roccoschili Chapter 185 Destroying the Temple
Chapter 185 Destroying the Temple
In the eighth year of Emperor Yongzheng's reign in the Qing Dynasty, Zhao Xili (also named Shuxu, named Rong'an) from Banqiao Village, Lanxi, Zhejiang, passed the Jinshi examination.
At the beginning, Zhao Xili was appointed as the county magistrate of Zhushan County (under the current Shiyan City, Hubei Province, located at the junction of Hubei, Shaanxi and Chongqing.).
At that time, Zhushan County was experiencing a famine year and the people had a bad harvest.
Zhao Xili donated his salary and opened a porridge shed to provide relief to the victims.
There is a Holy King Temple in the county town, which enshrines a statue of Zhang Shicheng. There are rumors among the people that he can appear and change people's misfortunes and fortunes. The famine years are when the people offend his gods.
Zhao Xili was furious, threw the statue into the river, and burned the temple.
From then on, there were no more illegal sacrifices in Zhushan County.
Later, Zhao Xili was transferred to the county magistrate of Jianli County (now a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Hubei Province, administered by Jingzhou City.).
On the day he took office, according to the custom of new officials taking office, Zhao Xili went to worship the Confucian Temple and the City God.
A minor official in the county government said: "There is a temple somewhere, and adults should go and offer incense."
Zhao Xili went to check.
I saw three statues of gods in the temple, sitting in a row like wild geese flying. They were all wearing imperial clothes and looked very solemn.
Zhao Xili didn't know who the god was, so he asked everyone under the tree what kind of god it was.
No one knows.
Zhao Xili thought of the holy temple in Zhushan County and wanted to destroy it.
All the subordinate officials said no.
When asked why, someone replied: "The gods in this temple have always been prominent, and successive officials have come to worship with great solemnity. If it is destroyed, I am afraid it will offend the gods and cause unexpected disasters!"
Zhao Xili listened to the persuasion and did not destroy him.
But he had doubts and always wanted to find out.
After returning home, I checked the county annals and classics, but found no record of this deity.
So, he decided to destroy the temple to prevent people from worshiping him.
He chose a day, summoned the officials, government servants and a group of common people, and came to the temple together.
He ordered everyone to tie iron ropes around the necks of the statues, and then dragged them hard, trying to pull them down.
Unexpectedly, the statue was so tall and strong that dozens of people dragged it hard together, but it didn't move at all.
Someone among his subordinates suggested to Zhao Xili that it would be better to use a sledgehammer to hit it, otherwise it would be difficult to destroy it.
Zhao Xili stepped forward and tried to stretch out his hand.
Strangely enough, with just a slight exertion, the three statues fell down and shattered in the courtyard.
Zhao Xili ordered everyone to rebuild the temple, reshape the statue of Guan Gong, and change it into the Guandi Temple.
After that, a long period of time passed, everything was peaceful, and nothing strange happened.
However, Zhao Xili could not let go of this matter, thinking that there must be something fishy about the statue in the temple.
He wrote a letter to the Tianshi Mansion in Longhu Mountain, Jiangxi Province, asking Zhang Tianshi to help with inquiries.
Soon after, he received a report saying: "These three gods turned out to be the three brothers of Chen Youliang, the pseudo-Han king in the late Yuan Dynasty. They died in Poyang Lake due to defeat.
The remnants of their defeated soldiers who escaped fled to Jingzhou and built statues and temples for them.
This temple was built in the Zhizheng year of the Yuan Dynasty and was destroyed by Dr. Zhao in the Yongzheng year of the Qing Dynasty! Together we have enjoyed four hundred years of incense! "
Zhao Xili was relieved: It turns out that everything is fate! No wonder he destroyed those three statues easily without any effort. It turned out that they were destined to be destroyed in his own hands!