Section 68 Wrestling

The biggest fundamentals of the Lingao Church are, of course, in the Loi district. Thanks to the missionaries, the missionary coverage rate in the Li district of Lingao County reached more than 90. There were more than a dozen of the whole baptized stockades. The number of believers grew to five or six thousand. In the Han District of Lingao, through assistance in "suppressing bandits and dealing with the aftermath," the missionary work has also achieved great success in several areas in the mountainous areas where bandits were seriously plagued in the past.

As the battle for law and order unfolded in northern Qiongbei, the missionaries followed the bayonets and work teams of the Fubo army, and then infiltrated the counties of northern Qiongbei, especially in Danzhou, with great success.

Wu Shimang not only preached vigorously, but also was very scheming. He knew that many in the Senate had concerns about missionary work, but he had a sense of impatience about "changing customs." Therefore, Dean Wu instructed the missionaries from Europe and the activists among the local believers to carry out propaganda to change customs. And he practiced it among the faithful.

After the discussion of Wu Shimang, Bai Duolu and others, it was determined that the propaganda of changing customs should be mainly "cultivating hygienic habits and resisting bad social practices". Use religion to promote modern hygiene practices, such as washing hands before eating and using the toilet, and cleaning up garbage in front of and behind the house...... It happened that Aibeibei of the Ministry of Health began to promote "hospital admission" in Lingao, and Wu Shimang immediately asked the priests to publicize "hospital admission" during their sermons. It also generously organized a volunteer pick-up team to pick up local pregnant women in a sedan chair. Under the dual inspiration of heaven and hell, the admission and production rate of the Han parish in Lingao reached 100 at once, even exceeding the usual model Bairen commune. For a time, the church became famous, and Abebe praised the church and gave a pennant.

In addition, Wu Shimang presided over the drafting of a "Etiquette Service Department", which blended ancient and modern Chinese and foreign etiquette and engaged in a simple and grand set of etiquette services. But he cunningly named it "Australian Rites", and depending on the ritual, it was possible to leave it without a Christian component. Thus, the doubts of some patriarchs were avoided. For many naturalized people who don't have much money, it doesn't cost money to go to a magnificent church to hold a wedding or memorial service, there is a beautiful choir in the church, there is beautiful and solemn music, there are a lot of flowers, and a kind priest, whether you are a religious or not, will say some flowery blessings or words of condolence. The ritual was both solemn and simple, so it soon became popular among the naturalized people.

The development of the Lingao Church was transmitted to Zhang Yingchen, a missionary in Sanya, through letters from several friends.

Over the past year or so, Zhang Yingchen has taken Sanya as a starting point to go deep into the Li District of Hainan Island, and has used medical practice as a means to spread his "new Taoism", and has achieved quite obvious results. In particular, on the journey from Sanya to the interior, he had successfully "captured" four stockades and "penetrated" ten. The so-called "capture" means that the whole village is worshiped as a god, and "infiltration" is that there are some believers. And in a major large village, a "medical house" was established.

Although he was weak, he relied on his knowledge of modern Chinese medicine and the medicines he purchased from Runshitang to practice medicine all the way, and he was unimpeded in the Li District, and the effect of his mission was not much worse than that of Catholicism. Of course, he also encountered many dangers during his missionary career of more than a year, and the knowledge of survival in the wilderness and the modern weapons and tools he had with him helped him a lot, and he saved himself from danger several times. But the lack of people and the lack of strength have always been an important problem for him. Zhang Yingchen found that he could not expand his team quickly, and Dean Wu could sit in the center and continue to make money to run the church, and the Jesuit priests went out to preach and preach. He also had Bai Duolu as his assistant to communicate with the local believers. Expanding the faithful, running the church, and training the clergy are all carried out at the same time, but they are completely at the expense of the other.

Because no one was in charge of training, a few "Taoist students" who had been finally obtained had to be temporarily put to Fangcaodi to continue cultural learning. Zhang Yingchen Jihua was not like this—he had originally intended to "cultivate" the boys himself, but now that it was in the hands of Hu Qingbai, it would not be good if he was instilled with knowledge that was not conducive to the different concepts he was going to impart.

Under the concerns of various practical problems, Zhang Yingchen finally had to end his activities in Li District ahead of schedule and rush back to Lingao before the annual meeting. He is ready to "lay out the situation" first and stand firm in his own position.

According to Zhang Yingchen's original plan for the development of Jihua, the core institution of the new Taoism was located in Ding'an County, where there was Bijia Mountain, the holy land of Taoism, and the feathering place of Bai Yuchan, the master of the Daonan Sect of Taoism. With such an aura, the Neo-Taoist religion has unique conditions for building its own ancestral court in the local area.

As for the timing of the start of construction, Zhang Yingchen originally planned to wait for the situation in Hainan to be fully settled and the new Taoism had enough followers before starting the construction and reception of religious facilities. At least when there are more believers, the funds can be guaranteed. But the current situation forced him to take immediate action -- the new Taoism could not do without its own religious facilities, and it would not be possible to build a medical center in Sanya. Since the Catholic Church was growing faster than he expected, he had to act quickly.

