Changsun Wuji, Du Ruhui and others agreed with Li Xiu's suggestions in the memorial. Now they were waiting for Li Shimin to express their opinions. However, Li Shimin sat there and pondered for a moment, but did not make a decision immediately. Instead, he turned his head to the Dali Temple Minister and said, "Since the prince consort insisted on hearing the case of the Fire Inspiration Temple clearly, then you should take the plaintiff and the defendant back for interrogation. You must report to the public for trial. All case files will be sent to me in the future. I will review them in person!"

"No!" The Dali Temple Minister agreed immediately, and then took Monk Lingkong and Li Jin and others to leave the hall. Qin Huaidao and others were still a little worried, but Li Jin whispered to a few friends. Then they obediently followed the Dali Temple Minister to leave Liangyi Hall. .

"Mr. Prince Concubine, what are you doing?" Yuchi Gong is a military general. Although he usually goes to court, he never pays much attention to the affairs of the government. Of course, the most important thing is that he doesn't understand it, so he is still confused. However, he is a believer. He promised Li Xiu not to speak before, but he kept holding it in. However, when he saw that even his son was about to be taken to Dali Temple, he finally couldn't help but speak.

"Haha, General Yuchi, don't worry. Jin'er and the others will not have any trouble when they go to Dali Temple. At worst, they will be locked up for a few days. Speaking of which, these children are too indulgent. If the general is really worried, they can calm down. If the general is really worried, they can go to Dali Temple to watch. I have important matters with Your Majesty!" Li Xiu smiled and comforted him. He knew that Yuchi Gong was worried about several children, but compared to the matter in his memorial, the affairs of Li Jin and the others were nothing at all.

Although Yuchi Gong couldn't understand what Li Xiu and the others were saying, he knew that it must be of great importance and seemed to be related to the entire Buddhism. This fact was not something he could interfere with, so he nodded very wisely, then stood up and said goodbye to Li Shimin, and then left Liangyi Hall together. At this time, only Li Shimin and Li Xiu, the group of civil officials left in the hall.

"Li Xiu, the expansion of the power of Buddhism and Taoism did have some adverse effects on the Tang Dynasty, but their doctrines are also beneficial to the rule of the court, and the expansion of Buddhism and Taoism is also under control. Is it a bit of a loss to the court if you attack them now?" Li Shimin pondered for a moment and spoke again. As an emperor, his first consideration was the stability of the country, and Buddhism and Taoism were just a weapon to rule the people, so he was a little hesitant at this time.

"Your Majesty, if you want to gain the loyalty of the people in the world, you must ensure the prosperity of the country, the stability and abundance of the people, and the people live and work in peace and contentment, and the world will naturally be stable. As for the Buddhist and Taoist streams, it is really easier to rule these foolish people in the name of gods. But if all the people in the world are foolish people who only know gods but not the emperors and the court, what will the court use to suppress the rebellion in the future?" Li Xiu said without any concession at this time.

Li Xiu in his previous life always did not believe in the affairs of gods and ghosts, but he inexplicably traveled to the Tang Dynasty, which also caused some shaking of his worldview. However, he still took a stay away from the affairs of gods and ghosts. However, in contrast, although religions are in the name of gods and are known as guiding people to be good, many religions will eventually deteriorate into a huge interest group, and even commit countless evil deeds in the name of religion, such as the Western churches in later generations.

The reason is that the special culture makes it impossible for religion to develop into a giant like the Catholic Church, but it still has to be guarded against. Especially for the current Tang Dynasty, I am too tolerant of religion, and the consequence is that Emperor Wuzong of Tang destroyed Buddhism more than a hundred years later, and Li Xiu is now trying to eliminate this harm in the bud.

"What the prince-consort said is very true. Your Majesty, as the world, has the responsibility to educate the people. If you want the people to know etiquette and shame, the most important thing is to build private schools and promote education, rather than letting Buddhism and Taoism fool the people in the name of gods!" Wei Zheng was the first to stand up and express his support to Li Xiu. He was an orthodox Confucian scholar and always stayed away from the strange powers and chaos of gods and gods. Moreover, in his opinion, the education of the people should naturally take Confucianism first, rather than the words of gods and ghosts such as Buddhism and Taoism.

Wei Zheng's words were also supported by Du Ruhui, Fang Xuanling, and several censors. Only Changsun Wuji did not make any statement for the time being. Li Xiu was not surprised. Changsun Wuji always put Li Shimin's opinions first. Even if he had his own plans in his heart, as long as Li Shimin makes a decision, he would fully support him no matter what. This is also one of the reasons why Li Shimin trusts him unconditionally.

After a while, Li Shimin finally nodded and said, "Okay, since you all think that Buddhism and Taoism should be restricted, I will not object. But your memorial needs to be discussed by everyone, discuss all aspects clearly, and then decide how to implement it!"

