Chapter 1139 Speculation

"This is wrong!"

Maybe Xiao Zhao and Zhou Zhiruo didn't understand what Su Yi said was wrong, but Zhang Sanfeng heard it right away.

There is a Buddhist Scripture Pavilion in Shaolin, and of course there is one in Wudang.

But no matter which sect it is, the purpose of setting up the Sutra Pavilion is to "collect books", which demonstrates the heritage of a sect.

In such a place, even if the scriptures and secret books collected are not unique, they must be very precious. How could it be possible to solemnly and seriously collect the scriptures that were published in the secular world?

This is the same as the wealthy landlord in the countryside who would not hide corn sticks under his fire bed.

"The scriptures collected in the Shaolin Sutra Pavilion are all unique. At the very least, they are all handwritten copies of famous monks. Ordinary things are not qualified to enter the Sutra Pavilion." Zhang Sanfeng said, "These scriptures... are all published by secular bookstores. Issued items should not be stored in the Sutra Pavilion."

Xiao Zhao and others suddenly realized it. They looked around and found that all the scriptures were printed and the quality was not very good.

These books are all ordinary Buddhist scriptures, martial arts secrets and the like, but there are none.

"Could it be that the current situation is difficult and Shaolin did this deliberately to prevent accidents?" Xiao Zhao guessed.

"Accident? What accident? Are you afraid that the rebels will steal their scriptures?" Su Sanqi sneered.

"It's the Tatars!" Xiao Zhao wondered, "Shaolin was under the rule of the Tatars. They must have been afraid that the Tatars would covet the Shaolin martial arts scriptures, so they deliberately made these worthless things to hide the real scriptures. This is normal."

As soon as these words came out, both Zhang Sanfeng and Zhou Zhiruo looked embarrassed, but Su Sanqi sneered again and again.

"Miss Xiaozhao, the possibility you mentioned is probably not possible." Zhang Sanfeng said with a bitter smile, "To take a step back, even if it is really afraid that the Tatars will covet Shaolin's inheritance, Shaolin can just empty out the Sutra Pavilion. It is not necessary. Then they fill the Scripture Pavilion with these worthless printed books. This is not like defending against the outside, but more like defending against the inside..."

"What do you mean?" Xiao Zhao became even more confused. This time, even Su Sanqi and Zhou Zhiruo couldn't understand.

Su Yi had suspicions at first, but after hearing this, he felt that his suspicions were confirmed.

According to what he learned from Master Miejie, life in Shaolin has not been easy in recent years, and the internal situation is not harmonious, and it is far less glorious and majestic than it was in the previous decades.

After the Yuan Dynasty destroyed the Song Dynasty, Shaolin was quickly highly praised by the Yuan Dynasty, making it a Buddhist temple with the highest status.

This is a treatment that other martial arts sects and other Buddhist temples do not have. At that time, all martial arts sects were suppressed by Yuan Ting. Some sects appeased and compromised and were willing to be lackeys. Some would rather die than surrender to the annihilation of the Taoist order, and some had to stay away. On the frontier and overseas, in order to survive.

In that era of martial arts in the Central Plains, only the Shaolin Temple, the Quanzhen Sect, and other sects that were willing to become the lackeys of the Yuan Dynasty could develop and survive.

As for Zhang Sanfeng's Wudang and Guo Xiang's Emei sect, they only began to occupy famous mountains and establish sects after the Yuan Dynasty gradually relaxed its control over the martial arts after the initial dark period.

It was also thanks to the Yuan Dynasty's suppression of martial arts sects that the major sects in the Central Plains perished and fled. Otherwise, famous mountains and rivers such as Wudang Mountain and Emei Mountain had long been occupied. How could Zhang Sanfeng and Guo Xiang have their turn? ?

When Wudang and Emei established sects, did they grovel to Yuan Ting?

This is the reason why Zhang Sanfeng and Zhou Zhiruo smiled awkwardly.

People under the roof have to bow their heads, fearing that some humiliation and unfairness cannot be avoided. Otherwise, how can the Tatar world tolerate the "illegal organizations" of the Han people?

But Wudang and Emei are not treated as well as Shaolin Temple. I'm afraid it has something to do with the fact that they still retain some Han people's dignity and bottom line.

In the martial arts community, the argument that "Shaolin gained the support and admiration of the Yuan Dynasty through the donation of scriptures and seventy-two unique skills" has never subsided.

Whether this matter is true or not has never been determined, and Shaolin has always kept it secret and never explained. However, such rumors are so widespread that they may be groundless and may not be without reason.

Because of this, although Shaolin is still the leader in martial arts, its prestige has been greatly reduced in the martial arts.

Thanks to the efforts of the previous generation of eminent monks, the Caodong sect passed down by the Sixth Patriarch Huineng was brought back to Shaolin Temple, which made Shaolin's "Zen Orthodoxy" and "Dharma Lineage" more legitimate, and its prestige in Buddhism has greatly increased, and it can be regarded as the east side. It was not bright but bright in the west, which restored its declining reputation for a time.

