Chapter 363: 【155】Divine Buddha Image, Three Births as One_4
And most amazingly, Hassan could control this thing to emit a kind of magical light.
Anyone exposed to this light would inevitably fall into an illusion.
These individuals would find themselves in a ground covered with gold, pearls, red agates, various beautiful trees growing from the earth, blossoming with a myriad of exotic flowers.
The fruits on the trees were incredibly delicious, serving as food; a garden where it never rained yet was laden with abundant harvests.
This garden was filled with virginal beauties, gentle and charming, alluring and kind, with rivers of wine and honey flowing through it, resembling paradise.
And in this garden, Hassan would train the young men he had selected, honing their assassination skills and forging their bodies.
They would spend their days and nights with the beautiful women, never worrying about food and drink.
In this garden, regardless of any injury sustained, they would not die, and the wounds would heal instantly.
Within the days of their training, these young men would find the woman they would love for a lifetime.
But such a good life continued until adulthood, when Hassan would send these young men out of the garden.
Only when they became the best assassins of the Assassin Sect and made great contributions to Hassan could they return to that garden.
Hence, the assassins of the Assassins were incredibly fierce and fearless in the face of death, achieving an unprecedented assassination success rate.
For each Assassin had an unwavering belief in their hearts, longing to return to the garden and see their beloved woman.
An interesting point is that the birth of the Assassin Sect coincided with the era of the Crusades.
The mighty Templar Knights were the elites among the Crusaders, each one a legendary existence.
It is said that every mysterious Templar Knight possessed extraordinary martial strength and claimed to be the guardian of the ’Holy Grail.’
However, the Holy Grail was not a treasure the Crusaders initially possessed; it was found through destruction and excavation after their capture of Jerusalem.
And just as the Crusaders occupied this city, said to be the ’Temple of Solomon,’ and found the Holy Grail, the Templar Knights began to emerge.
This group was so powerful that over a hundred Templar Knights, along with a few thousand followers, could defeat thirty thousand Arab troops, a truly incredible event in history.
It still remains a historical mystery in Europe.
Yet, the legend of the Templar Knights did not circulate for long before, a few years later, the Holy Grail guarded by the Crusaders disappeared.
No one knew why the Holy Grail was lost, but by comparing timelines, one finds that it coincided with the rise of the Assassin Sect.
And the Crusaders and Templar Knights began a frenzied attack on Hassan’s army.
Records indicate that in the years 1133 and 1139 AD, the Assassin Sect and the Templar Knights clashed directly in the Antioch Duchy and the County of Tripoli.
The leader of the Templar Knights, Hugo de Payens, died during this period.
Later on, as the Assassin Sect and Templar Knights fought fiercely, Hassan’s forces gradually declined, and the traces of the Manichaean Sect also started to vanish from the European continent.
It was also rumored that Hassan could summon the consciousness of future individuals to descend upon his followers, relying on the combat abilities of future individuals to gather Assassins with potent assassination skills, though this saying did not hold water and gave rise to no waves.
During the Tang Dynasty under Wu Zetian, the Ming Sect represented by Manichaeism had already entered the Central Plains.
However, the imperial court at the time considered this sect a threat, banning the Ming Sect during the reign of Emperor Wuzong of Tang.
Later, due to the chaos of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the Ming Sect became active amid the turmoil and developed.
By the Northern Song Dynasty, it had already become a significant folk sect, but its prosperity did not last long, as it was again banned by the Northern Song Emperor.
From then on, the Ming Sect began to merge with the White Lotus Society, becoming a part of it.
By the late Yuan Dynasty, there was a large Han family in the northern Central Plains, whose members often served as leaders of the White Lotus Society, wielding power and resources.
With the Central Plains in chaos, the Han family decided to revolt and end the turmoil to become emperors.
Han Shantong of the Han family found Liu Futong, taking advantage of the Yellow River’s breach to bury a large stone with an eye carved on it by the riverbank.
Han Shantong claimed to be the eighth-generation grandson of Emperor Huizong of Song, proclaiming himself as the ’Maitreya reborn, Ming King emerging,’ spreading the children’s rhyme ’One-eyed stone, Shantong brings peace.’
When the high officials of the Yuan Dynasty came to manage water and build embankments, they unearthed the stone, and many people believed it was a divine omen, thinking Han Shantong would overthrow the Yuan Dynasty.
The Yuan emperor was furious and sent people to arrest and execute Han Shantong’s entire family.
Although he died, Liu Futong managed to escape with Han Shantong’s son, Han Lin’Er, preserving a life.
In the name of Han Lin’Er of the Han family, Liu Futong, relying on the wealth of the Han family, rose in rebellion, gradually becoming the strongest rebel force in the Central Plains at the time.
At the same time, Zhu Yuanzhang was still a beggar; he did not join Han Lin’Er’s rebel forces but went on to follow Guo Zixing of Haozhou.
After Guo Zixing’s death, Zhu Yuanzhang led his own subordinates to join the already self-proclaimed emperor, known as the Little Ming King, Han Lin’Er.
In reality, although Han Lin’Er was a member of the Han family leading the White Lotus Society, since Han Shantong’s death, the great power of the White Lotus Society had fallen into Liu Futong’s hands.