Ming Jiajing: Starting from Immortality

Chapter 214: Lu Bing is deified, the one-eyed stone Buddha!
Take the relics from the ashes.

Lu Bing's move opened the eyes of everyone outside Dongzhimen, and made everyone understand that the name "King of Hell" was not undeserved.

The death of Master Miaofa.

It is equivalent to executing the Ming Dynasty's punishment of burning the evil monks to death.

The pain in the process makes people who witness it feel the pain deeply.

Lu Bing held the relic in his hand, his heart calming down as never before. He slowly turned around, facing the frightened people, and smiled as he reminded them, "There are no gods or Buddhas allowed here. Don't be fooled!"

Hear the words.

Zhang Yuangong was extremely shocked.

Domineering! So domineering.

Just like what Lu Bing asked Master Miaofa, gods and Buddhas are forbidden to enter the Ming Dynasty!
Not to mention that there are no gods or Buddhas here, even if there were, they are not allowed to travel within the territory of the Ming Dynasty.

If the gods or Buddhas insist on coming, they will first have to take a blow from the Jinyiwei that is made up of tens or millions of souls.

The devout Buddhists around him subconsciously wanted to refute, but under Lu Bing's fierce power, they dared not even look up and look at him, and could only look at him sideways, let alone refute him directly.

In front of the ashes of Master Miaofa, many people who were skeptical about Buddhism, after dispelling their superstition, thanked respectfully: "Thank you, Commander-in-Chief!"

'Gods and Buddhas' are certainly worthy of awe, but the 'King of Hell' who burned 'Gods and Buddhas' to death with his own hands is, to some extent, more worthy of awe.

Lu Bing nodded and calmly accepted the people's greeting.

But what Lu Bing didn't know was that because of this incident, he gained a lot of believers. Before, people didn't have much impression of the appearance of the King of Hell.

But after this incident, some believers thought that it was better to believe in "King of Hell" than in gods and Buddhas, so they asked the carving craftsmen to carve a "King of Hell" in the image of Lu Bing, and brought it home to worship it.

There is never a shortage of smart people and people who can discover business opportunities in the world. A carving craftsman discovered that the statue of Lu Bing carved with a dark gaze has a burly figure and a majestic face. When his bullfighting suit flutters in the wind, it does not have the "intention of God" or "Buddha", but is full of "intention of the devil".

Not like Zhong Kui, but better than Zhong Kui.

So, he carved a few more pieces and placed them together with the Zhong Kui statue, and once he started buying them, he couldn't stop.

More and more carving craftsmen imitated and carved the image of Lu Bing, and it gradually spread from the capital and extended the belief to various places in the Ming Dynasty.

With the statue and the temple built, it is said that people who pray for wealth, children, good health, etc. will get what they want, and the incense and worship will come naturally.

When Lu Bing learned about this, he ordered someone to buy his "King of Hell" statue, only to find that it was not exactly the same as himself. However, he did have the string of relics on the wrist of the King of Hell statue.

"Your Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, news has come from the west city gate that a one-eyed stone Buddha has grown out of the ground, causing fear among the people." A captain of the Embroidered Uniform Guard came hurriedly, his face solemn, and reported.

Zhang Yuangong immediately became alert. A stone Buddha grew out of the ground, and it had one eye?

I don't know about other dynasties, but during the 200 years of the Ming Dynasty, there was a rumor that kept circulating: "Don't say that the stone man has only one eye. If he stirs up the Yellow River, the whole world will rebel."

There are two reasons why the rumor has been circulated. One is that the Yuan Dynasty really fell, and the other is that the person who created the rumor was named "Han Shantong".

Or, he can be called 'Ming Wang'.

Han Shantong's ancestors were all members of the White Lotus Sect, so he was exiled to Yongnian, but he was still a high-ranking member of the White Lotus Sect. The White Lotus Sect's doctrine was "the reincarnation of Maitreya Buddha", while Han Shantong claimed to be "the reincarnation of the Ming King".

Han Shantong used false rumors to make the suffering people under the Yuan court believe that once Maitreya Buddha was born and the Vajra King was born, they would usher in the bright paradise.

