As a result of the looting of corpses and the forcible isolation of the sick, fierce clashes inevitably erupted between the Guards and the people of the city.

This time is different from the previous ones, because this time there are obviously more people infected with the plague than before, and the conflict that has broken out is wider than before.

The fiercest resistance was a Taoist temple in the city, called Xuanwu Temple. The host of this Taoist temple is called Xuanwuzi, who is quite profound, full of white hair, white beard and white eyebrows, and is said to be more than 100 years old.

He had many followers under him, and he had his own branches in the eastern and western cities of the capital. The Xuanwu Temple sits in the center. There are nearly 1,000 Taoists in the three Taoist temples, and there are more than 10,000 lay disciples if you add them, which is very influential in the capital.

This Taoist has never clashed with the imperial court, and he has always restrained his disciples, and he has always persuaded people to be kind. Therefore, despite the large number of congregations, the court did not take it seriously.

But this time the flood besieged the city and there was a plague in the city, and the situation was different. Because many of the many monks and lay disciples of the Xuanwu Temple were infected with the plague, some died, and some were still alive.

Cai Jing asked the Kaifeng government to take the soldiers of the Imperial Forest Army to search for the patients infected with the plague one by one, and forcibly took away the bodies of the patients who suffered from the plague and cremated them, and the patients were dragged to the yamen for forced isolation.

When the corpse was forcibly cremated before, the Taoists of the Xuanwu Temple were already angry. Although the Taoists also allow cremation, it is according to their rules and under strict dojo rituals.

Now, after the yamen forcibly dragged the corpses away, according to the Taoist followers who followed them, they reported that the corpses were thrown on the bonfire, and dozens of corpses were piled up and burned together, and the stench was terrible. This aroused the anger of the cultists, but in the yamen there were sword-wielding and heavily armed royal guards, and they dared not speak out.

And now the yamen has intensified, and even the sick patients have to be pulled down and locked up in the yamen, waiting for them to fend for themselves, which is intolerable to the Xuanwu concept. In the Xuanwu Temple, hundreds of monks and lay disciples were sent to the yamen for quarantine after suffering from the plague.

Before this, Xuanwuzi treated them for the disease, of course, there was no effect, and the patients died one after another. Xuanwuzi explained that the demons were too dangerous, and he needed to ask the heavenly soldiers and generals to come and help. And at this time, the yamen wanted to forcibly take away the sick believers in the Taoist temple. For ordinary people, they do not have the ability to fight against the yamen. However, the Xuanwu Temple was different, they had a large number of people, and under the excitement of the people in the sect, they formed a human wall to block the front of the Taoist temple, preventing the officials and soldiers from entering the Taoist temple to find the sick and sick.

The soldiers and servants could not enter the wall of nearly 1,000 believers at all, and they did not dare to move it. So he hurriedly sent someone to rush to the city gate tower and report to Cai Jing.

Cai Jing was furious when he heard this: "Do these people want to rebel, at this time, they dare to detain people who are suffering from the plague, that is, they want the plague to continue to spread in the city." is to harm the court and the official family, that is, to rebel. ”

Cai Jing quickly decided on the matter, and then sent additional personnel. After urgent consultation with the commander of the Imperial Forest Army, additional soldiers of the Imperial Forest Army were dispatched to assist the officials in forcibly isolating the patient.

The reason why the commanders of the Imperial Forest Army made this decision was because they knew that Cai Jing's power came directly from the emperor and was responsible for flood control and rescue of the entire capital. And Cai Jing took the initiative to meddle in affairs, sent people to collect the corpses of plague patients for burning, and forcibly brought the sick patients to the yamen for forced isolation, these things have been fed back to the imperial court through various channels, but the imperial court is completely acquiescing, and there is no opposition.

As long as the court officials don't touch their people, they won't care about this kind of thing. After all, it was the most effective and easiest way they could think of to stop the further spread of the plague. If the plague is allowed to rage in the capital, it will one day endanger their lives. Against this backdrop, who will be in charge of this matter among officials at all levels?

The commander saw the attitude of the imperial court, and also saw that Cai Jing took the initiative to meddle in affairs and was eager to make meritorious service, thinking of the benefits he got in exchange for doing so, and also wanted to follow Cai Jing according to the gourd painting, and in the future, his own benefits would be indispensable for meritorious deeds, so he sent the Imperial Forest Army, according to Cai Jing's decision, directly to Xuanwu Temple to implement Cai Jing's decision, and forcibly take away the sick sect members.

When a large number of Imperial Forest Army and officials rushed to Xuanwu Temple, the people of Xuanwu Temple also expected this, and the news spread immediately. Thousands of people from all over the city gathered in front of the Xuanwu Temple Gate and formed a wall of people. Holding hands and confronting the Imperial Forest Army with swords, they just don't give way.

This incident quickly spread throughout the capital, and many good people came out to see the excitement. The square in front of the Xuanwu Temple was crowded with people, and even the surrounding streets were full of people. Most of the people gathered came to see the excitement and express their anger, because many of them had relatives forcibly isolated by the imperial court, or their bodies were forcibly taken away for cremation.

