"Alas, the situation is ......," the girl's father shook his head helplessly, wanting to talk again.

The cloth bag monk said, "Then you can't sell the child to that place!" Since you can't afford to feed this child, send her to a nunnery. ”

The woman said, "Monk, you are Chengxin and the old lady are making trouble!" Let me tell you, her father has already received my money, and this person is already mine! If you meddle in your affairs any longer, be careful that I go to the government to sue you for robbing the population! ”

The Budai monk turned his inquiring gaze to the middle-aged man. But he deliberately avoided it, refused to raise his head, and did not say a word. The Budai monk had never seen such a ruthless father, so he couldn't help kicking him and said, "As the saying goes, tiger poison does not eat children." How can you be more cruel than a tiger wolf? Is your heart fleshy? ”

Unexpectedly, the middle-aged man covered his face with his hands and cried bitterly like thunder.

While crying out in a broken voice, he confided hysterically: "I am not human! I'm a femme fatale! They can sarcastically mock me, ridicule me, hit me, and scold me. But am I willing to flee home? Am I willing to give up my own flesh and blood? It's not all forced by war! Standing on the dry shore, how do you know what it is like for us refugees? When those murderous rogues come to you, plus the officers and soldiers who do all kinds of evil, and the bandits who burn and loot, you will understand my situation! Woohoo......"

The cloth bag monk was terrified and shocked. Yes, the smoke is everywhere, the world is in chaos, how can you blame a small people who have suffered a lot of moral degradation?

The onlookers whispered: "Then you can't sell your own daughter!" ”

The man said, "I really want to sell myself, but who buys a big man?" If any of you buy me, I won't sell my daughter!" ”

The people looked at each other and fell silent.

He continued: "I have a small child, so our family has to live, right? A five-foot-tall man knelt down in front of everyone, and said with tears streaming down his face, "You are all kind old men, please show me a way to live!" ”

Everyone sighed, but they could only cry with them, and there was nothing they could do.

The cloth bag monk thought for a while, picked up the man, and said, "You return the money from the sale of the child to her, and your family will follow me to Yuelin Village." As long as we have a bite to eat, we won't be hungry for you. ”

The Budai monk brought the middle-aged man's family of four back to Yuelinzhuang, but he also brought back endless troubles - the fleeing people flocked to Yuelinzhuang when they heard that the Budai monk in Yuelinzhuang had taken in refugees.

Hundreds of refugees almost knocked down the gates of the Grange and crushed the walls!

How can the small Yuelinzhuang accommodate so many displaced people? Even if they can, how can they fill their stomachs and live and work in peace? You can't all shave your head and become monks and nuns, right? Even if you are a monk, you have to have something to eat! Although the belly of the Budai monk is wide, it cannot cultivate food. Therefore, he also tasted the taste of worry when he was happy all day long.

In the evening, the Budai monk slowly walked out of Yue Linzhuang. As he strolled, he pondered how to settle the refugees. Unconsciously, he walked to the beach in front of the village.

The sunset sprinkled gold, and a layer of gold dust seemed to float on the sparkling sea. If only they could get some gold out of the sea, then the poor homeless people would not have to worry about their livelihoods.

Fishing for gold in the haystack?

Monk Budai was suddenly moved by his almost fantastical thinking, because he really wanted to ask the sea for gold!

It turned out that the bay in front of Yuelinzhuang was very flat, and it was often invaded by high tides, and the pond fields on the edge of the bay had been unable to be cultivated normally, so they had long been abandoned. He thought of building a levee to create a field – a long causeway in the bay to block the erosion of the sea, so that the abandoned ponds in the embankment could be transformed into fertile fields for good harvests during droughts and floods.

Although Monk Budai is young, he is a person who has a great understanding, and he feels that this method is practical.

That night, he approached the squires of Qiu Village and discussed with them about building a levee from the sea.

The people of Qiu Village have always had a good impression of this big-bellied owner who is smiling and happy all day long, and the reclamation of land from the sea is a good thing for the benefit of the township and a good deed for the resettlement of refugees, so the villagers have responded positively.

So, the Budai monk led the refugees and the local villagers to form a mighty army and began to build ponds and embankments.

In the coastal areas of Zhejiang, tidal damage occurs frequently, so the repair of sea ponds has been the most important event for the coastal people since ancient times. Those experienced old pond workers know that to build a sea pond and a seawall, they must first drive wooden piles, take away the soft sea mud, throw a large number of rocks as a foundation, and then lay stones on the wave surface in order to withstand the scouring and lapping of the wild waves.

