Yue Guanchao and the others stood on the front gate of the Dudu Mansion, staring at the procession that was gradually retreating. They finally felt relieved when the long procession completely left the city and headed towards Longquan Mountain.
Win or lose, today.
Sacrifice to the Nuo God is a grand festival in Sichuan and Sichuan. On this day, ethnic minorities in northern Sichuan, western Sichuan and eastern Sichuan, as well as ordinary people, will create lanterns and floats based on the legends of the mountain spirits and wild monsters of their own people, and the Nuo gods and witches. People celebrate with gongs and drums everywhere to pray for blessings from the gods and good weather for the beginning of the year.
At this time, villages and towns will perform kitchen and social dramas in which mountain spirits and ancient gods are worshiped. People bring their families and friends to the stage to enjoy the grand festival of spring. People often gather in places where there are many people. Vendors performing acrobatics, various folk snacks, and acrobatics will form a temple fair near the stage, attracting more people to participate.
When it is most prosperous, it will even crowd the countryside!
In addition to rural towns, counties and state capitals are even more lively. Since the morning, these people have prepared lanterns and floats. As soon as the first ray of sky appears in the morning, they wear brightly colored drums, harps and shengs and rush towards the main street. Along the way, It is rare to encounter other floats.
If the two cars intersect and they are both parade floats, there will inevitably be a winner.
At this time, the artists on the float will impromptu Nuo dance and chant. If the song and dance are wonderful, the people around will reveal the colorful balls and copper coins in their hands to add color to the powerful float. Whoever adds the most color to the float will win the prize. You can pass the intersection first.
With all these factors, the floats in each county will continue to select the best ones, and eventually the float artists with gorgeous carriages and horses and wonderful Nuo dances will be selected from the whole county. This artist will come to Sichuan to continue competing on the same stage with floats from other counties. , until the top Nuo god float in Sichuan and Sichuan is selected, it will be considered a complete winner.
This top float artist, who is this year's Nuo God, used to go to the general's palace in the capital of Shu to accept the lottery from the garrisoned general. During the Republic of China, the governor of Sichuan and Shu was appointed as the envoy to award the lottery.
What is the lottery?
The blessing of the Nuo God is that the tax burden is reduced throughout the year. At the same time, he will also be rewarded by the provincial governor. After the festival, the name of the Nuo God is there, and many squires and sages ask them to go to Nuo sacrifices to pray for blessings. There is countless money, fame and benefits.
Over the past thirty years, the Nuo God Sect has relied on the magic power of Jianghu to confuse the gods. Every year, it has won the top prize in the Nuo God Competition in each county. The leading Nuo gods are all different, at least it is undisputed that they all come from the Nuo god religion.
"The Holy Girl is the woman selected by the Nuo God Cult from more than thirty Nuo Gods. The Nuo God Cult deliberately transformed the saint into a goddess and did not show her true face at all. Until now, no one knows what the Holy Girl is. From the appearance, I only know that once the saint appears, she will scatter flower petals everywhere and make a fragrant sound, making her appear magical, and the common people will fall in love with this."
Everyone listened to the master's words and walked into the watchtowers on both sides of the tower at the front gate of the Governor's Mansion. Here, guards stood guard, the barriers were tight, and there were telescopes to observe the whole process.
"Please, please. It's absolutely safe here. If a fire breaks out, you won't be hurt. You can stand here and observe the situation in the city."
Yue Guanchao walked to the lookout entrance. This place is located in the center of Shu City. He can directly see the entire city of Shu. Due to the towering towers, he can see even more clearly than standing on the city wall. He can even see the two rushing rivers and lush fields outside the city. .
The land of Sichuan is foggy and cloudy. When the weather is sunny, people will go out to bask in the sun. Today is the festival. In the morning, the golden sun shines on the ancient city. The sky is blue and wide. Countless cirrus clouds are like algae in the water, floating freely above the head. .
The people in the city have been waiting on the roadside for a long time, or looking out of the windows, or walking along the street, waiting for the lanterns to enter the city for entertainment. Outside the streets are everywhere colorful silk lanterns, flower stands with colorful canopies, and the richer ones simply put up Shu brocade buildings. Under the sun, the Shu Jincai Tower trembles with bright light, as brilliant as the clouds, and thousands of households compete for luxury!
Viewed from a height, the ancient city is already filled with iridescent flowers and trees filling the streets. It is worthy of being called Jinguan Rongcheng. Thousands of years of prosperity have created a splendid scene that is not comparable to ordinary cities.
After a while, gongs and drums rang outside the ancient city. As long as you heard these sounds, it meant that the float parade was getting closer and closer. As expected, there were countless lanterns, carriages and horses slowly approaching in the distance, filing in from the major gates of the ancient city, slowly Enter the city.
Most of the floats that have reached this stage are the lucky ones from the county floats, which are already extremely exciting. These dozens of floats continue to gather together, which is dazzling and dizzying. Even if they are thousands of meters apart, they can still be overwhelmed by the floats. Amazing!
These floats include the Nine Gods of Chu, the Nuo Dukes and Nuo women from the south of the Yangtze River, and hundreds of wild ghosts worshiped in the wild. There are also mountain spirits and wild monsters from Lingnan, flowers, grass, and rocks. The immigrants who settled in Sichuan from Huguang have different customs. They can be seen in the grand festival. The Nuo statues of gods on display are even more complex, diverse and colorful. Each float statue is like a giant god, wandering in the streets and alleys.
As mentioned earlier, most of the colorful flowers on the floats are from the Nuo God. This also means that almost all of the dozens of floats are filled with members of the Nuo God. These people wear the Nuo God’s sacrificial clothes, stand on the floats, splash flower petals, and beat drums and hammers. , wherever he went, the people cheered like thunder, and there was great excitement, and countless colored balls and copper coins were thrown.
Amid this farce, Yue Guanchao could see at a glance that the float of the Nuo Goddess was coming from near the city gate to the Dudu Mansion.
The float is as big as a house, with the flower stand about fifteen meters high. The overall shape is that of a Bodhisattva sitting in lotus position. It should be based on the statue of the Thousand-Armed Buddha. The whole body is made of iron bars as a skeleton, and the skin is filled with silkworm paper. It looks like Lifelike, with a round face and wide cheeks, a full heaven, a round earth pavilion, and a good fortune.
However, because Nuo religion is different from Buddha, they also mixed the characteristics of Wu Nuo into the statues of Buddha, making them even more strange and confusing.
I saw the Buddha on the lotus seat with his hands together, holding a lotus in his hands. He was wearing a light brown gauze dress and a gorgeous wide-sleeved Sichuan brocade dress. There were colorful embroidered cloud shoulders hanging on his shoulders. Two ribbons were like Xia Pei covering the front of him, with five colors. The leather belt is tightened around the waist, covered with colorful silver bells, and thousands of arms spread out behind him like a fan. These arms either hold seals or hold different treasures.
Looking up, you can see that she is wearing a string of agate beads around her neck, armbands on her arms, raised red phoenix eyes, red lips and white teeth, smiling eyebrows, a shining lotus flower crown on her head, and a gold-woven veil fluttering in the wind, which is indescribably weird.
The most subtle thing is the aura behind the shape!
These auras are first made into three-layer rings with iron bones, and then cut into tassels from the thinnest gold foil paper and pasted on top of the rings. When they go out under the sun, they will surely have a colorful halo, making the surrounding neighbors bright. of.
Some people died, but not completely...
