Author: Xia Yougui
Luowang Temple is located in Honghua Village, Dongxin Township, Dawu County. It is 1.5 kilometers away from Dongxindian, the seat of Dongxinxiang government. When was it built? The monastery was destroyed in 1958. The Luowang Temple before its destruction was large in scale, with 9 main halls in the back, 9 gate towers and aisles in the front, plus 6 left and right wing rooms. There were 5 red sandalwood trees around the temple that only four people could surround. According to the extremely slow growth process of red sandalwood , it can be seen that Luowang Temple has been built for a long time and has a long history.
What makes Luowang Temple most famous is that it is said that Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty appointed the talented fourteenth son Yinqi, who had the ability to govern the country, as the crown prince and wrote a secret edict, stamped with gold and jade, and hung it on the beam of the Golden Palace. . Because the news of the traitor party in the DPRK leaked, the fourth son Yin Zhen (ie Yongzheng ) with ulterior motives colluded with the traitor party and his confidant eunuch . They worked together to remove the secret edict from the beam and secretly passed it on to the throne. The character "Shi" in "Shi Si Zi" was changed to the character "Yu" (there is also a legend that the character "十" in "Shi Si Zi" was tampered with, and a bamboo prefix and the word "bow" were added to the cross to form a cross). The fourth son) Later, Yongzheng, the fourth son of Kangxi Yanjia, pretended to be the emperor in a grand manner. After Yongzheng ascended the throne, he quickly demoted Yinqi, who was kept in the dark, to Luoyang, Henan, to govern the people as the king of Luoyang. In order to deceive others and confuse the public, he changed Yinqi's name to Yinzhen which is very similar to his name.
Because of Yinzhen (actually Yinqi)'s outstanding talent and good management, he managed the Luoyang area into a peaceful and peaceful environment, a prosperous place for the people, and an excellent reputation. The local people made up the folk song "The sky is yellow, the ground is yellow, the King of Luoyang is coming and I need less food, the ground is yellow, the sky is yellow, the King of Luoyang is more talented than the emperor". After Yongzheng heard the folk songs, he knew that his fourteenth brother was far better than him. He had become a force on all sides of Chu Ge. If he was not eliminated quickly, the throne would be endangered and there would be endless troubles. He established two great masters in Yunyang and Anyang who had close relations with him. They secretly spied on Luoyang looking for an opportunity to assassinate Yinzhen. After the two Taoist priests arrived in Luoyang, they saw that Luoyang was governed by Yinzhen in a harmonious and peaceful manner. The purpose of Taoism has always been to act in accordance with nature and be compassionate, so why should we act as Yongzheng's killer? After the two Taoist priests negotiated and unified their thoughts, they jumped off the beam at night while Yinzhu and Bingzhu were working to announce their intentions. After hearing the news, Yinzhen broke out in a cold sweat: Since the fourth brother has murderous intentions, if he doesn't die today, it will be difficult to guard against him in the future. .
So he decided to avoid the government and the opposition, abandoned his wife and children overnight, and rode away to the south. When he fled to a small river in Honghua Village, Dongxin Township, Dawu County, Hubei Province, at the junction of Henan and Hubei, the horse stopped moving forward, raised its neck and neighed. Yinzhen didn't understand what he meant, so he got off his horse and asked a young monk who was carrying water: "Master, what is the name of this place?" The young monk replied: "This place is called Luowang Temple." At this moment, Yinzhen already knew it. , "Luo Wang Temple, Luo Wang Temple", I am a king, and I have violated the earth's precepts by walking here. God has arranged a place for me to stay. No wonder the horse can't move forward! So he went to the small temple and begged the abbot to take him in and became a monk here.
After Yongzheng Yanjia and Qianlong ascended the throne, they had long heard that his father was not upright, which caused the fourteenth emperor's uncle to flee far away from home. He immediately sent people to investigate the whereabouts of the emperor's uncle. Later, when the investigators returned to Beijing and reported that his uncle had become a monk in a small temple on the border of Hubei and Henan, he burst into tears and went to the temple in person to pick up the uncle and return to the court to serve as the supreme emperor to support the court. Unfortunately, Yinqi had seen through the world of mortals. , insisted on refusing to return to Beijing. When Qianlong saw that the emperor's uncle was determined not to return, he did not force it. He specially allocated tens of thousands of taels of gold and silver to rebuild a large-scale temple, and personally inscribed "Luowang Temple" with three gilded characters. A gold plaque of his name was given as a gift and hung on the lintel of the newly built Luowang Temple. From then on, the Luowang Temple was changed to the Luowang Temple, and the 16th day of the third lunar month of each year, the day of the lunar calendar, was designated as the 5th day of the temple fair. After Yinqi passed away, he was buried on the hill behind the temple. The ruins of the tomb still exist today. The people respectfully call this hillock "Wangfenggang".
