Chapter 826 Maitreya
Zuo Fengyi's chaos quickly reached Zhang Chong's ears, and he even knew more about it than the Kansai side.
This was due to the spies deployed by the Taishan Army in Kansai.
The Feijun Foreign Division of the Taishan Army had sneaked into Guanzhong in batches under Dong Zhao's arrangement very early on.
Originally, this was not an easy task, because the talisman system has been implemented in the pass since the Han Dynasty, that is, everyone entering and exiting Hangu Pass needs customs defense and talisman festivals.
Moreover, because Hangu Pass was the focus of contention between Kanto and Kansai during the Battle of the Two Capitals, the gate was closed almost all year round.
Therefore, it is even more difficult to enter the customs from outside the customs.
But the Taishan Army had an opportunity that allowed them to place a large number of spies into the pass.
One is that when they went south from Taiyuan to fight, a large number of powerful Bingzhou and Guizhou leaders left their hometowns and went south to the Hedong and Guanzhong areas. Among them were spies deployed by Dong Zhao.
But the number of these spies is not large, because it is not easy to construct reasonable background information for these people. Han's rule in Kansai has never been destroyed, so he still has a considerable degree of control over the local grassroots.
Foreigners are already conspicuous in places, let alone those with unknown origins.
Therefore, for a long time, Dong Zhao's orders to these people were to lurk quietly and not to move unless there was important information.
The first person to report Zuo Fengyi's riot was actually among the rioting team. At that time, his entire township was mobilized and began to attack the county seat.
After receiving the information, Dong Zhao took the matter very seriously and decisively sent orders to the spies, asking them to quickly go to Zuo Fengyi and take the opportunity to join the riot team.
This time, Dong Zhao's order to them was that in addition to further exploring the details of the rioting team, they also needed to penetrate into the upper echelons of the team and influence them to move closer to the Taishan Army.
Dong Zhao has been in the Taishan Army for a long time and has a clear understanding of some organized riots.
If Zuo Fengyi's previous riots were still limited to one village and one place, then only a few prestigious people in the place would take the lead.
But now not only is Zuo Fengyi in chaos, it has even begun to develop towards Jing Zhaoyin.
In this way, it cannot be done by one or two prominent figures. There must be some kind of connection behind these people.
And sure enough, Dong Zhao's judgment was right.
As more and more news came from Zuo Fengyi, they outlined to Dong Zhao that behind these riots, there seemed to be a religious organization that was somewhat similar to Taiping Dao.
The core of this team is a group of wizards who know how to cast gods and help the gods, which seems to be related to the remaining Taiping Road in Gyeonggi.
At that time, Ma Yuanyi was betrayed by Tang Zhou. Although he escaped to Yingchuan, the Taiping Taoist disciples who stayed in Gyeonggi did not escape. Most of them were suppressed by the Han army, and the rest hid in other places.
Then some local wizards acted as gods to support the gods. Later, the Yellow Turbans uprising, these people were worried about being discovered by interested people about their connection with the Yellow Turbans, so they changed the scriptures and teachings wantonly.
They even combined it with the Buddhist thought that was relatively popular in the Gyeonggi region, and transformed the Maitreya thought that had come from the Western Regions into their own thought.
And because almost all the upper echelons of Taiping Dao in Gyeonggi Province were eradicated back then, there was no core among the scattered believers.
There is no core, but it has become an advantage for them.
In the past, if believers wanted to believe in Huang Tian Taiyi, they needed the guidance of their brothers. In other words, only with the approval of Taiping Dao can you be a member of Taiping Dao.
But in this organization that has been transformed into Maitreya, not only the core members of the church can be possessed by gods, but as long as you are sincere, everyone can be possessed by gods.
In other words, everyone can communicate directly with Maitreya without the consent of others. You don't even need scriptures. As long as you understand your own mind and see your nature, you can become a member of the Maitreya Path.
It can be said that this organizational form that does not require upward reporting is the fastest growing and most efficient organizational form.
And because there is no core among them, the Kansai court has not even discovered them in these years. Even if one or two of them went too far and were arrested by the county, they were just treated as local witches and sorcerers and were not taken seriously.
In recent years, as the Taiping Dao forces with the Taishan Army as the core have become increasingly powerful, these former brothers have their own thoughts.
They know that their previous actions are tantamount to apostasy, so they also want to seize opportunities in this troubled world.
And this time Zuo Fengyi's great riot gave these heretics an opportunity.
Because of three consecutive months of severe drought and the high-intensity grain requisition from above, the entire Sanfu area has become like a powder keg, ready to explode at a moment's notice.
The impact of the severe drought is multi-faceted. On the one hand, it has caused food shortages. On the other hand, the strong laborers in the countryside have nothing to do because the land cannot be cultivated.
