What is the City God?
In ancient times, the city garrison had a moat. Generals and soldiers believed that the mountains had mountain gods, the rivers had rivers, and the city had gods. They often built simple houses by the river and enshrined the city god tablets to pray for the gods to protect the city and keep the water and soil from invading.
This kind of folk sacrificial activity developed into temple culture from the Northern and Southern Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty. Coupled with the Taoists' intention to spread religion in the south, they incorporated the City God into the Taoist New God, giving the identity of the City God to real figures in history, such as Ji Xin, Zhou Yu, Chen Youliang, Hai Rui, Fan Zeng, Xiao He, Huo Guang, Qin Yubo, Wen Tianxiang, Liu Zongyuan, Huang Xie... any famous and responsible historical figures in history may be canonized as City God!
For example, Xiao He, who was responsible for stabilizing the world, was the city god of Chang'an, and the city god of Songjiang Prefecture was Qin Yubo, an official in the late Yuan Dynasty. These are all great virtuous and capable people in ancient and modern times who lived and died as heroes and ghosts. Whenever a new emperor succeeds to the throne, the founding ceremony will be held. Ancestors, emperors often wanted to confer the title of City God to the world, which could not only stabilize the faith of the world, but also take care of the world of the dead, and it became a routine for a while.
The city gods of Shu are local celebrities, most of them are Wuhou, Guan Sheng and Tang Huang. The city god of the ancient town that Yue Qingshan saw was a gray-bearded Monkey King. He might have been specially made to look like a longevity star for the sake of being kind and benevolent. , with a monkey face, a monkey mouth, a longevity forehead and a white beard, it looks particularly funny.
The so-called apparitions of the people in the ancient town refer to the fact that the City God's Temple will light up lanterns at night. When you walk in and take a look, you can see that the statue of the god has disappeared, and the person sitting on the throne is actually a living City God.
This situation happened several times, and the people nearby believed that the city god had appeared. They took the sacrifices to worship and asked for grace from the city god.
This City God is not good-looking, but his spirituality is guaranteed. As long as he pays tribute, he almost always responds to his requests. Even if he asks the City God for money, he will receive a large package of silver ingots in a few days. Who has a headache or brain fever? As long as you tell the City God about your symptoms and take the medicinal soup and pills he gives you, the disease will be cured.
No one in the countryside is truly pious when worshiping gods. They just pray a few more times to find some benefit if it works. If it doesn't work, they will be overthrown immediately and become a feudal superstition.
To put it bluntly, there is constant incense in the countryside all day long. They are not worshiping gods. It is clearly their unfulfilled desires.
At the moment, no matter whether the City God is a man, a ghost, or a ghost, as long as he can meet their own requirements, the people don't care what the truth is.
Faced with such huge profits, the tributes given by the people to the City God also changed in taste, from whole grains, flowers, fruits, noodles and peaches to bloody cattle, sheep, chickens and ducks, and even live abandoned babies.
The greater their desire, the more they have to give precious tributes. This kind of precious tribute, in turn, feeds the appetite of the City God. In this cycle, the City God eventually requires them to offer live boys and girls, and even pay tribute to them. He chooses the concubine of the god as his consort and takes care of her day and night and serves her closely.
In the end, the people had nothing to offer, so they could only send their wives and children to the city god to offer them food, drink, and brains. In fact, all the monkeys could even climb on people's heads and dominate, and this was the scene in the ancient town.
One day, an old Taoist priest saw the vitality of the ancient town and knew that there was an evildoer at work, so he came to the City God's Temple with a magic weapon.
The City God was sitting on the high platform, greedily sucking his head. The temple was filled with flowers and silk like clouds, making it look like a pink devil's cave. He made a prompt decision and picked up his magic sword and stabbed the City God. After all, the old Taoist priest had profound Taoism and a set of swordsmanship. , and beat the city god until his official hat fell off and his clothes were in tatters.
Only then did the people realize that the so-called City God was just a 300-year-old old macaque. His hair had faded away with his age, and his red skin was exposed. His bright eyes were as smart as human beings. , can even walk upright and imitate human voices, and then he wears a monkey hat and dresses up as the City God.
After the old monkey was stabbed to death by a sword, the old Taoist priest explained the origin of this monkey!
When the dynasty is about to fall and the world is in chaos, many beasts and animals know that human nature is declining, so they often wear human skins or clothes, go down the mountain to confuse people with their evil words, and stir up chaos in the world, so as to wait for opportunities to devour people's hearts and speed up their cultivation.
This monkey was his monkey servant when he was practicing in Qingcheng Mountain. Decades ago, he saw an old macaque being abandoned by a group of monkeys and being chased by wild wolves, so he felt kindhearted and saved his life.
The monkey also knew how to repay his kindness, so he cleaned up the courtyard for him in the cave, collected herbs and cleaned the cave for him every day. Only then did he let the old monkey stay.
The old monkey originally had a lifespan of more than two hundred years. In the past few decades, he had cultivated his moral character in his cave. He had matured and become spiritual. He escaped down the mountain while he was traveling, and relied on his skills on the mountain to swindle in troubled times. Unexpectedly, he would be here today. We met here, since it was all because of myself that I made a big mistake, I simply acted for heaven and subdued demons.
This old monkey died like this under the old sword!
After the death of the old monkey, there is still lingering emotion.
Those village women who had served the old monkey gave birth to children one after another a year later. Regardless of male or female, in addition to having human faces, all of them had monkey cheeks with sharp mouths and peach hair all over. They could both roar like monkeys and speak human language. These villagers were afraid that When a disaster occurred, all these children were sent to Qingcheng Mountain and asked to be picked up and fed by the old female monkeys. After more than ten years, another disaster happened again.
This incident became a strange news in the neighborhood for a while, and the villagers called it monkey trouble!
Even though the old monkey is hateful, his monkey oil does work.
The monkey oil in the bottle is not a cure-all for all diseases. As long as it is not a difficult or complicated disease, drinking the monkey oil will make you feel better immediately. Even if you are dying, you can still have a few more days to regain your health. If you smell it with your nose Once you smell it, you can even see what you are thinking.
