Because of the small area of the south peak and the large number of monks and officials in Zhaoxuan Temple, the dormitories occupy most of the peak. Therefore, Zhaoxuan Temple does not have as many main halls as Taipingguan.
There are only two main halls, and they are in a mess: the altar is tilted here and there, and the floor is covered with incense ashes, paper, and incense. It is obvious that the monks and the people were causing trouble and took away the lead trays containing the offerings and the copper furnaces used to burn the incense.
.
However, the Buddha statues are still standing well.
The first hall is still dedicated to the Buddha. It is a seated statue about half a foot high. There are two life-size attendant statues on each side on the left and right sides. They wear Chinese clothes with right skirts, but they look like Indians. p>
There were more statues in the other hall, eighteen life-size statues. Li Song said that these were all Bodhisattvas, but he couldn't name them specifically.
Li Chengzhi was a little better than him and knew that there must be Guanyin in it, but he didn't know which bottle it was. It couldn't be a woman anyway.
No matter how big or small, each bottle of the statue is sparkling with gold, and I don’t know how much gold powder was used...
"It's all about people's wealth and people's support!" Li Chengzhi said with emotion.
Li Song nodded sincerely: "The Salmon does not engage in production, but also plunders, oppresses, and exploits. It has disturbed the people of Jingzhou and is now causing chaos among the people... I wonder what the court is thinking?"<
/p>
Li Song was talking about the incident in which Prince Yuancheng of Rencheng, the uncle of the current emperor and the minister at the time, wrote to the emperor to advise the emperor and take action to control the monks.
Not only did Yuan Cheng fail to recover, but he was ordered by the emperor to kneel in front of the Buddha statue all night and slapped his mouth ninety-nine times.
At that time, Li Chengzhi only thought that the emperor was stupid for believing in Buddhism and was digging his own foundation.
But as time went by, and he learned more about it, and gradually understood the influence of the "family clans" in this era, he gradually understood: out of the need for stable rule, the emperor could only do this.
To put it bluntly, there is only one sentence: The emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty always regarded the Han gentry clan as a serious threat, but he could not use it, let alone dare not touch it. The only way was to prevent it.
If the monks do not annex the land, then the ones who annex the land will definitely be the noble families and local powerful people.
If the monks do not use religion to gather and restrain the people, then the people who do this will still be the powerful, just like in the late Ming Dynasty, there are more hidden households than open households...
The land is in the hands of the monks, and the food grown is exchanged for money. At most, they can build more temples, pagodas, and Buddha statues.
But when it comes to the hands of a wealthy family, one can either build high walls, accumulate grain, or replace it with guns, bows, and armor...
If a person falls into the hands of a monk, at most he will be exploited and squeezed by these monks and officials. At least he has faith to support him, and he will basically not rebel unless he has to.
If you change into a wealthy family, you will become a tenant, a hidden household, and even a source of soldiers...
As long as the emperor is not as stupid as a pig, of course he would rather be exploited by monks than let the powerful family succeed.
In addition, the high-level monk-official system is all in the hands of the imperial court. Even if the monks are in trouble, they can only be in one state or one place, such as Jingzhou. As long as the weather is hot and the snow melts, the cavalry will be dispatched and they will be wiped out in minutes.
.
When chaos breaks out frequently in the world and the people are in dire straits, wouldn’t it be enough to destroy the Buddha again just like Emperor Taiwu did?
The Northern Wei Dynasty was already strong in military force, and if the powerful family members were added to it, they would definitely support it. This matter is really not difficult to handle.
In this way, the rebellion was suppressed, the grievances of the people in the world were dissipated, the land and population were recovered, and the national treasury was filled...
Therefore, Li Chengzhi suspected that the Northern Wei royal family had been raising Buddhism like a pig...
But even if you understand it, it’s useless. This is a conspiracy, and I’m not afraid of others knowing...
He smiled self-deprecatingly and looked at the Buddha statue again.
Looking at it again, he saw something was wrong again.
We have already taken action, so it doesn’t matter whether we have faith or not, whether we are in awe or not.
But the main hall has been robbed and turned into a garbage dump, but these golden Buddha statues are actually intact?
Li Chengzhi asked strangely: "Why has no one scratched the gold powder off the Buddha statue?"
How can you shave off a few taels of this Buddha, which is more than 20 bottles in size?
"It's not easy to scrape!" Li Song shook his head, "It's all burned gold juice, applied with an iron ruler, and it has long grown together with the copper inside..."
Li Chengzhi asked in shock: "What did you say, there is copper inside?"
"Of course it's copper." Li Song replied, "It's just hollow, and each bottle only weighs a few hundred kilograms...otherwise it wouldn't stand up at all!"
Li Chengzhi's eyes almost popped out: "Why is the one in Taipingguan made of clay?"
"Lang Jun, Taiping Temple was built by the imperial court..." Li Song explained helplessly.