There is nothing to eat and nothing to do. At this time, the only way to eat is to participate in the Maitreya Path.
The food at Maitreya Road was all contributed by previous savings, those who had united to seize land, and wealthy parishioners.
Joining the Maitreya Path and having rice to eat became the key to the rapid expansion of the Maitreya Path.
But Maitreya's food supply could not last long. They knew that if they could not plunder, tens of thousands of believers would be able to overwhelm them.
So they began to form an organization, rob the landowners and local tyrants in the countryside on a large scale, divide the grain into warehouses, and then more victims joined Maitreya Road.
The team grew bigger and bigger, and finally they launched their own political slogan:
"The sky is dead, Maitreya comes to the world to save the suffering, and the world is bright."
Yes, these people are really still the Taiping Taoists at their core, but despite their old methods, they are quite useful.
Because this time their slogan for raising troops was much more convincing than what Zhang Jiao shouted back then.
This long-lasting and extremely rare drought can be said to have provided them with excellent legal reasoning.
Why is there such a catastrophe?
That was a sign that the Han family Cangtian was dead. As the son of Cangtian, the Han family was no longer qualified to rule the world.
But brothers and sisters in the church, don’t worry, our Maitreya has come to the world at this time.
He came to rescue us from our misery, allowing us to overthrow the rule of the Han family and build a bright world.
how?
This set of theories could only be concocted by these former Gyeonggi Taiping Taoist disciples.
At that time, Ma Yuanyi was the supreme envoy of this religion, and his core followers were indeed extraordinary.
Maitreya has actually existed in the Gyeonggi area for a long time.
As the center of the Han Dynasty, the people here have access to some fashionable things earlier than people in other places.
Buddhism appeared here more than a hundred years ago. Although it has only stayed in the upper class of society for a hundred years, the more it is sought after by the upper class, the more willing the people are to it.
The remnants of the Taiping Road in Gyeonggi Province seized this gap and spread Maitreya's thoughts among the people, which suddenly opened up the situation.
Since Huang Tian's banner cannot be used, it is equally useful to use Maitreya's banner.
When Dong Zhao gathered this information into Zhang Chong's hands, Zhang Chong was also shocked. In his understanding, the Maitreya Sect was indeed a professional rebel, but didn't it mean that it was from the Tang Dynasty? Does it exist now?
In addition to being surprised, Zhang Chong also felt that the matter had become difficult. Although their Taishan Army did not start purely from religion, Taipingdao did, so he knew how quickly such a religious organization could develop during a drought.
Moreover, these people are even more able to confuse people's hearts by using gods to descend and support people.
As a medical student in his previous life, he had done research on ancient divine descendants, which were very common in all primitive religions.
But in modern medicine, these ancient wizards actually achieved these means by abstaining from food and smoking some psychedelic herbs.
Fasting before the ceremony seems to be for piety, but in fact it is to starve you of hypoglycemia. Once a person suffers from hypoglycemia, it will lead to symptoms of mental trance.
And during this severe drought, countless people were starving to the point of becoming emaciated, and that kind of mental trance became a group phenomenon.
Therefore, Zhang Chong was a little worried that the Kansai side could not withstand it.
After all, the Liangzhou soldiers in Kansai are also afraid of the divine soldiers descending from the sky.
Soon Zhang Chong's worries became reality. Zhao Yun stationed in Tongguan and Pan Zhang stationed on the north bank of Fenshui came to report that they found that the number of Han troops on the opposite side was greatly reduced.
Both generals asked whether they would take advantage of the attack to break through the pass defenses and send troops into the pass.
Sure enough, the chain reaction of the riots came.
Previously, in Zhang Chong's judgment of the situation, he believed that Kansai's strength was relatively strong, and its elite soldiers and generals were among the most elite of the Han Dynasty before.
Because only the officials in Kansai have fought for more than a hundred years, one can imagine how brave these people are in fighting.
Therefore, Zhang Chong had no plans to attack Kansai directly.
From his limited historical knowledge, Zhang Chong knew that Cao Cao also planned to send troops to Hebei after learning that Yuan Shao had died of illness.
But at that time, he was persuaded by his counselors. The reason was that the Yuan brothers were at odds with each other, but after Cao Cao took the initiative to attack, these brothers would share the same hatred, so he might as well let them go and attack Liu Biao first.
When the Yuan brothers in Hebei saw that Cao Cao had no intention of invading, they would fight together due to the internal power imbalance. When both sides would suffer, it would be the time for Cao Cao to gain.
Now Zhang Chong looks at Guanxi just like Cao Cao looked at Hebei back then. He is facing the same situation.