The Budai monk did not have such a large financial resource, so he omitted all these laborious, labor-intensive, and more costly processes, and he directed people to build the seawall directly with sand.

Can this loose sand withstand the impact of frenzy, typhoons, and huge waves?

The cloth bag monk patted his big belly and said to the people who were skeptical: "Relax your heart, the wind and waves are coming, and my big belly is in the way." ”

The locals all know that this fat monk, who looks a little sloppy, is very Taoist, not only does he know things like a god, but some of the things he does often seem to be beyond common sense in advance, but he feels reasonable afterwards. Therefore, people can't help but secretly speculate: using a sand bank to block the wind and waves, could it be that the Budai monk has any strange spells? As a result, people quietly watched his every move.

After a few days of observation, it was found that every day after the people finished their work, the Budai monk would go alone to the mouth of the Hengjiang River, a few miles away, and use his cloth bag to fill a bag full of things, and then take advantage of the night to walk on the newly built embankment, and still chant a mantra that no one understands (Tzu Bodhisattva vows Dharani): "Namu Po bound the mother of the Emperor Sheji Yamu Na Tatta Ta Ta Ye Ye Ye ......"

A few brave young people were very curious, and after the Budai monk left, they hurried to the embankment to check, but the Budai monk only scattered yellow sand.

God knows why, when the Budai monk sprinkled the new embankment of yellow sand, it will become as hard as iron, and if he uses a pickaxe to gouge it, he can only cut out a small white spot. This exceptionally strong sand bank is still used for writing today. For more than 1,000 years, the impact of astronomical tides, the erosion of waves for many years, and the crashing waves of typhoons have never been able to shake this ancient water conservancy project......

The yellow sand swept the sea water and turned into a long dragon lock waves.

After the sand embankment was built, blocking the waves and the tide no longer invaded, the Budai monk immediately led the people to level the land in the embankment, and the landlord who had been barren for many years was repaired into a flat rice field. It is seen that there is a high mound on the north side and a low-lying waterhole on the south side. By digging up the mound and filling it in the pool, you can sort out a few more acres of land. Everyone was a displaced refugee, and they realized the importance of the land more deeply, so without waiting for the instructions of the monk Budai, everyone took the initiative to dig the mound and fill the waterhole.

Seeing this scene, the Budai monk smiled with satisfaction, so he returned to Yuelinzhuang with confidence to deal with the affairs of the village.

The next morning, he went to the construction site and found that the mound was still high, the waterhole was still deep, and the project was not progressing much. He looked at the people who were working, all with tired and listless faces, and some of them were simply lying in dry places, lazily basking in the sun. He knew in his heart that when he was building the seawall a few days ago, the people had worked too hard and consumed too much physical strength, and now they were exhausted; Coupled with the lack of food, people can only be half hungry and half full, so everyone is listless, and the efficiency is of course greatly reduced.

The Budai monk smiled incomprehensibly, did not reproach everyone, did not even say words of encouragement and encouragement, but turned around and left.

He came to the edge of a bamboo forest, picked up a handful of green bamboo leaves, and put them in the cloth bag. He returned to the construction site again, and quietly poured the bamboo leaves in the cloth bag into the pool while people were not looking......

After a while, I saw that the pool seemed to be boiling in the pot, and a large group of crucian carp were jumping around, some swimming quickly, some jumping out of the water, splashing and splashing......

Chasing rabbits in the mountains and fishing and crabs in the river has always been a happy thing that people talk about and never get tired of.

Besides, they are all hungry refugees, how can they let go of this great opportunity to be hungry! Seeing the crucian carp in the water, people's eyes lit up, and they all came to the spirit, and they went into the water to touch the fish.

These crucian carp are really a bit evil, and they actually drill into the mound on the edge of the waterhole.

It's strange, I've only heard of catfish burrowing, loaches burrowing in mud, and scabies toads burying in mounds, but have you ever seen crucian carp burrowing in the mound?

People are always like this, the more curious they are, the more they keep digging into the mound, just to see what these crucian carp that can drill into the soil look like!

However, these crucian carp are slipperier than loaches, and people have just dug up the mound and they burrow back into the waterhole.

The people were angry and shouted, "Fill this pool, and see where you dead fish heads are going!" ”

People were so excited and excited that they forgot their fatigue, their hunger, and even their time, and they just waved their pickaxes vigorously, digging mounds and filling pools, and were very busy......

