Although Hara Hetao is small, there are four major water systems nearby: Luanhe River, Chaohe River, Liaohe River, and Daling River. There are hundreds of miles of wetland grassland with lush aquatic plants and all kinds of things growing there.

When Song Liang arrived, he was quite surprised by what he saw in Chengde, but he encountered obstacles when purchasing a shop.

The city has not yet been built, and the shops will have to wait half a month.

As a result, he took some time off and wandered around Chengde.

The huge city of Chengde is naturally the first choice. The lamas are chanting Buddhist sutras and Sanskrit sounds are in your ears, which creates a unique sense of tranquility.

He donated a hundred silver coins of incense and was welcomed by the temple.

In the vast and sparsely populated Chengde, how could there be such wealthy herdsmen?

The host was a disciple of the Great Lama Chahar (a disciple of Banchan) and came from Han. He immediately ran over and said gently:

"Chengde Temple is a temple built by the royal family. Tens of thousands of dollars were allocated to it. It was just completed last month."

"The city is also rough. If the donor doesn't mind it, he can stay in this temple temporarily and there will be plenty of food."

Song Liang and others naturally agreed. Of course he understood that this was their way of attracting incense.

Businessmen are also believers, and they will naturally donate incense when they stay in temples. As Chengde becomes more and more prosperous, it is a good idea to make friends with businessmen in advance.

After visiting the Chengde Temple, I saw that it covers an area of ​​100 acres, has more than 20 large and small courtyards, and more than 10 temples. Although the Buddha statues are not covered with gold bodies, they are extremely majestic in their carvings.

I'm afraid it won't be possible to repair ten thousand silver coins.

The host led the way: "When this temple was built, it took nearly three thousand people and it took several months of hard work. The temple was built first, and then the city was built."

It turned out that the herdsmen covering hundreds of miles around were all the emperor's tents, including the slave tribes married to Mongolian concubines and the herdsmen cut off from Chahar, totaling more than 5,000 tents.

With the completion of Chengde Temple and Chengde's close proximity to the capital, merchants heading north to Chifeng all settled here and it became a transit point.

When the imperial court saw this, in order to better control the Khan's tent, it established the headquarters of the Khan, so it built a city here as an outpost.

"The Mongolian tribes obey the emperor as Chuluo Khan, this place is the Khan's Court, and the nearby tribes are the Khan's Tent. This is the most prosperous place in the world..."

The caravan went up and down to the hospital to rest.

Regarding the management of lamas, the imperial court has its own regulations.

The first level is naturally the Dharma King level. There are only two in the entire Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Banchan and Dalai.

The second level is Hutuktu, which is translated into Tibetan as "Phagsiba" and Chinese as "Sage".

There are only three of these people now.

One of them was naturally Jebtsundamba from Mobei, and the remaining two were disciples of the two great Dharma kings, who were left by the emperor to sit in Chahar and Suiyuan.

It can be said that the religion in Mongolia is controlled by the three of them.

The reincarnations of these five people are controlled by the imperial court. If they are not witnessed by imperial officials, they will not be allowed to inherit.

The rest are naturally the big temples in various places, belonging to the disciples and disciples.

Regarding the map of Monan, the two Hutuktu great lamas recognized the interests and accepted several Han Chinese and Mongolians as disciples, thus spreading their faith to various places.

The reincarnations of these large temples are generally under the supervision of lamas at the higher level and continue according to their own regulations, and the court has little control over them.

After doing business in Mengdi for a long time, everyone understood that they would rather offend the nobles than the lamas.

The next day, Song Liang was bored and wandered around the tribe near Chengde.

As the site of the sweat tent, the Mongolian tribes in Chengde are particularly different.

First of all, there is no slave class in any tribe.

All the slaves in the sweat tents were released as herdsmen. If the nobles wanted to use them, they had to spend money to hire them.

As a result, slaves and poor people formed a class of wage earners and gained most of their freedoms.

With this strategy alone, the power of the nobles in the Khan's tent was greatly reduced, and only the wealth was preserved.

In Chahar, Suiyuan and other places, this is far from possible, and the court does not have so much power to implement it.

But the sweat tent is different, the emperor can do whatever he wants.

