Pawn Crossing the River

The Western Region Taoist House is a very special Taoist house. Logically speaking, there should be a real person in charge here. However, because the Western Region Taoist House is too close to Yujing, if there is any big event, Yujing can just send someone directly, so in the end There is no real person in charge.

If Wu Niang becomes an immortal, and a position is assigned to her, she can be the Great Master of the Taoist House in the Western Regions. It will not be a waste.

Because the Western Region Daofu is a troubled place. Going east is the sphere of influence of the Golden Horde and the Rakshasa Kingdom. Going west is the sphere of influence of Buddhism in the Western Region.

The superficial reason for the war in the Western Regions in the past few years was that the Shamans wanted to recapture the Snowy Mountains.

Daxue Mountain was originally a holy land of shamanism and one of the four palaces of the Golden Horde Khan. However, in the eleventh year of Daxuan Taiping, it was conquered by the imperial court and the Taoist sect. The Daxue Mountain Palace became the location of the Taoist Palace of the Western Regions. In order to regain the holy land of the Snowy Mountains, the Shamans went to war with the Taoist government of the Western Regions several times.

The actual reason is not that simple. Shamanism alone cannot compete with Taoism. Behind Shamanism is the support of the holy power of the Rakshasa Kingdom and the Buddhism of the Western Regions. The two Western religions have reached a consensus and even an alliance to a certain extent.

This was also the Holy Court's counterattack against the Taoist sect. The Taoist sect united local forces in the East Posas Continent and the Southern Continent to ruin the good deeds of the Holy Court. The Holy Court teamed up with Buddhism to repeatedly cause trouble in Nanyang and the Western Regions.

As a result, not only the land trade routes were almost cut off, but conflicts of all sizes continued, turning this place into a major military town.

However, there is still a certain tacit understanding between Taoism and Buddhism. The two sides will not directly conflict, at least there will not be a large-scale armed conflict. surface

In the past, the other two of the three religions still united around the Taoist sect.

It's not that Taoism is afraid of Buddhism, but because of the reasons mentioned earlier, Taoism feels it's not worth it.

The Buddhists in the Western Regions were driven to the Gobi Desert, which was very barren and had nothing to offer. The Taoist sect and the Buddhist sect are at war. It is natural that they will win, and nothing will be gained. If the battle is lost, the problem will be huge. If Yujing is compared to the Imperial Capital during the Wei Dynasty, and the Kunlun Taoist Prefecture is Zhili, then the Western Region Taoist Prefecture is the Nine Towns and Three Passes. Every time the Golden Horde army goes south, it breaks through the Nine Towns. With the defensive line, troops can reach the imperial capital. Even if the Buddhist sects in the Western Regions are unable to defeat Yujing, the Taoist sects will still be shaken.

Nowadays, the main focus of the Taoist sect is still on the east and south, focusing on overseas operations. As long as nothing happens to the Taoist government in the Western Regions, it will be fine.

However, seeking peace through compromise will not lead to peace. Only through struggle can peace be achieved. Although the country should not be anthropomorphized, this matter is exactly the same as human nature. It's like someone bullies you, and if you give in, the bully will be more severe next time, but if you fight back forcefully and hurt them, they won't mess with you anymore.

Under this situation, Daomen decided to launch a war in the Western Region, and it was necessary to concentrate its efforts, build momentum, and show prestige.

Because it was the sphere of influence of Quanzhen Taoism, Donghua Zhenren personally led the army, and finally defeated the shamanism and forced the Golden Tent to move three times.

At that time, Qi Xuansu was still fooling around in the world and basically didn't feel anything. When he joined Tiangangtang, he only caught up with the tail end.

After this battle, there were no major wars in the Western Region, but there were still various minor frictions. With the support of the Holy Court, the Buddhist sects in the Western Regions continued to provoke Taoist sects, but they did not dare to fight.

, the two sides often develop into small-scale fights or secret back-and-forth situations.