Because Cai Jing thought that the situation of the plague was urgent, he did not ask his subordinates to do more ideological explanation work, but forcibly carried it out. In this way, of course, the families of these patients cannot accept it emotionally. And this time, when I heard that the Xuanwu Guan sect resisted the government's forced isolation and arrest, it immediately resonated with them, and they called their friends to come and help. Therefore, most of these people gathered outside the Xuanwu Temple expressed their support for the Xuanwu Temple.

Seeing the layers of cultists surrounding the Xuanwu Guan Tuan and the people who were watching the excitement around them and cheering for these believers, the thousands of officials and the Imperial Forest Army who came to forcibly lead people naturally did not dare to make a move. Otherwise, the situation will worsen. Once the people are provoked, these tens of thousands of people riot, the outcome of which is difficult to predict.

Now that the capital is besieged as an isolated island and plague is rife, the people are like a pile of dry straw, and if they throw a spark into it, they may burn everything.

The news was urgently reported to Cai Jing again, although Cai Jing was very angry, but he also knew that this was the time to test his wisdom, and he must not make a wrong move, otherwise he would lose the whole game. At present, the most likely wrong move is to continue to send more troops, which will inevitably lead to a conflict between the two sides, and if a conflict breaks out, the consequences will be unimaginable.

So Cai Jing immediately ordered the withdrawal of the Imperial Forest Army, leaving only more than 100 officials and Minzhuang of the imperial court, and sent someone to inform the leader of the team to capture the head, so that they were not allowed to use force under any circumstances, and only needed to explain patiently.

Xuanwuzi barely said a word about the whole thing, he just sat cross-legged on the futon in front of the offering table in the Sanqing Palace, lighting a stick of incense and silently reciting the scriptures. His inner room disciples and sect elders sat beside Xuanwuzi, and seeing him so calm, their anxious expressions also faded a lot.

Whether such a confrontation with the officers and soldiers will lead to wanton retaliation from the officers and soldiers, they do not know, so they can only follow the host to the black. Responsible for transmitting the news from the outside is the temple of Xuanwu Temple, he constantly runs in and out, and reports the situation outside to Xuanwu Zi, the host of Xuanwu Temple.

But the news that came in was basically that the people in the temple felt palpitations, such as the officials of the Yamen and Minzhuang were coming with the Imperial Forest Army. There were also three hundred archers in armor, who were shouting and scolding the believers to retreat, and many of the believers were frightened, but on the whole they still did not back down.

There were more and more people who came to stand and cheer around, and just when all the elders felt palpitations, the good news finally came, and Miao Zhu ran in and said, "Presiding, the officers and soldiers have retreated, and they have withdrawn, leaving only a hundred or so officials." Those officials were not as arrogant as before, but patiently explained that this was necessary for epidemic prevention and to prevent the spread of the disease, and I hope we can understand and so on. We ignored them, and we still didn't let them in. They also did not resort to any means. Hehe, it seems that these people are hard and not soft, if we are tough, they can't help it. ”

The other elders all breathed a sigh of relief, and a smile appeared on the corner of their mouths. Only Xuanwuzi was still sitting there silently reading the scriptures, as if he hadn't heard what Miaozhu had just said.

Xuanwuzi's eldest disciple could make decisions on behalf of the master in many cases, seeing that the master closed his eyes and was silent, while Miaozhu and the others were waiting for him to speak. So he waved his hand and said, "Okay, you go out, and I'll report you again." ”

After the temple said yes, he withdrew from the Sanqing Hall and came to the open space outside the Xuanwu Temple. In this open space, the believers still held hands, surrounding the entire Xuanwu Temple on three layers inside and three layers outside. And these people who were standing outside to cheer saw that the Imperial Forest Army had withdrawn in submission, and they immediately seemed to have won a big battle, and cheered loudly with excitement.

Miaozhu was also very happy, although he was a little faintly uneasy. Because they are fighting against the imperial forest army of the imperial court and the officials of Kaifeng Mansion, now it seems that they have the upper hand, who knows what will happen later? Maybe they are just delaying the army, and when everyone is dispersed, I am afraid that these people will rush into the Taoist temple like wolves and tigers, arrest the abbot and others and take them away, then it will be troublesome.

Just as he was muttering in his heart, an exclamation suddenly came from the crowd not far away: "Is he suffering from the plague?

Where the voice came, the people around them were desperately flashing to both sides, but there were too many people, and there was not much space to spread out the layers. Although the people around him were dodging on both sides, they could only leave a small amount of space, but this space could already allow Miao Zhu, who was standing on a high place, to see the situation in front of him clearly. I saw a young man vomiting blood non-stop, and one of his faces was obviously purple-black, and it looked unusually scary.

At the same time, in another place, a middle-aged man suddenly screamed in pain: "Don't touch the bag around my neck, it hurts me, help, who will help me, call Lang Zhong quickly......"