All Heavens: Chapter 317 of the main text volume of Aqing, the Yue Girl in the Beginning, Shang Xiufang, "Wen Dou". Shang Xiufang, the most talented woman in the world, was originally scheduled to arrive in Liyang in half a month to perform a repertoire, but she arrived earlier than planned.
destination, and because of the changes in the current situation and the fact that Zhao Qing cured her long-standing migraine, she decided to do it publicly in front of the public.
About an hour later, a vast open space was cleared in the city, and the periphery was filled with crowded people, all looking towards the center of the field, as if waiting for something.
I saw a girl in plain yellow robes and light green shawl walking slowly out. The long skirt underneath her body was composed of multi-pleated skirts. Each pleat was the same color. It was light and elegant, with an indescribable lightness and elegance.
Diverse.
Her glossy black hair is just rolled up on her head casually without any hairpins. She has the astonishing beauty of "the body is as light as snow, and the skin is thin and transparent.", "the air is clear and fragrant with orchid and musk, the skin is moist and jade, and the muscles are plump", like a flower.
The flowers are in full bloom and the fragrance is astonishing.
Following Shang Xiufang, two healthy servants brought the guzheng and placed it in the center of the open space. Everything was in order. Shang Xiufang moved lightly and sat down in front of the guzheng. Under the expectation of everyone, she calmly plucked the strings and tuned them.
, chanting casually.
Among the crowds crowding around the outside were Wang Xuanying, Wang Xuanshu, the two sons who were sent as hostages by Wang Shichong, and their servants, as well as relatively idle personnel from the Song clan, but the most important audience was naturally the post-war people.
The residents of the city are reborn.
Being able to take time out to receive the influence of culture and art while rebuilding life, the streets around the square were packed with people, which shows how quickly Liyang City recovered after the disaster.
The chaotic times at the end of the Sui Dynasty were quite different from those at the end of the general dynasty. The main reason was that Yang Guang was too prodigal. It was not due to the deep-rooted class problems that had accumulated for hundreds of years. The overall national strength was relatively strong.
In particular, the several large granaries built by the Sui Dynasty had abundant reserves. Perhaps due to the influence of the world of martial arts and the vitality of heaven and earth, one Luokou granary alone had 3,000 large cellars, each storing 8,000 shi of grain. The reserves were astonishingly high.
, it is not like the decline of the dynasty in its final years.
According to the "Book of Sui·Shihuo Zhi", in the last years of the Sui Dynasty, "the people abandoned their industries and gathered in castles, unable to support themselves. However, the warehouses where they were located were full of wares, and the officials were afraid of the law and were unwilling to rescue them, which made them more difficult. In the beginning,
They peel off the bark of the tree and eat it, gradually reaching the leaves. When the bark and leaves are all gone, they boil the soil or pound the mugwort into powder and eat it. Afterwards, people eat each other."
The reason why people suffered from severe hunger and starved to death all over the land, which triggered a large-scale peasant uprising, was certainly a very important reason why Yang Guang's three expeditions to Goguryeo and the digging of the Grand Canal, which constantly destroyed the palace and consumed national power;
However, false reporting of the number of acres of cultivated land, excessive taxation, failure to release food during natural disasters, corrupt officials, and a rich country but a weak people were the fundamental reasons why the people were in such dire straits that they could no longer endure it.
During the period of Emperor Wen Yang Jian, when he destroyed the Northern Qi Dynasty, he discovered a large amount of hidden farmland and hidden households. He used this as an experience to promote, and used the ability to capture hidden farmland and population to measure the performance of officials, and severely punished officials who reported a smaller number of acres.
.
The result of this was that the official statistics of the population and cultivated land in the Sui Dynasty increased rapidly. The "population" directly doubled, the "cultivated land" increased nearly ten times, and the nominal cultivated land area used for taxation was as high as fifty.
More than 100 million acres, equivalent to four or five times that of the Tang Dynasty at its peak.
The false reporting of these two matters was quite serious as early as during Yang Jian's reign, causing the common people to bear taxes several times higher than the normal level, and filling large granaries with huge amounts of harvested grain.
Yang Jian in the dark, Yang Guang believed that he was the proof of the great power of the Sui Dynasty.
