After the twelfth month of the fourth year of Jiaqing's reign, the Qing Court imposed particularly strict controls on both public and private temples within and outside the capital. People of unknown origin, as well as itinerant Buddhist and Daoist monks from elsewhere, were to be investigated and traced. By the sixth year of Jiaqing's reign, public temples in the capital were forbidden from taking in tenants. Private temples could still rent out rooms, but monks and Daoists had to verify the identities of those renting temple lodgings and report the facts to the authorities for registration. Only people with clear backgrounds could be permitted to stay in temples.
After making the rounds, Nick discovered that his original plan of renting a room in a Shichahai temple had fallen through. In truth, privately raised temple construction was also a form of investment. Once a private temple was built, its guest rooms could be rented out for income, which was why such temples had sprung up like mushrooms after rain.
The fear brought by those heretical sect rebellions had reached the point where people mistook every shadow for a threat. The ignorance and superstition of rural villagers further magnified their fear of heretical sects. Sometimes, the rumors themselves were more terrifying than the truth.
In Anlu, Hubei, a group of bachelors would shout, "The White Lotus Sect is here!" The villagers and market-goers would panic and scatter, and the group would take advantage of their flight to break into their homes and steal.
Others anonymously submitted accusations to the authorities, hoping to make sensational claims and get their creditors arrested. Although the truth was eventually uncovered, the nature of it was already much like the Soulstealers case of Qianlong's thirty-third year. Some used spells to deceive followers; some used heretical sects