Chapter 177: China is rich in emperors this year (3)
In March of the seventh year of Chongzhen, Beizhili, Luanzhou (near modern Tangshan), Shifokou
Although according to the official establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Shifokou was not even a county seat. It was just a spontaneously formed township or a private estate of a large landowner. But in fact, the splendor and exquisiteness of Shifokou far exceeds that of most ordinary counties on the North China Plain.
As the holy city of the Wenxiang Sect, the city of Shifokou itself is not large, with a circumference of only four miles, but its architectural planning is particularly particular. The construction area of Shifokou more than 300 years ago was not large, with a circumference of only four miles. But the scale of the building is particularly particular. First of all, "Front Pavilion (Zhang Pavilion), Houdian (Houtianzi), East Valley (Leiguzhuang, later renamed Leizhuang), and West Tower (Xujialou)" were set up in the surrounding suburbs to be responsible for receiving "tributes" from all directions. believers. In addition, there are also a huge group of temples: at the foot of the mountain in the northeast of the city is the "Shenzhu Temple", which is often called the "Hail Temple" by later generations. In the temple, a two-meter-high red granite Maitreya Buddha statue is enshrined. The stone Buddha's mouth is made of Hence its name. Every year during the Dragon Boat Festival, there is a grand temple fair here that lasts for a month. There are several cauldrons of sesame oil that monks in the temple receive from incense donors. Xiguan is the Laoye Temple, Niangniang Temple, Tutu Temple, and Sanguan Temple; Nanguan is the Bodhi Temple, Eight Immortals Temple, and City God Temple. Among them, the "Shenzhu Temple" and the Bodhi Temple are the most spectacular, covering an area of 100 acres. These temples are all decorated with carved beams and painted roofs and covered with yellow glazed tiles, presenting a luxurious atmosphere of splendor and wealth.
The "Holy City" stone Buddha mouth itself is naturally rigorous in structure and full of grandeur. The surrounding city walls are strong and the city gates are majestic, no different from any city built by the imperial court. There is only one east-west street in the city, and two large archways are built at both ends of the street, with the inscriptions "Master of Qingshan" and "Reincarnation of Maitreya" respectively. In the center is the leader's residence, which covers an area of more than a hundred acres. The inner courtyard has a living room and garden, and the side courtyard has a guard hall and a martial arts field. In addition, there is an area of 100 acres, with 24 open-carved steles of turtles, dragons, and turtles, which are similar in size to the imperial mausoleums. It also shows the extraordinary magnificence of the stone Buddha's mouth.
Since Wang Sen, the first leader of the sect, founded the Wenxiang Sect during the Wanli period, the Wang family has been working hard for decades in the base camp of Shifokou for the sake of the illusory dream of an emperor. Its influence is comparable to It is said to be deep-rooted. Even after the failure of Xu Hongru's uprising during the Tianqi period and the setback of the Wenxiang Sect's army in Lianghuai in the past two years, when leader Wang Ke successfully escaped back to Shifokou with the holy objects, he relied on the huge amount of money and food accumulated in the city. Hundreds of thousands of fanatical believers regained considerable strength within just a few months.
At this moment, in the main hall of the Wenxiang Sect at Shifokou, there was a cloud of cigarette smoke. Dozens of men wearing various colorful clothes and serving as immortal masters, incense masters, and protectors in the Wenxiang Sect, They all knelt down and kowtowed in front of the "holy object" hanging on the incense table in the lobby, a long fox tail.
Wang Ke, the leader of the Wenxiang Sect, straightened his waist, which was slightly stooped recently, and was wearing a bright yellow dragon robe. He sat at the top of the table and stared at the dozens of people from various prefectures in northern Zhili with his bright eyes. The immortal master, incense master, and protector who came from the county waited until they had finished their rituals before they shouted loudly: "... I teach myself It has been decades since our ancestors founded the religion! Although Emperor Zhongxing Fulie (Xu Hongru) failed in his rebellion in Shandong, and the leader of the religion failed in Lianghuai and transferred to Huaihe last year, this is just a temporary hibernation! Among all the people, the foundation of the stone Buddha mouth is still there, this is the foundation of the emperor!