Seeing Li Shimin finally nodding, Li Xiu and others finally breathed a sigh of relief. Then Li Shimin asked someone to return the memorial to Li Xiu and asked him to explain the contents of the memorial in detail one by one. After all, they didn't understand some places very well, such as the money house was very novel.

Although Li Xiu wrote a lot of memorials, Changsun Wuji had already summarized them before. There were only three items. The first one was to set up a monk and Taoist record organization to specialize in managing all monks and Taoist priests in the world, and also issue certificates of sacrificial certificates to monks and Taoists. This is equivalent to the identity certificates of monks and Taoists. Only by holding certificates of sacrificial certificates can they preach, otherwise it is illegal and the court can arrest them and question them.

On the surface, the monks and Taoist records issued certificates only to facilitate the management of monks and Taoist priests, but the real purpose was to control the number of monks and Taoist priests. You should know that in the early Tang Dynasty, someone had done statistics. There were more than 100,000 monks and nuns in the country. As for Taoist priests, there might be a little less, but the two combined were nearly 200,000. By the mid-Tang Dynasty, this number had more than doubled. At that time, the total population of the Tang Dynasty was only tens of millions, and the number of monks and Taoists was even greater than that of the Tang army.

In addition, these people are not for childbirth, and many of them are middle-aged men and women. Building temples consumes the master's money. It can be said that they are parasites on the Tang Dynasty. A little less may not have much impact, but as the number increases, it will sooner or later overwhelm the Tang Dynasty, so their number must be limited.

Originally, the issuance of the sacrificial certificates to monks and Taoists first occurred in the Northern Wei Dynasty, but it was soon abolished. It was not until the Middle Tang Dynasty that the number of monks and Taoists was too large that the Tang Dynasty began to issue sacrificial certificates again. However, the Tang Dynasty was in financial difficulties at that time, and the sacrificial certificates were actually done by the court. As long as they had money, they could buy sacrificial certificates, and the management was not strict, so they did not play their due role at all.

It was not until the Northern Song Dynasty that the Song Dynasty specially set up an agency to issue covenants, and the number of covenants issued each year was strictly controlled by the court. Even those few covenants required monks or Taoist priests to spend huge amounts of money to buy them, which resulted in a sharp decline in the number of people in the Buddhist and Taoist sects. It was not until the Northern Song Dynasty that the Buddhist and Taoist sects were completely trampled by the court.

The monks and Taoist Records issued certificates, and they could only control the number of monks or Taoist priests. However, the temple still has a large amount of land in its hands, so Li Xiucai used the second move, which was to investigate the land of temples and Taoist temples, especially temples. Because monks have the privilege of exempting tax burden, there were not even Taoist priests. Because most Taoist priests nowadays are part-time jobs, and basically no full-time Taoist priests, so they are ordinary people, so naturally they do not have the privilege of exempting taxes.

In contrast, the temple relies on the privilege of tax exemption and owns a large amount of land under its name. Now the Tang Dynasty has a vast territory and a relatively small population, so the land problem is not prominent. However, with the future development, the annexation of land by the temple will definitely bring a lot of problems. Therefore, Li Xiucai proposed that each monk can only own ten acres of land. Even if one acre in the Tang Dynasty is smaller than that of later generations, it is enough for one person to use for a year. What's more, Buddhism claims to be pure and weak, so what do you need so much land for?

As for Li Xiu's last knife at Buddhism, it was naturally targeting the temple's longevity database, which was actually lending business and loans. Li Xiu had long wanted to get out the bank, so he proposed in the memorial that the court would open a money house. It doesn't matter what the name was. Anyway, it was actually a bank in later generations, and it was endorsed by the court's credit. At that time, the temple's longevity database would probably be squeezed and unable to gain a foothold. As a result, a great source of wealth in Buddhism would be cut off.

Li Xiu explained these three points in detail. Some of them were too late to write them in the memorial because of the tight time. He also explained them now, such as the operation of the money house, and the impact on the Tang Dynasty economy after the establishment of the money house. Although Li Xiu did not study economics, he still understood the basic economic principles in the environment of later generations.

Li Shimin and others also nodded while listening. Although they were the first time they heard something Li Xiu said, the more they thought about it, the more they made sense. The first two of them mainly restricted the development of monks and Taoists, which was not difficult to understand. The money house made them feel like they had an eye-opening feeling, especially the money house can not only deposit and withdraw money, but also withdraw money from other places. This is simply too convenient for merchants. After all, it is inconvenient to carry copper coins and gold and silver cannot be circulated. As a result, when merchants do business, carrying money becomes a big problem. Moreover, now the money house can solve this problem and can also hold a large amount of money in the hands of the court.

Seeing that Li Shimin and the others were very interested in the money shop, Li Xiu talked more, but the more he talked, the more he felt something was wrong, especially the look of Li Shimin and Wei Zheng looking at him made him feel uncomfortable all over, and at the same time, it also made him feel like he was ignoring something?
Chapter completed!