Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 35 What does this have to do with Buddha?
It was the first time Yuan Ye had seen handicraft production since he came back from poverty, and it was even a large-scale handicraft production. Looking at the busy handicraft producers, he finally realized where the various goods in the town of Kuno came from.

He had never thought about this problem before. From what he saw, Japan's business was quite prosperous in the Middle Ages. There was a wide variety of wood products, lacquerware, wax, oil, paper, ink, inkstones, wine, sauce, ironware, bronzeware, tinware... etc. As long as you had money, you could get basically anything you needed for daily life.

But as a modern man, it is normal to have a wide variety of goods in sufficient quantities. There is nothing strange about it. He simply turned a blind eye to it and didn't even think about it. It was not until now that he realized that it was impossible for so many goods to be imported. There must be local manufacturers. Who produced them then?
Now we have the answer, it was produced by Japanese monks.

In other words, it was produced by Japanese monks.

I never expected that Japanese monks actually controlled the highest productivity in Japan's medieval times!

To Yuan Ye, the large-scale handicraft production in ancient times was much more interesting than the Duobao Pagoda. He slid down the hillside and began to wander among these handicraft workshops.

Some make wooden barrels, wooden basins, and wooden boxes; some make lacquerware by boiling lacquer; some make wax and candles with lacquer; some make paper by boiling straw and bamboo...

There are so many categories that it’s hard to see them all at once.

He also remembered what Yayoi had said before, that their small village had to pay annual tribute in the form of wood, bamboo, straw bundles, lacquer blocks, lacquer seeds and other miscellaneous things. At that time, he wondered why the Arako Maeda family wanted these things!
Now look, there is a 99% chance that it was sold to Arashi Kannon Temple!
So let's look at it this way. In medieval Japan, the samurai group controlled the land and the monks controlled the technology. Did the two complement each other?

But where did the monks get their skills?
Yuanye pondered in his heart and took a look at the "barrel making workshop" with the lowest technical content:
Carefully selected, scar-free wood boards are boiled and degreased, then sent to the kiln for drying, shaping and removing moisture.

Someone was watching the fire next to the kiln, and from time to time he directed two other people to step on a large wooden machine to spray water mist on the wood to ensure that some of the boards would not be burnt or cracked.

Then comes the polishing stage, where a group of people polish the wooden boards thoroughly by hand. Then the formed and smooth wooden boards are placed in a pool of medicine to soak for anti-corrosion treatment.

Finally, these wooden boards will be hooped into containers such as barrels and basins to ensure that they will not rot or leak and can be used for ten or twenty years.

In fact, the technical content of this is not low. Even if Yuanye, a college student who has received a complete modern basic education, does not study it carefully for a period of time, he cannot guarantee that the wooden barrels he produces will not leak or rot.

Even after studying for a period of time, he could not guarantee that the wooden barrels he produced would be better than those of Guanyin Temple.

For example, the pool of preservative liquid, he couldn't figure out what was in it or what the formula of the preservative liquid was.

For example, the "sprayer" is made entirely of wood and can spray water mist and blow air. It is very cleverly designed. If he were to design one from scratch, made entirely of wood, the effect might not be as good as the one in front of him.

This set of process technology is by no means a one-time achievement. It requires a large number of workers to carry out long-term and extensive practice to achieve the interconnectedness and smoothness of the process, and to produce qualified wooden barrels in batches.

This is just a wooden barrel. For continuous production such as papermaking and wax making, the process technology involved is by no means something that some ancient genius could have figured out in a flash of inspiration and handle all the messy details.

Yuanye's doubts grew stronger and stronger. Pointing at the busy workshops, he asked Zhiru, "Who designed these production processes?"

Zhiru looked confused. He was just an eight or nine-year-old monk. How could he understand these things? However, he was of a high enough generation. Seeing that Yuanye seemed to be very interested in these menial jobs, he looked around and immediately called over a fat monk in his thirties, wearing seven robes and with a fat head and big ears. He said confidently, "Nephew Faxing, Master Yeyuan has something to ask you. You must tell Master Yeyuan!"

Faxing was very obedient in front of this junior master, and immediately bowed to Yuanye and said, "Yes, may I know if you have any questions?"

Yuanye repeated the question, and Faxing also looked confused: "What do you mean by donor? What do you not understand?"

Yuanye changed the question and pointed to the "wax-making workshop" in the distance and asked: "How did you learn to make wax?"

Faxing suddenly understood and bowed again: "This is a long story. When our sect's founder, Master Kongyan, traveled to China to seek Buddhist teachings, he had a flash of inspiration and realized this method. After returning to our sect, he taught it to all the monks in the sect for the purpose of protecting the Dharma."

"Instant enlightenment?" Yuan Ye couldn't believe it. "Buddhism can also reveal the production process?"

"Namo Amitabha, the Buddha's teachings are boundless, and wisdom is infinite." Faxing clasped his hands together and chanted the Buddha's name. He then glanced at Zhiru, guessing that Yuanye was a guest of this branch of the ancestor, so he explained, "Wisdom also has its cause and effect. Master Kongyan studied Buddhism intensively and deeply into the world of mortals. He had this opportunity in a workshop in China. It was truly the fruit of the Buddha's gift."