In the blink of an eye, most of the day has passed, the original high mound has been dug up, the deep pool has been filled, and what about those strange crucian carp? But they didn't catch any of them.

However, they were not disappointed, but even happier, because, in the course of their approximate game, a large flat land was formed.

Looking at this paddy field, which is free from drought and flood, protected from the tide and can ensure their livelihood, people's eyes are moist and blurred......

A bodhicitta and a hundred acres of happy fields.

The evening bell strikes the bright moon, and the morning knocks on the heartstrings.

The compassionate vow of the Budai monk built a 50-zhang sand embankment, surrounded a large area of the beach, and transformed more than 100 acres of fertile land with convenient drainage and irrigation.

However, he can change the world, but he is powerless to stop the years of chaos in the Tang Empire.

Huangchao's rebel army has long been far away from Liangzhejiang, but the war has not subsided.

Due to the war, the war ravaged the villages, the villages became a scorched earth, the urbanization was reduced to ruins, people fled one after another, and the land was barren, with ten rooms and nine empty.

The eastern seaboard is far from the battlefield and relatively safe, so there are a large number of people who have fled the war.

There are many people and little land, and there is a serious shortage of food, and food has become a big problem, and hungry people are starving to death every day......

The monks were supposed to devote themselves to their cultivation, meditating and reciting Buddha without asking about the world, but the Budai monk was compassionate and anxious about the way out for the hungry people.

In recent years, almost none of the harvest in Yuelinzhuang has been handed over to Yuelin Temple, and all of them have been sent to refugees, and he has also gone out many times to solve the urgent needs of the displaced people. However, these solutions do not solve the underlying problem. The only thing that can really settle down for these fleeing people is land; If you want to grow more food, you have to land!

But where do you go to find large tracts of land?

On the shore of the bay outside Yuelinso, there is a large mountain that winds and falls. It is reckless and blue, majestic and vivid, like a dragon running towards the sea, looking up to the sky and roaring.

Therefore, the locals call it "Xiaotian Dragon Mountain".

The Budai monk climbed to the top of the Howling Dragon Mountain, stood on the top of the peak for a long time, and stared ahead.

The mountains are winding, the coast is meandering, the shallow bays at the foot of the mountains, the tidal flats after the tide recedes, and the mud and grass mounds are exposed. A few small scattered fields, pitifully shrunk on the shore, the ridges of the fields were washed by the tide twisted and crooked, scattered, looking like a fiasco of ten years and nine famines.

He raised his eyes and looked into the distance, the vast sea was mighty, the waves were rolling, the water and the sky were the same color, boundless:

The sea reaches the edge of the sky, the sky is the shore, and the mountain climbs to the top of the man-made peak.

The cloth bag monk is at the top, looking at the sky, and the pride in his heart arises spontaneously! He was determined to carry out a more vigorous campaign to enclose the sea and create fields, asking for land from the barren tidal flats and borrowing grain from the Dragon King of the East China Sea.

Because of the successful precedent of building a seawall in the early stage, people from more than a dozen nearby villages and a large number of refugees admired Monk Budai.

As pointed out by his Zen staff, the people immediately rushed to the embankment construction site to control the sea and prevent the tide and enclose the beach and make fields.

Three years of hard work is unusual.

Under the command of the Budai monk, the people gritted their teeth and worked hard for three years, and finally created 2,500 acres of rice fields at the foot of Xiaotianlong Mountain.

Although the seawall of this field was staked and a stone slope was built, it was not as strong as the sand bank, and it was eventually annihilated by the sea, and it is said that there is a reason for this.

At the beginning, after the embankment was built, the land was reclaimed and leveled, and after measurement, a total of more than 2,500 acres of paddy fields were obtained.

The locals looked at the land that was spread out and had no worries about drought and floods, and they couldn't help but become greedy, and they privately exaggerated the amount of land that was scattered and scattered and had nine disasters in 10 years, and withheld a total of 500 mu for their own management, and did not rent it to the refugees who participated in the construction of the embankment and the cultivation of the land.

Therefore, the records of this project in various historical documents are "more than 2,000 acres of land".

Budai monk Huiyan III, how can he not understand the little tricks of the locals?

The reason why he laughed at it was because the locals contributed their own tidal flats, and they deserved more benefits because they contributed little to building ponds and embankments;

Second, the coming-of-life, dwelling, and voidness are the fundamental laws of every thing, and they are all causes and conditions, and they will naturally change with the conditions. So, five hundred years later, the tide washed away the seawall, the sea flooded the people, and all the rice fields turned into an ocean......