"Zhenguan Politicians" records: "In the fourteenth year of Emperor Kaihuang's reign in the Sui Dynasty, there was a severe drought, and many people were hungry. At that time, the warehouses were overflowing, and no relief was allowed, so the people were ordered to chase food. The Emperor of the Sui Dynasty did not pity the people but cherished the warehouses, which was even worse than in the last years of the Sui Dynasty.
, Calculating the world’s accumulation, it can last for fifty or sixty years.”
On the surface, "No one in ancient and modern times has been richer than the Sui Dynasty", but in fact, it is "the way of man, and the loss is not enough to give more." And because of Yang Jian's "frugality", he would rather go to Luoyang to escape famine than open a warehouse.
Food has greatly increased the burden on ordinary people.
It is precisely "If you gather money to spread gold and silver, your people will be poor, and your country will be in danger; if you gather grains, your people will die, and your country will soon perish."
When victims are everywhere outside the tightly closed granaries, capturing the granaries managed by the imperial court and gaining people's support and power by relieving the victims is undoubtedly the fastest way to develop power and gain prestige at the moment.
In fact, in places like Liyang that have never experienced natural disasters, just by severely cracking down on a wave of wealthy grain merchants in the city who want to make war fortunes, and buying the surplus grain they purchased at a fair price and distributing relief is enough for the people in the city.
Back to normal life.
In order to ease the hearts of the common people who were traumatized by the war, Zhao Qing planned to organize and develop some new entertainment activities, such as publishing newspapers, holding chess competitions, performing arts, singing and dancing, etc., and arranging relevant commentators to draw closer to the officials.
distance from the public.
For example, newspapers printed using woodblock printing use easy-to-understand engravings as the main body, with text next to the patterns. They are targeted at people with low literacy rates and are used for propaganda. They can also be used as tools to export ideas to the outside world.
This method of combining pictures and texts is what Zhao Qing plans to promote as a method to improve the literacy rate. It can also build a forest of steles for literacy exercises in the city, which is equivalent to a dictionary and enlightenment, and does not need to rely on scholars to spend a lot of money.
The teachings of time.
Of course, after the situation stabilizes, we need to make up some stories to mobilize enthusiasm and promote "knowledge changes destiny". Civilians with certain intellectual literacy can naturally be much better at developing productivity and are not easily corrupted.
Officials deceive the superiors and conceal the truth from the inferiors.
…
"Ding ding dong dong." Shang Xiufang chanted, showing a moving expression of concentrating on thinking and caring about other things. She looked at the strings with her long and beautiful jade fingers and carelessly played with them, weaving out beautiful passages without any traces.
The note contains a hint of lingering sadness but not sadness.
The breath between notes and the turns between phrases create a sense of space and beautiful lines of the movement, and the tone is even more majestic and has endless aftertaste.
On the roof behind where Shang Xiufang was playing the guzheng, there stood an old man wearing a long gown and star-frosted temples, which made people know that he must be quite a lot older, but his appearance was just middle-aged, elegant and elegant, and his attitude was elegant.
, giving people an otherworldly feeling.
Not far from the old man, there is a tall Taoist priest with a whisk on his back. He is dressed in plain white robes, which has a Taoist fairy style. He has five hanging beards and looks like he is in his thirties.
Even though he is less than 10 years old, his temperament is equally outstanding.
"Mr. Wang, how is the atmosphere in Liyang City compared to Dongping County where you usually live? It doesn't seem like an area that has just been ravaged by war. It is prosperous and lively. Unless you see it with your own eyes, it is hard to believe it."
The middle-aged Taoist priest looked at the crowded main street and couldn't help but sigh: "To be able to do such a thing, it is worthy of first obtaining the Heshi Bi from Master Fanzhai and Master Lokong, and then defeating the 'Heavenly Sword' Song
There is no such thing as a peerless person, no wonder it makes Master Ning feel incomparable."
"I thought Brother Ning's evaluation was that he overestimated the other party, but I didn't expect that my vision was narrow. Alas, if I had known better, I shouldn't have leaked the news in Luoyang." The man known as Mr. Wang glanced down a few times.
The crowd seemed to be looking for something, and then said:
"I heard that Xiu Xin's daughter Qingxuan is also in this city? I wonder how much her mother's flute skills are inherited from her? Will she also play in front of the public in the near future so that I can meet her?"