Today, the Ming Dynasty is falling apart, the Qing Dynasty is flourishing and declining, wars are raging in the world, and the people are miserable. This is the time for our holy religion to flourish! Therefore, this sect leader calls everyone to come to the main altar to discuss the important matter of raising troops to restore the country again! ”
When dozens of immortal masters, incense owners, and protectors heard the leader's ambition, they all said: "...the leader's blessings will reach the sky, and the holy religion will be prosperous! King Ming is reborn."
"...Very good! Then I, the leader, will obey the people and raise troops to rebuild the world of China and vacuum my hometown..." Seeing everyone agreeing, leader Wang Ke laughed loudly and then stood up, "...from now on, If my leader ascends to the throne again, you will each receive a reward from a prince..."
"...Thank you for the generous reward, Your Majesty! Your Majesty is the King of Ming who has come to this world. He obeys the will of heaven and people. He must rebuild the universe of China and unify the world!"
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Therefore, in early March of the seventh year of Chongzhen's reign, Wang Ke, the leader of Wenxiang Cult, escaped from the house arrest of the Qing court in the south and fled all the way back to the main altar of Shifokou in Luanzhou. After waiting dormant for several months, he once again raised his troops at Shifokou. The emperor announced the establishment of the "Mahayana Kingdom" and quickly awarded official positions such as prime minister, three provinces and six ministries, and the Metropolitan Procuratorate, as well as a large number of duke, marquis and earl titles to "reward" the many chaotic followers.
Immediately after learning that the cult leader Wang Ke was revolting, hundreds of thousands of Wenxiang cult members all over the North immediately rose up to respond. Zu Dashou, who was based in Beijing, was shocked when he heard the news. He quickly sent troops to suppress the Wenxiang Sect rebellion in the Gyeonggi area, and then assembled 10,000 Guanning troops and rushed towards the stone Buddha mouth in Luanzhou.
It has to be admitted that although Shifokou in Luanzhou is the foundation of the Wenxiang Sect's operations for generations, Luanzhou is surrounded by the Great Wall to the north, the sea to the south, Shanhaiguan to the east, and Beijing to the west, so there is very little room for maneuver. If you can't take Beijing in one fell swoop after raising troops, you will be in trouble.
But after so many previous battles, His Majesty Wang Ke, as the leader of Wenxiang Cult and the "Mahayana Emperor", also understands this truth. Therefore, after proclaiming himself emperor, Wang Ke swept away the goods and grain that Shifokou had hoarded, and took hundreds of thousands of die-hard believers with him. Before Zu Dashou sent troops to suppress it, he abandoned Shifokou and moved westward in a mighty way. Jinan jumped out of the encirclement of Guan Ning's army and solved the deadlock in one fell swoop!
——After the collapse of the Qing court, Guan Ning's army was confined to the Gyeonggi area for a long time due to internal divisions and constraints, and was unable to expand rapidly. Marshal Chen Xin of Dengzhou Town only reached Jinan as far west as possible, and even failed to secure the entire territory of Shandong. Therefore, after the Qing Dynasty withdrew from the north, hundreds of counties in southern Hebei and northern Hebei fell into a state of anarchy. The Wenxiang Sect forces immediately took advantage of the situation and established "secret governments" in many counties. As soon as the leader of the church arrived, these "underground parties" immediately turned from darkness to light, and in the blink of an eye they established an "Eight Hundred Mile Mahayana Kingdom" stretching from Baoding in the north to Kaifeng in the south!