Five hundred acres, five hundred years, is definitely not just a coincidence.

Most of the refugees were city dwellers and didn't know how to grow crops. When planting seedlings, they have a hammer in the east and a mallet in the west, and their feet are trampling in the field, which is really "in a hurry".

The seedling fields they planted are too sparse here, too dense there, this one is deep, that one is shallow, and it is crooked and disorganized.

What's worse is that because their feet move irregularly, they move indiscriminately, and the horizontal rake flat ground is trampled into potholes and uneven.

In this way, the seedlings planted in the footprints will lose their heads, and the rice planted in the mud will have their roots exposed, and the lower ones will be drowned, and the high ones will be dried in the sun.

If the rice is planted in this way, the harvest will be greatly reduced!

The Budai monk went down to the paddy fields and taught the people the essentials of rice planting.

When he moved his legs and feet backwards, he did not lift them high and fall down heavily, but moved his feet directly backwards in the mud, so that he would not leave deep footprints on the flat ground.

He planted six seedlings in each row, two on the left side of his body, two on the right, and two between his feet. The seedlings planted in this way are appropriately spaced, horizontal and vertical, left and right in columns, front and back in rows, no matter how you look at it, they are flat and neat, and they are brushed together, just like a grid. Such a paddy field has the best ventilation and makes full use of the light, that is, the dense planting is achieved in the most reasonable way.

While planting rice in a demonstration, the Budai monk sang the "Song of Rice Planting" adapted from his own enlightenment:

Planting green seedlings all over the field, you can see the sky in the water when you look down.

The six pure roots become rice, and the backward is the forward.

Later, even the local people followed the "six-plant" rice transplanting method of the Budai monk, and the rice fields planted were particularly beautiful, and the yield after autumn also greatly increased.

At that time, farmers did not pay attention to field management, and after the seedlings survived, they did not cultivate the fields in time, and the rice seedlings and weeds were overgrown in the fields, and the ratio of rice to barnyard was high. These weeds and weeds both affect the light and fertilizer of the rice, so the harvest is generally low.

Monk Budai is an enlightened person, and his mind is completely in tune with the laws of nature, so he knows that the weeds in the farmland are like the distracting thoughts in the heart of a Zen practitioner. Overgrown with weeds, rice is difficult to grow.

He went to the field and poked between the rice plants with a Zen stick to remove the weeds by the roots.

In this way, the grass dies, the ground loosens, and the rice takes root more easily and grows more vigorously.

He babbled and sang again:

Three points of cultivation and seven points of management, from planting to harvesting more fields.

Weeds turn into fertilizer in the mud, and the warehouse is full of smiles after autumn.

Over the years, the various measures of the Budai monk have never made mistakes, so the people of Sanli and Wuxiang are used to following his advice.

As a result, people are like a cloth bag monk holding a Zen stick in his hand, and he does not "draw a tiger like a cat", but uses a wooden stick to poke the weeds in the rice field.

However, they are clumsy, have no accurate head, do not remove many weeds, and hurt a lot of rice seedlings, which is really self-defeating.

Why is the same wooden stick, in the palm of the cloth bag monk, as dexterous as a finger, but he is so disobedient when he holds it?

They came to Yuelinzhuang specifically to ask the Budai monk for advice.

After listening to this, the cloth bag monk almost didn't laugh at his big belly.

He tapped their heads one by one with a Zen stick, and said, "Are you all elm pimples?" When you see me using a Zen staff, do you have to make a stick? My monk has no family, no job, no children, why do you have a big nest of wives and children? ”

"Hey, hey...."The villagers were embarrassed by his count.

The Budai monk said, "Don't just hehe, don't use your brains. You have to remember that you can't do anything in a rigid way. Let's talk about Yuntian, because I had a wound on my hand that day, I couldn't get wet, so I had to use a Zen stick instead. The real cultivation of the field should be to bend down and use your hands to uproot the weeds, and then stuff them into the mud under the rice seedlings. In this way, the grass was removed, and the fields were fertilized. Even if there is no grass, touch the rice plants; The soil is pine, and the roots are deep and strong. ”

A young farmer interjected in confusion: "However, you can use a Zen stick to cultivate the field, and you don't have to bend down, which is both labor-saving and fast." And why can't we? ”

The Budai monk said, "As the old saying goes, practice makes perfect. The poor monk and I never leave my Zen stick in my hand all day long, and I naturally use it freely, just like an arm extension. The first time you used a wooden stick to cultivate the field, of course you didn't listen to the call! ”

I see!