In addition to the divisions of hundreds of households and thousands of households, there are also judges who usually travel among the tribes and are in charge of justice.

The key is that they still have a grade, the seventh grade.

It happened that he came here because he encountered a family dispute.

Hundreds of families died of the disease, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of acres of grassland, tens of thousands of cattle and sheep, and a lot of money.

Under the open air, the judge sat on the throne, and beside him sat hundreds and thousands of households nearby to testify. The lamas in the temple were also witnessing.

At the bottom stood hundreds of families.

"Master Judge, all the money should be inherited by me, and the inheritance by my younger brother does not count at all."

Among the three brothers competing in the audience, the eldest son demanded to inherit all the title and wealth, while the youngest son adopted the rules of keeping the stove for the youngest son in the prairie.

However, the second child proposed the principle of equal distribution.

What the three said is very reasonable.

The system of eldest son inheritance is a law promulgated by the imperial court; the youngest son keeping the stove has been an unspoken rule among Mongolian people for many years; equal division is another rule that emerged after Dayan Khan.

Throughout the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the methods of inheriting property and titles in Mongolia were in a mess.

Later, after the unification of the Manchu and Qing Dynasties, except for the eldest son who inherited the title and land, the other sons were all sent to temples to become lamas.

Perfectly solved the problem.

Song Liang stared with interest.

At this time, the judge took a sheep bone stick, hammered the table, and said loudly: "According to the national law promulgated by Chuluo Khan, the eldest son can only inherit the title."

"But for the family property, the eldest son can only take half, and the rest is divided equally among the sons."

"Then can I, a bastard, be separated?" Suddenly, among the onlookers, a young man raised his hands and shouted, his face full of joy.

"Of course." The judge affirmed: "When dividing property, all descendants are equal."

"I don't accept it—" the youngest son yelled.

"This is the law of the Great Khan, and everyone must obey it."

The judge shook his head and asked the hundreds and thousands of households on the side: "Do you have any objections?"

"Your Majesty the Judge is right, that's the truth."

"Amitabha!" The lama bowed his head and chanted, obviously approving it.

Thus, a property division that was unusual but surprising to the Mongols began.

First of all, there are wives and concubines. They now have their own choices. Those who have sons can follow their sons, and those who have no sons can continue to live with their eldest son or remarry.

Just like in the Han Dynasty, dowry items can only be regarded as one's own property, not the man's.

This completely subverts the values ​​​​of the grassland. After all, even women are property. How can property have its own property?

But there is no way, that's what the Great Khan said.

Some are happy, some are sad.

There are two futures for the bastards. One is to join the army, join the army of the Khan's headquarters, and then be selected into the bodyguard department.

The other is to enter a temple and become a lama.

Song Liang was surprised.

When I returned to the temple, I suddenly saw a group of five or six-year-old novice monks, accompanied by their parents, sent to the temple to become monks.

"Master, why is this?"

"It's nothing more than family property."

The host sighed and muttered: "According to the rules of the court, as long as the children become monks, they do not need to inherit the title or property. In order to avoid the property being divided, the nobles can only do this."

"Besides, if there is no heir, the lama can also return to secular life and inherit the title."

Song Liang suddenly realized and was filled with emotion.

I'm afraid many of these little guys who were kidnapped and sent to the temple were forced to come here by their elder brothers. Although they are brothers, who wants their property to shrink?

Besides, sending the extra son to the temple not only avoids fratricide, but also allows him to have enough food and clothing and become a cultured lama. How wonderful is this?

But the temple naturally gets a lot of benefits.

When the son comes to the temple, he must donate money for incense.

In fact, the imperial court has given countless gifts to Lamasery.

First of all, the lamas were exempted from corvee service, and the temples were given a large amount of grassland and exempted from paying taxes.

At the same time, in the Khan tent, both nobles and lamas can serve as officials, either as judges of affairs, or as civil officials, military officers, and educated lamas are precious talents.

Lama is also the way to become an official. For those nobles with a low starting point, herdsmen are excellent.

A few days later, a foreign team came from the Suiyuan area.

An envoy from the Rakshasa Kingdom.
To be continued...