Discovering that these demons from the Wenxiang Cult actually went to southern Hebei to resurrect themselves, Prince Dashou of Jin, who had failed in Luanzhou, naturally wanted to go south to conquer them. However, at this time, Guan Ning's army had just split. Not only was Wu Xiang taken away a considerable number of his troops, but many of Zu Dashou's direct line elites also confronted the Wu family soldiers and horses in Luoyang in southern Shanxi, and then deducted the front lines from Beijing and Shanhaiguan. After the left-behind troops, Zu Dashou had very limited mobile troops at hand, and was forced to improvise some miscellaneous recruits to march south. In the end, they only reached the front lines of Zhending and Baoding, and could no longer push forward, so they had to withdraw their troops.
After repelling Zu Dashou's attack, and seeing that the Mahayana Kingdom had temporarily gained a firm foothold, Wang Ke announced that the capital would be Damingfu in Hebei, renamed "Shenjing", and sent envoys to contact Wu Xiang's "Da Zhou" in Luoyang. "Guo" contact, trying to imitate the alliance of Shu and Wu to fight against Wei during the Three Kingdoms, and form an alliance to fight against the Jin State. Wu Xiang, the king of Zhou who had just escaped from the defeat in Beijing, naturally happily agreed and formed a blood alliance with Wang Kehan.
Therefore, just when Southern Zhili fell into the coexistence of five emperors, the "Northern Three Kingdoms" in which Zhou and Jin took advantage of the three emperors to compete for hegemony also appeared in the Central Plains.
But the problem is that among the three families, Wang Ke, the weakest leader of Wenxiang Cult, has already proclaimed himself emperor, while Zu Dashou and Wu Xiang are still just kings of Jin and Zhou. There seems to be a problem of status imbalance. Therefore, before signing an alliance with Wang Ke, based on the opinions of a group of civil and military officials under his command, King Wu Xiang of Zhou quickly set up an altar to worship heaven, made his capital Luoyang, and called himself the Emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. The Prince of Jin, Zu Dashou, who was entrenched in Beijing, suddenly heard that his two rivals had become emperors, but he was still just the Prince of Jin. He felt that his value had really dropped. So after sending envoys to communicate with Marshal Huangshi who was guarding Liaodong, and found that the "Ausong Song" side did not mind having more emperors in the Central Plains, he was also happy to upgrade his title to Emperor of the Jin Dynasty and make his capital Beijing.
Next, it seems that God still thinks that the current "Northern Three Kingdoms" is not exciting enough, so he just added a new player.
——The direct descendant of the Mongolian Golden Family who has been forgotten by everyone for a long time, Lin Dan Khan of the Chahar tribe who lives in the Hetao, in the summer of the seventh year of Chongzhen, also announced that he had inherited the throne of the Yuan Emperor and was qualified to participate in this event. A game of competition in the Central Plains!
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As the last Mongol Khan in official history, Lin Dan Khan is also a tragic figure similar to Emperor Chongzhen, and he also has an amazing talent for committing suicide. The Mongol Khanate, which was originally handed over to him by his fathers, was somewhat similar to the early Holy Roman Empire. Although the princes were divided into separate systems and the authority of the Khanate was limited, it relied on the beliefs of Tibetan Buddhism and the ancestral legal traditions inherited from the Genghis Khan era. Still barely maintaining a uniform appearance. However, under Lin Dan Khan's "religious reform", the Mongol Khanate, which could barely get along before, was soon completely divided and collapsed by his tricks!
——In Tibetan Buddhism, there are many schools such as yellow, red, white, and flower. When Lin Dan Khan first came to the throne, the Yellow Sect was prevalent on the Mongolian grasslands, and Lin Dan Khan was also a follower of the Yellow Sect at first. But when he was twenty-six years old, a living Buddha from the Red Sect came up from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. After meeting Lin Dan Khan, he cast a magic spell that convinced the young Lin Dan Khan. He named him a national teacher and received initiation. , and then converted to the Red Sect. Next, Lin Danhan even squandered huge sums of money to overhaul the Red Religion monastery in an attempt to turn the Red Religion into the state religion of the entire Mongolian grassland!
