To understand "Journey to the West", you must first figure out one thing: why is the Jade Emperor the leader of Journey to the West?
The answer is actually very simple, just one thing: peach!
Take a look at the description of the peach in the book:
When the great sage watched and played for a long time, he asked the land, "How many trees are there in this tree?"”This is the first and only time that the efficacy of the peach has been described in such detail, 3,000 years of eating to become immortals, 6,000 years of immortality, and 9,000 years of heaven and earth longevity.The land said: "There are 3,600 plants: 1,200 plants in front, the flowers and fruits are small, and they are ripe for 3,000 years.
There are 1,200 plants in the middle, the layers of flowers are sweet, they are ripe for 6,000 years, and people eat Xiaju and soar, and they are immortal.
The back of 1,200 plants, purple veined nucleus, nine thousand years of ripe, people eat and heaven and earth with longevity, the sun and the moon with Geng. ”
The fifth episode of "The Great Sage of Random Peach Steals Dan and Fights Monsters against the Gods of the Heavenly Palace".
It is certain that the longer the fruiting cycle of the peach, the more precious it is, and the better the effect of eating, from low to highBecome an immortal, live forever, and live together with heaven and earth.
To illustrate one point, the author uses not a folk saying for immortality here, but a Taoist saying. The folk term for immortality refers to immortality and immortality, while the Taoist saying for longevity refers to longevity. Looking at the same life of heaven and earth, the author is afraid that we will not find or find out how long the heaven and earth will live together, and at the beginning of "Journey to the West", he clearly told us through Shao Yong's doctrine:
The number of heaven and earth is 129,600 years old. The one yuan is divided into 12 branches, Naizi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, and Hai. Each meeting should be 1800 years old.It can be seen that heaven and earth also have a lifespan, and even if heaven and earth have the same lifespan, they will die. What kind of death did the gods have?When Wukong was seeking immortality to learn art, the author told us through the mouth of the Bodhi Patriarch:The first episode of "Spiritual Root Cultivation and Pregnancy Source Outflow of Spiritual Cultivation Dao Sheng".
The patriarch said: "Since you are familiar with the law, you will get the root cause, and you have already injected the divine body, but you are only guarding against the ...... of the "three calamities".Five hundred years later, a thunderstorm will strike you ......can hide, and longevity is ...... with the skyIf you can't escape, you'll die. Five hundred years later, a fire from heaven will burn your ......can't hide from the five internal organs into ashes, the limbs are rotten, and the thousands of years of asceticism are all illusory ......In another five hundred years, another storm will blow your ......can't escape the sparseness of flesh and bones, and its body is self-extricating. So you have to dodge. ”It can be seen that even if the immortals are "injected into the divine body", they have to participate in the catastrophe exam, and if they can't pass the test, they will burp. And the peach is a plug-in in the fairy world, and eating the peach can delay the time of the exam.When Wukong heard this, he was terrified, and kowtowed: "I hope that the old man will have mercy, and he will not dare to be ungrateful in the end to pass on and avoid the three disasters."
The second episode of "Enlightening Bodhi's True Truth, Breaking the Demon and Returning to the Original Spirit".
In order to avoid failing in the catastrophe exam, there are two ways for the immortals to do so: one is to improve their own cultivation to take the exam, but this move is risky, and once they fail the exam, there is almost no chance of making up the exam;The second is to surrender to the Jade Emperor and become his subordinate to work for him, and regularly receive pan peach to postpone the arrival of the three calamities exam. I have been eating peaches and pushing them, and the medicine can't be stopped. So the reason why the Jade Emperor can become the number one is obvious:Peach in hand, I have it in the world!
Follow the role of the peach, only by shaking the status of the peach can it be possible to shake the status of the Jade Emperor, so what else can become a substitute for the peach?
First of all, Daozu Taishang Laojun's Jin Dan has a similar function.
