Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

In terms of social influence at that time, Buddhism in the Song Dynasty was dominated by Zen and Tiantai sects, and the rest can be classified as "other sects."

In addition to being close to Confucianism, Zen Buddhism has also developed into a very secular world, integrating spiritual practice with daily life. They can talk about mysteries with scholars, and are also good at telling short stories to ordinary people.

The decline of other sects was mainly due to the extermination of Buddhism in the late Tang Dynasty and the wars of the Five Dynasties.

If you can't even find all the Buddhist scriptures in your home, how can you revitalize yourself?

The resurgence of Tiantai Sect originated from the period of Qian Chu, King of Wuyue. He sent people to search for Buddhist scriptures from Korea and Japan, and obtained more than 500 volumes of Tiantai Sect scriptures.

If this is the case, then the Tiantai Sect will also flourish in the Wuyue area.

The real rise of this sect came from internal divisions.

Among the hundreds of Buddhist scriptures recovered from overseas, some are incomplete, some have been revised, and there are even apocryphal scriptures of unknown origin.

Surrounding the controversy in the Buddhist scriptures, the Siming lineage, a side branch of the Tiantai sect, launched a debate against the orthodox Qiantang lineage of the Tiantai sect. In the end, the side won the debate and became orthodox, while the orthodox was denounced as heresy.

This is not over yet, the Siming family, which has just become orthodox, splits again and starts a fierce debate.

After eighty years of debate, this is the dispute between the Shan family and the Shan family in Buddhism!

Other sects of Buddhism, while eating melon every day, also learned more about Tiantai Sect. They quietly absorbed the theories of Tiantai Sect, and some even merged into Tiantai Sect altogether.

…

In autumn, the Buddha tooth from Shandong has been invited back to Kaifeng.

The two Buddha's teeth gathered in the two capitals and quickly attracted eminent monks from all over the country. Eminent monks from various sects visited the Buddha's tooth and held various Buddhist meetings. They took turns giving sermons to the believers.

As we talked, we started to debate.

Zen and Tiantai sects argued with each other and within themselves.

There are five schools and seven sects of Zen Buddhism, and Tiantai Sect has Shan Jia and Shan Wai sects. They themselves are having internal strife and cannot speak unanimously to the outside world.

Other sects of Buddhism sit nearby and watch the fun every day.

The Huayan Sect could barely participate. This sect was revived in the mid-Northern Song Dynasty. There was an eminent monk named Jingyuan who traveled around the country to collect, organize and annotate Huayan Sect scriptures, making Huayan Sect the third largest Buddhist sect in the Song Dynasty.

The Huayan Sect absorbed the teachings of Zen Buddhism and had frequent exchanges with the Tiantai Sect.

At present, the center of the Buddhist Debate Conference has been completely transferred to Daxiangguo Temple in Kaifeng.

The territory there is large enough and the number of monks' houses is large enough.

On this day, it was the Tiantai Sect's turn to fight within itself. In addition to the eminent monks of various sects as spectators, there were also countless good men and women who came to listen.

The eminent monks of the Shanjia sect talked eloquently, but they were inextricably argued with the eminent monks of the Houshan sect.

The former was orthodox and received strong support from the Northern Song Dynasty court.

The latter was more secular and absorbed a large number of Zen theories and even Confucianism and Taoism.

Just when the debate was at its most intense, the emperor's travelers from Luoyang came to Xiangguo Temple with a group of monks and officials.

The debate came to an abrupt end, and both monks and laymen stood up to listen to the imperial edict.

The emperor stood with his hands behind his hands and said with a smile: "What's the point of you debating here? It's better to go to the Western Regions to promote Buddhism."

The monks were puzzled and asked what it meant.

The emperor's traveler said: "Yelü Dashi, the clan member of the Liao Kingdom, founded the Western Liao Kingdom in the Western Regions. There were all people of foreign races and pagan religions. The people did not accept the teachings of saints and did not know what Buddha and Bodhisattva were. Yelu Dashi sent people to ask for eminent monks and Buddhist scriptures. As long as you go there, I will build a temple for you and teach you the Dharma, and let alien orphans be your apprentices.”