Despite the deep conflict between the young emperor of the Han family and Dong Zhuo, once the Taishan Army takes the initiative to attack Kansai, the two parties will definitely unite to resist the Taishan Army.
It's not that you can't chew it off directly, but it will make Cao Cao of Qingzhou become that fisherman.
Therefore, in Zhang Chong's plan, he would take advantage of this half year to recuperate and digest the two states of Merger and Si that were swallowed up in the first half of the year, and then wait until next spring to send troops to the Central Plains and sweep across them with Cao Cao.
At that time, the two factions in Kansai had almost imploded. He turned around and entered Guanzhong, thus completely regaining the entire northern China.
As for, will the conflict between Liu Xie and Dong Zhuo break out? That's impossible.
The longer Zhang Chong has been doing top-level design, the more he has a deeper understanding of the ideological and political courses he taught back then.
For Liu Xie and Dong Zhuo, if they need each other politically, there is still the possibility of coexistence.
This is also the underlying reason why the two parties were able to coexist for a long time in the past.
Dong Zhuo, who had no political influence at that time, urgently needed the emperor's political support, and the young emperor himself also needed Dong Zhuo's force to stabilize the changes in the pass.
However, this balance is unstable. Because the two parties play different roles within Kansai, Dong Zhuo's faction, which possesses force, can easily dominate in suppression, counterinsurgency, and foreign wars.
Naturally, their power and influence are growing.
But what about Liu Xie's side? Because he only lived in the inner court, the warriors left by the late emperor were all sent to Bingzhou by Dong Zhuo when he was rescuing Taiyuan. In the end, he, Zhang Chong, took over all of them.
Liu Xie, who had no warriors in his entourage, became weaker and weaker.
By now, the relationship between Liu Xie and Dong Zhuo has become that Liu Xie is completely inseparable from Dong Zhuo, but he is dispensable to Dong Zhuo
In this way, the balance is broken.
Once the balance of power is broken, battles will occur. No matter what form these battles take, they will only end when the balance of power is restored.
In the next balance, Liu Xie and Dong Zhuo will have and can only have one winner.
This is Zhang Chong's judgment of the situation, and he made the corresponding layout accordingly.
But he didn't expect that the continuous severe drought would trigger an uprising in the pass, and he never expected that a group of remnants of the Taiping Dao would copy things from west to east and create a magical "Maitreya Road".
Now, the problem is placed in front of Zhang Chong, and Kansai is already in chaos.
So should he sit back and watch the success or failure, or take advantage of the situation?
Both options have their pros and cons.
The former is of course the safest, staying the same to cope with all changes.
But the problem is that if the so-called Maitreya Road is suppressed soon, the Han soldiers in Fenshui and Tongguan will quickly return to defend, and Zhang Chong will lose the opportunity to quickly enter Guanzhong.
If you want to enter the customs later, you will have to pay a heavy price.
In addition, there is another situation, that is, if those on Maitreya Road are particularly fierce and even defeat the Kansai soldiers, it will be very detrimental to the Taishan Army.
Maitreya and these people can be regarded as launching an uprising in the head of Guizhou, so the Taishan Army should not attack them rashly, otherwise it will not look good morally.
Instead of attacking Maitreya Road, these people blocked the passage of the Taishan Army into the Pass, which would greatly slow down the Taishan Army's process of regaining the Pass.
As for Dong Zhao's previous arrangement, people who influenced Maitreya Road joined the Taishan Army. After Zhang Chong learned the details of those people, he gave up hope.
Ma Yuanyi's group of people, whom he had dealt with when he was in Jinan, can be said to be a group of religious professionals, but the more they do, the more they hate the current Taishan Army.
These are the advantages and disadvantages of adopting the strategy of staying still. As for taking advantage of the situation now, it is exactly the opposite of the previous strategy.
The advantage is that the withdrawal of troops from Fenshui and Tongguan is a unique opportunity to enter the pass. But if he joins the civil strife in Guanzhong now, the water in Guanzhong will become muddier. Zhang Chong himself will not be able to control where the situation will develop.
Zhang Chong thought about the above all night, and finally on the second day, he responded to Pan Zhang and Zhao Yun from Fenshui and Tongguan with an order to camp, ordering them to rush to seize the pass defenses and enter the Guanzhong area.
At the same time, Zhang Chong ordered Yu Jin to be the commander-in-chief of the West Road Marshal and lead the Eighth Army. The 40,000-strong army immediately marched to Tongguan to cooperate with Pan and Zhao's actions in Guanzhong at any time.
Zhang Chong will supervise the remaining purge activities at the camp. Once completed, he will lead an army of 60,000 to the west to completely regain Guanzhong.
After all, the bigger the storm, the more expensive the fish!
(End of chapter)