The Buddhists in the Western Regions also see it very accurately. The Taoist Sect and the Holy Court are restraining each other, and no one dares to move lightly. The Taoist Sect does not want to fight it with all its strength, and the Holy Court is constantly fighting for it, so it can swing left and right. Moreover, the Buddhist Sect of the Western Regions has always wanted to Taking back the Western Region, Tao Sect Yujing became a situation where the Grand Master was guarding the country, so all kinds of small moves continued.

If the Imperial Palace is busy with nothing to do all day long, then the Western Region Dao Palace is at the other extreme. It is constantly engaged in big and small things. It must guard against not only Buddhism in the Western Regions, but also the Holy Court and Shamanism, and secret societies are also very rampant. Also needs cleaning.

Yao Pei was transferred to the Western Region Taoist House as chief, and it was relatively easy to achieve results.

Being the chief of the Western Region Taoist Government, you basically don’t have to consider economic matters. Unless the land trade route can be re-opened, it will not be comparable to Nanyang. The Taoist sect will not send any financial and tax tasks here, but will need help from other Taoist Governments. Here, there is even funding from Yujing.

In this case, Yao Pei's role as the chief deputy palace master in the Western Region Taoist Mansion is completely different from Qi Xuansu and Zhang Yuelu's role as the chief deputy palace master in the Borneo Taoist Mansion.

What is Qi Xuansu concerned about? Leaving aside Chen Shuhua and Wang Jiaohe, the main ones are typhoon disaster, foreign trade, Nanyang United Trading Company, and Lion City.

What is Zhang Yuelu concerned about? Although there are many secret associations, as the secret associations become normalized, they are nothing. Zhang Yuelu mainly pays attention to the old Taoist priests. These gentry from the Taoist era formed an interest alliance and fought endlessly with Zhang Yuelu. Basically, To redistribute benefits

.

What is Yao Pei concerned about? They are the Zhiming Cult, the Lingshan Witch Cult, the Buddhist forces in the Western Regions, the Shamanistic forces, the Goddess Society, etc. These are external forces, and the others are considered internal conflicts. This is the struggle between ourselves and the enemy. Moreover, the situation is complex, and we cannot blindly suppress or compromise blindly. We must use both suppression and appeasement.

The provocative behavior of Buddhism in the Western Regions is essentially cannibalization. Build a temple today and open a forum to lecture tomorrow. The Taoist side will send people to expel them, but the Buddhists will definitely not do it. The two sides want to fight, but they are more restrained. They cannot directly cover it with artillery, use flying boats to cover it, or deploy a large array of alchemist battalions to dispatch. It all depends on personal cultivation. Even one-on-one.

After Yao Pei came to the Western Region Taoist House, he dealt with many such things, which were almost routine.

Normally, Yao Pei just gives orders and does not have to show up in person, but today is an exception. This time it was relatively restrained at first, but gradually it became more angry. Both sides continued to seek support, so the scale became larger and larger, and it became somewhat out of control. Yao Pei had to come forward in person.

When Yao Pei arrived at the site of the conflict, he saw the two camps confronting each other in a desert. There was an unfinished simple temple not far away.

A Buddhist priest stood in front of the formation, with precious light flowing on his face. He was dressed in a bright red monk's robe, with one arm exposed, and his skin glowed with a faint golden light, just like a golden Buddha statue in a Buddhist temple.

In addition to the Shinto golden bodies of the immortals, Buddhist monks also have golden bodies. The two have some similarities, but they are not exactly the same. When the Buddhist golden body is completed, it is like the mountains and the earth, unshakable and unyielding. After cultivating to the extreme, it will not be inferior to the human and immortal body.

soul.

This monk has achieved great success in cultivating the golden body. He is like a majestic and motionless mountain, looking down at all living beings from the top of the mountain.

A bone rosary as big as a fist hangs on the monk's chest. If you look closely, you will see that each rosary is actually made from human skulls using a secret method. The skulls are filled with gems, agate and other Buddhist seven treasures, making each rosary beautiful. The rosary beads sparkled.