This is also the origin of the rebel army at the end of the Yuan Dynasty being called the Mingjiao, and later Emperor Taizu Gao changed the country's name to "Ming".

In the 11th year of Zhizheng in the Yuan Dynasty, the Yellow River broke through at Baimaokou. Toghto, the Prime Minister of the Yuan court, sent Jia Lu, the Minister of Works, to mobilize 150,000 civilians from 13 routes in Peiliang, Daming, and 20,000 garrison troops from Luzhou and other places to dig a 280-li river from Huanglinggang in the south to Baimaokou and in the west to Yangqing Village, in an attempt to divert the Yellow River back to its old course.

The late Yuan Dynasty's rule was always brutal, and the people of the Central Plains were slaughtered at will, causing the people to live in misery.

When Han Shantong learned that the Yuan court was forcibly conscripting civilians to repair the breach in the Yellow River, he knew that his opportunity had come.

First, he asked people to spread a nursery rhyme everywhere: "The stone man with one eye stirs up the Yellow River and the world rebels."

He secretly carved a stone man with only one eye on his face and buried him secretly on the roadside at Huangling Hill.

The river repair funds issued by the imperial court were embezzled by the river officials, and the river workers were not well fed. They were literally risking their lives to repair the river, and the people were filled with resentment.

Han Shantong assigned hundreds of believers to do the work and mixed in with the river workers, spreading the news that there would be chaos in the world and that Maitreya Buddha had been born. Word spread from one person to ten, from ten to a hundred, and from a hundred to a thousand. The people in Henan and the Jianghuai areas could not help but believe it.

Han Shantong and his confidants Liu Futong and Du Zundao knew that it was not enough to involve the common people alone, and that they also had to get scholars and officials to work together, or at least get the literati and officials to participate in the rebellion.

Han Shantong was smart. The Tartars were unpopular, and the people in the Central Plains had been the people of the Song Dynasty for one or two generations.

Once the banner of restoring the Song Dynasty was raised, all the scholars in the Central Plains agreed with it.

When the river workers dug the river to Huangling Hill, they indeed dug out a stone man in the middle of the road. Tens of thousands of river workers were stunned with shock. The people were in turmoil for a while, and they gathered in groups of three or five to discuss the matter. At this time, Han Shantong chose to take action.

He killed the river officials and started a rebellion. In just one month, 150,000 river workers revolted, and Han Shantong became the Ming King.

Those who are righteous often do not have a good end. Han Shantong died in the suppression of the Yuan army. The Little Ming King was made a puppet by Liu Futong. In the 26th year of Zhizheng in the Yuan Dynasty, just on the eve of the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the Little Ming King drowned in a shipwreck on the way back to Nanjing by Emperor Taizu Gao.

The death of the Little Ming King became an eternal taboo after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, and the one-eyed stone man was also believed by countless people.

The one-eyed stone man from two hundred years ago and the one-eyed stone Buddha from two hundred years later make people think of it as a combination of "Cyclops" and "Maitreya Buddha".

Could it be that Heaven no longer recognizes the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming royal family is also despised by Heaven?

Or maybe, King Ming and King Little Ming came to ask for an explanation from the Ming Dynasty?

However, the people have their own yardstick in their hearts. They know that whether there was suffering or not under the rule of the emperor and previous emperors is a thing of the past. But now, in the 40th year of Jiajing, the lives of the people have visibly improved.

When life was difficult, the one-eyed stone Buddha did not grow. When life just began to be happy, the one-eyed stone Buddha grew. No matter how I think about it, I can't understand it.

Therefore, outside Xizhimen, the people were just frightened but there was no chaos.

After discovering the one-eyed stone Buddha, the Jinyiwei blocked the place, but that was the city gate, with people coming and going everywhere, and the news that had spread could not be blocked.

Lu Bing's eyes were filled with murderous intent. These people always managed to give him some tricks. He invited Zhang Yuangong, "Father-in-law, do you want to go to Xizhimen to see the 'miracle'?"

"I'm willing to go!"

(End of this chapter)