Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 36 I guess it’s not you who gets beaten?
Japanese monks plagiarized the advanced production technology of China's handicraft industry on a large scale, ran back to their country and built workshops in temples to make a lot of money, but they also refused to admit the source of the technology, trying to cover up the truth and attributed everything to the Buddha, as if it was a gift from the Buddha. This made Yuanye very unhappy - it would be fine if they copied it, but they didn't even give a "paper citation" and insisted that it was a gift from the Buddha. Anyone would be unhappy about this.

But he had no choice for the time being. He could not defeat the more than a thousand people of Huangzi Guanyin Temple alone. He could only bear the unhappiness and deal with it later. But the book in front of him was very interesting, and he wanted to take it back and take a closer look.

The young monk Zhiru was only eight or nine years old. He didn't know how expensive firewood and rice were, so he didn't take the precious books seriously. He agreed immediately, "Of course, believers can take it back and read it!"

The fat monk Faxing became anxious when he heard this, and said quickly: "Uncle Junior Master, my master said that books cannot be borrowed, this..."

This book belonged to his master. If Yuan Ye borrowed it and didn't return it, it would definitely be blamed on him. His master would not let him off easily. At the very least, he would deduct a few months' salary from him. Books in Japan were very expensive at that time. Each book was priced by the string and often they were not available.

Especially technical books like this are more difficult to get. There are quite a lot of Buddhist scriptures, Confucian classics, etc. It would be okay to lend a few to Yuanye to read.

"Well, Second Senior Brother..." Zhiru hesitated slightly when he mentioned Faxing's master, but he had already promised Yuanye, so he thought for a moment and said, "Just say you lost it! He will at most hit you a few times, but he won't do anything to you! Return the book later, and he won't be angry anymore."

Faxing's fat face twisted instantly. You are talking like a human being, but it turns out that you, a little thing, are not the one who will be beaten, right?
But even in Japan, being a monk still requires strict hierarchy. Zhiru, as the most beloved disciple of Patriarch Haixin, is also of great background. Faxing has no way to deal with him and can only watch them leave with despair on his face.

He had good intentions in explaining the origin of the craft to Yuanye, but not only did he not gain any benefit, he might even get a beating!

If he had known earlier, he would have kicked Yuanye into the kiln. How shameless!
…………

"Do believers like reading?" Zhiru didn't take the fat monk Faben seriously at all. Instead, he was more concerned about his task, which was to entertain Yuanye, the guest. He actively suggested, "Shall I take you to the Rare Book Hall?"

"Oh, Shanbentang? Is it the place where books are stored in the temple?" Yuanye was about to leave when he became interested again.

"right!"

"Then go quickly!"

They turned another corner and, led by the young monk Zhiru, headed towards the southeast corner of Huangzi Guanyin Temple. After walking in twists and turns for a quarter of an hour, they finally arrived at a Buddhist temple with side rooms.

The Buddhist hall is located alone in a small courtyard, without any trees or buildings around it. There is also a row of large water tanks next to the door. It seems that fire prevention is taken very seriously. If it is inspected in the future, there will probably be no points deducted for fire prevention.

The young monk Zhiru also introduced to him: "You can only come here during the day. The door will be locked at night and you are not allowed to turn on the lights inside."

"That's as it should be."

Yuanye nodded and followed Zhiru in. As soon as they entered the door, two monks looked up at them, then lowered their heads to read, with no intention of stopping them.

The Rare Books Hall is a bit like a reading room in later generations. Wooden plates are placed on wooden shelves, and each plate contains a few volumes or books. Unlike later libraries that like to place books vertically to show their spines, the books here are stacked flat on top of each other.

Moreover, in the Rare Books Hall, you can faintly hear the sound of reading, but it is not very clear.

Zhiru saw that Yuanye seemed to be listening carefully, so he explained to him, "The sound came from the Temple School. The Temple School is not far from here."

Oh, by the way, Japanese monks also run schools part-time. Most of the students are children of local wealthy families and local samurai families, but there are also some children of merchants, men's gangs, and families of nobles. Sometimes there are even one or two children from poor common people's families who get the opportunity to receive education.

Kinoshita Tokichirō, the protagonist of "Nobunaga Risshiden 2", seems to have attended a temple school before he became famous. In the temple, he learned to read and write Chinese characters and kana, and studied mathematics, debate, tea ceremony and other skills. This laid a solid foundation for him to become a samurai in the future. I just don't know if he studied at Araki Kannon Temple.

But Yuanye didn't care about the monkey at the moment. He would probably meet this guy after a while, so there was no need to look for him deliberately. The book was more important now.

After all, there is no better learning tool than books in this world. Aman, the "original ninja", can only introduce the situation in the recent period, and it is difficult to form a system.

He walked forward and flipped through the books one by one. Most of the books in front were Buddhist scriptures, and there were also many handwritten notes on Buddhist insights. These were useless to him, so he went around the front row and picked up a book from the shelf at the back. The title of the book was "Records of Supernatural Powers".

