On the fifteenth day of January, the moon is full, which is the annual Shangyuan Festival, the Lantern Festival.

Shangyuan Festival has always been one of the most important festivals of the Chinese nation, whether it is the Han and Tang dynasties in ancient times, or the current Dayue, on this day, from the court to the people, from the state capital to the county seat, as long as there is no war and disaster, everyone is always willing to celebrate.

In some peaceful and prosperous times, the celebration of the Shangyuan Festival will be increased from one day to three days.

In fact, even after a thousand years, as long as the Chinese nation still exists, the Shangyuan Festival will still be one of the most important festivals in the whole country, there will still be a large number of people dancing dragons on the street, there will still be a variety of postures, colorful lanterns are displayed, and there will still be countless people from the daytime, celebrating and enjoying the lanterns until midnight.

This is the case in Hangzhou today, where people from the morning have been pouring out of their homes and pouring into the streets to celebrate the festival.

On the streets of Hangzhou, many shops have moved out their carefully prepared lanterns, including simple character lanterns, as well as more complex mountain or landscape lanterns.

Of course, the handiwork of ordinary merchants is far from being comparable to that of the local government.

At this time, on the square in front of the gate of Hangzhou Taishou Mansion, there is a huge mountain of lights.

It is a majestic mountain of lamps made up of thousands of large and small paper lanterns, as high as the gate of the yamen, a few zhang square, enough for people to see its posture half a street away, and this is only in the daytime, if it is placed at night, this mountain of lights must be one of the most dazzling lanterns in the city.

Sun Ning and Xiao Qian also slowly came to this huge mountain of lights with the crowd, and both of them couldn't help but stand there in admiration.

"In this way, the wealth of Hangzhou really deserves its reputation, even at this time, the yamen can still come up with so much money to make such extraordinary lanterns." Xiao Qianruo sighed meaningfully.

Sun Ning echoed with a smile on the side: "Yes, but it's not Hangzhou, the entire Jiangnan is the most prosperous and stable place at the moment."

"The Central Plains is constantly fighting, and there are attacks in the northwest and southwest from time to time, but this land south of the Yangtze River has almost maintained relative stability and independence.

"And more importantly, now that the imperial court is no longer recognized, of course, the taxes of the entire Jiangnan do not have to be paid, and they all fall into the hands of the government, how can they not be rich?

"You know, the imperial court can't collect taxes from all over the country, but the taxes and food that the local people should pay are not less."

Xiao Qian was stunned, she really hadn't thought about these things carefully, and now that they were pointed out by Sun Ning, she was quite dissatisfied: "It is precisely because of this that so many Buddhist temples have popped up in the local area to embezzle the people's fat and ointment?" ”

"That's just one thing, and the other thing is that those in power actually want to have Buddhist temples. Because only the set of remarks of Buddhism that specifically deceives the people can make tens of millions of people in the south of the Yangtze River be willing to live in the present and will not do anything to resist and compete for power. ”

Sun Ning whispered, looking left and right, but only saw happy smiling faces, and no one cared about the conversation between the two of them: "But everything has a price, and I think soon, they will have to pay a big enough price for the decisions they make." ”

Xiao Qian nodded thoughtfully, and then continued to move forward with Sun Ning, following the mighty flow of people and heading towards the West Lake.

Today's West Lake is naturally full of lights and is extraordinary.

The painting boats that used to welcome guests have also changed their appearance at this time, and more dazzling and bright flowers and paper lamps are hung around them, attracting more guests to board the boat for fun.

However, most of the people who walked by the West Lake did not pay more attention to these deliberately flamboyant boats, but all of them were solemn and pious, slowly walking towards the direction of Yunlin Temple.

Yes, the first thing that more people in Hangzhou think of today is to go to the temple to worship the Buddha to show their devotion to the Buddha.

And everyone has already known that this year's major temples will come up with bigger lanterns, which makes everyone want to go over and see what is going on.

Therefore, although it is already past noon, the flow of people going to the temples in the city is still endless, and the largest number of them is naturally this Yunlin Temple.

A few days ago, the people of Xinshan lined up in a long queue and slowly went up along the slightly narrow mountain road, except for some ignorant children, there was almost no laughter, which made Sun Ning and the others feel a little awkward.

"If it comes to manipulating people's hearts, Buddhism can be regarded as having a hand." Sun Ning said in a low voice.

Xiao Qian also nodded: "So it's really not easy to change everything here......"

"Not necessarily. Some things seem difficult, but if you really get started, you may just need to add a finger and it will quickly disintegrate like a splash of snow. ”

As he spoke, he perked up again and pointed forward: "Look there, it's really a big deal and pomp!" ”

In fact, there was no need for Sun Ning to remind him, Xiao Qian had already seen the huge lantern standing in the empty square in front of Yunlin Temple above.

No, this should be said to be a lantern statue, a huge, piled up with thousands of lanterns to build a statue of the Buddha.

The Dharma body standing five or six feet high on the square really has a great oppressive force, making people feel for a moment that the temple is moving out of the Buddha statue in the Daxiong Treasure Hall.

But this is indeed made up of countless lanterns arranged and stacked, which can be seen in its ingenuity and huge cost.

Compared with this Buddha statue lantern, the lamp mountain in front of the official office below is really not worth mentioning, no matter the scale and difficulty, it is only enough for a fraction of this Buddha lamp.

Seeing this magnificent scene, those believers were even more excited, and one by one they had already stepped forward, kneeling down and prostrate under this Buddha, kowtowing and pleading.

The merit box placed in front of the Buddha lamp has become the target of many believers, and everyone is scrambling to stuff the money into it. It seems that as long as you don't do this, it is the greatest blasphemy against the Buddha......

When this scene fell into the eyes of Sun Ning and the others who finally went up to the temple, the faces of both of them showed a strange look, like pity and helplessness.

And in the crowd, there were also some people, but they showed resentment.

Gu Yaohua looked at the crazy believers left and right, and finally bit his teeth and pointed his fingers towards the temple, and then more than a dozen men followed the crowd and rushed straight towards the temple.

In the case of so many people entering the temple at the same time, it is naturally impossible for anyone to see the problem by mixing in.