This is a human bone rosary unique to Buddhism in the Western Regions. After the monks passed away, they were buried in the sky. The corpses were fed to eagles to achieve the compassionate state of the Buddha by cutting off his legs and feeding them to the eagles. The remaining bones were used for making utensils. Each of its bone beads is taken from the skull of an eminent monk. Therefore, the monk's rosary in front of him has a total of twenty-one rosary beads, which requires the death of twenty-one celestial and human monks before he can practice it, which shows how rare it is.

The way of practice and inheritance of Buddhism in the Western Regions has always been very different from Buddhism in the Central Plains. Even the Taoist sects after the merger of Buddhism and Taoism can hardly cover the various aspects of Buddhism in the Western Regions.

Although Buddhism in the Western Regions comes from the lineage of Buddhism, after it spread to the Western Regions on the grasslands, it merged with Shamanism. Shamanism is a branch and variant of ancient shamanism. After all these changes, Buddhism in the Western Regions developed a unique method of initiation. To put it bluntly, it is Passing down one's own cultivation to the next generation of disciples, from master to disciple, and from disciple to disciple, from generation to generation, Buddhism in the Western Regions can still stand firm even when Buddhism is declining. Even after the birth of the Lord Buddha, Buddhism in the Western Regions has become a sect that can compete with Taoism. the main force.

In Yao Pei's perception, the person in front of him, although he has the cultivation level of a celestial being, appears to be dissociated and is not as harmonious and flawless as a real celestial being.

, but achieved the current state by relying on external forces. I think this is the so-called inheritance power.

This kind of practice method places all the cultivation on the physical body, which goes against the principle of Central Plains Buddhism that regards the human body as a stinky bag and pursues the transcendence of form and emptiness.

What is the body? It has nose, eyes, mouth and other facial features, as well as two hands and feet, a round head and a square top. It has the form and substance of a human body, which is called the physical body, which is the body that has been tempered by the warrior immortals.

Precisely because Buddhism in the Western Regions paid too much attention to the physical path, Buddhism in the Central Plains regarded it as deviant and heresy. However, Buddhism in the Central Plains has declined, and Buddhism in the Western Regions has become orthodox.

Central Plains Buddhism regards the seven orifices as holes, the limbs as knots, the skin and flesh as pus cells, and the five internal organs as lumps. We must abandon this physical body and find another true body that has no form or image.

If you are in a daze, regard this body as true, regard falsehood as true, and regard emptiness as true. There are six gates on the outside, six consciousnesses on the inside, attacking internally and externally, destroying the true essence.

All things in the world, everything with form, are corrupted. If you love this form and body as false and do not exhaust the true life, when the time comes, who am I and who is my body? The body and I have nothing to do with each other.

In other words, if one cannot seek immortality, the body is just a piece of clothing that can be thrown away. Therefore, Central Plains Buddhism despises the body and calls it the body.

The immortals and ghosts of the Taoist sect also despised the body and abandoned it. The former used the power of incense and vows to create a golden body of the Shinto, while the latter used the soul to leave the body, as if taking off the clothes on his body. Even the earthly immortals and heavenly immortals have to be reborn and get rid of their mortal bodies, which is equivalent to changing clothes.

Only people from the Taoist sect

On the way to immortality, one does not "take off clothes" or "change clothes", but uses one's body to break through the boundaries between immortals and mortals, and uses one's body as a boat to cross the sea of ​​suffering, reach the other shore, and achieve immortality.

From this point of view, Buddhism in the Western Regions cannot be wrong.

After Yao Pei appeared, the monk first announced the Buddha's name, and then said in the Central Plains Mandarin, which was not very proficient, "I didn't expect that it was Master Yao who came in person."

The monk's voice is like a bell and a bell, deafening and deafening, and the rolling sound is like substance.

This is the Buddhist magical power "Lion's Roar". After being cultivated to the extreme, it can not only frighten the mind, but even hurt the soul with just one roar. At the least, the soul will be unstable, the mind will be insane, and the person will become a madman and fool, and at the worst, the soul will fly away. , there is only one walking corpse left, which is quite similar to the human immortal Blood Roar.

However, Yao Pei was not affected at all. He didn't even have much expression on his face. He was lifeless and only said four words: "What do you want?"