Standalone Northern and Southern Dynasties

Chapter 54: Theory of the Annihilation of God (4k)

Su Ze asked the hotel waiter to buy some wine from next door, and he and Liu Gui drank it in front of Gao Huan.

Poor Gao Huan stuck his butt out and watched the two men drinking. The alcohol bug in his body started to swell, but the blind pharmacist's words "Don't drink if you have wounds" stopped Gao Huan from wanting to drink.

The three of them talked about their ideals again, and only dispersed after drinking to their heart's content.

When they arrived in front of Sitong City, a team of armored city gate guards hurriedly headed towards Longhua Temple. Liu Gui frowned and said:
"Brother Su, I heard from my elder brother at home that thieves broke into Longhua Temple yesterday, and several wandering monks who were staying there were killed. Luoyang is in turmoil, so please take care of yourself!"

Su Ze naturally knew who had committed the Longhua Temple crime. He pretended to be calm and said, "I am usually on guard at the palace gate when I am not in Jianyangli. No thief would dare to cause trouble in these two places, right?"

Liu Gui said worriedly, "Since the Yongning Temple Golden Vase overturned, the atmosphere in Luoyang has changed. Now many children of big families are seeking to serve as officials abroad. If Brother Su hadn't reminded me early, I wouldn't have been able to join the cavalry army."

That's right. From the Wei, Jin and Sixteen Kingdoms to the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the northern aristocratic families could continue to exist. They could be bad, but they could never fail to see the situation clearly.

The northern regime has changed so many times. If you don’t understand, you would have died long ago.

As the two were talking, another team from Henan Prefecture passed by. Liu Gui said again:
"I heard that the General of the Cavalry suddenly recommended Li Daoyuan, who was dismissed a few years ago, to be the governor of Henan, and the King of Jiangyang recommended Zang Shucheng Hou Gang, who had just been reinstated, to be the governor of Henan. The court was hesitant, and now Luoyang is in trouble again. The position of the governor of Henan can no longer be left vacant."

The General of Cavalry is Li Chong, the Prince of Jiangyang is a favorite of the Queen Mother, and the general who has made great contributions in protecting the emperor at Yongning Temple is Yuan Yi. These two are important ministers in the Northern Wei court.

The Yin of Henan was an important position in charge of public security in the capital area, and he also controlled the Chengmenwei, an armed force outside the city of Luoyang. The reason why the position had been vacant for a long time was because the various forces in the court could not agree on a suitable candidate.

There have been repeated murders in Luoyang, and everyone knows that the position of Henan Yin cannot remain vacant any longer, which led to this struggle in the court.

Su Ze looked at Liu Gui and said, "Brother Liu, when you officially leave the Capital of Gods, Brother Gao and I will give you a farewell party. I will arrange for someone to take care of Brother Gao, and send him back to the North when he gets better."

Su Ze also arranged for a [timid servant] and a [blind pharmacist] to come and serve Gao Huan, and only returned to the house in Jianyangli after they were done.

As soon as he got home, Su Ze heard some noise at the back door. He walked to the backyard calmly and saw a black figure coming in through the dog hole in the backyard.

Su Dao took off a bag, crawled out of the dog hole, and dragged another bag in from outside. I really don’t know how this guy carried these two big bags back from Beimang Mountain.

After Su Ze helped Su Dao move the things back to the room, Su Dao stretched out his hand and said to Su Ze: "Master, wine?"

Su Ze immediately handed over the wine he had packed. Su Dao raised his head and took a sip, praising him repeatedly: "Good wine! Good wine!"

After saying that, he actually drank the wine in the pot, then lay on the table and became drunk.

Could this be considered the effect of the "catch-the-traitor wine"?

Forget it, there are system records anyway. Su Ze opened the system and saw Su Dao’s records.

[The dog thief Su Dao carries out the mission "Selling stolen goods in the ghost market" and arrives at the Beimangshan Ghost Market! 】

[The dog thief Su Dao sold the stolen gilded Buddha statue and received a gold cake (worth 20 pieces of silk)! ]

[The dog thief Su Dao sold the stolen exquisite embroidery and obtained five pieces of silk! ]

. . . .

[The dog thief Su Dao was unable to find a stall selling game animals. ]

[The dog thief Su Dao left the ghost market and found that he was being followed. He used the terrain and disguised himself as a dog to avoid the follower. 】

【The dog thief Su Dao returned home safely. 】

After seeing the records, Su Ze also broke into a sweat. It turned out that the so-called ghost market was not a safe place for transactions.

They gather together to sell contraband at the risk of being beheaded, and it is normal for gangs to rob each other.

The reason why Su Dao was sent to sell the stolen goods was because if he simply went to the ghost market and sold a large amount of stolen goods, he might not be able to leave Beimang Mountain.

Su Ze saw the package filled with silk, gold cakes and silver ingots of various sizes, and strings of Taihe Wuzhu coins. No wonder chaos is an opportunity to make a fortune. Just a theft and an assassination of a Mahayana backbone brought Su Ze so much profit.

