Li Shimin was the Jade Emperor in his previous life, and the king of Hades bowed down
"Journey to the West" is the first long story in ancient China with the world of gods and demons as the background and romanticism**. Although it is on a par with the four classical classics, its influence far exceeds that of the other three.
It is different from the obscure and complex "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and it is also different from the delicate and affectionate "Dream of Red Mansions", and there is no entanglement of loyalty and righteousness in "Water Margin". "Journey to the West" opens up a new fantasy world, the storyline surrounds the three worlds of gods, demons and humans, and at the same time is based on the real world, through the author's artistic processing, it truly depicts the social life of the ancient people.
The protagonist of this ** is Tang Xuanzang and his three apprentices, their goal is to retrieve the true scriptures and save the souls of the world. On the way to learn the scriptures, they encountered countless difficulties and challenges, but they persevered and finally succeeded in reaching the Western Heavens.
So the question is, why do you have to go to the west to learn scriptures? Because only in this way can the souls of the world be saved, so that people can be freed from suffering and find true happiness.
In the context of the prosperity and cultural development of the Tang Dynasty, which even attracted many foreign envoys to come and study, it was inevitable that a convincing reason would be needed for the protagonists to embark on the arduous journey to the west.
In the prequel to Wu Chengen's "Journey to the West", a grand water and land festival revealed this reason, which even mentioned Li Shimin's noble identity in his previous life, making the king of Hades kneel and even the Jade Emperor humble to three points, this identity in the previous life is the reason why they learned scriptures in the west.
In the ninth chapter of Journey to the West, we saw a story about the Dragon King of Jinghe. Although the Dragon King of Jinghe is not the Dragon King of the West Sea, he has a certain amount of power in his jurisdiction.
However, he is haunted by a fortune teller named "Ghost Valley Relic". This fortune teller's fortune teller is extremely accurate, no matter the weather season, down to the luck of marriage, it can be accurate**.
However, his real identity is Yuan Shoucheng, the uncle of the famous Tang Dynasty feng shui master Yuan Tiangang.
Yuan Shoucheng is a favorite of the local residents in the Jinghe area, he is approachable and treats money like dung. He often helps fishermen figure out the best places to go out to sea.
However, long-term overfishing has led to a sharp decline in the number of aquatic species in the Jing River, and there has even been a crisis of genocide and no fish to catch. This caught the attention of the Dragon King of Jinghe, who lived underwater, and he decided to go ashore as a civilian and investigate the matter himself.
This investigation revealed Yuan Shoucheng's mysterious ability, he could spy on the heavens, see through the illusion, and should have done great things, but he wasted his talent in the world, breaking the balance between the two worlds of heaven and man.
So, the Dragon King of Jinghe decided to teach Yuan Shoucheng a lesson, on the one hand, to avenge the revenge of the Shui Clan, and on the other hand, to punish him for interfering too much in the human world. So the dragon king incarnated as a wealthy merchant in Chang'an City on the shore, and specially found Yuan Shoucheng, asking him to divinate the time of rain in Chang'an City tomorrow, and asked him to tell how many drops of rain had fallen.
The wealthy businessman paid fifty taels, and Yuan Shoucheng had a problem: whether the weather changes accurately, if the calculation is accurate, he will be rewarded, and he will be expelled from Chang'an City without standards. This was obviously an extremely challenging task, but Yuan Shoucheng agreed and began to tell the hexagram with confidence.
After a stick of incense, he confidently declared: Tomorrow when the clouds are spread, there is thunder, it rains at noon, and before it rains, a total of three feet three inches and forty-eight points of water can be obtained.