"Hasn't Mr. Wang heard of it?" The middle-aged Taoist priest smiled slightly and said: "Seven days ago, Miss Shi, as a representative sent by Zhao Qing, went deep into the camp of the Jianghuai Army and persuaded Du Fuwei to transfer the army towards Jiujiang.
This shows that there is a connection between the two of them."
"When I meet City Lord Zhao later, you can ask her..."
…
The Taoist priest next to him, Wang Tong, a great scholar of the time, should be Ning Daoqi's disciple based on the Taoist aura he practiced. Zhao Qing, who had arrived at the scene a long time ago, was slightly moved, knowing that the three people he had sensed earlier had arrived, and he guessed
The other party's arrival should be related to Ning Daoqi.
Guiyuan, Ning Daoqi's apprentice, was mentioned in "The Sun and the Moon in the Sky" and was named a Taoist Master by Li Shimin and was responsible for leading the Taoist sect. This shows that he is indeed a master of the Kong and Fan Qinghui levels, even if he is not as good as Ning Daoqi himself.
Of course, the real age of Guiyuan now is about forty or fifty. Due to his slow Taoist practice, his skills are only at the level of an ordinary master, and he is on par with the great Confucian king next to him.
It is said that the martial arts practiced by Wang Tong have a certain kind of elegance. Is it the Confucian internal strength that few people see? Being able to "depose hundreds of schools of thought and only respect Confucianism", the Confucian martial arts should also have its own uniqueness.
place.
Jumping lightly onto the roof where Wang Tong and the two were, she glanced at Taoist Guiyuan, knowing his purpose, and said, "You are the disciple of 'Sanren' Ning Daoqi? You are here to bring a message, right?"
"Guiyuan, a poor man, is the disciple of Master Ning." He heard various rumors on the road and finally saw Zhao Qing, who was just known to have been rumored to be an immortal god. Guiyuan couldn't help but shuddered in his heart.
He replied with a straight look:
"Chengdu Zhao, after Master Ning visited the Master of Shangzhi Guan, the Zen Master of Wu Nian Sect, the Emperor Xin of Huayan Sect, Master Jiaxiang of Sanlun Sect, and Master Zhenyan, they initially agreed on the content of the competition and sent me specially.
Come and let me know."
As for the Wisdom Master of Tiantai Sect and Master Daoxin, the fourth ancestor of Zen Buddhism, they are respectively located in Tiantai Temple in Tiantai Mountain in Yongjia County in the south and Dalin Temple in Lushan Mountain in Jiujiang County. Although Ning Daoqi's footsteps are fast, he has not yet had his turn in the order of finding people.
"Oh? What content are you preparing for the competition?" Zhao Qing thought slightly, knowing that the battle between the Buddhist Baoci Hangjingzhai and the Jingnian Chanyuan was not as simple as a pure martial arts battle, and perhaps more than seven top masters were involved.
"Based on the discussion between the Supreme Wisdom Guanchanghe Guanzhu and the Wu Nian Sect's Ling Xing Zen Master, they decided to adopt a special method that can be called literary fighting." Guiyuan paused and explained with a strange expression:
"To put it simply, both parties open forums to give lectures, explain scriptures and classics to the people who come to seek Buddhism, and demonstrate the essence of Buddhism. We don't judge the level of martial arts attainments, but only who has understood it.'
The Tao is more profound and subtle, and can attract and educate more people."
"Open a forum to lecture? Determine the outcome based on the people's choice?" Zhao Qing frowned slightly, feeling that this sounded nice in name, but in fact it was just to bypass the level of martial arts and instead compete on the ability to confuse believers.
At this moment, as her emotions changed, Wang Tong seemed to sense a sky-high giant that came in and out between reality and reality, surrounding the dazzling galaxy. His heart was beating fast, and his body seemed to become stiff and unruly.
stand up.
Nodding with difficulty, Guiyuan replied in a deep voice: "City Lord Zhao, after all, you want to conquer Jingzhai and the Chanyuan for your own use. Naturally, you have to convince them in mind and Tao, rather than using pure force. At the same time,
, and also plays a role in promoting itself.”
"At that time, Buddhism will hold a large-scale Dharma gathering for this purpose. The duration and location of the ceremony will be decided by you, senior. This will reduce the impact of their past fame and reputation."
To be continued...