An eminent monk asked: "How big is the territory of the Western Liao Kingdom?"

The emperor was not very clear, so he said casually: "The territory of Western Liao is vast, about half the size of the Ming Dynasty. If you go to promote Buddhism, you can extradite tens of millions of sentient beings and turn a foreign land equivalent to half the Ming Dynasty into a Buddhist country. !”

Hearing this, many eminent monks became excited.

This is a great merit!

Zen Master Huiyuan, who was only in his thirties, was the first to stand up and say: "The poor monk is willing to go to the Western Regions!"

Historically, Zen Master Huiyuan accepted a disciple in his later years, and that disciple was honored as Jigong in later generations. He also accepted a Japanese disciple, which made Zen Buddhism popular in Japan.

Master Miaoguan of the Huayan Sect said: "I am too old to travel far. Master Hui, please go to the Western Regions and spread the Huayan Dharma there."

A thirty-year-old monk put his hands together and said, "Disciple must live up to his trust!"

Each sect gradually determines the main candidates, and then selects the accompanying monks.

Seng Lusi smiled and said: "Don't worry about your homeland. You have gone to Xiliao and you can come back at any time. In addition, you have to teach the foreign students the books of sages in Xiliao."

The more eminent a monk is, the less likely he is to refuse this matter.

Nearly a hundred monks were selected, most of whom were under forty years old. After all, they were too old to withstand the hardship.

Temples in Luoyang, Kaifeng and surrounding areas began to frantically print Buddhist scriptures as long as they had engravings.

In the spring of the following year, the monks set out with the envoys from Xiliao.

They packed more than 4,000 volumes of Buddhist scriptures and more than 5,000 volumes of Confucian books in large wooden boxes and sailed away.

The monks thought that the Western Region was in Gaochang and had no idea that they were about to go to Central Asia.

When passing through Gaochang, the monks from Turpan and Hami learned that they had brought four thousand volumes of Buddhist scriptures, and they all asked the monks to stop for a while and copy some scriptures that they had not seen before.

When they arrived at Husi O'er'er (in Kyrgyz territory), they learned that Yelu Dashi had led his troops to fight.

In order to divert domestic conflicts, Yelu Dashi personally conquered the Western Kara Khanate!

In early summer, a decisive battle broke out between the two countries in Khujand (in Tajikistan).

The king of the Western Kara Khanate at this time was Mahim II, the nephew of the Seljuk Sultan.

Western Liao was victorious.

Mahim II fled back to Samarkand in panic with the remaining soldiers, and frantically recruited troops to try to defend the capital.

Yelu Dashi did not continue to pursue him, but chose to give up as soon as he could. He set up the Fergana Basin as a government, let his confidants lead troops to garrison Khujand, and at the same time rewarded those foreign generals.

After this battle, the Western Kara Khanate was crippled and nearly half of its territory was annexed by Yelu Dashi.

Especially the Fergana Basin, which is a large granary and is firmly controlled by Yelu Dashi.

Mahemu II was naturally unwilling to fail and quickly wrote a letter to his father...no, to his uncle Sanjar. He asked his uncle to come and help quickly. If the Seljuqs did not send reinforcements, his country would be over sooner or later.

What is Seljuk Sultan Sanjar doing?

He is engaged in daily counterinsurgency.

His most trusted vassal general, King Ajisi of Khwarezm, rebelled.

Ajisi and Yelu Dashi have reached a private cooperation.

That is to say, Yelu Dashi sent troops to the Western Kara Khanate, making Mahim II unable to send troops to help Sanjar. At the same time, the vassal states to the south of the Western Kara Khanate were also blocked from the shortest march route and were unable to send troops to support the Seljuk rebellion - in fact, this was giving those vassal states an excuse not to send troops.

At the same time, the Ajisi rebellion also attracted firepower, making it impossible for the Seljuk army to rescue Mahim II.

The two men cooperated, each got what he wanted, and made the Seljuk Sultan miserable.