However, the Dragon King, who was the governor of the Eight Rivers Capital of Chang'an City and the Great Thunder God of Si Yu, was skeptical. The reason why he chose this problem to challenge Yuan Shoucheng was because he was the biggest seasonal official, and he was the master who decided the rain without the Jade Emperor personally ordering the rain.
originally thought that he would win this gamble, and he only needed to wait until the next hour to easily defeat Yuan Shoucheng. But who would have thought that Heavenly Court suddenly issued a holy decree asking the Dragon King to rain, and this time and number of raindrops were exactly the same as Yuan Shoucheng's divination results!
This put the dragon king in an embarrassing situation, if he acted according to the holy decree, wouldn't it be a slap in the face himself? In order to win the gamble, he thought of a cunning plan, which was to tamper with the holy decree of the heavenly court.
When the rain was over, the Dragon King triumphantly went to Yuan Shoucheng, wanting to laugh at him for not being able to calculate hexagrams. But Yuan Shoucheng saw through his true identity at a glance: "From the day you came to me, I knew that you were the incarnation of the Dragon King of Jinghe.
It is not advisable for you to not only tamper with the decree of the Heavenly Court now, but also to show off it. ”
After listening to Yuan Shoucheng's words, the Dragon King's face changed greatly, and he immediately bowed down to apologize and begged Yuan Shoucheng to spare him. Because this crime is not only to peel the skin and scrape the bones, but also to seriously violate the rules of heaven.
Yuan Shoucheng revealed a secret to the Dragon King, Prime Minister Wei Zheng actually had another identity - the supervisor of the Heavenly Court, Cao Guan, he was an iron-faced and selfless and upright person, and it may be useless to turn to him directly.
Therefore, Yuan Shoucheng suggested that the Dragon King could save the country and asked for the help of Wei Zheng's superior, the emperor Li Shimin. The Dragon King listened to Yuan Shoucheng's advice and kept appearing in Li Shimin's dream, begging Li Shimin for help.
In the end, Li Shimin was moved by the sincerity of the Dragon King and agreed to his request.
Li Shimin was afraid of being entangled by the unjust soul of the Dragon King of Jinghe, so he set up a plan to delay the time of the beheading by playing chess with Wei Zheng, and finally succeeded in getting Wei Zheng's Yuan Shen out of the body to kill the Dragon King of Jinghe.
However, this move hurt Li Shimin's foundation, and he has been ill since then.
Due to the deterioration of Li Shimin's health, he left some close ministers behind to deal with the aftermath, and the atmosphere was very gloomy. However, Wei Zheng proposed a plan with his ingenuity that could allow Li Shimin to pass away temporarily, and when he returned, he would definitely live a long life.
Wei Zheng proposed that his friend Cui Yu would become a judge of the Hades palace after his death, and if Cui Yu met Tang Taizong in the underworld, he would definitely obey Tang Taizong. He wrote a letter on talisman paper, intending to burn it underground after Tang Taizong's death, and if Tang Taizong met Cui Yu in the underworld, ask him to give him the letter, so that he would know what to do.
After listening to Wei Zheng's suggestion, Li Shimin's mood was calmed down.
Li Shimin's untimely death at the age of 30 is undoubtedly a bad omen for a dynasty. When the news of his death was about to leak, Wei Zheng stepped forward and strictly ordered the palace people to keep it secret, otherwise they would face the crime of killing their heads.
In order to appease the government and the opposition, he claimed that Li Shimin only had a headache last night and did not sleep, and only suspended the government for one day, and it will be ** soon.
Li Shimin's life changed dramatically at the last moment. When he was about to die, his soul flew into the air, while his body was still lying on the dragon's bed.
However, his surprise did not last long, as he was knocked unconscious by a force he could not comprehend. When he woke up again, he found himself in the midst of a gloomy scene, and the three words that appeared in front of his eyes—the ghost gate, made him feel creepy.
At this moment, an emaciated figure slowly walked out of the gate, and when he looked closely, he found that this person was Cui Yu.
I know what Prime Minister Wei means, Lord Cui, please take me to the emperor of the underworld. In this way, under the recommendation of Judge Cui, Li Shimin met the emperor of the underworld, that is, the king of Hades.