Isn't this just copied?
That old bald donkey Kong Yan must have been undercover in the wax-making workshop of the Song Dynasty for a year or two, right? How could he have copied the process so perfectly after only taking a look? How could he have obtained all the formulas and mechanical design drawings?
Even if you find a professional professor, he wouldn't dare to say that he can restore the ancient production process by just taking a look!
And you guys won't admit that you copied it? What does this have to do with Buddha?
Yuanye frowned for a moment, pointed at the papermaking workshop from a distance and asked, "What about the papermaking process?"

Although papermaking technology has existed since the Han Dynasty, the technology has been constantly improving. Just now, he took a look and found that the technical content is quite high and the production process is very smooth.

Faxing recalled for a moment. He was one of the managers of the workshop and was very clear about the origin of the technology. "The method of papermaking seems to have been obtained from Shengde Temple more than a hundred years ago! The ancestor of Shengde Temple had a master who also went to China to seek Dharma and brought back many kinds of papermaking methods, and exchanged a few of them with us."

"Oh? In exchange? What did you use to exchange it?"

"Use some lacquer recipes! That's probably it. It's been so long that the temple books don't have detailed records."

"The paint recipe was also obtained through 'sudden enlightenment' in the Chinese workshop, right?" Yuanye was almost speechless about these shameless Japanese monks.

"Amitabha, it is indeed something that the founder of our sect gained occasionally, and it is still bestowed by the Buddha." Faxing admitted it, but he was unwilling to say explicitly that these technologies were related to China and were copied. He simply attributed everything to the Buddha, which is basically the same as the modern Japan - modern Japan is more or less willing to admit that Japanese culture is deeply influenced by Chinese civilization, mainly because there are too many Chinese characters in Japanese, which can be seen at a glance and they cannot cheat, but behind closed doors, they never mention this aspect and always discuss it vaguely.

Some even claim that ancient China died long ago and that modern China has nothing to do with ancient China. This way they don't have to bear the "debt" and their national self-esteem can be preserved.

This shameless and shameless attitude made Yuanye quite unhappy, but he had no other choice now. He couldn't let him pin Faxing to the ground and beat him up until blood spurted from his mouth and nose, and force him to admit that his ancestors stole the technology!
That's useless. This kind of thinking is obviously not unique to Faxing, and he doesn't have the ability to beat up all the monks in the temple.

But he still felt very unhappy.

He kicked a wooden barrel beside him and said to Faxing sarcastically, "Then this barrel must have come out of 'enlightenment' as well!"

"It's not a bucket!" Faxing was really clear, "Donor, you don't know, the method of making a bucket is taught in a book."

"From the book?"

Faxing hesitated for a moment for the sake of "Master Zhiru", and then took out a book and handed it to Yuanye. Yuanye took it and saw that it was "Records of the Twelve Wood and Stone Masters". He had never heard of this book in modern times, so he opened the cover and looked at the author. It was Mu Shi San Ren, who he had never heard of before. Maybe it was a pseudonym or Taoist name?
It is too embarrassing for scholars to write such technical books, so they dare not use their real names?

Yuanye looked at the printing plate again. It was bound in thread, with exquisite printing and clear handwriting. He flipped through the contents carefully and found that they were all illustrations of various production processes and labor-saving equipment, including the "wooden spray blower" he had just seen - it was called "pressed wood blow bag" in the book.

Yuan Ye was even more speechless. Were the ancient Chinese scholars fools? You still want to print these things? Is this something that can be printed? Isn't this just shouting "Come and get my free stuff"?

Yuanye was convinced and looked around at the various workshops around him, but he didn't want to look any further or ask any more questions.

You don't need to ask to know that 80% of the production technology, such as woodblock printing, pen and ink formulas, etc., come from this.

Japanese monks have been going to China to seek Buddhist teachings for hundreds of years. It turns out they are busy with these things!

Of course, there may be some people who really go to learn Buddhism, and there may indeed be a few eminent monks, but Yuanye now believes that there are more "technology thieves" among them, who either seek technology in the guise of monks, or secretly learn crafts, or simply trick Chinese monks with special skills into Japan to spread Buddhism, and then master advanced production technology, open workshops, and work hard to make money.

It is no wonder that Japanese monks can lend money at high interest rates. They really know how to make money. They have saved a lot of money over the past few hundred years and have the capital to lend money. They even have the strength to collect debts and beat to death anyone who dares not to pay back the money. The group of people busy in the Guanyin Temple workshop, in addition to monks and craftsmen, are ordinary believers responsible for doing miscellaneous work. There are hundreds of people, young and old, men and women. If these people rush out with swords and guns, the Araki Maeda family will have a headache.

Not to mention that the Arashi Guanyin Temple must have a group of monk soldiers who are dedicated to combat, and the number should be quite large, but he just hasn't seen them yet.

By this time, Yuan Ye's interest in sightseeing had been ruined. He rolled up the book in his hand and asked Zhi Ru, "Can you lend me this book?"

The ancient Chinese were so stupid that they didn't even know they were being taken advantage of for free. It's really speechless!

(End of this chapter)