Since several vassal states were unable to participate in the war, the Seljuk army found it difficult to win quickly.

The Western Liao Dynasty has occupied the Fergana Basin, and Sanjar is still continuing to fight the rebellion in Khwarezm. This rebellion war is expected to last one or two years.

Upon learning that nearly a hundred eminent monks had arrived, Yelu Dashi hurried back to Husi Wour'er.

Xiao Chala'abu immediately led him to the library, pointed to nearly 10,000 volumes of books and said: "Your Majesty, I have invited four thousand volumes of Buddhist scriptures and five thousand volumes of books of saints from the Ming Dynasty."

Yelu Dashi was surprised: "Emperor Zhu is actually so generous?"

Xiao Zhala Abu said: "Emperor Zhu was very generous and praised His Majesty very much, saying that heroes are heroes no matter where they go."

"Did he really say that?" Yelu Dashi asked.

"It's absolutely true," Xiao Chala'abu said, "Emperor Zhu also recognized that Daliao was of the Yanhuang ethnic group and was orthodox to China. They... they were still compiling the "History of Liao" and merged Daliao with Song. For orthodoxy.”

Yelu Dashi was both happy and angry: "The Liao Dynasty is still there, why does he compile "History of Liao"? Also, why not "Book of Liao"?"

Xiao Chala'abu explained: "There was a "Song Book" in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, so the Ming Dynasty named the history book of the Song Dynasty "Song History". And Emperor Zhu also said that from now on, the orthodox history will be the history, and the separatist regime will be the book. For example, the Jin Kingdom The history book was named "Jin Shu". The kings and ministers of the Ming Dynasty vaguely called us Xiliao."

"Forget it, they can call it whatever they like. Who made us lose our homeland of Daliao?"

Yelu Dashi sighed: "I don't know when I can kill him back."

Xiao Chala Abu said: "Your Majesty, I observed carefully in the Ming Dynasty. I found that the monarch and his ministers got along well with each other, and the government was harmonious. Even though the country had just suffered a major disaster, there were no groups of refugees begging for food. In Shaanxi and Henan, hungry people were hungry after the disaster. He returned to his hometown, and was exempted from taxes this year, and the government was still distributing seeds to the hungry people. Such a big country is not easy to conquer, and Emperor Zhu has great popularity among the people. "

Yelu Dashi was silent for a long time and said with emotion: "Emperor Zhu has a broad mind and is willing to give me thousands of books. How can I repay him with kindness? With such a British master in China, if Daliao wants to regain its homeland, I am afraid we can only place our hope on our descendants. "

Xiao Chala'abu added: "There was also a severe drought in Xixia last year. Due to poor relief, many hungry people fled to the Ming Dynasty. I passed through Xixia this spring and found that the countryside was unhappy and many nobles were short of slaves. Some slaves escaped. Some slaves died not only because of the disaster, but also because of the harsh treatment of slaves.”

"In the past, when the Xixia slaves died, they could go to the Song border to plunder and replenish them. But after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the Xixia people did not dare to plunder anymore, resulting in fewer and fewer slaves."

The Iron Kites of Xixia are indeed powerful, but the real foundation is the Qishengjun and Chuanggongzi.

The Shengsheng Army is the basic unit of Xixia, with a strength of 100,000 at its peak. They kidnapped the border people of the Song Dynasty as slaves, and selected the strong ones from the obedient slaves to form the Young Prince's troops.

Although Young Master Chuang is cannon fodder, he is also quite brave in fighting and will always charge forward in every battle.

Now, Xixia has been unable to plunder Han people as slaves for ten years, and naturally cannot select cannon fodder from slaves.

Without the Han cannon fodder to charge as the front army, the soldiers who captured the dead could only bear the lead.

Are the captured soldiers willing?

Those captured soldiers were very slick and came from various tribes in Xixia. If they suffer heavy losses, their pastures or farmland will be encroached upon by their neighbors.

Under this situation, the Qi Sheng Army gave priority to preserving their strength, and it was absolutely impossible to fight to the death.

If the two countries go to war, I'm afraid the Xixia army will collapse quickly!