Ancient novel?
He flipped to the middle and found it was a collection of short stories. The story on this page was about a man who borrowed money from a temple and refused to pay it back because he had no money on hand. He took his family and fled to the mountains to default on the debt. As a result, he woke up one night and turned into a cow. His wife and children were shocked and quickly led the cow to the temple to ask the monk to save it. As a result, the monk saw at a glance that he had committed a sin and it was the karma for deliberately defaulting on the debt, and he would be reduced to livestock for generations.

So the family had no choice but to stay and work in the temple, even leaving their cow behind, and work hard to till the land. After they paid back the money, they swore with tears that they would never default on their debts again, and only then were they let off the hook and restored to adulthood.

After finishing reading, Yuanye flipped through the back of the book and found that they were all similar short stories, not even fables. He was speechless for a moment - there were also a lot of red-ink corrections in the book, with carefully chosen words and sentences. It seemed that they were short stories that were publicly preached to believers, deliberately to fool people.

This book was still of no use to him, so he put it down and picked up another one. The title of the book was "Records of Stories", but when he opened it, it was also a collection of short stories designed to fool fools. It seemed that Japanese monks put a lot of thought into disciplining their believers.

Yuanye flipped through several books in succession. The contents were all similar. It seemed that this row of books was of no use to him.

He continued to walk back and flipped through the books carefully, and found that these books were finally of some use to him - ancient books such as "Kamiya-ki", "Kojiki", "Manyoshu", "Irohame Ruisho" and "Fudoki". The contents were mostly written in Chinese characters mixed with Manyo-kana. There were printed thread-bound books and handwritten copies, and most of them had handwritten annotations. They could be regarded as history books, geography books, dictionaries and literacy textbooks of this era.

He needs to learn these. He studied abroad in Japan and can read and write Japanese fluently, but this may not be the case in the Middle Ages. He will probably have to exchange letters with others in the future, so it is necessary for him to learn ancient Japanese systematically.

Of course, he also needs to learn traditional Chinese characters, but that is not difficult for him.

He piled these books aside, looked at the ones next to them, and found some books like "Song Hua Zhuan", "Tang Yin Yun", and "Han Wen Jiao Mutual". It seems that Japanese monks are very enthusiastic about learning foreign languages, and even foreign language textbooks have been produced.

In addition to these, he also found a complete set of the Four Books and Five Classics, various Confucian classics, some of which had seven or eight versions, as well as some manuscripts and handwritten copies of Tang and Song poetry, and even some drama scripts and brothel tunes. It was not known whether they were collected by Japanese monks or copied.

He selected these and put them aside, then continued to look through the back books. There were mostly handwritten books at the back, and he flipped through them and found that most of them were warrior essays, collections of essays, and diaries, which were quite personal things, and he didn't know how they fell into the hands of the monks.

Perhaps it was used as collateral by some unworthy descendants when they went to Tucang to borrow money, and then could not be redeemed?

He flipped through them for a while and thought they were useful, so he picked out some with better handwriting and put them aside.

More than half an hour passed quickly. He picked out dozens of books that he thought were useful. Fortunately, the ancients were very particular about what they wrote, unlike the later writers who were so shameless and wrote millions of words. Even if dozens of books were piled together, they were not very thick. However, this still surprised Zhiru: "Xinxin, do you want to read so many books?"

"It's not a lot. It can be put in a small box."

"The believer is really hardworking!" Zhiru admired him very much. He didn't like studying at all, but it was a pity that he was forced to study every day. Today, he could stroll around, all thanks to Yuanye.

"Then I'll take these!" Yuan Ye originally thought that he had to trick Zhiru to get all these books, but he didn't expect Zhiru to be so generous despite his young age. He immediately returned the favor and said with a smile, "When you have the chance to come to the village to find me, I will stew 'mountain mushrooms' for you! It's stewed with medicinal herbs, fragrant and nutritious, and you'll want to eat another bowl after eating one!"

Zhi Ruoran was moved and took a deep breath: "Really? Then the believers must remember not to deceive the little monk!"

"Don't worry, I guarantee you'll be satisfied with the meal!" Yuanye agreed immediately, but looking at these books still felt a bit regretful - it was impossible to take more. But Zhiru was a child, so if an adult monk accompanied him, it would be good enough if he could take away three or five books.

We’ll talk about the rest later!
Huangzi Guanyin Temple is so shameless. He always feels that this temple is destined to him. Maybe one day in the future, all these books will be his.

Yuanye thought about it in his mind, emptied the medicine box that Aqing was carrying, threw away some of the herbs he brought, stuffed all the books into the box, and then left the Rare Books Hall and said goodbye to the young monk Zhiru.

When he reached the foot of the mound, he looked back at the Huangzi Guanyin Temple, then at the towering mountain gate and the Duobao Pagoda shining brightly in the setting sun, and then he walked straight towards Huangzi City.

In the past, he did not understand why Oda Nobunaga spent the second half of his life beating monks like a madman, even burning Mount Hiei, and making up the nickname "Sixth Heaven Demon King", and was called "the world's number one enemy of Buddhism". But now he fully understands it, and if he were in his place, he would also beat Japanese monks like a madman.

Of course, he felt that the Japanese monks were so shameless and deserved a beating, but Oda Nobunaga was probably determined to unify the world and felt that "advanced productive forces" must be in his own hands, so he had to defeat the monks and take control of their industries.

Nine times out of ten, that's it!

(End of this chapter)