Later, the Quanzhen Sect, which was willing to be the lackey of the Yuan Dynasty, was completely abandoned by the court and declined. The reason why Shaolin was not abandoned was because the Yuan Dynasty originally advocated Buddhism, and the second was because Shaolin had always been "well-behaved". And keeping Shaolin is also beneficial to maintaining Han rule.

It's just that Tibetan Buddhism was prevalent in the Central Plains at that time, and they were very dissatisfied with "heresies" like Shaolin, and life in Shaolin was not easy. Coupled with the fate of the Quanzhen Sect, Shaolin is in danger of dying.

Shaolin has also experienced a history of being suppressed and humiliated by local rulers and Lamaism. However, Shaolin cleverly took the upper-level route. Several former emperors of the Yuan Dynasty directly issued decrees, ordering the local military and government to protect the Shaolin Temple and had to respect or even harass it.

In return, Shaolin Temple tried its best to safeguard the rule of the Yuan Dynasty and became its loyal defender. It was just that the Yuan Dynasty was stable at that time, and the various factions in the Central Plains were the eldest brother, don't laugh at the second brother. Therefore, Shaolin's "dog-licking" behavior was not looked down upon and despised by others.

This situation lasted until the Zhizheng period, when wars broke out everywhere among the people and the Yuan court was in turmoil.

Perhaps because they saw that the Yuan court was on the decline, Shaolin's attitude towards the Yuan court gradually became ambiguous, and the relationship between the two sides became distant.

However, the relationship between Shaolin and the various rebel forces was also like fire and water, especially after the incident of the monk Kongjian being killed by the Golden Lion King Xie Xun.

Originally, Shaolin had always maintained this "non-involvement" state, alienating the Yuan court and hostile to the rebels, trying to protect itself.

But for both the rebels and the Yuan court, Shaolin was a tiger beside the bed, and no one could tolerate this tiger's ambiguous attitude to continue to exist.

The incident happened seven years ago, when Ji Xiaofu was killed by Master Miejue, and Zhang Wuji escorted Yang Buhui to Kunlun Mountain in the Western Regions.

At that time, there was a severe drought in the world, and rebels rose up everywhere, even the heartland of the Central Plains was not peaceful.

When King Ruyang heard that Shaolin secretly harbored a certain righteous army and escaped the encirclement of the imperial court, he used some tricks to instigate Liu Futong of the Mingjiao, Monk Shuo Bu De and Zhu Yuanzhang, who was unknown at the time, to besiege Shaolin Temple, but they were successfully repelled by Shaolin.

Then King Ruyang began to spread rumors that the rebels disrespected the Buddha, besieged the Zen ancestral temple, killed, injured, looted, and committed all kinds of evil.

At the critical moment, a monk who was doing firework in Shaolin Temple rushed out of the mountain gate with a fire stick in his hand. His body suddenly grew dozens of feet taller, standing on the top of the mountain, and shouted "I am King Kinnara"!

Seeing this, the rebels were terrified and fled everywhere. Shaolin Temple was spared from disaster, but the monk also passed away afterwards. Afterwards, the monks of Shaolin Temple learned that the monk was actually the incarnation of King Kinnara, one of the Eight Heavenly Dragons!

Not only that, King Ruyang also organized Buddhist monks to build a statue of this non-existent monk in Shaolin Temple, built a Kinnara Hall, and worshipped him as the so-called "supervising envoy", and held a grand ceremony to commemorate him.

King Ruyang also promoted temples across the country to respond to such a grand event. Major temples commemorated the so-called miracle of "King Kinnara's manifestation", and the story of "King Kinnara's control of the red-turbaned rebels" spread all over the world.

This incident seems absurd, but it has a great impact. Most people believe in this incident and are in awe of it. Therefore, this incident is very beneficial to the Yuan court and Buddhism.

The incense of Buddhism became more prosperous, and the Yuan court "was protected by gods", which also made more people who could not survive extinguish the idea of ​​resistance and dared not follow the rebels. Even many "knowledgeable people" concluded that "the Yuan court's fate has not yet ended" because of this incident.

It can be said that the situation of the Yuan court has not deteriorated too much in these seven years, which has a lot to do with this incident.

But this incident was very disgusting to Shaolin Temple. It was like yellow mud falling off the crotch of pants, and it was either shit or shit.

Shaolin Temple was hated by the rebels in various places because of this incident. Su Sanqi mocked Shaolin and had a bad attitude because of this incident.

During this period, "resisting the Yuan Dynasty" was already a consensus among the Han people. Regardless of whether they dared to stand up or not, "expelling the Tartars" was already politically correct. Therefore, the incident in Shaolin Temple not only made the rebels, but also the Han people have mixed feelings about it, and they had many complaints.

Fortunately, Shaolin Temple did not give up because of this, allowing the Ruyang King's conspiracy to succeed further. Instead, it actively carried out crisis public relations, turning the contradiction between Shaolin and the rebels into a contradiction between Shaolin and the Ming Cult, and discrediting the Ming Cult in the rivers and lakes and among the people, publicizing the evil deeds of the Ming Cult, and denouncing the Ming Cult as a demon sect.

