"My name is Chen Xiang. I am an attendant behind the priest. I make arrangements before the sacrifice..."
"Oh, I do odd jobs."
The man opened his mouth and barely mustered up the courage to refute:
“During the missionary service, when the priests were resting, I would often go up to the stage and explain the doctrine.”
"The priest you are talking about is the strange-looking woman I killed before?" Xi Heng took a closer look.
When the other party heard the word "kill", he trembled all over, shut up and nodded.
"The church is now short of a priest. If you can organize people to dismantle all the statues of the Jingming Sect in this altar, I will appoint you as the new chief priest." Xi Heng said casually.
The other party was stunned when he heard this, and he opened his mouth hesitantly. After a long time, he said: "Yes, sir. I will do it."
"Go ahead." The girl waved her hand.
In fact, it doesn’t matter whether it can be held in Chengdu or not.
Now that she is here, she naturally has a way to complete the entire religious conversion——
As long as the disobedient cultists are chopped off, the rest will follow orders.
"It turns out that managing people is so simple..." Xi Heng thought silently.
If the emperor could use this simple and cheap method to manage his subordinates, he would not have to worry about the various political struggles and trivial matters in the court every day.
With her previous experience as an emperor, it was not difficult for her to control the local branch of such a cult.
Xi Heng came back to his senses and looked around.
This main house is spacious enough to accommodate more than a hundred people. It is probably the place where the Jingming religious altar holds its internal gatherings.
There were several tables and chairs at the front of the main room. Xi Heng picked one at random and sat down, crossed her legs, and waited quietly for the person from the pulpit she had summoned to approach.
The majesty of the emperor was revealed spontaneously.
Gradually, all the famous people in the church rushed here quickly. When they saw the demon figure on the front seat, they stopped and gathered at the edge of the room, not daring to move forward.
Before half of the people arrived, the man who Xi Heng had previously ordered to dismantle the statue came over with a few people.
They first greeted her respectfully, then walked to the tribute platform and lifted up the unevenly shaped statue of Shao Xi together.
Just as they were about to take the statue away, Xi Heng suddenly spoke:
"It's too much trouble to lift it all together. Just smash the statue into pieces here and each of you take a small piece away."
The leader Chen Xiang paused for a moment, glanced at the surrounding Jingming Sect branch incense masters and deputies in the altar, and said nothing.
He gritted his teeth, dragged the Tai Xi statue and slammed it against the hard and solid stone ground.
boom--
The loud bang from the catapult's stones hitting the city wall yesterday was heard again here, startling the surrounding Jingming Sect incense masters to shout and sigh.
Many of them wanted to yell and scold, but seeing Xi Heng sitting at the front, they kept their mouths shut to save their own lives.
In the center of the main house, dust was everywhere.
The statue broke into several pieces, and a charred head rolled a few times before stopping, shaking.
A hand picked up the head and held it in its arms.
After being stunned for a moment, the other few also grabbed the other fragments, lowered their heads and did not look at anyone, and walked out of the room with heavy steps.
As the statue was broken, the air became even heavier and quieter.
People stood there blankly, staring silently at the few debris still left on the ground.
A moment later, another group of people came to the main house.
When the number of people indoors reaches fifty or sixty, it will no longer increase.
"Are all the people who hold positions in the teaching community here?" Xi Heng asked, looking around.
Wang He, the first one to surrender to her during the previous battle, stepped forward and responded:
"Replying to Master Demon, there have been some people missing from the altar in the past two days. They are the East Hall Master Mu Bingdong, the West Deputy Hall Master Ning Chengliang, and the East Hall Master who fled Jinshi with 60 people during the battle last night... The West Hall Master was killed by Master, and the South and North Hall Masters are still in the church working for Master, but the North Hall Master is still guarding the sorghum field outside the city and is not in the altar."
Xi Heng simply listened without paying much attention, and only asked about the current structure of the forum and how many people were left.
The other party answered honestly:
The Jingming Sect started to preach three months ago. Before that, there was one leader of the Jinshi Sect, which had four major halls, each with a leader.
