After solving Cao Bao, Liu Ze's eyes fell on Xiapi's Zhenrong and Kaiyang's Zang Ba, only after these two were solved, Liu Ze could be regarded as firmly in control of the entire Xuzhou. However, the meal has to be eaten one bite at a time, and things have to be done one by one, Liu Ze first set his eyes on Zhenrong in the south.

Although Zhenrong did not support his troops and self-respect like Zang Ba in Kaiyang, he used the cloak of Buddhism to deceive the ignorant and good people, greatly promoted Buddhism, built temples, cultivated and developed his own forces, and became self-reliant in the Xiapi area. Zhenrong is a native of Danyang, and Tao Qian is a fellow countryman, and when he was in Danyang, he had a good reputation for being kind and compassionate, and he was a well-known good man in ten miles and eight towns near and far. After Tao Qian served as the state pastor in Xuzhou, Di Rong led hundreds of Buddhists to the north to defect to Tao Qian, with his mastery of Buddhism and his kind face, Di Rong was soon appreciated and reused by Tao Qian, and served as the state minister of Xia Pi State, and also let him supervise the grain of Xia Pi, Guangling, and Pengcheng counties.

However, Zhenrong did not pay the money, grain and taxes of these three counties to Tancheng, but filled his own pockets and intercepted them halfway. After Rong was greedy for this money, he built the Futu Temple in Xiapi, the Futu Temple was built in the south of the city of Xiapi, there is a tower in the temple, there is a gold plate on it, there is a heavy building under it, the tower is nine layers of octagonal, each layer has cornices, each side is inlaid with copper realm, there is also a bronze mirror facing the sky at the top of the tower, it is called "Nine Mirror Tower". It is said that more than 3,000 people can be accommodated around the pavilion to read Buddhist scriptures in the inner hall, and the Buddha statue is painted with gold and draped in a brocade robe. Every time you go to the bathing Buddha meeting, you will set up a table on the side of the road for dozens of miles, and you can eat and drink wine and dinner. There are as many as 10,000 people who come to visit and worship the Buddha. It can be seen that the luxury of the arrangement, the grandeur of the scene, and the majesty of the momentum at that time are rare to see in the world. He also ordered all believers of both sexes to join Buddhism. They were exempted from forced labor and taxes, so as to buy people's hearts, and more than 5,000 families moved to Xiapi.

What makes Liu Ze feel strange is that Di Rong was greedy for such a huge amount of money and grain, but Tao Qian, who is the state pastor, ignored it and did not pursue it, it stands to reason that this is almost impossible, could it be that Di Rong's behavior was tacitly approved by Tao Qian? Tao Qian is dead, and the inside story is probably really difficult to find out, but Liu Ze is not ready to let go of Zhenrong, and the cancer of Zhenrong will not be removed. It is difficult for Xuzhou to have a peaceful day.

Cloaked in the cloak of hypocritical Buddhism. often chanting Amitabha Buddha's great compassion in his mouth, Zhen Rong did confuse many people, but Liu Ze knew that this was a real white-eyed wolf. Cloaked in charity, he has a demonic heart. Historically, Zhenrong fled south to Guangling. Guangling Taishou Zhao Yu was hospitable. But he was assassinated after being drunk by Zhenrong, and after crossing to the south, Zhenrong concocted it in the same way. actually used the same means to kill Xue Li of Moling and Zhu Hao of Yuzhang.

can repeatedly use hypocrisy to deceive the trust of others, and Zhen Rong can indeed be regarded as a high-level, but it's a pity that he can deceive others, and he wants to deceive the sharp-eyed Liu Ze is a fool's dream. At the beginning of Liu Ze's tenure, Zhen Rong sent people to send ten beauties and rare treasures worth millions of dollars, and Liu Ze immediately returned them to him. Liu Ze had the idea of punishing Zhen Rong at the beginning of his tenure, but he had not been able to spare his hand, and now that Xiao Jian's rebellion was quelled, Liu Ze thought it was time to take action against Zhen Rong.

Although Sun Qian had built yì Liu Ze to punish Zhen Rong for abolishing the Xia Pi tax, it was obvious that the officials in Xuzhou still had a good impression of Zhen Rong, and Chen Deng also came forward to excuse Zhen Rong: "Di Wei Ming is willing to give kindness, has many virtuous names, advocates Buddhism, and educates all people. ”

Buddhism? Liu Ze felt a burst of contempt in his heart, no matter what form the religion in the world appears, it is a kind of spiritual opium, which is used to paralyze and poison people's souls and thoughts, and is nothing more than a means of the ruling class. Other people don't know, but this Bodhisattva with a snake and scorpion heart does not, Buddhism in his eyes is just a means to paralyze the world, a trick to deceive the trust of others.

Liu Ze put forward the "three nos" principle for dealing with Buddhism: not to oppose, not to support, and not to condone. The first is no objection, religion is a kind of belief, but also a kind of personal behavior, according to the spirit of the Civil Code, an individual's spiritual belief must be respected, whether it is Buddhism or other religions, no one has the right to interfere; The second is not to support, this is the attitude of the government towards Buddhism, the government does not encourage or promote Buddhism, treats Buddhists and ordinary people equally, does not give preferential policies, and people who believe in Buddhism must also pay taxes according to the regulations; The third is not to condone it, if Buddhist monks and Buddhists commit adultery and commit crimes, they will never tolerate and condone it, and will be punished according to the law like ordinary people, and there is no privileged class in Xuzhou.