Since 1736, Emperor Qianlong used gold and silver to re-expand the temple and inscribed it with a gold plaque "Luowang Temple". Especially after Yinqi's death, Luowang Temple became a place where the gods showed great power and were extremely efficacious. The fame of Luowang Temple spreads from ten to ten, and from ten to a hundred... Devoted men and women from Xinyang, Henan in the north, Anhui and Huangchuan in the east, Wuhan, Xiaogan in the south, Suizhou and Yingshan in the west come in droves to pray to gods and worship Buddha. On the first and fifteenth day of the lunar month, there are even more people who come to "stay up" on New Year's Eve. The hall and the inner and outer aisles are filled with people. The temple fair on March 16th every year is an unprecedented event. Just after the New Year, the leaders of Dongbajia, Xibajia, South Bajia, and North Bajia negotiate and prepare in advance. The businessmen who came to attend the temple fair came to the numbered stalls around the temple half a month in advance. Those who made snacks set up stoves, those who sold groceries and cloth prepared to build sheds and shelves, and those who performed jugglers came to choose performance venues. ...
The people in Sibajia were even more enthusiastic about their support for the temple fair. Leaders went to every house to collect theater money and made many speeches, and there was no one who did not say something sarcastic or sarcastic. It is said that one year the leader of Luowang Temple went to invite Dawu County Chu Opera Troupe Li Yu to perform a big play. Li Yu's troupe was selling stage in Hankou and did not agree to the Luowang Temple play. But just after the leader came back, Li Yu He rushed to Luowang Temple in a hurry and told the truth: "Since we did not agree to Luowang Temple's play, all the more than 20 leading actors in the troupe fell ill that afternoon. I thought that there must be no Luowang Temple. The Bodhisattva from Luowang Temple appeared, so I came here to apologize and deliver the drama to my door..."
The temple fair, which lasted for more than ten days before and after the main meeting day, was crowded with tens of thousands of people every day. From Dongxindian Street to the entrance of the temple, beggars were standing and kneeling. In order to win people's sympathy, they kowtowed to everyone, and some stuck knives on their hands, noses, and heads. Put three lit sticks of incense on your forehead... In a normal year, there is at least one big show, one shadow puppet show, and duet. If the performance does well in the first year and the theater income is high, there will be a grand occasion of two or three major operas shadow puppets duets. There was a saying at that time: if each household in Sibajia collected one egg, Luowang Temple could perform a show for half a month, not to mention each household had to give more than one egg.
There were dozens of drum book artists, juggling artists, Taoist singers, peep show artists, flail players, and ditty singers who came to the meeting, each with their own performances. There are many competing performances, with the largest number of children gathering in the peep show area. Changing the angle of the lens tube can reveal various strange flowers and patterns. The children become more and more addicted to watching. Some look at it over and over again, and adults can’t take it away. . In order to attract the audience, the magicians also tried their best to present the most attractive and suspenseful shows to the temple fair.
I heard the old people say that the scariest magic is the show "Killing the Killer". The program of this show is to randomly find a minion in the audience or the performer's own minion, and clearly see the magic performance. Or, first cut off the little boy's head and then cut off the limbs, which made the audience's hearts rise to their throats. Some couldn't bear to watch this gruesome scene, so they simply turned their heads to the side or covered their eyes with their hands. Sometimes the performers' assistants or wives would reach out to the audience with basins or cardboard boxes in their hands to collect money, and the audience would donate their money out of sympathy.
The washbasin or paper box will soon be filled with small-denomination paper money and coins. After a while, the performer spliced the little puppet together from head to limbs one by one. The little puppet jumped up and down like nothing happened and walked off the stage. I heard that if you want to break his law, you should prepare a frog in advance. If he chops off the little kid’s head, chop off the frog’s head. If he chops off the little kid’s limbs, you should chop off the frog’s limbs so that the little kid can’t be restored to life. . That’s called today’s colloquialism – it’s a big drop. But the magician also had a way to take revenge on those who broke his magic. He immediately planted watermelons on the stage, and the watermelons miraculously grew vines, blossomed, and matured in less than a minute.He cut the watermelon open with a knife, and you, the one who broke his law, will also die... Oh! It’s not easy for people to earn a living outside, so why risk their own lives to “test the law”? So under normal circumstances, no one would do such a stupid thing that harms one's heart and moral integrity.
During the temple fair, which lasts for half a month and twenty days, almost every house in Dongxin Market Town and nearby Zhuangzi is a hotel or restaurant, and every household is a shop. Those selling incense, wax, paper, and cannons are often out of stock. There are dense temporary restaurant stoves everywhere around the temple fair, including on the river beach in front of the temple. The snack spots that make sesame seed cakes, make soup pots, cook rice, porridge, and stir-fry vegetables are all packed, and the stalls that sell fried dumplings, twists, Tianguo eggs, rice dumplings with sweet wine, and fried melon seeds and peanuts are even more crowded and eager to buy. Anyone who comes to the temple fair to do business will make a lot of money and be happy. Temple fairs stimulate consumption and promote the active development of the cultural economy in the Dongxin region.
Fifty years after the destruction of Luowang Temple, in 2009, local celebrities responded to the urgent demands and wishes of the people with a donation of 40,000 yuan from Mr. Li Qingfang, who lives in Taiwan in Dongxindian, and 8,000 yuan donated by Brother Xu, the owner of Dongxin Construction. Yuan, Tan Dewu donated 5,000 yuan as support, and the construction started in February 2009. It was completed before the temple fair on March 16. Four temples were rebuilt on the original site, and more than 20 statues of Bodhisattvas such as Sakyamuni and Guanyin were invited back. respect. In addition to the first and fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year, where faithful men and women come to burn incense and worship Buddha, the temple fair, which had disappeared for more than 50 years, has been restored since 2009.
(collected and compiled from folklore)