The hall master has four incense masters under him, and the incense masters have four deputies under them. Each deputy is in charge of fifteen believers who join the altar.
There are a total of 960 ordinary believers in the four halls, but not every deputy has a full staff, and the total number is actually only about 700 to 800.
Including the incense masters and their deputies, as well as other priests, servants, cooks, some literate people who copy and spread the doctrines, and various idlers, there are actually more than a thousand people in the entire Jingming religious temple.
But after these two days, hundreds of members of the church were killed by Xi Heng, then a group escaped, and some people returned home and returned to secular life.
Now, there are less than 500 people left in the entire church.
Most of the people who stayed behind were only afraid that after being divorced, they would go to hell after death as Xi Heng said, and none of them had any ideals or beliefs.
So much so that they all looked lifeless, almost numb.
Even when he saw the statue of the god he believed in being smashed, he dared not say a word.
After briefly understanding the current situation of the sect, Xi Heng nodded.
Even though it looks like a stagnant pool of water, at least no one in the forum would dare to deliberately cause trouble.
Then, she asked the staff to introduce themselves, explaining who was the hall master, who was the incense master, and what the other positions did.
"I'm Wu Lian, the head of the South Hall..." They responded one by one with trembling voices.
"My name is Fan Liang. I am the grain manager in the altar. I can use an abacus and I am in charge of the altar's money and grain."
"..."
"I am Lian Xiu. I have about ten people who can read under me. I copy the teachings every day... I am also in charge of the compilation of the teachings of the Great Dark Heavenly Lord that the master ordered the other day."
When it came to this person, Xi Heng raised his hand to ask them to stop introducing themselves and asked:
“How’s the writing going?”
"Please spare my life, sir." The other party knelt down in panic and took out a scroll from his wide sleeves:
"We have never done this before. We can't write many words in just two days. I just wrote down what the adults said the day before, and then wrote some words of praise. I don't know if I wrote it clearly..."
"Present it." Xi Heng said.
She did not hold out much hope for the literate people in this evil cult; they were basically just copying scriptures and could not even be considered literati.
"Yes!" The man walked forward with trembling feet.
Xi Heng took the scroll and unfolded it.
The first half of the paper was not much different from what I had said before. When I looked down, I saw something new.
However, the handwriting on the scroll was messy, and it was obvious that it had been deleted and revised countless times.
After so many deletions and revisions, the sentences were still out of order and had typos. Xi Heng could only half-close his eyes and read softly according to his own understanding:
"It is said that when the heaven and earth were created, there were no people. It was then that the Mother of Heaven gave birth to messengers, who gave birth to mortals. Mortals multiplied and formed families. Families formed nations, and the cycle continued."
"In ancient times, the four poles of heaven and earth collapsed, the nine states were shattered, the sky could not cover the earth, the earth could not support the sky, the flames were endless and never extinguished, and the birds of prey and evil beasts killed the people. The Great Dark Sky Mother was compassionate and trained two huge stones to repair the sky. She killed the black dragon that gnawed the roots of heaven and earth, and tied the huge stones to the sky with dragon tendons. A yellow piece was the sun, and a silver piece was the moon..."
"But the raging fire on earth never extinguished, so the Sky Mother used her breath to gather the raging fire to the far continent at the end of the boundless ocean, and thus the Realm of Fire was formed."
"After millions of years, a white pure fire gathered in the center of the Flame Domain. That was the Pure Fire Master. He hated the Dark Heavenly Mother because he was driven away, so he deceived the world and said that the Great Dark Heaven was an evil god. He wanted to take away the world's worship from the Heavenly Mother in revenge."
"People in the world should not trust the Pure Fire Lord. The Great Darkness God is the mother of all living things. Do not be harmed by evil and betray the Mother of Heaven. This is unfilial..."
……
Chapter 71: Burn
Xi Heng looked at the doctrinal scroll and read it for a few minutes, then nodded slightly.
This group of literate people seemed to be more devoted than the other believers. Without her reminder, they deliberately belittled the Pure Fire Master and exalted the Great Dark Sky.