In dealing with Buddhism, Liu Ze did not use a simple and crude way to ban Buddhism, nor did he use the power of the government to force the people who believed in Buddhism to quit Buddhism, but used seemingly mild but secretly hidden means to suppress it. The reason why Buddhism flourishes on the land of China, in addition to the frequent wars, people need spiritual sustenance, the main thing is that Buddhist monks occupy a large amount of land to build temples but do not have to pay taxes, after believing in Buddhism, not only do not pay taxes but also evade military service, even if they commit crimes, they can borrow the name of the Buddha to escape punishment, so Buddhism after the end of the Han Dynasty, Wei and Jin, widely prevailed in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, 480 temples in the Southern Dynasties, how many buildings in the smoke and rain. And Liu Ze's three noes principle cut off the possibility of the spread of Buddhism and the possibility of rampant harm, imagine that there is no benefit, who wants to become a monk? If you become a monk, you can't marry a daughter-in-law, you can't bear incense, and you have to pay taxes and serve in the military according to the rules, what is the significance of this Buddhism to ordinary people?

Liu Ze wrote to the Prime Minister of Pi in the name of the Prefecture Pastoral Government, demanding that the Governor immediately revoke the erroneous act of exempting the tax, and that the Xia Pi State must implement the tax collection standards uniformly formulated by the Prefecture Pastoral Government, and must not raise or lower it without authorization, and the taxes exempted from the Xia Pi State last year must also be re-levied this year, and the Xia Pi State must pay the taxes collected in full.

At the same time, Liu Ze ordered Pan Feng to go to Xiapi in person, mobilize the strength of Jinyingwei, and cooperate with Zhao Yun, the commander of Xiapi, to investigate the real evidence of Zhenrong's embezzlement of huge sums of money, filling his own pockets, engaging in fraud, and plotting against him, and at the same time grant Pan Feng the power to cut first and then play, and once he has strong evidence of Zhenrong's corruption, he will secretly arrest Zhenrong. After all, Zhenrong has a large number of believers in Xiapi, and once Zhenrong feels the wind and grass, it is very likely that he will abscond in fear of crime, and giving Pan Feng such power is to prevent it from happening. Liu Ze took the Zhenrong case as the first major corruption case in Xuzhou after he took office, which was intended to warn all Xuzhou officials that even if it was a case in the hands of the previous state pastor, as long as the evidence was conclusive, Skynet was restored, and there would be no omission.

Pan Feng soon arrived at Xiapi and met with Zhao Yun to clarify what Liu Ze meant. Since Zhao Yun served as the lieutenant of Xiapi, he has long followed Liu Ze's wishes and secretly investigated Zhenrong's illegal acts. Although Zhen Rong covered the sky with one hand in Xiapi, Zhao Yun still broke through the resistance and obtained a lot of strong evidence of Zhen Rong's corruption and perversion of the law. After more than ten days of careful investigation, Pan Feng even mobilized the elite forces of Jin Yingwei to make every effort to investigate, and after more than ten days of careful investigation, he obtained a lot of detailed materials for the illegal acts of embezzling huge sums of money, embezzling public funds, snaring cronies, and raising private soldiers.

According to Liu Ze's instructions, Pan Feng did not have to take these materials back to Tancheng to report to Liu Ze, and was ready to directly arrest Zhen Rong and bring him back to Tancheng along with the incriminating evidence.

However, there are a lot of private soldiers under Di Rong's cronies, although the ban on weapons has been announced in Xiapi City, Di Rong is yang and yin, ostensibly claiming to disband the private soldiers, but these private soldiers are not disarmed, but mixed among the ordinary people, accept Ji Rong's orders, and can be assembled at any time. By Zhenrong's side, he is often accompanied by monks, these monks are all powerful and secretly hiding weapons, and they are clearly Zhenrong's personal guards, and Zhenrong is extremely cunning, staying in different places every night, and it is not easy to secretly capture Zhenrong.

Pan Feng and Zhao Yun discussed, preparing to secretly ambush people and horses in Futu Temple on the day of the eighth bathing Buddha Festival in early April.

The eighth day of April is the birthday of the Buddha Shakyamuni, every year at this time of year, Buddhists all over the country have to hold a bathing Buddha meeting, Zhenrong since preaching in Xiapi, advocating Buddhism, attracting tens of thousands of Buddhist believers, bathing Buddha festival day, on the road within a radius of ten miles of Futu Temple, the disciples who worship the Buddha are in an endless stream, Zhenrong orders people to put wine and rice on the road, let people take food, it is said that the money consumed in a day is as high as hundreds of millions. In the Futu Temple, Zhenrong also had to personally preside over the Buddha bathing ceremony, so Pan Feng and Zhao Yun concluded that Zhenrong would definitely visit the Futu Temple that day, which was undoubtedly the best opportunity to capture Zhenrong.

Pan Feng planned to disguise the personnel of the Jin Ying Wei as pilgrims, and infiltrated the Futu Temple on the day of the eighth bathing Buddha Festival in early April, secretly approaching the left and right of Ji Rong, and after Ji Rong presided over the Buddha bathing ceremony, Zhao Yun led a group of people to deliberately provoke trouble outside the temple to divert the attention of the people.

In order to ensure the success of the plan, Pan Feng specially transferred one hundred elite guards from the Jinying Guard Action Agency, led by Xiao Wolf himself, with their skills, even if it was against hundreds of Zhenrong's guards, it was easy.

On the eighth day of the first month of April, when the sky was still dawning, Pan Feng was about to get up and go to Futu Temple in disguise, but he heard the voices of people outside the Duwei's Mansion, and some soldiers came in and flew in: "Report!" It's a big deal—" (To be continued......)