There are three types of Laojun Jindan roles clearly recorded in the book:
Nine Turns Soul Rejuvenation Pill: On the premise of bringing the black chicken king back to life after three years of cooling, and preserving the physical body.In ancient times, people believed that sleep also helped to prolong life, so there was a saying that Peng Zu, the birthday star, slept for 100 days. It can also be seen here that the Seven Returns to Fire Pill can also be regarded as a kind of elixir for prolonging life.Nine Turns of the Great Return: Gifted to Zhu Bajie, who was reincarnated, so that his skills increased greatly.
Seven Returning Fire Pills: The boy who had been guarding the green cow picked it up on the ground and ate it and fell asleep, so that the green cow spirit was left unattended, and he stole King Kong and became a demon in the lower realm for seven years.
There are only three kinds of Jindan effects mentioned in the book, and it seems that the author deliberately corresponded them to the three vintages of peaches.
Secondly, the ginseng fruit of Zhenyuan Daxian, the ancestor of the earth immortals, can also be used. In the twenty-fourth chapter, the original text is written:
Covering the four continents of the world, but the five villages of Xiniu Hezhou view this, calling the name of the grass and returning the dan, and the famous ginseng fruit. It blooms once in 3,000 years, bears fruit once in 3,000 years, and is ripe in another 3,000 years, and it takes 10,000 years to eat. It was as if in ten thousand years, only thirty fruits were produced. The appearance of the fruit is similar to that of a child who is not yet full of three dynasties, with all four limbs and salty facial features. If a man has a fate, and he smells it, he will live three hundred and sixty yearsEat one, and you will live for 47,000 years.The role of ginseng fruit is relatively simple, similar to the copycat version of the nine-thousand-year-old peach. There is only one place on the ground, Wuzhuang Temple, the author uses the word "only" here, and the time deadline is before Wukong makes trouble in Wuzhuang Temple.The twenty-fourth episode of "Wanshou Mountain Daxian Leaves Old Friends, Wuzhuang Spectators Steal Ginseng".
After the monkeys made a big fuss about Wuzhuang Temple, there may also be in the research laboratories of some feudal officials, such as the Tongtianhe Research Institute where the carp essence (affiliated with Guanyin) is located, and the lair research laboratory of the white deer essence (affiliated with the Antarctic immortal Weng) on the outskirts of the bhikshu country. The formula of the ginseng fruit was partially leaked by the monkeys, so the conditional immortals began to secretly send henchmen to do generic research.
It can be said that the projects of mutilating dolls since Wuzhuang Guan are basically related to this, but it has not been long before they have been seized by the supervision group, so there is a possibility that it is infinitely close to zero.
In addition, it is not enough to have similar products, but also to supply a certain amount of supply to satisfy the public and then control the public.
Then let's look at the yield, the peach tree is 3,600 plants, the book says that "the flowers are full of trees, and the fruits are pressed on the branches", which is similar to the yield of peach trees in the world;The ginseng fruit tree is one, and the book clearly states that it takes 10,000 years to get 30 fruits. The number of gold pills is unknown, and the book says that there are five gourds.
When the great sage saw that there were five gourds placed on the left and right of the furnace, and the gourds were all refined golden pills, he poured out all the gourds and ate them all, similar to eating fried beans.The peach is a peach, and there is one in the world, so only the number of plants is written, and the yield is described, and the exact number is not given, only the ripening cycle of the peach is clarified. No one has ever seen a ginseng fruit, so the number of plants and yield are clearly given. Jin Dan made it clear that the container was 5 gourds, and the original text said that it was similar to "eating fried beans", and the comparison between gourds and beans could also estimate the total amount.The fifth episode of "The Great Sage of Random Peach Steals Dan and Fights Monsters against the Gods of the Heavenly Palace".
As for the finished product cycle, both peach and ginseng fruit clearly give the cycle, the best peach is 9,000 years, and the ginseng fruit is 10,000 years. Jin Dan did not give a refining cycle, but since it has a peach-like function, the cycle should be similar.
After comparison and calculation, we can come to:The number of peaches is absolutely dominant, which is significantly higher than the number of Jindan, and absolutely crushes the number of ginseng fruits.
When one party can have an absolute supply advantage and is willing to share a certain necessity required by the immortals, there will be such a situation: the immortals will go to the party with a smaller number and grab the best, and cannot grab the party that can return to the product with an absolute supply advantage.