It means that the imperial court does not have so much copper. Even if it did, it would not be luxurious enough to use it to cast statues of gods.
Li Chengzhi looked at these golden statues, his eyes shining brightly.
Oh my god...
Even if one bottle only weighs 500 kilograms, these twenty-one bottles are worth tens of thousands of kilograms of copper.
These are all money...
When he first traveled through time, Li Chengzhi was extremely surprised: the majestic Wei Dynasty was still in the barter stage, including national taxes and officials' salaries, all of which were collected in silk or corn.
Distributed.
After asking Li Song, I found out that because the court had no copper, there was no way to mint coins.
What about copper?
Several copper mines developed in previous dynasties have either been exhausted by mining or occupied by the Southern Dynasties.
The copper coins and bronze utensils circulating among the people have long been transformed into copper ingots by officials, nobles, nobles, and wealthy people, and hidden in cellars.
If it is not easy to understand, just think about gold in future generations: the less it is, the more expensive it is, and the more expensive it is, the more reluctant it is to sell...
The imperial court issued several copper coins, but they all ended in failure. The reasons were somewhat complex, the most important of which was: there were too many counterfeit coins, and as soon as the good coins came out, they were driven out by the bad coins.
The Wei Dynasty still showed some conscience. The copper coins they minted were copper six lead four, but in the hands of counterfeiters, they became copper three lead seven...
It was also because the royal family of the Yuan and Wei Dynasties was not centralized enough and did not dare to be as ruthless as Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to these powerful families who manufactured and sold counterfeit coins, so the IQ tax was confiscated...
As a result, the people of the Wei Dynasty did not recognize the coins minted by the court and the clans of the Wei Dynasty. They either only used Han five baht or bartered them.
I won’t talk about the Western Han Dynasty, but only the Eastern Han Dynasty. Coins were minted once during Liu Xiu’s time. That was more than 400 years ago. After that, there were three hundred years of wars. The losses were lost, and the weapons were smelted and made.
How much can a five-baht coin be passed down?
So in the Northern Wei Dynasty, copper and money became more and more expensive.
Taking Luoyang, the capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty, as an example, one pound of copper can be exchanged for one hundred and fifty five baht, or a bolt of silk, or two stones of millet.
As for Hu Baozong, a seventh-grade captain, his annual salary is only twelve bolts of silk, which is equivalent to 1,800 coins, or twelve pounds of copper.
This is the annual salary...
This shows how valuable the copper of the Wei Dynasty was.
Li Chengzhi silently calculated how much grain ten thousand kilograms of copper could buy... As he calculated, he bared his teeth and smiled.
A full 20,000 stone, equivalent to 2.4 million jin...
Li Song was horrified when he saw Li Chengzhi staring at those Buddha statues, his eyes gleaming and his mouth watering.
He also somewhat understands Li Chengzhi's temperament. Whenever he gets greedy after seeing something good, he will definitely have this expression.
"Lang Jun, this Zhaoxuan Temple is a government office..."
Does this mean you dare to care about the government’s money?
If we can steal, how can it be our turn?
Li Chengzhi said nothing, just rolled his eyes.
It’s really not that he is greedy for money.
No matter how bad the Li family is, they are still a powerful family. The accumulation of several generations can last him several lifetimes.
Besides, with the knowledge in his mind and the Li family's wealth and connections, making a fortune is not much more difficult than eating and drinking.
Li Chengzhi is thinking about the present.
If after the food is exhausted, the imperial army to suppress the rebellion has not yet arrived, or the rebellion has not yet been put down, then the monks and the people might not be driven away, right?
But when you have money, you don’t have to worry about it at all.
The chaos is only in Jingzhou. Liangzhou to the west of Kongtong Mountain is stable as usual. If you melt down two bronze statues, you can get more than two thousand shi of food. If you save it, you can eat it for half a month. p>
Be brave and melt down a few more. Don't you have all the war horses, iron materials, bows and arrows, swords and guns that are in short supply now?
Even if it is bigger, it is not impossible to transport several thousand kilograms of copper to Liangzhou and hire some private soldiers from Liangzhou noble families to quell the chaos...
He pinched his chin: "Is it okay to frame it for Yin Guang or Yin Zhen?"
Li Song trembled: "Mr. Lang, there are thousands of monks and people..."
It means that Yin Guangyin is really easy to deal with, just kill him, but you can't kill all the five or six thousand monks, right?
Can’t steal?
What about stealing a beam and replacing it with a pillar?
It definitely won't work if it's made of wood or stone. You don't even need to break it open to look. You can tell something is wrong by just tapping it with your fingers.
But if I replace it with iron, this problem seems to disappear.
Anyway, I want to make steel myself...
Li Chengzhi's eyes are getting brighter and brighter...
Li Song is sweating more and more on his head, more and more...
"Mr. Lang, there will be endless troubles!" Li Song said in a trembling voice.
If Li Chengzhi really dares to melt the Buddha statue, not to mention the imperial court, all the monks in the world will not let him go...
