I see the country and chant it when I travel, how can I come here if I am not relegated to another country?
——"Night Mooring on the Yellow River" Ouyang Xiu
…
A few days later, Tang Kui brought news.
It turned out that in order to find out the details of the Tang Dynasty, the new ruler of Tubo, Qisong Dezan, attached great importance to recruiting spies from the Tang Dynasty and paid a lot of money to bribe Tang people. In addition to using palace maids to spy on the secrets of the palace, he also recruited literati who had failed in the imperial examination to give him advice.
Qisong Dezan had long known from secret spies that there were many arrogant scholars in the Tang Dynasty who had been depressed because they were not reused by the court. Qisong Dezan knew very well that these people could be won over.
target, so he sent people to secretly recruit them.
When he learned that Li Zhi, Wu Zhangyang, and Xiang Hao were three talented and frustrated scholars, he sent secret spies to bribe them. Li Zhi flatly refused, while Wu and Xiang were very proud of themselves, but they were not taken seriously.
He had always been dissatisfied. Hearing that Tubo was interested in spying on the Central Plains, he defected there.
…
After gaining insight into the details of the Tang Dynasty, Tubo had the confidence to challenge the Tang Dynasty, and often led its troops to invade the country when the Tang Dynasty had no time to look west.
…
Bai Fu asked: "Have you ever found out the origin of that nursery rhyme?"
Tang Kui said: "It is said that several women taught the children, and those who learned how to sing were rewarded with candies. Disciples of the Beggar Clan once saw these people in the temple, but the whereabouts of these women later are unknown."
After Bai Fu heard this, he got up and walked around the house.
Bai Fudao: "The Book of Rites: Doctrine of the Mean" says: 'When a country is about to prosper, there must be good fortune; when a country is about to perish, there must be monsters.'
The current situation in the Tang Dynasty is more severe than we expected. In addition to the puppet Yan rebels and the Tubo barbarians, there are many enemies we cannot see..."
That night, Bai Fu took Tang Kui to visit Fang Shuliu, the god-catcher.
The three of them sat down, and Bai Fu recounted the story of the nursery rhyme.
Fang Shuliu stroked his long beard with his hands and said: "Since the two Han Dynasties, the world has been in chaos and all life has been devastated. The world is filled with the atmosphere of 'the end of the world is approaching, and the period of great catastrophe and reincarnation has arrived'.
Around the "peaceful world" described in the Taoist "Taiping Jing", almost every sect promotes "savior belief" and uses cryptic prophecies to convince believers that when a great disaster comes, God will send
The savior comes to earth to save the world.
Among them, the two prophecies "Eighteen Sons" and "Maojin Dao" are widely circulated.
Rather than saying it was created by the emperors and using prophecies to confuse the people, it is better to say that the emperors complied with the common belief at the time that "the savior will descend to earth in the end of the world".
Therefore, the prophecy of "Eighteen Sons" was combined with Li Hong's "Daojun was born" to promote "Li's family will rise". At the same time, the prophecy of "Mao Jin Dao" was combined with "Liu Ju"
' and "Maitreya's next rebirth" were combined to promote "the Liu family is king".
However, before the establishment of the Li and Tang dynasties, although there was a dispute between Taoism and Buddhism among believers, neither of them was the mainstream of competing in the Central Plains, and there was not much conflict of interest. Both were hated and suppressed by the imperial power.
When the world was in chaos at the end of the Sui Dynasty, Li and Tang took the name "Li's general will rise" to fight for the world, and regarded Liu Heitai and others as their powerful enemies.
After the establishment of the Li and Tang dynasties, 'Dao Jun was born' was promoted and praised by the court, while 'Maitreya was born below' was regarded as a heresy and heresy.
The imperial court brutally suppressed those who spread the prophecy that 'Liu will be the king'. Therefore, the prophecy of 'Mao Jin Dao' turned to the people, combined with Maitreya belief, and became a force against the imperial court."
Tang Kui was puzzled and asked: "Among the many sects and sects, why would the rebel forces choose to combine with the Maitreya religion?"
Fang Shuliu replied: "The savior of Buddhism often refers to Maitreya Buddha. In addition, 'Moonlight Bodhisattva', 'Wing Chakravartin' or 'Moonlight Boy' are all saviors sent by Maitreya to save the world.
The Sutra of the Buddha Speaks of the Virtuous Protector of the Elders was translated by Nalian Thiriyasa in the Sui Dynasty, saying: "(The Buddha said) This boy (Moonlight), after my nirvana, in the future life, will protect my Dharma, make offerings to the Tathagata, and accept and uphold the Buddha's Dharma." , place the Buddha Dharma, and praise the Buddha Dharma; in the next life, at the end of the Buddha Dharma, in the Sui Kingdom of Jambudvipa, he will be a great king, named Daxing; he will be able to make all living beings in the Sui Kingdom believe in the Buddha Dharma and plant good roots.'
In the spring of the sixth year of Daye in the former Sui Dynasty, on the first day of the first month of the lunar month, dozens of Maitreya believers wearing white skirts, burning incense and holding flowers, claiming to be Maitreya Buddha, broke into the Jianguo Gate of the imperial city.