As we all know, the Reformation was all about bloodshed. The result was the same as the Thirty Years' War in Europe during the same period. Fierce religious wars also broke out on the Mongolian grasslands. The Khanate that believed in the Red Sect and the tribes that believed in the Yellow Sect were completely torn apart. Nurhaci, who emerged in Liaodong, took the opportunity to intervene, and soon Soon, the Horqin and Khalkha tribes turned against each other one after another, and even the Chahar tribe, which directly belonged to Lindan Khan, broke out in rebellion. For a while, it seemed that defeat was imminent.
After being defeated again and again, the frightened Lin Danhan no longer dared to compete with the Jurchens. He ordered the abandonment of his ancestral homeland and led his troops to move west to the Hetao area to avoid the invasion of the Jurchen cavalry. The various Mongolian tribes were very disappointed with this and rebelled one after another, unwilling to continue to follow this useless Khan.
According to the original history, Huang Taiji, a generation of genius, would lead the Jurchen Eight Banners to march westward to Hetao after winning the Battle of Dalinghe, and launch a final blow against the lingering Lin Dan Khan, completely annihilating the hegemony of Genghis Khan's descendants. But in this time and space, after the Qing army won the Battle of Dalinghe, they found the opportunity to enter the Pass and conquer the Central Plains in a large scale, and no longer cared about the barren Saibei, so Lin Danhan escaped invisibly. .
Therefore, after retreating to Hetao and lingering for a few years, Lin Danhan gradually established a firm foothold here because he had not been attacked by military attacks. But his situation is still very difficult, because the continuous disasters of the Little Ice Age in the late Ming Dynasty also affected the Mongolian grasslands, causing the Hetao area, once known as "Jiangnan beyond the Great Wall", to be plagued by heavy snowfalls for many years. Crops were harvested, and livestock froze to death in large numbers. There was even an outbreak of a plague. At the lowest point, the number of men, women and children under Lin Dan Khan's tent was once reduced to 40,000. They were extremely poor, hungry and embarrassed, and it was almost impossible to survive.
For this reason, Lin Danhan had no choice but to bite the bullet and go south to plunder the Han Dynasty in an attempt to solve the Chahar tribe's food problem. Unexpectedly, the Central Plains fell apart at this time, and the strong frontiers attacked each other. Facing the Mongols' southward invasion, the resistance that could be organized was extremely weak. Lin Dan Khan's Chahar Mongolian cavalry easily invaded Ningxia and northern Shaanxi and occupied a large area south of the Great Wall, and he couldn't help but feel very happy.
Later, Lin Danhan heard that the Ming Dynasty was dead, and that the Jurchen Eight Banners, which he feared so much, were almost finished. The Central Plains had no master, and he was overjoyed, thinking that he was destined to return. Therefore, Lin Danhan tied up a few trembling Han Confucian scholars and asked them to persuade him to enter the court. Then he enthroned the emperor in Ningxia Mansion, proclaimed himself Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, settled his capital in Guihua City, Hetao, and announced that he would restore the Kublai Khan's empire and so on.
Although Lin Dan Khan's real military strength is very weak, Zhou and Jin, who are entangled in the Central Plains, do not care about the northwest corner, and there are no strong enemies around the Hetao that can threaten the Chahar tribe for the time being, so this nondescript Yuan Dynasty The empire actually survived for the time being.
At this point, a series of new countries such as the Qing Dynasty, the Da Jin Dynasty (Dorgon's separatist force), the Da Zhou Dynasty, the Da Jin Dynasty, the Mahayana Dynasty, and the Da Yuan Dynasty were successively established on the old territory of the Ming Empire, belonging to the unification of the Ming Dynasty. The era officially ended, and the Warring States Period began where heroes competed for hegemony. At the same time, as if they thought the remaining territory of the Ming Dynasty was still too large, a bunch of emerging countries suddenly emerged in the provinces of South China under various banners, and they were unscrupulously eating the remnants of the Ming Dynasty. Mountains and water...