"What the hell do you know?" Li Chengzhi cursed.
He hesitated for a moment and said no more.
This matter is of great concern, and it is best not to leak the information until it is really time to do it.
Regardless of anything else, among the nearly 10,000 people he currently has in his hands, not many of them have the guts to melt the Buddha's image.
Whether the government punishes people or not is not a matter of secondary importance. The main reason is superstition and fear of retribution if the gods punish people.
Unless you put a knife to your neck...
Another thing, even if you want to replace the pillars, you must first ask whether the templates for casting these bronze statues are still there.
Otherwise it would be really hard to change...
Thinking of this, Li Chengzhi shook his head fiercely: "Well, come back!"
"Ah?" Li Song was stunned for a moment, "Didn't you say you want to see the place where the armor is forged?"
"No need to look, it's right here!" Li Chengzhi pointed to the open space behind the main hall.
Li Song knew as soon as he heard that Li Chengzhi had not given up on these bronze statues.
He scratched his head and head anxiously. He was so anxious that he didn't know how to persuade him.
If one thing is bad, it will be a disaster...
But after going down the mountain, Li Chengzhi seemed to have forgotten about it and never mentioned it again.
Li Song was finally relieved...
……
After another three days, all the villagers of the Song family moved to the monk village at the foot of the mountain.
The Li family still needs three days.
There are a lot of trivial matters, such as statistics, placement, neighborhood compilation, selection of temporary neighborhood chiefs, neighborhood chiefs, etc.
Li Chengzhi left all these matters to Song Lishen, and assigned him two household officials from Lijiabao to be his assistants, giving him an internship in advance on how to be a good clan leader.
In addition, Li Chengzhi asked Li Song to seize the time to train soldiers and reorganize the men.
The requirement is: the soldiers should be elite rather than numerous!
In fact, it was Li Chengzhi who had no confidence in those skinny monks and people.
He is said to be a strong man, but he is not even half as heavy as one hundred kilograms.
Li Chengzhi only picked a fraction of the total of 1,200 monks and formed an army (1,000 people) with more than 700 monks from the Li and Song families, with Li Song as the army leader.
The deputies are Li Bai and Li Feng, each serving as brigade commander (five hundred and first brigade), and the following captains (one hundred and first brigade) are all headed by the leader of the Li family.
Even juniors like Li Zhang, Li Xian, Li Zhao and Li Liang are team leaders.
Several heads of the Song family all hold deputy positions, but the symbolic significance is greater than the actual significance.
This is also to give the Song family something to think about, and it has a sense of "atonement", otherwise they would not even be given these deputy positions.
They never had a direct conversation, but when they occasionally talked about the war in Jingzhou, Song Lishen and the two village elders actually persuaded Li Chengzhi to launch an army to conquer.
It is also said that the young men of the Song family can serve as vanguards. If these four hundred are not enough, it is not impossible to choose another four hundred from the young men...
How could Li Chengzhi not hear that the Song family was prepared to sacrifice the lives of these condemned Ding Zhuangs, and even half of the clan, in exchange for the continuation of the Song family's incense...
Are you kidding?
Judging from the news coming from Jingzhou, the number of rebel thieves may have reached one hundred thousand, and one out of ten would be at least tens of thousands of rebels.
Take one thousand versus ten thousand?
Your Song family doesn’t want to live, but my Li family doesn’t want to die.
Li Chengzhi was beaten back on the spot...
At the same time, he had another thought: Since he was not even afraid of death, would he dare to demolish the Buddha statue?
But the time has not come yet...
The organizational structure was temporarily established. On that day, Li Chengzhi issued the first order: to collect iron tools!
Except for the kitchen knife, all the rest are handed in.
Including iron pot, iron shovel, iron plow, manure fork, hoe...
Li Chengzhi didn't know it himself, but according to Li Song's estimation, just the Li and Song families could collect at least tens of thousands of kilograms of iron materials.
Because every household has a hoe and an iron plow, and more than half of the households use iron pots.
There are more than 500 households, and each family collects an average of 20 jins, which can reach tens of thousands of jins...
It is also because the Wei Dynasty did not prohibit private mining of iron ore and smelting of iron tools, and even weapons, so the private iron smelting industry was extremely developed, and iron tools were also very cheap, and every household could afford them.
Li Chengzhi did some calculations: the iron materials are readily available, either wrought iron or pig iron, and the crucible steelmaking method is used. There will not be much waste. If it is exhausted, 20% will be lost, and the leftovers can also be used repeatedly, then
It can forge almost eight thousand kilograms of iron armor.
But a set of full-body cloth armor requires at least thirty kilograms of steel plates. After all, it is only a little over two hundred sets.
Not to mention the 300 heavy cavalry that Li Chengzhi had planned before, he couldn't even arm himself with 300 heavy steps.
It’s a bit far gone...
What to do?
Li Chengzhi had to think about those bronze statues again...