The guards at Jianguomen not only did not stop them, but instead bowed their heads and saluted. So this group of Maitreya believers snatched the guards' swords and launched a rebellion. Later, the King of Qi arrived in time and killed them. As a result, more than a thousand people in Chang'an were implicated.
A similar thing happened again in the second year of Yonglong in this dynasty: on September 1 of that year, Liu Ningjing, a woman from Wannian County, Chang'an, rode a white horse, dressed in white, and led eighty or ninety believers into the Taishi Bureau to ask if there was any disaster here.
These demons deceived the public and stirred up trouble. Taishi ordered Yao Xuanbian to be furious and arrested these demons and threw them into prison for questioning.
The group of men in white who launched rebellions decades apart were probably of the same sect, lurking secretly among the people to avoid detection by the court.
…
Because the story of Maitreya's coming into the world was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, when Emperor Gaozong was seriously ill, Wu Zhao also announced that Li's destiny would be over in order to ascend the throne.
At the same time, Xue Huaiyi and Fa Ming created the Dayun Sutra, saying that Wu Zhao was the goddess of pure light, the King of Wheels, and the reincarnation of Maitreya. Following Xue Huaiyi's theory, he said that Moonlight Bodhisattva took the female form as the king of Maha China (the Tang Dynasty in China), and described Wu Zhao as the reincarnation of Moonlight, called Yue Jingguang. This gave Wu Zhao blessings and created the idea that the female protagonist can also ascend the throne. The orthodoxy of proclaiming emperor.
From then on, in the Wuzhou Dynasty, Maitreya religion and the imperial power were mutually beneficial and prosperous, almost becoming the state religion.
…
Since the prosperity of Maitreya Religion was based on Wu Zhao's personal belief, I thought that with the death of Emperor Zetian, the Maitreya Religion would decline. Unexpectedly, in the Xuanzong Dynasty, Maitreya Religion would be reborn.
In the first year of Kaiyuan, Wang Huaigu, a native of Beizhou, spread prophecies and instigated rebellion: "Sakyamuni Buddha has died, and a new Buddha has appeared. The Li family is about to die, and the Liu family is about to flourish. This winter, there will be black snow in Beizhou. Get out of Yincheng.'
Wang Huaigu advocated that the destiny of the "Li family" came from the old Buddha who was approaching the end of the world, while the "Liu family" represented the new Buddha in the future.
'The new Buddha appears' and 'the Liu family is about to flourish', which implies that after Maitreya is reborn in the world, he will establish a dynasty with the 'Liu family'. Even if the 'Liu family' is not Maitreya himself, he will be the Wheel King or the Moonlight Bodhisattva. He was reborn in the human world before Maitreya, creating conditions for Maitreya's rebirth.
When Xuanzong heard this, he was furious and ordered all the envoys to arrest and kill Wang Huaigu and his followers.
Although Wang Huaigu and his followers were executed by the imperial court, their prophecy that "the Li family is in decline and the Liu family will be prosperous" touched the foundation of Li Tang's rule of the world. Throughout the Kaiyuan period, a large proportion of demon thieves and monsters were The rebellion was all related to the Liu family.
In the third year of Kaiyuan, Emperor Xuanzong promulgated the edict "Forbidden of Demons and Frauds" and "Prohibition of Long Hair Associations in White Clothes", accusing believers in white clothes and long hair of "pretending to be reborn under the pretense of Maitreya", spreading rumors, and making false claims about blame. He asked the local governor and the county magistrate to
Gatherings and associations of Maitreya believers are strictly prohibited.
In addition to the Wang Nostalgic Case, there are many other important rebellions in the world:
In the fifth month of the 13th year of Kaiyuan, Liu Dinggao, a demon thief from Luoyang, broke into Tongluomen at night and captured and executed him.
In the winter of the twenty-third year of Kaiyuan, Liu Pu, a native of Dongdu, rebelled and was executed.
In May of the 24th year of Kaiyuan, Liu Zhicheng, a demon from Liquan in Chang'an, started a rebellion. He drove away passers-by and marched to Xianyang. The villagers reported to the county magistrate and burned bridges and cut off roads to resist them. The crowd then collapsed and they were all captured and executed within a few days.
Therefore, Xuanzong was very sensitive to the 'Maojin Knife'. Yang Guifei's brother Yang Zhao, because of the prophecy of the alloy knife in his name, begged Xuanzong to name him Yang Guozhong.
It can be seen that as long as the Li and Tang royal family encounters a governance crisis, prophecies such as "Mao Jin Dao" and "Liu will be king" will appear again.
With the imperial court's suppression of Maitreya religion and the rise of Amitabha belief, Maitreya belief began to fade out of the mainstream of Buddhism. Not only did the Wu Zhou Dynasty's status that could almost compete with Sakyamuni Buddha become "a thing of the past", Amitabha belief and Guanyin belief also far surpassed
Got it.
The Maitreya sect, which has been suppressed by mainstream Buddhism, has become more extreme and violent. Once the world is in turmoil, Maitreya sect members are likely to take the opportunity to start an uprising."