After leaving the shipbuilding business, Xu Ping and Liang Qian returned to the Yixian Post House, prepared a few dishes, took out a bottle of good wine brewed at home that they brought and said: "Mengfu, since the fifth year of Tiansheng, we have ascended to the top, and we have been officials everywhere, and we have not seen each other for more than ten years. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info Celebrate again at this juncture. This bottle of good wine made at home, we drank it together. ”

Liang Qian thanked him, sat down with Xu Ping, and drank together.

The friendship of the same year is naturally to be talked about, but the status difference between the two is too far now, and Liang Qian seems a little restrained. Xu Ping doesn't care, the most important thing to get along at this time is to express his attitude.

Just drank a few cups, and suddenly Yi Cheng came to report, saying that there was a wandering monk outside, and he heard that the new Qin Feng Roadside Marshal lived here, and insisted on coming in to meet him.

Although he was a little disappointed, Xu Ping still asked Yicheng to invite people in. The people of Fan Qiang value Buddhism, and the monks have a lot of convenience in their activities in that area, and Xu Ping is going to use their strength. Before he came, he had recruited monks from several places where Buddhism flourished in the name of the imperial court to help the people of Qiang under the rule of the Shuai Fu Sui. However, those monks were behind, and with Tian Guo and Liu Sanbian's team of people and horses, they were not by Xu Ping's side.

It didn't take long to see a monk in his thirties and forties, with a weathered face, wearing a torn monk's robe and carrying a statue of Guanyin on his back, and walked in with the post man. Looking at the appearance of this monk, he is an ascetic.

The monk saw Xu Ping, stepped forward to give a salute, and proclaimed the Buddha's name: "Poor monk Qi Song, I have seen the scriptures." ”

Seeing that this monk recognized himself directly as soon as he came in, and he looked like a stranger, even if he could recognize who was high or low from the color of his clothes, it was a bit unreasonable. Xu Ping couldn't help but be curious, and asked him, "Could it be that the mage has seen me before?" ”

The monk clasped his palms together and said: "The poor monk is a native of Tengzhou, and he left the country to travel in his prime. Although ten years have passed, I still vaguely remember Xianggong's appearance. ”

"Oh-" Xu Ping suddenly realized that he was a monk from Guangxi, no wonder he recognized himself. Tengzhou is not far from Yongzhou, looking at the age of this monk, when he was in Yongzhou, he was in the prime of life, and it was not surprising to swim to Yongzhou. But thinking about it, he had just become a monk at that time, and he was not famous, so it was not surprising that he had no impression.

Liang Qian asked, "The master came from afar, and somehow came to visit Jingluo?" ”

"Because when the poor monk was on Jingxi Road, he saw the text of the Qinfeng Road Marshal's Mansion recruiting monks to help the army, and there were also officials from the Shuaifu's Tian Guo who came to write. Under is Guangnan West Road-by, has always admired the Jingluo Xianggong in Yongzhou when the people benefited a lot, after leaving the villagers portrait shrine, heard that Xianggong is here, come to visit. ”

Liang Qian looked at Xu Ping, and said to Qi Song: "This place is close to Tibet, and the monks of Fan Qiang have no taboos, I don't know if the mage will quit meat and drink?" If you don't quit, how about sitting down and having a drink? ”

The monk pronounced the Buddha's name, confessed his sin, and said: "The poor monk took refuge in the Buddha at the age of seven, and he was strict with the precepts, and the officials were kind and good-willed. ”

Suddenly, Xu Ping slapped the table lightly: "I remembered!" Tian Guo once told me that there is such a high monk as you. It is said that you are profoundly educated, not only do you know everything about Buddhist scriptures, but you also have a lot of Confucian classics. I don't want you to come here! ”

The field is relatively broad, although it is a jinshi, a genuine scholar, but also has a dabbling in Buddhist classics. I met this Che Song by chance, and I talked about it very speculatively and became close friends. This time the northwest used troops, Xu Ping wanted to recruit mainland monks to help the army, and Tian Guo recruited him. This is the Qisong monk is a real Taoist monk, who has a profound impact on the development of Buddhism in the Song Dynasty, advocating that Confucianism and Buddhism are the same, but the lines are different, and promote the exchange of Confucianism and Buddhism.