It was written at the bottom of the scroll: The Dark Sky Mother created some musical instruments called sheng, se, and xun, and is the deity in charge of music.
Later, the Mother of Heaven defined the system of state and sacrifice for mortals and became the deity of rituals and the country.
In addition to what Xi Heng said before, Great Dark Sky is the mother of life and the god of nature who created all things. Now Great Dark Sky has several honorable names.
"It's ok."
Xi Heng closed the scroll and threw it back, looking at the uneasy scholar below: "After some more repairs and additions, hold a grand ceremony in the city in seven days, and then read this doctrine to the people of Jinshi City."
"Yes! Yes, sir." The other party breathed a sigh of relief and retreated with the scroll.
Wang Yu on the side reminded:
"Master Demon, the soldiers of Great Zhao captured the city yesterday, and now the blockade of the city is becoming more severe. It is better not to preach so openly so as not to offend the soldiers."
"What are soldiers?" Xi Heng said coldly, "Just go ahead and do it."
The other party swallowed his saliva, mustered up the courage to continue speaking:
"Our Dark Sky Sect is no longer the long-established Pure Bright Sect. We have no reputation among the people. Even if we must hold a grand ceremony, there won't be many participants..."
"That's easy." Xi Heng turned his gaze to the grain manager below and asked:
"How much money and food is left in the church?"
"My Lord, the food that the Jingming Sect has extorted is enough for the sect to use for two months, and the money is estimated to be close to ten thousand taels."
“Not much.”
Xi Heng shook his head.
When she was the emperor, she confiscated more than 10 million taels of silver from the property of treacherous officials, which was enough to support hundreds of small sects like this.
“Ten thousand, ten thousand taels of silver isn’t enough…” The manager of the grain depot was stunned.
Xi Heng ignored him and gave the order directly: "Jinshi City has experienced several wars in recent days, which has delayed the farming season and damaged various industries in the city. Last night, half of the city was burned down. Now there are many refugees in the city. Starting tomorrow, the Dark Sky Sect will go to the city to provide porridge for the refugees. As for the officers and soldiers, I will negotiate with them."
The officers and soldiers who now occupy Jinshi City are related to her by blood, so it should not be difficult to get permission from them to do such good deeds and simple missionary work.
"Giving out porridge?" The people below looked surprised.
Giving porridge to refugees? Is this what a demon should do?
It is such a sin to feed the victims all the food for no reason.
The devil's evil deeds... I guess they are not wrong?
"Don't want to do it?" There was a hint of murderous intent in Xi Heng's eyes.
"Do it! Of course I will do it. I will obey the orders of the demon master!" The manager of the grain depot trembled all over and said hurriedly.
He could still tell which was more important, food or life.
"Spread the teachings while distributing porridge, and recruit young and healthy people to join the religion, declaring that those who join the religion will not have to go hungry. As for how to train new people, you hall masters should all know it."
"After one month, the number of people in the teaching platform must exceed a thousand, otherwise I will hold you accountable." After Xi Heng said this, he turned his gaze to the woman on the other side.
She was a slightly plump woman who was in charge of the miscellaneous servants and cooks in the church.
"If you don't have anything else to say, please go back and do your own thing. You stay here."
The people around looked at the woman with pity, breathed a sigh of relief, and immediately left the main house.
The fat woman was left trembling, "My lord, what do you want me to do? I'll do it right away..."
"Cook some dishes and bring them to me." Xi Heng waved his hand.
She has been hungry all day.
……
A few days later, Xi Heng first went to the temporary general's residence in Jinshi City, and went directly to find the relative who was a Hua Jin warrior, and asked him for an official document so that the Dark Sky Sect's next good deeds would go more smoothly.
The process went smoothly. She just casually said some words of sympathy for the refugees in Jinshi City, and Zhao Wanli immediately laughed out loud and wrote an article, and issued an order for the soldiers not to delay the porridge distribution and charity in the city.
When Xi Heng brought the official document, the other party suddenly looked at her with a strange look as if he had seen through something, and said something unclear to her:
"I am optimistic about Her Royal Highness."
