In the blink of an eye, it was early spring in the seventh year of Zhaoning. Across the northern lands, ice and snow melted, and all things revived. The farmland that had slept beneath the frost all winter slowly stirred awake, brimming with vigor and ready to welcome a new cycle of life sprouting from within its soil.
The east wind grew gentle, willow buds began to peek out, and tender grass broke through the earth. Brooks babbled softly, pheasants skimmed over the meadows beyond the woods, and forest birds chirped in song. In the fields, old farmers shouldered their hoes, while village children played bamboo flutes. Within the palace, peach blossoms held their buds, waiting for the rain to turn crimson. Across the realm, smoke curled lazily from cottage chimneys; spring was in full flourish.
In the imperial court of Northern Qi, King Huai of Qi sat upon his throne. As a warm breeze drifted in, he involuntarily let out a yawn.
Below, an elderly minister was droning on tirelessly, reporting on spring plowing across various regions. Advanced in years, his speech was slurred and his voice thin; to King Huai's ears, it sounded like a ceaseless buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz.
Still, over seventy years of reigning as king allowed King Huai to pick out the essential point: this year's spring plowing was going better than in previous years, which likely portended favorable weather and a bumper harvest.
King Huai felt no thrill of excitement. Amid the old minister's buzzing drone, he grew all the more drowsy. Lean year, lean year, harvest; lean year, lean year, harvest—that had been the cycle for the past several decades. Having ruled as king for nearly a century, everything the ministers reported nowadays gave King Huai a sense of déjà vu.
The old minister continued rattling off every petty detail. At this rate, he looked poised to ramble on until after dinner. King Huai truly could not hold back any longer and let out a great, gaping yawn.
Old as the minister was, he had not gone completely senile and still possessed a lingering instinct for reading his sovereign's mood. Yet unlike in his youth, it took him another quarter of an hour just to apply the brakes before finally transitioning to the ritual praising of royal virtue and achievement—lauding King Huai's wisdom, declaring that the people lived and worked in peace and contentment, and asserting that a profound mark would surely be left in the annals of history. But no sooner had this flattery begun than King Huai yawned yet again. The old minister froze, utterly bewildered. He still lingered in the hall, reluctant to step back, but fortunately, his disciples among the ministers of the six ministries had sharp eyes; they stepped forward together and guided the venerable grand secretary aside.
In the past, the singing of praises had been King Huai's favorite part of the day, yet for some reason, it had been cut short almost as soon as it began.
In his stupor, King Huai suddenly felt a flicker of impatience. The laudatory words spoken today were repeated every three years; he could recite them by heart.
How could the common folk live in peace and contentment, well-fed and well-clothed? What did that have to do with favorable weather? It was simply that the preceding two years had seen famines that starved countless people to death, leaving the populace afraid to bear children. Yet the land was still the same land; with fewer mouths, each person was allotted more soil. Thus they could eat a few extra mouthfuls and stave off starvation. In the mouths of the civil and military officials, this was lauded as an abundance of food and clothing.
King Huai believed he saw through it all, though whether the officials standing below understood was another matter entirely.
As for reclaiming wasteland, establishing military colonies, rerouting waterways, and managing floods—deeds that would yield merit for millennia—King Huai had wanted to undertake them when he was young. But every great civil project required coin, and Northern Qi's treasury had been empty for over a thousand years. Where was the money supposed to come from?
King Huai had also contemplated broadening tax revenues, but Buddhist temples were scattered everywhere across the realm, and half the land under heaven belonged to temple estates, none of which paid taxes. Of what remained, half was held by prominent clans and gentry clans, who paid only token taxes.
To squeeze the entire realm's taxes out of the final twenty percent of the land was an impossible feat, as even King Huai well knew. Thus, in the third year of his personal rule, he had transformed into a sagacious king who merely attended court out of routine, yawning his way through each assembly.
Indeed, King Huai's current reputation rested on resting the people, governing through non-action, and esteeming virtue—enough to be called sagacious.
Over decades of cold observation from the sidelines, King Huai had come to perceive many things. Most Buddhist devotees were practitioners of asceticism who practiced forbearance and never caused trouble, thereby keeping the realm tranquil. While they did not labor heavily, neither were they completely idle. What they produced was enough to offer to the temples and feed themselves, with a bit left over to hand over to King Huai. That was good enough.
And so the days passed in peace and stability, a thousand years flowing like a single day. If not for the Liao Clan frequently launching raids across the northern border, they could have dispensed even with an army.
King Huai had originally assumed that after he died and his son ascended the throne, life would continue just as before. After his son died and his grandson took over, life would still be the same—passing as if nothing had passed at all.
