Section 216 The messenger arrived

After the Zhuang family's running, Zhang Yingchen first "whitewashed" his sect. He himself had a degree, and the three missionaries who came from Qiongshan all had official Taoist priests from the Foreign Intelligence Bureau through the Guangzhou station.

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the local government was very vigilant about the monks, especially the wandering monks, who were simply potential criminals and instigators in the eyes of the government. All states and counties have a Sangha Division, the Daolu Division full-time management of the monks, the monks go out to travel, theoretically have to have the local Sangha Division, the Daolu Division to issue a road guide document, so that the foreign travel party can be regarded as having a formal identity. If you want to place an order in a certain place, you must also report to the local "relevant ministry" for the record.

Although this system was not very strict at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Yingchen believed that the procedures should be as complete as possible -- so as not to use it to pull pigtails.

First of all, the "Yunshengguan" was officially turned into a Taoist temple - under the operation of the banker, plus Zhang Yingchen did not hesitate to use silver, it was quickly completed, and then three missionaries from Qiongshan were listed as "official establishment". Zhang Yingchen named one of the most clever and the most official old boys as the host, and he presided over the external work.

In this way, he has a legal religious site in Yizhou. Later, Zhang Yingchen invested money to expand the Taoist temple - in the year of the catastrophe, labor was extremely cheap, except for a few jishu workers, the vast majority of workers only needed to give their mouths full of food.

Then, the medical bureau that he co-founded with the dealer also opened. For a time, the new Taoism was in full swing in Yizhou, and its momentum increased greatly. The number of believers is increasing. The various local altars of the Southern Wuliang Sect began to disintegrate, and many incense masters and Si Xiang began to defect - some because of the legend of his "mana", and some because of financial embarrassment. In the past two years, floods have been frequent, the taxes of the government have been heavy, and many small landlords and rich peasants who act as incense masters and incense stickers have been overwhelmed, and the church itself has many apportionments of "offerings" and "incense rites" -- although they can levy taxes on the grassroots believers, the situation of ordinary believers is even worse, and they cannot afford much money at all. After the flood, although relief money and food were also allocated from the main altar, very few of them fell into their hands. On the contrary, the owner of the altar used the name of "helping fellow people" to extort a lot of money and food.

Zhang Yingchen knew from the incense owners who had defected: Ma Sanwei, the current owner of the Yizhou altar, was afraid of a local tyrant -- the so-called local tyrant was almost a combination of landlords and bandits. Relying on his hard skills and hundreds of thugs, he is very shili in the local area, and the government does not dare to provoke him easily. He saw that the Southern Wuliang Sect was growing in the local area, and there were many believers, so he got up and joined the church, he was a rich and powerful person in the local area, and naturally he also valued it very much, so in less than three or five years, the original local altar master suddenly died, and he naturally became the altar master.

For such a person, the so-called faith is nothing more than a tool for him to accumulate wealth. Of course, he was still very respectful to the upper echelons of the sect, and even showed great piety - because although he had no faith, he believed very much, and the "spells" of the Dharma protector and patrol in the sect made him jealous, and secondly, he felt that it was more convenient to collect wealth in this skin than in the past.

Therefore, the disciples in Yizhou have long been dissatisfied with Ma Weisan, the altar master, but because of his prestige, no one dares to speak. Some people have gone to Jinan General Altar to "complain", but because Ma Weisan has done a good job in Yizhou, and there is a large amount of incense to worship every year, there is nothing to do with "petitioning".

Zhang Yingchen sighed after listening to the reports of several incense owners: The so-called life is full of rivers and lakes, but in fact, life is also full of "officialdom", of course, it seems more accurate to say that officialdom is also rivers and lakes.

"Do you still have food at home?" Zhang Yingchen asked: "I see that there are a lot of victims here, and there are people who are dying of hunger everywhere. There are also many displaced people who have fled the famine. ”

"Yes, there are some." Several incense owners burst into tears, "Everyone eats evenly, and with some bark and wild vegetables, it can barely keep people from dying." They are so old and young, and their bodies are too weak to endure it, and it is their fate to die a few! It's just that there is a lot of water in the summer, and I don't have to plant, so I don't know what to do in the fall? When the time comes, I have to leave my hometown to ask for food, otherwise I will starve to death! ”

Most of the folk religions have the sè color of "mutual aid", and there are such special sès from the Taiping Dao and Wudou Mi Sect, and the general altar has allocated some money and food, so that the local parishioners are in a slightly better condition than other people. Therefore, every time a major natural disaster breaks out, it is the best opportunity for the folk religion to expand its strength.

If it weren't for Ma Weisan's heart being too heavy and blindly exploiting, it would be a bit unrealistic for him Zhang Yingchen to shake the status of the Southern Wuliang Sect here.

Zhang Yingchen nodded: "Tomorrow, you will go to the banker's house to receive grain first-I have already negotiated with the head of his family, and I will lend a hundred grains to everyone for the time being." In a few days, food will be delivered. ”

The first batch of emergency rations has arrived in Jining from Qiweizhan through the Grand Canal and is being transshipped in the direction of Yizhou. Zhang Yingchen only waited for this batch of grain to arrive, and then used Yizhou as a base to recruit flood victims in Lunan and Xuzhou on a large scale.

