The Emperor Qihua was short of money, so he became a monk and asked the minister to redeem himself.

"Southern Dynasty Four Hundred and Eighty Temples

How many buildings are in the mist and rain"

—— Du Mu "Jiangnan Spring"

Southern Dynasty to the prosperous emperor of the Central Plains Buddhism The people all believe in Buddhism.

And the emperor also advocated building temples. In addition to the emperor, the concubines and princesses of the harem actively paid for the construction of temples, which led to the creation of temples in the Southern Dynasty.

Emperor Bodhisattva — Xiao Yan

But there is such an emperor who not only believes in Buddhism, but also wants to become a monk. In the end, because of this incident, the country was confused and he was also starving.

Do you know who it is?

Yes, it is the founding emperor of Liang in the Southern Dynasties — Liang Wudi Xiao Yan.

Xiao Yan was born in the Lanling Xiao family, a descendant of Xiao He, the founding minister of the Han Dynasty. He has been very smart since he was a child, and he is proficient in all kinds of piano, chess, calligraphy and painting.

Due to his extraordinary background and his outstanding abilities, Xiao Yan finally founded the Nanliang regime and became the emperor himself, the emperor Wu.

Although Xiao Yan has become the emperor through his own hard work, he is not interested in the emperor's career at all. Instead, he is obsessed with Buddhism and declared Buddhism as the state religion.

Concentrate on practicing Buddha

Xiao Yan's worship of Buddhism is not just on the surface.

According to the record of "Liang Shu-The Book of Emperor Wu", in order to be able to concentrate on practicing Buddha, Xiao Yan eats vegetarian food, wears plain clothes, does not drink alcohol, does not eat meat, and does not have sex. When he was forty years old, he directly rebooted. Really can be regarded as a faithful believer of Buddhism.

Several times to become a monk

This is not enough, Xiao Yan still wants to go to the temple and become a monk.

In 527 AD, Xiao Yan went to the largest temple in Nanjing— Jiming Temple to burn incense and worship Buddha. When the ministers were not paying attention, he took off his dragon robe and put on a robes and became a monk. This was his first time as a monk, so he didn't adapt to the monk's hard life. After only staying for 3 days, he went back.

In 529 AD, after two years of preparation, Xiao Yan clamored to go to Jiming Temple to be a monk again. This time it was really moving, and never came back. The court ministers were so anxious that they held many meetings to discuss how to bring the emperor back.

According to the rules of the time, if a monk wants to return to the secular after he becomes a monk, the family members need to pay to "redempt themselves" to return to the secular. So all the ministers, you will give some, I will give some, collect 100 million coppers to donate to the temple, and redeem the emperor. When Emperor Wu of Liang saw that he felt happy in his heart, he went back.

But what people did not expect was that after receiving 100 million coppers, Xiao Yan only took out a small part to repair the temple, and most of the rest went into his own small vault. It seems that being a monk is false, and it is true to ask the ministers for money!

In 546 AD, it might be because of the lack of money again. Xiao Yan, who had been absent for more than ten years, secretly ran away to become the emperor. The ministers had no choice but to redeem him with another 200 million coppers. Xiao Yan made a lot of money again. In the second year, Xiao Yan made another 100 million coppers in this way.

After these several renunciation farce, Xiao Yan has overwhelmed the addiction of being a monk and made a lot of money.

Starved to death

Later, a descendant named Hou Jing rebelled and led his troops to attack the capital city of Liang. At this critical juncture, Xiao Yan not only didn't panic,He also ate and recite Buddha all day, and said to the ministers: "Let the servant go arrogantly, my old man will be able to kill him by breaking a branch." Not long after speaking, the rebels broke the city.

In the end, Xiao Yan was starved to death.