self-evident. Few of the fleeing people survived the rain of arrows, gunfire, sabers and spears. The Zen master was unable to regroup the defeated army. The monks and blunderbuss team were short of troops. They relied on their armor and relied on the river to shoot at the enemy infantry archers. , but the scattered formation prevented them from forming a more effective round formation.

What's more, there are Mughal cavalry riding left and right on Arabian horses. The monks can't even protect themselves, and they can't protect more people at all.

The monks fell one by one, and some people ignited the palm thunder and rushed to the enemy's formation to scare the elephants and killed their commander. However, the monks killed the enemy and were killed by the enemy. He seized a few fast horses and escorted Master Tianshi to escape from the battlefield, which prevented the abbot of Shaolin of the Ming Dynasty from dying in an unknown backcountry.

Counting the monk Tianshi, only three monks fled to their battleship on the Ganges, which angered the abbot.

No merchants of the Ming Dynasty supported the aristocratic rebellion in Bengal, but there were many merchants of the Ming Dynasty who supported the abbot of West Shaolin.

Within three months after expressing their desire for revenge to the Bengali nobles who were preparing for the war, a steady stream of Ming merchant ships sailed from Yangon into the Ganges and docked on the right bank next to Basel.

The captains are those merchants with long hair, beautiful beard and hair scarves. Their sailors from Fujian, Guangdong, Luzon or Japan unloaded box after box of weapons and armor, grain and gunpowder from the Toungoo era in Burma. The abbots of various monasteries and their armed Buddhist disciples from the Burmese Xuanwei Division joined the Bengal war against the Mughals.

(End of this chapter)