Wang Yuanzhen stood outside the arch, and saw that the monk corpse was not a ghost or god when he rang the bell, so he cautiously walked into the Chinese niche and observed the shape of the bronze bell for a while, obviously having something to say.

Yue Guanchao saw him come in and asked, "What does this mean?" ”

Seeing that they didn't understand, Daoist Wang continued to explain: "I mean, the structure of this bronze bell is connected to the body of the Futu Pagoda, and the inner walls are full of red ore and iron powder. ”

"Judging from the fact that this monk corpse tied his hands with the prayer pestle, he voluntarily stayed here, probably when this city was decaying, the monks had to live under the shrine in order to ensure the promotion of Buddhism, so as to serve as a town under the pagoda and continue to protect this ancient city."

The old Taoist priest paused: "You guessed one thing correctly, this Tibetan monk really wants to protect the pagoda after death, so he turned himself into a town, this monk must know that the bronze bell will play the sound of scripture recitation, otherwise he would not tie his hands to the prayer pestle, maybe he was ringing the bell at the moment before he died, in order to fulfill his heart of worshiping the Buddha." ”

"As for his death, his body was blown by the cold wind, and he accidentally struck the bronze bell to play the sound, it was completely accidental, and it can only be said that there is a providence in the underworld, so that a monk can still ring the bell and chant after death, and pass on the scriptures for thousands of years."

Xu Xiake heard what he meant: "Then you mean, they may have known that iron oxide could be used for recording in the Tang Dynasty, so they specially covered the inside of the bronze bell and the tower with red ore iron powder?" ”

Wang Yuanzheng nodded at them, obviously knowing the inside story: "It's not possible, this is a fact, I have been maintaining the Thousand Buddha Caves all these years, and you also know that the Thousand Buddha Caves began to stop building new caves from the period of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Sixteen Kingdoms until the Ming Dynasty......"

In the past two thousand years, the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Northern Zhou Dynasty, the Sui Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty have ruled here, and the former Qin people, the Beiliang people, the Xianbei people, the Dangxiang people, the Han people, the Tibetans, and the Yuan people have also expanded their territory to Hexi.

Whether it is the Tibetan aristocracy or the Tang Dynasty aristocracy, for various reasons, they have ordered craftsmen to paint the wall in the Thousand Buddha Caves and preserve them for future generations.

For example, when General Ashina conquered the Western Regions, in order to record his exploits and hard work, he once left a narrative map in the cave, drawing all the experiences of how they conquered the Western Regions and conquering the countries of the Western Regions in the grotto, so as to remember the history.

For another example, Wang Xuance, a general in the Tang Taizong period, was famous for his achievements in destroying a country by one person, and he once drew all his westward trips to Tianzhu in the Thousand Buddha Cave Grottoes, so as to remember the great things he did.

Under the atmosphere of this carved stone to remember the merits, the Thousand Buddha Caves are equivalent to recording all the historical events from the Eastern Jin Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, the investigation of the grottoes is like walking the historical corridor, the millennium events twist and turn forward, slowly stretch, when the Taoist Wang repairs the grottoes, of course, he also knows the historical events recorded in the grotto murals.

Most of the grottoes built by the Tibetan people were after the Anshi Rebellion.

At that time, the Tubo State took advantage of the fatigue of Guanzhong, directly occupied the Hexi Corridor, cut off the connection between the Anxi capital and Guanzhong, and then gradually encroached on the territory of the Anxi capital, and finally swallowed the entire Hexi.

According to the mural records of the Tubo period in the Thousand Buddha Caves, since Princess Wencheng entered Tibet to go to Buddhism, Tubo became a country integrating politics and religion, and Tubo occupied Hexi in order to educate the people as soon as possible, and began to send monks to Hexi towns, and ordered Tubo monks to build a big Buddha temple in the town, and at the same time, it also assumed the role of spreading Tubo education.

In this case, the Great Buddha Temple is actually no longer a simple temple, but a tool used by the Tibetan nobles to monitor Hexi under the system of political and religious integration, and these monks are responsible for the town's sacrifices, prayers, relief, practices, and other things.

Although the duties of these Tibetan monks are indeed the same, in practice, they are full of difficulties.

By the time of the Anshi Rebellion, Hexi, which was mostly protected by the capital of Anxi, had been ruled by the Tang Dynasty for nearly two hundred years, and whether it was the Han towns in Hexi or the Hu people in Fangguo, they had already thought from their hearts that they were Li Tang courtiers and people of the Celestial Dynasty.

After Tubo took advantage of the fatigue of Guanzhong to occupy Hexi, the level of governance was extremely poor!

They themselves are a country on the plateau, and they have no understanding of the Han cities and towns, and in the face of the prosperous and rich towns of Hexi, which have been governed by the Tang Dynasty, they do not know how to follow the customs of the villagers, nor do they know how to subdue the hearts of the people, so they directly adopt a one-size-fits-all approach.

Abolishing all the government structures and the division of counties and counties in Hexi towns is equivalent to dividing the originally rich Hexi into pastures and rewarding them to the Tibetan nobles.

The people on these lands and towns were all transformed from the people of the Celestial Empire into pasture slaves, and they were supplied to the Tibetan nobles, and they lost their personal freedom, property rights, and even their lives could not be guaranteed, and the Tibetan tribal nobles could sell them and kill them at any time.

This extremely low level of governance, coupled with the perverse behavior of the Tibetan aristocracy, made the rule of the towns in Hexi very unstable, and in the face of this instability, they could only adopt the method of killing chickens and monkeys, and constantly maintained their rule by killing people, so that the people were afraid and respected.

These stupas are equivalent to the tools of the Tibetan monks to exert their education, they use iron ore powder to record and transmit sound, to create the effect of the silent self-sonication of the stupa, the original intention is also to use the authority of the stupa to increase the legitimacy of the rule of Tubo, with the silent self-sufficiency of the stupa, to preach that this is the paradise of Buddhism in Tibet, to paralyze the people to become their slaves, so that they can resist less and enjoy more blessings of Buddhism.

"Some of these stories are recorded in the murals of the Tibetan aristocracy, and the other part is briefly mentioned in the murals of the Zhang Yichao family to revive the Tang Dynasty and defend Hexi."

When Wang Yuanzheng said this, everyone already understood the historical reason for the Futu Ziming, Yue Guanchao nodded: "Then this Futu is really harmful, we were startled when we heard the ghost chanting just now, and the people at that time heard this sound, it is estimated that they heard the ghost crying wolf." ”

"Now that we understand the situation, let's go back, as for the corpse of this monk, let's put him down first, we can't keep letting him ring the bell like this, and we can't scare the people to death in the past."

After Song Siyuan finished speaking, Yue Guanchao and Keli put down the monk's corpse together, briefly buried them in the Qizi shrine, and took them out of the shrine and returned the same way.

When he went back, Yue Erpao was feeding the camels with alfalfa grass, and when he saw them coming back, he greeted them: "How is it?" I see that the humming chanting is gone, what is it? ”

Yue Guanchao wanted to scare him: "Hey, it's nothing, it's just that there is a monk under the pagoda who has been dead for 2,000 years ringing the bell." ”