After Su Ze's inventory, the gold cakes and silver ingots that Su Dao brought back were worth at least thirty pieces of silk. Together with the scattered Taihe Wuzhu coins and the five pieces of silk that Su Dao carried back, a total of forty pieces of silk were sold at the ghost market.

Converted into Taihe five baht, that's thirty-two thousand coins!

Su Ze found a pottery jar and put the gold cakes and silver ingots into the jar. He tried to put the pottery jar into the system warehouse, but found that the warehouse did not consider "a jar of gold and silver" as a whole item. To put the pottery jar into the system warehouse, it had to occupy the three grids of "gold cakes", "silver ingots" and "pottery jar" respectively.

This is too unintelligent.

Fortunately, valuable items can be directly exchanged for money and stored in the mall, so storage does not need to occupy the system warehouse.

It’s a pity that the system’s mall recharge is one-way. Once you rush in, you can only buy goods in the mall. Su Ze decided to take out gold cakes worth ten pieces of silk, exchange them for 8000 Taihe Wuzhu, and deposit them in the system’s mall.

The rest of the gold and silver was buried by Su Ze in the basement of his house, while the silk and money were moved to the warehouse behind the yard.

In addition to this money, Su Ze also seized ten bows and arrows and twenty long and short weapons of various types when he attacked the Mahayana sect stronghold of Longhua Temple. Although these were not as good as the standard equipment of the Yulin Army, they were at least usable weapons.

The two most important things that Su Dao brought out from Longhua Temple were a map of Luoyang, which included dozens of large and small secret bases of the Mahayana sect in Luoyang City.

According to the intelligence Su Bai overheard, some money and food were stored in these strongholds, and they were the bases that the Mahayana Sect was preparing to launch a rebellion among the Luoyang believers after the successful assassination of Wang Hui.

Su Ze has already sent Su Bai to explore these strongholds, and these strongholds will be targets that Su Ze plans to "capture" one by one.

The other piece was the account book of the Mahayana sect's bribery of important officials in the court, as well as the list of their key believers in Luoyang.

Like the Yellow Turban Sect in the late Han Dynasty, the reason why Mahayana Buddhism was able to leave its name in history books is that it had a strong ability to spread.

Although they failed to expand their influence into the imperial palace like the Yellow Turbans, they still had a large number of loyal followers in Luoyang, and some of them had even infiltrated the upper class.

Su Ze saw the names of many important officials on the bribery list, including Jiangyang King Yuan Yi.

As expected, this group of evil Mahayana sect members were in collusion with Jiangyang King Yuan Yi. The Mahayana sect used the Golden Bottle to overthrow King Qinghe, and Jiangyang King Yuan Yi might be behind this!

Although Jiangyang Prince Yuan Yi was also a clan relative, he was much more distant from the royal family in terms of blood ties than Emperor Xiaowen's biological son, Qinghe Prince.

So although he was a prince, Jiangyang Prince Yuan Yi relied on his status as the brother-in-law of Empress Dowager Hu to rise to power. In later history books, he was also classified as a "favored" one. When the Prince of Qinghe was in power, he often suppressed Yuan Yi, who was arrogant because of his favor, and the two gradually became enemies.

In the historical timeline before Su Ze traveled through time, King Jiangyang Yuan Yi first sent people to falsely accuse King Qinghe of treason, and finally colluded with the eunuch Liu Teng to imprison Yuan Yi on the way to the Forbidden City to meet the Queen Mother, and then obtained the order of the young emperor to execute Yuan Yi.

It is easy to understand why the Mahayana Sect targeted King Qinghe. King Qinghe was the leader of the Eight Dukes and the ruler of the Northern Wei Dynasty. If his position was shaken, it would inevitably cause violent turmoil in the court.

Moreover, during the reign of the late Emperor Xuanwu, Prince Qinghe made many petitions requesting the suppression of cults, and he also took a tough stance towards Mahayana Buddhism.

Connecting these clues together, all of this was just Su Ze's guess. He was just a lowly Yulin soldier. Not to mention how he explained how he got these accounts, even if an important official took them to meet Empress Dowager Hu, it would not hurt Yuan Yi at all.

It was normal for important officials in the Northern Wei court to accept gifts, and even those officials who were unable to accept gifts would be looked down upon.

Important officials vied with each other to build more luxurious mansions, competing with each other in wealth and even making their residences more luxurious than those of Shi Chong and Wang Kai of the Western Jin Dynasty.

Even if he was as wise as the King of Qinghe, where did he get such a huge mansion? Where did he get the money to support so many guests every day?

Even if there is irrefutable evidence that King Yuanyi of Jiangyang accepted bribes from the Mahayana Sect, he cannot be harmed at all.

The affairs of the court are still too far away from Su Ze. Prince Qinghe is still the most powerful man in the Northern Wei Dynasty. How to rely on this big tree to accumulate more benefits for himself before his downfall is what Su Ze is considering.

Su Ze looked up and out the window. It was already completely dark. It was time to refresh the store!

Su Ze put aside his messy thoughts, held the amulet that his sister Su Yuyao had asked for, and opened the store again.

There is purple!
Su Ze noticed the conspicuous purple color of the store, but felt a little disappointed after seeing the purple products.