Zhang Yingchen first set up a relationship with the Foreign Intelligence Bureau -- his ultimate target was the mainland, and the Foreign Intelligence Bureau controlled the funds, personnel, and system for carrying out activities on the mainland. And religion itself is an effective propaganda and infiltration tool. Neo-Taoism is at least more "localized" than Catholicism, so his talks with Jiang Shan and others hit it off. With the consent and matchmaking of the Foreign Intelligence Bureau, he reached a formal cooperative relationship with Chen Tianxiong of the Leizhou station, and regarded the Zou Monk Temple of Hai'an as a Taoist temple under the "new Taoism" system.

But there must also be a Taoist temple in Lingao. No matter how you say it, Lingao will also be a "holy land" in the future, and new Taoism will have a place.

It didn't take much effort to get the approval document from He Ying, and he got the application for the materials for the construction from the Planning Institute. Raising funds was difficult, as the Ministry of Finance refused to allocate funds for the construction of the new temple, which had been self-financed until then. Although Thief Quanzi was much stronger than Dean Wu in terms of religious level, he had a very disadvantageous condition: it was difficult to obtain funds.

In contrast to the Jesuit Society, the "New Taoism" can only receive limited funds for its activities from the Office of Le Miao Affairs, and the Office of Religious Affairs of course also allocates some funds for its activities. However, compared to the fact that Dean Wu could receive a box of silver coins from Macao every six months, and sometimes he could go out of Macao to fight the autumn breeze under various names, Zhang Yingchen's economic situation could be called very poor -- although Li Min worshiped him like a god, he could not come up with anything of value to enrich the treasury of the new Taoism.

In the end, Zhang Yingchen had to resort to loans, using his veteran shares as collateral to borrow a sum of money from Delong, and then gathered all the balance of the activity funds given to him by the Li Miao Affairs Office and the Religious Affairs Office.

Because of the tight cost, Zhang Yingchen opened up a unique path and did not establish a Taoist temple in the lively Dongmen City, but chose Yongqing Temple, five kilometers west of Lingao County. This is a Taoist temple that was built in the Song Dynasty, the Taoist priest Zeng Daoning in the Hongwu of the Ming Dynasty was rebuilt, the Hongzhi was destroyed in Kou, and the Zhengde period was rebuilt by the county Cheng Wang Xi.

At this time, almost one hundred and fifty years have passed since the first reconstruction of the Zuihou of Yeongkeeongkan. The Taoist temple has long been abandoned, and only the stone foundation of the building remains. Zhang Yingchen chose this place first of all, the land price here is cheap, not only lower than Dongmen City, but also lower than Lingao County. Secondly, it is not very far from the county seat, the road has been built, the traffic is convenient, and it is relatively quiet away from the downtown area. The foundations of the houses here are well preserved, and the cost of building a house is not high. There are still a lot of ancient trees on the foundation, and the environment is quite good after renovation.

Zhang Yingchen named this place Yun Ji Guan. He drew the floor plan himself, and he also communicated the style he envisioned to the designers of the construction company to make sure they could understand his vision. However, due to financial constraints, the entire project will be carried out in several phases. In the first phase, a courtyard was built for his residence and Qing repair, plus a courtyard for the "Taoists" to live and study. In addition, a scripture cabinet was built to store various Taoist texts that he had purchased and collected.

At this moment, Zhang Yingchen, the "head of the "new Taoism" and the self-proclaimed "thief of springs", is entertaining guests in a clean room of the newly built Taoist temple.

Zhang Yingchen wears a "new uniform" of his own design, with a bun and beard. Because of his long-term missionary work in Li District, he has a dark complexion, a thin body, and a bit of a fairy style and bones.

He took a cup of tea, blew lightly, took a sip, and said after a while: "You want me to go to Hangzhou together?" ”

"Not bad." The thirty-somethings who spoke were completely in the costume of the Akito. It was Zhao Yinggong, who applied to Batavia to serve as a consul a few days ago. He applied for training as an expatriate intelligence officer of the Foreign Intelligence Service. Prepare to work in Hangzhou as a descendant of the Great Song Dynasty.

"A wandering Taoist priest who goes to Hangzhou to preach, can he do anything?" Zhang Yingchen said.

"Absolutely. You are a Taoist. Wouldn't it be better to come forward to engage in charity activities than to suddenly appear as an outsider like me? Zhao Yinggong's idea was approved by Jiang Shan and others, and it was also approved by He Ying, and now it depends on Zhang Yingchen's own intentions.

It is much more reassuring for a religious institution to come forward to do charity than for a strange wealthy person from another place to do charity out of nowhere. Zhao Yinggong's idea was to let Zhang Yingchen come forward, first build a Taoist temple, and then use the Taoist temple as a base to run charity. When the fame became a little known, it would be much more convenient to come forward to shelter the displaced people when the Great Famine broke out in eastern Zhejiang in 1632.