Chapter VII: Secret Escort
The Xurui Dynasty was established by a million troops stained with blood, and in the early days of the dynasty, there was a strong sense of grief and resentment within the territory.
In order to appease the people, the Xurui Dynasty implemented the national policy of promoting Buddhism, and successively built two unprecedented royal monasteries in the capital city in the north and Pushan in the south, supporting thousands of monks to preach Buddhism. Later, the dynasty excavated the Baozhi Grottoes with amazing strokes, and the development of Buddhist culture ushered in a heyday.
Buddhism became the state religion of the Xurui Dynasty, and the Buddha became the patron deity of the dynasty's prosperity.
In the seventeenth year of Zhou Tian's accession to the throne, the Xurui Dynasty discovered three Buddha relics in his true body.
In a small mountain village called Shouling on the southwestern border of the dynasty, the tomb of a prince and king was excavated. The passages, transepts, antechambers, middle rooms, and back chambers of the tomb were all covered with gold coins, and more than 800 precious bronzes, pottery, and jade artifacts were placed inside. In the bronze shrine in the back room, there is a triple treasure letter, the outer stone letter is engraved with the words "Ashoka's envoy gave a total of three relics", and the inner layer is a copper letter and a gold letter. There were three blue-black pearls in the innermost small jade bottle, and a few days later, someone dug a hole in a white-colored wall in the back room, and there was a golden Buddha hidden in the hole, and the golden Buddha had a mechanism on his head, and after opening, three black relics the size of rice grains fell out of the golden Buddha's stomach.
According to Buddhist records, in the third century B.C., after Emperor Ashoka unified India, in order to promote Buddhism, the life relics of Buddha Shakyamuni after cremation were divided into more than 80,000 parts, which were contained in treasure letters, and sent messengers to all over the world to build pagodas for worship.
At that time, in the vast area where the Xurui Dynasty was located, there were very few people who believed in Buddhism, and most of the relics envoys who came here with great difficulty may not have received due courtesy, so they had to bring the relics that could not be desecrated to other places, and this prince may have been a Buddhist, or he may have met the people when the relics envoys were dying, and they coincidentally got the relics of the Buddha's birth.
If these three Buddha relics are genuine, their preciousness will exceed any rare treasure, the Buddhists of this continent where the Xurui Dynasty is located and the people who worship the Buddha in their hearts may be tens of millions, and they will bow and worship when they see the relics of Sakyamuni's life, which is the value of the Buddha's relics, and the value of tens of millions of people's hearts......
When Zhou Tian, the emperor of the Xurui Dynasty, learned about the Buddha relics, he immediately sent a secret edict to Xu Zheng, one of the seven military commanders of the Xiang'e king, ordering him to ensure the safety of the Buddha relics. On the day of the secret edict, Zhou Tian sent his cousin Zhou Chi, the head of the Imperial Martial Academy, the marshal of the palace of the capital, to take 2,000 elite soldiers of the ten commanders of the imperial guard camp to Xiang'e to meet Xu Zheng, the king of Xiang'e, and then escort the Buddha relics back to the capital together.
Zhou Chi left Beijing this time, and deliberately brought the four princes Zhou Huan, Shi Dewa and the son of the Seven Kings, these nine people have quite good force, nine people together, even in the face of the top masters of the Xurui Dynasty Zhou Chi who has reached the realm of the Great Martial Sect can also fight, and most of the territory of the Xurui Dynasty is controlled by the Seven Kings, and the control of the son of the Seven Kings over his father's territory will have a great effect on escorting the Buddha relics.
The Shouling Village where the Buddha relics were discovered was the territory of Xu Zheng, the king of Xiang'e, and it was Xu Zheng's army that excavated the tombs - the Seven Kings all had an army dedicated to digging ancient tombs.
The secrecy of the excavation work was done very well, and the matter of the Buddha relics was only known to a few high-ranking officers within the Xiang'e king, and the relics treasure letter had been secretly hidden in the Xiang'e palace.
Zhou Chi took Shi Dewa, the fourth prince Zhou Huan and the son of the Seven Kings to arrive at the Xiang'e palace first, and after inspecting the Buddha relics, Zhou Chi discussed with Xu Zheng, the king of Xiang'e, about escorting the Buddha relics back to Beijing.