As long as there is food, there is also the capital to recruit exiles - whether you want to take a hungry person to heaven or hell, wherever there is food, he will follow. The army of rogues at the end of the Ming Dynasty was nothing more than a group of desperate people who relied on fighting to keep themselves from starving to death.

He was fresh and brocade here, cooking oil with a blazing fire, but Ma Weisan's incense altar fell into a panic.

His altar was not in the farmhouse - although the location was secret, there were many people who knew the details of the incense master and visitors from outside the country on weekdays. Now many incense owners have rebelled, and it is even more insecure.

Ma Weisan hid directly back in his incense altar, his incense altar was not a secret location, but ordinary people could not wait to enter it - a local earthen enclosure was also where his home was. Ma Weisan has always been entrenched here, doing some things that wander between black and white.

The soil fence is not high, there is also a zhang, there are not many people, and there are at least more than 200 people who dare to work hard. Self-protection will not be a problem for a while.

What he is most afraid of now is not the rush in of someone with open fire, but those inexplicable "spells". After he joined the sect and became the owner of the local incense altar, he met many "powerful and powerful" characters in the main altar at several "Dharma meetings" held at the Jinan General Altar, such as the "Five Thunder Method", "Soul Technique", and "Flying Technique...... There are no less than a dozen of them.

Some of them he knew were "color mén" things, and they could only deceive ordinary believers—and he learned a lot after he joined the church. But there are some things that he does not understand, so he thinks they are true.

If the general altar thinks that he is not doing well, he wants to use his authority and not kill him, I am afraid that he can use soul dementorship to make him die!

When Ma Weisan first joined the church, he kept an eye on it, and when he opened the incense altar and passed it on, the eight characters of his birthday were all fake, so as not to be "ingested by the soul" one day earlier.

Even if these spells are all fake, the general altar also has a group of extremely high martial arts guests for them to drive - some apologists or inspectors themselves are masters of the rivers and lakes.

If the general altar makes him afraid, then the inexplicable appearance of Daoist Zhang makes him even more afraid: even the magic of the apologetic Hu Qi'er and Min Zhanlian's martial arts can't deal with him! Hu Qi'er went to chase Min Zhanlian, but found nothing - only saw seven corpses of Min Zhanlian's men on the road, stripped to jīng naked, and thrown into the ditch. The most terrifying thing is that when Hu Qi'er came back, her face was pale - because these people died in a very miserable state, and all of them had big cuts on their bodies.

Whether it was Hu Qi'er or Ma Weisan, they fell into great fear: the double threat of the investigation of the general altar and the revenge of Daoist Zhang stayed at home. Sit and watch the Yizhou incense altar fall apart. Daoist Zhang brought a lot of grain from Jining and other places, and in addition to providing relief to the refugees, he also used the grain to recruit rebels on a large scale -- the believers were also generally short of food and could not sustain themselves.

Now, half of the more than a dozen incense halls in Yizhou have been betrayed, and half of them are also at both ends of the first rat, and only a few of the incense halls under his direct jurisdiction are still firmly controlled by him.

Ma Weisan tried his best to fight back, and sent his right-hand men to attack the renegade incense lords and cultists in order to kill people and establish authority, and at first it was quite successful, but after going a few times, all the incense halls that were ordered to send killers were slaughtered in retaliation, and all the backbones died. As a result, the whole situation became more and more shaky.

The situation has forced the general altar, which originally did not pay much attention to Yizhou, to pay direct attention.

On the official road, there were more people - the horses from Jining were in an endless stream, which surprised the traders who often set up stalls on the roadside - in Daming, there were very few people who could ride horses and gallop. The value of a horse can be measured in gold.

In front of the Mén building in the Tuweizi of the Ma family, more than a dozen horsemen came.

At the head is an old man.

Upstairs in the mén of Tuweizi is the head of Ma Weisan's nursing home, who is also a believer. He was in town on weekdays, and he was dedicated to checking visitors. Recently, because of the tense wind, the Ma family has been closed even during the day.

Seeing that the person who came was extraordinary, the nursing teacher opened the little mén and came out to greet him.

"These masters, I don't know why they came to the local area?"

“xiexie。” The old man returned the salute and smiled faintly: "Is Uncle Ma at home?" If you have something to see, you will be annoyed by the general manager. Pointing to the sky with his finger, he pointed to the ground with his backhand, and Zuihou put his hand on the right xiōng.

The body of the nursing teacher was shocked: "It turned out that the envoy of the main altar drove to the ......" His language and attitude became more and more respectful, "Please give the Dharma body so that the disciples can worship." ”

"The Dharma Protector of the Inner Dharma Hall under the General Altar has been announced."

The teacher of the nursing home immediately knelt down and bowed, and the dearest was very humble: "The disciple greets the Fa driver." ”

"Get up." The old man beckoned and said, "You horse altar master is here??" ”

"In, in, in the house, the disciple will go and tell you."

"No, you can just lead us in." The old man is majestic, and there is an oppressive momentum in his voice.

"It was the teachers who got up and took care of the nurses, opened the courtyard, and brought in a group of people.

……