The side with fewer numbers usually has two options: either they also submit to the side with absolute numerical superiority and pay regular tribute to seek refuge, such as Daozu;Either try to block the news of similar products and hide and enjoy them secretly, such as the ancestor of the earth immortals.
After talking about why the Jade Emperor can become a leader and what things can threaten the leader, we can know what Journey to the West is talking about, that is, how does the Western Heaven learn scriptures integrate the setting of immortals and the setting of the world?
If the peach is the power in the Journey to the West, and the Jade Emperor is the leader of the Jiajing Emperor, then the Dao ancestor Taishang Laojun, as a character with similar peach products, is naturally the first assistant of the cabinet.
When Emperor Tianyu felt that the power of Laojun's capital was too great, he selected the more powerful Rulai faction from many relatives and promoted him from the Buddha to the Buddha. At this time, it was impossible for Rulai, who became the head of the foreign relatives' forces, not to understand the Jade Emperor's thoughts, so he took the opportunity to put forward a plan to learn from the scriptures.
Therefore, the plan to learn from the scriptures is actually a rebalancing of the power of the court by the emperor through the introduction of foreign relatives.
As the Jade Emperor, he played Ming chess, one is to limit and recover part of Laojun's power by learning from experience;The second is to support new forces such as Lai, but also restrict and monitor their rights, for example, at the foot of Lingshan Mountain, a Taoist administrator such as Jinding Daxian was arranged;The third is to provide a peach-like (a threat to their own rule) of the forces of assimilation or eradication, Wuzhuang view is a good example, the monkey destroyed the tree to save the tree and made a circle, the gods of the world know that Zhenyuan Daxian has a peach-like effect of the product. The number of ginseng fruits is not much, and there will definitely be no fewer people who will be forced to ask for it later, and this trick can be described as killing people without a knife;For the immature peach-like project, let the monkey destroy it directly, such as the carp essence and the white deer essence chapter.
As a relative, Rulai, since he was designated by the emperor as the general planner of the scripture learning project, naturally took the opportunity to encroach on part of the power of the court;Then there is the rectification of the various factions of the foreign relatives group to ensure their absolute leadership, such as the Xiaoleiyin Temple and the Lion Camel Country chapter.
Lao Jun, as the first assistant of the cabinet and the head of a hundred officials, has no ability to subvert the court, so he can only accept rectification. But Lao Jun is by no means tied up. He is also actively operating, ensuring that his rights are maximized through multi-faceted mediation, and at the same time using the experience team to eradicate what he wants to eradicate. For example, the Qingniu essence is to talk about it once, the daughter country is to protect it once it comes, and Pingdingshan once borrows the hand of the monkey to kill the fox spirit and suppresses the dragon Daxian is to give up what he wants to eradicate.
After talking about the motives of the Jade Emperor, Laojun and Rulai, the remaining court officials and feudal officials also had their own actions in the process of learning scriptures. A small scripture-learning team was racked by all parties to fill the quota, such as Guanyin, as the project manager of the scripture, through the convenience of his position, put Xiaobailong as a driver in the scripture-learning team.
Although these forces have no influence on the scripture-learning plan, their purpose is only to obtain the first-hand information of the scripture-learning supervision group, so as to avoid themselves being curtailed by the scripture-learning plan, and take the opportunity to extend their power tentacles.
To sum up, we can see that the Western Heaven is actually writing the following battles:
The balance of power between the parties under the leadership of the emperor;Only after sorting out the inextricable connections behind the power struggle can the interpretation of Journey to the West appear more silky and unobtrusive, and the illusion that the characters in the book are forcibly reducing their intelligence will not appear in the reading. Only by following this line can the conspiracy theories that can truly be annotated by the Six Classics, which can serve as a reference for our future conduct and growth.The competition between the prime minister and the relatives of each other;
Self-rectification within the court;
The struggle and integration of the forces of foreign relatives;
The competition between the four masters and apprentices who are pawns;
The undercurrent of the temples and the small forces of the rivers and lakes is surging;