Although Yang Kang did not go to Shaolin Temple, but still got in touch with the Buddhists, this summer, Kaifeng Mansion Daxiangguo Temple to hold a Buddhist conference, invite the surrounding temples to come to participate in the grand event.

Puja is a religious ritual that is often held in temples to gather devotees and preach the Dharma under various names.

Daxiangguo Temple is located in the center of Kaifeng Mansion, built in the Northern Qi Dynasty, during which it was destroyed by fire many times, and then rebuilt, and has a history of more than 600 years by the time of the Jin Dynasty.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, Daxiangguo Temple was the largest temple in Kaifeng, and the temple presided over the royal canonization, and it became an important place for the Northern Song Dynasty royal family to pray and celebrate their birthdays, and was called the "Royal Temple".

However, with the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty, Kaifeng became a battlefield between the Song and Jin, and the Great Xiangguo Temple also became depressed, until the Song and Jin Dynasty negotiated peace, and those monks who defected to other temples returned to Kaifeng and continued to preside over the Great Xiangguo Temple, which improved slightly.

One of the purposes of this festival was to provide relief, and in the summer, the Yellow River was flooding as always, and a large number of victims were rushing towards the city, and tens of thousands of victims had gathered outside Kaifeng.

The victims knew that they had to go to the big cities to survive, because there was food.

According to the custom, the victims are not allowed to enter the city, otherwise it will cause extremely strict consequences, in order to survive they can do anything, the usual practice is to open porridge shacks outside the city, give these people a way to live, and when the flood passes, these victims will naturally go back.

There are two ways of disaster relief, official and non-governmental, not anyone who wants to go can go, it will be a mess, and each disaster relief site is assigned and guarded by officers and soldiers, which is to prevent the victims from looting and even causing turmoil.

Bao Xiqiao originally wanted to go, but was persuaded by Wanyan Honglie and Yang Kang, the shape outside the city is not optimistic, and this flood will not be able to survive for two or three months.

It is said that there are already signs of the spread of the plague outside the city, and the officers and soldiers have to sprinkle quicklime and boiled bitter tea to detoxify the people every day, which is just to obey the destiny of heaven, once the plague breaks out, it is impossible to control it in this era.

This is the first time Yang Kang has seen the victims of the ancient disaster, the scene is very miserable, when he was in the middle capital, he couldn't see this kind of scene at all, and the victims did not dare to approach the middle capital, besieging the imperial city was a big crime of rebellion.

Looking at the hungry crowd below, he felt powerless, those parents tried all kinds of ways to send their children into the city, just to get a way to live.

Life is despicable, so we must cherish the present life.

The purpose of holding the Dharma meeting in Daxiangguo Temple was to raise food for disaster relief, and not only the wealthy officials in the city, but also the temples near Kaifeng were invited to preside.

In ancient times, monasteries were large grain storers, and they had a large amount of land and wealth, most of which were rewarded by successive emperors.

Take Daxiangguo Temple as an example, in the Northern Song Dynasty, the temple alone covers an area of more than 500 acres, the field property belonging to the temple near Kaifeng is as high as thousands of acres, Shaolin Temple is more exaggerated, since the Tang Dynasty, every emperor ascends the throne to reward a little, basically half of Dengfeng County is the private property of Shaolin Temple.

The most important thing is that the monks' property does not have to pay taxes, and all the income is owned by the temples, except for a little to support the tenant farmers, and some temples have even more abundant grain than the official warehouses.

So whenever there is a natural disaster, the temple will always provide disaster relief, but this disaster relief is not given in vain, they have to absorb believers and preach the Dharma, and this is why there is a puja, and the puja plays the role of propaganda.

Not only the temple should contribute, but also call on officials and wealthy people to come together, and other temples should also be evenly shared, because Daxiangguo Temple is located in Kaifeng, and Kaifeng is the center of the surrounding city, so it played the role of the initiator.

As the supreme governor of this place, Wanyan Honglie received the invitation, he did not have any good feelings for Buddhism, and deep down felt that it was a group of social moths.