【Theory of the Extinction of God】

Grade: Purple;
Effect: None;

Review: "Books."

Price: 1600 Wen.

This item was shown to be a bamboo slip. Seeing the price, Su Ze hesitated. Although it was a purple item, the price was a bit too high.

But this is the famous "Theory of the Extinction of God"!

The author of "The Theory of the Extinction of Gods" was Fan Shen of the Southern Dynasty, who had passed away three years ago, but this article caused a huge sensation in the Southern Dynasty.

At this time, both the Northern and Southern Dynasties worshipped Buddhism. Xiao Yan of the Southern Liang Dynasty even used Buddhism as a tool of rule and built a large number of Buddhist temples. A fanatical trend of worshipping Buddhism also arose among the people. Many people took out all their savings to offer to the Buddhist temples, not asking for well-being in this life, but only for wealth in the next life.

In this atmosphere, Fan Shen wrote "The Theory of the Extinction of Gods" to refute the theory of gods and Buddhas, which caused great discussion in the Southern Dynasties.

Xiao Yan, the monarch of Southern Liang, decided to refute Fan Shen through debate and issued the "Imperial Reply to My Ministers' Theory of the Extinction of Gods". The great monk Zheng Fayun copied the Emperor Wu's imperial edict to the princes and nobles, and wrote "A Letter to the Princes and Nobles". He ordered all the ministers who were proficient in Buddhism to write articles to debate with Fan Shen.

Fan Zhen did not show any weakness in this, so he rewrote "Theory of the Extinction of Gods" into a question-and-answer format with 31 questions and answers, and calmly responded to the challenge and refuted it with reason. In this debate, Fan Zhen "defeated many people with his arguments and convinced thousands of people every day". In the end, Xiao Yan himself participated in the debate, but he was unable to refute Fan Shen.

After Fan Shen's death, Xiao Yan listed "Theory of the Extinction of Gods" as a banned book, but Confucian scholars in Southern Liang still secretly kept it and passed it down to later generations.

However, due to the war between the North and the South and the difficulty in spreading knowledge at that time, the complete copy of "Theory of the Extinction of Gods" was not circulated in Luoyang.

Su Ze thought about it and decided to buy it since the book would no longer be available when the store refreshed it in five days.

Money can be earned again, but I don’t know when I will be able to get this book next time.

After the store deducted 1600 coins, a bamboo slip appeared in Su Ze's hands.

All one could see were vigorous handwriting carved on the bamboo slips with a pen knife. The article consisted of 31 questions, all of which were rhetorical questions. Fan Shen refuted the existence of Buddha and immortals from the aspects of "form, spirit, and quality". His article was vigorous and powerful, and Su Ze felt refreshed after reading it.

Only when you travel back to this era and see the prosperity of Buddhism in the world, can you understand how heartbroken Fan Shen was when he wrote this article.

Su Ze placed the bamboo slips on the table. Unfortunately, Fan Shen's efforts were useless. Emperor Xiao Yan of the Southern Liang Dynasty, who lost to Fan Shen in the debate, not only did not stop worshipping Buddhism, but intensified it. In the end, he only left the future generations to sigh, "There are 480 temples in the Southern Dynasties, and many pavilions and terraces are in the wind and rain."

Looking further, the remaining four items in the store are a basket of three green items.

It seems that all his luck was taken away by the purple item "Theory of God's Annihilation", but when Su Ze saw the blue item, his eyes lit up.

The Deaf and Mute Falconer

Grade: blue;
Effect: None;

Comment: "A falconer who can tame birds of prey for hunting, but unfortunately he cannot speak. (The picture is only an example, without the eagle, please refer to the actual summoning)."

Price: 200 wen tai and 50 baht coins, and a maintenance fee of wen tai and baht coins is required every month.

All I saw was a little man dressed as a Hu people and wearing hand guards appearing in the mall. There was also a falcon on the hand guards in the picture.

Su Ze just felt a stomachache. This system was too stingy. The falconer sold didn't even bring a falcon! Isn't this just a set?

Do I need to get him a falcon to train? Where can I buy a falcon in Luoyang?
However, Su Ze still bought it decisively. What if a raptor appears in the store next time?
The last three green items, [Exquisite Horn Knuckle Guards], [Durable Embroidery Needle] and [Sturdy Kitchen Knife], would have made Su Ze happy in the past, as he could use the system's price difference to make some money to supplement his family income.

Looking at the remaining balance of 6200 coins in the system mall, I can only keep these green items for my own use.

At least the [exquisite ox horn finger guard] can protect the fingers when shooting arrows, and the [durable embroidery needle] can be given to my sister Su Yuyao to practice embroidery.

In seven days, we will be selecting the strikers. I just hope that there will be no trouble in Luoyang during these few days and that no new incidents will occur.

It’s a pity that the tree wants to be still but the wind does not stop. The next day, when Su Ze just arrived at the palace gate for guard duty, he saw a majestic middle-aged man in a red robe.

I hope you will follow me during the new book period. It is very important to recommend this book. Thank you all!



(End of this chapter)