Three days later, Xu Rong, the younger brother of Xu Zheng, the king of Xianghu, led a selection of 1,000 of Xu Zheng's personal soldiers and the 2,000 elite soldiers of the rested imperial guard camp led by Zhou Chi to embark on the road back to Beijing.
The head of the Imperial Warrior Temple rode in the middle of the procession, and his heart was extremely calm.
The official road of the Xurui Dynasty under the feet extends to the capital, although it is thousands of miles away, but the Xurui Dynasty, as the overlord of the mainland, is something that no country dares to offend.
The top ten commanders of the imperial guard camp and Xu Rong are all first-class masters who have reached the realm of Xiaowuzong by force, and Zhou Chi himself is one of the few top masters in the Xurui Dynasty, and the combined strength of the four princes Zhou Huan and Shi Dewa and other nine people is enough to be worthy of a top master in the world, and even the three thousand soldiers are all fierce soldiers with one as ten.
Also, the purpose of this operation was only known to Emperor Zhou Tian, the fourth prince Zhou Huan, the king of Xiang'e Xu Zheng, and Zhou Chi and Xu Rong, who were in charge of escorting.
In the end, the Buddha relics were hidden in the mezzanine of Zhou Chi's underwear, and the fake relics in the relics treasure letter had the effect of being fake.
In the end, he Zhou Chi rode the BMW Wanli Yanchen horse lent to him by Emperor Zhou Tian, if he didn't want to fight with people and fled with all his heart, Zhou Tian, the first person in the Xurui Dynasty's armed forces, could not capture him, and he could still escort the Buddha relics back to Kyoto alone.
As he walked, the head of the Imperial Martial Academy thought that he was 100% sure that he would be able to complete this top-secret mission given to him by Emperor Zhou Tian.
On the day that Zhou Chi and his entourage left the Xiang'e Palace, two monks rode horses and followed behind the team.
A tall yellow-faced monk in his forties, and a slightly shorter black-faced monk in his thirties, if you walk in and look closely, you will see at a glance that they are not from the Xurui Dynasty.
In the days that followed, the two monks kept an undetectable distance from Zhou Chi's team.
Every day before dark, Zhou Chi led his troops to camp on the outskirts of a heavily guarded town near a heavily guarded town that was a reliable army of the Seven Kings.
Xu Rong divided the 1,000 personal guards of Xu Zheng, the king of Xiang'e, into three groups every night, and took turns to keep vigil, and a group of more than 300 people surrounded the camp, and not a single cat could sneak into the barracks.
When Zhou Chi's team marched to the eighth day, there was only less than half a day's journey left from the capital, and Zhou Chi's nervous mood was completely relaxed, and the surroundings were already under the control of his palace marshal army in the capital.
That night, Zhou Chi's military camp was set up outside Yingyang City.
The city guard of Yingyang is the subordinate of Zhou Chi, the commander of the palace of the capital, he came out to welcome Zhou Chi into the city, Zhou Chi felt that the military camp was free and did not want to enter the city. The city guard did not dare to disobey the order, so he had to send a sumptuous banquet to entertain his superiors and comfort the soldiers, and sent the army guarding the city to be responsible for keeping vigil and patrolling outside Zhou Chi's military camp.
After Zhou Chi sent the city guards back to Yingyang City with satisfaction, he found Xu Rong and said with a smile: "You've worked hard all the way! Tonight, the defenders of Yingyang City are responsible for keeping vigil, and you can let the guards of the King of Xiang'e have a good rest." ”
After Xu Rong responded, he didn't leave for a long time, and Zhou Chi asked, "Is there anything else?"
Xu Rong bowed his head and bowed and said, "My lord, the minister has a reluctant request, I don't know if I should talk about it or not?"
Zhou Chi said: "But it doesn't hurt to say it!"
Xu Rong said: "The minister has lived in the southwest border for a long time, and he admires the prosperous scene of the big city in the Central Plains very much.
"Hahaha! That's it! Yingyang is the largest city near the capital, and it is worth seeing. Okay, you can go, you don't have to come back tonight, the talented women there are more famous than the capital. ”