"...Unrest has broken out in Feng County of Chuanyin Commandery! Mobsters gathered in riot, burning down multiple Buddhist temples. The county magistrate dispatched militia to suppress them, only for his forces to be completely wiped out. The county seat has now fallen into the hands of the rabble, and the magistrate's fate remains unknown!"
King Huai was jolted awake from his daze, his mind still a total blank. For a moment, he was thoroughly bewildered: How is today's play turning out differently?
Letting out another yawn, King Huai woke up completely.
The root cause of the Feng County unrest was nothing more than petty clerks bullying and mistreating the populace over trivial matters. In the past, even if these commoners had their wives and daughters groped, they would have swallowed the insult and endured it. But this time, the unruly rabble had not endured; instead, they had beaten the clerks who came to their village to a pulp.
The county magistrate deemed that such defiance could not be tolerated and sent troops to put it down. Who could have foreseen that many villagers had been secretly practicing the Myriad Tribulations Imperishable Dharma Body, a technique that had long been expressly forbidden? Several who had originally been at Body Casting perfection had broken through to the Dao Foundation realm. Though these Dao Foundations were weak, quantity overcame quality; the county lieutenant leading the troops, himself at the Dao Foundation realm, was beaten to death on the spot, and all the soldiers were taken prisoner.
Thereafter, the unruly mob rallied across the countryside, gathering over a dozen Dao Foundation cultivators—all of whom cultivated the Myriad Tribulations Imperishable Dharma Body—and stormed the county seat in one breath. Unable to withstand their collective onslaught, the Dao Foundation magistrate failed to escape. With so much time having elapsed, the magistrate's bones had surely grown cold, and his concubines' wombs likely bore new seed.
"The Myriad Tribulations Imperishable Dharma Body?" King Huai searched his memories, feeling as though he had heard the name somewhere before. He asked, "Is reaching the Dao Foundation realm through this method truly so easy?"
The Minister of War replied, "Reporting to Your Majesty: cheap goods are rarely fine. The Dao Foundations formed through this technique hardly resemble true Dao Foundations at all; an ordinary Dao Foundation cultivator can take on three or four of them at once. Furthermore, the path of this technique is cut short midway, offering no future prospects."
King Huai frowned slightly. "One can fight three or four, yet now more than a dozen have sprung up. Those who cultivate it must be people who originally could never have reached the Dao Foundation realm. In a sense, this could be considered a good thing. Why was it banned?"
The officials looked at one another in silence. Back then, a minister had merely begun his memorial, and King Huai had yawned and granted approval. This was a tacit understanding between monarch and court: whenever a difficult matter arose, the officials would drown the opening in ceaseless nonsense, and King Huai, having no desire to listen, would simply approve it. Yet no one had expected that barely a year later, trouble would erupt.
Another minister stepped forward to report, "At the time, an envoy from the Pure Land raised the matter, and so Your Majesty banned it."
"I see," King Huai nodded, sinking into quiet thought.
Rarely had the officials seen King Huai look so grave, and they felt somewhat at a loss. An elderly minister spoke up: "This matter is neither overly large nor dire. This old servant believes that dispatching a capable, trusted minister with troops will suppress it in the blink of an eye."
Yet King Huai did not grant approval as casually as he usually did. He merely pondered, and only after a long pause did he speak: "If similar incidents occur in the future, how should they be handled? Suppress them all?"
The ministers were entirely at a loss. When rabble rioted, of course they had to be suppressed! If not suppressed, could they be appeased with official posts? Northern Qi had enjoyed peace for a thousand years; every official post that could possibly be conceived of had already been invented. Not only was every seat occupied, but there was a queue of people waiting behind each one. Where could they possibly find positions to buy them off?
"Your Majesty, we believe this is merely an isolated incident," the ministers said in unison.
King Huai suddenly asked, "If the rabble were rioting, why did they burn down Buddhist temples?"
To this question, no one could give an answer—or rather, even if they could, none was willing to speak it.
King Huai did not press them further, but instead said slowly, "Can this Myriad Tribulations Imperishable Dharma Body truly be stamped out?"
Steeling himself, a minister replied, "This technique is exceedingly easy to take up and incurs negligible cost. There will always be rabble who sneak into cultivating it for quick gains. Moreover, the manuals were once distributed widely across the realm, so many people have surely hoarded copies in secret. Therefore, this subject believes... it will be difficult to eradicate completely."
King Huai said once more, "My esteemed ministers, what do you think? The things that these commoners had no choice but to endure during Body Casting—once they become Dao Foundation cultivators, will they still endure them?"
Chapter 1308