What does the ruling class hate most?

It's tax evasion, not to mention this kind of non-payment.

Taxation is the economic foundation of a country, and these monks occupy a large amount of fertile land, but they do not need to pay taxes, which is what a painful behavior for Wanyan Honglie, especially when there are financial problems in the Jin country.

But he has no choice, Buddhism has its own reasons for its existence, there have been many incidents of destroying Buddhism in history, but instead of really destroying Buddhism, it has made it more and more prosperous.

The reason is naturally that the ruling class needs Buddhism to calm the people's minds, so that the people can accept Buddhism's advocacy of enduring the suffering of this life, accumulate virtue and do good deeds, and then live a good life in the next life.

Jin is a state religion that believes in Buddhism, from the generation of Taizong to advocate Buddhism, after the destruction of the Liao State, and inherited the habits of Buddhism prevailing in the society of the Liao Dynasty, to occupy the Central Plains is out of control, not only to build temples, but also to invite monks to the palace to preach Buddha.

It was not until Wanyan Jing's generation adopted a strict management system in order to control the expansion of the temple, which not only limited the number of monks to accept disciples, but also increased the difficulty of the examination.

Therefore, it was very difficult to be a monk in ancient times, so there would be a profession of miscellaneous servants in the temple, such as Master Jueyuan, who later practiced the "Jiuyang True Scripture", he was actually not a regular monk, but a miscellaneous man in Shaolin Temple.

In short, Wanyan Honglie was very unkind to the monks, but this festival was for disaster relief, and as the representative of the imperial court in Kaifeng, he had to show his attitude.

According to the practice of Zhao Wangfu, Yang Kang became the best representative, which not only gave the monk face, but also allowed Wanyan Honglie not to endure the harassment of the monk.

Yang Kang, accompanied by Peng Lianhu and Sha Tongtian, walked towards Daxiangguo Temple, followed by four strong men, who were Sha Tongtian's apprentices, known as the "Four Ghosts of the Yellow River" on the rivers and lakes.

The Yellow River flooded, and Sha Tongtian's Yellow River Gang had no business, so they had to disband on the spot and go back to their respective homes.

Yang Kang felt that Hou Tonghai was a half-ass, there was a problem with his brain, and it would not be good if he lost face in front of the Buddhist monks, but this was a great opportunity for him to contact Buddhism, so he left Hou Tonghai in the mansion.

At this moment, he finally found the feeling of swaggering through the market with two masters, what he didn't expect was that at this festival he met Master Zhilong, the abbot of Shaolin Temple, and he also got in touch with this Master Zhilong.

Higashibayashi Zhilong is a senior monk of the Soto sect, and his master is Wan Song Xingxiu, the presiding officer of the Pure Land Temple.

Xingxiu Zen Master is a great monk, the Jin Emperor Wanyan Jing once invited him to the palace, in order to show respect not only personally greeted, but also gave him a very beautiful robe.

Zen Master Xingxiu was highly regarded among the nobles of the Jin Kingdom and could be described as a representative of Northern Buddhism.

The relationship between Shaolin Abbot Zhilong Zen Master and Yang Kang is because of Yelu Chucai, as a famous Confucian scholar in the Jin Kingdom, Yelu Chucai worshiped under the door of Xingxiu Zen Master and became an outer disciple of Buddhism.

Since then, Yelu Chucai and Zhilong Zen Master have a brother-in-law relationship, and as a student of Yelu Chucai, Yang Kang has become the younger generation of Zhilong Zen Master.

What is this and what is it, Yang Kang sighed with emotion after understanding the cause and effect, it seems that relationships are everywhere in any place.

So he casually mentioned that he wanted to pay homage to the glorious image of the Bodhidharma Patriarch in Shaolin Temple.

[Note] The relationship between Yelu Chucai, Donglin Zhilong and Wan Song Xingxiu is recorded in history, but Yelu Chucai should have entered the Wansong Xingxiu sect around 1214, and Donglin Zhilong became the abbot of Shaolin in 1215, and the time was advanced to 1212 in order to match the text.