This reversed the previous public opinion to a certain extent, especially because of the Ji Xiaofu incident, the Ming Cult and the Emei Sect fought each other. Shaolin spoke out at this time to add fuel to the flames, which not only united the Emei Sect, but also further confirmed the notoriety of the demon sect.

However, the Ruyang Palace could not tolerate Shaolin Temple's "escape" in this way, so it further forced Shaolin Temple to take sides and conferred some Shaolin monks with official positions such as "Tidian" and "Du Tiju". .

This approach has a certain effect. Although it forced some knowledgeable people to be more reluctant to be forcibly tied to the Yuan court, it also made some weak-willed monks begin to hesitate and become half-hearted about the Yuan court's recruitment.

For example, the monks headed by Kongzhi advocated temporary peace with the Yuan court and pretended to be submissive; while the young and vigorous faction headed by Kongxing firmly opposed getting close to the Yuan court, advocating that the more the Yuan court forced, the more it should draw a clear line with the Tartars.

Shaolin Abbot Kongwen's attitude was unclear and hesitant.

Although this matter was private in the martial arts world, it was not a secret for people of Zhang Sanfeng and Miejue Nun Tai.

Therefore, Miejue Nun Tai said that Shaolin had a hard time in recent years and was unstable internally.

Therefore, Zhang Sanfeng judged that the situation of "passing inferior goods as good ones" in the Sutra Library was to prevent internal troubles, not external troubles.

Zhang Sanfeng guessed that the Shaolin Temple secretly moved the scriptures in the Sutra Library to prevent radical elements in the temple from using the Sutra Library to do extreme things, and used these worthless printed copies to cover up.

But in fact, this cannot explain the abnormality of the Sutra Library.

Relatively speaking, Su Yi's guess can better explain this phenomenon.

The reason why Su Yi guessed the abnormality of the Sutra Library was a bold assumption, and he inferred the cause from the result.

He first assumed that the senior officials of the Shaolin Temple had guessed Yuan Zhen's identity and knew that Yuan Zhen had colluded with the Ruyang Palace, and then used this as a fact to speculate what would happen.

Su Yi's assumption was not a fantasy, but a very likely one.

Because there is a big bug in the original plot, that is, Cheng Kun's true identity was exposed by Zhang Wuji on Guangmingding, and he faked his death and escaped. Later, he came back to life and instigated Shaolin to hold a lion-slaughtering conference, and the entire Shaolin high-level officials actually let him manipulate them, as if they were fools.

The original plot gave a far-fetched explanation, saying that the abbots Kongwen and Kongzhi were both held hostage and threatened by Cheng Kun, but this doesn't make sense at all. Since everyone in Shaolin knew that Cheng Kun was problematic, how could they be so careless and let him kidnap the abbot, and then let the whole temple be manipulated?

Later, Shaolin easily got rid of Cheng Kun's control, which was also quite inexplicable.

Another big bug is that this time the Shaolin Temple was wiped out, so where did the Shaolin Three Masters who set up the Vajra Subduing Demon Circle formation that even Zhang Wuji could not do anything about go?

Even if they were not on Shaoshi Mountain, they really became deaf and blind, not even knowing that Shaolin was wiped out?

But if we assume that the Shaolin high-level officials knew that Yuan Zhen and the Ruyang Palace were colluding, or even acquiesced to this situation, then it makes sense.

On the one hand, Shaolin wanted to get rid of the Yuan court's bondage, and on the other hand, it was very difficult to face the Ruyang King's step-by-step pressure. There were even different voices in the temple, and there were signs of division, which made the abbot Kongwen very embarrassed.

At this time, perhaps Yuan Zhen took the initiative to ask for secret contact with the Ruyang Palace, or perhaps Kongwen and other high-level officials saw Yuan Zhen's strangeness through the "siege of Guangmingding" and understood his secret position, or there are other possibilities.

In short, Yuan Zhen's identity was exposed in the eyes of the Shaolin high-level officials.

Of course, it is definitely not known by everyone, at most only a part of it, such as Kongxing, an "anti-Yuan faction", it is impossible to know.

In this way, it can also explain why Yuan Zhen, as a younger generation, went to the Western Regions with the Shaolin monks, and was able to leave the large group without authorization and frequently enter and exit the secret passage of Guangmingding.

Because this was tacitly approved, or it was a tacit agreement with Kongzhi.

This can also explain why Yuan Zhen can still stir up trouble after faking his death and escaping from Shaolin in the original plot, but the Shaolin high-level officials turned a blind eye to Yuan Zhen's suspicious behavior.

And why did Kong Xing die tragically in both the original plot and reality?

Because this person was a stubborn anti-Yuan faction, so Yuan Zhen took this opportunity to kill him.

Shaolin is trying to get the skin of a tiger, and it is impossible that there will be no backlash.