Originally, the status of the underworld and the immortal world was equal, and the status of the king of Hades should be higher than Li Shimin's. However, why did Hades make such a big salute to his subordinates? This question made Li Shimin puzzled.
Hades didn't explain, just silence. Cui Yu stood up and said: "You are the emperor of the world, he is the ghost king of the underworld, and it is normal for the two kings to meet." ”
Then they entered the main hall, and according to the routine, they needed to check Li Shimin's Yangshou in the book of life and death to confirm whether the black and white impermanence had caught the wrong person. Cui Yu opened the book of life and death and found that Li Shimin had indeed reached the end of his life, but Wei Zheng wrote a letter asking the king of Hades, hoping that he could add two more strokes to Li Shimin's yang life, from the original thirty years to fifty years.
Therefore, Hades did not hesitate to modify Li Shimin's Yangshou, making him an undead person who only needs to wait for his soul to be reborn.
Li Shimin's road to rebirth was bumpy, and in the process of reincarnation, he met many "old friends", including his relatives lost in the Xuanwumen Incident, and traitors who were given death after he ascended the throne.
In order to appease the anger of these ghosts, after returning to the yang world, he held a grand land and water conference, and sent Tang Sanzang to the West to find Mahayana Buddhism and seek transcendence for the undead.
These events led to the beginning of Journey to the West. Although the process of rebirth was full of challenges, Li Shimin's determination and kind heart eventually led him to find the path to happiness.
It turned out that the king of Hades added 20 years to Li Shimin's life span and knelt down because his status in his previous life was very noble. In "Journey to the West", there are many stories of reincarnation, Tang Seng is the reincarnation of the golden cicada, such as the great ** of the Buddha, the great good man of the tenth generation, who was demoted to the mortal world as a scripture learner because of his mistakes.
And Li Shimin, as a great king, is already very noble in the world, but his identity in his previous life is even more unimaginable, that is, the Arctic Ziwei Emperor.
In the Taoist faith,"Ziwei the Great"Yes"Zhongtian crape myrtle Arctic Taihuang the Great"Abbreviation, yes"Four Emperors"One of them, with"Antarctic Immortal Emperor"、"Emperor Gochen"、"Chengtian imitated the Emperor of the Earth"And respect.
His main duties are to manage the heavens and the earth, lead the gods of heaven and earth and the stars of the Three Realms, and have the divine power to rule over the capital and the forbidden ghosts. This also explains why Hades has so much respect for him.
Although the Ziwei Emperor is subordinate to the Jade Emperor in terms of duties, in many mythological stories, he is regarded as an existence alongside the Jade Emperor.
Since ancient times, people's worship of celestial phenomena has been particularly deep, and Ziweixing, as the most intermediate and high-status star in the sky, is regarded by Taoism as the eternal "master of the stars" and "the foundation of the gods".
According to the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, Volume 48, Ziweixing is the abode of God, which shows its incomparably noble status. In the world, people regard Zi Weixing as the "emperor star" to deduce the fate of the emperor or prince, so the worship of Zi Weixing by ancient literati has reached the extreme.
Kong Yingda mentioned in "Book and Fate" that the Beidou surrounds the North Pole, symbolizing the loyalty of the secretary to Zhou Tianzi; The five stars line in the Liesu, symbolizing the state pastor overseeing the princes; Twenty-eight nights are spread in all directions, symbolizing the princes guarding the Son of Heaven.
If the immortals want to be strong, they need to go down to the earth, experience the sufferings of the world, and accumulate merits before they can return to the divine realm. Emperor Ziwei was no exception, he chose the imperial magnates as the object of reincarnation, because he could not become an obscure little person.
As the reincarnation of Emperor Ziwei, Li Shimin can not only travel to the underworld and get the twenty-year yang life given by the king of Hades, but also many confidants and courtiers, and his cultural and martial arts are also unmatched.