As the Heavenly Sage Jinshi began to appear on the political stage, he also emerged in the ideological field. It was one faction that followed Xu Ping to carry out the New Deal, and there was another faction, represented by Shi Jie, Ouyang Xiu and others. Xu Ping's faction is mainly engaged in practice, and the new ideas are also combined with political measures, and the momentum is huge, but the voice is still not as good as Ouyang Xiu and Shi Jie's faction.

Shi Jie was Han Yu's Taoist unification faction, and their thoughts were similar to Ouyang Xiu's, and they began to make their voices heard in Shilin through the rise of the Guwen Movement. Han Yu was in the era of the decline of Confucianism, so he put forward the idea of "Wu Ben", strengthened the theoretical construction of Confucianism itself, and at the same time excluded the evil and foreign ways, which was concentrated in the article "Yuan Dao" that was handed down to later generations. The so-called evil demon outer way, in Han Yu's era, mainly refers to Buddhism, Shi Jie and Ouyang Xiu admired Han Yu, and took over the banner of Pai Buddha.

Shi Jie, like Ouyang Xiu, was a jinshi in the eighth year of the Heavenly Sage, and at this time the official did not do much, but he studied Confucian theory very deeply, and his influence among scholars was very great. In the past two years, he has made three articles of "Strange Sayings", advocating the elimination of Buddha, and even proposing to punish all the monks in the world and burn all the Buddhist books in the world. Ouyang Xiu followed closely behind, setting off a wave of Buddha rows in Shilin.

Although Li Jing did not respect Meng or Han, for Confucianism, the exclusion of Buddha was a common interest, and he echoed the wave of exclusion of Buddhism set off by Shi Jie and Ouyang Xiu. Now that Li Jing is presiding over the Guozijian, the influence is even greater, and Buddhism has suddenly become in a difficult situation.

Xu Ping did not participate in this wave of Buddha exclusion, nor did he stop it, and stood by and watched. In order for a new ideology to be established, it is inevitable that the suppression of other ideas will be targeted, and it makes no difference to him whether the spearhead is aimed at Buddhism or other schools of Confucianism. It is better to suppress others than to be suppressed by others.

Thinking about this, Xu Ping understood that this Qi Song mage was not just because he had a good relationship with him in Yongzhou, and he came to the western border to help the army. More importantly, I am afraid that I still want to open a breakthrough from myself and improve the situation of Buddhism. In the court, Xu Ping was at a disadvantage to several governors, but as soon as he came out of the court, as the proposer and implementer of the new policy, the leader of new ideas, and the promising young man made the economy slightly fair, and was in charge of the military and politics all the way, it was a different scene.

Not to mention that in the eyes of Qi Song and others, Li Jing, who is mainly engaged in ideology, also has a heavy weight, and the relationship between Li Jing and Xu Ping is well known. Most of the scholars are seriously opposed in thought, so it is much easier to make a fuss from Xu Ping, an official.

Eating meat and drinking wine in front of the monk was too disrespectful to the Buddha, so Xu Ping had no choice but to let people remove the wine and food, serve tea again, and invite Qi Song to sit down and use tea.

After drinking tea, Qi Song began to tell Xu Ping that the way of Confucianism and Buddhism is actually the same truth. Buddhism talks about "ten virtues" and "five precepts", and Confucianism talks about "five constants" and "benevolence and righteousness". Whether it is a Buddhist saint or a Confucian saint, in short, the heart of guiding people to goodness is always the same. In response to Shi Jie, Ouyang Xiu and others' attacks on Buddhism as Yijiao, and citing the example of Shun being a person from Dongyi and King Wen being a person from Xiyi, Confucianism does not reject them, so why should Buddhism be excluded? There is no difference in the world.

The monk's oral skills are unmatched, and when they started together, Qi Song talked endlessly, telling Xu Ping his truth.

Even out of politeness, Xu Ping didn't show impatience, not to mention that he was about to use the power of Buddhist disciples, so he had to pretend to be very interested in listening to it, just as he had nothing to do to listen to the story.