The Life of Monk Emperor Xiao Yan

In the flames of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Xiao Yan walked from the jade steps of the Xiao family in Lanling to the golden palace in Jinling. The pattern of the word "" on his palm coincided with the dragon and elephant in the "Book of Changes", but in the gap between the Buddhist kingdom and the human world, he wrote his life into a legend of kindness and violence. As one of the "Eight Friends of Jingling", he witnessed the bloody death of the royal family of the Southern Qi Dynasty. He raised troops under the banner of "Benevolence", destroyed Yingzhou, accepted Zen and built Liang, and created the "Government of Tianjian": ending the hereditary lineage of the gentry, promoting the poor family of Taixue, and building Zhongli Shuangjia to repel the Wei army, pushing the Southern Dynasties to the pinnacle of culture and military. However, when he sacrificed his life four times at Tongtai Temple and used hundreds of millions of money to redeem the illusion of the Buddhist kingdom, he could not see Xiao Hong's greedy ink accumulating blood stains on the merit book, nor could he see Hou Jing's wolf-head dagger flashing coldly behind the table. During the three hundred days when Hou Jingzhi's rebellion struck Jinling like a thunder and Taicheng was without food, he was trapped in the Jingju Hall, listening to the hammering sound of the rebels peeling off the gold foil of the Buddha statues, and finally found his way to the unforgettable "Hehe" He understood clearly in his voice: What the beads in his hand strung were not the equality of all living beings, but the chains of the clan's arrogance and the resurgence of the clan; the "Essay on Cutting Out Wine and Meat" could not protect the people's cooking smoke, only the sadness of the flour-made cattle and sheep being pecked by wild pigeons on the altar table. From the heroic ruler who "destroyed the faint to establish the bright" to the subjugated king who "gained what he gained and lost what he lost", Xiao Yan's life was the epitome of the gentry politics of the Southern Dynasties: when the flag with the word "Benevolence" turned into gold dust in the Buddhist temple, when the sword with the word "" became a tool for powerful ministers, he spent eighty-six years carving out the cruelest realization of an emperor between the dragon chair of Taiji Hall and the futon of Tongtai Temple - There is nothingness in the Buddhist country, and the people's hearts are the real pure land of rebirth.