PureInsight | September 6, 2007
[PureInsight.org] During the
earlier Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty, a merchant by the name of
Jin in Yizheng County, Jiangsu Province, opened a pawnshop. He was
honest and treated people coming to pawn their goods with fairness. He
also gave generous appraisals and allowed longer redeeming time
compared to other pawnshops. When poor elders came to pawn their goods,
he often made an exception to charging any interest.
Once, during the coldest days in the year, a farmer's wife was ill and
didn't have the money to pay for doctor and drug so the farmer took his
winter cotton clothes to pawn. Jin let the farmer redeem his cotton
clothing without charging any interest. He helped many destitute people
out of their emergency. Even so, his pawnshop was prosperous and he
became a rich local merchant.
One year, a group of bandits came to town and many rich families were looted. But strangely, Jin's pawnshop wasn't robbed.
The local authorities suspected that Jin had colluded with the bandits,
but they had no proof. Later, when the bandits were captured and
interrogated, the authorities then found out the real reason Jin's shop
wasn't robbed: When the bandits went to Jin' shop, they saw numerous
gods in armor on top of his shop that they didn't dare to enter it.
People realized that, because of Jin's doing good deeds, the gods protected him and prevented him from being robbed.
From Taishang Ganying Writing by Zhao Xiongzhao in the Qing dynasty
Translated from:
http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2007/8/31/48003.html
